Dream Angel : Heaven Waits (15 page)

Steve?
My mind skipped. Did he just say Boston? I fumbled for the next message.

“I hope you’re reconsidering my offer, Samantha. Remember, I love you.” Again it was Steve’s voice, and when I looked up, the sight of Heather, misty eyed and pale, escalated my confusion and my fear.

“I-I don’t understand.” Now I turned to Elvis, but he was monitoring the floor. And I was reaching out to him, needing him to just look at me, when Heather began to explain.

“You’ve known Steve for some time, Samantha,” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

I wasn’t sure I'd heard her right. “No. I-I barely know him.” This was just a misunderstanding, I thought, and as if on cue one last message blared, cementing the facts further.

“I’m growing tired of this game, Samantha. You better call me.” Steve’s normally jovial tone rumbled with anger.

The room spun, and I took a wobbly step backwards, bumping into Elvis.

“Whoa baby,” he said, steadying me while also guiding me to the couch.

My body trembled. My head pounded light at first but escalating fast.

“I-I’m so sorry, Sam. I didn’t want you to find out like this,” Heather’s voice cracked.

Sitting there on the couch, I felt numb. I was staring at my friend while also scanning through my memory bank like a movie stuck on rewind. Every encounter I’d had with Steve replayed, but try as I might, I couldn’t recall anything prior to Memphis. Nothing that could explain a way this nightmare, and or stop the look of worry on Elvis’ face.

“I don’t remember.”

“I know.” Heather spoke those two words so matter-of-factly, my breath caught inside my chest.

“What do you mean you know?” My voice began to quake, and tears quickly pooled as the ramification of her words sank in. “How long?”

“Only a few days, I swear. I had no idea Steve was even back until you called me from Memphis.”

Back?
I shook my head, unwilling to believe, and yet the tears steadily flowed and my gut churned over the truth.

“I rushed to you as quickly as I could, but when I got there and saw he was playing this game, acting like he’d just met you, I panicked,” Heather began to pace. “I didn’t know what to do.”

A barrage of feelings flooded forward. Everything, from humiliation to betrayal hit me at once. The idea that Heather had raced to Memphis at the mere mention of Steve name frightened me. That she’d known and yet allowed me sit at the Peabody hotel, and share a drink with him like he was some new found friend, enraged me!

“How is this possible?” My anger surged.

“You dated Steve for a few months, at best, then broke it off two weeks before Boston, before the—”

“The accident,” I finished for her. “You’re saying he’s been out of my life for almost eight months?” For that matter, how long had he been in it?

This can’t be happening! An inferno blazed inside of me. How dare he play this little game, scaring me, harassing me with texts and notes, who did he think he was? What did he want?

“What did he mean by, reconsider? Reconsider
what
?” I snapped.

“Marriage.” Heather just blurted it out.

Bam!

My world stopped spinning.
Marriage
, I eternally repeated.
I will not faint, I will not faint
.

“He’d asked you to marry him, Sam, but you said… no.”

Next to me, a solemn Elvis took my hand. He gave me a tender squeeze, and his touch woke me from my trance. As I looked at him, his eyes filled with such compassion I couldn’t imagine a force strong enough to make me forget how much I loved him.

“Steve wanted to marry me?” My eyes were set on Elvis, but the question was for Heather.

“
Wants
to marry you, Sam, as apparently he still does but,” she began, but when my attention snapped to her so quickly, she hesitated and took a step back.

“But, what?” I growled.

Heather glanced to Elvis as if looking for his consent. My attention shifted, and when my angel gave her an affirming nod, the fear of a conspiracy swelled.

“He didn’t take it well.” Heather ran a hand through her hair, “He was following you to work and showing up at your house. And when you tried to reason with him, he became enraged.”

I was listening, but just barely.

“Steve,” Heather paused to shift her position as if trying to regain my attention, “he left harassing messages on your phone.”

I couldn't look at her. I was consumed with one question: Since when did my friend need anyone’s approval to speak?
He knew
, the thought rolled around inside my head. My face fired hot and my hands shook. He knew, and he’d known all along.

“At one point, I suggested you take out a restraining order. But before you could, he disappeared.”

As Heather talked, my eyes were steady on Elvis. My thoughts raced back to Graceland and the “business” my angel was so eager to share with me.

“What is it, honey?” Elvis asked, completely unaware of the storm that was about to hit.

