Healing Stones

by Nancy Rue

  Rich entered through the mudroom as I arrived in the kitchen. The infuriating guilt I felt was plastered all over me by then, I was sure. So naturally, I came out with a surefire way to get us back on track. I said, “Where have you been?”

  His eyes narrowed down to slits, and his mouth hardened to a line. I had to take back what I’d thought earlier. I didn’t know this man that well after all—because I’d never seen that kind of hardness on him. Ever.

  Something in me caved. “I didn’t mean it like that,” I said. “I thought you’d just be getting up.”

  “I’m just going to bed,” he said.

  He got past me sideways. I stepped out of the way and tried not to think that if I hadn’t, he would have pushed me.

  “You’re not going to work?”

  “I just came from work.” He was still moving, out of the kitchen, into the great room, toward the stairs. His arms sliced the air like scissor blades.

  “You’re working the night shift?” I said.

  “I got demoted.”

  “That’s not being demoted—”

  We were both at the bottom of the steps now. He stopped, but a command for me to stay right where I was shot back at me. I froze, hand on the banister.

  “You’re a firefighter’s wife, Demitria,” he said. “You remember— they start you out putting you wherever they think you need to be— until you prove yourself—and then you choose where you know you need to be.” He turned his head toward me over his shoulder, but he didn’t meet my eyes. “When did I ever choose the night shift? For that matter, when did I ever pick evening shift?”

  Never. And the reason why was something neither of us had to say. He always wanted to be there when his family was home.

  He was halfway up the steps when I said, “What about Jayne?”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s home alone at night?”

  “We’ve got it handled, Demitria. I’m going to bed.”

  I probably would have cried—or torn up the steps and ripped the door off the hinges—if two things had been different in that conversation. I clung to them in the same way I latched myself to the stair rail.

  You’re a firefighter’s wife, he’d said.

  Not you were. You are.

  It seemed like such a pitiful thing to hold me up, but I let it—as I stood there hearing the echoes of the other thing I fastened my hopes to.

  Demitria. He still called me Demitria, the way no one else did.

  And then the door slammed, and I was once again shut out. But it wasn’t a place where I was willing to stay.

  I peeled myself from the railing and looked at the cedar chest where I kept the old family photos. Coming to the house had almost nothing to do with finding a picture of myself at age ten. In fact, the more I thought about Sullivan Crisp and his bizarre Game Show Theology, the more I wondered if he was going to be any help to me at all. Finding the picture was just an excuse for coming over.

  I stopped short of the chest. I needed an excuse to come to my own house and confront my husband? Didn’t I have a right to fight for my family? Whether they wanted me to or not?

  I lifted the lid. Was that stone coldness I’d seen on Rich what he wanted? Did Christopher like making me lick the dust? Did Jayne feel satisfaction in cutting me out of her life?

  I couldn’t say yes. And so I dug.

  But anxiety gripped me as I got closer to the layer of what Jayne called “the antiquities.” Looking into my innocent face was only going to more deeply embed the line I’d formed in my memory, the line that separated everything in my life into pre-affair and post—

  “Stop,” I said out loud.

  The first few photos of a very young Demitria showed me in dress-up regalia entertaining the family with a one-girl show. Or me standing, grinning and gap-toothed, holding a certificate for excellence in one of about a dozen academic subjects or a trophy for some outdoorsy thing I’d reigned victorious in, or sitting at a piano leading the singing of an entire Vacation Bible School. Somehow none of those showed me anything I might have believed about myself— except that I could do anything and take first place. And make everyone love me at the same time.

  I didn’t know if that was what Sullivan Crisp was talking about, but I kept looking. The photo that made me hold it in my hand and gaze was the one I least expected.

  It was a rather staged sitting of me, my mother, and my two brothers, all dressed up, as I recalled, to go to one of my father’s speaking events. I actually smiled at it. Were we the poster family for 1970s doing-it-all-right or what? My mother with the wings in her layered hair and the polyester suit—with skirt, not pants. My older brother, Liam, with his too-big feet and too-short hair and wobbly smile that hadn’t grown into the exact replica of my father’s yet. My younger, dimpled brother, Nathan, with his chubby pink hands that later became the source of whispered concerns about his “sensitive” ways.

  I sat cross-legged and ran my fingers down the sides of the photo. And then there was me. Was I not the lankiest, most vulnerably preadolescent child that ever was? My teeth, in the smile reserved for the photographer who took all of Daddy’s publicity pictures, were big enough for two children, and I seemed to have more of them than most kids too. My hair was cut in a too-perfect pixie, and I remembered with a small pang that all the other girls had big loose curls they could flip around when they were feeling like they were, as Jayne would put it, “all that.”

  And the outfit. Oh, the outfit. Kneesocks. Pleated skirt that covered the tops of them. And could there have been more embroidery on that blouse? Who dressed me? I thought. Though I knew. I glared at my mother’s face even now and might have actually read her the riot act on the spot for packaging me that way—if I hadn’t noticed who was missing from the picture. Dr. Theodore Haven. My daddy. Where was his oh-so-real smile? His sandy-blonde hair that smelled like the Palmolive soap he always washed it with, much to my mother’s chagrin? Even centered as we were in the photo, he was so obviously missing. There should have been a dotted outline where he was supposed to be.

