Stars to Lead Me Home: Love and Marriage (A Novel)

by Peggy Webb

  Jean cuts enormous slices, and we balance cake on paper napkins and eat with our fingers, naughty children with chocolate on our faces, enjoying instant gratification. Afterward I gather a large bouquet of daffodils my great grandmother planted, and then the three of us lie side by side on the quilt, Lillian in the middle, a row of friends with sunlight coming through the leaves and dappling our faces.

  “When I was thirteen I could turn fifty cartwheels without stopping… I don’t know if I’ll ever turn cartwheels again.” Lillian says this quietly, without any hint of the fear that is clawing up my spine. “I went to Dr. Simpson yesterday, after school.”

  My heart squeezes. Dr. Simpson is her local cardiologist, the one who discovered she has cardiomyopathy and sent her to Birmingham.

  “He says that unless I get a heart, I won’t live till Christmas.”

  Suddenly all the oxygen is gone from the air. I hear Jean gasp and I can’t breathe. I want to run and scream and slap somebody. Hard.

  Jean and I reach for Lillian’s hands then lie there, anchored. As long as we are holding onto each other, nothing bad can happen. This is what I tell myself.

  “Doctors don’t know everything, Lillian.” This from Jean, who has fire and brimstone in her voice.

  If Jean can recover this fast, I can, too.

  “You’ll get a heart.” Though Lillian said not to, I’m silently, desperately praying for a donor heart. I’m a big believer in positive thinking, in the power of prayers and miracles and stars.

  “I might not, Maggie… I haven’t told Carl. I don’t want him to know, at least not yet. He’s not as strong as you and Jean.”

  That’s debatable. Especially at the moment. But I’d eat soup with a fork before I’d admit it.

  “I can’t wish for one, Maggie.”

  “I know.”

  “I just want my life to be normal…until it’s not. And I want you two to help me do that.”

  “Nothing bad is going to happen to you.” Jean sounds as if she’s just picked up an ice ax and plans to hack her way across the Arctic. “It’ll have to go through me first.”

  “Oh, Jean.” Lillian’s reprimand comes out so soft I have to strain to hear. “Don’t.”

  We all get quiet while time holds its breath and waits, suspended. The silence is both terrible and beautiful, the kind that gives birth to the utter truth. Here’s what I know: Lillian can no longer soldier through alone, no matter what she says about normal.

  I can’t imagine a future without her. That’s what I always tell myself. But she’s finally asking us to face that possibility, and I find myself filling up with a sacred strength I didn’t even known I possessed.

  “Lillian, I promise you… I’m going to be staunch for your family, even if you die.”

  “Maggie!” Jean lifts herself on one elbow to glare at me. “Wash your mouth out with soap.”

  “Hush, Jean. It’s time to face the truth. If I don’t make it, I want to be cremated and I want both of you to scatter my ashes under this tree.”

  I can’t even picture Lillian being reduced to nothing but ash. Judging by the sounds coming from her side of the quilt, Jean is having the same trouble. I wait, still as a held breath, for whatever comes next.

  “Do you think I’ll undergo some great cosmic change in the hereafter, or do you think I’ll look like myself?”

  I imagine a little pop, the sound of three hearts breaking. Jean is also getting up a head of steam. I feel it as surely as I can feel rain in storm clouds. Any minute she’s going to burst out of her skin and shout, Stop that kind of talk, Lillian.

  “I think you will,” I tell her, and thank goodness, Jean says, “Of course!”

  “I don’t know,” Lillian says. “Maybe this is all we have. Maybe Heaven’s been here, inside us, all along, and we’ve somehow missed the boat because we don’t take the time to appreciate it.”

  “I’ve never missed a single boat.” Jean says this with fierce conviction. “And neither have you, Lillian.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Jean’s right. I’ve never seen a person appreciate life more than you, Lillian.”

  “Well, good.” Lillian’s breathing hard, a stark reminder that we’d better not miss a word she says today. “Carl will want a gigantic monument so he can bring the girls to visit. Don’t let him put up something with wings.”

