If We Make It Home

by Christina Suzann Nelson

  Brushing my hand over my eye, I’m not surprised to feel it’s gotten even bigger. I imagine the swelling stretching the skin, creating wrinkles on the canvas I’ve so carefully protected. None of it matters anymore.

  In an effort to go back to sleep, I start my routine of replaying one of my sessions in my mind. The one that comes up first is a segment from last year about managing your family’s schedules. I’ve used this little trick to order my thoughts for many years. It helps me stop the swirling of ideas and plans so I can relax and sleep. It only now occurs to me that I’m actually using my own ministry to bore myself into a place where I can dream.

  Recalling each segment of the outline, I recite the lesson in my head. Not letting even the smallest tip be forgotten. I remember feeling that this was one of the most important segments, my words were so vital for my audience to hear. But now, knowing my life is at serious risk, the lecture is revealed for exactly what it was, shallow.

  Why didn’t I tell them to hug their children close? Why didn’t I say that life is fleeting? Why didn’t I tell them that sometimes risking your pride in order to humbly apologize is worth the bruise to your ego?

  I want another chance.

  I need to fix this.

  When I open my eyes again, I can see the outlines of our prison coming into focus. Another day is dawning whether I want it to or not. There is so little I can control out here. So much I have to depend on God for—protection and provision. I’ve been counting on my own strength for most of my adult life. From the outside it seemed to be working.

  But my way is a slow driving sickness, and it’s invaded the bones of my family. When the news of Daniel leaving me goes public, I’ll lose everything else I’ve collected. Some will blame me, a woman who claimed to know all about how to succeed as a mother and wife. Some will blame Daniel, a man who looked outside of his marriage for comfort. But no matter what anyone thinks, the result is a solitary me … alone in the world.

  Jenna stands, stretching. She rubs the heels of her hands into her eyes, then picks up a stick and smacks the brush at the edge of our camp. When she’s satisfied that she’s scared away any living creature, she steps away with our meager roll of toilet paper. I cringe. What will become of us when we run out? Or won’t we survive long enough to finish the roll? It’s just one more disaster in the process of our humiliating end.

  The same question comes to me again.

  Why am I here?

  Maybe understanding the answer to this question will be the thing that brings this horrifying lesson to an end. With that, I get to my feet. I have a goal. And I will not die until I’m able to grasp the purpose and the process that brought me to where I am now.

  JENNA

  I wrap damp soil covered with broad leaves around Vicky’s blistered pinky finger, tying it with a strip I’ve torn from one of Glenda’s t-shirts. The dirt may cause infection. I don’t know. It seems that being exposed could be worse. We may have to do some climbing today.

  “Are you about ready for the great unveiling?” Ireland stands over our black trash bag. We followed the instructions as best we could with half the directions burned away. The plastic is lying over a hole in the ground and secured at the edges. She takes the rock off one corner and starts to pull back the cover.

  “I wasn’t this nervous my first day of classes.” I stand close to Vicky, my arm around her waist. Under that plastic is our only hope. We need water.

  Ireland takes the smaller rock off the center where it’s designed to form a low point for the dew to run along the black sheet and into our waiting pot.

  “Stop.” Vicky steps forward. “We need to pray first. This isn’t something to leave to chance.”

  I expect Ireland to protest, a strange change since she was always the one calling us to prayer in college. Instead, she’s silent. No agreement. No argument. I miss her. It’s a strange time to be hit by that reality. But it’s true.

  “Lord,” Vicky says, “we are in a terrible way. We know you are the provider of all we need.”

  Ireland clears her throat.

  “Lord, we need help.” This time Vicky sounds real. Not like television Vicky. Like the Vicky I knew. “Please give us some water and give me another chance. I’ve really screwed some things up.” Her words are choked. “I just want another chance.” She doesn’t say amen, just stops.

  Ireland and I both look at Vicky. I’m waiting for her to explain, knowing she won’t.

  Vicky kneels down. “Well, let’s see our future.”

  My mouth goes dry.

