Soul Survivor (12 page)

Let me tell you, when Andrea first came out of the bedroom with these reports about the “little man” being James, well, let’s
just say I wanted to get this information firsthand. We went back down to the bedroom, and she prompted him to tell me what
was happening. “Who is the little man?” And he said, “Me,” and then he said that the man’s name was “James,” and I thought
he was just confused about who was who. Lord knows I was confused as hell.

And then when he named the plane, called it a Corsair, I was flat knocked out. That was a very specific piece of information
about a very specific piece of equipment. How could he know that? But then, when we asked him to name the ship from which
the plane took off, he said
Natoma
; that definitely sounded Japanese. He looked at me as if I was the village idiot when I called him on it, and he stuck to
the story and insisted that it was American. I was pretty confident he got that wrong.
Natoma
had to be Japanese. I’m hammering away at a child in diapers like I’m questioning some criminal suspect.

Nevertheless, I still have to prove my point. So when Dre put James to bed I went into my office and started to Google
Natoma,
and, well, here I am, knocked out again. The word search came up with a thousand hits. There was a Lake Natoma Hotel in California,
a Natoma restaurant in Ohio—there was even a town in Kansas called
Natoma
. After a lot more
Natoma
s, I found a reference to a ship named
Natoma
. That really had me worried. I had to force myself to open the site, but it turned out to be a Geodetic Survey ship, not
an aircraft carrier. Okay! See, it’s all a coincidence. It’s all bullshit!

I almost stopped looking right there, but, you know, I didn’t want to be sloppy. There was a site about Natoma Bay in Alaska,
and I thought that since I was in the neighborhood, I might as well look into that one. There it was, the USS
Natoma Bay
CVE-62. It was a World War II escort carrier that fought in the Pacific. There was even a black and white picture of the boat.

That’s when Dre came into the office and saw my face.

August ended and life went on, but with an air of suspense and incompletion hovering over the question of James and his bad
dreams. Andrea and “the panel” were leaning toward a supernatural explanation, albeit in a lackadaisical, passive way. That
is, no one was calling up experts in the paranormal—yet. A kind of acceptance was settling in over the facts—the nightmares
and an implausible explanation.

Not so for Bruce. He regarded the Scoggin women’s whole approach as pure heresy—nothing more than New Age mumbo jumbo, and
he was not going to sit still for it. No such thing as a past life or reincarnation was going to appear under his roof. His
anger was connected to his inability to nail down the clear truth. All he had to do—to reaffirm his natural leadership of
the family, as well as bolster his obligations to his religious faith—was to establish a natural cause for James’s nocturnal
misery.

The problem was that he had run out of ideas. The
Natoma
thing had rendered him speechless. For a time, he needed to gather himself, rethink the whole business. He would solve the
riddle, but he needed some time and maybe even some help.

I was working long and hard. The stress got so bad that I finally gave in to Dre’s entreaties and joined Red’s Gym. I spent
an hour on the StairMaster, then hit the weights, so that by the time I got home my hair was not on fire.

Andrea had found Red Lerille’s gym first. It is one of those state-of-the-art, football-field–size gyms. It was a godsend
to Andrea, who had gone a little soft since being a full-time dancer. And, she noticed, her weight had ballooned to 130. Hitting
that weight was what the Scoggin girls called her “maximum schwagitude.” (“Schwag” was the family term lovingly implanted
on the little lapses of paunch and flab that accumulated over the years.) So that’s when she got serious. She’d had a child
and run a house and put on a couple of years, but now she would take it down a notch.

She didn’t have to fight her way back to her dancing weight of 105—she didn’t have to face those brutal body-cut auditions
in which casting directors decided her fate with one quick glance. She wouldn’t even have to endure a diet of bouillon cubes
and Tab to pass her own daily auditions before the mirror. Maybe she was never going to be twenty-two again, but she could
look great for thirty-eight.

Which is what she did. It was at Red’s Gym that she hit her primary goal—she got rid of her Schwag.

There was something else missing. Since the Leiningers moved to Lafayette, Andrea had been so busy with the house and James’s
and Bruce’s various crises that she hadn’t made any friends.

The neighborhood was filled with walkers and joggers, and so Andrea decided to join the parade. In her own practical and dedicated
fashion, Andrea managed to make friends.

