Storm Tossed: A troubled woman finds peace with herself and God in the midst of life's storms. (11 page)

God, why don’t you do something
, she asked in silence, angrily.

In the stillness of the room, suddenly Autumn heard a voice, not an audible one, but she was certain of hearing Someone speak to her heart. She heard the gentle but firm voice say
, I did. I created you
.

That was part of the lyrics to Matthew West’s song
, Do Something that
she’d heard on the radio one day, riding with dad and Rachel to eat lunch at the plaza. Had God just spoken to her?

She frowned, marinating on the words.
Me?
How could she do anything for anyone? She needed nurturing and care herself, in a huge way.

Her mom was never there for her when she was little. She went from man to man, job to job, state to state, collecting college degrees like baseball cards, but never holding down a job—or a relationship—for long. She was searching, always searching for something, but didn’t know for what—or for who. She tried to use money and material things like beautiful clothes, furs, fancy cars, horses, and big mansions to fill her up, but it was obviously how empty she was inside.

Autumn wasn’t a devout Christian, but she knew it was a God-sized void. Her mother needed Jesus. For that matter, Autumn needed to grow closer to God, too. She prayed to Him sometimes, but He often felt far away. She remembered Rachel saying once that God had never moved. That He was waiting for Autumn to crawl up in His lap and love on her.

There was never any stability in Autumn’s life when she was growing up with her mom. All the different men. All the different schools and houses. She’d make friends, and then have to leave them when she moved. She’d have to start all over again, making friends and adjusting to a new school in another strange town. It really messed her up. She could never find anything to grasp, to hold onto.

By the time she reached her pre-teen years, she was fed up with her mother’s self-absorption and changing men like clothes. She wanted a mother. A good one.

Dad always said that a retarded cat had more of a mothering instinct that she did. One day, Autumn and her mom exchanged very angry words over Autumn’s “attitude” and accusations of not being a real mother, and her mom sent her to dad and Rachel’s house, telling Autumn not to bother ever calling her again. The rejection stung. Autumn thought she meant it.

She remembered times in the past when she’d tried to hug her mom or just talk to her about her day at school, and her mother would just stiffen at the embrace or say she was busy and they’d talk later.

But then when her mother wanted to talk, all about herself and the new, “gorgeous” man in her life who she was so in love with, and he was really rich, too, there was a torrent of words and Autumn was a forced prisoner to listen to it all.

She resented it when her mother would make fun of dad and brag how she made so much more money than him now. So what? He was 10 times the person she was!

But her mom often bribed her with Orange Leaf frozen yogurt or out to eat at Wild Things, he
r favorite hot wings restaurant, in order to keep her a captive audience, yacking about herself. Autumn kept hoping for a real relationship with her. It never happened.

Autumn was finally sick of her mother’s bright red-lipstick self. She gladly moved to her dad’s house when she was a pre-teen, even though she and Rachel didn’t seem to get along very well during her visits in the summer. But anything could be better than this, right?

It wasn’t. She and Rachel didn’t get along at all. They seemed to have this love-hate relationship. One day getting along and then the next day, all heck would break loose with them screaming at each other, mostly over Autumn’s broken curfews with boys on dates and Autumn’s slovenly habits. She still wasn’t a very good housekeeper to this day, even on her own. Who cared if her room was messy? It was her room. Why couldn’t she eat in her room instead of at the dining table with the family? Boring! She just wanted to talk on the phone to her friends or watch TV.

Jackson’s insistence on a “family dinner time” was a joke. How could they be a family with all the arguing going on between Rachel and Autumn? Her dad was either delusional or a hopeless romantic. He wanted so desperately to have a loving family that he pretended not to see the real, deep-rooted issues going on right under his nose.

Autumn resorted to hiding dishes in her closet, and forgot about them, and then they’d grow mold on them, which Rachel would find weeks later and shriek about them. Why was Rachel looking in her closet? On and on it went.

