The Sky Beneath My Feet

Chapter 18


Mural, Mural on the Wall





Once you’ve resolved to reconcile, the hardest part is telling the people who’ve supported you during the separation. I go over the speech to Holly in my head, even practicing a few lines in the mirror. She’ll understand, naturally. She’ll be happy for me. But I worry that, under the mask of outward joy, I might detect a note of disappointment in her face. You’re weaker than I thought, Beth. You gave in to him so easily. How do you know he won’t do it again? Nothing’s changed, after all.

The boys prove a challenge for Rick.

“Eli will be all right,” I warn him, “but I’m not sure about Jed. You should know, while you’ve been out there, he’s found himself a girlfriend.”

“Yes, he told me.”

To my surprise, father and son seem to have bonded on the day of Margaret’s fall. Maybe Jed sensed a change in his dad, or maybe being in love has rendered his teenage anger moot. Rick knows all about Marlene, though he doesn’t remember her from The Community. He has even reconciled himself to the piercings and dreadlocks.

“There’s something appealing about that to a boy,” he says, opening the window into the male psyche a little too far for my taste. “It’s . . . exotic.”

The real trouble comes from Eli, Dad’s favorite. He won’t fall into line with the restored 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.

“Hey, look,” I say.

She turns toward the screen. “It’s Peggy!”

Sure enough, there’s Peggy Ensign, projected on the big screen—rather, we’re watching her on a small screen that projects the big screen for us. She’s in the crowd of worshippers, hemmed in on every side by half-seen, moving people. Her own claps, her awkward jerking motion from side to side, is always a little bit out of step, a little behind the people around her.

“Oh dear,” Holly says. “They really shouldn’t stick people up on-screen like that. But, hey, people like it. They get to see themselves larger than life.”

As she speaks, Peggy realizes she is on-screen. A big, fulfilled smile breaks out on her face, then the camera cuts to one of the praise team beauties, her eyes tightly shut in passionate praise.

“How was the sermon this morning?” I ask.

“New series, Beth. Secrets of a Happy Marriage.”

“Good. I’d better take notes.”

This time I stay for the service, sitting with Holly in our usual spot on the far right-hand side of the auditorium with a flanking view of the stage. The hissing speaker overhead doesn’t bother me, and I pay very little attention to the huge projection screen in front of us. I retreat into myself, thinking of the grass hut on the beach, the Quaker meetinghouse I could never find again, and whether all this time I could have re-created the feeling just by looking at the sky, which was always there. At one time, I had imagined my life as a straight line extending before me, sometimes a pathway, sometimes an arrow. Now I look back and find a twisted coil, as if the once-taut rope of my life was severed at some point and dropped to the floor in a long series of random loops.

As if I’ve been living in circles. Which is a bad thing, if there’s somewhere you need to get. Not so much if you’re already there.

Jed finds me in the lobby afterward, threading his way through the exiting crowd. He’s alone. I brace myself to deliver some encouraging words, but he cuts me off by announcing that Marlene is waiting outside. “I thought we could all go to lunch.”

“How did she enjoy the service?”

He seesaws his hand. The gesture reminds me how much he resembles Gregory, who’s fond of doing the same thing. “She said it would have been better if Dad was speaking.”

“See, you should be proud of him.”

“Mom, I am.”

Something has happened between them. Something big. “You and your dad have made peace, huh? I can tell there’s something different.”

“I don’t know. We just talked, I guess. Everything I hate about this”—he sweeps his hand to encompass the whole of The Community—“I think he hates it too, in his own way. I couldn’t tell him apart from the church. Now I can.”

“You hate it, but you invited Marlene.”

“She wanted to come,” he says. “It’s not like I twisted her arm.”

For lunch Jed takes us to Bertucci, the brick-oven pizza place, where he has a good time acting the part of the grown-up. For church, Marlene took out half her piercings, tamed her hair into a jutting ponytail, and dressed in a girlishly demure button-front dress shapeless enough to have originated in her mother’s closet, or possibly her grandmother’s. Her sweater makes up for this by looking like it came straight from the Mad Max wardrobe room. The two of them seem very cozy in each other’s company, sharing the same pizza, scooting close enough that their elbows touch.

“So, how was it being back?” I ask.

Marlene shrugs. “Just like I remember.”

As critical as I am, the thought of her mental censure makes me feel defensive. I want to stick up for The Community a bit. I suppress the impulse.

“So, you’re going to the Rent-a-Mob this afternoon?”

She nods. Most of the conversation goes like this, me beginning the sentence with So . . . only to watch it fall to the ground.

“This will be your first time,” I say to Jed, stating the obvious.

“If you don’t count D.C.”

“That was quite a fight.”

Marlene chomps her pizza, still nodding. “You know, I’ve been thinking about what Barber was saying, and it pretty much sums up where I am. With the whole Rent-a-Mob thing, I mean. It’s a lot of time to invest, and really, it’s not like any of it makes, like, an impact, you know?”

“It’s more about the experience, Chas would say.”

“Yeah, but that’s Chas. I always wanted it to be for something.”

