Mom Over Miami

by Annie Jones

“The main thing—” Lauren took the mangled shell of a beanbag from Hannah’s hands and righted it without any real effort “—you have to make time for yourself. The things you need to be a good wife and mother and friend don’t come measured out in hours and minutes. They come from the well of your spirit. If you let that go dry by always giving and never tending to yourself, you have nothing left to give.”

  “Sounds so easy when you say it. And so wonderful.”

  “It sounds like a goofy watercolor-painted greeting card left over from the seventies.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”

  “Now you’re getting it. So, tell me right now, what are you doing to care for your physical, mental and spiritual needs?”

  “Physical? Chase kids.” She hadn’t stuck with an exercise program or a diet or even kept a hair appointment since they’d moved to Ohio.

  “Mental?” Lauren asked.

  “Does figuring out the amount of unpopped popcorn we needed to stuff two dozen frogs count?”

  “You write,” Lauren reminded her.

  “That may be more of a mental illness than a mental endeavor.”

  Lauren raised her knees and folded her tanned, sculpted arms on top of them. “You certainly expend a great deal of mental energy putting yourself down. But that doesn’t count, either. What about your spiritual life?”

  “Since I took over the nursery department, I haven’t attended one grown-up Sunday service.”

  “Prayer life?”

  “Prayer lite is more like it.”

  “Time in the Word?”

  “Lesson plans, reading to Sam.”

  “Oh, Hannah…”

  “I know. I’m a wreck, aren’t I?”

  “Oh, we’re all wrecks—some of us just take time to hammer the dents out.”

  She smiled and tried to think of a way to thank Lauren for the advice and humor, but the phone cut her off.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Bartlett Frog Flippers, Miami North Pad.”

  “Um…Hannah?”

  “Oh, no. Don’t even ask.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “I do not have the time or the inclination to rush over to your office and scour the bathroom.”

  “I know, but…”

  “I mean, come on, Bartlett. It’s bad enough that you asked me to do it twice a week already after days of caring for the kids, work and whatever volunteer jobs I’ve spent my day up to my nose in.”

  “I know, but…”

  “But to keep asking me today is unfair, especially with our trip just a few hours away.”

  “I know, but…”

  “Which, by the way, is the only reason I am not letting out a primal scream of frustration and slamming this phone down in your ear—the knowledge that in a few short hours you, my most darling husband, will be whisking me away for the romantic escape of a lifetime.”

  Silence met her ramblings.

  Not good.

  “Payt, honey?” Her pulse raced, she took a shallow breath. “This is the part where you say ‘I know but…’”

  “Listen, Hannah.”

  “No.” For months now the man had demanded she listen—but to herself, not to him. Listening to him right now, she decided on the spot, could not lead to anything good.

  “There’s been a little dustup at work.”

  “That had better not be a weak cleaning joke.”

  “I wish.”

  Her heart thudded hard in her ears. “Why?”

  “Let’s just say the animals in our little metaphorical zoo here started eating each other alive.”

  “So?” She forced a very unconvincing laugh. “What’s a few teeth marks between friends?”

  “Hannah, you’re not making this easier.”

  “Okay, how about I make it real easy? Mindless office bickering is not your problem, Bartlett. Your biggest problem today is whether you can pick me up and carry me over the threshold for the start of our second honeymoon.”

  “I don’t think so, Hannah.”

  She didn’t want to ask, but ask or not, the man would eventually have to tell her. “We’re not going, are we?”

  “We’re going.”

  She fell back against the wall and exhaled.

  “Just not right now.”

  “What?”

  “We will go, Hannah. But not today.”

  What could she say? She’d looked forward to this trip for so long. She needed this getaway so badly. “Payt, please, don’t do this. Can’t you find a way to—”

  “Kaye quit.”

  And that was that. No way could Dr. Briggs keep the office going with Payt and his nurse practitioner gone.

  “No trip. No Miami. No flying away from it all.”

  “Not for good, just for now.”

  “B-but I had my heart set on now. I was counting on now.”

  “And I am counting on you.”

  Counting on her. The man she loved was counting on her. Her stomach clenched. He couldn’t have used a more deeply connected or dreaded phrase unless he’d added something about all the sick little children and their harried, desperate parents counting on her, too.

  “When I bought the ticket, I made sure the travel agent understood this kind of thing might happen,” he went on.

  “That Kaye might up and quit without warning hours before our flight?”

  “That as a doctor I might have to cancel at the eleventh hour. It will cost a little more, but we can change our travel plans.”

  “Don’t even start with me about the cost, just tell me what you want me to do.”

  “Just go down to the travel agent—you need to go there to handle it all in person so there are no slipups with the flight or the hotel reservations. Can you do that?”

  “I can.”

  “Will you?”

  “What choice do I have?”

  “Great. I gotta run.”

  She gripped the receiver, willing herself to place it gently back in its cradle.

  You have to make time for yourself. The things you need to be a good wife and mother and friend don’t come measured out in hours and minutes. They come from the well of your spirit. If you let that go dry by always giving and never tending to yourself, you have nothing left to give.

