Sanibel Scribbles (25 page)

Evelyn jumped up, walked over to her bed, and picked up the bag of sage. She pulled it out of the bag, struck a match, and lit it. Once the tip of the sage had begun to burn, she lightly blew out the fire and let it smoke. She broke off a smoking piece of the sage and handed it to Vicki.

“Here. Walk around the room with me as you hold up this burning sage.”

“What?”

“Just do it, quickly, before it burns out. It’ll rid the room of negativity.”

Evelyn opened a tiny box on top of her nightstand and pulled out a flash card. “This is a picture of Michael the Archangel. I’m going to hold it as I walk so he can guide us.”

Together the women walked to each of the corners of the room, holding the burning sage high above their heads as they went.

“This stuff smells a whole lot better atop a turkey,” said Vicki. “Or is it rosemary that goes on turkey?”

“Quiet. Concentrate on getting rid of the negative energies. Michael the Archangel will help us.”

“Evelyn,” said Vicki a minute later. “Open that drawer over there.”

“What drawer?”

“That bottom one,” stated Vicki.

“Why?”

“There’s a Bible in it.”

“I didn’t bring any Bible out here.”

“Doesn’t matter. There’s one in there.”

“How do you know?” asked Evelyn.

“There’s almost always a Bible in a nightstand drawer.”

Evelyn set her flashcard of Michael the Archangel down on the floor, knelt down, and opened the drawer next to her bed. She tossed a pile of old magazines on the floor and, under used tissues, found a red Bible.

“Have you been snooping in my room?” she asked Vicki.

“Of course not. Here, let me see it,” Vicki said, taking the Bible from Evelyn, then placing it on the floor. With her right arm holding the burning sage high up in the air, she closed her eyes and flipped the Bible open randomly with her left hand. She opened her eyes, glanced down and read out loud Jeremiah 44:33-34 for the first time in her life: “‘They provoked me to anger by burning incense and by worshipping other gods that neither they nor you nor your fathers ever knew. Again and again I sent my servants and the prophets, who said, “Do not do this detestable thing that I hate!”’

Vicki could feel her mouth falling open and tears forming in her eyes.

“Evelyn, come with me. We’ve got to rinse this incense immediately. We’re not supposed to be doing this. God loves us, and apparently He doesn’t want us burning this to some entity we do not know.”

“Holy shit,” said Evelyn as she followed Vicki downstairs to Miss Juanita. The women quickly ran the burning sage under the faucet and then tossed it in the trash.

“I know you couldn’t have opened the Bible to that page on purpose,” mused Evelyn as they walked back upstairs. “Your eyes were closed, and you did it with one hand,” she said, glancing back at Vicki.

“Evelyn, I’ve got to ask you something serious. Have the cards ever really helped your life in any way?”

“My life. Ha. Let me tell you ‘bout my life, my endless cycle of Hell. Just name it and I’ve experienced it—rape, abuse, near starvation from no money and no food, and divorce. Did I mention spouse abuse? Got so bad I had to have surgery. It happened with both husbands and two boyfriends.”
She plopped down on her bed.

“Evelyn, you take advice from a deck of cards, or the spirits working through the cards, but who are these spirits?”

“How am I supposed to know who they are? They only give me information that I interpret. They don’t talk about themselves.”

“This is why it’s far safer to just talk to God.”

“God doesn’t want anything to do with me. I can guarantee that.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that at all. God loves you no matter what you have done.”

“No, he doesn’t love me. I mean, I don’t even know how to talk to Him.”

“It’s easy. It’s the easiest thing in the world.” Vicki started praying to God, and Evelyn closed her eyes and listened.

“Amen,” said Vicki a few minutes later.

“Amen,” said Evelyn. “Amen.”

The women talked and Evelyn shared how she had been abused by men in several different relationships. They cried because these men that abused Evelyn were like pirates, enemies to all of womankind.

“What about your fiancé and your engagement?” asked Vicki.

“I can’t marry that man. He hurts me all the time.”

