Redemption Song

Mornings with you are what make my heart sing

those first moments when our eyes meet

when sunlight falls across your face

and the corners of your mouth turn up

in a smile, that's just for me

nothing could ever change the way

I feel when I lose myself in the blue oceans

you look back at me with

~

I love you, I love you

I love you, I love you

~

I don’t know anymore, who I was before

you came riding in on the white horse

you stole from my dreams

you carried me away, my knight

you brought me to this place

you called home, where a broken girl

could feel whole, you saved me

in your shining armor, my prince

you wrote a storybook, where

happily ever after was on every page

I hope you don’t mind, my love

if I want to spend the rest of my life

living inside the fairytale

you created

~

That was the poem I wrote for you back when you used to sweep me off my feet. Those words, those pieces of my heart pouring out seem like distant memories standing alone in the middle of a yard covered in grass, that's a week overgrown staring at a tainted home, I used to love.

Taking a deep breath into my lungs I look at a midnight sky above, and I feel lost. My thoughts won't stop drifting back to this afternoon. To the look on her face as she cried in front of me thinking she had somehow let me down. At the hollow feeling that welled up inside me until it consumed every part of my body. To preparing dinner for you and watching you take every bite knowing what was going to happen.

The tears I've cried in the hours since I told her, that it was me who had let her down and not the other way around still leave their ghosts on my cheeks. I tried so hard to make her believe that she hadn't done anything wrong, but I can see in the hurt she still wears that she doesn't believe me. My heart breaks every time the memory of her broken eyes look back at me. I will never forgive myself for what you've done. If you had taken an axe and swung it through the air until it split my forehead all the way down to the bridge of my nose it would have felt better than knowing what you took from her.

She was so brave sitting at the table tonight only feet away from the monster who had preyed on her. I swelled with pride for her in those minutes that stretched on like hours, with both of us barely touching the food on our plates while you ate with a ravenous hunger. I can't imagine what she was feeling inside. I could barely keep myself together as I sat across from you wondering how I'd been so blind. Looking at you, every single cell in my battered form called out to scream at you, at the top of my lungs, over and over-"HOW COULD YOU!?"

When I was a little girl growing up in my mother's house. I used to watch her when she cleaned on Saturday mornings. She called those mornings her every weekend spring routine. I would play and she would fill every room of our house with music from an old Sony stereo my dad bought for her before I was born. As she wiped counters and swept floors I would pretend to play with my dolls, but really, I was watching her. She was the most beautiful thing I thought I'd ever seen. She was like the actresses in the movies, she sometimes took me too. Her feet would spin above hardwood and carpet, and I would be her audience as she danced gracefully from our kitchen to the two small bathrooms, and finally to the three bedrooms of our home. In those moments when she glided all around me, moving to her music, she was all I ever wanted to be.

There was one song from those long ago Saturday mornings that was always my favorite. Looking at our house tonight remembering how I used to believe it was a dream too good to be true, the lyrics of that almost forgotten song have floated back to me.

~

Well I've heard there was a sacred chord

David played and it pleased the lord

But you don't really care for music, do ya

~

Do you remember the story of Samson and Delilah from when they taught it to us in Sunday school? That story has been popping back into my thoughts ever since I was able to breathe again after Katy first told me what you did. I find myself going over and thinking about how Samson found the strength to do one last thing to make right the weakness he showed in his confidence that he could conquer Delilah the way he had conquered so many before. It was the same mistake I made when I thought I could change the way you were.

I knew I had to do what Samson did after Katy told me. I had to find the strength to stand one last time against the betrayal you gave me, against the weakness I showed in believing in you, the way Samson stood against the Philistines who had come to the temple to celebrate his capture.

My soul is tired, my feelings are numb. Just like our fabled Samson I know how it feels when love betrays you. I understood so much about your betrayal as I stood above you watching you breathe your last breaths thinking that you didn’t deserve the final gift, I gave you. You deserved so much worse. You deserved to know every kind of pain that's ever been. And as I thought about all the ways you deserved to suffer, to have your eyes poked out, your fingers cut off one by one, that old song from my childhood Saturdays, watching my mom clean, spoke up again in my heart.

~

Well it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth

The minor fall

And the major lift

The baffled king composing hallelujah

~

Hallelujah, hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah

~

I can still hear her words as she spoke. Each part of everything she said, ripping me apart. I felt pieces of me crumble as I listened to her tell me how you stole her innocence. My baby sister. The one I swore to protect after our mother was gone. Standing in front of her tracing the wound etched in the lines of her damaged expression I felt the promise, our mom made me swear I'd keep, shatter. I took her youngest daughter, my little sister, into our home to keep her safe, only I didn't keep her that way. I laid her at the feet of a wolf.

Samson put his faith and love in Delilah the way I put my faith and love in you. My heart is black with the stain of you as I move through the halls of this house on my way to her room only steps away from where you lay in our bed.

She looks peaceful when I walk through the door. I take a moment to stare at her. I want to remember her this way before I wake her, and the tragedy of everything you've done returns. The tide of the sadness you've given to me is crashing in against my soul as I look at her. With a timid hand my fingers touch the soft skin of her shoulder and I shudder at the thought of you doing the same. I hate myself for ever trusting you alone with her. Gently, I move to shake her awake.

