Never Really Alone

Chapter Seven

I didn't date much in high school.  I was never sure if this was because the boys thought I was nuts or because their parents did.  At any rate, I was ready fifteen minutes before Stephen arrived and I spent that time wearing a rut into Aggie's front hall carpet, as I paced back and forth.  When the bell rang, right on the dot at eight o'clock my nerves were so jangled, I nearly jumped high enough to bump my head on the chandelier.  On the other hand, he was so calm and easy-going, that in no time at all I was laughing at his impression of his least favorite professors. 

We had dinner at a small Italian restaurant downtown and by the end of the evening it felt as if we'd known each other for years.  During dessert he told me that he was an only child.  His mother had died when he was six years old.  His father, also a lawyer, had raised him here in Phoenix.  And other than wanting to be a lawyer since he was ten years old, he loved mystery novels, hiking and working on his 1962 Ford Falcon.

So I told him that I was an identical twin and that my sister, Miranda Jean drowned when were seven years old.  But I stopped there.  I liked him and he was easy to be with, but I didn't think a first date was the time to drop a bomb like that.  I mean, how would it sound to someone you just met?  'Hi, my sister drowned when we were seven, but I can see her and talk to her, so she's not really dead to me.'  Great!  Doesn't really lead to an offer of a second date, does it?  I didn't think so, so I held my peace.

Stephen continued coming into the diner to study and we began going out on a pretty regular basis.  After a few months I met his father, and Stephen got to know Aggie pretty well, sharing the sunset on her porch most evenings before we went out to dinner.  Before I knew it my conversation began to be sprinkled with more 'we's' than 'I's' and all of my spare time was spent either at Aggie's or with Stephen.  After a time, I knew I had to come clean and tell him about Miranda Jean.  We were becoming too important to each other, too close to hold something back.

My birthday was coming up on Sunday and Aggie had planned a supper of her special chicken fried steak and what she called hobbled potatoes, and had invited Stephen and LeAnn.  Dinner had been great, especially listening to Aggie and LeAnn arguing about who really came up with the recipe for hobbled potatoes.  The back and forth banter had Stephen and I laughing so hard, the tears were streaming down my face and Stephen was nearly choking on his strawberry shortcake.

Finally, Aggie agreed they'd probably never know for sure and they began to clear the table.  I got up to help, but they just shooed the both of us away, so out to the porch we went.  The sun was just setting and as we sat down on the swing I decided that now was as good a time as any to tell him.

"Stephen, remember when I told you that my twin sister drowned when we were small?"  I didn't wait for his reply, I just forged ahead.  "Well, there's more to it than that.  She died, but she didn't.  Not to me.  The day of her funeral, she appeared to  me.  I could see her, her ghost I mean.  I still can, sometimes."  The expression on his face stopped me cold.  He was staring at me with a look I couldn't identify.  His face had lost most of it's color and in the darkening light he looked very pale.  I reached out and touched his shoulder.  "Stephen?"

He didn't move, didn't say anything.  He just stared, but it was almost as if he were staring through me instead of at me.  I was so sure it had been the right thing to do to tell him about Miranda Jean.  I couldn't believe I had been so wrong.  I reached out and took his hands in mine.  "Stephen, listen to me.  Stephen what is it, what's wrong?  Please let me explain."

For just a moment he put his head down and when he raised it I could see that there were tears in his eyes.  He kept hold of my hands, leaned forward and kissed me softly.  Then he spoke very quietly.  "Sarah, you don't have to explain anything.  You just took me by surprise, that's all.  I can tell by your expression that I've frightened you.  I'm sorry."

"I don't understand.  What is it?"
 
"The thing is, I've never told this to anyone...not my father, not a friend, no one.  When my mother died, I think I told you...I was six years old.  I'm not sure how long after, maybe a few weeks, maybe a month, she came to me.  I saw her and she spoke to me.  No, she didn't just speak to me, we talked and she told me to be good and that she would watch over me and that I should look after my dad.  And I promised her that I would.  I saw her four times.  In four different places and it was so real.  I wasn't asleep and I wasn't dreaming.  I never told anyone.  I didn't think anyone would believe me.  But I only saw her four times and she never came back.  I haven't thought about it in years.  Now, listening to you it's like it's just happened all over again.  She was real, wasn't she?"

