Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
Enoch
When I thought back on my life, I could honestly say that I had never suffered any amount of trauma.
Sure, my dad was gone for six months at a time during multiple periods of my childhood, and we moved way more frequently than was probably healthy for a stable upbringing, but that was normal for me.
My dad had joined the military long before I was born.
Deployments were, sadly, a part of my childhood routine.
It didn’t mean I missed him any less, but because it was expected and anticipated, it wasn’t something that I would count as traumatic.
So, to watch Shiloh suffering with the trauma of losing her brother and watching him take his own life was beyond the scope of anything I could have ever begun to fathom. And I knew that it was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to all the horrible experiences that she had lived through.
Each visible scar on her body pointed to another traumatic event, and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever find all the other invisible scars she was carrying around with her.
She liked to downplay anything significant, almost like a coping mechanism.
The cigarette burns from her dad were ‘nothing’.
Her brother torturing her was ‘not a big deal’.
She couldn’t even let herself admit how horrifying it was for her to have watched him take his own life. Having panic attacks were ‘average’.
It was heartbreaking, and I wished that I could take some of her pain away.
I found myself praying consistently for the first time in a long time—praying that God would give her some peace, give her enough room to breathe.
And I prayed that she wouldn’t pull away from me, that she would continue to let me show her how loved she was and could be.
Because despite whatever romantic connotations surrounded the word love, that was exactly what I wanted Shiloh to feel whenever she was with me and with my family. Shiloh needed it, needed it more than anyone I had ever met, and I desperately wanted her to have it.
Watching her from across the room was making my chest hurt with how much I was feeling. I didn’t want this moment to end. I wanted to capture everything about this day and bottle up it. I wanted to gift it to Shiloh so she would have it to relive whenever she was down.
Jae was wrestling Esty for the spatula, dripping with pumpkin pie filling. In the chaos, the liquid had flung across the kitchen and landed on Shiloh’s cheek and chest.
“You dip!” Shiloh gasped out through doubled-over laughter. “You’re going to get Salmonella. It has raw eggs in it.”
“No, I’m not.” Jae whined, but he looked over at my mom with concern. “Right, Aunt Shel?”
My mom laughed and handed Shiloh a napkin.
“Maybe if you eat the whole bowl. But a lick of the spatula won’t kill you.”
“See! Now give it to me, Esty!”
“Ugh!” Esty groaned and went limp, causing Jae to stumble and they fell to the kitchen floor in a heap.
I shook my head as they both rolled onto their backs, the spatula stuck to the front of Jae’s shirt.
“Serves you right,” Esty said as she eyed the mess all over his shirt. “Now you’ve got to clean the spatula because that was the last one and I need it to put the filling into the pie shell.”
Jae rolled his eyes and brought the spatula to his mouth, licking the remaining drops of filling off.
“Could use some more pumpkin pie spice.”
We all laughed at Jae’s theatrics. I couldn’t help but stare at Shiloh’s face as she smiled, her freckled nose wrinkling slightly and her hazel eyes bright and happy.
The oven timer rang, and I moved to grab the pie crust from the oven.
“Okay, now what?” I asked as I placed it on the little remaining counter space I could find.
“Now, take out the beans and we will put the filling inside. Jae, clean that spatula,” my mom said.
Jae hopped up and helped Esty off the floor before doing as he was told. After I had removed the beans from the bottom of the crust, we finished preparing it and placed it back in the oven.
Jae and Esty, at my mom’s request, began washing up the dishes we had used to make the pie and crust. Shiloh and I were sent to the living room to clean up the mess of blankets and pillows from last night’s movie marathon.
I grabbed two corners of the comforter and motioned for Shiloh to do the same. We met in the middle, our hands joining to gather the material as we folded it.
“Are you sure you don’t want to invite your dad?” I asked, breaking the bubble of quiet in the room.
“Definitely not,” she shook her head. “We don’t even celebrate the holiday, so it’s not like he’s missing me at home or something.”
“What about Christmas? Do you celebrate that?”
She paused, fidgeting with the material in her arms.
“Not really. I mean I think when we were little my dad sometimes bought us presents, but we didn’t do anything religious like go to mass.”
