Willow Wood Road: Lavender and Sage

by Micah Sherwood

  “That sure gives me a lot of confidence in you,” Tom smiled.

  Chapter 21: Letitia Derocher

  The threesome was up with the first rays of the sun packing the horses then riding along the creek toward home. As the horsemen approached the pipeline, Haze took off running, and after a few more paces, the riders could see Cory dashing through the cottonwoods to meet them. By noon the horses were in the corral; Micah, Cory and Dane worked on some belated chores while Haze and Raggéd pranced around the corral.

  Mr. Dorsey observed the ordinary scene from the back porch, watching the three do their thing without talking while smiling and conversing in their weird mental dialogue. They all looked at Tom in an acknowledgement of some kind. He better understood what Micah had told him, that they were all connected, forever inseparable. He comprehended the fact that knowledge was transmitted silently and symbolically, but its process was completely obscure to all of them.

  A car pulled up in the front of the ranch house breaking the old man’s contemplation, and he made his way to the driveway where a new Chevrolet was parked. A middle-aged lady slammed the driver’s side door and turned toward the old man. Sadness, perpetual suffering, hovered around her, haunted her. She looked up and smiled. “I am Letitia Derocher. I understand that Micah Sherwood lives here. Can I speak with him please?”

  “Mrs. Derocher, I am so sorry for your loss.” Tom grabbed her hand and tenderly shook it. “Let me get him for you.”

  Tom walked into the stables. “Guy’s mother’s out front. She wants to speak with you.” Micah turned pale at the mention of his dead friend’s name.

  “Damn,” he whispered as he slammed open the barn door. Each step he took toward the mother made him weak, suffocating. Her pain was devastating. “Mrs. Derocher,” he spoke as he approached her, and she embraced him; her melancholy clutched his heart. Next to her a white presence stood. Its form was tenuously human, a quiet and desperate specter.

  “Can you help me with some things at home?” Her voice was barely audible.

  “Sure, let me tell Tom I leaving,” and he disappeared around the corner, returning in less than a minute.

  They drove toward St. John’s. The Derocher house was no more than a block from the school. It resembled Micah’s old home on Evergreen except with a garage instead of a carport and four bedrooms rather than three. The lady led him into the small bedroom next to the den. He could smell Guy; his peppery fragrance circled throughout the air. The walls were painted a baby blue; boxing gloves lay upon a desk; hiking boots positioned neatly next to a chest-of-drawers; dinosaur figures were lined up on a bookshelf; a 30X30 was proudly positioned on a set of deer antlers hung on the wall.

  Letitia Derocher sat on the unmade bed, unmade for two months, unmade since the car accident. She looked at Micah and patted the mattress signaling him to sit beside her, her deep blue eyes piercing. “The doctor said I should give his stuff away, that I needed to set him free. If I do that, I will also be freeing myself. But how can I do that. I can’t let him fade away.” Tears were dropping from her eyes.

  The white figure had never left the woman’s side; even in the car it hovered near her; and now Guy stood beside his mother as plain as day, wearing the same red shorts that he wore last summer at Ute Lake and a plain old white tee-shirt. The dead boy’s hand petted the sandy blonde hair of his grieving mother. The hair moved softly like a slight breeze was blowing across her head. Guy’s white flicker dimmed and changed to a pale amber reflecting hope.

  Micah took the woman’s hand. “He lives! That is what I told you at the funeral. You need to let him go. Listen to your doctor’s because he’s right. Your pain is binding him. Guy feels responsible. He can’t leave you to suffer like this.”

  The woman looked questionably at Micah. “You see him?”

  “He’s touching his heart,” Micah said as he placed his own hand at his heart, copying what he was seeing and saying what he sensed. “Guy knows your sadness. ‘Live’ he says. ‘Kevin and Jeff need you. Daddy needs you.’”

  Micah thought for a moment, weighing his next words. “Love is everlasting; it surrounds you. Guy will always be a part of you, but you gotta release him. He needs to go home.”

