Lost in Dreams (20 page)

But before I could try to impress him with that figure, he

spoke again. “Long time, no sunrises.”

“What? You mean the sun hasn’t risen on a regular basis for a long time?” Nobody would be strange enough to say something like that. Not even Graham.

“Haven’t seen.”

“Why not?”

He didn’t say anything at first. “Now see. Six months. Seven.”

Huh? He hadn’t answered my question, but apparently he hadn’t seen any sunrises until a few months ago. At the rate this conversation was going, I hesitated to question him further for fear it might slip from first gear back into neutral. And ultimately into reverse.

I decided to take one more chance. “Is there a reason for that?”

He seemed to hesitate. Actually, he looked like he wanted me to shut up, leave him alone, and let him enjoy the sunrise in solitude.

“Yes.” He didn’t offer to explain, and I’d already used up all the chances I dared to take. I wished Aleesha had been outside with me. She was better at probing than I was. Not that I thought she would have learned any more from Graham than

I had.

“Jo troubled,” he said.

Oh, were you hanging around outside our unit last night eavesdropping?

“You troubled,” he added.

Continuing to focus on the sunrise, he missed seeing the flush that flooded my face. How did he know that? And how much did he know?

“I troubled. Same you.”

I nodded, but he didn’t see me.

“Guilt. No escape.”

I wanted to run away. I didn’t need some pathetic old man to confront me about my guilt. I already understood it far better than I wanted to, thank you very much.

But I forced myself to say, “Uh-huh.”

What was he trying to say about my guilt? And how did he know about it?

You dummy. He overheard your prayer. You prayed aloud, and you covered every concern under the sun. You prayed about the prison ministry. You prayed about Jo. You prayed about your own guilt. He must have even heard you praying about—

“Guilt. Stays forever.” A tear trickled down his cheek, and I wondered how he would react to a hug.

There’s bad timing, and there’s worse timing, but Aleesha’s arrival outside before I could respond to Graham or hug him was the worst timing of all. I felt like I’d just started making a connection with him, even though I’d never spoken with anyone who was so difficult to talk with or who raised more questions than he answered.

“Having fun, you two?” Aleesha said. “Where’s your robe, Graham? Aren’t you afraid of being arrested for indecent exposure?”

Although he appeared to ignore her at first, his head jerked—possibly involuntarily—somewhere in the middle of Aleesha’s greeting. I wondered which word had been the trigger.

I thought about motioning for her to leave Graham and me alone, but I changed my mind. The spell—such as it was—had been broken.

“So how does Rob look in the middle of the night when he hasn’t had a chance to put on his makeup yet?”

Although Aleesha giggled at my question, Graham’s expression remained unchanged. Passive. Unemotional. I no longer had his attention—or his interest.

“Cook now,” he announced before turning around and

opening the door to his apartment. He shut it behind him before either of us could open our mouths to say good-bye. Had he realized that Aleesha and I needed to talk, or was he simply not in the mood to put up with our silliness? Probably the latter.

“Rob looks the same during the night as he does during the day. Ugly as the soles of my feet.”

She was teasing, although nobody listening to our conversation would have known it. We’d once agreed that Rob was reasonably good-looking for someone two long generations older than us. Besides, Aleesha didn’t consider any part of her body to be ugly. Not even the bottoms of her feet. She believed in a bumper sticker that read,
My body is the temple of God, and God doesn’t inhabit imperfect temples
.

“So, what about …?” She pointed her head at Graham’s apartment.

Part of me was dying to tell Aleesha about my conversation with Graham, yet it seemed too personal and private. Although he hadn’t said more than a hundred words to me—maybe not half or a fourth of that—and I’d understood the words without always comprehending the meaning, I felt like he’d revealed something of himself.

I might not have understood what it was. But it was something he might not want me to share with Aleesha.

“I’m not sure whether I chipped the ice a little bit or broke the pickax trying. Either way, it’s gonna be slick going.”

Her narrowed eyes and wrinkled brow sent a clear message:
“Keep trying, girl. “

I nodded and smiled. I might still have to tell her about the conversation with Graham, but I wanted to figure out what he’d been talking about first. “Now, what about Rob … and Jo?”

