Homefires (50 page)

“Love you, too,” I whispered as the tears came, too late, thank goodness, for her to witness. I bit my lip until I tasted blood but could not stem the tears until they got good and ready to cease.

Afterward, I crawled into Krissie’s bed.

Alone...alone...alone.
Only thing worse was being with Kirk, yet
not
being with Kirk.

Where are you, God? I’m frightened.
I tried to quote Bible verses but couldn’t finish a single one before losing grasp of the words. The slimy, reptilian presence of demonic seducing spirits, different than any I’d before encountered, taunted and slithered and hissed at me and I realized they’d been doing this for days, hours I’d been fighting and driving them back with strength from the Almighty.

Tonight, I could not escape. Through the long black hours, I grew to recognize the smell, touch and sound of them.

Daylight scattered the darkness. Only then did I feel myself loosen to swirl, then plunge into instant, exhausted oblivion.

I awoke with a start, heart palpitating. Sunlight washed the empty house. Disoriented, I gazed blearily about the room, then identified it as Krissie’s.
Why am I here?
Then I remembered and the blackness rushed at me, its viciousness incited by timeout. I mentally fought to buttress myself, to stave off the worst.

I glimpsed the blurred bedside clock. Eight-twenty-three. I’d slept two and a half hours, not nearly enough for a seven to eight-hour gal, but it had to do because once awake, I braced myself against an avalanche of adrenaline.

I rolled into sitting position. My head dangled forward and spun for long moments as I sat there, waiting for blood to reach and quicken my extremities. When moments passed and still they remained numb, fear lanced me. My brain toiled while my body vacationed somewhere.

Help!
I ignored the inner shriek as I flexed and unflexed my fingers, flailed and rubbed them. I stomped my feet on the floor. Dead. My arms felt nothing when I frisked them. I pushed myself up onto wobbly limbs and discovered I could walk, though unsteadily. I moved clumsily about, holding onto furniture, knowing that doing so generated circulation.

Within moments, sensation began to seep back into me. But rather than soothing awareness, my skin screamed as though on fire. My scalp and face burned from raw nerves. My ears buzzed and hurt and my dry tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

Terror gushed upward from my bowels and filled me to bursting. I threw open my mouth, then heard them:
screams
. They went on and on and on. Forever. I felt pain in my throat and wondered who howled in such shrill agony.
Poor thing.
I stumbled against Krissie’s oak dresser that still held her toiletries and knick-knacks and caught myself before falling. The cries recommenced, stronger than ever, with such travail I thought my heart would break. I white-knuckled the dresser’s edge, my eyes squeezed shut as the ear-splitting shrieks climbed to crescendo.

That’s it. I’ve got to help that person.
I lifted my head and found myself gazing into the mirrored sufferer’s face.

The screams abruptly ceased. I stared horrified at a person I no longer knew. Enormous,
terrified
eyes burned from dark pits gouged into a pitifully bony, tear-streaked face whose mouth froze into a wide death rictus. My gaze slid down to fingers so frail as to be nearly transparent. Wrinkled clothes hung from a stick-drawn skeleton.

When? How did I ever come to this?

Shame washed over me. I closed my mouth, snatched a tissue and blew my nose, then wiped my wet face dry. Survival took over. Instinct. My last dredge of self-respect snapped to attention and demanded immediate action.

Stripping last night’s clothes from my ridiculously skinny frame, I took stock of what was left of me to salvage. My skin still burned and my hands tremored but I could endure that. Had, in fact, before marriage, when Kirk had wanted his ‘time out with buddies.’ That endurance recall calmed me some. I analyzed where I’d come from all those years ago. By George and by cracky, I’d battled the demons then and won. Insecurities, insomnia, involuntary anorexia, the whole kit and kaboodle..

No one knew of my battles. Not even Daddy suspected their brutality. Neither would they now. I refused to amplify my unloveableness with revealed frailties. By concealing the truth, I may, just
may,
avoid driving everyone from me.

I turned from my ugly reflection and padded to the bathroom. Under the shower, for the first time in days, I succeeded in talking with my maker.

Talking, not listening. “Lord, please help me to be stronger. Please – do something to rid me of Roxie. I don’t believe Kirk’s guilty of – unfaithfulness. But I don’t trust
her
for a minute. So, anything you can do to help me, I’d sure appreciate it. Thanks, Lord.”

I rushed to dress and join Callie at the church office, to escape aloneness. I didn’t linger to listen to that inner guiding voice.

A big mistake, I would learn much later.

Kirk didn’t know about the Pastor Appreciation Day scheduled at Solomon Methodist Church two weeks later. It was a secret thing to honor him. Behind-the-scene plans ran smoothly, due to Callie’s administrative skills.

“Just call me
bulldozer
,” she snorted when I complimented her, then grabbed me for a huge hug. Roxie had gone low profile, barely showing her face anywhere. Secretly, I was jubilant. So was Callie. Kirk seemed – well, almost normal again. We’d had a heart-to-heart about that night and his cryptic remark.

“You can’t pay any attention to me, Neecy, what with Moose’s disappearance and all.” He shrugged his wide shoulders, looking desolate. “It’s still hard to believe he split. Anyway, I don’t even
remember
what I was teasing you about that night. Then, when you said you needed to clear your head, I figured you needed time alone for
whatever.
” He’d taken me in his arms and declared huskily, “Just know this, Neecy. I love you with all my heart.”