  I glanced at the date on the back. March 1975. That must have been right before the big Washington Association of Churches crusade for the ecumenical movement. It had to be the day when the photographer came to take a family photo for the newspaper, for a big opening event. I remembered now: Daddy was caught up in counseling someone with cancer or a wife abandoned by a cheating husband—although I wouldn’t have been privy to that at the time. He said to go on without him—that we were the best-looking part of the family anyway.

  I remembered feeling that day like I had no place to put my elbow when we were all posing. Even now, I could see how awkwardly I propped it on my own knee.

  Now I untangled myself, picture still in hand, and stood up. This was the one. I didn’t know why, but that little girl called to me to find out what she believed about herself that day. Right now, she was the only person related to me who reached for me at all.

  Including the driver of the pickup that squealed into the driveway. I had to be right about that chip. I glanced at my watch. Did the kid never work or go to school anymore? As I listened to the progressive slamming of doors from Chris’s vehicle to the kitchen, I suddenly felt like slamming something myself.

  “So, Demitria,” he said as he marched himself into the great room. He started to unfold his arms, curl his lip, spit out whatever he felt like.

  Until I let the lid of the cedar chest drop. His face startled involuntarily.

  “Christopher,” I said, “no matter what you’ve decided to call me, I am still your mother—so stop right there with the attitude. If you can’t treat me with some modicum of decency, don’t talk to me at all.”

  I could barely believe the words were coming out of my mouth. He evidently couldn’t either, because although he headed for the stairs, his motion held a slight hesitation, which made me say, “Come to think of it—you are going to talk to me. I’m taking you to dinner. Metzel’s.�
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  “I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” he said.

  “Who said this was about what you want?”

  He tried to harden—I could see it—and for a moment I wondered crazily if Rich had taught him to do that, or the other way around. But he couldn’t quite pull it off.

  “Look, I don’t see how this is going to accomplish anything. You’ve disassociated yourself from anything that I—”

  “Oh, Christopher, do shut up,” I said. “Get in the Jeep—and I’m driving.”

  My bravado ran out once we got in the car, and we rode in silence to Metzel’s, a favorite restaurant of ours in Poulsbo. I decided I wanted to be face to face with him across a table, with dozens of other people around that he might not make a scene in front of. Unfortunately the lack of conversation gave him time to refuel.

  “I’m not going in there with you,” he said when we pulled into the parking lot.

  “Fine,” I said. “No triple berry cobbler. We can talk here.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  His teeth were so firmly clenched, he could barely get the words out. I didn’t need to hear them anyway. I’d seen it before, this tightening against something he refused to let out. In fact, this could have been late September 2001, and Christopher could have been ten years old—crunched into a ball to shut out the hurt, the very curve of his spine crying out, So what happens to me now? What happens to who I thought I was? This could have been the night I tried to pull him onto my lap and said, “Please, son, if you’re hurting, talk to me.”

  “I don’t want to talk,” he said again.

  And just like then, there was nothing I could do to make him.

  “All right, then,” I said. “I’ll talk. I want to say—”

  “Did you know everything’s gone down the tubes for Dad at work since you two split?”

  “We haven’t ‘split,’” I said. “Your father obviously needs time to calm down—”

  “Really,” he said.

  “Yes—really—and it’s hard for him. You know what a tough time he has dealing with things—”

  “No, I mean, you think you guys haven’t split?”

  “No, I wouldn’t call it that.”

  “Oh,” Christopher said.

  A mean smile started across a mouth it didn’t fit. I was starting to dislike my own son.

  He turned to me, and I watched him deliberately form a triumphant sneer. “If you aren’t breaking up,” he said, “how come Dad hired a lawyer?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I brought my picture,” Demi said.

  Sully tried not to let his eyebrows rise. She walked in with barely a hello, took off her coat, sat herself down, and dug a photograph out of her purse—all with robotic precision.

  “Hi, Demi,” Sully said. “Nice to see you.”

  She looked at him, her hand suspended between them, holding the photo, and gave him a grim smile. “I’m not nice to be seen today. All I want to do is get to work.”

  “All right then,” Sully said.

  “And no games today, okay? I don’t have time.”

  Sully caught the thickening in her throat.

  She pushed the picture toward him. “My husband has hired a lawyer. Now can we get on with this, please?”

  “I’m sorry, Demi.”

  He watched her fight the sag in her shoulders. No way she was giving in now.

  “Looks like we better get to work then,” he said.

  She nodded and sat back an almost imperceptible inch. He could feel her eyes on him as he looked at the picture.

  Holy crow—was this the Cleaver family? Minus a father?

  “You were about half cute,” Sully said.

  “I was precious,” Demi said dryly. “So what does it tell you?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Sully wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Let’s go in.”

  He got her to explain who the people were in the picture, leaving the obvious question unasked.

