Stepping Into Sunlight (5 page)

Shutting the door on those decades-old memories, I tugged Bryan’s seat belt to check it, then hurried around to my side of the car.

“You promised we’d have fun today.” My son kicked the back of the seat in front of him. “We didn’t even ride the boat. This. Is. Not. Fun.” He punctuated each word with another stab of his foot.

“Stop it!” I jammed my key into the ignition. “Do you think it’s fun for me? I’m doing the best I can.”

Silence like a sudden intake of breath, frozen and held, answered me.

I glanced back at Bryan. He stared at me as if a wicked sorcerer had zapped his mom with an irrationality spell. Suddenly the doctor’s comments didn’t seem so ridiculous. The moods I’d been battling were hurting my son. Neither of us knew this stranger I’d become.

I swallowed hard and met his hurt gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m not feeling well.”

His dark brows drew together under his bangs. “Will the victim person make you feel better?”

So he
had
been listening to my conversation with the doctor
.
Drat.

I started the car and tried to remember how to find the road home. “I doubt it.”

For once, he didn’t jabber, and with only a few wrong turns, we arrived home a half-hour later. Our house slouched under the trees as if it were a sullen teen saying, “Oh, you again?” Why had we left our weathered old two-story in Wisconsin? That wrap-around front porch had always greeted us like a dimpled grandmother with open arms.

I got out of the car and Bryan joined me on the sidewalk.

Laura-Beth waved from her yard. Didn’t she ever go inside? “Hiya, neighbor. Say, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I’ve noticed your grass is getting long.”

Yeah, because I didn’t have a pit bull to scratch it all to the ground.

“Sorry, I’ve been busy. Tom usually does the mowing, and since he’s at sea . . .” I was still getting used to saying that phrase.
My husband is at sea
. Conjured visions of lighthouses and whaling ships. My rugged man standing boldly at the prow, salt spray and rays of sunset kissing his face.
Oh, Tom, I miss you
.

“I kin git you some names of boys in the neighborhood who hire out for yard work.” She flashed her gap-toothed grin. “Or you could always buy a goat.”

I forced an answering laugh and hustled Bryan into the house. Yard work. Goat. Hmm. Could I buy a goat on the Internet? Was there a store called Goats R Us?

When I turned from locking the door, Bryan was standing on the rug watching me. “Mom, what’s a panic attack?”

Feigning nonchalance, I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I think it’s when someone feels scared for no reason.”

Bryan pulled off his shoes, shaking sand onto the floor. He looked up at me with all the earnestness of a seven-year-old. “But you do have a reason, don’t you?”

My brilliant son. Tears stung the back of my eyes, and I knelt and opened my arms. He threw his arms around my neck, and I squeezed him hard. His matter-of-fact acceptance eased my shame, but it also kindled my determination.

I had to find a way to shake this off. For Bryan, for Tom, for all the people who counted on me.

After my son wiggled away and ran off to play, I stayed on the floor, huddled on my knees.

“I’m getting worse,” I whispered. “Every time I step outside it’s an ordeal. I don’t like people anymore. I’m snapping at Bryan. And now I’m talking to myself.” Sweat prickled along my forehead, and I pushed hair back from my face. “I need a plan.”

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

I’d said it to Tom often when I organized the youth group famine event and the local fund-raiser for our town library. I’d said it to my boss at the dry cleaners when he struggled with scheduling his part-time help. Now as panic crouched outside my door, I cast around for something—anything. I saw the plastic milk crate full of office supplies discreetly stored under the card table. My tablecloth didn’t quite reach the floor. I scrambled across the room and pulled out the crate.

Inside, a chubby file held my notebooks for various past projects—cheap, spiral-bound, and three-by-five size so they would fit in my purse. I unearthed the notebook labeled
Sullivan
Relocation Project
and leafed through the pages. I’d broken down each step of getting our house ready to show and on the market, finding a new house in Virginia, planning the move, packing each room.

This file folder of dog-eared notebooks gave evidence that over the years I’d faced plenty of challenges. My notebooks had helped me organize, set goals, and stay on track.

Why couldn’t the same process work on solving my current problem? Okay, reclaiming sanity wasn’t the same as selling a house. But I had to try something. Time was supposed to heal all wounds, but my brain hadn’t gotten that memo. I was finding it harder to function with each passing day. I’d seen what could happen when a mind spiraled out of control. I had to stop this slide before it was too late.

I pulled out a fresh notebook with a sunny yellow cover and grabbed a Sharpie marker. With careful block letters and a firm hand, I printed across the front of the notebook.

Penny’s Project.

I returned the marker to the holder on the table and chose a sharp pencil. I settled onto the couch with the notebook full of empty pages and was instantly stumped. Where did I begin to find myself again when the dark shadows of trauma refused to let go? When I didn’t even understand how they had infiltrated every part of my daily life?

Focus, Penny. What’s your goal?

I tapped my eraser a few times against the lined paper, then wrote
Penny’s Project
across the top of the first page. Beneath it I scrawled,
Don’t go insane
.

Okay, that might not be the most positive wording. My eraser rubbed out the words and I flipped the pencil in my fingers.
Move
toward healing.

That was better, but not very specific. What had they told me in that Saturday business class Pilgrim Cleaners sent me to? Make your goals measurable.

I chewed the soft yellow wood of the pencil, then wrote,
Be
Penny again, in time for Tom’s return.

The concrete goal helped me turn to the second page.

I’d had plenty of plans for after we settled here in Chesapeake. I’d been sidetracked, but it was time to start moving forward again.

Join PTA—help out at school.

Mow lawn.

Take Bryan to the beach.

