The Heavenly Heart (6 page)

I marked off all the days that followed with little silver stars. As the months slipped by, I got more and more excited. I waited for my parents to tell me I’d be having a baby brother or sister. But they never did, and no evidence of a baby brother or sister ever materialized.

At least, not then; it happened much later. My mother was on the phone discussing the situation with her doctor and I was listening on the other line.

“I can’t have this baby, she said. “It’s out of the question.”

“And why is that, Grace?” Dr. Morrow asked.

“It’s not my husband’s child!” she answered. “I’d rather throw myself in front of a train.”

More likely my father would have thrown her in front of that train himself.

TEN

The Golden Window

My mother’s sitting in a folding chair in the basement of St. Benedictine’s. It’s referred to as the Abby, maybe to make it more inviting, but it’ll take more than a name to transform this dismal place. The cement walls are gray. The floor is speckled concrete and the windows are small rectangular panes that hug the ceiling. Light does filter in, depending on the time of day, but you have to be six-foot seven or taller to peer out any one of them.

It’s my mother’s second visit to the group, which has a lovely name: the L.I.L.A.C. League—an acronym for Life-In spite of-Losing-A Child—a support group for parents of dead children, which, of course, isn’t lovely at all.

Their mission statement says they will
endeavor to support each other, comfort one another, respect each individual’s right to grieve at their own pace, and provide a safe arena for those who wish to vocalize their grief
.

It’s printed on a small business card in lovely script that members or families—or anyone, actually—can take and place in their wallet.

There’s a message printed on the back, as well: 
The Lilac—one of nature’s most wonderful gift—needs rich soil, adequate drainage, direct sunlight, and regular pruning for an abundance of bloom, growth and vigor.
This sounds quite lovely, and their choice of a moniker is no longer a puzzle to me.

Tonight there are twelve people, three who are here for their very first time, including my mother. They begin by introducing themselves. Then they’re encouraged to give a short description of their loss and what they hope to accomplish by coming. The man sitting to my mother’s left says he is Wendell Warren and his son was murdered after being carjacked on a downtown street in Atlanta. The killers took his BMW, but first they took his life. Mr. Warren’s struggling with the reality that it is he himself who selected and purchased the vehicle as a college graduation gift. He’s convinced that if he’d purchased a Chevy Nova, or maybe a Ford Escort, like his wife suggested, his son would still be alive.

I feel sad for him. He’s probably right. BMW’s or
Beemers
,
as my father calls them, are very popular with crooks.

The leader asks Mr. Warren if his wife will be joining them. Mr. Warren sits frozen like a deer captured in the headlamps of a car. But only for a moment, then, he bravely faces the group and says no. That is no longer possible. His wife killed herself a month after their son’s funeral.

“She shot herself in the head, he says.”

He found her in the bathtub, he whispers. “She was never one to make a mess,” he adds.

I like him very much. His eyes are kind and filled with pain, yet they twinkle like no amount of anguish can ever fully extinguish what’s always been there.

The leader says she’s very sorry and quickly moves on to my mother, who announces that she has lost her daughter in an utterly grotesque manner, doesn’t wish to ever speak of it, has absolutely no idea what she hopes to gain, but will enlighten them the moment that she does, thank you.

After the session ends, Mr. Warren invites my mother to join him for a cup of coffee. There is a Starbucks he says in the new strip mall just around the corner. He is reverent and soft-spoken, such a gentle man.

I think my mother should say yes. It’s the kindest thing to do. He is in
so
much pain. It would mean a lot to him, of this I’m sure. He offers a whisper of a smile while he waits for her answer.

My mother responds as if he’s asked her to accompany him to the back ally and perform a sex act on the main appendage of his lower body.

ELEVEN

The Golden Window

I’m dozing on the white satin pillow, too comfortable to even open my eyes, when I hear the knock at the door to my father’s hotel suite. It’s the moment I’ve been waiting for.

My mother’s meeting at St. Benedictine’s is over. I pretend she was kind enough to accept Mr. Warren’s invitation and had a coffee and even a scone at Starbucks. Then I remember the look on his kind face when my mother rejected his invitation.

