night of grace story- part 3

Prelude

עִמָּנוּ אֵל

No amount of mental gymnastics would help Grace remember how she came to be in her own bed. She strained to recall the bridge between her last moments on the beach and this sudden homecoming, to her own room, between her own sheets. Nothing came. Nothing. She gazed dazedly at the familiar old-fashioned dusty-rose calico striped wallpaper. Momentarily distracted by the comfort of intricate repetition, she whispered,

“How did I get here?”

Did I drive home? How did I get back to my car and drive home? I could have killed somebody. Please, God, don’t let me have hurt somebody.

This was a new and nasty development. Like a sneeze when you’re driving, you try to hold the eyes open as long as possible but there’s always that moment of danger when the lids crash shut. Terrifyingly, this was no mere swerve across a double yellow line. In a quantum sneeze, one blink had landed her across town, in her own room, cozily nestled under a patchwork quilt. Grace had never lost a chunk of time before. Having spent the last three months in an altered haze, miraculously she had remained aware of her location, her surroundings.

Aware? This is an interesting assessment.

Okay, aware in the sense that I always woke up in the same spot I laid down in. I’ve never ended up somewhere without knowing how I had gotten there.

Again, interesting standard of awareness.

Your Honor, badgering the witness.

Above the din, Grace considered this development. She had lost almost everything in a few short months: lost her self, lost her self-respect, lost her morality, lost virtue,

What does that even mean?

lost consciousness. Somehow, in the carnage, she had never lost time, or space for that matter. This was a new development of terrifying proportions. The ramifications were too huge to consider. Best just to go back to sleep, simply fall back into the gray silence of ignorance. Grace reached a hand back to those moments on the beach when beautiful, elusive sleep was singing her a lullaby. Unfortunately, that window of opportunity had closed decisively. Once scorned, sleep had stormed off in a huff. She tried to squeeze her eyes closed but couldn’t overcome the high tension spring hinges that were forcing them open.

Hoping to hush even one limb into some state of relaxation, she counted the components of her bedroom as if she were counting sheep. What a perfectly ordered and lovely space; an innocent girl’s room. Grace lay stiff as a board, light as a lead-quilled feather, in one of twin brass beds with porcelain finials painted tenderly by somebody’s grandmother.

Not mine, but somebody’s.

Ruffled muslin curtains framed the window, pulled back by matching ruffled tie-backs into a dainty swoop revealing an oak tree outside barely rustling in the faintest night whisper.

So quaint, like I stole a scene from someone else's life

Right by her head stood the antique pine washbasin with its original porcelain bowl resting in an oval insert on top of the base. The bowl was also hand-painted, this time by a different somebody’s grandmother. It had been a recent and expensive addition brought back from an antique barn out east.

‘Isn’t this exactly what your bedroom needs?’Grace's mom had asked with excitement, her voice in pathetic need of some reciprocal enthusiasm. When she was young, mother and daughter had spent hours in quiet companionship decorating rooms in a dollhouse that Grace had received one bountiful Christmas. Obviously, her mom had been desperate to rekindle a life-sized version of this once companionable activity, long since outgrown. She knew her mom would have been thrilled with any spark in their relationship so she coldly stonewalled with sullen disinterest. She withheld input when her mom decided the washstand would be most practical as a nightstand.

Good choice though, Mom.

A washstand would have been a mockery; a monument to Grace’s inability to wash the accumulated debris, the stain of failed rehabilitation, the hand marks of people who had touched her. Even on the wrist, a tainted touch was traded for the hope of one tiny grain of crystallized death.

The wrist? As if.

Once upon a time, Grace had loved this room, her safest secret sanctuary. In another life, she had shared the space with a protective older sister who nurtured the role of mother hen. So many cuddly nights spent taking turns lightly scratching secret names on each other’s back—

“Do you want me to give you the chills?”

—and giggling out guesses, Annie had long since moved out, to another bedroom, then to another home and on to her own other life. Alone now, the various parts of Grace’s former nestled haven only accused her. Room inventory was having the opposite effect that she had hoped for. Each thought countermanded the slightest inch of relaxation. Her body remained ramrod straight, jaw clenched, fists bunched, toes curled under, every muscle involuntarily flexed.

Why does anybody do this drug?

Who wants to feel like this?

Why can’t I just stop?

Why do I go back there night after night?

How many times can I ask the same questions?

When will I get the answer I need?

The voices always gathered in surprising solidarity on this subject. Too bad their unified force never made a difference. Exhausted, Grace rolled to the edge of her bed and slid off the side. Her knees sank into the soft rose carpet–rougher than she remembered. She lay her weary cheek against the watery coolness of a pool of sheets and spoke in a desperate whisper.

“God, I can’t do this anymore. I have promised myself not to go back. I go back earlier every night. Please help me. I am so helpless.”

Where the tips of her curls splayed in a sunburst on the patchwork quilt, peace entered in and she slept.

עִמָּנוּ אֵל

A hand reached through the dark and touched her head. She startled awake. Panic knocked at her numbed psyche.

Did I say goodnight to Mom and Dad? Are they checking on me? Is my car in the driveway? Will they know I’m high?

