The Well of Wishing Book One

Dedicated to Bob and Arlene Strand and all the children who have fallen
through the cracks…


Chapter One
(Teresa—1993)          

A single ray of light pierces the eastern horizon and spreads
inquisitively, laser like, accentuating textures of soil, waking vibrant
colors. Birds burst into the azure sky like feathered confetti, twittering and
darting through green plumed trees.

Summer’s end snaps with a chill---a colorful quilt falling in gentle
waves before the golden eye as it peers across the land before lifting its
gaze heavenward. A random ray of light pops into a clearing—it leaps
through a window and cuts through smoke, finding the way through a
closing pantry door. Teresa shuffles in the dark pantry, her bare feet feeling
the seams on the cold wood floor, her fingers gliding along the rows of
canned goods.

She had been going about the morning in a daze, buzzing with creative
anticipation. She had started breakfast, and then put on the coffee. While
waiting for the old brewer, she had straightened the throw pillows on
the couch and stopped to pluck a succulent leaf from the large jade
tree, dreamily dusting it between thumb and fingers. Now she searches
through this year’s supply of preserves—each summer she and Emily have
a big-to-do about canning jams, jellies, pickles and vegetables from her
garden. She is about to push the door open wider when, like an insisting
finger, a bright flash of light slips through and comes to rest on a neat little
jar of strawberry jam trimmed with pink gingham fabric and tied with a
matching silken ribbon.

“Well, will you look at that?” She grabs the jar. The string on the dead
bulb tickles her nose as she passes. She opens the pantry door and steps
into a kitchen full of rolling smoke. “Shit!” she exclaims as she jumps to
action, abandoning the jar. It slides along the scratched surface of the old
oak table, stopping in the middle, contents simmering red in the morning
light.

Carefully but quickly, she grabs the handle of the skillet where bacon
convulses angrily. Pivoting around to the sink, she holds the heavy cast
iron skillet at arm’s length—not far enough to avoid splats of hot fat that
prick her skin.

“Shit!” she hisses again when she turns on the faucet. In the cloud of
steam, her dismayed face turns crimson as the scorched bacon and grease
gurgle down the garbage disposal. Cranking open all four windows on the
ivy-strewn bay window above the sink, she takes a step back, somewhat
bewildered, wiping large knuckled hands on a towel. Had she been futzing
around that long? Well, at least the eggs were salvageable.

Usually a soulful greeter of the dawn, today Teresa had curtailed her
practice of prayer, quiet and sipping coffee while relaxing on the cushy
recliner in order to make a substantial breakfast—something she did
occasionally. This morning the occasion was the first day of school, and
the first of many days of peace. Because of this she talks herself out of
being annoyed as she stands in the open door flapping the hand towel to
conduct some of the smoke out of the kitchen.

She works quickly to make the best of the disaster, her flushed face
fading to its normal florid coloring in the time it takes her to toast bread
and set the table. Smiling at herself, she sets a half empty gallon of milk
and a picture of orange juice on the table, next to the neat little jar of
strawberry jam. Noticing a white paw sticking out from underneath a
chair, Teresa nudges the dog with her foot. “Get up, Buster.”

Buster is slowly rousted by the wiggling foot. He lifts his droopy head,
then grunts to his feet.

“Sorry to bug you,” she says to him, “but you may want to stay out
of the way today.” The ancient basset hound has been a member of the
family so long that Teresa talks to him as though he is human—a gentle
old man who now prefers to sleep much of the day. He greets her in
earnest before turning away. His bulging belly, barely supported by squat,
gnarled legs, sways side to side as he ambles off to resume his lazy vigil on
a shaggy rug in front of the fireplace.

The digital clock on the range top reads 6:15. Ten more minutes
before wake-up call. Enough time to enjoy a cup of coffee and send out a
discombobulated prayer. She reaches for the old percolator as it grumbles
and huffs steam. Though it is in the waking hours that she usually walks
the path of grace, she has half a mind to grumble as well as she lifts and
pours. “I have some steam of my own these days,” she mutters to the old
contraption. “There are . . . things around here that I could do without,
put in the trash, or set out on an ear, and,” she pauses and nods with a hard
stare, “you are one of them.”

Of course, she would never part with something if it still worked.
As steam wafts from a cup that claims she is #1 in bold red letters,
she leans against the counter. Enveloped in her worn terry cloth robe,
she finds comfort as the potent brew slides down her throat. Her eyes
rest thoughtfully on the jar of glistening strawberry jam, and she closes
them briefly in an appeal that is like a wish. Behind her, the sun steadily
climbs. A stained-glass rose stuck to the rightmost window of the bay
gently leads a beam of light in a glory of red and green patterns on the
cluttered table.

“What should I do today when I am by myself for the first time in
more than three months?” she asks herself.

