I waited then, through the nurse’s morning rounds and breakfast and a meeting with an occupational therapist. The staff changed, the third shift leaving and Mary returning. “Your daughter called,” she announced. “She’s trapped in a storm in Kansas City, but she’ll be here as soon as she can get a flight out.”
Deborah arrived later that day, rushing in the door, haggard and breathless, travel-weary. She stopped at the sight of me sitting up in bed, blinked, and dropped her chin a bit, as if she hadn’t really expected to find me functioning. In that instant when she was off guard, I tried to read her emotions. What lay beyond her obvious surprise? Disappointment? Happiness? Reservation?
Was she mulling through the eventualities, thinking,
What do I do with him now that he’s back among the living?
The doctor and the occupational therapist had given me reason to hope that I could expect a fairly full recovery, with some continuing therapy. An emergency surgery after the heart attack had opened the blocked coronary arteries and placed two stents. Deborah must have consented to the procedure when I was unable to consent to it myself. Why would she have done that if she only wanted to put me away?
I thought of the prayer earlier. I needed to leave things well with Deborah. . . .
Only a fool prays in one direction and walks in another.
I put on a smile—sort of a slow, clumsy, lopsided thing, as my muscles were slack from lack of use. I lifted a hand toward her. It had a bit of a shriveled look, but it could have been holding an olive branch.
Deborah stood frozen in place, seeming uncertain, afraid to come closer. Her lips pursed, she swallowed, took a pair of sunglasses dangling from her fingers, and hooked them over her purse strap without looking at it. “They called me . . .” The sentence seemed unfinished, as if she didn’t know what else to add. She took a tiny step, then halted.
A lifetime passed through my mind, the memories pungent and sweet and painful. Deborah as a baby, our firstborn. Deborah as a toddler, independent, curious, persnickety in her choices of food and playthings. Deborah as a teenager, stubborn, smart, difficult. Deborah as a young woman, opinionated, obstinate, accomplished. Deborah as a bride, beautiful on the beach in a simple white cotton dress. And now
this
Deborah, a woman in the middle of her life, still watching me from a distance. How many times had she taken a step in my direction only to find me brushing on by? How many times had I failed to see it, failed to see her? Failed at the most important thing of all?
I’d come so close to being only a regret in her life. A person dead and gone, with whom amends could never be made.
“It’sss all right—” The words formed a bit more easily now. “I’m n-n-not going . . .”
Anywhere.
Anywhere was the final word, but I couldn’t force it out. My lips trembled, and of all things, tears pushed into my eyes. The image of my daughter blurred.
“Dad,” she said softly.
“I’m h-here.”
She crossed the room, opened her arms, and leaned over the bed, her sob dying against my chest. I encircled her clumsily, the movement feeling awkward, but any affection between us would have been, after so long a time. We were in uncharted territory. Like
Surveyor
landing on the dry seas of Oceanus, Mission Control uncertain what would lie beneath the surface.
For a while, there were only tears, Deborah’s and mine. I held her and thought of all the missed moments, the missed connections, all the things I’d waited too long to say. Perhaps there had always been, inside me, the little boy from the house with the seven chairs—afraid, alone, trying to hide the bruises by keeping anyone from getting close enough to touch him.
Emotions so many years in the making take time to vent. Nearly an hour had passed before Deborah slid into a chair beside the bed and mopped her face with a Kleenex from the dispenser on the night table. She looked a wreck, and now somewhat embarrassed, perhaps even a bit wary of broaching the next step in the conversation.
I rested against the pillow, my body filled with lead. I wanted to sleep, but I couldn’t allow myself. So much territory needed to be covered yet.
Deborah discarded one Kleenex and reached for another.
“The h-house?”
I formed the words carefully, cast them out into the empty space between us.
Deborah dabbed at mascara stains and wiped her nose. “The house is fine. Terrence has been looking after things. His daughter, Dell, and her husband were down for a visit last week, so they stayed in the house.”
