Redemption's Road, page 9
part #3 of Five Points Series
I straightened my back. “I will not walk in that Kingdom Hall under any circumstances. I’ll go to the viewings at the funeral home, but I’ve subjugated myself enough to their dismissive looks and disdain. It’s her faith and her beliefs, not mine. There will be no comfort in the words of the message they peddle. He can go back to the ground or straight to hell, as far as I’m concerned. I’m done.”
***
Over the next few days, Ellie and I traveled through parts of our old hometown. We walked by our high school and the ice cream shop where Ellie worked. We’d escaped there whenever we could. We stopped by the restaurant where I’d waited tables from the time I was sixteen until we left. I squirreled away every penny I could to buy my Subaru and give us starting money. The management had changed, and no one knew me in the Mexican cantina that took its place. In twenty years, much about the area had changed, both good and bad.
Ellie kept in touch with her band, and I helped her rehearse by playing for her while she sang. They planned to play a concert in a small venue in Vienna, Virginia, on the edge of Washington, D.C. soon after the funeral. No flashing lights or smoke machines. Just Ellie’s voice, John’s guitar, and Adriane on the keyboards would grace the stage. Intimate and low key, it reminded me of playing at a much larger Redemption’s Road. I knew she was looking forward to it, and I was truly enjoying playing for her. More than once, she’d coaxed me into singing along. She’d smile and drop into harmony, forcing me to take the lead. I did miss singing with her, but I didn’t miss the road or the pain it brought. That life had cost me the greatest love of my life. In truth, it wasn’t the music or the road’s fault, but my own doing. A drunken night and my own excesses had cost me my one great love. The blame sat firmly on my shoulders.
We’d just finished lunch when Mom called and asked if we could come to the funeral home to finalize our father’s service.
“I’m meeting with the director at one. Can you and your sister meet me there?”
I had her on speakerphone. I watched Ellie take a face-first dive onto the bed and beat her fists against the mattress. I completely understood her frustration. I always knew this wasn’t going to be easy.
“Is it going to be just us, or will you have your entourage?”
My mother nearly growled her answer. “The brothers from the Kingdom Hall are not an entourage, Bekka. You will be civil.”
Ellie sat up and vehemently flipped my phone the double bird, while never saying a word. I nearly snorted coffee out my nose. I coughed.
“Mom, very soon you’ll be able to immerse yourself completely in all things your Witnesses want from you. But for the next few days, can you remember that, at one point in your life, we were important to you? Dig into your memory bank and pull out the file that has our birth certificates with your name on them. Sometimes, I feel like I’m beating my head against the wall and talking with you is about as productive as that.” I remembered she was grieving and stopped to take a deep breath. “We’ll be there.” I caught Ellie rolling her eyes as I hung up.
“You’re too fucking nice to her.”
“I’m trying to remember the scripture that says honor your father and mother. Trust me, it’s not easy for me.”
Ellie moved about the room, pulling on her faded Indigo Girls sweatshirt. I couldn’t help but laugh. “That thing is almost as old as you are.”
She fingered the ragged cuffs. “You bought this for me in a secondhand store in 1999.”
My guitar rested across my lap, and I moved it into position. I grinned at my sister and watched a smile appear like the sun pulling from the earth’s horizon to rise into the sky. Within a few seconds, her honeyed voice was wrapping itself around mine, as I rolled into the chorus of the Indigo Girls’ “Secure Yourself.” It was the anthem of our escape into a world where we didn’t have to listen for footsteps behind us. The song put to words the feeling of our worth in this new life. I rarely pulled this one out. As much of a balm to our open wounds this song had been back then, it brought up a really rough time for us. Freed of the oppression we’d grown up in, we quickly found out how terrifying this new-found freedom could be. We swam like guppies in an ocean of sharks.
When we finished the last chorus, I put the guitar to the side and grabbed my jacket. “It’s going to be okay, Ellie. If you believe nothing else, believe that.”
