Into the Fire

Chapter One of my as yet unpublished novel written several years ago titled The Fixer. 

CHAPTER 1

The rain assaulted the trees, the gutters, the double-pane windows, hard and cold, leaving even the midday seeming like the darkness of evening. Unpleasant to watch, she twisted the blinds closed and decided it could be just as gloomy inside as it was outside.
     Miserable. Chilled inside herself. Darkness triumphed.
     A single tear wandered down her cheek, but she waited until it tickled the line of her jaw before she hurriedly wiped it away. Before she could stop them, they bunched in her eyes and flooded her cheeks and inevitably she gave way to sobbing. Without wanting to acknowledge it, she’d been living the last four years of her life for this day. Waiting for it. Almost but not quite ushering it in. She’d expected it, and therefore in her own way she’d made it happen. Knowing as the time progressed how deeply it would hurt. But not really knowing. Because this was way beyond any feelings and all reactions she’d tried so diligently in the back of her mind to simulate. So much more painful than she had inadvertently prepared for—in all that make-believe way she’d anticipated him leaving her—even dared him to do it, she realized now. Too late to correct. Too late to rework in her convoluted mind games.
     Of course the telephone rang. Which sister would it be? One or the other she was sure. It wouldn’t be Dean. No matter how much she wished it was.
     She glanced at the Caller ID and considered whether or not to pick it up, but why prolong the inevitable?
     “Hi, Lamb,” she answered quietly, knowing her voice betrayed her tears.
     “I’m coming over.”                                                                                                                                                     Her sister’s voice sustained the quiet.
     “Don’t,” she instructed without much authority.
     “Fifteen minutes.”
     She’d hung up. Darn it! She hurried into the bathroom to repair herself—not going to look the victim here.
     To the minute came the knock on the door before her sister opened it and came inside, almost soaked just from hurrying up to the cozy but spacious screened porch from the gravel driveway.
     They hugged each other after Lamb removed her dampened coat and walked to drape it over one of the kitchen chairs. “Why, Doe?” Tears visible in her eyes. “Dean loves you. You love him. What’s the deal?”
     The questions she didn’t ask were the ones that blared.
     “’Why don’t you want to marry him? Why in the world would you ever want to emulate Mom and Dad’s life?’ Those are the real questions you want to ask, aren’t they?” the older sister clipped out a little more loudly than she meant to.
     Lamb looked slightly upward at her taller sister, who of the three of them looked the most like their deceased mother. She kept quiet for an extra moment as she forced herself to take control. “Alright. Why?”
     Doe walked over to the couch and plopped into the soft leather. “It wouldn’t work,” was all she said.
     Lamb sat on the nearest chair. “Because you wouldn’t let it? Why’d you start the relationship, Doe? Why’d you let yourself and Dean fall in love if sabotage is what you had in mind? I’m sorry—I don’t get it. Help me out here.”
     “I can’t explain it.”
     “Huh-uh. That’s not going to get it. Not for me. And it probably didn’t get it for Dean either, Doe. You can’t tell me you don’t love him.”
     “He would’ve left me someday anyway.” Her defenses up, her voice resigned.
     “Why would you say that?”
     “He would’ve, Lamb. Trust me.”
     “I see. Because you would’ve driven him away? What—you’re assuming all men are like Dad was?”
     “Aren’t they? In their own ways? You know Dean. Women are drawn to him.”
     “And he was drawn to you,” Lamb said, her voice strained.
     “For now.”
     Lamb bolted out of the chair. “Well, it just so happens that now is what we have, isn’t it? Now is it! He wanted to extend the here and now. Make it legal. Make it stick. How could that not matter to you?!” She regretted expressing her exasperation with her sister’s twisted view of relationships as she failed to stop the outburst. “You are not Mom, Doe. No matter how much you loved her or even admired her—you’re your own per
son. Mom was . . . well, Mom was different. You know that. In some ways she was downright weird, Doe, and I don’t mean that disrespectfully. But she was. Who would name their three illegitimate daughters after animals? Who would stick with their unfaithful father until he left us all? Come on, Doe. You had a chance to have a man who loved you and you alone marry you and settle down with you. You’ve been living like a married couple for four years, Doe. Tell me you’ve fallen out of love with him if you have. Tell me!”
     Doe expected her sister’s onslaught, but what she hadn’t anticipated was how the words would ring so true. The emotional brick wall she’d taken years to erect began to slide and shift under their earth-quaking reality. The tears she fought so hard to control
came rushing once again.
     “Look at you!” The exasperation merged with compassion. “You’re a masochist. Just like Mom.” She observed it in wonderment. She sat beside her beautiful older sister and held her as she cried. After a few moments, she said, “We’re going to fix this, Doe.
We’re going to talk to Dean and fix this.”
     “No!” Doe pulled away from her sister’s embrace. “No. I can’t. I need time to figure this out, Lamb. You may think it’s just a stupid mistake on my part, but you don’t know how ingrained these feelings are. I can’t shed them overnight.” She paused and sobbed. “If I could’ve, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
     Lamb stared at her sister with a numbness settling over her emotions. She didn’t understand. Not at all. As hard as she might try, she didn’t think she ever could either. Why fall in love if only to plot its demise? And that’s exactly what Doe had done. Slowly, methodically, the deeper she fell, the more devoted Dean became, Doe had put the screws to their relationship. Forced him to make a decision when she held back on purpose. He made the only one he could make. This was the result.
     “How’d you find out so soon anyway?” Doe cleared her throat and made her voice firmer.
     “I stopped at the shop on my way to the store. Tim told me I better check on Dean and when I asked him why, he told me you guys were over. So I went back to the garage and he was elbow deep in an engine. You know what he said to me?”
     Doe shook her head no.
     “’Lamb, I tried. I wanted so badly for the answer to be yes, but it wasn’t. It took me a long time to figure out I actually wanted to be in love and get married and start a family. She didn’t want that. I had no choice, Lamb.’ Then he had to excuse himself before he broke down right there in the shop where the guys could see him.”
     The tears drained out of Doe’s eyes. “I didn’t think it would hurt this badly.”
     Lamb threw her arms up slightly. “Doe, I am not getting this. This is crazy!”
     This time Doe stood. “Well, maybe I’m more like Dad than you think,” she replied, kidding only herself.
     “That’s ridiculous, and you know it. You know what I think? I think you loved this guy so much you were just plain afraid everything would turn out like Mom and Dad’s relationship. You locked that thought into that stubborn mind of yours and refused to let your love surpass theirs. You never gave Dean a chance. Just because he reminded you of Dad doesn’t mean he was going to be like Dad. You judged him and condemned him and let the greatest guy just walk out of your life because every time he tried to advance the relationship you put up some phony manufactured barrier. Alright, Doe. I’m done here. You plotted and schemed the demise of this, and now you’re reaping the ‘benefits’ of that grand plan. I know you don’t believe in a real God, but I’m tellin’ ya, big sister, you better pray you find Him because He’s the only one who can help you get out of this cycle of desecration our parents left us. Have a great day,” she said heading over to grab her coat and shutting the door behind her with a harsh whoosh.
     Doe shivered involuntarily as her sister’s words seemed to surround her with a fresh chill. Leave it to Lamb to hit a home run. Darn her! I wish she hadn’t come over.

