When I Close My Eyes

by Elizabeth Musser

  If I’d been paying more attention, I’d have seen that Momma wasn’t fine or normal.

  I closed my eyes and knew it, knew it so clearly.

  In those recent weeks, Daddy had been afraid Momma was going to try to take her life again. Like the other time. I could barely admit that thought.

  So why, why, why did I show her those letters? How could I have been so naïve, so caught up in my life?

  At that moment, I felt such crushing guilt—and I wasn’t one to feel guilty. Anger and resentment I had aplenty. But guilt? No way.

  I pushed the guilt away, shoved it to the back corner of my mind and let the rage brew so that, by the time Drake arrived, I was so angry I couldn’t see straight. He read wrath on my face and said, “Let’s take a walk, Bourdy. You look like you need to get outside.”

  As we began our climb to the highest point on Bearmeadow, I spit out my story. “My mom is the biggest hypocrite of all! Why do the people I think model living as Christians the best do incomprehensible things? Momma tries to kill herself, and Daddy lies about it and gets so stressed out that he gets a DUI and goes to jail. And then she actually hires someone to kill her! What do I do with all this?”

  We’d reached the top and stared out at the vista of mountains, void of color, just endless variegated browns that looked stripped of life. I was heaving, out of breath from the climb.

  To his credit, Drake said nothing for a long, long time. He stood behind me, his arms wrapped around me as if he could harness the anger. I kept staring out at the mountains and thinking about Momma sitting in the wheelchair and mumbling those words that led me to the truth.

  Then my mind drifted to the character in Momma’s most recent novel, the freedwoman who’d wanted to kill herself. A hundred years earlier, she had stood where I was standing, at least in Momma’s imagination. And she’d begged God to take her life.

  He hadn’t. That would’ve been a real downer for one of Momma’s novels, which generally have somewhat satisfying endings.

  And God hadn’t taken Momma’s life either, in spite of her twisted plans. I felt the anger build again. How could she?

  “Why did she do it?” I said, breaking free from Drake’s hold. He remained silent again, until I said, “Drake, I’m really asking a question. Tell me something to make sense of this! Please!”

  He took my hand, and we began to trace our way along our favorite mountain path. “Bourdy, you don’t really know depression. You know anger.” He stopped me and brushed his hand on my cheek. “But depression can take you places that are incomprehensible to those around you. Remember The Awful Year for me?”

  I nodded, seeing in my mind’s eye a teenaged Drake, miserable and agitated and so needy. The anguish on his face had scared me.

  “During The Awful Year, I sank into a deep depression. Sure, it was caused by my parents’ separation and eventual divorce. But sometimes depression is just part of a person’s makeup. And that’s your mother. I think she lives with low-level depression, and at times of great stress, that has morphed into nervous breakdowns. Or what psychiatrists call clinical depression, complete with suicidal thoughts and actions.” He stopped and looked me in the eyes, peering into my soul. “Faith and mental instability aren’t mutually exclusive, Bourdy.”

  I chewed on that for a moment. Faith and mental instability aren’t mutually exclusive.

  Poor Momma.

  Drake tiptoed up to what he said next. “I think she chose this convoluted plan out of love for you and Hannah and your dad. Yes, it was twisted and crazy, but that was all her mind could invent.”

  She hired someone to kill her because she didn’t want us to think she was committing suicide. Yes, that had been my conclusion, too, although I had not seen any love in it.

  “And what do I do now, Drake?”

  We were still facing each other. I looked into his blue-green eyes, intense and filled with love. He reached forward with both hands and firmly held my shoulders. We kept each other’s gaze for a solid minute or more without saying a word. Finally he said, “You know what to do.”

  I thought of my family’s lies, how Daddy had protected Momma too much, had loved her too much. I thought of the years we lived with secrets, and I thought of the newfound freedom Daddy had gained—really, we all had gained—when the real story was finally told.