  “No angels,” I say, though I’ve always pictured my own grave as being guarded by stone wings.

  “No gargoyles either,” Lillian says.

  “Gargoyles?” Jean’s up on her elbow again, her face red from heat and indignation. “Are you crazy?”

  “Certifiable,” Lillian says, and finally we burst into laughter. There’s mercy in this kind of laughter, a promise that says life goes on, no matter what.

  Lillian sits up, claps her hands in her best school teacher’s manner.

  “Enough of this. No more maudlin talk.”

  “What do you want to talk about, Lillian?” I ask her.

  “Anything but me!”

  “Let’s start with Kentucky Fried Chicken.” Jean pops up and grabs the bucket, while Lillian and I pretend we don’t see the tear tracks in her makeup. She grabs a chicken leg then passes the bucket. “I wonder how come my fried chicken didn’t make me rich and famous?”

  “Because you don’t fry chicken,” I tell her.

  “Because you’re not a man,” Lillian says. Then, to me. “Speaking of which, I haven’t heard from Halbert. The skunk.”

  “Low down rat fink,” Jean says.

  “Wart on a hog’s nose,” I add. That’s how easy it is when your best friend says she wants normal. “I haven’t heard from him, either.”

  “Be glad,” Jean says. “How’s that divorce recovery workshop?”

  “Don’t ask.” I mimic Lydia, wrinkle my nose, stick out my tongue.

  “I’m not going to say I told you so.” Jean refills our lemonade glasses, then passes the chicken again, and we all take seconds. “Have you heard from Dick?”

  I shake my head, make another face. “Forget Halbert and Dick. I have a surprise.” I jump up and rummage in my picnic basket.

  “Not more food.” Jean groans, but I can tell it’s fake. “If I eat another bite I’m going to turn into the Goodyear blimp and go flying over Jackson.”

  “No. Not food.” I’d made a special trip by the apartment to get the manuscript I now dig out of the basket. I hadn’t intended to tell them until I found out whether or not it would sell. But time is a thief in more ways than one, and I want Lillian to know. “I’m writing a book.”

  “Oh, my gosh, Maggie,” Lillian says. “To do a thing like that takes guts. But then, I’ve always known you’re a gutsy woman.”

  “Maggie’s following her dream.” Jean hugs me hard.

  The two of us used to swing on the grapevine behind the barn and tell each other our dreams, which ranged from growing up to be a cowgirl to becoming first female President of the United States. And always I would say, Someday I’m going to be a writer.

  Lillian and Jean sit cross-legged while I open the file folder that contains the manuscript pages. Everything is hushed and still. I feel their respect as well as their excitement, and something inside me stands up and shouts, yes.

  I begin to read: “In a last-ditch effort to save their marriage, Ellie made dinner with all of Rex’s favorite foods and then she put Obsession in the crooks of her knees and elbows. She even patted some on the crotch of her panties.”

  Lillian and Jean hoot with laughter, and I join in. We laugh so hard we’re hanging onto each other, gasping for breath.

  “I did that once,” Lillian said.

  Jean uses her shirt sleeve to wipe the tears of mirth that roll down her cheeks. “Did it work?”

  “Not the way I intended. Instead of Carl following me around the house panting, it was the dog.”

  We go into fresh gales of laughter. By the time we compose ourselves and I finish reading, the sun is
setting.

  “Before we go, a toast.” Jean pours lemonade into three glasses, and we lift them toward the darkening sky. “To Maggie, the next Jane Austen.”

  “This calls for cake.” Lillian drags out the pitiful remains then sits there pondering aloud whether to leave a piece for manners.

  Jean quickly settles the dilemma. “Manners won’t be coming today.” She divides the leftovers into three equal parts. We polish off the chocolate, then stand in a tight circle embracing before we waddle to our cars.

  I glance up at the night sky to see Venus, arriving early to the star party, sparkling as if she’s twirling her skirts while she dances. Something hopeful unfolds in me and I whisper, “Please.” Just that one word, a prayer, a song, a miracle for Lillian.

