by Peggy Webb
“You two!” Lillian flings her arms wide and we walk into her embrace then stay that way until my heart’s rhythm eases.
“You didn’t think we’d miss this, did you?” Jean drags a chair close the bed and plops down. “Somebody has to be here to boss the doctors around.”
“That would be you, Jean.”
“I know it, Maggie. You can’t boss your way out of a paper bag.”
Lillian giggles, which was Jean’s intent all along, and I hover behind Jean’s chair, too restless to sit.
“How are the girls?” I ask Lillian.
“Mother’s staying at our house with them. I want everything to be as normal as possible for them. They think I’m going to come home like brand new.”
“You are! I won’t have it any other way.” Jean hitches closer to the bed. “Maggie and I saw the chopper bringing in your heart.”
I punch her in the arm, hard enough that she huffs out a big breath.
“It’s all right, Maggie,” Lillian says. “I need to talk about a few things before Carl gets back.”
I don’t think I’m prepared to hear it. I don’t think I was born with the same equipment some women were, a strong backbone and a courageous spirit, unshakable faith and the ability to walk through fire with a friend then come out on the other end, triumphant.
Still, I say to her, “Talk. Tell us anything you want, and we’ll do it for you.” Then I hold my breath, hoping my promises are true.
“I might not make it through this.” Lillian says this without tears, but I feel Jean squirming, working herself up to tell her to stop it. I pinch Jean, but not so hard she squeaks. “If I don’t, Carl and Mother will need you. Both of them will want to smother the girls, keep them close so they’ll be safe.”
Lillian pauses to place a small chip of ice on her tongue, and I see how talking has taxed her, cringe at the idea that she’ll soon be in surgery and she can’t even relieve her parched throat with a drink of water.
“We’ll be there. We’ll take good care of your family. I promise.” I tell her all this, meaning it with every quaking fiber in my body. “Don’t you worry about a thing except being strong throughout the surgery.”
“Ditto everything Maggie said. If I’d had kids, I’d have been a horrible mother, but if Maggie will do all the heavy lifting, I can shine like a star. But you listen here, Lillian. You’re going to come through this like a champ.”
“Jean’s right.”
“You bet your sweet patootie, I am.”
The door behind us eases open and we all turn that way, expecting Carl. Instead, it’s a doctor in surgeon’s scrubs, his face far too serious for my liking. I hold my breath as he comes to the side of Lillian’s bed.
“Lillian, I have some news for you.”
“I know.” Lillian smiles at him. “I’ve been ready for this for two years.”
“The heart is not a match.” This bomb detonates, wiping out smiles and optimism and hope. Jean and I grab Lillian’s hands, hang on tight. “The blood match was perfect, but the heart, itself, is too big for your chest cavity. I’m so sorry, Lillian.”
Regret hangs over the room like a fog, obscuring logic and explanations delivered in medical terminology I don’t understand. What I do know is the shock on Lillian’s face, sorrow and fear so deep I can feel it seeping through my own bones, tightening my chest, clogging my throat, forming a river of tears I’ll save until I’m safe at home in my own bed, my own apartment.
Be strong for Lillian. This is the voice that keeps playing through my mind, and I send a prayer winging upward that I’m equal to this task, that together Jean and I can shore up Lillian’s spirit, convince her there’s a perfect heart just waiting for the right time to find a new home with her.
o0o
Nothing seems real after we get back from Birmingham.
The first thing I do is have a powwow with Jean on how we can help Lillian forget the heart that wouldn’t fit and live true to her own intentions, not in a holding pattern but with the full-out joy that’s her hallmark.
The next is race back to Home Depot. With the list Mr. Fixit gave me, I march through the hardware aisles with the confidence of a woman who knows exactly what she wants.
Halbert is still in town, and it’s nice to fall into the comfort of a man’s arms. That niggling doubt I’d had on the farm disappears, and soon I’m thinking about the house I’ll have with a bedroom just right for two.
