A Shift in Grace

Jenna and Hayley had a passion for log cabins, and the rustic ambience that parts of southern Indiana offered – and Jenna secured a log cabin to use on weekends for a ten-week duration. On the first Saturday morning at the cabin, Hayley, a bubbly woman of forty-four, awakened from her futon to smell the fresh aroma of coffee brewing and English muffins toasting. She open her eyes halfway to see the woman three years her junior, in the kitchen of the cabin, purposefully busying herself in the breakfast preparations. Hayley thought back to a couple of years ago, seeing Jenna in her jail uniform, and thought that the kitchen’s occupant had moved to a more positive and peaceful era of her life. She sighed with contentment at the progress of both women in righting their troubled pasts.

“Hey, ‘mornin!’ sleepily voiced Hayley, from the futon. “What’s up? Do I smell coffee?” Jenna just smiled her little half-smile, and set the table for them to eat their first meal at the cabin. Hayley, grateful for the coffee, asked, “Man, this is great! Thanks for the java.” She inhaled deeply, “Ummmmm. It smells so great out here – clean – and it’s so quiet!” She looked around the cabin, squinting a little without her contacts. So many artifacts particular to the area were nailed to the walls. Old iron relics, dried flowers, old signs from another era, antiques added an atmosphere and a rough wood aroma reminiscent of another time.

The owner of the log cabin had afforded herself the luxury of installing a hot-tub amid an opening in the tall pine trees that spread abundantly throughout the property. Later that day, the two women floated in the pungent, yet antiseptic chemicals that formed the hot steamy bubbles and spray contained within the cedar tub. They bared their souls to each other in a confessing of troubling events that had brought them pain, yet inevitable personal growth. “You know,” remarked Jenna in her pre-occupied way, “I have never felt the presence of God so strongly as I have right now.” Hayley looked up at the sky, and let Jenna continue. “I have never known such a connection with another human being before…who has led me to such a steadfast connection to God. I feel so….peaceful….like everything is just the way it should be.” Jenna hesitated. And was silent. Hayley glanced at her, and prodded her to go on. Jenna often had a difficult time expressing her innermost thoughts and feelings. “It’s like I don’t want to ever leave this place. It’s just us, and talking and knowing a real spirituality. Wholeness. Fulfillment. Everything is exactly the way it should be - right now,” Hayley sighed. “That’s what I have been trying to show you for four years. That’s how the program of recovery works. I am glad you are starting to get it,” she ended the thought in an almost gruff voice.

Jenna felt a true serenity, and Hayley sat in awe, and marveled at their good fortune at having secured this cabin as a retreat. And it was theirs for ten weeks, and Jenna’s time to spend with her sponsor…and spirituality cloaked them in all their happenings in that cabin and in the surrounding, soothing woods. God smiled in His mysterious Way.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Springtime of the following year rolled out its perfume of new greenery, and that familiar earthy smell that accompanies the earth after the winter. Nature was being re-born, and Hayley felt that she was dying inside. Her husband was emotionally absent, behind the computer screen amidst computer games and battles with aliens. She was extremely lonely. She yearned for solace in a companion or soulmate of sorts. She turned to Jenna for comfort and companionship.

“I am having inappropriate emotions and thoughts about you,” Hayley quietly remarked to Jenna in her van around 9:30pm, after the meeting in the old neighborhood church. “I am going to have to release myself from the role as your sponsor.” The moonlight positioned Jenna in an ethereal pool of illuminated softness. Her eyes, often times secluded windows to her thoughts, opened wide – then relaxed into comprehension. The pause in conversation was eternity, and Hayley wanted to be spirited away from that parking lot. Jenna took her hand, but Hayley shook her head, not wishing to continue the conversation. Their relationship passed through a major shift that night that neither woman saw looming on the horizon – nor did either cut it off upon its arrival.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A month later, Hayley left her husband, after he refused to go to couples’ counseling with her. She moved into the home that Jenna and her daughter had just purchased about a mile away. All former boundaries melted away, and a newer relationship emerged, that was vastly unacceptable to Hayley’s family. Jenna and Hayley were now a “couple”, who were received with welcoming arms by both the gay and recovering communities, and Jenna’s family. The lessons that surfaced in the two women’s lives were ones of anger, hurt, pain and violence. Jenna’s daughter, Jillian, was not accepting of the relationship between Hayley and her mother, and rebelled frequently with furor. Jillian was following in the genetic predisposition of addiction, and behavior was predictably loving and rageful at volatile intervals.

Hayley heard the commotion downstairs, and immediately surmised that Jillian did not want to go to school again that day. Jenna raised her voice, “Jillian! GET UP! I’m not going to ask you anymore! It’s 6:30! The bus will be here in half an hour…get up and get your clothes on and get ready to go!” “No!!!!” came the response from the teenager’s bedroom. Hayley heard a dull, but distinctive dull thud, and raced to the top of the stairs leading to the lower level. In horror, she witnessed Jenna and Jillian locked in combat on Jillian’s waterbed – both females were extremely strong, and Jillian was in one of her customary rages. “Stop it!” Hayley screamed. “This is ridiculous! …come on Jillian - Jenna, this is so senseless….why does this happen day after day?!!!” The fight went on, blood was drawn, and bruises were raised. Eventually a threat to call the police was made by Jenna, and Jillian finally acquiesced, but not without continuing to run her mouth – spewing verbal venom in the direction of her mother. And Hayley was afraid of the power in the two women’s emotions, as they played out a lifetime karma of abandonment and guilt by Jenna, and Jillian’s resulting rage.

