H2O: The Novel Part 19

I slid the lock of hair back into the pages and replaced the journal in my bag. It spoke too many memories that I preferred remain silent.

"You sang all those hymns at the service like you knew them by heart."

John snickered. "I do."

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing. I'd never thought about it. Songs are as natural for me as sus.h.i.+ is for you, I guess."

"Church songs?"

"Yeah, mostly. I like the old stuff, like that chant your mom wrote down. It's still used for communion and offertory."

"Mother sang it to me every night at bath time." I watched him, the clouds beyond our airplane wing reflecting in his deep brown eyes. Eyes that stared out the window at something I couldn't see. John had a mysterious unknown about him that remained to be explored.

"What did you and my father talk about this morning?" I asked, anxious to change the direction of the conversation. The two of them had spent a long time together in the television room before we left. Remarkably, my father's attention had been diverted from his shows.

"He wanted to know if I go to church."

"Well, do you?"

"No."

I let out a sigh, relieved to have the answer to that nagging question. All of his spiritually leaning answers had led me to wonder if I was courting some sort of a church nut.

After a moment, he spoke up again. "I mean, how could I? I don't have a church yet."

"Yet?" My heart started to sink. Revelations spilled forth every day in our growing relations.h.i.+p. My revelations-and his.

"I'm a missionary, Kate. I moved to Seattle to plant a church."

"I thought you were a plumber."

He reached across the airline table and laid a hand on mine. "Being a plumber seemed like a great way to help and connect with people. I'm really glad I met you, for instance."

I pulled my hand away and turned to the window. I felt betrayed.

I could see it now. His quiet whispers were prayers. He knew Gregorian chants. A man at home in any church setting. Visiting unsuspecting women to fix toilets and spread his vision of goodness to anyone who was willing to buy it.

But he'd never pushed anything on me. In fact, while I sat there stewing, John waited. He was the textbook definition of patient.

"So. You're a Christian, then?" I snapped. "If so, I have a question."

"Hold on, Kate," he said, holding up his hands. "'Christian' is a term that's got lots of baggage attached. Sounds like you're carrying some of that weight yourself."

"What do you mean?"

"Some terrorists and abortion clinic bombers call themselves 'Christians,' too and feel justified doing so. That's not me."

"So what are you?" I asked, puzzled. My question was burning a hole in my cheek, a hot coal I had to spit out.

"Do I have to be 'something?'" he asked. He had that sad look, like he'd had on the street near Saint Michael's.

"No. I'm not trying to force a label on you. It's just that-"

"It's okay, Kate. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, but I also don't like labels. They separate people. They build walls. I want to tear walls down, to get people together." His eyes brightened with his next words. "I tell people I'm a 'Christ follower.'" He nudged me with his knee. "So. You had a question?" he asked with a grin.

I hesitated, teetering on the edge of a spiritual discussion that I wasn't sure I wanted to have. Yet, the question plagued me. I took a deep breath and then blurted it out. "What about Mother? Where is she?"

John put his hand to his chin in thought. A long silence invaded the s.p.a.ce between us.

"It depends. From what you've told me about your childhood, and about your mom, I believe she's with G.o.d now."

"But how? She was so controlling."

"Your mom could have been saved, but just as confused and imperfect as the rest of us. Being a Christ follower doesn't make us perfect. Don't judge all 'Christians' by your mother's faults-or by mine, for that matter."

"Your faults?" I said, forcing a laugh. But I really wanted to know.

"I have a past, too. I struggle with things every day. The Bible calls that 'sin,' and it's something we all struggle with, whether we want to admit it or not."

My fingers cramped from my vise grip on the hand rest. Sin. Mother used that word all the time-the guilt word-her sword to slay me whenever I did something that went against her rules or her definition of 'proper.' I hated it.

"Is it a 'sin' to be a control freak? To ruin your daughter's life?"

"It depends. I wasn't there." He paused, looking at me like he understood the turmoil that raged behind my mental veil. "I'm not pointing any fingers at you or your mom, Kate. We've all fallen short of G.o.d's goal for us, and we're all a work in progress. Your mom, too. For all her faults, at least she admitted them." John s.h.i.+fted in the seat to face me dead-on. "And G.o.d understands."

