When I Close My Eyes

by Elizabeth Musser

  “That’s awesome, Aunt Kit! Awesome,” Hannah said.

  “Sweet,” Drake added.

  She glowed with pleasure. Then frowned. “I’m going to need to get back to Atlanta, but I’ll be here over the weekend.”

  I actually felt relieved at this news. Daddy and Aunt Kit had never been close, and I felt he’d rest better with her far away. “That sounds good. Thank you for coming.” I gave her an awkward hug.

  Hannah looped her arm through Aunt Kit’s and said, “I know it’s meant the world to Momma. We’ll keep in touch as she progresses.” Then my sister winked at me, and I watched my aunt click her way down the hall and out of the ICU as Drake and Hannah ushered her to her car.

  I found Daddy sitting by Momma’s bed. When I entered the room he glanced over at me and said, “She squeezed Kit’s hand.”

  I read the expression on his face as easily as I had felt my flare of jealousy—extreme gratitude, and yet a longing for Momma to respond to him, to his voice. So far her eyes had fluttered twice—once when a nurse was administering meds and once with me—and then Hannah had felt her fingers twitch, and now she’d squeezed Aunt Kit’s hand. She hadn’t responded at all to Daddy.

  I leaned over, resting my head on my father’s curved back, circling my arms around his chest. “She’s going to wake up soon. I just know it. But until she does, Daddy, you have got to go home and sleep. You’re going to be sick. Have you eaten anything in the last twenty-four hours?” He couldn’t see me, couldn’t see the fear, the tingling suspicion. Carefully I added, “And you aren’t talking to us. I know you meet with Detective Blaylock several times a day, but you never tell us what you two talk about. I know everything is horrible, but please don’t shut us out. Talk to me!”

  He let go of Momma’s hand and pivoted around. Then he turned his hollow eyes on me and reached for my hands, and his were shaking slightly. Those large hands trembled with exhaustion and emotion. “You’re right, Paige. I’m so sorry.”

  I thought he’d stop with that admission, but his grip tightened, and he stood up and walked with me out of Momma’s room, practically pulling me along. “It’s just that I keep thinking this is all my fault.”

  “What is your fault?”

  “The shooting.”

  I froze.

  “If I’d sent her to the beach as we’d planned, it never would have happened.”

  I breathed again.

  “I wanted her to head to La Grande Motte at the end of September for a month, as she did after every other book release. But she insisted that she should wait a little longer. She didn’t want Hannah to think she was spying on her.”

  “They weren’t even going to be in the same town!”

  “No, but you know your mother. So we bought the tickets for early November, after the leaves had reached their peak over here.” His voice caught a little. Shaking his head back and forth, he whispered, “I should have insisted.”

  Relief flooded through me. Daddy had not been brooding about The Awful Year and hidden secrets. He had simply been blaming himself for poor timing. A feeling of protection for my father surged through me, almost like the shock I’d gotten the week before when I’d accidently touched the knife to the side of the toaster as I was trying to fish out the toast. A zap—strong, warm, electrifying. Almost too enthusiastically I said, “But Daddy, think about it. If someone wanted to shoot Momma that bad—they’d figure out another time and another way, don’t you think?”

  He cocked his head. “Maybe. Maybe.”

  “Well, one thing I know is it’s not your fault.” I threw my arms around his neck and felt gratified with the powerful hug he returned.

  “Thank you, Paige. We’re going to get through this.”

  “Go home and rest. Aunt Kit is leaving, so you should be able to get some sleep.”

  He gave a little chuckle and nodded.

  “Drake and Hannah and I are here. Go home. The fridge is crammed with food.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I took Milton to Mrs. Swanson’s. I think she’s having the time of her life keeping watch over the house, collecting the casseroles and mail, and taking care of the dog. But she’ll probably let you have him back, if you beg.”

  Daddy actually grinned at that remark, which felt like progress and hope.

