Mt. Moriah's Wake

by Melissa Norton Carro

  “You don’t look fine. Here.” Taking my purse from me, he stood to let me have the bench. “Let me look for the valet slip.” My purse was so tiny that the valet slip was easy to find.

  As was the Planned Parenthood appointment card.

  The ride home, although only forty minutes, seemed endless. Tom maintained both hands on the wheel, steely gaze straight ahead. Was this the man who had rescued me from Tony’s? Pulled me to him when I collapsed in tears at song lyrics? The man beside whom I had agreed to spend the rest of my life on the Loyola courtyard? Why, then, did he seem a stranger? Or perhaps I had become the stranger.

  When we reached the house, Tom threw the car into park, turned off the ignition with a jerk, and came around to my door, helping me out. Ever the gentleman.

  Even when he hated me.

  Inside, Tom moved through the house like a madman, flipping switches—as if to expose me for what I was. I stood behind a wingback chair in the living room, waiting. I was cold sober now, but the bitter taste permeated my stomach, my mouth. My heart.

  In Tom’s hand was the appointment card. He had not torn, bent, or crumpled it. Perhaps to do so would have made it real. He spoke finally.

  “Is this what I think?”

  I cleared my throat. “I went to Planned Parenthood a couple of weeks ago—to have the test done. That’s when I found out I’m pregnant.”

  Tom smirked, a chilly, mean chuckle that I did not recognize. “People don’t go to that place for a pregnancy test, JoAnna.” His emphasis on my name diminished me: I was a child in his eyes. “They go to Walgreen’s for that.”

  “I went for several things. I wanted to find out my options.” I grabbed the chair more firmly for support. “I’m not happy about the baby like you are, Tom.”

  “And so you, what, want an abortion? Is that what this appointment is for?”

  “The appointment is for counseling. They make sure you’ve thought about it …”

  The smirk again. “Oh, good to know. So have you been thinking about this—what, for several weeks? Were you going to share this with me?”

  “I, I wasn’t sure how you’d feel. I wasn’t sure you’d support my decision.”

  “Your decision? Yours? You mean ours?” He flung the card at me. “That’s our baby. That means mine too.”

  “And my body.”

  He turned and began to pace, like a puppy caged at the shelter. Desperately wanting a home.

  “For God’s sake, I’m Catholic, Jo.”

  “And I’m not! You want me to have a baby I don’t want? To be a mother if I don’t want to be?”

  “You don’t want children? Not ever?”

  “I didn’t say that. I don’t know. I just know that I’m not ready to be a mother. I can barely …” My voice caught in my throat. “I feel like I’m drowning, like I can barely take care of myself.”

  “And so you would give it up just like that? Because it might be hard?”

  “I don’t know that I want to bring a child into this world—”

  “This world? We’d be bringing it into our world, yours and mine. Jo, it’s part of us. It continues us.”

  My voice sounded angry, although I don’t think I was. Hurt. Confused. But not angry—not at Tom, never at him. “Tell me you’re not going to give me an ancestry speech, Tom. Why do we need a baby to continue, Tom? Why not just us?”

  “Because that’s the way the world works. It’s the way things go on.” Calmer now, Tom took my hand, the brocade chair between us. “I want a family. I want to fight about money, and lose sleep when the kids are sick, and be so tired we can’t see straight. I want all of that.”

  “And I’m your incubator?”

  The look on his face said I had wounded him.

  “You’re my wife. I want the baby—with you. I love that I know when you’re about to get your period because you slam cabinet doors, and I love that we argue about whether the fruit goes on the counter or in the refrigerator.” Dropping my hand, Tom ran his hands through his hair so that little spikes stood up, eavesdropping. “I love the way your hair is so straight when it’s wet, but when you wake up, those curls have overtaken you.

  “I love that we fantasize about a new refrigerator and can’t afford it. I want everything that kids bring—stepping on toys and cleaning poop. I want the whole messy family life.”

  Then he took my hand back. “But it’s all because I want you.” Pause. “And I thought you wanted all that too.”

