HEAVY METAL MIRACLES

PART 2

CHAPTER 2

DR. PENNY ALDO DVM

I SAW THAT WISDOM IS BETTER THAN FOLLY, JUST AS LIGHT IS BETTER THAN DARKNESS (Ecclesiastes 2:13)

            I didn’t mean to spy on my eighteen year old daughter. I never intended to invade Ivy’s privacy. But on a camping trip with my husband and our two boys, thirteen year old Jerry and twelve year old Drew, I got a pretty bad headache. A couple pain relievers helped, but they made me long for bed. But not in our camper.

            Maybe I shouldn’t have referred to camping as a trip. A trip sounds far away. We were on a camping outing with three other families from church, and the grounds weren’t even five miles from our house. So I bowed out just as the late July sun was setting, and I drove home to sleep in my own bed.

            Rory and Ivy had intended to go to fireworks with their boyfriends. So when I arrived home at about eight thirty, the house was locked. I slid my key into the doorknob and twisted. I was a little surprised to hear music coming from downstairs. It wasn’t blaring, but it was loud enough that Ivy and her best friend hadn’t heard me.

            Since Rory and my daughter had met three years previous, they had become inseparable. From the time she was five until she was fifteen, Ivy had been best friends with my niece, Crystal. Technically, I was Crystal’s Great Aunt, since she is my sister’s granddaughter.

            Crystal and Ivy had a major disagreement back in 2010. Ivy had been upset that Crystal began to drink socially and began to cross intimacy lines with the boy she had been seeing. Ivy had rebuked her sixteen year old cousin and hence came a falling away. Although they reconciled, their rift had caused a shift in their relationship, and they rarely hung out thereafter.

            I had mixed feelings over the whole ordeal. On one hand I was very disappointed to see the dissolving of a long friendship. On the other hand, I was pleased with Ivy for her moral stand and being courageous enough to voice her concern. But only a few months later, she brought home Rory, and her concerns about her cousin seemed a bit contradictory.

            I was confused. Ivy had chastised Crystal for risky behavior, then befriended a girl that looked multiple times more dangerous than my niece. But over the weeks and months that Ivy and Rory hung out and studied the Bible, Rory began to change.

            True religion is about relationship. Real relationship is about free will. Despite Rory’s wild appearance and sullen demeanor, most of the people in our church, and everybody in our family, accepted Rory just as she was. But it wasn’t long before the hard core rock and roll shirts disappeared as well as her black fingernails. Her dyed black hair grew out to her natural brown, matching her lovely eyes.

            Although Rory was a year older than Ivy, she was in the same grade. With all the moving and changing schools she did being a military daughter, she ended up a year behind.  I’m not gonna say brat, that would be the pot calling the kettle black.

            Over the first two years of their friendship, Rory often attended church with us and was even baptized. Eventually a couple nice young men that were a grade older began to occasionally attend with the young ladies. Before they went off to college, the boys gave the girls promise rings. That’s what made what I saw that fourth of July all the more puzzling.

            During their senior year of high school, Ivy and Rory decided to go to the same college as their boyfriends. They also subtly began to withdraw from church activities that last year of high school. By that summer we were lucky to see them once a month at a service or midweek prayer meeting.

            I followed the music downstairs. Sitting by the sliding glass doors of our walk out basement on a pillow chair was Ivy and Rory. Ivy was six inches taller than Ivy’s five foot four. She was also ten or fifteen pounds heavier than Rory’s one hundred and ten. So Rory being smaller, was leaning back into Ivy.

            I stood dumbfounded as I studied the situation. They were fully clothed, which was a plus. Also, there was only one chair pillow, so this was the best way they could share. Another thing, they had boyfriends, with whom they were supposed to be seeing the fireworks. So where were they and why weren’t they on their way to see the fireworks?

            The stairwell was behind them, and I ever so slowly began to back up. I would reenter and make enough noise for them to hear me. But before I made it back to the stairs, I saw Ivy hook Rory’s shoulder length hair behind ear. Then she gave her ear a little nibble, causing Rory to giggle, slap Ivy’s thigh, and say ‘Stop it, that tickles.’

            My heart was pounding, and my knees felt weak. I slipped on the first step of the carpeted stair, making a thump. At the same time, Rory flipped around, kneeling in front of Ivy. I thought for sure she saw me. But grinning she said, “This is better.”

            Rory closed her eyes and kissed Ivy on the mouth. I retreated as quickly and quietly as I could. Panting slightly at the front door, I opened it, and slammed it back shut. I threw my keys on the kitchen table, making a clatter. I said loudly, “Ivy, are you home?”

            The music from downstairs went silent, and my daughter petitioned me cautiously from the bottom of the stairs, “Mom?”

            “Hi honey, I thought you were going to the fireworks?”

            “Oh, well, we were, but we got into a bit of a disagreement with the guys, and, well, I guess were pouting,” she explained and then emitted a little laugh. “And I thought you were camping?”

            “I got a headache and just wanted to sleep in my own bed.”

            “The bed in your camper is your own bed,” she joked.