I miss home the way you would a severed limb, not just the physical structure and size of a house, but the comfort of moving through rooms you’ve painted your favorite colors then decorated with throw pillows and family photographs and hope, the joy of walking through gardens you nurtured through bad winters and bad soil.
By the time Halbert heads back to Tampa, I’m even thinking of the flower gardens we’ll plant together. He says he’ll call every day, sounds like he means it, and I take it as a promise.
In spite of his departure and our crushing news about Lillian, I hurry home from school with a feeling of optimism. I grab the mail out of box and notice with a combination of hope and dread that there’s a big fat envelope from Dick’s lawyer. Could this be the message I’ve been waiting for, a letter filled with official jargon that boils down to Let’s settle this now, peacefully, no accusations, no airing dirty laundry, no more white vans lurking around?
A letter this important calls for tea. I could check my telephone messages while I wait, both on my iPhone and my land line; but I like to do one thing at a time, concentrate solely on the moment and the task at hand. I add real cream to my tea, an extra teaspoon of honey. Big occasions call for large doses of pampering.
I place my teacup on a trivet on my desk, select my favorite letter opener, brass with a unicorn on the handle - a gift from Lydia - then slice into my news.
To: Mrs. Margaret Jane Hudson. Please answer the attached questions and have them to us no later than…
I don’t even read the date. I’ve lost my taste for cream and honey. Sitting there staring at the questions on the hateful legal document, yet another stalling tactic, I feel patience and optimism drain away like bath water.
The tea is growing cold and the red light is blinking on my answering machine. Why not? It could be Halbert, calling to say he’s flying back to Jackson, he can’t live without me, he sees a future for us with a country cottage and roses on the fence.
I smile, press the button, listen to the first message. It’s Lydia.
Jean calls in the midst of her message. I stop the machine, press save.
“Bill’s going to be working late tonight and I think Lillian needs cheering up.” Jean is calling from her cell phone, a minor miracle for her.
“I think she’s doing remarkably well under the circumstances.”
“Still, let’s do something, have dinner, go to the movies. Channing Tatum’s at the Malco.”
She doesn’t have to name the movie. If Channing Tatum is in it, the three of us go, then sit close enough to ogle but far enough away from the rest of the crowd so we can carry on a whispered running commentary about everything from his melt-your-bones sex appeal to the amount of butter on the popcorn we’re sharing. Too much, according to Jean, never enough, according to Lillian.
I glance through the fat sheaves of paper on my desk. Interrogatories. Questions from Dick’s lawyer prospecting in the Black Hills, still trying to find gold.
How much money do I have in my account, they want to know, as if I’ve stolen Dick’s money and squirreled it away. How much do I make a month?
Not nearly enough, I want to say.
Why don’t they ask the right questions? Why don’t they ask who was the parent who sat up every night for three months when Beth had colic? Who was the one who sat on the front row of the bleachers in the pouring rain and cheered Lydia’s soccer team? Who was the one who changed the wet sheets and fixed hot meals for Dick’s father every day from the time he had his stroke until the day he died?
These interrogatories are designed so a judge can place some kind of value on my services. Ten cents an hour for all the meals I cooked. A nickel for child care. Twenty cents for the laundry. Two for housework.
They are designed for indentured servants, not wives and mothers.
“I can’t tonight, Jean.”
“Why not, I’d like to know?”
“If I don’t get this bunch of lawyerly stuff off my desk I’m going to end up screaming down the street, naked.”
“Get a horse. Be Lady Godiva. This town could use some shaking up.”
“Not by me. At least not until the divorce is final. You two have fun.”
“All right, then. But don’t you dare ask me to describe Channing Tatum’s abs, because I don’t intend to tell you a thing.”
She will, though, and in great detail - tomorrow, while she and Lillian and I are drinking Diet Coke in the teacher’s lounge.
I pick up the interrogatories, snort with disgust and toss them aside, then punch the play button on my answering machine again.
