The Heart of Memory

by Alison Strobel

  Savannah tapped the knocker twice on the door and waited, her breath shallow in her chest. When the door opened, it was like being sucked into a time warp. Tabitha looked just as she had twenty years ago, with only a few laugh lines and a touch of wisdom added to her kind face. Her smile was as welcoming as it had been back then, and before her embarrassment at past foolishness could stop her, Savannah fell into the embrace of her friend’s outstretched arms.

  “Come on in,” Tabitha said after releasing her from the bear hug. “We’ll get your bags and park your car later. I’ve been so excited for you to come, I feel like a kid. I’ve got spinach dip in the sitting room and all manner of Coke, is that alright?”

  Savannah laughed as she followed Tabitha through the warmly decorated foyer. “ ‘All manner of Coke', eh? You certainly have taken to the culture.”

  Tabitha grinned. “I fell in love with the South. It’s got its flaws, but I was blessed to fall in with the folks that I did when I moved out from Colorado.” She offered a velvet-backed chair to Savannah beside a table where a tray held a bowl of dip surrounded by crackers. “To drink?”

  “Sprite?”

  “You’ve got it. Be right back.”

  Savannah surveyed the room while she waited for Tabitha to return. The decor was straight from Southern Living, and felt like a great big hug from a well-loved aunt. The Southerner in her missed the bright colors and high ceilings and little touches that were hallmarks of the Southern style. She loved her mountain lodge-like home, too, but this place resonated with her roots. It was another remnant of her former self that brought her a grain of comfort.

  Tabitha returned, and Savannah accepted the drink she poured for her. “So you’ve been in this house all this time?”

  “Oh, no, we moved here about seven years ago. I was in Savannah before that, believe it or not.”

  Savannah noticed Tabitha wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. “And ‘we’ would be …”

  “Oh, the ministry I run, The Refuge.”

  Savannah narrowed her eyes and shook a finger at her, though a smile tugged at her mouth. “You didn’t tell me you’d come back to the fold — or that you were in ministry, you sneak.”

  Tabitha chuckled, her nose wrinkled in the endearing way that had attracted half the boys in college. “I got the impression that it wouldn’t go over well. And I knew if you came out it would be good for you. I didn’t want anything to change your mind.”

  “You duped me.”

  “I’d like to think I saved you from your own misconceptions.”

  “Ooh, think you know me so well after all this time?”

  “Oh, honey,” Tabitha said, her words edged with laughter. “Twenty years isn’t so long in some ways. And besides, you and I were always like two peas, and I know myself well enough to know that I would have changed my plans, were our roles reversed.” She helped herself to some dip and indicated that Savannah should do the same. “Now, I should warn you that in about ten minutes we’ll be seeing some more people. Everyone’s at the group therapy session at the moment, but after that most everybody will be coming through here on their way to the kitchen.”

  “Group therapy? What exactly is The Refuge?”

  “It’s a place for people who have been deeply wounded by the church, or by anyone, really, in the name of Christianity. I started it with a friend about ten years ago. We’ve had pastors, church and ministry volunteers and staff, missionaries — even people who grew up with spiritually abusive parents who fed them a poisoned view of God. Folks stay here and get counseling, some fellowship, and support as they find their way back to God. The church has a tendency to shoot its wounded — we try to help them heal in the aftermath.”

  Savannah found it hard to look Tabitha in the eyes, knowing that she had been guilty of ‘shooting’ Tabitha when she’d begun to question their faith. Instead, she studied the elaborate pattern on the wallpaper. “That’s a really beautiful thing to do, Tabitha.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How long do folks stay when they come? Is it like Betty Ford, a 28-day program?”

  Tabitha chuckled. “No. It’s more of a drop-in setup. They stay for as long as they feel necessary, and some people come and go, using us as a supplemental program to the therapy they’re already doing in their own hometown. Right now we’ve got about ten folks staying with us; two more are coming next week, and three are planning to go home.” She smiled at Savannah. “And now, of course, there’s you, too. But don’t worry,” she added hastily, “I wasn’t expecting you to participate in the program or anything. Though you are welcome to if you want. I’ll give you a schedule so you know what’s going on when. But now you know why I thought it might be helpful for you to be here — besides the fact that I’ve been in your shoes.”

  Savannah sighed and forced herself to meet Tabitha’s gaze. “I am sorry, friend. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  Tabitha shook her head. “It’s all forgiven, truly. And don’t think you were the one that drove me away; I didn’t tell you everything that was going on, and you couldn’t have known what I was really going through. That was my own fault. I had no reason not to trust you with the details, but I was young and stupid and hurting and knew a lot of it was my own fault, so it was hard to admit everything, even to my closest friend. So, forgive me for not being honest with you and giving you a chance to help me when I needed it.”

  Savannah ached for all the years they’d lost because of pride and hastily-drawn misconceptions. “What was it that you didn’t think you could tell me? If you’re willing to tell me now, that is. It’s alright if you’d rather not.”

  Tabitha settled deeper into her seat. “No, I don’t mind. Remember Professor Hurst? We had him junior year. He was handsome in a Redford kind of way.”

