From The Dead (29 page)

“Babysitting for
who
?”

“You don’t know them. Someone I knew from the old
days. I’ve kind of known the kid since he was born.” To Jesse’s
relief, the gas pump clicked off. Desperate to change the subject,
he said, “Gotta go.”

“Listen, I’m getting together with some people
tonight,” Sanders said. “Having a few brewskies. Want to meet up? I
mean, unless you’re
babysitting.
”

Jesse considered the offer. Since his fateful night
in L.A., Jesse had managed without a drop of alcohol, aside from
his beer at the Indians game, where Drew had questioned him about
the beverage choice. Jesse felt snakebitten by the L.A. incident
and veered away from the stuff ever since. The more he thought
about it, the more he realized he’d felt quite content without the
buzz.

On the other hand, Jesse detested the fear that had
dominated his year: fear of failure, fear of fatherhood, fear of
what people would think of him. He didn’t want to add fear of
alcohol to the list.

To stall for time, Jesse returned the nozzle to the
pump and twisted the cap back on the car. Then he glanced at the
car window, where Drew continued to scroll. Jesse sensed an inkling
of doubt.

Then again, he’d progressed so far. A few beers, no
big deal. Jesse could feel the relaxation ooze through his bones
already.

“Why not?” Jesse said. “Where should I meet you?”

* * *

At one in the morning, the sky was overcast, the moon
invisible. As usual, the streets were empty. They had met at
Sanders’s apartment, less than a mile from Eden’s house.

It was a wonder Jesse made it home in one piece. Not
that Jesse realized it.

Drunk, he stumbled toward Eden’s front porch. Along
the way, he tripped over a step in the darkness and smacked his
shoulder against her front door with a loud thump. Though he
fumbled with his keys, he managed to find the correct one before he
tried—unsuccessfully—to insert it into the keyhole. At last, he
gave up, sat on the concrete, and giggled.

The porch light flipped on. Jesse squinted.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Eden hissed as she
opened the door. “What are—” She knelt beside him. His clothes
reeked of alcohol—and what smelled like a trace of marijuana. “Are
you drunk?” she asked in a harsh, low voice. “Look at me,” she
said.

Head in his hands, Jesse laughed some more.

Though her eyes looked livid, Eden maintained her
composure. With Jesse’s stupor, lashing out would have accomplished
nothing anyway. She grabbed him by the arm. “Come on.”

At first he resisted, but then yielded when she
tugged again. Eden led him into the living room, where he made it
as far as the couch before he decided to settle there for the
night.

Impatient, Eden grabbed his arms and shook him. “Drew
wasn’t with you, was he?” she demanded through clenched teeth.

Jesse told the truth: “No.”

“Were you doing drugs too?”

“No,” he said, again the truth.

As Jesse erupted in a series of spontaneous giggles,
Eden looked closer at his face.

Between bursts of laughter, Jesse’s face winced—back
and forth, humor and hurt, pleasure and pain. Overcome by the
effects of the alcohol, sadness permeated his eyes, an agony of
regret. Even while under the influence, Jesse wished he hadn’t made
this mistake.

He began to blather and struggled to construct a
cohesive thought. “Painkillers would be bad right now,” he said.
“Hide the painkillers, Eden …” Then another wince of pain in his
face.

“What? You don’t make any sense.” With another fierce
look, Eden got up and flipped off the light. “Go to sleep.”

* * *

His lapse the previous night hung heavy on both
Jesse’s mind and heart. He tallied all the people he’d let down in
a matter of hours—Eden, as well as Caitlyn and Drew, although they
were unaware of what happened. Jesse had also let himself down, but
that was the least of his concerns.

His appetite ruined, he skipped lunch. As he sat on
the floor of the worship auditorium and polished the woodwork along
the platform, he vowed never to touch alcohol again. This wasn’t a
religious decision for him; rather, he acknowledged his contentment
during the drink’s absence and, well, it marked yet another piece
that no longer fit into his life.

He heard a knock on one door, its volume stymied by
the immensity of the room. When he lifted his head, he noticed Eden
stood in the doorway. Furious, she made a beeline for him before he
could get a word out.

“What’s the matter with you?!” she shouted.

