Stepping Into Sunlight (3 page)

All day I pushed back the memories. But they waited for this moment when I tried to sleep—for this time when I was alone, vulnerable. Frenetic, violent images on a horrible repeating loop attacked my mind. My body shook and I tried to pray. The whisper scraped in my throat.

“Make it stop. Please. Make it stop.”

chapter
2

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, I slouched at the kitchen table and nibbled the edge of my toast. Was it possible to have a chamomile tea hangover? I could barely hold my eyelids open.

Come on, Penny. It’s up to you to make something out of this new
day.

I focused my bleary gaze on my son. “Bryan, get your backpack. Time to catch the bus.”

He pushed aside his bowl of soggy Cheerios. “Yea!” His smile nudged his cheeks into round chubs that proved he still had some of his baby fat. He bolted to his room and raced back with his school stuff. Was he more eager to see his friends or to get away from me?

For all of his seven years, Bryan had tagged along beside Tom or me, enjoying each person he met. The move to Virginia and a school full of strangers had thrilled him, and he’d adapted with enviable skill. I gulped a last swallow of lukewarm coffee and rose from the table. “Remember to give your teacher the permission slip.”

Bryan plopped into the middle of the kitchen floor to tie his tennis shoes. “Do you think we’ll see sharks? Is this the same ocean Daddy showed me? Are you gonna drive for the field trip? Know what? Martin’s mommy put cookies in his lunch yesterday. Are you making cookies?”

I planted a kiss on top of Bryan’s head and hoisted him to his feet. “I hope you don’t see sharks. You’re supposed to be studying seashells. It’s the same ocean, but your class is going to a different beach.” Bryan slipped his arms into the straps of his backpack with my help. Why did second graders need to drag around their weight in textbooks?

When I opened the front door, he stood at attention. I rested my hand on the top of his head. “Heavenly Father, bless Bryan today. Please protect him from accident or injury. Help him do his best in school to your glory. Let him draw close to you today and know that he is precious to you and to me and to his daddy. Let him share your love with the people around him. Amen.”

He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter. “And my book report,” he stage-whispered.

“And give him courage to read his book report when it’s his turn. Amen.”

“Amen.” My son slalomed down the front steps, twisting his knees from side to side with happy, flat-footed jumps. He galloped to the corner where other children waited, while I stood guard from the doorway. Good thing our traditional blessing time distracted him from his other questions about field trips and cookies. My mothering skills had already dropped to remedial level. I didn’t want to explain why I couldn’t drive for the field trip. And baking?

Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. As a new transplant to the area, I had a valid excuse for not driving for the field trip. No one wanted the kids to end up in North Carolina if I took a wrong turn. But cookies knew no boundaries and always scored great Mommy Points. The last few weeks I hadn’t been very successful in being a perky, self-reliant chaplain’s wife. I needed something to give me a sense of accomplishment—and something new to e-mail Tom about, to convince him I wasn’t shriveling under the strain of his absence.

First, basic morning chores needed attention. I attacked the kitchen and cleaned up the remains of breakfast, then unpacked some stray boxes. It took most of the morning to figure out where to fit off-season and special-occasion clothes in our tiny closets. The physical labor of moving hadn’t been as draining as the tedious decisions that had dragged out during the weeks of settling in.

Lunchtime came and went before I pulled out the sack of flour, sugar, salt, and my recipe box. A lengthy search finally revealed where I’d stowed the cookie sheets. The new kitchen still felt foreign and confusing. I stopped to jot a reminder on a sticky note:
Organize kitchen.

I poured myself a glass of cranberry juice and shuffled through recipe cards, but none of them grabbed my interest. Gingersnap, snickerdoodle, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin. My stomach soured with each recipe. Weariness poured over me in a sudden wave. I turned to put the box of cards back on the shelf, and my elbow bumped my half-empty glass.

The glass clattered against the counter, and red liquid spilled out and ran onto the tile floor.

In that second of startled clumsiness, I fell into an elevator shaft of horror. My kitchen disappeared. Images flashed around me like lightning. Blood pooling on cold linoleum. A gun swinging in my direction. The round shape of the old woman’s lips. I gasped and dropped to a crouch, as recipes fell around me. With my back pressed against a cabinet, I covered my head and squeezed my eyes closed.

