“It’s been easy for me to think that this last year and a half had only affected me—that I was the only one who’d been struggling,” I said.
She nodded now, slowly.
I continued, “But, I am starting to realize, that might not be entirely accurate.”
She stopped walking. It took me a second to realize she was two steps behind me when I turned around to face her.
Her eyebrows set into a deep pensive stare before a reply was offered.
“Victoria...you’re right, that’s not accurate at all,” she said.
I felt a spark of heat in the base of my stomach and pushed it down. I took a deep breath.
Stay calm; this is an apology, not an argument.
“Well...I’ve been in a rough place for a while now, Mom, and I know I haven’t done a good job at communicating-”
“No, you haven’t. Your father and I have never had a more difficult year in our almost thirty years of marriage. We’ve been worried sick over you, never knowing where you were or how you were...never able to get a straight answer from you. All we ever heard were excuses and conversations about anything and everything, but yourself...and that’s all we’ve ever been concerned about,” she said, a new passion filling in her voice—strong, yet pained.
I could feel my insides ignite again, this time they burned dangerously close to the edge, an edge that threatened my safety—my truth. I bit the inside of my cheeks, feeling my face grow hard.
But she continued on, unaffected.
“You treat us like we don’t care about you, like we aren’t the parents that have watched you grow up...nurturing you, providing for you, loving you. And yet, you keep pushing us away every chance you get. I’ve prayed so much, Victoria. I keep asking God to reveal to me what has caused this callousness in you. I am still so uncertain. When you left us without a goodbye it...it broke my heart. Do you have any idea what that did to me as your mother?”
The fire was unleashed. It jumped over every boundary, every restraint that I had put in place.
“Well, let me clear it up for you, Mother. I left because I knew no one could understand me or-”
“How could we, Victoria, you never gave us the chance?”
I stared at her, fear momentarily choking my earlier resolve.
“What?” she asked, hands gesturing broadly in the air.
“You never gave me a chance,” I said, my voice low and hard.
“What do you mean? What are you-”
“I heard you, Mother! The week before my graduation, I heard you tell Dad that I was ‘wrecked for life!’”
Pain ripped through me, as if I was hearing it again for the first time. Her hand flew to her mouth, eyes panicked. I looked down at the road.
My heart was going to explode.
“Victoria...you...I...,” she started.
Tears stung my eyes. I wanted to run away, I wanted to be alone. I wanted to be anywhere but here, stuck in this raw moment of weakness.
“I never meant that, Victoria. I was in pain-” she said, shaking her head.
“You? You were in pain? I had just been in an accident! I had just taken the life of a six year old girl! I was the one in pain, Mom...ME!”
The volume I had managed to keep low only seconds earlier was back now with a vengeance. She stumbled back a few steps as if shocked by my tone, shocked by my words, shocked by my truth.
She covered her face with her hands.
“I’m so sorry you heard that, and I’m even sorrier that I said it. I was grieving, Victoria—for you. I wanted so badly to take away your pain and I knew nothing I could do would fix it. I was scared for you, but I was wrong...I was so wrong to say that,” she said, staring at me, “I wasn’t trusting in God.”
Her last words cracked me, breaking the hardened shell that had quickly grown back around my heart against her. I couldn’t look at her face; it was too raw, too filled with regret. I took several deep breaths in the silence, drawing from a place within, a place that I’d only recently invited in for the first time.
“I forgive you, Mom. But...I was wrong, too. I cut you out. I didn’t want you to know what I was dealing with. I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone’s pity. I know that I hurt you, and I know now that I hurt our whole family with my choice to leave. I need to ask for your forgiveness, too.”
She reached for me, hugging me in the cold of Christmas night. This embrace not only fought to let go of our past, it also revived a need that had long been silenced: a need for my mother.
THIRTY
The bright yellow flier caught my eye as I got into my car, the words bold and insistent. I thought again about the opportunity I’d spoken to Dr. Bradley’s colleague about. Though the work would prove arduous, the experience would be one I knew I’d never forget. The reward for serving people in such great need would be incomparable.
Why wouldn’t I do it?
The answer was there like the nagging presence of a hangnail, his face burned in my memory.
Soon I’ll have closure...with everything.
After New Years, I would begin the necessary paperwork with the agency. Just a couple of weeks after the baby was born, I’d be starting over again, this time in a new country. I debated when the best time to tell Jack and Stacie would be, as well as my parents.
I’d made an unspoken promise to keep my family more apprised of my life decisions, but this proved to be my first real test. Though I didn’t want to hide it, I knew the close timing of the baby’s arrival was the priority. I didn’t want to distract from it or be insensitive to Stacie’s ever-growing hormonal complexities.
Driving through the farmlands on the old country highway brought my mind back into focus. I hoped my recent revelation would bring the clarity I needed to move forward. I meditated now on the words of Dr. Crane and then on the words that had echoed over and over in my heart as of late. There was only one way to find out. I slowed the car, parking just a few miles out. Taking a deep breath before surveying my surroundings, I stepped out.
