short story

The words punctured my mom like a pin deflating a balloon. Her shoulders slumped, and she suddenly looked every inch of her nearly six decades. “Emily,” Mom’s voice broke on a harsh sob. “Oh, my darling daughter. No, it wasn’t worth it. Not at all. I didn’t read the Bible. I merely thought if I could be good enough that would atone for my having lived when he died. But I couldn’t keep it up, and had to escape sometimes. I didn’t pick up that old Book until a few months ago, when I suddenly came across it on my bookshelf and remembered what that man had told me all those years ago.”

I closed my eyes in grief at those lost years, the years when I had so desperately needed a mother’s guidance. But had I been any better? I hadn’t made any attempts to repair our frayed relationship in the years since my father’s death. I had been content to maintain the status quo, not bothering to look beneath the surface to see my mom’s hurting soul.

“I read it.” Her voice held amazement as a smile broke through. “I realized what he had been telling me, that Jesus does love me and has called me to Him.”

She turned a shining face to me. “Once I accepted that, it dawned on me what a terrible, awful mother I had been, how I had stifled all the love in our house by focusing only on me, and my wants and needs and desires. I never once considered your father or you. I can’t ask your father’s forgiveness, but can you find it in your heart to forgive an old woman the wrongs she has done? Can we start over and have a real relationship, even at this late stage?”

I stared at the wooden cross, and thought about a man who had died pointing the Way to my mother. Her journey had taken more than thirty years to find the truth. I reached out and touched her arm. “I’m not sure how to start over, Mom.”

“I know.” She patted my hand.

“But lunch might be a good place to begin,” I said, drawing in a deep breath. “And maybe we can talk some more about what you’ve been reading in that Book of yours.”

My hand flew to my throat. I could nearly hear the squeal of breaks, the screams of passengers, and the crunch of metal at the collision.

Her voice dropped even lower. “The man next to me was covered in blood. Clearly, he was gravely injured, probably dying. But he focused not on himself, but on me, on the state of my soul. He thrust his Bible into my hands, begging me to read the truth within its pages. His last words have haunted me to this day.”

A truck roared past, whipping up a cloud of dust that irritated my eyes. At least, that’s the excuse I gave myself for the tears in my eyes. Then her words registered on another level. “Wait a minute. Are you talking about the Bible that sat on the mantle? The one with the cracked leather and dark splotches? Those were blood stains?”

“Yes, that’s the Bible he gave me, Emily,” Mom affirmed. “I clutched the Bible and tried to comfort him, tried to stop the blood, but he waved off my feeble attempts and said to me, ‘Norma Jane. Jesus said, “I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” He’s calling your name, Norma Jane.’”

My eyes fell on the simple wooden cross, representing a man who gave his last breath to reach another’s lost soul.

“But I never answered Him, Emily.” My mother turned to me, grabbing hold of my hands in a tight grip. “I could feel His tugging on my heart, but I ignored His call. After the accident, I had no heart left for continuing my journey, so I returned home to you and your father. And I tried to be a good person, tried to love you and your father the best way I could. I felt I had to, you see, because I was spared.”

“But you were always distant, so cold in a lot of ways. I knew that you loved me, but I also knew that you weren’t happy, that you would rather be off doing something else. And when Daddy died, you finally did leave.”

Mom squeezed my hands, then let go. “I’m an old woman now. My life hasn’t turned out quite like I expected. I wanted you to understand what happened here, how it changed the course of my life. I thought maybe we could reconnect somehow.”

I sighed in frustration as the old hurts clawed their way to the forefront of my mind. “Changed the course of your life? How, exactly, did it change your life?”

I paced away from her, stopping by the foot of the cross, then whirling around to point an accusing finger at my mom. “Instead of running away with some stranger, you returned to play the martyr with Dad and me. Then you simply disappeared whenever the walls closed in. That about sums it up, right? But then Dad died, and you had a golden opportunity to recapture those ‘lost’ years, didn’t you?” My voice rose to compete with the wind. “Was it worth it, Mom? Didn’t you even read the Bible that man on the bus died to give you?”

I eyed the desolate landscape, then looked at my mother, who I’d never seen shed a tear. “What are you talking about?”

“How do I even begin? I know I’ve not been a good mother to you. And part of the reason has to do with that cross.” Her voice steadied as she told me about a day more than 30 years ago.

The facts were simple. A Greyhound bus with a half-dozen passengers bound for Mexico collided with a semi-truck whose driver ran the stop sign at the intersection. The resulting crash killed one bus passenger and injured both drivers.

I stared at the cross, questions swirling in my mind. I asked the one that floated to the surface. “Were you on the bus?”

