In Search of Eden, page 17
She pretended to look out the window, watching sidelong as David struggled to make the eighteen-inch journey along the transfer board from the bed to the chair. His knuckles were white as he gripped the triangular trapeze bar and swung himself over. He dropped the bar and had to stop midway in an uncomfortable position. His face grimaced in pain, and Sarah moved to help him, earning a frown and a dismissive gesture from the physical therapy aide.
“Come on. You can do it.” The aide stood with hands at his side while David sweated and strained.
Sarah felt a flush of shame as she turned and left the room.
One of the nurses had spoken sharply to her yesterday. “This is his battle,” the woman had said to her, taking her aside out in the hall. “You can’t do it for him, but he needs your support. His future depends on becoming independent. He needs your encouragement. Your pity isn’t going to help him.” Sarah had blinked back tears and nodded meekly.
She looked out the double-glazed windows to the hospital grounds. It was an unseasonably warm day, and although the grass was still winter brown, there were people outside without coats and jackets. Someone was delivering flowers. A woman shepherded three children into a van. She watched, amazed that the lives of people below could go on so normally in the shadow of this place of tears and wounds.
She thought of Eden, as she did many times each day, and felt the usual piercing guilt. After David’s accident, she had felt as if they’d all been treading water in a rough sea, the wreckage of the boats all around them. She’d seen Eden hanging on to a piece of drifting wood and David with his head underwater. She had chosen her husband and stowed her daughter in what she hoped was a safe place. Perhaps she had made a mistake, since she didn’t seem to be doing either of them much good.
She thought of her mother-in-law. Oh, how she wished Ruth were here. There was something about the older woman’s sound common sense that Sarah longed for. Leaning her head on that willing shoulder and resting for a moment would be pure bliss. In fact, they had discussed Ruth’s coming here to stay and having Eden come with her, but Sarah knew how Eden was, and now Ruth was finding out, too. The thought of Eden running unsupervised through Minneapolis gave Sarah a shudder. Better for her to be in Abingdon, where it was safe. Where Joseph would keep her safe as he had promised. She thought of Joseph briefly and still felt the guilt of that betrayal. He was a good man, but he had expected her to be more than she was. He had been unwilling to see her in her weakness. And when she had shown it, he had not been able to forgive it.
Sarah called Eden every day and talked briefly to her and then put David on the telephone. Eden seemed a little flat, a little angry, and answered questions with monosyllables, rarely volunteering any information. Ruth always assured her that Eden was fine and seemed happy most of the time. She would have to leave it at that. Sarah took a few deep breaths and walked back into David’s room. He had successfully completed his transfer and was sitting in his power chair, his untouched lunch tray on the table before him. She forced a smile and approached him.
“You made it,” she said cheerily, and he turned an equally false face to her. His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“I’m getting there. I’ll be racing around in no time.”
She smiled back, then they lapsed into silence.
“When did Warren say to expect him?” David asked.
“He said his plane would get in around two, and he would come straight from the airport.”
David nodded and Sarah could see the tension on his face. Although David’s agent had assured him the visit was purely friendly, she knew David felt the pressure of his unfinished manuscript. There was only one chapter left, but now, who could even think about stringing words together when the body was so broken? Besides, she thought of the message of the book: God could heal a wounded heart. It was a book he needed to read right now rather than write.
But then there was the small matter of the advance, already spent, the due date long past, the publication date fast approaching. There had been no pressure from the publisher. Just a gentle question. Will you write again? Or should we remove the book from the schedule? She didn’t know what he had answered and hadn’t the heart to ask.
“Do you want your computer?” she asked, her voice hesitant.
“No, I don’t want it,” he said, his tone almost distracted. “Not today.”
