CHAPTER
twenty-eight
Hugo’s bed-wetting started again that night. He woke several times with terrible dreams, calling out for me and crying until I feared he’d make himself sick. When I came to his room, he wouldn’t tell me what he’d dreamed or what had frightened him.
I spent the last few hours of the very early morning sitting on the top step, head leaned against the wall, falling into shallow sleep until he cried out again.
On my second day with barely a wink of sleep, I felt my own sanity slipping.
“Oh, Lord,” I whispered once the morning sunshine started flooding through the windows. “Help.”
The Almighty’s help came by way of a strong cup of coffee and an early call from Marvel checking in on me.
I was still exhausted to the point of tears and ill at ease.
I checked the clock and saw that it was time to get Hugo up. If ever there was a Sunday that I needed to get to church, it was that one.
Hugo came downstairs, dressed for church but with his shirt buttoned all catawampus, and I offered to help him. I could tell by the way he stuck out his bottom lip—just a little—that he was not happy about it. But he endured my help anyway, even telling me thank you after I’d finished.
“How about some oatmeal and peaches?” I asked, getting the Quaker Oats down from the cupboard. “I could make you an egg too. We have time before we have to leave for church.”
“Yes, please,” he said, pulling at the collar of his shirt.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“It’s itchy.” He pulled it harder and then scratched at the back of his neck.
“Oh, don’t scratch too hard, you might hurt yourself.”
“I don’t like this shirt.” His voice took on a tone I hadn’t heard from him before. It was lower, edgier, aggravated.
“Is it the tag?” I stepped toward him. “Let me see.”
“No!” he yelled. “I don’t want you to.”
“Hugo, I can help you.”
“Don’t touch me!” He stomped his foot on the floor. “I don’t want you.”
“Now, this is no way to behave,” I said. “I only meant to help you.”
“I want to do it myself,” he shouted. “Leave me alone.”
“I won’t have you yelling at me, young man.”
I put out my hand to touch his shoulder, hoping to calm him. He flinched, backing away from me, a very angry scowl on his face.
“Leave me alone!” he yelled before shoving a chair in between us.
He screamed, his little face so red and his teeth bared. He kicked the table and stomped his feet again and again, yelling and flailing and throwing things on the floor. My pink coffee cup smashed into shards, my Bible fell, splayed on top of the puddle of coffee.
I stood as tall and straight as I could, refusing to walk away from him, even as he screamed for me to leave. As anxious as I felt, I didn’t let him see my hands shake or my face change from anything but calm.
Eventually his anger cooled. When it did, I knelt down, careful not to put my knees on a fragment of glass. When I reached for him, he flinched, putting up his arms as a guard. I dropped my hands, putting them on my knees.
“I love you, Hugo,” I whispered. “I would never hurt you.”
He looked at me, his hands still in front of his face.
“I know you’re scared for your mommy. I know you miss her,” I said. “This must be so confusing for you. But I am not going to hurt you and I am not going to leave you.”
The anger cracked away, showing me the face of a very sad and very scared little boy. His sobs took the place of screaming. His body fell into mine, and I held him as he shook with crying.
“I’m not mad,” I said. “It’s all right. I understand.”
He let me lift him, and I carried him to the living room, his arms tight around my neck like he was holding on for dear life.
“I miss my mommy,” he said between cries. “I want her back.”
“I know, sweet pea. I know.”
We didn’t make it to church that morning. Neither of us were in a state to be seen by anybody.
What we needed was a warm breakfast and a day to heal.
He had the old picture Bible open on the floor in front of him, and he pointed to a painting of a man sitting outside the mouth of a cave, his head in his hands.
“What’s this story?” he asked, voice raspy after his outburst.
I lowered myself to the floor beside him and squinted at the picture.
“This is Elijah,” I said, pointing at the bearded man. “What do you think happened to him?”
“He fell down?”
“Hm. I don’t know about that,” I said. “He had a very important job. He had to give messages from God to the Israelites.”
“Like mail?”
“Sort of.”
“Is he sad?” Hugo asked.
“I think he was scared.” I skimmed my fingertip over the page. “Some people didn’t like the message, so they chased him, trying to hurt him.”
I turned the page to show Hugo the painting of Elijah running from soldiers with drawn swords and angry faces.
“He had to hide from them,” I said. “God told Elijah to stand on the mountain.”
Hugo turned the page for me. Elijah stood, his robes and hair rustled by the wind.
“A very strong wind blew him around, but God wasn’t in the wind. Then an earthquake shook the mountain, but God wasn’t in it. Then a fire blazed, but God wasn’t in the flames.”
“Where was God, then?”
“I think Elijah wondered the very same thing.” I lowered my head close to Hugo’s and made my voice very quiet. “Then God came in a whisper to promise Elijah that all would be well and to give him the name of a helper.”
“Elisha,” I answered.
“They had the same name?”
“Close. But not exactly the same.”
Hugo flipped a few pages and saw a picture of Elijah riding in a chariot of flame. In the picture, Elisha knelt on the ground with his arms outstretched, and I couldn’t tell if it was in praise or grief.
For a moment, even, I thought it could have been both.
God was in the whisper.
But sometimes that whisper burned like fire.