Ow, pain.” I tried to stretch my body out.
Mother pulled her earplugs from her ears.“What?”
“I’m battered and bruised,” I said, rubbing my backside.
“I know. I’m permanently debilitated,” Mother said, rubbing her eyes. “But you get used to it.”This from a woman who takes her own sheets to hotels.
“There ain’t no way.”
“Don’t say ain’t.”
“Don’t boss me around at the crack of dawn.”
She laughed.“I am bossy, aren’t I?”
“Totally,” I said, leaning up on my elbow to look at her.
She rolled over on her side so we could talk face to tired face. “Your dad thinks I’m a control freak.”
“You are.”
Her eyes widened in complete shock.
“I’m certain of it.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You are chained to a monument . What makes you ask?”
“But this isn’t about being in control . This is about fighting for what I believe in.”
“I’m sure it is. I’m sure it is. Now let’s make you beautiful again.” I sat up to help pick out her mushed do.
“It really is, Savannah. I know you don’t believe me.”
I started fluffing her hair.“No, actually, I don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you are always in the middle of everything. And you couldn’t be more in the middle of this unless you had been chiseled into that monument yourself.”
“But this isn’t about me,” she said, trying to pout.
“I didn’t say it was about you. I said it was a control issue . You don’t think anyone could do it like you, so you think you have to do it yourself.” I took her by the arm and unzipped the front of the tent.“Look out there, Mother.”
“Ooh, pretty day.”
“Not at the sky, at the people . These people slept out here last night too. Any one of them would have been just as capable as you of chaining themselves to this monument.”
“But they wouldn’t have—”
“There. See, you don’t know what they would or wouldn’t have accomplished. Because you didn’t let them.”
“You think they wanted to?”
“I’m not sure. But I know at least some of them would have.”
“Well. Even so, I do believe in this.” She ducked back inside the tent.
“I know you do. I do know it’s not just about control. About controlling the city anyway. Part of it is about controlling me . My destiny. My decisions.”
“You think I did all of this for you?”
“For me, for Thomas, for other people’s children. You said exactly that to Ms. Austin.”
“But I did it for me, too, Savannah. I did this because I believe in those words up there. I try to live them the best I know. I fail miserably and often. I do try to control too much. They should have made that commandment number eleven: Thou shalt not control . Then I would have successfully kept from breaking four.”
Ooh, she had me wondering now. “Which three of the real ones have you not broken?”
“The ones about killing and the stealing. And the one about adultery. Who would want something else, when you already have the best?”
“You’ve used the Lord’s name in vain?” I asked in complete shock.
“It slipped.” She clearly felt shame over this.
A smile crept across my face as I looked at this naïve, bright, frighteningly pure woman.“I love you.”
“You what?”
“I love you . You’re completely strange, and completely abnormal, and completely perfect,” I told her.
She started sniffling.
“Do not cry . We have to make you beautiful . You are going to see the president today.”
Poor thing sucked up her tears and beamed in a most lamentable way for such a grown woman. But by the time we unzipped that tent and removed it from around her, she was beautiful. I mean, she was “local dignitary” quality. And she knew it . Those around her gasped. She beamed.
“Now, go get ’em.”
“And where will I take ’em when I get ’em?”
“To the heart of who you are.”
“You think they’ll see it?”
“As long as you let them share it with you . They won’t miss it.”
I gave her a kiss. Packed up my tent. And left her there to think. And she was thinking . You could always tell. Thinking for Vicky required extreme quiet. A rarity. And extreme furrowed brow. A BOTOX miracle . Who knew what she would uncover in the process, but at least she would look good doing it.
I slipped away to till, making a stop at my old house for Duke and some clothes. Duke looked refreshed from his and Dad’s evening indoors. About halfway around the corner I saw the long raven ponytail of one Ms. Austin flopping in front of me. I slowed my pace as she continued around the park. After yesterday’s adventure I wasn’t too sure that she would want to see me. Or I her, for that matter.
I eyed her as she headed around the corner of the back end of the park . When Duke and I turned the corner shortly thereafter, she had made her way to a park bench, facing the artsy-district side of the park. I would have to take either the mature route of pass and acknowledge, or the favored route of hightail it and run . With my very maturity questioned yesterday, I tiptoed onward.
“Hello, Ms. Austin,” I said as I neared her bench.
