Kicking Eternity

by Ann Lee Miller

  What was Eddie's story? How could he help Rainey deal with whatever it was? God, give me wisdom, discernment, and, if need be, the ability to throw a hard, well-placed punch.

  #

  Before Drew even had the truck in park, Raine opened the door. She slid out and scanned the Lost Lagoon parking lot for Eddie. Behind her, Drew's door slammed shut.

  There he stood—in the shadows under a palm in the corner of the lot. Love for Eddie welled up in her. She hadn't seen him in over a month. She ran to him and threw herself into his arms, not caring that Eddie wasn't a hugger. She breathed in the smell of soap, felt his bony ribs. A detached part of her took stock. He was thinner than last time. If he was clean and shaved, then he probably wasn't living on the beach. His old O'Neil surf T-shirt meant he still had belongings stashed somewhere. She held on, feeling his jittery movements.

  "Who's this?" Eddie's voice demanded in her ear.

  She dropped her arms, stepped back. "A friend. Drew. I needed a ride."

  They spoke at the same time. "I said I'd meet you at camp," Eddie said.

  "I sold my car to help pay for my ticket to Africa."

  Eddie's gaze darted around the parking lot, then settled on Drew.

  Drew held out his hand. "Hey, man."

  Eddie looked at Drew's hand.

  "Come on. Let's get something to eat," Raine blurted into Eddie’s rudeness.

  Drew dropped his hand.

  Eddie looked at her. "I don't want to go in. Lights bother me."

  Lights? Or did the police or loan sharks want him? "Fine, I'll go buy something." She strode toward the double glass. She didn't trust Eddie to buy food with the money she gave him. She heard Drew's footsteps close behind her.

  The line was three deep. Raine peered through the glass trying to see Eddie.

  "Do you want me to go keep an eye on him?" Drew's arm brushed hers as they moved up in line.

  She glanced at him, but he'd stepped out of her personal space.

  Raine blew out her breath. "No. He's not going anywhere till I give him the money." She was too stressed to worry about what Drew thought. He locked his eyes on the illuminated yellow menu behind the counter.

  "I'll get you something for giving me a ride—" and protection.

  Drew shot her a look.

  "Or not."

  As she stepped out of the air-conditioned restaurant into the muggy night, relief shot through her. Eddie still stood in the shadows where she had left him. He could have been shot, frightened away, anything.

  "Here." She shoved the bag into Eddie's hands.

  "Thanks." Eddie's gaze darted from her empty hands all around her. He was looking for her purse. He wanted money, not food. She knew him too well. Let him sweat.

  "You're not going to eat?"

  "I'll eat."

  "You're thinner than last time I saw you. You look bad, Eddie. You need help. I met some guys fundraising for Teen Challenge. They're guys who were just like you. But they got help. They have a life now."

  Eddie peered at her from hooded eyes. She could feel the resentment radiating from him. She heard the scuff of Drew's flip-flop against the asphalt beside her.

  “Let us run you to Orlando to Teen Challenge right now.” She shot Drew a pleading look and got his nod of agreement.

  “I’ve got a job lined up, a place to stay—”

  “There’s nothing going on in your life right now that’s more important than getting clean.” She reached out grasping for the Eddie she knew was buried deep inside. "I love you. I always think this will be the last time I see you." She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the tears run down her face.

  Eddie let out a brittle laugh. "You're always so melodramatic, Rainey! I'm fine. Fine. Getting better. Really. Don't worry." He gave her a small grin, a tattered remnant of the brother she used to have. "I love you, too. But I’m not ready for Teen Challenge."

  “Please! I’m begging you.” The words came out in a cry.

  “Give me the summer. If I can’t pull my life together by then, I’ll go in.”

  “September First?”

  Eddie blew out a breath. “September First.”

  She pulled the wad of bills out of her pocket and put them in his hand.

  "Thanks. I'll pay you back in a couple of weeks." Now his smile was wide, but she knew better than to buy it.

