Troubled waters, p.24
Troubled Waters, page 24
A short beep of the horn roused her, and she glared in her mirror at the old man waiting for her spot. She shoved the shifter into Drive, turned the wheels as hard as she could, and pulled out into the street, never looking for traffic.
At seventy miles an hour she headed back home.
———
At five in the afternoon in Dallas, the traffic would be at a standstill. But the country roads here were clear, and her rental car sped along the pavement faster than the little compact was comfortable with. It shuddered a bit as it flew down the road. Or maybe she was doing the shuddering.
She’d avoided the topic of the past altogether during the week she’d been here, even though she sensed her mother had wanted to talk about it a few times. She hadn’t come home to talk about it. She hadn’t come home to rehash everything that had happened. She’d come to bury her father and help her mother, and that was all. Both of which she had done.
Her hands slammed against the steering wheel. Only hours left before she was going to leave! Why did this all have to come about now? She felt helpless, lifeless, her limbs moving only because some evil puppet master was pulling her strings.
No! She wasn’t going to be yanked around by some heartless divine power. She controlled her destiny. She made her own way. She always had. Nothing was going to change that now.
Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel as her foot pressed on the accelerater. In her mind’s eye, all she could see was that date. Yet, with all she knew, she still didn’t know why. Or what. Or how. She just knew the significance of the date on the top of the receipt.
As she turned onto the gravel road toward the house, the wheels spun and she corrected the car as it slid. Sweat dripped from her brow. Her jaw muscles protruded in determination. She had to know. And she knew the one person who had the answers—her mother.
Slowing down the car, she turned into the driveway. All seemed normal and quiet. A light wind rustled the tops of the trees. How different from what was going on inside herself. Restless turmoil. Tortured memories. A dull ache, like the low, almost inaudible rumbling of distant thunder before a big storm.
Tears streamed down her face, and there was no stopping them. She didn’t care. She wasn’t going to hide the pain any longer. She would simply walk into the house, stick the gown in her mother’s face, and demand the truth.
She turned off the car and swung the door open, reaching behind her on the backseat for the box. Her sweaty fingers slid off it several times, and she grunted with frustration. Twisting her body and grabbing it with both hands, she inadvertently smashed the edges of the box by holding it too tightly.
After slamming the car door shut, she marched up the sidewalk, climbed the porch steps, and kicked the front door until it popped open. This is it. This is the moment of truth.
Once in the entryway, she noticed the house was unusually quiet. When she rounded the corner and looked into the living room, she realized why. There was her mother—glasses sitting crookedly on her face, her feet propped up on a pillow—asleep on the couch.
Macey went outside and stood on the porch, sheltered a little from the heat by the shade of a nearby oak tree, its long shadow reaching all the way to the steps of the house. She held the box loosely in her hands. Only a few minutes before, every emotion had racked her body. Now there was nothing. No anger. No grief. No sadness. No pity. Nothing. And that was scarier. Her soul was like a black hole, where nothing could be retrieved.
Several long moments passed. Suddenly the air felt cooler. She glanced at the sky just as a low rumbling filled the air. Dark clouds had moved in from nowhere, and the smell of clean rain filled her nostrils.
Another clap of thunder, still in the distance. Looking out past the neighboring wheat field, she could see tall thunderheads towered on top of one another and stretched toward the heavens. She walked down the steps and saw lightning fall far away, made visible by the dark backdrop of rain.
The wind picked up then, and for the first time all day, she didn’t feel hot. The sweat cooled her skin as the breeze kissed her face as gently as a butterfly’s wings. More bolts of light streamed to and from the clouds. She stared at them, captivated by the beauty. It had been a long time since she’d seen a storm build up and approach like this.
Thicker clouds filled the sky now as large raindrops spattered the cement in front of her and hit her face and arms. She tilted her face upward and welcomed the wetness. The sun’s fiery orange rays met with the black storm clouds, shooting purple streaks in all directions.
Then the rain came heavier and started pelting her, but she didn’t care. Her clothes sagged as they soaked up the moisture. Instead of retreating indoors, she stepped out onto the grass. And then she took another step. And another. She tucked her tangled wet hair behind her ears and kept walking. Deeper, more ominous thunder rattled above, but again she didn’t care. She kept walking.
Kicking off her sandals, she walked with her toes feeling every blade of grass. The noise of nature continued to roar above while the light of the sun became hidden, though glorious rays still shot heavenward behind the storm. She kept walking.
She reached up to wipe her face, and her fingers stained black with running mascara. Her feet quickly turned brown, with wet pieces of grass stuck all over them. Her clothes clung to her, heavy and cumbersome. She didn’t look up and she never cringed. She just kept walking.
The wind picked up suddenly, swirling the tops of the trees and bending the smaller ones. Macey’s hair flew into her face, and she combed it back with her fingers. The thunder continued to rumble, a low and steady groan, as if the earth were mourning. She steadied herself and strode into the wind, defiant, daring nature to touch her.