With quick assurance, Grace knew it wasn’t her mother or father cradling her head. Comfort permeated every nook of her brain. The shattering neuron ricochets had ceased. Well-being warmed through her, radiating from the anonymous palm, working its way through her body. The sensation already reached the pit of her stomach, calming the acid growling and bilious self-loathing.

Who is this? Am I hallucinating?

Grace was afraid to turn around. She had always been profoundly frightened of the unknown, particularly anything that smacked of the supernatural. She had never intentionally taken hallucinogens during her free fall into drug use, precisely to avoid confrontation with demons, orange monkeys in the toilet, the abyss. Other people talked about tripping with affection. Grace couldn’t understand how a potentially terrifying journey could possibly lead to a deeper intellectual truth, a freer mind, an exciting adventure. She shuddered at the thought of purposefully inducing a dialogue with the gaping void. Surprisingly, even a crackhead has her limits.

What if somebody slipped me something? Maybe they thought it would be funny. Everybody knows how it freaks me out. The joke’s on them. If I had known it would feel like this I would have done it a long time ago.

Along the way Grace had distanced herself from the darkest corners of drug use by deliberately remaining ignorant of the world surrounding her drug of choice. Most the time she steered clear of contact with the seller by sitting in the car while someone else did the transaction. She could never remember whether it was a powder, a paste or that magical crystallized rock when it arrived at the house in those tiny treasures of foil. She ignored the steps necessary to cook it properly, turning it into the black magic she knew as freebase.

Grace knew this was magical thinking, but maybe strict adherence to a policy of hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil would lessen the blow of smoking the evil. Despite her self imposed ignorance, she had picked up snippets of info. Long time users frequently complained about the garbage being passed off as coke on the street. A universal faraway look would come to the veteran eye when anyone mentioned the good old days of ‘pure Peruvian pink flake’. Some would actually cluck a tongue, like an old aunt, and bemoan the junk being cut into the product ‘these days’. Maybe these impurities had finally caught up with Grace, infiltrating and twisting her mind.

What if I overdosed? Maybe I’m dying.

“Shalom.”

Grace didn’t know why one of the brain rioters would have said such a lovely thing. She had heard the word before. But not like this. It came bearing a bounty of wholeness, wellness, restoration, safety, completion, release, deliverance. It carried promises that Grace hadn’t imagined.

Did the hand speak that word? So beautiful.

Grace was filled with the word, it washed over her, it washed into her. She was overwhelmed with desire to see the body associated with the hand that spoke. She turned her head incrementally, fear slowing her motion to fractional measurements of rotation. A figure entered the corner of her eye and she froze. Unable to bear to finish the deed she asked,

“Who are you?”

“Grace.”

Every fiber of her being shivered at the sound of her name. She had never really loved her name. Old fashioned. It carried too much weight of responsibility. Suddenly it sounded so beautiful. Never before had her name suited her so well,

“Grace.”

The word conjured for her exactly who she was: strong arms and legs, good white teeth, green slate eyes with flecks of fiery amber, spray of tawny freckles across a teddy-bear nose, unruly brown mop of hair with golden summer streaks of light, laughing mouth whispering I love you to her brother, bitten fingernails at the top of hands with padded fingers stained by mulberries from the crooked tree down by the bay.

“Grace.”

The smell of honeysuckle radiated from his mouth. She turned slightly, in time to see a new fragrance wafting from unseen lips. It moved in a mist of light particles through the dark room. She watched, fascinated as the tiny droplets of radiance touched her shoulder. A benediction of lilacs. As she turned another eighth of an inch, a tear fell on her shoulder mingling with the perfumed flecks of light.

“Who are you?” She inquired, even though part of Grace had known this namer from the dawn of time. Inside she cried out in acknowledgement of a soul level recognition.

“Don’t you know me?” came the delicious inquiry.

Words locked in Grace’s throat. She was afraid to give the wrong answer and make him disappear. She was afraid that she did know him.

Why would you be in my room?

She knelt frozen, unable to look fully into his face. Keeping him in the farthest corner of her periphery would be safest.

“Why are you in my room?” she ventured tentatively.

“You invited me,” came the gentle and rich voice. He caressed her with his words, “I have some things I would like to show you Grace. You don’t have to look at me until you are ready. I only need you to take my hand. You can’t see what I have to offer you unless you reach out your hand.”

Why won’t I reach out?

She had never received such an enticing offer. His words wrapped her up in the softest, lightest cotton of a swaddling blanket. She felt like a baby, needing to be expertly secured against her own helpless flailing, longing atavistically for the warmth and muffled softness of a womb. Still, her hand stubbornly refused to make the reach.

Just one step

But I’m afraid.

He's too good. I just know it.

Where are we going?

What am I going to see?

Do it!

I'm so afraid.

Grace willed her disobedient arm with every ounce of concentration her brain could muster. More slowly than her turning head, her arm began to move away from her side. One micrometer of distance. Another.

I hope he’s patient.

Suddenly as if passing an unseen force field, her arm sprang out with carefree abandon. The limb remained suspended in empty space.

It’s too late. He changed his mind. You took too long.

The instant was agonizingly endless and then he touched her. Joy shot through her arm like liquid fire.

“It’s time to go. We have things to see.”