Strange in Skin (10 page)

Great,
I thought. He had just completely turned around the conversation and aimed it directly
towards me. “Did he?” I didn’t particularly care.

 

He nodded. “How are things going at home with all of that?”

I took a deep breath and found myself playing with the silver bracelet dangling from my wrist. I had
suddenly realized that my father had given that bracelet to me a couple of birthdays ago and fought the
urge to rip it off my wrist right then and there. “They’re fine.”

“Why won’t you talk about it?”

 

“Because I don’t want to.” I found myself losing control, as if talking about this with Buck, who had
seen it with his own eyes, would push me over the edge. I wished he had never been there.
“Calm down, Anna. I just think you need to talk about it, get it off your chest.”

 

What did he know about anything? It infuriated me that he thought he knew what was best for me. “I
don’t need to get it off my chest. I need to forget it ever happened.”

 

“Can you do that though?”

“Do what?” I found myself still on the verge of almost screaming at him. I hated how he was
making this his business.
“Forget about it?”

He didn’t seem the least bit concerned that I was on the edge of making a scene and didn’t seem to
want to end the conversation. He just wanted to pry and dig his fingers deeper into the wound. “Of
course not!” I yelled out, jumping to my feet. “I hate that I know this. I hate that he’s done this to us, to
my mother!”

Buck quickly stood from the love seat and took a few steps toward me.

“He acts like nothing’s wrong! He puts on this big show as if he’s some perfect pastor who can do
no wrong and everyone just goes along with it.
I
didn’t even know anything was wrong, so how can I
blame anyone else for not seeing through his little act? He’s out visiting Mrs. Anderson, helping Mrs.
Anderson, sleeping with Mrs. Anderson!” The tears came on strong, stinging in my raging eyes and
streaming heavily down my cheeks.

“Hey, now,” Buck whispered, pulling me in closer to him. He hugged me tight and I let him, not
knowing what else to do. All I could think about now was my father, and I was so angry that I had
allowed these feelings to overwhelm me, yet again. “Listen, you don’t know what you think you saw
is what is actually going on.”

I pushed Buck away from me. “How can you defend him like that? It makes me honestly sick. How
can you even go to church on Sunday and listen to him preach about God and about being a good
person and doing all these good things when you saw it the same as I did? I
have
to be there, but you,
you continue to go, but why?” I screamed out, continuing to cry.

He took a step closer to me again, and I reacted by going backwards. He threw his hands up in the
air as if surrendering and didn’t attempt to move closer. “I honestly don’t think your dad is capable of
something like
that
.” He paused for a moment to assess my reaction. All I could do was just stand
there and clench my hands up into fists, the nails digging in my palms. “I’ve thought about it. Believe
me, Anna, I have. Pastor John James is a good man, one of the best.”

I let a noise of disgust escape from my throat. He was fooled, too. “I can’t believe this. You’re
taking his side. You saw what I saw and you’re taking his side.”

 

“Anna, I’m not taking his side. I just don’t want you to be upset over this, because I really don’t
think it’s happening the way you’re thinking it is.”

 

Buck was such an irritating person. He threw his opinions around and wanted me to just go along
with whatever he said. “I know what I saw. How else would you or could you explain it?”
“I don’t know exactly.” He looked at me, not sure what to do or say next. “Have you tried talking to
him about it at all?”

 

“Of course not!” I cried out. “I can’t have that conversation with him. I would probably want to kill
him if I heard him actually admit to it.”

 

“Anna, you’re overreacting.”

“Whatever, Buck. Thanks for the lovely night.” I took a few steps toward him to try to get to my
coat.
Buck grabbed a hold of me by the waist and swung me in closer to him just then. He had a silly
smirk on his face which only agitated me even more.
“Let go of me!” I cried out.

“Anna,” he whispered, and then suddenly Buck’s head bent down and his lips pressed tightly to
mine. It only lasted a few seconds before he backed up to see my reaction. He was still smirking.
I immediately swung back my hand that was still clenched into a fist behind me and then released
all of my fury and irritation as my fist collided with Buck’s hard skull, directly on his eye.
He instantaneously cried out and stumbled backwards, probably more from pure shock than from
the actual blow.

