Looking into You Read online

  I stopped, but my heart didn’t. Its pace increased. “I have. . . .” I like speeches much better when they’re written down. There is no teleprompter for the heart, no script for this conversation, and I could see in his eyes that he knew. “Let me call you, and maybe we can grab coffee?”

  “Yeah, I’d like that,” he said, smiling again, a little sadly this time. “Don’t let me hold you up. It’s always good seeing you.”

  I walked away with another five pounds of guilt added to the already-unmanageable pack I felt on my shoulders.

  I set up at the desk in front of the room, plugged in my computer with a shaking hand, and made small talk with students who had already assembled. But I couldn’t find her. Her name was on the list but I couldn’t pick her out.

  Then my injured child entered. It was like watching a lost piece of myself walk into the room. All the counseling I’d been through, all the journaling and sleepless nights and questions and tears, coalesced into a single moment when she walked through the door. Her untied shoelaces clicked on the floor. She walked head down, brown hair covering her face. She skittered behind me and searched for a seat and finally settled.

  I had to fight to keep from staring. I wanted to know if she had my ears, my eyes, my nose—anything of me. Part of me wanted to step in front of her desk and tell her everything. That I was her mother, that I hadn’t abandoned her but released her to what I thought would be a better life. That I was sorry. That I needed her to forgive me.

  Instead, I moved forward and lost myself in the carefully crafted opening to the class, a short devotional followed by a review of the syllabus. Then I came to the hardest part. Never had calling the roll caused such an internal storm.

  “Drenna Adkins?”

  “Here.”

  “Melanie Bailey?”

  “Here.”

  There were twenty-three students in the class, and the Ls began at number thirteen. If I were superstitious, that would have bothered me.

  “Treha Langsam?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Her voice sent a shiver through me. In the moments after birth, she’d given a cry of pain I’ve never gotten out of my head. When I hear a baby wailing in a mall or in church, I think of her. School buses pass and I wonder where she might be. What did her first-grade teacher say about her? Did she play with Barbies? Did she love stories as much as I did? Did she ever learn an instrument? Did she need braces?

  I kept my head down and called the rest of the names.

  After the roll I clicked through quotations that flashed on the screen behind me.

  “We write to discover what we think.” Joan Didion.

  The next was from Daniel Boorstin and brought chuckles. “I write to discover what I think. After all, the bars aren’t open that early.”

  The final quote was my favorite. “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” Flannery O’Connor.

  Several students gave thoughtful hmmm sounds.

  “I don’t want to shatter any illusions, but here is the truth,” I said. “Writing is pain. I will teach you that.”

  Scattered nervous laughter around the room.

  “Writing is joy, as well. Writing is learning and discovery. If you let it, writing will change you.”

  I tried to keep from looking at Treha, but I couldn’t help glancing at her. Just a peek into the window of her soul.

  “In this class, we’ll be using the two tools at a writer’s disposal: writing and reading. There is no substitute for these. You will read and learn, and you will write and discover.”

  I gave a reading assignment for next week’s class, then handed out folded pieces of paper, making sure I gave Treha’s row the correct writing prompt.

  “This is a good first exercise. I want to take away some of the fear you have of getting things wrong. This class is not about writing perfectly. I want you to see how rough your first draft can be and still be good. For the rest of the class—we have twenty minutes or so—I’d like you to open the page and look at the prompt on it. Whatever comes to your mind, the first thing that jumps to the surface, I’d like you to follow that. If you want to write longhand, you can do that. If you want to use your computer, my e-mail address is at the bottom of the page, but leave what you write with me or send it to me before you leave. Don’t think. Write what comes into your head. Don’t go back and cross things out. Let it spill.”

  I put on some atmospheric music, a sound track by Thomas Newman. As heads went down in contemplation, I sat at the desk and gathered my materials, but I couldn’t keep my eyes from straying to Treha. She struggled, bit at her thumbnail, picked up the page and studied the words and put the paper down again, wrote in a spiral notebook, then ripped the sheet out loudly, looked around her apologetically, and lowered her head again.

  What’s good for the goose, I thought, is good for the teacher, so I opened a notebook of my own. I used one of the prompts I’d given my students.

  The most pain I’ve ever felt . . .

  The most pain I’ve ever felt happened in a delivery room at a hospital I cannot recall. Searing pain I thought would tear me apart. It made me tremble inside and the exhaustion washed over me like a river. I gritted my teeth and promised I would not scream, would not let the pain overtake me. I would control it. I clawed at the sheets and the metal handles of the bed and vowed this would not undo me.

  The pain in my body could not match the pain her cry surfaced in my heart. They cleaned her, weighed her, wrapped her, and whisked her away. And it was then that I realized the much-greater pain is not in giving birth but in releasing your own child.

  I looked up at the students standing in front of my desk. Trancelike, I had written furiously and hadn’t seen them waiting to give me their papers. The feeling surprised me and I apologized. Why couldn’t I write my dissertation like this?

