Maud's House

by Sherry Roberts

  I silently stepped into the big barn.

  Slowly, the smile slid from my face, like a single melted tear.

  T-Bone stumbled. He shuffled, his joints stiff, his balance precarious, his body leaden. The flirting game between man and gift was gone, taken by an ax on a chilly afternoon. His beautiful body would not cooperate. It refused to shape the light. Space slipped through its grasp, like sand through spread fingers. Gravity in the barn seemed to have doubled, tripled.

  I could taste frustration in the barn, growing, rising with the music and the missteps, filling to the rafters, reaching into the cobwebbed corners. “T-Bone,” I cried, but no words passed my lips. I watched helplessly for what seemed like hours. Finally, T-Bone gave up. He stood in the middle of the cows, shoulders slumped, hands clenched in fists. He sighed and flung back his head, as if seeking divine intervention. Instead, he got me.

  “Can I buy you a beer?” I asked, stepping out of the shadows. I approached carefully. He watched me, not bothering to dash a tear from his cheek. I stopped a breath away from his cheek. “With chips.”

  “No Doritos.”

  “No Doritos,” I said, tiptoeing to wipe the moisture from his cheek.

  Suddenly he grabbed me and wrapped me in a mighty bear hug. He burrowed his head in my shoulder and whispered over and over, “What am I to do? What am I to do?” His arms were so strong and so desperate. I wanted to give him everything then, every piece of light in the world. Perhaps he had always needed me like this and I didn’t realize it. Perhaps I had always needed him.

  T-Bone’s bedroom. The colors are so solid here, so deep. Forest greens and burgundies hold secrets and safety. Woodland colors. It seems natural to be here, T-Bone gripping my hand in his sleep. I am a sucker for vulnerable men. My father who could never figure out one end of a Picasso from the other. George who could only be hurt by non-performance, by the stillness of a paintbrush, by people who gave up. Thomas who feels so out of place here and so at home talking to the night stars.

  Love really is like a country western song. In every toughness there is weakness. In every icicle there is the essence of glacier. We live for momentous sparks. For nanoseconds of invulnerability. But we are loved for the little things, the way we wear green suede cowboy boots, the way we see potential in an old gutted van in a field of trillium, the way we help a neighbor stack his woodpile.

  The air is cold. I am good at putting off that mad race against the cold to the wood stove, that fumbling with iron door and heavy wood while bouncing from one cold foot to another. T-Bone sighed in his sleep and mumbled, “I have always loved you, y’know.” I threw my leg over T-Bone’s and snuggled closer. In the shadow of T-Bone’s warmth, I tried to forget the sound of Odie taking an ax to the birdhouses at the Crawford place. The Crawford place is five miles away. Funny, how I still can hear the ax; the jingling harnesses of bored, restless horses; how I can hear a man’s heart break.

  In every toughness there is weakness and that weakness, Hollywood, is the stuff of art.

  15. Dashing Through the Snow in a Horse-Drawn Ice Cube Tray

  Christmas draws a full house at the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Savings. Only Easter beats it for numbers. People feel the need to get their spiritual houses in order at the end of the year, Reverend Swan says.

  Sandwiched between T-Bone and Thomas, I feel at peace, more content than I have felt in a long time. Both T-Bone and Thomas were there under duress. Thomas wanted to stay home and watch a PBS show on black holes and comets, and T-Bone just wanted to stay home period. I leaned closer to T-Bone; our thighs touched. I enjoyed T-Bone’s warmth, running like a stripe down the side of my body.

  Thomas flipped through the hymnal. On the way to church, all three of us scrunched in the front seat of Thomas’s yellow van, Thomas described some of the churches from his travels. “Some wouldn’t be considered churches in Round Corners. One was just an adobe box with a flat roof. Inside were candles and incense burners and pictures of Buddha and Christ. I suspect divinity diplomas were sold out of the room in the back.”

  “Our Lady of Perpetual Savings does not have a degree program,” I said.

  “Probably not,” Thomas smiled. “Its foundation is rock and prayer, its architecture purely Puritan. Notice how it’s built, in such a way as to direct everything—eyes, thought, soul—upward. The windows are high; the suffering of the saints depicted in stained glass let in nothing of brightness—neither sunlight nor inspiration. Steps lead up to the sanctuary. White steeple leads up to heaven. Nothing encourages a person to look to the side, not in actuality nor philosophy.”

  “Aw shit,” T-Bone said, “this is going to be one of those philosophical days, I can just feel it.”

  Thomas viewed Our Lady much as American tourists considered European cathedrals—more attraction than place of worship. “Holy places,” he said, “are the forests and jungles and deserts.”

