VisionSight: a Novel Page 3

  “I think this may take me a while,” I said. “And you don’t have to wait for me.”

  I gently withdrew my hand from his, focusing on two large pines swaying in the distance. They reminded me of a couple walking along the seashore at sunset. Which is something I’d hoped Alex and I could do this summer. I had it all planned out – Jekyll Island, a long, romantic weekend, evening walks on the beach, hand in hand, the surf tickling our toes. But my dream had disintegrated.

  We sat quietly for a few minutes.

  Picking up trash along the Chattahoochee River – that’s where we met. I’d signed up for Sweep the Hooch with a couple of friends, thinking it would be cool to help clean up the river bank. It was a brilliant day in early April. I was dressed in jeans, rain boots and a hoodie, using a pick stick to stuff garbage in a plastic bag, when I came upon Alex taking pictures of the river, his bag and stick lying on the ground beside him. He was wearing jeans too, with a long-sleeved blue tee shirt and nice running shoes that were in the process of being ruined by the mud. He paused when he heard me.

  “Can’t resist,” he said, waving his phone.

  I smiled and continued searching for trash. He caught up with me and walked beside me, extracting a plastic bag from beneath a bush.

  “Is this your first time?” he asked.

  “First time on the Chattahoochee but I did it on the Oconee while I was in college. You?”

  “Well, I did a story about it last year and thought this time I’d like to actually help out.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m a TV reporter.”

  “I’m a teacher and an actress.”

  “Alex Park,” he said, like I should recognize the name.

  “Jenna Stevens,” I replied, using the same officious tone.

  He laughed and I laughed.

  I wasn’t going to admit he looked familiar and that he was too good looking to be picking up trash, even it was along the scenic Chattahoochee.

  We kind of hit it off, talking about the cleanup, the river, our favorite lunch spots – small talk – until he decided to chase another plastic bag just as the breeze lifted it over the water’s edge. He reached out to grab it and lost his balance when a rock beneath his foot came loose. He fell into the frigid water, landing on his butt. I couldn’t help it. I busted out laughing.

  It made me smile to myself remembering how his teeth chattered as he hightailed it back to his car. I thought I’d never see him again since we hadn’t exchanged phone numbers or anything. Plus, his phone took a dunking. But he tracked me down, checking with the local school systems until he found a Jenna Stevens.

  “Jenna,” he said, bringing me back to the present.

  But I cut him off with shake of my head and a shrug.

  Then he cleared his throat and stood up. He waited for a moment, as though giving me time to change my mind, before leaving me there on the deck by myself, trying not to cry.

  5.

  “You can’t just move out! How am I supposed to pay the rent?”

  Tia was standing in the doorway of my room, hands on her hips, still dressed in her school duds – white slacks and a printed pink top.

  “Our lease is up in August. I’ll pay my rent till then. That’ll give you time to find another roommate.”

  I didn’t have to see her face to feel her glaring at me as I packed boxes and bags with clothes, shoes and purses.

  “Jenna, what is wrong with you? I know you’re grieving but, like, I don’t get it. You and your mom weren’t even close. And you and me – well, we’ve been, like, best friends for how long? I can’t even remember, it’s been so long! You can’t just run off and leave me!”

  “You’ve got Alex.”

  “Alex? Alex is your boyfriend, not mine!”

  I shook my head, wishing I’d kept my big mouth shut. I grabbed as much as I could carry and headed for the door. But she didn’t step aside.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  She didn’t budge, but I refused to look her in the eye.

  “I’m gonna live at my mom’s house,” I said. “It’s mine now.”

  “Yeah, and you’ll be so lonesome.”

  “No offense, Tia. Now, will you please…”

  “You’ll get even more depressed than you are now. I know you! And looking at her stuff all the time and living in that God-awful blue house will make you absolutely crazy.”

  “I’m coming through, one way or another.”