“Martin’s a jerk, Mom. I’m coming home.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I am totally unprepared for this daughter of mine, this young woman with blue in her hair and pain in her heart. Wait a minute, I want to say, you’re not old enough to be hurt. You should be riding your tricycle down the street selling Girl Scout cookies.
“I’m going to kill him, Mom, I’m going to wrap my iPhone charger cord around his neck and squeeze some sense into him.”
I hand Lydia another Kleenex and she wads it in her fist, ignoring the tears that streak her face and drip off her chin. We’re sitting in the middle of my bed. It’s past midnight and she’s been ranting ever since she got home. Since nine o’clock this evening.
I would like to shake some sense into Martin myself. “If I could get my hands on him, he’d think twice before he skips out leaving you with a broken heart and the rent, to boot.”
“Really, Mom?”
There’s admiration in her tone, and more than a little surprise. I am the mouse that finally roared.
“Yes, really. I’d show that little twerp what’s what. I’d tie a tin can on his tail that would rattle every time he sneezes.”
Whooping with glee, Lydia launches herself at me, and we both tumble off the bed.
“Gosh, I’m sorry. Did I hurt you, Mom?”
“It takes more than a little tumble to stop this old girl.” I ruffle her short spiky hair. “You’ll get through this, little girl.”
My pet name for Lydia. She puts-her head on my shoulder, sniffling.
“You won’t tell Dad?”
I feel a malicious pleasure that she’s chosen me as confidante instead of Dick. See, I want to shout to anybody who will listen. See there.
Hard on its heels is the guilt. My answer is meek and probably not very wise.
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
“Why bother? He never listens. And if he did, all he’d offer is a check.”
I wish he’d offer me a check. And soon. My life is on hold, and I want it to be on fast forward.
We get off the floor then raid the cabinets looking for a midnight snack. Lydia settles on a suspiciously dark banana smeared with peanut butter and I opt for a stem of grapes past their prime.
“I’m not going back to him,” she says. “Even if he shows up on your doorstep crying and begging.”
“I don’t have a doorstep. And if I did and he did I’d probably kick his fanny all the way to Timbuktu and back.”
Lydia crams the rest of her snack into her mouth, then circles me like an auctioneer appraising the merchandise.
“Gosh, Mom, you look great. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so. . . so much yourself.”
Her compliment moves me to tears.
“That jerk. He hasn’t settled yet, has he?”
“He’s your father, Lydia. You shouldn’t talk about him that way.”
“Let’s don’t either one of us talk about him. Let’s go to bed. I’ll take the couch.”
“Nonsense.” I throw an extra quilt across the bed. Lydia freezes in winter, no matter what the temperature. “There’s room for two.”
I am vividly aware of my daughter, the weight of her making the mattress sag, the scent of her, the lemony shampoo she uses mixed with the clean outdoorsy smell of her skin. My heart is full of her.
“Mom?”
“Hmmm?”
“Will you tell me a story? Like when I was a little girl?”
I tell her favorite, Sleeping Beauty, and when I come to the part about the Prince waking Sleeping Beauty with a kiss I wonder if I’ve used fairy tales instead platitudes to cover the truth.
o0o
“It’s called psychic separation,” Lydia says.
She’s in the bathroom flushing Martin’s picture down the toilet. Her eyes are puffy from her crying marathon, her hair is a tuft of blue fuzz and her sleep shirt hangs off one shoulder. She looks like an orphaned baby bird, and I want to take her under my wing and shield her.
Instead I give her the thumbs up sign, a familiar gesture of encouragement. When she was twelve and racing down the soccer field she would always turn her head toward the bleachers, looking for my sign.
“Good riddance,” I say. “Do you want biscuits?”
It’s Saturday morning and I love the luxury of cooking a full-fledged breakfast.
“Ugh.” Lydia rambles through the refrigerator and emerges with a carton of strawberries, a can of whipped cream and a jar of orange marmalade. She plops it in the middle of the table. “Let’s celebrate.”
