A Time to Gather

by Sally John

  “More like two,” Lexi said. “I’ll see if there’s a car missing. Erik took her driving once.”

  “Driving! He took her driving?”

  Not bothering to answer, Lexi hurried out the door.

  Driving?

  Those countless acres just got infinitely multiplied.

  “Yes, Lord, have mercy.”

  Claire scurried out behind Lexi and yelled at the top of her lungs into the night air, “Max!”

  Ashort while later, their voices raspy from shouting Tuyen’s name, Claire, Max, and Lexi rejoined Indio in the sala. She still sat hunched in the same chair.

  Claire flinched at the sight of Indio’s face. It was almost unrecognizable, not so much because of the presence of agony, but because of the absence of peace.

  Lord, please don’t do this to Indio, please. Tuyen is her only link to BJ. A flesh-and-blood touchstone. Please!

  “Mom.” Max knelt before Indio, his voice softly urgent. “You’ve spent the most time with her. Where would she go?”

  She did not respond.

  Claire sat with Lexi on the love seat.

  No vehicles were missing. They’d searched a wide area around the hacienda and horse barn. Lexi had left a message on Ben’s answering machine, but he hadn’t appeared. Hopefully he was awake and had heard it. Hopefully he now scoured the area down the road, near his and Indio’s new house.

  “Mom, think.” Max took hold of her hands. “She probably wouldn’t go far. Was there anything special about the property to her? Some place that made an impact on her?”

  Claire crossed her arms and held them together tightly, pressing against the ache in her stomach that stabbed relentlessly. Beside her, Lexi breathed heavily.

  Father, what is going on? This whole thing is supposed to be about emotional safety, right? Max and I move here to build a haven. We want people to come and experience what it is to dwell in a safe place, where they don’t have to be afraid to reveal their true selves, warts and all.

  She sighed to herself.

  We thought the dream was from You. It’s looking like it wasn’t. Everybody keeps running the opposite direction. Ben is a wreck. Erik could only handle two days here. Lexi had one good evening. A few hours. And now Tuyen wants to . . .

  She squeezed shut her eyes.

  Lord, if my family can’t feel safe here, I want no part of a retreat center for strangers! This must, first and foremost, work for us. It has to!

  A muted wail came from Indio.

  Claire skipped the “Amen” and looked across the room.

  Indio whispered, “BJ’s place.”

  Max said, “The memorial? You took her there?”

  She nodded.

  Technically BJ remained MIA. He was missing. His body was missing. His remains were never buried, his life never memorialized at an official service because his parents never knew when to say good-bye.

  But they’d needed something. Over time they created a space on the property devoted to him. It consisted of rock and dirt and whatever native vegetation grew in a given year. There were huge boulders piled high. On one that had a flat side facing the rising sun, Ben had carved a cross. Later they had a professional add “Benjamin Charles Beaumont Jr.” and his birth date. Every September ninth, Ben, Indio, Claire, and Max gathered at the spot and fought to keep the memories from fading.

  In daylight it was a fifteen-minute hike through rough terrain.

  Max hurried to the door, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll get the lanterns.”

  Claire rushed to take his place at Indio’s feet. “Indio, you know what to say.”

  “I can’t.” She shook her head vehemently. “I can’t.”

  “Then I will say it for you. God is good. God is good. And He—” Her breath caught and her voice failed. An inexpressible sense of otherness overwhelmed her.

  Indio leaned toward her and blinked, as if to focus at last on the scene before her instead of the ugly one in her imagination. “He what?”

  Tears stung. She couldn’t speak.

  “It’s the Holy Spirit, Claire. He’s giving you words. Let them come.”

  A sense of peace washed over her. For a split second it shoved aside the pumping adrenaline. It consumed her litany of complaints and demands. It replaced anxiety with irrational hope.

  Trust Me.

  She said, “I think . . .” Did she dare believe that still small voice? Why not? Wasn’t it something Jesus would say if He were standing there in the flesh before them? “He says to trust Him.”

  Indio blinked again, twice, slowly. Then she gave a half nod. “I’ll call the ambulance.”

