Safe from Harm (9781101619629) (21 page)

Wanderley went over everything again. And again, and again.

I finally got him to the door. He was halfway out when he said, “Hey, Annie Laurie, thanks for coming to Molly's party. I look forward to seeing you there.” Annie said it was her pleasure and after the door closed she turned to me with her eyebrows arched and said, “What party?”

•   •   •

Saturday night, we were all ready for bed early. We made up a bed on the family room couch for Jo. She wouldn't go upstairs by herself. She wouldn't go in her room at all. We kept our bedroom door open so we could hear her if she needed us.

Three big Rubbermaid boxes of books blocked the pugs in the kitchen. Baby Bear stepped right over them, but they were the Great Wall of China for the pugs. That didn't matter, though. They had no plans to stay in the kitchen. The pugs ignored their denim pillows and the fuzzy beanbags we'd laid out in the kitchen and cried piteously to be let into our room. Piteously and relentlessly and pugs don't cry like dogs. They ululate. I looked it up. Skip the first definition, which pretty much says to howl like a dog—strike the whole dog-noise thing right out of your mind, because that's not what pugs do. They hang their proficiency on the second definition: “to utter howling sounds, as in shrill, wordless lamentation; wail.” Their cry is piercing and high-pitched and unendurable.

I could have held out, but Annie Laurie gave in pretty quickly. I fetched their furry beanbags and put them on the floor next to Annie's side of the bed because she has more floor room and because Tommy was treating me like a child molester. The pugs gave me injured looks and curled up without another protest. Baby Bear slept on the floor next to Jo—Annie Laurie and I fell asleep in each other's arms.

I'd completely forgotten the snoring, and when the appalling sound began and Annie sprang up, I started laughing. Annie whacked me with her pillow, and Tommy added his tremolo to Mr. Wiggle's gravel-grinding exhalations and then Annie got the giggles, too. I got her my Bose headphones and found some swim plugs for my ears and we went back to sleep. I'd have slept until morning had it not been for the pug farts.

I woke up gasping in a miasma of gas. Choking, I stumbled to the window, yanking on it twice before giving up and opening the French door in our bedroom that leads to the backyard. I rushed out and stood there sucking in the fresh air before I even had a thought about Annie Laurie. I stuck my head back in the door—Annie Laurie lay still and quiet, breathing regularly. I decided not to wake her up. Mr. Wiggles and Tommy stirred and stretched and got out of their beds and strolled outside to pollute the sweet air of Sugar Land with the noxious emissions from their backsides. Mr. Wiggles had a self-conscious air about him, but not Tommy. I lit a balsam and cedar Yankee Candle and turned on the ceiling fan. Note to self: no beans for the pugs. None. Not one. Ever, ever, ever.

From:
Walker Wells

To:
Merrie Wells

Hey, sweetheart. What's up? Listen, are you still going to the Broadway Church of Christ? Because if you aren't happy there, if you haven't made a connection, there are some others you might want to visit. Maybe I could fly up and we could visit one together. If you aren't happy at Broadway, I know some people at Sunset.

I want you to find your church, Merrie Elizabeth. It's important to be in a community of believers.

From:
Merrie Wells

To:
Walker Wells

Uh, Dad? What's up?

Fourteen

S
unday morning, Lizabeth Pickersley-Smythe and Toby and Tanner came to church, second service. She looked all noble and suffering, but—and I
know
this is cynical and I
know
cynicism is an unattractive quality, especially in a minister—I felt like it was all show. Liz was dressed perfectly in a dark-gray tailored skirt and sweater, her hair just so, and those twins in matching navy wool shorts with jackets. It was all very president's-grieving-widow, if you know what I mean. She was thronged with sympathizers, and she couldn't have been more gracious. It felt . . . staged.

