third order
november 08
---
Sifting Through Ashes
by Christie Lambert
---
This is not my body. I cannot control these limbs, this voice, this neck -- but somehow I am in the middle of this foreign place, stuck. I can only move these eyes enough to see an expanse of white, the abrasive glare of a fluorescent light in its middle.
"Lana, we're here, baby. You're going to be okay - you have to be okay. Please, God -"
Mom? I haven't heard you cry like this since we watched Titanic a billion years ago. Do you remember how you were sobbing so hard the people two rows down were passing tissues to us? And then we got into the car and Celine Dion's voice came through the radio, singing the movie's theme song about the heart going on and on -- and we were both crying, both saying, please don't cry, please stop, you're making me cry harder -
Wasn't it raining? It was. There was a sudden downpour that caught me carrying too much stuff to my front door -- my purse, a bag full of wrapping paper, a vanilla latte from the Starbucks drive-through, a stack of magazines. My keys fell out of my grasp into the muddy border of late summer roses and bushes. I had to put everything down, search through the thick foliage until I caught sight of them. My clothing, my hair, my shoes -- everything was soaked.
The beeping won't stop. I try again to move, but this body is several sizes too small and it won't stretch. It won't give. I want to tell someone to make the noise stop, to shut up the beeping and the voices, but I can't get the words out. I feel like I'm choking and someone says to relax, to stop fighting the respirator. But I need to talk and I try until the bright lights fade away again.
This time when I open my eyes I see my father and he looks all wrong, even though he smiles. "There's my girl," he says. I want to ask him what has happened to rim his eyes in smoky shadows, but I am still stuck, still silent. I have imagined fear -- but I never have felt it like this before, solid and real and inescapable.
There was my apartment, the relief at entering the front door but the air conditioner was on full blast and my body was shivering, shivering, shivering. I stripped out of the wet clothes, a hot bath all I could think of -- I couldn't risk getting a cold, not with the trip to Greece in four days. And before that, of course, Landon and photographs and parties, and a white dress with tiny pearls running along the bodice --
There was lightning and rain hitting the windows. While water filled the tub, I knelt in front of the fireplace to light the logs for immediate relief. But they refused to light and my body was still shaking. I was determined. I tried again and again. I knew I shouldn't force the pilot light. I knew I shouldn't force the gas. But just one more try, I thought. One more try.
Bellowing thunder outside, and then a flash -- and then I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move, the fire had swallowed me --
An octave I don't recognize erupts from my throat. "Oh, God! God, please --"
"Lana! Calm down, honey, we're here. You're okay, you're okay."
I was melting, my skin was melting, and I couldn't breathe -- there was no air left -- God, can you hear me? Do you remember this voice?
"Shh, baby, shh." My father's face is above mine again and his dark eyes look into mine. "Listen to me. You're in the hospital - but you're fine. You will be fine. Okay? You're fine, I promise you."
But I can't lift my head or move my arm or feel anything besides this roaring in my head. "What's wrong with me?" I try to say, my throat feeling like it was scraped with razor blades and left to bleed.
My mother takes my left hand. "Nothing time won't fix."
But I don't have time. I can't be here. I am getting married on Saturday. I have an aisle to walk down. I have Landon and Jenny. I can't let them down.
I can't stay awake, but I'm not really asleep. In this strange neither-here-nor-there-world, I hear words popping like bubbles over me. Morphine, debridement, hydrotherapy. Thirty-eight percent burned is repeated again and again, with my mother's voice talking about scars in a faraway tone and my father saying 'she'll be fine' over and over, like he's convincing someone. Scars. There's a scar on my knee, purple and bumpy. There were stitches there, stitches after that aunt kept saying how pretty my little sister was, how different the two of us were. I didn't wait for help to learn to keep my balance on the new pink bike -- I could do it myself, I wanted to do it by myself. I could be smart. I could be brave.
* * *
My eyes open and Landon is staring at me. "Hey, you," he says but his smile is not near its normal borders.
I open my mouth, an answer tunneling out of my brain, but his face grows blurry and disappears into blackness.
It's like I'm watching myself and feeling this pain in slow motion. I hear their foggy voices -- Mom and Dad's, Landon's.
"How long will it take?"
"It depends on how fast her body heals."
"Ballpark?
"For the mobility or the scars?"
I force myself through the mist, will my eyes to open and my brain to focus.
"Scars?" I ask and Mom is immediately by my bed, her hand on mine.
"Rest, Lana. Don't worry about anything yet, okay? Just sleep."
Yet.
Yet?
"How bad is it?"
"How bad is what?"
This dread is heavy. Stagnant. It makes me so tired.
