Healing Waters Read online

  He tried to turn me to face him, but I dug in. His hands slipped off my shoulders.

  “You do what you have to do,” he said. “I’ll take care of things at home. I’ll see about getting another job.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m not giving up on us.”

  I let him get all the way to the door before I said, “I’m fine here by myself.”

  Chip put his hand on the doorjamb and squeezed until I could see his skin go white, but his face showed me nothing. There was a time, far back, when I could watch all his possible responses flip through his face like cards in a Rolodex before he landed on one. Now he could make his face as impassive as a tombstone. My only clue was the strained up-and-down bob of his Adam’s apple.

  “Call me when you need me,” he said.

  When he was gone, I went to the vending machines and filled the pockets of my pink smock. Later, in the lounge after everyone else had left, I had a supper of cheese crackers and Snickers and didn’t think about Marnie perhaps slipping to my home to be with my husband, to whom I’d just given the perfect opportunity to have his affair.

  Anything not to feel.

  “No wonder we can’t pry you out of here, Sully. This place is amazing.”

  Sully handed Rusty Huff a glass of iced tea and leaned with him on the railing of Porphyria’s wraparound veranda. Below them a thick field of ragwort and bee balm tumbled toward the woods in happy abandon. Beyond, the Smokies seemed to drift in a bluegray mist.

  “Porphyria admits God doesn’t live here,” Sully said, “but she swears this is where He spends most of His time.”

  “It was the perfect place for you to heal.” Rusty took a sip from the glass and looked at it reverently. “Did God make this too?”

  “Close.” Sully grinned. “Porphyria’s trying to teach me, but I’m pretty much hopeless.”

  “Yeah, we all give anything you cook a wide margin.”

  Rusty furrowed his forehead, and Sully knew he was about to say something that made a huge amount of sense. It was the reason Sully had chosen him as acting head of Healing Choice Ministries in his absence.

  “So—you planning to bring everybody up here for healing?” Rusty said.

  “Who?”

  “You haven’t given me anything for the DVD. I thought maybe you were planning a retreat for all the hurting people who need what you’ve learned.” Rusty looked into the glass as he swirled the ice. “I think you’ve got the lamp-under-a-bushel thing going on.”

  Sully left the railing and dropped into a padded wicker chair. “I don’t think the DVD idea is going to work. I looked at what I’ve filmed so far, and I come across more like a prisoner of war than a spiritual-health guru.”

  “Yeah, you’re pretty scrawny-looking right now, but we can doctor that up.”

  Sully shook his head. “I just can’t get it all to come together yet.”

  “So maybe a full-blown DVD isn’t what you need to do right now. Maybe it’s more about the process. What about a series of podcasts?”

  Sully picked up his glass. “You mean like for the HCM Web site?”

  “Right. Like an audio magazine subscription. People can receive them however often you upload them and listen to them at their leisure—on their iPods or whatever. You can do one a week, more if you want.”

  “It’s not a matter of want. It’s a matter of can.”

  “Oh, come off it, Sully.” Rusty narrowed his gold-flecked brown eyes. “So you’re not the all-knowing Dr. Sullivan Crisp anymore. Personally, I like you better this way—a little more scarred, a little less I-got-it-all-under-control.”

  “You got that right.”

  “Then let people see that they don’t have to be at the top of their form all the time—that you struggle too.” He bounced his fist lightly off Sully’s shoulder. “That’s what you would tell anybody who came to a Healing Choice clinic.”

  “I hate it when you throw my own words up in my face.”

  “Yeah, it stinks.”

  “Podcasts,” Sully said. “What else ya got?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Is that an ultimatum?”

  “I wasn’t going to call it that.”

  Sully turned at the weight in Rusty’s voice. He studied his sweet tea. “What?” he said.

  “KIHS in Burbank has taken you off the air. They said as soon as you have something fresh they’ll be all over it. And they’re not the only ones making noises.”

  Sully shook his head. “Then it’s not an ultimatum, Rus. It’s a perfectly reasonable request. It’s definitely quiet enough up here to do it.”

