Song of Renewal (35 page)

Yep, she was wretched.

For the life of her, Angel did not know. The nightmares had spawned this new worthlessness inside her. It was alien, the draining sensation she had at times, like someone had pulled the main plug inside her and everything within her continually surged downward. She could actually feel it slushing as it spilled through her pores, like some earthen magnet beneath her was sucking out her very substance. Each subsequent nightmare she’d had caused the thing to grow, like slimy green mold on a wet forest floor. Or spread like mildew in the corners of damp, sealed chambers.

She struggled to lift her weight up on one elbow and use the other arm to propel her body over and away from the window view. She didn’t want to see the rainy day outside and would ask the nurse to close the drapes when she came in again. The turning over task exhausted her and she lay for long minutes getting her breath back and willing her mind to turn loose of dark thoughts prickling and probing at the periphery of her mind.

The thought blared out like from a huge brass tuba and emblazoned itself on the wall Angel now faced. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the words were etched on her eyelids.
This is not living...this is not living…this is not living.
Her eyes popped open and her breath caught in her throat as a terror she’d never known spliced through her. And another thought leaped to life.

But how to escape?
How?

Her breath now came in gasps as she stared wildly at the wall, her mind groping for a way out, clawing at her for a solution. Horrible visions swirled and collided against each other
in her cerebral slideshow, each modus operandi more horrific than the last.

She groaned and closed her eyes for long moments, demanding a time-out.

Suddenly, as crystal clear as Mama’s Sunday drinking glasses, she knew how she was going to do it.

A calm settled over Angel, one that drove back all the clamoring, teeth-jarring uproar in her soul and pried loose the demonic talons gripping her.

Soon
she thought as her eyelids drooped shut, I’ll be
free.

It wasn’t hard. Angel just upped her complaints of back pain and “excruciating” headaches, which increased the dosage strength. The pain capsules came on schedule. She faked taking them by holding them under her tongue until the nurse left. Then she tucked them away in a small white envelope and pushed them to the very back in her bedside table drawer. No one ever looked there.

No one suspected. Everyone trusted Angel to do the right thing.

But what was the right thing?

She didn’t know anymore. God help her, she did not know. But the only time she felt calm was when she decided not to live. Was that not bizarre? She could almost laugh in a detached way. Then she panicked that even her detachment was off the wall.

Hell’s bells, was she
pathetic
or
what?
She didn’t even know what normal was anymore.

Didn’t her psych doc once tell her, “There is no such thing as normal”? How about
that
little ditty?
Huh?

So maybe she was searching for something that was
not
. Her head began to feel woozy again, like it was ridding itself of taunting thoughts by spinning her mind like a kid’s top. Even that wasn’t funny.

Nothing was funny anymore.

“Time to boogie, Angel.”

Mark, the friggin’ faithful therapist burst into her room and grabbed Angel’s motorized chair from its corner parking space, then rolled it to her bedside.

“I’m not…going,” Angel muttered. “Sick.”

Mark snorted. “You are one lazy chickadee, if you ask me.”

“Didn’t…ask you.”

“Well, aren’t we the smart-ass today?” he said cheerfully. “You’ve missed – let’s see – the past week of therapy. Not good.” Then he shifted impatiently, waiting long moments for a change of mind. Shrugging, he placed the chair back in its resting place, singing, “Have it your way. Have it your way.”

Angel listened to him leave, whistling the Burger King tune as he went. Relief flooded her when he shut her door, closing out the noise.

Shutting out the world. She pushed the button on her bed. “Yes, what do you need, Angel?” Nurse Cindy warmly responded.

“I need some p-pain…medicine for my…headache. It’s bad this time,” Angel haltingly muttered.

“Sorry, honey. Be right there.”

Angel closed her eyes as that uncanny, surreal calm gripped her.

“Something’s wrong, I tell you.” Liza had taken Charlcy into the little chapel to talk outside. “Angel didn’t even care that
you and I aren’t helping her today with her bath. She’s not even trying to cooperate with them. Just lies there like a zombie. What does that tell you?”

“Hmm.” Charlcy’s features tightened. “Yeah. That is so not like our little get-out-of-the-way-I-can-do-it-for-myself girl. I just thought it was temporary, y’know, all this
withdrawn
business? She’s been through so much and all. But she has been mighty quiet lately.” Liza could sense alarm set in on Charlcy, could feel it humming, harmonizing with her own.