"You're going to fully recover your movement. We're lucky, sweetie."
Lucky?
They keep talking about mobility, nerve recovery, hydration.
No one mentions my face. No one says that I will be back to my old life again soon. No one says that I look like a Halloween costume, like a mummy with slitted eyes. No one says anything at all.
When I try to ask, Mom makes herself busy with pillows and questions for the nurse about bandages. This has always been my mother's favorite adage - if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
They've weaned me off the morphine. I can understand the bandages from my waist up, the splint on my right arm and on my hand, my neck braced, and most of my face wrapped in gauze.
There are third degree burns covering thirty-eight percent of my body and they have already removed as much of the dead skin as they could. When I can take it, when the tissue is healthier, they'll put manufactured skin over the wounds. Later, they'll take portions of my own healthy skin to cover the missing pieces of me. A new version of robbing Peter to pay Paul, my dad said to me, in an attempt to make me laugh.
I have little to do but stare at the bright images on the wall-mounted television. Landon is here, but he is not saying much, just holding my good hand. He leaves when the nurses come in to do anything, even to check the fluid in the bags connected to my IV lines. I understand. This is cosmically unfair to him. He has nightmares about long, dimly lit corridors, about needles and slick linoleum floors, pudding cups and IV lines. It was my job to keep these nightmares at bay, and now here I am arranging face to face introductions to them.
We should've already walked out of the church in a flutter of birdseed. We should be drinking fruity concoctions and reading paperbacks by the ocean in Greece.
The first question is always why. When we turn a corner and find Tragedy standing there, immovable, unshakable, like it has been there the entire time, just waiting for us. We want to know why it chose our hallway. We strain to see which door or window we left unlocked and unattended so that it could sneak in unnoticed.
We demand to know why God wasn't watching on our behalf. Even if we never asked him to.
"Can I get you anything?"
"No," I say. "Just talk to me. Tell me about Jenny."
"Jenny's fine. My mom took her shopping for new school clothes."
"Really? Did she have fun? Did she get that backpack she's been wanting?"
"I don't know."
I wait, but he offers no more. He just sits back in the chair and picks up his can of Pepsi, and we both stare at the bright sheen of the blue aluminum.
* * *
There's a good window in my room -- nothing visible from it but unhindered sky. I like for the nurses to keep the blinds open, so I get my very own rectangle of blue or gray or whatever the color of the day might be. I keep thinking about God, even though he hasn't been in the forefront of my mind for a long time. I guess I'm typical. You can qualify the reasons for and against him, you can argue with it all, toss up theology and science -- but when pain explodes in our bones, God is the name breaking through our dry human lips.
I can tell that Mom is scared for me, but Dad keeps saying these quiet prayers when he thinks I'm asleep and he sounds sure that I'll get through this.
He always has faith, enough for himself and for the rest of us. When I was nine, he left his high-profile law firm to grow a beard, pack up all of our unnecessary belongings, and move us to a small house near a seminary. He learned what he needed to learn, and suddenly my sister and I were the children of a preacher, a preacher who needed nothing but his ardor for Christ and his family to be content. Every time he felt God leading him to a new place, a new mission, a new life, he'd persevere until we saw the same new vision. My mother would end up walking around the yard of the moment, telling Leah and me that we'd make great friends, that we'd love our new town. We'd see. Dad hadn't let us down yet.
Somehow, he didn't let us down. There were times when readjusting took patience, when we felt like we'd been duped into this new calling -- but, eventually, we'd be happier for it. Now I wonder how he did it. Because for the decisions to turn out all right, every time, he must have really been hearing the voice of God -- and how did he discern that voice from his own? What did he do to make God speak to him, to get to that place where his presence is enough to sustain?
I'm beginning to think that it's impossible for me to find that place. I'm beginning to wonder if I've even been invited to look for it.
Finally, I ask the nurse named Liz, because I think I know the answer and I don't want my parents to discern my reaction. "My hair -- is it in the bandage?"
She looks at me and I can tell that she is surprised. She sits on the edge of the bed and her soft, plump hand takes mine. "Baby, they had to shave the hair that wasn't already burned. I'm sorry."
"Oh. I thought so."
"It's gonna grow back so quick, though. You'll see."
"All right. Thanks."
She moves to get up, but settles back again and squeezes my hand tightly. "Have you seen yourself since they brought you in?"
"No."
"You ready? It's not near as bad as what you're thinking, baby doll. Maybe it'll help you to get over that particular hump."
"I don't want to."
"Okay. You just let us know if you change your mind."
"Sure."
At some point, I have to face myself, but I can't do it now. I know I should be grateful to be alive, to have my senses intact but I cannot stop thinking about this art exhibit I once saw of burn victims -- their eyes so irredeemably sad. Looking at those pictures, I didn't see the people. I saw their scars.
