Part 9 (1/2)
Another long stretch of Texas interstate went by while I sat there trying to wrap my head around what she was telling us-which was like trying to wrap my head around the literal meaning of Annabel is in the tree. There was not a hint of ”let's pretend” in the way she put her experience out there, and she hadn't really put it out there for discussion, just as something she'd chosen to share. I didn't know quite what to make of it all, but I felt the significance of it, and I discreetly used my phone to send myself some notes. I wanted to remember exactly what she said.
Everything she said was in keeping with the beliefs we held-the Christian faith in which Anna and her sisters were raised. In the context of that faith, there was nothing strange about a little girl's prayers being answered-though not in the way any of us expected-and nothing impossible about what she was telling us.
With G.o.d all things are possible, Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, but isn't it our inclination to want that promise in a trial-sized box? That whole surpa.s.seth all understanding thing-that's very disconcerting! Over the centuries, the Christian church has been very good at setting up rules we can adhere to, boundaries that are clearly defined. Anna wasn't telling us she'd crossed that boundary; she was telling us the boundary does not exist. That's a lot to take in while you're rolling down the highway between the children's hospital and Buc-ee's Beaver Nuggets.
I was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition. Daddy was a deacon in the church and made sure we were there every Sunday morning and evening. We prayed sincerely, but at a safe distance. Kevin was raised within a more charismatic tradition: fundamentally the same beliefs, but a much less reserved way of expressing praise and submitting prayer requests. The good people at P Paw and Gran Jan's church had prayed over Anna a great deal. They prayed for healing, and that healing didn't come. To say our faith had been tested in the past few years-that's like saying a rope is ”tested” when it's frayed to its last thread.
Kevin has gone through such an arduous journey as a husband and father-always the Breadwinner, the Promise Keeper, the Mighty Good Man. People have told him he has the patience of Job. But I think it's important to remember that Job got dang frustrated sometimes. People tried to blame him for his own troubles, saying, ”Well, if your faith was strong enough, G.o.d would protect you,” but that's just something people say to protect themselves-to separate themselves from other people's troubles. ”If your faith is strong enough, she'll be healed.” If I've heard that once, I've heard it a thousand times. The problem is, when someone tells you that, they're not asking you to put faith in the power of G.o.d; they're asking you to put faith in the power of your own faith. And I can't even pretend that my mustard-seed faith measures up to the promises of G.o.d.
AFTER ABBIE AND ADELYNN woke up, we stopped for gas and a bite to eat, and from there on, the trip was the jolly holiday we were accustomed to: games, songs, nonstop shenanigans, and trying to get the truck drivers to blow their air horns. Annabel tells me that she always thinks of Nonny when she hears Taylor Swift singing ”Ours,” because it was playing that day on the radio. Kevin cranked the volume, and we all sang along, jamming as a family as we cruised down Ocean Drive and pulled up to Nonny's condo on the water.
This was the kind of balmy afternoon Nonny envisioned when she bought this place: palm trees lazing on a light breeze, birds wheeling in the suns.h.i.+ne over the Gulf of Mexico, just enough clouds to promise a spectacular sunset. The girls couldn't wait to get their shoes off and run for the rocky sh.o.r.e.
”Please,” I called after them, ”please, be careful!”
Inside, Nonny was already laying out her traditional New Year's Eve feast. Everyone was happy to see us and wanted to hear the entire blow-by-blow of the wild ride that had begun less than twenty-four hours earlier. I waited until Gran Jan and I were alone in the kitchen to tell her what Anna had said to us in the truck on the way down. Gran Jan listened with wide-open eyes and a wide-open heart. She received it like a child, fully on faith, never questioning. As we continued to tell the story, privately at first and then more publicly, I don't recall anyone else ever hearing it the way she did. I will never forget that.
”When He told her that,” said Gran Jan, ”when He said there would be nothing wrong with her, then... that means she's healed.”
Of course, Gran Jan was the one with the courage to speak the word, but I wasn't ready to hear it.
”Well, I suppose you could interpret it that way,” I said, ”but I was taking it more as... like in the immediate sense. It's amazing that she walked away from this thing, you know? Everyone-the first responders, the ER docs, the flight nurse-they all were positive she'd have some kind of spinal injury. One of them even said, Jesus was with her.' But, Gran Jan, let's not build her hopes up with regard to the rest.”
She wouldn't be swayed. She was overjoyed, overwhelmed, praising G.o.d. I hated to be the doubting Thomas, but I wasn't ready to go there, and neither was Kevin. We had our armadillo skins, and more important, we didn't want Anna to be set up for a crus.h.i.+ng disappointment.
”I can't even think how that would work,” he said to me that evening. ”On a medical, physiological level-I'm trying to figure out what that would mean.”