  When I return to my apartment I light candles. Rituals demand candlelight.

  Halbert’s picture is where I left it, sitting on the right-hand corner of my desk still in its silver frame. There is no rage when I remove it, no urgency, only a bone-deep, rock-solid determination.

  The scissors in my desk are fifteen years old. I bought them at a local fabric store and paid more than I meant to.

  I kick off my shoes, get comfortable and cut Halbert into a dozen tiny pieces. Then I march into the bathroom and toss him into the toilet. For good measure I sit down and relieve myself. Then I flush and watch him swirl down the drain.

  “Goodbye, Halbert. If you were the best, God help us all.”

  Lillian would approve. She’d probably applaud.

  Outside, the sky suddenly breaks open and sends rain hammering at the roof and rattling at the windows. It’s as if all the elements are weeping in sympathy.

  I make tea, then turn on my radio, wrap myself in a warm blanket in the corner of my sofa and wait for the comforting voice of Mr. Fixit.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I’m on the phone with Lillian, still in my lazy Sunday mode, sitting in a ray of sunshine that pours through my window and bathes the white walls of my apartment in a soft yellow light. Outside, tires swish on the pavement still wet from last night’s hard rain as people race from one end of town to the other. People with a purpose.

  I feel disconnected. Unplugged. Beached. A whale who can’t find her way back to the water. The memory of home is strong in me, a magnet pulling me backward.

  “Lillian, are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m better today, Maggie. Really, I am. But you don’t sound good. What’s up?”

  “Maybe I’m coming down with a spring cold.” My heart is heavy, and so are my legs. They don’t want to take me anywhere, not even to the kitchen to get a drink of water. I’m familiar with the dips and peaks of the emotional roller coaster Jean and Lillian and I have been on, but this bone-deep lethargy scares me.

  “Get to a doctor, Maggie.”

  “I don’t feel that bad.”

  “I mean it. You try to take care of the world. It’s time to take care of yourself.”

  o0o

  The clinic is open at one. The only other person in the waiting room is an old woman in a pink flowered shirt and blue pants. She looks out of place hunched over on the edge of a black and chrome chair, an earthling kidnapped by aliens. The black gooseneck lamp behind her appears to be growing out of her head.

  I select a magazine featuring an assortment of hairstyles three years out of date and flip the pages until I find an article about vacation spots in exotic places. Hawaii is the place of choice for the reporter, and he makes the Big Island sound like a cross between Camelot and heaven.

  Someday when I travel I’m going to places with names nobody ever heard of, out-of-the-way places with quaint restaurants run by somebody’s Aunt Sue and cozy little hotels that have four poster beds made of real cherry and a manager who worries if you go sightseeing and don’t get back by eleven o’clock at night.

  “When you’re finished with that magazine, can I have it?”

  “You can have it now.”

  We meet halfway across the room, me with the magazine, the other woman with an outstretched hand, and when I’m close enough I see that she’s not old at all. Her skin is smooth and her eyes are untroubled.

  Now that we’ve made a connection, sitting across the room seems impolite. I sit close enough to be friendly but far enough away so she can retreat behind her magazine if she wants to. On the same row with two chairs between.

  The pages rustle as she turns them. “My husband’s dead, you know.”

  She looks up at me, expecting comment.

  I’ve traveled places with Dick where we would stop for lunch and stay twenty minutes longer than we planned because I struck up a conversation with some woman in the restroom who needed the relief of telling her complete history.

  Once we got back on the road Dick would grind his teeth and grip the steering wheel so hard I pictured myself having to take a crowbar to pry him loose.

  “A total stranger, Maggie,” he would say after I explained why I was late.

  “She needed to talk.”

  Now, this woman needs to talk and I’m ready to listen. It’s the least I can do.

  “I’m so sorry about your husband.”

  “It was just last year he died. Killed on a motorcycle. Ran it right out in front of an eighteen wheeler.”

  I picture Dick racing a Harley on roads filled with treacherous curves and huge transport trucks, and me, wearing black.

  The woman smiles as if she’s just told me the time of day, and I am filled with envy and shame.

