by Lynne Hinton
“Why not?” Nadine asked.
Charlotte remembered the men in seminary, how they paraded their faith in front of everybody with bravado, how they struggled earnestly with the plight of the poor and their own privileged situations of studying poverty in a classroom. She thought of how they talked about God and their relationships with him like they were old friends from high school or equals, how they secretly relished the notion that they had been set apart and called to lives that they believed distinguished them from other men, but how they liked to appear as if they really fought with their decisions to commit. She remembered how they swaggered effortlessly from class to class, trying to appear burdened and pensive but all the time concerned that nobody else was watching.
“Why are you suddenly so interested in my love life?” Charlotte was uncomfortable with the discussion and was not pleased with her refreshed memories.
There was a pause as another patient walked down the hall and stopped at the door. He didn’t speak, just stuck his head in, then moved to the room next door. Nadine shrugged her shoulders.
There was an awkward pause.
“We talk a lot in here.” Nadine got up and shut the door, then returned to the bed. “Everybody says what they feel about things.”
Charlotte remembered her visits with Marion and wondered again if the conversations were anything like the ones she was having.
“And there’s always a group meeting.” She hesitated as she recalled the lengthy sessions where everything was open for discussion, the raw and uncensored way the patients talked. She added with a certain amount of pride, “It seems like everybody thinks I’m doing good.”
Charlotte thought that Nadine sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
“What do you think?” Charlotte was easy with her question.
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to think.”
Charlotte understood perfectly. There were some things that could not be measured or analyzed. Some moods that couldn’t be described in thinking terms. Sometimes it was good just to have gotten through the day without crying or throwing yourself out the window. But that still doesn’t mean that you can explain how you think about it.
A bell rang that reminded Charlotte of changing classes in school. Charlotte waited for Nadine to explain it.
“That’s for another group. Exercise class for the kids.”
Charlotte nodded. There was a long pause.
“I blame myself for this, you know. I figure everybody else does too.”
Charlotte wasn’t sure what she meant, and Nadine knew she would have to elaborate.
“I was negligent with Brit. I shouldn’t have made you baby-sit her all those times.”
A woman screamed and there was a rush of staffers in the hall. The conversation stopped for a few minutes until the tussle was over. Charlotte got up to see what was happening but then moved back to where she had been sitting. She wondered if Nadine was finished.
Nadine went on. “And I didn’t have her in the backseat with her seat belt on. She was still supposed to be in the backseat.” Nadine took a breath and explained. “They make these car seats for children her age and I hadn’t bought one because I thought she was big enough to sit up front.”
Charlotte closed her eyes and hoped that Nadine wouldn’t say anything more. But the young woman, locked up and defenseless, had one more thing to say. The final piercing truth that she had never spoken out loud to anyone.
“I killed my baby. And I don’t know what to do about it.”
There, she thought, I said it. And it was easier than she had imagined. She changed her position, pulled her legs under her, but she didn’t cry or cover her face. She just stayed as she was, her body relaxed and at rest, a young woman lounging on a bed.
Charlotte didn’t speak. She simply sat back, remembering how she had walked up on a conversation at the grocery store not too long after the wreck. Two young women about her age had pushed their carts off to the side and were discussing the accident as if they had discovered its cause and justification. They acted as if they could explain it away, as if they had drawn it up and figured out the reasons for such tragedy, cleaned it up and given it a name so that they could hold it far and away from themselves. Charlotte had listened as they spoke in hushed and persuasive tones.
“Nadine did not take care of her little girl. Why, I remember when Brit was a baby, she didn’t hold it right. She let the head dangle off to the side. Mama said she wasn’t able to care for that child.”
One of the women was thin, tight-lipped, and nervous. She was dressed like she was on her way to do aerobics or run or have a game of tennis. She shifted from side to side as she spoke. Her face was red, glowing with the news.
The other one was broad-faced and animated. She joined in. “I know it. I saw her one time with that baby in the middle of February and that child did not have anything on its arms.”
This woman reached over to the shelf behind her and grabbed two bags of barbecue potato chips without taking a breath. “And what was she doing coming out that way from the church parking lot? Everybody knows you can’t see anything from that end of the driveway.” She threw the bags in her cart.
Charlotte had stood across from them, not knowing whether she should speak. She knew they were unfairly judging Nadine, but she also realized that they were merely trying to convince themselves that they wouldn’t drive a car into the path of another or that they were not so careless as to allow death to snatch up their own babies. She knew that in the face of suffering, people, especially mothers, came up with anything they could think of to keep their own fears at bay.
They became rash and ugly just so they would not have to lie awake at night and actually face the terror that had wrapped around their babies and slid out with them when they were born. Charlotte knew that once a mother’s womb tightened and cramped, once she widened herself to make room for the delivery, once she arched her back and pushed the life from inside herself, she knew that she had also given birth to panic. A panic so stark and looming that if she gave in to it, let herself think about it, toyed with the possibilities of it, she would gather up her babies and push them back inside herself. The idea that her child could die is simply more than any mother can stand.