  When I looked for my daughter, her seat was empty. While a few students kept writing, I riffled through the pages in front of me and found one torn from a notebook, the edge still ragged. My eyes traced the letters of her name at the top. I had given her this name, an anagram for the word heart—something unique that would allow me to find her one day even though the adoption was private.

  The thing I want in life that I’ve never had is a roommate who doesn’t . . .

  This had been struck through, and three lines down, the scrawl started again.

  The thing I want in life that I’ve never had is to know my mother. I was given up for adoption at birth and I’ve looked for her. But I can’t find her and I don’t think I want to find her anymore because if I was supposed to find her, it would have happened. Maybe God doesn’t want me to find her. Maybe he is telling me that I don’t have to know her in order to go on with my life. I wanted all my questions answered and everything wrapped and tied with a bow. But life is not neat bows and nice packages. Life is messy and you don’t get all your questions answered.

  I have never had a boyfriend. I have never had a dog or a cat or a pet of any kind. I have never had a real home. I can list a million things I’ve never had. But I have a mother and don’t know her and I’ve . . .

  I don’t think this is what you were looking for, but this is the first thing that came to my mind, so I wrote it down.

  I gathered the pages in a stack and put them away and waited for the last students to finish. Then I went to my car and drove the long road home, pulling over twice because I couldn’t see.

  CHAPTER 7

  Treha

  Treha sat on the right side of the auditorium for chapel, about two-thirds of the way back, in the middle of the row, and opened the hymnal. She recognized a few songs that Elsie, her elderly friend in Arizona, had taught her. “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.” “Amazing Grace.” “Holy, Holy, Holy.” And Elsie’s favorite, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” Elsie believed singing hymns was a lost art. When they sat together at Desert Gardens, she would take Treha lin
e by line and teach her theology with the words.

  When I survey the wondrous cross

  On which the Prince of glory died,

  My richest gain I count but loss,

  And pour contempt on all my pride.

  Elsie had spent half an hour on that verse, telling Treha it was the cross of Jesus, his substitution, his atonement, that brought forgiveness. Then she’d taken her to the Old Testament sacrificial system and explained that this gift of God’s own Son was for her.

  Treha believed Elsie was right about all of this. She had no problem believing in God. Her only question was how she fit into the divine plan and if God cared for orphan girls.

  The old woman’s words echoed in Treha’s mind as students filled the rows of the chapel. In the row directly in front of her, she saw Cameron squeeze past his friends. Cameron Goodman. Others called him “Cam.” Treha had noticed this when she first saw him at orientation. He was tall with dark, curly hair. She’d heard girls talking about him—how nice he was. How he had helped them study.

  The others raised their knees so he couldn’t get by, which she thought was mean, but Cameron laughed as if he enjoyed moving through the gauntlet. He was strong, athletic, confident.

  He pushed his seat down and looked at Treha. Every time she had seen him, he’d been smiling. In the hall, at lunch, holding a door for people. He didn’t break the string when he said, “Hi.”

  Treha evaluated a person by their first words, by the kindness or stress or preoccupation in their voice. The words themselves or something in between the lines. With Cameron, she felt more. Warmth. Vulnerability. He didn’t try to hide his acne scars and she liked that. His eyes crinkled when he smiled and dimples appeared in his cheeks and she thought he was the cutest thing she had ever seen.

  Her response was a nod. No words. No, “Hello, how are you?” Just an uncomfortable nod that he smiled at, then turned around. If others judged her by first words or impressions, she would fail the test each time.

  Anna slipped in beside Treha and patted her on the shoulder. “Cute, isn’t he?” she whispered.

  Treha didn’t respond except to feel herself turn beet red. She stood when told to stand but didn’t sing. She didn’t want to embarrass herself or let certain people hear her singing off-key. But she did follow the words and mouth them.

  “Do you have a class now?” Anna said when the service was over.

  Treha didn’t.

  “Good. Then you can help me with my assignment.”

  Treha was distracted because Cameron was getting up and she wanted to say something to him but wasn’t sure what. Something more than a nod.

  “Bye, Treha,” Cameron said.

  Too stunned to speak. He knew her name. And the way he said it. So familiar. So casual. So . . . nice.

  “Whoa,” Anna said. “That looked like a real connection there. Why didn’t you talk to him?”

  Treha shrugged but on the inside, she was kicking herself.

  “It was sort of a warm wave you gave him, though.”

  “What did you want me to help you with?”

  “An article for the Tower. All you have to do is answer a few questions.” Anna opened her notebook to a blank page. “I’m highlighting new students and their backgrounds, hopes, dreams, and all that. I pitched this series idea on new students, and the editor bit and now I’m on deadline. First issue comes out Thursday. You’d help me a lot.”

  Treha watched Cameron walk to the back of the auditorium and linger with friends. Smiling. Talking.

  “I don’t want to be in the paper,” Treha said.

  Anna looked stunned. “Everybody’s looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. You’d have your picture in there and everything. It’d be great exposure.”

  “I don’t want exposure. I’ve had that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Treha didn’t answer, but she was thinking of the documentary. The film had won acclaim, and several women had come forward claiming to be Treha’s mother, but none of them were. The truth was, Treha had never seen the film all the way through, only bits and pieces, and she didn’t want to see it. She wanted to forget so much.

