The Merciful Scar

by Rebecca St. James

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Frankie beckoned me over with her hand. “It’s all right. We were just praying together. Come join us.”

  Though Andy’s eyes were at half-mast he managed the grin. It looked softer and younger than usual. Maybe it was the little-boy way his hair stuck out like a dark version of Petey’s hay bed.

  “There’s room for you,” he said.

  “With you, me, Andy, and God, that’ll make a foursome,” Frankie said.

  Uh, Kirsten. You’re staring.

  It was just that I had never put it together that Andy’s participation in the blessings and communion was voluntary. I assumed he was being polite, making his aunt happy. But right now there was no indication that he was under duress. The way his hands hung loose and relaxed over his knees . . . he wanted to be there. And so did I.

  But I shook my head. “No—thank you—I just came to tell you that I’m going to go up to the shepherd’s monument for a little while. You said to let you know . . .”

  “Absolutely. I appreciate that.” Frankie’s face glowed as if she hadn’t been up most of the night like I had. I was sure I wasn’t beaming at the moment.

  That is a true statement.

  “I know you’re a little pushed for time,” she said, “so take the green truck as far as you can and then walk the little bit that’s left. The keys are in it.”

  “And we’ll send a posse for you when it dies halfway up there,” Andy said, brows twisted. “You want me to drive you?”

  “No!”

  Nice.

  “I mean, that’s okay. I kind of need to be . . . alone.”

  “Gotcha,” he said.

  Well, that little outburst is going to make it easier to say good-bye.

  I made a hasty exit and headed down the driveway to the line of vehicles that always reminded me of one of those places where they sell cars for parts.

  Kind of endearing, actually.

  I wasn’t making this any easier on myself. All I could think of as I climbed into the concave driver’s seat was how I’d sat with fifteen-minute-old Petey pressing herself into my chest.

  “Headed out somewhere?”

  I jumped.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you.” Joseph leaned his forearms on the open window frame. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  I tapped the keys dangling in the ignition. “No, I think I have everything. I don’t need my driver’s license, do I?”

  I thought I saw his lips twitch. “Not hardly.” He produced the thirty-thirty and reached behind me to hang it from the rack on the back window. “You go, that goes.”

  “Right,” I said. “Are the bears still around?”

  “You going up to the monument?”

  I nodded.

  “They were spotted an hour ago five miles in the other direction. You should be all right. You remember how to use it?”

  “Yes.”

  I squeezed the steering wheel. Frankie was right. I was pushed for time. Joseph would pick now to get chatty with me.

  “You taking this one with you?”

  I looked out the window where he was pointing. Bathsheba gazed up at me, eyes anxious, tail in a slow, hopeful wag.

  “Do I have a choice?” I said. “Look at that.”

  “You women and your dogs. I’ll put her in the back.”

  But Bathsheba was having none of that. She leapt straight from the ground through the window and landed next to me, facing front with her ears alert. She did everything but fasten her seat belt.

  Oh, wait, there aren’t any seat belts.

  “Don’t let her get dog hair on the upholstery,” Joseph said as I pulled away.

  Frankie hadn’t been kidding when she said the truck only had two gears, but somehow Bathsheba and I managed to bounce our way up to the spot where no trucks had gone before. Or at least not one with absolutely no shocks.

  As I dutifully slung the rifle over my shoulder before we continued on foot, I felt like someone else. I had no idea who this girl was who talked to a dog and carried a gun and wanted a chance to try praying in that garden. I was definitely no clearer on what that girl was going to do when she reached the monument and stood as if she were naked before the world.

  Bathsheba romped off to the hole where she’d flushed out a play-mate before. I returned to the shepherd’s monument and ran my hand along the rough-hewn stones. There were plenty like them on the ground. I could pick one up and use its time-worn edge to set free this thing that throbbed inside. But that seemed wrong here.

  Yeah, I’m thinking it would be right up there with getting drunk on the communion wine, you know?

  Cutting had never seemed wrong before. Not until Frankie had run her hand along my arm and said, “I feel something stirring under your skin.”

  I shivered, but there was no wind. It was in fact so quiet I called to Bathsheba, just to make sure sound still existed. She bounded over to me, soaked my hand, and then raced on to the cliff.

  “Careful!” I shouted.

  She dropped her haunches to the ground and sat. I went to her and squatted beside her. The sun had not yet done its watercolor wash on the mountains beyond us, and they stood in such sharp, dark contrast to the pale sky that I was sure I could run my arm along the ridge and it would give me a clean incision.

  And what would that do for you?

  It would probably do nothing. I pulled my hands through my hair, still damp from the shower. All right, think. Think about all the things Frankie said.

  “I hate to see her leave before she hears Your voice.”

  “Listen for bat kol.”

  “You’ll hear God in the daughter of the voice.”

  All I heard was my own voice, crying out, “I wish You’d just say it, outright! Just tell me what to do! I need somebody to tell me what to do!”

  I flung my folded arms across my pulled-up knees and looked down at the tiny-toy ranch. I couldn’t see them but I knew the sheep were waiting, still as wax figures in their pen, for Frankie to come and say, “Time to move, woolies.” It wasn’t the first time I’d envied them.

