Each workshop convened every day in the same room, alternating mornings and afternoons. The next morning I returned to Sue's.
She started the session by saying, "We only have one person signed up to read today. I'm hoping to convince the rest of you to take a chance. We're all amateurs here. My entrance into the world of professional writing is new. I still make lots of mistakes. Your only failure is in not doing what, deep inside, you long to do."
"Your only failure...." I must not fail. Even so, I didn't know how to do this.
Sue presented the lesson. The person read. We discussed his piece.
"Anyone else?" Sue said.
There was a long pause, the kind a salesman uses to prompt a sale. Thanks to Tad I knew about salesmen.
Tad, dear God, Tad. I gritted my teeth, trying to erase the image of him, hanging upside down from the tree.
"You're only failure is in not doing what, deep inside, you long to do."
I heard myself say in a shaky voice, "I could read my work. I don't know if I can get through it."
"You can take it as slowly as you need to, Raven," Sue said. Her eyes were round with kindness.
"How much should I read?" I asked, stalling.
Why I was doing this? Why couldn't I be like the rest of my family and bury it? Why did I have to expose my naked soul to the world? I wanted to go home where it was safe. I wanted to hide. But Demmy had taught me hiding did no good, and the idea of safety was delusion.
"As much as you're comfortable with," Sue said. "We have plenty of time."
Mentally kicking myself for volunteering, with my heartbeat throbbing in my throat, I began.
Demmy ran an index finger along the blade of the sword swaddled in the case next to him on the seat of the van. It was important he use this instrument this time. Grandpa Duval had given it to him, claiming it was of Roman origin forged at the time of Christ. Demmy had verified the date with the curator of a museum in New York.
He peered out the window through pummeling rain, down a street lined with walnut trees. Except for Christmas lights on the tree in the livingroom, lights in the house a half a block away went out as they did every night exactly at this time. A two-story structure built in the thirties, like the others in the neighborhood, it was neatly kept, though it could use a new coat of paint. He had considered becoming a house painter once.
His friend, Tommy, had grown up in the house. Demmy knew all the hidden compartments, where doors led, the ways to get in that no one else knew about. After Tommy died, street racing his hopped-up Camero, his parents sold the house to Mariah and Cliff Jones and moved away.
Mariah and Cliff were the last. Relief was close. The mission had been grueling. This final assignment was for little Daniel and for Ruth. He had loved her so in those days. He still did. He could see her thick dark hair falling across her linen tunic as she bent over the well and drew up the bucket. Little Daniel had been his favorite child, a fountain of moonbeams.
Demmy closed the case and carefully latched it. Yes, this was for Daniel and Ruth. Patting the pocket inside his jacket, he confirmed the letter was there.
He waited forty-five minutes to make sure the Jones' were asleep.
Leaving the keys in the ignition he climbed out. The rain was wrong, of course. It hadn't been raining on the significant day. But these were different times in a different land, and sometimes things lined up properly even though a few circumstances seemed out-of-kilter.
No cars met him as he diagonally crossed the street, stepped onto the curb, over the sidewalk and along the edge of the house, passing the vintage Chrysler. The street lamp at the end of the block provided enough light for him to make out the slanted lean-to, covering what had once been a coal chute.
He clipped the padlock on the lean-to door and abandoned the wire cutters in the rain. Once in the main part of the basement, he stacked his coat and boots next to the octopus furnace. With a penlight he located the floor-to-ceiling cupboard. He opened the wooden doors, quietly removed the shelves, glad the unit wasn't filled with preserves, and lifted out the false back, uncovering the ladder attached to the wall. With the stealth of yet-to-evaporate youth he climbed the ladder. He had always wondered why it was there. He and Tommy had made up elaborate tales about why this house had a hidden access to the second floor when the house next door, an otherwise identical one, did not. At the top he pushed up the cover, pulled himself inside the window seat and eased up the lid. A few pillows plopped to the floor. The neighbor's yard light spread a twilight glow through the hallway.
He crept along the carpet runner, ducked into the room across from the master bedroom, opened the case and removed the sword. Timing was important. It was all important. His training as a soldier had taught him that. That's why he was good at this. He was grateful to the government for teaching him the methods he needed to carry out an assignment on hold for two thousand years.
My voice wavered. I worked on regaining my composure. Sue gave me an encouraging look. I continued.
Seating himself on the floor of what had once been Tommy's room, Demmy slipped into a meditative state--a skill he'd mastered during visits to India. When he had stilled himself, he peered across the hall and listened. He heard rambunctious snoring. Good.