But I forgive her. That’s how dedicated she is to my father. Now her devotion will be rewarded. My father has gone to great lengths to make this an evening she will remember. Surely my mother is flying to Savannah this very moment to join him.

He still has on his Armani trousers, but he’s taken off his dress shirt and is wearing the green velvet smoking jacket she bought him for Christmas, along with the blue paisley ascot that has become her favorite.

He looks like Paul Newman when Mr. Newman was younger, like the pictures featured on
Biography
, except that my father is older, of course, and has lots of gray resting at his temples. He’s forty-six but, if you didn’t know of his long history with heart disease, you’d think him to be the epitome of good health. Having recovered from his transplant, his face radiates a happiness I haven’t seen since I was little.

But it’s my mother’s face I’m eager to see right now. I continue to rest on the soft pillow in the Golden Window, my eyes closed, savoring what’s to come. Anticipation mounts. I wait for the sound of my father opening the door. Soon, I hear the slight creak of the hinge.

I snap to attention and open my eyes, wishing with all my heavenly being that I had a camera to capture this moment:  the joy on my mother’s face when she sees what awaits her, the flowers, the champagne, the enormous bed with the crème satin coverlet, the down pillows and Egyptian cotton sheets with the exquisite gold piping.

But, they don’t have cameras in Heaven.

I tell Pete we have them on Earth that take pictures to last a lifetime. He is back from his job for the day.

“Do they have ones that last for all eternity?” He replies.

He licks his finger and draws a blue line on a nearby cloud like he has scored a point. I giggle and watch the cloud float off.

“Sssshhhh,” I say, and point to my father far below me. 

He’s about to usher my mother into his suite. I lie back and close my eyes once again. I hear the click of the cylinder and the soft swoosh as the door swings open. I hear the murmuring of endearments and the heavy muffled thump when the door automatically closes itself.  I picture my father sweeping her into the room and taking her into his arms. I open my eyes and move to the edge of the Golden Window and peer closely. I’m frozen in place.

My father kisses her passionately. Her face is radiant as the morning sun, her eyes brighter than crystal. Her hair is polished black silk—
black
?
Huh
? I snap my eyes closed.
This can’t be!
I look again. Her skin is flush with color, her lips swollen and sweet as ripe nectarines. Her breasts are pressed against my father’s chest. He fumbles with her buttons and gently lifts one from its cup.

I’m overcome by their intense hunger. Each is a grand banquet the other will devour. I can’t describe it without using my mother’s words. Yes, that’s it. It’s
glorious
, this passionate resolve welling in their hearts. They cannot survive another moment outside the other’s body. 
Except! Except!
Oh, don’t let it be.
Pleaaaase!
  This is all that I pictured this moment to be. It’s all that I wanted it to be—except for one major thing. The truth that has been staring me in the face all along has arrived: It’s not my mother my father is undressing.

TWELVE

The Golden Window

Pete’s busy with Miss Lily. She got here early this morning. I want to shove her aside and wrap myself in his arms. I want to tell him what my father’s up to. I want to spit it all out and see if he can fix it. Of course, I don’t. He wants me to let go of all this stuff and travel upward to the Purple Mist, to what he says will bring me joy. “Pure joy,” he says. Right.

       So, do I trust that he knows best? Nope. I keep going back. I keep hanging on. I’m causing all this hurt, but do I stop? Nope. I gotta see what’s left behind now that I’m no longer there. It’s my very own “As the World Turns”, and I’m hooked.

I turn and watch Pete comfort Miss Lily. Her face is full of wrinkles but for an old lady she’s really cute. She’s confused. She tells Pete—insists really—that’s she’s not supposed to be here. Not yet.

“I held Mr. Mann’s hand as he took his last breath,” she says. “He was to arrive first.”

She’s referring to her husband, who Pete says won’t be arriving at all. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her.

“Mr. Mann is below,” Pete says, and the tiny woman squints through the Golden Window to see if she can spot him.

All that remains are the twisted cars of the commuter trains. They’re entwined like pretzels. They’re smoking mangled heaps of steel. The trouble started when a land rover drove onto the tracks directly in front of the train. The first train hurled itself against the vehicle and burst into flames. It derailed and collided with another going in the opposite direction.

