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Restoration Road

By Elise Phillips

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I lost my faith on a rainy spring evening in New York City. A freak accident ended my ballet career before it had even started. I was twenty-two. Too young to have your world shattered.

That night my faith was replaced by anger. After everything that happened I couldn't believe in a God who would allow the total destruction of my life. My anger drove a wedge between my parents and myself. Well, more like most of my family. My uncle Noah was a preacher. Dad's father, my grandpa Mac, had been a preacher. My cousin Jackson was a preacher and his brother Will was a youth minister. Countless members of the family were deacons and Sunday school teachers. Faith and belief were requirements. Someone walking away from God just didn't happen in our family. Yet I did. I walked away and I stayed away, my anger keeping me company.

This night though, this night it wasn't my wreck I was thinking of. This night I wasn't the victim. This night I was racing back to my hometown to my mother's hospital room. The anger didn't matter anymore. The distance didn't matter. The harsh words, the missed birthdays, and everything didn't matter anymore. Only getting back to Rio Verde as fast as possible mattered.
I tried to keep my mind on the road but my thoughts kept running wild. The accident in New York would dash through my brain then the harsh words I'd had for my parents would step forward. Then the months of distance would call out, reminding me they'd quickly turned into years away from my family. All the things I regretted kept standing up, fighting for my attention, screaming at me. In the back of all the noise, my father's words kept repeating.

It's your mother. There's been an accident. Come home quick.

I tried to rearrange the sentences and the words in my mind, attempting to make them into something less scary but I couldn't. No matter the order, they still made my heart clench and skip a beat at random.

As I drove further and further south the clamor of regrets quieted. Soon it was just my father's repeating in my head, echoed by the words of doctor in New York City.

You'll most likely walk again one day. I'm certain, though, that you'll never be able to return to dancing.

Those words had changed my life. Just like I was sure my father's words were changing it right now. It all made my head feel crowded and full as the words echoed around my brain.

I had been at work when my father's call came. My fingers flying across the keyboard, I was focused on typing the press release for a new production opening in a few months. It wasn't the position I thought I'd have with a ballet company, but being the assistant to the director for the Colorado Ballet Company allowed me to find a new way to be part of the world I missed so much. My mom had found out about the job and called, asking why I was torturing myself, staying adjacent to a world I couldn't return to. On some level, I knew she was right. I wasn't thinking about anything other than ballet though. I didn't believe the doctors. I just knew one day I would dance again. I didn't care about the reality of my accident-induced limitations. So I pushed away both her and her guidance. As I drove south in the darkness a voice of fear whispered, telling me I'd never hear her voice again.

When my cell phone had started vibrating across my desk earlier that evening, I hadn't hesitated to answer. It was the end of the day, and I had the office to myself. Had my boss, Mr. No-Personal-Calls, been nearby, I would have ignored the call.

"Hi Dad," I'd said. "What's up?" I forced my tone to be light and relaxed as I tried to remember the last time he'd called me. Realizing I couldn't remember, I chided myself before balancing the phone on my shoulder, so I could keep working. Yet instead of a reply there was silence on the other end of the call. Then he cleared his voice. I stopped typing, on alert in an instant, worry and dread settling heavy in my stomach. The voice clearing was one of his tells. Something was up.

"It's your mother. There's been an accident. Come home quick."

I didn't wait for more information. I just said I was on the way and hung up. I saved my work, emailing it to my boss along with a rushed explanation then was out the door, running for home.

When my phone rang for the first time I was already on I-25, flying past Colorado Springs.

"Mallory, where in the world are you? I came by after the dinner to find all the lights on and the building unlocked." I cringed when I heard my boss' voice burst into my silent car.

"I had a family emergency. I'm driving back to Texas right now. I'll be gone for the next few days."

He made a sound of frustration and I pictured him pacing his office, throwing his hands in the air. The man did not care about personal lives. It was all about the CBC for him and he expected the same from me. He liked to focus on the assistant part of my title and thought of me as a secretary more than a coworker.

"The press release is 90% done. Check your email and you'll find it. I'm sorry, but you'll have to get it out on your own. I'll call you when I know how long I'll be gone."

