Song of Renewal (39 page)

Relief melted through Angel. Her smile was genuine and spontaneous. “Does that mean I can eat all the goodies I want, when I want?”

“Your call,” Mama said, crossing her eyes and bucking out her teeth.

“Glory!” Angel shrieked. “Just kidding. I’m hanging close with my basic nutritional program. I only fudge when the cheerleaders come over. And at family celebrations. And church socials. And – ” Mama burst into laughter, then Daddy.

“Gotta salvage what I can from bulimia nervosa damage.” She sighed, turning more serious. “Mama, don’t feel guilty. I could’ve spoken up, but I didn’t. I chose to live my life the way I did.” She shrugged and smiled. “We get over it. Right?”

Mama nodded vigorously.

Then Angel’s face sobered. “I’m really looking forward to going to medical school after college. Not many medical students have been on the other side of the fence the way I have. I’ll understand how to help folks who face impossible odds – you know, encourage them to see hope at the end of the ol’ tunnel. And to help people who can’t walk to see not an empty bucket but a half full one. To realize that there’s still life after tragedy.”

Then she grinned impishly, feeling a sense of purpose she’d never before felt.

“Hey y’all, there’s still lots for this ol’ girl to do.” She looked at her teary-eyed mother. “For instance, I’ll come watch you in your ballet performances, Mama.” She wrinkled her nose wickedly. “Just think, something good came from all this. I have a perfect excuse not to take ballet lessons again. Ever! Whooee!”

Mama and Daddy both burst into laughter. “I hear you, honey,” said Mama, impulsively blowing her a big old kiss. “I’m proud of you.”

Angel felt herself blush and rushed on to divert attention from herself. “And I’ll come to your art exhibit next June, okay, Daddy.”

“Sure thing, punkin’. Oh! Speaking of which – let’s all go upstairs. That’s where your birthday gift is. It’s time. I want to show you the finished painting.”

Angel immediately struck up her motorized chair before anyone could rush to help her maneuver her way from the room. They all boarded the elevator and rode up to the studio where, since Angel’s homecoming, the Wakefields had held court, Daddy painting while Mama danced.

Angel – well, she’d been doing her own thing there, too. Reading medical books was now a passion. Dr. Abrams, knowing of Angel’s aspirations, had donated to her some of his precious early medical journals. They lined a library shelf her dad had added in the studio. The doctor and Angel had formed a pretty tight friendship during her renewal. His shared wisdom was now some of her most prized stored cargo, along with beautiful memories of her time with Troy during her coma-odyssey.

Daddy and Mama were proud and supportive of her decision to be a doctor. Most wonderful of all, she now had her father’s undivided attention and affection. In recent months, since her awakening, he’d become the daddy she’d always wanted.

Today, she whirred into the studio and detoured quickly over to the corner, where a comfortably caged, orphaned kitten healed from a fractured leg. She fed it milk from an eyedropper, with Mama helping. Then she said, “We’re ready, Daddy.”

Angel whirred the chair into position before the covered easel and canvas and eagerly awaited the unveiling. Anticipation prickled over her. Not only for this unveiling but also for
her own exciting secrets she intended to share with Mama and Daddy later.

She’d kept quiet so as not to give them false hope. At first it was the burning butt sensation, from perpetually sitting in the chair, that she’d begun to feel, and then the sense of wetness when the catheter leaked. But then, checking out the web’s paraplegic chat rooms had revealed to her that other completespinal-severed paraplegics had experienced the same awareness, with no hope of regaining total functional recovery.

Angel had not been certain, had hardly dared to hope, when bladder and bowel sensation had slowly begun to develop, so she’d kept quiet, hugging the knowledge to herself, desperately wanting it to last. Then, she’d decided to wait until her birthday and surprise her parents with the news.

After all, Mama had early on succumbed to Angel’s insistence upon self-reliance, no questions asked. So hiding her secret had not been difficult.

Then, almost simultaneously, the tingling in her legs had increased and feeling emerged in increments. Only Dixie, the therapist, knew. They’d worked together with advanced therapy techniques until Angel had been able to stand and to put weight on her limbs.

Today, she would show them that she could now stand on her own. Not only that, but she could take small, laborious steps with the aid of a walker, one she’d asked Dixie to place in the studio closet for today.

