~*~
Pete and I decided to walk home from school. In the November afternoon air, our breath steamed in front of our mouths. The gray sky made for a gloomy and overcast day. So typical of late fall.
We turned the corner to our street. I ran my gloved fingers through the needles of the old pine tree that grew by the street sign. It was my very favorite part of the neighborhood. I knew exactly where to crawl between the boughs in order to find the hideout underneath the tree.
Paul sat on his front porch, waiting for Pete. Paul went to the Christian school and always got home before us.
“Hey, Pete!” he called, punching an old baseball into an even older mitt. “You wanna play catch?”
“Sure. But I gotta check on my mom first,” Pete said. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Dad had been gone for nearly a month. Mom wasn’t dealing with it very well. She never let herself stop moving. Keeping busy helped her to stay sane.
“You think she made cookies?” Paul asked.
“Probably. All she does all day is cook and clean,” Pete answered.
“Why does she do that?” I asked, tugging on Pete’s sleeve.
“It keeps her mind off Dad being gone.”
“Hey, Pete!” Paul called. “If she made too many cookies, bring some over. I’ll eat them! I love cookies.”
Just then a dark car pulled onto our street. The turn signal blinked slowly as it moved into our driveway.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“No,” Pete said quietly, not hearing me.
The tone of his voice made my stomach hurt. I couldn’t figure out why.
“Pete? What’s going on?”
“No.” Again.
My heart beat faster and faster. Everything I saw went slower and slower.
Two men in Marine dress uniforms stepped out of the car. One man, the younger one, turned to look at Pete and me. He tripped over a loose cobblestone in the driveway and righted himself. The older man quietly scolded him.
“Marines,” Pete whispered. “Oh, please, no.”
The two men stepped onto the porch. The older one knocked on the door.
My mom opened the front door, a beautiful smile on her face. She was so pretty. She’d lost weight since our dad left, her clothes hung off her. But she was still pretty. Her smile faded as she realized who stood at the front door.
“No,” she said, her face pleaded with the men. Then she just kept screaming. “No, no, no.”
The older man held her upright and helped her into the house.
I grabbed Pete’s hand, not knowing what else to do.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Why is she screaming?”
“It’s Dad. Something happened to Dad,” Pete answered. “I have to help Mom.”
He ran toward the house, my hand still holding his. I fell to my knees before letting go. The sidewalk ripped through my tights and blood quickly soaked the thin cotton.
Pete made it to the younger man. He helped Pete sit on the porch. The man spoke a few words. My brother covered his face and his body shook. The man put his hand on Pete’s back.
I got myself up off the ground. My scraped-up knees hurt. Running to the pine tree made the pain worse. I crawled into the canopy. The needles stuck to the blood on my legs. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter.
I sat under the cover of thick, green branches and hugged my arms around my shins. Eyes shut as tightly as I could, I scrunched my whole face and tried to ignore what I knew was happening. Something bad had happened to my dad. I couldn’t understand what was going on. I only wanted to hide from the news, to block it out.
“She’s in the tree. Dot went in there.” I heard Paul’s voice, weak and scared. “You have to crawl to get in.”
The clip clop of footsteps on cement grew louder as the man got closer. A shuffle of branches and needles and dress uniform brought the young soldier into the tree.
“Do you mind if we talk for a minute?” he asked, his voice deep and comforting. “Is that okay?”
Without opening my eyes I said, “Okay.”
“My name’s Chuck.”
“I’m Dot.”
“I like that name.”
“It’s really Dorothea, but everybody just calls me Dot.” I opened my eyes.
Chuck had smooth, brown skin. His shoulders were broad. He looked strong. His face seemed kind.
“Well, my real name is Charles.”
“How did they get Chuck out of Charles?”
“Probably the same way they got Dot out of Dorothea.” He smiled. “Just for fun, I guess.”
“Probably.” I scratched the back of my neck.
He coughed. Adjusted his jacket. I could tell that he was uncomfortable. The way he had to slump under the branches.
“Dot, do you know why I’m here?” he asked.
“Did my daddy get hurt?”
“Yes.” He looked down. “He did.”
“Then does he get to come home?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. I’m afraid not.”
“They can’t make him stay there if he got hurt.”
Chuck didn’t look up at me.
“What happened?” I asked. “Did he die?”
“Yes. I’m so sorry, Dot.”
A large part of my life ended. No more trips to the beach. No more building snowmen and forts in our front yard. No more hugs or smiles or kisses. I would never have my daddy again.
I cried. The pain didn’t all come on right away. That kind of loss only comes on a little at a time.
Chuck reached into his pocket for a hanky. He very gently wiped tears off my face and pushed back the overgrown bangs from my forehead.
“I can’t breathe,” I gasped, trying to regain my breath.
“Just relax.”
Deep breaths in and out. I tried to be strong. Tried to settle. Calm.