Aleesha looked around to make sure Jo wasn’t lurking within earshot.

“Mr. Rob was really concerned about her when we first got here. And working with her yesterday morning was apparently, uh, difficult. But he’d seen so much progress by the time she got involved in last night’s service that he assumed she’d turned the corner. He thought she’d be fine from that point on.”

“Didn’t we all! She was as enthusiastic as you and me in the van last night. She sounded like the old Betsy Jo—from before Mexico. And I heard her mumbling in Spanish when we first got back. I guess she was warming up for that Latino fellow. I hope he comes tonight.”

“Be that as it may, Mr. Rob was amazed to hear about Jo’s reaction to your nightmare. Amazed, did I say?” Aleesha chuckled. “The poor man was shocked speechless.”

I ignored her. “Does he have any idea what’s wrong with her?”

“Not exactly. But he told me she had borrowed his satellite phone for ten or fifteen minutes.”

I scratched my head. “I’d been curled up in my sleeping bag for a while when Jo came to bed, and she was quiet when she came in. I wondered what was going on.”

“So does Mr. Rob,” Aleesha said. “He said her eyes were red and raw when she brought the phone back.”

T
he scent of coffee filled Graham’s apartment. That same nutty blend I’d enjoyed the morning before, though I still couldn’t figure out if it was hazelnut or southern pecan.

“Good morning,” I said to Jo as she entered the dining room. When I smiled and started to give her a hug, she grabbed my arm and pulled me into the living room. “Kim, I acted a little weird last night. I am
so
sorry.” “I’ve reset my wrongness counter to zero,” I said. She couldn’t have looked more baffled if I’d just sprouted eagle wings. “Whoops. I didn’t tell you that part of my experience in Santa María? That means
apology accepted.”

When I opened my arms, she gave me a half-smile, and we hugged as if nothing strange had happened during the night.

“Anything you want to talk with me about, Jo?” I said when we broke apart.

Her right eye twitched a couple of times.
Is that a nervous reaction to my question, Jo?
Maybe not. It stopped as soon as she shook her head.

Jo, you may not
want
to talk, but the more you resist unburdening, the more you probably
need
to talk
.

I didn’t waste time trying to remember whether I’d picked up that bit of wisdom from Aleesha or Mom. The two wisest women in my life so far. Present and … past.

“Did you get to call home last night?” I couldn’t think of a less conspicuous way to prompt Jo for information without sounding nosey. “We were so late leaving Red Cedar you didn’t get to use one of the office phones.”

“Uh-huh.” But not a word about the satellite phone or the call itself.

“Were your parents glad to hear from you?”

“Uh.” She spoke so softly I could barely hear her, and her response was one of those “uhs” that could have meant either “uh-huh” or “uh-uh.”

What possible reason would Mr. and Mrs. Snelling have had for
not
being pleased to hear from their daughter, though? Their only child, in fact. Had her mom picked last night to ream her out over the phone for coming on this trip against her wishes?

Of course, Jo had called home sometime after 10:00 p.m. Pacific time. She’d probably awakened her parents from a sound 1:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time snooze.

Maybe they had a right to be less pleased than they would have been at an earlier hour. Especially if she didn’t bother to explain about cell phone coverage and not having access to a phone at a more appropriate time.

I decided to take my inquiry one level deeper. If it didn’t yield results, I’d quit for now. “And how are the two of them?”

She didn’t answer. Not in words.

The dam holding back a potential flood of sobbing might not have broken yet, but it sprang a noticeable leak. Jo’s eyes glistened with moisture that confirmed that her parents were all or part of the problem. I was dying to find out what, but not even the best of friends could have asked anything else under those circumstances.

Had someone been in an accident? Had the house burned down? Was someone seriously ill? Had Mr. Snelling lost his job? Had Jo’s parents been …?

Had they been fighting? I’d often wondered about their relationship, especially after some of the things Mr. Snelling said—and especially what he didn’t say—when we asked his

permission to bring Jo to California.