     Lamb Landon-Anderson drove with her hands clenched around the steering wheel, nearly shouting out loud. “God! This is so absurd! My family just keeps this stuff goin’ on. Man!” The frustration roiled in her gut. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she
said quietly, the tears beginning to drip.
     She pulled her yellow Rav 4 over to the gravel shoulder of the country road and put it in park letting it idle. She reached for her purse and found her cell phone, punching in her younger sister’s number.
     “This is Megan. Talk to me.” The familiar message spoke in her sister’s staccato businesslike voice.
     "It’s Lamb, Meg. Doe broke up with Dean. Get this—because he wanted to marry her and settle down, raise a family even. She’s a mess. He’s a mess. End of story. Bye.”
     She ended the call and stared out the windshield. The accumulated drops made it difficult to see anything clearly. The heat in the car surged to comfortable now and with the rise in temperature she felt a fresh rush of anger. Doe could have anyone she set her
sights on, Lord. Then she comes up with this phenomenal guy—a regular guy who works hard, is like eye candy—you know he is, Lord—falls hard for her, decides he wants to move beyond shacking up and have a real, legitimate relationship, have kids and the whole bit, and she turns him down! She loves him, and she turns him down! It makes me sick, Lord! What about me? I want a guy like that! Oh, forget it. This is stupid. She doesn’t know you. What can I expect with the examples we had?
     Lamb sat quiet for a few minutes staring without seeing anything but smeared raindrops converging one on top of the other. God, help me to help my sisters find you. That’s the only hope our family really has, what’s left of us. Jesus, please.
     The tears came and matched the raindrops on her windshield in volume.

