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

by Peggy Webb

  The phone rings and I startle like a quail flushed from the bush. Polish spills on the bathroom floor, and I grab the first thing I can find to mop it up.

  A brand new towel. One I’d bought at J.C. Penney’s on sale. But still…

  The phone rings again, insistent, and I wish I had let Lillian and Jean come to my apartment as they’d wanted to instead of meeting me at the court house. I’m going to be late to my own divorce.

  I consider not answering the phone, but it rings once more, and I think it might be Lydia. Or even Beth.

  “Hello?” I am as out of breath as if I’ve run a hundred yard dash instead of the few feet from my bathroom to my office.

  “It’s over, Maggie,” my lawyer says. “Dick’s decided to settle out of court.”

  o0o

  Due to the rain and the obvious lack of a front porch, the porch party we promised ourselves is taking place inside my apartment. I’m in sweats, Jean has shed her suit jacket and hiked her skirt over her hips and Lillian has kicked off her shoes. We are sitting in the middle of the floor with the bottle of Muscato they brought. It’s half empty. Or half full. Whichever way you want to look at it.

  In keeping with my fresh start, I decide to look at it as half full.

  “To freedom,” I say, lifting my glass.

  “Here, here,” Jean says, and we all clink glasses in mid-air. Then she proposes another toast. “To happiness.”

  “To the future,” Lillian says, and I can’t look at Jean. I feel as if a giant hand has reached down and squeezed all the air out of my lungs. The sudden silence is weighted with things we don’t say, heavy with fears we dare not express lest the universe snatch them away and turn them into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  “To the future!” Jean says this fiercely, and I say, “Hear, hear!”

  Lillian clinks her glass against ours. “To Maggie’s new house and the fabulous hunky carpenter who will fix it.”

  “Oh, wait!” Jean hops up and lurches to the bathroom, then yells through the open door. “Don’t say a thing till I get back.”

  There’s a crash in the bathroom followed by a string of words I’m glad Jean’s students can’t hear.

  “Do you need some help in there?” I ask.

  “You’re kinky, Maggie,” Jean yells back.

  And then everybody grows quiet. Lillian pulls two fat throw pillows off the sofa, one for her head and one for her feet, and then closes her eyes. She looks peaceful, and I can’t tell whether I’m seeing rest or the total fatigue of a woman whose heart is fading much too fast.

  I think, Please, God. Not now. Not yet. Lillian’s breathing is shallow, as quiet as snowflakes falling, and I lean in close to make sure her pulse is still beating.

  Satisfied, I shift so my back is braced against the sofa. Jean’s still in the bathroom and I’m alone with my thoughts.

  I didn’t see Dick when I signed the divorce papers. He was in another room, and I’m glad. Seeing him would have been too great a reminder of what we lost. I mourn some, and I wonder if he’s mourning, too. Not what we had, because our marriage was never good, not even in the beginning. But what we might have had. If we had been wiser. If we had loved more, forgiven more. If we had been two different people. If Dick had been the kind man I caught fleeting glimpses of and if I had been less eager to please, to placate, and more willing to be myself.

  Jean and Lillian and I have cheered my freedom, but the fact is, freedom is a double-edged sword. I am on my own with no security net to fall into - even if the net did have an alligator pit underneath - and nobody to tell me how not to make the same mistake again.

  I already have once. With Halbert. Sometimes I wish I’d kept his picture just as a reminder of how quickly a lonely woman can make a fool of herself.

  Jean comes back into the living room, skirt crooked, shoulders hunched, head turtled in, navigating the room as if it’s filled with land mines.

  “I broke that soap dish on the side of the tub.”

  “That’s all right. I never liked it anyhow. Dick gave it to me.”

  She slides down beside Lillian then reaches over and smoothes her hair back from her forehead.

  “You think we should wake her?” Jean asks.

  “No. Let her sleep. We’ll order Chinese.”

  “Get extra spring rolls for Lillian. And plenty of red sauce. She likes red sauce.”

