Chapter 38
“So what are you going to do?” Jackson asked from the other end of the phone. Mason called him shortly after Sydney had left and told him everything.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I know it’s important to her, but… I don’t know. I mean, she knows why I’m reluctant to get married in a church.”
“Yeah, but don’t you think you’re being a little unreasonable?”
“Unreasonable?” He frowned. “Are you serious?”
“Mason, come on. That was a person,
not a church.”
“But Jacks…”
“No buts, man. You almost died, Mason. In fact, you did die, right in front of her. In light of all she went through I don’t think she’s asking for too much.”
“I really don’t know if I can do that Jacks –”
“Mason, stop. I don’t want to hear it. If Sydney wants to get married in a church, give her the church.”
Mason laughed. “This is why I don’t call you with this stuff.”
“You didn’t call me. I called you, remember?”
“No…I’m pretty sure I called you,” he insisted.
Mason was a little confused, but didn’t give much attention to it.
“Are you okay?” Jackson asked.
“I don’t know,” he paused. “I’ve been feeling really weird sometimes, like I’m not here.”
“That’s because you’re not.”
“What did you say?” Mason asked, caught off guard.
“I said, you’re heading home tomorrow, right?” Jackson repeated.
“According to the doctor I am; I can’t wait. I miss my bed, and my sheets, and my house.”
“I can imagine,” he laughed. “Try to take it easy. I’ll swing by after work.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
Jackson hung up, but Mason held the phone in his hand for a minute trying to remember if he had called Jackson or if Jackson had called him. The more he thought about it, the more he really didn’t remember. All he knew was that he was talking to Jackson. He sat the phone on the night stand and didn’t think much else of it. He still had to finish packing the few items he had in the drawers before Sydney got there in the morning to pick him up.
He watched the sky for most of the night as if he was searching for an answer to a question he was afraid to ask. He had thought a lot about what Jackson and Sydney had said and what he could remember from the day of the accident. He could still hear her voice, and with it he could still feel the anger he had felt that day at her words at her but the feeling subsided. He looked around the room: bland paint on the walls, a single window, plain furniture, a lamp, and a television. In that moment he did something he’d never done before. He took a step back from everything and looked at his life as a whole, without overlooking a single chapter, a single moment of joy, or a single moment of pain. He looked at everything. He glanced over to a mirror resting on the dresser that he hadn’t looked at since he arrived at the rehab facility.
As the night darkened his room, lit only by the yellow glow of the lamp on his nightstand, he stood there without a shirt or pants on, just shy of being naked. He stood in front of the mirror clothed only in a pair of boxer briefs. He stood straight up on both legs even though pain shot from his ankle to the base of his back. With his hand he traced the scars beneath his chest from his surgery, the scar on the center of his neck, and the dark spots on his arms from where the casts had been.
I died,
he said to himself, staring at his reflection in the mirror.
I died.
After all this time, he finally saw his life as more than the pain that encompassed it. As the tears broke and fell one by one down his once dry face, he was able to look at himself in the mirror and know he survived. He survived losing his father at too young an age for a little boy. He survived his stepfather abusing him. He survived death. He saw a small leather-bound book in the corner of the dresser. He remembered seeing it before, but never noticed it to the point of wondering what it was. When he picked it up and opened it, a small folded piece of paper fell out. Curious, he laid the book back on the dresser, unfolded the piece of paper, and read:
What is a memory? What are the thoughts of past feelings that enable us to recall points in our lives that we never wish to look back on; sights, sounds, and experiences? At what cost do we preserve the things that have hurt us?
A memory, as simple as it may be, can be a curse or a blessing. It can be whatever you let it. It can be your end or it can be your beginning. But know this: in the midst of your decision of which it will be to you I heard you when you called.
There was no signature and there didn’t need to be. He saw the writing on the wall. Through his tears, he dropped the letter to the floor and reached for his phone.
“Mason, what’s going on?” Sydney asked, walking him to the car. “Couldn’t this wait until the morning when the doctor actually discharges you?”
“No,” he answered, “It couldn’t, and I’m driving.”
“No you’re not,” she said aggressively.
“My right leg is fine,” he argued. “I’m driving.”
Sydney didn’t argue with him. She could tell something was wrong and whatever it was he needed to be in the driver seat. She helped him into the car and laid his crutches behind him in the back seat then she walked around and got in the car, still curious as to what was going on.
“Are you going to at least tell me where we are going?” she asked.
He didn’t say a word, just put the car in gear and pulled off.
They drove for almost an hour before he finally stopped.
He had parked at the bottom of a hill in front of a long driveway heading up to a large stone house. Every other house on the street either had a porch light on or a light in one of the other rooms, but not this one. The entire house was dark, the front nearly covered by landscaped trees.
“Where are we?” Sydney asked.
He took a deep breath before answering, “I used to live here.”
Mason opened the door and stepped out of the car. The moment his foot touched the ground pain shot through his body, causing him to flinch.
“Let me get your crutches,” Sydney offered.