“So what’s left? Flash mobs?”

Jed lights up. “I think they’re cool. I’ve been watching the videos—”

“Maybe a mob isn’t what I need,” Marlene says.

“No, right,” Jed says, changing course without missing a beat. “That was crazy in D.C., just wild.”

“Maybe it’s a relationship, you know? Like, a real relationship.”

It scares me a little, hearing her talk this way. Too much, too soon. I look at Jed, my little boy, and worry that a girl this intense will swallow him up. Then I remember how I felt the day she told me about her youth group connection, as if we’d failed her—as if I personally had let her down. This is what it’s like, letting people into your life. They don’t just give, they also take. And a relationship, a real relationship, means opening yourself to that.

I hope I’ve taught Jed these things. I hope I’ve learned them myself.

“Anyway,” Marlene says, “I think the fight really scared some people off.”

“You think?”

In the parking lot, as we part ways, Jed talks about maybe giving the Rent-a-Mob a miss, maybe going down to the mall, checking out what’s showing at the movies. Marlene warms to this right away, and I find myself conflicted. Eliza wants to shout at them, “Go change the world.” Beth says, “The world can wait.” Whatever they choose, I leave them to it, content that at least one leg of the family table, Jed’s, doesn’t seem to be in immediate danger of falling off.





I forget how out of touch Rick has been. When he comes back from the shed, books in his arms, cleaning up after steering a wide berth around the outbuilding the past few days, I notice an expression of anxiety on his face.

“What’s the matter?”

“Roy Meakin’s out there. Him and Deedee. He was having trouble with the grill, so I went over to try to help.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“Beth,” he says. “Do you know about this mural?”

“At her church?”

“There’s some kind of mural,” he says, ignoring me. “Deedee’s painting it, and that picture she gave Eli, that’s part of it. The way they were just talking, this mural . . . it’s inspired by me.”

“That’s my understanding.”

“You knew about this?”

I nod. “Part of Deedee’s obsession. She was killing herself over that painting, not knowing what to do, and suddenly you did your thing.” I snap my fingers. “Just like that, she’s hooked.”

“Roy said I was her muse.”

The way he says it, lips curled downward in dismay, makes me laugh. “Rick, you’re embarrassed, aren’t you? Don’t be. She’ll make you famous. Everybody in Lutherville—all the Catholics, at least—will stop you on the street for an autograph.”

“Stop.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Rick. It’s art.”

“Have you seen it?”

“I couldn’t bear to. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I was angry. It was bad enough having to live with St. Rick.”

“St. Rick? That’s what you called me?”

“No,” I say. “Don’t get worked up. St. Rick is what I called the painting. You’re fine. It’s him I don’t like. St. Rick is the scapegoat. They all have special powers, these saints, and that one’s his.”

“St. Rick,” he says, loading the words with every kind of disgust. “And you haven’t seen the mural?”

I shake my head. “You think we should go check it out?”

“I’m afraid to, Beth. What has she done? We have to live here. Has she ever considered that?”

“Not likely,” I say, encouraged that, in Rick’s mind, we are staying in the neighborhood and need to worry about what people might think. “Anyway, Deedee thinks you walk on water. She wouldn’t have done anything to embarrass you.”

“The walk-on-water thing embarrasses me. That’s a little too close to being worshipped.”

“Now, don’t let it go to your head. Listen, you inspired her mural, you gave her a reason to lay flowers at your door, you even saved her mother’s life. I don’t think you have anything to worry about as far as the mural is concerned.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” I say, not believing it.

“So we should go and look?”

“Absolutely,” I say, wanting to do anything but see that mural, to be reminded of the crazy man who, for the last three weeks, took over my husband and made my life miserable. Miserable, daring, surprising, and full of possibility, that is. Most of which is snuffed, now that St. Rick is gone.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely we should. Maybe Roy and Deedee will go with us. Why don’t I go over and ask?”





The church is very still and cool inside, with a smoky sweet, crypt-like smell. Deedee leads the way, enchanted at the thought of Rick’s reaction, while Rick brings up the rear of our little party, arms crossed, his mouth a nervous flat line.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Roy whispers.

I raise my eyebrows in reply: It wasn’t my idea, believe me.

The scaffolding is still up, the sheets of plastic, cloudily translucent, draping the mural off from view. Deedee pauses at the opening and turns.

“The work is finished, more or less, but I’m keeping it screened off until the official unveiling on All Saints’ Day. That’s the day after Halloween for heathens like you, Roy. Now . . .” She pauses to draw herself up to her full height. “Prepare yourselves.” She turns and parts the curtain, holding it open for the rest of us to pass. “Roy, you’ve seen it, so let Elizabeth go first. Rick, are you ready for this? I think you’ll be amazed.”

I duck through the plastic, mindful not to bang my head on the scaffold. The wall is profusely, minutely decorated. Deedee switches on the work lights, and suddenly the shapes come to life. I take a step back, banging into the scaffold I was so careful to avoid.

“Wow,” I say.

