Good Heavens (21 page)

Portia turned her back to Linda and whispered in my ear, “It's paid for, Miss E. I paid for it.” Of course I knew it was paid for because the sales slip was in the bag. I didn't let on that Portia had said anything to me because I knew Linda would get even with her one way or another.
It bothered me no end the way Linda bullied that girl. Sooner or later I'd have to do something about that.

Ursula took a small package from Evelyn's bag and put it in her desk drawer. Evelyn was a sweet girl, and I was surprised that she would bring in outlawed stuff. Ursula didn't say anything to her and allowed her to go on upstairs with the rest of the girls.

When they were gone, she showed me what Evelyn had brought in—a package of laxatives. “Evelyn suffers from anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder,” Ursula told me. “She is starving herself by consuming little or no food. If she eats anything she purges with laxatives or uses self-induced vomiting.”

I had read about that in one of them supermarket scandal sheets. Pictures of those skinny women was something awful. They looked like warmed-over death.

“I've evaluated her case,” Ursula was saying, “and there's very little we can do for her. She probably needs psychotropic medications.”

“Has she been to the doctor?”

“She's been to a number of doctors—been hospitalized several times critically ill. And she's been in and out of mental health programs.”

“She's such a sweet girl.”

“
Lady
, Esmeralda,
lady
, not girl.” She leaned back in her chair and started talking like a textbook. “Perfectionism is a part of the problem. Failing to be perfect is unbearable to an anorexic patient. In counseling her I have reinforced Evelyn's positive qualities to reduce her fear of failure and to build a positive sense of self. I've also given her an assignment to keep a journal of her
food intake, her thoughts, and feelings associated with her eating behavior.”

“What causes her to be like this?”

“Our society. Society values thin bodies for females, and some young women become obsessed with having a thin body. Evelyn wants to become an actress, so she emulates fashion models. No matter how thin she becomes, she perceives herself to be fat.”

“That's hard to believe,” I said. “Mirrors don't lie.”

“Another factor in this equation is a history of being controlled by an authority figure. Evelyn was brought up by foster parents who never let her out of their sight. The one thing she could control was her intake of food, and it has become her obsession.”

I was amazed at how much Ursula knew. She was really smart, and I tried to understand everything she was telling me.

Ursula put the laxatives in the medicine cabinet and locked it. “At Evelyn's age, there is very little we can do for her. If we could have reached her when she was in her early teens, we could have helped her. Probably now all her organs are affected by the lack of nutrition. The prognosis is not good. Patients eventually die.”

“Oh, Ursula, there must be something we can do.”

“About all you can do, Esmeralda, is use Evelyn's spiritual belief system to reinforce the concepts I have endeavored to convey. We will pray for her and give her the plan of salvation, but apart from that, Evelyn is a hopeless case.”

“Ursula, nobody is hopeless!”

I left the office about as disturbed as a body can get.
Boy, I was going to pray for that girl! I might not have understood all that gobbledygook Ursula gave me, but I was sure of one thing—Evelyn was not a helpless victim. It all boiled down to her choosing to do what she was doing.
Once the Holy Spirit starts dealing with her, maybe she'll take the responsibility for what she's doing to herself
.

I was looking for Dora, and when I couldn't find her I poked my head in the office and asked Ursula if she knew where she was.

“Oh yes,” she said. “Dora got upset during the counseling session and ran out of the house about an hour ago. I don't know where she is.”

“What upset her?”

“It was nothing. I asked her to write a letter to her son who died to tell him she was sorry and ask his forgiveness.”

“Oh,” I said.
She thinks that's nothing? That's enough to push Dora over the edge!
I hurried upstairs, hoping I'd find her on the third floor.

The rain sounded thunderous on the roof and battered against the sides of the house. I called, “Dora!” but got no answer. She was not in her room, not in the bathroom—nobody had seen her on the third floor. I ran downstairs and looked for her in the kitchen, on the porch, in the parlor. Then I hurried down to the first floor, checked the laundry room, the crafts room, even the guest bedroom, but she wasn't anywhere down there.

I threw on a jacket, pulled the hood over my head, and
raced outside. Leaning into the strong wind, I crossed the parking lot to the garage.

Dora was not in the garage nor in back of it. I looked up the driveway. With the stormy winds blowing and the thunder crashing, there was no use yelling out her name. I was getting drenched. I looked over toward the garden up to the road but didn't see her anywhere.

Where in the world is she? Maybe she's on her way back to Tennessee. But no, we would have met her on the Turnpike when we were driving home.

The falls!
It hit me like a ton of bricks.
That's where she is! She's gone up there to kill herself!
I could just see her throwing herself down those boulders!

13

There was nothing I could do but go after Dora and pray I found her before it was too late. I headed straight for the footpath. By the time I reached it, I was wet to the skin, and the footpath had become a gully gushing torrents. I splashed along in it and alongside it, crawling over fallen limbs and logs, slipping on the rocks, stumbling in the mud. I lost my shoe to the mud, retrieved it, washed it off as best I could, and hurried on.

