Meet Kinsey

Today we get to Q&A our main character, Kinsey Berkley, aka Kinsey McKay. When we first meet Kinsey on her return to her hometown of Carr, she has made some changes.


Q&A: Kinsey, can you tell us about these changes and why they are important to your homecoming?


Kinsey: When I left Carr, it was not under the best circumstances. I was not the best role model even though my parents were loved and looked to for help and advice all the time. There was a lot of secrecy in what should have been my high school years. I just was not ready to face all that and answer everyone's questions, and so I bleached my hair, bought non-prescription colored contacts, and legally changed my name to my mother's maiden name. My grandma lived far away, and my parents moved to Carr before I was born, so I did not think anyone would remember.


Q&A: How did it feel when you drove back through the city limits? Or even over the state borderline?


Kinsey: Like the worst mistake of my life. I kept telling myself I was crazy and kept trying to come up with some way not to face it. Somewhere else to go, some other job I could take. But I have Alexis Jane to think about and I know it wasn't easy on her either. She was very close to her grandparents and we struggled a lot after their deaths - mostly, getting to know each other. I had to figure out how to be a mom and be there for her. It was a struggle then, and it was a struggle coming home.


Q&A: Was there anything that made the transition easier?


Kinsey: Prayer. Lord knows we could not have done this without His answered prayer. Alexis Jane and I do devotions each morning, most of the times together, but sometimes separate. Ever sense we have become a true family, there is not a day that has gone by that we have not done a devotion. Then there is Pastor Jon and his family. They felt very strong about the fact we should come home. If Alexis Jane and I were to fully heal from our past, then we needed to start where it all fell apart.


Q&A: It's always good to have valuable friends like that. What was the biggest shock to coming home?


Kinsey: (Long pause to think it over) There were so many. I guess just the reality that I even thought of stepping foot back in Carr, let alone my parents' house. And of course Victor. I did not expect to see him there.


We'll hear more about Kinsey and Victor's reunion later on this week. But first, let's get a peak at Kinsey and Alexis Jane's welcome home.



One
Kinsey’s clammy hands gripped the foam steering wheel cover as the long, torturing highway sped by. The way her nervous knuckles kept clutching and relaxing, she was sure the sweat would drip onto the floorboards and wash away the embroidered butterflies.


“I am out of my mind,” she had criticized herself
repeatedly for the past hour, as the reality of her
destination closed in and terrified her. The humidity
moved in like an invisible fog through the air vents trying to cool her in the blustery summer heat. “I am out of my mind.”


“Mom,” Alexis Jane sighed in aggravation as she took off her headset and shifted the rag doll sharing her seatbelt. “We’ll get through this. Pastor Jon said they have a job for an English teacher; wah-la, you are an English teacher who needs a job. We’ll deal with coming back here as we settle.”


“It’s you I am surprised at. I cannot believe after what
you have been through that you would want to come
back.”


Alexis Jane shuddered in her seat with a sigh and
crossed her arms over her chest as though rubbing away a contradicting chill in the muggy car. She held her doll close to her chest and rested her chin in the yellow yarn hair held in pigtails with faded pink ribbons. “We can’t run forever, and I don’t want to be your excuse to not face it.”


The statement shocked Kinsey as she glanced at her
daughter and noted the child’s nervous habit of chewing on her thumbnail.


Nearly ten years old, Alexis Jane knew all too well of
things life delivered spoiled and rotten, forcing her to
mature too fast. Pastor Jon Cox and his wife Cecelia stood as their anchors through the treacherous storms, and Mercy, the rag doll that stayed with Alexis Jane since the night of her grandparents’ murder, was the only bit of childhood life allowed her to keep. Now, after an embarrassing job loss due to Kinsey’s college-life mistakes, and having nowhere else to go, they found themselves facing the past she thought had been left behind.


“Pastor Jon promised God would see us through and
believes He opened the door for us to heal. I’m not so sure how it will happen, but it couldn’t hurt to try,” Alexis Jane tried to encourage.


Kinsey did not feel so certain. Sure, the renters asked for an early discharge from their lease just as her cash reserve started to run thin. Pastor Jon dangled that, and a good word for her background check, like a fat juicy worm before the starving fish. She felt she had no other choice.


“Are you okay with staying at Grandma and Grandpa’s house? I haven’t been able to bring myself to sell it yet, and the renters moved out over two months ago. With no income from it, we don’t have enough to find someplace else—especially with the repairs the savings account took...”


“Yes, and a million times yes. If it’s a choice between
using the little we have to put air-conditioning in the car and facing our past, or living in a rundown shack while this beast roasts us alive, I vote for cooler drives and living in Grandma and Grandpa’s house.”


Kinsey smiled and peeled her white knuckles off the
steering wheel to take her daughter’s hand. “Thank you. You are right. We will make it. We have not made it this far to curl up in a hole and let the earth swallow us.”


