“I see.” I nodded. “Doing the right thing can be difficult. Especially when it’s because you feel like God told you to. People just don’t get that.”
“No, they don’t.” He was quiet for a few moments as he picked up my hand and traced the lines in my palm with his finger. “You’re good for me, Charlie. I’m a better person when I’m around you.”
My hand warmed at his touch. “You were already a good person. You just needed someone to be a good person with. It’s more fun that way.”
“Well … ” He looked back up at me and smirked. “We certainly have fun together.”
“We’re agreed then. We’re good for each other, romance or no romance.”
“Actually—we’re perfect for each other.” He winked. “And I’m still betting on a romance.”
Later that evening, I lightly outlined each and every line of the sketches hanging on the wall. I think I was somehow hoping that tracing the lines of my parents’ faces would connect me with them.
“Am I gonna have to clean that glass every day?” Riley asked from the doorway behind me.
“Probably.”
“You okay?”
I nodded.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?”
“No,” I whispered.
He walked in and stood a few inches behind me. Although my eyes were on the wall in front of me, I could feel his eyes on me, and his concern was palpable.
Within moments I reached back and touched the top of his wrists with my fingertips. His hands flinched at the surprise of my touch, but they instantly rested again. Looking down, I watched as my fingers slid down the front of his hand until our fingers entwined. The top of my hand didn’t come close to comparing in size to his, and I noticed that my skin looked pale white against his sun-kissed tan. I wrapped our arms across my body and allowed myself to lean back against his chest.
For the first time in a year, I felt I was where I belonged. In his arms, I was safe and home.
“I can’t believe you drew these for me. I love them more than you could ever know.”
“I loved drawing them for you.”
Our voices were hushed.
“Making me happy seems to come naturally to you, Riley. You’re very good at it. Why do you believe that is?”
“There are so many reasons I could probly write a book about it. All I know for sure is that seeing you happy makes me happy. And being like this, just standing here like this, makes very me happy.”
“Then I’m going to try to stop being such an emotional wreck all the time and just be happy.” I turned my head and looked up at him. “I want you to be happy, Riley.”
“When I’m with you, I am happy.” He pulled me more tightly to him. “So keep spending time with me.”
“You don’t know how much I needed some happiness in my life.”
“Oh, I don’t know. You look pretty happy in that picture with your dad.”
I looked back at the sketch but couldn’t respond.
He placed the side of his face against mine, and I could feel my eyelashes brush his cheek when I blinked.
“Ever since the picture came in the mail, I’ve been wondering what you were laughing about. Do you remember what was so funny?”
“No.” Honestly, I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to go back there, not now. I didn’t want to lose the happiness I was feeling, and going back there would cause my joy to evaporate. “But I do know we haven’t laughed like that since.”
In one final brush of his cheek, I let my eyes close.
“Are you asleep?”
I didn’t know how much time had passed. “I was until you talked,” I admitted.
“Well, let’s get you tucked in. Your place or mine?”
“Mine. I want to sleep by my beautiful pictures.”
Within minutes Riley had the sleeping bags laid out, and feeling sleep quickly approach, I climbed inside.
I sensed the monsters as they crept out of hiding.
During the night I experienced another nightmare. It was worse than any other I’d experienced while in Oklahoma, and Riley wasn’t able wake me out of it quickly enough to keep me from experiencing the anguish at the end of the dream. For what might have been the three-hundredth time or more, I watched my mother and Melody die, and Riley was powerless to help.
chapter 13
“Hello, Attie. I’m Joshua, and this is my wife, Nicole.”
“Hello.”
“We’ve heard a lot about you, Attie,” Nicole added.
“Uh-oh.” I grumbled and rolled my eyes.
“All good,” she corrected. “All good.”
“Thank God.”
“Have a seat, Attie.” Joshua motioned to the chair next to the fireplace. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”
“Can I get you anything to drink, Attie?” Nicole asked.
“Nope, I’m good. I might need Kleenex, though; I’m a crier.”
Joshua took a seat on the sofa. “Right there on the table next to you.”
I saw a box of tissue sitting on the table and put it in my lap just in case they were needed.
Joshua began. “I’ll start by telling you a little about us. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“Attie, I’m a licensed and practicing psychiatrist, and I also hold a seminary degree. So, while psychiatry and counseling is my primary occupation, I feel called to youth ministry, and I do that in my spare time.”
“Wow, you’re a busy man.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” Nicole joked.
“My wife joins me occasionally if I need a female perspective, and she’s also always close by when I counsel females. I feel like it helps them relax and feel safer. So is it okay with you if she hears our conversations?”
I nodded.
“Trust me, Attie, my lips are sealed. I would never share anything I hear,” Nicole promised.