Chapter Twelve
IT WAS SNOWING THE morning of my father’s funeral. Outside the window of our hotel, a blanket of white had been thrown over everything to hide the ugliness we’d see that day. We knew a painful piece of our lives would be buried under six feet of earth and marked with a piece of granite as a memorial to a wasted life.
“Ellie, we need to leave soon.” I stood outside the bathroom door, giving her ample warning. Living in this hotel room with my sister for the last few days had taken us right back to the time we shared a tiny apartment in Pittsburgh. Her clothes were strewn everywhere, while mine were in a neat pile. Her makeup occupied every flat space, and her pillow was squished up into a tiny ball on the bed. I buttoned my black shirt and tucked it into the pants I’d purchased a few days ago. I’d packed in such a hurry and hadn’t thought to bring any dress clothes. Ellie had taken great pleasure in picking out the dark, silver-gray suit for me. I’d just tried to button the cuffs and was failing miserably, when there was a knock at the door.
“I think Tank and Karmen are here. Make sure you’re decent before you step out,” I called out before I pulled open the door.
A rush of coffee beans and vanilla met me. I nearly cried. I’d given her many bottles of that scent as an expression of my love. Despite all my protestations and shields, the one woman who still clawed and flowed into all my secret spaces stood before me. Her name came out like a whispered prayer floating on a feather.
“Naomi.”
She said nothing, as she strode into the room dressed in a long wool coat and drew me into her arms. For the last few days, I’d jammed every painful emotion I’d experienced down into a glass jar and screwed the lid down tightly. I’d planned to bury that jar in the grave with my father. The minute she tucked me into her arms, the jar slipped from my fingers and shattered all around me. The tears poured out of the container and pooled around my feet. I nearly collapsed, but Naomi held me tightly in her arms.
“I’m right here, Rhebekka. It’s time to let it out. Let it go, my love.”
Unable to hold back great howling gasps, I was held in the arms of the woman whose touch could strip me bare and whose heart could wrap me in the safety of her love. She moved us to sit on the couch in the lounge area and just held me. Ellie came out of the bathroom, leaning tentatively on the door frame and biting her thumbnail. I stretched out an arm to her and she ran to us, tears pouring down her own face. Naomi held us tighter and spoke the words we needed to hear.
“I’ve got you both. We’ll get through this together. You’re not alone, and you never will be.”
***
It felt like hours, as we cried and finished getting dressed. Naomi ironed out the wrinkles we’d put in my shirt and buttoned my cuffs for me like a hundred times before. I still couldn’t believe she had flown in to be with us. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. She and Ellie were still very close, regardless of my situation with Naomi. With her right in front of me, it was harder and harder to remember why we weren’t together. I’d never stopped wanting her, needing her, and certainly never stopped loving her.
Ellie wore a simple black dress and boots, nervously flicking her middle finger against her thumb. I wanted to remove the frown from her face. She was a beautiful mess, and I wanted nothing more than to rub away the worry lines that marred her gorgeous face. I sighed deeply, as Naomi ran her hands down my chest, smoothing the shirt. As tense as I was, I wished for a few solitary minutes to center my thoughts but quickly dismissed the idea. I couldn’t imagine being without her for a single second now that she was there.
I reached out a hand for Ellie and brought her to my side until we formed a circle. Naomi said a prayer with us, and I felt a peace come over me.
“Amen.”
Naomi reached for my jacket and helped me slip it on over my shoulders. She held my face in her hands.
“My God, you are still so damn handsome.”
Her fingers adjusted my collar, and she leaned in to softly kiss my lips. She smirked, knowing exactly what she was doing to me. I let a smile break over my face. “You’re pretty damn beautiful yourself.” I helped her slip into her coat and admired the black, suit dress she wore. The double-breasted placard, buttoned at her hip over a white shell, was elegant. The knee-high black boots she wore with it were doing pleasant things to my insides.
