The Prodigal
Thirty-nine
FOUR MONTHS. Four months! God damn it! She’d been gone four months. I was pissed as hell and so relieved to hear from her that my anger evaporated into hope.
“Come home, Kate. I’ll come and get you. Where are you?” I already had my keys in my hand and was grabbing my jacket. For all I knew she was in Oklahoma, but I was going to go get her. Now.
“I’m out… outside,” she stammered. It sounded like she was shaking. Lightning lit up the window as I ran upstairs.
“Yes. Outside where? I’ll come for you.”
“Outside… the front door.”
“What?” I ran to the front door and threw it open. It was pouring out. Thunder crashed so near a car alarm went off in the street. Kate was standing there about six feet from the door. She was drenched. Her phone was still held to her ear as I dropped mine and rushed to her. I wrapped her in my arms and hugged her to me, rain quickly soaking me through. “Kate, you’re home. You’re home.”
“I wanted… to be… here… for our birthday.” At that she collapsed completely. I scooped her up in my arms and rushed inside.
“We’ve got to get you warm and dry,” I said.
Wendy appeared at the top of the stairs and gasped. She rushed to us and held on to both of us, guiding us to the stairs and down to her bath. In minutes, we were all three standing in the hot shower as Wendy and I held onto Kate to keep her from collapsing again. I wasn’t sure what to do. I wasn’t sure Kate was even aware of us. I held her up while Wendy gently washed her stringy hair and slightly smelly body.
Wendy toweled Kate dry as I grabbed a pair of sweatpants and T-shirt from Wendy’s room, a pair of pajamas, and her big fluffy robe. The door opened and Kate once again fell into my arms as I wrapped the robe around her.
“Let’s get you to bed, sweetheart,” I said.
“No. Not tonight,” she said weakly. “Can you just hold me in the chair?” Wendy nodded at me and slipped into the pajamas. I picked Kate up and carried her upstairs. I sat with her cradled in my lap and Wendy snuggled in beside us and spread a blanket over the top. Kate wrapped an arm around each of us and put her head against my chest. I could feel the moisture of her tears soaking through my T-shirt and held her as she quietly sobbed herself to sleep. Wendy kissed my cheek, pillowed her head on my shoulder and followed Kate into slumber.
It took a long time for me to fall asleep. I didn’t want to close my eyes. I didn’t want to risk waking up to find it was a dream. I sat there with her in my arms trying not to hold her too tightly.
“Shh. Look. Look!”
“Oh, my God! She’s back.”
“They look so beautiful.”
“Darling, I’m so happy!”
“Why do you suppose they aren’t in bed?”
“Shh. Don’t wake them.”
The voices, of course, were Melody and Lissa. I willed them to be quiet and not disturb the treasure in my arms, but both Kate and Wendy wiggled closer and rubbed their cheeks against me. We were as wrapped together as three people lying in a recliner could get. I squeezed both tightly.
“Mmm,” was Wendy’s only comment as she bent her head to kiss the top of Kate’s.
“Home! Thank you for letting me come home,” Kate whispered. I kissed the top of her head, too, but she didn’t lift her face to return the kisses. What was it going to take for us to get back to normal? What was normal for us now?
I called Doctor Bychkova and told him I was unable to come in. Wendy’s classes weren’t scheduled to start until Monday. It was my birthday. I wasn’t leaving the precious gift in my arms for one second.
As for Kate, she tried to spread her attention among the four of us, hugging each one, but she was glued to Wendy and to me most of the day. Well, we were glued to her. I couldn’t let her out of my sight.
“My car is about six blocks from here. I can’t believe I ran out of gas. I was so intent on making it home for our birthdays that I didn’t stop when I should have,” Kate said. We went to get gas and start her car as she filled us in on her past few days.
“This is your car? I almost hit it in the rain last night. I didn’t see you anywhere.”
“I was running from tree to tree trying to stay protected from the rain. I finally gave up and just started running.”
“Where did you drive from?”
“Georgia.”
“I meant last night.”
“Yeah. I don’t remember where I stopped last. It was somewhere in Montana. I just kept driving.”
“Were you with Gerhardt? When did you leave?” I was grilling her and Wendy clenched my arm. I backed off. “I’m sorry, Kate. I don’t mean to be giving you the third degree. There’s just so much we want to know. We’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Tony. I’m just really, really tired. I think I need to go back to sleep. Wendy, can you drive my car?”
“Of course I can, sweetheart. You ride with Tony.”
