Coming Home (23 page)

Jessie flinched. Michelle’s features had become stony and cold.

“It’s easy to forget what we have until it’s gone… .” Jessie stopped. She wasn’t doing very well.

Michelle shook her head with utter contempt. She nearly hissed her words, “If you
ever
come near my daughter again, both you and that ice-cream bunny will regret it.”

“I just wanted to—”

“But what you
did
was interfere.”

“Michelle, please …”

Michelle pointed at the door. “Your two minutes are up.”

Jessie was too stunned to move. They stood there a moment appraising each other, then Jessie reached for the door and slipped outside, walking down the steps to the car.

Laura was smiling as she looked out the car window. Jessie felt terrible. How could she let Laura live in an environment like that? Laura pushed open the car door just as the screen door slammed behind them. Michelle was standing at the top of the steps. “Laura, get in here now!”

Laura looked stunned. She turned to Jessie, who had knelt down in front of her. “Didn’t go too well, huh?”

Jessie made a sorry face. “Will you be okay, sweetie?”

Laura shrugged, and a look of resignation crossed her features.

“She’s always this way. I’ll be fine.” And with that, she headed up the sidewalk. The sense of betrayal nearly tore Jessie apart.
How can

I just watch this happen?

Laura climbed the steps and shuffled past her mother into the house as Michelle gave Jessie another look of contempt.

“I was only trying to help,” Jessie said softly, standing up. Michelle tossed her cigarette butt into a section of weeds, gave Jessie another squint, and retreated into the house, slamming the door behind her.

Chapter Twenty-Five

ANDY SPENT THE MORNING calling new prospects and consoling old customers. He left for home halfway through the day, too distracted to work any longer. Fortunately, his sales quota was beyond acceptable, and he could afford to slack a bit. His boss had even patted him on the back several weeks ago, saying,
“Slow down, McCormick, you’re starting to make
me
look bad.”
He spent the afternoon sitting on the couch in his apartment, staring at the empty fireplace.

… “Explain it again,” he’d asked his father last night, and his father had given a near-textbook description of the nature of dementia.

Dementia wasn’t an illness per se, but a description of symptoms that accompany an illness or degenerative brain disorder. Infections, alcoholism, or head trauma could cause dementia symptoms, and there were hundreds of other causes. All rare. Most lethal. And every year, new variations emerged.

According to his father, Olivia Lehman was believed to have a very unusual brain disorder—a form previously unidentified by neurologists. Generally classified in the category of early onset dementia, the unnamed disease apparently mingled the genetic aspects of Huntington’s disease with the complications of vascular dementia that involved ministrokes—and sometimes major strokes. It was these strokes that contributed to the unpredictable nature of the disease, affecting areas of the brain that differed from patient to patient.

Olivia’s brain disorder was passed genetically; her own father had died of a stroke related to this type of dementia. As with Huntington’s disease, there appeared to be a fifty-fifty chance of passing the errant genes to an offspring. If a child or young adult was found to be a carrier, the chances of exhibiting the symptoms of the illness were a hundred percent. It was only a matter of time. But while people with Huntington’s disease might live productive lives for decades, the vascular component of Olivia Lehman’s debilitating illness and eventual death indicated that her disease was far more fatal.

Finally his father asked him the question he’d been dreading: “Does Jessie exhibit any symptoms of dementia?”

“What, exactly?” he asked.

His father went through the list: confusion, difficulty speaking, memory lapses, poor coordination, headaches, and on occasion, hallucinations.

“Hallucinations?”

“Very rare with dementia but not unknown,” his father had replied clinically. “In view of her risk, any mental anomaly must be taken into consideration.”

Andy remembered Jessie’s altercation with the woman at the fair and her later explanation of it as an outgrowth of the strange dreams she’d been having for years.
“I saw a woman in a yellow dress, and everything went crazy,”
Jessie had said nervously, laughing it off.

His father continued. “People with dementia become ‘changed’ people. They become easily disoriented. Concentration is very difficult at the later stages. It’s just very hard to predict how someone will respond to this condition. In fact, I knew a gentleman with a similar dementia who couldn’t remember that his wife had died. A very deluded man indeed.”

Andy shuddered.
Going from bad to worse
. “Coming back has been very difficult for Jessie. She barely remembers anything.”

His dad wasn’t buying it. “So there’s something?”

“It’s nothing,” Andy insisted. “Stress does strange things to our minds. Isn’t that what you always say?”

“Nothing changes the fact, Andy. She
must
be tested, and soon. Remember, she has a fifty percent chance of
not
being a carrier.”

Fifty percent chance?
Andy’s spirits were hitting rock bottom.

Not good odds
.

“Tell her the truth, Andy. Tell her what I’ve just told you. We can arrange the initial blood test here at my clinic if that would help her feel more comfortable, but eventually she’ll have to be referred to a neurologist. They’ve come a long way in a decade.”

“No cure?” Andy asked.

“Not for a genetic carrier,” his father confirmed, then hesitated.

“Andy, I need to speak as a father now, okay?” And then his dad said something he’d rarely said before. “Don’t get mixed up with this girl, Andy.”

“Dad …”

“I’m serious, son. You remember how it was with Olivia. Eventually she lost her coordination completely and became bedridden. Her last days were lived in total confusion with rare moments of lucidity. A few years with Jessie would be a living hell.”

Andy felt his ire rising. “She’s already been there and back, Dad.”

“That’s not the point. Her sickness doesn’t obligate you.”