“Come on, girls, let’s do this.” Naomi’s smile lit up the room.
I grabbed my guitar case. I had something planned for after the visitation that had nothing to do with my father’s burial. We met Marlon in the lobby, and he led the way to the car.
Naomi sat in the middle and held our hands as we drove. I watched my sister fidget restlessly.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Bek. Why are we going? It feels wrong. We had nothing to do with that bastard for the last twenty years. Why do we need to show respect now that he’s gone?”
I rolled my head from shoulder to shoulder, trying to buy time to formulate an explanation that would make sense. “I can’t speak for you, Ellie. Honestly, if you don’t want to do this, I understand. For me, this is burying the past, letting go of the disappointment and abuse.”
I ran a finger in the condensation on the window, drawing four connected squares on the glass. “Each pane contains a snapshot of my self-worth. The window of my life.” I drew a challis in one and pointed to it. “For years, I never felt worthy of God’s love. I was told the price was total submission. The whole time, I fully knew I’d never attain the promised reward, because I was hiding who I really was.”
I drew a circle in the next pane. “In this one is a record. I spent years singing for the approval of others, searching for acceptance and success.” In the third one, I drew a cross. “This pane holds the symbol of the grace I am freely offered, while still struggling to understand that I am worthy of the sacrifice that guaranteed it.” I tapped the last empty square with my knuckle. “This panel is for what I will be when I bury those feelings of inadequacy with the man who was our father.” I reached for her hand. “Your windowpanes are different than mine. Your journey is your own. The reason I’m going is so that when I leave, I can walk past that city limit sign, not run.”
***
The funeral was difficult, to say the least. People came through to pay their respects. My mother took her position by my father’s head. We stood slightly past her, uncomfortable facing the raised eyebrows of those who veered off before they got to us. Some of our relatives, people from the community, and a few classmates continued through the line with their condolences for us.
Aunt Dinah stopped and hugged us. “How are you holding up, girls? Don’t think, for one second, I don’t see what’s going on here. I’m not buying that this is God’s compassion in action. You know where I am, and I’m here for you.”
“We’re doing all right. What comes next will be the worst, this we can handle.”
Ellie crossed her arms. “She’s right, wait until they get to the service part of this charade.”
Two hours later, we’d endured a memorial service that had been more like a rebuke. Brother Raymond took the opportunity to subtly remind us how far from their favor we’d fallen. The God he spoke about fell well short of the loving Father I’d come to know. Naomi rubbed her thumb across the back of my hand, subtly reminding me I wasn’t alone. Ellie clung to me, the rage rolling off her in waves. When the internment was over, Ellie and I made our way out.
When I reached for the car door, a loud voice accosted our backs.
“Can’t you two put something other than yourselves first for once?”
I kept Naomi’s hand in mine and turned to face my mother. “No, Mom, not this time. We spent more than enough time ignoring our own self-preservation. For once, how about you pray God forgives you for letting that monster leave marks on my back and legs? Pray that God understands why you let our father berate and emotionally abuse us. You were supposed to protect us. I wish you well, Mom. You’re now completely free to become the perfect Jehovah’s Witness without any encumbrances. At the end of your days, I hope it will all have been worthwhile.”
For twenty years we’d been estranged. Until she had her own epiphany, it would be the last time I would ever speak to her. I had no illusions that she would wake up one day and realize that her children had been a gift from God, born with the right to make our own decisions, whether she agreed with them or not. We were adults, and she wasn’t responsible for either our salvations or our sins, nor were we tied to her own.
***
Naomi walked beside me up to my grandparent’s grave. I held my guitar in one hand and Ellie’s hand in the other. Tank and Karmen trailed behind us. When we reached the simple gray stone with a cross down the middle, I wiped a tear away. The names on the smooth surface recalled two people who’d lived a full life and raised a family with love, though they had little else. I asked Tank to hold my case while I removed my guitar and slid the strap over my head. As I ran my hand over the strings, soft snowflakes floated in the air.
