CHAPTER 22Somehow the Waters Part
Time doesn’t heal. It’s what you do with the time. Healing is possible
when we choose to take responsibility, when we choose to take risks,
and ĕnally, when we choose to release the wound, to let go of the past
or the grief.
Two days before his sixteenth birthday, Renée’s son Jeremy came
into the den where she and her husband were watching the ten
o’clock news. In the Ęickering lights from the TV, his dark face looked
troubled. Renée was about to reach for her son, wrap him up in the
cuddly kind of hug that he would still consent to on occasion, when
the phone rang. It was her sister in Chicago, who was going through a
bad divorce and oen called late at night. “I’ve got to take this,” Renée
said. She gave her son’s cheek a quick pat and turned her attention to
her distressed sister. Jeremy muttered a good night and headed
toward the stairs. “Sweet dreams, baby,” she called to his retreating
back.
e next morning, Jeremy wasn’t up by the time she was putting
breakfast on the table. She called up the stairs to her son but got no
response. She buttered the last piece of toast and went up to knock on
his bedroom door. Still he didn’t answer. Exasperated, she opened his
door. e room was dark, the blinds still closed. She called to him
again, confused to ĕnd that his bed was already made. A sixth sense
drove her toward the closet door. She opened it, a gust of cold dread
at her back. Jeremy’s body hung from the wooden rod, a belt around