“I don’t want to be away from either of you. Yes, I was with Gerhardt and… Erika. I left late Saturday night. I just need to sleep now.”
The six blocks home was more like eight and it was all uphill. I imagined being out in the storm trying to run up that hill. Kate was asleep by the time we got the cars home. I carried her into the house and took her straight to the big bed where Wendy and I crawled in beside her—all fully clothed. I looked across Kate, sleeping peacefully, to Wendy who met my eyes with the biggest smile I’d seen from her in months. She mouthed the words, “She’s home!” and the two of us just watched her sleep for the next four hours.
When Kate stirred again, she opened her eyes and looked around at Wendy and then at me.
“It’s real. I’m really home.” She paused and took in her surroundings then sat bolt upright in bed. “I can’t be here. I need to get up.”
“Wait, wait. Kate, what is it? You’re home. It’s okay.”
“No. I don’t deserve to be in this bed. I’m a terrible person. I don’t deserve to be here.”
There was no holding her back. She scrambled out of the bed and bedroom with Wendy and me behind her. Once out of the bedroom, she calmed down, but there was a look of panic and shame in her eyes.
This was going to take a while. Whatever had happened over the past four months had affected Kate badly. We went into the kitchen and fixed coffee. Lissa picked up Melody from PCAD and joined us a little after three. I got a phone call about the same time they arrived.
“Tony, this is Doc.”
“Doc, I’m sorry I couldn’t come in today.”
“Bychkova told me you were out for the day, but that’s not my concern. I don’t have a schedule for your project presentation. The proposal is due Friday and the presentation to your committee needs to be scheduled within a week. You need to get it on our calendars.”
“About that, Doc. I’m not ready. I need to file for an extension. I simply don’t have a proposal yet.”
“That’s not going to fly, Tony.”
“Doc, Kate just came home.” There was silence.
“I see. File the extension tomorrow. It has to be done. Is Kate there? May I speak to her?”
“Kate, Doc would like to talk to you. Are you available?”
“I might as well,” Kate answered as she came to the phone. She took a deep breath and answered. “Hi, Doc. It’s nice to speak with you.— Thank you.— No.— It won’t be possible.— I’m sorry, Doc. I’m not coming back to school.— No it’s not that.— I’m not leaving again. Ever.— I can’t accept that honor. I’m sorry.— I’m sure we’ll talk soon. Thank you, Doctor Henredon.”
She closed the phone and looked at the four of us staring at her. She scrunched her eyes up and took another deep breath.
“Now you know. I’m not going back to school. I’ve quit painting.”
To say we were stunned would be an understatement. Kate quit painting? Not even possible. The weight of guilt that pressed in on me was overwhelming and I sank down into my chair. Wendy crushed Kate to her in a hug. Lissa and Melody never moved, but stood there.
“Kate, please don’t do this. Please don’t let me be the reason you turn your back on your future,” I pled. She had said she couldn’t work in my shadow. Was the price of her return to stop working at all?
“It’s not your fault, Tony,” she said. “Please don’t blame yourself. I know I got mad and said unkind things, but they weren’t true. I love your art but it doesn’t affect what I do with my life. My decision is my own fault—my own stupidity,” Kate said. “It’s part of why I can’t come to your bed. I came here so we could have our birthday together and to ask… to beg all of you to let me rent the room downstairs again at least until I figure out what to do with my life. I understand if you don’t want me around anymore. I was… am a bitch. I took from you and when I was full, I left you. I don’t deserve even your kindness. I’m asking you to please let me be near the only people I’ve ever loved.”
That was too much. Kate started crying and so did Wendy. Art was forgotten as Melody and Lissa kept repeating, “You’re home now. You’re home.” Wendy looked at me with a silent wail. I held her and held Kate and held Melody and held Lissa. We would get to the bottom of this. No matter what she had done, she was part of our family.
There was a little of the old sparkle in Kate’s eyes by the end of the evening when the family brought out the birthday cake. I was twenty-two and Kate was twenty. Under the laughter there was a sadness about Kate that shouldn’t have been there. She reminded me of Wendy almost two years ago when I discovered she’d been abused.
Kate told us about her trip home before she retired to her old room in the basement. She’d left Georgia Saturday night after a long talk with Erika and Gerhardt. As much as possible, she’d driven the 2,500 miles straight through, stopping for naps by the side of the road when she couldn’t go on and then driving again as soon as she woke up. She made the journey in just seventy-eight hours and was suffering from the effects of both exhaustion and over-caffeination.
