Believe (16 page)

TWENTY-NINE

For a moment, I felt safe. I relaxed. I didn't think. I let him tell me about family and home and God, and I didn't get anxious. I trusted him. I didn't look for reporters or cameras.

That was not smart.

“Do you promise me this isn't about publicity? When he flinched, I paused. “Why did you take the job here?” I stood back and looked him straight in the eyes. “You know, I've never believed in coincidences either.”

Dave Armstrong had this way of looking guilty and innocent at the same time. “No, it wasn't a coincidence. I wanted to come here, during this year, during this time. I had a hunch that something amazing might happen if I did—there was something magical about this date. So I contacted the college. I arranged for my own funding. I wanted to see what would happen.”

He planned this. But that didn't make sense. “But you couldn't have predicted what would happen with Abe. Or Brian.”

“I don't have to predict,” he said. “I trust.”

I nodded. Trust. It wasn't something I was feeling at the moment. “Or maybe donations were down? Maybe you felt like your star was fading?”

He blushed. I was right. Dave Armstrong needed publicity. He was afraid of no longer being in the news. He liked being well-known.

Guilty.

He ran his fingers through his hair. “Before I met you, I had a great life. A happy life. Although I have to admit, I was a bit of a blowhard.” He smiled. Innocent. “I made a good salary and had many friends. If I wasn't the most influential scholar in the world, I was at least satisfied with my situation.”

Emma said, “And then fate brought you to Jerusalem.”

He continued, “I went there to find a new angle for a book I'd been wrestling with. I tried to get into that synagogue, but they closed the door in my face. It turned out to be the most profound rejection of my life. I was close enough to feel the bomb. Surrounded by death, I heard God's voice, and then I heard yours. I changed. And I did good work. I helped people. Tell me you can appreciate that much. Tell me you understand why I had to come here—why I had to get myself back in the public eye.”

I understood, even though I hated it. “Unfortunately, this isn't the life I want.”

He held me by the shoulders. “Unfortunately, I can't leave you out of it. Your story is my story. When I decided to come here, I prayed that you would talk to me.” He looked up at the ceiling fan. “And you did.”

It was just too convenient. “Let's just say—for argument's sake—that I did heal Abe and Brian. What if it never happens again?”

Emma said, “Hope is never cruel. Hope is how we get through the day.”

Dave looked at her the way I imagined a father would. Then he turned back to me. “It's true. It's nothing you should be afraid of.”

I wasn't afraid. “You're making me sound selfish. Like I'm holding something back, when you're the one using me.”

Emma said, “But look what you did.”

“No,” I said. “I'm telling you. I didn't
do
anything. I didn't save anyone.”

Dave told me that miracles never seem logical or believable. “What happened to you when you touched Abe and Brian? Think hard. Did you feel a light? A sense of destiny?”

I couldn't tell him. “I wouldn't call it a light. Or destiny. More like fear.” I told them about the chase and the church and the sound Abe made when the car hit him. “I thought Abe was dead. I thought I had killed him.”

Emma said, “You must have been terrified. That sounds like the worst nightmare.”

Every time I had doubts about Dave, Emma said something that made it sound like I could trust them. “I was out of my mind. We had just left the cemetery. It felt like my entire life was surrounded by death.” It might have been the most stupid thing I'd ever done, but in that moment, I decided to trust them, to tell them the whole story. “So I held his hands.”

“Nothing else?”

I hesitated.

Emma looked at me. “What happened?”

I shook my head. “It was nothing. Just scary. Just like the synagogue.”

Dave nodded. “You heard her, didn't you? Just like before.” He pressed me until I admitted it.

“Yes. I heard my mother's voice. But it wasn't anything like the first time. This time, I was hallucinating. She was dead.” When he looked confused, I said, “This time, it was more like hearing a recording. The same words. The same sounds.” I faced the flat-screen TV. Now that I'd told them, I felt so much better. “Lo thinks it's my PTSD.”

Emma thought that was shortsighted. “Or it was an angel.”

I cringed. Dave wrote something in a notebook. “Did you hear her again when you held hands with Brian?”

“No. That's the thing. I didn't.” When Emma looked disappointed, I said, “But I didn't know Brian.” There were so many people. I'd just wanted to get inside the house. “I was angry—not scared. Maybe I missed something.”

Dave said, “You miss your mother.”

“Of course I do.” I got up. I needed some space. I walked to the window, opened the sliding glass door, and stepped out onto the balcony. I didn't want to tell him any more.

He followed me. Pointed to the Moravian Church. “You know, the founder of the Moravians was burned for his heresies. Because he believed.”

I looked back at the room and Emma. There was no way out of this conversation.

It was so ironic. If he had saved my mother, neither one of us would be where we were right now. I might not have ever met Abe. Maybe we would have moved to New York. It wouldn't be odd to hear her voice. Dave might have gone back to being a professor.

I said, “She should have lived.”

He agreed. “I wish she had. In her own way, she might have changed the world. She was a brave woman. She had a compelling voice. If you think about it, we wanted the same things.”

“No. I don't think you understand what I'm saying. What I mean: she was alive. Don't you remember? I told you to find her. I told you that she talked to me.”

THIRTY

I never believed in conspiracies, but I often wondered if on that day, he had realized what was happening—what he was setting in motion. I knew it was a cynical way to think, but the facts spoke for themselves. In saving me and only me, he helped create a perfect headline and story: One survivor. An American. A child. In a land that people were willing to die for. He said, “Are you saying …” Then he paused. He leaned against the railing. The sun was bright behind him. “It's been a long time since we've been by ourselves. Now that we are, is there something you want to ask me?”