It was then that the thought came. It was pointed and aimed right at her heart. She thought of another question, different from the one that normally tormented her. And she knew that this one had to do with the fate of her husband’s heart rather than his legs. She knew it was the one she ought to be asking. Not will he walk. Instead, she wondered if he would ever laugh again. It had been that laugh that had drawn her to him. It was so full of life and joy, so full of his heart thrown out upon the world. He hadn’t laughed in months. But even this she could not control.
chapter 23
*
Dispirited, Eden picked up her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. She usually threw her books into her bag, hurried out the door as soon as the bell rang, and was waiting on the bus while most of the other kids were still hanging around. But today she couldn’t think of a single reason to hurry. Or yesterday. Or the day before. She wouldn’t be getting off at the police department and finding her bike chained to the rack, waiting for her. Her two-way radio wasn’t stashed in the bottom of her book bag. Uncle Joseph had taken both of them away. She was on restriction.
“Behavior has consequences, Eden,” Grandma had said, patting her on the back, but something about her voice made Eden think Grandma felt just as bad as she did.
“You play, you pay” was all Uncle Joseph said, but he didn’t look happy either when he told her she was restricted. “You’re on house arrest until Friday,” he said.
So there was no reason to hurry home today. She would just shuffle down to the bus and get off on Main Street, where Grandma would be waiting for her. They would walk home together, and Grandma would have to stop at Aunt Vi’s, who really wasn’t her aunt but acted like one, and the two old ladies would have coffee and cookies, and Eden would have milk and cookies because Grandma thought she was too young to drink coffee. And who knew what was happening without her to keep tabs on things? Why, just anybody might be sneaking into town, and Floyd at the bus station wouldn’t know who to watch out for, and now she didn’t have Elna to keep her posted about things going on in the Hasty Taste because she’d gone to her daughter’s in Bristol to have her surgery. Pastor Hector had been having to run the food bank all by himself, and her notebook was totally empty, and she didn’t even feel like writing any more detective stories. It just wasn’t fair.
And she totally knew that if she had just told the truth about Grady Adair, she probably wouldn’t be in trouble. But something about the panicky look in his eyes when he’d seen Uncle Joseph drive up and asked if he was a policeman had made her shut her mouth tight, and even though they’d asked her about it again, “Where did you go? Who did you go with?” she had just said, “Nowhere” and “Nobody,” and they had said, “Fine, go to your room.” So that’s where she’d been. Forever. Staring at the walls and at all the dumb old toys that she didn’t want to play with anymore. With nothing to do but homework. She wasn’t even allowed to go to the library to use the Internet, so who knew how much e-mail she was missing?
At least at Aunt Vi’s she was allowed to watch the television, only she always had it on a stupid kid’s show when Eden came in. Eden waited until she and Grandma were busy talking, and then she changed it to Guiding Light. It was pretty interesting, actually. Yesterday a girl named Tammy brought this guy named Jonathan to this guy named Coop’s party. But Coop turns out to be really mad about it—the party. Anyway, this lady named Ava likes him and is kissing him, but this woman named Lizzie butts in. Then Lizzie pushes Ava into an elevator and locks her inside, but later on in the party Ava escapes and pushes Lizzie’s face into the birthday cake. That’s when Grandma came in and turned it off. Eden decided to watch again today and find out what happened after that.
The bus finally started, the door closed, and they drove into town. She got off. Grandma was waiting for her, as she’d expected. “Hello, sweetheart! How was your day?”
“Fine.”
They started walking. “Do you have much homework?”
“No.”
“Would you like me to carry your backpack?”
“No thank you.”
“You know, Eden, I was wondering, are there any of the children you’d like to have over next week to play after school? I’d be happy to have them.”
“Oh. Um. I don’t think so. Thanks.”
Grandma patted her on the back, and Eden forced herself to give her a little smile. She kind of felt bad, because she could tell Grandma felt bad. Grandma was always asking her if she’d made any friends yet and if she wanted to have anybody over. Everybody was pretty nice at school, and she knew everybody’s name and was sort of friends with this girl named Hayley. They sat together at lunch and everything, but she didn’t think she’d invite her home. It just felt too hard to explain everything. Whenever she told people about Dad, they either asked her all kinds of questions she didn’t know the answers to, or they looked at her really sad, like they felt sorry for her, and she didn’t like that, either. She didn’t like to cry, and that always made her feel like she was going to cry. So she just made her rounds after school and wrote in her notebook and stuff, and that was pretty fun. Until now. She would just be glad when it was tomorrow and she could get back to her normal life.