She looks up at me. My sweet sister who became my daughter. The broken parts of her spirit visibly floating like lost ships in the seas of her eyes, as I softly say her name.

"Katy, honey get out of bed. We have somewhere to go." I can see her guilt, her fear waking back up in her face. She still thinks she's the one who did wrong. I wish I had the time to explain again I was the one who let her down. But you're waiting for us, and we need to take care of you.

The agony of all this slips over me again and my knees feel like they will buckle. My throat begins to close. Tears fight against my eyelids to push their way out. I would give my life to take away her pain, but I know for the moment I can't.

Watching as she moves from her bed, I know I will try to repair her one day, but that time isn't now. Pulling her close, my arms wrap around her, and hers encircle my waist. She cries in gentle quakes. Her wet tears soak through my shirt to my skin below as she repeats the most painful words I have ever heard, I'm sorry, Avery. I tell her again and again, it's my fault.

Well, your faith was strong but you needed proof

You saw her bathing up on the roof

Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you

~

And she tied you to a kitchen chair

She broke your throne

She cut your hair

And from your lips she drew the hallelujah

~

Hallelujah, hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah

~

All the times you hurt me with your words. The times you pushed me with your hands, I forgave you. But there is no forgiveness for this new harm you've done. Opening the shed where you keep all your tools. I pull two shovels from inside. One for me to dig, one in case she wants to help. I take the rope you were supposed to use to hang a tree swing for her with, that has sat unmoving for the last year, out. Then I close the doors to the shed and turn back toward the back door of our house.

As my eyes follow the steps of my feet, I think of how Samson found happiness when he first came into the Valley of Sorek and fell in love with Delilah. I wonder if in the end, after it was all over, he regretted his love the way I do with you.

I know how Samson must have felt when the Philistines burst into Delilah's home to take him prisoner after she cut his hair. How he must have felt when they gouged out his eyes and took him into the dungeons. You've allowed me to understand what it was like for him to be cold and alone in his cell replaying her betrayal over and over again in his mind reliving every moment in horrid detail. I get now why he was willing to give everything just to have one last act of vengeance.

The shovels make a slight banging sound when they land in the back of your truck. But I'm not worried because I know you won't wake up. I can still see you chewing every bite of your favorite meal. I savor the memory of your words telling me how good it tasted. How it was the best I had ever done, all the time knowing what I had put inside your serving that I hadn't put in the others. Silently, I tell myself, it's time to go and get you.

~

Well baby I've been here before

I've seen this room, and I've walked this floor

You know I used to live alone before I knew you

~

How many other secrets have there been besides this one? Or was my sister the only lie you decided to create. I thought about telling you, but I could never explain, just what you've done to me. So, I slipped the poison in your food, watched you eat it all, and made my peace with the knowledge that you would die tonight. Knowing in my every thought that I would gladly go to jail and spend every day of the rest of my life without a single thought of regret for you. That I would suffer for eternity to know that she would never have to look at you again.

Standing in our room, I remember how Samson gave his life in that final act of strength in the Temple of Dagon. After he had prayed to ask God to allow him, once more the ability to spite his enemy. And God granted him the ability to strike out, that one last time. I think of you, the way Samson must have thought of the three thousand Philistines that died when the temple came down. And as I wrap the rope around your body, I pray that God will give me the strength I need to drag you from this home.

I push my body against the rope, steady my feet, and begin to pull. At first you don't move, but I think of Samson with his hands pressed against the marble pillars of the temple. How he must have felt those first moments when he was unsure if his strength would return. The muscles in my legs flex and shiver as a little of you begins to move. I see the first cracks in the marble under Samson's hands as you slowly slide down from the bed and onto the floor.

Down the hallway and out the front door your body slides along. I stop to rest at the front steps. Heaves of breath flow in heated rushes in and out of my chest. Part of me asks if Samson was tired just before he gave the columns one last push? Catching some of my breath, I look over my shoulder at your truck to see Katy sitting in the cab waiting for me. My heart cries out, I tighten my grip around the rope, and pull with all my might. I pull like Samson pushed against the columns.

~

And I've seen your flag on the marble arch

Love is not a victory march

It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

~

Hallelujah, hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah

~

When we make it to the truck, I somehow find a way stand you up so the top half of you folds over the tailgate. Sweat drips down over my face. My black hair sticks to my skin in front of my ears. I pull the rope tight in my hands and silently say, thanks to you for all the squats you made me do because you said my ass was too flat. And as I strain to pull you up into the bed of the truck with my legs shaking, I keep thoughts of how you only wanted me from behind when we made love because you didn't like the way I looked at you when we were more traditional, in my mind to keep me motivated. Slowly, I manage to pull your legs into the bed of the truck I helped you buy on your last birthday.

After I close the tailgate with you inside. I go back into the house and grab my wedding dress. I was in that dress when you promised my mother only months before her death that you'd always take care of me. Well, baby you failed at that. And that's why I'm burying that dress with you. It's not just your body that's going in the hole I'm about to dig, it's all your broken promises too.