John's words tore through me, and I turned away. I had a thousand prepared speeches about my mother's hypocrisy, but something about his simple acceptance quenched my fires.

"Water?" a voice asked behind me.

Before I could get a grip on my tongue, I spun about and snapped at the flight attendant. "No!"

John put a hand up between us and plastered on another of those ice-melting smiles. "Maybe not for her, but I'd love some. Thanks." The flight attendant served him, then threw me her own version of the Ice Slice as she moved on down the aisle.

"Keep it away. Please," I said, then laughed. "Sorry. I went over the top with that."

" True. This is the stuff of dreams, Ms. Pepper," he said in jest, holding the gla.s.s my direction. "Want a sip?"

"No thanks." I moved back as close to the window as I could get. John downed the gla.s.s in a single gulp. Perhaps he did it to save me any grief.

"So. What else did you and my father talk about?"

He didn't answer right away, and then he looked me in the eye. "He asked me what my intentions were."

"Your intentions?"

"About you."

"Why would he ask that?"

"Why indeed? A strange man travels with you all the way from Seattle to New York and doesn't let go of your hand the entire time you're within reach of your wild tongue-las.h.i.+ng relatives. That might mean something," he said with a chuckle.

"It might."

"Kate, your dad loves you. He doesn't present your image of success, like a business executive might, but he's a good man. He's always done his best to give you the most he could. I'm afraid that if you don't resolve the differences with your dad, you'll lose him, and then it will be too late."

What did John know about this? He lectured me again, like in our early days on I.M.

"He loves you. People show love in lots of different ways. You might not recognize that love at first, but if you look for it, you'll find it."

"My father said that? I mean, talked about the love part?"

"He did. You should visit with him more often. I think you'd find you have more in common than you realize."

"Are you lecturing me?"

"No. I'm sharing with you. I've become a middleman between you and your father, from the sound of things."

"So. Just what are your intentions, Mr. Connor?" I asked with a girlish lilt.

John didn't respond, but smiled his impish-boy grin again. I didn't understand him well enough to read it. I poked him gently in the side to get a verbal response. "John. What did you tell my dad?"

"Now that's a start."

"What?"

"That's the first time since I've known you that you called him 'dad.' That's a good start. 'Father' is a little too formal for my blood."

I poked him again, but harder this time. "You're avoiding my question."

"I am," John said, moving his hand close to mine on the table again. "I love you, Kate. I told him I want you to be happy, whatever it takes."

He paused, wiping at the tears that sprang from my eyes. John, my caregiver.

"I told him that I want to care for you. For you to be content."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

I LOVE THE outdoors. Today promised a safe haven, a clear blue cold sky and not a cloud in sight. I could spend all the time I wanted in the open and not fear getting wet. I headed out for a long walk across town to the Fisherman's Memorial, to stroll along the piers and listen to the call of gulls on a cold winter morning. This was balm for my soul after yesterday's return from New York. Although I wanted to see Liam and his family, I craved solitude even more. I walked alone, at home in the harbor.

"Kate, sometimes we have to make hard choices."

I could hear Gramps now, uttering those words as he stood with me on the boat alongside my dying seal. That one memory would never pa.s.s away. Metaphorically speaking, I stood on that same boat again. I had a difficult decision to make, a choice of one lifestyle over another, and each had significant negatives. There was no middle ground.

I thought back to the drip of water that had fallen from the icicle suspended over John's head when I sat in the limo after Mother's funeral. That little drop sparked a feature-length movie in my head. Less and less water was required for ever greater mental punches. It would come to the point, I feared, that a single droplet of fog would send me over the crazy cliff. Could I take that chance?

"Hard choices," Gramps had said, as though he'd known all along that I would catch that seal when I let out a net so close to sh.o.r.e. He'd let me make that mistake, even at the cost of the seal's life. Perhaps to teach me an important lesson about living.

I could be my mother, a woman consumed with visions, every day a new revelation, with new imagery and graphic depictions of things that might have some importance. I'd not made that connection with my visions yet. They were images, dreams-that's all. They meant nothing, though I sensed there could be some message in them. John had shown me that. There were some common elements in nearly every vision. That Man in white, for one.