  Lexi was halfway out the door, Claire on her heels.

  Fifty-One

  Disconnected thoughts pelted Lexi with every step on the rock-hard path.

  She knew the mental activity was a coping mechanism. It kept debilitating terror at arm’s length. She knew because the same thing had happened the night of the fire as she trudged through the darkness, lantern in hand like now.

  Again with the talk of fire. Before. After.

  And now—during ?

  Prayers formed again, too, darts flung skyward.

  God, keep us safe.

  God, keep Tuyen safe.

  I really don’t like Tuyen. I wish she hadn’t come.

  But Nana . . .

  God, keep rattlesnakes away. Mountain lions . . .

  Lexi wondered if Nathan Warner would contact her. Should she call him? He was nice. Easy to talk to. Easier than Zak. Zak the fireman was all about that night, that night of The Fire. Zak was during.

  They had tramped a different direction that night, to the east, a much farther distance from the house. There’d been no semblance of a path. No stars shone because of the smoke.

  “Tuyen!” Max shouted for the umpteenth time.

  Like someone in the middle of killing herself would yell back, “I’m over here! South of the big oak.”

  She wondered what method Tuyen had chosen. Lexi always figured the easiest would be to drive off the highway, at the last S-curve on the way up into the hills to the hacienda. It would be the fastest at least. The easiest was probably food. Binge and purge. Binge and purge. Year after year after year.

  “Tuyen!” Max was relentless.

  Her dad had not been there that night. Max was not during. Nor was he before. Why was it he thought he could be after?

  For a fleeting while just after, it seemed the entire family slipped into a Norman Rockwell series of illustrations. “The Beaumonts—A Real American Family.” Scene One: Max embraces a soot-covered Lexi as if she was the most important person in the world to him. Scene Two: Joined by grandparents and brother-in-law Kevin, the siblings camp out at their childhood home. Scene Three: Mother bakes chocolate-chip cookies.

  By Scene Four, old dad was checking out again. Lexi could imagine his dress-slacks-covered backside in the picture. It would be a shadowy detail poised exiting the kitchen door.

  Four scenes. A meager series.

  Lexi scrambled now to keep up with her parents. They neared Uncle BJ’s memorial site. She recognized the bend in the path, the point where Papa had neatly laid rocks along both sides. There was the huge oak, damaged but not condemned to death by the fire. And then the outcropping of boulders.

  “Tuyen!” Her mother screamed the name.

  Even through the bobbing shadows Lexi could make out the letters chiseled out of the boulder’s face many years ago: Benjamin Charles Beaumont Jr.

  A dark stain cut through the “Beaumont.”

  Moments stretched into eternal expanses.

  Tuyen lay on the ground, a motionless heap at the base of the boulder. Max and Claire knelt beside her. Lexi held two lanterns aloft. Blood was everywhere.

  Sirens wailed in the distance.

  Her mother cradled Tuyen’s head in her lap.

  Her father yanked the laces from his shoes.

  Unintelligible speech came from both, Claire’s in a begging ton
e, Max’s in sharp commands. Prayers and pleas, denials and urgings all mixed together.

  Please God. Please God. Please God.

  Max made quick work of tying tourniquets on Tuyen’s arms, and then he scooped her up. “Lexi, go in front of me. Quickly now.”

  The scene embedded itself into Lexi’s mind with the permanence of a branding iron.

  They reached the barn behind the house at the same time the medics did, stretcher and equipment in hand. Spotlights blazed, illuminating the area.

  Illuminating the deep reds that smudged her father’s cheek, her mother’s gray sweatshirt.

  Lexi leaned against the corral fence. Claire and Max stood nearby, her mother in the shelter of her dad’s broad shoulders.

  The two young men worked over Tuyen, their movements smooth, coordinated, confident, quick as lightning. They talked to each other and to her as if she were not unconscious.

  Lexi spotted Nana in the distance, standing at the edge of the courtyard, but could not summon the strength to go to her.

  “Okay.” One guy stood. “Great job on the tourniquets. Did you do it?” He looked at Max.

  “Yeah.”

  “You probably saved her life.”

  “She’s going to make it?”

