By ones and by twos, members of Tony’s family came up and thanked me for helping Tony when he’d been accused of murder. It was wonderful and awful all at once. It could not have been clearer that Tony’s family loved him, that they wanted the best for him, nor that I had been the one glitch that had sent his life down a different path, a lesser path.
I had done one thing right. I had saved him from prison, and even though it had been accidental, I latched onto that knowledge for all I was worth. I had done something redemptive, and knowing that was the only thing that kept me from racing toward the nearest liquor store.
That potato salad. Even though I had to weigh in at my Fat Fighters meeting in about sixteen hours, Diane had made a potato salad with lots of mayonnaise and green chilis and bacon bits, and I dove headfirst into it. If I could have held a fork in each hand, I would have. Fat and carbs; if you can’t have tequila – fat and carbs are the next best thing.
Unfortunately, I had a mouthful when Mrs. Solis stood in front of the group and glared her stink eye until everyone stopped talking. She opened her mouth, then looked at me and shut it again. She frowned, then said, “Johnny has something to say.”
Johnny looked surprised, but finished chewing his barbecue and stood, swallowing. “Yes,” he said. “Um, well, on behalf of the Solis family, I just want to say how happy we are that Salem is here.”
A low chorus of agreement filled the yard, and Tony smiled at me. I swallowed my potato salad.
“Salem, we will never be able to thank you enough for what you’ve done for Tony. You are welcome back any time.”
A louder cheer this time, and a few claps. I couldn’t help but glance toward Mrs. Solis, and was bowled over by her solemn nod of agreement.
I had no choice but to get another helping of peach cobbler.
Back at Trailertopia, I pushed the button to release my seat belt, then stopped with the buckle in my hand. “What happened to the cradle?” I asked, before I knew I was going to ask.
Tony looked confused. “Cradle?”
“The cradle you made for our baby. You made a cradle, remember?” A memory sprang suddenly to mind, one of many I’d buried under years of bad choices. I was sitting on the edge of the double bed Tony and I shared in the little house we rented when we were married. I must have been recently released from the hospital, because I remember my arm in a sling. In the memory, I saw the white of it out of the corner of my eye as my foot pushed again and again at the rocker of the cradle. It rocked back and forth, back and forth. Tony came in, saw the trance I had put myself in, and silently took it away. I never saw it again.
“Oh, that. Yeah, I forgot about that.” He rubbed a hand over his face, looking out the windshield with his hand covering the lower part of his face, lost in the memory. “I still have it. It’s in the attic.”
“The attic of the house where you live now?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“You moved it with you? When you bought that house?”
He shifted in his seat and nodded again, looking like he was going to say something, but then just said, “Yes,” again.
I studied him for a second, seeing again the backyard full of Solis children running and playing.
“You want to be a dad.” I didn’t bother making it sound like a question, because it wasn’t. It was more of a realization.
The corner of his mouth tipped up slightly. “Well, yeah,” he said. He waited patiently for me to get to my point.
I shook my head, not entirely sure myself. “You could have divorced me and married someone else a long time ago. Those little kids on the swing set – one of them could be yours.”
He shrugged again. “I could have, I suppose.”
“You could have married a girl your mother could fully approve of,” I said. “Family barbecues could be so much less awkward.”
He smiled then. He looked out at the hood of his truck, then back at me. ‘You’re my wife, Salem.” He didn’t bother with false reassurances that the night had not been awkward. Tony may not say much, but what he did say was honest.
I had asked him once why he hadn’t divorced me, and I remembered his exact words: “God kept telling me no.”
That word kept hung in my mind still, and I pictured Tony on praying knees for hours on end, begging God to set him free from the torture of being married to me, while I went obliviously on my way, drinking, sleeping with other guys, thinking that the only life I was ruining was my own, and that it was no more than I deserved.
I was not going to ask him again why he hadn’t divorced me, even though I couldn’t help but think there had to be something else besides “God told me no.”