Unfortunately, having Kate home didn’t excuse me from more than a day of my responsibilities at PCAD. Thursday morning, I had to start reading all the essays that had been turned in on Tuesday. Art History only met on Mondays and Wednesdays, so at least I didn’t have to stay at the school. I went in, to pick up the hundred or so essays and rush home to slog through them where I was at least near Kate. Melody had class Thursday mornings so we traveled in together.
“It will be okay, you know,” she said when we’d ridden halfway there in silence. I spared a glance at her then focused on traffic. “Whatever it is, we’ll all help her get through it. Don’t smother her. Let her come to you. She’s made the first big step. The rest will come.” I nodded.
“I’m still mad,” I confessed. “I don’t know whether to make love to her or yell at her. And now with this ‘I quit doing art’ thing she’s pulling, it all seems so stupid. Melody, if I quit doing art, I’d die. I know I’ve been going through a dry spell this summer and it might seem like I quit doing art, but it’s always there for me. I know as soon as I figure out my big project, I’ll be back at it. I’ve felt like my muse was missing.”
“You need to go for a run and then go to the studio,” Melody said. “Don’t try to plan your big project. Let it flow on a small project. Just paint anything and it will set your mind free. Your muse is back.”
“So wise,” I said. “And you’re right. I need to do it and have been hiding behind getting the project set as kind of a barrier to my doing anything. How’d you get so smart?”
“You know how I got the idea for dye extraction? I was frustrated one day and just threw bleach at a piece of fabric I was working on. It ruined a class project and I was desperate to get it washed out. When I saw the result, it just captured my imagination. I didn’t plan it at all.”
I took Melody’s advice. After I’d read a dozen of the papers and marked them up, I got ready to run. Kate came upstairs about noon and I made her a cup of tea. Lissa joined us and asked about lunch.
“I gained five pounds in the last month. I’m hungry, but please no grits and bacon,” Kate moaned. “You don’t have to fix anything for me, Lissa. I don’t want to be a bother.”
“Kate,” Lissa said rounding on her. I was a little worried about the tone of voice. “You are not a guest here. Whether you want to sleep with us or not or even eat meals with us, is up to you. But you are part of our family. We take care of each other. Part of being here is letting us take care of you just like you would take care of one of us. You are home now and we will, by God, kill the fatted calf to celebrate.”
The two women stared at each other and then Kate threw herself at Lissa, hugging her.
“I don’t deserve you,” she cried. “I don’t deserve any of you. But I’m so happy to be home. May I have a bowl of cereal?”
I stared at the two. Something clicked. That magic in the back of my mind that pulls me out of my everyday world and into the world of shape and color. I hugged both women, kissed Lissa soundly and Kate lightly, even though I felt her lips softening. I didn’t want to push it. But I also knew what I had to do.
“I’m running to the studio. I’ll be back later, okay?” I didn’t wait for an answer. Kate was in Lissa’s hands at the moment and I trusted she would be here when I got back. I ran out the front door and hit the two-and-a-half miles to the studio at a dead run.
It emerged from darkness. Perhaps that’s where all my best ideas came from. I’d chosen a small canvas, just 14x18. The cool dark colors went on thickly, a figure emerging in the foreground. Dense highlights shaped her shoulder and cheek, the glint of a tear visible in the light from a distance. She was naked. Not nude. She’d been stripped and shamed. She had nothing, but still she moved toward the distant figure.
It was two years ago that Wendy offered herself to me. She’d knelt naked in my basement studio and I saw the welts and cuts that Rafe had given her in his last beating. I didn’t understand then. I understood that she’d been abused. I understood my rage at it and my instinct to protect her. What I didn’t understand was the courage—the desperate courage—it had taken for her to go back to him. To believe she could manage. To believe that his abuse was better than being on the streets.
And she’d been betrayed. He’d stolen what she had left, stripped and beaten and sodomized her. And she still knelt in front of me.
How unbelievably arrogant and presumptuous of me to tell Kate I forgave her. I hadn’t even heard her story, but it was all about how magnanimous I was. How my love was bigger than her supposed offense.
My face took shape in the distance. Me, the righteous and judgmental with the power to forgive and turn her into a sinner living in my grace. What a back-assward excuse for love that was.
As I worked, I made subtle adjustments to straighten the foreground figure. This was a portrait of courage and trust, but not pride. The prodigal had come home.
END PART III
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