Outside the car, I braced myself against the heavy steel door behind me. Reminded of the task at hand, I zipped my sweatshirt higher, pulling on the hood and tying it tightly around my ears and face. I started my run then on a road I’d seen a thousand times in my mind, a road that had haunted me for far too long. I was exactly one mile out now and could visualize what was up ahead, even without the sight to see it.
Closure. This is part of my closure.
I slowed as I approached the grassy bank, my body reacting with dread. A hundred feet out, I stopped completely. The scene before me was already in motion. Every detail was exact, a perfect fit to the memory that had held it captive. My body knew this land, this road, this setting, better than any place it had ever been. Though yesterday it was still tainted by death, pain, and resistance, today I hoped that would change. Today I hoped I would change.
The ground was hard and cold, frozen beneath me. My knees grew numb as they touched the very spot where they had once knelt to pray for a child, a child I’d held in my arms. The last time I’d been here, I believed my skill and effort alone could save her, but today I knew differently.
Today I knew I was powerless to overcome on my own.
God, here I am. I don’t know how to find closure in all of this, I don’t even know how to move on, but I want to. I need to. I’ve been stuck here too long, in this place of death. How do I find closure so I can live again?
And then…I knew.
**********
Stacie rested on the couch as I cleaned up the Christmas aftermath around her. Her baby bump had grown again. Within this last week I could see the toll it had started to take on her energy level and her overall demeanor. Though she was still Stacie in so many ways, I could sense a difference in her.
She often sighed as she rubbed her tummy, seemingly off in another world, one that I couldn’t get inside of no matter how I tried. Jack’s early arrival home had resolved her issues of anxiety, and no
w she just wanted to hold her daughter.
She wanted to be a mother.
I watched her from the dining room and smiled. Stacie, my older sister, Jack’s beautiful wife, would become a mother in just shy of eight weeks. The thought alone was perfection. There was no woman better suited for motherhood.
Stacie had always played the role of bride or mom in our make-believe games as children. She had carried the dolls and pushed the strollers. She had babysat during her summers in middle and high school, on speed dial for the whole neighborhood.
This was simply her destiny, perfect and complete.
There had been no names decided as of yet. Both parents lacked the ability to compromise. Jack had recently started drawing names out of a bowl in the kitchen, claiming he would just let the odds of the lotto system decide. Stacie pretended not to hear his crazy antics.
I chose to stay out of that altogether. It was one thing to be a tie-breaker when I could voice my opinion and then go on my merry way, but it was entirely another when I lived in their house. I’d keep my opinions to myself on that one.
After putting the last of the indoor decorations away while Stacie napped, I grabbed my journal and headed to the recliner near the window. Looking over my list once more, I focused on the final names for just a moment. Then, I turned to a fresh page.
On my lap was something foreign to me. Something I had only referenced, but had never known intimately: a Bible. Stacie had given me one for Christmas and had even gone through and highlighted the passages that she thought I’d find most helpful and encouraging. I ran my hand over the cool cover and cracked it open for the first time.
Her letter on the front page cover read:
Sister,
Words cannot express the love I have for you, or the hope I have for your future, but they would only fail in comparison to those God has already written for you. So rather than attempt it, I have highlighted some passages. You journey has inspired me, Tori. He is faithful. Let Him restore you in His perfect timing and in His perfect way.
Love you,
Stacie
I looked through several highlighted passages, always coming back to the same theme: God promises were hope-filled, not hopeless.
I picked up my pen and started what would be the most difficult letter I would ever write. The words were far from flowing, but each touched the page with a powerful determination that seemed outside my control. The sentences turned into paragraphs and soon I had filled both sides of the page. At its completion, I carefully tore it out and folded it, tucking it inside an envelope. This letter was not for now, but for a time that was quickly approaching. It burned in my hand as I held it, my heart pounding at its revelation inside.
Today I’d been given a glimpse of hope.
I could only pray the same for tomorrow.
THIRTY-ONE
“Where you off to this morning?” Jack asked me in the hallway.
“Work.”
“Work? It’s New Year’s Eve...and it’s not even eight a.m.,” he said, looking at his watch.
“The hospital doesn’t observe holidays, Jack,” I said, punching his arm. “I was able to change shifts, though. I’m starting earlier so I can get off earlier.”
He nodded approvingly, “Lucky girl.”
“Hardly,” I murmured, walking past him to head downstairs.
“What?”
“Nothing. Happy New Year, Jack. Hope you and Stace have a great night.”
**********
The graveyard shift had just rotated when I arrived at work a bit after eight. The first hour was always busy transferring the patients from one shift to the next and getting caught up on the events of the prior evening. A large banner hung on the nurse’s station proclaiming a wish for a Happy New Year. Nurse Stormy sat directly behind it.
Well, that’s an oxymoron.