  “Good chance of it. Want to follow us to the hospital?”

  “Can I ride with?”

  “Are you her dad?”

  “Uncle. Sort of a stepdad. Her dad’s . . . dead.”

  “Let’s go.”

  As Lexi watched them leave—covers tucked neatly around Tuyen on the stretcher, Max beside her, Claire moving toward Nana—a memory presented itself.

  She remembered being carried on a stretcher and transported to a hospital. If she allowed herself, she could recall details. But why?

  With a shake of her head, she pushed herself away from the fence.

  And then she felt something shut down, an essential something deep inside of her being.

  It was almost as if she’d slit her own wrists and caused life to drain away until not one drop remained to keep her heart beating.

  Fifty-Two

  Rosie flew west along the freeway, heading back to the city. Erik’s vehicle was one incredibly cool ride.

  The top was down, windows up, the heater on full blast, her hair loose and whipping wildly in the wind. The stereo volume was cranked to its limit, heavy on bass, the Gipsy Kings’ Latin beat rip-roaring across the desert. Stars were so dense the sky resembled a crocheted silvery afghan thrown across a black velvet canopy.

  She smiled, still surprised that she’d found one of her favorite CDs in his collection under the seat along with the likes of Bob Marley, Motown, Alicia Keys, and Enya. Was Erik a closet nonracist and nonsexist?

  Rosie suspected that he deliberately projected those false images of himself. He enjoyed goading others. It was part of his self-destructive mechanism. If he pricked others enough, they’d not get close enough to hurt him.

  “Lord, You’re laughing, aren’t You? You just had to break my own prejudices by hooking me up with a rich white guy. That’s funny.”

  The 805 exit signs appeared. It was probably time to reenter the real world. She turned down the music and flipped open her cell phone. Two voice mails awaited.

  As hoped, she heard Bobby’s voice first. “Just checking in.” Short and totally neutral in tone—a positive step up from his earlier growl that she get herself straightened out.

  Lexi came next, her voice low and hesitant. “Sorry to bother you. It’s not about Erik. We guess since you haven’t called, he’s okay.” A long pause. “Mom wanted me to call. Tuyen.” A noisy breath. “She tried to kill herself. They think she’s going to be all right. Since, you know, you’re sort of involved with her, Mom thought you might care.” She left Claire’s number and the name of the hospital.

  Rosie glanced at the dashboard clock. Lexi’s call had been recorded around midnight. It was now after two a.m. Knowing the Beaumonts, somebody would still be at the hospital, waiting through the night as a stranger clung precariously to life.

  She flicked the turn signal and headed for an exit.

  Rosie spotted Claire in a corner of the waiting room, a good sign that Tuyen was alive.

  Erik’s mother wore her glasses and appeared to be reading a Bible. Her hair was disheveled, her light-gray sweatshirt inside out over a white turtleneck.

  A few people occupied some of the scattered chairs and couches. Some of them dozed. Lights were too bright for the middle of the night. At least no television blared.

  She walked over to her. “Claire.”

  “Rosie!” The older woman stood and grabbed her in a quick hug. “Oh! It is so good to see you. So good.”

  “Crummy circumstances.”

  They exchanged sad smiles and sat in two corner chairs, a table between them.

  Rosie said, “Is she okay?”

  “Yes. Is Erik okay?”

  “Yes. He got stitched back up no problem, and then he checked into rehab.”

  “Oh!” Claire’s hand flew to her mouth. “Thank you, Jesus.”

  “Amen. I can give you the number of the place. It’s best he doesn’t communicate just yet, but the couple who run things there will be glad to answer questions.”

  Claire nodded, blinking rapidly.

  Rosie gave her a moment to collect her emotions.

  “Thank you,” Claire whispered. “When Lexi told me about tonight, about the condition he was in, I wanted to crawl in a hole. But she said you were with him and then I knew things would be okay.”

  “God was in it. I was simply there at the right time when Erik asked for help. Is Lexi here?”

  Claire shook her head. “She said between Erik and Tuyen she’d seen enough blood for one night.”

