Stepping Into Sunlight (30 page)
Warmth pushed away my unease. “It’ll be wonderful to see you, Alex. I’ve missed you. We have a lot to catch up on. And get me their breakfast blend with cream and sugar—the biggest they’ve got.”
He chuckled. “It’s a deal. I’ll be there by ten.”
“That’s your idea of early?”
“Yeah, yeah. You and Mom both. Up at the crack of dawn, kids to feed, floors to polish, committees to organize.”
I giggled. “Not lately.” For some reason, that admission didn’t bring the swoop of shame and depression I’d grown to expect whenever I glanced at how my life was looking. “I spend the days hiding so my next-door neighbor doesn’t accuse me of voodoo or make me wallpaper her house, tricking the hamster into swallowing her antibiotics, checking for e-mails from Tom, getting pulled over by the police for crying while driving, and hanging out at a storefront mission with Popeye and Condoleezza.”
Another silence from Alex. Then he cleared his throat. “Except for the hamster, I’m right with you. Sounds like a typical day in the life of a Norton.”
“Except Cindy.”
We snickered as only siblings could. “Yeah,” he said. “She’s got her life a little too organized for anything interesting to happen.”
“Sometimes I wish I could go back to when things weren’t interesting.”
“No, you don’t.”
I was still smiling when Bryan and I ventured to the pet store to find a friend for Gimli. The teenage clerk had no idea which hamsters were females, so Bryan and I grabbed likely candidates and upended them to check. Frankly, I couldn’t tell the difference, so we made a best guess and bought Legolas.
When I started the car up, the warning light flashed. Almost out of gas. My skin felt prickly with heat, then cold. I’d sailed through this errand, but at the thought of buying gas, panic throttled me. I glanced at Bryan. I could park near a gas station and sit there until Bryan turned sixteen. Then he could fill the car.
Or I’d just drive the car until it ran out and then leave it at the side of the road until Tom got back from sea. He could take care of it then. A much saner notion.
I pulled out of the parking lot. At least I didn’t have many places to drive in the next few days. That gave me a little reprieve.
I even managed to get us to church Sunday morning and lasted through the service without rushing out in panic. The lector read strong, true words. I could read the same words in my Bible at home, but absorbing them along with a few hundred other people touched me with more power. The congregation spoke the creed with conviction. The pastor dug into the book of Galatians and explained how God creates fruit in our lives. Best of all, I shuffled my way to the altar for communion. Kneeling at the railing, hearing the words “The body of Christ, broken for you,” I felt God’s embrace. He understood brokenness. I suspected many of the others kneeling beside me understood it, too. I feasted on faith in ways I had missed by being home alone for so long. It’s as if I’d been standing alone by the kitchen sink eating stale potato chips. Now I gathered with family and savored the banquet of grace.
Dr. Marci had told our group that growth isn’t a steady consistent road. Two steps forward, one step back. I’d seen the pattern of improvements and setbacks in my own life. So the flare of horrible nightmares Sunday night wasn’t too much of a surprise.
My dark imagination painted vivid scenes of mental hospitals. I wrestled against orderlies who dragged me toward the room where they gave electric shocks. I fought and screamed and tangled in my blankets. When I clawed my way to consciousness, I woke with a throbbing headache and stumbled to the bathroom for aspirin.
I must have been more worried about the visit with Alex than I’d realized. I’d talked myself out of my fear of descending into madness, but my sleeping mind hadn’t gotten the message.
Alex hadn’t sounded irrational when we’d talked. Why was I so afraid?
I crawled back into bed, but Bryan bounded into my room and leapt onto the mattress. “So will Uncle Alex be here when I get home from school?”
“I’m not sure what his plans are.”
He trampolined on the bed, forcing a groan from my chest. I closed my eyes “Bryan, I’ve got a headache.”
He flopped down alongside me. When a long silence stretched taut, I opened my eyes.
Bryan’s bright hazel stare hovered inches from my face. As soon as he saw the whites of my eyes he laughed. “Cool. That always works.”
I rubbed my forehead. “What does?”
“If I get real close and watch you long enough, you open your eyes.”
I pounced and tickled him, even though his giggles shot pain through my head. “Okay, buster. Now make your bed. I’ll get your Cheerios ready. If you hurry, you can send a message for Dad before school.”
He tumbled over me and skidded from the room in his stocking feet.
“Bryan, wait! How’s Gimli?”
He slid back into the doorway. “She’s happier. Legolas likes her new house, too.” He gave me an assessing look. “Maybe you should try some of Gimli’s medicine. Works really good.”
I threw a pillow in the general direction of the door and he scooted away, laughing. Despite the headache, I grinned and shook my head. “Lord, he’s a charmer, that one. How did I get so blessed?”
I propped up and pulled my Bible onto my lap along with my notebook. Residue of the nightmare still twisted in my mind like a nest of snakes. Psalms would help. Those psalmists understood terror. My concordance didn’t have an entry for post-traumatic stress or for fear of losing my mind. But I found a good chapter about God’s protection and comfort. I read slowly and chose one verse to repeat again and again. If I could memorize one sentence to carry through the day, maybe I’d make it.
I copied the verse into my notebook along with a quick prayer. “Heavenly Father, your laughter lightens every heart. Thank you for making little boys and hamsters and giggles. Thank you for helping me laugh again. You are so tender and patient. I know you understand.”
“Mom! I can’t find my math paper.”
My feet hit the ground and I gave my Bible a soft pat. In the corporate world, executives faced the tyranny of the urgent. In my world, I faced the tyranny of the missing homework. But the brief time with God had begun to unwind some of the snakes from my brain, and a few even crawled away to leave me in peace.