I felt a sense of relief disproportionate to an inanimate object. Terrence was looking after my house. Everything was fine there. Everything was as I left it.
Deborah looked away, as if there were more, but she was reluctant to share it. Her eyes hid beneath lowered lashes, then turned my way again. “I read the letter you wrote to me . . . on the notepad from the bed-and-breakfast in Groveland.”
“G-good,” I whispered. If she’d read my letter, then she knew. She knew that I loved her. She knew that I regretted the sort of father I’d been, the things I hadn’t taken the time to say. I reached for her, held her hand. “I’m s-sorry.”
Squeezing my fingers, she nodded, sniffled, dried another tear. “Dad, why did you do . . . Why did you take off like that? And with Epiphany? With a sixteen-year-old girl? What were you thinking? Why would you help a teenager to run away from home?”
“R-r-run . . .” What was she talking about? Hadn’t Epiphany told her? Hadn’t Epiphany explained why we’d gone to Houston, what we’d found? Why would Epiphany have kept that secret after I was in the hospital? Unless . . .
Unless Epiphany wasn’t there. Unless she’d run away when I was rushed to the emergency room in Houston. Had Epiphany left before Deborah came, before anyone could stop her? “Epie . . . di-d-didn’t te . . . tell . . . you?”
A fan of wrinkles formed around Deborah’s nose. “Tell me what? Dad, her parents had turned her in as a runaway. By the time I got to the hospital in Houston, the police had her in custody. I haven’t seen her, and I’m sure that’s for the best.” Deborah sneered a little, her eyes hardening. “Why would you let her talk you into taking off for Houston? I mean, I guess I’m partly to blame for getting the whole thing started, with her working at your house. I should have known that a kid from her sort of background might . . . take advantage, but, Dad, you shouldn’t have . . .”
I lifted a hand to quiet her. Suddenly the effort seemed astronomical. If I let my eyelids touch, I’d be asleep in an instant. “Where isss . . . she?”
Deborah drew back, straightened her neck, irritated. “I don’t know, and I haven’t asked. After what she did, I’m not inclined to try to find out. I trusted her. I trusted her with you, with the house, and she took advantage. It’s just fortunate that this whole thing didn’t turn out worse. Her parents don’t seem inclined to press any charges, thank goodness.”
“Char-ges?” My eyes fell shut, and I pushed them open again. My thoughts were starting to blur now.
“Yes,
charges
,” Deborah snapped, and then seemed to catch herself. She paused, as if she were silently counting to ten. “You can’t just take off with someone’s child . . . a minor . . . a young girl, without permission. Given the type of family she comes from, we’re lucky they haven’t spied a gravy train and decided to . . . make something of it.” She hooded her eyes, embarrassed by the idea.
“Epiph-any wouldn’t . . .”
“Of course she would, Dad. Don’t be naive.” She clipped the last word, catching herself again, closing her lips tightly and swallowing something bitter before continuing. “She’s run away before. Did you know that? And she’s in all sorts of trouble with the school. This isn’t some innocent sixteen-year-old kid.”
“No.” I shook my head, my scalp scratching against the stiff institutional sheets. “We . . .”
Deborah didn’t wait for me to put together the rest of the sentence. “I’m not trying to be critical of you, all right? I blame myself. I should have checked things out more carefully. Her mother isn’t even a regular employee with the university cleaning service. She’s just a temp. I shouldn’t have let either of them in the house. Thank goodness something worse didn’t happen.”
The fog swirled through my mind, pulled me under. Images flashed by—the hotel, the dime store, the lion’s head, tombstones, the picture of the VanDraan family, Cecile’s face, my father’s. . . .
Deborah smoothed a hand over my shoulder. “It’s all right, Dad. Just rest now, okay?”
Just rest. . . .
I wanted to rest, to let myself tumble into sleep, to tackle this another day, but another day might be too long. What if I drifted off and didn’t wake again and the truth never came to light?