  Finally, she stepped aside. I lugged two boxes and a bag through the apartment and out to my car, huffing and puffing all the way, then returned for another load.

  “And, oh by the way – Alex is just a friend,” she said. “All we’ve talked about is you!”

  I hustled to my room, picked up two more boxes and a suitcase and headed out the door again. Then I came back for one final load.

  “Jenna! Look at me!”

  But I kept moving, picking up a garbage bag filled with stuff and my jewelry box.

  “I’m sorry about your mom,” she said, almost yelling now. “And I know different people grieve in different ways, but you’ll be better off here with me. You know,” she said, softening her tone, “friends help friends. You helped me through a rough spot. I want to be there for you too. Why the hell are you pushing me away?”

  The rough spot she was referring to came back to me. It was during ninth grade. I was spending the night at her house. Her dad was watching TV when her mother came home after attending some kind of meeting. At least that’s what Tia had told me. But it was after midnight. We were lying in bed whispering about whatever girls whisper about on a sleepover. And then we heard her parents in the living room, her mother yelling: “I am not drunk!” Her dad: “It’s a miracle you didn’t wreck the car.” Her mom: “The car is just fine and so am I!” And then there was a crash like a lamp hitting the floor and although it was dark in the bedroom I could hear Tia crying. I put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her. That’s when she told me her mom had been fired from her job because she couldn’t get out of bed in the morning and was always late for work. And she said she was afraid her parents would divorce. Which they did about a year later.

  It was true – we’d been devoted friends. I loved Tia. We’d both had mother problems. But I couldn’t stay.

  “I just need some space,” I said. I knew if I tried to tell her the truth, she’d think I’d gone over the edge, for sure. And if I told her why I was leaving, then I’d have to tell her what I’d seen. I could only imagine how she’d react to that.

  “Space? Well, you’ll have plenty of space in that over-sized art gallery! Jenna, please don’t go.”

  “The movers will pick up my furniture next week and get it out of your way.” I wanted to give her a hug but I knew I’d cry. So I hurried out the door, tossed my stuff in the trunk, hopped in the car and drove away before I could change my mind.

  It was true – I didn’t want to live in my mother’s house with all that blue and green staring me in the face. But I couldn’t stand the thought of staying in the apartment with Tia, who I loved more than she knew. How could I watch her descend into that toxic pit? And how could I watch as she and Alex became a whole lot more than “just friends?”

  When I arrived at the house, I found my dad sitting on the front step, looking more like a bag of leaves than a human being, his head down, shoulders slumped. God. It was too much.

  “Hey, honey,” he called, standing and stretching as I climbed out of my car. I automatically checked my reflection in the car window – messy hair, no makeup, sloppy clothes. He was, no doubt, drawing his own conclusions. But the car looked good, I thought. The light blue paint was still like new. Dad had made a big down payment on it for my graduation present, which suddenly came back to me now as I tried to figure out how to avoid talking with him.

  A slight breeze wafted the drooping branches of the weeping willow and it dawned on me that Mom planted it as an expression of grief. Her grief over the loss of her ma
rriage and the loss of a normal life. Now the tree was so big, it took up nearly half the front yard.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  I silently reminded myself to look at his ear, his hair, his shoulder. Anything but his eyes.

  He hurried over, taking a box from me and followed me inside.

  “Upstairs?” he asked.

  “Here’s fine.”

  So we set everything in the foyer and he immediately pulled me into a hug – a warm, fatherly hug that felt so good, I could’ve stayed that way a long time. He kissed the side of my head and rubbed my back a little. And for a fleeting moment, the little girl part of me almost let loose with everything that had happened. I wanted so bad to tell him but he would think I was sick in the head. So I let him believe what I let everyone else believe – that it was grief over Mom’s sudden death that was causing my pain.

  And finally, he pulled away, gripping my shoulders, examining my face. I focused on his chin.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine, Dad, really. Just, you know, going through the process.”