 

“Not the reaction you were hoping for?” I asked, suddenly feeling calmer and better having
released some of the built-up tension from within me.

 

He was holding onto his eye with his hand, suddenly furious with me now. “You’re crazy! Why
would you do something like that?”

 

“Why would you kiss me, especially in a moment like that?”

 

He squinted at me with his other eye, his hand still pressed against the one I had punched. “I was
trying to get you to calm down.”

“By kissing me?” I screamed.
He winced a little. “Do you have a ring on?”

I suddenly looked down at my still clenched fist. It was throbbing from hitting his hard face, and
there on my middle finger was a ring with a sapphire stone on it in the shape of a heart. I looked back
at Buck and felt a little twinge of guilt for hitting him now. “I’ll go get you some ice.”

I walked into the kitchen and began shuffling around his freezer searching for an ice pack. The
phone rang, echoing throughout the house. I turned around and stared at a large black phone hanging on
the wall behind me and guessed it to be more memorabilia from his grandmother.
“Can you get that?” Buck shouted at me.

I slammed the freezer door shut and reached for the phone with my bad hand. It hurt as I did so. I
started to wonder if maybe I had broken something. “Hello?”

“Anna, is that you?”
It was my father.
“Yeah,” I whispered lowering my eyebrows. Why would he have called here?
“Put Buck on the phone,” he commanded me.

I thought about hanging up on him, but instead, I gently laid the phone down on the table and went to
get him. “Buck, it’s for you. It’s the honorable Pastor John James.”

He gave me a look of surprise but didn’t dare say anything to me about it as he tromped into the next
room. His hand came down from his eye revealing the damage I had done. It had already turned a
deep shade of purple and blue as it began to swell. I didn’t listen to their conversation. I just sat down
on the loveseat and found myself staring blankly at the floor.

“Get your coat on,” Buck instructed me as he came back in. He walked to a small closet near the
front door and retrieved a coat for himself.

 

I stood up and looked at him cautiously. “That was fast. What did he want?”

He bit his lip slightly, still angry, but I could tell he was hiding something from me. “He didn’t want
me to tell you right away, afraid that you’d be upset, but I don’t really see how you could get much
more upset than you already are.”

I continued to stand there waiting for him to tell me what he was talking about. I put my hands on my
hips impatiently. “Did he confess his undying love for Mrs. Anderson or something?”

“No, he wants me to drive you to the hospital.”
“What for?”

He turned around and picked up my coat for me. “It’s your mom. They think she’s had a heart
attack.”

The ride to Seneca Memorial was a long, silent one. The roads were slick and wet. Buck drove
cautiously and too slowly for me not to keep losing my patience. I kept wondering if my mother was
okay, what had happened, where was Matthew? Everything kept swirling around in my head. I
glanced at Buck and saw the bruised, bulging eye. Probably another reason he was driving so
carefully, I presumed.

Perhaps my mother had finally realized what exactly my father was up to with Mrs. Anderson. That
had to be it. She now knew he was having the affair, and it probably broke her heart in half and gave
her a heart attack from finding out. How horrible for her if she now knew. She was too fragile to
handle something like this. Her heart was too delicate. She had always had irregular heartbeats since
she was a child, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to take something as devastating as this. My father
was going to be the reason for my mother’s death.

Once we were parked and inside, we headed directly for the cardiac floor of the hospital.

“Helene James’ room,” I said trying to catch my breath from walking so quickly. I had decided that
taking the stairs would ultimately be faster than the elevator. Buck and I stood in front of a large desk
with four nurses sitting behind it. They didn’t look particularly busy, but then again, it was almost ten
at night. The hallways of the hospital were quiet and everyone was whispering so as not to disturb
those that were asleep.

“Are you a relative?” the nurse questioned me. She was chewing vigorously on a piece of gum.
“Yes. I’m her daughter.”
“She’s in room 1048. Go down the hall and it’ll be on your left,” she instructed me.

