Lisa Miscione - Angel Fire

She had meant to avoid the church today. But in spite of herself she saw it rising before her and she felt powerless to turn around or veer off in another direction. She was drawn to it, drawn to Juno.

“Your mother would be glad to know you have come home to God.’’

On the day her mother had been murdered, Lydia had known she was in trouble. The principal had caught Lydia smoking in the bathroom and had punished her with a detention. The principal also had called her mother at work to let her know of Lydia’s infraction. On top of that, she had missed the school bus and had to walk more than a mile and a half home.

It was September 5, a brisk and clear fall day. The leaves were changing and the air was clean and smelled like cut grass. Lydia sniffled as she walked home carrying her heavy bag. She could envision the scene that awaited her as if it were already a memory. Her mother would be waiting for her at the kitchen table. She would ask Lydia calmly, “How was your day?’’ Then: “Do you have something to tell me?’’ Then there would be an unbearably long lecture that would last at least an hour and maybe the whole evening, depending on how angry her mother was and how much energy she had. Then Marion would be distant and silent, and speak to Lydia only when she absolutely had to, with politely cold directions. “Please do the dishes,’’ or, “Make sure you’re in bed before ten.’’

It would be better if her mother yelled. Then Lydia could yell back. Instead she would have to eat her own guilt, feel ashamed and sorry. She would have to wait for forgiveness.

Lydia would always remember what she had been wearing that day: a red plaid, pleated skirt; white tights and black loafers; a white cotton shirt and black suede vest – her favorite outfit.

She hadn’t even entered the house before she knew something was wrong. She stood at the end of the driveway for a moment and stared at her mother’s car. The door was open. She walked to the blue Chevy and saw her mother’s purse sitting on the passenger’s seat. She could hear music sounding loudly from inside the house.

Her mother was a precise woman, with predictable habits. She was orderly, nothing ever out of place, no action ever spontaneous. Even if she had heard the phone ringing in the house, she never would have left the car unlocked, never mind with the door wide open and her purse sitting there. Even though they lived in a safe, small town, Lydia’s mother had been raised in Brooklyn. She had let Lydia know that the world held dangers she could not yet imagine. No ground-floor window was ever left unlocked at night. When Lydia let herself in on most afternoons, she was to lock the door behind her and not open it for anyone except the police or the neighbors. Her mother was quite strict on these points.

Lydia took her mother’s purse and closed the car door. She walked slowly to the front door of the house and found that ajar as well.

“If you ever come home and find the doors open or a window broken, don’t even go inside. Just run to the neighbor’s, call the police, and then call me at work.’’

“Yeah, okay, Mom. God.’’

“Mom?’’ she called from the front steps. “Mom?’’

She was not sure how long she stood there debating what to do next. Finally, she pushed the door open and walked inside, dropping her schoolbag and her mother’s purse on the floor. She left the door wide open, the outside seeming safer than the inside at that moment.

There were no lights on inside. And when she turned off the blaring stereo, the silence of an empty house greeted her.

“Mom?’’

She walked from room to room downstairs, seeing nothing. Then she climbed the stairs. Her mother’s room was dark, the shades pulled down sloppily below the sill in a way her mother never would have done. When she flipped the light on she saw her mother, a sight she had tried to bury deep inside herself but which she had never forgotten. Bound to the headboard, her dead eyes were rolled up in her head, her mouth parted in a silent scream. Lydia ran to her mother, began shaking her, screaming at her.

Then she backed away, stunned and bloodied. It was impossible for her mind to process what she had seen and she was reduced to an organism reacting to horror. She ran to her neighbor’s door and pounded with both fists, unable to accept that there was no one home to answer her cries. Her mind was racing as she willed herself to wake up from her nightmare. A neighbor across the street finally heard her and called the police. They arrived within minutes. Lydia had exhausted herself by then, sat breathing heavily on her front stoop, staring blankly as shock set in.

She could remember refusing to be moved from the front stoop of her house. A female officer sat beside her, trying to convince her to move into the house out of the cold. But Lydia wouldn’t, thinking inanely that she should be there to stop her grandparents from seeing what she had seen when they arrived from Brooklyn. She sat there, shivering, wrapped in a blanket, trying to imagine how this wrong could be righted.

It was while she was sitting on that stoop that she first saw Jeffrey. He pulled up with another man in a black car. He walked toward her, his eyes on her the whole time. He looked strong and important to her, like someone who would have rescued her mother if he could have. He knelt before her and asked the female officer to leave.

“Hi, Lydia,’’ he said softly. “I’m Agent Mark. I know you’re really scared and sad right now, but maybe you can help me find the person who did this to your mother.’’

He put a gentle, sympathetic hand on her shoulder and she nodded, then started to cry. He gave her his hand, helped her stand up from the stoop, and led her inside.

Lydia slowed to a halt in front of the church and stretched out her back. She wiped the sweat from her face with the bottom of her shirt. The church looked like it was waiting for her. Even in the throes of the restlessness that beset her as her mother’s anniversary approached, she had never reflected on the details of the day she found her mother’s body. Why has this come back to you now? Why is the pain so fresh?

Her head was so crowded with thoughts and memories, she could barely hear her own voice through the cacophony. It reminded her of something a meditation teacher had said to her once: “Your mind is like a roomful of monkeys. You can barely quiet one before another starts shrieking. You must breathe to quiet your monkeys. Only then will you find inner peace.’’ Lydia had been as big a failure at meditation as she had been at therapy. She walked in a circle with her hands on her hips now, catching her breath before she went inside.

She knew she had come to see Juno. Do you really think he’s going to heal you, Lydia?

She walked up the steps and pushed open the heavy wooden door. A mass was in progress; the priest stood at his pulpit, about twelve people in the pews before him. She slipped in quietly, unnoticed, she hoped, staying to the back of the church. She dipped her right fingers into the holy water by the door and crossed herself, more out of a reflexive respect than anything.

She discreetly reached for the three quarters she had placed in her bra and dried the sweat off them on her shorts. Placing them in the box provided, she lit three votive candles.

“Let us pray,’’ she heard the priest say.

The silence was so heavy it was almost sound. She sat in the backmost pew, then knelt as the others did. She wondered what they were praying for. Wondered what she should pray for. Ridiculously, she began to wonder, if she found a genie’s lamp on some deserted beach and was granted three wishes, what they would be. Right now, a cigarette would do.

When she opened her eyes and sat back, she saw Juno at the altar. He began to play his guitar. The acoustics of the church carried the music on the air and filled the room. His fingers were sure and every note was perfect. But it was him and not his music that captivated her. She had to know if he was truly what he was said to be.