She barely lifted her head as I walked by, but I didn’t mind. Stormy might have been an old grump, but after my last few shifts with Bev, I was grateful for her presence. At least she wouldn’t be talking much to me today, which was all I could ask for.
I headed down the long hallway to greet my first patient of the day, an older gentleman with a sinus infection. I worked busily, asking him questions of drug allergies and symptoms, all the while thinking of the countdown before me. My countdown had nothing to do with the turn of the year and everything to do with the hours just before it.
There was a steady flow of patients all day, which helped the slow-ticking clock seem to speed up with each new face I saw. As the end of my shift approached, uneasiness washed over me.
My movements became robotic: clocking out, grabbing my bag from my locker, walking to my car.
The night sky was dark, the sun having said its final goodbye of the year, just as I would do all too soon.
Jack and Stacie had already been gone for hours when I arrived home to shower. I found a simple black dress and paired it with a plum cardigan and black pumps. I readied quickly, not wanting to spend extra time on primping. I wore my hair down and applied the basics to my face. I focused for a moment on my scar.
What had once been the reminder of so much shame, now represented something entirely different: mercy.
My scar also reminded me of something else, the lone trace of a thumb that had known its shape almost as well as I did. Though Kai must have seen it in its original state of trauma—bloody and exposed—he had a rare way of making me feel more beautiful with it than without. I knew now that it had been his connection to me. His connection to the broken woman he had seen that night long ago. I still couldn’t understand it, but I couldn’t fight it anymore, either.
It was time to let it go, time to let him go.
**********
I arrived at the stadium at half past nine. The valet met me at the curb and parked my car in the very overcrowded lot. The amount of people who had chosen this venue to ring in the New Year was overwhelming to say the least. As I walked inside, however, I realized my expectation for the evening was far from accurate.
Kai would not be easy to locate.
A Christmas pageant was one thing, but here, where the lights were low and people danced and congregated in pods all over this gigantic room, chances seemed low.
I’ll have to find him after he sings.
I didn’t want to hear him sing, or see him sing, or feel him sing. I had one purpose: to find Kai, talk to him, and be done. That, however, did not prove realistic. I made my way down the stairs to the bottom floor.
Looking out into the crowd, I searched. It was hopeless. I couldn’t even see the back wall from where I stood.
The perimeter was seemingly endless.
Skylights, which were a hundred feet above me, hung metallic streamers that reflected glints of silver and gold around the room like a disco ball. The band on stage seemed miles away from where I stood, yet the music carried effortlessly over the crowd. Dancing was well underway, and it was hard to fight my way past the couples who were sandwiched together all over the floor. I finally made it to a far wall. Feeling flushed from my exertion, I leaned back against it and scanned the room again.
No Kai.
The irony of the moment hit me then. After all the effort I had placed on avoiding Kai these past two months, after all the ways I had been careful to dodge an accidental run-in…it had come down to this. I was now seeking him out.
I stood there for almost an hour watching people dance, laugh, and drink. Three different men had approached me, but I had declined their offers. I had a plan, and they weren’t a part of it.
The music started to fade. A well-dressed man, who looked like he could host the MTV music awards, took the stage.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention, please? We are just over an hour away from bringing in the New Year and we have saved the best for last. We have with us tonight a local celebrity and hero. Our evening entertainer is a paramedic in Dallas County. He is also one hunk-of-a-Samoan, one that I’m certain
every lady here will remember after tonight. I’ll let his talent speak for itself. Please welcome to the stage, Kai Alesana!”
The crowd cheered, clapping as he approached the main stage, microphone in hand. A bright light captured him in its orb, lights dimming to a soft glow all around the room. I stood motionless, caught off guard by his presence. My breath hitched, and my stomach took a nose-dive at the sight of him.
Anticipation shot down through my toes.
When the crowd quieted down, all that was left was the pounding of my heart. The music started.
I was compelled to move. My feet no longer felt attached to my body. I was powerless to control them.
Kai.
His name was so familiar, so comfortable, yet so distant at the same time. It hurt just to think it. I walked toward him, to a place where I could easily hide behind a group of rowdy women. I could see the buttons on his long-sleeve cobalt shirt and the laces in his shoes. I was close. Peering over a shoulder in front of me, I stayed hidden from his view.
He sang two upbeat songs on the current Top-40 play list and executed each perfectly. His tone matched every note, creating full swells and dips along with the melody line. His body swayed naturally to the rhythm of the music and with the crowd. He would be the talk of many after these performances; his talent was showcased at its peak tonight. The crowd applauded him again at the end of his second set, shouting for another.
He walked out of the spotlight for a second, only to return to it again with a guitar strapped over his chest. I peeked out, seeing him as he sat on the edge of a stool, strumming lightly. The band behind him played softly, matching his tempo.
He looked out into the crowd for a long moment, moving his eyes over the floor. Before tilting his head toward the microphone, Kai closed his eyes. A familiar ache traveled through me as I moved several inches to the left, veering further away from the ladies that were now calling out his name in drunken slurs. Kai didn’t seem to hear them.
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