  I know all these things as well as Jean does, but I think saying them aloud is reassuring, as if we can anchor Lillian to this world with words that prove our long history of friendship.

  I tiptoe out to place the order. By the time it arrives, the rain has stopped and the stars have popped out.

  The knock on the door rouses Lillian.

  “My treat,” she says, and then races to the door to pay the deliveryman for everything.

  Jean and I don’t argue - for the same reason, I think, both of us understanding that everything Lillian does these days might be her last. And our last. Our last chance to celebrate with her. Our last chance to hear her say my treat. Our last chance to hear her bell-like laughter and know that we are the cause.

  “We should eat outside,” Lillian says. “Under the stars.”

  “Perfect.” I grab towels and throw pillows, and we all troop down the hall and arrange ourselves on the fire escape, side by side, shoulders touching.

  “Look, Maggie.” Lillian points to Venus. “It’s a sign. You’ll have a house and somebody wonderful to share it with.”

  “Matt, the carpenter.” Jean says, giggling, and I punch her shoulder.

  “Would you stop it with Super Matt? What I need is a dog. Especially if Lillian is going to eat with chopsticks.”

  “You know it.” Lillian has already ripped them apart and dipped them into the Mandarin beef. Half goes into her mouth and half falls down the fire escape. “I told Carl what the doctor said.”

  “Christmas is a long way off, Lillian.” Jean says this as if she can will Christmas to stand in the wings a year or two, waiting till Lillian gets a donor heart.

  “That’s what Carl said. He thinks we shouldn’t tell the girls until we have to.”

  Carl is a wonderful man, and usually I agree with him on just about everything, but I could slap him for that choice of words. Why not unless we have to? Still, Lillian rarely discusses the uncertain future, and when she does, Jean and I sit back and let her talk.

  “He suggested we take them on a really great trip for summer vacation.”

  Carl will take his camera and record every moment then Lillian will make a scrapbook. If she’s able. If she’s here.

  Stop it, I tell myself. She’s going to make a scrapbook of this year and many summer vacations to come. By the time she’s a grandmother, she’ll have them stacked so high, Carl will have to add a library to hold them.

  “Where will you go, Lillian?” Jean says.

  “Not far.”

  Her reply sobers all of us. She’ll have to be close to her doctors here, close to Birmingham in case she gets a call.

  This fear squeezing my chest is almost unbearable.

  Suddenly Lillian looks up at the night sky. “I think we’re all made of stardust. Maybe we go back to being stars. Or maybe we get to come back as guardian angels.”

  I see tears tracking down Jean’s cheeks, but I’m determined to keep my own from spilling over.

  “Maggie.” Lillian turns to me. “Do you believe in guardian angels?”

  “I do. I have one.” I feel the rush of wings. “I really do, you know.”

  Suddenly we all hush, and it’s a reverent sort of stillness, the kind you’d feel if you were in church - or in the presence of angels.

  Jean is the first to break the silence. “I’m glad. If anybody ever needed one, it’s you, Maggie.”

  “Can you tell us about him?” Lillian says. “Or is that something you’re not supposed to do?”

  “How do you know it’s a him?” Jean says. “Maybe it’s a her.”

  �
�Or an it,” Lillian says. “Do angels have a gender?”

  They’ve addressed all these questions to me, as if I’m the expert. And I suppose I am since I’m the only one who claims to have contact with an angel, guardian or otherwise.

  “I think this one is female,” I say. And then I tell them about my first brush with angel wings.

  “I was distraught, and praying, I think, the kind where you’re wishing so hard you don’t need words to express your heart’s desire.” That’s all I tell them. I don’t give the details - that Dick had said I was worthless and I was close to believing him.

  “Suddenly I heard a voice saying, be still, and I felt a hand stroking my hair. I felt such a sense of calm, of peace. I knew it was my guardian angel. I climbed into bed and thought about that message.”

  “What did it mean?” Lillian said.

  “‘Be still and know that I am God’ was the first thing that came to my mind. Then, simply, be still, be calm.”