  “Tia says you’re moving in here?”

  “It’s a good house,” I said, gesturing around the living room. “And fully furnished.”

  “But, Jenna…”

  “Dad, I’ve made up my mind.”

  He was staring at me – I could feel it. And I could also tell he was mulling everything over – how much to say, how much not to say, whether he should let me find out the hard way how miserable I’d be. I knew him well enough to know what he was thinking.

  “Let’s bring in the rest of your stuff,” he finally said.

  In no time, my boxes and bags were piled in the living room. It was the first time I’d ever seen it look messy. Mom would be appalled.

  Not wanting to be rude, but really wishing he’d leave, I stretched out on the couch, making it obvious I was worn out. And that was no lie. So he sat down next to me and rubbed my hair and kissed my forehead.

  “Come have dinner with me and Meg this weekend.”

  “Actually, I could use a little help with a very private memorial service.”

  “How about we sprinkle her ashes in Sweetwater Creek?”

  “A creek?”

  “Yeah, years ago, she used to love hiking at Sweetwater Creek State Park.”

  After giving it some thought, I agreed. So, on Saturday we took a short hike along the banks of the stream – just the two of us. We stopped at a scenic spot where the blue water tumbled over large rocks, forming a little waterfall, and I slowly sprinkled Mom’s ashes into the creek, watching as the current swept her downstream. We stood there for a while, listening to the birds chattering and the tranquil sound of the water flowing past us.

  “She loved you very much,” Dad said.

  *

  Monday morning I returned to school, dropping by for my coffee, as usual, on the way. No premonition this morning. In fact, I felt kind of numb. But I’d been practicing avoiding people’s eyes – looking at their hair or their chin – and was pretty confident I was ready.

  Maria gave me a hug when I walked in, telling me how sorry she was. And then the students began arriving. First one, then three, then a bunch who got off the first bus. Lots of “Hi, Miss Stevens.” And I smiled and greeted them, carefully avoiding looking at their faces. They didn’t appear to notice and things were going well until Daisy arrived on the last bus. She ran to me and wrapped her arms around my waist.

  “Miss Stevens!” was all she said, but her body language said so much more. I knew she’d missed me, that she felt very close to me. I hugged her back and asked how her mother was doing. I knew her mom had problems and found it hard to hold a job, which made money tight for the family.

  “Mama’s not feelin’ too good,” she said, stepping back from me. “But she’s not dead like your mama.”

  The tone of her voice was full of sympathy, so tenderhearted. And I automatically looked down into her sad hazel eyes and was immediately engulfed in that overwhelming sensation that filled my consciousness with one vision after another that I didn’t want to see. I saw her being slapped by her mother who looked haggard and old for her years, like maybe she was on drugs or something; then, there was a scene of an overweight teenage Daisy skipping school and hanging out in a house crowded with people. And then she was having a baby. And then another. And another. Then there was a scene of her bailing someone out of jail. And she was old and beaten down before her time, a sick, middle-aged woman staring at a TV screen for hours on end. And I was crying with my hands over my face.

  “Miss Stevens? Miss Stevens?”

  Her voice sounded like she was standing above me while I was submerged in a swimming pool. Then Maria touched my arm and I realized I was leaning against the wall with my eyes closed. I lunged for my desk, grabbed my purse from the drawer and stumbled from the room into the empty hallway.

  “Jenna!” Maria called after me, but I fled like a roach dodging a giant shoe.

  No more teaching. No more looking into a sweet child’s eyes and seeing a wasted life. No way! With Mom’s house and the money she left me I could get by for a while until I figured out what to do next.

  When I got home, I headed straight for the bottom kitchen cabinet. Since my mother wasn’t one to entertain, I could only assume she was the one who drank the bourbon and the wine. There were two bottles of each and a bottle of whiskey sour mix. Although it wasn’t even nine in the morning, I fixed myself a stiff drink and sat down at the kitchen table, trying to calm my nerves.