It occurred to me with a sudden bolt of shock that he might still hold out hope that we would someday give parenting another go. I had cleaned up my act, but...good Lord. My grasp on a stable life felt tenuous under the best of circumstances. If tonight had told me nothing else, it was that even after almost a year of sobriety, the urge to drink was almost overwhelming when I was out of my element. No matter how many stories of miraculous transformation I heard, I could not believe I could be a mother and not be completely out of my element.
I remembered my sense of loss from earlier in the evening. Tony probably felt like that all the time, only he wasn’t to blame. I was. I had robbed myself of a family life for the past decade, and I had robbed him as well.
Fresh guilt crept up my throat and with it the familiar reaction of angry defensiveness. I got a lot of practice defending my actions during my drinking days, and the feeling presented itself like the all-purpose handy coping tool it was. Not my fault, the reactionary voice in my head said. I had tried to let him go to live his life. He was the one who refused to sign the divorce papers. If it had been up to me –
“Salem, relax,” Tony said with one of his tender smiles, his brown eyes warm on mine. “We agreed to just be ourselves, right?”
I blinked. “I am being myself,” I said, still defensive.
“Yeah, I can see that. You’re getting yourself all worked up over things that can’t be changed.”
“You can see that?” I blurted.
“You’re not exactly a closed book, sweetheart.” He reached over like he was going to touch my cheek, but moved at the last moment to my hand instead. He gave it a slight squeeze. “Mama was the one who wanted you there tonight,” he said, changing the subject.
I drew my head back. “What?”
He nodded. “It was her idea.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s grateful to you, for what you and Viv did. I could be headed for prison right now.”
“Because of me, her sister and her nephew are there instead.”
He shook his head. “Not because of you. Thanks to you, though.”
I looked at him for a moment. “You didn’t want me there?” I asked.
He stifled a grin. “I thought it might be too much, too soon. The whole clan, you know.”
I weighed that with a back-and-forth wag of my head. “It was a little bit of a lot, yeah.”
“I thought it might be. But Mama said to bring you, so...” He gave a what-could-I-do shrug.
“You’re an obedient son,” I said.
“I try.” He opened the truck door and I remembered to stay put until he came around and opened my door. He walked me up the steps to my trailer and nodded politely to Frank and Stump. With a minimum of awkwardness, he pecked me on the cheek and left.
Ten
I shifted through the clothes in my closet, holding up one thing after another to gauge its weight. I wanted something that simultaneously weighed nothing, and covered my entire body like a tent. Seeing as how caftans went out of style when Three’s Company went off the air, I had to settle for yoga pants and a t-shirt.
My yoga pants were not in the closet. I checked the laundry hamper. Not there either. I could not wear jeans to my weigh-in. I might as well eat the El Diablo Enorme’ platter at Taco Juan’s and then get on
the scale. Jeans were a scale heartbreaker. If I wore a skirt I would have to shave my legs. So that was out.
I kept searching. I did everything I could to not think about Chinese food and sodium and water retention, and also, Tri-Patrice’s increasingly svelte figure. Or the fact that I was paying good money to not lose weight, when I’d been fairly good at doing that for free.
I was getting depressed. One of the things I had been told during the early days of my sobriety was to never let myself get too tired or too hungry. “When we don’t take care of ourselves physically, we can’t be there for ourselves emotionally.” I had used that as an excuse to sleep too late and eat too much, true. But still. It was good advice. Over the past year, I’d added ‘too mired in self-loathing’ to the list of states to avoid, even though it was an emotional state rather than a physical one. Like hunger and exhaustion, I could get too far down the “I suck!” road to be able to drag myself back, and that was a recipe for disaster. I was stuck with me, and although I would never be the cheerleader type, I had come to recognize that focusing on all the things I was not doing well had the potential to completely overwhelm me. There were so many, after all.
