Of Stillness and Storm

by Michele Phoenix

  He talked about the horrible living conditions and the hopelessness of a people group that had been virtually amputated from the rest of the world when China closed the roads that led through Tibet to Nepal. Trade routes and cultural exchanges ended. So did their supply of life-supporting food and income.

  Hearing about the lack of hygiene and basic medical care made me wonder how Sam and Prakash came away, trip after trip, without health crises of their own.

  “There are piles of human feces in front of their homes,” Sam said, describing the village in which he’d spent his weeks away from us.

  “Gross.” Ryan wasn’t impressed.

  “It gives them status,” Sam explained. “Proves they have enough to feed the family in a place where an awful lot don’t.” He talked about the village elder, who had asked for a drawing of God, and the difficulty they’d had explaining to him that God wasn’t a visible being.

  Sam and Prakash had made enough trips now that they’d developed strategies and contingencies. In most villages they visited, they were able to connect quickly, offering the food and medicines they carried and explaining in simple words that they wanted to get to know the inhabitants better. Then they just “did life” with them, forging relationships that allowed them to weave God’s love and goodness into casual conversations. And when they left, it was with the promise that they’d return. Which they did—bearing Bibles and practical gifts that would make the villagers’ lives easier.

  Sam’s face shone with enthusiasm as he told me the names of the men and women he’d met—their stories, their struggles, their small steps toward faith. He’d left the people of Kalikot District only days before, but he already spoke of them with longing, eager for the return trip that would cement their relationships and their understanding of God.

  I heard the excitement in his voice and tried to quell the dissatisfaction that hampered my response. I loved witnessing the fulfillment he received from the work we’d so doggedly pursued. I thanked God that Sam could spend time in places few missionaries ever explored, living in squalid conditions and thriving from his interactions with the people he’d come to reach. I reminded myself of the important role I played in keeping our home and our family running, in reporting on the ministry, and in earning the visas that allowed for Sam’s work.

  Still—I envied the elation I heard in his voice.

  We played Monopoly that evening. We knew the days when we’d be able to coerce Ryan into this kind of activity were counted, but at thirteen, he still had no option but to sit in the candlelight and walk his tin car around the board.

  Tomorrow, we’d release him to leave the house again. Tomorrow, Sam would lock himself in the office he rented for a pittance from an NGO a few blocks away and start to plan his next foray. Tomorrow, we’d begin the post-reunion process of growing apart again.

  But tonight—tonight we’d be a family.

  Sam went to bed early and Ryan and I stayed downstairs. He worked on my laptop—he claimed it was faster than his—and though I felt the compulsion to check Facebook for a message from Aidan, I tamped down the impulse and focused on the thank-you cards I was writing.

  Ryan let out a frustrated breath.

  I looked up. “What?”

  He turned the laptop around and pushed it toward me. “Skype,” he said, shoving away from the table and heading upstairs. He knew the name on the screen and assumed this would take awhile.

  I turned up the volume and clicked the green phone icon.

  The camera light flickered on and a welcome face appeared.

  “Chickadee!”

  I felt a weight lift. “Sullivan.”

  “Listen. I was just sitting here contemplating life,” she said in her slow, lilting diction. “Well, not life so much as this little plan I’ve been hatching, and I figured the best way to break it to you is face-to-face … since you’ve been suspiciously absent from Facebook and all.”

  I laughed. “Suspiciously?”

  “There are two things I have radar for, honey. One is rich men with a loose grip on their checkbooks. The other is a friend who wants me to believe she’s loving social networking, because it was my idea she join, but has no desire to get mired in its den of iniquity!”

  “Can you say ‘mired’ again?”

  She leaned in until I could see the pores in her forehead. “Are you mocking me?” she drawled, extra slow this time.

  “I’m enjoying you.”

  “Where is that Don Juan of yours? He got home today, right?”

  “Bed,” I said.