Undercover, I fought my way from trauma’s wasteland. Nights still stretched long and food churned in my stomach, but at least, I functioned without it being detected. My rationale continued to argue with the romantic me. Told me I was crazy for believing every word Kirk spoke.

Fact was, I
wanted
to believe him, chose to trust him.

My self-disgust went on hold. I sort of drifted along on autopilot, not dealing with it. At that moment, survival came
first. Regaining strength. Health and self-esteem would come later. First things first.

Dad, Anne and family came down for the special service, arriving on Saturday. Of course, with the event being top secret, they didn’t tell Kirk the reason. “We need a weekend off,” was Dad’s sole comment.

On the Sabbath, I dressed Dawn and sent her on ahead with Lynette and Heather to church, then rushed to my room to get ready. “Come with me, Anne,” I gestured, “tell me how Chuck’s doing.”

Anne, already decked out in an alabaster suit, lounged on my bed as I pulled a navy-blue skirt and long-sleeved white blouse from the closet and riffled through my dresser drawer for panty hose without holes.

“He’s holding his own, Neecy. You know Chuck – never complains. Doesn’t want pity. But – ” Anne’s eyes moistened, “I can’t help it. He breaks my heart sitting around that nursing home with folks old enough to be his grandparents, nobody to talk with – on his level that is. I can see his loneliness when I arrive, before he spots me.”

I pulled off my robe and began to thread my leg into the hose. “I wish – ”

“
Neecy!”

I swiveled to look at her, startled. “What?”

Her eyes were stricken, like huge donuts. “Neecy – what’s happened to you? You’re no bigger round than a toothpick!”

I could have kicked myself for exposing my wasted self to her. Usually, my loose fashions camouflaged it. “It’s nothing, Anne. I’ve just been busy lately and forget to eat, is all.”

She gazed unbelieving at me. “You look
sick.”

“I’m
fine.
You worry too much, Anne.” I laughed nervously, covered myself and steered the subject back to Chuck. “Has Teresa been nicer to you and Daddy lately?”

Her brow still furrowed with worry, Anne sat back against the headboard. “Not really. Chuck finally told me what I’d suspected all along. She told him she doesn’t like his family. Resents us.”

I spun to face her, incensed. “You know why? Because we
love
him. We make it hard for her to convince him he should just go ahead and die.”

Anne nodded sadly. “I’m afraid she doesn’t want him to linger.”

“She only went back to him to get what little money he had left in the bank.”

“Well,” Anne cut me a wise look, “that’s all gone now. Poor boy doesn’t have a cent to call his own.”

“So she’s shoving him at the mortician.” I beat my hair with the hair dryer and finger-fluffed it. “Has she allowed him to go home with you for dinner?”

“Not yet. He still wants to. In the worst way. It’s hard, seeing him humbled like that.”

“I know.” I choked on emotion, my mind’s eye seeing a magnificent blond Adonis in his youth who had the world on a string and girls at his feet. Whose zest for life exceeded all those in my experience, save Callie’s and Kirk’s.

Anne and I walked to church across dew-kissed grass, inhaling spring coastal air sweetened by honeysuckle and early azaleas. Inside, I escorted Anne to where Daddy was already seated, reading his Bible to pass time. Naturally antsy, he’d left earlier with the kids. Only two or three early arrivals milled about in the vestibule, including the Prescott and Whitman offspring, who kidded around in subdued tones.

I headed for the office complex in the rear of the church, where my choir robe hung in Kirk’s closet, not its usual place, but he’d picked it up at the cleaners for me only yesterday. Callie almost slammed into me. “Come on, Neecy, don’t go back there.” She took my arm and propelled me back from whence I came.

“But , Cal,” I tried to shrug loose as she kept moving, “my choir robe is in Kirk’s office.”

She stopped abruptly. I could hear her mind churning. Then she raised her hands half-mast. “Okay. I’m going back for it. You stay here. Promise?”

“What’s going on, Cal?”

“Stay
here!
” She glared at me for a long moment, her intent to intimidate me.

Her backend vanished promptly. Then my feet began moving, trailing her. Somehow, I
knew.

My insides, nearly relaxed from earlier ordeals, instantly knotted.

Roxie
was on the premises. I
felt
it. The black slime was alive and well.

At the office door, I collided with Callie, whose face turned thunderous. “I
told
you to not come – ”

Roxie appeared like sleight of hand, her eyes in feline slits. Kirk on her heels, growled, “Don’t do it, Roxie!”

She simply smiled and stepped toe-to-toe with me, slanting me a smug look. “He doesn’t want you to know, Neecy. But I think you ought to – ”

“Stop it!” Kirk grabbed her shoulders and shook her like a rag doll. Callie pushed me farther inside and slammed the office door to keep the noise down.

“Keep your filthy mouth shut, Roxie,” my husband hissed so quietly I flinched. I knew that sign meant he was at the breaking point.

Roxie shot him a look of pure sensual malevolence. “Y’know what, Kirk? You don’t have a blasted thing to do with what I say or not say.” She turned to face me again and opened her mouth to speak.

“Say one word,” Callie pushed me aside and mingled breath with Roxie, “and I’ll make you wish you were dead.”

Roxie hesitated, then opened her mouth again, “Neecy – ”

Callie grabbed Roxie by the hair and slung her against the wall so forcefully, Cal stumbled backward. I reached for her just as Kirk caught her, a breath away from hitting the floor. Roxie slid to the floor soundlessly, pale and disoriented
.