If the Snellings had been fighting, I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to say anything. She couldn’t disguise the frightened look on her face, though. She knew I’d figured it out. Some of it, anyhow.

She stared out the window for a number of seconds. The sky’s early morning glory had yielded the stage to a layer of clouds that hid the sun completely, even though sprinkles of sunlight spotlighted the distant mountains.

Jo looked at me again. “We’d better get back to the dining room.” Her voice might have said,
“Breakfast must be ready now.”
But her eyes pled,
“I know you care, but you can’t help. Please don’t ask anymore. “

I resisted the temptation to reveal my frustration. Instead, I let my mouth relax in a friendly smile. We walked arm-in-arm back into the dining room. Just as I’d expected, everyone was busy eating. Scrambled eggs. Mmm. Topped with cheese. Graham had also cooked a pig-load of thick-cut bacon. And a good-sized bread tray full of biscuits that had to be homemade. When had Graham found time to do all of that?

“Have a seat, girls,” Rob said. “Graham said he made these biscuits especially for the two of you. Fact is, he wouldn’t let the rest of us have any until you got here and ate your fill.”

Huh? Especially for the two of us? The two people he knew had problems? I wondered if I looked as dumbfounded as I felt.

I smiled at Graham and thanked him, but then I almost fell off my chair. He gave me a slight smile. Barely perceptible, but still a smile. Was he using those biscuits to invite Jo and me to join him in some secret society?

Or should I say a society of secret-keepers? It seemed as if the three of us wouldn’t admit our problems even to one another, and yet we seemed destined to share at least some

of one another’s pain.

I don’t know if Dad or Rob paid attention to what was going on, but Aleesha did.

“You have a good talk with Jo?” she asked quietly while we looked for a starting point in our first unit of the day.

I spent a couple of minutes pondering my answer.

“Not a good talk?”

I must have given her a defensive look.

“You groaned. That’s why I assumed things didn’t go well.”

Oh.

“Sorry about that,” I said, throwing my hands up in the air. “That’s because this room is the worst one yet.” Aleesha looked satisfied with my explanation. And why not? I’d told her the truth—as far as it went.

“She didn’t tell me anything,” I said. “Not anything specific.”

I felt funny talking about Jo. Like I was breaking a confidence by admitting we’d even had a conversation. But Aleesha had seen Jo pull me out of the dining room to talk about something, so I didn’t fret long.

I decided not to say anything about the Snellings, though.

“She apologized about last night,” I said.

“She apologized to me after breakfast, too. Maybe she’d worn herself out too much to deal sanely with your nightmare.”

“Sure.” Her suggestion sounded better than the whole truth. That being upset about her parents had worn her out. And probably kept her from sleeping.

But why would one call affect her so severely? Had the Snellings been arguing while they were on the phone with Jo? I couldn’t imagine Mr. Snelling doing that, but Jo’s mother … she might not have given him any choice.

“Aleesha,” I said about the time we’d cleared the room halfway, “maybe I should work with Jo this afternoon. You know, to see if I can learn more.”

She nodded. “I was going to suggest that.”

“Good. I’ll—”

“And would you consider telling her about your guilt problem? She might be more willing to confide in you if you confide in her first.”

I could feel my face reddening. “I hadn’t thought about it.” I wasn’t sure I wanted Jo to know the details, but trying to keep things from her was a never-ending juggling act. Besides, Aleesha might be right. Maybe one confession would lead to another.

“Are you afraid she’ll flake out and tell Mr. Scott?” I
knew
I moaned that time. “She might.” Did I dare to take that chance?

“There are worse things than your dad finding out, you know. As well as you two get along now, I think he can handle it.”

Aleesha and I couldn’t have been more completely on opposite ends of that opinion.

I dumped a handful of unused nails into an empty bucket and listened to their pings ring like gunshots. Then I climbed up on a sawhorse that reminded me of a wooden rocking horse I’d had as a kid. And of the mess-tent table supports in Santa María.

I looked at Aleesha. She was laughing her head off.

And why not? She had enough padding to sit on a sawhorse for hours without getting sore and enough sense not to do it.