  Ireland peels back the plastic. There in our pot is about an inch of water. It’s enough to wet our mouths, but not much more. Fear claws me from the inside. What did I expect, our cup to actually be overflowing?

  I go to church every Sunday. Each week I attend Bible study, teaching some of the lessons. My kids were homeschooled until high school. We wanted to send them to a private Christian school, but it just wasn’t something we could afford. From the outside, I look like the model Christian wife and mother.

  From the inside, there’s nothing to see. I’m empty. A vessel. It’s not that I don’t believe. It’s that I don’t really care. Not about God. Not about Mark. Not about myself. Maybe it’s dehydration. Maybe it’s the beginning of my death. My life has never been clearer to me than it is right now. Without my kids, I’m nothing. They’re my identity, and my identity has left me behind.

  “You okay?” Ireland is staring at me, and I think Vicky is too. It’s hard to tell with her eye like it is.

  I take a mental inventory. Am I okay? Why are they asking? How could I be okay? I nod. But the phony smile won’t come. I’ve even lost my great fake-it-till-you-make-it skills.

  “We’re going to be all right.” Ireland runs her hand across the plastic guiding every drop into our pot. “You both have family who’ll miss you. They’ll call in the cavalry. Vicky, your group will certainly have enough power to send helicopters or whatever, right?”

  Vicky’s mouth drops open. She looks like she’s taken a great shock.

  “What?” I grab ahold of her sleeve.

  “They won’t be looking for me. I didn’t tell them where I was. I wanted …”

  “You wanted what?” I’m shaking her arm now. In the back of my mind I’ve had hope purely based on the public’s outcry for their missing Christian home and family leader.

  “I thought.” She holds her fist to her lips. “I thought that if Daniel didn’t know what happened to me, he’d worry. I thought this was the best way to disappear for a week. No one would know where I was.”

  Ireland takes off her glasses, rubs them on her t-shirt, and shoves them back into place. “Why would you do that? It’s crazy.”

  “No kidding.” I start to chew the inside of my mouth. It’s already raw from days of worry and nerves.

  “I don’t expect you to understand.” The hot words are thrown my way. “You have the perfect husband, and the perfect family. All we’ve heard since the reunion is your kids this or that. It’s not like that for everyone.”

  “I’ve seen your show,” Ireland says. It’s a bit of a shocker. Ireland Jayne, environmentalist, God-questioner, Christian Home and Family Ministry watcher?

  “That show is a bunch of garbage. It’s a lie. And it’s so well crafted that I didn’t even know it until I came back to Emery.” Vicky picks up the survival book and starts to thumb through it. “We need to move. The book says to stay in one place, but that doesn’t make sense when we’re not where we were supposed to be, and no one will be looking for us until one of you doesn’t come home.”

  “No one’s looking for me.” Ireland’s jaw is set. “The only one who’ll notice I’m gone is my cat. And I made sure to leave the cat door open so she can go in and out. She’ll pick up a meal at the neighbor’s. I guess that makes me completely unneeded.”

  “They’ll notice when you don’t show up for class,” I say.

  “What class?” She looks away. “I’m
on suspension.”

  Vicky gasps. “What on earth for?”

  “Having an affair with a student, of course. Isn’t that the kind of immoral behavior you expect from me?” She picks up the pot and starts to pour its meager contents into our shared water bottle. “Vicky’s right. We need to get moving. This is not enough water to sustain us. Maybe if we’re quiet, and listen to the wind, we’ll hear the water. For there to be a waterfall there must be a river.”

  Chapter 13

  IRELAND

  I’ve become exactly the thing my mother said I was, a burden. At the age of six these were the words she left me to remember her by when she willingly sent me for another tour of the foster care system. But she didn’t sign the termination papers. No, she didn’t want me, but she wasn’t about to give me to someone else. Two years later we were reunited. She said we’d always be together, and she’d missed me so much. Right. For forty years I’ve heard the echo of that one word. Burden.