  “Is she here now?” Lillian looks around the alley as if she’s expecting to see flowing white robes and a gigantic pair of wings.

  “Probably. I can’t always tell.”

  “Do you think she’d mind if we proposed a toast to her?”

  I nod, and Jean picks up her glass. “I wouldn’t touch that with a ten foot pole,” she says.

  But Lillian is intrepid. “To Maggie’s guardian angel. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I hope that after today your job just got a whole lot easier.” We all lift our glasses high, then Lillian says, “Victory dance!”

  Jean and I exchange a glance but neither one of us is about to deprive her of this. We kick off our shoes and dance in a giddy circle around the landing, our arms firmly locked around Lillian, our faces lifted to the stars.

  If there was ever proof of guardian angels, this is it. Nobody topples off the edge. Afterward, we collapse into a heap, partially because we are all laughing so hard we can’t stand upright, but mostly so Lillian can catch her breath.

  “It’s late,” Lillian says, and Jean agrees, though it’s not yet ten.

  After they leave, I sit on the fire escape and study the constellations, looking for hope, I think. They’re not as bright in the city as they are on the farm. Too much competition from the street lights and electronic billboards and flashing neon signs that announce pit barbeque and movie rentals and all night liquor stores.

  For a moment I look backward. But only for a moment. I’m determined not to be one of those bitter complaining women, stuck to the past, trapped like flies in a spider web, drained of everything except their own history.

  I am so lucky, I think. And then I say the words aloud.

  “I am so lucky.”

  I’m free at last. The journey was long and hard, but made more bearable by good friends.

  I think about the house I’m going to have, one with a front porch and a patch of earth to plant flowers, one big enough for all my books and a dog. Maybe two.

  And then I think about Lillian’s final toast, the one to my guardian angel: I hope your job got easier.

  I hope so, too.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The first morning after I left Dick, I stood in the middle of my apartment stark naked, turning round and round, wondering what to do. Should I take a bath first or eat breakfast? Should I dress and walk to the post office for my mail or should I sit down at my computer and write?

  The familiarity of routine, gone. So many choices. And no one to make them except me.

  I have the same feeling now, elated and disoriented at the same time. Heady stuff, this freedom.

  Should I start looking for a house right away, or should I wait until the market is better? Should I invest all my settlement into a house, or put some of it aside for a rainy day? Should I wear purple?

  I sit at my desk, dig out my divorce papers and stare at the names, Dick Hudson versus Maggie Hudson. These papers could be the story of our marriage, always one versus the other.

  In the bottom right hand drawer of my desk is a legal pad with purple paper that gives me a lift every time I look at it. At the top of the page I write Maggie’s New Life, then underneath List of Priorities.

  House is the first thing that comes to mind. I list it in bold letters then I think of my children, Lydia who’s still struggling to find a place for herself, and Beth who treats me like a stranger.

  How can I create a new home if one of my daughters won’t even speak to me?

  I erase house and write CHILDREN, black ink, all caps, then I pick up the phone and call Jean. She and Lillian and I had planned to house hunt during spring break.

  “I can’t look at houses next week, Jean.”

  “Why not? Bill’s anxious for you to see the fixer-upper before somebody else makes an offer. It won’t stay on the market forever, Maggie.”

  “I’m going to Texas to see the girls.”

  Jean doesn’t question why. Though she has no children of her own, she understands.

  “Will you stay at Beth’s?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t called her yet. But I’m hoping now that the divorce is final she’ll come around.”

  “Maggie, don’t get your hopes too high.”

  “I won’t.”

  But I do. Even though I have a dark premonition I still hope that when I telephone, Beth will call me Mother.

  I dial her number right after I call Jean, before I get cold feet. She answers on the third ring.

  “Beth, honey, it’s me.”

  “I know who it is.”

  My stomach drops, and I scoot to the floor with the telephone cradled against my ear. I used to cradle Beth that way when she had colic, high upon my chest with her soft cheek pressed against mine and her rosebud mouth close to my ear so I could hear the cadence of her breathing.