  Our father played at life. Hannah and I had always loved his perspective, especially since Momma was often brooding, temperamental, and overly sensitive. And with Daddy, we got to be athletes, and we loved it. He’d kicked a soccer ball with us from the time we were tiny. As women’s soccer kept growing in the States, I hoped to follow in my father’s footsteps with a soccer scholarship to college. And then follow Hannah’s example and spend a year abroad in France.

  But Daddy had not shown the mischievous, playful side of himself—his real self—since before the shooting, and I longed to have him back.

  Aunt Kit’s presence had only seemed to make it worse.

  During one of her visits a month or two earlier, she must have gotten into an argument with Momma. I was at the window in my room, staring out at the stars when I heard Aunt Kit storm out of the house, slamming the door. Daddy came out seconds later, running after her. Looking down from my window I saw him grab her arm. Daddy was never one to raise his voice, and I’d never seen him grab anyone but me, and that was during The Awful Year. But he twirled her around and yelled, “Kit, you have got to leave Jo alone! Take your craziness somewhere else! You’re going to be the death of her, I swear it!”

  Daddy never swore or cursed, but after he pronounced that, he did swear, using words that made me blush and sent Aunt Kit away in a fury.

  JOSEPHINE

  1985 . . . For Josephine, marriage was bliss. Patrick played for a minor league soccer team, and she worked for a small neighborhood newspaper. Neither made much money, but they had their dreams. Someday Patrick would join a professional team, and she would write a novel. For now, they lived in a tiny apartment where they laughed and loved, far away from her mother’s frantic social schedule and her father’s philandering and drinking and outbursts of anger. And far from Kit, who jet-setted between Europe and America, doing what she did best—ruining her own life.

  One thing Kit said, Josephine agreed with. Soccer players did have the sexiest legs. At least her soccer player did.

  ———

  1986 . . . Generous, Josephine said to herself, looking out at the sandy dunes and the sparkling sea beyond. She felt great gratitude for Patrick’s family’s generosity, paying for their plane tickets to France. Every moment at La Grande Motte felt like a coming home in Josephine’s spirit. While Patrick volunteered his time to travel with the Christian soccer team, she stayed in the apartment where she could watch the sun set over the Mediterranean.

  And she wrote.

  But she often spent the weekends in nearby Montpellier, learning to cook French style with Patrick’s grandmother, Mamie Bourdillon, and practicing her fledgling French. Surprisingly enough, Mamie reminded Josephine of Terence. On the outside they had nothing in common, from their skin color and gender and language to their culture and social status. But Mamie displayed a type of no-nonsense kindness that Terence had shown too.

  Josephine found herself falling in love with France when they visited that first June. She wished she never had to return to the States. She wanted to stay in this old world with its simple rhythms, like shopping at the marché on Saturday mornings with Mamie, whose first thought on waking was, What shall I fix for lunch? Mamie could have hired a full-time cook to prepare the meals, but she preferred to do it herself.

  Josephine tried to imagine a life where she didn’t wrestle with twenty demons before getting out of bed. Where the simple pleasure and necessity of lunch was the most important item on the day’s agenda.

  ———

  1987 . . . Patrick was traveling with a Christian soccer team somewhere in Africa for two long months. For the first time, the tiny apartment felt lonely. How she missed him
! She snuggled in bed, reading Pat Conroy’s latest disturbingly brilliant release, The Prince of Tides. She had stayed up way too late, caught up in the tragic tale, and had just turned out the light at one o’clock when the phone rang. She climbed out of bed and rushed to get it, expecting to hear Patrick’s voice in a patch of static.

  Instead she heard her mother’s shrill, panicked cry. “Kit’s in a coma.” Then she whispered, “Drug overdose. We’re so afraid, Jo.”

  With no way to reach Patrick, Josephine threw on a pair of jeans and drove straight to Atlanta. She sat by her sister’s bed at Piedmont Hospital for three interminable days until she came out of it.

  “I promise I’ll sober up, JoJo. I promise,” Kit mumbled.

  When Josephine returned to work, her boss said, “Don’t do that to me again, Jo. I know it’s family, but the stories have to get out. On time.”