Before long, the rain stopped hitting her face, and the wind whistled by her in a harsh whisper. The sounds of the storm became slightly more distant. Macey realized she was standing on the sheltering porch of Noah’s house, staring at his heavy oak door, drenched.
Before she could do anything else, the door opened and there stood Noah, silhouetted by the inside light.
Twenty-Two
His strong hand held her shoulder tight, and he guided her briskly, as if they were dance partners, over to the couch, where he helped her to sit. He squatted down in front of her, his eyes wide and serious. “Macey. What in the world are you doing out in the storm?”
Macey suddenly realized she was no longer carrying the box. Where could it be? Had she dropped it? Her breaths cut short. She started to stand, but Noah’s hand kept her seated. She looked directly into his eyes. He waited patiently for an answer, but Macey had no answers. Her body hunched forward. “Where’s the box?”
“What box?”
Macey’s hands fell in her lap. Had she said that out loud? The windows rattled with more thunder, causing Macey to gasp. Holding her hair back from her face, she fastened her eyes on the carpet.
“Daddy! Daddy! It’s a storm!”
Macey whipped around to find Savannah and Stephanie at the top of the stairs.
“Macey!” They both squealed and flew down the stairs. Macey tried to smile as they ran up to her, but the corners of her mouth trembled and tears welled up.
“Macey, you look sad,” Savannah said.
Stephanie stared and nodded by her sister’s side. Noah was no help, for there was no denying it. She was sad. There were no excuses left. She took Savannah’s hand and said, “I am sad.” Tears as big as the raindrops that had wet her skin fell from her eyes, and for the first time she felt a little relief from the agony that had plagued her. She had admitted she was sad. It had taken seventeen years, but she’d said it. “I’m sad,” she whispered again to herself.
Savannah and Stephanie gazed at Macey, looking sad themselves now. Noah stood and took them both by the shoulders. “Girls, I want you to go upstairs and play for a while. I want to talk to Macey alone, okay?”
“Are you going to help her feel better?” Stephanie asked as the two headed for the stairs.
Macey didn’t hear Noah’s answer, but soon he was back by her side with a towel in his hand. “Here, you’re soaking wet.”
Instead of drying off, she used the towel to hide her face. “I must be ruining your furniture.” It was the first rational thought she’d had for what seemed like a long time.
“Please. It survived the terrible twos and much more. It’ll handle a little wetness.” He left the room again, this time returning with a hot cup of coffee. “Here. I think this is how you like it.”
After dropping the towel from her face, Macey gave him a weak smile, received the warm cup, and sipped from it. She wondered if her eyes were black with mascara but didn’t have enough strength to care too much beyond that. Her back pressed into the couch, and she watched the rain falling in sheets through the nearest window.
“Mother must be worried,” Macey sighed.
“I’ll call her, let her know you’re safe.” He smiled as he stood. “I would always call your mother during storms just to make sure your father was there.”
“Don’t tell her I’m—”
Noah nodded, interpreting her thoughts. She could barely hear their conversation with all the racket outside, but he came back looking satisfied, so Macey didn’t inquire any further. She continued to drink her coffee and listen to the rain. There was nothing she could say to release any of the humility she was feeling.
Noah joined her on the couch with his own cup of coffee, and the storm provided the only dialogue for a while. The lightning would call, the thunder answer, and every so often the wind and rain would shift directions and break up the monotony of it all.
“Macey . . .” Noah sounded hesitant, and Macey couldn’t get herself to look at him. “Macey, what’s going on?”
Macey shook her head. Any words would bring more tears. She didn’t want to sob in front of the man who seemed to read her mind.
“You were standing out in the middle of a storm, soaking wet. Something’s terribly wrong. I can see it in your eyes.”
Macey looked the other direction, shivering, holding her coffee in one hand while gripping the towel with the other. She feebly wiped at her matted hair, which was tangled around her ears.
Noah leaned forward, his elbows propped on his knees. “It’s difficult to talk about, I can see that. But you’re obviously in a great deal of pain. If you ask me, you need to get some things off your chest.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
“But you were on my doorstep. That means something, doesn’t it?” His tone continued to be soft and sweet.
She swallowed down the last drop of coffee and tucked her dirty feet underneath her legs to keep them warm. She didn’t know what it meant. She hardly remembered walking over the bridge and over to his house. Her head pounded as she thought of the box, somewhere outside. Where had it gone?
“You’ll want to keep this for your own child someday, won’t you?”
A deep groan emerged from Macey’s throat. Why had she gone to the store? What could she have been thinking?
But just as thunder can roll across the skies and then disappear into silence, suddenly Macey’s heart shifted in an unexplainable way. All those years she had kept a secret. All those years her heart pumped a sad rhythm. Could she even imagine any normalcy? Day to day, her life appeared good, almost enviable. A million people watched her smile and laugh and interact as if she had the best life a woman could have. Maybe she had tricked herself.