Though I don’t know how far we are from doing just
that, she thought, concentrating on the road again.


Silence passed as the clouds came together to hinder the sun—making their entrance to the small town of Carr eerier. The sudden shadow rippled icicles up their spines and goose bumps on their skin. Together they wiggled it off.


“How do you feel about going back to Grandma and
Grandpa’s?” Alexis Jane asked in a whisper as their turnoff from the highway came up. The engine did not rev as high as the car slowed for the long, dirt back-roads. Her nervous hands played with the silver ring hung around her neck on a fragile matching chain.


“I don’t know,” Kinsey answered truthfully. “I think
I’m as numb as you.”


“Do you think anyone will remember you from your
high school days?”


“I sure hope not,” Kinsey sighed, turning up the street and letting the chugging, rust-spotted, blue Eagle coast to the front of the two story house. She would have to check the oil… again. “That is the main reason for the whole makeover. I was not exactly as much of a model student as you are.”


“So Pastor Jon frequently tells me.”


Alexis Jane bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes.
Kinsey watched her daughter bury her face into her doll’s hair as though trying to bury the memories in the back of her mind.


Never did either of them think they would face this
house again. The renters’ neglect showed with the light blue aluminum shutters hanging off the white-framed windows. The once flourishing garden hung brown in parched, cracked ground despite the thick humidity hanging in the air. More weed than grass stood knee high, swaying in the warm breeze attempting to cool off the temperature around them, but having little success.


“The swing is still in good shape.” Alexis Jane pointed out something cheerful.


With an overstuffed, blue canvas suitcase on its rollers in one hand, and Mercy held tight to her side in the other, she skipped up the white paint-peeled steps and sat on the wooden swing as it creaked back and forth under its graying shelter.


“Let’s unpack at least our clothes for tomorrow, wheel
out the air mattresses, and unroll the sleeping bags,”
Kinsey offered with a deep sigh—not to rush things.
Leaving as much packed as possible made for a quick escape. “Then I will make us some ice-cold lemonade as we soak in the realization of where we really are.”


“Don’t you want to unpack as much as we can today?”


Kinsey looked at the old house, and from the upstairs
window, she saw herself as a child. The haunted image looked down with a smile, waved and welcomed her home. This was the last place on earth she wanted to be with the last memory she wanted to see. “No. Let’s take this slow and easy. One day at a time, remember?”


The house had stayed furnished with her parents’ old
furniture Kinsey did not have the heart to sell. A lot of it sat in different places disguised under stained, ruffled slipcovers. She doubted the furniture underneath looked any better. It would be easy enough to move back, or let it stay in its new spot—not to remind her so much of her late mother’s organization.


“Where do you want me to put my things?” Alexis
Jane asked, dragging her suitcase up the stairs. “My old room is your old room.”


“How about we each take a guest room?”


She looked around at the freshly painted walls. Even
through the new blue color, she remembered places where old photographs of their small family used to hang. Kinsey came late into her parents’ life and grew up as “Daddy’s girl”—his only child. She could still see the hurt in his eyes during their time of estrangement while she was expecting Alexis Jane—the time she needed him most. Now, she felt that same sense of vulnerability as she wished he could stay up late with her and have a glass of iced tea on the front porch swing.


“Mom, we need some heavy duty air fresheners. Both
the guest bedrooms smell like old diapers,” Alexis Jane moaned, tired from their long drive halfway across the country.


“Just open the windows and close the doors. We’ll
sleep on the floor in the den. I can hook up our portable DVD player, and we’ll go to sleep watching a movie.”


“Sounds like a plan. Romance or action?”


“Let’s go romance tonight so we can just relax. An
action movie might keep my all ready frail nerves on
end.”


“All right, I’ll grab that out of the car after I let a little
fresh air in, if you grab the cooler.”


A knock turned Kinsey’s attention with a moan of
anticipation. She should have known the neighbors would make their hospitable meet-and-greet appearance. She wished they could have waited a while longer—like a year, or better yet, never.


“Kinsey, it’s Pastor Jon,” the only voice she wanted to
hear called through the slightly open door.


It sounded soft and soothing as always. For the man to yell sounded only as another man’s rumbling raised voice; still, it was enough to scare Kinsey the few times she heard it.


She smiled her best as she opened the door farther and stepped aside to invite him in.


“I hope I’m not taking you away from Cecelia and the
girls,” she greeted the six-foot man wearing his casual visiting attire of jeans and button down shirt, towering over her by more than half a foot.


“No, she asked me to stop over, since the phone isn’t
hooked up yet, to see if you made it in safely,” he said, looking at her tired form with a reassuring smile.


“Safe and sound.” She spread out her weary arms
before they flopped to her thighs.


