The Sky Beneath My Feet

Chapter 16


Home at Last





Holly’s side of the argument, which runs from still-drizzling Jacksonville to the sunny edge of Glen Burnie thirteen hours later, can be summed up in two words: nothing’s changed.

And my answer, equally succinct: I have changed.

It’s not easy to explain. Spiritual awakenings never are. Enlightenments, realizations, burning-bush experiences—none of the ready-made categories seem up to the challenge, particularly when nothing happened to me that didn’t happen to her. I looked at the sky, that’s all. I looked and I had a feeling.

“The trick is to see through the glass, not to be distracted by the image it bounces back at you.” Deedee’s words, and now I begin to understand them.

Whether I’ve changed or not, the facts remain the same. Mission Up is still what it is and Mother Zacchaeus is still really Rosetta Harvey with a criminal record. I’m still a middle-aged white lady from the suburbs who doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into and has no business anyway butting into things she can’t comprehend.

“Eric won’t change his mind, Beth. When it comes to charity, everything has to be aboveboard. People don’t open their wallets these days if they think they’re being scammed.”

“Nobody has to open their wallet. That was my mistake, thinking Eric could fix things, thinking the answer was to turn on the spigot of money. Like the thing that hurts us would help them, like it’s just a question of pointing the hose in the right direction.”

“Now you’ve lost me.”

“It doesn’t matter. I know what I have to do.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“I don’t think I can. I just know.”

I can tell something’s slipping, the bond between us is stretching thin. The sisters-on-the-way-to-the-beach soundtrack skips to its end. The reality of everyday life looms ahead, darker than storm clouds.

“I really want to understand,” Holly says. “If what you’re looking for is some kind of service project, there are better things to invest yourself in. Safer things.”

“I’m not looking for anything. It was looking for me.”

“I wish you’d stop talking like that,” she says.

“Like what?”

She shakes her head, but I know what she means. Talking like I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. Talking like a woman on a mission, a true believer.

Which is what I feel like. Nothing’s changed, she’s right.

But a hole opened up in the roof.





It’s past eleven, half an hour from Lutherville, and there’s no answer on the home phone or Jed’s cell. I hate to disturb Deedee this late, but call her anyway, looking for reassurance. No answer there either.

“I don’t know what’s going on.”

“At least you know where Rick will be,” Holly says. “That’s something.”

When we pull up in front of the house, there are no lights on. Next door at the Smythes’, too, everything is dark. It’s as if our corner of the street has lost power. No sign of occupation.

“This isn’t right,” I say.

Without bothering about the luggage, I get out of the car and rush to the door, fumbling with the keys until Holly comes up behind me, telling me to calm down.

“I’m sure they’re okay,” she says. “Maybe they went out.”

“Everyone together? They’re all gone?” I shake my head at the impossibility of the idea.

Then I’m inside, calling Jed’s name, calling Eli’s, switching on lights as I move through the house. Up the stairs, into their empty bedrooms, down the stairs and through the empty kitchen. Out in the backyard the shed looks dark too. I burst through the back door, crossing the distance in a run, grabbing the doorknob and opening the shed.

Empty.

All the furniture in the little outbuilding has been pushed against the walls. On the floor, where I’d seen Rick stretched out the first night, a bedroll is hastily piled. The books pilfered from the shelves are stacked on the open rolltop desk, which is pushed against the fireplace. The topmost volumes lie open, anchored by an empty Nutella jar. I go for the lamp and, in my frantic haste, tip it off the side table.

“Beth, are you okay?” asks Holly.

“He’s not in here. Where are they? Something’s wrong.”

I head across the lawn, past the stone wall, and onto the back steps of the Smythes’ wraparound porch, with Holly trailing behind me. Despite the late hour, I rap on the door and several of the ground-floor windows, expecting a light to switch on inside. Nothing.

“Try calling them again.”

I dial the Smythes. On the other side of the glass windowpane, I hear the phone ringing. No one answers. I try Jed’s number. Still nothing.

“What about Rick? Try him.”

I dial and hold the phone to my ear. In the distance, a faint electronic chirp. Following the sound, we end up back at the shed, where Rick’s phone is plugged into the socket by the desk.

