Temporary Safe Refuge

Rachel knew that the rental car attendant could tell by her face that something was wrong. She imagined that after hundreds of nondescript faces and signatures and repetitious instructions it was only occasionally that an individual stood out. She knew he dreaded asking, and she hoped to God he didn't, but it came anyway.

"Is everything okay?" he half-whispered.

Of course, she started crying immediately. She shook her head. Words were too much.

"Bad news?" he asked. She nodded the tiniest of nods, hoping the tears would dry up quickly. It was a good enough answer. 'Bad memories' were just too many syllables.

He looked around rapidly and disappeared immediately into the back. She thought she might have scared him off, but then he returned. He handed her two blue towels that they use to wipe off the cars. "Sorry," he muttered, looking down at the paperwork. "No tissues." Perhaps more embarrassed by the blue towels than her tears now.

She tried to smile but tears welled. She just wanted to sign and get in the car and drive and drive and drive. Finally the keys, and then out on the road.

Rachel took deep breaths as she weaved in and out of the light traffic merging from the airport access to the highway. The tears were still dripping, but she didn't bother to wipe them.

"I'm leaking," she mused. The tears were steadily dropping, pushed up by the huge weight that had settled on her heart. Five hours of driving ahead, almost a straight shot to home. Enough to get these crazy emotions under control.

"Going to the hardware store for eggs...." it was one of Rachel's favorite sayings that reminded her and her close friends to stop expecting things of people who were unable to give them. In this case, it was her. She had to make this trip home, and she didn't have the tools to survive. The more miles that sped under the tires, the more the pressure in her chest built.

After a few hours, Rachel stopped at a small truck stop in the desert. She was crossing the state line into her home state. The thoughts she had been blocking through the cross country flight and now the road trip came flooding in just as the state sign came into her view.

She had so many memories of road trips with her dad, crossing over this very spot. Rachel remembered her parents getting the family up in the early hours of the morning to travel - to avoid traffic, she guessed now. But, considering that this was one of the least populated areas of the country, perhaps it was just because they liked to travel in the night.

The kids would lay in the back of the station wagon, piled on each other and one in the bottom of the car, just stirring as the sun came up over the mountains and lit up the car. Memories of bar-b-que potato chips and root beer soda came rushing back. They were her dad's favorite traveling foods, and Rachel knew she subconsciously followed the tradition. She took an extra few minutes to buy the chips and drink inside the station before she got back on the road.

This time, she avoided all eye contact with the service attendant. No use risking a good bawl here, she thought.

Rachel knew she was mentally bracing herself for more memories as she got closer to home. She concentrated on trying to remember landmarks or specific buildings, avoiding the inevitable. Avoiding thinking about what was waiting her there.

"Why do I call it home?" she wondered suddenly. It's not home. It's never been home. I left the day I graduated from high school and I moved as far across the country as I could get. That should be saying something. Who leaves their childhood and family behind like that and returns calling it home?

"Enemy camp is more like it." Too harsh, strike that. I'm grown up now. I've come to terms with it all. Rachel's thoughts started to ramble and she was startled by her cell phone ringing. She hadn't expected coverage crossing the mountain range.

She pulled over when she heard a friendly voice. "How is the trip?" her friend and mentor Cindy asked.

"Hmm," Rachel bought some time answering. Candid, or safe? She went with candid. She was running out of time.

"I'm an emotional wreck. I can't believe I am this upset and I am not even there yet."

"You've got a lot going on, Rachel. Don't underestimate it. Give yourself some breaks. And don't forget to breathe. You might find more than you bargained for." Cindy always knew the right things to say.

Rachel took another few minutes after the call to watch the quieting valley. She took the opportunity to make some follow up calls to clients back HOME -- "my real home" she mused. She knew she was stalling. An hour later she stopped for gas. More breathing. Then a pit stop at Wal-Mart for flowers and a CD. Somehow, the predictability of the Wal-Mart so far away from her everyday surroundings struck her as bizarrely calming. She knew she just had over an hour left on the ride.

Rachel watched the sun drop as she traveled the last miles into her father's valley. She drove through the never ending stretches of lava rock and sand and sage brush as the light started to fail. "I forget how flat it is out here - how far a body can see." She spoke aloud, just to hear herself think. Besides the short conversations on the phone, she hadn't spoken to anyone since she had left her bed thirteen hours ago.

As she came over the last swell of the volcanic region into the lush farmland of Southeastern Idaho, the panic that she had pushed down started to rise. Her mother always claimed she could recognize the boys' lights coming home as they crossed this last hill into the valley. It was hogwash, but somehow, growing up, Rachel had believed it. She wondered if her mother was watching the swell now, waiting for her lights. More hogwash. More wishful thinking.

Rachel took a moment to admire the neat valley. It was too early in the year for the giant circles of sprinklers to be spitting with valuable water, but the regularity of the planned farms seemed to soothe her. She started to think out her strategy. She had to find a way to stay away from the house at night. The memories would be too bad. Her mother would be too much. She would stop at her brother's on the way in and leave her bag. That would work.

