15

Mom and Dad stayed home from work. She knew they wanted to ask why she had disappeared, but didn’t, perhaps waiting for her to volunteer the information. She hadn’t been thinking about them, the grief they must have suffered, and the further grief she might cause. She hadn’t thought about anything at all. How could she tell them that she simply couldn’t bear seeing Charlie in a coffin?

“Oma’s visiting Rikka back in New York. Your aunt is having another showing. We called them last night to let them know you’d come home.”

What would Oma say when she returned?

“I went to San Francisco a half-dozen times,” Dad told her. “I thought you might be in Haight-Ashbury.”

She’d been drunk or stoned most of the time. She hadn’t even stepped outside the house that first month. They left shortly after that. “Chel and I lived on Clement Street.”

“Is she still there?” Dad sounded worried. Maybe he thought she’d change her mind and go back.

“She died of an overdose.”

“What a waste.” Mom’s words summed up everything.

They gave up trying to make conversation and did chores around the house. Carolyn felt at loose ends, not knowing what to do. When she tried to help with the dishes, Mom told her to go into the living room and relax, but Dad had the TV on and Carolyn didn’t want to hear the news. The Vietnam War was still going strong, more unpopular than ever.

She took a nap in the afternoon. Even after hours of sleep, she felt tired.

Mom awakened her. “Dad just brought Oma home from the airport. Why don’t you go over and say hello?”

Oma stood on her front porch, watching Carolyn walk across the lawn. Dad gave her an encouraging smile as he headed for the house. When Carolyn came close, Oma put her hands on her hips. “Die Verlorene kommt schliesslich nach Hause.”

Carolyn gave her a bleak look.

“I said, ‘The prodigal finally comes home.’” She let out her breath. “I’d like to beat you to within an inch of your life, but you already look like you’ve been through enough. Come inside. We’ll have some tea and talk.”

Oma filled the teakettle and slammed it on the stove. She spoke German again and corrected herself. “I haven’t any cookies, not even store-bought. Tomorrow, I’ll make a cake. You look terrible. Did they tell you that?”

“No.”

“Well, you do. You’re skin and bones! What have you been eating? air?”

“Trash.”

Oma scowled. “You look it. Do you know what you’ve done to your mother and father and me with all your foolishness?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry. Sorry!” She closed her eyes and shook her head. She sank into the chair as though her legs wouldn’t hold her up anymore. “It was my fault. I should have come to Berkeley and told you in person, brought you home with me.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Oma.”

“Tell me where you’ve been all this time and what you’ve been doing.” She waved her hand. “And I don’t mean San Francisco.”

“You don’t want to know, Oma. You really don’t.” Carolyn struggled to keep tears back.

She sighed heavily. “I guess it’s none of my business anyway.” She raised her head. “What happened to Chel?”

Leave it to Oma to ask. “Heroin overdose.” Carolyn swallowed hard. “Suicide.”

Oma looked ready to cry. “Too many young people are dying these days.”

“Where’s Charlie buried?” Carolyn hadn’t dared ask her parents.

“He could’ve been buried at Arlington, but your parents wanted him up on the hill, close to home.” Carolyn thought about Charlie and figured Mom and Dad had made the right decision. “Hildemara—” Oma corrected herself. “Your mother went up every day for the first year.”

“Can I take some flowers when I go?”

“Cut as many as you want. Anytime.” Oma got up and poured hot water over the tea bags and set the cups on the table. “Take a bottle of water along. You’ll need to refill the vase.”

They sipped tea together. Oma set her cup down. “What do you plan to do now?”

“I don’t have any idea.”

“You’re going to have to do something. Sitting around is the worst thing you can do for yourself.”

“I know.”

Oma stood behind her, stroking her shoulders. She held Carolyn’s head and kissed her crown like a blessing. “Every day is a new beginning, Liebling.”

Carolyn heard Mom and Dad talking in the morning.

“Maybe I should stay home a few more days.”

“You can’t keep watch forever, Hildie. Besides, your mother will be here. She’ll keep an eye on her.”