  On the wall in front of me were pictures of Mom’s garden in a collage frame, each one focusing on different ripe vegetables. One with bright red tomatoes; another with tall, lush corn stalks; a photo of a plant loaded with green peppers; and another one of green beans.

  Then I gazed out the window overlooking her precious garden. Rows of plants were sprouting. I recognized several tomato plants about a foot tall soaking up the sunshine, no tomatoes yet. I was clueless about the small plants in the other rows. My mother had given me an illustrated book on gardening for graduation, which seemed so bizarre at the time. Now I understood. Plants don’t have eyes. No windows to their soul. I finished my drink and fixed a second, and then a third before lying down on the couch and falling into a drunken, dream-filled sleep, where babies and tomatoes mixed together like an abstract painting I didn’t understand and didn’t like.

  6.

  A bell was ringing, ringing. I put my hands to my temples, trying to keep my head from exploding. But the ding-donging continued to reverberate through the house and through my brain. I finally opened my eyes and realized I was lying on the sofa. The unbearable noise was the doorbell.

  Sunshine streamed through the windows. Meaning it must be mid-afternoon. The doorbell was like the squall of an inconsolable toddler at the table next to yours in a restaurant. While I wanted very much to make the bell stop ringing, the idea of yelling something like “I’m coming” was more than I could bear. And the thought of rushing to the door and opening it was equally repugnant. So I steadied myself and stood up slowly, my head swimming. Oh yes – the whiskey sours.

  “Jenna!”

  It was Dad.

  “Are you all right?” he called out.

  No, I was not all right. I was about to throw up and I couldn’t decide what to do first. Finally, I dragged myself to the door, turned the deadbolt lock and opened it.

  “Back in a minute,” I mumbled and hurried as quickly as I could, under the circumstances, to the first floor bathroom.

  Once the unpleasantness was over and I’d washed my face and rinsed my mouth, I walked carefully back to the living room and sat slowly on my mother’s expensive blue sofa. Dad stopped pacing and watched me as I struggled. I really needed to lie down again but I didn’t want him to see me, so I sat there staring into space.

  “Jenna?”

  I waited.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  I couldn’t think of anything to
say.

  “Talk to me, dammit!”

  He was in front of me in a flash, sitting on the coffee table, leaning into my personal space.

  “You’ve been drinking,” he said. “Talk to me, Jenna. I’m here for you.”

  All I wanted to do was collapse on the couch.

  “Look at me!” he said, touching my chin as though to force me to look up.

  I closed my eyes and pushed his hand away.

  “Dad, I’m just not feeling too good right now.”

  “Look at me!”

  I rested my head on the back of the sofa.

  “I need to sleep.”

  “You need a cup of coffee, that’s what you need.”

  I slid down until my head was on the arm rest, hoping he would go away.

  He jumped up and strode into the kitchen. I heard him muttering under his breath as he opened one cabinet door after another.

  “Maria called me,” he yelled in an angry voice. “She told me what happened at school. You quit your job?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You can’t just walk out like that without an explanation. You owe them an explanation. Maria’s concerned about you. Tia is too. And I’m worried sick. It’s time to stop pushing everyone away and let us help!”

  And then he was back in the living room.

  “You’ve got bourbon but you don’t have coffee?”

  My head felt like it was spinning so I kept my eyes closed. I felt bad not being able to talk with him. But what was I supposed to say?

  “God, it’s déjà vu all over again,” he said. “This is exactly how your mother acted after her mother died. You cannot go down the same path. You just can’t! I’ve got a friend who’s a psychologist. I’ll…”

  I sighed.

  “This is serious, Jenna! Your mom spiraled into a deep depression after her mother died. And she always seemed to be looking down after that. The woman I’d fallen in love with just kind of disappeared.”

  I was getting very drowsy.

  “I’m not going to let that happen to you,” he said.