     “Wow, Megan, it’s just so good with you,” he said in the aftermath of their interlude.
     She laughed. “You say that to all your women.” She stood and stretched.
     “Honestly, I don’t.” He smiled as he propped himself up on his elbow and admired her body. “You’ve got it all, you know that?”
     “Flattery isn’t what got you here, bud,” she said matter-of-factly, picking up her cell phone from the night table to take into her bathroom.
     “She’s all business,” he said under his breath as he lay back against the multiple lush pillows. He heard the shower start and wanted a cigarette. Reluctantly he got out of her bed and pulled on his sweats to step out onto the small townhouse balcony to smoke.
     The rain had mercifully stopped, and even though the cold grabbed him on the covered balcony, the clean air refreshed him after the passionate session with Megan. Just as he was ready to extinguish his second cigarette, her arms wrapped around him
from behind. “I am glad you’re here for the weekend,” she said.
     The feel of her body against his, even clothed, was just about enough to ignite him all over again. “I’m glad to be here.”
     “I’ve got a few hours at work, and then I’ll be back. We can go out to dinner if you’d like,” she offered as he turned around and fastened his hands around her.
     “You just like me for my body,” he said.
     She smiled up at him. “Pretty much, yeah,” she replied.
     “Are you the man in this relationship?” he questioned, feigning perplexity.
     “You tell me,” she answered as she turned from his embrace. “Gotta go.”
     “Who was on the phone?” he inquired, a bit of a smirk on his face.
     She cocked her head. “Why?”
     “You frowned noticeably.”
     “Sister stuff. The latest drama. No big-ee. See ya later.”
     “Yeah.” He smiled.
     Grabbing her purse, she was down the stairs and out the door. While she warmed up her one-year-old silver BMW Roadster, she dialed Lamb’s number.
     “Hey, Meg. You got my message?"                                                                                                                             “I did. You know Doe. She’s flaky. I feel bad for Dean because he’s a genuinely cool guy, but if she’s such a head case about relationships, he’ll be better off with someone else anyway,” Megan said without emotion.
     Lamb forced back her immediate response as she briefly held her phone out and looked at it in shock. “Well, head case or not, they loved each other, and Doe’s a wreck. I know, I know—it’s her own doing, but, nevertheless, she’s feeling the pain right now.
And, Dean, well, the guy’s really hurt. It’s genuine. I honestly don’t think he saw this coming. I know it’s pathetic, but I thought you might want to know.”
     Lamb heard Megan take a breath before she said, “Thanks, Lamb.” Megan paused again. “Terry’s up for the weekend.”
     “How’s he doin’?”
     “Same as always. It’ll be fun, and then I’ll see him off. It works best for us this way.”
     Lamb rolled her eyes thinking it probably only worked best “this way” for her sister.
     “Well, good,” was all she could think of to say. “Give him my best.” 
     “I will. Feel free to drop by if you’re in the neighborhood. I’m sure he’d like to see ya. We’ll probably go out to dinner tonight, but I’m sure we’ll be home for most of the weekend.”
     “I might just do that. I’ll call first.”
     “Alright. I’m on my way to work for a few hours. Talk to you soon.”
     “Bye, Meg.”
     Lamb subdued the sudden urge to roll down the window and heave her cell phone into oblivion. “My God.” She turned on her wipers and once the windshield cleared, she
pulled out onto the road and drove to the shop. 

Father, thank you is never enough. Please lead me always. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.