  Somebody is telling you it’s time to move. Or did you miss the part where your father showed up with a plan?

  Then why was I up here, sitting on the edge of a cliff calling to God, instead of packing and saying my good-byes? I had always listened to my father’s voice—

  When he spoke to you, anyway.

  Yesterday he said he didn’t want me to die. There were tears in his eyes.

  But did you hear them in his voice?

  “I don’t know!”

  Beside me Bathsheba whimpered and pressed her head into my lap. I tangled her fur into my fingers. The quality of the quiet was suddenly soft, and in it I did hear a voice. Not the Nudnik. Not my own thoughts. Not God, I was sure. Just the whisper of memory.

  Frankie praying. “Don’t let his voice drown out hers.”

  And then my father saying, “So an unfortunate incident like this won’t happen again.” Reducing my pain to a fender bender.

  And then the strongest: Andy’s sleepy whisper in the barn: “Then you better tell your father that.”

  “Bathsheba,” I whispered, “it’s time to go back.”

  I went straight to the barn to check on Petey. She was as still as a lamb in a ceramic nativity scene, eyes closed, breath moving gently in and out of her pink nostrils.

  Don’t start crying yet.

  Right. Put that off as long as possible. I stepped outside the barn and looked at the sun, just now clearing the tops of the mountains. I would have time to throw my few things into the zebra-striped bag after I helped herd the sheep and still be ready to talk to my father before we left.

  Frankie was just opening the big gate to release the flock when I joined her.

  “I’ll take the back,” I said.

  “Andy will appreciate that,” she said. “It’s been awhile since he’s done this.”

 
Of course Frankie would need someone to help her, now that I was leaving. Emma might cut Andy some slack if he was assigned to the job instead of her.

  Funny. It didn’t seem that much like a job.

  Neither Frankie nor Andy asked me why I was there, and I was glad. If I’d had to say I wanted to do it one last time, there would have been no putting off the crying. The thickness in my throat almost made it hard to breathe.

  The walk back was silent, and toward the end I broke into a run for the barn so I could check on Petey. One more time.

  Joseph was leaning against the corral when I got there, arms folded as if he had nothing better to do than wait for me to show up.

  “You better get in there,” he said.

  I ran, one hand on my throat, and tripped on a chicken squawking across my path. When I caught myself on the gate to Petey’s pen, an image of her lying stiff and motionless in the corner was already fixed behind my eyes.

  But the lamb I saw was standing up in the middle of her little home, stub of a tail quivering with life.

  “Petey!” I said.

  What she actually said when she answered, who knew? But in my mind it was clearly, “Mama!” The halting little trot to the gate was proof of that.

  “You’re okay! Oh, Petey, you’re okay!”

  I was in the pen by that time, holding her head between my hands. She pulled up her chin and let out a bleat, and I knew the meaning of that one.

  “There’s still some Hilda milk left,” I said. “And we are gonna celebrate.”

  At eleven o’clock Emma escorted my father to the barn, where I was feeding Petey a lunchtime bottle, and promptly disappeared.

  I looked up from Petey’s wooly head to smile at him, just in time to see the annoyance pinching his brows together. To his credit he made a quick recovery.

  “One last time before you go, huh?” he said, nodding at Petey.

  I refocused on the bubbles in the bottle. “I’m not sure yet if I’m going,” I said.

  “Oh, you’re going.”

  My head jerked up as he leaned as far over the gate as he could without falling in. His look was dark.

  How is it that this man can be all seven of the dwarves in one twenty-four-hour period?

  “I did some checking on this place, Kirsten.” His words jammed tightly together. “I don’t know where your mother came up with this McKee woman but she isn’t a licensed counselor. And that Joseph character they kept out of sight last night . . .” He consulted his phone. “Joseph Maxwell has a criminal record. He did fifteen years’ hard time for—”

  “Dad!” I said.

  “We’re dodging a bullet here, kiddo. Is your stuff packed?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, for—”

  “I just need to ask you something before I decide, okay?”

  He shoved his hands onto his hips. Yesterday’s jeans had been replaced by Brooks Brothers slacks, the teary eyes with impatience that was going to cross over into anger if I didn’t get this out.

  “This facility you’re taking me to,” I said, “do you know if they treat patients dealing with NSSI?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Non-suicidal self-injury. It’s what I do. Did.”

  Might again. Get on with this.

  “I don’t understand this. What—”

  “I’ll show you.”

  I set Petey’s bottle aside and slid my T-shirt from my shoulders, first one, then the other. Eyes on the scars, I said, “I’ve been doing this since Lara’s accident. There are more on my legs. I do it to release the pain.”

  “What pain? That was seven years ago. Your mother has prolonged it for herself but you’ve had every chance to move on.”

  “I know, Dad,” I said. “But I couldn’t. So I had to do this.”

  “You didn’t have to. Nobody has to do . . . that.” He spit out an expletive that desecrated the barn. “If you needed attention that much, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you—”

  “I don’t know what you’d do if you had real problems.” He stabbed at the screen of his phone. “All right, I’ll check with them. What’s it called? NCIS?”