I hung up before he could speak. I didn't want to get a lecture about being a responsible employee and how he questioned my dedication to the company. I got something in a similar theme every time I left work early or took a day of vacation. It was his standard speech and I wasn't in the mood for it even on my best days. I knew I had just put my job on the line. I also knew I didn't care.

My cousin Will was the next phone call. I had made it as far as Pueblo and stopped for coffee and gas. I sat at the pump to talk to him, wanting just a moment to breathe before resuming my race south.

"What? You're where?" Shock sharpened his voice, making me roll my eyes. I loved my cousin but he could wear me out faster than almost anyone.

"You heard me," I sighed, leaning back against my seat, raising my eyes to study the worn navy fabric on the ceiling.

Before he could complain about my route choice I explained my reasoning.
"I could have flown but would have only been able to get as far as Amarillo. Then I would have had to rent a car and drive the rest of the way. It is a Friday night at the start of Spring Break season. Kids from all over are flying into Denver and heading into the mountains to ski. With delays, full flights, and other headaches driving just felt faster. So yeah, I'm in Pueblo."

I hung up when he launched into a lecture about my poor planning. I would rather drive on in silence than get a lecture from Will. As I hit the road again, for the first time in years I prayed. Just a single sentence, "Please let her be alright." With those five words I prayed that just once, just this one time, God would hear me and answer my prayer. I prayed as the miles flew by that Mom would be okay and that everything would be fine once I got to Rio Verde.

Everything was not fine. I crossed the Texas state line around 10pm, my phone ringing almost in time with my crossing. It was my aunt Joann, Mom's sister.

"Where are you?" Her voice was cool and distant. It was the first time she'd spoken to me in almost nine months, a sentence I'd earned for not coming to my father's birthday party.

"I just crossed the state line. I'm about four hours out."

"Hurry."

Hurry. It was all she said. All she had to say. I pressed down on the gas, hoping no cops were out tonight. As I drove, the word echoed around the car, bouncing from window to window like an annoying fly. I wished I could open the window and shoo it out like a real insect. Instead it kept bouncing and buzzing around. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.

The flat prairie of the Texas high plains reflected the moonlight back at me, lighting up the countryside. I knew if it were daylight and I was enjoying the drive I'd be seeing the grasses flushing with the first hint of spring-time-green. I'd see antelope and cattle, both sporting shaggy coats broken up by patches of sleek, summer hide which would catch the sunlight and make them gleam like metal. I'd see farmers plowing the soil, preparing for planting wheat or corn or hay. I'd see horses running and playing, new foals dancing about on too-long legs. It was dark outside my windows, though, only dark -- and I was not enjoying the drive.

I wondered if this is what it had been like for Mom and Dad when they'd been called to New York and my accident. They'd driven to Amarillo and flown out to JFK, taking a taxi to the hospital. They'd had a lot of traveling time to get to me, most of it at the mercy of others. I wondered if they had thought of other trips and the sights they had seen with happier eyes.

I flew past the "Welcome to Rio Verde Texas" sign sooner than I had thought possible. It was still dark but the darkness was degrading, the approaching dawn weakening the inky black. Even at two in the morning the pre-dawn hours were different . The high plains seemed to always want to be in the sun. The dark was diluted by the sunlight long before it should have been, giving night owls and early risers a warning of the new day approaching.

My phone rang again as I parked in front of the small hospital on the south edge of the city. I was thankful Rio Verde was a large enough town to have a proper hospital. Smaller towns in the area had been forced to close their hospitals over the years, leaving residents to fly or drive their sick to larger cities. I was glad Mom was able to be in a hospital she knew, with familiar sights out the window and friends dropping by to check on her.
I glanced down at the caller id as my cell rang a second and third time. It was my uncle Noah, Aunt Jo's husband, this time.

"You here, kid?" His tone held more warmth than Will or Aunt Jo had been able to muster.

"Walking in now."

"Second floor."

I paused, running the layout of the hospital through my head. "ICU?"

"Yeah. I'll be waiting for you."

I hung up and ran inside.

I did get there in time. Not in time to do anything. Not in time to save my mother or turn back the events which had led to the broken and bruised woman before me in the ICU bed. I did get there in time to see her alive though.
She was covered in tiny cuts, her skin discolored and swollen from deep bruising. Larger injuries were hidden behind white gauze and tape, faint hints of red on them all.