I don't want to be a scar.
* * *
I'm sick of this place. I'm sick of the smell of extra-strength sanitation, the muffled calls over intercoms, the nurses waking me up just when I get to sleep. I'm sick of flowers, of magazines, of the food that always seems covered with a sheet of moisture. I am especially sick of everyone that comes in here being more than nice - they're being careful.
There was this park I liked to go to during my lunch hour. I'd leave the noise of the office, where more often than not I was overwhelmed with paperwork and deadlines, and escape to what I considered my downtown oasis. It was just a simple park, swings and a few slides, a bouncy see-saw and a picnic table. Ancient trees were scattered throughout the play areas and over the picnic benches. I preferred to eat my sandwiches while sitting on the low, wide branches of the tree nearest the swings. It was the perfect hiding spot, exactly right for reading or list-making.
Two years ago, in early April, I watched from my perch in the tree as a little girl with messy blond pigtails and a red sundress pulled her father from the parking lot to the swings. He looked up, saw me, and gave a half-smile. "She's the boss today," he said.
"I'd say you're lucky, then. I have to sneak these visits to the park when my boss is around."
He smiled again, a wider version, and was tugged away to boost her into her chosen swing.
That laugh! As the swing rocked her back and forth, her laughter was like Christmas bells in the warm breeze, strong and vibrant and magical.
"Do it myself!" I heard her say, and so he stepped a few feet further away. It was at that moment that she unclenched her grip on the swing's chains. As he yelled out, "No, Jenny!" she jumped and fell onto her bare knees.
Instant tears. He was already there, examining her legs and the palms of her hands. "It's okay, sweetie - just a scrape -"
"Boo-boos!" she sobbed, pointing at her knees.
I grabbed my purse and jumped from the tree, jogging the few feet that separated us. "I have band-aids," I said, and began looking for them. Seeing my new Dr. Pepper LipSmacker, a purchase I made on a reminiscent whim, I lifted it up and showed it to her. "Hey, do you want to try this?"
Her tears softened their rush. "Lipstick!"
"I've never used it before," I said to her dad. "Is it okay?"
"Sure," he said, and I handed the tube to her.
I dug again and found the antibacterial wipes and band-aids. "Here you go," I handed both over to him. "I admit to being a klutz. I have to carry this stuff around all the time."
He looked up at me and I was startled by the clear sheen over his eyes. "Thanks," he said.
"No problem."
"What's your name?" I asked the girl as he gently took her legs into his hands and began to wipe away the dirt and blood.
"Jenny." Her voice trembled, but her tears didn't renew.
"What a pretty name! And how old are you?"
"Four years old. I love lipstick."
"Me, too."
She pointed at my nails. "Sometimes I paint my nails pink."
"Really? That's fun, isn't it?"
"Yep. And sometimes I use sparkles."
"Sparkles are the best. You're my kind of girl, Jenny."
Both knees, now, were adequately cleaned and bandaged. She looked down and back up. "Thanks, Daddy. I can go on the slide now. I'm better."
"Be careful."
She popped up and ran off to the slide, LipSmacker in hand.
"Thanks for your help."
We stood. "My pleasure. She's a sweetheart."
"She really is."
His voice wavered and I looked over, noticing that he was just a few inches taller than my five feet and eight inches. "Are you okay?" I asked before I could stop myself.
He looked over at me and shook his head. "I'm sorry. It's just the whole being prepared thing. I should carry band-aids. A first aid kit. Girly lip stuff."
"Hey, don't do that to yourself. I'm not normal. Most people don't carry first-aid materials in their purses."
He ran a hand through his curly brown hair and attempted to smile. "Maybe you're right."
"Of course I am."
Jenny ran back over to us and pointed up at the tree. "Can you take me up there where you were sitting?"
"If it's okay with your dad."
He looked uncertainly up at the tree and down at his daughter. 'I don't want her to bother you," he said to me.
"Are you kidding? It'll be fun."
"If you're sure --"
"I'm sure."
He stuck out his hand. "I'm Landon, by the way."
I shook his hand, surprised by the coolness of his skin. "Lana."
Jenny took my other hand.
"Ready to climb?" I asked.
"Ready!" she squealed.
* * *
Doctor Howard explains the next step to me. I like his voice. It's chipper, confident and deep, like mint chocolate ice cream. "You've healed enough to qualify for homografts. They're made to mimic real human skin and they'll temporarily cover the wounds - you'll be more protected from bacterial infection and your pain should decrease once they're in place."
"And after that?"