I don’t ask what. Instead I get out the good china and light the candles. While I’m setting the places, Lydia prowls the apartment, discovers the photograph of Halbert and me.
“Who’s the good looking dude?”
“Lillian’s cousin. From Tampa.” My face feels hot and I hope it doesn’t show.
“Is he the one who called last night when you said you couldn’t talk now . . . Mom?”
“It’s not that I’m trying to hide anything, at least not from you.”
“Way to go!” She dredges a strawberry in whipped cream, savors it, then plops onto a kitchen chair, nightshirt flaring. “Come on. Let’s eat. Double celebration. Off with the old, on with the new.”
She eats marmalade straight from the jar. “What’s his name?”
“Halbert.”
It’s good to see her laugh, even if it is at Halbert’s expense.
“I’ll call him Hal when I see him. I will get to meet him, won’t I, Mom?”
“I think so.”
Lydia finishes the jar of marmalade. “I’m going to call Beth. Not about Halbert. She’d stroke out.”
The apartment is so small the only place to have any semblance of a private conversation is in my office, and then only if you shut the door. Lydia leaves the door wide open, greets Beth in a throaty yell then skewers her.
“When’s the last time you talked to Mom? ... A Christmas card? Excuse me while I go puke.”
I squeeze the dish towel, torn between yelling at Lydia not to fight with her sister and sticking my heard around the doorframe to whisper thank you.
The Christmas card Beth sent is propped on the shelf above the kitchen sink. It’s a winter scene, rabbits in the snow, a cardinal overhead, everything silvery and hushed. Peace on earth is printed inside in Gothic script, and underneath one word. Beth.
I stare at her signature, trying to decipher it, trying to give it significance.
“My future’s all planned,” Lydia says. How did she sneak up behind me?
She’s at my elbow, staring at the card. I close it, set it back on the shelf and pick up the dish towel.
“Beth just needs a little time, that’s all. She’ll come around.”
“You bet your britches, she will. I’m going out to Texas to knock some sense into her.”
“Lydia.”
“Just kidding.” She stacks our plate
s and puts them in the cabinet. “But I am headed to Houston. You know that future I’ve got planned? Well, Beth’s the one who planned it. She wants me to come out there and work with her and Daniel.” Lydia wrinkles her nose and sticks out her tongue.
Beth and Daniel have a thriving landscape business. He’s a landscape architect and she works with him, which is ironic since Lydia was the one who tagged around after me in the yard, digging in the dirt planting things, narcissus and tulip and hyacinth bulbs, lavender and sweet alyssum and sunflower seed.
“I think you’ll like that,” I say. What I don’t say is that I wish I’d thought of it. I don’t even say Is that what you want to do? Is that what you want to be?
How can I ask my daughter questions I can no longer answer for myself?
“It’s not permanent. A stopgap solution, Beth calls it. Until I can ‘map a course for my future.’”
Always the actress, Lydia perfectly mimics her sister. I laugh. “While you’re mapping, draw one for me, too.”
“Can you give me gas money? I’m kinda broke.”
While Lydia and I make plans, I think about the many ways a woman can be broke. Once I read somewhere that time heals only a clean wound, and I wonder if my wounds are clean.
o0o
Later that evening I take my portable radio to the fire escape so I can listen to Mr. Fixit under the stars. His mellow voice is the perfect companion for a night sky blanketed with so many stars even the city lights can’t obscure their beauty.
Somewhere up there the Whirlpool Galaxy is spinning and colliding, giving birth to stars. My apartment is too small for the kind of telescope I need to observe this bit of magic. Still, it’s enough to tip my head back and imagine I see an explosion of new stars as Mr. Fixit says, Goodnight. I’ll see you next week.
CHAPTER NINE
“How can an apartment that was too small three days ago suddenly be too large?” I say.
Jean and I are at a PTA meeting, snatching a private moment before six hundred parents descend on us demanding fruit punch and answers.