Dad and Faith were in the middle of it all. Rachel’s and Autumn’s arguments caused a lot of strife between dad and Rachel, which made Autumn feel gleeful momentarily and then guilty when she’d see dad’s and Rachel’s sad, despairing faces. Faith would often just retreat, depressed again, to her room to draw or play stupid video games. All Faith wanted was for everyone to love each other and to be happy. Why couldn’t they just watch a good movie together and eat some popcorn, Faith would ask. Kind of hard to do when nobody is speaking to each other, Autumn would tell her sarcastically.

The cloud of doom would last for days at their house until either Rachel or Autumn would apologize with a hug, a note or a text. Then the cycle would start all over again. They both wanted each other’s love, but they didn’t know how to get along.

It was the same for Jackson and Rachel. Cycles of getting along, even fun times, and then it’d hit the fan from a little comment, a look, a mistake. Molehills made into mountains.

Maybe it was all her fault and they’d be better off without her there. As soon as she could, Autumn moved out into the college dorm to earn her master’s degree to pursue her therapist career. She’d ask for occasional financial help from dad, but mostly she depended on Pell Grants, student loans, and her receptionist job at the mental health facility to pay her own bills.

A pride thing, she didn’t want to be obligated to him, and besides, she didn’t want to them to argue over money. It was tight enough for them as it was. Autumn wouldn’t be the cause of any more strained finances for them. Let them work out their money problems themselves.

They both needed to learn how to manage their money better, and stop blaming each other! When she married, she’d find a dependable, frugal guy and they’d see eye to eye on money issues
before
saying, “I do.” Theirs would be a true partnership of love, understanding, and respect. It was ridiculous to argue over money!

She’d call dad once in a blue moon, usually when the loneliness overwhelmed her, but almost never talked to Rachel or Faith now. Yet each day Rachel prayed faithfully for her. Autumn would occasionally text Faith or send her a private Facebook message just to say hi.

She missed their childhood times of sledding or skiing in the snow down the big hills. They’d come in to drink hot chocolate, watch dinosaur cartoons, and giggle happily. Then she and Rachel would get into a tiff over something stupid like the mess Autumn made in the kitchen fixing the hot chocolate. Rachel was ruining her life.

Why was everything so hard? Why couldn’t Rachel be the kind of mom Autumn needed and wanted?

Rachel. Autumn wondered what was going on with the hurricane. She turned on the TV. She was appalled to see the widespread damage. Thousands without power. Homes demolished in an instant. Businesses that would have to file bankruptcy from the destruction. Streets like a river.

How would they ever start to clean that mess up? Crews had been called in from other states. Mayor Susan Rudy had requested help from the National Guard, FEMA, the Red Cross, and the Disaster Mortuary Assistant Team.

Mortuary…Autumn shivered and prayed.
God, I know we don’t get along sometimes. But please let Rachel be okay. Please let her be alive and not hurt.

She wondered if dad was watching the news. Her eyes stayed glued to the set, watching the horrible scenes, and she grew more apprehensive the longer she watched TV. Why was she watching this before bed? But after a day like today, she’d never sleep anyway.

Abused children. Abused women. A 15 year old boy who had set a house on fire with friends just for kicks. A senior citizen
having panic attacks and
hallucinations of blood on the wall from PTSD as a result of her recent traumatic car accident. A gay man with full-blown AIDS and suicidal. A single mom addicted to meth whose kids were taken away. She had bald patches on her hair and sores all over her body. She loved little chocolate doughnuts, and would shove them into her mouth, while talking non-stop to Autumn. A pregnant 13-year-old girl still trying to decide whether to have an abortion in her third trimester or give the baby up for adoption. All of them with a story to tell. All of them just wanting love.

Her eyes came quickly back to the TV when she heard the reporter mention Destin, Florida. Destin.
That’s where Rachel is.
Destin had been demolished, he said. The number of dead was still unknown as access to the areas was almost impossible at this point.

A 12-foot storm surge had destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses. The costs to rebuild would be astronomical. In some places, water was still rising.

Still rising?
Autumn knew that Rachel had two fears about death: being burned alive or drowning.
Why then had she done this stupid thing and gone to Florida during hurricane season?