"We wait until you're ready for an actual skin graft. And that, basically, is when we'll take some of your healthy skin and transfer it to the burned areas."
"And then?"
"Then we'll see where we are."
In other words, he's given me enough to dread for one day.
When Dr. Howard winds up his instructions and leaves, Landon walks in, yellow daisies in hand.
"What happy flowers! Thank you," I say.
"You're welcome," he replies, and places them on the bedside table. "Thought this place needed a little brightening up."
"It does."
His curls are overdue for a haircut. I look at him, standing there in his blue policeman's uniform, and feel like there's an invisible wall between us, like I'm looking at him from an unapproachable distance.
"I just wanted to stop in for a second. I've got to get to work now."
"Right. Who's keeping Jenny?"
"My mom." He taps his fingers on the table next to the daisies. "I'll try to stay longer tomorrow."
"Sure. I'll see you then. Be careful."
He looks at me for a long moment and nods. "Will do."
"I love you, Landon."
"You, too."
I wait for him to approach, to touch me, to look at me like he knows me. Like I am still the woman he was once a few days away from marrying. But he doesn't. Instead, he gives me a last smile and leaves. I wish someone would turn on the television and drown out the screaming in my head. Because looking in his eyes, all I can see is pity and fear. There is no trace of the desire or the familiar glint of shared humor that used to be there, and I can't stand the absence.
* * *
I wish, I wish, I wish to wake up in my own body again.
It took one more random meeting at the park to solidify my friendship with Jenny and, as a side effect, my friendship with Landon. On that second visit, I learned that Jenny's mother had died one year earlier of cancer. He felt alienated from their old world, unwilling to ask anyone for help and unsure of what would come next for his depleted family.
I offered to watch Jenny if he ever needed a break. A near stranger, I figured, held little emotional threat and zero memories of the wife he obviously loved and missed.
In the time of one year, I fell in love with Jenny and into an easy friendship with her father. I wasn't oblivious. I knew I was falling in love with him, too, but his heart was still in fragments. I knew he might never feel for me what I felt for him, but I decided that it didn't matter. I hadn't felt such a stirring of purpose and happiness in years. For the first time, I was content to give love without having it returned to me.
I dream that I am walking down the aisle. I am wearing my dress -- my beautiful, beautiful dress with its sweetheart neckline and beaded bodice -- and Landon is waiting there at the altar. At first, I think that he is smiling, but as I approach I feel heat around my feet and his face is twisted into a stunned grimace. Looking down, I see my dress is crumbling into ash and looking up, a mirror stands in place of Landon. A monster stares back at me, a monster with smoke trailing from her ears and a play-dough Picasso face.
There are a few phrases a woman needs to hear when she is in a relationship. With Landon, after he opened his heart to me, the words were never missing. He was always telling me he loved me. He was always telling me how beautiful I was to him.
As it always has been, it was difficult for me to believe that he thought I was pretty enough. It took a long time for me to grow into some semblance of womanly confidence. An adolescence of thick glasses, braces, and unmistakable clumsiness will do that to a girl.
It wasn't Landon's fault that I had a hard time believing him. In the moment after anyone offers me a compliment, I hear Mikey Tonowitz's voice in my head. A girl never really forgets being told that she is ugly. And as hard as it is to admit that the comment of a spiteful sixth-grade boy has haunted me all this time, it's the truth. Maybe because I already believed it myself and having it blurted out in front of an entire hallway of twelve-year-olds was more than the confirmation I needed.
It's always easier to believe that we're not enough than that we are.
And now my most shameful, locked-away fear has materialized, even though I keep pushing it away. I still haven't looked in the mirror. I'm more than terrified to look at what is left of me. I'm scared to know that the ugliness I feel on the inside is now all over the outside, blatant and blaring for the entire world to see.
There is yet another court show coming on the television. What is it about Americans? We like one thing, we have to take it and multiply it by a billion.
I close my eyes. My homograft procedure is scheduled for later today. I guess I should be resting for that, anyway. Not that I have much of an option to do anything else.
* * *
"Morning!"
"Leah!"
"It's about time you're awake for my visit. You're always conked out. I was getting a complex, thinking I was boring."
I watch her approach and wish I could smile without the pain. Looking at Leah always makes me feel better. She's gorgeous -- tall, like me, but with this great athletic build and this amazing head of auburn curls. And, because of her job working with horses out on her husband's ranch in Arizona, she is glowing and tanned year round.
"Why haven't you woken me?"
"Because you need your sleep. The nurses would have yelled at me." She pulls the chair close to my bed. "And these nurses are mean, if you want to know the truth."
"It's good to see you."