"Oh Stephen, that must have been so hard for you.  Though you were the smart one, you didn't tell anyone." I smiled.  "And to answer your question, my answer to you would be yes.  I believe you did see and talk to your mother.  Then again, most people think I'm nuts.  Oh, Stephen, I was so afraid of what you might think of me."

"I love you Sarah, and there's nothing that you could ever do or say that would make me love you any less.  The fact that you can see your sister is just a part of who you are, it's not the sum of what you are.  Do you see that?"

"Most of the time I do, but sometimes I get wound up in how other people see me, my parents for example.  They only see me as an illness to be feared and held at arms length.  From the beginning they never once believed me.  They never listened to me.  So you can see why I'm not always so sure of myself and why my relationship with them is a bit strained."

He squeezed my hands even tighter.  "You don't ever have to worry about that with me.  I will always believe whatever you tell me.  I trust you Sarah.  Now, tell me more about your sister.  Do you still see her?"

I shook my head, "Not lately.  I haven't seen her since before I left home.  She's been gone for long periods before when I was in the hospital, but never like this.  Aggie says I should just be patient, but it's hard.  Having had her with me all this time is as if she never died at all.  So I've never had to deal with grief.  Now, every day without her feels more and more like death and I'm so scared that I won't see her again.  I probably sound like a fool, don't I?"

"Not at all.  You sound like someone who doesn't want to lose someone they love very much.  I'd be surprised if you felt differently.  But I think Aggie;s right.  Just try and be patient, she's been with you this long...she's bound to come back.  Everything will be alright, Sarah, I don't know how, but it will."  Then he leaned forward, put his hands on my shoulders to draw me closer, and gently but firmly, kissed me.

"Stephen," I whispered, "Aggie or LeAnn could come walking in here any minute.  I think we should wait until I walk you to your car for good-night kisses, don't you?"

"I don't think we have to worry about Aggie or LeAnn.  They're busy watching T.V. and won't be coming out here at all."

"And how would you know that?" I asked.

"Because that's what I asked Aggie to do."

I stopped and stared, "You what?"

"Never mind, it's not important.  What is important is that I love you Sarah."  Then he reached inside his pocket, pulled out a small, velvet jeweler's box and opened it.  Inside, cushioned in a pillow of velvet the color of the night sky was an engagement ring.  The diamond was emerald-cut and was circled by tiny baguettes into an antique yellow-gold setting.  "Will you marry me?"

My heart dropped into my stomach or my blood rushed into my head.  I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I thought I might faint or explode or simply pop and disappear.  Then I looked at Stephen's face and into his eyes and they reflected what I felt in my heart and everything inside me stilled and I was at peace.  I was home.  My eyes filled with tears as I reached out and touched his face with my hand and gave him my answer.  "Yes, as many times that I can say it, yes," I said.

He let out a huge sigh as if he could finally breathe again.  Then he took the ring from its resting place and put it on my finger.  It was a perfect fit.  I couldn't stop looking at, it was so extraordinary, so beautiful.  "It's wonderful Stephen, it's just right.  Wherever did you find it?"

"Well," he stammered and ran his hand through his hair.  "I hope you don't mind.  My father gave it to me.  It's my mother's.  He said it gave them so much happiness and he wished the same for us.  If you want something else, I can get you a different one."

"No, no this is the one I want.  This is the perfect ring, the right ring.  Your father is a very wise and generous man."  I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him.  It was then that Aggie and LeAnn came practically pouring onto the porch.

"Hey you two, let's save that for the honeymoon!"  Aggie had her hands on her hips and was wearing her 'I mean business' face that she reserved for rowdy customers, though she could only hold it for about three seconds before the great big 'I love you' smile broke through and she had the two of us wrapped in a bear hug without any hope of escape.

LeAnn was just as bad, but more more verbal, already making to-do lists for me of everything I would need for a wedding, from invitations to jello salad recipes to fruit punches - spiked or not?  At that point, Stephen figured out that his best move would be to leave before he got drafted for some weird task like wrapping candied almonds in tulle with satin ribbon, which he still didn't understand.  So he quietly grabbed my hand and led me through the house and out the front door to his car.  I couldn't blame him, I was getting a little nervous myself with LeAnn's plans for our wedding.