  “We were thinking you might want to record them a little closer to Nashville.”

  Sully’s chin snapped up. “Why there?”

  Rusty refilled his glass from the pitcher on the table. “This isn’t just your average iced tea.”

  “It’s sweet tea,” Sully said. “It’s a Southern thing. Why Nashville?” “You remember Dr. Ukwu?”

  “Our psychiatrist from Nigeria.”

  “He wants to open a Healing Choice clinic in Franklin, just outside Nashville. We’ve got him all set to get started, but it wouldn’t hurt if you were around to consult.”

  Sully grinned. “You’re throwing me some bones here, Rusty.”

  Rusty didn’t smile back. “All I’m trying to do is get you out there where you can do some good. People’s suffering goes on, Sully. You’re the only one who can get through to some of them.”

  “I’d just like to get to myself a little more first.”

  “For the love of the Lord.” Rusty chunked his empty glass onto the table and brought his face close. “This isn’t just about you, dude.”

  Sully blinked.

  “You’ve never been anything but a vessel for God anyway—none of us is. You can keep wallowing in this if you want to, but in the meantime, at least let Him use you.” Rusty pulled his car keys out of his pocket. “Call me tomorrow and let me know if you’re going to shut up and get out of His way.”

  He backed away, hand up to stop Sully from following him.

  “Dang,” Sully said softly.

  He was going to have to get out the shovel.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Chip didn’t come to the hospital again for the next ten days. He called every night on my cell phone, said he was keeping things together—and that he worried about me. I went cold and told him I was fine. We repeated that scene nightly until it was letter-perfect.

  I cocooned myself in the world of the burn unit, which wasn’t difficult. The staff told me even they had to make an effort to keep the patients—and themselves—in touch with reality. Marnie provided enough pictures of Sonia pre–plane crash to fill a museum, and helped the nurses tack them to the walls and even the ceiling. She also suggested they play Sonia’s CDs in her room during the day.

  I’d forgotten how rich her singing voice was. I hadn’t listened to her for two years; she turned a phrase differently now, with more passion than precision. The sound of her own voice praising the Lord did seem to soothe Sonia. I hated that Marnie was the one who’d thought of it.

  An oversized calendar and a clock practically the size of Big Ben hung in her room, and the nurses said constantly, “It’s Tuesday, Sonia,” and, “What do you know? It’s suppertime!” when they hooked her up to what they affectionately called “the feed bag.” Dr. Abernathy warned me that if we didn’t do that, she’d lapse into delirium.

  Personally, I thought Sonia was far too aware of her surroundings. Her eyes expressed everything her face and voice couldn’t, sometimes pleading for information, sometimes sparking with frustration. If she didn’t get to call the shots pretty soon, she’d rip out that tube. I told her every night how many more days until she’d be able to talk.

  “Remember how Grandma Brocacini used to tell us when Christmas was coming?” I said. “Three more wake-ups. Two more wake-ups.”

  I just wished it was Christmas morning we were waiting for. I wasn�
��t sure I wanted to hear what Sonia had to say about all this.

  The rest of her “people” could talk of nothing else. If she could just speak to them, they said. They couldn’t seem to stand being in her presence without her reassurance that they were okay. God forbid they should look at her. Francesca and Georgia finally made their tearful exit back to Nashville, and Egan, Nanette, and Ivey departed soon after.

  Only Marnie remained, and for ten minutes a day, at Nurse Kim’s urging, she read Sonia the cards and e-mails she received not only from the supporters of her own ministry, but also from others whose names Marnie read with the kind of awe usually connected with Oscar winners. That and the outpouring of prayer reports and financial donations to Abundant Living Ministries brought a sheen to Sonia’s eyes. Egan had obviously wasted no time.

  Meanwhile, I tried to avoid being in any room alone with Marnie, but with only two of us left, that wasn’t easy. At least as long as she was there, I knew she wasn’t off with Chip. When she fled to her hotel in the evenings, I made myself a buffet from the vending machines and stuffed it on top of my fears.