  Anna scratched her head. “Well, I guess that means I can’t help you with Cameron.”

  “Help me?”

  Anna smiled. “I know him. I could introduce you. Like, formally. Maybe even get you a date. But you’ll need to let me write the article.”

  “I don’t want my picture taken.”

  “Okay. . . . Hey, that’s a good hook. Anonymous conversations with new students. Total honesty. I like it.”

  Treha looked over her shoulder as Cameron finally left the auditorium.

  “He’s from a little town in Pennsylvania, near Gettysburg,” Anna said. “Speaks English and fluent Spanish and Portuguese because his parents served in Africa or someplace where they speak two languages.”

  “You’re friends with him?”

  “Not exactly. That was on his Facebook page.”

  “You’re friends with him on Facebook?”

  “Not exactly. I just looked around from a friend’s account who is—now don’t look at me like that. You can learn a lot about a person there. Cameron plays the guitar, sings, and doesn’t believe the gift of tongues is for today. Amillennial in his eschatology. Leans toward Calvinism, eternal security and total depravity.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “That was my problem too. I didn’t really know what they were talking about, but you will if you make friends with Cameron. I sat next to him in the lunchroom a few times last year. Well, not next to him, just kind of behind him and off to the side where I could hear. He talked about theology and church discipline and whether we’re losing our moorings from a bibliocentric worldview and it made my head hurt. Though it could have been the shepherd’s pie they served that day. They use way too much salt in the cafeteria.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever fit in here.”

  “Sure you will, Treha. But you have to take a step toward other people. You have to risk. And a good step might be this article. Come on, it’s a few innocuous questions. It’ll be painless.”

  Treha thought for a moment. She wasn’t interested at all in publicity or being “out there.” She wanted anonymity and to be left alone. But maybe Anna was right.

  “Would you really help me get to know him?”

  “Sure. Let’s go to the commons and I’ll ask you the questions.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Paige

  I drove up Beverly Beckwith’s long, winding driveway, gravel crunching under the tires. Three other homes shared the driveway, but Beverly’s place was at the top, overlooking Thompson’s Station. Beverly’s husband had passed away prematurely of heart disease several years earlier, and though people had tried to get her to move closer to civilization, the woman wouldn’t. The first time I came here, I’d been a student, straight out of the jungles of New Guinea. The peaceful surroundings, the cattle, the trees, the ponds and creeks brought back good memories.

  Beverly’s elderly dog wagged his tail on the front porch and thought about barking, then took a breath and put his head back on the weathered wood and fell asleep.

  “Paige Redwine!” the woman said through the screen. She came outside and hugged me fiercely. “This calls for a celebration! Kill the fatted calf, my daughter has come home!”

  “Let the fatted calf live until you get a bigger crowd,” I said.

  She laughed. “Then we’ll make do with gingersnaps. Come on in.”

  “Would you mind if we sat out here? It’s so beautiful.”

  Beverly brought the bag of ancient cookies and put it between us on the porch swing. A light breeze wafted through the valley and there was a hint of rain, a hint of fall.

  “Can I get you something to drink?”

  I shook my head and patted Beverly’s thin leg. “Just sit with me.”

  A smile and a little silence. That’s all it took to
get us back to the beginning, back to each other’s hearts.

  “Tell me about your class,” she said. “Are you enjoying teaching at Bethesda?”

  “Being back is strange. But it’s good to spread my wings. They’re bright students.” I paused, then admitted, “Dr. Waldron gave me an ultimatum about my thesis.”

  “Is that the reason for the pensive look?”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “Your writing not going well?”

  “My writing is a dry well.”

  “But there’s something else lurking behind that pretty face of yours, isn’t there?”

  Deep breath. I stared at my hands. At a scar from a boil my father lanced when I was a child. He pushed and poked so hard, the pain incredible. “I need some advice.”

  “About what?”

  “The past.”

  “Ahh. Well, as you know, I’ve never held back my opinions from you. So if it’s advice you need . . .”

  “I thought I had worked it through. I thought I was immune.”

  “From the past? My dear, even if you deal with it well, the past boomerangs. And God has this funny way of stretching and changing and pushing us toward things we don’t want to face. I don’t think the past is something we deal with as much as it deals with us.”

  She put a hand down by her side and stroked the back of the motionless dog, who batted rheumy eyes, then closed them. “The alternative to life, to living fully, is not death, it’s suppression. It’s building a dam on a steady river ready to rush over the rocks and carve out a Grand Canyon. Debris holds the water back. It blocks the whole thing.”

  “And that’s how I feel. Blocked. Stuck.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Beverly dipped her head and gave me the look. I had transgressed her law, my own law. Neither of us allowed students to use those words. I pulled both feet under me on the swing, the silence unnerving me.

  She reached out with a foot and pushed the swing gently into motion, the two of us moving at her command. “My theory is simple,” she said finally. “You can live under the weight of your past or the weight of forgiveness. If you choose the former, you’ll constantly be working off the guilt like someone who overeats at the holidays.”