He gripped the sword in one hand, a stuffed sock in the other and stole in next to the Jones. He had only met them once, the last time he'd gone to church with his parents. It had been enough. Without hesitating, he eased the sock over Cliff's mouth. Before he had time to squirm Demmy lunged the recently sharpened instrument through the man's rib cage, feeling it slip between bones, through gristle and into the culprit's heart. Demmy tugged out the blade and crept to the other side of the bed. Mariah was still snoring. A second smothering and a second lunge, and she, too, was dead. He had always had efficiency of movement. His father had taught him to waste nothing.
Fire erupted inside of me, the burning kind that usually brought tears. I squelched it and read on.
The springs groaned as he climbed onto the bed, lay on his back between Cliff and Mariah, raised the sword and jerked it into his own chest. Velvety liquid puddled around him. As his connection with earthly things faded, an image beckoned him. It was little Daniel. The boy had tears in his eyes.
A cup of coffee in my hand, sleepy-eyed and disoriented, the way I was every Saturday morning, I answered the knock at the front door. On the edge of the welcome mat stood a pimply-faced police officer.
"Raven Duval?"
"Yes?" Officers never came to my door. Mildly curious, I waited for the fellow to find his voice again.
"I'm afraid I have bad news about your brother."
Dread filled my stomach with grating glass. "Which one?"
"Demetrius Alan Duval."
I gave an inner groan. "What is it? What's happened?"
"I'm afraid he's dead," the young man stammered. "It looks like he may be responsible for the death of several others, as well."
"No, that's not possible. Not Demmy. He wouldn't do anything like that," I said, surprised I didn't feel anything. My brain, my emotions dialed instantly to numb.
"We found a letter in the pocket of his coat. It's addressed to you. Can I come in?"
"Sure." This could not be real. Demmy was a good guy. The best. I led the officer to the kitchen and offered him coffee.
"Thanks." He handed me an envelope. "Is this his handwriting?"
"Yes. " So many times Demmy had recorded his thoughts and shared them with me. He was a writer, a poet, a man of strong spiritual beliefs, the finest person I'd ever met. Seated with the policeman at the kitchen table, I opened the envelope.
Sobs, I had carefully imprisoned, choked off my voice. Mortified, I struggled to gain control, fearing I might unleash pain that had been accumulating for disremembered eons. Often, I felt it festering.
Stiffening my muscles, I held my breath and paralyzed my emotions. When the sh
uddering ceased I took the tissue someone offered. No one seemed to be breathing. I dabbed my eyes and looked at Sue.
"You don't need to read anymore unless you want to," she said.
Class members gave awkward murmurs.
"It's been so hard." Again, I nearly choked.
Sue said, "I remember hearing about the tragedies on the news."
"We couldn't watch it for weeks. Reporters hounded us," I said.
"They can be such ghouls," said a man seated behind me. He touched my shoulder in comfort. "When my daughter came up missing the media was on our porch every day for two months. Every day they wanted to know how we felt. I got so exasperated I finally told them to get jobs that didn't depend on ruining lives."
"Did it help?" Sue asked.
"No," he said. "They were back strong as ever the next day, with an occasional comment on the evening news about how we felt the media was exploiting us. They made us out to be horrible parents, like if we'd been good ones, she wouldn't have been kidnapped. I decided right then that reporters are born without souls."
"Did you get her back safe?" I asked.
"Yes, thank God. One day she just showed up on the back porch, battered and bruised."
"Is she okay?" Sue asked.
"I'm not sure," the man said. "Except for initial statements to the police, she hasn't talked about it."
"My parents were good to us, to all three of us," I said. "They were devastated. We couldn't believe he could have done it. It was so...such a...."
"Shock?" Sue said.
"Yes."
"Had he ever given any indication of mental illness before?" a woman asked.
"No, nothing." I huddled to myself, working to maintain the newly fabricated calm.
"Any family history of violence, mental illness or drugs?" asked someone else.
"No."
"Did anyone in the community treat your family badly after that?" the man asked.
"Yes, " I said, my voice wavering. "People they'd known for thirty years, turned on my parents, even some of the members of their church."
When class was over, my classmates filed passed me. One woman squeezed my arm.
"Are you okay?" Sue said, when everyone else was gone.
I nodded. "These days I can usually bring myself back to normal in a fairly short time."
"How much of your manuscript did you bring with you?"
"All of it."
"I was wondering if you'd let me look it over?" She said it with such kindness I nearly started crying.