The inevitable happened, twice, not once in the ensuing three years. Jenna was arrested for prescription fraud, at her places of employment – medical practices – when she had access to scripts, patient charts, and pharmacies used. Hayley was shocked and could not understand Jenna’s return to drugs. She never fully understood Jenna’s need to escape. Jenna had been from a good, middle-class home with parents who loved her, and worked hard to provide her with the necessities. Jenna was the oldest of three siblings, and they all got along relatively well.

“Jenna!” screamed Hayley on the phone, when Jenna called her collect from the jail. “How could you?!” she drew a breath, and could not calm down. “How could you do this again! Why? Why didn’t you tell me you were having thoughts of using again?” Hayley exclaimed. ‘How could I not see this coming?’ Hayley thought to herself. Court hearings, lawyers’ fees, probation, treatment centers and medication needs were now a part of their lives.

Two months prior to this time, Hayley, barely forty-six years of age, emotionally and mentally snapped. Jenna lead Hayley into the psychiatric emergency intake area. Jenna walked Hayley to a chair. “I’ll be right back.” She touched Hayley’s cheek and smiled sadly at the older woman, who was in tears, and hurried to the Ladies’ room. Jenna returned with a wet, soapy paper towel and started to scrub at Hayley’s face. “Sweetie,” cooed Jenna, “why did you use felt tip marker all over your face?” and she continued to scrub. Hayley had written “dyke” on her throat, and had drawn meaningless symbols of connotations of self-loathing all over her face.

Hayley’s tears streamed down her face, yet Jenna could sense another wave of rage brewing up – an emotional outpouring that was always difficult for Jenna to witness. But, they were now in a psychiatric hospital, and such outbursts were not tolerated. Hayley’s raging and kicking at equipment, finally swinging her fists brought out two male nurses and a security guard. One was waving a tourniquet, and the other had a hypodermic shot loaded with a calmative that was administered with great difficulty. “No!” screamed Hayley, “NO, I will NOT take it – you are evil! You are trying to beat me down! (pause) “No!” she yelled. “No,” she weakly protested. And there was silence. The drug had taken hold. Jenna held Hayley’s upper body as the once protesting woman gave up her struggling. Hayley was broken down, and Jenna could not fix her. Not now. “Please, Hayley,” Jenna pleaded, “do as they say. Don’t give them cause to restrain you. Please!” Jenna pleaded, with tears in her voice.

Hayley was admitted four more times to psychiatric wards for depression and suicidal ideations over the next year and a half, and Jenna was arrested a total of three times for prescription fraud. It was a most tumultuous time of betrayal, hurt, and extreme disappointment for Hayley. Something had to change. Jenna had conveyed the idea that she needed Hayley to move out of their home, that had also been put up for sale due to Jenna’s unreliable employment and income shifts.

Hayley extricated herself from the triangle with Jenna and Jillian, and proceeded to live her life without them a part of it as much. But, the pain of knowing Jenna had not ceased. Jenna was sentenced to a year in prison by the court system,, just two months after Jillian graduated from high school. Jenna had just turned forty-six.

Life seemed to take on a more settled, orderly appearance. Hayley eventually met a wonderful gentleman, seven years her senior. Vincent was semi-retired from education, possessed two Master’s degrees, was refined, gracious and loving. His nature was that of a “Victorian Gentleman”, and was fondly dubbed that by Hayley. In time, Vincent grew to love Hayley very much. They talked for hours - literally. About everything. They shared all fears, hopes, dreams, disappointments, and past love relationships. They had so much to share and appreciate in each other. In time, both were undeniably devoted to each other, and for the most part, accepting of each other as they appeared: appreciating Life’s gifts, God’s Grace, a spiritual path, with an absence of loneliness, minimal stress in their lives, and goodness in most things.

One revelation about Hayley’s past unnerved Vincent, and he made himself quite clear. Vincent abhorred the fact that Hayley had had this dysfaunctional, turmoil-filled relationship with Jenna. He repeatedly emphasized that the relationship with Jenna had created more harm in Hayley’s recovery and mental health than was foreseeable. Hayley insisted that Jenna took care of her in her darkest hours of hospitalizations and emotional hell. Yes, she knew that the relationship with Jenna and Jillian was full of chaos, and that she had superimposed her own will upon things that added to the mayhem. But, Hayley knew that she had loved them as her own little nuclear family. Vincent could not bear the mention of Jenna’s name in conversation. Furthermore, he would not visit any part of Hayley’s life in that Midwestern city that had Jenna’s footprints on it. Hayley, deeply angered, hurt and betrayed by Jenna’s eventual sentencing to prison for a year –successfully eradicated everything in her life, thoughts, and memories that remotely hinted of the life she had had with Jenna. Vincent had given Hayley an ultimatum: “there is not enough room in your life for Jenna and I to be present in it. Having her as a friend in your life, will end our relationship.” Hayley could understand his feelings, and she did not want to lose the best relationship that she had experienced in her fifty years. She loved him, her therapist approved of him, and her parents revered him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The intimate part of her life with Jenna had been ended two years ago. The physical interactions had ended a year ago, during Jenna’s prison stay. The emotional ties were being slashed with one more event.