  “I’ll tell the truth.”

  ———

  We hiked the mountains for three solid hours, sometimes in silence, and sometimes I’d come to a full halt and let loose with another string of angry accusations. I even confessed how guilty I felt for not doing my job well those weeks before the shooting.

  “So many things drove her to it, I guess. Living with the lie from The Awful Year, the stress of the books, Aunt Kit’s crazy antics, the threatening letters.” My poor mother. “Will she be arrested?”

  “I don’t think that’s a worry.”

  “Daddy will want to keep it secret.”

  “He might surprise you.”

  I wanted to tell the truth, but I thought of all the vitriol on social media that was already spinning out of control as people hypothesized about the real culprit. If the world found out that it was Momma, what would happen?

  We’d tell the truth to Detective Blaylock, I decided, and to those closest to us, but not to the world. I imagined it would eventually become public knowledge, but not from me.

  We came to a little stone chapel on the crest of the mountain. Momma had told me its history—it was over one hundred-fifty years old—when she was researching for These Mountains around Us. Ivy climbed along the outside walls, giving it an almost European look. Drake knew how much I loved to sit on a wooden bench inside with the stones from yesteryear around me. I’d dream up stories and type them into my phone. On this day, I shivered. I’d perspired on our hike, from physical and emotional exertion, and now I felt chilled.

  He came and sat beside me, put his arm around me, and took both my hands in his other one. “Someday I’m going to marry you in this place.”

  Of all the things that could have come out of his mouth, this one had never crossed my mind. I felt my stomach drop. Then the anger came. “Are you serious? This better not be your proposal because it absolutely stinks! I haven’t got on any makeup and you’ve never even kissed me, and I’m not even eighteen. . . .”

  He gave that deep, annoying belly laugh of his and gathered me in his arms, and then he kissed me, really kissed me so that everything in my whole body started tingling.

  He let me go way too quickly, his eyes dancing. “Satisfied, Bourdy? And no, it wasn’t the proposal. I was just letting you in on my thinking.” Then he kissed me again and said, “Now please, hurry and grow up!”

  Much later, hand in hand, nearing my house, I asked him, “Why do you put up with me, Drake? I’m a hot mess.”

  He shrugged. “I figure once all the anger leaks out—and hear me, Bourdy, some of it is perfectly legitimate—the real Paige will shine even brighter.”

  “I’m not so sure the anger will ever be gone,” I countered.

  He scrunched up his nose and acted like he was in deep thought. “Trust me. It’ll be okay.”

  I wasn’t convinced. “What do you think about me not attending church?”

  “I’m a lot more concerned about your heart than your church attendance.”

  “Henry thinks Jesus wouldn’t be hanging out with the church folks. He thinks he’d be eating with the sinners.”

  “Sounds rather biblical to me,” he said.

  I stuck out my tongue at him. “I really appreciate Henry’s way of looking at faith. And his real questions, honest with no hypocrisy. He asked Momma if she believed in forgiveness and grace. The ultimate hypocrisy is that Henry sees it in Momma’s books, but she doesn’t believe it for herself.”

  “It’s irony, Bourdy. Not hypocrisy. The whole thing is ironic. But she does believe it. You know good and well she believes it. She just went on a rabbit trail in her mind, and she di
dn’t receive it for a while. Almost every Christian I know has done that at some point in his or her journey.”

  He nodded my way, and I almost retaliated in anger. But instead I whispered, “What if I never come back around to faith? What if I just stay on this rabbit trail forever?”

  “It’s a journey, Bourdy. You’ll come back.”

  When he said it so simply, with assurance, I wanted to come back. I felt a stirring way down in my soul.

  We’d reached the house, but before we went inside, Drake said, “I have no doubt about it. Jesus is a gentleman, and He won’t force His way in, but once He’s there, He woos us back, one way or another. With you, it might be a little rough. I personally wouldn’t challenge the God of the universe to a wrestling match, Bourdy, but if you must, you must. He always meets us where we’re at.”