The car where Ms. Lilly and Mr. Mann sat was sliced open like a can of tuna. The roof disappeared. The interior crumpled. The steal of the exterior is all that remains. It looks like a big shiny fish that’s been badly filleted. Rescue workers race to the hospital. Some take their time and head to the morgue. Later the cranes will come and pull the string of twisted metal apart and haul it away on freight trains. Some real smart guys will sort through it and try to find out what went wrong and who’s to blame. Earth’s very good at pointing fingers.

The newspapers will carry the story for three thousand weeks. People will pick up the front page hoping to read about a grisly murder or a motorcycle accident or maybe car-jacking, or a freak accident, like a guy drives his car off the parking deck, anything that’s a fresh-kill, but nope, it’s the same ole story.
Trains collide head on. Scores killed. Hundreds mangled
. Well, it’s true, there aren’t many survivors, but you’d think journalists could tell it once and be done with it. Nope. They’re like a bunch of blood suckers. The have to get every drop. Give them a good story and they’re on it forever. Remember OJ? Bingo—two years worth of headlines taken care of. Hey man, OJ just offed his wife. You kidding? Check it out. He’s in the white Bronco running the cops ragged down Interstate 405. They rub their palms together. They’ll make a pile of money! Maybe win a Pulitzer. Now this train wreck. Can’t you hear them? We got a major train wreck! Cool! We’ll be knee-deep in headlines till New Years.

Miss Lily squints deeper. “I can’t see him,” she says, and adjusts her glasses. She has tiny pink hands. They’re shaking. Her skin is transparent as lip gloss, her shoulders are sort of hunched and her hair’s a cap of cotton the color of silver.

Miss Lilly pulls her shawl tighter and points to a paisley bag still resting on the burgundy velvet seat.

“There,” she says. “We were sitting right there. We’ve never been apart, you know,” she says. “Fifty-nine years,” she adds and Pete nods. He places his arm around her shoulder and leads her to a garden more opulent than Eden.

“Is he
below
, below?” she says. Pete nods again as he takes Miss Lily’s hand in his.

“Oh dear,” she says, and collapses on the platinum bench along side Pete.

His eyes are pools of light, his shoulders wide and soft as rain. His arms are stronger than the ocean wind as he shelters her like a magnificent cave carved out of rock. He taps the air with his chin like a majestic maestro.

She’s weeping like a willow. I want to wrap my arms around her and tell her to chill out. Everything will be alright, but I’m still hanging on to earth, so I’m not sure it will be.

THIRTEEN

The Silver Lining

I’m in the Silver Window, but don’t want to travel through it right now. I’m perfectly happy—for awhile anyway—to stay where I am. It’s become my favorite resting spot when I want to hide out from what’s going on below. I can sit here in the Silver Window and view my life as though I live. I don’t have any trouble remembering that it’s the Golden Window that portrays what’s truly happening below and the Silver one that lets me pretend that I’m still there.

Later when I am over the shock of what my father’s up to, I’ll curl up in the Golden Window and see what’s to become of him. And what about my mother, will she be okay? I’ll find out if that woman—the dark-haired babe sitting in the lounge at the Ritz Carlton—will destroy their lives. Obviously, she was the one who knocked on my father’s door. Like, duh! Who else?

And my mother is none the wiser. She’s attending more meetings for parents of dead children, sitting quietly next to Mr. Warren, ignoring his kindnesses to her. Bad move. My father’s a philanderer, and my mother’s a fool. She should take that plate of happiness Mr. Warren has placed before her and savor it like an exquisite meal. She should relish every bite. Soon it’ll be too late. It’ll grow cold and solid as the winter blanket spread across the Colorado Mountains where we ski.  It’ll be whisked away and gobbled up by the hungry disposal of time. Pity.

FOURTEEN

The Golden Window

My mother is telling her support group of my father’s pursuit of those that have my organs. They don’t think it’s silly at all. In fact, one lady—whose daughter might have lived had they found a suitable bone marrow donor—suggested my mother should be comforted by the fact that though I died, others live.