Explore neighborhood.
My writing slowed. These plans should have stirred eagerness in me, but even shaping the letters took unimaginable effort. Maybe I needed more information about the emotions that had sunk their claws into me.

Research trauma recovery.

Information would be sure to help. With that added to the list, I had the courage to keep brainstorming. Simple tasks that I used to be able to do without a second thought piled up as daunting as mountains. But these steps would make me normal again before Tom got back.

Organize kitchen.
I wrote faster.

Attend mixer for Navy spouses.

Back- to-school shopping for Bryan (long past due).

That one wouldn’t be a hit with my restless boy. To make it up to him, I added the next item.

Get a pet for Bryan.

I could imagine his whoop of glee when I reached that task.

Get to know neighbors.

Choose a way to volunteer at church.

My hand hovered over the page. Since I wanted to recover as quickly as possible, I should be able to tackle each of these in the weeks between now and Thanksgiving.

Boldly, I wrote in the crowning goal.
Attend Thanksgiving play
at Bryan’s school.
Bryan in a Pilgrim costume, with beaming smile, shone in my imagination like a Kodak moment. Warmth curled around my heart, and the eagerness I’d been hoping to stir finally flickered to life.

There. That would do it. Now I had a plan. And failure was not an option.

chapter
4

S
UNDAY MORNING
I
WOKE
up feeling achy in all my joints. I was relieved to have a good excuse to stay home from church. A new church could be rich with potential friendships and encouraging fellowship, but it could also be a painful reminder of homesickness and the exhausting process of starting over. Tom and I had chosen a church and gone a few times before he shipped out, but there was no way I could drag myself there today. Instead, Bryan and I watched a service on television. Technology was a marvelous thing. We huddled on the couch and watched a strange congregation relayed to our living room via camera. No shaking hands to share the peace, no shoulders squished beside mine in the pew, no resonance in my throat as I sang a hymn to the heavens made stronger by united voices. Just a distant box. Yet that was a better fit for me than something more real.

What was happening to me?

Several times during the day, I glanced at the waiting notebook. No sense starting a new project when I was feeling sick. Besides, Bryan needed my attention. From my nest on the couch, I played endless rounds of Battleship, lost at crazy eights, and read
Animalia
with him—taking time to find every possible hidden picture.

Later in the day, Bryan raced toward his room to get a new computer game to show me. His shirt stretched tight across his chest and pulled up from his jeans. Another growth spurt.

“Hey, buddy. Come here.”

He skidded to a stop and backtracked, then sprang onto the cushioned arm of the couch and tumbled down to the spot beside me. “Yeah?”

“You need some new school clothes.” One of the tasks in my notebook.

He grinned. “So can we go to the mall tomorrow? And can we see a movie and eat at Taco Bell?”

That would entail navigating unfamiliar streets, leading Bryan in and out of busy stores, the beep of cash registers, the crush of strangers. “I have a better idea. Let’s look on the computer.”

“But Mo-om—”

I gave him The Look, and Bryan cut his whine short and followed me to the monitor. I set my little notebook on the table near the computer and gave it a soft pat of promise. School clothes for Bryan was on my list, and there was nothing wrong with shopping the easiest way possible, was there?

We surfed several Web sites together. He vetoed dozens of my suggestions—shirts too itchy-looking, pants the wrong color or not cool. But we finally settled on a few T-shirts and some new jeans a size bigger. I placed an online order from Sears and released my son to the backyard. That night I drew another red X on the calendar, proud of creating a fairly normal day for my son.

Before I headed to bed, I checked the computer. Another e-mail waited from Tom. My fingers hovered above the keyboard before I typed my answer.

Hi honey!

Bryan and I went to the Norfolk Botanical Garden yesterday.
It’s gorgeous. They have an azalea festival every spring. Let’s go next
year, okay?

Yes, I’m keeping busy. Some late back-to-school shopping with
Bryan. All the usual.

Okay, I know I promised to go talk to someone, but I’ve been doing
great, so it would really be a waste of time. Besides, I have you and mom,
and friends. That’s all I need. Big kisses (is it okay to send e-kisses to the
chaplain? Will it undermine your spiritual image with the troops?)

Your favorite wife

The next morning, Bryan fidgeted during our blessing in the doorway. Laura-Beth’s son, Jim-Bob, waited on the sidewalk as I rested my hand on my son’s head. “ . . . and I ask for health and strength for his body and mind, and thank you that he gets to be in the Thanksgiving play. Thank you for loving us so much. Amen.”

I stooped down, and Bryan’s kiss grazed my cheek. He raced to the sidewalk as if all the energy I’d lost had been siphoned into his small muscles. Jim-Bob gave him a playful shove and their voices rose in laughter. They charged to the corner as the bus pulled up.

When I walked back into the house, the first thing my gaze hit was the yellow notebook.

I couldn’t have chosen one with a more subtle cover?

I strolled past on the way to the kitchen for a mug of coffee, pretending I didn’t see it. But as I sipped coffee in the kitchen, the thought of a long day alone with my thoughts was pure torture. Time to take charge. One of my self-appointed tasks was to gather information on whatever was wrong with me.

I carried the coffee out to my pseudo-office in the corner of the living room and booted up the computer. When I’d worked at the dry cleaners, I’d been more than a cheery receptionist. I was a wiz at online research. Lipstick smudges, smears of mustard, rare brocade with a chocolate-raspberry stain? Google, link, scroll. I could find the solution.

The crime had rubbed a smear across my psyche. Okay, more than a smear. A stain absorbed deep into the fabric. But a little research should turn up stain-removal steps. I attacked the keyboard and began my search of the Internet, following each promising trail, ferreting facts about crime victims, panic attacks, and emotional health.