“You mean he’s what? A player?”
“Noooo, not that.” But she drags the “no” out in a way that means she’s considering the truth of the word. “Bernie says he’s always very clear that he’s not looking for a long-term relationship. He has flings with women sometimes, but they never last long.”
“He had a fling with Bernie?”
“No! That’s not what I’m saying. She’s just the conveyer of the gossip. And maybe that’s all it is, and maybe the two of you were just running lines. And that’s great. I just don’t want you to get hurt. Look, we’ll talk more tomorrow, okay? I really have to get back to work.”
She hangs up, and I’m alone with the fragments of my once beautiful mood.
Do I want there to be something more between me and Lance? I can’t deny the way my body responds to every little touch, the way my heart races every time he looks at me. I twist my wedding ring on my finger, feeling as guilty as if I’ve indulged in an affair. Thomas might be dead, but I see him everywhere I look. Nothing in this house is mine, save my new clothes, my journal, and my books. It still looks like he lives here. It still feels like he lives here.
The ring on my finger is a fetter, a symbol of ownership rather than of love. I twist it over my knuckle and pull it off. In my palm, it’s a small thing, a plain gold band. I carry it to my room, wrap it in a tissue, and tuck it into my bedside table.
A thump at the back porch reminds me that I am neglecting the one responsibility I have voluntarily assumed. I open an envelope of tuna. Moses and I are now on a twice-a-day tuna schedule. He’s also much tamer than he used to be.
When I open the door, he doesn’t run, just sits there in the middle of the porch, wet and bedraggled, miserable in the rain. Before I can set down the bowl, he walks right into the house and wraps himself around my ankles, purring and meowing.
“You can’t come in here,” I tell him. “You’re dirty. You’re wet. Thomas would . . . Right. That doesn’t matter, does it?”
Forget Thomas. What would Lacey do?
I close the door. Set the bowl down and watch as Moses buries his face in it and begins gulping down food.
While he eats, I fetch a towel from the bathroom and tentatively begin drying him, expecting him to bolt. He keeps eating, purring extravagantly.
Well, then.
I fill another bowl with water. When I bring it back to him, he is chasing the food dish around on the floor, trying to lick up every last bite. He sniffs at the water, then laps a little, delicately for a cat who looks so much like a gangster. And then, without a word or a by-your-leave, he pads down the hallway, into the living room, and curls up in Thomas’s recliner.
“You mustn’t. You’re filthy,” I begin, and then I break up laughing. I hate that chair, which is pure petty jealousy on my part. Thomas bought it for himself, with no thought about practicality. He wanted it, so he bought it, all the while relegating me to a stiff, uncomfortable armchair we bought at a yard sale.
“I guess it’s your chair now,” I tell the cat. “Although I suspect Abigail will have plenty to say about that.”
Abigail.
What time is it?
Ever since she went back to Spokane, she’s been calling me three times a day. In the morning to make sure I’ve made it out of bed alive, midday to make sure I’ve stayed that way, and at night to make sure I’m not out partying in some den of ill repute. If I’ve missed her bedtime check-in call while feeding the cat, she’ll be having a fit.
Sure enough. It’s fifteen minutes past ten, and I have three missed calls and a series of texts. She’s probably already called Earlene to come over and check on me. I type in a text:
I’m good. Home. Will head to bed.
About five seconds later, the phone rings. Moses transitions from curled into a ball to crouched and ready to run faster than I can find the answer button.
“Are you okay?” Abigail demands. “And where have you been? Earlene says you were out late.”
The edge of panic in her voice hits my guilt button, which is anatomically approximate to my rebellion and anger buttons.
“I really wish you would leave Earlene out of this,” I retort. Moses startles at my raised voice, and I dare to smooth his fur, drying already, so soft under my hand. “Hush, shhhh, nothing to worry about.”
I take the phone into the kitchen where the conversation won’t disturb him.