  What did I want? I wanted my best friend back. I wanted to be a writer, a real writer. I longed to live in a high-rise in downtown Chicago. I wanted someone to take away the fear that haunted me, that paralyzing fear of something evil. Lurking.

  “I don’t know what I want. I want to be me.”

  Tom looked at my hand, analyzing its contours like an ancient fossil only recently excavated.

  “And you can’t be you with me? You can’t be you with a baby?”

  “I don’t know. I just want to have the chance to decide. I want some control over my—”

  He grabbed my hand again. “There’s no such thing as control, Jo. You of all people should know that. Think of Grace—”

  I yanked my hand away. “Grace?” I took a step backward. “You are bringing up Grace?”

  “She died and it hurt you. It was something outside your control.”

  “It changed me.” My ears filled with tears. “It changed me in ways you don’t know, ways you can’t possibly know. So don’t you dare bring her into this when you … when you don’t understand.”

  “Then help me understand, Jo. Tell me what I don’t understand. I know you better than anyone, Jo. Talk to me.”

  My voice was shrill around my sobs. “The person who knew me better than anyone is dead.” Then I said what I should never have said, perhaps didn’t even mean. “You don’t know me at all, Tom.”

  And with that, Tom stared down at the floor for what seemed an eternity, then left the room. I heard the opening of our closet door, the banging of drawers. When he returned, he had changed clothes and was holding a duffle bag.

  “Where are you going?” I was subdued now, regretting words I could not take back. Stay, I thought. I need you, I pleaded silently.

  “I don’t know. To Rod’s I guess. I can’t stay here.” Tom waited, atoms of silence splitting the distance between us. I wanted to reach out, ask him to stay, to tell him … everything. My mind flashed on Grace’s casket lowering into the ground. And with it her secret. And mine.

  Yet I said nothing.

  “There’s a dark place in you, Jo.” Unblinking, Tom’s eyes focused on my face. “There’s a place I can’t reach, a place you won’t let me in.”

  “I’m scared,” I said finally.

  “Scared of what? Of me?”

  “Of everything. Of us.”

  “I think we’re pretty great. I like us.” He moved closer but didn’t touch me. How could part of me want to lean in, press my head onto his shoulder, and the rest of me want to run like the wind.

  “We are great. You’re great. You’re too great. I just don’t know what happiness looks like.” Tom waited for me to finish, his eyes not moving from mine. “I guess it just seems too good to be true.”

  When Tom spoke, his voice had grown colder—an iciness I had not heard before.

  “Is this the I-don’t-know-how-to-be-happy conversation? Is there a pity party to follow?”

  I took another step backward, almost toppling the floor lamp behind me. Did he really just say that?

  Tom rubbed the back of his neck. Ruffling his hair first this way and that like the nap of a carpet, his hand paced. Then he stopped. Just hold me, I thought. Just stop talking and hold me.

  “Here’s the thing, Jo. Sometimes it is that simple. It doesn’t have to be hard to be happy.” He paused, waiting for a response while I picked at a loose fiber in the top of the chair. “My parents have been together almost forty years. Sometimes I think when it’s easy it’s
really love.”

  Dr. Weisz’s voice rang in my head. “You are going to have to open up to Tom, JoAnna. You’re going to have to talk, tell your story. That is the path toward happiness.”

  “My parents and Grace …” I could say no more. My feelings were locked in a safe at the pit of my heart.

  Now Tom’s hands pressed on either side of his temples.

  “They’re dead.” His voice was loud now. Stop, I thought. Stop talking. Just hold me. “It’s not fair, and you miss them. I get it. But what does that have to do with you and me?”

  His voice calmer now, Tom leaned in and cupped my chin in his right hand.

  “What does that have to do with us being happy? What keeps you from being happy?”

  If only I could tell him. If only I could tell him the secret that I had tried to bury with drinking and flirting and work and maudlin poems. And perhaps with marriage. The private guilt that surrounded and consumed me. But I could not. Perhaps I didn’t trust Tom enough; perhaps I didn’t trust myself enough. Maybe giving voice to my fears would make them even more real. Possibly, deep down inside, I was afraid that, once named, those fears would consume me. Destroy Tom’s love for me.