I decided to take a break and just breathe for a moment, light some candles in my little sanctuary room and focus on good things. Be grateful for a while. Say a few gratitude prayers and lighten my spirit. Maybe it would even lighten my ass.
I left the discarded clothes on the bed and moved to the tiny second bedroom at the other end of my trailer. I lit the candle and stared at it while I focused on my breathing. My mind still spun, but in a bigger, lazier circle now. Whereas before it had been “Murder! Fat! Trisha! Scale! Dale!” now it felt more like, “Mmmm...scale. Mmmm...murder. Mmmm...life is good. But mmmm...it’ll be better when I’m not fat anymore...”
Sometimes when I pray, I go through the whole formal bit of addressing God, like I’m knocking on the giant door to the castle that is Heaven, then standing with my hands behind my back, waiting to be summoned before the throne. It’s all very dignified and refined.
I like those prayers. I mean, it’s God, right? The creator of the universe. The one who told the ocean how far to go and no further. That kind of power is worthy of some respect. If I never sat down and let my mind contemplate the majesty and glory of God, of this world that He’s created, I might convince myself that life is very, very small, like, so small that something like five pounds on the scale could mean life or death, or that Viv and Dale suddenly being best buds was actually a threat to me.
Other times, I’m in more of a “Whatever, screw it,” kind of mood, where I turn to God and launch into a plea or a rant like I’m venting with my best friend, which, according to Les, I am.
“Go-o-o-o-o-d,” I whined. “Trisha is getting skinny and I’m not. And I feel awful. I’m trying so hard.”
I sensed a holy eyebrow, rising in question. “So hard, Salem? Seriously?”
The thing is, I had spent such a long time feeling like I wasn’t hearing anything from God, that my prayers were just floating into empty space and dissolving, you would think I was grateful to feel such a quick response to my prayers. I was not.
“Yes! Well, I’ve thought about it a lot. I bought broccoli, and remember last Thursday when I did not stop at PackASack and get a breakfast burrito? That was hard. Really hard.”
Divine silence.
“Look, I know I haven’t tried as hard as I could. I could have told Viv no thanks on the Chinese food. And I could have walked more laps around the trailer park. But...if you could just...” I bit my lip and decided not to ask that Trisha couldn’t lose weight unless I did. Not that I didn’t want that. Not that I didn’t think God could tell I wanted that. But I wasn’t quite ready to admit out loud I was that childish and selfish. “If I could just please lose some weight this week. Please. Three pounds would be awesome. Five would be even better.” I stopped and listened. “Look. You know me. You know I need help. Please. I’ll try even harder. If Viv comes at me with free food I’ll tell her to get thee behind me.”
I waited for a sense of divine laughter, but it was not forthcoming.
I sighed. “Okay, now for the gratitude part.” I went over the list of things I was grateful for: Stump. Les. Viv. Frank. The fact that it had been a very long time since I’d woken up with a hangover. It had also been a long time since I’d woken up beside someone and had to say, “Hey, you,” because his name did not come to mind. It’s kind of hard to feel good about yourself when that happens.
But suddenly...ahhh. There. I felt better. I remembered just how far I had come in the last year or so. I remembered the sense of helpless floundering that once ran as a theme through my life; the sense of being constantly overwhelmed by absolutely everything, because everything was screwed up beyond repair.
No, I did not have much money, but the rent was paid and I was reasonably sure I could pay it again next month. Yes, my body was bigger than I was comfortable with, but my head did not pound and my stomach did not turn, and I did not have to drink away the feel of anyone’s hands on me.
It was true that I could not find my yoga pants. Used to, if I couldn’t find an article of clothing, I would be forced to go through my memories of the last week and recall all the places I’d taken my clothes off, or recall all the people who had been in my house, and decide which of my current drinking buddies was most likely to steal from me. But for a long, long time I’d remained fully clothed until I got ready to get, alone, into my own bed. The only people who’d been in my trailer were Frank, Viv, and Les, and I was quite certain none of them wanted my yoga pants. The thought brought more of a sense of relief than one might imagine.
