Before I Wake

by Robert J. Wiersema

  It was like that for the rest of the afternoon. We meandered from shop to shop, stopping for coffee at one point, walking along the water through the Inner Harbour, through Market Square and finally into Chinatown. We avoided the furniture stores and kitchen boutiques where we used to spend so much of our time.

  Despite being on the news in the past few days, we weren’t recognized.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, as we were walking through Chinatown.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

  “Do you want to get a bite to eat?”

  My first thought was of Sherry. “What time is it?”

  He glanced at his wrist reflexively, then, grinning, pulled back his sleeve to reveal his naked arm. “I forgot to put my watch on this morning.”

  I checked my own wrist. “Sure. I guess we’ve got time.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about her either.”

  I nodded.

  “Ruth’s there,” he ventured. “And I’ve got my cell.”

  “Lunch would be good.”

  “What about right here?” He gestured at the restaurant where we had stopped. It was one of a dozen in that single block. Most of them were indistinguishable from one another, but this one stood out.

  “It’s been a long time,” I said.

  “Maybe they still do the special.”

  The lunch special was almost twice as expensive as it had been the last time we had eaten there, but the chairs and tables seemed to be the same. The waitress, tall, willowy and young with a tattoo in the small of her back, was different, but cut from the same cloth.

  “God, we must have come here every week for a year,” Simon said, sipping his ice water.

  “It was every week,” I answered, smiling. “It was the only place we could afford.”

  In his last year as an undergrad, Simon had worked as the night clerk in a convenience store. Three ten-hour graveyard shifts each week. I hated being alone in the apartment, so I would bring a book or some homework with me and set up in one corner of the store for the night. He’d get off at eight in the morning and we’d go back to our basement apartment and fall into bed, too tired even to make love, sleeping through most of the day.

  When we woke up, we’d walk downtown, stopping at this restaurant for the all-day lunch special.

  He cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking about that time a lot recently. That first apartment. Working those stupid hours.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  He smiled. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? That we even survived.”

  “We were young.”

  “Yeah. I guess.” His gaze was far away. “Still. I think it was the last time I can remember feeling that there were more doors opening in front of me than there were closing behind me.”

  His hand was on the table, next to the bags from the bookstore and the record store.

  I was startled by how close I came to taking it in my own. And then I noticed his wedding ring.

  “When did you put that back on?” I asked.

  He looked down at his hand. “This morning. I don’t know. I just put it on.”

  I nodded, unable to look away.

  “Is that all right?”

  “That’s really up to you,” I said, then I stopped myself. “No,” I started again. “No, it’s not. I don’t want to close any doors on you…”

  “But?” he said.

  “I don’t think…I like having you at the house. I like all this, being with you like this. But I don’t think you can stay. Not now. Not yet. Not with everything we’ve been talking about the last couple of days.”

  I waited for him to argue. Instead, he nodded. “Yeah.”

  “I know that it’s not fair, but I’m still hurt. And I’m worried that we’ll slip into the same old patterns.”

  “No, it’s fair. I’ve still got some things I need to figure out. It wouldn’t be fair to you if I was at the house when I hadn’t…”

  I looked down at his hand, the ring, on the black tabletop. I didn’t want to ask. “Will you go back to Mary’s?”

  He shook his head. “No. That wouldn’t be fair to her. To either of you.”

  “Your women.”

  He half-smiled, and glanced at the space on his wrist where his watch should have been. “Could I stay at the house one more night? I’ll find a place tomorrow…”

  He looked so open. “Of course. It’ll be good to have you there first thing. I think tomorrow’s going to be a difficult day.”

  I looked once more at his ring, the ring he had put back on this morning, then glanced at the matching gold band I had never removed.

  LEO

  Father Peter was already at the edge of the cliff when I got to Dallas Road. It had taken me a little longer to get Mother settled than I thought it would. She wouldn’t let me leave until I had eaten some lunch.

  The wind was blowing Father Peter’s coat back like a cape when I came up behind him. I didn’t want to get too close to the edge so I stayed by the bench. It was even scarier than it was at night because I could see how high up we were.

  The park was full of people walking after church, dogs running around with no leashes, people flying kites. The wind was cold.

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here,” I said to his back. “My mother…”

  “That’s all right,” he said. “It gave me time to think.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long time, and people walked along the sidewalk behind me. Then he said, “Why don’t you come over here, Leo?”

  “I, I’m a little bit scared,” I answered, holding on to the back of the bench.

  “You’re scared? Of falling?” He held out his hand to me. The silver coin flashed in his other hand, flashing, flashing.

  “Come to me, Leo. I won’t let you fall.”

  I took a deep breath and walked toward him. Baby steps. I tried not to look over the edge as it got closer and closer. I didn’t feel safe until I took his hand.

  “That’s good,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen to you. You know that.”

  I nodded, too scared to look away from his face.

  “You know that you’re safe with me.”

  I nodded again.

  “You can look down,” he said. “It’s all right. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  I knew he wouldn’t. I knew that if I did what I was told Father Peter would keep me safe.