“Holly, I don’t know what to do.”

By now, my sense of spiritual calm is shattered completely, just a heap of menacing shards at my feet. We return to the house for another fruitless search. Maybe there’s a note? Maybe a message on the voice mail? I even go to the computer and check my neglected e-mail inbox.

“Anything?”

I shake my head.

Then the doorbell rings and we both jump.

I wrench the door open, expecting Jed or Eli, even Rick. Instead, Roy Meakin stands there with an apologetic look on his face.

“I know it’s late,” he says, “but I saw the lights and thought I’d come over and check. Is there an update? I haven’t heard anything since they left.”

“We just got here, Roy. I have no idea what’s going on. Where is everybody?”

He frowns. “You don’t know? They’re at the hospital. There was an ambulance, paramedics, the whole shebang.”

I’m looking down at the dark sky again, with nothing to pin me in place. Falling into black despair. First thought: Rick being hauled out of the shed, dead from hunger. Then I think of Eli and some freak weed-related accident, or Jed . . .

“Rick,” Roy says.

My knees go weak. I put my hand out to steady myself.

“He saved her.”

“What?”

“He saved her. Margaret. If it hadn’t been for him, she wouldn’t have made it. That’s what Deedee said. We were at the church when it happened. Just pulled up and saw the flashing lights.”

Holly’s beside me, her arm around my shoulder is all that’s keeping me up. Relief floods in, sucking the life out of my fear. He’s okay. The boys are okay. And then I remember Margaret. Rick saved her life? What happened? I need to get to the hospital, whichever one they’re at.

Ahead of me, Holly asks, “Where did they take her?”

Roy looks at her, then back at me. “Tell you what. Let’s all go.”

And just like that, the three of us go marching off into the night.





“They just left,” Deedee says. “I sent them home. There was no point in them staying all night. He’s done enough already.”

She stands in the hallway outside her mother’s ICU room, speaking in a soft undertone. The nurse who went in to fetch her still hovers off to the side, ready if needed. In the car on our way to St. Joseph’s in Towson, exhaustion overtook me—the storm, the long drive home, talking in circles, the sudden panic of the last hour. Now I feel revived.

“You probably passed each other on the road,” she says.

I reach out and give her a hug. “How is your mother doing?”

“Under the circumstances, very good. It was her heart, Elizabeth. You know she’s had problems. She had an attack, a stroke, and she fell. It was Rick who found her and called for help. I was . . . I was working.” She holds her paint-flecked hands out. “I wasn’t there.”

“Rick found her?”

Deedee’s eyes light up as she tells the story. “He said he heard something. A voice. He followed the sound and found her in the house, at the foot of the stairs. Elizabeth, if he hadn’t been there, she would have lain on the ground for hours. She would have died, I’m sure. She couldn’t get up, she’d hurt her leg.”

“She was calling for help and he heard her? All the way in the shed?”

“Isn’t it miraculous?”

“It’s pretty . . . amazing.”

“And he came up here to check on her, brought the boys. You’re right, he was absolutely amazing. I’ll never be able to thank him.”

At this moment, I have an overwhelming urge to see this amazing husband of mine.

I suppress it, though. We’ve only just arrived, and Deedee could use some comforting.

The four of us head down the hallway to a lounge, where she and Roy fill in some of the details between them. They’d been at the church, where Deedee was nearing the final stage of her mural. (“It’s wonderful, really wonderful,” Roy insists.) When they arrived and saw the ambulance, Deedee flew into a panic. Rick calmed her, explaining that Margaret had fallen—he didn’t know about the stroke yet—but seemed to be all right, though very shaken. Then the paramedics had taken her out on a gurney, which was almost more than Deedee could bear.

“She was able to grip my hand,” she says, her voice husky with emotion. “And she whispered to me not to worry. But really, how could I not worry? I should have been there.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Roy says.

“He’s right, Deedee. And anyway, Rick was there.”

The words sound strange in my ear.

By the time we’ve reassured her, it’s well past one. Roy tries unsuccessfully to coax her to come home, but Deedee is determined to spend the night in her mother’s hospital room. In the end, we leave her with promises to check back in the morning. We drive back to my house, where Holly unloads my suitcase and takes her leave.