I tried to put a positive spin on Liz being at church. I thought to myself,
Well, this means that Mark can have some fresh air, and a shower and change, and he can restock his fridge and still be safely bolted back in before Liz gets home.
And then I thought what it must be like for a man to have to hide away in his own home. And then I thought that it
wasn't
his home. And that was so depressing.

From:
Walker Wells

To:
Merrie Wells

Subject:
Baby Bear and pugs

Hey, sweet Merrie—I attached a picture of Baby Bear with Rebecca's pugs. We're watching them this weekend. Rebecca picks them up at two. I don't know if Baby Bear will be glad or sad when they're gone.

From:
Merrie Wells

To:
Walker Wells

Subject:
Re: Baby Bear and pugs

Ohhhhhh! I want a pug for my birthday!!!

How's Jo? Back in her room yet? You're going to have to sell the house, Dad.

•   •   •

There was a knock on the door at eight thirty Sunday evening.

Our house was winding down. Rebecca had come to collect her dogs, the kitchen was clean, and Jo was doing homework.

The knock was unexpected, and with that awful weekend behind us, alarming. But it was Salihah Fincher at the door, and unless you are the Devil himself, she is not an alarming sight. What Salihah is, is a tiny warrior of God. I don't know what else to call her. She's my mom's age, and about five feet nothing, not including the three inches for the luxuriant bouffant of rich, black hair that crowns her head, and another two inches for the kitten heels she wears. Her features are distinctively Egyptian, her birthland—straight off an Egyptian scroll. And her voice, still accented after a half century in the United States, is high and sweet and girlish.

Salihah had met her American husband, Blake Fincher, some fifty-five years ago, when she was a nursing student in Cairo and he was a young engineer working for one of the oil companies. That wasn't a happy time in Egypt—Wikipedia can tell you about the Sinai crisis better than I can. At one point, the nursing college was being peppered with sniper fire. That meant no one could safely leave the hospital wing, a real problem since the morgue was in the building next door, and the Egyptians had a particular horror of being under the same roof as a dead body. And there
was
a dead body, causing everyone in the hospital very real distress. But no one would budge to remove the body, not the administrators or the orderlies, their distaste for being shot at outweighing their phobias about the dead body. If I'd been there, I don't think I'd have been volunteering, either. It was twenty-year-old Salihah who eventually girded her loins and wheeled the body-bearing gurney across the expanse of open parking lot to the morgue, and then came back to take up her responsibilities again. She didn't get shot. She thinks it was a miracle, and maybe it was. Maybe it was a miracle, maybe the sniper didn't want to be the man who cut down that lovely, brave young woman. I don't know. All I know is that the beautiful Salihah fell in love with Blake and he married her and brought his bride back to the States.

I said, “Hey, Salihah,” and stepped back to let her in. She allowed me to kiss her on the cheek.

“I need to see Josephine.” Her high voice was determined. Salihah had been Jo's favorite Sunday school teacher all through her elementary years.

“She's doing homework . . .”

Annie Laurie had come to see who was at the door and took Salihah's hand and led her to the family room.

Jo was doing her homework in our bedroom. I poked my head in the room. Jo was stretched out on our bed on her tummy, working linear algebra equations without any enthusiasm. Baby Bear was drowsing on the floor near her.

“Mrs. Fincher is here to see you, Jo.”

“Miss Salihah?”

Jo rolled off the bed and followed me into the living room, where she gave Salihah a hug and sat down on the couch next to her. Salihah stirred what seemed to be a quarter cup of sugar into the mug of tea Annie had given her.

Salihah said, “Josephine, God told me to come over tonight.”

Whoa. Jo's eyebrows lifted.

“Becky tells me you are not sleeping in your room anymore. That is right?”

Jo nodded, her mouth tight. I wouldn't want to be Becky when Jo saw her at school tomorrow.

“Because that poor girl died there Friday?”

Another nod, her mouth even tighter.

“What was her name?

“Phoebe.”