  So I looked down.

  There were bushes at my feet, then the cliff and all I could see was the gray water and the rocks way down below. It looked so cold. I felt like I might throw up.

  “You see?” His soft voice was close to me, almost inside my head. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I know,” I nodded, looking down at the rocks and the water.

  “You were right to be scared, though,” he said. “Your soul is in grave, grave peril. That little girl, all this talk about miracles. Your soul is teetering on the edge of a vast abyss, hundreds of times higher than this cliff.”

  I could see myself falling, and I shivered.

  When I looked at him, Father Peter looked worried and a little sad.

  “I can save you,” he said. “I can save you from those rocks, from that endless fall.”

  Save me.

  “I can save your soul. I can keep you safe.”

  I nodded. “What do I do?”

  “We need to talk, you and I,” he said, helping me back to the bench. “There is so much that you don’t know. Are you ready to learn?”

  I looked into his face, then toward the cliff. I imagined myself falling into the water, into the flames, and I nodded.

  “Barrett residence.”

  “Karen?”

  “No, I’m sorry. Mrs. Barrett isn’t available to come to the phone right now. This is Ruth Page speaking.”

  “Oh. Is…is Simon there?”

  “No, I’m sorry. Mr. Barrett isn’t available either. Is there something I could help you with?�
��

  “No, I…Will they be home soon? I need…”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know exactly when they’ll be home. Is there something wrong?”

  “No. No, I just…Can you take a message?”

  “For Mrs. Barrett?”

  “For either of them, I guess. It doesn’t really…”

  “Of course.”

  “Tell them…This is Donna Kelly. My son, Jeffrey…could you please tell them, tell them we’re sorry.”

  “Sorry? Sorry for what? Mrs. Kelly? Are you still there? Mrs. Kelly? Hello? Hello?”

  SIMON

  Neither of us was particularly hungry after our late lunch in Chinatown, so we had a salad for dinner. A little lettuce, a little endive, some red cabbage and grated carrot, a honey vinaigrette—light and sweet with a touch of bitterness.

  After dinner, Karen looked at me. “Would it be okay with you if I had a bath? I never feel comfortable having one when it’s just Sherry and me in the house.”

  “Of course.”

  Once I was done with the dishes, I went upstairs.

  Access to the attic was a pulldown ladder at the end of the corridor. The only light was a bare bulb hanging from the rafters, catching motes of dust in the air. Karen and I had talked about building an apartment up here for Sherry when she got to be a teenager. It had seemed so far in the future then—now, it seemed to belong to a distant past.

  The attic wasn’t cluttered: some boxes of books and clothes, an old dresser still waiting to be refinished, a trunk of Christmas decorations that my mother had given us when she sold the house. It still took me a while to find the guitar, the black case leaning in a corner in plain sight, but overlooked so often it might as well have been hidden. I dusted the case off with the dish towel I had brought up with me, then pulled the chain to turn the light off, closing the attic door behind me.

  My new books and CDs were on the coffee table in the family room, alongside my watch and wallet. At one end of the couch I had stacked my pillows and the folded sleeping bag. Sitting down, I set the guitar case on my lap, flipping open the catches.

  I lifted the guitar from the case and the fingers of my left hand curled around the neck. I carefully rubbed it down with a chamois, bringing the color back up to a rich, honey-colored shine. The conditions in the attic must have been all right—it hadn’t warped or dried out. I changed the strings, and then spent several minutes tightening the keys, plucking each string, bringing the whole into tune.

  I’d heard stories of guitars that had been destroyed by being stored for a lot less time than this one. Sometimes an unloved, untouched guitar just faded away, incapable of holding a note, flat and lifeless. Casualty of neglect.

  I strummed the strings lightly. The sound was far from pure, far from clean, but that was more my rusty technique than the guitar itself. I fumbled for the chords. My fingers were stiff, and my transitions were awkward, but the guitar sounded fine. Its vibrations pulsed through my belly and filled me with a remembered warmth. The strings pressed small troughs into my fingertips as I moved through the chords, first slowly, gradually faster.

  Karen had bought me my first guitar for my twentieth birthday. I didn’t even play. In high school, with my father out of work, then out of the picture altogether, my mother always struggled to make ends meet. She wouldn’t let me work to help out, so I dedicated myself to my studies. There just wasn’t any time to waste on something as frivolous as music.

  But Karen knew that a guitar was something I had always wanted.

  I asked Chris, this pothead who had lived on my floor in residence, to show me some chords. After that, I practiced every night for an hour, a good break from studying. The first time I played in front of people I was drunk. I played “Tangled Up in Blue” to the crowd at one of our house parties, stumbling a little on the changes at first, but quickly getting caught up in the flow. I even sang.

  “Well, you’re not as bad as Bob Dylan,” Karen told me that night after everyone had left. I took it as a compliment and kept playing. Soon, a couple of the other guys started bringing their guitars with them and we’d play together.

  I wondered where they’d ended up.

