Part 37 (1/2)
”He broke your leg!” she screamed, standing. ”He commanded me to break it and when I didn't he broke it!”
”He hurt your daughter,” I said.
”Yes! Yes, he hurt my daughter!” She was livid.
I let a beat pa.s.s.
”But don't you see, Mother . . . I'm not hurt.” I sat up in bed and stared at her. ”I don't feel any of the wounds that were in my heart only yesterday.” I leaned over and began to unravel the bandages on my right leg. ”I'm a water walker, Mother. Water walkers don't a.s.sign blame. Only their costumes can be hurt, and costumes come and go.”
I continued to unwrap my leg.
”What are you doing?”
Zeke had opted not to put a cast on my leg so that walking was out of the question. But he'd never broken a water walker's leg before, had he?
”I'm showing you how unhurt I am,” I said, and pulled the last of the bandage free.
My mother took a step back, eyes fixed on my right leg, which was smooth and white and showed not a single bruise, much less swelling, from any break.
”Sweet Jesus,” Mother breathed. ”Oh dear, sweet baby Jesus.”
I swung my legs off the bed and pushed myself to my feet, still weak from the exhausting emotional journey I'd taken through the night. Then I walked to the window, parted the curtain so that I could see out, and stared in the direction of the lake.
”Sweet baby Jesus,” my mother said yet again. ”You . . . What happened?”
I turned back to face her. ”Forgiveness happened,” I said. ”Just the way it's supposed to happen.”
”You . . . Your leg isn't broken.”
I looked down at my body. ”No, it's not.”
”But how?”
”I went for a walk on the lake last night,” I said.
”The lake? That's why you're wet? How . . . I . . . I don't understand.”
”You don't need to, Mother. I'm not sure I do either.” I approached her slowly, heart bursting with compa.s.sion. ”There's only one thing you need to know right now.”
Her eyes searched mine, stricken with apprehension. This was new territory for both of us.
”I'm your daughter,” I said, reaching for her hand. ”You're my mother and I love you with all of my heart. And if I love you that way, your Father loves you far more, just the way you are. You can't possibly impress him or upset him, he's not that small. Everything you've done, you've only done because you were lost, but today you are found by your daughter and your Father.”
Overwhelmed in ways that I couldn't possibly fully grasp, Mother sank to her knees, took me into her arms, and wept. I held her and stroked her hair, feeling beautiful and whole and overflowing with gratefulness.
I had finally found my mother and I found her only by finding myself.
For a long time we held each other. I didn't know what effect this might have on my mother, or her strict religious code, and honestly, I didn't care. I felt utterly loved and invulnerable, both in my mother's arms and apart from them.
Honestly, I felt as though I might be able to walk up to a bathtub and make the water float in the air if I wanted to, because in my mind's eyes, the very water that had once been my grave was now life.
When the tears had subsided and Kathryn had run out of ways to express her remorse, she stood and paced, but even then new tears came. She couldn't keep from looking at my leg.
”I don't understand, Eden.” She sniffed and wiped the tears seeping from her eyes. ”I just don't know what to think.”
”There's nothing to think, Mother. What's done is done and there's no harm.”
”You keep saying that, but all I can see is harm.” Guilt seemed to have a strangle hold on her, but that was her journey to take. ”I didn't mean to hurt you, sweetheart. You have to believe me.”
”You can't hurt me.”
”Of course I can! I did!” She stared at me with red eyes. ”I don't know why I didn't see it before . . . I . . .”
”It's okay, neither did I. But we see now, right?”
She stared at my leg. ”I see it but it's still hard to believe. How could your leg just . . . heal?”
”I don't know how, really. I just let go. My old beliefs about how the world worked had to die. I had to see that the troubled sea posed no threat to me.”
Her face wrinkled with sorrow again.
”That's what I've put you in, isn't it? A troubled sea.”
”No, Mother. It was and is my choice to see or not see trouble in the sea. It's all so plain now. I had to confront my troubles to learn they were only of my own making. I had to take that journey. It's like walking through the valley of death to learn that death is only a shadow, even there. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .”
”I will fear no evil,” she said, finis.h.i.+ng one of her favorite psalms.
But she was still gripped by worry. Not the same kind of fear that had held her captive for so long, but anxiety nonetheless.
It was Zeke, I thought. She had to figure out what to do about Zeke.
”Now what?” she said.
”Now we are free, Mother,” I said. ”If you want to be.”
”Free from what? I can't just . . .”
She was getting hung up. And no wonder-she had four decades of bad thinking habits to unlearn and she hadn't had the benefit of growing up in a monastery as I had. Nor had she met an Outlaw yet.
Well, there was me. I guess I was an Outlaw too now.
”Free from whatever you think keeps you safe,” I said. ”You get to step out of your own boat.” Not having been on the lake, she might not fully grasp that a.n.a.logy so I used more familiar language. ”It's up to you to walk into the valley of death and find only a shadow.”
She stopped her pacing and looked at me for a long time. Then looked down at my leg. When she lifted her head, I knew she'd made a decision-I had learned to read my mother's resolve from a hundred paces.
”What are we going to do about Zeke?” she asked.