She didn’t get it.
And neither did Luke for a very long time.
I had kept his dinner warm for hours when I ended our last argument about his being gone so much by slamming his plate on the table in front of him and stomping out of the kitchen. I hadn’t gone far before I turned around and walked back as far as the kitchen doorway. When Luke finally looked up and saw me, I summed up for him everything I had been trying to say for so long: “Listen to me carefully, Luke—I did not get married to be lonely.”
That was my final word on the subject.
Luke comes out of the bathroom now, towel drying his hair, and that confrontation in the kitchen seems eons ago.
“Your turn,” he says.
“No,” I say in mock defiance. “No, I won’t go! You can’t make me.”
He laughs, and I find his laugh as comforting as his touch.
Maisey
My car hasn’t looked so nice since it sat gleaming in the showroom. I have washed it, dried it, vacuumed it, cleaned the inside of every single window, and polished the dashboard. I’m standing here in the bay, having to concede there is nothing else I can possibly do to it.
What now?
Like a beacon in the night, I look up and see the Golden Arches. I slip behind a steering wheel that I have energetically attacked with leather cleaner, drive down the block to McDonald’s, run in to get a Coke, and rush back out as quickly as possible to sit in my clean car and watch the highway traffic.
I wish to be as hidden as Waldo.
I have to go home; I don’t see any way around it, but Marcus has made that very difficult. In grade school I had a recurring dream that I was walking into the school building in my underwear. When I looked down and realized it, I felt utterly exposed and mortified and didn’t have a clue what I should do. Fortunately at that point I always woke up.
I feel like that now, except this is not a dream and I’m not going to wake up. I remain exposed. But I’m not mortified— I’m angry.
Furious.
Marcus doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and he has no right to interfere. But I’m not just angry with Marcus. I’m angry, period. I’ve been angry for such a long time now. I’m even angry that I’m angry.
My phone is ringing. I wait until it stops and check for missed calls. Marcus. I knew it would be. How can I go home when I don’t even want to answer his call?
It was such a nice day until he insisted we go to my room for that private little talk.
The girls love their dresses. I had to talk them into the simple elegance of a black strapless dress with a straight tea-length skirt, but they are all about it now. Jackie’s dress is made the same way, but it is a black-and-white floral. She loves that her dress is different. “I’m special,” she said when the others weren’t listening, and I couldn’t disagree.
We left the shop today with everyone’s dresses in garment bags, ready for Saturday evening. I was so relieved. And then I walked in and found Marcus sitting in the middle of the floor with my albums.
Why did Mother have to drag them out?
Paula said she was going to try to talk her into going to Indy. Why couldn’t Mother just go with her? Marcus was so unfair. Why would Mother have wanted to go to a dress fitting if she hadn’t even wanted to go shopping with Paula?
Of course Jackie had asked me much the same thing. “Why don’t you ask your mom to come?” But before I had to say something, Paula walked into the house, the perfect answer.
Someone’s honking interrupts my thought. How irritating!
I look up and see that the offending honker is Jackie. She has parked next to me and is getting out of her car. My passenger door is locked, and she beats on the window. With the slightest hesitancy, which I hope she does not notice, I unlock the door.
“What are you doing?” she asks, plopping into the seat, leaving the door open.
“Shut the door,” I say. “The air-conditioner’s running.”
“Well, good grief. Let’s go in. Stop wasting petrol.”
“I’m not in the mood for a crowd. What are you doing?”
“Getting salads for Heidi and me. I don’t know for sure what you’ll be doing the day after your wedding, but Heidi and I will be right here buying a Big Mac and fries the minute we decide to get up. What are you doing at McDonald’s by yourself when your mom has a great dinner waiting for you at home?”
“What makes you think so?”
“Marcus called about two minutes ago, asking if I’d seen you. He said something about dinner, and I’m assuming it’s great. When isn’t it great?”
