The Girl with Bare Feet - L. Avery Brown (fiction book recommendations TXT) 📗

“Can you help me find my shoes?” A small voice, a girl’s voice, called out.

Janelle Thomlin, a children's book illustrator, saw a little girl sitting on the ground. She was crying and had pulled her knees up to her chest as if she were trying to make herself as little as possible. “Sweetie, are you alright?” The girl looked up. Her sad face broke Janelle’s heart.

“Can you help me find my shoes?”

Glancing at the girl’s bare feet then turning to look behind her thinking her parents were nearby Janelle asked, “Your shoes? Do you know where you saw them last?” Seeing no one, she turned back to the girl and was about to ask where her parents were but stopped before she could utter a word. The sweet face she’d just seen was now bloodied and battered and a pair of dead eyes stared back at her.

Janelle woke with a start and bolted upright in bed. She’d had the nightmare again. The one she’d had off and on for six years starting back when she was pregnant with Liza. Janelle didn’t know who the little girl was though she felt like she should have known. And after trying several times over the months to sketch the girl's before image as soon as she woke up, Janelle stopped trying because the horrific after visage had been so indelibly etched into her memory that was all her mind would let her recall.

Back then her husband, Wade, a youth minister would kiss her forehead and say, “It’s just your hormones, Jan.” But it felt like more than just hormones at the time. And when it became a nightly occurrence, Janelle went to her obstetrician. Dr. Wingate told her perhaps Wade was right in some ways. After all, a woman's hormones fluctuate like they're on a trampoline during a pregnancy and can cause issues with sleeping. But the nightmares were unusual.

Dr. Wingate suggested Janelle go see a friend of hers; a psychiatrist who worked a lot with pregnant women as well as women dealing with the aftermath of miscarriages and postpartum depression. Janelle wasn't thrilled at the idea of seeing another doctor just because she was having some bad dreams but when Dr. Wingate told her she wasn't comfortable prescribing medication for psychological issues, she relented and went to see Dr. Danisha Monroe.

Dr. Monroe met with Janelle for two hours on their first visit. She asked all the typical 'What sort of things might have happened in your childhood to make the idea of you having a child so terrifying you'd have nightmares about it?' questions psychiatrists are supposed to ask. But there was nothing in Janelle’s past that hinted to anything so bad it would cause the nightmares.

Janelle actually had a pretty nice childhood. She grew up on an island off the coast of South Carolina. Her parents ran a popular bed and breakfast and because of that met people from all around the world. In fact, it was because of one of the guests who commented on Janelle's artistic ability after seeing some of her water color ocean/island scenes on the walls at the B&B, she decided right then and there she wanted to be an artist. She was fifteen and actually had a clue.

She went to college; majored in art and had a grand time. Then, in graduate school, she met Wade at a party hosted by one of her graduate professors. Wade was working on his Master of Theology at the time but he wasn't a stuffy 'preacher' type of guy. In fact, he was fun to be around. He was almost wickedly handsome, he liked a good bottle of wine, and he also enjoyed good weed. And best of all, when they started dating Wade wasn't one of those 'we've got to wait until we're married to have sex' kind of guys.

No. She and Wade had an active, fun, spontaneous sex life well before he asked her to marry him. And that didn't change after they were married either. Although over time they did both wind up with somewhat demanding jobs that made their passionate evenings a little fewer and farther between.

But that wasn't a big deal. Janelle was doing her art thing and Wade was living his dream of ministering to the youth of Charleston. In fact, Wade's popularity grew and he became the Head of Youth Ministry for one of Charleston's largest churches. This new position gave him recognition within the Baptist community. And there were several times when he was invited to deliver inspiring speeches for the youth of other congregations around South Carolina and North Carolina. There was one time when he even made his way to a ‘Super Church’ stationed in a suburb outside of Atlanta, Georgia.

Wade adored those trips. He always came back in a rambunctious mood and Janelle got the distinct impression his time away from her drove made him crave her because he couldn’t keep his hands and other body parts off of her. And Janelle rather enjoyed being ravaged by her passionate husband. Then when he’d gotten all his pent up sexual tension out of the way, Wade would tell her hilarious stories about some of the people he'd met.

His stories were one of the best things Janelle loved about him. One of her favorite things to hear him talk about was the crazy women on the social committees of the churches he would visit. Apparently they thought he was entirely too skinny and would use that as an excuse to prepare huge dinners for him or any other visiting pastors or guest speakers who would come to their church. "I tell you Jan, it's the same at every single church. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be sitting at a buffet table prepared by thirty women who all want to prove they've made the best this or the greatest tasting that? Please, Babe, whatever you do, do not become one of those sorts of church ladies."