  I went to college on a scholarship for foster children and made up the difference with student loans. There was a time when I believed Emery was my family. Jenna, Hope, and Vicky were the sisters I never had. Then it all tumbled away. I was alone again. Alone, like I’d always been. And a carbon copy of my own mother in more ways than I can bear to look at.

  We trudge through the thick trees and cushioned ground. My tongue and throat are desert-dry, making me cough and pant. Water is something we can’t live without. That thought keeps my feet moving.

  My head pounds like someone beats it with rocks from the inside and my stomach is sour and empty. There’s one more granola bar, but without liquid, I would never get it down. The raw skin on my inner thighs has turned to weeping wounds. But we can’t spare bandages. Vicky’s used most of them already. Conservation is an unknown quality in her wasteful world.

  The swelling in her eyes has gone down as we’ve walked, but that only means she can see me better, and I hate that. Ever since I opened my big mouth about the suspension, Jenna and Vicky have given me pity looks. I know they’re praying for me silently in their heads. Don’t they get it? This accusation is the least of my losses. It’s nothing to me. Nothing like the failures that brought me to my current job in the first place.

  My foot falls on hard ground. I look up. A path winds in front of me, starting my heart racing. As I turn back to the others, Vicky collides into my body. “We’ve found a trail.” It’s the first sign of a worn path since Vicky rolled down the mountain.

  “Is it man-made?” Vicky rubs at her hip.

  “Probably an animal path, but I’m sure there must be water somewhere along the way. We’re not the only creatures dependent on it to sustain life.”

  Jenna shakes her head. “Cougars and bear.” She plops down onto the ground. “I don’t know if I can go much farther. I’m starved, and I hurt so bad, I can’t take it.” She crosses her arms on top of her knees and drops her head onto them. The next thing she says is a muffle of grunts. Great, we’ve lost the perky one. We’re doomed.

  “Maybe we should take a break.” I drop my pack. Without the weight, I feel like I could almost float.

  Vicky leans against a tree. She pulls the bottle from her bag. “Here’s to hope.” She takes a swig and hands it to Jenna.

  Lifting her head, Jenna studies the jug. “This is it until tomorrow or a miracle. Are we sure?”

  I nod. “There may not be a tomorrow if we don’t find more.”

  She takes her drink then hands it to me. I pour the last bit into my mouth and hold it there as long as I can. My tongue swims in this luxury. But my stomach won’t be held out on. Without my consent, I swallow, the pleasure is over, leaving me with a mouth as dry as it was before.

  Part of me wants to give up. I wasn’t meant for life. No one planned me, counting each day until I arrived. I’ve been an inconvenience since my very birth. If I lie down here on the cool earth, I could fade away and no one would be hurt. Not one life would change.

  Except Vicky’s and Jenna’s. They need me, if only for this little part of history. I can’t give up on them. “Come on. We need to keep moving. We can make it two or three more hours today. Surely there’s water within that distance. The path heads down.”

  “The truck is up,” Vicky says. “Isn’t the truck the goal?”

  “I’d love to agree, but I’ve been doing some thinking. We don’t know for sure how to find it. If we go down, we’re likely to come across a stream or something. With water, we can survive longer. Either way’s a risk.”

  Vicky cocks her chin higher. “We have to stick with the plan. I say we keep looking for a way up the mountain.”

  “This isn’t a dictatorship,” I say.

  Jenna flops back, her arms splayed over her head, her body flat on the ground. “I vote for down.”

  “Up,” Vicky says.

  I evaluate them both, giving every perspective a fair thought.

  But Vicky crosses her arms in a stance that looks like an issued challenge.

  “Down.” I’m not about to let the last moments of my life be defined by a bully.

  VICKY

  I will not die in the pits of filth because these two have a different plan. I said we go up, that means we go up.

  “Come on.” Ireland keeps moving along her path. “You can fight us on this when we come to a place where climbing the mountain is even possible.”