She didn’t want to call dad again and possibly scare him more. She just prayed, and ate more chocolate. The wine was empty now, so she poured herself a glass of chocolate milk. She knew she shouldn’t drink it, because she was lactose intolerant. But she loved it. She looked in the pantry for something else to munch on. Nutter Butters. Her favorite cookie in the whole world. And Rachel’s. Autumn could easily polish off an entire package.

She looked at her stomach. How did she get so fat?
Maybe wine, chocolate milk and Nutter Butters, you dummy,
she scolded herself. But these were just occasional indulgences. Usually she ate healthy. That was one thing Rachel had taught her: to take care of herself, because she mattered.

For the last several years, Rachel had radically changed her lifestyle. She ate lots of salads and fresh veggies, buying fresh vegetables and fruit at the farmer’s market. She bought lean meats, chicken, fish, and lamb, at the butcher’s shop. She ate regular meals at consistent times with a snack at mid-morning and the afternoon.

She drank lots of water, giving up sodas, energy drinks, and sweet tea (a miracle, because Rachel loved her very sweet, southern tea), although she permitted herself one little indulgence—her morning coffee with cream. She’d lost a bunch of weight, looking “hot” Autumn told her one day, which made Rachel laugh and feel good. Her changes in her health and fitness inspired Autumn and Faith. She had never felt better. The fifties looked fabulous on her!

She was more alive than ever. Full of life, purpose, and passion. Loving Jesus, loving her work, loving her family…
or at least, she tries
, Autumn thought.
I know it’s not easy loving dad and me.

Autumn prayed for God to watch carefully over her stepmother as the reporter talked about 23 people already found dead in Panama City, Destin, and the surrounding areas and the count not being over yet. Maybe even hundreds had died in this storm.

God, please don’t let Rachel die. I love her. Please help her and protect her. Let her come safely home.

*******

Ben and Jim were helping Gail climb out of the large bay living room window to get into the canoe outside their home, tied tightly to a steel pole. When she’d realized that her sister Janine was dead after Ben said they couldn’t bring her with them, she had become hysterical, then almost catatonic with shock.

At first she’d screamed in denial, then fell onto Ben’s shoulders, sobbing loudly and yelling angrily, beating his chest to do something, to bring her back with CPR. Ben just held her, taking it, knowing that grief has many faces including anger and she needed to deal with the truth. He didn’t want to have to keep pretending she was okay, when, well, Janine had definitely kicked the bucket.

He wrapped his arms around her comforting her, and looked over at Jim compassionately, whose eyes welled up with tears again, too. Mandy came over to soothe Gail, speaking to her like a little child, and softly rubbing her back, big tears flowing down Mandy’s face. This was so heart-breaking.

Andy was already outside waiting in the canoe. He was looking around, giving a news commentary every few minutes, trying his best to ignore the big gauge in his left thigh that was bleeding profusely. He was putting direct pressure on it, but blood was soaking the shirt.

Ben threw him his shirt and he began pressing the wound hard with that, too. It had been years since he’d taken basic training and he had forgotten most of it. When was the last time he had a tetanus shot? He didn’t know what had injured his leg, but man, this was a hardcore cut.

Lucky thing that Ben and Jim were here to help everyone. Ben seemed to know everything about everything, his mind like a computer. Sometimes it was almost like you could see it tick-ticking, going through all the files in his head. He had a photographic memory and a genius I.Q.

Jim’s stint in Vietnam served him well here as Ben’s right-hand man and back-up medic. If it had been just Andy who survived with the women, they’d be in big trouble.

I don’t know crap about anything. Ben got all the brains in our family-and the good-looking, great wife. I’m just useless
, Andy thought.
Maybe I should have died instead of Paula and Janine. They were good women, like Mandy. It should have been me.
A cold, prickly sensation went down his neck and back. Then he superstitiously shook the thought away.

Since water was partway covering the living room window, the men had to break it to get it open and everyone had to slowly slide through it, careful not to cut themselves on the jagged edges. The doors were water-logged and they couldn’t get them to open against the flood water that was in most places in the house waist-deep and in some rooms so high they had to swim through it.