“Don’t hush me! There is everything to worry about,” my daughter scolds. “I pictured you lying in a ditch somewhere. I’m trying to work, Mother! I don’t have the energy to be worrying about you.”
“Then don’t worry. And I wasn’t hushing you.”
“Is somebody there with you?” She sounds scandalized, and I can’t help laughing.
“Just Moses.”
Silence and some heavy breathing and then, “And who is this Moses person, exactly?”
“A cat, Abigail. A stray. He just came in.”
“You have got to be kidding me. What if he has diseases? Rabies, even. You can’t just bring in a stray like that!”
“Well, I seem to have done so.”
“And you wonder why I’m moving home! You’re impossible. What am I supposed to make of your text?”
“That I’m a grown woman, safe at home—”
“‘Silly dead to bed.’ What is that even supposed to mean?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s what you texted! ‘Silly dead to bed.’”
Laughter bubbles up, clearing out the anger and the rebellion. My poor baby girl. She started trying to control the world when she was just a toddler, hands on her tiny hips, ordering me about. I did my best to quell it, but her father didn’t help, and all I managed to do was put a veneer of politeness over her demands.
“Abigail,” I tell her, very quiet, very focused. “Autocorrect got me, that’s all. I’m home. Safe. Not drunk. Not suicidal. Okay?”
“I hate that you’re there alone.”
Voices in the background cut her off. “MVA is here, Abigail. We need you in trauma.”
“Mom, I need to go. Please be careful.”
“I’m fine, Abigail. Go save lives. I love you.”
The phone goes silent, and I toss it onto the table with so much force that it skitters over the surface and very nearly over the edge.
Thoroughly riled up and agitated, I’m no longer anywhere near sleep. I put the kettle on, make myself a cup of tea, and turn back to the problem of the cat. Much as I can’t admit it to Abigail, she has a valid point. Moses could have any number of diseases. Plus, I don’t have a litter box and don’t know whether he’s litter box trained if I did have one.
When I go to evict him, though, he’s fallen asleep, curled in a ball with his damp tail over his nose, and I can’t bring myself to throw him back out in the rain.
“I assume you’ll let me know when you need to go outside.”
Moses says nothing. I watch him sleep while I sip my tea, honored that he has found enough trust to sleep in my presence. And when my cup is empty, I fetch a blanket and a pillow from the bed and curl up on the floor beside the chair, letting go of Val’s texts, of Abigail and her words, one by one. In the end, when I drift away, what remains is a pair of beautiful blue eyes, the taste of chocolate cake, and the unexpected pleasure of stroking a purring cat.
Chapter Thirteen
May 4, 2019
Dear Inner Liz,
Abigail is moving in today, and I am the worst mother on the face of the planet. I love her. I would die for her, and I totally mean it about finding a way to free her from the life Thomas and I locked her into. But just between you and me, I don’t want her to move in with me. I can’t tell her that, of course. My own mother made me feel unwelcome in our house. When I married Thomas, she completely cut me off. I can’t help wondering whether my life would have been different if I’d felt like I could go back home. So obviously I won’t do that same thing to my own da
ughter.
Still, I’ve prayed that there wouldn’t be a job opening here in Colville, but of course there was. And that she wouldn’t get that job, but of course she did. God isn’t going to do anything to fix this mess. It’s all up to me. Which is fair, I guess, since I helped to make it.
Maybe, without Thomas in the middle, I can figure out how to mend our relationship. I’d like to believe that. But I am so afraid it will be otherwise.
Another guilty secret honesty moment. I’m afraid she’ll see how I feel about Lance, and I don’t even want to think about her reaction. I’m being careful, thanks to Val. No more dessert nights. But he texts me, off and on. We’ve run lines together on Skype, both safely tucked into our own spaces. And when we’re together onstage? Sparks! Fireworks! I worry that everyone can see it, but so far they seem to think it’s all good acting.