Grandma started talking, telling her all about Plumb Alley Day that was coming up at the end of May and how she was going to be running the dunk tank and Mr. Purvis, the fifth grade teacher, was going to be dunked. That was kind of interesting, but in a boring kind of way. Pretty soon they were at Aunt Vi’s. She was waiting for them on her porch, wearing a red bandana around her hair, old jeans, and a blue shirt that was too big for her, and her clothes had paint all over them. She was an artist, but mostly she just painted pictures of birds and flowers and sheep and stuff like that. Nothing really interesting. Today Aunt Carol Jean was there, too. She wasn’t really her aunt, either, but actually it was sort of like having three grandmas. Aunt Carol Jean was short and had blond hair that was white at the roots. She was wearing a pink sweatshirt that said When Life Hands You Scraps, Make Quilts. There was a bird sitting on a clothesline with quilts hanging down from it. Aunt Carol Jean was always asking Eden if she wanted to learn to quilt, and she always said, “No thank you,” but she was getting pretty bored. Maybe she would try it next time she got on restriction.
“Hello, lovey,” Aunt Vi said, and Aunt Carol Jean had to give her a hug, but after a few minutes she escaped to the den with her cookies and milk. Aunt Vi had Mr. Rogers on the television. Oh, barf. She was way too old to be watching Mr. Rogers. She was almost twelve. Well, she supposed she could watch for a minute. She sighed and leaned back on the couch. She glanced out the window, but no one was coming up the flagstone walkway. No one would see her watching a kid’s show. She leaned back and took a bite of cookie. They were oatmeal, and even though chocolate chip were her favorite, these were pretty good.
The music started. The door opened. Mr. Rogers came in with his umbrella, and though he said, “Hello, neighbor,” and looked the same as he had when she was little, Eden could tell right away something was wrong. She frowned. It was raining in the neighborhood. She felt a little bit mad. It wasn’t supposed to rain on Mr. Rogers. And there was more stuff wrong, too. In the Neighborhood of Make Believe, Prince Tuesday was afraid his parents were going to get a divorce because they were arguing. Mr. Rogers started explaining that every time parents quarreled, it didn’t mean they would get a divorce, but it made her so mad she flipped the station over to Guiding Light again.
But it was too late. It had started her thinking, so she couldn’t help but keep on thinking, even though the lady named Ava and the lady named Lizzie were fighting again today. She wondered if Dad and Mom would get a divorce now that he was hurt and couldn’t walk. They would be coming here in a couple of weeks or months. Nobody would tell her when or what was going on. She was worried about that, too. There were too many things to think about.
And things not to tell.
There were secrets. Stuff she wasn’t supposed to know, or ask.
She knew a secret, but she wasn’t allowed to talk about it to Grandma or Uncle Joseph. And she thought there was some secret that Uncle Joseph and Grandma knew that they weren’t supposed to talk about to her. She didn’t know what that one was. But she knew there was something, because Uncle Joseph didn’t ever want to talk to her dad or her mom, and Grandma would get upset with him, and then they would start talking, and when they saw her, they would get quiet all of a sudden and put on these really fakey smiles. She didn’t know what was going on there, but she would probably find out someday when she had time to ask around. Maybe Vi or Carol Jean would tell her.
