Stripped Read online

He blows out a long breath. “I expected better from you, Grey. ” His voice is suddenly hard, whip-sharp, and I flinch. “I really did. Film school? That’s worse than any lewd dancing. You would be working with the scum of the earth. People who think it’s okay to glorify murder and dishonesty and sexual perversion. ”

  “But Daddy, it doesn’t have to be like that—”

  “It would be, though. They would take advantage of you. An innocent, beautiful girl like you in Hollywood? They’d eat you alive. ”

  “But that’s what’s so great about this program. It’s here in Macon. I wouldn’t have to move to L. A. to do it. ”

  He doesn’t respond for a long moment. When he does, his eyes are hard as flint. “This conversation is over. You will not be a part of that industry. ” He swivels his chair away from me, toward his computer screen, a clear dismissal.

  I fight back a sniffle. “You don’t understand. ”

  “I do, all too well. ” He’s not looking at me, now. Dismissing me. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand what it’s like. What people are like, what they’ll do. They’ll pervert you. It’s my job as your father to protect you, to shelter you from that. ”

  My fists clench and tremble, my throat closing with hot, impotent anger. “But that’s all you do! Shelter me! You don’t understand me! Not anything. You never have. This is what I want. Just because you’re a pastor doesn’t mean I can’t live my own life and like my own things. Not everything is sinful, and that’s how you act, like every single thing that’s not a Bible study or a prayer meeting is sinful!”

  I’m standing up, crying and shouting. “God, you’re just so…so damn close-minded about everything!”

  Flushed with anger, Daddy stands up and knocks over a mug of pens. “Don’t you dare take the Lord’s name in vain in that manner, Grey Leanne Amundsen. ” He points a finger at me, and now he’s in full-out preacher mode. “I am your father, and God has given me the responsibility of taking care of you. I am responsible for your soul. ”

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  “NO! You’re not! I’ll be eighteen soon. I can make my own decisions. ” I’m torn between fear and pride. I’ve never, ever spoken back to Daddy before.

  This moment in time changes everything, somehow.

  “For as long you live in my home, you’ll follow my rules and do as I say. And I say you’ll not do that program. ” He sits down and rights the mug of pens. “For your rebellious attitude and foul speech, all dance privileges are revoked. ”

  I sink into the chair. “No, Daddy. I’m sorry. Don’t…I’m in a performance on Monday. If I don’t dance, they’ll have to re-block the whole piece. ”

  “Then they’ll have to re-block it. ” He doesn’t look at me again after that.

  I leave his study in tears, retreating to my room. Eventually Mom comes in and sits on the bed. I roll toward her, and sit up immediately. She looks pale and thin, her face pinched. “Mom? Are you okay?”

  She shrugs. “I’m fine, baby. ” She pats my hand. “I told you not to push it, sweetheart. I’ll talk to your father and see if I can convince him to let you be in Monday’s performance. But…you really should let go of this silly film thing. I know…I know you may not want to be a pastor’s wife, and I understand that. But film? It’s not for you. ”

  I don’t answer. I know they won’t get it, not even my mom. When it’s clear I’m done talking to her about it, she stands up, patting my hand again. “I’ll talk to him. Just…think about your choices, okay? Think about God’s plan for your life. Does this sudden obsession with sinful movies glorify Him?”

  I only sigh, realizing the futility of arguing with her about the difference between their ideas of God’s plan for my life and my plan for my life. She leaves, and I’m alone again. I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling, honestly trying to think through it. I could understand their reaction if I said I wanted to move to L. A. and be an actress, or to Nashville to be a musician. But I’m proposing that I stay close to home and in their circle of influence after high school. All Daddy cares about is his own idea of what’s right and wrong. Everything is in black and white for him, and most things are black. There’s more that’s sinful and wrong than there are things that are okay.

  I find myself wondering how he knows that God disapproves of all the things Daddy claims are wrong. I know he’d have Bible verses to support everything he believes. I just…I just can’t help wondering if that’s manipulating the Scripture to fit what he doesn’t like or isn’t willing to understand. And honestly, he’s never left Georgia. He grew up here in Macon, got his degree in theology from Trinity Baptist Seminary in Jackson, an hour north. He can’t know everything.

  The more I think it through, the angrier I get.