Still, I fell. Deeper, deeper into darkness and fear and death. Paralysis grabbed my limbs.

My mouth opened in a scream, but only a harsh ringing sound came from my throat. The scene melted away as the ringing sounded again.

The shrill phone hauled me back into reality. I blinked several times while I struggled to remember who I was, where I was, and why recipe cards and juice were scattered around me.

The ringing from the kitchen phone stopped, then started again.

I staggered to my feet and fumbled for the receiver. “Hello?” I slurred.

“Penny? What’s wrong? You sound funny.” My mom’s voice blared from thousands of miles away.

“Must be the connection.”

“Have you been drinking?”

I tried for a laugh, but only managed a shaky breath. “I was doing some baking.”

“Oh. Well, how hard is it to keep a dish towel handy to wipe your hands so you can pick up when I call?”

I couldn’t think of anything to say, and an expectant silence stretched like a verbal staring contest.

She blinked first. “Tom says you’re doing fine. Is that true? I didn’t think you’d hold up once he left. Do you want me to fly out there?”

“Mom, I’m okay. I know Cindy needs your help with the new baby.”

“But, honey, aren’t you scared? Being there alone? I told you moving away was a bad idea.” She was a classic mom with a wealth of skills in the fine art of worry. One day people would go to the Museum of Moms to study her greatest works.

“Tom and I prepared for this. I knew I’d have to be a single mom when he went to sea.” And I’d had romantic visions of standing on a widow’s walk staring out to sea, salt air blowing my hair, as I waited for his ship to return.

“But that was before. Before the . . . you know.”

I hissed in a breath through my teeth. She’d broken the taboo. Brought up the denim-clad, pistol-waving elephant in the living room. The one I’d been trying to forget for more than two weeks. I grabbed a dish towel and blotted at the red juice.

“I still think you should move back here until Tom is done with this Navy thing. Did you go to the victim place?”

I forced a laugh. “Oh, come on. How will that help? I need to put it behind me, not talk to some stranger about it. Besides, psychologists always want to hear about how your mom messed up your life. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

Now the silence echoed with disapproval. She cleared her throat. “You don’t want to end up like—”

“Mom, please.” I couldn’t let her take the conversation down that road.

She switched gears. “Well, Tom said you promised to go.”

“I just didn’t want him to worry. He hated leaving so soon after . . . Look, Mom. I’m fine.”

“Well, call me more often, okay?”

“I’ll try.” I forced life into my voice. “I’m kind of busy. Getting settled in, new church, school activities, making friends. You know how it is.”

She laughed—her first natural tone during this conversation. “Yeah, you and Tom always had a full calendar.”

“Well, you take care. Thanks for calling.”

“Give Bryan a big hug from his grandma.”

“I will. And I’ll e-mail you some pictures soon.”

Regret tickled behind my sternum as I hung up. I should be glad I’d convinced her not to make a big deal of my . . . experience, but part of me wanted my mom to fly out for a visit, rescue me from myself, and convince me I wasn’t going crazy. Another part of me wanted to pack up Bryan and run home to Wisconsin. I picked up the scattered recipe cards and tried to return some order to their box, but I was too muddle-headed to make sense of the categories. Did Grandma’s meatball soup go under
Meat
or
Soups and Salads
? Why wasn’t my brain working right?

Last night had been rough. First the nightmares had invaded. Then when those relented, the empty side of our double bed kept startling me into wakefulness. Maybe I shoud indulge in a little nap. Sleep would probably do more good for my parenting than baking cookies, anyway, and it would definitely be better for my waistline.

Deserting the baking supplies on the counter, I dragged myself to the bedroom. Tom’s side of the bed welcomed me, so I crawled under the sheets and pressed my face into his pillow. The scent of Johnson’s baby shampoo surrounded me—Tom’s favorite for his fine blond hair. I never tired of the smell. Inertia weighted me to the mattress, and I let the world go away. My mother would be horrified. A nap in the middle of the day. No hardworking woman of Puritan stock would fritter time that way. Yet my willpower was broken—spilled out and scattered like recipe cards on the kitchen floor. I needed to escape.