  She finally said, “My dad was supposed to be there, but he got called away at the last minute.”

  “Busy man, your father.”

  Demi folded her arms, though she still sat close to the edge of the papasan, tilting it forward.

  “Don’t go into the corporate-executive-too-busy-for-his-family thing,” she said. “My father was devoted to us.”

  “What did you call him?”

  “Daddy,” she said.

  Sully felt a pang. Only a daddy’s girl could say it like that.

  “So—what called him away?” Sully put up a hand as she bristled. “None of this is a judgment, okay? I’m gathering information, not placing blame. We’re here to learn about you. Deal?”

  She looked around. “You don’t have any of those cases in here today, do you?”

  Sully grinned. “I’m prop free.”

  She gave the place one more glance. “Daddy was a major preacher. He had a huge church—Port Orchard Community—and he left it to enlarge his ministry to the Pacific Northwest when I was six.”

  Sully nodded. She was so fiercely proud of her father, it broke through her agony.

  “He was only in his thirties then,” she said. “But he spoke with this depth and wisdom—I’ve listened to his tapes as an adult. People flocked to his events, even in the early seventies when the traditional church was struggling.” She finally sat back in the chair. “I wasn’t aware of all of this at the time—but I do remember when I was about eight we had a big celebration because his first book sold well enough for my parents to remodel our whole house.” She gave her nose a funny wrinkle.

  “You weren’t into remodeling?”

  “I liked the house the way it was. Old—built in the early twentieth century—and it had all these nooks and crannies other kids’ houses didn’t have. And the backyard—now that was the best part. Old fruit trees that formed a canopy. My brothers and I climbed them, ate in them.” She came close to a smile. “We even had names for them.”

  Sully nodded her on. He didn’t want to interrupt the shimmer that was taking a chance on her face.

  “The spring was the best. I made caps out of the blossoms and put them on my head and ran around like a wood sprite. Nathan— that’s my younger brother—he followed me all around—I called him my sprite in training.”

  “What about your older brother?”

  She smiled off someplace. “Liam—that was short for William— he was as enchanted by the whole thing as we were. He always hid it from Daddy that he liked playing with us in the yard. It was like he was afraid that if Daddy knew he made up stories and songs for Nathan and me, he’d be packed off to military school.”

  Sully felt his eyes widen.

  “He wouldn’t have, really,” Demi said quickly. “I know Daddy was disappointed that Liam wasn’t an athlete, but Liam believes to this day that Daddy wanted him to follow in his footsteps and be an evangelist, and he doesn’t have the preacher presence.”

  “Do you think that’s true? That your father was disappointed?”

  She stared down an invisible line of thought. No wonder she was so successful at what she did. Sully didn’t usually see that kind of focus in clients.

  “I don’t think Liam was meant to do the kind of work Daddy did, no, but that isn’t a bad thing. He’s a successful writer—he’s had six books published—and he lives in New Mexico—has a darling wife—she’s an artist. They have a daughter.”

  Sully got into his cross-legged, digging-it position. “So your dad’s disappointment in him could have been real, or Liam could have formed it in his own mind. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I never got to know my father that way. I was only fourteen when he died.”

  Sully tried not to fall out of the chair. Oh, by the way, one of the most important people in my life passed away when I was at a significant place in my adolescence. Didn’t I mention that before as one of the losses I was enumerating in our last session?

  “Now,
Nathan,” she said. “He’s an actor. He does well in regional theater in Seattle. He’s celibate—I’m sure of that. And he’s one of the loneliest people I know.”

  “You don’t know, of course, if your dad ever picked up on—”

  “I don’t know if Nathan’s gay, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “But he’s not a man’s man, and I know he felt Daddy was disappointed in him too.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m not disappointed in either of my brothers. I think they’re both amazing.”

  Sully tugged at her line. “I mean, what do they say about your current situation?”

  Her face took on that incredulous twist Sully was starting to like.

  “You haven’t told them?”

  “Uh—how ’bout no! I’d like to keep them thinking I’m amazing, as well.”

  That was about as telling a thing as he could think of right now— but Sully returned to the track she’d been doing so well with.

  “So, back to your daddy,” he said. “What do you remember about him?”

  She visibly focused again. “Even as a kid, I was aware that people respected him, that he was someone special.” She sighed. “Like I said, as an adult I’ve watched films of his talks, and I understand why. He was handsome, charismatic—but the thing is, he was genuine.”

  “Define genuine,” Sully said.

  “He never used God-talk, you know what I mean? He wanted people to come to the saving grace of our Lord, but he never did that one long word thing, ‘invite-Jesus-Christ-into-your-heart-and-make-Him-Lord-of-your-life.’ He could unpack that and make it something people could embrace—and they did.”

  Sully saw a spark in her eyes. He nodded her on.

  “He never judged or criticized non-Christians. He was a man ahead of his time.” She stopped, probably at the shake in her voice. The poster child for self-control wasn’t letting go easily.

  “From what Ethan tells me,” Sully said, “it sounds like your theology— your whole life’s work, in fact—is like your father’s. True?”