Oh brother, my mother could serve Jackie a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a paper napkin and Jackie would call it gourmet.
I ignore what was a rhetorical question. “I’m on my way home. I needed to wash the car.” I look over at her car. “You might want to try it.”
“Easy, now.”
I almost laugh.
“Marcus seemed worried about you.”
“What did he say?”
“It wasn’t so much what he said but how he said it. He sounded worried. What’s going on with you two?”
“Nothing.”
In response, she just looks at me.
“Nothing’s going on,” I repeat.
“She doth protest too much, plain and simple.”
“Nothing much. I just didn’t like defending myself. When I came in a while ago, he wanted to know why Mother didn’t come with us to the fitting.”
“I thought she was going somewhere with Paula.”
“I guess she didn’t.”
“Well, she should have come with us, then! While I was doing her nails, she asked me what the dresses look like, for goodness’ sake. What they look like? Haven’t you shown her a picture or anything? She should have come to see them.”
“You know what—I don’t think I can handle any more interrogations or accusations.”
“My gosh, Maisey, I’m not trying to interrogate you or accuse you of anything. What’s the matter with you?”
Another conversation I don’t want to have.
“Wedding jitters, I guess.”
“Are you sure that’s all?”
“Yes!”
Jackie shakes her head. She isn’t buying it.
“I mean it. Everything’s fine. I just needed to get away for a while. It’s been a busy day, a busy week.”
She smiles sweetly and grabs my hand. Her sensitive side is making a surprise visit. This isn’t a good time.
“You look sad, Maisey. I know something’s wrong.”
“I’ve got to go, Jackie. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Okay?”
“I guess it’ll have to be.” She opens the door, gets out, and leans back in for a parting shot. “But something is wrong, and I wish you’d tell me what it is.”
She shuts the door gently.
The gentleness of the gesture gets me. I want to say, Get back in the car—I’ll tell you what’s wrong. Instead I back out and head for the exit, feeling worse than ever, if that is possible.
Oh, Jackie, you really don’t want to know what’s wrong. Is that what has kept me from telling you about it all these years?
Jackie and I, along with four other kids and our youth sponsor, were packed into the van that was taking us to a middle- school week of church camp. We had been gone from home at least fifteen minutes when I realized I had left my sheets and towels sitting on my bed. That was mistake number one.
“No problem,” Andy had said, turning the van around, “that’s the beauty of starting early. We’ve got plenty of time before we have to meet the others.” Mistake number two.
The third was my sneaking into the house to surprise Mom with one last kiss good-bye.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kendy
Luke and Marcus sit at the bar, keeping me company while I dice the chicken Luke grilled after finishing with the hamburgers earlier.
“You can take your pick,” I say to Marcus.
“Santa Fe salad or a Mexican chicken wrap—same ingredients, except for the flour shell.”
“I’m getting hungry,” he says. “I might have both.”
It seems like I’ve been cutting up chicken for thirty minutes. “Both won’t be a problem,” I assure him.
“I’m hungry too,” Luke says. “Where’s Maisey? Let’s get this show on the road.”
I’ve been wondering where she is myself. It’s almost seven, and Marcus came into the kitchen a few minutes ago looking a bit lost. Luke hops off his barstool and says he’ll run up and get her.
“Don’t bother, Luke. She’s not here,” Marcus says.
“Well, my goodness,” I say, snapping a lid on a plastic bowl stuffed with chicken, “where has she gone at this time of day?”
Marcus says he doesn’t know, which surprises me. The late hour does too—it’s past dinnertime. Of course, she didn’t make it for dinner Monday night. She may have moved dinners to the bottom of her priority list.
Luke looks concerned. “Should we be worried?” he asks.
“I don’t think so,” Marcus says. “I made her mad this afternoon, and she took off. Wanted some space, I guess.”