  I also filled with eagerness and a lop-sided kind of hope. She knows something I don’t know, a sacred secret of serenity.

  “This last year must have been very hard for you.” I lean forward, my body language shouting tell me.

  “At first it was. I cried every day for two weeks, and then I got on Prozac. Now, nothing bothers me.”

  I expel my breath, a pricked balloon, circling slowly around the ceiling. And then I notice something I didn’t see before: the woman’s smile never touches her eyes.

  “Oh,” I say, which is all I can think of, and then I retreat behind a magazine until the nurse calls me back to an examining room.

  Glenda Franks is not only a doctor, but also a former neighbor. We greet each other by first names, and I tell her I think I’m coming down with a cold.

  “Hmmm,” she says as she examines me, ending with a stethoscope over my heart. “Any hot flashes? Insomnia? Hair loss?”

  Last night when I got into the tub, I covered my privates with an extra washcloth so I didn’t have to see the devastation, like Baghdad, bombed.

  “No. I’m too young for that.”

  “I know, but it’s inevitable.” She hands me a brochure. “Read up on it.”

  The brochure is on Estrace. Similar to erase. Hair, sleep, fertility - gone, wiped out by the careless hand of time.

  “How are you otherwise, Maggie?”

  “I have good days and bad days.”

  “I could put you on Prozac.” She sees my revulsion. “Just for a little while. To get you over the hump.”

  “No, thanks.” How can you appreciate joy if you avoid pain? How can you even tell the difference if you’re a robot?

  “All right, then. Go to the park and sit in the sun, take a long walk, shop, spend money.”

  “Are you saying I need to get out more?”

  “Yes. I see Dick and what’s her name out occasionally, but I never see you.”

  Shock ripples through me. I think of all the places I used to go by myself - Lydia’s soccer games, Beth’s piano recitals, community fund raisers, the movies, even dinner, for goodness sakes, as if I were already uncoupled. At first Dick made excuses not to go, and then he stopped even that pretense. In the last few years I stayed with him, I made bargains with myself. Okay, I would say, I can do this. I can stay and hold this family together if only he’ll go out with me. Not often. Just once in a while, maybe once every month or two. But he never did.

  The most unbear
able loneliness in the world is when you’re with someone and still feel alone.

  I feel cheated.

  “Oh, yes. What’s her name? I forget.” I say this nonchalantly as if I’ve known all along, as if I’m a part of this conspiracy to maintain a double standard, men doing what they please and women with detectives on their tails. In a manner of speaking.

  “You know . . . that woman who moved into the house on the corner a few years back.”

  I know, all right. Her name is Marsha Legget and she wears her hair dyed jet black and her lips pale pink outlined with maroon. She’s three inches taller than I am, ten pounds lighter, and speaks four languages, all with a noticeable Southern drawl. She lives in a house surrounded by tall shrubbery and filled with appliances that don’t work. At least, that’s what all the women in the neighborhood assumed since one husband or the other on the block was always being summoned to Marsha’s house to ‘just fix this little old thingamajig’ on her waffle iron or her hair dryer or her toaster.

  My only consolation is that is Marsha not young. She’s forty-five if she’s a day.

  I collect my purse and the pieces of myself while Glenda scribbles out another prescription.

  Arsenic, perhaps? The makings of a magic potion so I can toast Marsha’s fixer?

  “Antibiotic, Maggie.” She hands me the paper. “To take before your dental appointments.”

  I know about the damage loneliness and insecurity can do, but is there another kind, the kind that can wreak havoc on a heart weakened at birth? I hold my breath, checking the rhythms of my heart.

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “No change, Maggie. Same old heart murmur. Totally nonthreatening. The antibiotics are just a precaution, that’s all.”

  “Against what?” -

  “There’s always the risk of carrying an infection to a heart like yours because of the blood that flows across it, even from something as simple as having your teeth cleaned.”

  Is that what happened to Lillian’s heart? She never told us why, and I was so wrapped up in what, I forgot to ask.

  o0o

  Back in my apartment I race to the phone.