Page 5 of Free to Believe
Obeying, I closed my eyes.
That time of my life is as deeply branded on my heart as my amaryllis tattoo is now inked on my back.
Aunt Dee tried anything to get me to talk. After more than a year, I still hadn’t spoken a single word. Using all her limited resources, Aunt Dee brought me to multiple therapists who ultimately concluded I would talk when I was ready. But she wasn’t satisfied with that. Aunt Dee tried taking me to church. She’d tried sending me to school. She tried bringing me around other children who I could see were happy just so I understood life went on.
I needed the bond of other survivors to be able to actually have the courage to take the steps to move on.
The day I would meet my future “brother” and “sister” is so vivid in my memory, I could sketch it blindfolded. One cool Sunday, Aunt Dee reluctantly cajoled me into going to a deserted park. By then, it had been more than two years since my parents were killed. I remember lagging behind when I heard her gasp, “Oh, my dear sweet God in heaven.” Then she was running as fast as she could toward the farthest slide in the park.
A young voice shouted out, “Stay away!” but she didn’t listen. She never did when it came to her heart. It was what I first resented about her and then loved the most about her. When she died, it was what my heart most grieved about her—her willingness to open her heart to love.
Aunt Dee gentled Phil and Cassidy. “It will be more comfortable to come stay with us tonight. We’ll get you a warm meal. You can sleep in a bed. I promise nothing will happen to you.” But it wasn’t until both of their eyes met mine and they waited for me to pass judgment, that Phil reluctantly relented.
“All right.” Sliding out from where he was hiding, he reached back for Cassidy, who was trembling but visibly relieved. Picking up her tiny, battered body in his arms, he agreed. “But just for one night.”
“One night, son. We’ll get a good meal in you and see what you need,” Dee promised. When three heads swung toward me, I did the only thing I could. I nodded.
What Phil, Cassidy, and it turns out I needed were each other.
And Dee somehow made things work. For about five years, we lived together, scrimped by together, healed together, and loved one another. We became a family; survivors, all of us. And then the day came when we had to figure out how to go on without Dee.
Standing over her grave, I whispered, “Life hurts a lot worse than death.”
“Not, it doesn’t, Em,” Phil whispered back.
“Yes, it does. Particularly if you happen to love me,” I said, before I dropped the flowers I was holding on the ground and walked away sobbing.
After Dee died, we fought to stay together emotionally as well as physically in one of the hardest battles we would ever face: the threat of being separated. Phil was a legal adult, but Cassidy and I were only fifteen. We tried to remain in Phil’s care until that avenue was shut down to us. Standing before the judge to become legally emancipated, I will never forget his parting words: “I hope I’m not making the biggest mistake of my life by allowing this to occur. You have no idea for the life you are in for. And I’m afraid you’ll be back in my courtroom for some other reason.”
Looking back, it’s no wonder the void Dee left us with could only be filled by the love of three more “sisters”—Ali, Corinna, and Holly. The love she taught us to have for one another was just that huge. But to this day, there is no love that has thawed the ice around my heart since she died.
I let out my fear the only way I knew how. Not through words, but through art.
When I was a child, the pencil drawings were rudimentary, but as my mind became clearer and my fingers stronger, the images became almost photogenic memories of my terror. And later, the moments of joy as we built our family together: Aunt Dee, Phil, Cassidy, and me. Later the sketches included Ali, Corinna, and Holly.
The images I cherish above all others are the ones I drew of my mother bejeweled in a ball gown right before she leaned down to kiss me good night as a child. And then there’s the one on Aunt Dee’s face when I finally told her I loved her—words I’d been thinking in my head for years and were the first ones I said after my self-imposed silence.
And a few nights, a few years later, both women died.
Just like everyone who dares to love me dies.
It’s on that thought that I finally fall asleep. But my nightmares follow me, reminding me of the deal I bargained for after Dee’s death.
So, instead of dreaming of my parents’ murder or Dee’s waxy face, I scream in my head as Phil, Cass, Ali, Cori, and Holly all fall to the specter of death who believes I dare too much when I love.
Because I believed.
3
Emily
The next day, it’s more of the same. This time one of the same brides from yesterday—the one who was in an argument with her best friend over one of my original designs—came back to see me, wanting me to include transporting her dress to France for her wedding. Free—with my stylist services included. While I’m happy to accommodate the request, I hate wasting valuable time explaining if she wants me to transport the dress and be her stylist for her wedding day, it needs to be understood there will be an additional charge.
Slyly, she taunts me with “I bet if I went with the Reem Acra dress, they’d have a designer in their Paris store who could help me.Gratis.” She adds the last little bit in French as if that’s going to intimidate me.
Yes, it’s a direct hit to my professional pride, but I refuse to let that show. Standing from behind my mahogany desk, I close the design book in front of me. “Of course, that’s your choice. However, I can’t guarantee the dress will be here after today.”
“What do you mean?” the bride, Lara, screeches.
