Reinventing Rachel (8 page)

She wanted to believe she was wise enough to make the right move. She wanted to be independent enough to live her life with confidence in her own intelligence and abilities, to not have to feel like every fork in the road required a powwow with five different people. But the truth was, she didn’t know if she could trust herself. Not right now, anyway—not with the sadness and anger that still simmered just below the surface. And yet she was forging ahead as though she knew what she was doing. What if she was making a terrible mistake?

As soon as she got home she brewed a cup of the Santiago Atitlan. She’d never had it more than three our four times a year, and dipping into the canister for the second time in less than a month meant life was way too stressful—as if she needed coffee to tell her that.

She’d nearly picked up a four-pack of spiked lemonade on the way home from work. The completely different kind of warmth and relaxation that alcohol provided made for a nice change of pace. She’d sampled a variety of mixes in Vegas, and she couldn’t help but laugh at how she gravitated toward beverages for comfort. But buying alcohol felt like a whole different world from drinking it when someone else gave it to you. She wanted to wait until Chicago when Daphne would be around to educate her some more. She was pretty sure her craving wasn’t some precursor to destruction—but she was forcing herself to hold off anyway, just in case.

Steaming mug in hand, she retreated to her bedroom before Trisha appeared and drew up a pros/cons list to help her sort through the wisdom of this move. But even when she saw how the pros outnumbered the cons, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was doomed for failure.

She wanted so badly to pray. Her eyes slid from her list to her Bible, untouched on her nightstand since the night she’d learned of her parents’ divorce. Not more than a night or two at a time had gone by in the last ten years where she didn’t read Scripture before going to bed, and it had taken a conscious effort for her to avoid it. Her fingers itched to feel the onionskin pages, but she couldn’t bring herself to reach for the leather-bound book.

Her thoughts skittered. She couldn’t still them long enough to pray. She tried to talk aloud, but for the first time it struck her as ludicrous. Rachel drank her coffee faster than usual, hardly tasting it at all. The panicky feeling was back. She had no one to talk to, no one to turn to—she was alone, truly alone, and she didn’t think she could handle it.

Suddenly she was reminded of Daphne.
Daphne!
She’d never thought of Daphne as part of her support system, but now was the time to change that.

She snatched up her cell phone. “I think I’m losing my mind,” she blurted when her friend answered.

“What?”

She fought tears as she spoke. “There’s no one here for me to talk to about any of this. There’s always been
someone,
you know? At least my mom. At least God. But now I’m an island and I feel like I’m going to go crazy having to rely on myself.”

Daphne let out a long sigh. “Oh, Rachel. Rachel, Rachel, Rachel.” She giggled and began to sing, “You are a rock. You are an iiiiii-land!”

Rachel frowned. “Daphne, I’m serious.”

“Me too! Totally, totally serious.” Then the line went dead.

Rachel stared at her cell phone in utter confusion as sadness washed over her. She’d been right. She really was alone.

Chapter 9

Rachel breathed deep and mounted the steps to the front door, her footfalls slow and heavy as though execution awaited her on the other side. She’d put off this conversation as long as she could, but now, with her flight to Chicago less than twenty-four hours away, she’d run out of excuses and time. She lifted her hand to ring the bell, then stopped. But just walking into her parents’ house no longer seemed appropriate, either.

Her mother found her standing at the door, hand half-raised to the doorknob. “I thought that was you I saw pull in—two minutes ago. What’s taking you so long?”

“Nothing,” Rachel mumbled as she entered the kitchen. She glanced around. Everything looked the same. It didn’t seem like it should.

“I’m glad you came over. I really hate it here at night alone. Can I get you some coffee?”

“No, thanks—I can’t stay long.”

Her mother’s face fell. “Oh. I was hoping we could talk.”

“Me too. That’s why I came.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever gone more than three days without talking—this has been a record. How have you been? How was Las Vegas?”

Rachel sat down on a kitchen chair as her mother busied herself preparing tea. “It was—it was fine. It was fun, actually. Exactly what I needed.”

“I’ll say. You know, honey, I really think you dodged a bullet here with Patrick. There always seemed to me like—”

“I’m moving to Chicago.”

Her mother’s hand froze above her mug, teabag dangling into its mouth. “You’re what?”

“I’m moving in with Daphne.”

“You’re—to Chicago? Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. I can’t stay here, not with Patrick and Trisha around, and you and Dad splitting up—”

“But—moving? I can see an extended vacation, but leaving home like that …”

“What home? The one where my fiancé was sleeping with my roommate? Or the one where my parents lied to me for my entire life?”