At her voice, the final remnant of a hangover-induced
headache, which had killed him all morning, clanged along the
periphery of his skull. By now, however, the pain felt much less
prominent. “I apologize.” He darted his eyes toward the doorway and
hoped no one else could hear.

Eden lowered her voice. “You could have gotten
yourself killed!” she hissed. “You have no idea how much I wanted
to smack you last night! What if Drew had been in the car with you
when you drove drunk?!”

Jesse held his palms out to stop her. “I’m sorry.
Look, there’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already said to
myself.”

She stared at him, her face flushed, but he could
tell she tried to determine his sincerity.

Eden shook her head, sat down on the platform steps,
and took a deep breath. “Maybe I shouldn’t have blown up at you.
I’m not usually so abrupt, but you had me wide awake until sunrise,
so now I’m worn out.” She crossed her arms. “Wait, why am I
apologizing to you? You’re a guest in my house. You owe me an
explanation.”

And Jesse didn’t disagree. He rested his forehead on
his hand and cast his gaze toward the floor.

“So what happened?” she pressed.

“All the progress I’d made—I botched it up last
night,” he murmured. “Remember Sanders from high school? Guy with
the jet-black hair? I ran into him yesterday; he invited me over
for a few beers, casual. I was sick of all my fear, so I figured it
wouldn’t hurt. When I walked into his apartment, I hung out with a
few people I’d never met. It started out with a beer around a ball
game on TV, then more people showed up and things snowballed. By
that point, I’d had a few drinks and gotten careless. I did stay
away from the pot one of the guys brought, though.”

“You mentioned that to me while you were drunk, but
I’m thankful to hear it’s true. It explains why I smelled marijuana
all over your clothes when I found you on my porch.”

“The rest of the details are a bit fuzzy—I had a bit
too much to drink, not that you didn’t notice. Thank you for
getting me inside, by the way.”

“Yeah, not a problem,” she muttered.

Because sarcastic replies from Eden were rare, this
one pricked Jesse’s heart. “I had a hunch the whole get-together
would be bad news, but I went ahead anyway.” Jesse hunched over a
tad. “I don’t think I fit into that crowd anymore. And you know
what else? I don’t think I
want
to fit into that scene
anymore. If I were to say I enjoyed myself, it would be a lie. Once
the drinking turned heavy, I sat alone on a chair in the corner of
the room and watched everyone else have a deranged time—that much I
remember. I just sat there and stared at them, realized I felt like
…”

“Sorrow?” Eden’s face suggested her anger had
thawed.

“No, I felt like a stranger. A stranger in a crowd of
jumbled voices. I felt purposeless: the opposite of the joy I’ve
come to know with Cait and Drew.”

Jesse felt uncomfortable, and Eden must have picked
up on it. She folded her hands together, rested her elbows on her
knees. She bit her lip in concentration. “What else happened last
night?”

“That’s the whole story,” Jesse said. “Actually, it’s
not a matter of what happened; more a matter of what
didn’t
happen.”

“Meaning what?”

“In my old life, I’d walked into many shabby
situations, some of them worse than last night—too humiliating to
mention.” He flashed through mental images of nights smoking
marijuana with Jada, his mistake with Adam Lewis, his suicide
attempt. But Jesse kept these memories to himself. “A year ago, I
would have considered recklessness normal, but my life has changed
since then. And last night, I couldn’t even
force
myself to
enjoy it.” Jesse paused. “I tried; I tried to relieve the stress
and confusion and frustration, but I just can’t do it anymore. Not
that way.”

“Why not?”

“Drew, Cait. You.” With mounting fervency, he
clenched his fists against his lap. “The whole time I was under the
influence, one beer after the next, deeper and deeper, I tried to
escape—it felt like a thick veil. The further I dove into it, the
sadder and lower I got instead of getting free.” He rubbed the
polishing cloth against the shiny wooden surface. “Not long before
I returned to Ohio, I started to go through a self-evaluation
whenever I was under the influence: a guilty conscience, thoughts
about Cait and the baby I thought we’d lost. But last night, even
though my heart cried out on their behalf, I resisted it and paid
the price.”