  “Good heavens, bed? Did I get the time difference wrong again?”

  It was Sullivan’s inability to accurately calculate a nine-hour-and-forty-five-minute time difference that had forced us to completely log out of Skype after a certain time at night and until we were fully conscious in the morning.

  “It’s just past ten p.m. Congratulations on a call finally made during a sane hour of the day.”

  “Old dog, new trick. I’m a fast learner if you don’t mind explaining a long time.”

  “It’s been forever, Sullivan. What have you been up to?”

  “Says the girl who went out of touch for approximately sixteen years.”

  “Yes, but then I had to come crawling back. You know I”—I mimed a pair of air quotes—“‘worship the quicksand you walk on.’”

  “Nice! And smoothly fit into an unrelated conversation.”

  “I learned from the best.”

  Sullivan propped her chin on her hands and gave me a considering look. “Tell me about you,” she said.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Anything specific you’d like to know?” I stopped myself. “Wait—I asked you first!”

  She dismissed it with a wave of her well-manicured hand. “There is absolutely nothing noteworthy happening here. I live in the land of rare power outages, drinkable water, personal vehicles, and Piggly Wigglys fully stocked with Oreos and Ben & Jerry’s. Exotic here is a trip to Thai takeout.” She leaned in again and the camera struggled to focus. “That’s why I call you at ungodly hours—to escape the First World monotony.”

  “While I’m stuck in Third World monotony. Different list, same predictability.”

  “So you’ve ventured onto Facebook twice, from what I’ve seen,” she said, completely ignoring my rejoinder. “Once to create your profile and once to write a note to the Sternensee gang. They loved it, by the way, and weren’t in the least surprised to learn that Sam was palling around with a bunch of tribal people. It also got their wheels turning about what we could do that would be a blessing to you.”

  “I get nervous when you start talking Christianese.”

  “Hush, I’m telling a story. So—we discussed something we could do for you and Sam, since we’re all so impressed with what you’re doing over there.”

  “Sarcasm duly noted.”

  “That wasn’t sarcasm, honey. That was flair.”

  “I see a giant care package in our future.”

  “No, you don’t,” she said with a conspiratorial grin. “You see something a whole lot better.”

  I racked my mind. What could be better than a care package from Sullivan? “I …” I was at a loss.

  “Plane tickets.”

  My mind whirled. “Come again?”

  “We want to fly all three of you back to the States for a couple weeks. Get yourself a long, hot shower, some fattening food, and if you can fit it in, an hour or two with family.” She giggled.

  I shook my head. “Sullivan.”

  “Hush, now. We’ve pooled our nickels and dimes and we’ll make the reservations just as soon as you’re ready. You hear? We’re flying you home! You pick the dates and the destination, and leave the rest up to me.”

  Part of me wanted to jump up and cheer. Visions swirled in my head—reunions with family and all those normal activities and treats that had taken on extraordinary significance since our arrival here.

  The other part of me was already formulating
a strategy to present this to Sam. How could I break this to him in a way that would seem exciting to him too?

  “Well, I had an idea it might surprise you, but this speechless thing is a bit unexpected.”

  My eyes snapped back to the computer screen. “I … you’re right. I’m speechless.”

  “Listen, I know this is a bit unexpected, and there’s no hurry at all getting the details figured out. You and Sam give it some thought, and when you’re ready … say the word!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am. We all are. Consider it our mea culpa for living in the land of plenty while you toil in the land of dysentery.”

  I laughed. It felt … rejuvenating.

  We hung up a few minutes later. I turned out the lights and went up to our bedroom, wondering if I should wake Sam to tell him about our friends’ extraordinary generosity. But he was sleeping so deeply that I decided it could wait until morning.

  I lay in bed and pictured myself back in the States. Made a list of the first places I’d go. The foods I’d eat. The movies I’d see. I tried to plot a road trip that would allow us to see special friends and family.

