Embrace Me (30 page)

I strike a long match and hold it to the newspaper. “How could I do that? I don't even know who He is.”

“What made you leave Mount Oak?”

I inhale as deeply as I can. “Daisy disappeared and I knew the show was doomed, but I had raised a lot of money. I knew the show wouldn't have been enough eventually, because that's the way it is with power, Mom. You get what you thought you wanted and it isn't enough. So you go to the next thing and that's not enough. It would never be enough.”

“God opened your eyes.”

“I'm not so sure.”

“He's calling you, though. Do you feel that?”

The flame catches, spreading. “It's what you said over the phone.”

“The Lord told me to give you that message.”

“How did you track me down?”

“I called your church and they said you'd taken a sabbatical and left without a forwarding address. I came to Mount Oak and couldn't find you anywhere. So I took a chance and called our old hotel in Ocean City. And there you were.”

The flame continues to eat the newspaper, licking at the dry, peeling bark of the logs.

“Why didn't you just come down?”

“I was planning on it next week.”

I stand up. “I needed you sooner than this. Didn't you realize it? Why did you continue to stay away once I was older?”

“You thought I was dead. I was trying to trust God to take care of you.”

I blow on the flame then turn to her. “Sometimes, Mom, God wants us to move forward when we see somebody drowning instead of waiting for a sign. Don't you think?”

“I'm sorry.”

“You know it's possible to overspiritualize things.” I sit back down on the couch.

“Maybe you're right. You have every right to be mad at me. What can I do now, Drew? We're together. What can I do?”

“I need you to help me. Dear Lord, Mom, I need you to save my soul. I've always needed you to do that.”

She folds her arms around me, lays my head against her breast, and hums as the coffee cools and the cookies remain uneaten. After a while she leans back and clicks off the lamp, and we watch the snowfall outside, covering the railing, the deck, the picnic table. Falling headlong into the gorge.

I awaken to gleaming sunshine, my head on a pillow, a quilt covering my body. Monica lies curled up on the love seat, still beautiful these twenty years later, her face sweet, serene, and nestled against the cat, a skinny gray tabby, who finally showed herself.

Movement outside catches my gaze. A red cardinal hops about in the snow, the wind ruffling its feathers. It flutters to the bird feeder, pecks at the seeds, and flies away.

I reach over to the coffee table and pick up my notebook.

After a month of taping,
Faith Street
had five shows in the can and the Hopewells began teasing their viewers with clips on their own show.

Another three pounds down and working out like a fiend, Daisy joined me on
The Port of Peace Hour
the week before ours was set to air. The show bought time on twenty small religious stations around the south, so relieved to get new programming they were set to air it several times a day. I mean, how many times can a station reair old segments of
Ever Increasing Faith
and expect to have an ever increasing viewership?

Harlan introduced us before the crowd at
Port of Peace
, conducting a small interview with me, mentioning my father crusading in DC, of course. After that, Daisy and Charmaine sang a duet.

The flesh on my arms still rises when I remember the way their voices blended. Charmaine's power with Daisy's controlled under-pinnings as they slid their way in and out of the melody and the harmony, neither taking the lead for long. Charmaine sang in that old-school way, smiling at Daisy as she sang, then smiling at the audience, as if she truly enjoyed what she was doing. It wasn't like the young singers today where everything is choreographed down to the dart of the eyes and good Christian girls grunt out praises to Jesus like they're making out behind the bleachers with their boyfriends. Sorry, Father.

After that show, I kissed Daisy on the cheek in great excitement.

She flushed like a rose. Pink and soft. Daisy read into that kiss just what I wanted. Enough to keep her with me.

The day our show aired for the first time on a local station, we sat together in her parents' living room. Trician made us punch with diet Sprite, poured some mixed nuts in bowls, and we watched, I still have to admit, an engaging show.

Daisy shone, playing sassy sweet with ease on top of my nerdy every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining angle. You couldn't call us Regis and Kathie Lee but we had a style all our own, a great combination.

When Wally, Daisy's dad, turned off the set and said, “Now that was a real nice show. A real nice show,” I wanted to scream. I wanted more than nice.

