Stepping Into Sunlight (28 page)

Three thirty. Adrenaline coursed through me. It screamed at me to move, while the terror froze me in place.

I used one hand to pry the other free from its grip on the blanket. Slowly, painfully, I moved my legs over the side of the bed and found my footing. I stumbled to the bathroom and peeled off the damp flannel, then stepped into the shower. I let the water run so hot it nearly scalded my skin, but still the shudders came.

Hidden by the wall of water pouring over my head, I sobbed, letting the tears fall to spin down the drain.

Why? Why now? This isn’t fair. I’d faced my fear.

Six hours later, I posed the same question to Dr. Marci at my appointment. “This was one of the worst nightmares yet. It was so . . . so
powerful
.”

Dr. Marci sipped her coffee. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but your unconscious mind is doing its job. It’s trying to process things while you sleep.”

I snorted. “Well, it’s not going to get very far if I wake up screaming all the time.”

“The nightmares have been less frequent, though, right?”

“I guess. But this was the worst ever.”

She nodded. “A normal reaction after seeing the photo yesterday.”

“Normal? Nothing about me is normal anymore.” My voice sounded shrill in my ears.

“Have you reconsidered seeing your doctor?”

I yawned and shook my head. “What if word got out that the chaplain’s wife can’t cope? Tom tried to get me to go to the base shrink before he left, but I wouldn’t. It’s not a good idea.”

“You’re afraid that using a psych med would make you officially loony. But what if it gave you the biochemical help you needed to heal from a genuine trauma?”

“Never helped my brother.”

Dr. Marci leaned forward. “Let’s talk about that. How do you feel about his upcoming visit?”

I rubbed my eyes. “I don’t know. My sister, my parents, they all sound so happy and excited. But where has he been all this time? He just disappeared. Why didn’t he get in touch sooner? It’s been twelve years. Twelve years! I don’t even know if he’s stable or if it’s safe to let him into my life.”

“Sounds like you have a lot of questions to ask him.”

The suggestion plunked into my mind, like an uninvited guest on the couch. It hadn’t occurred to me that I should direct some of those stormy questions at him. I’d planned to tiptoe, smile, and hide from a gracious distance. “Oh, that reminds me. I have to miss group on Tuesday. Alex is coming on Monday, so I’ll be spending time with him.”

“Why don’t you bring him along?”

“To group?”

She smiled. “It’s an open group. I suspect he has some experiences to share that could benefit others, even if they aren’t directly crime related.”

“We’ll see.”

She gave me the same knowing frown that Bryan always used when I resorted to momspeak.

I drove home with a dull headache at the base of my skull and familiar weariness weighting my bones. When I entered the house, the bedroom sang a siren song. Odysseus made his men stuff wax in their ears, but I doubted that would help me. Still, I had to fight this. I didn’t want to fall back into the pattern of sleeping all day.

I made a pot of coffee and drank cup after cup while surfing the Internet. The caffeine helped me shake off fatigue as I chatted on forums. But the longer I sat in front of the computer, the more sadness crept over me like long afternoon shadows.

Summoning every ounce of willpower, I logged out and pushed to my feet. Time to work on my project. Time to do something kind for a new person—a live person. I had a shopping bag full of baby clothes to donate to the mission. I should have gone right after my appointment with Dr. Marci. Pushing through the force field covering the doorway for a second time was almost too much to demand of myself, especially after the rough night I’d had.

With a deep breath, I surged down the steps and along the sidewalk. My feet followed the now-familiar path toward the storefront mission. When I reached the dented door of the mission, I didn’t hesitate, but walked right in.

The room still smelled musty, although today there was no snoring old man in the armchair. Instead, a baby shrieked and two preschoolers raced among the folding chairs, knocking a few over while they made zooming car noises.

Lydia paced the floor under the painted cross, jiggling the baby at her shoulder. The infant howled all the louder.

She glanced my way, eyes wide. Then she smiled in relief. “Welcome back,” she called over the noise. “If you want to pray, you might need to wait a spell.”

“Your baby?” I set the bag of clothes next to the couch.

She shook her head and patted the small back. “Her mom had a job interview, so I said I’d watch these three—but it’s taking longer than I thought, and this little gal isn’t too happy.”

Automatically, I reached out. Lydia deposited the baby into my arms.

She rummaged into a worn canvas bag. “I think there’s . . . Here it is.” Lydia unearthed a bottle, which she handed to me.