Sitting on a sofa in the living room, we looked out at the Gulf beyond the balcony. The kids had come in as dusk fell. I could hear the cousins laughing and playing out in the hall.
”Do you believe she really went there?” I asked.
”I believe she believes it,” said Kevin. But then he squared his jaw and said, ”Yes. I believe it.”
”Me too.”
We sat for a moment not knowing quite what to do with that.
”I guess we just let her digest the whole experience in her own way,” he said.
”I agree. We just listen if she wants to talk about it again. Don't poke her for details or put any of our own ideas in her head. All that matters right now is that she's okay, and we take it one day at-”
”Anna!”
Before I even saw what he was seeing, Kevin was off the couch and out on the balcony, where Annabel was calmly strolling along the top of the railing as if it were a tightrope three stories above the patio pavement. In less than a moment, he'd hooked his arm around her waist and swept her off the railing into a bear hug. Clutching her against his chest, he stepped inside and slid the door shut while I stood frozen in front of the sofa, breathing her name, one hand pushed against my juddering heart, the other hand covering the knot in my stomach.
Kevin set her down and gripped her shoulders, making her look him in the face.
”Anna! What... what the h.e.l.l? What were you thinking? Why would you do that?”
”I was just playing.” Anna tried to shrug and wriggle away, but he held her fast.
”Don't you ever do that again.”
”Yes, sir,” she said, avoiding his eyes.
”Never. Do you understand me?”
”Yes, I understand,” she said, as if she was baffled that anyone would make such a big deal about such a little thing. She said it the way Abbie and her friends had recently begun saying the word ”what-ever” as an exasperated comeback to just about anything.
”Anna,” I managed, ”go get cleaned up for dinner.”
Chapter Nine.
But Jesus turning and seeing her said, ”Daughter, take courage.
Your faith has made you well.”
Matthew 9:22 WE LIVE IN A rural community outside a tiny town, so a little girl getting swallowed up by a tree was pretty big news. I wasn't surprised when I started getting voice mails about it, because the night of the whole tree thing, when I called Debbie to see if she could stay with Abbie and Adelynn, she said, ”I just heard something on the radio about a little girl stuck inside a tree, and I immediately thought, I bet it's one of the Beam girls!' ”
All the local news outlets reported on the incident. A crew from a local station came over to the house and shot all kinds of film for a segment featuring our family and a couple of the Briaroaks firefighters.
”Mommy, it's on! Daddy! Annabel! Abbie! We're on right after the commercial!” Adelynn summoned us all to the TV room. She couldn't wait to see herself in living color.
”It's on!” Adelynn read the headline with great dramatic flair: ” Firefighters rescue child stuck inside a tree'!”
I pulled her onto my lap. ”Is it recording? We need to record it for Gran Jan and P Paw.”
”Yes! Now everybody shus.h.!.+” Abbie snuggled close to Annabel in a big chair.
”Children have climbed these trees hundreds of times,” said the reporter. The camera panned across the little grove and up, up, up into the branches of the cottonwood. ”But they've never had a story like this when a giant cottonwood tree swallowed little Anna Beams.”
A groan went up from the girls. ”Beams? He said Beamzzz!”
They cut to a shot of our family just in time to show Adelynn dancing across the rug and hopping onto Kevin's lap, all decked out in her floaty mermaid princess sundress and tiara. With flip-flops. In January. That's our Adelynn.
I hadn't had time to coordinate anything in particular for anyone to wear. We just all looked like ourselves, and I kinda loved that. Abbie exuded her beautiful tweenage cool in skinny jeans, UGGs, and a yellow T-s.h.i.+rt with a selection of funky string bracelets. Annabel was demure and academic in a plaid school jumper and white blouse-but barefoot, of course. Kevin was fresh home from work in his ever-present surgical scrubs, and I was keeping up with everyone in mom jeans and sneakers and one of those quilted cool-weather vests (you know, the ones that look a little bit like a life preserver but are so comfy and functional, you don't want to take them off until Easter). I loved seeing us all snuggled together on the sofa: a beautiful, happy family. A happy, healthy family. That was the overall impression that blew my mind a little bit.
We were all smiling-including Anna.
In photos from the preceding three years, including pictures from the Happiest Place on Earth, Disney World, we are smiling-there's joy and laughter, for sure-but Anna's smile is wan at best, sometimes downright pained, and her eyes are underscored with dark circles. She was a naturally buoyant, happy kid, but there was always that shadow. It could be seen in those photos, and when I looked at her in that news segment, the shadow wasn't there.
”I tried to climb back outta there,” said TV Anna, ”but my feet slipped and I ended up going headfirst about thirty feet into the ground.”
They cut to a shot of Abbie and a fireman by the tree.
”Abbie!” Adelynn clapped and laughed. ”There's Abbie!”