  The mother examined her empty lap. “When he was a toddler, he loved to sit between my legs using my dress as a chair—swinging back and forth, back and forth—looking up and laughing at his creativity. I’ve been dreaming of him. He wears his hiking boots. He points to them and then looks toward the door and I wake-up. But the dream has changed in the last couple of nights. He points to his boots and then hands me a picture of you. He was asking me to go to you, that you could help. I understand what he is saying, to release him. I just needed you to confirm it.”

  Her tears stopped. “Go my little baby. I’ll be fine.” She took a deep breath and then exhaled, liberating him. “That’s the hardest thing I have ever done. Is he gone?”

  “Yes,” Micah answered. “He touched you. He blest you. He went away but not forever.”

  They were quiet for a long time before Mrs. Derocher left the room, returning with a box. “I’m sure that Guy would want you to have these, and she piled a stack of USGS maps in the container and some books on hiking. Then she retrieved the 30X30 from the antlers and handed it to Micah. “You were his best friend,” she said as she turned the rifle to where its butt faced him. “See his name engraved here.”

  Micah took the weapon, and he felt the energy and the love of his friend. “This is a present from his grand-dad, you sure you want me to have it?” Micah asked.

  “How did you know that my father gave him this?”

  Micah answered by shrugging his shoulders.

  “Yes, Guy would want you to have his gun,” she replied.

  Micah tensed a little when she called the rifle a “gun.”

  “Are you hungry? Let’s have a late lunch.” Mrs. Derocher stood. Micah carried the maps and the rifle to the car and they drove to a Mexican restaurant off of 10th Street around the corner from Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in the barrio. They ate and then drove to Llano Cemetery to visit Guy. A spray of fresh red carnations covered the grave. A new headstone was in place. It had an image of his friend cut into the polished gray granite.

  Guy James Derocher

  Born: 1954 Died: 1965

  I Live!

  Micah had said very little after leaving the house; he felt like he had not slept in a month. The whole ordeal with Mrs. Derocher was torturous. Standing behind her watching, he knew that she had turned a corner freeing her to live, but helping her took a toll on him. She held an emerald green rosary, said her prayers but first placing a blue crystal set of beads on top of the tombstone—Guy’s rosary.

  Electrical pulses started passing through both of Micah’s little fingers and his forehead. The buzz quickly migrated to his whole hand and into his legs. He didn’t have time to sit before he lost consciousness, and he collapsed onto the ground, cold and sweaty and unresponsive.

  “Not again,” Micah spoke after he opened his eyes to stare at the green walls and gray curtains of the St. Anthony’s emergency room. An unknown doctor was tending to him. He had an intravenous bottle attached to his arm, and Mrs. Derocher was standing by his side looking fretful. “I’m fine,” he tried to assuage the woman. “This happens once-in-awhile.” He looked at the doctor. “I have petit mal epilepsy. I’m okay.”

  “I know all about you, I have your records. But you were out for some time. Is that normal?”

  “Sometimes.”

  The doctor looked doubtful. “Dr. Reeves is on his way and so is your guardian. You just lay there and rest until they get here.”

  Micah fell back to sleep almost instantly. He opened his eyes later that evening, lying in a very familiar room on the upper floor of the hospital. “Back again I see,” a feminine voice spoke in German. Sister Bernadette stood by his side dressed in a white habit, so white it almost glowed.

  “Ja,” Micah replied smiling. />
  “You don’t look too sick,” the nun continued to speak in German.

  “I’m not. I guess the doctor needs to cushion his income.” He looked at the bottle of liquid that was slowly draining into him. “What’s up?

  The sister grinned at his comments. “I’ll have to let the doctor explain that to you.” She switched to English. “Mr. Dorsey is in the waiting room. He wants me to come and get him once you’re awake.” She left but soon returned with the old man.

  “I’m sorry Mr. Dorsey. I hate putting you through this again.” Micah teared up unexpectedly. The sister left the two alone.

  Micah did not look like a child. Most of the time he acted more adult than most 30 somethings; but at this moment, he was an eleven year old who was angry, scared, and miserable. Tom was hurting as much as ‘his boy.’