"We're just going to have a wedding, not a circus, right Sarah?"  He looked like a little, lost boy.

"Absolutely," I said as I tilted my head up to kiss him.  "We'll give LeAnn a couple of days to have her fun and then we'll plan a lovely, quiet, small wedding, just the way we want.  Okay?"

"Okay," he answered.  "I feel better already.  What makes women do that, do you think?"

"Hey now!"  I shook my finger at him.  "It's not all women.  You have to remember, LeAnn's been married a few times.  She loves weddings and considers herself to be an expert.  And you have to admit it, she is a bit flamboyant."

He started to laugh.  "A bit?  Okay, you win.  As for our wedding, the only thing I insist on is this, you, me and a preacher.  How does that sound?"

I smiled.  "It sounds good to me.  Now you better get going before they both come out here and drag me inside to talk about casserole recipes."

"Then I'm getting out of here.  But not before I get a good-night kiss."  He put his arms around me and kissed me as if we had never kissed before, but at the same time as if we had been together our whole life. 

He got into the car and started the engine.  He put it into gear and just before he put his foot on the accelerator, I touched his arm and he stopped and looked up at me.  "By the way," I said, "did I mention that I love you?"

"Yes," he said, "I believe you may have said something about that.  But I love hearing it again."  Then he smiled and slowly drove off down the road.  I went back into the house, my head filled only with thoughts of Stephen, while the plans and preparations of Aggie and LeAnn were just a far-off buzzing.

******

It wasn't long before the discussion of whether or not to invite my parents to the wedding came up.  For Aggie and Stephen there should never have been a discussion.  For me it was not so simple.  To say that my relationship with them was strained would be akin to saying that some people other than the French had heard of the Eiffel Tower. 

In the end it was Stephen's father who convinced me to invite them to the wedding.  The four of us, Stephen, I, Aggie and Jonah Kilpatrick, Stephen's father were all sitting on Aggie's porch after lunch one Sunday.  We'd been talking about the wedding, the food for the reception to be exact, and suddenly Stephen's father cleared his throat, took a long drink of his iced tea and said, "Sarah, I think there's something you need to think about."  He stood up and walked over to where I was sitting and put his hand on my shoulder.

When he spoke his voice was soft and almost mesmerizing.  "A family is a lonely place to be if there's only one.  It's true you and Stephen have each other and Stephen has me and now you do too, want me or not.  But blood is blood, dear and can never be replaced.  And it binds us deep inside, the blood and the love.  It's all wound up together at our core.  Right now you may have trouble feeling it, but someday when you need it, you'll want it to be there.  If you lock it up now and throw away the key, you won't ever be able to find it again.  Don't toss it away so easily Sarah.  Call your folks.  If not for you, then do it for the children you and Stephen may have someday."

I felt tears well up in my eyes and the pain I had carried for so long ease just a bit.  Maybe I could try and look at things from my parent's point of view.  After all, why would they believe me?  To them I was crazy.  They couldn't see Miranda Jean.  Maybe they were doing what they thought was right.  Maybe it wasn't me they wanted to get rid of, but the situation.  I wasn't sure anymore.  "Alright," I said.  "I'll think about it."

Jonah smiled.  "That's all I ask."

I wore Jonah's words like a cape for the next few days.  Sometime they stayed close to me as if the cape never stirred and his words covered me.  Other times the cape flapped about like the flag at the Post Office when a bad storm was brewing and the thought of talking to my mom and dad rode quickly in and out of my consciousness.  By the end of the week I'd made my decision.  I would call them, and quickly before I lost my nerve.  Although I could have used the moral support, I didn't want an audience, so I shooed Stephen and Aggie to the back porch, so I could make the call alone.

The phone rang seven times and I was reaching out to hang up when I heard a voice on the other line.  I put the phone to my ear and said, "Hello?"

Breathlessly, as if she'd been running up and down the stairs, I heard Sousa's voice, soft as syrup.  "Sarah Jane, is that you girl...is that you?"  With no warning at all, I felt hot tears lay tracks down my face.  I couldn't answer her, the tears just kept falling and my throat seemed to close up.  She tried again, but with more authority.  "Baby girl, I did not pick up this telephone to play games.  Now you speak to me right now, or I promise you I'll find you wherever you are, and you ain't too big to be sorry I did."

