The Eye Unseen (18 page)

My spine tingled. All the years I had held you when I so desperately wanted to push you down the garbage disposal, all the prayers I had said, begging God to rid me of you, for my own Mother, drenched in blood, watching my life rot in front of her, they were nothing. Nothing to be feared. Nothing to remember. Nothing to be hostile about. Mom’s death? In the past.

The sight in front of me was something else entirely. Beyond frightening. Powerful, even in your weakened state.

You had become a monster. Deranged. A psychopath. A nightmare to usurp all of the other treacheries that had invaded my life.

“That nice man you sent to talk to me.” You raised your head just enough that the kitchen light hit your face, bounced off your bad eye. Like a beacon, it lit up everything in the room.

My heart jackhammered in my chest. “What man?”

Evelyn stammered in the background. The dog whined, turned in circles. I put my foot into her ribs and pushed her toward the hall.

“The one who’s hair was a light. He didn’t tell me his name.”

I cringed when the ax hit the wall. Aunt Evelyn was standing, gesticulating wildly, calling me a coward. Your words were hard enough to understand without all of the background noise covering them up. Deciphering your speech was like trying to discover the aria in two pieces of grinding metal.

“Lucinda Shay Tew, you’d better tell me right now who let you out of that room. You weren’t done in there yet.”

You were still alive.

“He said you knew him.” A beetle crawled between your fingers, headed up your right hand. Your eye pulsed when you brought it to your mouth. I almost screamed when you placed the bug on your tongue, when its exoskeleton crunched between your teeth.

“I sent no man.” I wanted to slap the defiance out of you but was rendered motionless by the sight of your snack coursing down your throat.

 “He called himself my father. When he opened the door, he said to tell you that we are at peace.”

I backed against the counter, gripped it with all my strength.

When I turned to Evelyn for some sort of guidance, she was gone. The wall showed no sign of her weapon. Her mug of tea sat untouched.

I was absolutely breathless.

“Really, Lucy? He did?”

“I’m really tired, Mom. Can I sit down?”

I pulled the chair out for you, scooted the chamomile closer in case you wanted to drink it. Where seconds ago I had been repulsed by your presence, I wanted nothing more than to pull you tight and cradle you in my arms.

“God came and opened the door for you?”

Lucy

Bad graces.

Good graces.

Tippy. Trippy. Snippy. Lippy.

Back in bed, the door open. Grape juice. Iced tea. Hot tea. Milk.

Oatmeal. French bread. Apple butter. Cream of chicken soup.

A mother, reading stories. My mother, reading stories. The words rounded out of her mouth and spiraled across the room. Sing-song. Pages turned, teeth clipped important letters, my good friend the dog snuggled against my side, her tail thumping.

The three of us together.

I wanted Brandy. Could almost hear her, in the woodwork, memories of her stalking me through my recovery.

Mom must have killed her. I envisioned her body, sleek like a deer, churned up by tractors, a spray of red and her history had crossed the finish line, the only lingering bits of her chunking off the equipment as it rolled through the field. My sister loved me. She wouldn’t have left me like this.

But now I was the good one. Touched by God. Forgiven. My existence profound.

Mom catered to me. We had been going like this for days, most of them a blur of sleep and sickness. I had flashes of her bathing me, cutting my hair when she couldn’t get the knots out, putting salve on my lips and hands. She rubbed my legs, tucked me in, made a point of propping the door open at night when she left for her own room. Pulled the spoon from the bowl and wiped my lips with it when soup slipped out of my mouth.

Part of me enjoyed it. Finally achieving that good-girl status. My only fears the ones that jumped out in my dreams. Having Tippy back.

Tippy. Drippy. Flippy. Clippy.

My thoughts attacked me in swift staccatos, then died away for hours after their brief burst of energy. Tippy would breathe against my cheek, and suddenly the buck would jump into the room, keeping me in check, his one-second presence enough to remind me of what he had done to save me. Then my dog would move ever so slightly, and the buck would leave as though he’d never even been beside me, as though our moments had never intertwined.

I grabbed an inner tube and went floating down rivers while Mom kept her vigil beside me. Her words wrapped the room in crisp, pretty paper. I cherished the times she picked up my hand, held the tips of my fingers, sat with me in silence. One night she did my nails in light-purple polish, even applying a second coat.

She asked me over and over about God. What had it been like, being in His presence?

I didn’t know what to say. That, in retrospect, He had tempted me with meatloaf and somehow I had passed the test? I remembered the water that never needed refilling in the glass He gave me. A miracle.

We went over the Old Testament, the other miracles shared over the course of thousands of years. My voice was becoming stronger. Mom let me read directly from her Bible. From the old
Guidepost
magazines she had accumulated through the years. Of course, after two paragraphs my throat shut down, but this time Mom was very understanding. When my coughing started, she would roll me over on my side and let me sip tea from the glass when the spasm had passed.

Mucous crusted around my eyes, the rim of my nose. Like infection was oozing out every place it could find. Mom cleaned me with a warm washcloth, and every time she worked on my face I thought of the moment, in the basement, when I had longed so desperately to wash myself like this and clean off the sage and paste.

Tippy looked like her old self. Her coat, patchy but growing back, gleamed again. Her eye was full of confidence.  How much time had passed since we were separated? Enough that she no longer hovered on the brink of death.

But we both knew that I was far from out of the woods. We just never discussed it.

Tippy couldn’t have cared less about God. She didn’t ask me about Him, about the mysterious meatloaf meal, or how He had unlocked the door for me. We didn’t even have to conspire about drinking water or what to do with our waste anymore, and Tippy barely acknowledged that we had shared this time in our lives. I clung to her unabashedly, but was strangely alienated from her at the same time.