Anyway. The facts are these: I have an unseemly crush on Lance. Abigail is moving home. And there is going to be trouble, because she wants the Elizabeth-and-Thomas version of me, and I’m not going back to that. Not ever. Not even for Abigail.
I’m in Abigail’s childhood room putting clean sheets on the bed, and caught up in memories, when somebody knocks at the door. I check my watch. Still too early for Abigail or anybody else to show up. The theater group heard about her moving home, and a work party formed and took on a life of its own in much the same way a forest fire creates its own atmosphere.
Probably Val, I guess, although these days she tends to breeze in without bothering to knock.
“It’s open!” I shout.
I smooth the quilt back up over the bed and line up the pillows perfectly, one small thing I can do to make Abigail happy, because she is not going to approve of her welcome-home party.
“Elizabeth?”
I whirl around to see not Val but Earlene, and my heart sinks. I am never in the mood for Earlene, but this morning I’m seriously tempted to tell her to just go away. There are things I want to do before Abigail gets here, and I really don’t have time to sit and listen to the old woman’s gossip about neighbors or her lamentations about how Thomas’s replacement is turning the church into a playground for liberal heathens.
“I’d love a cup of tea, if you’re making any,” she says, my cue to drop everything and give her my full attention.
Sharp words rise to my lips, but I swallow them down. She’s a lonely old woman. Her husband died years ago and her children never visit. Her entire life is the church, and she is what I could so easily become if I don’t get my act together. So I manage a smile, for once because I choose to rather than because Thomas would have expected it.
“Sure, why not? I was ready for a break anyway.”
While I brew tea and set out a small plate of the muffins I’ve baked for this afternoon, Earlene regales me with stories from church.
“Electric guitars and drums, can you believe that? Not just with the youth, which is bad enough, but in the sanctuary. Some of the members have transferred to other congregations, and we’ve had a flood—a literal flood, I tell you—of new people coming in. It’s a travesty. I’ve been a member of this church for fifty years, and nobody will even listen to me. Pastor Steve—so disrespectful to call a man of the cloth by his first name—what good can come of that? Pastor Steve encourages them. When I tried to express my concerns, he listened, but I know he didn’t really hear me.”
I set a cup of tea in front of her, along with the sugar bowl and a spoon. “That must be very difficult.”
Earlene measures three heaping spoonfuls into her tea and stirs, then levels me with her gaze.
“You are neglecting your responsibilities, Elizabeth.”
I sigh. This is, of course, the real reason for her visit. “They are Felicity’s responsibilities now.”
Earlene waves that away. “She’s a child, and she’s too . . . lax, if you know what I mean. People need to see you showing up and doing good works. Living a godly life.”
I break a little piece off my muffin, and then another, laying them on my plate instead of eating. My appetite is long gone, lost in the bitterness of Earlene’s words, but I need something to do with my hands.
“I’m taking a break from church.”
“Dangerous business.” Nothing wrong with Earlene’s appetite. She slathers butter on her muffin and takes a big bite. “I’ve been thinking. You should find yourself a good man. It’s not good for you to be alone.”
“I’m not going to be alone. Abigail is coming home. Today, as a matter of fact.”
“Another unmarried woman,” she says dismissively. “I’ve always felt I have a duty to you, as you haven’t a mother to guide you, and especially now that your husband is gone.”
All of my misguided sympathy dissipates. I should have locked the door, but it’s way too late. Earlene is already quoting scripture at me.
“As the apostle Paul wrote, ‘I advise these younger widows to marry again, have children. Then the enemy will not be able to say anything against them. For I am afraid that some of them have already gone astray and now follow Satan.’ Of course you’re not precisely a younger widow,” Earlene explains. “But I do fear for your soul, Elizabeth.”
“It’s a little late for me to have children,” I protest, choosing my safest line of defense. I could argue that I’m not following Satan until the cows come home, but it would be pointless. Earlene would remain firmly convinced that I’m straying in that direction.