  CHAPTER

  18

  NOVEMBER

  JOSEPHINE

  I am alive. I am supposed to be dead, but I am alive.

  The words echoed through my brain for weeks, when I was in the coma and after I came out. For most of that time, I could not put anything else to those words. But after Henry’s visit, I added, “I am alive. I am supposed to be dead. I tried to be dead. At least I think I did.”

  Sometimes I felt great confusion about this. My memories continued to blur together.

  But one truth resonated loud and clear: I was alive!

  The wonder of this truth permeated every inch of my body. I literally felt it in all of my limbs, even when I could not move them. I was overcome with thankfulness.

  Instead of the expected condemnation from my overactive imagination, all I heard was You are loved, you are worth it, this gift is for you. Take it, like a bouquet of flowers, like a view of the sun setting over the mountains, like your first glimpse of the Mediterranean after so many months. You are alive, and I love you.

  My Savior’s voice. Soft, gentle, persistent. Drowning out the accusations.

  I should be dead. At the very least, I should be deeply brain damaged and unresponsive. But I was alive and on my way to a new type of health.

  I felt great sorrow at what I had done, but the shame, the self-deprecation, and the guilt did not land in my soul.

  This was my first hint of the larger concept of grace. And the verses came back to me. Those verses had not left. They were embedded in my memory. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

  The gift of God, the gift of God. A gift. A gift.

  Healing from a gunshot wound to the head, from any traumatic brain injury, takes one thing above all else. Time. Although I had coherent thoughts, I could not always express them in a coherent way. My reactions were at best unpredictable, at worst frightening. I had lost my autonomy, my independence, at least for the foreseeable future. Often this realization causes a head-trauma patient to succumb to depression. But I had already been there.

  And I had tasted grace in a new way.

  I knew I could not let this grace be only for me. I had to tell the world the truth about the hole in my head—not the real one from a bullet, but the one whose name was depression.

  Paige and Hannah and Patrick had explained, delicately, about how the news of my shooting had gone viral on Facebook and Twitter and other social media platforms. They shared how the video of Henry and Paige and me in the hospital had aroused great wrath at Henry and how Paige’s explanation of the reason for Henry’s actions had placated some. But Kit, always the truth-teller, no matter how bluntly, was the one who said it best. “Well, the jerk who shot you was not the one behind the whole scheme. I still want him to be electrocuted, but now everyone is calling for the blood of the perpetrator. In my humble opinion, both deserve to die.”

  Both deserve to die.

  Yes, that was true.

  But with my new revelation of grace, I did not feel fear. I had woven many intricate themes into my novels, themes of God being able to bring good out of evil, themes of forgiveness and grace, themes of the least likely person telling the truth and that changing the course of history.

  Now it was time for me to live it out.

  I would tell the truth. To my family first, to my inner circle next, and then, to the whole world. Let the vitriol come. If I had survived, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it was because God was going to bring greater good out of what I had meant for harm.

  I thought of Joseph in the Bible, before his brothers, the ones who had sold him into slavery. When he revealed himself to them years later, as the second-in-command in Egypt, they were terrified. What would their powerful brother do to exact revenge on them? And instead he said, “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.”

  Joseph’s proclamation had saved the nation of Israel from obliteration. Somehow, I felt that my experience could save many lives in another way. Depression was a silent killer. I was ready to fight it now. Not only for myself, but to save many lives. I would tell the truth, and God would do what He willed.

  ———

  Later in the evening, I asked Patrick and Paige and Drake to come to see me. Patrick picked me up out of the bed and set me gently in the wheelchair. I had to tell them the truth, but how?

  Paige sat next to Drake, holding his hand so tightly that her fist looked taut. I read anger in her eyes and fatigue in Patrick’s. Drake’s eyes exuded warmth.