“You knew this whole time?” My words were rich with accusation.

His expression went blank, and my insides went cold. Before I knew it, I had strapped myself in to that same emotional rollercoaster ride I’d been on for months. This time, I sat upfront powerless to stop it.

“Samantha, this isn’t his fault.” Heather was quick to his defense. “He wanted to tell you, but I pleaded for him to bring you home so that I could tell you here, myself.”

A vision of Heather and Elvis, sitting in a Memphis hotel parking lot, plotting their plan behind my back, while I raced through the back neighborhood of Graceland had me seeing red.

“Sure, I understand.” I jumped to my feet, strangely comforted by the startled look on both of their face. “You’re here to set the record straight.”

The flood gates opened. Months of raw emotion rose to the surface. He didn’t come back “for” me, he came to “handle” me. I had been a fool. My anger spun out of control, and I was like a tornado undecided where it might strike first. Nobody was safe.

“H-honey, I-I think you should sit back down.” Elvis placed a touch to my arm but I shrugged him away.

“Don’t’ touch me!” I growled and he quickly recoiled.

My heart pained, but a frantic need to order him out of my life overshadowed my true feelings.

“I thought you came back because you loved me, but you came back to finish the” — I almost chocked on the word — job.”

“What? No… I,” he paused and then fire sparked in his eyes. “Now wait one damn minute.”

“Wait, for what? It’s simple, either you love me or you don’t?” I was lost to hurt and frustration. “Which is it?”

“It’s not that easy and you know it.” Elvis hissed, and his tempest blue eyes churned with a storm that quickly matched my own.

My heart felt like it was in a vise, every beat brought a painful breath.

“It is just that simple, to me.”

“A-h-h,” he growled, turned his back to me, and stomped to the other side of the room.

“Samantha,” Heather tried. “Why would he go through all this effort if he didn’t care? Remember it was you who was being so difficult that day at Graceland, you told me that yourself.”

The truth made me flinch, but only for a second.

“No, you don’t understand. Today was planned. He predicted it himself. He’s been following a time line, knowing it would lead me here.”

In hearing my accusing words, Elvis whipped around to face me, his beautiful face now contort in anger.

“
Don’t
do this Samantha, not now.” His words rattled, and his lip curled into a snarl.

“Why? I’m home, your job’s done.” I shrugged.

Glaring at me now, he extended a shaky finger my direction. I braced myself for a just retort but none came. We just stood there staring at each other, both of our eyes misty with emotion.

“Please leave.” Even as I spoke the words, I wanted to take them back.

He was as still as stone. And my heart was in my throat as I waited for him to say something. Finally, and without one word more, he turned and headed for the door. He muttered something I couldn’t hear as he grabbed the knob, and jerked it open so hard it slammed against the back wall, leaving an impression in the plaster that remains to this day. Then with a kick to the screen door, he exited out in to the early morning rain.

A cool breeze gusted into the room, swaying the door on its hinges. My body quaked, and while I held a hand firm to my mouth, I kept an ear to the wind. I heard no starting of the Cadillac, no brief parting of the sky. There was no sign that he had left. He was just gone.

“Samantha, can’t you see he only agreed to my plan because he loves and cares about you?” Heather begged. “Not because you’re a case number, but because he wants to help.”

I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t even catch my breath. Who was this person spurting ugly words? Where did so much anger and nastiness come from? Even at my lowest, I’d never felt so warped and unrecognizable. Had I really just accused Elvis of being the one thing he had never been in his life, insincere?

“Hey, where did you go?” Heather’s voice broke into my thoughts, and I turned to her, stunned like a survivor standing in the middle of the road after an accident. You should be dead and yet you’re breathing.

Her eager expression pleaded for me say something, but I was all talked out.

“I love you, but I don’t want to talk anymore.” Calmly, I wiped the last tear from my cheek.

My mind floated around in a haze. I couldn’t stay, not in this house. Not tonight. I needed a safe heaven, someplace or somewhere I could go to think. And as my thoughts bounced, my gaze landed to a family snap shot taken at the cabin on Carters’ lake. I smiled weakly. The lake had always been a happy place. Just looking at the photo gave me a sense of calm serenity. More than ever, I needed to find that woman in that photo. She was inside of me somewhere, lost but not gone.

I spun around, “I have to go!”