She resumed folding the blanket and I worked on stacking up the pillows on the couch to carry back upstairs.
“So, you’re Catholic?”
“Um,” she scrunched up her face, tilting her head back and forth.
“No? I mean, I think, technically, I might be. Javi said I was baptized as an infant, but I never did any of the sacraments after that. So, I’m not really sure.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve attended mass. I wouldn’t consider myself Catholic.”
I nodded and she motioned for us to carry the blankets and pillows up. I followed behind her on the staircase until we reached the hall closet.
“Do you guys do anything religious, or just the typical Santa Clause and presents?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “We kind of do a mix of both.”
“How come you don’t attend church on the weekends then?”
I glanced around the empty hallway before grabbing her hand and leading us into my room. I flopped back onto my mattress and patted the space next to me. Shiloh put her hands on her hips.
“I don’t think your mom would appreciate us sneaking away and avoiding helping out downstairs.”
“It’s fine. The rest of the family will be here soon, and she’ll have plenty of helping hands. We can take a break for a minute.”
She didn’t seem too convinced but sighed and joined me on the bed. I waited for her to adjust and get comfortable before speaking.
“We used to go growing up, usually whatever protestant service they held at the base chapel. And we were sent to Christian summer camps every year. But when we moved here, we never found a church we particularly fit in with. I dunno, my mom says it’s just because were in a small town in the south and our options are too limited. ”
Shiloh nodded, picking at her cuticles like she was nervous or something.
“Do you think that murderers will go to heaven?”
I blinked several times, shocked by the topic change.
“I just mean, like, God says that anyone who accepts Jesus and believes in him will be saved. But, what about people who have done really bad things? Like murderers.”
“Wow,” I blew out a breath, rolling onto my side so that I see her properly.
“That’s a big question. Um…well, I think what matters the most is that God is the one who will determine that.
God reads what’s in your heart and he knows the difference between someone who simply says they believe in God and someone who does believe in God and wants to accept the Holy Spirit.
Forgiveness doesn’t negate consequences though.
God might forgive a murderer, but that doesn’t mean they won’t sit in jail. ”
I watched her process what I said and waited for her to respond. She seemed lost in her own thoughts for a while, and I let her think before placing my hand on her hip and grabbing her attention.
“Why do you ask?”
She shrugged, not meeting my eyes. “Just curious, I guess. Just wondering what happens to us when we go. I’ve been thinking about my brother and whether he might go to Heaven.”
The question was heavy on my tongue, and I debated if asking it would cause her to clam-up and push me away. I was starting to sweat with nerves at what her response might be and if I was ready to hear if it was a yes.
“Did he kill someone or…why the question about murder?”
She turned her eyes to finally meet mine and I searched them like they held the answer. The colors bled together in a hazy swirl.
“I’m beginning to think I didn’t know him at all.”
The silence rang between us.
What the hell did her brother do to make her think he was a murderer?
The doorbell rang downstairs, and we fell back into reality. Shiloh stood from the bed, straightening out her sweatshirt—my sweatshirt, which she had stolen weeks ago. The chaos of several voices traveled up to my room.
“Nox! Go help your sister with her bags!”
“Coming!” I shouted back. I grabbed Shiloh’s wrist before she left the room.
“Hey.” She looked up at me. “Are you okay?”
She rolled her eyes in true Shiloh fashion and nodded.
“I’m fine, Enoch. Just missing my brother today.”
I relished the fact that she was being so open with her feelings and pulled her in for a hug.
“I’m always here if you ever want to talk about him, you know. Okay?”
She nodded against my shoulder and stepped out of my embrace.
“Come on, let’s go see your favorite niece.”
I laughed and swatted her arm, “She’s my only niece, you dip.”
She chuckled softly and laced our fingers together, tugging me towards the stairs.
I couldn’t contain the smile on my face as I got to share these happy moments with Shiloh and my family.
I knew we couldn’t replace the missing piece her brother stole from her heart, but I prayed that maybe we could be enough today to help her forget that it was missing in the first place.
???
November 26, Friday
Shiloh