MaMaw had enjoyed winter’s slower pace of life. No garden to tend, no flowers to water, and the promise of spring when the cycle would start all over again. Flakes landed on my lashes, as I started one of her favorite hymns. “In the bleak midwinter…” My alto voice was joined by Naomi’s powerful soprano and harmonized by my sister singing tenor. We’d sung together so many times, it was as if we’d spent hours practicing just that morning.
We moved into the hymn Grandpa taught me without the benefit of any sheet music. Our voices blended and rolled over each other in beautiful harmony, and it was well with our souls. I knew our grandparents had to be smiling from heaven. The weight of the last few days dropped away and melted into the ground. When we finished, I let the tears come. Great wails wracked my body. I tried to hold back the floodgate with tightly closed eyes, to no avail. I felt the guitar removed from my hands. Arms surrounded me, and soft lips kissed the tears away. A second set of cries joined mine, as Ellie moved into the small circle with us. We cried for every moment of our past. I fully intended to leave all the sorrow right there on that hallowed ground. My grandfather had worked this farmland to feed his family and had eked out a meager living. I wiped my eyes.
“When we fled, one of the things I took with me was a small tin of dirt from the top of these graves. I wanted to be grounded in the love and gifts they gave us. I wanted to remember their humble beginnings and the love that served as our foundation, not the pain of the house we grew up in.”
I held my hand out for my guitar case and pulled back the velvet pocket inside to reveal that small tin that had once held MaMaw’s peppermint balm. When we stayed with her, she’d rub it on our lips before we went to bed.
The tin sat in my open palm. “In each ounce of dirt, there are pieces of things that have broken down and turned into something else, just like we have.”
These people were much more than a sister, a lover, and two friends. This was my family, the people I’d built my present and future on. I put the tin back inside and laid the guitar in its velvet protection. I closed the lid and flipped the clasps back in place, before I reached for the handle. I saw Tank reach out for Ellie’s hand, and winced as my sister stepped to my side and slid her hand into mine instead. Tank took the case from me and started back to the car, leaving the rest of us standing there. Naomi wrapped her fingers in mine and reached for Karmen’s. Slowly, we made our way to the car. The four of them climbed in, while I turned for one last look. I took a deep breath, pulling in the scent of crisp winter air and pine, then repeated the first verse of It Is Well With My Soul. For the first time in a very long time, I realized it truly was.
Chapter Thirteen
BACK AT THE HOTEL, I packed my belongings as I talked with Ellie. She was going to have to deal with Tank’s unrequited love. Tank was my friend, and I didn’t want to see her hurt, though I knew it was coming. It wasn’t Ellie’s fault, but only she could be the one to tell Tank it was never going to happen.
“You’re going to have to be straight with her, Ellie. She’s going to brood for months.”
Shrugging her shoulders, my sister packed the last of her makeup. “What more do I have to say? I’ve told her, more than once. Poor Karmen, I saw the tears in her eyes. Can’t Tank see she’s crazy about her?”
“Unfortunately, no.” I shook my head. “I’ve done all I can to get Tank to let this go, and I’ve told Karmen she deserves better.”
Naomi was folding one of my shirts. “Sometimes, people can’t see what’s right in front of them.”
Ellie smirked and cleared her throat as she backed toward the door. “I need to check on something with Marlon. I’ll be back in a little while.”
I shook my head at Naomi. “You’re about as subtle as a foghorn.”
“And your sister is perceptive.” Naomi hugged Ellie before she walked out.
We were alone. It’d been a long time since we’d confronted the elephant in the room. Sweat formed on my upper lip.
“It’s time we talk, and I don’t mean about your parents, or Ellie, or the weather.”
Seeing her that morning had been God’s answer to a silent prayer in the form of a beautiful woman who’d taught me how much I was worth and loved me in spite of myself. I closed my eyes. I’d been dreading this all day.