  Erik and Tuyen. Was there a connection? On Friday, just a few days ago, the two of them watched a movie together. He said it was Tuyen’s English lesson. The next day, Erik left the hacienda. Rosie tucked the thought away for later.

  She said, “Tell me what happened tonight.”

  “You sound like you look, on duty.”

  “Occupational hazard. Sorry.”

  “No, don’t be. It’s not so much police duty I see as it is holy duty. I sensed it when you served us tacos and when you ate dinner in our home. You have a compassionate concern for others. It emanates from you like audible sound waves. That’s why I totally relaxed about Erik’s situation. Max feels the same.”

  Rosie went speechless. The woman must be punchy from lack of sleep and the night’s trauma. Did she forget what Rosie had done to her son?

  “And,” Claire went on, “you brought Tuyen to us and have taken Lexi under your wing. We’re awfully glad God brought you to us.”

  “But I—”

  “I know.” She reached over and squeezed her arm. “You shot him. Now get over it.”

  Rosie laughed. “Okay. So what happened?”

  Claire sighed. “It was awful. A nightmare. But I think angels intervened.” The story poured from her: Tuyen’s note, how they found her, what Max did, the ambulance, the timing of it all.

  Claire said, “I convinced Indio to stay at home. She was looking every bit of her seventy-five years. Ben slept through the whole ordeal.” She sighed again. “Max is in with Tuyen. She’s still unconscious, but she’s all right. Physically anyway. I’ve been asking God how we can help with whatever it is that drove her to this.”

  “Any answers?”

  “I’m getting glimpses of an abandoned, fatherless child.”

  Rosie nodded. “And then Erik left her.”

  “Erik? What do you mean?”

  “Uh.” She shrugged. “I’m just thinking out loud. Bad habit.”

  She noticed Claire gazing at her with an open, almost childlike expression. It was obvious from her words and the Bible on the table next to her that she had a working relationship with the Lord. She was listening and seeking. Rosie figured she could muse all she wanted with Erik’s mother. The
y were almost, if not exactly, on the same page.

  Claire smiled. “I just made a fresh pot of coffee over there. Can I get you some?”

  Yup. The same page.

  Rosie sipped from a Styrofoam cup. “What did you do, bring your own freshly ground beans and bottled water? This is the best coffee I’ve ever had in a hospital. Or outside of one for that matter.”

  “Thanks.” Claire sat again. She had carried the carafe and cups around the room, serving a few other sleepy folks. “It’s Indio’s secret concoction. Works even with well water.”

  “Please don’t give any more away. I will want another cup.”

  She smiled. “You were saying, about Erik?”

  Erik. Where to begin? He was the type of guy she avoided. How on earth had he gotten under her skin?

  That wasn’t exactly the place to start.

  “Well, I’m wondering about the timing of events. He called me on Friday. He was watching The Sound of Music with Tuyen. I imagine a bonding time occurred between them. He was the one Tuyen sought out in the first place. Because of his help, she made it to the hacienda and met the family.”

  “That’s true. He and Tuyen were enjoying each other’s company. I haven’t heard Erik laugh like that in a long time. He reminded me of when he and the others were little. He absolutely basked in his role as big brother. He was like that with Tuyen, carefree and funny. He taught her English phrases the rest of us wouldn’t touch. She taught him about cooking. I just learned he even gave her a driving lesson Friday night.”

  “And then the next day he leaves. Abruptly?”

  Claire nodded. “Tuyen didn’t know he was gone until I told her.”

  “Has Ben come around yet? Does he accept her?”

  “No, not really. He’s civil, but standoffish.”

  “How about Max?”

  Understanding crept into Claire’s expression. “The same.” She set her cup on the table. “In the father-figure slash male department, I’d say Tuyen has had a bad time of it. The worst. Her dad. Two grandpas. One uncle. A cousin who took her under his wing. Or make that two cousins. Danny’s just busy with work, but to her it could appear he’s backed away as well. Throw in the men she encountered in her line of work and no wonder.”

  “No wonder.” Rosie eyed the collar of Claire’s sweatshirt. Even with it turned inside out, a dark stain was visible. “Speaking of which, you and Max probably weren’t wearing gloves?”