  I start imagining all the smart and witty and thoughtful arguments I could have made to Daddy. I’ll never say any of them, but that’s the way I am. I’ll chew on an argument for days afterward, thinking about what I could have said, what I should have said, how I could have made it come out differently.

  I’m surprised when my door opens and Daddy stands in the opening. I expected it to be Mom, but instead he’s standing there looking scared.

  “Daddy? What’s wrong?”

  “Your mother…she—she fainted. An ambulance is on the way. It’s these headaches she’s been having. She just fell over, Grey. She hit the edge of the stove and broke her wrist. Pray for her, Grey. Pray that the Lord will protect her. ”

  I tremble, unshed tears closing my throat. This is bad. Very bad.

  Chapter 3

  I sit with my hands folded on my lap, eyes downcast. I can’t look at her. A machine beeps steadily, monitoring something. My eyes burn, but they’re dry. I’ve cried all my tears over the last few months. She went from bad to worse, and now she’s a skin-wrapped skeleton in a hospital bed. Her hair is gone. Her cheeks are ridges of sharp bone. Her fingers are limp, frail and tiny. She’s barely breathing. I’ve cried and cried, and now I can cry no more.

  I begged God to spare her. I stayed awake night after night, pleading, on my knees. And still Mama is dying.

  Mama. I haven’t called her or thought of her as “Mama” since I was ten and Ally Henderson made fun of me in front of the entire class for it. She’s been “Mom” ever since. But now…she’s “Mama” again.

  Undaunted, Daddy remains resolute in his faith that God has a plan.

  God Has a Plan.

  Those four mighty words that solve everything for him.

  I don’t think He does have a plan. I think sometimes people just die. Mom is dying. She’s only got days now.

  Two days earlier, I’d stood outside the hospital room while Dr. Pathak told my father to prepare himself for the worst.

  Daddy just repeated his mantra. “The Lord’s will cannot be subverted. ”

  Dr. Pathak grunted in irritation. “I respect your faith, Mr. Amundsen. I truly do. I am also a man of deep faith, although I know you would not agree with what I believe. So I understand your faith. Sometimes we must be prepared for the plan of our God to not be what we would like it to be. Perhaps your God will not work a miracle. Perhaps He will. I hope for your sake and for your daughter’s sake that He will do a great miracle and heal your wife as I have seen such miracles happen. I, too, pray, in my own way, for miracles to happen. But sometimes they do not. It is simply a fact of life. ”

  Now I hold Mom’s hand with its parchment-paper skin in mine, and I watch her breathe. Each breath is a slow process. She struggles to suck in air over long seconds and at last she lets it out again as slowly as she drew it in. Something in her chest rattles. Her body is giving up. She isn’t, but her body is. Mom fought. God, did she fight. Chemo, radiation, surgery. There are scars and lines of stitches on her scalp where they drilled and cut. She wanted the tumor out. She wanted to live. For Daddy. For me.

  She made me live my life. Made me keep going to high school, keep
studying. Made me apply to colleges. She even let me send out an application to USC, the University of Southern California. One of the premier film schools in the world. She helped me get scholarships. She kept Daddy off my case and convinced him to let it all go. She didn’t want us to argue, so we didn’t. Daddy never agreed, never approved. But when I got the acceptance letter from USC and stopped even pretending to look at any other colleges, he realized it was for real. It was happening. Maybe he thought Mama being sick would change my mind. Maybe he thought he could just put his foot down and have his way, regardless of what I wanted. I don’t know.

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  But now…she’s losing the fight.

  And all I know is that I’m going to USC. Mom understood my passion, before the cancer took her soul. I used my allowance to buy a Flip camera and started making my own films, artistic pieces about me, about life. I made friends with a homeless man living in Macon and did a piece on him. Mr. Rokowski helped me edit it and put a soundtrack on it using some pro programs.

  I showed that piece to Daddy. He said it was a moving piece but if I went to school in L. A. , my intentions wouldn’t matter. I would get sucked into sinful lifestyle of Los Angeles. I let him rant, and then walked away. Film is my art, as much as dance. I don’t need his approval.

  I’ve filmed Mama’s fight with cancer. She let me film every moment of it. I even skipped classes to go to film the chemo with her. She said it was her legacy, that she would beat it, and my film would record her victory.