“But Evelyn, the proposal, the tears?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tears of fear! It was all an act to save my life, babe. You’re such a naive romanticist. I didn’t want to disappoint you by telling ya that the men in my life are as dangerous as worldwide ozone depletion. You were happy for me. How could I tell you the good old truth? You couldn’t handle it.”

“Why’d you say yes to his proposal?”

“Call it acting, my dear, acting. I’m good, aren’t I? Yeah, that was all a big act. I came to the island to hide from him. He said he was going to kill me because I tried breaking up. Believe me, he
will
kill me! I escaped to this island without telling a soul, not even my daughter. I hoped to stay out here long enough—I don’t know how long, just long enough for him to get on with his life. But he found me. I don’t know how. The whole proposal scene, it was done publicly because he knew it would be the only way
to get close to me. As he swung me around, he whispered in my ear that he’d kill me if I didn’t return. I told him I had to finish my week at work in order to get any pay at all.”

“Do you think he might show up here again?” asked Vicki.

“Yes, with his gun! I’ve seen his gun close up. Believe me, I’ve almost felt its bullets. It would be just like him to charter a boat out here and show up at night when we’re all sleeping. There’s no way I’m gonna sleep tonight, and neither should you—for your life’s sake, keep your eyes open all … night … long!”

With no locks on the front door of the staff house, or on her own bedroom door, Vicki didn’t need Evelyn to tell her to stay awake. She finally understood Evelyn’s anger, her attitude, the toughness of her voice, and the lines on her face. She remembered all the case studies of domestic violence that had been discussed in her psychology class, and knew the potentially life-threatening situation it often posed for anyone involved.

Hours passed, and Vicki tried returning to her room, but Evelyn begged her to stay. “I’m scared to death to go to bed, babe. He might kill me while I’m sleeping. Oh, this is probably all so strange to you. Tell me more about God.”

Dear Grandma
,

Everyone has fears in life. Some fear the future. Some fear not measuring up to what this world declares a success. Some fear not making their dreams and goals come true by the exact age at which they fantasized them to be a reality. Some fear not having a fortune in the bank by the age of thirty or not owning a house by thirty-five. I have been meeting some new fears, some I have never been introduced to before. Now I realize that some fear physical threats. Some fear addictions. Some fear love. Some fear financial starvation or homelessness. At first, I was afraid of these strangers I had to live with on this island. Now, I like them. We are meant to be here, living and breathing together at this time and place. There’s nothing more exciting in life than converting
strangers into friends. It’s worth staying up late for
.

Instead of relying on Tarot cards, I need to patiently live out God’s timeline in my life. Why would I let a deck of cards, or the unknown spirits at work in them, dictate my future? What if they told me one thing when in reality another thing was supposed to happen? As a result, their advice could make me stray from my real destiny. The cards, or the person reading the cards, might predict some pretty strong things, and it might change the whole course of my life. The joke would be on me then, because I let them steer me
.

P.S. I know you’re not dead. How dare I conceptualize you as dead? Oh Grandma, you are more alive than ever, I’m sure!

“Wake up, child! We gotta get ready for work.”

“Are we late?” asked Vicki, looking around to reorient herself.

“No, not yet, but no time for dillydallying.” Evelyn’s eyes searched out the round window of her attic room, the one facing the sunrise and the trees, like a child watching for Santa Claus.

“Evelyn, how did you wake up without an alarm clock?”

“Never slept,” she announced matter-of-factly, pacing back and forth from window to window. The pillowcase that had hung on the west window the night before now rested on the floor, and the Bible lay open.

“Did you read more of the Bible after I fell asleep?” asked Vicki.

“Yeah, but if you really wanna know why I couldn’t sleep, there was this enormous lizard sitting on your back. The thing was huge.”

“An iguana? Bright green?”

“Yep. I took it upon myself to keep an eye on it for you. Who knows what it could have done to you while you slept.”

“You do think of anything to stay awake, don’t you?” mused Vicki.

Vicki could still feel the puffiness around her eyes that night when she waited tables for dinner. A couple had chartered Simon’s boat out to the island’s rustic kerosene-lit restaurant for their thirtieth wedding
anniversary.