  "It's not a loan." Somehow, she was less angry when she chose to give him money instead of his siphoning it from her.

  "Thanks, sis." He looked like he'd say more, but glanced at Drew. "I gotta run."

  She grabbed hold of him one last time. She said the words into his ear willing them to penetrate his heart—as though the words alone could rescue him. “I love you.”

  #

  Raine and Drew rumbled along in silence. Drew's dash lights bored holes into Raine's taut nerves. Wasn't Drew going to say anything? The car cover cloaking her whole sordid life had just been ripped off. She felt exposed.

  "You can do things to help." Drew's voice pierced the darkness.

  "Like?"

  "Don't give him money."

  "Let my brother starve to death."

  "He's not going to spend that money on food."

  "How do you know?"

  Drew braked to a stop at a red light. "Eddie's an addict."

  "Says who?"

  "Rainey." His voice was gentle. "His pupils are enlarged–"

  "It's dark out. All our pupils are enlarged."

  "He's twitchy, underweight, paranoid."

  "Eddie's not an addict. He just uses dangerous drugs more than he should." She could feel the tears bunching in her eyes. If she could convince Drew it wasn't true, maybe it wouldn't be.

  "Is it meth?" Drew's voice was soft.

  "Now you're an expert?" She could hear the sharpness in her voice, but she fought for Eddie.

  "I've worked with the drug awareness program at school since I started teaching." He tilted her chin up to force her to look at him. "Why are you trying to hide the truth from me?"

  She could feel the tears sliding down her face as she stared at Drew. There was only caring in his eyes. "I've never told anyone." Her cheeks tickled from the tears. She scrubbed them dry with her hands and looked out the window at the stubby palmetto bushes on the side of the road. "Eddie's Eddie. He's not an addict. He's trapped in a bad circle of friends."

  Drew pulled through the intersection. "Make it as hard as possible for him to keep using. Let him take the consequences of using. He's not going to quit until he hits bottom."

  The emotions inside her collided and fused to a red-hot poker of anger. "What else did you learn in a text book?"

  "Rainey, that's not fair. I'm only trying to help."

  "Stop it! Did you hear Eddie call me, 'Rainey?' That's why I hate it when you call me that!"

  Silence filled the truck cab the rest of the way back to camp. Drew pulled into the grassy lot behind the Canteen and killed the engine.

  Neither of them moved to get out of the truck. Raine looked sideways at Drew. He stared at the croton hedge as he chewed on the inside of his cheek. Her jab hit bull’s eye, and now she regretted it.

  "Don't you think I know this stuff? I did my senior research paper on meth addiction. My parents thought it was altruistic. They didn't have a clue Eddie was doing drugs." She turned toward him, wanting to make him understand.

  "But when I look my brother in the eye, I can't not-help him. He's the person I'm closest to in the world. I'm the only one he confides in. I have to be there for him. Or there's no one."

  "You're enabling him. Can't you see it?" Drew's eyes pleaded with her to accept what she would never accept.

  The anger came flooding back. She slid out of the truck to the ground. "Don't give me advice till you've lived my life." She slammed the door.

  Chapter 5

  A blue jay twittered outside the window. Cal heard voices and the scuff of shoes on the dirt as the stragglers headed toward the dining hall for lunch. He stepped
into the classroom, inhaling the lingering scent of paint and turpentine that marked the room as his.

  Raine stood facing Day at the Beach with her back to him. Maybe she regretted freezing him out yesterday and came to apologize.

  A board groaned under the weight of his foot and she spun around. Tears slicked down her cheeks and she wiped them away. “What does this painting mean?”

  He braced himself against her tears and shrugged one shoulder as if she wasn’t getting to him. Raine wouldn’t like his telling her what the painting meant. But maybe he should. It would give her a glimpse of how people think who aren’t like her. But he wasn’t into baring his soul. Ever.

  His usual response slid out. “The important thing is what it means to you.”

  “What if I’m wrong?”

