Song of Renewal (10 page)

His eyes gave off a golden aura as they plundered hers. “Angel…be yourself.” The thought slid into her heart like heated honey.

Then the atmosphere began to shift from beneath her.

Fog moved in…gloom spread...darker…the warmth of him abruptly left her and she shivered.
Nonono
. Icy fingers clutched her as peace shattered in a million directions…Angel tumbled headlong into darkness.

Silence separated them. Liza grew to detest its noiseless silken hum.

Through the day, while Penny was there at the hospital with Liza, it wasn’t as bad. At least Penny’s chatter kept the insufferable silence at bay. And the loneliness. Because even with Garrison nearby, he wasn’t truly there.

She missed Charlcy. Needed her.
Suck it up, Liza. Get tough.
That’s what Charlcy would tell her. It seemed that this was Liza’s calling now; to get over it. Never in her life had she felt less adept to do so.

Later that evening, as she and Garrison sat at the kitchen bar picking halfheartedly at Bojangles Fried Chicken, the damnable quiet got to Liza.

“Who the heck said that silence is golden had rocks for brains.” She viciously speared a French fry and slammed it into her mouth. She glared at her husband as she chewed vigorously,
challenging him to differ. Oh, how she spoiled for a fight. All the pain and frustration of recent days boiled over.

Garrison narrowed his dark gaze on her, no doubt surprised at her uncharacteristic combative stance. “What?”

Liza felt a spurt of pleasure that she held his undivided attention. At last. “Silence. It stinks. And tastes like crap. You’ve been force-feeding me for days now and I’ve had it up to here.” She slashed a finger across her throat. Then, ceremoniously, she lifted her Coke glass to him and took a dainty sip.

His face remained closed and she wondered if what she said even registered.
I may as well dump the whole load. What the heck?

She leaned forward, elbows on table. “Get this,
dude
…I actually miss the hospital equipment’s
bleeping
and
whishing
cause even that’s less lethal than this. Now I know how Angel felt, trying to get you to talk to her. And all those times you pushed her away.”

His eyes flickered, then sparked. “That’s hitting below the belt, don’t you think?”

“Ha! So now it’s inappropriate to cast stones, huh? How does it feel, the shoe being on the other foot?”

“Like you’re fighting dirty. It’s just not you, Liza.” His voice vibrated with offense as he rearranged his frame in the chair with one tense shift.

“No,” she agreed, suddenly incensed. “It’s not. But then, this angry, judgmental character who’s treating me like a criminal just isn’t you, either, Garrison.”

Suddenly his fist slammed the countertop, causing her to jump. “Liza! I can’t help what I feel. Can’t you get that through your head?” His dark gaze glittered with indignation. She gaped at him.
The audacity, after all he’s put me through.
Liza felt a sudden, irresistible desire to strike him. Her hands curled into fists and for long moments she glared at him and fought against
the same violence she’d witnessed at the hands of her mother in those early years – slaps that struck like a rattlesnake when she’d moved too slowly – reliving her screams as she watched Charlcy step in and ward off blows and endure profane indictments when her dad wasn’t instantly there to protect them.

Liza knew in that moment that she must banish her mother’s ghost – the evil one. She also knew that, face to face with her current tormentor, she could not so easily dismiss the cruel treatment of recent days.

“It’s hell.” She narrowed her gaze on him. “That’s what your silent treatment is to me just now. Hell! In case you haven’t noticed, I have a daughter lying at death’s door, too.”

She cupped her hands at her mouth. “Helloooo?”

“I know that!” he snapped, clearly agitated.

“Oh? Sure could’ve fooled me.” Her voice broke and she swallowed and took a moment to regain her composure. “You’re not the only one suffering, my noble Mr. Perfect Who-Never-Makes-Mistakes.”

Head high, she arose to full height and looked steadily into his black, black eyes. “I shall conclude my thesis on the evils of silence.” A sad little smile appeared, then vanished as abruptly as it came. “I find your silence abominable because, in it, you are unconscionably cruel and unmerciful. And in it, I’m exiled to a place that’s frightening.” A tear slid down her pale cheek and she angrily swiped it away. “It’s frightening because you’re not here.” She patted her bosom and whispered, “With me.” She struggled again to compose herself.

“Yeah,” her lips twisted in self-derision, “I’m imperfect. So shoot me. What was it Jane Fonda said in that movie? Oh yeah…they shoot horses! They put ‘em out of their misery. And hey! I’m miserable. You couldn’t have made your rejection of
me more flagrant had you jumped up and down atop the hospital roof and bellowed it to the world.”

Garrison watched her, his eyes once more hooded, his features revealing nothing. “See? There you go back behind that blasted mask.” She gave a sudden snort, half sob, half laugh, waving a hand at him. “But what did I expect? My husband is gone. Ever since the accident.” She paused and then slowly shook her head. Her voice dropped to a sad husk. “No, longer than that. The man I married left years ago.”