            I marveled at how calm she was. Maybe I was making too much out of what I thought I saw. Maybe the girls were just clowning around. Maybe I was in denial. Maybe I just didn’t want to deal with it.

            “True, it is my bed in the camper,” I told her. “But comparing that bed with my at home bed, is like comparing a Lazy boy with a fold up chair.”

            “Your bed in the camper is that bad?” She frowned.

            “No, but it’s not a Sleep Number either… So, what type of disagreement did you have with the boys?”

            She shrugged a shoulder, “They wanted to go to a party instead of fireworks.”

            “So how come you and Rory didn’t want to go to the party?”

            “Truth is, I was the party pooper. Rory was willing to go.”

            “How come you weren’t?”

            “They guys started drinking some since they’ve been in college. I’ve read my birth mom’s diaries, or journals, or whatever you want to call them. It seems adult beverages led to drugs, and drugs led to her taking off her clothes for a living.”

            “You are wise beyond your years,” I said smiling at her, and putting a gentle hand on her cheek. I was beginning to think that I was jumping to conclusions with what I thought I saw with her and Rory.

            “Oh hi, Mrs. Aldo,” Rory said meekly as she appeared in the stair well.

            I had convinced Rory to stop calling me Mrs. Aldo more than two years ago. It was now strange to hear her call me something other than Penny. Being referred to as Mrs. Aldo by her suggested guilt. And the guilty look on her face caused suspicion to resurface.

            “Hello, Aurora,” I replied.

            She frowned, then smirked with paranoia in her eyes. “You haven’t called me Aurora in a long time.”

            “You haven’t called me Mrs. Aldo in a long time.”

            “Oh, well, I just, ah, woke up from a nap.”

            “Did you?” I replied, crossing my arms, and then turned my gaze onto Ivy. I’d never known my daughter to lie. “Were you napping too?”

            She had a stunned look on her face as she stared at Rory. But then she calmly looked at me and said, “I was watching the sunset.”

            I told myself not to press it but asked, “While Rory napped?”

            Now she crossed her arms and frowned. “Mom, what’s the big deal? I just told you we didn’t go to a party because there was drinking. Now you’re giving us the third degree like we stayed here to shoot meth or something.”

            “You’re right, I’m sorry,” I said smiling and touching her arm.  “Forgive me, I’m tired and have a headache. I need to go to bed.”

            She gave me a reassuring smile and then kissed my cheek.

            The following morning, my headache was gone, but with the thermometer mercury rising on another hot day, I refrained from returning to the campground. Early in the afternoon Arlo walked into the house with a disgusted look on his face. He asked, “How’s your headache?”

            “All better.”

            “Good, do you want mine?”

            “Do you have a headache now?”

            “Yes, your son. He pushed Ben Weaver into the lake. His family happened to be camping there too.”

            Ben Weaver was a notorious bully who our son Jerry had clashed with a couple times. One of them leading to a three day school suspension.

            “Why did Drew do that?” I asked with a little smile. Ben Weaver, fifteen, was also the son of a local high school gym teacher and the head football coach.

            “You know better than that, although Drew is definitely not innocent.”

            I had in fact been joking. Our oldest son Jerry was thirteen and rapidly gaining a broad shouldered, muscular build like Arlo. He was also athletic and very coordinated. But he was quick tempered like his mother. He was loyal unto death, and fiercely loved his little brother, whom I suspected had something to do with Ben Weaver going into the drink.

            Our younger son Drew, age twelve, had the even keel demeanor of his father, but was bold in speaking truth. He also had a quick witted tongue and was on the small side physically like me. Eventually he would go on a growth spurt, but would still remain Jerry’s little brother, other than by age.

            “What Father said is true, Mother,” Drew spoke up with a James Bond type elegance. Then he sat on a kitchen chair and crossed one leg over the other. “It was I who instigated the bruhaha.”

            I put a hand over my mouth as if pondering. But I was really hiding a grin.  

            He brushed a strand of sandy blonde hair from his eyes and continued, “We had crossed paths earlier at the outing and he threatened me about staying away from his tree fort in Baylor’s woods. I saw his mom walking up behind him, and I asked why he had all those pictures of nude men hanging on the walls of his fort. He practically shouted that it was nude WOMEN he had hanging on the walls of his fort. His mother found this rather interesting and grabbed him by the ear, guiding him back to their camper to have a talk with his father.”

            “Were you really snooping around his tree fort?” The grin now having left my face.

            “I was.”

            “He did have a good reason, Mom,” Jerry defended. Then Drew defended him. I have to say, my boys were each other’s brother’s keepers.  

            “So a little while ago, Ben found me strolling by the lake,” Drew explained. “I guess he thought I needed a bath, but my dear brother helped me change the fates. He saw Ben moving rapidly in my direction and intercepted.”

            “May I ask why you were snooping around his tree fort to begin with?” I inquired with hands on hips for affect.

            “You know how your cat Buttons has been missing for four or five days,” Jerry said, and then looked at his little brother. Drew said, “I have reason to believe Ben Weaver used Buttons in some type of occult ritual.”

            My hand went to my mouth again. But this time it wasn’t hiding a grin.