“I want him to be alive. Why can’t he be alive?” I asked.
“I know. I miss him, too.”
“Did you know my daddy?” I asked between gulps of air.
“I did. He was a very good man.”
“Was he nice to you?”
“Always. I don’t think I ever saw him being mean.”
“Did he help you?”
He nodded.
“What did he do?”
“Well, I had a really hard time when I first joined the Marines. So I went to the chaplain’s office for some advice. That’s when I met your dad.”
“And then what?”
“He told me about Jesus.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “A lot of us became Christians because of your dad.”
“That’s really important, isn’t it?”
“It sure is. The most important job there ever was. And your daddy was good at it.” Chuck looked at the ground. “He was a good friend of mine.”
“Me too.”
I heard my mom’s screams coming from inside our house. I wondered if Pete was okay. How hard was he crying? I couldn’t think about it too long. I felt my heart shattering.
“I need to go home now,” I said.
“I think that’s a good idea. You three are really going to need one another.”
“Can you carry me? My knees hurt real bad.”
As Chuck cradled me and walked to my house, he whispered in my ear. “It’s going to be okay, Dot. One of these days, God’s going to heal your heart. Don’t ever give up on God. He won’t ever give up on you. I promise.”
~*~
I stood in the Wests’ house, years after my father’s death, looking out the window. I took in the sight of my childhood home and realized that I still waited for Chuck’s promise to come true.
Cora – 23
Lisa came the day after Stewart died. I sat, looking at the can of soda she brought for me.
“It’s hard to get started sometimes, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I just don’t know where to begin,” I said.
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“Cora, I know this is a huge stretch for you.” She put her hand on my knee “And I don’t want you to do anything you aren’t ready for.”
“I know. Thank you.” I sipped my drink. “Did you bring the pictures of your baby?”
“I did.”
Something within me needed to know that she understood what it meant to suffer.
Lisa reached into her purse and pulled out a small photo album. I looked at the pictures. That child never saw the sunshine or spent the night sleeping on his daddy’s chest. Lisa wasn’t woken up at three in the morning to feed him. Instead, he lived all of his life in a sterile room. Inside an incubator to keep the germs off him.
“He was a really special little guy,” Lisa said, beaming with motherly pride. “He cooed at me whenever I came to the hospital to visit him. The nurses told me that I was the only one who got his sweet singing.”
“That’s a beautiful memory for you.” I continued to flip through the album.
“You know, I still miss him. I spent every day at that hospital. I was there so often that the nurses always had a coffee ready for me, just the way I liked it.” She frowned thoughtfully. “After he died I would end up in that part of the hospital. My body was just automatically drawn to that place. I couldn’t help it. I guess part of me forgot that he was gone.”
My heart ached for her. Her story resonated with familiarity. More than she knew. We sat in silence, still looking at the pictures of a baby hooked up to tubes and IVs and respirators. Both of us had sons that died.
Her suffering convinced me to trust her. She wouldn’t pity me. She wouldn’t judge me. She would understand.
“I grew up in Tennessee,” I said, breaking the silence.
“You did? What region?”
“In the mountains in the east.” I closed the album. “This is a messy story. But it’s true. Do you think you’re ready to hear it?”
“I’m ready. Are you?”
“I am.”
~*~
When I was a child, we lived in a small, broken-down building. Scrap wood pieced together the walls of the shack. The windows and doors were poorly insulated, fitting loosely in their frames. Chill and snow seeped through in the winter. The tin roof radiated heat in the summer. Every part of the structure leaked. Rats and insects outnumbered the five people who lived there.
That square of wood and tin and glass was set so far back from the road that the occasional passerby would have completely failed to see it behind the thick trees. It was easy to ignore. And most people wanted to forget we were there.
The light blue paint peeled from the walls. I hated that the most of anything else in that shack. It chipped off the warped paneling, exposing the rotting wood beneath. So ugly, so wrong. As a child I prayed for paint, for buckets of it, so that I could cover over the decay of the house.
God never sent the paint.
My father slept in the one bedroom. When he felt generous he would allow my mother to stay in the bed with him. My brother, sister and I slept on cots in the living room.
When I was small, before my sister was taken away, my mother kept the house as clean as she possibly could. She scrubbed and swept and mopped and dusted. She could never get it clean enough.
How could one woman keep a house clean when it held such dirty secrets?
Dot – 24
“Hey, Dot, it’s me,” Mrs. West said, knocking on the guest room door. “Do you mind if I come in?”
“Just a second,” I called, wiping tears off my face. I stepped away from the window, straightening the plaid curtains. Before sitting, I pulled up the green comforter to cover the pillows. “Come in.”
“I made you some coffee,” she said, walking in. “I hope it’s right. Lola told me how much cream you take.”
I took the mug. It steamed, and rich aroma filled the room.
“Thank you so much, Mrs. West.”
“Oh, please, honey, call me Kristi.”