Rick edges up beside me. His jaw hangs open. He leans close to examine the figure at the very top of the mural. St. Rick perches high atop a stone pillar, a sort of fluted Greek column with just enough space on top for his toes to curl like a gargoyle’s over the edge. I have to go on tiptoes to see. This St. Rick doesn’t glare like the one at home. He gazes down from the heights with a faint, beatific smile.

Underneath him, in the same flatly photo-realistic style I recognize from Deedee’s other work, the streets of Lutherville extend like two sides of a triangle. At the far right, the Smythe house anchors the mural. On the far left, the redbrick face of Eli’s school. Not every landmark is there—none of the more, ahem, commercial properties have made the cut—but the resemblance remains striking. And the warren of streets crisscrossing the wall are far from empty. Crowds of people fill them, passing back and forth, going about their everyday lives under the gaze of St. Rick.

These people, the inhabitants of Lutherville, are not represented in Deedee’s usual way. This is what gives the painting its breathtaking strangeness. They dress in ancient styles, flowing robes with gilded trim. Their long, grave faces have a Byzantine quality, their skin like old frescos blackened over time by cooking fire, their features medieval and jagged. As if each person stepped out of an icon onto the streets of Lutherville.

And above every head, every one without exception, square halos float like crowns.

“Why are they square?” I ask.

“A square halo means the person depicted is still living,” Deedee says.

“Mine isn’t square,” Rick says. “Mine has arms coming out like a cross.”

“Yours?” Deedee chuckles, her low voice reverberating. She jabs her finger up at St. Rick. “You mean his?”

“Okay. His. St. Rick’s.”

“St. Rick?” She laughs louder, not having heard the nickname before. “My dear, that is Simeon Stylites, desert father extraordinaire. Though really it’s not Simeon Stylites at all—it’s Christ. To get a cruciform halo, you have to be part of the Holy Trinity.”

“Well, he looks like me.”

“He has to look like somebody. Everybody does—even Judas Iscariot. But don’t read too much into that.”

Something dawns on me. I have my inner double. Now Rick has a troubling alter ego too, not staring at him in the mirror, but from the wall. St. Rick is his Eliza. Or even stranger, maybe St. Rick is his Beth, the person he is becoming rather than the person he once was or could have been. Perhaps we have more in common now than I realized.

Roy comes alongside me. “What do you think, Beth?”

“It’s marvelous.”

He turns to Deedee, whose eyes narrow in pleasure.

She starts walking the length of the mural, talking about the old icon painters, the techniques of gilding, how challenging it was to translate the vision in her head onto the wall. I quickly lose the thread, absorbed in the scene. Crouching at the lower right corner, I examine the Smythe house. The level of detail is extraordinary. Even the minuscule details of the Victorian dental molding are suggested in the way the eaves are shadowed. Within the frame of an upstairs window, a halo glows, presumably Margaret. Our own house is there, and just behind it the shed, which seems to radiate ever so slightly, burning brighter than its surroundings.

On our street, which forms a border to the bottom of the mural, a family of saints. A bearded man. A woman. Two smaller men. Their features don’t resemble ours particularly—apart from St. Rick, none of the faces look familiar, whatever Deedee says about everybody having to look like somebody. They all resemble one another, however. And it’s not what they resemble that matters, but what they represent.

Rick’s eyes travel the wall, taking everything in. I can tell from his expression that he’s overwhelmed. But he seems to be processing, making some kind of connection in his head. He stares, but not blankly. That stare is full of meaning.

“The bishop,” Deedee says, “was a little taken aback. He started off enthusiastic enough, but that was before the streets were populated. Once the saints came marching in, he had some doubts.”

“What does it all mean?” Rick asks.

Deedee’s about to speak, but Roy interrupts, laying a finger against the side of his nose. “That’s the question you can never ask—not of the artist, anyway. You’ll get a different answer every time, and what they all amount to is this: what it means is already there. It’s telling you what it means.”

“He’s right,” Deedee says. “I can no more ‘explain’ it than you can. There it is. Interpret away.”

She flings this out dismissively, as if it concludes the topic. My husband, however, takes the invitation seriously. He turns back to the mural, squinting hard, and I can tell he’s working on an interpretation. I feel a bit panicky all the sudden, afraid of what he might say. So far we’ve avoided any friction. Instead of reading that as a good omen, I take it as proof that there’s a catastrophe around the corner. A big one.

“This is great, Deedee,” I say. “Really wonderful. Thanks for giving us the sneak peek. Right, Rick? Honey? We’d better get back . . .”

“I think—” he says, pointing at the mural. His arm bobs a little, so that the pointing hand reminds me of a dippy bird, one of those toys that bends down to sip water from the glass with its beak. “I think it’s saying that the world is full of souls. Not just human animals, not just living things, but . . . people. That there’s something—I’m not sure what to call it; a divine spark?—inside of us. The world is full of this holiness, this enchantment that we don’t see . . .” His voice trails off. He nods, still looking at the mural.

I glance at Roy, who raises his eyebrows. I raise mine in reply. I don’t know who just said that. It didn’t sound like my husband to me.

“It’s good,” Rick says finally. “It’s very good.”

With that, Deedee beams.