  I fumbled in the pocket of the case for my capo, fastening it to the neck of the guitar, bringing it up a bit to suit my voice. I tried to find the pitch, then took the capo off, dropping it back into the case. Apparently my voice wasn’t as high as it had been.

  Clearing my throat, I began to sing.

  KAREN

  He was playing with his whole body, leaning into the notes, the chords, bending into the song, his eyes closed. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and his voice strained a little to keep even close to the tune. He mumbled the words he didn’t remember, or just hummed over them. I drew my robe closely around myself against the cooling of the house.

  He played each song all the way through, never stopping, as if he needed to finish, needed to see each one through.

  Well met, well met, my own true love

  Well met, well met, cried he

  I’ve just returned from the salt, salt sea

  And it’s all for the love of thee.

  They were all songs I had heard a hundred times, songs that seemed more fragments of dream than of memory.

  I finally crept away without him seeing me, turning off the lights as I went. As I crawled into bed, I could still hear the guitar echoing through the heat pipes, the hallways, the otherwise silent rooms, his voice weaving in and out of the notes.

  For some reason, the sound of it made me feel both warm and frightened.

  Victoria New Sentinel

  Monday, December 9, 1996

  Miracle Fraud?

  Investigation reveals false healings, fraud

  ~City Desk~

  In a surprising development late Sunday, a source close to the Catholic Church announced that an inquiry may take place into the healings attributed to four-year-old Sherilyn Barrett, comatose since a hit-and-run accident last spring. According to confidential reports, those healings may be part of an elaborate fraud devised by her parents, Karen Barrett, a former journalist, and her estranged husband, Simon Barrett, an associate with Bradford & Howe.

  The New Sentinel spoke to one pilgrim who says she no longer expects a miracle.

  “It’s all about money,” says Donna Kelly of Seattle. Kelly’s six-year-old son, Jeffrey, suffers from leukemia, and was invited into the Barrett home on Friday. “They sit you down and give you this story about medical bills, and how all of the money goes to caring for Sherry. It’s pretty clear that if you don’t cough it up, they won’t let you see her.” Although Miss Kelly wouldn’t divulge the

  amount she contributed, she is very clear on the cost to her. “They catch you in this untenable position. You’re ready to do anything if you think there’s a chance that maybe it’ll save your child’s life.”

  A source close to the Catholic Church discussed the nature of miracles. “We usually find that these supposed miracles are psychosomatic. People experience temporary recovery because they believe in the possibility of having been healed. For the sufferers, it’s all about faith. People who are less scrupulous can easily take advantage of these believers. That’s what makes fraudulent situations so reprehensible. That people can prey on other people’s desperation, taking advantage of tragedy for their own gain, is terrible.”

  According to a statement released by the Barretts Friday afternoon, they will be allowing people access to their daughter and her alleged powers beginning at ten o’clock today. “It looks like a textbook situation,” says the source. “You hold people off, start the rumors going, then just let the demand build. The higher the demand, the higher the price.”

  The Barretts could not be reached for comment, nor would they allow investigators access to examine Sherilyn. Victoria Police would not confirm whether they would investigate the situation, or if criminal charges would be pending. “It would be premature to say anything at this point.”

&nbs
p; KAREN

  I awoke to a familiar but unaccustomed weight at the foot of the bed. “Simon?”

  “It’s me,” he whispered, touching my foot through the blankets. I could see the vaguest outline of him, sitting on the bed and looking toward the bedroom door.

  “What are you doing? What time is it?” I struggled up to a sitting position.

  “It’s a little after seven.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can I turn on the light?” He stood up, and the mattress shifted.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, fumbling for the bedside lamp.

  He turned on the ceiling lamp before I had a chance to flick the switch. The light was painfully bright on my sleep-darkened eyes. “Sorry,” he said as I winced.

  “What’s going on?”

  He sat down on the bed next to me, wearing only his socks, underwear and an undershirt. “You need to look at this,” he said, laying today’s newspaper on my lap.

  “What is it? What’s…” The black headline, over the picture of our house stopped me cold. Miracle Fraud? “Oh my God,” I muttered, skimming through the article.

  “I’m going to guess that the unnamed church source is likely—”

  “Father Peter,” I finished Simon’s sentence for him.

  I stared at the headline. “Why would Donna Kelly say we asked her for money?”

  “Maybe Father Peter made her a better offer.”

  “But we saved her son. Sherry saved Jeffrey’s life.”

  “We think. We don’t know that. Jeffrey might be just as bad today. Worse.”

  I dropped the newspaper onto the bed. “Well, I guess that’s what her phone call was about yesterday.”

  “Father Peter likely showed up at her hotel room with a bag full of money and some variation on the line he tried to sell us. She didn’t really have a choice. She’s not working—”

  “I know, I know,” I said, shaking my head, able to imagine myself in her position. “I just can’t—”

  I wanted to curl up and go back to sleep, to wake up a few hours later and discover that this was all a dream.

  Instead, I asked, “So what do we do now? Can we sue them, or…”