I settled onto the sagging armchair and chased the baby’s tossing and twisting head with the bottle, coaxing her to taste a drop of milk. Finally the ferocious cries calmed to whimpers and then the sound of contented sucking. Wide brown eyes stared up at me, set in pale skin that was still rosy from the bout of crying. I smiled. “There. That’s better, isn’t it? Your mama will be back any minute. Aren’t you an itsy-bitsy sweetie pie?” The cooing words slipped out like a reflex.

Lydia snagged the two boys as they zoomed by. They were fair and brown-haired like their infant sister and flushed with energy. “Story time,” she said firmly. “No running in God’s house.”

One of the boys swiped at his runny nose. “St. Joseph’s is God’s house.”

“Yes, it is. He has more than one house. Now come sit down.”

Somehow she coaxed their fidgeting bodies onto the couch beside her, and she picked up a tattered children’s magazine from the coffee table.

I fed the baby while she read the story of a girl who learned not to tell lies, interrupted by frequent questions by the oldest boy. Lydia answered each question and doggedly returned to her reading again and again, while I hid a smile at her exasperation.

Spit-up stains marred the lapels of her blazer, and one side of her conservative Afro jutted out where little hands had tugged. She looked as if she’d had a long day, and it was only two o’clock.

I stroked the cheek of the baby, whose eyelids began to droop. My own lids felt heavy. I hadn’t gone back to bed after my nightmare, and even my earlier coffee binge couldn’t hold back the sleepiness.

A shape moved past the tinted glass window and the door swung open.

“I can start Monday!” A curvy woman with a mass of dark curls swept into the room. She looked too young to be out of high school, much less the mother of three. Her eyes sparkled with the same excited energy of the two boys, who leapt from the couch and raced toward her with happy shouts.

The baby startled in my arms and let out an indignant wail.

The young woman stalked toward me and snatched her baby away as if I’d been sticking her with pins.

Lydia slowly rose to her feet. “Wendy, this is my friend Penny. She’s a mother, too.”

“Although mine is a little older,” I smiled. “Bryan is seven, so he’s in school. But I miss those cuddly days.”

Unimpressed, she gave me a terse nod, then shooed her boys to the door. “Now I have to find someone to watch them every day.” She gave Lydia a speculative look. “My aunt said she won’t take them . . .”

Lydia shook her head. “I’m sure you’ll find someone. And I’m always here for emergencies. But I have other people who need my help.”

Wendy turned to me, and her frost became a cloying smile. “But what about your friend, Penny? She’d love to help, right?”

chapter
25

M
Y EYES WIDENED, BUT
before I could frame an answer, Lydia guided the young mother firmly toward the door. “Penny has her own responsibilities. And you have yours. Talk to your aunt again.” She pulled a folded paper from her blazer pocket and tucked it in the diaper bag, which she helped drape on Wendy’s free shoulder. “I wrote down the names of some grandmas who might be able to help.”

The young mother flounced out the door, herding her two toddlers ahead of her.

I ran a hand through my hair and sank back against the cushions. “Maybe I should have offered. I could help her watch her children. . . .”

Lydia crossed her arms and gave me a stern look. “Penny, I know you’re looking for ways to help people. But don’t help them in a way that hurts them.”

“How would that hurt anyone?”

“Wendy would love for me—or you—to drop everything and take care of her children. But they’re her children. Her responsibility. I can support her, but I can’t do it for her. Did God tell you to take over her parenting for her?”

“Of course not. I just—”

Firm nod. “Exactly. If He had, that would be different. But you weren’t thinking about obeying the Boss. You were thinking it’s your job to keep people happy. And it’s not.”

“But I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed. To need some help.”

“Good.” She straightened the magazines on the table and picked up the fallen folding chairs in the back row of the “church” area of the room. “Compassion is a good thing. Enabling isn’t. I’m trying to help people be responsible for their choices.”

More psychobabble. Had Lydia gone to the same school as Dr. Marci?

She must have noticed my wrinkled nose. “You don’t agree?”

“I’m just trying to sort out how it could be wrong to help someone.”

“Spoken like an idealist who’s new to the neighborhood.” Her grin was gently mocking. She sank onto the couch and pulled off one of her low-heeled pumps and rubbed her foot. “But it’s good to see you. I was hoping you’d come by again. How are you?”