  Sappy seventies sentiment or not, Hannah found herself gravitating to Lauren’s words of wisdom and wondering…

  Hannah walked slowly into the living room.

  “One of our wayward class moms calling to get directions?” Lauren asked.

  “Hardly.”

  “Too bad, because I have to run.”

  Startled from her musing, Hannah blinked and discovered her eyes damp with the threat of tears. “You, too?”

  “Don’t peg me for a deserter just yet. Stilton has a piano lesson, then Tae Kwon Do. In fact, he has a class or homework or we have church or something almost every day of the week.”

  “Wow.”

  “Tell me about it. I haven’t had a full afternoon free since that kid had his first Tumble Tots class at three.”

  “Six years?”

  “And only nine more to go. Sometimes I think we over-schedule him, but then I don’t know what we’d cut out and still feel we’d given him every advantage to get into a top-rated college.”

  “College?” She was supposed to be laying the groundwork for college already?

  “But so I won’t leave you in the lurch.” She waggled one stuffed finished frog in the air by the feet to keep popcorn from spilling out. “Suppose we divvy up the duties?”

  “I…” Hannah looked around in a daze, not sure how she felt, what she thought or what she needed to do. “I don’t have anything big enough to put half the popcorn in.”

  “That’s easy—you put it into the frogs.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “We’ve got them all turned and ready, you pour the popcorn in, then set them open, seam-up, in a box for me to finish. You stuff, I stitch.” She made a broad
sewing motion, her pinched thumb and forefinger holding an imaginary needle.

  “Right. That’s probably for the best, anyway. The way I feel right now, I really shouldn’t be handling sharp objects.”

  “You going to be okay?”

  “I think I can manage to fill up a few frogs.” Why not? She had all the time in the world, now.

  “Okay, just have your aunt bring them to school when she picks up Sam this afternoon, okay?”

  “Sure.” She didn’t have the energy to explain that she’d be available to do the car pool today after all.

  “And have a great trip.”

  “Actually, I—”

  R-r-r-r-ring!

  First thing tomorrow she was going to discontinue phone service. And e-mail. And her cell phone. And disable her doorbell and…

  And it would have been so much more practical to just run away from it all.

  R-r-r-r-ring!

  “I’ll let myself out.” Lauren already had the front door open wide.

  For a split second Hannah thought of making a break for it. Just go. Get out. Fly away. But just as quickly the door fell shut and the phone demanded her attention again.

  R-r-r-r-

  “Bartlett Frog Farm, where dreams go to croak.”

  “Hannah?”

  “Payt?” She swallowed hard. Her pulse did a little jig. “It was all a big joke, right? A prank? Something to shake the cobwebs off the old wife before the vacation starts?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  “Oh. What do you need, then?” Too bad he never stopped and asked her what she needed anymore. No one did. Just what they needed from her.

  “Well, since your aunt is here to take care of the kids. And since you’ve got to get out of the house to deal with the travel agent, I had a thought.”

  Wait a minute. He talked like a man with a plan. A whole new plan. A plan to make up for the lousy change of plans he’d dropped on her earlier. “Yes?”

  “Well, there’s no reason now why you can’t pop in and clean the office tonight after all.”

  “And there it is, ladies and gents.”

  “What? Hannah, what are you talking about?”

  It.

  The line.

  The final push.

  The point of no return.

  The last straw.

  Hannah clucked her tongue. She’d made up her mind just that fast, and she saw no purpose in launching into any further explanation. She just told her husband not to expect her in the office today, and if he had any questions, well, he’d get his answers when he got home.

  She hung up the phone and picked up a pen.

  19

  Subject: Change of plans

  To: DocPayt

  Dear Payt,

  I won’t be taking the tickets back to the travel agent.

  Call you from Miami.

  Love,

  Hannah

  “What was I thinking?” she asked the lady crowding the armrest and most of the so-called legroom somewhere over Tennessee.

  “I really shouldn’t do this,” she said to the too-polite-to-tell-her-it-wasn’t-his-problem man behind the ticket counter when she changed planes in Atlanta.

  “The reservation may be for five days, but I’ll have to go back before that, I think,” she warned the effervescent clerk in the relaxed elegance of the marble lobby of the five-star hotel in Miami.

  In the room, she took in the calming atmosphere, the fresh smell, the bed made by somebody else and towels that would appear clean and fluffed daily without her having to lift a laundry basket. She threw open the curtains to enjoy the endless starlit sky and view of dazzling light reflected through the blue of the pool six stories down. That’s when she turned to the bellman, pressed a generous tip into his hand and whispered, “Tell housekeeping to keep the supply of towels coming. I’m going to be here a while.”

  She had done it.

  Her.

  The woman who had spun her wheels in a tidy rut for her whole lifetime hoping somehow to please others had finally taken a stand and taken flight.

  And to a place where it was far too warm to think about Christmas pageants.

  A place sans an office and therefore devoid of office politics—and messy break rooms that needed her attention.