  I wanted to go back downstairs, log in to Facebook, and tell Aidan. I wanted him to know that we’d be on the same continent soon. I wanted to describe Sullivan to him in all her astonishing originality. I wanted to share this happiness with him. I knew he’d get it. Because he got me. And I wanted to figure out with him if there was a way we could meet—one last time before …

  But my husband lay in bed next to me. This was my God-given, challenging, and good reality. I turned over, curled into his side, and listened to him breathe.

  ah, ren … your husband is home. i want to hear from you every minute of every day, but your husband is home. it’s right and good for you to be out of touch.

  i’d love to see you as a mom and wife. i have images in my head of what that might look like, but every time i have a ‘yes, that’s it’ moment, i realize the person in the scene is 18-year-old you. in my memory, you’re arrested at that age. i know from your family picture that you’ve changed. but the ‘voice’ in your messages … it sounds the same. same relationship to language. same purpose to love and to know. you make me reach for deeper words and strive for clearer vibes. all while drinking in the simple something of your prose.

  my agent, dan, and i are heading downtown in a couple hours to meet with a group that’s interested in my stuff. the original plan was to have one of my pieces included in a calendar they’re publishing to raise funds for the brain tumor association, but somebody with the bta saw my stuff and asked if i had anything else. i’m a little dubious about what i’m hearing—after all, i majored in disappointment and got a degree in cynicism. but dan said something about an aidan dennison collection, all proceeds to the bta. coffee-table style. asked me if i’d be okay with that—no compensation, but serving a good cause. i thought about it for—oh—a fraction of a second. then i heard myself say, ‘i’ll be dead by the time it’s published anyway.’

  that set me back a little. to hear those words out of my mouth. i’ve thought them before, but saying them. that felt like reaching a whole new level on my dig to six feet … part of me wanted dan to say, ‘come on, what are you talking about? you’ll be standing in stockholm receiving a nobel prize long after this thing is published.’ there’d be two problems with that statement. one, there’s no nobel prize for visual arts. two, no i won’t.

  there’s a finality about death that’s too extreme for me to grasp, most of the time. there’s so much in life that can be undone that i can’t fathom something that’s just so … finished. no command-z. no undo button. just … the end of everything. it doesn’t hit me often, but when it does … like when i catch myself projecting what i’ll do next summer. or next week for that matter. it bends the edges of my universe, i guess. and of my courage too.

  so dan and i are heading downtown to see if the multi-artist calendar can become a single-artist collection to gather dust on coffee tables and drop some cash into brain cancer research. i’m not gonna lie. i want it to work out. there’s something poetic about posthumous publication …

  it’s the middle of the night there (i looked it up). i hope you’re sleeping as i type. ren … when you use words like ‘danger’ and ‘tension’ to tell me about going out of touch while sam is home with you … it makes me wonder if there’s discomfort or regret or guilt in this communication.

  you would tell me, right? if there were, i’d stop writing. right now.

  i’ll be honest. hearing from you has … sated me. i really don’t know how else to put it. might try to paint it though. so the prospect of a week without your words after so many years without them is a challenging thing. i understand and cheer your choice. but i … you know.

  and since i’ve got time to spare before dan gets here, and since writing to you makes the distance and silence seem a bit less vast, i’ll give your questions a shot: treatment—after surgery and some vague, dire predictions from my surgeon (whose bedside manner reflected the bedside table’s), i embarked on a search for clinical trials that might—might—give me a few more days. months. maybe years? (i was in the dumbly optimistic stage of brain surgery recovery at the time.) found an insanely talented and astoundingly kind neuro-oncologist at sloan kettering (another reason i moved nearer to ny). he got me in for an appointment within two days. gave me a lightning-speed education, ran scans, the whole 509 yards. found a bit of tumor still there. devised a plan. so i did six weeks of radiation (every day) and a newfangled kind of chemo—five days on, twenty-one days off. kicked my butt. just finishing my last round of that. more scans next week, and we’ll adjust. i’m stuck in a midair limbo between pessimistic hope and optimistic gloom.