Garrison’s eyes flickered with some unnamed emotion. “There are reasons.”

She gave another harsh laugh. “I suppose I’m to blame for those, too, huh?”

His shoulders lifted in a noncommittal shrug.

That smarted. Liza’s brows lifted as though in comical revelation. “Guess what? You’re off the hook, Garrison! I will leave you the…heck…alone.”

With that, head majestically high, she glided from the room, as graceful as her wobbly ballerina legs would carry her. When she extended a one-fingered obscene gesture over her retreating shoulder, she heard something suspiciously akin to a muffled curse.

Garrison soon discovered that Liza meant what she said. He also discovered that her words, spoken in anger, stung. In all their twenty years’ relationship, they’d never engaged in such a heated, hateful exchange. Oh they’d had their spats but they would end with Liza humoring him out of his angst and into making up. Mild skirmishes. Nothing like this one. It was the closest they’d come to a legitimate fight. He’d always valued that rarity and he knew Liza felt the same.

It all seemed to be crumbling around him in bits and chunks…chipping away at something in their marriage that was once invincible. His self-control, near the bottom of his arsenal, was drowning as circumstances gushed in like icy waters into the doomed
Titanic
.

Decorum had gotten him through his early difficult years, when he’d felt emotionally abandoned. Even though his parents had shipped him off to his grandparents at the slightest holiday-travel enticement, they’d done so with impeccable, affectionate politesse. His and Liza’s departure from civility left Garrison feeling gutted.

Gutted, mainly because of how true her words were. God help him. He regretted ever having pushed his daughter away. After all, he knew from experience how it felt to be nudged aside by his own parents, to be told, “What a big, brave boy you are.” This when he cried on the occasions of being dropped off with his grandparents during their frequent school-break world treks.

“You are so grown-up and responsible.”

They’d recited the words in that overly exuberant way of folks forcing their sentiments down your throat. They’d totally ignored his stricken-eyed response, and the puffed-up, feigned pride they’d gushed all over him had spawned in him tiny spurts of sympathy for their desperation. He’d forced himself to buck up for their benefit.

Training from his mother’s militant insistence upon correctness.

Training or no training, it had still stung. He had not always felt grown-up. Or responsible, whatever that meant. Heck, he didn’t have a clue in those young days.

He just knew that he felt tossed aside. Why had he forgotten that in his dealings with Angel? In his childhood innocence, he’d allowed his parents to turn him into what they wanted him
to be then. Just as he’d evolved into what they were later on – distant and aloof. What was it the Bible said about the sins of the fathers being passed down for generations?

He crawled into bed that night burdened with the culpability of having hurt his precious Angel. Why hadn’t he seen that she needed a firm but
gentle
hand?

God, if you’ll just bring her back, I’ll make it up to her
.

The next Saturday morning, heat slapped him in the face when he stepped outside the house for the newspaper. The garden thermometer read ninety-three degrees at 8:35 a.m.

Things at the office, for once, did not scream for attention so he would be able to spend more time with Angel at the hospital. He showered and dressed in cool khaki cargo shorts and a blue, three-button Polo shirt. He needed his tan Dockside loafers. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn them. Not this season. Last summer? He scrounged around in his closet and came up empty-handed.

“Liza,” he called, impatience snapping at him. Oh, how he resented having to ask her for anything. “Where are my Dockside loafers?” Silence.
Blast her hide!
He knew she was in the dressing room, only feet away. He’d put up with her distancing for days now and it didn’t sit well. Irritation sizzled as he remembered the things she’d thrown in his face the other night during their fight.

The terrible thing was that they were mostly true. But she could at least be polite.

“Liza, where did you put them?” Garrison bellowed. When no answer was forthcoming, he arose quickly and poked his face through the door of Liza’s adjoining dressing room, where she calmly smoothed on light makeup and dusted powder.

“Didn’t you hear me calling you?” he asked, scowling. She applied a soft pink lipstick and pressed her lips together before replying.

“Oh. Were you calling me?” She blotted and then daintily brushed pink blush onto her cheeks.

“You know I was. Where are my Docksides? I can’t find them.”

“On your closet shelf. In a box.”

He glared at her. “Why didn’t you tell me that before now?”

She ignored him.

He shook his head in exasperation and returned to the closet where he found the shoes exactly where she’d indicated. He plopped down on the bed with a thud and slid his feet into them. His anger sizzled for long moments. Then slowly, in its place oozed sadness.

From the big mirror, his wretchedness reflected. Where had all the joy gone?

Thoughts of Angel. Her condition shocked him anew. How close his little girl perched on eternity’s threshold. Resentment washed over him. Liza had even deprived him of that. His child. He tried – oh how he tried in that moment – to delete the thought and the emotions that rode its tail. He could not. God help him. He could not.