“Phoebe. That is right.” Salihah nodded and sipped her tea. “That is Greek, you know, Josephine. It means ray of light. Was that a good name for her, Josephine, do you think?”

Jo was silent, looking for a way out of this dilemma, but she answered truthfully. “Not so much.”

“Yes. That is what I have heard. That is where the tragedy lies. It is not terrible to die, Josephine. It is not even terrible to die young—much pain may be avoided if you die young. The tragedy is that Phoebe died before she could grow into her name.”

God help me, Salihah was right. I'd come to think of Phoebe as a young woman who was destined to give and be dealt unhappiness. But that's absurd, and wrongheaded to boot. I have a lot of friends who started out life on the rocky side of the shore, but they changed, or something changed them, and they have good lives now. But Phoebe never got her chance to break away from everything that had gone wrong with her life. She didn't get her chance to change. We will never know how God might have used her to work His will.

Salihah said, “Is it that Phoebe is haunting the room, Josephine?”

Jo said. “I don't believe in ghosts.”

Now Salihah shook her head in dismissal. “You believe, you do not believe. The Witch of Endor called forth the ghost of Samuel for Saul. Read your Bible.”

Jo gave me an alarmed look and I made a mental note to discuss Second Samuel 28 with her sometime soon.

“You do not believe Phoebe is haunting your room. Yet you do not want to sleep in your room. Why should that be, Josephine?”

Jo dipped her head so that her hair veiled her eyes. “I don't know.”

Salihah smiled and snapped her fingers. “Good. You come with me. We're going to use God's power to clean that room.”

Oh my. I trust Salihah. I know she is a woman of God. God doesn't operate that way with me, but I'm prepared to accept that He does give Salihah direct messages, only, Jo is fifteen and she's very suggestible and—

Jo got up like a reluctant puppy and followed Salihah.

Annie Laurie said, “Is it okay if we come, too, Salihah?” for which I mentally thanked my wife.

Salihah gestured for us to come along. Baby Bear wasn't waiting for permission. If Jo was going, he was going, too. He was torn between wanting to lead the procession and the problem of not knowing where the procession was off to. Baby Bear forced his way to the front of the line and then kept stopping, trying to anticipate the direction. The result was that Baby Bear was tripping people up until Jo took him by his collar and kept him next to her.

We continued up until we all, Salihah, Jo, Baby Bear, Annie Laurie and I, stood outside Jo's bedroom door. I didn't feel any fear, but a heaviness of heart filled me. Sadness, I think. Grief for Phoebe and great sadness that my daughter's happy room had been stained by a young girl's death.

“Josephine, you have lived in this house all of your life. I remember your mommy and daddy”—it sounded like “Tati”—“moving to this house when he came to be our new minister. Your sister was a baby then. Has this been a happy house for your family?”

“Yes,” Jo said.

“There have been many, many happy times in this house? There have been celebrations and books to read and family dinners and friends gathering?”

“Yes,” Jo said.

I heard Annie Laurie sniff. I wasn't a crybaby, but I knew what Annie was feeling. Nights rocking our girls, the two of them splashing in the bathtub, their first attempts at cooking—if we were going to count “firsts,” almost all of Jo's happened right here in this house. Her first solid food, her first steps, first tooth . . .

“Josephine, before we go into your room, will you share with me one happy memory you have of this room?”

She thought, her fingers rubbing Baby Bear's ear. “Once I got Baby Bear housetrained, Mom said he could sleep in my room.”

“The dog makes you happy?”

Jo's eyes gleamed with tears and she nodded.

“How many nights has Baby Bear shared your bedroom with you, Josephine?”

She shook her head. “I don't know. He's like, five, so a lot.”

Salihah nodded in satisfaction. “Yes. That is what I thought. Josephine, I ask you. Is it possible, my child, for one bad thing, one tragedy, to erase all the good that has happened in this house?”

Jo said, “Nooooo . . .” But her voice trembled.

