Heart Of Marley (12 page)

She wiped her cheeks. “From the stars to the ocean.”

I rubbed her back, feeling the grooves of her scars through the thin fabric of her tank top. “Was it the dream again?” I asked after several minutes.

She nodded. “Yeah. He was there,” she whispered. “In that bedroom. But he looked like he does now and not like he did back then. And that woman he was with was there with him, and she was pregnant, Cam. She watched as he did those things to me. The whole time, all I could hear were a baby’s cries.”

“Shhh…” I soothed her. “It was just a dream. He can’t hurt you, Marley.”

“But what if he hurts someone else? Is he going to tell them that he’s not to blame and he has to do it because he was born that way? Like he told
me
? That it was
my
fault?”

“It wasn’t, Marley. What’s it going to take for you to see that?”

“A miracle,” she mumbled.

“I know things haven’t turned out the way you would have liked, but it will get better. One day, you’ll wake up and realize that you’re a stronger person because of what you had to go through.”

She took a deep, steadying breath. “I’m glad that I can talk to you about all of this and you don’t judge me. You should become a shrink. I think you’d be good at it.”

I laughed. “I don’t know about that. I think I’d get too attached to my patients.”

“Think about it, at least. The world doesn’t need another lawyer. You’d waste your good soul. And your incredible heart.”

“Okay, Marley Jane. For you, I’ll think about it.”

“A
RE
YOU
READY
TO
face the music?” Cam asked, turning to me as he pulled the Wrangler into the driveway of our house, the street peaceful in the pre-dawn hours. After I woke up screaming, we all decided that we should probably get home and try to sneak in before the sun rose.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” I responded. “They ground us? Go ahead. We start school tomorrow anyway. We won’t have time to go out with our friends, not with all of the crap we have to do.”

“Well, I hope it was worth it.”

“To be normal for a day? It was
definitely
worth it.”

We both remained in the car, neither one of us moving just yet.

“Hey, Cam?”

“Yeah?”

“No matter what, promise that you’ll always stand by me.” My eyes met his.

“When have I ever not stood by you, Mar?”

I shrugged. “You always have. I just need to make sure that you always will.”

“It’s you and me against the world. To the moon and back.”

“From the stars to the ocean,” I whispered, my voice empty. Inhaling slowly, I placed my hand on the door and opened it. “Better get this over with.”

Cam nodded and followed me out of the car and up the front steps of the house, the sky turning a pink hue as the sun began its slow ascent. We walked into the eerily silent, darkened house, and I thought maybe Aunt Terryn and Uncle Graham hadn’t noticed that we never came home last night. It wouldn’t have been the first time but, normally, Cam and I snuck out after they had already gone to bed. This time, not only did we not come home, we ditched church. I wondered which would be seen as the graver offense of the two.

As we tiptoed past the front entryway and saw no one sitting in the living room, we almost thought we hadn’t been caught.

“Shhh.” Cam placed his finger over his mouth, trying to hush my heavy steps.

Suddenly, a light turned on in the kitchen. We both snapped our heads in that direction to see our aunt and uncle sitting there, severe expressions on their faces.

“Cam. Marley,” my uncle said. “Have a seat.”

Glancing at Cam, he gave me a reassuring nod and we took several cautious steps into the kitchen, sitting down at the table across from them.

I looked deep into my uncle’s sapphire eyes, his brown hair disheveled, as if he had just woken up. “Where were you?” he asked, his tone as calm and soothing as ever.

“Charleston,” Cam replied quickly. He found my hand beneath the table and squeezed it, letting me know that he would take the blame for everything.

“What were you doing there?” he asked, his irritation starting to show. I contemplated whether he was simply putting on a show for my aunt.

“Helping Marley forget for a while.”

“Did you even think what kind of effect your actions would have?!” my aunt inquired, her face flashing red in anger. “The entire congregation was staring and whispering after you both left! In the middle of the service, I might add! How could they look up to your uncle as a leader when it now appears that he can’t control his own family?!”

“I’m sorry,” I said, lowering my head. “I just needed to get away for a minute. I had a memory and I couldn’t be there.”

I could feel my aunt’s judgmental eyes on me as she glared, then turned her attention back to Cam. “Mrs. Dumond told me what you said to her before you left. Do you have any idea how embarrassed I was? Not only did you both leave church, making all of us look bad, but now one of the elders thinks that Marley was…” She trailed off and the silence in the room was excruciating.

I raised my head and could tell that she was trying to find a way to finish her sentence. “You can’t even say it, can you?” I asked quietly, my entire being seething with anger and frustration. “Why can’t you? Neither one of you have ever been able to actually say the words…not that I can remember, anyway. Maybe if you finally say it, then you’ll realize that it was a horrible thing! That I should have been put in therapy years ago to deal with it! Instead, I was forced to be paraded around like another freaking home grown beauty queen!” I quickly shot out of the chair and leaned toward both of them.