I had always wondered if that was why they stopped looking. Did she die? Or did they realize that they had their story—and it was a good one. Did they know my story would become a source of hope in a time when that kind of thing was in really short supply? “Is that why you didn't go back?” I asked. “You understood politics. You knew what was unfolding. Did you believe that one survivor was better than two?”

For a moment, I thought he might cry. But then he put his hands on my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. I leaned toward the door; he wouldn't let me go. “To live all these years with these fears. I'm so sorry. No wonder you've only begun to realize faith.” As the wind picked up, he embraced me. “Janine, I'm absolutely positive your mother was already dead when you heard her voice. If there had been any chance of finding her—or anyone else—alive, we would have gotten them. I never would have left her to die.”

I wasn't so sure. “But my mother was with me right up to the end, I know she was. I heard her.” It had always been the one thing I was sure of. “She risked her life to save mine. I needed her. I still do.”

“Of course you do,” he said. He told me to think back. I laughed—like I hadn't done that every day of my life. “Maybe if you can accept your mother's death, you'll be able to move forward.”

I didn't see how this would help. It had been ten years. We couldn't change what had happened. But still, I was willing. I followed him back into the room so I could lie back on the couch and close my eyes to search my shattered memory. “I remember holding my dad's hand.” If it got too tough, I'd make my move for the door.

“Good.”

Then only flashes. “But that is all.”

He talked to me in a low voice. His hands were smooth. He touched my scars the way I touched expensive silk. “Go back to that day. Where was your mother? Do you see her?”

The last therapist hypnotized me. He took me into a tunnel and then out into the light of the synagogue. It terrified me, and I didn't want to go back. When it came to the explosion, I didn't want to remember any more than I do.

Emma said, “When I want to remember something difficult, I try to remember something peaceful. I start with something I am sure of.”

I wondered if she would still say this if she had fears to face. “But I have nothing.”

Emma knew this wasn't true. I had the memory of my father and the clouds. Our secret. I waited for her to tell Dave, but she didn't. All she said was, “Go there, Janine. Clouds. Trees.”

It took me a while to focus, but eventually, I found what I was looking for—the hotel room—the one in Israel. I knew it was ours, because I had pictures of this room. Two beds. One desk. The walls were stark white, except for a dark red stripe around the top of the wall.

“Are you there?” Emma asked.

“I am. I'm there. I can see the room.” I could remember my father standing at the sink; he was shaving. On the day he died, he probably let me smooth the shaving cream over his chin and cheeks. Lo told me he did that a lot. She said that the day at the Dead Sea, he'd told her that we had lots of little traditions: we stood at the sink together—every morning. Every night, he kissed me goodnight, as if I was a sleeping fairy-tale princess. On the weekend, he would drive me all the way to New York City to eat cheesecake.

Emma asked, “Are you okay? What else can you remember?”

I said, “I'm not sure.” The hotel room was one thing, but the synagogue … I didn't want to go there. Even if I remembered everything, it proved nothing. It changed nothing.

They were dead.

I was here.

Dave pushed me. “This will help you, Janine. Close your eyes and hold my hand. Pretend we are your parents.”

I did it. Just to show him how wrong he was. I hoped for a flash, a glance, a hint—anything that felt normal. I wanted to know that my mother had been there. I wanted to believe that she hadn't already deserted me.

My left hand felt right. I remembered my father sitting there, holding my hand, patting my hand. She should have been on my right. But that hand was empty. No matter how hard Emma squeezed my hand now, in my memory, the hand sat on my lap.

The next thing I knew, I could see the boy. I saw him walk in. I saw him stop in the aisle. When I was a little girl, I couldn't know that there were people who were willing to die for a cause. Now I knew. I saw him look right at me. I saw the deadness in his eyes. He didn't care that I was a child. He didn't care that he was about to die. That, if everything went the way he envisioned, we all would.

And then I felt the blast.

I screamed like I was there. I tasted dust and fell to the ground. I begged for help, but today, my mom said nothing. My hands clenched into fists and burned like fire. It felt just like it did ten years ago, except now, when I screamed, when Dave held my hands, he saw no blood.

My hands were fine.

I did not hear my mother.

She said nothing. She didn't stay with me. She probably wasn't anywhere near me. It made sense. If she'd been working, she would have been sitting somewhere else—to concentrate. Dave was telling the truth. I couldn't have heard her, even if she'd still been alive.

I breathed like I'd been running. “Now what do I do?”

So I remembered—so what? Nothing was different. My hands were the same. The reporter from the retrospective would continue to believe I was wasting my life.

Dave said, “Do you believe in coincidences?”

I shook my head. “No. Not really.”

“Well, neither do I.”

I sighed. I knew where this was going. “You think God brought us together.”

“Twice.” He reached for my hands. “The first time, you needed me. Now, I need you.” Now he stared at my palms. “When I see your scars, I see the map of God.”

I still didn't know what he expected me to do. Ten years ago, I imagined my mother's voice. Did I think I heard an angel? Or was I just doing what I had to do to stay alive?

I turned to Emma. “What do you see?”

She said, “I see hands that make things. I also see hands that are in pain.” She smoothed out her ugly dress. “I see hands that could help people, if you would only believe in yourself.”

Dave said, “I believe.”

Emma stood very still. “I do, too.”

Something big had changed. “Can you take me home?” I asked him. “I have something I need to do.”