Buck followed me but remained a few steps back. I walked quickly to the end of the hall and
hurried toward the door labeled 1048 in large gold metal numbers. I burst in and saw my mother lying
in bed with all sorts of monitors and cords running to and from her.

“Anna,” she whispered, reaching out her hand to grab hold of mine.

I rushed to her side, relieved that she was all right. I immediately felt the chill of her cold fingers as
she touched me. My father was sitting on the other side of the bed directly across from me. I barely
gave him notice, focusing all my attention to my mother who looked pale and exhausted.

“What happened?” I asked, my eyes now moving accusingly toward my father and then back to her.

She attempted a half smile. She always did this when she was trying to cover something up, trying
to make things appear better than they really were. She had done this since I was a small child so I
would feel better about the situation, only now I could see right through it.

“I’m okay. Really.”
I wasn’t convinced. “What happened?” I repeated, adding a little more emphasis this time.

“She was having her palpitations again,” my father explained. “She started getting sharp pains with
them this time, though.”

 

“You usually don’t get them unless you’re upset. What were you doing? Were you two fighting?”

My mother gave my father an uneasy look. A small wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows as she
had a concerned expression on her face.
“Why would you think we were fighting?” she asked.

My eyes went to the floor. “I just assumed …” but I stopped. I couldn’t talk about it like this,
especially here.

A tall doctor came through the door. His hair was dark and he wore tiny, wire-rimmed glasses. He
glanced over a page on a clipboard and then tucked it under his arm. “I’m Dr. Weston. I’ve come to
reassess you, Helene.” He flashed a smile full of bright white teeth. “Are you able to sit up a little for
me?”

I moved out of his way so he could get closer to my mother. I watched curiously as he checked
some of the monitors and then wrote down the information on the clipboard. He checked her pulse and
her blood pressure and then walked in front of the bed to look at her.

“Looks like you’ve got some company,” he said cheerfully.
She nodded.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better, thank you.”
“You’re responding well to the medication. Very good. Any more pains?” he asked.
“No. Just tired.”

“Yes, well, that’s expected.” He turned and gave my father and I a look over. “I’m going to keep
Helene overnight for observation. We haven’t totally ruled out a myocardial infarction just yet. I’m
still awaiting the results of her cardiac enzymes and expect a call from the lab shortly on those.” He
turned his head toward my mother again. “Try to get some rest, Mrs. James. I will be in to check on
you in the morning before I leave.”

“Thank you, doctor,” my father said as we watched him leave the room.
“You should go home and get some sleep,” my mother told me.

“I just got here. I’m not going anywhere.” I was irritated that she had suggested such a thing. I
wasn’t a child.

 

“Did you have a good night with Buck? Where is he?” she asked, still practically whispering.
“He’s here.” I glanced toward the doorway. Buck was obviously within listening distance as he
peeked his head in the room for a moment so she could see that he was there.

“Oh my goodness!” my mother gasped. “Your eye.”
Buck disappeared around the corner again, embarrassed.
My father gave me a hard, stern look. Had he already figured out I had done that?

“Um, I think he ran into the corner of a cupboard or something,” I quickly spit out. “Where’s
Matthew?”

 

“Lydia has him,” she answered. It was one of her friends from the church. “He was excited to stay
the night.”

 

We sat there in silence for a few moments just listening to the hum of the monitors. There was a
huge elephant in the room, and I grew more furious by the second that no one was acknowledging it.

“What were you doing exactly when you got these palpitations?” I asked, suddenly feeling brave,
wanting to get this all off my chest. I wanted this weight lifted from my shoulders because it wasn’t
fair to have to hide this any longer. It was too much of a burden for me to bear, too much for my
mother. If my father wanted to be with another woman, we would turn our backs on him and never
look back. I had little respect for him left now anyway. It was time to tell the truth. If she didn’t know
already, which I assumed she did, it was time to expose this failure of a Christian man who stood at a
pulpit every Sunday and made everyone else in the room feel guilty for their sins when a big, fat
finger should have really been pointed right back at the pulpit to Pastor John James. The thought of
him standing up there believing he had any right to speak about Jesus repulsed me.