“I knew you talked of making some changes in your
appearance in the agreement to move back, but I had no idea you went to such extremes. I barely recognize you.”


“That’s the idea,” she said, twirling a lock straying
from her two-second-twist held up by a jumbo clip. “Is it too much?”


With the fear of returning home, Kinsey had given
herself a complete makeover. She took her mother’s
maiden name, bleached her brown hair, and wore blue contacts over the natural green of her eyes.


“No,” he said with a quick polite answer. “Where’s the
little one?”


“Alexis Jane is upstairs trying to open the windows to
let some fresh air into the guest bedrooms.” She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the winding staircase.


“I guess Cecelia didn’t make it that far with the
cleaning. She hoped to have most of it done so you would not have to worry about it with so much in front of you already. And as you can tell, I’ve not been able to make a date with the lawn yet nor hang the shutters. A lot of time was taken when the water heater bottomed out and a few pipes blew.”


“I understand and appreciate your help. At least I have water to take a relaxing shower. Can I offer you some lemonade? We were just about to sit out on the swing with some before turning in early with a movie.”


“No, thank you. I just wanted to check up on you two,
and have a word with you.”


“Something has gone wrong already,” she breathed,
and held her hand to her chest to keep her heart from falling out.


“No, it's nothing like that. You’re all set up with
teaching and all the changes. Your background check came through with Dr. Orion’s approval.”


“And your helpful support,” she commented and
smiled her thanks with a nervous blush.


She still doubted her return even after so many prayer times with the impression laid upon her heart.


“It’s just that you don’t have to face this alone,” Pastor Jon's true concern rang in his voice. “I know God called you two back here, but you and Alexis Jane could stay with our family until you get on your feet. There is so much pain in this house and so much to overcome. Why try to take it all on at once alone? Especially after Almanzo…”


“No,” she warned with her hand held up to silence the subject immediately. Then she gave a shrug as she looked around. “This is home. I know it sounds strange. Nevertheless, out of all that happened to Alexis Jane and me, this is home—our sanctuary. A haunted one, yet this is where we always can go to hide. There may be some memories that will make it not so warm at first, but we’ll manage until new renters are found.”


“You remind me so much of your mother with your
stubbornness and attachment to this place. She treated it like a castle and everyone who visited like royalty.”


Kinsey bit her lip at the comparison. She felt she could never live up to what her mother did for everyone who walked through the door.


“If you’re sure about staying here,” Pastor Jon
continued, “then I’ll see you tomorrow at the high school. I have some notes to run over with one of the counselors on some of the students who are attending the university this year.”


“Pastor Jon!” Alexis Jane’s excited footsteps
stampeded down the stairs. She jumped the last two into an embracing hug.


“This cannot be Alexis Jane,” he said holding her at his arms’ length as he set her firmly on the floor. “You grew so tall.”


“They do that over the years.” Kinsey smiled and
wrapped her arms around her daughter; she had developed the protective habit since their relationship strengthened with the reality of their mutual need.


“How was the trip for you and Mercy?” he asked as he placed her back on her feet and moved the head of the doll like a puppet. He made it appear as though Mercy looked between him and Alexis Jane.


“We’ve done all right so far.” Alexis Jane smiled and
hugged her doll closer as Pastor Jon pulled her to his 
side.


“Are you coming for a tour of the high school
tomorrow?” he asked, ruffling Alexis Jane’s auburn
highlighted bangs.


“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Kinsey said,
trying to free the breath stilled in her throat. “I will need her to unpack around here and help me with a few things.”


She tried to smile, but she felt panicked with the idea
of her daughter facing where their worst nightmare began. Not to mention, a twenty-five-year old teacher with a nearly ten-year-old daughter could start the same speculation and cause the same problems that brought them back.


Kinsey would never feel ashamed of her daughter, but the circumstances leading up to, and the mistakes she made afterwards to hide from the pain, hovered over her like a thick, black cloud that waited to suffocate her.


“How about you hang out with Cecelia and the girls
then?” Pastor Jon offered. “Cecelia mentioned a few
things she still wanted to do around here to help.”


“Okay,” Alexis Jane eagerly agreed, to Kinsey’s relief.


A favorite Toby Mac ringtone blared from Pastor Jon’s cell phone hooked to his belt. With an apologetic smile, he looked at the screen.


“I do apologize. Cecelia has been called to help another family and needs me to take care of the pot roast tonight before youth group. If you change your mind…”


“I know who I can count on.” Kinsey smiled as she
walked him to the entrance.


Shutting the double Dutch doors almost felt ominous— as though she sealed her tomb. Maybe she should not have packed her anti-depressants in the moving van’s boxes. She was not ready for what felt like was going to be a very long night.




Have more questions for Kinsey? Email me at AndiPray@gmail.com as we'll hear more from Kinsey tomorrow as she discusses the nightmare she endured her first night back.