Yet she knew better. Her apartment was constantly filled with noise. She watched twenty-four hour news channels around the clock. CDs spun in the stereo, belting out music she didn’t even care much about. She’d occasionally walk the malls, her ears tuned into the low murmur of indecipherable conversation. On the days when the ghosts of her past threatened to silence all the noise she created, she would find herself at the airport, standing near the large panes of glass, filling her ears with the tremendous noise of the jets and the busyness of passengers preparing for their destinations. She’d sit quietly, like a mouse, hoping not to be recognized, and listen to the robotic voices on the intercoms announce arrivals and departures. A strong urge always pressed her to board a plane and take off into the sky, but her sensibilities told her that at some point the plane would land, a destination would arrive, and she would be standing on earth again, trying to drown out voices from the past.
Noah rose and walked to the window. “What a storm,” he said, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his well-worn khakis. “I love storms like this. When they first move in.” He glanced back at Macey. “The sunlight still filters through the clouds, so it’s raining and sunny all at once. Patches of sunlight almost seem to highlight individual blades of grass.” He turned to Macey and leaned against the window frame. “If only I could capture something like that with my paints. But it’s impossible. God’s the ultimate artist. We can try, and maybe make some good attempts, but in the end He can’t be matched. Nor can His creations.”
Macey frowned. What was he trying to do, give her some subtle hint about God? Her hands curled into tight balls. She didn’t need to be lectured about God. Her father had given her plenty to dwell on the last time they spoke.
Noah’s next words came out carefully. “You know, ever since I met you, I felt like you had something to hide.”
Macey glared up at him. Her chest tightened with anger. “We all have something to hide, don’t we?”
“True,” he said, walking a few paces toward her.
Macey stared down at the upholstery of the couch, clutching the towel in her lap. “I’ve never spoken about it since it happened.” The words stuck in her throat. “Not one time.”
“I’m listening.”
Twenty-Three
There were rules. So many rules. They were good rules, and they kept me out of trouble, but I would’ve probably stayed out of trouble anyway. Or, I guess it could be argued, I would have gotten into trouble regardless. Either way, my father had a standard for righteousness that I could never obtain, even though I tried hard. I tried so hard that I lost friends, and by my senior year, I found myself isolated and lonely.
“I guess I still had a good perspective. I knew right from wrong. And I knew that the right choices made a positive difference in my life. I’d been a perfect little angel as a child, but innocence and purity went out of style the older I got. I still had a few friends, I suppose. I called those who waved at me in the hallways and talked to me at lunchtime my ‘friends.’ But somehow all those times I’d declined to go to parties and decided against certain movies left me searching for friendship in a way I never had to as a child.
“I remember the attic. My father spent a lot of time there studying the Bible and reading a lot of other books about the Bible. He’d built bookshelves up there to hold all the books he loved. The attic was unbearably hot in the summer and just the opposite in the winter, but he loved it all the same. It was his, and a place, according to my mother, where he would spend time praying for me.
“Even though I was kind of lonely, I still felt a lot of promise in my life. I knew my parents loved me and supported me. I made good grades and felt like I could get into a good college on a scholarship. My father thought I’d make a good nurse. It always hurt my feelings that he never mentioned I might be a good doctor. But I could see my father’s idea of a woman’s role in life through the eyes of my mother. She was a servant, a follower, and submitted completely to him. It made her happy, yet I wanted more out of life.
“A few weeks before graduation, I was more focused than ever. I was determined to ace my finals, and after that choose from several colleges that had offered me scholarships. I was looking forward to a fresh start in life, a new city, new friends, new opportunities. And that’s when Harley Preston came into the picture. He was the school’s quarterback and every girl’s dream date. Except this one’s. I hadn’t even dared dream about Harley. He was so out of my reach that I was smart enough to know it would only hurt me. So I listened to other girls talk about him, passing him in the hall like a small insignificant shadow. I focused on my studies instead.
“One day, right after lunch—I’ll never forget it—I was putting books in my locker when someone bumped into me from behind. I turned and found Harley Preston looking down at me with that goofy dimpled smile that always swooned all my friends. My heart skipped a beat, and I was sure it had been an accident, but then he said my name, and I almost dropped everything I was holding. He said he regretted not talking to me sooner, that he’d always been a little intimidated by me. I laughed out loud at that one, and I guess that made him even more insecure because he almost turned around and left. But when I asked him what he wanted, I was shocked to hear him actually ask me out on a date. He was fumbling his words, and his forehead was beading up with sweat. I probably looked confident because I was just so flabbergasted I couldn’t move a muscle. Then, before I could think twice, I found myself saying yes.
“At home, Dad wasn’t pleased and asked right away what church Harley went to. He questioned my logic about dating someone during April, with finals just over a month away, and then he scrutinized my intentions. It overwhelmed me. For the first time all year I was feeling accepted and liked, and my father was disapproving before I could explain anything to him. Yet, deep down inside, I knew there was nothing to explain. He wouldn’t understand. His meaning, his purpose, his whole life’s happiness was wrapped around his thick leather Bible. What did he know of life as an eighteen-year-old girl? He expected me to be naïve and innocent forever? I had to learn the ways of the world, and I knew my father would disapprove.