  “You don’t have to check.” I let out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “I’m not going. I’m sorry you went to all that trouble but I want to stay here and finish out my thirty days. I have two weeks—”

  “This is ridiculous. Get up—we have a plane to catch.”

  “I’m twenty-two years old, Dad. You can’t really force me to go.”

  The words came out so small I wasn’t sure he heard me. Nothing in the red fury that hardened his face indicated he did.

  “Don’t expect me to pay a dime for this,” he said, dismissing the ranch with a wave of his cell phone.

  “I don’t,” I said. “I told you, I’m sorry you went to—”

  “Stay—just stay here in your convent and do slave labor. But understand me, Kirsten. I am not done with this.”

  Those were the last words he said before he banged his fist on the pen and left.

  Well. That went well.

  Among the tearful good-byes I’d dreaded that day, that had never been one of them. But I cried anyway. Without tears. Just dry, sad sobs.

  I was still in the pen stroking Petey’s head between her ears when Frankie found me some time later. She smelled of hay and incense and molasses as she sat down on the hay beside me and, of course, waited.

  “Sandy Petersen is a Chinook,” she said finally.

  “Does that mean jerk?”

  She laughed the husky laugh. “No. A Chinook is a very warm wind that comes to us here in the early spring and can make a foot of snow vanish in one day. Amazing.” She wobbled her hand. “Actually, it’s an extremely dry wind so it only partly melts the snow. It evaporates the rest. Anyway, a Chinook can raise the temperature from twenty degrees to sixty-eight for a few days and fool the uninitiated into thinking spring is here and winter is over. But then it’s gone and the temperature plummets again.” Frankie ran her hand across my arm. “But at least the snow has melted.”

  “My father doesn’t really love me,” I said. “He maybe thinks he does, but it’s not the way I need him to. It never was.”

  “And does that make you want to hurt yourself?”

  I looked down at my still-exposed shoulder. “No. I know it won’t help.”

  “That’s a start,” Frankie said.

  “Did you know I haven’t . . . hurt myself in twelve days?”

  “Have you wanted to?”

  “A few times. But I didn’t. Doesn’t that mean something?”

  Frankie didn’t answer for a moment. Then she said, “I find more meaning in the fact that you sent your father away.” She let her finger hover over the dotted scab on the newest of the wounds. “It looks like something is healing, Kirsten.” She closed her eyes. “The Lord be with you.”

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  Sometimes I feel like someone else and I know I’m getting closer to who I really am. #TheMercifulScar

  Part

  THREE

  And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.

  1 KINGS 19:11

  Chapter

  TWELVE

  The Nudnik stopped reminding me what day I was on every fifteen minutes. Somehow I simply got to Day Twenty-Two without noticing.

  What I did notice were the subtle changes along the way.

  Emma started a new routine at the Cloister. Every afternoon before our end-of-the-day chores, she made coffee—with Hildegarde’s cream—and we drank it from Crazy Trixie’s vintage cups on the front porch with Bathsheba curled up under my chair. Emma officially named it Improving the Moment. Sometimes we rocked and let the wind do the talking, but we did our share too. It started with fathers.

  “I’m glad you didn’t go with him,” she said the day after Dad left.

  I didn’t have to ask who sh
e meant.

  “I’m glad too.”

  “Sorry, though.”

  “For what?”

  “That he’s not the dad you want.”

  I stopped with my upper lip dipped into the cup and stared at her, cream mustache and all.

  “I get that,” she said. “Trust me.”

  “Your dad too?”

  “Yeah. In a different way from yours though, probably.”

  “Is yours a Disneyland dad?” I said.

  She gave me her signature grunt. “Not even. He’s a retired army officer. We moved all around the world when I was growing up. He was always working so my mom did most of the raising of me and my three older brothers.” Another grunt. “And most of the smothering.”

  That I couldn’t relate to, but I nodded and took another sip.

  “When my dad retired and we settled in San Antonio—his hometown—I thought finally he and I could have some kind of relationship.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Sixteen. I know. It’s weird. But I was sick of my mother trying to make me be her clone, which was never gonna happen, and I decided I wanted to emulate him.”

  “Your going into the army didn’t make him happy?”

  “It did when I said I wanted to go to West Point. But you don’t just sign up for that.”

  “Don’t you have to have a congressman nominate you or something?”

  “Yeah, there are all kinds of hoops you have to jump through. You have to show you’ve done all these activities and get letters of recommendation, only we never lived anyplace long enough for me to get that involved.” She shrugged and took a long drag from the mug.

  I take it we didn’t get into the Academy.

  “When I got the rejection letter, my dad said he was going to go to some people he knew at the Point, blah, blah, blah. But the day I turned eighteen, three days after graduation, I went down and enlisted.”

  “Did he have a meltdown?”

  “Oh yeah. Him. My mother. All three of my brothers. I was persona non grata for about a year. The thing was, I was glad I didn’t get into West Point because from day one, I loved boot camp. I was at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and even though there was all this yelling and making you feel like you were pond scum, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”