  i miss you.

  the god piece, you ask. that’s a different kind of limbo. not sure if my occasional prayer (horrors) is a postsurgical tick or the awakening of something that’s been there all along. all i know for sure is that its mystery comforts me. i want god to be real. i want my brain to be tumor-free. i want my art to go viral. you’re in there somewhere too. why is it that reconnecting with you has made me fear death more? not fear it. resent it, i guess.

  and even as i write this, into the void of distance and time passed, i remember—vivid in my mind—the day you marched out to the garden shed, swiveled me around on my stool, stuck your finger in my face, and screeched, ‘you will not—NOT—drink yourself stupid and get behind the wheel of a car.’ you’d found out about a drunken game of chicken between my dad’s mercury and chris adams’s firebird. i’m sure i could see your whole face, but in my memory, i have this tunnel vision of just your anger-crazed eyes boring into me and your finger poking at my chest. ‘don’t ever risk your life or anyone else’s just to prove you’ve got … !’ (rhymes with ‘malls.’) or something along those lines. remember that day? i nearly wet myself right on the stool. you stood there, hands on hips, glaring at me. and right before you turned around to slam out of the shed, you yelled something i should really have embroidered on every throw pillow in my house: ‘i’ll kill you if you die!’

  i remember thinking i should track down and beat up whoever it was who told you about the previous night’s stupidity. i knew you knew i was an idiot—no mystery there—but i wanted you to keep figuring it out for yourself, without tattletales interposed. as pissed as i was at whoever had talked, though, it’s your parting words that echoed in my mind as i picked up my brush and got back to painting.

  they pretty much kept me from driving drunk again. that’s how potent they were, coupled with your ren’s-on-fire glare. ‘i’ll kill you if you die.’ i’d love to hear you yell those words again.

  that’s where my heart is tonight.

  god, we were so young … and now i don’t know you from adam, yet somehow you never really left and so i do. shut up, dennison. she understands. don’t write back, ren. just love the ones you’re with.

  I found Sam in his “prayer c
hair” on the roof, a cup of steaming coffee in his hand. He was looking out over the city he called home, the contrasting randomness of new and old construction, of poverty and wealth. The water cisterns perched on roofs. The clothes strung out to dry.

  He looked older in the less forgiving light of morning. His laugh lines seemed deeper than when we’d first arrived, lengthened, perhaps, by exposure to the elements on his days outside the capital. He was thinner and somehow more serene. I watched from the top of the stairs as he took another sip, his every movement familiar and calming.

  He saw me standing there. “Come sit by me,” he said. He put down his mug and shifted over in his chair, motioning for me to join him.

  “I’m not sure this thing is built for two …”

  He gave me his “trust me” look and held out a hand. I settled into the chair with him—on top of him, really—and felt his arms come around me and pull me in. There it was again. The smell and feel and sound of him were as familiar as my own. I ran a hand over his close-cropped hair and traced the edges of his still receding hairline, wondering about Aidan’s scars. “You think you’ll ever grow it longer again?”

  He took my hand and held my palm to his lips. “You think I should?”

  “I’d like to see how gray it is. Always liked a distinguished-looking older man.”

  “If by distinguished you mean ‘over the hill and coasting,’ you’ve found him.”

  We let the silence settle for a moment. His palm traced circles on my back.

  “Are you happy with the progress you’re making out there?” I asked.

  He nodded, lips pursed. “All things considered, yeah. Feels like we’re laying a solid foundation. I’m telling you, Lauren—all those visions of big meetings and conversions by the dozens? They’re nothing compared to a farmer inviting me in to share his tarkari and asking me why I’ve come to his village.”

  “How about the water pipeline for the place you visited two trips ago—anything new on that?” I got up and went to the corner of the balcony where a barrel overflowed with rainwater.