Healing Sands (51 page)

I looked up to make sure the same receptionist was at the desk. She had the usual I-just-got-out-of-bed look, but the lilt was gone from her voice.

“That's okay,” I said. “I'm early.”

She stared at me like I'd grown an additional head.

I settled onto a couch, striped by the sun through the blinds. I realized I'd never actually sat down in there before; I'd always been too busy pacing a furious path into the rug.

I pulled my yellow legal pad out of my bag. When the trial was over, I'd asked Will Yarborough if I could have it back—just because.

Jake's journey was still in black, Alex's in red. I uncapped a blue gel pen and wrote into the gaps Jake had filled for me over the last few days.

• I never had anybody like Ian since you and I used to talk. Then you left.

That one was hard to write down. But then, we were all facing the tough truths now.

• The day it happened—with Miguel—I wouldn't talk until I could see Ian and find out why he left me there. I wouldn't go home with you because I knew you could get me to tell, even though I was already mad at you for leaving Dad. And I couldn't tell—not without Ian. I knew there had to be a reason he ditched me.

• When I got home to Dad's, Ian said not to talk to you. I was going to anyway, but Alex said Ian would hurt him if he said anything about what he heard. I didn't believe it. Alex makes stuff up sometimes. But just in case, I had to be mean to you in front of Ian so he would know I wasn't telling.

I paused, squeezing the pen. There were moments when the urge to smack Ian was almost overwhelming.

• When you got too close to the truth, he said I shouldn't talk to you at all. Period. He kept saying he was working it out for me, that I'd never have to go to jail. He said Miguel would wake up and say it was an accident.

• I told him one day I thought you were right—that we ought to just tell the truth. Then he got really mad—like he was the day it happened. He said, “I maimed one kid. What makes you think I won't do it again?” He wouldn't even come over to the house. That's why I had to go to the debate tournament and see him, to make him believe I wasn't going to tell. I was afraid he'd hurt Alex.

• When I got caught, I picked jail so he wouldn't think I was talking to you. But I couldn't take it in there. Some guy was an epileptic or something, and they didn't give him his medicine. He had this huge seizure, and nobody even did anything to help him. Stuff like that just gets to me. I was still scared Ian was gonna hurt Alex, but I had to get out of there.

• And then I went on assignment with you, and I saw what Miguel's people were like, and I didn't want to be connected to that crime anymore. I didn't want anybody thinking I'd hurt them. Then we found out Miguel wasn't going to wake up, and I knew Ian was wrong. I was also figuring out I could trust you because you were different than you used to be. That day you left me at home, I was planning how I was going to tell you when you came back, and then Miguel died. I knew it was too late—nobody would believe me.

• Then when the lawyer told me the soccer field was bombed and you got threatened, I had to protect Alex. I had to find a way to make it work in jail because I was probably never coming out. You said to imagine God, and that's what I did.

My throat was as tight as it was every time Jake and I'd talked about this. I saw it all when it was happening, and yet I'd truly been powerless to change it.

• It tore me up that Ian was letting me take the blame for everything. I thought if
you
figured it out, without me telling you, he wouldn't hurt Alex because it didn't come from me. I gave you hints, like that I was the one who called 911.

• And then Ginger came to see me in jail and told me that Ian was going to testify and tell the truth. That's when I wrote you that note, so you'd know it was going to be okay. I know it was stupid, but I thought his conscience got to him. Ginger said Dad and her were getting married, and I thought Ian would do it so Dad wouldn't find out later and be mad. I wanted to tell him that Dad didn't
get
mad—that he would have helped Ian if he'd told the truth in the first place. He just didn't get that. He's never had any other dad except mine.

“Ryan? You ready?”

I blinked and nodded at the blurry figure in the doorway. “Ya think?” I said.

She climbed into her chair and looked around. “Where's my sandbox?”

Sully shook his head. “The police took it in their search, and I haven't gotten it back.”

“What did they think they were going to find in there?”

“You got me.”

“Never mind. I think both of us have about had our fill of the police department.”

“I kind of have a soft spot for them right now,” Sully said.

“I'm not there yet.” She looked at him almost shyly. “I know we're not supposed to talk about you in here, but I'm glad you were cleared.”

He grinned. “That's okay. It's my new favorite subject.”

“I hear you.” She pulled her feet up and hugged her knees. “I guess I'll have to manage without the sandbox.”

“Are you in need of some calming down?”

“I already went to White Sands, for real—with my boys—and my ex-husband.”

“Was that a good thing?” Sully asked.

“That's one of the two things I want to talk to you about. We should get started.”

Sully let another grin spread across his face. Just when he was seeing the changes in her, she reminded him that some things would always stay the same.

“What?” she said. “Am I amusing you?”

He sat back and crossed his ankles. “Cut to the chase.”

“Dan and I are talking. About us. We haven't actually used the word
us
. We're kind of tiptoeing around it.” She stopped and shrugged.

Sully tilted his head. “I thought we were cutting to the chase.”

“I don't know what I'm chasing.”

“What are the possibilities?”

Up came the goalpost hands. Sully pulled a leg up across his knee. He wasn't sure before she came in if he had the spirit for this right now, but she was bringing it back.

“I think there are two,” she said, focusing between the posts. “One, we're doing pretty well just being our boys' parents together. It's actually sort of comfortable. That could be all it will ever be.”

“And the other possibility?”

“That maybe we belong together after all, and we can put the past behind us and start over.”

Sully let out a buzz.

She squinted at him. “I thought you weren't going to do that with me.”

“Sorry. Conditioned response.”

“To what?”

“To the idea that we can ever completely put the past behind us.”

