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Show CHAPTER TWENTY SIX As I lay in the deepness of that night, the words of my mother and my father mixed in my waking dream with the faces of all those who had come into my life that summer. I seemed to relive all my days from that morning my father had come home. The faces of Andrew, of Uncle Paul, Andrew's mother and sister, the men at the hospital, Eric, the man on the stretcher, Andrew again, always Andrew. What my mother and father had said to the minister and Mr. Glade seemed to weave all these faces together, to make sense of all I had been feeling. I tried to sleep, pushed back the covers, plumped the pillow, but nothing worked. The visions of all these faces were like the dreams I had had when I was sick as a child and had called out in terror in the middle of the night. Only then my mother and father had come to me, had wiped my face with a cool cloth and had sat by my bed until morning. They would come again, I knew, if only I called for them. But they could not ease my terror or chase away my nightmares, for my mother and father shared the fear that kept me awake that night. For the first time in my life, I knew now that love was not enough, did not make the sun rise in the morning, and did not shelter those in its circle. That was the fear that kept me awake that night, and that had tinged my mother's voice as she had spoken so sharply to the minister. She felt helpless and alone, as alone as I now felt, alone in the darkness, alone in the night, alone in the world, Grandmother couldn't protect Paul, no matter how strong her love, Mother couldn't protect Eric, Mrs. Crayton couldn't protect Andrew. Nor could I now. His pain was his alone and while I loved him I could do nothing to ease or to share what he felt. |