Her mother’s chin raised just a fraction. “Rachel, listen: In retrospect I know it wasn’t a good idea not to tell you about your father. Really, I know that now. But we only had your best interest in mind.”

“Oh, so it’s the thought that counts?” Rachel let out a snort.

“Well, what do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t expect you to apologize. I didn’t come here for that.” Rachel tugged her hair back from her face and clenched her teeth. “Look, what’s done is done. You can’t go back and change how you handled things, and I can’t just pretend like it’s not a big deal. I need more than a vacation. I need to get out of here, out of my sheltered life, and start everything over from scratch.”

“You can’t run away from your problems, Rachel.”

“No? Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

Her mother slammed the teakettle back onto the stove, making Rachel jump. “Don’t you dare judge me. You have absolutely no idea what I’ve been through.”

“You’re right, I don’t. But that’s your own fault, not mine.”

Her mother gripped the edge of the counter and closed her eyes. “Oh Jesus, give me patience.” A sound of disdain escaped Rachel’s throat, and her mother turned to her and glared. “You ought to be praying too, Rachel, for a more respectful attitude.”

“If I was going to pray, it would be for something a lot more useful than that.”

‘What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,
if
I was willing to talk to God, I’d be asking him for something a little more practical, like an explanation for why all this is happening when I’ve been so careful with how I’ve lived my life. I mean, don’t you ever wonder why he’s repaying all your years of service and obedience with this? A psycho husband and a pending divorce?”

“Your father’s illness and our separation has nothing to do with God, Rachel.”

“It doesn’t? But everything comes back to God and faith—that’s what you’ve always told me.”

“But the Bible tells us that in this life we’ll have trouble.” Her mother’s voice cracked with emotion. “What made you think you were exempt?”

“What about how ‘he holds us in his hand’? What about ‘ask and you will receive’? I don’t feel very held, and I certainly haven’t gotten what I asked for. Don’t throw the verses at me, Mom; I know them all as well as you do, and I’m having a hard time believing them right now.”

“Isn’t my faithfulness a testament to you? Isn’t the fact that God is sustaining me—and has sustained me for twenty years—evidence that he’s there? That he loves me, loves us?”

“Maybe you’re just too deluded and scared to face reality. All you have left is God. A comforting lie is better than the depressing truth, right?”

Her mother’s hand moved so fast Rachel had no time to react. The sting of it against her cheek took a moment to register through the shock. They stared at each other, stunned, tears in both theirs eyes, until Rachel stood on shaking legs and pulled a sticky note from her pocket.

“My new address.” She dropped the note to the table. She avoided her mother’s eyes as she moved to the front door. “I’ll e-mail you when I get there. Say good-bye to Dad next time you talk to him.” She let herself out and got in her car before her mother could see her break down. Part of her hoped her mom would come after her, pull her from the car, and wrap Rachel in her arms. But when she didn’t, Rachel knew the damage was done.

Her final bridge in flames, she drove home to her empty apartment for one last sleepless night in California.

o

Rachel had five minutes before the airport shuttle arrived, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d forgotten something. Her bags sat by the door, packed to bursting and just a few pounds under the weight limit. The rest of her things had been shipped the day before for an ungodly amount of money, but short of putting them on pack mules, she couldn’t have chosen a cheaper option. Her car and her few pieces of furniture had been taken care of, and all the random things she didn’t want to bring she was leaving for Trisha to deal with.

As far as she knew, that was everything. So what was she missing?

Dropping her purse by the door, she set out on one last tour of the apartment, eyes peeled for items she might have missed. The frames on the walls—all Trisha’s. The knick-knacks on the mantle. Same with the kitchen items. Rachel backtracked and went to the bedroom. Nothing in the closet. Nothing in the bathroom. She knelt to peek under the bed, pulled out the drawers of her dresser one at a time: nothing, nothing, nothing …
oh.

She set the red velvet box atop the dresser. She didn’t have to open it to know what was inside. Unable to determine its fate, Rachel had shuffled it from one resting place to another as she had systematically emptied her room. She almost wished she had forgotten it, left it behind for Julia to find when she came to pick up the dresser on Saturday. That would have been fittingly ironic, actually.

When she had turned thirteen Rachel had been baptized before the BCC congregation. After the service her family went to lunch, and just before dessert her mother had handed her the velvet box. Inside was the cross she had seen her mother wear nearly every day of her life. She’d told Rachel about her own mother, and her mother’s mother, and how each of them had worn this cross until the day of their eldest daughter’s baptism. “You come from a heritage of faith,” she’d said as she’d fastened the delicate chain around Rachel’s neck. “I hope this cross reminds you of that. You’re never alone.”

