Her Daughter’s Dream

“You don’t have to leave.”

Her mouth curved in disbelief. “You should go back inside and stay warm. You don’t want to catch cold. ” She went down the steps and disappeared around the corner.

55

Carolyn stepped inside the storage area under the garage and pulled the string attached to a swaying overhead light. She hefted another box of presto logs and set it near the door. She’d take it up in a little while. She wasn’t in any hurry to go back upstairs and walk into another private conversation.

She could use an AA meeting right now. She felt at home among others who had struggled with life. She felt Jesus’ presence there. He’d come to redeem sinners, hadn’t He? He’d raised her up from out of the mire and planted her feet on His sacred ground. Sometimes, she forgot the past entirely, until something or someone reminded her again.

Carolyn breathed in slowly and exhaled. She had other things to think about… and no time to feel sorry for herself.

Most of the stuff under the house would have to be hauled away, like the red vinyl and chrome kitchen stools from the Paxtown house. Why had Mom and Dad hung on to them all these years? The metal frames had rusted and the seats cracked. Dad’s fishing poles, net, creel, and box of flies hung on one wall, along with his brown chest- waders, two pairs of hiking boots, and an old backpack. An old AM/FM radio sat between stacks of National Geographics bound in bundles of twelve. Dad said they’d be worth something, someday. Water-damaged and worthless now, the whole collection would have to be lugged up to the road and taken to the dump. She wondered what Dad would say if he knew the entire collection was now available on CD- ROM.

Removing a canvas cover, Carolyn found a fertilizer spreader and push mower. The Jenner house didn’t have a lawn. She opened a coffinlike chest and stepped back from the stench of molding blankets and towels. Not even a rat or mouse would make a nest in there. She found Charlie’s old Lionel train, complete with engine, cars, caboose, tracks and railroad signs, station house and town buildings. Christopher would have enjoyed setting this up when he was a little boy. Had Dad forgotten about it or left it in storage because it hurt too much to be reminded of Charlie?

Another box held Charlie’s high school yearbooks. She sat in the red Adirondack chair she’d given Dad for his sixtieth birthday and opened the 1962 Amadon yearbook. Leafing through the pages, she found his senior picture, hair neat and short. She found Mitch’s picture. She loved his smile. She found other pictures of Charlie and Mitch: kneeling in the front row of the varsity football team, helmets on their knees; standing with other members of the basketball team; Charlie, head back as he laughed while hanging out on the senior lawn with friends. Friends had scrawled notes everywhere.

“I still miss you, Charlie,” Carolyn whispered and closed the book. Her brother had always had a contagious laugh. Had he lived, he’d be married with grown children and grandchildren by now.

She put her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. Her heart still ached. Being cooped up and feeling like a third wheel didn’t help. Mom and May Flower Dawn were close. That was good.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

She couldn’t undo the past. She couldn’t reclaim what had never belonged to her.

God, grant me the courage to change the things I can.

Maybe it was time to talk about the past… if she could do so with love. As much as she wanted to say it didn’t matter, it still had the power to torment her. She’d come out to the beach a hundred times and written her sins in the sand, watching them wash away. But the guilt and shame always came back to haunt her.

“God won’t take you where His love won’t protect you,” Boots had told her. “You lived through it. You’re a survivor. The past doesn’t have any power over you anymore.”

Only the power she gave it.

Boots knew about the circumstances of her pregnancy. Carolyn had told her about her life in Haight-Ashbury and Rachel Altman. She’d even confessed her relationship with Ash-sordid, abusive, heart- and soul-crushing. But she’d never told her about the beekeeper who lived next door and what she’d done with him.

God, grant me the wisdom… Your will, not mine be done.

Your will, Lord. Not Mom’s or mine or even May Flower Dawn’s.

Calm again, she stacked the yearbooks on top of the box of presto logs and headed back upstairs.

Mom sat in her recliner, reading a magazine. She glanced up as Carolyn came in the back door. “It must be freezing down there.”

“Cold and damp, but not too bad.” Dawn was asleep on the couch, the white afghan tucked around her. Carolyn set the box of presto logs on top of the other one and put the yearbooks on the coffee table. “She’s awfully pale.”

Mom put the magazine away. “She is, isn’t she? And so thin.”

“Did she tell you what made her drive across the country?”

“Just what she told us already. Pregnant women get strange urges. Maybe we’re like salmon. We want to return to the stream where we were born.”

“Then she should’ve headed for LA.” Carolyn saw Mom wince and wished she hadn’t said it. “I found Charlie’s high school yearbooks.”

Pain flickered across Mom’s face. “I haven’t looked at them in years. I won’t have any room for them when I move.”

When she moved, not if. “I’d like to keep them, if it’s all right with you.”

“Of course. You probably want some of the pictures in that box, too. I have my favorites hanging in the bedroom. I’ll take those with me.”

The lights flickered. Carolyn opened a box of presto logs. “I need to break a couple of these so we have kindling, and I’d better do it now before we lose power.” Mom told her where to find Dad’s hatchet and suggested taking one of the grocery bags under the sink to carry the pieces.

Carolyn chopped two logs into thick, pancake-size chunks; tucked a few old newspapers in the bag; and went back inside. Just as she closed the door behind herself, the lights went out and the heater shut down.

“Well, there it goes.” Mom sighed. “At least we still have some daylight, but the house is going to get cold. There won’t be heat downstairs. Why don’t you bring your things up? Dawn can sleep with me in my bed and you can have that room. We’ll keep the fire going and leave the bedroom doors ajar.”

Carolyn rearranged several boxes. “First things first, Mom. We’ve got fuel; now we need to figure out how to cook.”

“There’s a Coleman stove under Dad’s workbench.”

Carolyn went out to find it.

* * *

Dawn awakened to rain splattering the windows and a crackling fire. Granny sat quietly reading Oma’s journal. “Where’s Mom?” Dawn pushed herself up slowly, rubbing at her side.

“Out in the garage.” Granny put the journal aside.

It was growing darker by the minute. “How long have I been asleep?”

“A couple of hours. You must have needed it.” Granny studied her. “How do you feel now?”

“Groggy. Hungry.”

“Your mom is trying to find the Coleman stove. We’ll need it if we’re going to cook. The generator went off. I’m out of propane. No light, no heat, no stove.”

Dawn heard her mother come in the back door and move around in the kitchen before entering the living room. She sank wearily into the chair closest to the fire. “Finally found it under the garage. It was with Dad’s fishing poles.”