With so much noise from the driving rain, it was some time before I could hear the roaring of the river. When I reached it, the river was swollen out of its banks and plunging downstream, forcing its way over everything in its path. With water streaming down my face, I tried to scan the rocks for a glimpse of Dora, but trees blocked the view. Despite the roar of the wind and water, I cupped my hands and screamed “Dora!” but was drowned out.

Maybe I can see better from that rock that juts out in the stream—the one I sat on
.

I scrambled to find the trail that led to the rock. No
such luck; the river was overflowing the trail. I quickly studied the situation and saw how I could wade to the rock by holding on to branches and limbs. I sloshed through mud and water up to my knees, but I made it. I made it, yes, but that slab of rock was under water so swift it would be suicide to venture onto it.
Lord, help me!
I prayed.

I was getting very scared thinking Dora might have already reached the top and flung herself down.
Lord, don't tell me she has—don't tell me she's dashed to death on those boulders!
Frantically I searched the river below to see if her body was being carried downstream. She could be lodged somewhere out of sight. I searched that wide place in the stream, my heart in my mouth for fear I'd see her body bobbing around in the swirling water.

I tried to tell myself I was overreacting, but I knew I wasn't. Dora was so chock full of guilt and pain it was a miracle she hadn't killed herself before now.

Scared as I was, I had to find her. That's all there was to it—I
had
to find her! There was only one thing to do—climb up to the falls. Since the trail alongside the river was flooded, I would have to find a way up to higher ground. Not far beyond where I was standing, there was a ledge that would take me to the high ground if I could make it. It was slippery as all get out, and with my shoes full of water—well, anyway, I had to try. Hikers had gone up that way, so there were footholds as well as brambles to hold on to.
Lord, you know I got to do this . . . help me now
, I prayed.

I slipped and slid climbing up that ledge, but I did make it to the top. Everything up there was soaking
wet, but I was out of the reach of the river. I probably had scrapes and bruises that would show up later, but I was just thankful I had made it this far without killing myself.

Rhododendron was all over, but with the rain filtering down through the trees, the way was easier to handle than when it was pelting down full force. I tackled the first of them thickets head on. There was some kind of animal track tunneled through the laurel or rhododendron, whatever it was, and I got down on my hands and knees to crawl through to the other side. There was hardly enough room for me with all my weight problem, and the ground was marshy, all muck and mire. It made me nervous crawling through what might be home to all kinds of creepy things. I came out on the other side muddy from head to foot, but I felt pretty proud of myself.
That wasn't too bad
.

After that, the going was straight uphill with me thrashing through underbrush, old jack vines, and briars, fighting my way toward the top. When my heart started pounding and my head buzzing, I just kept on climbing, slipping and sliding but getting higher and higher. Even though I was panting like a bloodhound on a hot day, I was beginning to think coming this way was easier than going by the riverside trail where there were all kinds of obstacles I could never climb over or go around.

Then, lo and behold, I come smack dab up against a roadblock as bad as the worst of them—boulders, one after another piled high with no way to get past them. One was split in half, but the crack was too narrow to
crawl through. Grappling to find a way, I groaned,
Oh, Lord, this can't be!

All of a sudden, I was flat on my face! I guess my feet got tangled up in all those ferns and stuff. That fall just about knocked the breath out of me. And the mud! I just rolled over in it, sat up with my back against the rock, and was about to bust out bawling.
Stop it!
I told myself.
This ain't no time to get historical!

But I come pretty close to it, I tell you. Somewhere I had lost my hood, I was soaked to the skin, and water was pouring down my neck like it could add something more to my misery. Smarting from it all, I had to jerk a knot in myself.
You can't just sit here, Esmeralda. You got to find a way
.

It sounded like the rain was slackening. At least the thunder was just rumbling overhead, not crashing down like before. I was dragging myself to my feet when I thought I heard something. I listened hard, hoping to hear it again. Sounded like some animal caught in a trap. I pulled myself up, made sure of my footing, and commenced to go around that boulder one more time.

Feeling my way, I came to that crack that halved one of those boulders. That's when I heard the cry again. It had a peculiar sound—not so much like a trapped critter.
Can that be Dora?
I wasn't sure, but I cupped my hands and hollered as loud as I could. “Dora!”

The only answer I got was the wind and rain thrashing through the trees.

Well, I didn't waste a minute. I was going to make it through that crack if it was the last thing I ever did! With all that lard I'd put on, it would be hard, but I had
come too far not to try. I squeezed in between the two halves of that rock and pushed myself sideways a foot or two. The crack got narrower. I panicked.
What if I get stuck in here!

About that time I heard that cry again. Really, not a cry, not a scream—it was more like a wailing. Like nothing I ever heard before. But it had to be a human—it had to be Dora! I sucked in my breath and forced myself through that crack another foot, then another. My heart racing, I kept hearing her—the wailing coming from high up on the falls.

It was dark in there between the rocks and, feeling my way, my hands felt nothing that wasn't slimy. That did not help my nerves one bit. Inching along, I wasn't hearing Dora anymore. The longer that went on, the more I wondered,
Maybe it ain't Dora, after all
.