"What happened?" I looked around at my family clustered in the hallway outside of her glass walled room. I stepped back from the doorway and swept my eyes across them all, needing an answer, needing a reason to explain the sight before me.

"What happened?" My voice rose and my dad shushed me in a rush.

"It was a car wreck." He choked up and tears flooded his gray blue eyes.
Will stepped forward and continued for him.

"A horse trailer turned in front of the car in front of her, forcing everyone to brake and swerve. Aunt Tess swerved into the bar ditch beside the road. It's been raining here for days. When her car hit the muddy shoulder she lost control. She rolled four times."

Aunt Jo let out a strangled sob and turned away only to be wrapped in Noah's arms. I watched her body shake with sobs and wondered who would be the next car wreck victim. It felt as though foolish people in other cars were going to take down our family one by one.

I stared at them all for a moment, everyone's eyes swollen and red from tears. A voice in my brain whispered I was still angry with them. Angry with their empty prayers and the faith we had once shared which had abandoned me. Then another voice, a louder voice, whispered that none of those things mattered right now. I listened to the second voice and walked over and hugged my dad.

*****

It took eight days for Mom's body to die. I say her body died because really, the part that was Mom, the spark that made her Tessa Andrews was snuffed out in the accident. When her car was forced onto the shoulder of Farm Road 3313, rolling end over end, the life went out of her. It just took a while for her body to catch up.

During those eight days I got to know the view from her window very well. I sat beside her still body and studied the town. It had changed in the two years since I had last been home. The hospital had a new wing, almost finished, just around the corner from Mom's window. There was a new high school, just visible out on the west side with a new neighborhood growing around it, enlarging the town. I could see new businesses scattered around and could see some familiar buildings missing. So much change in those two years.

I thought about those same two years in my own life. In my world those two years had seen the shattering of a dream. Those years had held doctor visits, surgeries, and hours of physical therapy. They'd seen me refuse to accept the truth and the destruction of my faith as my prayers for a miracle had gone unanswered. So much had gone wrong during my version of those two years. It didn't surprise me to see things were still falling apart. My life was an avalanche of wrong. Every time I thought things were done sliding down, something would slip and my life would tumble further down the cliff toward an ending I was scared to think about. Change had become a very bad thing in my world.

Today, the day Mom's body died, I watched more change from her window as the sky shifted from blue to gray. It had been spring when I'd arrived in Rio Verde eight days ago. Today winter slipped back into town, coming in as my mother was leaving.

I watched the clouds roll in, pushed by a north wind that howled against the glass and listened to the steady flow of whispered voices in the room. People came and went, saying tear choked goodbyes to Mom's lifeless form. I listened as Dad's brother Bobby whispered about making the arrangements. I listened in silence as I watched the clouds blot out the sunlight, forcing the day into an early, unnatural evening gloom.

I stayed silent at the window for hours. I knew I should leave. I knew the nurse would need to come disconnect Mom from the now quiet machines. I knew soon a silent man in a somber suit would come and collect her body. I couldn't bring myself to move though it was unnerving to everyone. I caught them watching me like I was a ticking bomb. Tears slipped down my cheeks, but I couldn't cry or speak.

When I was finally the only one in the room, I turned to the figure on the bed. A crisp, white sheet covered her, creases still visible from the time it had spent folded on a shelf somewhere. Soon the mortuary would come for her. For now though it was me and Mom. I knew it wasn't really her but I hoped some part of her was here in the room with me.

I touched her sheet covered shoulder lightly and whispered, "I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry I was so angry. I'm sorry I punished you. I'm sorry I pushed you away. I'm sorry I stayed away so long."

"She loved you. She never stopped loving you." I jumped when my dad appeared in the doorway. The tears came again, hot rivers pouring down my cheeks. I couldn't look at him. I had been terrible to both of them. I'd been broken and hurt and I'd hurt them when they'd tried to help.

Dad walked over to me, making me jump again when he slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me to his side. It was a familiar action, something he'd done my whole life. He used to say he liked having his girl tucked up against him. He'd usually pull Mom up against his other side and then kiss us both on the head.

I lifted my face finally and found his eyes. "I'm so sorry, Dad."
He just smiled through his own tears and kissed me on the forehead.

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