Erasing Faith(74)
Within the hour I was behind the wheel of a compact sedan, heading down the highway toward my parents’ house far faster than the legal limit. The music was cranked up, Florence + The Machine’s Shake It Out screaming from the speakers. The windows were rolled down, drenching me with mellow California heat and blowing my hair into a tangle around my face. Sixty minutes on the West coast, and I could already feel the tension seeping from my bones.
I was going home.
***
“You’re so thin!” Meadow shrieked before I’d even set down my suitcase. “Have you been doing hot yoga?”
“Your hair is different.” Saffron’s nose scrunched up in distaste as she examined me from head to toe. “Darker.”
They shot questions rapid-fire, not giving me time to answer a single one.
“Is that a Prada blouse?”
“Those are the new Chanel boots! How did you get those?”
“What happened to your frumpy jeans-and-a-t-shirt look?”
It was the typical sisterly greeting — what I liked to call antagonistic affection. Our interactions were full of advice and admonishment. Equal parts smiles and snide remarks, excited compliments and underhanded criticisms. My older sisters were mostly well-intentioned, though I couldn’t say I’d missed them tremendously in our time apart.
Except for Rain. She was silent as she hugged me tightly, and her smile was as warm as her embrace.
“Dad is doing fine — a few bumps and bruises, but he’s stable and conscious. They’re just keeping him overnight for observation,” she whispered in my ear. “It’s good to see you, Faith.”
“You too, Rainey.” I pulled away and turned to face my other two sisters, who were still clucking like mother hens over my appearance.
“We didn’t know you were coming,” Meadow said. “No one expected you would.”
I bit my tongue.
“There’s no bed made up for you.” Saffron made a tsk noise. “I’m sure your room is a dusty mess.”
“That’s fine.” I shrugged and resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “I’m here to see Dad, not to lounge around in bed.”
“Dylan and Lennon can’t make it.” Saffron’s voice was thick with disapproval. “They’re on some kind of snowboarding trip in the Himalayas.”
I did roll my eyes, that time.
“Bill is at home with the kids.” Meadow’s words were welcome — I wasn’t eager to see her brood of children or their father. Bill rarely pulled his eyes away from the television long enough to speak, and her kids were simply blurs of movement, racing around the house so fast it was impossible to make out their features clearly.
“So is Steven,” Saffron added. “He’s watching the twins.”
My relief was palpable. The last time all my nieces and nephews had seen me, “Auntie Faith” had ended up with permanent marker all over her face and a rat’s nest hairstyle it would take hours — and several clumps of lost hair — to undo.
“So, speaking of the men in our lives…” Rainey had a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Are you dating anyone?”
Meadow and Saffron instantly leaned in, their attention fixed so intently on me I had to fight the strong desire to run away.
“Aw, crap, is that the time?” I exclaimed, glancing at the nonexistent watch on my wrist. “If I’m going to see Dad today, I’ve gotta go.”
“Faith.” Rainey’s voice was playfully stern.
“We’ve already been to the hospital today. Visiting hours are practically over, by this point,” Saffron said.
“Really, it doesn’t make much sense for you to go now,” Meadow chimed in. “But then, you never were exactly plagued by good sense.”
Rainey saw the look on my face and pressed her lips together to keep from laughing.
“Well, apparently that’s genetic,” I snapped, glancing from Saffron to Meadow determinedly. “Dad was just in a car accident — forgive me for not wanting to talk about my social life. I’m only here for two days. I’m going to see my father.”
With that, I turned on my heel and headed for the car, chiding myself for not going straight to the hospital. I could still hear Meadow and Saffron grumbling about their stubborn little sister as Rainey’s laughter chased me out the door.
***
It was great to see my parents.
They both teared up when I walked into the hospital room which, of course, immediately made my eyes water as well. Three years without seeing them suddenly felt like an eternity.
My mother was wearing a long flowing patterned dress straight out of Woodstock and though my dad was dressed in a hospital gown, his John Lennon glasses were still firmly in place on the bridge of his nose. They both looked exactly the same and I found deep comfort in that. Everything else may’ve changed, but my parents were one fixture that never would.
My dad was in far better shape than I’d been anticipating, boasting nothing more than a dislocated shoulder and a slightly bruised ego after my mom spent several hours making fun of his driving skills. The CT scans showed there was no internal bleeding from the bump on his head, and all the other tests his doctors ran came back clear. He’d be released tomorrow.
We’d been catching up for a while when a nurse came in to tell us visiting hours were over. We said goodbye to my dad, promising to pick him up in the morning, and soon enough I was walking toward the parking garage, arm in arm with my mother — something I’d thought, for a very long time, I’d never be able to do again.