“I can’t just abandon her.”

“You just
met
her.”

I’ve known her my entire life,
Andy thought but didn’t say. His dad wouldn’t have understood.

“Dad, this is the girl who took care of her mother for years. She even had to remind her alcoholic father to take his depression pills. Who’s looking out for
her
?”

“Just don’t marry her.”

Andy was flabbergasted. “I never said—”

“I know how you like to help, but …” His father’s words trailed off. Silence filled the room at that point and the space felt like a closet. When his father spoke again, it was to ask a completely unrelated question about Jessie’s father. “Did you say Frank was an alcoholic?” …

This morning the whole interrogation had begun again. His mother had called, begging him to reconsider.

“Reconsider what?” Andy asked, initially confused.

“You deserve someone healthy,” she said.

“Mom, you’re way ahead—”

“You can’t save this girl,” his mother interrupted.

“We don’t know anything for sure, Mom.”

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“I can help her,” Andy replied impulsively, and his mother nearly cried. Then his dad got on the line again, obviously pressured by his mom. “Don’t be rash, son.”

“I have to go to work,” Andy finally said, realizing there was nothing he could say to counter their impression. Their memories were dominated by the old Jessie, who must have appeared as quite the curmudgeon at age twelve. They were doing what any protective parents might do—they were looking out for their son. They’d seen the terrible tragedy of Olivia Lehman up close and personal.

But none of that mattered now. Meeting Jessie again had been like finding something he had long forgotten but had been searching for his entire life. His mother would have said, “
Take an aspirin, Andy. It’ll pass.”
His father would have given him the old advice he’d offered Andy at least three times a year:
“Men can fall in love in a moment. It takes women much longer.”
As if that had much to do with anything.

But he shuddered to think what they would say when they discovered Jessie wasn’t a Christian anymore. That, of course, would lead to a bigger question….

No, his parents wouldn’t understand.
They don’t even know the truth about me,
he realized.
How could they understand my heart?

Does God even know my heart?
he thought suddenly, still staring at the fireplace.

For years he’d been praying what seemed like hopelessly desperate prayers—
Help me understand
—but it seemed as if God had turned His back.
“God doesn’t answer the prayers of the infidel,”
his mother might have said bitterly.

“What about the prodigal son?”
he might ask. According to Scripture, God would be eagerly looking for him to return.
“Come home, son,”
his father would say. But that begged the question,
“What if I can’t return?”

“Then you will die in your sins,”
his mother would say and then begin crying again.
“Just believe, Andy! Just believe!”

He’d long ago stopped attending the Wednesday night services at his church. Everyone would stand and sing and clap their hands through nearly forty minutes of exuberant praise and worship. He used to observe his friends and other churchgoers bouncing like jumping beans, singing with their arms outstretched, lost in a spiritual frenzy, and ask himself,
What is wrong with me?

Why
can’t
I believe?
Andy asked himself again, pondering a question that had haunted him for years.

At the very minimum, he believed in a God who’d created the world. That much had always seemed obvious. It didn’t require scriptural authority. The truth of God’s existence was written on the hearts of man.
Isn’t that what the apostle Paul said?
Evidence of divine design was everywhere you looked.

But then what?
Andy thought for probably the hundredth time. He sighed and leaned his head back, and in spite of his turmoil, a reassuring warmth filled his soul. In a few hours, he’d see Jessie again.
At the very least, I can stop thinking about myself. I can do something right
.

The sense of despair over Jessie kicked in again. There was no way out of this. From his own observations, she was either in need of extensive psychological therapy or the undiagnosed symptoms of dementia had already begun, in which case she would have a few very difficult years to live.

He pondered yesterday’s religious discussion and shuddered. If the latter were true, how would she feel about God then?

After waiting a few minutes, Jessie put her car in reverse and slowly backed up, settling in front of her old house. Her phone rang and Jessie nearly jumped. It was Laura. “Why are you still here?” Jessie looked up at Andy’s window. Laura was holding the curtain back with one hand, holding the phone with her other. “I was worried,” Jessie replied.

“What’re you going to do?”

Jessie shrugged as if Laura could see her. “Visit my old house again.”

“Oh …” Laura dropped the curtains and disappeared into the room, but her voice continued. “Aren’t you scared?”

Jessie looked at the house. “Guess things change, huh?”

“Sometimes,” Laura whispered.

“Hey, sweetie, don’t make your mom mad by talking to me.”

“Mom’s passed out on the sofa.”

“Oh,” Jessie replied. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“My bottom is real sore,” Laura told her, and then before hanging up, she whispered, “Thanks for the number. I’ll never lose it.”

Jessie put the cell phone in her pocket, locked the car, and headed up the sidewalk. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Laura pull back the curtains again and wave. Jessie waved back.

“Please, God, wherever you are,” Jessie whispered, “save this precious child.”

Why was it so easy to slip back into the old patterns of praying to God as if He would answer?
Wishful thinking,
she thought, but was that so wrong? At the very least, it was the kind of wish that
should
be true: a God whom you could trust.

“Get it out, sweetie. God isn’t scared of your anger,”
Mrs. Robinette had said.
“How could God make it up to you?”

By saving my mother,
Jessie thought suddenly, to which Betty Robinette would have replied,
“But He did, honey. He took her home.”

Jessie looked up at the closed curtain again. “Save that little girl,” she whispered once more, and tears filled her eyes, not just over Laura’s situation but over the terrible things she’d said to her grandmother.
“I never had time to explain,”
Grandmother had said.