  On the morning of no more wake-ups, they extubated Sonia. I held my own breath as she tried to find hers. We all expected the rasp that comes with having a tube in your airway for two weeks, but her first words were as cream-filled as they had ever been, and the Southern accent was firmly in place, albeit at half its former speed.

  “Thank You, Jesus,” she said. And then, “Hey, ya’ll.”

  Marnie clutched Sonia’s mummified hand and literally giggled out, “I’m so glad you’re back.”

  For an eerie moment, I couldn’t share that sentiment. As long as Sonia couldn’t speak, I could pretend this injured person wasn’t really her. With her voice restored, and with it the first stirrings of her personality, I couldn’t pretend. I knew the voice that made you feel like you were putting on lotion just listening to her, but it came out of the face of a deformed stranger.

  I pulled away from the bed, but Sonia said, “Lucia, don’t go. Marnie, leave us for a minute, would you?”

  “I’m going to call Egan,” Marnie said, and danced away as if Sonia’s face were not still bandaged over scars that even then were making inroads in her skin like a mole. As if a nasogastric tube didn’t still await her next feeding. As if Sonia was, indeed, miraculously healed and all was right with their world.

  When Marnie had completed her waltz out of the room, Sonia said, “How’s everybody else? Tell me.”

  I watched her tongue try to run itself over her lips. It must have felt like two grades of sandpaper rubbing together.

  “I’ll see what they’re giving you for dry mouth,” I said.

  “No.” Her voice caught for the first time. “Marnie seems to be okay.”

  “Marnie’s fine. She just had some stitches, which she was pretty proud of.” I didn’t mention that she’d been eager to show them off to my husband.

  “She’s a godly girl,” Sonia said. She groped for a moment. “What about Otto?”

  I glanced over my shoulder, half hoping a nurse would be there, telling me that my time was up.

  “Lucia.” She pulled her head from side to side. “They’re giving me too much dope.”

  “Quit your whinin’,” I said. “Some people would give their right arm to have this many drugs.”

  “Otto’s gone, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” I said softly. “He is.”

  “Precious Otto. He’s with God.”

  Her voice faded and, to my relief, it took her with it. Her breathing went even; her shoulders relaxed. I was momentarily envious.

  Two days after the extubation, we moved Sonia out of ICU and into what they called the rehab unit. I thought of it more as her throne room. She loved being in the middle of everything, and as she emerged from the fog from time to time, everyone else seemed to enjoy having her there.

  She prayed with each nurse, med tech, and member of the housekeeping staff who came through, and she doled out her plants and flowers to the other patients because she had too many to fit in her space. She laughed with Dr. Abernathy and assured him he would witness a career miracle.

  She kept Marnie bustling, answering every one of those cards and e-mails and giving her a daily report of donations and hits on the Web site. Marnie had to keep her apprised on how God was working, as if He were an ALM employee too.

  I helped the day nurses as much as they would let me. They were just as efficient as the ones in ICU and even more taken by Sonia’s riveting personality. While Sonia’s perfection made me want to consume carbohydrates by the bucketful, they were impressed that she wanted them to cut back on the pain meds and the sleep meds at night. They couldn’t get over that she wanted Marnie to hold a press conference in Lounge A, to which Nurse Kim put her foot down. Sonia was convinced that was because she didn’t avail herself of Kim’s counseling services.

  “She doesn’t get that I don’t need a psychiatrist,” Sonia told Marnie one day while I tucked her back into a chair after a stroll down the hall. “I imagine she’s a Buddhist, don’t you?”

  “Probably,” Marnie said, though I was sure she didn’t know Buddhism from sushi. “Yeah, I bet she’s just not used to people as strong in their faith as you are.”

  Sonia smiled. “Bless her heart. We’ll have to work on her.”

  I wondered what our Yankee mother would have thought, hearing Sonia use phrases like “bless her heart,” which all Sonia’s people seemed to feel made any statement permissible.