As she pulled into the small town, Rachel was not surprised to see the same houses, even the same vehicles from 20 years ago. Nothing ever changes here, she groaned. Then, surprisingly, a new church loomed on her own street corner, on the land the community always called the church field. It was a nice building, with a backdrop of the kept flat fields and the majestic Rocky Mountains. There was snow on the ground here, and Rachel knew from recent family phone calls that it was several weeks old. It had been too cold to melt it. The Rocky's wore their white caps proudly. "We need the water" she thought - then she caught herself. "What WE?" Another image of her dad, standing at one of the many wells stationed throughout the desert. His hands in his pockets. His white hair blowing back. He did love this valley, she thought.

Just another mile, then her brother's house. Dark. No dogs. Damn. Okay, I'll go on to the house and come back later. Just keep breathing.

She pulled up in front of the house of her memories. Less trees, new porch. Same outbuildings, although some had been torn down. The yuppies at Sun Valley loved to come and tear down old barns and make walls in their resort houses out of the old wood. The farmers thought them bizarre, and they were glad to have the sheds hauled away. One of Rachel's brothers had driven one of his eighteen-wheelers back East recently just to deliver some East Coast barn back to one of his clients in this area. Now that was ironic, Rachel thought. Given that every homestead around here has the same silver bleached outbuildings he could have gotten it a lot closer to home. Suddenly, Rachel had a flashback of the old icehouse - a real one - that her family still had kept active as she was growing up. She looked out across the field. "Here it comes," she thought. Physical pain first, as the worst of the memories hit. Even before the actual memories evolved in her brain, her body was sending a million signals. She blocked and blocked - focusing on nothing straight ahead. A sound to her left turned her head. Her mother.

May had come out on the porch to feed the dog - she watched as a young blonde woman freed herself from the red sedan and came up. "Now, which one are you?" she said, looking up. "I can't remember all your names."

Rachel was confused. "Mom," she said. "It's me."

May sort of shook her head. "What's your name?"

"It's Rachel, Mom." Rachel was suddenly drowning - this was a twilight moment - and she turned and walked into the house. It was hours later that she realized that her Mother really had not recognized her. May had thought Rachel one of the visiting nurses. Perhaps that was why she hadn't hugged her or welcomed her, but, then, Rachel remembered, she never did.

Rachel walked through the dim light of the house. It was like walking through a time warp - everything in exactly the same place, just a little faded. Her breath stopped. There was her dad on the couch. She was not prepared for this. She was not ready for this. He looked dead. Not moving. Face slack, thin legs under a light cover. Hands curled up near his face. And his face, Oh, God, the pain was in every wrinkle, even in his sleep. He moved then, moaned a little, and started to stir.

May was moving up behind her. She had finally figured out who Rachel was, and was speaking softly. "Leave him be," she said. Softer than Rachel had ever heard that voice. Rachel turned, looking down at the diminished woman that lurked so large in her memories. The deep frown lines on each side of May's face were even deeper. The hair a little thinner, a little whiter. May was so much smaller - Rachel swallowed the lump in her throat.

Her dad was struggling to sit up. His cloudy eyes were focusing in on Rachel as he tried to talk. "How did you get here?" she thought he said as he raised his arms.

"He's trying to hug you," May said, as Rachel bent down the bony frame. "See, he knows you."

It was the last that her father would really be able to speak. He had only limited use of his legs, and Rachel's sister-in-law or brothers would stop by every few hours to help him to the bathroom that evening and the next day. Rachel spent every minute next to the couch, or the hospital bed where they moved him. Rachel had known that Hospice had been called.

In this farming community, that meant that the designated representative made the two hour trip daily to come out and deliver meds or answer the family's questions. Her father's pain kept him restless and for two days Rachel spent every minute with her mom trying to soothe him by stroking his limbs or talking softly.
It was like Rachel had stepped into another zone. Her childhood fears were pushed back and there was only this creature in the room that somehow looked like her father that needed comfort and care. Thoughts of staying at her brother's house faded. She was needed here. For several more days she watched the decline as her father faded into a corpse. The medicines finally over took the pain as they increased the dosage. Rachel knew they were easing him into the coma that would eventually starve him to death. She fought the idea - arguing with her mother about giving him an IV to assist with the medicines and dehydration. "It would only prolong it" May would argue back. "He didn't want that."

"Mom," Rachel would plead, "he didn't want to be hooked up on machines, but this would just be liquid and meds. Look at him - he's in pain. Dehydration has got to be painful." Occasionally Rachel would try to swab her father's lips and he would suck on the swab a bit. A few drops of water on the chapped and drying membranes that would run down his chin. He had lost the capacity to swallow.