Daisy walked me to my car. “It was good, wasn't it?”

“Yes, it was.”

I opened my car door and began to get in.

“Drew?”

I looked her way.

“You feel something, don't you? Like we've got some little spark?

I mean, the way we interacted, the way the senator laughed and said, ‘Now you all make a fine couple.' It was good. What he said was true.”

What could I say? I didn't want to start a relationship, but I didn't want to lose her once Nashville came through. So I smiled, rubbed my hand down her bare arm, and got into my car.

She tapped my shoulder. “Only ten more pounds until my goal weight.”

“Good job.”

I drove home to my Spartan apartment. Before I arrived, however, I drove a few miles out of town and bought a pack of Marlboro Lights. I felt more dead inside than ever before, and only one thing made me feel alive. And you can't smoke a knife afterward either.

In the months ahead the show slowly gained in popularity. Daisy grew thinner and thinner, her advances stronger. I held her at arm's length, praying to God He'd keep my feelings from growing. Was that too much to ask?

For the next year she continued to drop more weight, well past her goal, meeting me at the gym where we'd exercise together, me in sweat-pants because of the burns on my legs. I didn't start burning my arms until much later. I'd get a handle on it all, the latest round healed up, until everything was pink and new, and then I'd start again. But I remained the same inside.

Was I trying to match up my outer man with my inner man?

I'm not sure. Even now, lying here on the couch, watching my mother sleep, I don't know. Maybe I'm simply a little crazy. Maybe I'm like my mother that way.

The more overt Daisy's advances, the more I tried to shut myself down.
Imagine bringing Daisy home to DC
, I'd think to myself.

Imagine bringing Daisy, however sweet and kind, to a man whose taste ran to the likes of Monica Parrish.

Yet another area where I didn't quite meet his standards. No way. It just wasn't going to happen.

I throw back the covers. All I'm wearing are my boxers and my thermal undershirt. Yes, there are my jeans, folded neatly on the dining table.

“It's all right, I saw them.” Monica's eyes are open. “I'm guessing there are more on your arms.”

I nod. “Yes.”

“How long have you been doing this to yourself?”

“Years. On and off. Knives first. On now for a good long time with the cigarettes.”

“I'm sorry. I'd like to think this would have been avoided had I been there.”

“I don't know, Mom. Who's to say?”

“It's a sin. You know that.”

“No.”

“Well, it is. But an understandable one.”

“Thanks.” I stand up and reach for my pants. “I'll make some coffee.”

“That would be lovely.” She closes her eyes.

“Are you going back to sleep?”

“No. This is my time to pray for you. I do it every morning before I get out of bed.”

For a moment, I see a self-righteousness in her I wish I didn't. As if praying was enough when I was in the care of that man.

I have to forgive her. I have to forgive her for praying when she should have been storming the castle walls.

Soon the coffee's spitting from the machine and I stand on the deck smoking a cigarette. Is this a sin too? Or just a bad idea? I've asked myself that a thousand times.

'Cause if this is a sin, so is drinking Coca-Cola and eating Velveeta and Twinkies. I just don't know anything anymore.

“I'm going to take a shower,” she calls.

“Mom?” I shut the patio door behind me.

“Yes?”

“Why didn't you just kidnap me? Take me away and we could have hid up in Maine together?”

“I'm not that brave.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, we all aren't movie heroines, Drew. I'm sorry for that. I wish I had been. I was scared of him.”

So she isn't as perfect as I remember.

Maybe it's better that way.

I won't have so much to live up to.

Trician and I scrolled through the footage on the editing machine. “She still looks a little bumpy,” she said.

“I don't know, Trician. She's lost a lot of weight.”

“Lipo, you think?”

“It's your call, Trician. More precisely, it's Daisy's.”

“And clothes look so much better on extremely thin women. She's losing her breasts, though. Maybe we should get some implants. The butt lift looks a bit odd now.”

A little bit here; a little bit there.

“We're this close to a contract in Nashville.” Trician held her thumb and forefinger parallel, a half inch apart.

“Come on, Trician. This is going a little too far.”

“I'll pull her out of the show right now. You've got to convince her.”