  My Flip is on a tripod in the corner, watching her die now. Recording her struggle for breath. It recorded her last words, two days ago: “I love you, Grey. ” It’s recording every beep of the machine monitoring her heartbeat.

  They’ve said she’s going to die any day now. They don’t understand why she hasn’t yet. I know, though. I think she’s still fighting. For us.

  Daddy is gone getting coffee and something to eat. I glance at the door, closed but for a crack letting in a thin stream of fluorescent light from the hallway and the occasional squeak of sneakers. There’s the distorted squawk of the overhead PA: “Dr. Harris to OR seven…Dr. Harris to OR seven, please…. ”

  I gently squeeze Mama’s hand. She squeezes my hand back, a breath of pressure. Her eyes flutter but don’t open. She’s listening.

  “Mama?” I sniffle and fight for breath. “It’s okay, Mama. I’ll be okay. I’ll miss you every day. But…you’ve fought so hard. I know you have. I know how much you love me and Daddy. I’ll take care of him, okay? You…you can go now. It’s okay. You don’t have to fight anymore. ”

  That’s a lie: I won’t take care of Daddy. She needs the lie, though, so I tell it. A sob breaks free from my lips. I rest my face on her frail chest, listen to the faint thumpthump…thumpthump…thump… of her heart beating.

  “I love you, Mama. I love you. Daddy loves you. ” I hear the faint beating grow fainter, slower. A few seconds between beats, then almost a minute. “I love you. Goodbye, Mama. Go be with Jesus. ”

  Those words are the worst lie. I don’t believe them. I don’t believe in God.

  Not anymore.

  Someone is sobbing loudly, and I realize it’s me. I choke it off. I have to be strong for Mama.

  A faint patter from her heart, her chest rises…falls. A breath of pressure on my hand, once, twice, a third time, strongly. Then nothing. Silence from beneath my ear. Stillness.

  I’d tuned out the monitor. Now I hear it flatlining. A team of nurses flurries in, begins the scramble of resuscitation.

  “STOP!” I yell it at the top of my lungs. I don’t even rise from my chair. “Just…stop. She’s gone. Please…just leave her alone. She’s gone. ”

  Daddy is in the door, a white little Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand. He sees the commotion, hears the flatline, sees the tears on my face, and hears my words. The cup slips from his fingers and hits the floor. Scalding, burnt-smelling coffee splashes up onto the legs of his expensive jeans and shiny leather shoes.

  “Leanne?” His voice cracks on the last syllable.

  I’m mad at him still. But he’s my father and this is his wife and he’s lost now. “She’s gone, Daddy,” I say.

  “No. ” He shakes his head, pushes through the flock of nurses in red scrubs. “No. She’s not…Leanne? Baby? No. No. No. ” He brushes at her forehead, kisses her lips in a broken, silent plea.

  She doesn’t kiss him back, and he crumples. Slides to the linoleum, clutching the metal bars of the bed railing. His thick shoulders quake, but he remains silent as he weeps.

  His grief is awful to witness. As if something inside him has been broken. Shattered. Sliced apart by the knife of an uncaring God.

  “Why did He let her die, Daddy?” I can’t stop the words from escaping my lips.

  They’re cruel words, because I know he doesn’t have the answers. I’ve always known the reality: his God is a charade.

  He’s on his knees beside her bed. The nurses quietly and respectfully watch. This is the oncology ward; they’ve watched this scene play out time and again.

  “God…my God, why have you forsaken me? Eli eli lama sabachthani?” He pulls away from me, covers his face with his hands.

  Really? He’s spouting Aramaic now? Is he putting on this pious show for the nurses? He’s really grieving, I realize that. But why does he have to act so damned holy all the time? I turn away from him. I lean over Mama and kiss her cooling cheek.

  “Goodbye, Mama. I love you. ” I whisper the words low enough so no one can hear.

  I leave the room. It’s number 1176. The route to the elevators is one I could walk in my sleep now: turn right from room 1176, down the long hallway to the dead end. Turn left. Another long hallway. Right at the nurse’s station, through the doors that open in opposite directions, one away from you and the other toward you. The elevators are at the end of that short hallway, a double bank of silver doors. The button lights up pale yellow, the up and down arrows blurred from a thousand thumbs pressing against them. I have no visual memory of the elevator ride down or leaving the hospital, only stumbling out into the sunlight. It’s a beautiful, gorgeous fall day. No clouds, just far, endless blue sky and a bright yellow sun and cool October air.