I dozed, and my dreams brought me comfortingly to my old neighborhood in Wisconsin. Fall whirligigs spun from the tall trees. I sat on a bench in the park near our old house and sipped from a can of Coke, savoring Bryan’s laughter from the playground. An elderly couple strolled across the grass. They held hands and smiled as they watched Bryan climb across the monkey bars. His green-striped shirt was frayed around the neckline, where he sometimes chewed the edge. The couple resumed their walk and approached my bench. I looked up to smile at them, but when the old woman saw me, her face contorted. “You! You didn’t stop him.”

Ice slid across my skin. A dirty corner of condemnation in my heart accepted her words, and I cringed. I wanted to run from her glare, but could only press my spine harder against the bench.

The man lifted a shaky arm and pointed to me. “Why are you still here?”

The woman wore the same lavender linen blouse that she was wearing when I’d last seen her.

“No.” The word strangled in my chest.
Not again.

Several cracks ruptured the air, and I jumped. Who had been shot? Someone was hit.

A boy in a green-striped T-shirt tumbled from the top of the jungle gym.

Bryan!

I pushed past the couple and ran to his body. Blood moistened the sand around his head.

No! This isn’t the way it happened. Not Bryan.

“Mom? Where are you?” He called out to me as I cradled him in my arms.

“Shh. It’s all right. I’m here.”

“Mom? Mom?” The muffled voice reached into my dream and pulled me out. I stared at the pillow in my arms. Only a nightmare. I wasn’t holding Bryan’s bleeding body.

“Mom! I’m home.” Bryan bellowed from the front steps. The doorbell joined his call, ringing over and over with schoolboy impatience.

My pulse roared into high gear like an Indy race car. I shot up and staggered for the door. How long had he been out there? Had he been scared when he got off the bus and I wasn’t waiting?

When I yanked the door open, Bryan grinned up at me and hopped from one foot to the other. “Did you forget it was bus time?”

“I’m sorry. I took a nap and didn’t wake up in time to walk down to the corner for you.”

Bryan rolled his eyes. “Mom, I don’t have to take naps anymore. Why do you?”

“Oh, you know. Mommies get tired sometimes.”

“Wanna see my shells?” Bryan dropped to his knees, pulled out a paper sack, and upended shells and sand all over the carpet without waiting for my answer.

I knelt beside him, happy to sort treasures with him. I hadn’t accomplished much else today.

“Oh, no.” He held up a lifeless shape that had pincers and poked it. “The crab I found today. It looks dead. I was gonna make him a house with my Legos.” He thrust the ugly carapace under my nose.

I scooted back. “Maybe you should take that outside.”

He lit up. “Do you think if we water him he’ll wake up?” His niblet teeth flashed around the gap waiting for his two permanent incisors. Bryan’s mouth was half baby, half boy.

“Um, no. I just thought you might like to . . . bury him. That’s what you do when a pet dies.”

“Cool.” He launched to his feet and raced for the back door.

Still groggy, I followed him to the kitchen and scrounged the cupboards for supper ideas while keeping watch on Bryan through the screen door. He used my gardening trowel to dig a hole, then collected rocks to create a headstone. He plucked dandelions from near the fence to decorate the grave. Should I be worried about how much fun he was having creating a funeral? I’d always pictured myself having tea parties with a tiny daughter in lace-edged socks and dress-up jewelry. Instead God had blessed me with snips and snails and puppy-dog tails. Hard to believe how much joy I’d found in watching my son collect bugs, crash toy trucks, or climb the doorjambs to play Spiderman.

Laura-Beth called a greeting from her backyard, and Bryan trotted over to the fence to chat. Her voice carried through the screens. “Tell your mom there’s a great place to go crabbing in Portsmouth. You just use some chicken necks for bait.”

I pulled away from the door, not wanting to hear any more. I didn’t need any advice on crabbing. I’d been crabbing all the time lately.

With a kettle boiling for pasta, I found some aspirin and guzzled a tall glass of ice water. When Bryan tired of playing with his dead crab, he came inside and reached for a piece of the garlic bread I had pulled from the freezer.

I grabbed his grubby wrist. “Hold it, buster. Go wash your hands. I’ll put out carrot sticks for a snack.”

He brushed his hands off against his jeans and looked at me hopefully.