Once Bryan’s bus pulled away, I poured myself a second cup of coffee. Alex might be bringing Starbucks, but I needed fortification sooner than that. I even brought the mug into the shower with me. That was a mistake. Jasmine shampoo did nothing for the flavor of Folgers.
Still, the caffeine and shower chased away my headache. Humming, I pulled on jeans and a sweater. I blotted my hair and ran a comb through it. Then my fingers took the place of the comb’s teeth as I paced the house. Alex wouldn’t arrive for another hour, and each minute gave me time to build anxiety. I scrubbed the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom, plumped the living room pillows, and played a few rounds of solitaire on the computer. Even that failed to hold my interest. Maybe I’d overdone it on the caffeine.
Finally, a car door slammed. I peered around the living room curtains. A thin man in a leather jacket walked up the sidewalk with two takeout cups. I pulled the door open.
“Penny?” His throat sounded thick, as if he were getting over a cold. “You look exactly the same.”
I’d forgotten the copper glints in his mahogany-brown hair. Now I was surprised by the feathery accent of silver that joined them. His skin hung loosely over the bones of his face, as if he’d gained and lost weight several times. But when he smiled, the hangdog look disappeared and I recognized the brother from my childhood. He held a cup out toward me. “One large breakfast blend with cream. As ordered.”
“Thanks.” I finally managed a smile and took his offering, glad that with our hands full, I wouldn’t be expected to hug him. Our family had never been huggy, and I definitely wasn’t ready to throw myself into an embrace with this man I barely recognized. “Come on in.”
Alex wiped his feet and strolled into the living room.
I closed the door. “You’re taller than I remember.”
He gave a surprised laugh. “I haven’t grown. Maybe it’s like going back to your childhood home. Everything looks bigger than you remember.” He set his coffee on the table and shrugged out of his jacket.
We settled on opposite ends of the couch.
“So how
was
your visit to the childhood home?” I asked. “Was Mom playing Cleopatra?”
He smiled. “Queen of denial? Yeah. Some things haven’t changed.” He leaned back, at ease. No hint of apology or remorse.
My blood began to burn and veins in my neck throbbed. “So,” I said tightly. “How was your drive? Good weather for it?”
He drew a deep breath. “I can see it’s eating at you. Get it over with. Ask me the questions you need to ask.”
Hold it together, Penny. He knocked over your sand castle, but don’t
come up swinging.
“Okay. I’ll ask.” The word caught and I cleared my throat. “Why did you leave? Why didn’t you ever tell us where you were?” I stopped before the sting behind my eyes betrayed me with visible tears.
“Those were tough years.” He picked at a thread on his jeans, a small tremor of his hand revealing that his own emotions weren’t as placid as I’d thought. “I felt like a defective car part. Everyone kept trying to fix me. I . . . I resented it.”
“But they only—”
“I know. They were trying to help. But I hated it. I did the only thing I could think of. I left it all behind. Escaped the weight.”
“What weight?”
“Of causing so much grief. Of being the ‘problem.’ ”
“But where did you go?”
He sighed and some of the weight he’d worked to escape pressed on his shoulders. “I made some stupid choices. Chased away my demons with drugs the doctors had never tried.” He gave a crooked smile. “Not a great way to find sanity—but it held back the pain for a while.”
“Drugs . . . ?” Instead of shock and contempt I felt sadness and a strange understanding. Hadn’t I wished for something to muffle my misery in the past weeks?
He misunderstood my silence and raised his chin. “I’ve been clean for years. One day at a time and all that.”
“Good for you. That takes a lot of courage.”
He blinked and relaxed deeper into the cushions. “Don’t put me on a pedestal. I have lots of regrets. But I turned things around about six years ago.”
Six years? And even after that, he never let us know he was alive. My jaw clenched. “Back to my original question. Why? Why did you cut us all out of your life? Couldn’t you have sent a postcard? Anything? Do you have any idea what it felt like?”
He looked away from my virulent words but didn’t interrupt as I flung each question across the space between us.
“After you got clean? Why didn’t you call then?” I hugged my knees against the pain in my stomach.
“By the time I got to a place where I might have been able to handle seeing the family, so much time had gone by I felt . . . ashamed. Ashamed of where I’d been. Ashamed of all the time that stretched between us. Does that make any sense?”
“Sort of.” Some of the nettles of rejection and disappointment fell from my skin. I’d done something similar after the shooting. I’d been driven to the ground by fear, guilt, and anger, and I’d done all I could to pull away from people. He’d struggled for years before dropping out of sight. Coming back must have terrified him.
I reached for my coffee cup and hid behind it to take another sip. “Maybe I would have done the same thing. But still . . . all those holidays without you. You missed my wedding. You missed Bryan getting born, his baptism, all his birthdays.” The nettles still embedded in my soul began to throb again, so I stopped talking.
“I know.” His eyes met mine. They were clouded with emotion, but also held a dull tint of jaundice. He didn’t look well. “I’m really sorry.”
The coffee burned in my stomach and I swallowed hard. Is that why he’d come back? Was he seriously ill? Dad or Mom or Cindy would have told me if . . . Wouldn’t they? “Why now?” A lump of dread tried to choke me while I waited for his answer.
“N
O, NO, NO
. ”H
E
reached forward and touched my arm, then quickly withdrew. “Nothing like that. I know I don’t look great. Hepatitis, among other things. But I didn’t come back to stage some tragic death scene.” He grinned. “Mom thought the same thing. I should have worn a shirt that said, ‘I’m not dying.’ ”