I had people who cared about me now. Back when I was drinking, I had people who enjoyed being around me from time to time, and I had people who had used me, but even counting immediate relatives, I didn’t have anyone that I knew beyond a doubt genuinely cared about me. And, sadly, the lack of feeling was mutual.
I blinked back tears and felt gratitude for the list I had been going through. Stump. Les. Viv. Frank. My sobriety. My life, crazy as it was. It was my life.
Warm fuzzies from God! I thought.
“Thank you,” I whispered, remembering the bit from Psalms that Les liked to quote: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving. Enter his courts with praise.”
I rose halfway, then remembered and dropped back to my knees. “Ummm, seriously thank you. But I want to make it clear that the warm fuzzies are not a substitute for the five-pound weight loss. Just in case you were thinking...I’m still asking you to suck five pounds of fat directly from my thighs. I know you can do it.” I gave a quick thumbs up and rose to get ready for the meeting.
On the way back to my bedroom I suddenly remembered that I had done a load of laundry the night before. My yoga pants were in the dryer.
“You know those moments when something suddenly pops into your mind?” Les had asked me once. “People think that’s just the way your memory works. But I think it’s more than that. I think it’s the Holy Spirit, speaking to you. Helping you out in little ways. Sometimes in big ways. Last week I had forgotten to turn off the stove and was about to leave the house. I kept feeling this nagging sense that something wasn’t quite done and that I needed to go into the kitchen. I could have burned the house down, Salem, but because I acted when I felt that nudge of the Spirit, it all turned out fine. That’s how much God cares about you, Salem. The big things and the little things. He really wants to be a part of it all.”
Even down to finding my yoga pants?, I wondered. I pulled them out of the dryer and looked up. “I’m going to take this as a sign that you are all in favor of me having a good weigh-in experience today.” I finished getting ready, feeling like I had all the powers of Heaven on my side.
I did not lose five pounds. I did not lose three pounds. I lost two pounds, which made me very, very happy until Trisha came bouncing in and lost four-point-four. Because she’s kind of a local celebrity, all the Fat
Fighters people fell all over her, smiling and cheering her on, congratulating her. Well, it was either because she was a local celebrity, or because she was so chipper and outgoing, always asking about their families and lives and stuff.
Me, it took all the mental energy I had in me to step on that scale every week. I had nothing left over to be nice to people.
I pretended like I needed to go to the bathroom so I could get out of there. It was silly and childish to be jealous of Trisha. It was ridiculous to let my competition with her steal the joy of a two-pound weight loss. I stood and looked at myself sternly in the mirror. The Fat Fighters leaders always stressed that a healthy goal was to lose half a pound to two pounds a week. I had made it to the very top of that goal. That was something to celebrate. Was I really going to be silly and childish and ridiculous?
I curled my lip at my reflection. A little, yeah.
I took a deep breath and told myself to suck it up. I might be a big fat baby, but that didn’t mean I had to let other people know it. I forced a bright smile and went back into the meeting room, where Trisha sat on the front row like the little teacher’s pet she’d always been.
“What are you grinning about?” she asked. She’d bought a cookbook, I saw. I figured that’s why she was losing more than I was – she could afford to get the special books and vitamins and food scales and all the extra crap Fat Fighters peddled at every meeting.
“Oh, you know,” I said, feeling like my teeth were getting dried out from all the grinning. “Just happy. Can I look at that?”
“Sure. Is it Tony? Is that why you’re grinning?”
I shrugged.
“What do you hear on the CJ Hardin thing?” I asked in a low voice.
“Not much,” she said back, just as low. “Just rumors. I keep hearing something about a cockfighting ring, but I don’t know how it’s connected to CJ. To be honest, I don’t think the PD has much at all.”
Unsightly Bulges Page 25