Pausing by the bed of the truck at the back of the cab, I turn to look back at you the same way Samson must have looked at Delilah in the moment he realized she never loved him at all. He must have been kicking himself in that moment for ignoring the warning signs after every time she tried to tie him up with bowstrings. Opening the door, I turn away from your limp silhouette again and get inside. The old V8 starts up with a single turn of the key. Two hands on the wheel, I look over at her, and with all the love I have left in me I say,

"It's gonna be alright, Katy girl, I promise." I don't know if she believes me. I can only pray she knows I have my eyes open now, her big sister is no longer blind. From here on out all I'm gonna do is take care of her. I'm never gonna let a monster like you hurt her again even if I have to watch her every minute of her life.

~

Well there was a time when you let me know

What's really going on below

But now you never show that to me, do ya?

~

And remember when I moved in you

The holy dove was moving too

And every breath we drew was hallelujah

~

The pavement in front of the windshield is dark and the night air rushing past the windows is cold as we drive. She sits silent beside me. I use the time to remember the days when you still had my trust before you decided to betray everything I knew. You told me when my mom died, you wanted to be a father to her. I was so thankful for you when I brought her into our home. I honestly believed in you. What a fool I was to ever think that you would never lie to me.

The memory of her voice cracking when she described the way your sinful hands roamed over her body haunt every breath I take. Like a lamb to slaughter, I gave her to you. I still can't make the two images of you swirling around inside my mind make sense. The man who loved me, and the one who raped my sister.

The tires bounce on the road, the truck shakes, and I hear your body move as we go deeper into the woods. I wonder if a smile will ever truly return to her face as I come to a stop in the space between two old oak trees. She asks before I open my door, but I tell her she doesn't have to get out if she doesn't want to.

The forest smells of growing grass and swaying trees as I began to dig. And when she gets out of the truck and takes the other shovel out before she walks over to help me, I feel my heart swell for her. A tear for the first time not from sadness falls out onto my cheek. Because I know shoveling with her underneath the light of a yellowy white moon that she is going to be okay, someday. If she has the strength to help me bury you, I know, her spirit will return in time. I marvel at her resilience with every throw of dirt I fling back behind me.

~

Hallelujah, hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah

~

Well maybe there's a god above

But all I ever learned from love

Was how to shoot somebody

who out drew you

~

The bible doesn't say, but I believe Delilah was there the day Samson was brought to the Temple of Dagon to be shown off by his Philistine captors. I believe fate would have demanded that she be among the three thousand that died that day. I see her in my mind sitting with the Philistine Kings smiling at seeing her conquest again. I think even without his eyes Samson would have been able to find her in the last moments before he collapsed the temple in around them. I don't know if in that moment he held hate for Delilah in his heart, or if he had found a way to love her again. But I like to think that, just like me, his love for his betrayer was gone forever.

Returning your gaze as you stare up at me with your still open dead eyes, I wish I could bring you back and end your life all over again. I count each shovel full while I watch you disappear under earth and soil. In my tattered soul I sing hymns of rejoice knowing that I will never see you again. That she will never see you again. And even as I feel some of the burden of you lift from my shoulders, I am still aware that I will always carry a measure of pain with me from your sin. Your memory will always be a scarlet letter that marks me forever. I will never be free of the stain you have left me with.

I wonder how the Lord greeted Samson when he arrived in front of the twelve gates with twelve pearls. Did Saint Peter thank him for his last deed or did he make him pay for the weakness that allowed Delilah into his life. I know when I am standing in front of Saint Peter and I sing my redemption song nothing, I will have done will be enough to balance the scales of judgement against the sin my blind eyes didn’t see.

I will bow my head with the last note I sing knowing my cause is lost and accept my fate. Whether by some miracle I am above or if I am below where I deserve to be, a big smile is going to spread across my burning face when I see her in front of those pearly gates where Saint Peter sentenced me. Because I know I will watch her as she ascends and, in that moment, I will finally be forgiven for what you've done.

~

And it's not a cry that you hear at night

It's not somebody who's seen the light

It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

~

Oo hallelujah, oo hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah

~

The headlights illuminate the lines on the road as we pass by telephone poles half hidden in the dark. She turns to ask me, what will happen now. I take her hand in mine, our fingers interlace, before I lay both our hands down on the seat between us, and then I tell her.

"We're gonna go back home. And in the morning, I'm gonna make your favorite breakfast and we're gonna slowly start to move on together just you and me. We're gonna rebuild our lives. And I'm never gonna let anyone hurt you again.” I pause to make a turn, then I keep talking to her. “We’re both going to heal till one day we'll be whole again. And when anyone asks, we're gonna tell them that Ray finally couldn't stand me anymore and packed his bags and left. We don't know where he is. But we think he's out there somewhere finding his soul." She looks at me and the corners of her mouth turn up just a little as she says in a soft voice I can barely hear over the engine.

"I'm glad he's gone." And my heart lifts another tiny place more inside my chest. I push my foot down on the accelerator, the truck picks up speed, and I hear in the back of my mind Leonard Cohen singing,

~

Hallelujah, hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah

~

***

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