“Better.” I realized it was true, even though pushing myself out my doorway today had been a huge effort again. I looked around the room and the evidence of Lydia’s never-ending work. Would serving ever come as naturally to me as it did for her? I noticed the weariness around her eyes. “How do you keep going?”

She slipped her shoe back on and began rubbing her other foot. “Most days I want to run back to my comfortable apartment and give up.”

“But you don’t.”

She finished massaging her foot before answering. “Honey lamb, you know how you felt when you were holding that baby?”

I nodded. Pure adoration. I couldn’t stop admiring the sweetness and beauty of the clear eyes and the tiny fingers.

“Ev’ry morning I spend some time lovin’ on God that same way.”

I let her words soak in while I tried to pinpoint her secret. “You mean praying? I
do
that already.”

She leaned forward. “ ’Course you do. But how much time do you spend lovin’ on Him? You know, like the way you were lookin’ at that baby a few minutes ago.”

She made it sound so simple. But the idea snagged me. Could my journal record more than a list of clumsy good deeds? Even more than a list of blessings like the gratitude journals that were so popular?

I rubbed my eyes. How would that help me get out of the house more? “I started my project to force myself to be more active, not all contemplative. But adoring God is—”

“Very active.”

Before I could argue, Barney sauntered in from a back door, sorting through a stack of mail. He lifted his bushy brows and smiled at me. “Welcome back. Are you being penny-wise and pound-foolish?” He chortled at his own joke.

“And where have you been?” Lydia marched to him and plucked the mail from his hands. “I thought you were going to help me with Wendy’s boys. If Penny hadn’t stopped in, I don’t know what I would have done.” She tore open an envelope and frowned at the contents.

He rubbed his chin and studied the floor, casting glances toward Lydia. “I picked up those boxes from the Ladies Guild. I’ve gotta take another trip to get the rest.” He backed quickly toward the door.

“Mm-hmm.” Lydia didn’t look up until the door banged shut. She pulled her nose out of the mail and stared after him. She sighed, and softness touched her eyes. “I don’t know how I’d manage here without Barney. He keeps this place running.”

I crossed my arms. “Maybe you should tell him that.”

She blinked. “He knows. The last thing I want to do is feed his ego. He doesn’t think a woman can run this program. He’s always sniping at me.”

I fought a grin. “Kind of like Tom criticized my musical tastes when we met. And I teased him about the baseball cap he always wore.”

“What are you saying?”

I lowered my voice. “I think he likes you.”

A hint of burgundy flushed on her chocolate skin. “Honey lamb, the man can barely stand to be in the same room with me.”

“That’s not how it looks from where I’m standing.”

“Gal, you’re standin’ in a funny place. That’s all there is to it. Get on with you.” She shooed me toward the door. But when I opened the door, she cleared her throat. “Thanks again for helping.”

I laughed. “Anytime.”

I got home in time to whip up some Rice Krispies bars for Bryan. Hardly gourmet delicacies, but he was impressed. Before heading to his room to play, he even gave me several sticky kisses. I savored each one, wondering how long it would be before he decided he was too old for open affection. I chased that sad thought from my mind as I cleaned the kitchen. God’s gifts didn’t need to be hoarded or clung to with desperate fear. He had new ones around each corner. Today he’d given me a seven-year-old with cheeks still round with baby fat, and soft downy arms, and mosquito bites peppering his legs, who tumbled through life with glee and loved seeing how hard he could hug me. One day my gift would look different: a coltish ten-year-old who showed affection with a macho punch to my arm, a pimply teen wavering between melancholy reserve and brilliant insights, an independent man making brave choices and giving me one-armed hugs from a height above me.

“Lord, I adore you,” I whispered. “Your gifts blossom and grow and change shape. You are so lavish in your generosity.”

Emotion thickened in my chest and throat. Licking marshmallow from my fingers, I grabbed my pen and wrote my realization about God into my notebook. In smaller print, I jotted down,
Fed Wendy’s baby
—not sure if that good deed had been for Lydia, the baby, or Wendy. I flipped back through the notebook. The back pages held scattered tidbits of information and advice. The front of the notebook held records of awkward good deeds that gradually changed into entries about daily efforts to reach out to random strangers. Finally a few Bible verses appeared in the margins along with thoughts about what God might be speaking to me. Today’s page felt even richer. I ran my hand delicately over the paper as if reading Braille, realizing I was touching another blessing. Was this what healing looked like?