As my strength increased, so did my alertness. I noticed oddities. Like how Mom never went to work. I tried to keep track of days, to investigate this phenomenon without ever leaving my bed. But my thoughts were hard to master. From what I could tell, she never left the house anymore.

Neither of us did.

And then there were, of course, the hens. I was flabbergasted when the first one ventured into my bedroom without so much as an invitation. The bird was quiet, curious, but certainly not threatened by me or Tippy. I could understand finding me a pretty worthless opponent, but even with gentle prodding Tippy had no interest in chasing the chicken and allowed her to take over the room like it was her own.

Later, when I awoke, that same hen was having a heyday in the corner, six or seven of her friends bobbing their heads back and forth in rapid conversation. Mom dozed in her chair, her hand lying limply beside her, two of the chickens rubbing their feathers against her.

When I tried to ask Mom about them, she told me I had been dreaming. But I could hear them clucking from the hallway, so loudly it sounded like Mom had dozens of them walking our floors.

I dropped it when she started getting edgy. “Why does everyone always accuse me of keeping chickens in the house?”

Like she never saw the drawings on her way to the bathroom. Or the pile of heads accumulating by the top of the stairs. Maybe it just took me so long to navigate my path to the toilet that I let these sights distract me.

Of course, the greater question was who else had asked her about the chickens? No one had set foot in our house since before Easter, when one of the women from church dropped off some fresh eggs for us to prepare for the hunt we did every year on the rectory lawn.

I mostly talked to Tippy, priding myself on the fact that I had finally escaped something, even if it was only the coal room.

“You did great, kiddo,” she told me before slathering me with kisses. “I was rooting for you the whole time.”

“Do you think she’ll let me go back to school soon?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Don’t push your luck. Take things one day at a time. You’re out of the fire right now, but the frying pan’s still pretty hot to the touch.”

Tippy.

Rippy. Zippy. Jippy. Shippy.

*  *  *

We left the movies, the laughter from the flick we had seen lingering between us as we headed down the street.

The world was remarkably quiet. The just-warm-enough air of a late spring night blew around us softly, giving Mike an easy reason to put his arm over my shoulder and pull me tight against him while we walked downtown.

Now and then a car drove past, the water on the road carried on its tires, but barely discernible over the story Mike was telling me about Joe Buxley, a kid on his wrestling team who fell asleep on the bus and started kicking his leg like a dog. A couple stood smoking in front of a coffee shop on the next block, but as we neared they went back inside to enjoy the atmosphere and get a shot of caffeine.

Brandy and I had splurged for hot chocolate there once, and the taste filled my mouth as we passed the front door. I almost suggested to Mike that it would be a great treat, the whipped cream piled with chocolate ribbons, but I didn’t want to do anything that might interrupt this time we had together.

Alone.

He held my hand and my blood surged through my veins, making my entire body alert and so excited I thought for sure I might explode.

We went to the park. The trees were just starting to leaf, but the crocuses were out
en masse
and watching us from under the street lights. Mike put his mouth to my ear, whispering things I’d only heard in dreams, the proximity of his lips and breath causing me to shiver.

Brandy said it could be this way. When you were with a boy. She had shared all of her kisses with me, but when I look back on it, I think she left a lot out, as well. One time, in the locker room, the older girls had joked about some of the things my sister had done behind the gymnasium during her lunch hour. I was appalled at the words they used, really didn’t understand what they were telling me. When I asked Brandy later that night, when Mom was far out of earshot, Brandy’s face had lit up and she told me that some things were too personal to share.

Now I think I might be having one of those moments. Mike told me he wanted to kiss me, and he did. He was so much taller than me that he had to bend over while I curled up on my tippy toes and met him part way. I had waited for this for years and didn’t want to approach it like a coward.

Our lips met and what was left of the world melted away. The cars were gone, the trees and grass and even the small threat of being caught after dark in the park, which wasn’t allowed. I cherished the taste of his breath and chased it with my tongue. Loved the feel of his fingers, pressed into my back, pulling me into him.

We strolled to the swings and shared one for a while, Mike sitting on the hard plastic while I faced him and slid onto his lap. For just a second guilt sliced through me. If Mother had any idea what I was doing, she would kill me.

But I liked it too much. Way too much to stop.

Night came in full force, cloaking us, allowing us a bit more privacy. Mike wrapped his jacket around me, then put his arms inside my shirt to keep them warm.

My body was on such a high I thought I might pass out. His fingers feathered over my belly and lower back, causing me to jump up.

“Ticklish?” He asked, grinning.

Before he could touch me again, I took off, giggling. The grass was slick, and I tripped just as Mike grabbed me from behind. We did a backward dance toward the covered slide while kissing and laughing. I tried to tickle him back, but his hands were strong and gripped mine fiercely. He pulled me onto the cold metal, and we scooted until our legs were well hidden inside.

The time for conversation was over. Mike snuggled into me, his hands freezing, his breath hot but steamy just the same. I tried to crawl on top of him, but he moved me back to the bottom, insisting it was only fair since I had the coat.

“Let me warm you up,” I said in a voice I barely recognized as my own, opening the jacket as Mike pressed himself completely against me.

We were a twist of hands and mouths. A symphony of lips and tongues. Cold, but boiling underneath the wet wind.

I ran a mental checklist while my limbs melted: my armpits were freshly shaven, we had no monthly visitations to worry about, and, like a good girl, I had on my nicest, cleanest pair of underwear. My body had no intention of stopping and I didn’t think my heart did, either.