“No,” I whispered, then took Deborah’s hand and pulled her close. “Listen.” Opening my eyes, I took a breath and began as best I could to tell the story of the house with the seven chairs.
Chapter 24
Epiphany Jones
After a couple weeks, I finally got to move from my bedroom to the porch. I could sit out there after Russ picked me up from school and dragged me home, where he could keep an eye on me while Mama was at work. She’d told everyone, including Russ, I was a runaway, and that I’d done it before, and she didn’t have a clue what my problem was or why I liked to take off. She’d even told the school counselor and two different social workers that.
“Epie’s just trying for attention,” she’d said, and really I think it was her that liked the attention. She liked having people sit there and listen while she griped about me and acted like she was the model mother. “It’s been just me and her for a long time, and she’s having some trouble with there being a man in the house now. I think that’s her problem, mostly.”
The counselor and the social worker ate that up whole, even though none of it was true. It’d never been just me and Mama. There was always some man with her, or a friend who took us in after she broke up with a guy, or somebody we met by showing up a few times at some church, or an older lady like Mrs. Lora. There was always somebody who got talked into feeling sorry for Mama and helping her out.
I don’t know why I thought the school would be any different. Really, the principal just wanted to get the problem off his desk by letting me finish the year in the in-school suspension room, where you got watched all day, like you were in prison. You couldn’t even go to the bathroom unless it was time for the whole group to go. During bathroom breaks, some teacher hung around outside the door. That was fine with me, though. It kept DeRon and the rest of them away from me, and I got my classwork done without having to worry about being jumped during the school day.
Some of the worry about getting jumped went away after Russ and his buddies caught DeRon’s crew at the convenience store. Russ let them know what would happen if they ever messed with me again. When Russ picked me up from school that day, we dropped by basketball practice, too, and Russ had a little talk with the coach. I could hear him telling the coach that if he didn’t teach his star player some manners, there wasn’t gonna be enough of DeRon left to play basketball. I stood over in the corner, and DeRon never even so much as looked in my direction. On the way home, Russ told me I wouldn’t have any more trouble with those punks, only “punks” wasn’t the word he used. The next day at school, DeRon changed his story about J. Norm and me. He said he didn’t know what’d happened between us—he was just assuming stuff. He probably choked on the words. That was some satisfaction, anyway. Weird as it was, I had Russ to thank for clearing my name. It crossed my mind that I would’ve been a whole lot better off if I’d told him about my problems with DeRon and the trouble with the other kids at school in the first place. If I hadn’t tried to handle it on my own, maybe J. Norm and me wouldn’t have gone on the run, and the heart attack never would’ve happened. It’s funny how mistakes are so much clearer after you’ve already made them.
Russ wasn’t so bad, really—as Mama’s men went, that was. He’d picked me up after the whole runaway thing, and he hadn’t asked me a whole bunch of questions, which was good because I didn’t figure anybody would believe the truth. I could see myself trying to explain about the VanDraan house, and the fire, and Cecile, and Mr. Lowenstein in the feed store. They’d think I was so full of it. Next thing, Mama’d be trying to send me away to a loony bin. The day the police picked me up in Houston, she’d warned me that if I kept giving her trouble, she could get me
committed
someplace, and the state would pay for it.
Russ didn’t make threats like that. He’d just told me that first day I came home that he’d had a little sister who ran away when she was sixteen and got killed. “She was a real pretty girl. Had a whole life to live yet, you know?” There were tears in his eyes when he said it. “You gotta take your time, Epiphany. I know you and your mama don’t get along good, but you’re not ready to be out on your own. You gotta hang on a couple more years and get your school finished up, and then figure out what you want to do, all right?”
I said, “All right, Russ.” And I guess I meant it. The idea of taking off for Florida was out, anyway. My money stash was gone. Besides, I couldn’t leave without knowing what was happening with J. Norm.