Salihah said, very gently, “If one bad thing could make all the good go away, Josephine, that would mean that darkness is stronger than light. Could that be true, Josephine?”

Jo couldn't speak. She shook her head, her face unhappy and fearful. But I looked at Annie Laurie, and her face was calm and confident.

Salihah said, “We're going to hold hands now.”

Oh, my gosh, I thought, if Salihah started a
séance
here I was going to have to—

“Dear Father in Heaven,” Salihah started. “This is Your daughter Salihah. I am asking You to give Josephine Wells comfort and courage and the peace that passes understanding. In Your Son's holy name, amen.” She pushed the door open and we shuffled inside.

The wooden shutters were open and moonlight pooled on the floor. The big plastic goose lamp in the corner glowed. I reached for the light switch but Salihah stopped me. She turned and looked at the room. Usually it would be untidy—Jo is not Obesessive/Compulsive about anything but ballet—but after church earlier, while Jo was out with her friends, Annie and I had cleaned this room from top to bottom. Jo's room smelled of Lemon Pledge and vinegar. We had changed the sheets on both beds, washed her quilts and stuffed the pillowcases with new pillows we'd bought at Marshalls on the way home from church. The carpet had been vacuumed twice, and before we'd vacuumed we had sprinkled and brushed it with those carpet granules that are supposed to clean ground-in dirt. We wanted to be thorough, is all. We had washed her windows inside and out, me standing on the roof of the garage to do one of them, and on a ladder to do the two others.

“Josephine.” Salihah was smiling her wide, warm smile. She turned, taking everything in, her arms spread wide. “Josephine. This is a happy room. If Phoebe had to die, I am so grateful that she had this happy room to die in. That was a last gift you gave your friend.”

A last gift to a lonely girl. Jo tried to keep it together but tears spilled from her eyes and she brought a hand to her mouth.

“She wasn't my friend, Miss Salihah. We hadn't been friends for a long time but she wanted me to be her friend and I wouldn't, I wouldn't even talk to her. I can't do anything about it now. It's over and there's nothing I can do—I can't tell her how sorry I am.” She started sobbing.

I'm supposed to be smart. I made good grades. Great grades if you keep in mind I was playing ball. I did well in my master's program and my Ph.D. thesis was published. Nobody read it all the way through, except my dad, but the Rice University Press had accepted it.

And it still hadn't occurred to me that what was eating up my girl was guilt.

Salihah sat down on Jo's bed and patted the cover next to her. Jo sat down. Salihah said, “Yes, Josephine. Phoebe
was
your friend. You were angry and you were hurt by her, and you were not yet ready to forgive her. Phoebe must have hurt you very badly for you to refuse to speak to her. I know you, Josephine. You are not unkind. Before you can ask Phoebe to forgive you, you must forgive Phoebe.”

“I do, but I—”

“No. Before you forgive Phoebe, you must acknowledge what you are forgiving her for. You must take in completely how she injured you. Only then can you completely forgive her. It is no good if you pretend you have nothing to forgive her for. Do you understand?”

Jo sat there, snuffling and wiping her eyes on the hem of her T-shirt until Annie handed her my handkerchief. Finally she nodded.

Salihah said, “Now I want you to tell Phoebe that you forgive her. Tell Phoebe that you take that hurt she gave you, and you bury it deep in the ground. It is no more. It is dead. Let Phoebe know that you restore to her your friendship. You give her your love, freely.”

Jo cried and cried and Salihah held her in her arms and Jo got the words out. They weren't Salihah's words. They were less eloquent, but they were the words of a fifteen-year-old, and they were powerful.

Afterward, Salihah said, “Josephine, now, ask Phoebe to forgive you.”

“But she's dead!”

It was a wail.

“Josephine! Do you not believe that Phoebe is with our Lord Jesus?”

Jo sniffled and said, “Even though I forgive her, Miss Salihah, she wasn't a very good person. She told lies and she said mean things and—”