I was done keeping it all inside. I had kept quiet for ages. Something inside of me snapped and the anger, rage, and agony that I had been keeping at bay, only allowing Cam to see, was raging over me like lava. It burned me, and the only thing that extinguished the fire was letting the words flow from my mouth.

“Say it!” I screamed, my face not even an inch from hers as she stared at me in shock. “I was molested! Raped! Beaten! Ruined! At the age of eight! How would you feel if that were Meg?! Or Julianne?! Would you brush that under the rug, too?! Would you get them the help they so desperately needed?! Or would you be too concerned about what your friends would say then, too?! Would you destroy any chance they had at a healthy, happy future so that you could save face in front of your tea-drinking, past-their-prime teen beauty queen has-beens?!”

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Cam standing next to me, his eyes soothing as if trying to put out the flames inside of me. But they were lit. Nothing could stop it. The fire was spreading with each passing moment.

“Mommy?” I heard a quiet voice say. I tore my eyes from Cam and saw Meg and Julianne standing in the doorway in their pajamas, clutching their bears. They looked scared and I knew it was because they had overheard my screams.

“Meg,” my aunt said, attempting to regain her broken composure. “Please take your little sister upstairs. I’ll be up shortly to help you change into your play clothes.”

“Is Marley in trouble?” Meg asked.

“That’s none of your concern. Now do as you’re told and I’ll be sure to take you both down to the pier later for ice cream.”

All she had to do was mention ice cream and the girls quickly followed her demand.

The tension in the kitchen could be cut with a knife as we all glared at each other. Wanting to be the bigger person, I looked deep into my uncle’s conflicted eyes and said, “I’m sorry I left church. It’s my fault. I convinced Cam to play hooky with me. I had an ‘episode’,” I explained, using air quotes. Heading out of the kitchen, I knew it was now or never. “Maybe if I got the help I needed when I needed it, I wouldn’t have these ‘episodes’. Instead, the only people I could ever talk to about it was Grams and Cam. They’ve been my therapists, but it still doesn’t make up for not getting professional help.”

“You
did
get help, Marley Jane,” my uncle said in his pacifying voice. “All the help you’ve ever needed is right in front of you. There’s no greater healing than the power of God.”

My gaze narrowed on him. “There is no God.”

“H
EY
, M
AR
,” I
SAID
, climbing onto the roof later that Monday after doing some damage control on her behalf with Aunt Terryn and Uncle Graham.

She glanced in my direction and nodded slightly. “Hey, Cam.”

Sighing, I lowered myself to the roof and lay back to stare at the sky over Myrtle Beach at dusk. “Did you really mean what you said before?”

Turning her head, she asked, “What part?”

“About God. Do you really not believe in God?”

She exhaled loudly as she considered my question. “I don’t know, Cam. Some days I do. I don’t know if it’s God, but some days I do feel as if there is a higher power of some sort up there, making sure that I’m on the right path. Other days, I feel completely alone and without direction. I always hear Uncle Graham talking about how important it is to look to God for guidance when we’re troubled. But when I’m troubled, that’s when I feel nothing, Cam. I don’t feel God or any other higher being at those times. Isn’t that when He should be there? When I need Him or Her most?”

“Maybe God’s busy doing other things at those times. Maybe you’re on His list and He’s trying to get to you, but He has bigger fish to fry at the moment. Did you ever think about that?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Do
you
believe in God?”

“I wouldn’t say I believe in God, but I do know there is some higher power, some driving force out there, some sort of light in a world that would otherwise be dark. So I guess you could say that I’m a firm believer in the light.”

A streak of lightening flashed on the horizon followed by a loud clap of thunder, startling me. Marley, however, remained unmoving.

“You’re a good person, Cam. You’re so level-headed. It seems like nothing ever gets to you.”

“Shit gets to me. I guess I’ve learned to process everything over the years.” It was silent for a moment before I spoke again. “Have you been writing in your journal like I recommended?”

“Yeah. I started right after Grams died. It helps. In a way, it feels like I’m writing to her, but I definitely put a little more in there than what I would tell her. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to hear about the size of Doug’s junk.”

“Marley Jane!” I exclaimed, playfully pinching her arm. “Neither does your brother!”

She giggled and I could tell she was slowly returning to me after her outburst that morning. I had gotten used to things over the years. Marley’s emotions always took you on a wild roller coaster ride, the ebb and flow often unexpected and sometimes tumultuous. But during those moments that things flattened out, and the ups and downs of her life were on an even keel, even if for just an instant, those were the times that I treasured. I wouldn’t trade those rare memories for anything in the world. Those were the times that I saw the real Marley…the girl that forced me to play Barbie’s with her, the girl that convinced me the mud pie she made for me was really chocolate. The way her eyes brimmed with enthusiasm and mischief at the same time, you couldn’t help but believe her, knowing that she would squeal with excitement and delight when you pretended to take a bite of her ‘chocolate’ pie.