Francine Rivers - Her Daughter’s Dream

Two days after Oma left for San Francisco, a student came into Carolyn’s civics class and gave the teacher a message. Mrs. Schaffer burst into tears when she read it. “President Kennedy has been shot down in Dallas, Texas.”

Everyone sat stunned for a few seconds and then started asking questions.

A few girls burst into tears. Even a few boys looked ready to cry, though they tried hard not to show it. Mrs. Schaffer said everyone was to go to the auditorium for a school assembly. The principal would tell them everything he knew.

The principal cried, too.

Carolyn felt hollow and numb inside. Shouldn’t she be scared? Others were. Shouldn’t she be angry? Others were. She heard the news and waited to feel something, anything .

The assembly ended after less than fifteen minutes. School was dismissed. Parents would know about it. Students with cars headed for the parking lot. Most headed for the buses lined up in front of the high school. Someone had already lowered the American flag to half-mast. Carolyn got on her bus and sat in the back row. She stared out the window while others talked, sobbed, cussed in whispers, made speculations about the future. What would Kennedy’s death mean to America? Would the space program end? What about the Peace Corps? So much for those who dreamed of being astronauts or going to foreign countries and solving world problems. So much for hoping the world would ever get any better.

One by one, students got off at their stops. As the rows of seats emptied, Carolyn moved forward row by row until she sat near the front. She could see the bus driver’s face in the rearview mirror. Tears ran down his cheeks. She stepped forward and clung to the pole next to the steps. “This is my stop, Mr. Landers.” She had the feeling he would have forgotten if she hadn’t spoken. He pulled over, stopped, and opened the bus doors.

Carolyn walked up the long driveway. The birds still sang. Everything still looked the same. She wished Oma were home, so she wouldn’t have to go into an empty house. She took the key out from under the flowerpot and unlocked the door. The place felt like a tomb-closed up, airless, silent.

Craving the sound of a human voice, she turned on the television. Every channel covered the assassination. She saw the joyful scenes before the shooting-people holding up welcome signs, others watching from windows and rooftops, the smiling president and his pretty wife waving from the car. Then three shots. A Secret Service man getting out of the car behind the president. People in the crowd screamed and cried; policemen looked up to see where the shots had come from. Shaking, she wanted to scream. She wanted to put her foot through the television. Instead, she shut it off and went into the kitchen.

Mom had filled the cookie jar with Oreos. Leftovers filled the refrigerator. A roast defrosted on the counter, blood pooling in the plastic wrap. Carolyn pictured Jackie with her husband’s blood on her designer suit.

She went over to the cottage, wandered through Oma’s flower garden, and then took the key from under the mat and opened the door. The cottage felt like an empty shell without Oma, even with sunlight coming through the windows. But it smelled familiar and felt cozy. She went to the bedroom and crawled under the covers of Oma’s bed, wishing she could curl up against Oma as she’d done when she was a little girl. It was the only time she could remember feeling truly safe as a child.

Only a moment seemed to pass, and she heard someone call her name. She heard a door open.

“Carolyn.” Mom’s voice came closer, voice hoarse with worry. “Carolyn!” Carolyn felt someone shaking her. “We’ve been looking all over for you!”

“I’m here,” Carolyn mumbled, mouth dry. Her head felt strange. What was she doing in Oma’s bed? Then she remembered. The president had been shot. Despair engulfed her.

“Didn’t you hear us calling?”

“I didn’t hear anything.” She felt sick. “I don’t want to hear anything.”

“Come on home, Carolyn.” She pulled the covers down. “You can sleep in your own room.” She stood in the doorway. “Be sure to make the bed before you come.”

Inexplicably angry, Carolyn yanked the covers up again. “I’m not coming! I’m sleeping here tonight!”

Mom sat on the edge of the bed. “Carolyn, we’re all upset…”

Carolyn shifted away. “Dad will have the television on. He’ll want to watch the news over and over again. You know he will. And you’ll be mangling something.” She started to cry. “I don’t want to see Kennedy shot again and again. I don’t want to keep hearing about it!” She covered her head with the blankets. “Just go away, Mom. Please. Just let me go to sleep and pretend it never happened.”

Mom rubbed her back and sighed heavily. “You’re not the only one who feels that way.” She stood. “Are you sure you’re okay here alone?”

Carolyn wanted to scream at her. Of course she wasn’t okay. She had never been okay. What kind of a mother would leave her vulnerable little girl alone every afternoon? A mother who didn’t care, that’s what kind. Why should her mother care now?

No one was ever home when she got there. What difference did it make if she spent the night in the cottage-or anywhere else, for that matter? It wasn’t like Dock would come back after more than ten years. Even he hadn’t wanted her in the end. “I’m fine, Mom. Go away.”

“Well, if you’re sure…” Her mother sounded hesitant. Something in her voice caught Carolyn’s attention. She pulled the blankets off her head, but her mother was already heading for the door. As it closed behind her, Carolyn wept. She lay in the darkness, wishing her mother had argued a little. She wished she’d sat on the bed for a few minutes longer.

But then, she’d have to care to do that.

1965

While everyone else in her class grew more excited with the approach of graduation, Carolyn dreaded it. It meant she would have to leave home. She didn’t have any great desire to go to college, but it seemed to be what everyone expected of her.

Oma made calls and fanned out university and state college brochures and application forms on the kitchen table. “War or not, the world goes on, Carolyn, and you have to make plans.” UC Berkeley was close. She could come home on weekends. So she applied there, for Oma’s sake, as well as Chabot junior college and Heald College in Hayward.

Dad seemed stunned when Carolyn was accepted at Berkeley. Oma asked why, for goodness’ sake. “Did you think your daughter was stupid?”

Her brother came home for her graduation. It passed in a blur. Dad took pictures. Mom made a nice dinner. Oma decorated a cake. Carolyn received cards of congratulations and money from Uncle Bernie and Aunt Elizabeth, Aunt Clotilde, and Aunt Rikka. Charlie grew restless. He wanted to go into town and see friends, although most of them had gone elsewhere for the summer. Dad asked if he ever heard from Mitch Hastings. Charlie said they talked. Mitch’s mom had died of cancer, and his dad had moved to Florida and remarried. Mitch had made the Ohio State team, second-string. Mitch wouldn’t be coming back to Paxtown anytime soon, if ever.

Carolyn felt a pang of disappointment. She supposed it was silly to wish Mitch Hastings might come home someday and see her as someone other than Charlie’s kid sister.

“What do you say we take a ride, Sis?”

Mom told them to go ahead and have some fun.

They drove into town. Charlie said he was proud of her. She had received an award for being on the honor roll every semester since freshman year. “Why so glum?”

“Just scared, I guess.”