  How can it be a beautiful day when my mother just died? It should be a black, awful day. Instead, it’s the kind of day I should be cruising around downtown in Devin’s convertible Sebring, listening to Guster.

  I find myself on my hands and knees in the grass, surrounded by parked cars. I’m sobbing. I thought I’d cried all my tears, but I haven’t. Not by a long shot.

  I feel Daddy’s presence in the grass beside me. For the first time in my entire life, he’s something like real. He sits down in the grass next to me, heedless of the moisture from the sprinklers from an hour ago. It’s early morning, just past dawn. I’d been beside her bed for forty-eight hours, waiting. I hadn’t moved, not once. Not to eat, not to drink, not to pee.

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  Mama…Mama is dead. I ignore my father and weep. Eventually, he picks me up off the grass, walks me to the car, and settles me in the back seat of his BMW where I lie down. The smell of leather fills my nose, tangy and damp from my clothes. He drives slowly, and I hear him sniffle and snort. I hear the soft skritch of his hand passing over his week’s worth of stubble as he wipes his face, clearing away the tears, making room for the next wave of hot salt grief.

  I can’t breathe for the sobs, for the raw weight of grief. Mama is dead. She was the only one who understood me. She was my intercessor between me and Daddy. When he wouldn’t listen, she would talk to him for me. Sometimes I wonder if Daddy even likes me. I mean, he’s my father, so I know he feels the patriarchal emotion of protective love, but does he like me? For who I am? Does he understand me? Has he ever tried?

  And now the only person who’s ever understood me is gone. Gone.

  “
Pull over, please. ” I’m scrambling to a sitting position, scrabbling at the window button, at the locked door. “I’m gonna puke—”

  He’s over the rumble strip and on the gravel shoulder and slowing enough for me to lunge out of the still-moving car and into the tall, scratchy grass at the roadside. Vomit pours from me like a hot flood, burning my throat, convulsing my stomach. My eyes water as wave after wave gushes through me, and my nose drips. Daddy doesn’t help me, doesn’t hold my hair back. He just watches me from the driver’s seat, the engine idling. A Michael W. Smith song plays softly from the speakers, floating to me from the open door. “The Giving. ” I hate that song. I’ve always hated that song. He knows I hate that song.

  I kneel on the gravel and the grass, heaving, panting. I stare over my shoulder at him. The grief in his eyes is like knives. But it’s lonely grief. He’s in his own world.

  So am I.

  I spit bile, wipe my face on my sleeve, and kick the back door shut. I slide into the front passenger seat, click my seat belt in place, and then angrily punch the stereo off.

  “Grey, I was listening to that. ”

  “I hate that song. You know I hate that song. ”

  He calmly taps the CD player back on and touches a button to skip the song. “It’s my car. I’ll listen to what I want. ” He hasn’t skipped the song, it turns out. He skipped back to start it over. Even in the midst of grief, he still has to be completely in control.

  The car is still stopped, so I unlatch my belt and shove the door open. “Fine. Then I’ll walk. ”

  “It’s five miles, Grey. Get in. ”

  Something explodes inside me. I turn to him and snarl; it’s an animalistic, guttural, wordless growl. “Fuck you,” I say.

  He actually gasps. “Grey Leanne Amundsen—”

  I ignore him and start walking. A car passes by with a loud whoosh and a belated gust of cool wind. He gets out and cajoles and pleads and commands. Then he tries to manhandle me into the car. His arm goes around my waist, and he drags me to the passenger door. I stomp on his instep, jerk free from his grip, and then—before I know I intend to do so—I punch him in the jaw. My fist clenches on its own and flashes out, connects with his cheek. He stumbles backward, more surprised than hurt. My hand aches. I don’t care.

  “What’s God’s plan now, Daddy? Why? Why did he let this happen? Tell me, Daddy! Tell me!” I’m slamming my fists on his back.

  He catches my hands in his. “Stop, Grey. Stop. STOP! I don’t know! I don’t—I don’t know. Just get in the car and we’ll talk about it. ”

  I wrench my hands free. “I don’t want to talk about it. Just leave me alone. ” I say it calmly. Too calmly. “Just…leave me alone. ”