“No. I don’t need them.” He braced himself before getting out of the car. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked around the front of the car and began making his way up the long driveway, each step feeling longer and longer, and hurting more and more. He reached the path between the landscaped trees leading to the front door. Adrenaline rushed through his veins, causing his hands to tremble as he reached above the doorframe for the spare key that used to be there. To his surprise it was still there after all this time. He pulled back the heavy screen door and slid the key into the top lock, then the bottom. He hesitated before opening the door, but with a turn of the key and a twist of the knob, it opened. The scent that was carried in the wind as the door opened immediately reminded him of his childhood.
The alarm beeped short beeps, waiting for the code before it went off. He slowly closed the door behind him and walked to the keypad.
0-4-1-3, disarm, and it was off.
The light from the master bedroom just at the top of the stairs flew on, lighting the hallway, glowing against the hardwood floors.
“Who’s there?!” a voice called out from the room.
Mason walked through the dark kitchen, through the dining room, and into the family room. After all these years, nothing much had changed. He turned one of the chairs facing the TV around to face the entrance of the family room and sat down and waited.
“Who’s there?!?!” the voice yelled out louder, with threats of calling the police.
One by one the lights came on – in the foyer first, followed by the light in the kitchen, and then the light in the dining room. As a hand reached around the wall shaking in fear, with the flick of a switch the light in the family room turned on.
The wooden bat Kevin had in his hand fell to the floor. He was in shock, unsure of what to do or what to say. “Mason?” he stuttered fearfully.
Masons eyes were still and direct. “Sit down,” he instructed him.
Kevin slowly slid onto the sofa directly across from him, separated by a glass coffee table. “How did you –” he began to ask.
Mason threw the key on the glass table.
“But…the alarm,” he continued.
Mason tilted his head in disgust. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, Philippians 4:13,” he slowly noted. “You read that to me every night. What kind of sick and twisted man would do that?” he asked.
“Son, I…”
“DON’T!” he aggressively stopped him. “Don’t …ever …call me son.”
Startled, Kevin stood up from the sofa. “Look, I don’t know what you want or why you are here, but you are in my house and I think you should leave.”
“First of all, this is
my father’s house
that he worked hard for and rightfully earned, not
your
s.” Mason paused. “Now, I think it’s in your best interest to sit…back…down.”
Mason’s tone was eerily calm and frightening, enough to make Kevin find himself slowly inching back into the sofa.
“I just want to know why,” he said. “Why would you…why
did
you think it was okay to take advantage of me, to hurt me the way you did? You are my stepfather, my mother’s husband, a preacher, for God’s sake,” he paused. “You were supposed to protect me, and instead you took from me… my life.”
Kevin searched excuses and reasons, trying to predict every possible outcome with every word, but he couldn’t craft his way out of it, not this time. “I don’t know why okay!?” He paused nervously. “You…you could have said stop,” his guilt insisted.
“As if my tears weren’t enough!” Mason yelled. “I was twelve. And every night I cried, hoping that one night you would hear me and ...stop.
But you didn’t,
and I couldn’t cry anymore, I couldn’t feel anymore. You had taken the fight and the life right out of me.”
“Son…I gave you everything!”
“YOU GAVE ME HATE!” Mason paused. “I hated myself” standing up from the chair, he began walking towards him, “and I hated life. I lived every day afraid of letting anyone close, thinking all they would do was hurt me and take from me what wasn’t theirs to take just like you did. I blamed myself. I blamed my mother,
even God
. Everyone except you.”
He took another step towards Kevin.
“I used to dream of the day I would finally face you, put a gun to you heard, blow your brains out and send you straight to Hell.”
Kevin’s face turned lifeless and pale.
“Is that what you came here to do…put a gun to my head and kill me?” He looked at Mason with an uneasy arrogance “‘Touch not mine anointed do my prophet no harm. Psalm 105:15’ Have you forgotten that, Mason? Those are God’s words. Have you forgotten that, Mason? You could have said no, but you didn’t. And what…now you’re here to condemn
me
to Hell? Well, I don’t see a gun in your hand, and I DON’T answer to you,” he yelled. “Now get out of my house!”
Mason chuckled.
“You’re right,” he walked to the entrance of the family room, the light casting a shadow of his frame fearfully over his stepfather. “You don’t answer to me. And I don’t need a gun to make you see that.”
For the first time, Mason saw Kevin’s arrogance and sense of being untouchable crumble. Fear gripped him from the very breaths that grew shorter and shorter as if the walls were closing in on him. He looked down at Kevin, no longer out of anger, but pity.
“For years I’ve heard and watched you bend scripture to make your wrongs right in your eyes and to justify everything you knew was pure evil,” he paused. “Now, I have one for you. Matthew 18:6.
But who so shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
He placed his hand on Kevin’s shoulder, frightening him like an electric shock. “I feel sorry for you,” he added. “You have to live with what you’ve done, not me. Not anymore.”
Mason slowly made his way back through the dining room, the kitchen, and to the front door. He heard Kevin’s voice trail behind him, trembling with fear and paranoia.
“Why did you come here?” he asked.
Mason lifted his head with his back still turned to Kevin. His hand gripped the doorknob as if his last bout of anger was consumed by it, but he didn’t turn it to open the door yet. His voice was calm and still.