“And tired,” Liza added, worrying her lower lip with her teeth, arms crossed rigidly, pacing the chapel floor. “And come to think of it, I haven’t seen her eating at all.”

Liza pulled out her cell phone and began dialing.

“Who you calling,” Charlcy asked.

“Penny.” Pause. “Hi, Penny, I was just thinking about you. Haven’t seen you this week. Are you sick?”

“No,” Penny dragged out the word, then silence sizzled for long moments. “She sent me away, Mrs. W.” Liza heard the catch on the last words.

“For goodness sake, Penny. Why?”

“I don’t know.” A long snuffling sound. Throat clearing. “She said she just wanted to be alone. Didn’t feel like talking. So I told her to call me when she wanted – ” Her voice broke again, then silence.

“Oh, Penny. I’m so sorry. I’m sure it wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do. Actually, I’m worried about her. It’s not just you, honey. She’s terribly withdrawn – from everybody and everything at present. Things are just not kosher with her.”

Charlcy snatched the phone from Liza’s hand and spoke into it, “Listen, Penny, you get your little arse back over here, y’hear? She needs you now more than she ever has. And that’s orders from headquarters.”

Liza took the phone back in time to hear Penny’s near hysterical giggles, sensing a keen joy at feeling needed again.

“I agree, Penny,” she said. “Now’s not the time for any of us to jump ship. Come on back. We need you, too.”

“Okay, Mrs. W. I’ll come back. And…thanks.”

“No, don’t thank me. I’m sorry you were hurt. Thank you, Penny, for always being there.”

“Angel?” Penny’s voice woke Angel from the restless nap.

She stared blearily at her friend, a part of her rejoicing at the sight of the pale, lightly freckled face hanging over her. The brown-speckled hazel eyes, beneath the shock of spiked black hair stared intently into her features.

“W-what you doing here?” Angel asked more flatly than she intended.

“To see you,
beetle-brain
,” Penny snapped, then grinned. “And this time, you won’t get rid of me so easily.” She dropped her purse on the floor and plopped into the chair she’d dragged up to bedside. “And by the way – I forgive you.”

Angel frowned. “For what?”

Penny gave her a mock glare, crossed her arms, and stuck her nose up in the air. “
For what?
I cannot believe you just said that. You are so much smarter than that, Angel.” She cut her eyes balefully at the ceiling and swung her crossed-over leg back and forth.

“Yeah,” Angel said, acknowledging the obvious. “I’m sorry, Penny. Didn’t mean…to hurt you.”

“You were just being a knucklehead.” She shot Angel another face-splitting Penny smile.

Angel felt a grin coming on. She let it happen. “Yeah.”

“We all are at times,” Penny said and Angel suddenly felt very, very blessed to have her friend back at her side. “The kids
from church send their love, by the way. They can’t wait till you’re back.”

Church?
Angel felt so far from that world.

When had she become so detached? Where had faith gone? Or
had
it gone?

“Penny.” She looked at her friend, heart in throat. “Do you think somebody who kills himself will go to hell?” She was careful to make the hypothetical character masculine.

Penny looked shocked for a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah. I suppose they would. The Bible says, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ That would include killing yourself, wouldn’t it?”

Angel sensed Penny’s indecision and pressed on. “Heck, I don’t know. What about people who… just can’t get it together…anymore, you know?”

Penny scrunched up her forehead. “Jiminy, that’s deep, Angel. Real deep.”

“I know. I just sometimes wonder how f-far God’s mercy stretches when…folks get so far out on a limb that they don’t… know how to get back? I mean, like…total suffering?”

Penny looked real thoughtful. “I know that God’s really merciful. Heck, look at all King David did. And God forgave him, didn’t he?”

“Yeah. But David didn’t kill himself.”

“Yeah,” Penny agreed and sighed heavily. “By the way, how did therapy go today?

“I didn’t go.”

“Didn’t go?” Penny looked stunned. “Why? You never miss therapy.”

“Sick.”

“You look fine to me.”

Mama and Daddy appeared just then. Penny and Mama hugged like they’d not seen each other in years. Daddy hugged
her, too, making Angel feel even crappier for ever having sent her away.

Suddenly, the tiredness swamped her anew, picking up steam. Edgy and weary of nuances she could not grasp, Angel painstakingly maneuvered her body over to face the wall again and soon sank into restless slumber.