When Carolyn opened the door, they stopped talking. Dad was wearing his uniform. She felt relieved to see him in it. They’d been treating her like a guest.

“I’ve got to go into town and do some grocery shopping.” Mom sounded apologetic. “Would you like to go with me?”

And have everyone in town staring at her? “I’d rather stay here.”

After they both left, Carolyn went through the house. She couldn’t find a single picture of herself anywhere. Mom and Dad might have had only one child—Charlie.

She wrote a note and left it on the kitchen counter. She went over and cut flowers from Oma’s garden and walked to the cemetery. The gate had been opened so people could drive in, make the loop, and come out. Few did. Carolyn had been here before, exploring with Charlie, and never seen the caretaker.

It took some wandering before she found Charlie’s grave. He rested on the slope facing town, a row up from the iron fence, a small American flag on the headstone.

Kneeling, Carolyn removed the dead flowers, refilled the black vase with water, and arranged the fresh bouquet. Looking at the patches of golden California poppies and blue and white lupines dripping like splashed paint down the hillside, she started to talk. She cried, too. She told her brother how she’d run away the day she heard he’d been killed. She told him about the veteran she met in the park and Jesus touching her in the morning. She told him about Mary and little Charlie and Sadie and the ducks swimming on the pond.

After a while, she even told him about Dock.

She felt better for all of it, purged.

Oma stood at the end of the drive, taking mail out of the box. “You must be hungry. You’ve been gone for hours. Come on up to the cottage. I’ll fix you lunch.” She sorted the mail as they walked up the driveway together. “Your mom called. She was worried when you didn’t answer the phone.”

“I left a note.”

“I know. I saw it. I called and let her know where you went.”

“I confessed all my sins to Charlie.” She tried to make light of it.

“He’ll keep your secrets.” She handed her a few envelopes. “Put those on the kitchen counter and come on over.”

After lunch, Carolyn sat on the floor in Oma’s small living room and fingered puzzle pieces. She raked fingers through her hair and stared at the hundreds of pieces. Nothing seemed to fit. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Oma.”

“You’re going to eat right and get your health back. You’re going to stop kicking yourself. You’re going to get up and put one foot in front of the other and get on with your life. That’s what we all have to do.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“Nothing is easy, Carolyn. Life isn’t easy. We do the best we can with what God gives us.”

“I’ve made a complete mess of everything.”

“It’s not about what you’ve done. It’s about what you’re going to do now.”

Mom, Dad, and Oma took her to church. Everyone greeted her parents affectionately and then greeted her, too, eyes curious. Some talked about how they remembered her as a little girl.

“So shy and quiet. Such a pretty little thing.”

“I remember when you came to my Sunday school class the first time. You didn’t say a single word. You haven’t changed much.”

A lie they all wanted to live with.

Oma tucked her arm through Carolyn’s and stood closer. “Why don’t we find a seat?”

Carolyn felt strangely at home. She closed her eyes and listened to the choir. She listened so intently to Rev. Elias’s prayer, she felt as though she knew what words he’d speak before he said them. She listened to every word of the sermon. The message seemed to have new meaning after her experience in the park. She knew the One he talked about now. It all made sense. She had been blind. Now, she could see, even with her eyes closed. She had been deaf; now she could hear.

When the service ended, Carolyn made the long walk to the back door, where Rev. Elias stood, accepting parishioners’ thanks for an excellent sermon. He spoke warmly to her parents and Oma. The smile didn’t reach his eyes when he looked at her. “Carolyn.”

“It was a wonderful sermon, Rev. Elias.”

“How would you know? You slept through it.” He spoke tersely, then smiled at the people behind her. She took the hint and went out the door and down the steps.

Carolyn kept going to church, but kept her eyes open. She looked at Rev. Elias, hoping he knew she was paying close attention. She didn’t feel Jesus’ presence in the building, although she saw Him in her parents and Oma and some of the people who talked with her. She felt closer to God in the cemetery sitting beside Charlie’s grave or sitting on the swing her father had built. And she clung to the memory of her encounter with God in Golden Gate Park at dawn, May flowers blooming in the grass.

God loved her, even if no one else could.