“I trust you.”
“Good.”
Joshua continued, “Nicole and I have been married for eight years, and so far, we don’t have any children.”
“One day soon hopefully,” Nicole interrupted.
“I’ve been in the ministry for six years, but we’ve only lived here for nine months. From what I understand, your family is very well respected in this town, but that’s all I know. Mr. Bennett only told me that you would be staying with them for the summer and that you were dealing with some difficult issues, and he’s hoping that I can help. He didn’t give me any more details than that.”
“Sounds fine.”
“Okay, any questions?”
I shook my head.
“Well then, it’s your turn. Please, why don’t you tell us about yourself?”
“Oh gosh, are you ready for this?”
He grinned. “Yes. I’ve heard just about everything, so nothing you can say will scare me.”
Before I spoke, he picked up a notepad and pen.
“I’ll be seventeen in August and a senior when we start school later this summer.”
Joshua was already taking notes.
“A year ago this coming Monday, I was in a car accident with my mom and best friend, Melody. They both died, but I didn’t. I should have—or so the evidence suggests, but here I am.
“I was pinned in the car, and bystanders were unable to get me out. My left arm and leg were jammed into some metal, so they couldn’t pry me loose.
“The car was on fire and the flames became too intense, so the people were forced to give up and leave us to die. Nobody knows for sure how I got out; all they know is that when the fire was put out and the smoke cleared, they found me lying about ten feet
from the car. The doctor said that the water they were spraying on the car kept me from suffering burns. Based on the physical evidence, my seat was crushed around a pole, and there was no logical explanation to me freeing myself from the vehicle. Evidently, as they loaded me into the ambulance, I mentioned something about a man in white carrying me from the car.
“I was unconscious in the hospital for a little over three months. While I was asleep, I had a very vivid dream.
“Jesus and I were taking a walk together, enjoying each other’s company when all of a sudden everything went dark. All I could see was Jesus, in his bare feet, standing on a stepping stone. He asked me if I was ready to follow him on a new journey. At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to or not. I was afraid to say yes. But eventually, after some prodding, I agreed. I took a step onto the first stepping stone, and next thing you know, I woke up.
“My dad was working through his own grief issues and never came to the hospital. So I spent almost all of my time alone unless someone from the clergy or a nun stopped by.
“After I woke up, I began to see Jesus in my hospital room. Sometimes he was alone, and sometimes he had angels with him. He and I would have conversations with one another, but the angels never spoke to me. They spent all of their time praying. There was one particular angel that looked familiar to me, and Jesus told me that he was who pulled me from the car.”
Nicole gasped. I looked up, and Joshua was no longer taking notes. He just sat with his mouth hanging open.
“Oh wait, it gets better,” I assured them. “Even to this day I have conversations with Jesus. I actually see him dressed in blue jeans standing in my room. We talk about everything from school to boys to boobs. Although, I must say that he didn’t like the boob conversation very much.
“Anyway, I also suffer from terrible nightmares almost every night and have since I woke up in the hospital.
“I’m currently living in my dead best friend’s bedroom and have a crush on her brother. Oh, and he sleeps on the floor next to me every night so that if I start to have a nightmare he can wake me up before it gets too bad. Don’t worry, there’s nothing kinky going on or anything like that. It’s totally innocent.”
Joshua let out a small chuckle.
I thought I was finished and then thought of something else. “One more thing, I’ve failed my driver’s test three times now. I think that un-unknowingly I’m afraid of driving a car, so I do poorly on purpose but don’t know it. Kind of a subconscious thing.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay, I think that about covers it.” I nodded and waited for their reaction.
They sat stunned and silent.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry. I already know that I’m a nut-job, so don’t be afraid to say exactly what you’re thinking. It couldn’t be any worse than what I’ve already told myself.”
“Do you really want to know what I’m thinking?” Joshua asked.
“Isn’t that why I’m here? For you to make all this craziness go away?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he responded. “Why are you here?”
“Is this like a trick therapist question?”
“Nope. I will not ask you any trick questions,” he said reassuringly. “So tell me, do you want all of this so called craziness to go away?”
“I want the nightmares to go away.” I knew that for sure.
“The rest? What about your visions of Jesus? Do you want them to go away?”
I might as well be honest. “Not really. I kind of like those.”
“I can understand.” He nodded as he and his wife looked at each other.
I was certain that they didn’t know what to do with me.
Joshua looked back at me. “Attie, I’m going to be brutally honest with you because I believe that you can handle it.”
“Bring it on,” I encouraged.
“I don’t think there’s one thing wrong with you.”
“Pardon?”
“Other than the nightmares anyway.”