Charlotte had not confronted them. She did not speak to their injustice or their loose tongues. She did not ram her shopping cart into theirs or pass them a cold stare that they would surely not miss. She did not wave her finger in their faces and accuse them of arrogant meanness or idle gossip. She simply walked by them with her head down. She was so devastated from the death herself that she did not have the strength to yell into somebody else’s grief.
But now, surprisingly, she did. She sat up a little so she could see into Nadine’s eyes.
“Nadine, I don’t know why Brittany died. I have sought hundreds, no, thousands of times to try to lay it out, fold it up, and stick it in a drawer somewhere so that when I was ready I could pull it out and deal with it.”
Charlotte lifted the blanket up to her chin. “I helped her into the front seat.” She paused. “I didn’t pull the seat belt around her.”
Nadine studied the young pastor as she claimed her own responsibility in the suffering.
“I was the last one with her, the last one to touch her. I could’ve kept it from happening.” Charlotte dropped her eyes. “It’s as much my fault as it was yours.”
Nadine didn’t move from the bed. She thought maybe she should climb over to Charlotte, that maybe they should hug or touch or something; but she just couldn’t push herself that far. So they just stayed like that, locked in the pain of being involved in evil and incapable of stepping beyond it.
Nadine finally shook her head and spoke. “I don’t blame you. I never blamed you.”
Charlotte replied quickly, “And I don’t blame you.”
Nadine turned away. “Yeah, but I blame me. And until I stop blaming me, I can’t figure out wh
at reason I got to get through the day.”
Charlotte had nothing. She thought about how she had felt for years after Serena died, how she anguished over it, felt responsible for it. Even now, she wondered how it could have been different. She thought how Serena might have been helped in a place like where Nadine was, or how she would have lived if Charlotte had made the decision to see her that weekend, how a moment could have changed everything.
But she also knew that an obsession like believing you are responsible for the death of somebody else can spread like a virus until everything inside a heart and a soul and mind is infected and destroyed. She knew all too well that taking that belief into yourself is like swallowing a fuse and then sitting back and waiting until every organ in your body is blown up and nothing is left but a shell, the insides scrambled like a bomb has gone off.
She knew there was nothing quick and easy about redemption. She understood it wasn’t always available at the moment or in the package and the size one felt was needed. It wasn’t always a sweet walk with Jesus in some garden near an empty but lily-laden grave. And that sometimes there wasn’t anything anybody could bring down from some altar or out from the pages of a book or even pulled from the beating heart of a God who allowed for the killing of his own son, that could ease away the constant clamor of guilt.
She knew that taking in mercy is like waiting on dawn in the middle of the night. A person just has to know it’s coming, just has to accept that it’s the one undying promise, just has to believe it without understanding it or pretending that she will evolve into someone who deserves it. A person just has to lie down and go to sleep expecting the morning to come. And that decision, that willingness to put down the doubts and the excuses and the blame and sorrow, that can only be made by the one hurting. Even God can’t do that. Charlotte realized that everybody, at some time in her life, has to decide about her own survival. And no one can be completely sure of what she’ll choose when the time comes.
And Charlotte understood that Nadine was going to have to make up her own mind about forgiveness, about survival. And as she sat in the psychiatric hospital, facing the stark walls, the hard, unyielding corners of the room, and the crude, exposed pain of somebody else, she understood that she would have to make up her mind about herself as well. It was as Marion had said, either she would believe or she would not. Only she could decide that. No matter how much the farmer stays working the fields, the plant ultimately decides its own fate. Everybody chooses to keep breathing.
“You don’t know what Brittany and I talked about the day she died, do you?” Charlotte got up from her chair and walked over to the barred window. She saw traffic spilling out of the parking lot, the road heavy with employees changing shifts and visitors coming in.
Nadine placed her elbows on her knees. Charlotte had won her interest.
“She wanted to know about heaven and about my sister, who died a few years ago.”
Nadine leaned her forehead into the soft place on the inside of her arm. She had not considered the conversation the preacher had with her daughter that day. She had not thought it was important.
“She wanted to know if people were happy in heaven and if they would be able to return to earth….” Charlotte stared straight ahead, out into the cloudy sky, the spirited autumn wind, remembering the conversation. She continued, “To visit the people they loved.”
Nadine didn’t speak. There was an announcement over the loudspeaker about an art group meeting in the assembly room. Neither woman seemed to hear it.
Charlotte stood away from the bed. The blanket draped around her like a cape. “It’s weird, but it’s like she knew or something.”
Nadine started to shake her head, then stopped.
“And she wasn’t nervous or upset or concerned.”
Charlotte remembered the morning. She remembered how odd she thought the topic of the conversation was when the little girl began it, how she, the pastor, felt uncomfortable with the questions, the idea of considering and discussing the afterlife. She remembered how Brittany played with the toys on the shelf, without thought or trouble, how she asked about Serena and whether there would be animals in heaven.