  ———

  Josephine sifted through the thick stack of multicolored index cards. Some were so worn they felt limp in her hands. Her Bible verses. Ever since the youth pastor, Fred O., had encouraged her to use Scripture to calm herself, she had begun writing the verses on index cards and carrying them with her on her daily walks. Some days she merely repeated the words to herself, but on the darkest days, she prayed them out loud, a desperate crying out to God. Today she picked two bright yellow cards, both worn thin. She prayed the verses for Kit and for herself. Verses about anger and forgiving someone time and time and time again.

  ———

  After her three months in the treatment center, Kit asked to move in with Patrick and Josephine. “Just for a few weeks, JoJo. Promise. I cannot return to our parents’ house of lies.”

  Josephine felt something inside her die.

  “Feeny, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Patrick said when she told him of Kit’s request.

  “But she’s my sister. I have to help her.”

  Two weeks turned into two months, and the cozy apartment so filled with love now felt cramped and tense. There was no room for intimacy with Kit’s larger-than-life drama imposed on them.

  Josephine felt the darkness creeping in on her, closer and closer, but Kit’s darkness superseded her own. It was as if Kit were hijacking her life, grabbing for any attention she could get. And the way she looked at Patrick made Josephine’s stomach churn.

  One night Kit stepped out of the bathroom barely wrapped in a towel and stumbled into their bedroom, completely inebriated. Josephine grabbed a blanket and threw it around her. Patrick, eyes ablaze, yelled, “Get out! Get out now!”

  “You can’t turn me away, Pat!” slurred Kit. “You know you don’t want to turn me away!”

  Josephine pulled her into the kitchen. “You have to leave, Kit,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, but that’s it. You have to leave.”

  Kit gave a pitiful laugh. “You’re just afraid I’ll take Pat away from you! Well, I guarantee if I wanted him bad enough, you couldn’t do anything about it.”

  Josephine felt her knees go weak. Heart hammering and in a small voice she said, “I’m not afraid, Kit. But you can’t stay. I think you’re jealous of my life. I want you to find the life you’re meant to live. Not mine. Not Mother and Father’s. Yours. And you can’t find it here. I’m sure of that.”

  She found the courage to say the words, but it felt as though it cost Josephine her last shred of sanity.

  ———

  1989 . . . The first miscarriage happened at eleven weeks. Josephine had never seen so much blood. Patrick lifted her off the kitchen floor and carried her to the car, his face pasty white amid all that red.

  The second time she made it to fourteen weeks, and this time Patrick was in Africa with the soccer team. Her elderly neighbor drove her to the ER, and Patrick didn’t even know anything about it for two long weeks.

  Josephine tried to pull herself back from the edge of that dark hole, but she felt nothing but a withering of her soul, as if her physical and spiritual strength had dried up completely. When she read the Bible verses on the index cards, the words seemed to be in a different language, one she didn’t understand at all.

  When Patrick finally got back home, he knelt before her in tears. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here, Feeny. I’ll quit traveling with the team. I won’t leave you again.”

  “I don’t want you to give up your dream, Patrick.”

  “You’re more important than my dream. I love you so much, Feeny. I’ll do anything for you.”

  She knew he spoke the truth. He cared for her, loved her so much. But sometimes she feared he loved her too much. What would he do for her? Give up his job, his calling, his dreams? Would God ask that of him?

  PAIGE

  When Hannah and I returned to Momma’s room, Drake was bent so close to Momma that for a second I caught my breath. Was she talking to him? I watched in silence. No, no, of course not. But he was talking to her, low and soft.

  “Momma Jo, I’m leaving now, and the next time I come, we’ll continue this conversation. Please don’t worry. I love you, Momma Jo.” He kissed her softly on the cheek, then stood up and gave a nod our way.

  Any movement? I mouthed.

  He shook his head.

  “It almost looked like you were having a real conversation,” I added when we were out of Momma’s room.

  “How I wish. But I believe you’re right. I think she hears us. And I think she was delighted with my news.”

  “What news was that?”