  Maybe he was right. Sometimes it is difficult to believe that God would prefer a place like this—with its hard seats and stark white walls, its threadbare rug and loud bells—to the meadows and the ever-changing sky, the soft grasses and the musical breezes. God wasn’t dumb.

  With a crowd like the one at Our Lady on Christmas morning, any other minister would have been happy. Not Reverend Swan. He peered out at all those faces in horror. Later, he confessed he didn’t recognize a single one, not even his precious wife, Mrs. Swan. He squinted and ducked his head as if looking into a bright light. He knew Mrs. Swan was out there somewhere; they drove to church together. He’d forgotten to warm up the car. The heater couldn’t do much in the short distance from their house to the church. Sitting in the little metal container with bucket seats and vinyl upholstery (the most economical, stripped down model the Swans could find) was like riding in an ice cube tray.

  Reverend Swan thought of tiny people crowded into ice cube trays coasting up and down the Green Mountains. He mumbled something about Ethan Allen and his boys freeing this country in horse-drawn ice cube trays. T-Bone and I exchanged uneasy glances. Members of the congregation began to whisper; they shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

  Suddenly, Reverend Swan snapped to attention. His focus sharpened; and he saw, for the first time, the restless crowd. They waited, for him.

  “I…” Reverend Swan said, seemingly at a loss. His hand touched a paper, reminding him of his notes, which he had forgotten earlier in the cold car. He glanced at the index cards that he had dashed out in his vestments to retrieve from the ice cube tray, the notes stacked neatly on the pulpit, and discovered: He couldn’t read them. His heart lurched. Struck blind in the middle of a sermon. Surely, there was a sign in that. Who would drive the ice cube tray home? What should he do? Say something. He started talking, rambling, saying whatever came to mind. He could have been discussing grocery lists for all he knew. He squinted at the blurry notes, but they still were no help. Loss. He could tell the congregation about loss. Loss of vision.

  “When I was a child, I was always losing things,” Reverend Swan said. “Once, in fourth grade at Sacred Heart School, I lost my gloves. At recess, I shuffled to the office in my big snow boots and asked Sister Magdalen if I could look for my gloves in the lost-and-found box. As I pawed through the moldy pile of mittens, hats, scarves, and jackets, Sister Magdalen lectured. She said I should have clipped them to my coat. I should ask the Lord, Sister Magdalen said, to help me to be more conscientious.

  “I did not find the gloves and returned to the schoolyard with the distinct impression that loss was a sin and frozen fingers was the penance. I believe I have grown more conscientious with age, but still I keep losing things.”

  Reverend Swan scratched his head. “Go figure,” he mumbled, “go figure.”

  As the parishioners poured out of Our Lady of Perpetual Savings, the snow dropped like stones from the sky. A silent snow, a holy snow, a purifying snow. It hushed the landscape, slowed the busyness, returned the day to nature and God. In no time, snow covered
the shoulders and hair of Reverend Swan, who stood on the steps of the church greeting his flock.

  No one seemed in a hurry to head home. We stood in groups on the church steps, chatting, feeling the beautiful softness of the snowflakes on our eyelashes and in our dimples. It felt right to be together at that moment. There was a closeness between humans, between man and nature, between man and God. This, I thought, was what the television producer was trying to capture in his beer commercial—and never would. I was glad. I didn’t want Hollywood to take back this piece of Round Corners. It was such a perfect piece, I wondered how even I dared to try to capture it on one of my canvases.

  For Christmas dinner, Thomas cooked some vegetarian holiday dish. T-Bone sneaked in three bags of potato chips under his parka. After dinner we watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” on television, making sure to flip past those other holiday movies with Fred Astaire in them.

  While T-Bone and I cuddled and dodged the holiday musicals, Wynn and Harvey carved the bird with Harvey’s mother who undoubtedly made some crack about Wynn’s enormous appetite or her hair color. Freda and Lewis Lee watched the children pulverize the pretty wrapping paper under the Christmas tree; and when all the toys were assembled and the kids were squabbling about whose action toy was the best, Freda Lee slipped away to the bathroom where she perched on the commode with a bottle of expensive perfume in her hands and wondered why she wished it was some silly animal carving made from a clothespin.

  Wisconsin Dell manned the dispatcher station as she does all the other 364 days of the year; the day was quiet except for the occasional SSB (Skiers in Snow Bank). Between calls for tow trucks, Wisconsin Dell carefully touched the box of chocolates and monogrammed handkerchiefs placed by the microphone where she could see them all day. Every Christmas Odie gives his dispatcher chocolates and monogrammed handkerchiefs, thinking each year this is a new and innovative gift. His dispatcher never corrects him.