  We’ve emerged from the trees with the mountain now a sheer rock at our right side. Heat radiates off the stone, cooking my dehydrated body. I’ll look like a piece of jerky by the time we get out of this nightmare. If we ever get out. I rub my hand over my face. Once smooth, now it’s rough and pitted with scrapes. My hair feels like I’m aiming to join the hippie crowd. I hope there isn’t press when they find us. I hope they find us.

  The ground at the left side of the trail plunges down. If we miss a step, it’ll be another roll down the side of the mountain. This fall will be deadly. We’ve gone at least half an hour. Ireland drags her hand along the rock. I practically claw at it.

  We come to a corner where the cliff juts out, forcing us to duck under the jagged stone or take the tumble.

  Jenna hollers behind me.

  I turn. She’s holding her palm to her scalp. Blood oozes through her fingers.

  My stomach churns. Breathing in through my nose, I try to keep from losing the only fluid in my body.

  “Jenna, is it bad?” Ireland edges back to us.

  “I don’t know. It sure hurts.” She pulls her hand away. There’s a pool of blood in her palm.

  I squat, putting my head between my knees. The ground rises and falls beneath me.

  “Vicky, I need to get around you.” Ireland warms my already hot shoulder with her hand.

  I start to stand, but my body sways. Grabbing my arm, Ireland thrusts my side into the stone. It scrapes, but the pain feels safe. She squeezes past me, pressing me hard against the jagged surface.

  Rolling back, I keep my spine tight along the wall of stone.

  “It doesn’t look as bad as I thought, but there’s plenty of blood.” Ireland puts the hem of her t-shirt into her mouth then rips, taking the bottom inches off in one piece. Tying this around Jenna’s head, she holds her hand over the wound for a moment longer. “Can you go on?”

  Jenna nods. “I’m a little dizzy, but I felt like that before I hit my head.”

  Ireland leans back next to me. “It’s kind of funny, you know?”

  I roll my head to look at her. “I can’t believe you could find anything funny out here.”

  “The shortest one of us cut her head on overhanging rocks. Come on. That’s a little funny.” She presses her glasses higher onto her nose.

  Jenna’s laugh is like a child’s giggle. I can’t help but join in. Though dying like this isn’t really humorous at all. It must be delirium.

  We start out again. Soon the trail becomes steep downhill. My argument is pointless now. We somehow lost our way from the direction we came in wit
h Glenda. We’re in completely new territory.

  Loose rock rolls out under my feet, and I slam down on my backside. Pain shoots up my spine and burns at scraped flesh. That may have been the only place I didn’t already hurt. I’m completely battered now.

  Without a word, Ireland reaches out for me and yanks me back to standing as she continues past. I don’t think we miss a single step.

  At the bottom of the hill Jenna startles us to a stop. “Listen. Do you hear that?”

  I hear nothing over the scratching of my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

  Ireland shakes her head. “What?”

  “Water. I think I hear water.”

  I shake my head. “Sounds like you’re having visions of a mirage except with your ears. There’s no water.” I start to walk again, passing Ireland. The crunch of their feet on the path behind moves us into a steady rhythm. I can’t stop. If we take a break, I’m done.

  The trail evens out and the soil becomes softer under my feet. There’s a smell in the air I can’t place. It’s fresh, not that there’s been a bad smell, but this is clean, new, almost rejuvenating.

  “I hear it.” Ireland grabs my arm. “Listen.”

  “Maybe.” I’m not sure if I just want to so bad I think I hear the distant gurgle, or if it’s real.

  Jenna pushes around us. Her short legs speed forward. “I told you. I said I heard water. You should listen to me once in a while.”

  We take off after her, my throat burning with dehydration and anticipation.

  I’m sure of it now. There’s water somewhere out there. It’s all I can do not to rip through the brush and go straight toward the sound. Maybe we’ll make it.

  JENNA

  They never listen to me. They never did. No one does.

  I hear these words over and over in my head, and I know I should fight them, but my brain is throbbing, and my mouth feels like it’s been open to a hot wind all day. There’s actual pain in the back of my throat, and I wonder if it’s cracking like my lips.