  He took my hand. “Just reminding her how much I love her and how she really saved my life. How she’s family to me.”

  But I could tell he’d said something else too. “And?”

  “And now I’ve got to be getting back to school. Walk me to my car?”

  Hannah gave me a wink—the nerve—and went into Momma’s room.

  “Sure.” But I didn’t want him to go. I had more questions, more things I wanted to hash out with him.

  The sun was bright, enhancing the colors on the trees, making them sparkle as they softly twirled in the breeze. Momma loved fall, and I had a lot of memories of hiking in the hills with her at this time of year.

  “You going to hang in there, Bourdy?” The way Drake pronounced my nickname made my stomach do a little flip-flop.

  “Yeah, sure. We’ll figure this thing out.” It came out as a squeak.

  “We’ll figure this thing out? That’s a worse line than You’ve got the best bed in the whole place.”

  “Agreed. So here’s what I really want to say.” I cocked my head to the side. “Do you remember other things about The Awful Year?”

  He gave a halfhearted shrug, his posture deflating the slightest bit.

  “You do remember something!” I accused.

  Drake stopped, took both of my arms in his hands, and got the sweetest, saddest look on his face. Then he took his left hand and rubbed my cheek softly with the back of his hand, as he had done a hundred times before when he wanted to calm me down. Only this time it sent chills through me, and then I blushed, and all I could think of for a few seconds was how Hannah said that Drake cared deeply for me.

  The gesture was kind and compassionate, but perhaps, the thought zipped through me, perhaps not like a brother stroking his sister’s cheek. It unnerved me so much that I actually jumped when Drake started talking.

  “Oh, Paige. I spent half of that year on the couch in your den, pouring out my heart to your mother. Of course, I have a hundred memories.”

  A thought struck me, something I had never considered before. “But did Momma pour out her heart to you too? Did she tell you anything that would make what happened later make sense?”

  “So many hard things happened that year. I’m sure she talked about some of them,” he said vaguely.

  “You won’t tell me, will you? Is it to protect Daddy? Is that why?”

  This time he pulled me into his arms and held me against his chest where I could hear one of our hearts—or perhaps both—thump, thump, thumping. “Paige, I prom
ise I would tell you in a second if I remembered something from those difficult weeks and months that could shed light on what’s going on right now. I promise.”

  Then he bent over and kissed me oh, so softly, on the cheek. He squeezed my shoulder and was gone.

  I walked back into the hospital and went down to Café 509 feeling light-headed, heart and mind racing, not paying attention to anything but Drake’s last comment. I actually bumped into someone who was carrying a tray, and when I looked up and muttered, “Excuse me. I’m so sorry!” I saw that it was the tattooed blond man I’d seen in the middle of the night on Monday.

  He looked startled for a second, his pale eyes unfocused, then he recovered, recognized me, and said, “Hey.”

  “Hi. Gosh, I wasn’t looking where I was going. Did anything spill?”

  “Nah, just a little of my Coke. Got plenty left.”

  I watched him lumber over to one of the tables and sit down. He fidgeted with the paper on a candy bar, peeled it down, and took a bite of the chocolate and then a sip of his Coke. His hands were trembling, and he seemed pretty strung out.

  I walked over to the table and asked, “Is your son okay?”

  When he looked at me with his scary eyes, I couldn’t help it, I felt sorry for him again.

  “He’s in surgery right now. Pretty hard on me and my wife. She’s gotta be at work—she’ll be heading over here in a little while. Surgery lasts a long time.” He wrung his hands together. Then looked up at me again. “Got another of your mother’s books. Trying to keep my mind busy.” He patted the paperback that was lying beside his tray.

  I stood a little way off, my hands in my jeans pockets. “I know what you mean. It’s horrible to keep waiting.”

  “Your mom any better? Not saying too much on the news these days.” Before I could answer, he added, “Never mind. I remember you don’t like to talk about it. Sorry to ask.”

  “She’s still in the coma.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “Thanks. I hope your son pulls through the surgery okay.”