“I really don’t think I could. It would be weird.”
“After all these years, Dot, you should be able to.”
She took care of Pete and me when our mom couldn’t. She was more of a mother to us in those months. And she never made us feel like we were a burden.
“Are you hungry? We’ve got all kinds of cereal.”
“No. Thank you, though.” I sipped my coffee and sat on the edge of the bed. “This is really good.”
“Oh, I’m so glad.”
“And thanks for letting me sleep here last night. I have no idea what happened to me.”
“No problem, Dot.” She sat across the bed from me. “You know we have always loved to have you here.”
“I’m just kind of embarrassed. I’ve never passed out like that.”
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about.” She looked at me intently. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but do you have panic attacks a lot?”
“Sometimes.” I paused. “There are times I just get overwhelmed or nervous. You know. That’s when I kind of lose it a little.”
“They’re pretty scary, aren’t they?”
“Yeah. But at least I know what’s going on and what to do when they hit. The first time it happened I thought I was dying.”
“I’ve heard that from people.” She patted my hand. “But it seems like your life is treating you a little better these days.”
“Yeah. Lola takes really good care of me.” I smiled.
“By the way, Paul drove her home last night. He said he’s happy to take you there as soon as you’re ready. No rush at all, though.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Honestly, I really thought she was your mother. I guess I just assumed that if she was with you, well, that it made sense.”
“You know, there are times when she reminds me of Mom. It’s kind of funny, I guess.”
“Sometimes I wonder if God does things like that because He knows we need something to comfort us. Either that or He just really enjoys irony.”
“Maybe.” I smiled. “I think it’s pretty crazy that Paul ended up being the one to rescue us yesterday.”
“Oh, he was so excited to have found you.” She pushed up her sleeves. “When we were denied custody of you, he was just broken-hearted.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “You tried to get me?”
“Of course. But they said there was some kind of conflict of interest because of Norman’s position. You know. As the executor of your mom’s money.”
“You really tried to get me back?” I leaned forward, nearer to her. Hoping that I heard her correctly.
“Yes, honey. We fought pretty hard. Norman even hired a lawyer. But then we heard you ran away.” She looked at her hands. “We couldn’t find you anywhere.”
“I didn’t know anyone cared enough to look for me.”
“The hardest decision we ever made was to stop searching.” Her eyes, so full of remorse, met mine. “It killed us.”
“Why did you give up?” I asked, my voice just a whisper.
“We figured you were gone. That you left the state.” She reached over and grabbed my hand. “I have regretted that decision every day. We should have done more.”
“You couldn’t have helped me,” I said, tears in my eyes. “But thank you for trying. That actually means a lot to me.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, frowning.
“Don’t be. I’m okay now.” I forced a smile, my go-to defense. “It’s nice to finally be found.”
Cora – 25
Lisa came to see me every day to talk. It felt amazing to have someone care for me again. It had been a very long time.
She listened to me describe my childhood home. She let me tell that portion of my story several times. I seemed to sputter on and on about the small details. The floor board that hid my small treasures, the piece of wood on which my mother charted our growth, the outhouse and all its spiders.
“Thank you, Cora, for sharing all of that about your home,” Lisa
said after days of listening. “Do you think you’re ready to talk about some of the things that happened inside that house?”
“I don’t know.” I looked at her. “I thought it would be easy. I was sure I was ready. Now I’m just not sure I can do it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Lisa.” I took a deep, thick breath. The air burned my lungs. My heart raced.
“It’s okay, Cora.”
“I’ve just never talked about this. Not ever,” I whispered.
“Never? You never told anybody?” she asked. “Not even your husband?”
I shook my head. “Not even him.”
“Okay. I didn’t know that. You sure know how to keep a secret.” She handed me a can of soda from her bag. “Why didn’t you tell Steven?”
“That is something that doesn’t even make sense to me. It wasn’t that I couldn’t trust him. Maybe I just didn’t want to burden him.” I opened the can. “Or maybe I just didn’t want to talk about it. I thought if I didn’t acknowledge it then it didn’t really happen. Perhaps I hoped if I covered it under enough layers I could forget all about it.”
“I can understand that.” She nodded.
“And besides, trusting people can be risky.”
“That, actually, is very understandable. I don’t think you’ve had a whole lot of practice in trusting people. But you can trust me. I promise.” She smiled. “You just go ahead and talk. If you need a break let me know. I can always come back another day. This might just get real exhausting.”
I began to speak. Before, when I told her about the shack, I struggled with the words. My mind resisted releasing all the information. I stammered and strained to speak. However, that day was very different. It was as if some kind of unseen force dragged the words from my mouth and soul. And I couldn’t stop the stream of memory.
~*~
Sunday mornings, my mother led my brother, sister, and me to church. My father stayed at home, passed out. My mother told us that we needed to go to church so we could learn about living like Jesus.
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