Red’s Gym had her back to her fighting weight of 120 pounds, she had a posse of girlfriends, James was happy in Mother’s Day
Out, and Bruce was preoccupied with all his perplexing puzzles. By the end of that summer, the Leiningers had really settled
in. Lafayette began to feel like home.

O
N OCTOBER 5, with a deep sigh of relief, Andrea ran around opening all the windows, inviting the fresh breeze into her home.
The sweltering tropical weather had finally broken. James trailed behind, imitating his mother, savoring the first whiff of
autumn. It seemed as if the air of suspense created by the new details that James had shared about his dreams was softened
by the cooler weather and the drop in humidity.

And so, on that Thursday, Andrea’s native optimism kicked in. There was that zip in the air, and it was only two days until
Bruce’s fifty-first birthday (she enjoyed any excuse for a celebration), and she could tell by the slack in her clothing that
she was getting into shape, losing that “schwag.” Of course, once you have been a ballet dancer, objectivity is no longer
possible when standing before a mirror in skimpy leotards. No matter how buff she got, she always felt a twinge of disappointment;
she always half expected to see that twenty-two-year-old dancer looking back.

But ferocious discipline was also part of her history. So she took James, strapped him into his car seat, placed his diaper
bag on the floor, then got into the front and strapped herself in, ready to head for Red’s Gym.

She glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled. James had a new and comical stunt; it was a car ritual. Once he was strapped
in, he would reach up and pull an imaginary something over both ears, like slapping on earmuffs; then he would reach high
up over his head and pull another imaginary something down to the front of his mouth, like a football player pulling down
a face guard. She had no idea what it meant, but it looked cute. This had been going on for a few weeks. James did it every
time they got into the car now, and Andrea meant to mention it to Bruce. Let him stew about it. He was her go-to worrier.

They went to the gym, stopped to buy a couple of mushy birthday cards, and picked up Bruce’s gifts—several workout outfits,
a Walkman, and a jogging stroller so he could take James along—then bought some French champagne and a layered chocolate butter
cake, called a doberge, at Poupart’s Bakery.

They came home and had a light lunch. Andrea put James down for his nap and started to make dinner. She liked to cook, enjoyed
getting her hands messy and into all the sauces and ingredients. And she enjoyed the mental challenge of dreaming up menus—something
that was “grown-up” yet could be managed by a two-year-old boy who was still finding his way around the utensils. Aunt G.
J.’s recipe for chicken tetrazzini included diced chicken breasts, pasta with butter, and peas and mushrooms. That worked
for everyone.

Bruce came home from work, and the family sat down to dinner. The meals they all ate together were always the best. There
was the whole frantic run-up—setting the places, timing the courses (they always had to be served together for Bruce)—then
the calm of saying grace, followed by the unstrained conversation.

They usually played “high-low,” a game in which everybody got a chance to complain or boast about their day. James was still
trying to master the fork, and Andrea would scold him mildly when he reverted to using his hands. Table manners were important,
she said, but still those little hands would sneak out onto his plate from time to time to grab an elusive morsel.

After dinner there were the evening rituals, including the bath in which James and Bruce shared a tub and talked “man-to-man.”
Then Andrea took over, and there were the three books and the hundred kisses and the good-night routine.

But Andrea had another wrinkle. After the one hundred kisses, she had James lie on his back in his bed and close his eyes.
She ran her hand through his hair, as if she were pulling something out, and flung whatever it was to the floor.

“I’m taking out everything that scares you,” she said. “I’m taking out everything that makes you cry.” And her hand pantomimed
another grasp and pull and toss to the floor. “Everything that makes you angry or that frightens you.”

Then she reversed the process, grabbing something in the air and running her hand over his face. “Now we’re gonna put in everything
that makes you happy, everything that makes you smile, everything that makes you laugh, and all the love of everyone who loves
you.”

She ran her hand softly over his forehead with each wish—or prayer, maybe—and James called it “putting the good dreams in.”

It seemed to help—that is, the nightmares went from three or four times a week to two or three, but they didn’t stop or diminish
in intensity. It was a small victory.

After she inserted the last good dream on this first Thursday in October, Bruce came in to say good night. He kissed James
and said, “No dreams about the little man tonight, okay buddy?”

James said, “The little man’s name is James, Daddy.”

“Baby,
your
name is James,” offered Andrea.