  And so I had no answer. There was an emotional bridge I couldn’t cross, an explanation I couldn’t give. A breath I couldn’t draw and a feeling I couldn’t escape. Was it possible for me to live life without a foot on Billy McGuiness’ train tracks?

  My voice came out in a whisper.

  “I just. Need. Space,” I choked out.

  Tom’s hand fell then, and he stepped back. First one step, then two and three. With each one, his hands spread out in the air.

  “Space?”

  When I didn’t reply, Tom asked the question that would never have occurred to me. “Is there someone else?” His voice warbled like a kindergartener wanting to hear his mother’s voice.

  “No, of course not. How could you think that?”

  “How could I think anything, Jo? How could I think at all? Help me understand, if you want me to think something. Otherwise, my mind will continue to run circles. What is this space for?”

  I studied the loose fiber on the chair. Unraveling like me, like us. I couldn’t answer and instead just shook my head. Ringing in my ears, my silence was the loudest form of self-sabotage.

  Tom shrugged, a weary movement that told me he wished he had married someone less complicated, that his love was a little bit diminished, that I was losing him.

  In a guttural whisper, equal parts regret and fatigue, Tom hissed, “You’re afraid of being happy. Afraid to let me make you happy. And here’s the thing. That’s something I can’t fix. That’s something you have to fix. You have to wake up and decide to be happy.”

  I smirked then. “As simple as that, huh?”

  Anger now flamed from his eyes.

  “Yes, Jo. As simple as that. You have to choose happiness. And you have to choose me.”

  I said nothing. My head was pounding, and I wanted a drink. I wanted to pull the covers over my head. But most of all, I wanted Tom to hold me and stop talking. It really wasn’t him I wanted space from; it was his words, the way he stared at me.

  Perhaps if I had told him that, perhaps if I had just asked to be held, his response would have been different. As it was, I pushed him into saying the words I most dreaded.

  Tom sighed heavily—a long, empty sigh, devoid of life and air. Then he moved to the door and grabbed his jacket. I knew it was soft and smelled of him. Don’t, I thought. Stop him, I thought.

  But I was silent.

  “You want space, Jo?” In Tom’s voice now was the cool hatred of a man who had been pushed too far, a man who had given everything he had. “Look at me, Jo.”

  When I finally looked up, he reached for the doorknob.

  “I’ll give you space,” he said. “But I want you to keep your eyes on this door. Because you are about to see the best friggin’ thing in your life walk away.”

  Tom swung open the door and then paused. My body tensed for the slam that was coming, but it didn’t. Say something, I said to myself. Stop him.

  Looking straight into my eyes one last time, Tom spoke the words that pierced my soul. “I love you. But I’m walking away.”

  And with that the door slammed, vibrating the wall and shaking the wedding sampler that Doro had made. Only then did I move, rushing toward the door, throwing my arms against it and sobbing. But I didn’t open it. Nor did I know that Tom was on the other side, his head leaning against the door, tears welling in those beautiful grey eyes.

  It was just a door. And yet an abyss we could not cross.

  After the longest Sunday of my life, Monday came: July 30. I called in sick. It was only a half lie. Tom didn’t call to check on me. Still in my pajamas at noon, I kept the appointment card in my pocket: 3:00 p.m. I still wasn’t sure if I was going. I didn’t want to go alone. I didn’t want to be alone. But I was. All alone.

  At one o’clock, the phone rang and my heart leapt. I answered it on the second ring.

  “Tom?”

  Silence at the other end, then that sweet familiar voice.

  “It’s Maddy. Little thing, you need to come home. It’s Doro.

  “Come home.”

  24

  FROM RAIN TO SUN

  THE LAST THING I WANTED TO DO was call Tom. He had walked out. But on that July 30, I knew I had to. Tom’s phone went to voice mail.

  “Tom, I got a call from Maddy today. Doro died …” My voice cracked. “I’m going home, Tom.”

  And then, before I hung up, before the message cut me off, “Love you.”