We look at him as though he’s confessed to armed robbery. We are that stunned. Marcus is so easygoing, we’ve come to believe he is incapable of conflict, certainly conflict that would result in Maisey’s taking off without him. I want to ask him what he could possibly have said or done to make her that mad—it is beyond imagining—but asking would be prying, and I have resolved I will not be a meddlesome mother-in-law. Besides, we all need a certain amount of privacy. I didn’t explain to Marcus why Luke and I disappeared earlier, did I?
“Maybe she’s at Jackie’s,” I say.
“I called,” Marcus says. “She’s not with her.”
“And you’ve called Maisey’s cell phone?”
“Several times, but it always goes to her voice mail.”
“You’re not worried, are you?” I ask.
“Not really,” Marcus says.
But he looks worried.
Luke takes his cell phone from his pocket, tries Maisey’s number, and gets her voice mail too. I can’t quite read his face. Is it worry or agitation I see there?
At seven we set the table and decide to start without Maisey. Luke says if she isn’t home when we’re finished, we’ll take two cars and canvass the area. He says he’d call the police except she hasn’t been missing twenty-four hours. We sort of laugh at that, but we aren’t really amused. I wonder if they remember that about this time last year a young woman went to fill up her car one evening, and though her car was found, she was never heard from again.
We eat in relative silence, and when we hear a car door slam and footsteps on the porch, we look up with relief. Then Maisey appears in the doorway to the kitchen, dropping her keys into her purse.
“Good,” she says. “You started without me.”
“We waited until seven,” Luke says.
She sits down, grabs the tongs, and begins filling her plate with salad.
“What do you want to drink?” I say, getting up.
“I’m fine,” she says.
I retrieve her glass from the counter, pour off water from ice that has melted, and get a Coke out of the refrigerator. This is her drink of choice when she eats anything that remotely resembles Mexican. I pour it, wait for the foam to settle, and pour some more. No one has spoken since I got up.
When I set the glass in front of Maisey, she says, “I said I’m fine.”
All three of us look at her.
We have no idea what to say or do. I am actually interested to know who will find the wherewithal to speak next. And what will that person say?
It is Luke who dares to open his mouth. “Is there an explanation for such rudeness, Maisey? The appropriate and obvious response to someone who brings you a drink is ‘thank you.’ ”
“Thank you,” she says, staring at her plate, “thank you so much.”
The sarcasm in her voice is heart-stopping.
“Maisey,” Marcus says, “you’re mad at me. Don’t take it out on your mom.”
I take in my breath and steal a look at my daughter. I haven’t entirely processed the sarcasm, and now this. I wonder if Maisey has merely misplaced her mask of civility or has intentionally discarded it. I fear the latter. Seething—she is seething. Her anger and disgust are palpable.
Maisey glares at Marcus. “Oh really?”
Luke and I look at each other. What in the world is going on? Of course no one is eating. The lettuce, grated cheese, and diced chicken heaped on our plates look ridiculous. The routine of life has been suspended.
Maisey pushes back her chair, stands up, and stomps toward the doorway.
“Maisey!” Luke shouts. “Come back here right now. I can’t imagine what’s wrong with you, young lady, but I do know you owe your mother an apology.”
I’m sure an apology is the least of our worries.
Something is terribly wrong, of that I’m certain, and I wish to help Maisey, but no matter how frantically I search my mother’s mind and heart for something I can say or do, I find nothing.
“You two,” she says, coming back to the table, looking at Marcus and then her father, “are so worried about Mother— dear, sweet Mother.”
She does not look at me. She is shaking.
“Here you sit, feeling so bad that I didn’t ask her to be on our stupid team this morning, or that I didn’t ask her to go with my friends to see their stupid dresses, or that I didn’t thank her for getting me a stupid Coke I didn’t want. I’m so bad, is that it?”
In this moment, we have been struck dumb.
Marcus stands up and finally utters a single word: “Maisey!”
“Leave me alone, Marcus. You seem to think my mother is a saint. Well, she isn’t!”