Charlotte added, “She said that she would come back and tell me about my sister.”
The minister pulled the blanket around her at the waist. She did not look over to the dead girl’s mother. She stayed as she was, waiting at the window, watching the people hurry in and out, the wind tossing them about. “I’ve never told anyone this because I don’t know what I think about it. But, Nadine, I wonder, maybe she knew.”
Charlotte hesitated, then turned around to face Nadine, her body wrapped inside the hospital spread. “Do you think I’m crazy for telling you this?”
Nadine didn’t change. She didn’t agree or tell her to stop or shift the focus of her gaze.
Charlotte kept on. “You know, she wasn’t mad.”
The pastor moved so that she was able to see the young woman eye to eye. It was the truest thing she had ever said. “She doesn’t blame you.”
Nadine did not look at the preacher. She did not respond out loud. She simply heard the questions as they pounded in her brain. How does a child know she’s going to die? How can a little girl be ready to die, be at peace with leaving everything she knows? How could a baby understand what it means to forgive? The young mother felt hopeless that any of what the minister said was true. She turned to Charlotte, the only other person who really seemed to grasp the demon she had been fighting. She thought about her, wondered how she managed herself among church members, carried herself through the rings of suffering she encountered in those she felt called to serve.
She thought about Brittany’s death and how she remembered only very little of the days following the tragedy, very little of who visited or what was done hour by hour. She had very little recollection of what else had occurred, where she had gone, what she had done. She had very few memories of the events. But she remembered Charlotte. She remembered how she stayed at the house for hours at a time, how she sat with her in silence, how she bowed without praying a word but somehow created a space to bring in some presence, some semblance of peace.
She thought about how it was the young and unconfident minister whom she called on that cold April night when she had run out of drugs and any excuse to keep living and how her pastor had calmly spoken of bringing over some coffee and pieces of cake and had promised her that she was not alone.
Nadine studied the woman. She tried to find signs of hope or faith, but all she could find was just another person struggling with what it means to lie down in the darkness and get up in the light. Another person who fought with demons and wrestled with grace. Another woman simply trying to find the balance in letting go and holding on. She saw somebody just like her.
“You believe any of that stuff you said?” she asked.
Charlotte pulled the blanket tightly around her shoulders. “I believe it now,” she said. “Can’t say I did yesterday or even if I will tomorrow.”
Nadine nodded. She leaned her head against the wall behind her and appreciated once again her friend’s willingness to speak honestly. As she closed her eyes she heard the last bell ring for the afternoon.
“That one yours?” the pastor asked.
“No, that’s for the kids to come inside,” she answered. “But I do have dinner in fifteen minutes.” She said this as she lifted herself up and sat on the side of the bed.
Charlotte moved toward her and removed the blanket from around herself. She folded it and placed it near the patient. Nadine got up and stood at the door, opening it for her guest.
They walked out of the room and toward the entryway without further conversation. When they got to the end of the hall, they stood at the door of the dayroom.
The television was blaring some soap opera, and several patients were gathered on the sofa, watching intently.
The nurse at the desk glanced up and smiled at Charlotte. “You all have a ni
ce visit?” she asked.
Charlotte waited for Nadine to answer, since she wasn’t sure of a reply. “Very nice,” the patient responded, then introduced her company. “This is my pastor, Charlotte Stewart.”
Charlotte held out her hand to the nurse, who shook it.
“I’m Sheila,” she said. “I’ve never met a woman preacher,” she added.
She was young, looked athletic, and had perfect teeth.
“Yeah, well, they put their pants on just like the men,” Nadine replied without emotion.
Charlotte laughed. “I’ll be leaving you now.”
The young nurse got the form for Charlotte to sign. The pastor took the pen and wrote her name and the time she was leaving. Then she handed the paper back to the nurse. A buzz went off and the first door opened.
“I don’t know what I think about what you said,” Nadine spoke to Charlotte as the pastor walked toward the door. “But”—she took a step and stopped, folding her arms across her chest—“today it helped.”
Charlotte turned around to face her. “Well, today’s all we got,” she replied before heading to the exit. “So that’ll just have to be enough.”
Nadine followed her while Sheila came around the desk and stood behind her. Charlotte walked out into the second hallway and out the second door. She collected her purse and waved at the patient as she stepped through the final door and onto the elevator. Nadine watched the door open and close. There was a brief silence as the two women stood facing the entrance.
“You know you were moved to step 5 this afternoon,” Sheila said to the back of Nadine.
Nadine turned around and stared at the nurse. Sheila knew that the suicidal patient hadn’t cared about advancing, and she waited to hear the reply.
Nadine was slow but confident in her response. The air around them was brisk but still.
“Then I guess I will eat my dinner downstairs.” She faced the front of the unit, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath as Sheila walked to the desk and opened the door in front of her.