"Sure." I handed her the envelope.
"Thank you," she said. "It's a poignant story."
Not sure what to say, unsure if she wanted anything else, afraid of a reaction that might thrust me further into the pit, I left. Once outside, I wandered the complex along narrow driveways, passed the two swimming pools and the building that held my room. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be anywhere. Location changed nothing.
Guests walking by didn't appear to see the need in my eyes. The man whose daughter had disappeared--I couldn't figure out why he hadn't talked to me after class. Surely someone could help me. Of course, they didn't have answers either, not for what I was going through, maybe not for anything. Maybe there were no answers. If that was true, all this pain was for nothing. For nothing. How could it be for nothing?
At the edge of the complex I found a city street and absently followed it. At the end appeared an old church the same vintage and style as the motel's cottages. The parking lot was full. I had forgotten it was Sunday. I was in no mood for church. I was in no mood for God. But I had to do something, and Grandma Duval had always told me I would find my answers in church.
Fat chance.
In spite of my inner argument against it, I entered the chapel and slipped in front of a pew several rows from the back. On the wall above the altar hung a huge wooden sculpture of Christ. It was not of a broken savior sagging from beams of wood. This one stood facing the audience as though about to take flight. His form, his presentation were exquisite.
It was the first time since Tad's death that I hadn't wanted to spit on the image of God. It was the artist's doing. It had to be. The sculptor had been inspired. I knew about inspiration, about following it where it led.
Standing with the parishioners I studied the carving of the man revered by millions. To the left of the podium the folk band picked up their instruments and launched into song. With the others around me, I joined in.
"He ain't heavy, he's my brother," crescendoed to the rafters and into my heart.
Tucked in carefully, so I would not remember until the moment was right, a truth began to break free, taunting me to peel away the layers. If only. If only what? I didn't know. I only knew that over the years, once in a while, I had been drawn to find a church. Whenever the call came, I followed it. But this time was different. What seemed to be the next step tugged at me, a haunting realization waiting to be born.
The song ended. We kneeled on prayer boards attached to the back of the pews. A woman at the podium led a prayer about unity. When she was finished, the congregation rose. One row at a time they filed forward to receive wafers and wine. I stood and waited, watched, but did not focus on them, only the man on the wall. He stirred fervent emotions that felt ancient. An illusive truth set on me like obscured memory.
Usually I did not take part in sacraments. They were, after all, acknowledgment of belief. I'd let the others file past, allowing them the ritual of their faith. This time, robotically, I proceeded forward with the rest. On the sidewalls above us were the poetic words of St. Francis, a man who had so loved Christ. Brother Sun, Sister Moon, it read.
Reaching the front I found myself before an elderly priest. He smiled, dunked a wafer in wine and touched it to my lips. In his eyes I saw kindness. And something else, something I could not identify.
He took my hands, kissed my fingers and whispered, "All people are God's people, honey. Each must find the way that is right for them."
The moment stretched toward eternity. Tears slipped from my heart.
His tender touch, his expression stayed with me when I returned to my seat. Once the service was over, I exited quickly, not wanting to talk to anyone, not sure what I was feeling or why. Eyes cast downward, pondering what to do, I descended the wooden steps and bumped into someone. Startled, I looked up.
"Jessie. Gees, I didn't see you."
"Obviously," he said, grinning.
He looked remarkably different than the day before. His face and arms were reddened by the sun. He wore off-white slacks and a matching polo shirt, the quality worn by those born to wealth.
"Good service, don't you think?" he said. "Whenever I come to Santa Barbara I attend this one. There's something healing about it."
"There's something all right." I glanced at my watch. "So, you're a religious man?"
"Spiritual is a more accurate label. Each person has to find the way that's right for them."
Shiver-bumps spread over my arms.
"We've got half an hour before the next round of workshops starts," he said. "I was thinking of attending the one about tapping the right side of the brain. I'd be pleased if you'd come with me, after we pick up something to eat, my treat. What do you say?"
"Well, I...."
"No pressure. No come on. I promise." His eyes were soft, the way a man's were when he was falling in love. The mixed message confused me.
"Sure, why not?" Wondering why I had agreed, I listened to his chatter as we headed for the Railroad Diner.
We were still munching lunch, when we made it to the workshop in one of the beachfront units, a few minutes after it began. It was stuffed with people, like Barnaby's had been. We found a bare section of wall and slid to the floor.