“Savannah,” she stated as if noting a minor detail in a mundane event. Just, “Savannah.” Flat, dry, colorless. Not, “Hey Savannah!” with a singsong effect. Not, “Hey, Savannah!” with surprise. She wiped her face with a towel.
“May I sit down?”
“It’s a public park. Public bench.”
“Is that a yes?”
“That’s an I-really-don’t-give-a-flip.” Well, at least she was offering some expression. “I’m leaving anyway.” She stood.
“Please wait,” I said, reaching out for her arm. I let go of her and sat down on the bench. She hesitantly followed. “This is Duke.”Maybe his charm could ease the tension.
“I don’t like dogs.”So much for that . Duke heard her and turned his back on the both of us.
“I just wanted to talk about yesterday.”
“Everyone will be talking about yesterday . Your picture is on the front page declaring you a thief, and your article pretty much identified everything you’ve discovered in this situation. And you made it clear what you thought of me too.”
“I didn’t even mention your name.”
“No, you referred to me as a ‘type.’ Yes, I believe that was your word.”
“No, I referred to your position as a ‘belief,’ Ms. Austin.”
“My name is Faith,” she said as if my calling her Ms. Austin was patronizing. She was right.
“I’m sorry . We all believe in something, Faith. And I said that in the course of this debate over whether this monument should stand or not, the core of people’s beliefs are the issue.”
“You know what I don’t get, Savannah? This nice act of yours. You know, the one you like to play on people. As if you are so naïve and innocent.”
“I think I made it clear in that article that I can manipulate with the best of them . Trust me, I learned a thing or two about myself this week.” Then I noticed the look on her face. I could tell she thought I had tried to manipulate her.“I genuinely liked you. And you have the same ‘nice act,’ as you call it, need I remind you.”
She glared back.“What are you talking about?”
“A few people warned me you could be vicious, but I didn’t believe them. Then I caught a glimpse of it in your opinion of Jessica, and then with the cruel things you said to my mother.”
“You never liked me, Savannah . You were looking for a story the entire time. I figured you out the first day I met you.”
“Then you need to gear up on the discernment, sister. Because I not only liked you, I admired you . Your style . Your beauty . Your professionalism. My word, I even tried to dress like you.”
“You did not.” Surprise replaced her offense.
“Did too.”
“You did?”
“Didn’t work.”
“Didn’t?”
“Ended up under a car.”
“What?”
“Long story,” I assured her. “But you know what? I like you now. I don’t agree with you. I don’t believe in your cause. And I sure don’t like your technique. But I have to appreciate your passion.“
“You have a great deal of passion yourself, Miss Sugar Daddy Stealer.” She laughed.
“I can’t believe you got that out of me.”
“I can’t believe you shouted it in front of rolling television cameras.”
“And snapping flashbulbs. Please don’t forget the flashbulbs.”
We both laughed.“You know, it’s funny . You resent in me the very things I resent in myself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, the hypocrisy,” I said, leaning back on the park bench. “The expectation that someone should be something that I have trouble being myself. Like the anger I felt when you talked about Jessica—I’ve called her worse in my head. The things you said to my mother’s face that I’ve probably thought a thousand times. But I do try. I try hard to live the things I believe.”
“I used to believe like you, Savannah. I used to have Sunday dinners with my family too, like you said in your article you have with your family. Back before Sunday ran like any other day of the week . We didn’t work . We didn’t fuss . We just were.” She leaned back against the park bench herself, and you could see her mind drift back to those memories.
“Where were you raised?”
“The suburbs of Chicago.”
“Cold?”
“Bitter. But home.”
“You miss it?”
“I miss living. I’m tired of schmoozing and acting like I like people. And always being on call. And my cell phone always ringing.”
“I think you already took care of that small matter.”
She chuckled.“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“I would think your life would be total excitement.”
“Parts are . The travel. Many of the people. But some days I just want to live. Live for me.”
“I read something one time.”
“You do a lot of that, I notice.”
“Can’t help it. I’m addicted.”
“Could have a worse one.”
“I do. Coke.”
“Savannah?! You?”
“Coca-cola.”
“Oh, girl, you better be careful how you say that.”
“I’d say you’re right. But anyway, one of my favorite writers is a man named Frederick Buechner. Brutally honest novelist. Has scared his share of people in the evangelical world. But he’s just real.”