For the last thirteen years she’d worn that cross as though it was attached to her. Her fingers had worried it during final exams and difficult conversations, had zipped it along the chain with nervous energy, and had spun the clasp to the back of her neck thousands of times. Taking it off at night and putting it on in the morning were as automatic as brushing her teeth and getting dressed. Or at least, it used to be.

She took it off the night before leaving for Las Vegas, and hadn’t put it back on since. Occasionally her fingers would search for it, and she’d experience a little stab of panic that she might have lost it. But in the days of packing, when many of the reminders of the faith of her childhood had been chucked in the trash, she’d set this aside to be dealt with later. Over and over she’d run into it, set it aside, put it from her mind, only to find it again—often in places where she hadn’t remembered putting it.

She had procrastinated long enough. It was time to make a decision. Had she been thinking, she would have brought it back to her mother when she’d gone to say good-bye. Though, knowing her mom, it would have found its way back to Rachel eventually.

The doorbell rang. Rachel jumped and dropped the box, then scrambled to pick it up again with a shaking hand. As the shuttle driver hauled the first bag down the stairs, Rachel turned the lock on the doorknob and began to move the other pieces outside. She tried to stuff the box in her purse, then in her carry-on, but both were too crammed to fit the bulky cube. The driver returned again and took the second bag, eyeing the remaining carry-on with annoyance.

Rachel pulled the cross from the velvet pillow shoved it in the pocket of her skirt, then dropped the box on the ground and shouldered her bags.

It was an antique,
she reasoned. And who knew—she might need the money.

o

It was raining when Rachel walked out of the terminal at O’Hare Airport and wrestled her baggage cart to the curb. Thunder rumbled off in the distance—or was it a landing jet? Either way, it sounded ominous.

Daphne said she’d pick Rachel up in a taxi. She watched a variety of cabs approach and zoom past for twenty minutes before she started to worry. She tried Daphne’s cell but got no answer. She double-checked her location, thinking she’d accidentally parked herself in some special zone, but no. Apparently Daphne was just late.

Forty minutes had passed when a cab swerved to the curb and she saw Daphne’s face in the window. She hopped out ahead of the cabbie and grabbed Rachel with a squeal. “Soooo sorry, the traffic sucks because of the weather. It’s pouring in the city.”

“That’s all right; I called you—”

“I figured you would; I left my phone at home, totally forgot it.”

That’s my Daphne.
“No worries, just glad you’re okay. Is this—” Rachel waved a hand to the weather—“normal for June?”

They settled into the cab. “Yeah, it can rain pretty much any time of the year here, but we get tons of storms in the summer. This is pretty tame compared to what some of them are like. And of course the tornados keep things interesting too; those pretty much just come in the summer, though.”

“I didn’t realize you got tornadoes here. I’ve always imagined them sweeping through little farming communities in Kansas and Iowa.”

Daphne just laughed. “Don’t worry, they mostly hit in the ’burbs.” She grinned. “Rethinking things?”

Rachel chuckled. “Earthquakes can hit anytime; at least there’s a tornado
season
. How about you—are you rethinking things?”

“What, about you living with me? No way!” She squeezed Rachel’s arm as the cab took a sharp right onto a freeway entrance ramp. “I’m totally psyched. Your room is all scrubbed and ready for you, and I even cleaned the bathroom in your honor.”

“Wow, that’s some serious sacrifice. I owe you one.”

“Nonsense; anything for my little
Raquel
.” Her expression sobered. “So how was leaving?”

Rachel sagged into her seat, letting out a deep sigh. “I won’t lie—it was hard. Well, part of it was, anyway. Mom and I had a huge fight when I went to say good-bye last night.”

“You and Karen fought? That’s, what, your first ever?”

Rachel chuckled. “Well, of this magnitude, yes. Though I don’t think I’ve ever called her deluded or accused her of living a lie, either.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. Not my finest moment.”

“But kind of true, all the same ...”

“Yeah … I guess. Difficult to say, though.”

Daphne wrapped a comforting arm around Rachel’s shoulder. “I know. It’s hard to admit, especially out loud, that you don’t totally believe the things you used to anymore. Trust me, in a year you’ll be a new woman. No, wait, correction: You
are
a new woman; in a year you’ll be comfortable being a new woman.”