  “You can’t be wrong. Everyone is entitled to his own interpretation.” He pulled a chair out and straddled it. Of course, sometimes people came up with certifiably crazy interpretations of his work.

  Raine looked back at the painting and sank to the tabletop, still entranced. Cal’s gaze followed hers though he knew the painting, probably one of his best, without looking.

  A figure with no distinguishing male or female characteristics walked on the beach casting a long shadow. Three boys and a girl strung out behind the figure. One of the boys was out in the sun, running for the water, hope etched on his face. One tennis-shoe-clad foot remained in the figure’s shadow. The faces of the children in the shadow couldn’t be seen. They appeared hunched. One carried a toy bucket and shovel. One wore an inflatable inner tube around his waist.

  “It makes me think about my family.” Raine didn’t take her eyes off the picture. “Three boys and a girl. One child sees his dad casting an oppressive shadow over all their lives.”

  Cal wanted her to say more. His gaze welded to the play of emotion on her face.

  She turned to him. “I don’t think I ever realized how wrong a child’s view can be.” She looked back at the painting. “You make me see that the best place for the children is out in the sunshine—maybe holding the dad’s hand, looking up at him expectantly. Or dancing around him with expressions that say, ‘Look at me, look at me, aren’t I something special!’ ”

  Cal was thrown off balance. He had painted God’s oppression of man, his mother’s oppression of the family. That was Cal, almost out of God’s shadow and into the sunshine, poised to run into the water. He didn’t want to hear this wasn’t how life should be.

  Raine had unknowingly pictured a relationship with God, one where the children got to play in the sunshine, interact with God, probably even swim in the ocean. But, for him, it was too hard to imagine.

  Raine fixed her eyes on him. “You disagree.” She tilted her head to one side. “So, tell me what you were thinking when you painted the picture.”

  “We’re oppressed, and our only hope is to make a break for it.”

  “Oppressed by what?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He stood and shoved the chair under the table. He wasn’t having this conversation.

  “Where did you get such a bleak take on life?”

  “Not everyone swallows the home-school-PC version of life. Look, I’m out of here. Enjoy the painting. Make it mean whatever you want.”

  He turned and walked out. Part of him wanted to believe Raine. Part of him wanted to yank his foot out of the shadow, run into the ocean, and never look back.

  #

  Drew finished his stretches under the light of the moon. He looked around one last time for Jesse. Something must have come up. He had a lot on his mind. It was probably better for him to run alone tonight anyway.

  He replayed Monday night’s argument with Rainey. Wow! Was he going to have to quit calling her Rainey? She knifed him on that one. He understood her protectiveness of Eddie, but it hurt when she came out snapping like a crawfish.

  He ran hard, pounding out his frustration against the sand. At the jetty, he slowed his pace.

  This shouldn’t be about him and his hurt. This was about Rainey. Eddie was tearing her up inside. Anyone who’d watched her at Lost Lagoon would have seen it. Lord, rescue Rainey from the co-dependent mess she has going with Eddie. Get that kid help. Throw his butt in rehab, jail, something. Pry him off Rainey’s back.

  He ran back down the beach at half speed, thinking about Rainey’s plan to teach in Africa. She’d lifted her chin just a little when she told him that first night at orientation—like she dared him to challenge her. There had been steel in her voice. Was she trying to escape Eddie? At least she was committed to doing something for God. What about him?

  He was twenty-five and still lived in the apartment over his folks’ garage. He doubted that was God’s grand plan for his life. But he never thought about it till Kurt left. He didn’t do separation from family—especially Kurt—well. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate little brother tag along if he followed Kurt to Japan. He couldn’t even choke down sushi.

  He slipped into a jog thinking about the Africa Cries kids he hooked up with last winter when they were in town for concerts. He’d been captivated by the lanky, black-skinned boys, the girls with nubby hair as short as the boys’, the joy radiating from their faces when they told their harrowing stories.