It was Sousa and I was five years old again with my hand in the cookie jar.  I slowly slid to the floor and began to cry.  The tears kept flowing, but at least now I could talk.  I wiped my nose and mouth with the back of my hand and tried to pull myself together, but I knew Sousa and what's more, she knew me inside and out and there wouldn't be any hiding.  Then again, she'd always believed me, every step of the way.  Well, I hadn't called to say hello and hang up, so I forged ahead.  "It's me Sousa, how are you?"

"How am I, how am I?  We don't hear from you in seven months and all you have to say is 'how am I?'  I could be dead and buried, child and you wouldn't know any better, now would you, for all the interest you're showing, now would you?"

"Sousa, I'm sorry, really, I'm..."

"Don't, Sarah Jane, I'm just teasing you, honey.  Oh, my sweet baby girl, how are you?  We've been so worried about you.  Now you go on and tell me everything before I have to go tell your Mama you're on the phone, 'cause you just know she's gonna have herself a real conniption.  You had a birthday, honey.  Did you have a good time?  Do you have some friends, honey, some good people around you?"

"I do, Sousa, yes I really do.  Sousa, I'm getting married  His name is Stephen Kilpatrick and he's a lawyer, well he just passed the bar exam, so he's a brand new lawyer.  Anyway, the wedding is next month on the twenty-seventh and I want you and Mom and Dad to come and be here for the wedding.  It won't be expensive and you can all stay here at Aggie's house, that's where I live.  I live in my boss's house, uhm it's a great big, old house and it has lots and lots of room and she'd love to have you all here."

I thought I could here my mother in the background, and before I could even ask, it was her voice that was speaking.  "Sarah Jane, married?  You can't be serious, Sarah Jane, marriage is a big step and you haven't been well, dear.  Don't you think you should take some time, maybe come back home and see Dr. Rudolph first...before you make any big decisions?"

There it was.  Just like always.  No matter how hard you tried to pretend it wasn't there, it was impossible.  It was like a bad pet stain on the carpet.  You could do your best to clean away the disgusting color and odor on the carpet, and for awhile it would appear to be gone.  But sooner or later, with everyone walking on that carpet, the part of the stain that had seeped all the way down to the pad will work its way back up to the surface, like a ghost stain.  And there it will be all over again.  It will just never really go away.

That was how my mother would always see me, damaged, defective, broken.  It may not have been her fault that her perception of me became skewed, but as time wore on she never chose to adjust her window on me.  Those were the facts as she knew them.

"Mom, please just try and be happy for me, okay?  I'm going to send you an invitation and all the details and some travel information that Stephen got from Amtrak and a couple of the airlines.  So you've got about six weeks to get everything planned."

"This isn't a good idea dear.  Let me get your father on the phone.  Maybe if you talked to him..."

"No, Mom, really I feel perfectly fine.  I'm alright and I'm looking forward to seeing you and Dad and Sousa.  Just call me and let me know when you'll be arriving.  I'll include phone numbers with the information and everything, okay?  Look, I have to go now, so I'll talk to you later, alright?"

"Sarah Jane, really honey, I think we should..."

"I really have to get to work, Mom.  Bye."  I hung up the phone before she could get another word in, afraid that I might rise up and tell her what I really thought of her sainted Dr. Rudolph.  I leaned against the wall next to the phone and realized that my whole body was shaking.  No matter how much I tried to be my own person, to pretend that it didn't matter how or what my mother thought of me, it did. 

I could hold down a job, have friends, get married and live a long and fruitful life, but one conversation with my mother and suddenly every something meant nothing and my own body became a traitor.  I walked over to the large parsons-style kitchen table and sat down.  I felt as heavy as if I'd been carrying river rocks in my shoes.  Would it always be this way?  I dropped my head onto my arms and silently wept.  It seemed as though I was somehow a part of every tear shed from the beginning of time.

******

The wedding was in three days and it seemed to Aggie and me that LeAnn was the one who was most likely to spontaneously combust from sheer excitement.  From all signs and appearance, anyone would think that she was the bride, instead of me.  I on the other hand was keeping a cool head about the wedding, it was the wedding guests that had me in a twist.  My folks had finally agreed to attend the wedding, with some gentle pushing from Sousa, and they were arriving that afternoon by train.