"You, too, big sister." She clears her throat and lifts an enormous red bag. "I brought you stuff."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Books, magazines, my iPod with special Lana mixes already made, and --" she pulls out a silver rectangle with cords dangling from its side. "A portable DVD player. Now tell me you love me."
"I love you. Did you bring movies, too?"
"Of course. We've got some Katharine Hepburn, some Julie Andrews, the first and second Grease -- the usual classics."
"Perfect. Thank you."
"So." She takes my right hand. "Are you in the mood for some good news?"
"Without a doubt."
She grins so hard that her silver hoop earrings bounce. "I wish this were under better circumstances, obviously, but I can't wait any longer to tell you. I was already waiting for this trip so I could say it face to face, and I just can't wait any longer."
"I need any good news I can get. Please share."
"Okay. Ready?"
"Let it out already!"
"I'm pregnant. Pregnant! Can you believe it?"
"Leah! Congratulations! I'm so happy for you!"
"Brad and I are beyond excited." She reaches back into the enormous bag. "Here's the ultrasound. I'm only about ten weeks along, so the baby looks like a bean."
The black and white photo wavers in front of my face. There it is, the tiny white blip of a miracle. "Amazing," I whisper.
It is. It's the most incredible thing to see, a life in the womb of a woman who is ready to love.
Landon wasn't my first love. Back in college, there was Drew. Drew, my first critique partner in my first college writing workshop. He had this way of seeing through the clutter of my words to the essence of what I meant. He was so good at defining me, at helping me see myself and who I wanted to be. We thought we'd be together for the rest of our lives, and maybe we once had a shot at it, until I got pregnant during our junior year. Even then -- he immediately looked into campus housing, a second part-time job. We were scared and unsure of how we'd manage, but we were going to do our best.
But then the bleeding started, and with the miscarriage came the news from the doctor that I'd never successfully carry a baby. Endometriosis had corroded my insides, made my uterus inhospitable.
I was only twenty but I had always wanted a family, to be a mother. I wanted the house, the garden, field trips to chaperone and snack times. I wanted to sink roots into one town, one school, one life.
With that diagnosis, I felt like I lost the version of my future I'd been waiting to grow into. I felt helpless and angry. I couldn't tell anyone, fearing that it would become real with the speaking of it, and I pushed Drew away. Without much warning, I told him that we were done.
I was done with God, too. He had no regard for my needs, for my feelings. I decided to leave Him to my father, to those people He seemed to take care of.
But then I met Landon, and with the gift of Landon came Jenny, this amazing kid who needed a mother. And I thought, okay, God, this is what you wanted for me. This is why you took the other dream away.
So why, when it was so close to happening -- when I was a weekend away from gaining a family -- has it been taken from me again?
* * *
The homografts took well, according to the nurse humming around my room. The opened blinds show that it's dark outside.
"What time is it?"
"Quarter till midnight, honey. You all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine." Fine, if fine means alone and terrified out of my mind. I wish Landon were here, even though his mind is far away when his body is next to my bed. I know he's remembering those two years with Tiffany. The countless appointments, treatments, and hours piled upon hours of pain. Pain that eventually ended in her death right here in this hospital.
I know it's hard for him. But I need him. I need him to be here, to tell me that it's all going to work out. I need to see Jenny. I need for it all to be normal again.
But maybe it's impossible when my very basic being is no longer normal. They've all been optimistic, of course -- with rehab and reconstruction and pressure garments to reduce scarring, I can some day get back to some version of myself.
But I'll still be different. And I know what it's like to see people who look different -- I know what it's like to turn away, ashamed that I feel repelled yet sickeningly afraid of the fact that is so tangibly there, that things like this are possible. No one is safe. But yet, we think that we're immune, don't we? Until we aren't, and then it's a shock, a betrayal, because we all think the same thing. This isn't supposed to happen to me.
I have to go ahead and accept that I'll be stared at. Pitied. Feared. Or, worse, I'll be one of those people who don't matter. They're so obviously handicapped - so not like everyone else - that they're treated like toddlers, like they have to be given what they want because they can't help themselves and no one wants to risk offense.
"You know," says the nurse as she checks my pulse, "it's okay if you're not fine. It's okay to feel angry about what has happened to you."
"Yeah. I know."
"But you have to push through it. You have to fight for the rest of your life. Don't withdraw from it, that's all I'm saying. And if you need something to help you fight, you best speak up. Understand what I'm saying?"
"I guess so."
She doesn't look satisfied, so I close my eyes. Maybe she'll think I'm asleep and stop reminding me of what I don't want to know.