She promised she wouldn’t… ever so long as she never had to go on ministry road trip. Janelle knew he loved taking the trips and getting to meet new people. And normally meeting new people was fine with Janelle. But after a five day excursion to some little town in the middle of North Carolina where Wade was asked to speak to a group of young men and women preparing to go on a mission to Honduras, Janelle thought she was going to lose her mind.

It was an absolutely miserable trip. And as they made their way back home, Wade asked her what was wrong Janelle groaned then said she felt like all the other wives of preachers at the church were trying their best to turn her into a 'good Baptist preacher's wife'. “I swear Wade, it’s like I was stuck in a Baptist version of the Stepford Wives. It creeped me out. It’s not me. Seriously, they didn’t understand my love of art. And when I say ‘art’ I mean real art; the kind where, God forbid, you look at a naked human form. And they keep trying to figure out why I feel this need to have a job that might outshine your work with the ministry. And all I could think was ‘are they serious?’ But they just kept talking and I realized, damn, they were serious.”

Wade understood her apprehension and even said, "Babe, I married you because you are you. Not some cookie-cutter preacher's wife. In fact, you're kind of like my mother. You know how she is. She always speaks her mind and back when my dad was preaching full-time, she ruffled lots of feathers back home. It's okay. If you don't want to come on these trips, I can do them myself. The rides back and forth will be kind of lonely but I know I've got you to come home, too."

That made Janelle happy to hear. Wade understood where she was coming from. He knew she didn't want to be pushed into having to be a believer. She was a believer. She just didn't see things the way most of the Baptists she knew did.

She wasn't a conservative; not in the slightest. She didn't hate homosexuals; didn’t treat them as sinners who were going to rot in Hell. In fact, in her artistic world, she'd known many gay people. They were wonderful. And she wasn't a fan of guns; not one tiny bit. Basically, the thought to be important by the majority were not important to Janelle. Honestly, when the other minister’s wives looked at her she thought the saw her in one of two ways. Janelle was either a sinner trying to pull her husband down or they secretly wished they had her strength to be her own woman.

She knew one day, Wade would rise in the Baptist ranks and he’d be a lead minister somewhere; hopefully close to where they’d made their home in South Carolina. But if not, she’d deal with it. And, maybe, if she’d gotten to a point where she was comfortable enough to be ‘the preacher’s wife’ the way people expected her to be, she might try it out. Although she wasn’t sure it would stick.

Janelle had her own career; one she was proud of. Two years after getting her Master's in Art and Illustration, she'd been hired to work as an illustrator for a small boutique book company. Then her artistry was seen by a popular children's book author who asked her to come aboard on her team. She wasn't even thirty and her artistic flair was already in thousands of books on the shelves in little children's bedrooms all around the world.

After listening to Janelle go on and on about how close to flawless her life was for two hours Dr. Monroe smiled and said, "Janelle, I know this will sound out of left field to you because I know you think things are fairly perfect for you. But looking beyond all the wonderful things, I can tell there’s a lot of stress in your life. I think you might be suffering from some mild depression. It could be wholly related to the pregnancy or it might not. You’re pregnant and you’ve got a go, go, go mentality. And you’re married to a go, go, go guy. After a while all that going can overwhelm anyone; maybe even overwhelm them enough that that their anxiety manifests itself into nightmares."

Janelle stared at Dr. Monroe. She knew the doctor was right. She did often feel like she was walking a tightrope between her world of art and expression and her husband's fairly straight and narrow calling. Adding in the pregnancy, Janelle felt like she might fall off that rope at any moment.

Dr. Monroe clicked her pen a couple of times then put it and the folder she was hold aside. "Also, from watching the way you've been rubbing your thumb and forefinger together as well as wiggling your leg during our session, I think you're dealing with a bit of hyperactivity which would go hand-in-hand with your always moving forward mentality. Again, a lot of this could be related to the pregnancy. So, I'm going to prescribe some medication that will not harm your fetus but it help you with the anxiety and your issues with sleeping. I can't give you an antidepressant until after you deliver but after there's no need to worry about a developing fetus, I think you should start taking something to help ease that depression."

In the end, Dr. Monroe came to be someone Janelle respected and trusted because she was not only straight forward but she was kind, too. So Janelle agreed to the regimen she'd prescribed. She took a mild antianxiety medicine before she went