Not a big deal to some, but Angel knew that in her parents’ eyes, she would be handing them the world.

She blinked and realized they patiently awaited her full attention.

It was Daddy’s turn. He looked at her, his eyes alight with anticipation and slowly lifted the linen.

Angel gasped, “Oh…my…God!” She’d seen the painting in the hospital, through the post-coma smog that day upon awakening. But its vibrancy had not registered. Daddy had taken it home that day.

Today, it zoomed in with 3-D clarity.

The lily pond scene glowed on the canvas, where sunlight permeated every atom of life there. Sitting on a golden pine needle carpet were Daddy, Mama, and Angel. Their laughter and zest for life sizzled and spilled over into the studio.

Standing a little apart in the scene, lounged against the Love Tree, was Troy, ankles and arms crossed. Beside him was Scrounger.

Angel wheeled closer and trailed her finger lightly over the sixteenth notch in the Love Tree, then traced the intricately shaped letters spelling “G Loves L, Loves Angel, Loves Troy & Scrounger,” trailing downward like a dripping totem.

A humongous heart wrapped it all, encompassing the original, smaller one – showing love’s far-reaching capacity. Angel felt her eyes mist as her gaze connected with Troy’s. From the canvas, Troy’s luminous smile and eyes glowed like a beacon, the light from them splashing all over the room and filling her heart.

“Looks like he’s cheering you on,” Daddy whispered reverently. Beside Troy, Scrounger was as mangy and ugly as ever and ridiculously happy. From his grinning mouth, his tongue lolled lopsided.

Angel’s released breath was half laugh, half sob. Through the tears, she gazed at her parents. “I saw this. All of this.”

“Where?” asked her father. But he knew. So did her mother. She could see it in their faces.

“In my dream…in the coma.” The three of them fought back tears, failing. They wiped their cheeks and basked in the sacred moment love had given them.

Daddy loudly cleared his throat and gestured to the painting. “Well, what do you think?”

Angel snuffled back tears. “I think you’d better not ever sell this painting.”

Her dad visibly swallowed back a lump. “Money couldn’t buy it.”

“Know what else I think?” Angel grew even more solemn as she gazed at the painting, at Scrounger, who’d taught her the true meaning of courage.

“What, sweetheart?”

“He’s the most beautiful dog I’ve ever seen.”

Her smile grew and grew until it burst into laughter. “And now, I have a surprise for you.”

Dear Reader,

 

My next book,
Flavors
, a novella, will feature twelve-year-old Sadie Ann Melton as she enters a life-altering season on her grandparents’ South Carolina farm. She is dropped off there amid a passel of kids who closely resemble the silver screen’s Ma and Pa Kettle’s brood. Sadie Ann is a composite of us all. She represents a fascinating collage of inner-child traits nestled deeply inside each of us, regardless of age or gender.
Flavors
sweeps us along with her as this child-woman looks back on that 1950 summer that changes her life forever.

Sadie’s odyssey is at once heartbreakingly tender and crushingly brutal. As she searches for herself and ultimately, her space, Sadie struggles with the juxtapositions of Heaven and Purgatory, good and evil. The epiphanies she experiences are both wonderful and horrific.

At times, she is her own worst enemy, drawing dark arrows of disfavor. At other times, she floats in the light, seeing beauty in others, even with their warts and warped psyches. Her ability to reduce the good, bad, and ugly down to flavors helps her keep a floatable perspective during this pivotal summer. At its worst point, this slice of time takes Sadie to an aloneness she’s never before faced. A time when she’s truly without a place .

Ultimately, the Melton women and men in Sadie’s journey help shape her into the woman she becomes. They love, coax, and command her maturity into being. But it is Sadie herself who pulls it all together. It is Sadie who emerges her own woman.

I hope you get the chance to enjoy this evocative journey to renewal and beautiful self-discovery.
Flavors
goes on sale in March 2011.

 

Emily Sue Harvey

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

 

The Story Plant
The Aronica-Miller Publishing Project, LLC
P.O. Box 4331
Stamford, CT 06907

Copyright © 2009, 2011 by Emily Sue Harvey

 

 

eISBN : 978-1-611-88015-1

 

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For information, address The Story Plant.

First Story Plant Paperback Printing (expanded): February 2011