  No words were exchanged, just a shared touch. In some ways, Micah was more fragile psychologically now than before his heart surgery. His heart had mended well, but his spirit still needed a lot of recuperation.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Your heart is healthy. Dr. Reeves has developed a new theory about your epilepsy. He thinks some of your spells are a result of acute hypoglycemia. All of the symptoms mesh. He needs to do some tests and what he calls ‘a challenge.’ They’ll take some blood soon. Then they will give you some sugar water to drink. After that, they will periodically come in to take more blood in order to measure how your body metabolizes the sugar. Depending on that, they may challenge your system with a prolonged fast. They want to recreate one of your seizures. Does that make sense?”

  “No, but does it matter? I’m in here for three or four days. Ain’t that wonderful!” Micah was trying to sound flippant, but the comments came out as frustration.

  By the next afternoon, his mood had moderated after he swallowed the sugar water, and now the nurses were taking blood every half hour. He felt like a pincushion. “Hi!” Lindy’s voice suddenly brought some sunshine into the dreary hospital. She came into the room alone. “Mr. Dorsey said it was okay for me to visit. Mom is in the waiting area, so I can’t stay long.”

  Micah was 100% better.

  “You don’t look sick to me.” Lindy continued to speak. “You’re just lazy! When are you coming home?”

  “Friday I hope. I feel fine. The doctor just needs to do a couple of tests.” A nurse came into the room with a syringe; she took a vial of blood and then left. “Every 30 minutes she comes to poke me.” He showed her his arm with multiple stick marks.

  “Ewe,” Lindy made a noise and turned her head. “I saw you the other night.”

  Micah’s eyes widen.

  “Yeah, standing at the foot of my bed. You startled me and I shot up and almost screamed, but you were smiling. Your eyes twinkled but you looked lonely. I almost told you to come and get into bed, but I realized you weren’t really there.”

  “I was there.” Micah responded. It may have been an error talking about the night-visit, but who cares. He continued to describe her bedroom: the color of her pajamas, the large porcelain doll that sat on top of her nightstand; things that he had never seen before the dream. Lindy was not upset or scared. It seemed to astonish her.

  “And you were in some dirty jeans,” she interrupted him. “And shirtless. You smelled…”

  Micah spoke before she finished. “Like a goat?” He completed her sentence.

  “A goat, god no,” and she laughed almost hysterically. “Why would you smell like a goat?”

  “Mr. Dorsey said I smelled like a goat once.”

  “No, some kind of grass, sort of an herbal smell.”

  “Like lavender and sage. I’ve been told that I also smell like lavender and sage.”

  “I’m not sure what lavender smells like,” she said. “But absolutely not a goat,” and Lindy started laughing again.

  The nurse returned and Lindy had to leave. Micah was alone again, but only for a half hour before Cory, Dane and Tandy flew in followed by Mrs. Krigsman. Cory hopped on the bed and studied the needle marks.

  “You dying again?” Cory was joshing, but there was a look of concern in his friend’s eyes.

  “Yeah and you want everything I have of value. You already told me.”

  “Just making sure you remember.”

  ~

  By Friday noon, Micah was approaching the end of his fast. Doctor Reeves had been with him for the last couple of hours, taking blood periodically to measure sugar and insulin levels. “Any dizziness or strange sensations?” The doctor asked.

  “Nope!”

  Two contraptions, an EEG and an EKG, were ready to go; a bottle of glucose was hooked up to the bed waiting for Micah’s expected collapse. Several little vials waited to be filled with his blood.

  “Start walking,” Doctor Reeves ordered. Micah had been making circuits up and down the hospital corridor for about a quarter hour. Suddenly Micah started sweating; he sat in a chair and put his head between his legs.

  “Okay, I’m having a spell, a bad one,” and he tumbled to the hallway floor rocking, aware but unable to speak. Two orderlies lifted him into a wheelchair and carted him to his bed where a nurse started the glucose drip while a technician dotted his head with electrodes for an EEG. Within ten minutes, he was able to talk but he only wanted to sleep.

  “This is a good thing,” Doctor Reeves commenced. “Many of the episodes attributed to his epilepsy were likely reactions to acute hypoglycemia. The sugar in his last sample was at 29 mg/dL, which is a level not conducive to life. We can control this with diet, something very simple. “Micah, did you ever have any spells when you were racing?”