I'd helped Aggie get the house ready for company and we had spent the last two days cooking, not only for the wedding, but for the family.  If there was one thing you could depend on Aggie for, it was food.  But that morning, I was so nervous I'd fluffed, re-fluffed and fluffed again, the pillows in the guest room and the den and re-arranged the fresh flowers that I'd managed to place in almost every room.  Aggie just watched me and smiled.  "You look like a road-runner spinning his wheels and getting nowhere Sarah.  Come and sit down in the kitchen with me and we'll have a cup of coffee.  Besides you're starting to make me nervous and I'm never nervous."

I gave up and followed her into the kitchen, took a seat and immediately began drumming my fingers on the table.  Aggie brought two cups of coffee over, set them down and covered my hand with her own.  "Enough already!"  She sat down and took a long swallow of coffee, then slowly shook her head at me.  "Alright, Sarah, we need to get a handle on this.  I think maybe the first thing you need to do is breathe.  Have you tried that today?  Do you think you could just take a nice deep breath?"

I looked into her eyes and saw the love she held for me there.  Almost instantly I could feel the muscles in the back of my neck begin to loosen and my shoulders dropped a little, and finally I took a long needed breath.  "This is insane!  Why am I doing this?"

"You're the only one who really knows.  Personally, I think you just need to relax and look at things from a different perspective.  They're just people, Sarah.  They aren't monsters under the bed or villains up on a movie screen or even doctors who will take you away somewhere you don't want to go.  You're an adult now and you make your own choices about your life.  You do that, no one else does, just you.  So put them in a frame of your own choosing and see them in the light that you can deal with, it's up to you."

"A frame of my choice?  You mean if I want to I can put the past aside and start over with them now, here, today?  Is that it?"  I felt the possibilities of such a choice were so rich I could nearly taste the freedom of beginning again.

Aggie nodded.  "Yes, I suppose that could be one to look at it.  But understand that although this may be your choice, that doesn't necessarily mean they will be starting over too.  Their behavior won't change.  The change will only come from you and your way of thinking.  Do you see?"

I felt a tiny piece of hope begin to rise from a place deep inside of me.  "I think I do.  It's like a sink when there's limestone and rust in the water.  If you start out with a clean sink, but you use it everyday and never clean it, eventually the limestone and rust will cover the entire bowl of the sink.  Now, you can't change the one side, the fact that there's limestone and rust in the water.  But if you change your side, by cleaning the sink every day, the sink will never have limestone and rust deposits all over it.  So real change on one side can make a difference, can't it, although people aren't nasty rust deposits are they?" 

"Well, not all of them, I guess." 

Just then I heard Stephen knocking at the screen door and realized that it was nearly twelve forty-five.  The train was due to arrive at one-fifteen and it took about fifteen minutes to get to the station.  I grabbed my purse and off we went, Stephen to meet his future in-laws and me to begin to re-write my life's story and put myself into a whole new picture frame.

We could have waited inside the station where the ceiling fans at least moved the air around a bit, but I wanted to be outside when the train stopped.  I wanted my folks to see me as soon as they stepped onto the platform.  It was all part and parcel of wanting them to view me as a responsible adult, instead of an unstable child.  I just knew the thoughts that would fly through their heads like swallows to Capistrano, should they have to come into the staion searching for me.

Amtrak honored their advertising and the train pulled in at exactly one-fifteen.  The temperature that day had already reached nearly one-hundred degrees and the heat produced by the train must have added at least fifteen more.  It felt as if you could not only boil and egg on the sidewalk, but fry the bacon and percolate some coffee, too.  Most of the passengers had already left the train and wandered into the station before I finally saw my father helping my mother step down onto the platform.  And right behind them came Sousa, in a bright pink shirtwaist with matching shoes and a floppy, straw hat.  I began waving broadly as Stephen and I quickly walked toward them.  Just as I reached out to embrace my mother, I glanced at Sousa and right there standing next to her, smiling brightly in her yellow and green plaid sun-suit, was Miranda Jean.  I took one step back and fainted dead away.