* * *
After I lost the baby, I lost the capability to cope. Sure, worse hands have been dealt out here on this planet of ancient heartbreak. But it meant more to me than a physical ailment -- t meant that God hadn't forgiven me for the slip-n-slide of sin I couldn't get away from. It meant that I wasn't the only one who looked at me as unworthy, as not good enough. So did He. And if He saw me that way, this God who was supposed to be only full of love, then what was the point of anything? Landon is the only one who knows that I've been on a merry-go-round of anti-depressants for years, that I used to wake up wondering why I should get out of bed, wondering who would notice if I simply didn't wake up at all.
God, I've tried so hard to pretend that I'm the beautiful person you must have once intended for me to be, here on the inside, where it's supposed to mean the most. But no matter how many times you whitewash these heart-walls of mine, I always manage to graffiti them up with anger, with regret, with failure.
So now my outside matches my inside. There's no more pretending here.
I guess it's only fair.
* * *
My mother has the prettiest eyes. They're blue like an early spring day, light and clear and knowing. She's staring at me with those eyes and that certain way I recognize as investigative. It's the same look she's always given me when she's about to dig for information.
So when she asks, "Has Landon been here yet today?" I know that it isn't a casual a question as she'd like her tone to imply.
And it confirms this quicksand feeling in my stomach that comes with the thought of him.
"No. Why?"
"Just wondering."
"Tell me. What has he said to you? What's going on with him?"
"Everything's fine, sweets. Now, do you want to pick out the movie or should I? I brought a few new releases."
"Mom, please talk to me."
She lets out a long sigh and bites her upper lip. "He's so afraid of losing you that he doesn't know which way is up. But he'll be all right. You don't need to worry."
My nerve endings may be fried to oblivion, but my eardrums are not. I can still know a lie when I hear one.
* * *
Today's choice of distraction for my formerly always-focused fiancé is a tin box of Altoids and a short story collection Leah left on my table.
"How's Jenny?"
"Good. She says hello."
"I miss her."
In the way he averts his eyes, I know that he does not want to bring her here. Whether it is to avoid bringing back bad memories or to avoid making new ones, I can't decide.
"Will you bring her to visit soon?"
"It's just that she has a lot going on. Dance classes and school and everything."
I should make him talk. Make him be honest with what is going on behind that closed off expression. Make him explain why he hasn't even once kissed me or talked about what we'll do once I'm out of here.
But I can't. Not yet.
* * *
When Landon comes in twenty minutes before visiting hours are over, he looks a little stunned at the chaos. Leah is here, blasting one of her country CDs in the boombox she brought along, and we are laughing as my parents attempt to dance in the center of the room.
"Hi," he says, looking around. "I didn't know you were having a party."
Leah looks at him with widened eyes. "Did you know what kind of dancing skills you were allowing into your reception? I'm going to try to teach them a few things before you guys reschedule the big event. Because, seriously, just watch. It's scary."
Mom, her face flushed, turns down the music. "Are you insulting my moves?"
Leah nods. "Yep."
Mom shrugs and fans herself with a magazine. "That's fair. We're terrible."
Dad kisses her cheek. "But we have fun, right?"
"Right."
I glance at Landon. "We were the worst students in our dance classes."
"Because you're a klutz," Leah says with a laugh.
"True. But we perfected our waltz by the end. Right, Landon?"
"We did all right." His easy tone is completely negated by his expression.
He looks miserable.
My family must notice this, since they all kiss me goodnight and quickly make exits.
He sits on the edge of the bed. "They seem cheerful."
"They're trying, I guess. Landon? Are you okay?"
Looking up, he unbuttons the top few buttons of his shirt. He looks at me, just for a moment, before shaking his head. "I'm fine. Why?"
"You've been preoccupied, I guess. Just seems like there's something on your mind."
"No. The usual. Work and Jenny. You know."
"Actually, I don't. You haven't been very conversational lately," I say.
"I'm sorry," he replies. "I don't feel comfortable here. It's something I guess I have to get over."
But I know that it isn't as easy as just getting over it. I'm beginning to think that, for his own good, I will have to supply his exit strategy.
* * *
There have been three more days of nearly silent visits. Three more nights of memories sliding through my head and bringing nothing but sadness. I can't take it anymore. I have to get it over with. He won't do it himself, and I understand why. The guilt would follow him forever. How does someone go on to tell that particular experience? I almost got married, but I dumped my fiancé when she turned into a glob of bone and bandages. It's not exactly a story anyone would be eager to share.
He comes in straight from work, carrying the scent of pizza. In this blur of days, this means that it must be Friday, when they bring pizza into the office for their weekly meeting.
"Hey, sweetie." He awkwardly touches my foot. "How are you feeling?"