  He had the skill set to be a good music director. He already loved those kids. He tried to shake off the thought. But the smiles of the children had been stuck in his head for months, their singing voices, like phantoms he couldn’t bat away. He stopped, bent over with his hands on his knees. Okay. I’ll ask You what You want me to do. But would You take Your time answering this one?

  He stood and wiped his face on the neck of his T-shirt. It wasn’t like this was the only big-ticket item on his plate. Jesse had shoved marriage front and center—getting Kallie and Jillian to pray for a wife for him. He smiled. That was underhanded, recruiting a three-year-old. God had a soft spot for kids.

  Would he ever love and be loved? Yeah, he wanted that, a relentless tide of realization was coming in. He was going to have to settle things with Sam. He looked down the beach illumined by the full moon. Another sprint down to the jetty and back sounded good.

  #

  Raine walked along the asphalt road beside Missy. She rubbed her arms. The wind coming off the Atlantic was cool tonight. Maybe it would rain. Corrie, Missy's co-counselor walked ahead with their campers strung between them.

  "Do you think my brother is hot?" Missy looked over at Raine, her chestnut mane bunched in her fist against the wind.

  She grinned at Missy. "I guess—for an old, married man."

  "Raine!"

  "Oh, you mean Cal." She pursed her lips, and rubbed her chin. "If you like the surf-bum type." Cal was gorgeous no matter what kind of guy you liked, but she sure wasn’t telling his sister.

  Missy’s shoulders slumped. "So, what about Jayson? He's so amazing!" Missy chattered the rest of the way back to the cabin about Jayson.

  Raine waved to Missy and headed across the athletic field toward the laundry. She felt her back pocket to make sure the note was still there—like she’d need a ticket to get onto the laundry porch. Aly had left a note on her pillow inviting her to hang out. Things had been better between them since the driving lesson, but this was the first time Aly had asked her to do something. No way was she going to miss this.

  She could see two dark forms as she came around the back corner of the building. Cal sat on a crate leaning against the building. Aly lay on her back with her feet propped against the wall next to Cal.

  “How was campfire?” Aly said.

  Aly must have told Cal she was coming since he wasn’t surprised to see her.

  “Cold. Wind’s kicking up.”

  “Kicking eternity,” Cal said.

  Aly nudged Cal with her foot. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m reading Sacred Hoops written by Phil Jackson when he coached the Chicago Bulls. Jackson kicks against his parents’ take on eternity.”

  Aly reached
for the bottle beside her and took a drink.

  “Sounds like a yawner.”

  Cal took a drink from his bottle. “Want some?” He held it out to her.

  She knew the no alcohol on camp property rule, but drinking after Cal was too hard to resist. Wine cooler, she read on the label. This tasted more like soda, but with some foreign taste, like cough medicine, but not quite. She handed the bottle back.

  Cal peered at her as if he expected a repeat performance of her spitting out the beer. She made herself swallow. There.

  “Aly, what’s the book about you’re reading?” Raine had seen the book spread open on Aly’s bed for the last few days.

  Aly’s legs were crossed now, one propped against the building, one keeping time to an imaginary tom-tom. “Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper.”

  A laugh burst out of Cal. “That ought to jam the can opener into your issues.”

  Aly shot him a dirty look.

  She looked between Aly and Cal. They were at ease with each other, almost like siblings. The way it used to be with her and Eddie.

  “It’s not your business whether I get along with my sister.” Aly said, lightly.

  “Or anyone who reminds you of Kallie.” Cal looked pointedly from Aly to her.

  “What—”

  “Where’s Gar?” She didn’t know exactly what Cal was getting at, but she wasn’t going to let Aly storm off again.

  “He’ll be here soon.” Aly.

  “The guy has low-life written all over him. Al, when are you going to get some taste in men?” Cal said.

  Her eyes narrowed at Cal. “I liked you until two minutes ago.”

  “Case in point.” Cal held his cooler up to her and took another swig.

  “What do you think about Gar?” Aly turned toward her.

  “Eye candy.”