  A little corner of the world where no one had ever heard of the DIY-Namic Duo.

  And where, if anyone wanted a snack, they called room service.

  “Peace,” she murmured, falling back onto the bed. “Except for one little thing.”

  She glared at the brown-and-white rectangular sign boasting We Provide A High-Speed Internet Connection For Our Guests’ Convenience. She could run away from almost every source of frustration and fear in her life—but she couldn’t hide.

  She had no excuse now for not replying to Jacqui and Cydney. And worse, no excuse for not turning in her column. No excuse but the fact that she didn’t have a column. That she had no idea what to say in a column.

  “You have to take care of yourself and refill the well.” She reminded herself of Lauren’s excellent advice. Even Payt had told her she had to go after her dreams, to do whatever made her “happy happy.”

  And she had.

  For about ten seconds when she came into this room she had been the most happy happy she’d been since…

  “Since Tessa smiled at me last? Since Payt held me in his arms? Since I tucked Sam in bed thankful to God we’d had him for one more day?” Her daily life brimmed with happy moments—the sort of everyday ordinary happy that she had started to take for granted.

  Or worse.

  That she had pushed aside to make room for all the fear and worry that she fed with her own doubts and fault findings.

  How had she let it go so far that the only way she could find to remedy it was to run away from her family and friends?

  You know, sweet girl, insecurities and the driving desire for independence—they stem from the same place.

  Hannah recalled Aunt Phiz’s attempt to get her to confront the issue months ago. She hadn’t had the time then, and wasn’t sure even now that it would do any good.

  It had been more than a year since she had stood at her mother’s grave.

  More than a year since she and her sisters had discovered the source of their mother’s pain and chosen to forgive her even if they could not understand her.

  How could they understand? Only her sister Sadie had been a mom then. Hannah and their oldest sister, April, had nothing to base their concepts of the mother/daughter bond on then. Just idealized visions, glimpses into the lives of their friends and the TV-show images that never wholly rang true.

  But that had changed. With Tessa—and with Sam—that had all changed for Hannah. She knew now how much she could love another person, how much she could ache for them, how much she could sacrifice for them. And the toll all that could take on a person who didn’t have a solid spiritual, mental and physical foundation.

  Hannah’s mom never had those things. Depression and circumstances had robbed her of them.

  But Hannah had them and in amazing abundance, if she would just utilize them. She hadn’t, and where had she ended up? In essence the same place her mother had—leaving her family.

  Just that fast, in the time it took for her to think the very words…Hannah got it.

  She got it.

  Her mother’s leaving had nothing to do with not loving Hannah. Or Daddy or Hannah’s sisters. It had to do with not utilizing the abundance of help around her. In Mama’s case, perhaps she simply could not do it, and even as it broke Hannah’s heart to realize that, it also freed her heart to not just forgive her mother’s actions but to love her.

  “Wait. I did what my mother did?” A flush of panic shot through her body. She knew the fuzzy glow wouldn’t last long in her. Gritting her teeth, she lunged for the phone.

  “Bartlett Bachelor Pad, Soccer King speaking.”

  “Sam!”

  “Hannah! I…I thought it was Hunter cal
ling. Payt said he could come over tonight. And that we’d pitch a tent in the living room. And he—Hunter, that is—was supposed to call me as soon as his dad got home and could bring him over.” Her kid didn’t come up for air once until he gulped and tacked on, “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I called to see how you are.”

  “We’re all fine. You want to talk to—”

  “I didn’t ask about all of you. I asked if you are okay. I called to talk to you, Sam.”

  “You did?” His tone was hushed.

  “Yes. I took off before you got home from school and didn’t get to talk to you. I feel just rotten about that.”

  “That’s okay. I expected you and Payt to be gone when I got out of school anyway.”

  “Is Payt taking it hard? My up and leaving on the vacation alone, I mean.”

  “I don’t know. Want to ask him?”

  “No! I don’t want to talk to anyone else until I’m sure you and I are okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “You know, like Hannah and Samuel.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think I can find a Bible in the drawer of the nightstand. Hold on.” The wood groaned then pitched forward. Hannah had to lurch to keep it from plummeting to the floor, but she did and she found the Bible.

  “How come you didn’t take a Bible with you?” Sam asked as he waited.

  “Because…” Because I had fixated on the running away part of this adventure, not on the refilling the well part. “Okay, here’s the part I want to share with you. Are you listening?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s First Samuel, chapter one, verses twenty-seven and twenty-eight, if you want to, look it up for yourself while I’m gone and feel closer to me.”

  “Uh…okay.”

  You don’t have to, she almost hurried to add. But she didn’t. She let it go, satisfied that she had given him the idea and he might take some comfort in it. “Here’s the verse. It’s Hannah talking about her love and hopes for her Samuel. ‘I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.’ Do you understand that?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of hard, I admit. For me, for us, it’s a reminder that Hannah loved and wanted her Samuel, but that she knew that in their life they couldn’t always be together.”