"Okay," I answer, wishing I could reach out to brush the overlong hair away from his forehead, or take his hand, or lean up to kiss those lips. He has such great lips -- plump and soft. Never, ever chapped or dry. I've told him a million times that I wished I could trade with him.
He sits in the chair next to the bed and picks up the television remote, jiggling it in his hands. "Do you need anything?"
"No," I say. "I'm fine. How was your day?"
"Good."
"Any interesting calls?"
"Not really. I gave out a few traffic tickets. That was about it."
"Oh."
He looks up at the TV and aims the remote at it. It comes on with a blue glow. "Want to watch anything in particular?"
"Actually, can you turn it off? I need to talk to you."
With the familiar gasping pulse, the blue glow disappears. "Sure. What's up?"
"I need you to know that if you want out, you can get out. You don't have to be with me anymore."
He drops the remote and looks up, his eyes widened. "What do you mean by that?"
"I love you, Landon, but I'm never going to be the same person that I was. And who knows how long it will take before I can live a normal life again? I don't want you to feel obligated to stay with me. I want you and Jenny to be happy. And with the way this is going, being with me isn't going to make that happen."
He looks down at the floor, his shoulders slumped forward. "I haven't been around enough."
I don't answer.
"It's just that - I've been in a lot of bad situations. But I have never been so scared as that night I came in here and saw you lying there -- there was just so much at stake." His voice breaks. "I love you so much, Lana. You know that, right?"
"I know."
"I should be strong enough to do this, and I wish I were, but I'm not. I hate seeing you like this." A tear hangs, suspended just for a moment, from his jaw and everything inside of me shakes. "I don't know how to handle this. My head knows that you're recovering, that you're fine, but the rest of me is petrified of losing the woman in my life again."
I want to take back the words that started this conversation, shove them deep into the hollow cavern of my chest, because maybe I never thought that this would be the actual ending. I realize with sharp clarity that what I really wanted, what I really expected, was to hear him deny this cowardice, hear him pledge his love and desire to be by my side. No matter what. Sickness and health and better and worse.
"I know it's hard for you, after Tiffany, to go through this. That's what I'm saying. You can go. I understand. Just please tell Jenny that I'll always be her friend, okay? I'll always be there if she needs me."
"I won't leave you."
"You have to. I don't want you here. I don't want to be engaged to you anymore. I want you to go."
"Why are you doing this? I know I haven't handled this well, but I can do better! I love you!"
I look away. "This is still my life. And I'm making this choice for myself. So go."
"I don't believe that this is what you want."
"You don't have to believe it. But you do have to go."
"Lana-"
"Go. Don't say anything else. I don't want to hear anything else." I close my eyes and wait until the sound of footsteps and a door closing make the room safe enough for crying.
Mom comes into the room, quietly shuts the door behind her. "You awake?"
I open my eyes in response.
"I just talked to Landon. Is it true? Did you break things off with him?"
"Yes."
"Why? Why in the world would you do that?"
"I don't want to talk about it, okay?"
"No, it's not okay! Just because something bad happened to you doesn't mean that you get to hide from the rest of your life."
"That's not what I'm doing."
Her lips tighten. "I'm going to go grab something to eat out of the cafeteria. Do you need anything?"
"No."
"Good."
She slams the door on her way out and even in this inner turmoil, I laugh. At last, real emotions other than pity and compassion. My mother is mad at me.
It's like she has remembered that I'm real.
* * *
"Hi, baby."
"Hi."
Dad places a new vase of flowers on the nightstand.
"Thanks. Those are pretty."
He walks over to the window and closes the blinds.
"Are you here to yell at me?"
"Landon was torn up when he talked to your mom. She's just worried about you. She thinks you're scared."
"I know."
He sits on the corner of the bed next to me. "And I know you must be broken up inside. I don't know if you were right, but I do know that you're trying to do what's best for Landon and Jenny. So I just wanted to say that I'm here if you need me."
"What does he want from me, Dad?"
"Landon?"
"No. God. I have nothing left. He's taken everything, but I still can't feel Him. I thought that if He takes everything, He at least gives us some way to deal with the pain of it. Is there something else that He wants?" And after all of this, what would He want with any of me? I have nothing left but scars, inside and out. This is the fear that has been running beneath all of the pain, and now it is flooding over the banks, inundating any hope of surviving this at all.
Dad is silent, holding my hand.
"Well?"
"You say God has taken everything. I know you mean your plans. Your body. The future you wanted."
"What else is there?"
"What are you feeling right now?"
Anger. Confusion. "Nothing good."
"He wants that, too. He wants you to know that His love is constant. It's there when you have what you want, when you're filled with ugliness, when you have absolutely nothing. He wants you to be empty so that He can refill you with Himself."
