WE GATHER TOGETHER by Edward L. Woodyard

We Gather Together Chapter Ninety-Seven

Maya Noguchi opened the door of the motel bathroom, dressed in gray sweat pants and a Cal sweat shirt. She was drying her hair with a towel and feeling alive and refreshed. "Next."

"This will be quick. I want to get some sleep. The shower will feel good."

"It will feel great."

Scott took a clean tee shirt and briefs from his backpack and went into the steam-filled bathroom, closing the door behind him, as Maya turned off the overhead light in the room, switched on the lamp between their double beds, and slid under the covers, yawning loudly as she did so.

From inside the bathroom, Scott heard her yawn. He smiled to himself as he took off his clothes; his blue jeans were so stiff they were ready to stand up by themselves. He piled his dirty clothes in a corner by the door and stepped into the shower, allowing the hot water to uncoil the tightened muscles in his shoulders and neck. He reached outside the shower curtain for a razor from his Dopp kit on the counter and shaved three days of auburn stubble off his face. After he cleaned whiskers from the razor, tapping it against the shower tiles, he grabbed the already opened small bar of soap on the edge of the bathtub and washed three days of travel grime and grit off his body. Then he shampooed his hair, massaging his scalp and rinsing his wavy locks. He turned around and stood face-first under the warm shower. He relaxed and laughed to himself; he knew he had been driving too much, thinking that what he was doing was what it must feel like to be a car windshield in a torrential tropical rain.

He turned off the shower and pulled aside the shower curtain. He wiped the water off himself before reaching for a towel. For now, he was naked and exposed. There was no one but himself standing there. He alone would determine what would happen next. Only he was responsible for whom he was and for whom he would be.

He felt revitalized by this physical transformation of a shower. Now if he could only have a spiritual one, some sort of catharsis or epiphany that would allow him to move forward with his life. His car wasn't going to drive him to where he wanted to go. He had to drive it there, wherever "there" was.

Scott stepped out of the shower and dried himself. He put his razor back in his Dopp kit, used his towel to wipe the steam from the mirror, brushed his teeth and flossed. As tired as he was from the day of driving, and as tranquil as he was from the shower, he was still pensive, his mind unsettled and anxious. He put on the clean tee shirt and fresh underwear, taking the soiled clothes with him which he put in a plastic bag that had lined a wastebasket in the room. He saw that Maya wasn't asleep after all but was on her laptop.

"Think we can do laundry at your friend's place in Hoboken?" Scott asked.

"I suppose. Either there or at a laundromat nearby."

He noticed her typing on her laptop. "Still working?"

"Catching up on e-mails. I'm going to close the office soon," Maya said smiling.

"I'm tired. We drove a lot today."

"We made some great time."

"We'll get a fresh start in the morning. We're almost there."

Scott lifted aside the bedspread and top sheet on his bed and slipped under the covers. He turned his back to Maya, saying "Good night."

Maya closed her laptop and put it under the pillow next to hers, turning off the bedside lamp and sliding further under her covers.

"Good night."

Scott faced the window. The hazy yellow glare of the LED pole lights in the motel parking lot still leaked through the shut curtains. Somehow the glare was brighter in the room. The whizzing and rumbling of traffic on the interstate also seemed louder than before. He couldn't shut his eyes. He started talking, not knowing if Maya could hear him or not.

"When I first went to San Francisco, I was still drinking a lot and finally went to A.A. That's where I met Wendy three years ago. She had just moved there from Pittsburgh. She was like this graceful swan in flight but was actually a sparrow with a broken wing. You just wanted to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be all right. We started living together and became the couple in A.A. Then she got pregnant about six months ago and we got married."

Scott paused in his thoughts. He breathed in; his pillow was absorbing his tears. "She couldn't handle that we were going to be a family. So, we talked about that, and about how wonderful everything was going to be. And then she had a stillbirth. We had a stillbirth," he said, correcting himself while gasping. "She started drinking again after seven years. She couldn't stop. I did everything I could, but she just couldn't stop. She kept saying that her body had failed her. That she had failed herself. That the baby had failed her. The only one who hadn't failed her was me. But I did. I couldn't do anything. I tried, but in the end, I was helpless. I came back from the beach and the police were there. Wendy had thrown herself off the roof of our apartment building."

He was gulping his sobs as he choked on his tears.

Scott had finally cried.

His heart pulsating, he tried to drift off to sleep when he felt a kiss on the back of his head. It was Maya. She had heard everything he said. "I'm so sorry, Scott."

"If Wendy had any idea what she would do to others by what she did," he said softly, "she never would've done it. She had filled a hole in my soul and now, she has only made it bigger."

Maya sat on the edge of her bed. She hesitated to say anything further.

"I know you're thinking something, Maya." He was silently asking for her help.

She still hesitated but then proceeded. "Be blessed that she was in your life for as long as she was. You will fill that hole again. Maybe, if you're lucky, with what created it in the first place. But it'll only happen once you forgive," Maya said softly. "You have to forgive first before anything else is allowed to have the chance to love you."

"I could have. . .," Scott said, but Maya interrupted him.

"Don't blame yourself. Wendy wasn't your fault. You were never going to stop it. If it wasn't then, it would've been another time and place."

"But. . ." He stopped himself. He lay on his side, the hazy yellow glare of the LED pole lights reflected on his face, his eyes blinking slowly.

Maya sensed a doubt in Scott about being able to change what Wendy had done. Maya had learned from her father that the key to wisdom was doubt, which in turn led to questions, which in turn led to truth. She also knew full well that all truth was personal.

Maya knew Scott was thinking about what she had just said; she then offered, "As for the hole in your gut. . ."

"What about it?" he asked in a whisper.

"Fill it with love from somewhere else. All that love is still inside you. It's just shifted a bit. It's hiding out somewhere else deep in you. You just need to let it out."

Scott didn't move. He was exhausted, spent.

"I appreciate everything, Maya. Thank you," he said.

Maya crawled back into bed and turned on her side to face the bathroom door. She was asleep in five minutes. She was thinking how else she could help Scott. She knew that her just listening and being there had been a big first step for him.

Scott shifted in his bed and hugged his damp pillow. He was thinking that when he left San Francisco, he had purposely put a necktie in his backpack at the last minute.

He had known all along where he was letting his car take him, but he had refused to admit it to himself. He could finally sleep now; for the first time in weeks and weeks, he could sleep.

Scott McCulloch was going home.