“I like real.”
“Me too. He said in Now and Then in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”
“You remembered that?”
“Couldn’t help it. Changed me too much to forget it.”
“You really believe it?”
“Have to. It’s always been true.”
“You mean every moment in your life has been a key moment?”
“Every one has led me to where I am now. Every moment of joy—like getting my job at the paper. Every moment of shame— like being exploited by that same paper,” I said, trying to wipe the frustration from my face.“Every moment of pain—”
“You don’t know pain, Savannah . Your life is too perfect.”
“No life is perfect.”
“My life was.” She paused, eyes staring across the street at nothing. “Everything was perfect, until one day my perfect husband came home to tell me our perfect life was perfectly over.”
“I’m so sorry, Faith.”
“Oh, I don’t care. He was a jerk who sat on the second pew of our local church and was remarried to the blonde choir member on the third row, fifth seat, in no less than three weeks, when she was three months pregnant. All that in a church.”
“Could happen anywhere you find a human. Do you have any children?”
“Thank God, no.” She turned her attention back to me.
“Be careful what you say. That stone monument might have influenced you more than you know.” I smiled at her.
She chuckled.“Need to guard my figures of speech I guess.”
“Not having a child sounds like a gift in a situation like that.”
She stared deep into me.“A key moment of grace.” I studied her.
“You know, we’re not that different.”
She turned and looked at me. “Yes, we are, Savannah . We’re very different . You want a fairy-tale world to be a reality. I want a world that is progressive and moving forward, not trying to revert to stereotypes, slavery, and a takeover by a small fraction of society’s extremists.”
“Is that what you see?”
“From this side of the bench, that’s what I see.”
“That’s funny. Because that’s not what I see from this side of the bench . You know what I see?”
“I doubt that is a rhetorical question.”
“I don’t see fairy tales; I see a heritage. Ronald Reagan said Winston Churchill had the gift of vision, the willingness to see the future based on the experience of the past. I think if you throw away the past, Faith, you throw away the ability to rightly determine the future.”
She considered this before standing up to leave. “Well, the court will make the final decision here, and they’ll do it today.”
“Maybe about the placement of a one-ton piece of stone, but not about the indelible imprint its engravings will leave on a heart.”
She turned around. She had heard me. And I believe she knew they could strip every monument from here to Hawaii and not be able to erase the commandments from our hearts.“You’re odd to me . You make me crazy, in fact. But you do have a sense of grace about you, Savannah . You really do.”
Her words caused me to stop . More than being named Savannah, my name was Savannah Grace. I thought of Joy and smiled.“It’s my name. I don’t have a choice.”
“What?”
“Savannah Grace Phillips. That’s my name. So I don’t have a choice.”
“You need rest.”
“My names declare me a woman with a calling for this city and hopefully the grace needed for the people here. Do you know what your name is?”
She refused to answer. I did it for her.
“When you were born, you were placed into your mother’s arms and she looked at your face, and declared you to be Faith . The very thing you were destined to be is the very thing you have so much trouble with . The faith to believe in something.”
“Oh, I believe in something, Savannah.”
“Okay, then how about the faith to believe in someone again?”
She looked at me. And extended her hand. I responded in kind . This would stop here. I had made my point. She would make hers as well. Only time would tell whether she believed me, a woman who didn’t share her views. I may never know for sure. But it didn’t change what I saw in her.
“Do you respect me, Savannah?”
Odd coming from a woman whose mere presence seemed to demand it.“Does it matter?”
She paused.“Actually it does.”
“I respect passion, Faith. I’ve just learned that passion and unbridled anger aren’t the same thing. My mother taught me that one. She is passionate. But not angry . That is one reason I can’t help but admire her.” I paused myself. “And learn from her, I must say. And trust me, I’ve learned much the hard way this week.”
She stared into me. Not with a question. Not with a thought. Just with a stare.“It was a pleasure to meet you, Savannah Phillips.”
“And you as well, Faith Austin.” I took Duke’s leash, but he still wouldn’t look at either of us. I hadn’t defended him. He was none too happy about it either. I looked up at her as she turned to go. “I hope you find what you’re really looking for. And I think when you do, you’re going to be shocked that it was really seeking you.”
She didn’t respond. She just walked down the sidewalk of Forsythe Park and out of sight.