The one she wasn’t supposed to tell Uncle Joseph or Grandma was that she was adopted. “Grandma knows,” Mom had said, “but it’s best just not to talk to either one of them about it. Okay?” Dad had just looked really sad and said, “Sarah, is that kind of secrecy necessary?” Then Mom started getting upset and started to cry, and Dad said, “Okay, fine, whatever. I just don’t think Eden should be carrying that kind of burden,” and then Mom had said why didn’t she go out and play. She had tried to hear the rest from the hall, but they’d gone upstairs to their bedroom and shut the door. So she had never told. She didn’t really want to anyway. She didn’t like to talk about being adopted. She didn’t really know what she thought about it, either. At first she had thought everybody was adopted. Then she understood that was wrong. After that Mom made a really big deal about always saying she was special. How they had picked her out. But at the same time, she was always complaining to Dad how tired she was and how much trouble it was taking care of her. And she wondered why her real mom hadn’t wanted her. All the other kids’ real moms had kept them. What was wrong with her? She hated it in school when they had to draw their family tree. Mom would tell her whose names to put where, but Eden knew it wasn’t real. That wasn’t her real family.
She wanted to know who her real mom and dad were, and once she had asked Dad because at least he didn’t cry, but he said they didn’t really know much about the man and the woman, just that they weren’t able to take care of her, so they’d given her to Mom and Dad. And then he’d said, “Maybe you’d better not ask your mom because . . . you know.” Anyway, he looked sort of sad, so Eden hadn’t asked any more. But Dad said maybe someday the time would be right to find out more, and she would know when the time was. Lately Eden had been wondering if now was the time.
She hadn’t let herself say it, even to herself, but now the thought just popped up and wouldn’t go away. Maybe she could find out who her real mom was. She had started wondering ever since she’d gone to the hospital to see Dad and they’d sent her back here.
That’s when she’d figured out they were probably sorry they’d adopted her in the first place.
Ever since then she’d been thinking about her mother more. Her real mother, not Mom. She had thought about her before but not as much. She had even written her a letter, but she didn’t know where to send it. She felt bad when she thought about Dad and Mom up there in Minnesota, but then she got kind of mad when she remembered how Mom hadn’t wanted her there, so she decided she’d keep the dad she had, but it might be a good idea to get a back-up mom.
After all, her real mom might be anybody. That was the only good thing about it. About not knowing. Her mom might be rich or famous. Her mom might be somebody like a soldier or a general or a spy who knew kickboxing like that girl on the show on TV that Grandma wouldn’t let her watch.
Her real mom wouldn’t be thin and blond like Mom was. She would have dark hair like Eden and do fun stuff and not sit around and worry all the time. Maybe her real mom was just sort of pretty and kind of looked like her, and maybe she would look at Eden and say someday she might look okay, too. And her real mom would like her and want to be around her. She wouldn’t send her away, and she wouldn’t sign her up for a bunch of dumb classes just so she wouldn’t have her around.
Eden looked around Aunt Vi’s den and sighed. Probably her real mom, her birth mother, Mom and Dad called her, was none of those things in real life. IRL. She was probably just a normal person who hadn’t wanted her.
She missed Dad. He liked her. He liked to be around her, and she never made him tired. But he was sick, and who knew if he would ever get well. She’d been reading the Bible Dad had given her for her tenth birthday. He used to always buy her a special present on her birthday and take her out to dinner, just the two of them. She blinked and sniffed and remembered. The page edges were gold, and he had written inside To Eden, my delight. Dad said that was what her name meant. Delight. And that’s why they had named her that.
She got up and went into the hall. Grandma and her friends were still in the kitchen talking. She went out onto the porch and sat down and was just watching a green snake slide under Aunt Vi’s big bush when she looked up, and there was Grady Adair, riding an old rusted bike. He rode right up to Aunt Vi’s gate and stopped.
“Where you been at?” he asked, looking like he didn’t care.
She looked back over her shoulder. Nobody inside was paying any attention to her. She walked over toward the gate. “In my room mostly. You got me in trouble, and I’m on restriction.”
“How’d I get you into trouble?” He frowned and looked mad.
“ ’Cause you acted so lame and ran away when my uncle came, and then I was afraid I’d get you in trouble, so I didn’t tell where I was, and so then I got on restriction.”