  Savannah thought for a moment. “Oh — Old Testament, right? Yes, I do remember him.”

  “Well, we had an affair.”

  Savannah nearly dropped her glass. “What!” Tabitha chuckled. “I just … I can’t even …”

  “I know, I know. But remember how I started working for the Biblical Studies department senior year? I ended up doing a lot of work for him — research and transcribing and the like. And we were alone together in the department offices quite a lot, because I worked at night and he often stayed late. He was so friendly, and a bit of a flirt, and you remember what I was like back then.”

  Savannah did indeed. Lithe and beautiful, with serious smarts, but a penchant for free-spirited fun. Savannah often warned her that men would misinterpret her actions as being flirtatious and welcoming in a sexual way, even though she was just vivacious and friendly. She had been a bit of a rule-breaker, too, which only added to the problem. “Let me guess — he thought you were coming on to him.”

  “Yes. Though he certainly encouraged it and responded with his own flirting; it definitely wasn’t one-sided. Anyway, I developed a huge crush on him, and then, because I was heady with hormones and his attention, I fell in love with him.”

  Tabitha took another cracker and gestured with it as she spoke. “So I worked with him for the whole first semester, and then after I came back from Christmas break he told me he’d missed me and couldn’t wait until I’d returned. I read into that all sorts of emotion and affection that probably weren’t even there, which I’m sure was his goal, and I admitted that I’d missed him, too, and that I really enjoyed working with him — though I made sure ‘really enjoyed’ was properly annotated with lots of nonverbal communication that made clear exactly how I felt. After that, things became much more serious. He told me he wanted to marry me, but that we couldn’t say anything to anyone because I was still a student and it might look bad. We planned to start publicly dating after graduation and get married at Christmas. But then one night after spring break …”

  “Oh no.”

  Tabitha nodded. “Yes. And I got pregnant. He freaked out and dumped me, claiming I was a Jezebel, that I’d charmed him—it was all my fault,
you know?”

  Savannah was heartbroken. “Tabitha, why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “Because I was afraid everyone would side with him. You remember how much trouble I got in at that school — no one in administration would have believed me against him. I was afraid they wouldn’t graduate me because I’d broken the covenant yet again, and way more seriously.”

  Savannah was grieved to know it was true. Tabitha was the kind of Christian woman that the school hadn’t known what to do with. She hadn’t fit the traditional mold, and had challenged every attempt to stuff her into it. She had adhered just barely to the dress code, had both blatantly and secretively bucked the covenant each student signed upon matriculation to the school by drinking (two shots of Bailey’s over ice on her 21st birthday), breaking curfew (though she was hardly the only one) and dancing (on the Quad, at noon, with her Sony Walkman plugged into her ears, the day she found out she’d made straight A’s for the first time), and often asked the kinds of squabble-inducing questions that professors hated. But she did none of it to try to provoke anyone. She did it because she hated legalism and saw no reason why a liberated woman of the 80's should be constrained by the traditions of the 50's.

  Savannah had agreed, but it wasn’t her nature to buck the system. It was one of the few ways in which their personalities digressed, and one of the many reasons why Savannah had loved being roommates with Tabitha.

  The significance of Tabitha’s admission suddenly sank in. Savannah chose her words carefully. “So—you have a child?”

  The look of sadness that flashed across her face before she answered made Savannah’s heart ache even more. “No. I aborted her.”

  “Oh Tabs. I am so sorry.”

  Tabitha shrugged as she took a sip of her soda. “I am too. It was an impulsive decision. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t feel like I could tell anyone what was happening—how could I possibly go home to my parents’ house pregnant? And by a professor, no less? I just went and did it without letting myself think about it too much. I kept telling myself that it was so early on, it wouldn’t really matter. It did, of course, and once it hit me what I’d done I was devastated. That’s when everything started falling apart — my faith included.”

  “And that’s when you told me you weren’t sure you wanted to be a Christian anymore.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And like a fool I didn’t even push you for an explanation. You understand that I couldn’t imagine anything like all of this happening to you, right? I mean, it was stupid of me to make any assumptions at all, but I thought it had to do with not getting into the grad school you’d applied to.”

  Tabitha laughed. “Seriously?”

  “Well, your reactions had always been … big.”

  She gave a conceding shrug. “That’s true; they were.”

  “And you said something about not believing God cared about your future, or about your pain. I just figured you’d really had your heart set on that school.” Savannah shook her head. “It didn’t occur to me that anything else could be going on. I mean, we lived together. I saw you all the time — when would anything have happened that I wasn’t there to see? I never in a thousand years would have thought anything like that was going on.”

  Tabitha waved a hand. “It’s all in the past. And God has used it for good. The Refuge was born out of my desire to help other people who had been hurt like I had been. The family I rented from when I moved out here — they were a true Godsend. They practically adopted me. And over the course of five years or so, they loved me back to faith. They helped me get the ministry started; God laid it on their hearts as well as mine. So how can I complain, you know? He redeemed my lost years and gave me a life with more purpose than I could have imagined.” She grinned. “And I’m one of the few people I know actually using my college degree.”

  “So you’re a therapist here?”