Rachel watched as her mother would rub her father's back. After years of seeing her mother brush his hands away - telling him to stay away from her, get off her - and now, her mother rubbing his limbs offering him comfort. "Is this real?" Rachel wondered, watched closely. May's touch was harsh. She pulled at the thin skin as she rubbed. Was it comfort, or was she just going through the motions? Rachel had never seen her mother offer physical comfort to another human being.

The nights were the hardest. As Rachel lay in bed she could hear May talking to Cliff. The harsh voice of her childhood came clearly through the walls. She lay awake listening to May lay next to the dying man. "When did they start sleeping in the same bed?" Rachel wondered. May would tell Cliff to "Stop being naughty - you don't want to hurt me. Now go to bed." Rachel wanted to run in the room and pull her mother out of the bed and tell her to go lay in the other room and let the man be. He thrashed because he was in pain. He was practically unconscious. She had no business with this charade. There was no one left to pretend for.

But Rachel lay still in the bed of her childhood and did nothing, again. She blocked and blocked. Sometimes she slept. But when her father would start to move too much, she would get up to check and help with the meds.

A daughter is not supposed to see her father like this, Rachel would think. They would help Cliff to the toilet in the beginning, but it rapidly became clear that the diapers hospice had left were necessary. I shouldn't be changing his diaper, Rachel would scream inside her head. Seeing her father's withered body, trying to maneuver his lifeless legs, administering suppositories for pain since he could not swallow - Rachel was a mom, she'd remind herself. She had seen everything. Just do this.

Neighbors came to visit. He'd settled this valley. Lived here for over 50 years. Senator Smith, the area's church leaders, fellow settlers come to pay their last respects before this brave man died. "A good friend," they would say, as they held Cliff's hand and watched their own mortality in his face. They didn't stay long.

The church leaders came in. Cliff had been a quietly faithful man, serving his community and his church with a steadfast loyalty. Rachel knew his faith was real, and deep, and important to him. She had run from it so many years ago, this religion that seeped from every rock in the region. It had seemed claustrophobic at the time. Making the violent dysfunction in the family seem surreal, making churchgoers like her parents seem hypocritical. Now, it just seemed reassuring that he had his faith. "Your work here is done, Cliff," they prayed. Rachel's father's breathing eased and she knew that for that moment, he was really resting.

"My work here is done," Rachel concluded. It's time to go home. Death was inevitable; the funeral was planned, every breath Cliff took seemed like a clock ticking away at a sunset. Rachel didn't want to see it disappear.

Rachel didn't always want to let his friends and neighbors in. They sat and spoke with the family as if he were there in the chair and not dying in the bed. He became more active when his old friends came by. Rachel was convinced he still knew them, knew who was coming. Early one morning she thought she heard him try to speak. "What happened?" she made out. "Help me." His words tore her heart.

"Your body's just give out, Daddy" Rachel whispered. "Your legs don't work anymore. You want to leave, but you can't take this body with you."

Some of Cindy's recent words came back to Rachel. This was her moment. Rachel had carried all the anger of her life with her to her father's dying bedside, to this moment. "Why didn't you keep me safe?" her head screamed.

But this time her soul stirred different memories: a gentle father picking up the pieces of his children's hearts after their mother's rage had dulled and leading them forward through the hurt and the confusion of a mother's thousand betrayals. Never leaving. Always faithful. Always a refuge after the turmoil.

She swallowed hard. "I just want to tell you that I love you daddy. No one can hurt me anymore. I know you did your best to protect me. I am going to be okay."

Rachel thought of her mother - the wife that had been such a thorn to her father during their marriage would remain alone now in the home that he built, surrounded by their children who never spoke of the past, and who couldn't sleep in their childhood home. Perhaps he knew some comfort from her finally. Perhaps her compassion had been real.

She thought of the community who knew him as the leader of the valley, making sure they had the water that fed their fields, controlling the currents and the wells; leading neighbors to compromise; planning ahead through droughts and growing seasons. He had passed on decades of knowledge to these people, of everything that went on in the valley.

Rachel's brothers still lived in that valley. They buried their own memories deep and carried the name of their father proudly. They saw their mother for who she was, perhaps, only able to give what she did and no more. Maybe Rachel was the only one who expected something more from her. "Going to the hardware store for eggs... " Rachel remembered.

The drive back to the airport was a blur. Rachel had packed all of her emotions up the moment she had seen her father. Now they tumbled in the back of her conscious seeping out in bits like pieces of a puzzle that wouldn't fit together. Had she done the right thing, coming out here? Was it worth it, stirring up the old memories? "Like picking a scab off a wound," she thought. Release and pain at the same time. And you just can't stop yourself.

Her father died the moment her plane landed back at her home the next day. She knew it as the plane touched down. She walked through the airport as her body filled with the knowledge that he was gone from the earth. Rachel stopped then, in the airport. Her head bent. The tears were threatening again. But not tears of pain this time.

Rachel looked up. Above her head blinked a directional sign. "Temporary Safe Refuge" it read. She smiled, then, it was a good sign. She wiped away the tears and hugged her father to her heart as she started walking. She would always be safe now.