Hayley’s heart was pounding. In a panicked frenzy she stuffed dolls, articles of clothing and jewelry that Jenna had given Hayley over the last four years into trash bags, and prepared to make another trip to Goodwill. Anger flooded her body, and the adrenaline coursed through her veins, as she made that final attempt to purge Jenna from her soul, and felt that she had finally closed that door. She and Vincent were moving to a large townhome, and she had successfully lightened her load of personal possessions by about forty percent.

Yet, something was nagging at Hayley’s subconscious, tormenting her unconscious, and monopolizing her dreams at night. “My Child,” quietly, but deeply spoke a voice, “you made a commitment ten years ago.” Hayley, sweating profusely, turned in her sleep to escape the prodding of her sleeping mind. “Why are you having such a difficult decision in re-connecting with Jenna again? Why have you stricken her from your memory?” Silence. There was no more.

Hayley grew more unsettled, her stomach in knots. She did not know where to turn. In therapy, a lot of her old anger towards the “wrongs” of her parents, past loves, ex-husbands….had slowly, but almost definitely evaporated. Her hardened anger towards Jenna softened…into a more pliable form with which Hayley could contemplate. She did not wish to jeopardize her relationship with Vincent, nor did she want to compromise her ideals, nor turn her back on a spiritual commitment she had made to Jenna ten years ago.

Nothing more could be said to any living person to discuss her spiritual torment. Hayley withdrew. She became unlike herself. She was no longer the bubbly vivacious woman she had recently evolved to. Then she had another dream.

“My Child, Vincent is afraid of losing his spiritual connection that he has with you…should you accept Jenna back into your life. That you will re-connect with her spiritually, and abandon him. He is deathly afraid of the spiritual closeness you once had with her, there is no other fear around this issue.” The voice was quiet. For a long, long time. It resumed, “Where there is fear, there is no room for love, and love is what Vincent is all about. You will need My Help on this one, Dear Child. Ye shall seek My Help, and I will not forsake you on this toughest quest for Understanding. Enlist help from others of the Light. Go in peace and love. I am with you, Child.”

Hayley awakened the next morning in a rested, peaceful state. She felt that she was not shouldering her burden alone any longer. She went to favorite Chapel of Adoration, and got on her knees, and prayed –fervently for guidance, strength and power to know His Will for herself and Vincent. She sought out a few people of Light, who spoke only Truth, Love, and Sincere Intent. She tried to be gentle with herself, and not berate herself for past wrongdoings. She knew that she needed to cleanse her soul, once again, even more – to clearly see into her soul, that which was for her highest good. Hayley became even more outwardly true to Vincent: affirming his actions in his life, enveloping him with her love for him, praising him for what he was, and not admonishing him for what he was not. She poured her heart out into her poems.

Hayley kept these ingredients in a huge covered kettle in her oven. Hers was a recipe of Hope and Clarity concerning the tabled issue of dealing with Jenna after her release from prison. She turned to her Faith in God and beseeched, “How long and at what temperature do I cook them? And when do I do this?”

“Ah, yes – I almost forgot! Bake with Warmth for as long as it takes,” coached the voice, “and wait and see what happens.” Hayley again said, “but when?” The voice merely said, “when the time is right.” Waiting was one of the hardest things that Hayley had to do in her lifetime. Yet, somehow she had learned to be patient and trust. Days rolled into weeks. Her commitment to Jenna seemed to be forgotten, and a chill seemed to envelope her life. The pilot light seemed to have gone out in the oven.

Before Vincent returned from the gym one evening, Hayley heard the timer on her oven faintly buzzing from the kitchen. “Oh my gosh, I nearly forgot about the bread in the oven!” she exclaimed as she ran to the insistent sound in the kitchen, “I don’t want it to burn!” Hayley stopped in her tracks. The unbaked loaf still sat on the kitchen counter. She looked closer, and decided that it really did not look like she had been given it enough time to rise. She remembered the baking instructions from her dream, “bake with Warmth for as long as it needs.” She turned off the oven, and decided to allow the bread more time, to rise more fully. She turned, left the kitchen and resumed her reading on the patio. Fifteen minutes later, she heard Vincent’s key in the lock. A minute or so later, he shouted from the kitchen, “hey, when are you going to put this thing in the oven?” Hayley reflected, “Not yet. It needs more time.” Vincent walked towards the patio, “More time for what?” he asked. Hayley looked at him and shook her head. She couldn’t reply. She did not know the answer. In time, she prayed that she would.

This story is dedicated to all who have personally found meaning and lessons in this story.

Copyright 7-31-04 Amy L. Allison

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