After her morning chores at the barn, she could have a lovely time of
messing around in the garden with May—sweet May, who has suddenly
turned into Lil’ Miss Chatterley always wanting to know “Vhat’s’ this?”
and “Vhat’s’ that?”—before taking her to the first day of kindergarten.
Teresa is delighted at the thought of this youngest girl. May asked
“what?” so much, that Teresa had started teasing her by echoing her
“what’s?” with “vhat?” Soon May was asking “Vhat?” and the dialog of
anyone who fell into a conversation with her consisted of a lot of “Vhat’s
this?” and “Vhat’s that?”

When she returns, she could clean like a mad woman, obliterating
signs of those with whom she shared her home, making the house all her
own, if only for a few hours. Then she could relax with the next volume
of the mystery novel kick she is on, or perhaps indulge in poetry while
munching on chocolate covered cordials winnowed from her secret stash.
Who knows? She could even throw a saddle on Charity and go for a ride;
she knows she has not ridden much this past summer, and a generous dose
of fresh air might be beneficial to her moods, which are ever-changing
nowadays.

“When I am by myself,” she thinks, “the choice will be all mine and
sweet uncertainty will not stop me from reveling in my personal joys.”
On such a morning as this—a morning she has not experienced for
some time—she is usually inspired to write poetry. She wonders if the
National Library of Poetry missed hearing from her this year. She had
searched through what she had written in the last year and found nothing
worthy of adding to the 1994 addition. Now she is not writing much at
all. It seems the channeling of visions through pen has become difficult.
Even in the lucidity of the early hours, her inner visions are unable to
transform into verses.

Some time during this last year, her body had begun to revolt as though
in anger. Sometimes without warning, heat begins radiating from her mid
section, and she suddenly becomes as sticky as a jungle floor. Other times
she gets so dry and itchy that she would gladly rake all the skin off her
body if the result were not a much worse alternative. Pushing the cause far
away from her consciousness, she deals with heat or dry torrents as they
come—however fast they are progressing.

Pressing the rim of the steaming cup below her nose, she closes her
eyes once more to examine her inner being. There is no extreme heat.
No sense of wanting to rip her clothes off right then and there to scratch
unashamedly at parts of her body until raw. She finds only a slight tinge
of irritability. Over all, everything is as it should be, for this moment. Out
loud she says to the life force she clings to, “I am sure you do as you see
fit.” She downs another cup of coffee, and then lets the cup drown in the
soapy dishwater.

Wake up time! At the top of the stairs, she knocks on the first door.
“Time to wake up.” Her voice does not resonate novice sweetness, the way
an amateur foster parent’s would.

The first day of school is the only time Teresa makes wake up calls.
After summer vacation a girl could forget, silence the alarm and continue
sleeping, or, a new girl, especially a girl accustomed to bucking the system
like a raging bull, might try to ignore school altogether.

On the other side of this first door, sixteen-year-old Rachel rests a
defiant ear. The woman’s voice—its no bullshit edge—could never be
mistaken for the voice of one easily pushed around. Undaunted, Rachel
rolls her sleep-deprived, swollen eyes.

She had been up long before the severe hour of Teresa’s first stirring.
Eternal stretches of the night with too few stolen moments of restless
slumber had rendered her a ghostly presence among the living; her unheard
cries desolate as the sound of a foghorn.

Days have bled together. She has no will to wonder what is expected
of her. Having exposed nerve endings for feelings is terrible, hideous –
a condition born on the wings of desire: urgent, searing---like an open
flame. All she wants is freedom, and would gladly pay the price if she only
knew the cost.

Acrid to her nose, the aged varnish on the door mixed with the fresh
coat of white paint reminds Rachel of hate. So does the smell of charred
bacon seeping beneath the door. Softly, without betraying her position on
this new battlefront, she leans her back against the door and crosses her
arms. Her gaze crystallizes with anger.

The bed, in an alcove made by the slanted walls on each side of the
window, had been a coffin, suffocating her with imagined dreams of those
who had lain there before her. Thoughts of escape robbed her of sleep.
In an effort to save herself from asphyxiation, the night so dark, the evil
spirits so mad, she had flung the window open to let in the bittersweet,
late summer air.

She leans her head against the door and breathes in deep the brisk air
that lifts the lacy blue curtains. They flutter like dancer’s arms, drawing
in the waking day and menacing birdsong. She closes her eyes, preferring
darkness.

Now the woman is knocking on another door.
“Up-and-at-’em,” she commands. There is a muffled groan on the
other side of the wall. After knocking on the third door where she speaks
in a much gentler tone, the woman thumps down the stairs. Rachel waits,
preferring this cheery little sunlit room to the company of that overblown
woman with bright, rose colored cheeks. She would rather die in a hail of
self-depriving hate than meet a new family.

She does not want a “Good morning, how did you sleep?” or an
unpleasant breakfast with people she did not want to know. She just wants
to make her way to the hot shower, a small escape, so that she can think of
what to do next, as if next were a lifetime.