  “He shook his head “No.”

  “Did you eat before the races?”

  “Yeah, most of the time.” Micah spoke with his eyes closed, still impacted by the seizure.

  “Acute low blood sugar can kill; it can cause brain damage and organ failure. This is not something to play with. But it’s controllable. We’ll keep you here overnight so you can recover, and you can leave first thing tomorrow morning. The hospital dietician will visit you this afternoon. Like I said, listen to her.” Dr. Reeves was looking at Mr. Dorsey as he spoke.

  Bright and early Saturday morning, Micah was sitting in a chair in his hospital room dressed, ready to go and just waiting for Mr. Dorsey.

  Sister Bernadette came in carrying a package. “I brought a little gift. Here, open it.”

  Micah tore into the wrapped box. It was an English-German dictionary. “Danke schön!” He replied.

  “Your German is improving, keep studying and come back so we can continue to converse in Deutch.” Micah opened the book, and the nun’s telephone number was written on the inside cover. “You’ll have to call before you come for a visit,” she paused for a moment. “Promise me that you’ll do exactly what the doctor says so you will stay healthy. I only want to see you for German lessons and not sick in that bed.”

  “I promise.”

  Sister Bernadette patted his hand and left. Micah hated to see her go. He liked the nun. If there were angels, they would all look like her.

  Mr. Dorsey came at 8:00 as Micah was eating. As soon as the old man walked into the room, he put down his food and got up to leave, but Tom signaled for him to sit down and finish his meal. They were walking out of the hospital by 9:00.

  “I know you aren’t happy about all of this,” Tom sat back in the truck seat to watch Micah as he climbed into the pick-up. “I wouldn’t be either. Everyone wants the best for you.”

  “I know. It just seems like every time I turn around I end up in the hospital. I hate it.” Tom backed out of the parking space, pulling into traffic on Amarillo Boulevard. “Why didn’t you tell Poppi that I was in the hospital?”

  Mr. Dorsey looked a little surprised at the question. “I did, Monday evening. You think that I wouldn’t?”

  “Oh, okay.” Micah turned away from his friend. His heart broke a little, and he was fighting to hold back his emotions.

  To
m Dorsey was picking up on the pain Micah was feeling. “What’s up?”

  “Will you adopt me?” Micah continued to watch the traffic through the side window.

  “What?”

  “You love me. You care about me. No one else does. I can depend on you and the boys. I hate my family.”

  “Your family loves you, Micah. You have to be more forgiving. Your dad didn’t call you? When we get home, you call him.” Tom Dorsey did not know what else to say. He ached with Micah, and he was angry at Bill Sherwood.

  They continued driving east. “Where are we going?”

  “I’m sorry. Mrs. Derocher asked us to come by on the way home. I forgot to mention it.” Micah exhaled loudly reflecting his frustration. They pulled up to the front sidewalk as Mr. Derocher and his two sons were leaving, waving as they pulled away. Micah and his guardian walked to the front door where Letitia Derocher stood waiting for them. She was smiling and glowing, totally different from the previous Monday when her sorrow was crippling. As he stepped through the door, she embraced him tightly and lovingly. Micah smiled and then hugged her back.

  “Come here for a second.” She led him to Guy’s bedroom. It was bare. Everything was gone including the furniture. “It was hard,” the mother said. “But you helped me. Thank you. I feel him around once in a while, but I know he is free, and so am I.” She kissed Micah’s forehead and led him into the kitchen.

  As Micah entered, Monsignor Mathias stood and walked over to him, extending a hand in greetings. “You don’t look sick. I am very happy to see you.”

  “Same,” Micah pronounced, unsure why he was there.

  Mrs. Derocher brought out the box containing the USGS maps and the 30X30 rifle. “Don’t forget these.” She spoke as she placed them on the sideboard next to the front door. She then started serving coffee.

  The Monsignor looked at Micah, trying to figure out what to say, or even if he should say anything. The boy was easily spooked, but there were some things that he wanted to know. “Mrs. Derocher told me about your visit on Monday. Can we talk about that?”