“This may sound strange,” the man said to Vicki as she handed him a plate with a piece of key lime pie. “I don’t know why I am supposed to tell you this,” he added.

“Yes? What is it?” asked Vicki.

“Do you have a Bible out here?”

“Yes, why?”

“I’m supposed to tell you to read Jeremiah, chapter forty-four, but I don’t know why.”

Vicki stared. She held the woman’s plate with the key lime pie long enough for the woman to reach up and take it from her.

“Have you been talking with Evelyn, the other waitress? Did she tell you to say that to me?”

“No, dear, we haven’t spoken to anyone,” said his wife.

“Then why did you tell me that? What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I was praying to God during the boat ride over here, and when you first walked over to our table to take our order, I felt an overwhelming urge to blurt that out to you, but I didn’t.”

“My husband kept asking me if he should say something to you. I told him he should. Does it make any sense to you?”

Vicki sat down and explained the burning sage story to the couple. “Yes, it makes a lot of sense. Thank you,” she said. “The name Jeremy now means something to me, and I’ve heard the warning three times now.”

Toward the end of their dinner, she felt tempted to leave the island with the nice-looking, normal couple. They resembled lifeboats, and she would feel safe getting a ride back to the mainland with them. They could take her to shore. But, no, she couldn’t go back. She had to stay.

“Hey, Vicki,” said Evelyn after closing. “I’ve got a decision to make.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“It’s private. Usually, when I have this kind of a decision to make in life, I ask my tarot cards. Now I’m wondering, what to do. Do I ask God?”

“Absolutely. You can go to God in prayer about anything at all. Remember, it’s simple. Start by saying anything, just talking. Be yourself. You don’t have to be formal.”

“I’ve got to remember that,” said Evelyn. “Does He like certain prayers best?”

“Here, come with me and we’ll write something out for you.” The women sat down at a table and Vicki wrote out the “Lord’s Prayer” on the back of a paper placemat.

“Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven,” they read together.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

LIKE READING ENTRIES IN
her journal, the days flipped by quickly. Some days hardly got the descriptive entries they deserved, but recording life in the form of a letter was becoming a preoccupation for Vicki. Just how obsessive could a diary or an ongoing letter to her grandmother truly become? Well, for the detail-oriented perfectionist that she was—as a creator of daily lists of things to do that had to be artistically and grammatically correct—any correspondence, no matter how short and insignificant, became a novel in the making.

So much of life never got put down in ink and as a result was forgotten as soon as one’s memory faded or the person who experienced it died. Vicki wrote about the things that mattered most to her, of the personalities and issues facing the strangers on the island. In doing so, she could feel her circle of comfort growing wider as did her worldview. This was reflected in her collection of shoes.

Some shoes fit. They weren’t necessarily her style or from stores she’d ever shop at, but they did fit. She made them fit. If it meant putting on eight pairs of socks, this she would do. But some styles felt so out of proportion to her own feet that she couldn’t get them on even when she tried, socks or no socks. These were the times she wore wooden shoes, not minding that others wore flip-flops.

Why write of shoes?
Grandma would surely relate to such a metaphor
, Vicki wrote.
Her tile sandals, allowing her toes to get wet, walked her down
the beaches of Sanibel Island each spring when Vicki and her sister came for a visit. Her red satin slippers escorted her to plays at the Red Barn Playhouse in Saugatuck, easily sliding off when the lights were dim and her toes requested freedom. The Indian moccasins slowly and silently walked her to Loaf-N-Mug Deli for coffee each summer morning in Saugatuck and then quickly walked her home, fueled by caffeine. Those thick rubber white gym shoes that matched perfectly with her bulky gray jogging suit trekked her comfortably to the family reunion in Michigan one cold Christmas. The grandchildren had wanted badly to rescue Grandma’s tiny body from that oversized sweat suit. Finally, her furry pink slippers—they went to Marro’s for pizza and danced to Elvis in her apartment. Perhaps they took her the farthest
.