The Sky Beneath My Feet - By Lisa Samson Page 0,94
family relation. Whenever Rick enters a room, Eli walks out. At dinner, if he shows up at all, he’s sullen, answering all his father’s attempts at conversation with pointed silence. When I get him alone and try to talk to him, he blows up. “This is how it’s going to be? You’re just going to pretend like nothing happened?” Either that, or he grows paranoid about the prospect of me telling Rick about his use of marijuana. “Just do it,” he’ll say. “Get it over with. I dare you.”
But I don’t say a word about the smoking to Rick. We’re already taking on water and listing to starboard. The last thing I want to do is capsize the family.
Eli worries me. For now, I have to leave it at that.
“So it’s over?” Holly asks, incredulous.
“That’s what he says.”
“And the job in Richmond? Is he going to say yes?”
“That’s still undecided.”
“Still?” she says, packing a lot into the word.
It’s Sunday and we’re having coffee in her office between services. Rick stayed home, and so did Eli. I left Jed pacing in the lobby, waiting for Marlene to show. Somehow he persuaded her to give The Community another try, and in return he’s agreed to spend the afternoon at Chas Worthing’s, painting signs with the Rent-a-Mob.
There’s a lot more Holly wants to say. I can see it. But she swallows the words, forcing a change in subject. “What about Margaret? How is she doing?”
“That’s a miracle,” I say. “Seriously. She could have broken her hip in that fall. For that matter, she could have broken her neck. All she’s got is the fracture in the forearm, which is plastered up, and the side of her face is a little lopsided—but she can talk.” Every day since the first night, I’ve visited the hospital, and every day Margaret seems a little more herself. Her speech is a little slurred, her right side seems stiff, but the doctors appear optimistic apart from the fact that they’re holding on to her for observation. “Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to remember much about the accident.”
“And Rick? What does he say about it?”
“Just what you know already. He heard her calling and went to help.” I don’t feel comfortable going into greater detail. That is Rick’s story to share, not mine.
“What about your big plan? Have you shared that with him?”
My big plan. The morning of the storm seems so far away, the silence under the shifting sky, the sense of purpose afterward. The long, excited drive back, countering all of Holly’s commonsense arguments with a vague but hopeful optimism.
Once Rick had recounted his weeks in the shed, I told him my own side of the story. He listened intently, especially when I told him what my brother had said about this being my time and not my husband’s. “Maybe he’s right,” Rick said, latching onto the idea. I held nothing back, even rewinding to my meetinghouse epiphany with Miss Hannah, so he’d understand what had happened to me at the beach and why it meant something.
I expected him to dismiss it all as Quaker nonsense and say that I was once again “letting the process of spirituality get in the way of the content of faith,” a line of his from way back. But I suppose he was in no position to judge, not after inventing his own wacky process. So he took it all in. The respect he showed for the experience frankly surprised me.
Maybe he didn’t find enlightenment in that shed. But he certainly changed.
None of this is fit for Holly’s consumption. Not yet. She’s not going to accept my rehabilitated Rick without more time to get used to the idea.
“Recent developments have kind of thrown me for a loop,” I say. “The past couple of days, we’ve been learning how to be a family again. Trying to, anyway.”
“Oh, Beth, I’m sorry.” She puts her coffee down, comes around the table, and gives me a hug. “Here I am peppering you with questions, when you barely know which way is up.”
Over her shoulder, the monitor flickers. The praise team is on stage, lighting into their first set. Without any sound, it’s hard to guess what they’re singing. The camera cuts to the audience. From the hand-clapping and the syncopated swaying, it must be a jaunty number. When the camera cuts back, I can see the band playing and, on the screen behind them, a flash of audience close-ups.