***

Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, just an hour outside of Atlanta, is Carters Lake. Inside well over three thousand acres of mostly government owned park land lays the area’s most popular getaway. Camping, boating and hiking are just a few of the activities to be enjoyed here.

My father had bought the cabin back in 1985, when I was old enough to appreciate its beauty, and yet small enough to pester with “Are we there yet” too many times along the way. Always overeager, I could barely wait to run wild along the caramel beaches and dive into its warm surface. We spent every holiday at the cabin, except Christmas, huddled together in nature’s beauty. Now, my father rarely returned and I only visited in my dreams.

As I sped down a wet abandoned highway, an over casted sky followed over head. I felt like a horse racing for the barn with blinders on. I just had to get there.

I was scared, and thanks to my recent antics, I was alone.

A fog hung low, shielding the beauty of the rolling hillside, painted with barren maple trees and stark pined boughs. It didn’t matter, I passed viewpoints that normally would awe and inspire without even seeing them. I drove by memory. And except for the slapping of windshield wipers, I had no company. Even the radio was silent.

I used the drive to process the news that had hit my life like a wrecking ball, leaving pieces of myself strewn about. How was I going to tell my father his little girl was sick? The answer evaded me, and though I knew better, I couldn’t help but wonder if my angel would be waiting for me at the cabin. The thought alone made me laugh out loud, in a warped comical way. And by the time I had gone over every piece of new information, twice, I was headed up the cabin’s gravel drive.

I slowed the convertible. This last stretch was notorious for pot holes, and I was squinting through a blurry windshield maneuvering my car like a tank through a mind field. At times, I drove on the grassed shoulder which I noticed had been cut tight to the ground. I smiled to myself, aware that the manicured condition meant my father had finally visited.

When I parked, I didn’t get out. For a while I just sat, listening to the car’s rag top fluttering in the gusts and gazing off into the distance. From my location, I could see the lake churning, waves rushing to the shore and crashing against the rocks. It looked as dark and angry as I felt.

The clock on my car’s dash said 12:00. It was dark for noon, I thought. And when I was ready, I grabbed my bag, threw open the door and ran for the house. The rain pelted me as I leapt up the front steps, two-by-two, and landed with a loud clomp on the front porch. After shaking off the rain, I went to the flower pot by the door praying my father’s habits hadn’t changed.

Jackpot!

The door groaned when it opened. I stepped through the threshold, and the sound of the door closing behind me made me flinch.

The cabin had only the barest of necessities. There was a small living area, one bedroom, one bath and a made-for-one kitchen. Against my mother’s better judgment, she conceded to my father’s decorative tastes — rustic wildlife. The color pallet was mostly earth tones, and included one fish pattern couch with pillows that said “cabin fever”. I remember my father was like a kid decorating his tree fort. Mother and I could only watch and laugh.

The cabin was perfect solitude, but it was cold, and with no wood for the fireplace, the only light available came from what filtered through the windows — one in the living room and one in the kitchen. Because it was twilight, I worked fast. I dropped my bag off in the bedroom, and got busy flipping on the breakers. It took a minute, but the tiny house moaned to life.

A soft glow filled the room. It cascaded over the wood paneling highlighting one familiar item after another. Mother’s favorite reading material remained neatly stacked by her favorite chair. And the red and white afghan she’d sown by hand was strung over the back of the couch. All of it sparked my remembrance. Like how mother had spent hours working on that blanket for my father, and how he loved to cuddle up with it on long afternoon naps. The room was a virtual time capsule to my life, and time away had not dimmed its beauty.

Retiring to the couch, I kicked off my shoes and stretched out. The heater vent hummed over my head, diligent against the cold, and thanks to the room’s diminutive size, it didn’t take long for the air to warm around me. It was by far not cozy, but as my internal temperature rose, my muscles thawed, and the shock that once had my stomach jumping eased.

I cried no new tears. Maybe I was tapped out, I didn’t know, but I was tired. And still fully dressed, I rolled over with a sigh and closed my eyes. I could hear the rain striking the metal roof over my head. The rhythmic sound soothed me, and when a gentle shiver rushed through me, I reached for my father’s favorite blanket and pulled it close. Daddy won’t mind, I thought and I settled in.

The last thing I remember seeing was a photo of me at the age of eight, hanging on the wall across the room. I looked happy, but I couldn’t remember why.