  “I am. I got my master’s in Atlanta, and my PhD, as well.”

  “Amazing.” Savannah shook her head, astonished at the story. “Just amazing. I’m so happy everything turned out so well for you.” She chafed a bit at all the God talk, but the serenity and peace and joy she saw in Tabitha’s face made her long for the same outcome. She almost didn’t want to admit it, but Tabitha might have been right. Maybe Savannah really did need to be here.

  THAT EVENING, AFTER THE POT roast dinner that Savannah had to admit was the best she’d ever had, she and Tabitha sat out on the second-story porch cocooned in quilts and continued to catch up on the time they had lost. Tabitha was apparently very skilled at reading people—or at least reading Savannah—because she had yet to ask Savannah what had actually happened. Savannah was relieved to put it off for a little while. She wanted to forget about the reason she’d come out and just focus on regaining the friendship she’d missed so much. Her friends back in the Springs were good people, and she’d enjoyed the time she’d spent with them over the years; but something about her relationship with Tabitha was different, deeper. Tabitha was a Jesus friend, closer than a brother, see-into-your-soul insightful, lavish with both her love and her forgiveness, even in the face of Savannah’s foolishneess. She was the sister Savannah had never had, who could read her like a book and didn’t buy the facade she tried to erect to save her image or her pride. She knew that, when she did finally tell what had happened, Tabitha wouldn’t come back at her with the same empty advice she’d gotten from others — and it wasn’t just because she understood what it was like to have your faith ripped away. Tabitha wasn’t made uncomfortable by other people’s pain.

  The sky was black by the time Savannah came to her recent history in the retelling of the last twenty years. “I thought for sure I was going to die. I never once told Shaun — I didn’t tell anyone. I maintained a brave face and insisted I would be healed, but only because I thought if I claimed it enough, and got myself to believe it, that that would be the proof of my faith that God was looking for. And then, just before the surgery, I had this … this epiphany about my relationship with God, and I felt like my eyes were finally opened. Those few days were just … bliss. Mountaintop, day in and day out. I could feel his presence; I had this clarity of faith and thought that I hadn’t had in a really, really long time. And then I woke up from the surgery and it was all gone. So much was going on in those first couple weeks, physically and emotionally and mentally, that it didn’t dawn on me until later. It’s a serious mind-trip to know that such an integral part of your body is totally gone, and someone else’s integral part is now in its place — not to mention that you have it because they’re dead.” She gave a little shudder, though the quilt was plenty warm for the mild November night. “I started noticing little things were different, but I chalked them up to still recovering from the surgery. I didn’t want to go out, but that was because I didn’t want to pick up any germs. I was more clumsy, but that was because I’d been really weak and sick before the surgery, and my muscles were still rebuilding. That sort of thing. But other things were happening that I couldn’t explain—like, I love strawberries now. More than chocolate.”

  Tabitha’s eyebrows shot up. “Not really more than chocolate.”

  “Really.”

  “Girl, that’s weird.”

  Savannah laughed. “Yes! It is! And I can’t account for that at all. Same with the … God thing.” Even saying the word made her throat hitch a bit, the same way swearing had felt when she’d tried to do it to look cool in junior high. “I went from being crazy in love with him, feeling his presence all around me, the Bible just lighting up when I’d read it, to how I am now.”

  “Which is?”

  She studied the view of the orchard, looking for the right words. “Feeling like the whole thing is pretty much a crock. Just … made up. The very concept sounds ridiculous to me. Plus anger sits under the surface all the time, and it flares at the slightest irritation. Especially if it has anything to do with religion. I’d walk into A&A and have a physic
al reaction—I wanted to just get out of there. The people, the purpose of the place—it all made me sick.”

  Tabitha said nothing, and Savannah welcomed her unwillingness to jump in with a diagnosis. They sat in silence, their rocking chairs squeaking in unison as their movement fell into sync, until Tabitha offered a simple, “Wow.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “So now what?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t do my work. I can’t even fake doing my work. I had a ten-city tour planned and I walked off the stage at the first stop because I couldn’t bring myself to even just read the talk I’d written. My marriage is falling apart, my daughter—well, Jessie and I have never had a great relationship in the first place; but this definitely isn’t helping.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Savannah looked at Tabitha and smiled. “Thank you. You know, I don’t think anyone has said that. Well—not Marisa or Shaun, and they’re the only ones who know what’s really going on. They just want to fix it so they can keep A&A from falling to pieces.”

  “I’m sure they care more about you than the ministry.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I’m sorry about that, then, too.”

  Savannah was ready to get the conversation off of her. “So you never married?”

  “No.”

  “Because of what happened?”

  “Because God led me down a different path. But I didn’t want anything to do with men for the first couple years after everything, either. And it took me a long time to get over the abortion. I couldn’t handle the thought of another pregnancy. I was afraid experiencing those symptoms again would send me into a depression. But now …” She smiled. “I’m thoroughly content. I love what I do, and I’m good at it, and God has blessed me in so many ways it’s almost silly. I have no desire to upset the balance of my life with that kind of relationship. But if God wanted me married, I’ve no doubt he’d awaken a desire in me for that.”