The silence between us stretched on. As I waited for her answer, I reflected on how little I really knew my mother. She had always been somewhat mysterious, suddenly disappearing for a few days at a time, once or twice a year. My father would smile sadly when I asked about her unexpected absences and say that she was off exploring the world. She always returned and, to my knowledge, my father never questioned her whereabouts. He also refused to tolerate my asking her about the trips.

The summer between my junior and senior years of college, she abruptly took off one sultry August night and didn’t come home—or call—for two weeks. While she was away, my father suffered a fatal heart attack. I, as the only child, had to shoulder the responsibility of burying him. My mother traipsed back home to find her husband dead and buried, and her daughter so furious with her that their relationship never quite recovered.

Now I wondered if her words would shed any light on her past.

“Yes, I was on the bus,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I was running away to Mexico to be with some drifter who had caught my eye. Now I can’t even remember his name. I, well, I wanted adventure, not a baby and a husband.”

“And so?” I prompted when the silence lengthened again.

“I sat on the bus by myself for most of the journey, until an older man took the open seat beside me a few stops before Orogrande. He didn’t say much at first, but then he began asking questions about my journey and my life, such as where I was headed, where was I from. His gentle eyes put me at ease, and I found myself pouring out my unhappiness.”

Mom blinked back tears, her voice becoming thready as she continued. “After refueling at Orogrande, the man pulled out a worn Bible. I rolled my eyes and said, ‘Don’t you go quoting Scripture to me, mister.’ He just lovingly stroked the Bible’s cracked cover and said, ‘But, Norma Jane, Jesus loves you, and He says so right here in this Book.’ Whatever else he was going to say, I’ll never know. At that very minute, the semi hit the bus.”

by Sarah Hamaker

This is part one of a short story I wrote a few years ago. Enjoy!

It’s always startling to find out your mother has a secret, especially when it’s not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill secret, but an I’ve-never-told-a-living-soul secret. My mother, Norma Jane Brookings, began unburdening this secret with a simple phone call.

* * *

My cell phone jarred me awake from a deep, dreamless sleep. Disoriented, I grabbed the phone and croaked out a greeting.

“Emily? Did I wake you? Time to rise and shine, sleepyhead,” a familiar voice chirped sweetly into my ear.

“Mom,” I squinted at the time on the screen, “it’s five-thirty. In the morning.”

I rubbed my eyes and waited for my mother—who never called without an agenda—to continue.

“You haven’t fallen back asleep, have you? Emily?”

I exhaled loudly. “I’m here, mom. What’s going on?”

“You’re still in Santa Fe, right?”

“Yes, I’m researching the Delaplane family’s trek to California along the Santa Fe trail.”

“You have the most interesting job.”

My work as a genealogical researcher provided one of the few topics my mother and I could discuss without animosity. When I was a child, she had often taken off without explanation for days at a time, leaving me alone with my father. She left for good after my father died during my college years. Our communication now mostly consisted of brief phone calls and birthday cards, and the sporadic correspondence contributed to my feelings of hurt and anger toward my mother.

“Can you take a day off to drive to Orogrande?” Mom asked.

“Is that in New Mexico?”

“Yes. Could you do it today?”

“Today?” I mentally reviewed my remaining workload. “I suppose so. Why?”

“Wonderful. It’s about a four-hour drive from Santa Fe, so I’ll call you about ten-thirty.” She ended the call without waiting for my answer.

Drop everything and drive to Orogrande?

The phone rang again.

“Emily? Aren’t you in the shower yet? Get moving!”

Click.

I grimaced and staggered sleepily to the bathroom.

* * *

I arrived at Orogrande, New Mexico, at precisely ten-twenty-eight. Only a rundown hotel, grocery store, gasoline station, two restaurants, and a dilapidated bus station greeted me.

Swirling dust added a filmy layer of grit to my already sticky skin as I stepped out into the mid-morning sun.

My phone rang. I checked the time: Ten-thirty on the dot.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Emily. Where are you?”

“Where else but in Orogrande, on Main Street.”

“Oh, good. I’ll be right there.”

Another click.

In shock, I swiveled around and saw my mother walking towards me from the hotel.

“All right. Let’s go,” she said, opening the passenger car door of my vehicle.

I shrugged and got behind the wheel.

“Now head south on Highway 54 and pull off the road at the intersection of Highway 9 and Highway 13,” she instructed.

“Mom, what’s this all about?”

My mother stubbornly pressed her lips together and stared straight ahead. I shook my head and started driving.

At Highways 54 and 13, I pulled off the road and found myself staring at a weather-beaten wooden cross. Straggly grass grew up around its base. A barbed wire fence separated the shoulder from ranch land.

“What on earth are we doing here?”

She sidestepped the question as she exited the car. I followed.

“I’ve failed, you know.” She paused and broke into sobs. “That cross should have represented my death, but instead, I’m here.”