Roy says good night, crossing the street toward home.

“By the way,” he calls out. “I never thanked you. I made a visit to Rooney & Gill, and everything’s taken care of.”

“That’s good to know.”

I slip inside, locking the door behind me. Once again all the lights are off.

That rankles. They should have realized when they got home and found all the lights on that I’d been here. They ought to have waited up, or even called. I check my phone, just in case, but there are no missed calls. I’m miffed.

On the drive back, I imagined myself heading out to the shed, asking Rick about what had happened. Just talking to him again.

But finding the lights off hardens me to the idea.

I leave the heavy suitcase at the foot of the stairs, not wanting to lug it up in the dark and risk knocking something over. I feel my way past the bathroom to my bedroom door, closing it behind me. The curtains are drawn, but through the gap a shaft of moonlight bathes the room in a grayish haze. I creep to the edge of the bed, kicking my shoes off, pulling my T-shirt over my head, peeling off my jeans and leaving them in a little puddle on the floor. Then I lift the covers and slide inside.

I’m not sure how long I lay there before I realize I am not alone. A breath in the room, a sound—I don’t know what it is, but suddenly, I’m not by myself in the bed. I sit up, I turn. In the hazy darkness, I can make out the shape under the covers. The broad plane of his back, the peak of his shoulder. He faces away from me toward the wall, his breathing heavy and regular. Asleep.

My husband is in bed beside me. I’m not sure what to do.

I slide my hand along the mattress. Without touching him, I edge forward until I feel the heat of his body on my fingertips. That’s close enough to reassure myself he’s really here.

Okay then.

Rick is here.

Will he be here in the morning when I wake up? Will he wake up and be shocked to find me here? Will he retreat back to the shed?

I turn away from him, resting my head in the pillow. Still, I can feel his presence. My eyes won’t close. I’m not tired at all. I stare into the gloom, tracing the shape of the nightstand, the trunk of the lamp, and . . . something’s not right. I reach out my hand, feeling my way over the top of the nightstand. There’s something there I don’t remember from before. It feels like a shallow wooden box, rough around the inner edges. What is it?

I grasp the edge and lift slightly. The face of St. Rick stares back at me. What I was feeling was the painting, turned facedown by my husband. He couldn’t sleep with it looking at him.

I roll toward him and throw my arm over his broad shoulder. In his sleep, his warm hand moves upward to rest on my arm.





The next morning, when I wake, Rick is propped up on one elbow, looking at me.

“You’re back,” he says.

I smile, suppress a yawn. “So are you.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Are you?” I ask.

“I think . . . yes. I am. Did you have fun in Florida?”

“There was a big thunderstorm. I didn’t even get a tan.”

“Is that why you came back, the storm?”

“Sort of,” I say.

It’s too early, too soon to get into any of that. There’s so much between us that is unresolved, so many open questions. This is not the time for them. Having him back is enough. I’m afraid of doing anything, saying anything that might drive him back into the shed.

Jed and Eli are already downstairs. Their surprise at seeing their father come down from the bedroom is matched only by the double take when I follow behind him.

“I thought you were in Florida,” Jed says, bafflement in his voice.

“Boys,” Rick says. “What do you want for breakfast?”

Rick ends up flipping omelets while I brew coffee and pour orange juice. Over breakfast we act like a normal family—by which I mean, we pretend. Apart from the occasional glance, you’d never think anything strange had been going on in our lives the past three weeks. Eli goes to school first, leaving Jed alone with us. He doesn’t seem uncomfortable around Rick—they would have talked last night—but being around both of us is clearly overwhelming. He keeps checking the time on his phone.

“I tried to call you last night,” I say. “Quite a few times.”

He glances at the screen. “Oh.”

Nothing more, just oh. All my maternal anxiety reduced to a single syllable.

He leaves five minutes early, relieved to get away.

“Well,” Rick says. “He’s off. Alone at last. And we have plenty to talk about.”

“Yes, we do.”

He sits on one side of the breakfast table, silent. I sit on the other, staring down at my coffee.

“Who’s gonna start?” I ask finally.

“I guess it should be me.”