Sunshine Valley

Pictures

    Once he was behind the house where no one could see him, he started pacing. Long breaths escaped from his lungs in a failing attempt to regain control over his emotions. His lungs and his heart were burning.

    It seemed like hours before he could compose himself. When he went back to the porch he found her sitting on the swing with a book on her lap. “Sit.” She patted the swing beside of her.

    After a long moment, he sat down. She rested the book between them. It was a photo album. “I thought about throwing this away.” The first picture in the album was of her and her husband? Ex-husband? They looked so happy. And at that moment in their lives, who was to say they weren’t.

    “Where’d you get married?” He was trying to seem interested in an attempt to hide his true feelings. What he really wanted to ask her was how she could have married anyone but him?

    “We got married on a yacht. Mama said she’d never seen so much water in her life.” There in the album was a happy picture of Jack and Lily. At least Lily got to see her only child happily get married. She didn’t have to see the horrors this beast inflected upon her baby.

    She took that picture out, placing it on the floor. As she flipped through the album she talked, taking out every picture of her parents. “Our happiness lasted for 5 years. As time passed, he became silent, isolated. Not the man I married at all. He made one bad decision after the next. One day God told me to prepare myself.” She stopped turning the pages. Her eyes fixed on something. Maybe a blade of grass in the yard. “I sent dad a letter to tell him something was wrong. For eight years, I set him every dime I could spare. I started getting shared responsibilities out of our names.” She scoffed. “I wouldn’t even drive the car that “we” bought. I bought my VW. I was preparing for the day God warned me about. One night I came home late from work, laid my keys on the table like every night before, and got something to drink. He was watching football so I didn’t bother him and proceeded to take a shower. As I was walking to the closet from the shower, he grabbed me from behind. The next thing I remember was waking up in ICU.” She stopped talking. The album slid out of her lap onto the porch. Her eyes were closed as she spoke and her lips quivered. “I spent six months in the hospital Dillon. Six months.” Her voice was a whisper. “I had to learn everything all over again. Like a baby. I had to relearn everything.” Her hands began to tremble. He held them steady for her. It just felt like the right thing to do. She hugged him with the force of a bear, a scared timid bear. But she didn’t cry. Maybe, he thought, she was all cried out.

    “Evie,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I would have been there for you. Please know that.”

    His confession broke her heart. She allowed him to wrap his arm around her shoulder.

    “I often wondered if you knew. We had such a connection growing up. I often wondered, if by the grace of God you knew.”

    It was all he could do not to cry. “I swear to you Evie I didn’t know.”

Sunshine Valley