Wake-up mission accomplished, Teresa holds on to the balustrade and
scratches at her shins. She notices her feet, dry and flaking. She will have
to pick up another bottle of lotion today—an extremely large one. As she
scratches, she takes inventory of her abode.

The living room, dim with its high, dark paneling and polished
oak flooring, is roomy enough to keep memories and voices swirling
and echoing like fading ghosts. Majestic maple trees—through which
the rainbow canopy of a child’s play set could be seen—cloister outside
two large windows like vigilant sentries. To the right of the windows, a
massive convex fireplace hunkers in a spacious corner. A smooth granite
sitting-slab runs along the entire length and continues on, past the tapered
stones, to stretch out along the paneled wall, all the way to the sliding glass
doors that exit to a porch wrapped around the right side of the house.
On the elegant cherry oak mantle, ceramic horses run and buck and rear.
Across from the monolith of brick and stone are the three bedrooms plus
a bathroom, and below, a large bedroom for her and Bill. All is as it should
be in the house and within herself. She sends up a thank you.

Hearing a door squeak, she looks up into the harsh face of Rachel,
noticing that the girl is wearing only a small T-shirt and underwear.
They regard each other for a static second before Rachel turns on a heel,
storms the catwalk hallway and disappears into the bathroom. Though
she expected it, Teresa jumps when the door slams shut. Sighing, she lets
her foot drop and goes to the furthest end of the living room. Lingering
by the sliding glass door, she flips the lock and smiles, invigorated by the
rush of autumn air.

The back yard slides down to the paddock where a white barn stands
adjacent to the house. The land—this land she grew up on and left to
her by her mother—is a sight to behold in the morning light. Hugged by
forest where it starts to gently slope away and enclosed by a whitewashed
fence, the property is hers. Sparkling with dew, lush grasses scribble on
the flat space between. Straight ahead three horses meander in different
directions, heads down, muzzles working, tails swishing. Teresa finds the
smell of horseflesh comforting and waits for a waft to be carried up on the
heart-shaped palms of the basswood tree. Leaving the glass door ajar, she
goes to her bedroom, closes her door and listens for the myriad noises of
life above.

“Morning,” Bill says, cheerfully. Her husband is putting a sock on,
dancing a one-legged disco to some happy melody in his heart.
“Morning, my overgrown Boy Scout,” she responds with a wry grin as
she passes him on the way to the bathroom.

Bill grabs a tie off the bed, lays it around his neck and follows Teresa
to the bathroom, buttoning his shirt high. Having heard a door slam, he
suspected the new girl for the disturbance. “Got your work cut out with
this one,” he says.

Ever since Rachel’s arrival late yesterday afternoon, the house has
palpitated uneasily as she fumed behind her closed bedroom door.
Teresa turns around and begins to manipulate Bill’s tie. His head
sways tolerantly as she works. Restraining a yawn she replies, “I suspect
she will not last another night.” She lovingly pats his collar down, feeling
protruding bones. “There you go,” she says.

“Thank you.” He places a well-versed kiss on her mouth.
Teresa flutters her eyes, inhales the love between them before ending
the moment.

Taking a black comb off the counter, Bill briskly preens his graying
mustache, a source of pride because it remains abundant, unlike his hair,
which has receded like a tide. He looks at his wife’s reflection in the mirror
as she turns on the shower and removes her robe and nightgown.
“It’s just as well if she leaves,” she mutters before stepping under the
hot spray, closing the shower curtain behind her.

“What are you going to do if she does stay?” He asks, raising his
voice, knowing that, from above, their conversation sounded like off-key
trombones.

“I guess we will have to see. There’s no way to determine her personality
through a door, although I have to admit her presence is strong.”

“Uh huh,” Bill agrees. With this one, he senses more trouble than they
had known in all their years of doing foster care.

Last night, when he first met Rachel, he had been sitting at the
kitchen table where they greeted all new girls, Teresa sitting beside him
prepared, it seemed, for anything. Rachel, followed by a frazzled looking
social worker, traipsed in wearing the scantiest of outfits. Bill usually paid
little mind to the acting out of girls in need and thus accepted her without
judgment. He was there only as a male representation of the household.
Next to Teresa he looked as gentle as a reed. His wife’s size and precise stare
were all a girl needed to perceive to know who wore the britches, a fact
that had never intimidated Bill.

“I’ve got some stuff to do in town this morning,” he says as he combs
what was left of his hair. “Then I have to go to Kissling for a meeting. I
will be home fairly early. Shall we make a date for the evening news and
Wheel of Fortune?”

While Teresa usually watched the news and a few game shows after
supper, Bill usually made it home only in time to watch their favorite
sitcoms. Shutting themselves in their room at the end of the day was a
custom observed by their charges as a sacred time, a time of recuperation
that sealed the smooth running of the home.

“You bet,” she laughs with the meat and potatoes sensuality he loved so.