“You don’t?”
“Nope.” He turned to his wife. “Do you?”
“Not at all.”
My mind was spinning. “Huh? I’m confused.”
“Attie, I’ve been a Christian for fourteen years and a pastor for six, and I must be honest with you and tell you that I’m jealous.” He was dead serious, and his wife was enthusiastically nodding in agreement.
“Huh?”
“You have a faith and relationship with the Lord that I would literally die for.”
“Me too,” Nicole agreed.
I was in shock. “Huh?”
“Don’t you see? God revealed himself to you in such an amazing, wonderful, and loving way that you can’t help but believe he’s as real as the three of us sitting here in this room.”
“He’s in the room too,” I stated.
“He is?” Joshua asked excitedly. “Where?” He frantically looked around.
“I was just joking. I thought I’d freak you out.”
“Good one. Cruel, but good.”
Nicole snickered at him.
“Seriously, Attie,” he continued, “the truth of the matter is that he is that real, the rest of us just aren’t willing to see it. Whether it’s the Holy Spirit or Jesus or God, or even your imagination could be debated forever, but the fact of the matter is, he’s here and you see him. You see him because you want to and because you’re willing to do whatever it takes to keep yourself that close to him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“God reveals himself in various ways. But to see him, and I mean see him spiritually, not necessarily in the physical, it usually involves a lot of sacrifice on the part of the follower. There must be a willingness to go through the very difficult times and walk out the other side still believing that God is good. Most of us are willing to go to church on Sunday and maybe Wednesday. A few will go above and beyond that and will serve in some way or another, but the reality is that most of us are unwilling to give up everything if that’s what he asks.
“You may not have chosen to lose everything, but you did, and rather than turning your back on Christ, you ran to him. Look at your reward, Attie. It’s amazing. You have a very real, very loving relationship with the Creator. With your Savior. I wouldn’t give that up for anything if I had it.”
“Me either,” Nicole said as tears rolled down her face and dripped from her chin.
I took her the box of Kleenex. “You need these more than me.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Joshua continued, “Other people, many of them fellow Christians, won’t understand. They may in fact call you crazy, but if that’s crazy then sign me up.”
“So to clarify here, you don’t think I’m crazy?” I asked.
“I’ll be glad to clarify. No, Attie, I don’t think you’re crazy at all,” Joshua answered.
“What about the nightmares?”
“I don’t know yet. We need to pray about it and see what the Lord will reveal about them. What concerns me is that you seem detached from your emotions.”
“Pardon?”
“You sat right there in that chair and told me one of the most horrific stories I’ve ever heard. You lived through it, but yet you told the story as if none of it affected you. That concerns me. It may be that you haven’t truly dealt with your grief, and your nightmares are a way for your subconscious mind to work its way through your emotions. Since you don’t deal with your grief when you’re awake, you end up having to tackle it while you sleep.”
“I guess that makes sense. But if I thought about it all the time, I’d be a walking basket case. I don’t want to deal with it anymore. Nobody would be able to be around me I’d be so darned depressing.”
“I completely understand that. Look, the Bennetts lost their daughter on that same day, and the only reason they’re doing as well as they are is because through counseling they forced themselves to deal with their pain. You haven’t been given the opportunity to heal. You haven’t talked it through with anyone. Nobody can expect to completely heal without working through their grief. I may be totally off base, but I don’t think so. I do know that if we ask God to reveal what’s behind the nightmares, he will. God’s faithful, Attie.”
I laughed. “Oh, I know that!”
“Yes, I’m sure you do,” Joshua agreed. “Better than most.”
“What about the driving thing?”
“I can understand your fear there. It’s very common for people that survive vehicle accidents to no longer want to get in cars, let alone drive them. That’s a normal fear that we can work through. Baby steps.
“Attie, you’re not crazy, and I don’t want you walking around thinking that you are.”
We spent the rest of the session in prayer. I found this form of “communicating” with Jesus very intriguing. Other than short prayers with Gramps and the church service on Sunday, I’d never prayed with anyone else around. Joshua seemed to know what he was doing. I figured he must have taken a prayer class in seminary or something. He used beautiful words and terms that I’d never heard before. I found myself wishing that I had a tape recorder so that I could play it back, but then I felt guilty because I was thinking about recording the prayer and not listening to it live. I tried hard to concentrate and not let my mind wander again.
Joshua asked that the Lord “grant me peace of mind both during the day and while at rest” and that God might “reveal to us how to bring the nightmares to an end.” My favorite part was when he asked that my “struggles and pain would be used to bring glory to God and to be a witness to others that when you’re faithful to God all things are possible.”
Salvaged: A Love Story Page 12