“Huh,” she said. “You've made me dredge it up and look at it until I want to punch it in the face—to use my younger son's phrase.”

“And has it helped?”

“Okay, yes. But I know what happened with Dan, at least my side of it. I think I have a pretty clear idea of his side too. Are you saying I can't just move us forward?”

Sully lowered his foot to the floor and leaned on his knees. She leaned on hers, too, and opened her eyes to him. He'd once thought she was the most challenging client he'd ever had. But she might also very well be the most eager to find the path.

“Are you listening to yourself?” he said.

“What am I saying?”

“
You
know what happened with Dan, both sides of it.
You
want to move the two of you forward.”

She dropped her forehead to her knees. “There's my answer. I am always going to be a control freak, so I might as well give up the idea of getting back together with Dan and having the life I've started thinking we could have.”

“
Is
that your answer?” Sully said. “Or is it just that you have more work to do?”

“How much more? I don't even think I've gotten anywhere.” She brought her head up. “No offense to you.”

“None taken,” Sully said. “But what about to you? Don't you think you're being a little hard on yourself?”

“No. I mean, I thought I was over wanting to hurl projectiles at people, and then sometimes I think about Ginger, and about Ian and what he did to Miguel and to Jake and to Alex—to himself— and I just want to flush him down the nearest toilet.”

“Of course you do. But you haven't done it, have you?”

“No.”

“Have you done anything else with that anger? Punched anybody in the face?”

“No.”

“Then there's your progress, Ryan. There isn't a mother in the world who wouldn't get those surges of anger after what's happened.”

She gazed at the painting on the wall, though he wasn't sure she was seeing it. When she looked back at him, her eyes brimmed.

“What you're feeling is righteous anger,” he said. “It's the Jesus anger—turning over the tables in the temple.”

“Telling the Pharisees they're a brood of vipers. I've always liked that passage.”

Of course she had.

“I think what you're really chasing is righteousness,” Sully said. “And the question you've been struggling with is: when do you fight, and when do you surrender? I think you've come a long way in learning how to discern that.”

She looked again at the painting, this time with focus. “I hated that place when I first saw it.”

“What—White Sands?”

“Yeah. I couldn't believe it the day I walked in here for my first session, and you had it right there in my face. It was like you knew what was going to tick me off.”

Sully put up both hands. “I'm a lot of things, but I'm not clairvoyant.”

“But now—I've figured out what it is that draws people to it, or at least me.” She glanced at him. “We've already established that I can't speak for everybody on the planet.”

“I said you were making progress.”

Her eyes went back to the Sands. “There's nothing out there— except that it's so beautiful there has to be something. I think it's God, in a form you can't miss like you can everywhere else, with all the noise and people's stuff. So I guess the reason it gives me so much peace is because there's nothing but me and God. The images start coming to me, and I know things that I need to do—not the whole picture, which I would prefer, trust me.”

She put up the goalpost hands again. “What I see is about this much. And so I guess that's all I'm supposed to see at any given time. What's
that
called?”

“Are you going to throw something at me if I tell you?”

She looked at him. “You're going to say surrender, aren't you?”

Sully nodded. “Sometimes we fight in righteous anger. Sometimes we let it go. But the surrender to the way God sees it always has to come first.”

“And it's right here.” She let her hands drop. “But sometimes I still don't see it. It's like anger blinds me.”

“And you're getting to the bottom of that anger.”

She gave him a squint. “Getting. As in I have more work to do.”

“Let me tell you something my mentor always says to me.” Sully closed his eyes, saw Porphyria—felt his throat clench. “She says, ‘Sully, until you're dead, you're not done.'”

“That sounds like something my mother would say.”

Sully opened his eyes and tried to grin. “And we haven't even gotten to her yet.”

Her eyes filled again. “I just wish you weren't leaving. I want to work on this stuff. Dan and I could have couples counseling even.”

“Who said I was leaving?” Sully said.

“You did.”

“Not for good. I'm only going to be gone until—well, until I see to a personal matter.”

“And then you're coming back here? To live?”

“That's my plan,” Sully said.

He didn't add that there was one important piece that was going to have to fall into place for that to come to fruition. He just grinned at Ryan.

“What?” she said.

“I'm just thinking about you
wanting
therapy.”

“It's not funny. Try to keep me out of here, and it won't be pretty. Trust me.”

“Oh, I do, Ryan,” Sully said. “I do.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

S
ully checked his calendar one last time before he shut the computer down. There was no doubt Martha would handle things flawlessly while he was away, but the specter of things unfinished still haunted him. He was getting a little paranoid about missing the obvious. Another topic he wanted to discuss with Porphyria.

He slid the laptop into its bag and did a final eye-sweep of the office. His gaze fell on the picture on his desk. Automatically he picked it up to pack it as he always did when he traveled, but the frame felt too heavy in his hand.

“What's wrong, girls?” he said to it. “Tired of being on the road?”

Lynn and Hannah did not, of course, answer. They simply continued to delight in each other, unaware of what he had tried to do for them, and untouched by it. It didn't matter to them.

Perhaps it never had.

A prim knock brought him back and pulled a grin out of him.

“You'd
better
get yourself in here and say good-bye to me, Martha.”

She pushed open the door—the hair, the pantsuit, and the portfolio all in their usual order. But today's variation on the smile appeared to be the real one.

He nodded her to a chair and took the other one. “Frappuccino?” he said.

“What in the world
is
a Frappuccino, anyway?” She shook her head at him, hair still immobile. “No, thank you. I just wanted to see if there's anything else you want me to do while you're gone.”

“Just the interviews.”

“I wish you'd let me wait until you get back, and we'll do them together.”