"And what if He doesn't?"
"Doesn't what?"
"What if He doesn't give anything back to me? What if He doesn't think I'm worthy of being filled with anything from Him? And even if He does, will it be enough?"
"There's only one way to find out." He squeezes my hand so tightly that it hurts. "No one ever said faith was easy."
* * *
I was fifteen the summer I saw the face of Jesus in the sky. In the middle of breaking up with my boyfriend after he cheated on me with that year's best friend, I was lying on the trampoline in mid-afternoon, praying for God to take away the ache that betrayal had left in my heart. I wanted to know that I was not alone, that my desperation would pass.
As I stared at the Easter-egg blue sky, the wispy clouds reformed themselves and I was suddenly staring at the face of Christ, His gentle smile aimed at me.
Shocked, I stared and stayed there frozen, a strange calm floating over me with the scent of pine sap and the neighbor's charcoal grill.
The image hovered, and my common sense invaded the peace. No one would believe me. They'd think it was my imagination and the tangible presence I felt would be diminished by their doubt. Inspired, I jumped from the trampoline, determined to grab my camera and snap a photo before His face left the sky. I ran with my head tilted back, unwilling to take my eyes away from it, and I tripped onto the back steps. Knees bleeding, I immediately looked back up for that smile, but it was gone.
What if I had been content to lie there? Could faith have been as simple as accepting what was there, taking it in just for me, lying on a sun-warmed trampoline?
I reach over and push my call button. Within a few minutes, my favorite nurse appears.
"Hi, Liz."
"Hi, yourself. What can I do for you?"
"I was wondering. Do you think there's a way I could get a mirror?"
Her expression mellows. "Sure, sweetie. I can rummage one up."
"Thanks."
She pauses by the door. "Will this be the first time?"
"Yes."
"I'll be back."
She is back more quickly than I expected, placing the mirror into my free hand. "Do you want company?"
"No, thanks. I think I have to do this alone."
"If you need me, I'll be right at the desk out there. Okay?"
"Okay. Thanks."
I begin to lift the mirror, but stop when my arm is halfway up. Does it even matter? What if I can be brave enough to accept myself without even examining what is physically in front of me? What if I just lay here and believe, somehow, that God is still smiling in my direction?
Are You still there, still waiting for me to give up whatever is left? Are You still looking for a willing sacrifice?
Here's what I hold onto, my fingers clenched and sweaty: chronic insecurity, sorrow at an empty womb, anger with this burned body, desperate love for Landon and Jenny.
I thought there was nothing else to truly lose, but as long as breath enters this body, there is something to lose.
And what is there to gain?
I need a quiet joy within myself that nothing can shake, peace with who I am. God, I will give it all up for a chance to rest easy, to feel graceful with a steady and sure love surrounding me.
* * *
I dream about a dolphin I once touched at Sea World. Her smooth, wet skin is under my hand and she stays still, her eyes knowing, and then I am with her. I am lying on the cool length of her body and we are one and fluid, speeding through dark welcoming depths. In the still blue waters, I have no fear and I have no pain. There is only freedom and a pure flying joy.
A weight on the bed; I open my eyes and there is a face over mine -- a sma,, heart-shaped face with brown eyes and a concerned expression. "Jenny?"
"You were snoring."
"Was I?"
"Loud."
I look behind her at London, confusion a white noise in my ears. Jenny hops down from the bed and appears again a moment later, a plastic stethoscope around her neck. "Daddy said I could help you get better. Remember when you gave me this at my last birthday?"
"I sure do."
She opens up the plastic pink doctor's bag. "Before I give you a shot, I need to listen to your heart. And after the shot, Daddy said we'll learn how to change your band-aids." She leans up and carefully places the end of the stethoscope on my chest.
"Careful, Jen."
"She's okay, Landon."
With the earpieces tucked inside of her elfish ears, a look of concentration appears on her face. "Your heart is a good one. I expect you'll be all better soon, which is good 'cause we really miss you. Right, Daddy?"
I meet Landon's eyes over her head.
"Right." He comes over to the bed, leans down and presses his lips gently against mine.
It feels like walking back into home after being gone for too, too many days. There may be a lot to do – the unpacking, the dusting, the grocery shopping – but for the moment, just being there is enough.
author
Christie Lambert is usually busy with her three passions: God, family, and
fiction. She is also known to take time for 'Gilmore Girls' reruns,
good coffee, and her iPod. You can find out more about the mommy-life
meeting the writing-life at her blog, Whistling in the Dark (www.christielambert.blogspot.
site info
© 2008 Karen Osborne. This story copyright 2008 by Christie Lambert. Design by Andreas Viklund.