“You are not too old to fall into sin,” she admonishes. “You have stopped coming to church and to prayer meeting. I saw that man drive you home late at night. I’ve seen you coming and going at all hours, your face all made up like a streetwalker.”
I flush, but can’t help laughing a little. “Stage makeup. And Lance gave me a ride that one time. It’s not like he came in and spent the night.”
“All of this gallivanting must stop. A woman needs a godly man, and there are several widowers in the church who would do. For the good of your own soul, Elizabeth.”
“For the good of my soul,” I repeat when I manage to catch my breath. “What about you? How come you never married again?”
“I was never tempted to stray into temptation,” she says virtuously. But there’s a hint of something in her eyes that tells me maybe it was more than that. Maybe no member of the fold was interested in spending his life being managed by her. Either way, I’ve had about enough of her meddling.
I get to my feet and carry both of our teacups to the sink, signaling the end of this ridiculous conversation.
“I was thinking of another cup,” Earlene protests.
“And I was thinking the apostle Paul had something to say about widows marrying so they have something to do other than gossip. If you like, I’d be happy to help you select a nice eligible bachelor to help you with that little problem.”
Earlene’s lips press together, her nostrils flaring. “You are still grieving, and such outbursts are to be expected, I suppose.” She gets stiffly to her feet. “I shall pray for you.”
She closes her eyes, and I realize she means to pray now, right this minute. And I decide I’ve been prayed at one too many times already in my life.
“Save your prayers for someone who wants them,” I interrupt. “Right now, I think you should leave.”
She gasps, shocked at my rudeness and my irreverence. “This is what comes of socializing with unbelievers. Are you listening to yourself, Elizabeth? What would your husband say?”
“He can’t say anything. He’s dead. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a very busy morning with much to do.”
Her face is set in an expression that reminds me of the illustrations of a martyr going to the flames in yet another of the picture books Thomas saw fit to purchase for our daughter.
I precede her to the door and hold it wide open. She stops at the threshold, and I hold my breath, afraid she will change her mind and refuse to leave me alone with my temptations. But she has been trained as thoroughly as I have t
o show good manners, and she can’t help reading my clear signals. She steps out onto the porch and then turns back to deliver a parting line.
“You cannot prevent me from praying for you, and I refuse to let you push me away.” With that, she marches across the street and I pull the door shut behind her, locking it this time.
“Shit! Now what do I do?”
My exclamation startles me into a burst of shocked laughter. Maybe I have been hanging around Val and the others too much. But I am so going to pay for my little outburst to Earlene. She will already be on the phone relaying our conversation, telling everybody I am so far gone I have refused to be prayed over. Which means, of course, that the prayer chain is commencing in about five minutes, with my name moved to the top of the list.
Why, oh why, did I let a lonely, bitter old woman get to me? It was the Bible text that pushed me over the edge. Thomas was fond of the apostle Paul, quoting his advice about women at me all the time. Beneath my accepting veneer, it always rankled that the voice of a man from so deep in history could still have so much control over my life. How I wear my hair. My obedience to my husband. “God’s words,” Thomas would have said had I dared to argue. “Paul wasn’t just a man, Elizabeth, he was the voice of God.”
Secretly, in my dark heart and in my morning journal, I’d questioned whether the man might have taken license to slip his own opinions into the messages from God. That whole passage about widows is particularly repellant, implying that the only way to prevent us from gossiping and fornicating is to keep us properly married and under the control of a husband.
Which is what happened to me.
I try the thought on, like an unfamiliar dress in front of a mirror, one that fits perfectly as if tailored for me, even though it’s a color and style I wouldn’t have chosen.
Who was I before Thomas?
Who was I before I became a mousy, self-effacing, martyred-for-my-own-good woman? What was I going to be, or do? For a moment of free fall, I can’t even remember my life before Thomas, as if I emerged into the world ready formed to do his bidding, like Eve in the Eden story, shaped from Adam’s rib for the sole purpose of being his companion.
A Borrowed Life Page 10