  I could only imagine Francesca and Georgia on the flight back to Nashville, whispering in sympathetic voices, “That Lucia is so heavy, bless her heart.” But then again, they had more than likely forgotten about me the minute I was out of their sight.

  As for my late mother, anything Sonia did would have been more than all right with her. She would probably have started saying “bless your heart” herself.

  Not long after we moved to the rehab unit, I came into Sonia’s room one morning to find her pawing at the sheets with her stillbandaged hands and rocking back and forth.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  “It hurts.”

  “What does?”

  “Everything.”

  “Have you had your pain meds yet this morning?”

  She put up her hand. “I’m not taking those.”

  “Then that’s why you hurt.”

  She stopped rocking and glared at me. Her eyes were like two glittering pebbles.

  “For Pete’s sake, Sonia,” I said. “Your whole body was traumatized. You’ve been through hell.” I refilled her water glass to give myself time to craft my next sentence. “Look, I know you’re expecting God to heal you, but—”

  “It isn’t just that.”

  I could feel my eyebrows lifting. “Then what is it?”

  Sonia turned her face to the window where the sun teased between the slats of the blinds. She licked at her lips.

  “I don’t want to get hooked,” she said. “You know how dangerous painkillers can be.”

  Yes, and thank you for your sensitivity on the matter. I rubbed my palms over the tops of my thighs and tried to recapture my numbness on this subject.

  “All right,” I said. “Yes, abuse of prescription pain medication is dangerous. But the operative word is abuse.”

  “Chip abused them,” she said. “And he never would have if he hadn’t had that back injury.”

  “Chip used them for nonmedicinal reasons. That’s what abuse is.” Even to myself, it sounded like a lecture, but how else was I supposed to keep Chip’s past from slashing at me? “Most people who take pain meds as directed never become addicted, even during long-term use.”

  “Most people,” she said. Her eyes studied me.

  “I know you aren’t ‘most people’ on just about every level I can think of,” I said. “But in this case you are. They’re not going to give you more than you need.”

  She drilled her unblinking eyes into me. “It isn
’t OxyContin, is it?”

  I wasn’t even aware she’d known what drug had destroyed Chip. But, then, he had spent three months with her, doing her program, whatever that meant.

  “No,” I said. “But it wouldn’t matter. As long as you don’t take it to relieve anxiety or deal with stress, you don’t have to worry.”

  “What about our family history?” she said.

  “Who abused drugs in our family?”

  “You know I’m talking about Tony.”

  Tony. Our father—who had apparently lost his paternal title.

  “Alcoholism is an addiction,” she said, “and addiction can be hereditary.”

  “What about God?”

  I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic. Sonia’s eyes took on a superior gleam.

  “You don’t put the Lord your God to the test, Lucia,” she said. “You don’t take a ridiculous risk and expect God to keep you out of trouble. That’s secular thinking. I’m sure Chip thought the fact that he was a gifted doctor would keep him from being caught.”

  “You’re not taking a risk. You’re taking care of yourself.”

  I stuck a straw in her water glass and pushed it at her. She shook her head.

  “I pray for Tony,” she said. “I haven’t seen him since Mother’s funeral. Have you?”

  As much as I didn’t want to talk about Chip’s issues, I wanted to discuss my father’s even less. No, I hadn’t seen him since shortly after that day, the same day Sonia had told me Chip looked worse than he had the last time she’d seen him, the same day she’d asked me when I was going to wake up to the fact that he was a drug addict and get him some help.

  Really? I wondered at the time. The same kind of help she’d gotten Dad, paying for expensive Christian rehab? While he was in there, claiming to have found Jesus, Mother died from an aneurism. Sonia grieved publicly, while I handled the cleaning out of Mother’s things and the sorry state of their financial affairs, and watched helplessly as my father relapsed.

  “Where did you drift off to?” Sonia said. Even when she smiled in the only twisted way she was now capable of, she looked allknowing.