Jesse felt horrible. In social work, Eden could
detect an act when she saw it. But it wouldn’t have taken a social
worker to identify Jesse’s regret as genuine.

Jesse turned toward his sister. “Last night, the
sense that I’d let Cait and Drew down took a heavier toll: I’m an
active part of their lives now. And it became real to me that every
step I take, I’m responsible to them. Selfish missteps are a form
of betrayal to them.”

Eden eased, even smiled. “Don’t underestimate your
progress, despite the hiccup last night. I have hiccups myself—look
at the way I barged in here today.” She shrugged her shoulders.
“Was your action inexcusable? No question. But I’ve seen so many
cases where fathers showed no conscience whatsoever toward their
kids, where missteps meant nothing to them.”

Jesse’s eyes became steel. “If Cait and Drew had
known what I’d done, it would have hurt them deeply—especially
Drew. What a disappointment. I won’t do it again. I can’t.”

His sister patted him on the knee. “I know you
won’t.” And her gesture let Jesse know she meant it.

Intrigued, Jesse scrutinized her. “You know what
astounds me about you? You carry perpetual hope inside. You see the
best in me—better than I see in myself.” Of all his sister’s
qualities, this was the one he appreciated most. Regardless of
where he’d lived, or what he’d done, or how he’d failed over the
years, in the midst of his disillusionment he would talk to her,
desperate for the hope that emanated from her. “When you look at
me, you see my potential as a good father and brother, an asset, a
success in life. But it’s not just with me; you see that hope in
pretty much everyone. And I don’t understand it.” He paused. “Why?
Why would you see potential in such a hopeless situation?”

She spread her arms as if to wave the answer off as
obvious. “That’s what faith is: believing
before
you see it,
knowing in your heart it’s there, even if it’s not evident to your
eyes.”

“You mean God.”

“Yeah. Take the wind, for example: When you look
outside, you can’t see the wind; it’s invisible to the eye. But you
can’t deny its reality because you can witness its effects: leaves
rattle on the trees, a chilly breeze on your arms, or the jolt in
your car when a gust of wind hits it on the highway. You know the
wind is there. But to accept its existence, you need to be willing
to look beyond what you see. That’s what faith is—faith in
someone’s potential, faith in God. People with faith see with their
hearts before they see with their eyes, and they believe.”

“I understand faith,” Jesse said. “I believe God
exists. I even had faith in Jesus as a kid, but I started to
question it later—not question whether Jesus ever lived or that
He’s a religious figure. But when I looked around and saw bad
things happen, I wondered how someone could put their whole faith
in Him. It just started to seem like religious mysticism to me.
Don’t you ever wonder if that’s all it is? I mean, Jesus the
religious figure and Jesus the human being, those are historical.
But what about the miracle-working Jesus that Dad talks about? Or
the Jesus that supposedly healed people? Doesn’t that seem like a
myth when you see people in pain?”

Eden didn’t argue or grow irritable; she listened.
Then she replied, “I wish I had all your answers; I don’t. But I
see the other angle of it, the wind angle: I see the effect of
Jesus in people, and I can’t deny it’s there.”

“Well, you and I were raised the same way. Where’d
the difference come in?”

Eden thought for a moment. “You and I are accustomed
to our quality of life: We take it as a given—and lose sight of the
details before we realize it. But two years after you went to
California, when I was still in high school, I went on a mission
trip to Zimbabwe for a week one summer. A group of us high-school
kids from church went with another organization that had
established itself in that country, and we built a small shelter
for kids who had lost their parents due to HIV. AIDS was rampant
over there, the nation’s economy had already experienced sky-high
inflation, and those people were so poor. For the Christians in
Zimbabwe, Jesus meant everything—He was all some of them had, and
the others were just plain downtrodden. The people in that country
hurt so bad, and the ones who would listen to us opened their
hearts to the gospel.” Eden had an intense longing in her eyes, as
though she craved to see the people one more time. “They wanted to
know there’s hope.” Eden’s face flushed; she clenched a fist. She
seemed to search for words to depict how she felt inside. “I
believe in hope. I want people to know there’s hope.”

What she said incited nervousness in Jesse, yet he
wanted to hear more. So he sat still. He weighed each word she
spoke, absorbed every nuance.