Then again, what if, as John suggested, these visions were actually evil? John said that I had to test them, that I needed to "test the spirit." The thought chilled me. I remembered enough from my Catholic upbringing to know what he meant.

I thought back to old Father Murphy and years of attending ma.s.s with Mother. My memory drifted to the scripture readings at our family dinner table, thousands of them over the years, Mother insistent that we not miss our daily Bible feeding. Could I test this spirit like John said? Something warm inside me spoke hope, a sense so strong you could almost touch it in my memory of the Man in white. I knew enough about the Devil to know that hope was not his language. Perhaps that was the acid proof. Hope, and the Man in white.

When you stripped away all the possible meanings, including the religious ones, the fact was I might be going nuts in Technicolor. Bottom line: If I chose to be Mother, I could be clean. I could bathe, wash my hair, and stand in long showers while craziness danced in my head. I'd eventually learn to control the punch of the vision, and at least be sanitary again. I could have a man; I could be clean, even though I was crazy.

On the other hand, I could be my father. I could choose to be a slob, dirty despite the bottles of hand sanitizer and mounds of used baby wipes. No one would have me, particularly not a husband. I'd have my mind but no mate. Who would want to live with a woman who never bathed? The good side to that was I'd at least be able to enjoy a clear head. But was it worth it?

These were hard choices. Be my father, a sloth on two legs? Or be my mother? In the end, it all came down to that. I tried hard to ignore the nagging third option, John's option. "Perhaps G.o.d is calling you, Kate," he'd said. "These visions might be a letter, not a life."

Then there was the matter of my health. Dr. Hunt had two messages waiting for me when we landed. The results of the medical tests had come back and they weren't good. My kidney function bordered on "poor," the kidney stones were growing, and I hadn't paid the clinic's bills. If I kept up my self-imposed hermit lifestyle, I might never work again. I might die. The odds were stacking up against the option of choosing to be my father.

I imagined holding that old ball-peen hammer in my hand, raised above the head of one of these choices, prepared to strike and kill. In a perverse way, I had to murder the father option or the mother. Not murder my parents, but make my choice to put one lifestyle ahead of the other.

One of them-one lifestyle-had to die.

I stared out across a line of boats tied to their piers, bobbing in the light chop of a windy February day. A gull dove and grabbed a morsel in the water below me as I stood at a railing, nabbing it out of the harbor and winging away in one smooth motion. I wanted that. I was desperate to dive into the water and grab something tasty, to grab hold of life and move on. As I watched the gull climb and join her friends on the wing above me, I realized that, watching her, I had no idea what ran through the bird's mind. That tiny seagull brain of hers might be overcome right now with some crazy imagery of hot, dry lands and cool rivers. But I'd never know.

I whacked my hand into the other palm, pretending to practice my hammer strike. One of those options had to die. There could be only one choice.

I chose to be my mother.

She certainly wasn't perfect. But she did seem happy, even content. I'd so hated that word-until the visions, and until I met John.

I had to be her if I wanted to be a complete woman, and a wife.

Maybe Mother had been right all along.

"Miss Pepper?" a voice asked behind me. A familiar voice.

"Liam?" I turned from the rail at the wharf, my place of solitude watching seagulls diving for fish. Liam stood beside a small bicycle, his helmeted head c.o.c.ked to one side.

"Are you okay?"

I nodded. "Yes. I'm glad you're here." I patted my back pocket and motioned toward him. "How's your whittling?"

Liam flashed thumbs up and reached into the back pocket of his jeans for the knife I had given him months ago, and then fished a freshly cut ball and chain out of the liner of his jacket. His smile stretched from ear to ear as he dangled his new creation before me. "Do you like it?"

I took the carving in my hands and sat lotus style at the base of the railing, motioning to Liam to join me. I ran the links through my hand, just like I had decades ago at Gramps' feet on the tug, in wonder that wood could flow like liquid the way this chain rippled through my fingers. "It's your best yet, Mr. Fisherman." I extended a palm and he handed over the knife. "Let me show you something, right here."

Together we tuned up his carving, paring away the last of some wood on the inside curves of his links, and I handed the chain back to him. "I'm proud of you."