"I'm Melissa Hamel. If you're looking for Adventures on the Right Side of the Brain, you're in the right place," said the pretty middle-aged
woman. Dressed in black tights and a thigh-length colorful shirt, she was seated in the center of the living room with others circled around her.
Beyond the sliding glass door, down over the deck the gentle waves of summer lapped the beach.
"What I hope to do during this conference," she said, " is to guide you through enough mental exercises so you can begin to tap the powerful resources on the right side of the brain. This is the locus of creativity in the physical body. Free it and we free ourselves.
"The left side always wants to be in charge. It acts as our parent, our mathematician, our policeman dictating what it thinks we should want. The left is a bully. It doesn't like to let the right side come out to play. It is the right side where our humanity lies, the part that connects us to our uniqueness. It promotes the things that make us truly happy.
"If we look at a sunset, for example, the left side wants to explain the science that makes it work. The right side gets swept away in the beauty. I'm sure you've heard that some people are left brain dominant, others right brain. From what I've seen this is true. One can debate balancing the two and all the research that's been done. That's not my focus. I'm here to help you tap your right side so you can become more creative writers, free your right side to sees pictures and paint them with words. Leave the left side to worrying about sentence structure, punctuation and dangling participles.
"What I plan to do now is to guide you into a meditative state. Those of you who came to the workshop yesterday will remember I guided you to a walk on the beach. Today, I'm going to demonstrate that you can go home again."
I didn't want to go home. Home was a place without Tad. Wanting to bolt from the class, I glanced at Jessie. He grinned. He seemed to do that a lot. It must be nice to feel so good. I wished I could. I so wished I could.
She guided us into a relaxed state. It wasn't long before I felt myself shimmer.
"Let your thoughts carry you back to the early years of your life," she said. "Some people have trouble remembering so far back. Others return easily. If you think of something that mattered a lot to you then--a doll, a toy, a special object --it might help."
A white rose on a patch of aqua blue appeared in my thoughts.
"When you see your object, what do you see with it?" she said. "Are other people around? Are you alone? How do you feel? What colors do you see? How old are you? You're looking for feelings more than facts. All memory is fiction. No one can remember exactly how it was, even those who claim perfect recall. Your consciousness fabricates the missing pieces and decides they're true. Right now, we are looking for your inner truths, the realizations that came to you as a result of this object."
I couldn't figure out why was I seeing a white rose. My mother grew red, pink and yellow ones. Grandma White Bear had cultivated, wait a minute, they had all been white.
"See your object. Imprint it on your mind. Write down whatever memories come with it, as you would a dream, without editing."
My free-floating rose moved out over rock-infested mountains and valleys dappled with groves of trees. Clustered up next to a hillside and over the top was a village of mud brick houses. Nearby, just down from a protrusion of knobby boulders were a group of white attached homes. They surrounded a common courtyard. My inner camera zoomed to the end of the yard. The entrance to one of the homes was tucked beneath an archway. Carved on a thick wooden door was a rose. My white one merged with it.
What?
"Don't worry if the things you see don't make sense," Melissa said. "Write them down anyway. The over-mind, that which some call a soul, is connected to a unique computer. It stores all kinds of information. Go with it. The answers you need will come to you as you need them, if you give yourself a chance."
I recorded what I saw and waited for the others to finish. When they were through, the leader asked if anyone wanted to read their memories. Several did. After class, still puzzling about what I had seen, I left with Jessie.
"What say I buy you a coke?" He led me to a vending machine at the end of the building.
"You look like you saw something significant."
I shook my head no. "It was total fiction. I've never been to that place. I certainly have no affinity for white roses."
He gave me a sideways grin. "Did you know they were Mother Mary's favorite?"
"Jesus' mother?" I said, uneasy. I didn't want to talk about Jesus or anything related. After Tad's death I painted very little at the community center. I had left most of its completion to my associates.
"Uh huh."
"I heard she liked lilies."
"Oh, she did. She liked all living beings. But white roses held special meaning for her."
"How do you know that?"
Brisk ocean wind swept around us. I shivered.
"I've explored a lot of old texts."
"Are you a scholar?"
"You could say that."
"Do you know why Mary liked them?" Suddenly, it seemed very important.
"My information doesn't always come with explanations."
"Well, whatever. I don't have the need to worry about it," I said and sipped my coke.
The sky was hazy blue. The wind slowed to a refreshing breeze. I drew a pleasant breath and was about to slip into a Zen moment the way Demmy had taught me, when unexpectedly Jessie kissed my cheek.
"For Ruth," he said.
Chapter 4