  “It’s over,” I say, reluctant to mention the word divorce.

  “Dad told me.”

  Beth and I used to talk about everything. Mixed with my sadness is a stab of jealousy that she’s talked to Dick and not to me, and I wonder if he called her or if she called him.

  I’ve just discovered something that many divorced women before me already know: a piece of paper doesn’t stop the hurt. Divorce decrees untangle possessions, not lives.

  “Beth, I’m coming to Houston.” I pause, waiting for a reaction, hoping for one. “Next week,” I add before the silence becomes too painful.

  Still nothing. I can no longer pretend. Beth is not going to say, that’s great, Mother. She’s not going to say, let’s put the past behind us. She’s not even going to say, we have plenty of room, you can stay here.

  She has five bedrooms, but no room for me.

  “I’ll take a room at a motel,” I say, anxious to put her at ease, still hoping. Then suddenly I resent my own daughter. When is it going to be my turn? When am I going to be the one other people worry about, try to please?

  “That’s best,” she says.

  Wings unfurl then close around me. My waning courage bolsters.

  “It’s spring break; I’ll be there in a few days. I want to see you.”

  A long silence, then, “No,” she says, never knowing how one word can break a mother’s heart. I am not going to cry.

  o0o

  South Texas is flat and treeless except for the scrawny, scraggly mesquite which is more bush than tree. The sky is huge, and so blue the brightness hurts your eyes. I’m wearing a big pair of red sunglasses I bought at Walmart especially for the trip and a sunhat with a sassy yellow ribbon tied around the brim. I had some misbegotten idea that all those cheerful colors would present me in a different light to my daughters. Maggie Hudson, unflappable, unsinkable.

  I drive the speed limit, and cars pass me as if I’m sitting still. A green Volvo with a girl who looks like Beth at the wheel. An old station wagon, the kind with wooden panels on the sides, kids bouncing around in the back seat punching each other in the face. A sleek red Jaguar, top down, a beautiful red-head with rhinestones on her
sunglasses wrapped around the driver so tight that all I can see of his face is a hooked nose and a gray mustache.

  Obviously, he’s not her grandfather.

  The sun disappears suddenly, and I’m left in the semi-darkness of a strange orange sky. Back home sunsets happen gradually, with the sun descending gracefully over the hills, leaving behind ribbons of pink and purple and gold.

  The car makes that funny sound again, and I glance anxiously at the instrument panel. No red lights flashing, no warnings signs. Something underneath the hood started knocking just as I crossed over the Mississippi/ Louisiana border and knocked intermittently all the way into Texas, like an uninvited guest who won’t go away.

  Where is Mr. Fixit when I need him? Shoot, I’d even settle for Jean’s Super Matt.

  It’s almost dark. I would feel better about turning into the Exxon station if I had a dog traveling with me.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?” The man is young and sincere, with grease on his hands and a tattoo on his bicep that says, Eat more possum.

  “I hope so.” I describe the knocking. Then while he checks under the hood, I stand on the concrete apron under the glare of a flashing neon sign that declares Roger’s Store - Eat, Get Gas.

  I smile at the sign while the young attendant describes my car problem in excruciating detail that means nothing to me.

  “Can you fix it?” I say.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “‘Bout thirty minutes, give or take a few.”

  I decide to go inside to eat, taking a risk that the advice on the neon sign won’t come true. Two tables with red checked oil clothes and folding chairs are sandwiched between the potato chip rack and a display of motor oil. The food is displayed under glaring lights at the checkout counter, all of it fried. Though the sign says they serve chicken and home fries and egg rolls and fried apple pies, everything looks alike and I have to ask which one is the fried chicken.

  I sit at the table alone and feeling self-conscious. The young woman behind the checkout counter glances over the top of the cash register every now and then., and I wonder if she’s admiring my hat or feeling pity for me because I am by myself and digging into my fried chicken in a way that signals I’m obviously not waiting for anybody to join me. This is my first experience traveling alone, and I get a small taste of what the next few years will be like. Or perhaps even the rest of my life.