Luke is staring at Maisey like he’s never seen her before.
“Oh, Maisey,” I say, but she doesn’t seem to see me or hear me.
“Okay, everyone, listen up. It was a summer’s day nine years ago in this very kitchen that I found my precious mother pressed against my dad’s uncle, kissing him like a crazy woman. Mr. Impressive himself, wonderful Clayton Laswell, was all over my mother. It was disgusting. It made me sick, Dad! It makes me sick!”
Maisey looks at her dad, tears streaming down her face. “I’m so sorry, Daddy.”
Then she turns to look at me, furiously wiping the tears from her face. “I hate you, Mother. Do you hear me? I hate you, hate you, hate you! You so deserved to lose the baby! He probably wasn’t even Daddy’s!”
She runs from the kitchen, and this time Luke doesn’t stop her.
“I’m sorry,” Marcus says to Luke and me, following her.
“Aren’t we all,” Luke says to no one in particular before he gets up and walks outside.
Where is he going?
I cannot ask. I have just been stripped of the right to ask even an innocuous question. Perhaps he has gone to the outbuilding to work on any number of his tools: a tractor, a push mower, a weed eater, a chain saw, a tiller, a leaf blower.
“My dad’s a good fixer,” Sammy said to me a lifetime ago.
“My husband is too,” I said.
Or perhaps Luke didn’t make it that far. Maybe he’s merely sitting on the patio, trying to breathe in the fresh evening air, wishing for twilight to envelop him.
I sit here, my hand over my mouth, looking at the abandoned dinner table without really seeing it. After a minute, maybe two, I stand up to clear the table. The contents of the plates, I put in the trash; the salad left in the large serving bowl, I store in a sealed container; the ranch dressing bottle, I meticulously wash and place on a shelf in the refrigerator. Then I load the dishwasher, wipe the counters, clean the table and place the crystal bowl of lemons back in the middle of it just so, and deposit the damp towel on the sliding rack.
What to do now?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Maisey<
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“Go away!” I shout for the fourth time.
Marcus has been out there the fifteen minutes I’ve been lying here in the dark. I know he will knock again, call my name again. Oh, how I wish he would just go away and leave me in peace.
In peace? Now, that’s funny. There will be no peace. There has been no real peace for years.
And now what have I done?
It has made me sick, but I have kept Mother’s betrayal to myself for nine long years. I’ve told no one. No one. Why, why, why did I let those words come out of my mouth tonight, after all this time? If I could, I would take them back, just as I wanted to shove Marcus’s words back in his mouth this afternoon. How could I have hurt Dad that way? I have protected him all these years, and now, because I could not control myself, I have broken his heart.
I saw his face.
I saw shock on Marcus’s face, but I saw desolation on Dad’s. Maybe that is what I have feared all these years. Well, the frustration and rage finally erupted, and I don’t want to know what the landscape will look like now.
Oh, Clay, I hate you as much as I hate my mother.
Mother taught me never to use the word hate, and I have never uttered the merciless word—at least aloud—until tonight. Tonight the dam of restraint has broken, and I seem to be drowning in hate. I’m horrified to think that when I was a little girl, I sometimes felt guilty for loving Clay as much as I loved Dad. He and Rebecca didn’t seem like a great-uncle and a great-aunt; they seemed like grandparents, only younger. I thought they were so cool.
But Clay ended up completely ruining what should have been some of my happiest memories. I don’t want to remember learning to ride a bike, because I learned in his driveway. He ran behind me for hours, holding on to the back of my banana seat until I could quit wobbling and maintain a steady line. It was his garage I ran into when I foolishly forgot to brake; it was his bushes I fell into when his son, home from college, drove into the driveway and scared me to death; it was the ointment from his medicine cabinet he smeared all over my scraped palms and knees. And it was he who somehow made the scratches disappear from my new bike too. I never knew how he did that.
Things Worth Remembering Page 10