  I took two red eyes and reached Mt. Moriah just as the sun was pushing through the clouds. The day before, Doro pulled twelve Big Boys from the vine, dropped them into her basket, carried the tomatoes to the counter next to the sink. One was still a little green, so Doro set that one on the window sill to ripen. She wiped her forehead with the back of her gardening gloves and then slumped to the floor.

  A massive stroke. She never regained consciousness.

  Thoughts of Doro interrupted my thoughts constantly, and yet I had not yet cried for her. Four days had passed since I approached her casket, looked in at the face that was as peacefully asleep as Betty Mahoney’s. Three days since the ground covered her up, burying my childhood and with it all the secrets that ever existed between Doro and me.

  Although on one hand the hours and days seemed to slide aimlessly into the next, I was also keenly aware of the passage of time and distance. I knew that seven days had passed since I saw Tom. Seventy-eight days since my last period.

  Six days since July 30.

  Three miles to Tuck’s house.

  It was nearing six o’clock in the evening and the relentless sun was giving up when I reached the Tucks’ house that Saturday evening. Christian Tuck’s childhood home was at the end of a cul-de-sac in a subdivision, Newman Farms, built on the site of the old Newman estate. I vividly remember Doro and Maddy shaking their heads as the land was cleared in the late ’80s.

  “All those trees! That’s a crying shame.” Maddy had said, shaking his head.

  On Tuck’s front lawn stood the largest oak of all, eighty years in the making. Perhaps because the Tucks demanded it, perhaps because the contractor sensed the wrath of the town, that oak remained. The driveway encircled the oak, so that in summer the front door was obscured. The massive tree slid shade across the pale grey siding and the stone encircling the arched front porch.

  How many times had I visited that house and yet, my hand on the brass knocker, it was if for the first time. I turned and looked out to the street, trying to see past the oak, but its broad branches were all I could see. Turning back I saw chubby hands pressed up against the side window.

  Tuck pried his son’s fingers from the window and swung the door open. “Look, Andy, we have company!”

  I handed Tuck a bottle of Chardonnay. I had driven twenty-five miles into the next town to find a liquor st
ore. Grocery stores in Mt. Moriah didn’t carry wine, and no one had yet opened a liquor store in the dry Southern town. The wine now seemed out of place, juxtaposed against a man, a toddler, and a half-eaten box of animal crackers.

  “Hi, Andy,” I said, wishing I had taken Maddy’s suggestion of bringing him a gift. Although children were a mystery to me, a bit frightening actually, the little boy in front of me was as intoxicating as any wine, and I could barely take my eyes off him. He had Tuck’s hair—so blonde it was almost white, and long eyelashes that curved up and over his blue eyes. And his fingers. So stubby. So … perfect.

  Tuck balanced Andy, the animal crackers, and the wine and led me into the kitchen. I was back in high school: Beverly Tuck had not changed a thing. The same rose vine wallpaper wrapped around the large kitchen. Ivory cabinets segued to white tile counters, with various fruit tiles punctuating the starkness. Above her planning desk was the huge corkboard her husband had installed when we were in middle school. Recipes, appointment cards, and pictures dotted the landscape so there was barely an inch of cork showing.

  “Tuck, are these Sarah’s girls?” I asked. Sarah was Tuck’s older sister, in college years before us. I did a quick mental calculation that she must be in her thirties now.

  “Yep, she has three. Can you believe it? They’re in Savannah. Stair steps.”

  A husky female voice chimed in, “Which makes our Andy the only grandson and therefore the little prince!” A tall, female version of Andy stepped out from behind the refrigerator. “I’m Debra. It’s so nice to finally meet you!”

  I wanted to hate her—not only for her breasts and figure but because she had stolen Tuck’s heart, and that heart was meant for Grace. Or me. Or both of us.

  But the truth was that, try as I might, I couldn’t hate Debra: I couldn’t even dislike her. All during dinner—which was far more edible than I had been led to expect—she kept food on Andy’s highchair tray while Tuck and I told one story after another from high school. Smiling often, she laughed on cue, seeming utterly at peace in her own skin. And with Tuck.