  I had not planned how I would communicate this truth. I sent a prayer heavenward for them to understand and I said, “I did it.”

  I thought they would question me, but no one said a thing for a few moments, as if my words were too garbled for them to understand.

  Then Paige said, “I already know, Momma.”

  Patrick’s hand came over mine, protective and strong, as Paige told what she had discovered in the rainbow folder. At first she wouldn’t look at me, and her tone was accusatory. But gradually she relaxed a little.

  Patrick listened to Paige with tears in his eyes that gradually turned to confusion and then surprise.

  “Paige. You looked in that folder with the letters to you and me and Hannah?”

  “Yes. Momma told me to. After Henry left she was so agitated. I guess reading that part in the novel reminded her of what she’d done.” Paige said more softly, “What you’d done, Momma. You said over and over, ‘Filing cabinet. Rainbow folder.’ Like you had remembered something. I guess after you planned the whole thing, you wrote those letters for us to find. But they weren’t in the filing cabinet.” Now Paige turned back to Patrick. “You’d already found them, hadn’t you, Daddy?”

  “No, no, that isn’t right at all,” Patrick said.

  “You didn’t find them?”

  “I did, Paige. Yes, I did. But that was years ago.” He took my hand again. “Feeny, you wrote those during The Awful Year. I found them that day. . . .” Patrick cleared his throat and turned away. “That day when you took an overdose of pills.”

  I nodded, trying to keep track of what was being said.

  Paige cocked her head. “What do you mean, Daddy?”

  “Back in 2007, I found the letters you had written to each of us, Feeny, and read them all. I read them while you were in the hospital recovering. I read them, thanking God that you were alive. You had put the Huguenot cross into the envelope with Paige’s letter.

  “I didn’t show them to anyone, of course. I should have burned them, I suppose, but I couldn’t. I think I wanted them to remind me of what a close call we’d had. And maybe it was a way to punish myself for not having paid close enough attention to the warning signs, Feeny. I should have recognized them.”

  No, my dear Patrick, no, nothing was your fault. Nothing.

  “I hid the folder with the letters, but I took out the Huguenot cross and gave it back to you, Feeny. Do you remember that?”

  Yes, I nodded. Yes, I remembered. I was a
t the treatment center and Patrick came and knelt beside me. “I think you’ve been missing something that you certainly need.” He fastened the chain around my neck. We met eyes. I knew he’d found the letters, but when I tried to say something, he put his finger to my lips and said, “Shhh, Feeny. It’s over. It’s done.”

  “But I know I saw that folder on your desk right after the shooting,” Paige insisted. “I went into your office because I was looking for the photo of Momma and Milton on the beach, the one where the cross shows up so well. And the folder was there. I noticed it because it seemed so odd that you’d have that kind of folder sitting on your desk, Daddy. But I didn’t think anything else about it. I stared at that photo of Momma and Milton, and then I went to look for the cross. I wanted you to have it at the hospital, Momma. But I couldn’t find it anywhere.”

  I could see my daughter struggling to put her thoughts together. “I had no idea that the cross was actually in the rainbow folder.” That hint of accusation filled her voice as she looked at Patrick. “Did you bring out the folder from wherever you’d been keeping it, Daddy?”

  Patrick gave a heartfelt sigh. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  “But why? And why would you put Momma’s cross back with my letter?”

  “I’m sorry, Paige. After the shooting I panicked. I was so afraid, Feeny, that you had hired the shooter. I knew the plot of the newest novel. I remembered the freedwoman’s twisted plea for God to take her life. I was so afraid. . . .”

  Patrick was fighting back tears.

  “I thought maybe you had taken those letters out to use again, Feeny. But I found them right where I’d kept them all these years. And the cross wasn’t inside the envelope for Paige. I cannot tell you how relieved I was to find it where you always kept it, Feeny, in the jewelry box by our bed. I put it back in Paige’s letter for safekeeping. Or maybe just to punish myself again. . . .”