  Odie pulled two cars full of skiers out of the ditch on his way home from church; while his wife stuffed the turkey, Odie stuffed hundreds of little suet bags and hung them on the trees in his yard as a gift for the birds. The suet bags covered the trees like Christmas bulbs.

  Frank and Ella Snowden ate a crispy ham in polite silence; Frank didn’t remind Ella that any ham, much less a burnt one, isn’t his favorite and Ella didn’t say anything about the puddles of melted snow she stepped in with her stocking feet when Frank forgot to take off his boots after church. They exchanged gifts: a red tie for a man who hasn’t worn a tie in ten years and a pair of leather racing gloves for a woman who prefers woolen mittens.

  On that quiet day, behind every door in Round Corners, there was unquiet. It was that kind of Christmas.

  At Christmas, Reverend Swan’s flock included more than his regulars. There was a large showing of tourists, people who spent the week of Christmas skiing, people who bought little Christmas trees for their motel rooms and didn’t mind eating Christmas dinner in a restaurant.

  “Merry Christmas, Reverend. Oh, Ted, look at the snow; it’s so, so, New England.”

  “C’mon, let’s get back to the motel and change. I can’t wait to hit the slopes.”

  “Ted, it’s Christmas.”

  “And this,” said Ted, “is my Christmas present.”

  “It was a nice sermon, Reverend,” said Ted’s wife.

  “A little weird,” said Ted. His wife elbowed him. “But nice. A change from the usual theme of salvation.”

  Reverend Swan said, “Salvation is a timeless and universal theme.”

  Ted nodded. “You said it, Reverend, they had taxes and we have taxes; they had no room in the inn and we have no room in the inn. You couldn’t rent a closet on the mountain today.”

  “The miracle of snow-making machines,” said Reverend Swan.

  “That’s right, Reverend.”

  After Reverend Swan removed his vestments and carefully hung them away in their proper place, he joined his wife. As usual, she waited for him in the vestibule. He kissed her on the cheek and wished her a holy Christmas. Together they locked the door and climbed into the ice cube tray. Reverend Swan drove slowly home, past children sliding on the sidewalks.

  The church was situated at the head of Main Street (Highway 100 on the state map). Entering the town from the south, the road aimed straight for the church, then curved sharply ninety degrees, in front of Our Lady, and headed up the mountain. The first thing anyone entering Round Corners saw was the church with its white steeple. The rest of the town seemed to huddle around the church in picture postcard perfection, just like a Maud Calhoun original sold at the cash register of the Round Corners Restaurant. Barns, mountains, cows. And churches. The tourists loved them.

  When the Swans arrived home, Mrs. Swan made hot chocolate. Their Christmas tradition. Hot chocolate and croissant rolls. “It makes me feel so continental,” Mrs. Swan confessed. The Swans sipped hot chocolate in a warm kitchen, their drinks so full of marshmallows they left white mustaches on the Swans’ upper lips.

  Reverend Swan did not remember driving home in the cold car (apparently his vision had returned) or shaking hands with his parishioners on the steps in nothing but his vestments or Mrs. Swan cutting the greetings short and rushing him back into the church to change into warm clothes.

  “You were wonderful today,” said Mrs. Swan.

  “Really?”

  His wife nodded.

  “What did I say? I can’t remember.”

  “You were inspirational, as you always are.”

  “I thought the people seemed a bit restless, bored, perhaps.”

  “Never bored. I’m sure you raised the consciousness of peace and love another notch today.”

  “Let’s hope they remember it later when they run into each other on the slopes.”

  Mrs. Swan suggested he lie down and rest for awhile. She said that often now.

  “I am tired.”

  “It’s no wonder, making up an entire sermon off the top of your head.”

  “Did I do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t give the sermon I wrote on Wednesday?”

  “You can save it. Give it another time. A good sermon never grows stale.”

  “I suppose not.”

  Reverend Swan slowly ascended the stairs, a white marshmallow mustache still on his face. After every service, Reverend Swan retired to his study. There he grabbed his saxophone, like a desperate smoker scrabbles for a cigarette, and played jazz. The most nonsensical music he could wail. As the notes sailed from the horn, the tension flowed from him, his stomach settled, his life returned to an even keel. And as usual, after awhile, Reverend Swan began to think giving sermons wasn’t so bad and telling people what’s the right thing to do wasn’t so difficult.

  Automatically, Reverend Swan turned in the direction of the study and the saxophone stand in the corner. Then, he remembered there was no saxophone. His wife mentioned driving into Burlington to a pawn shop. She’d seen a saxophone in the window just last week. It probably could be had for a reasonable price. Maybe after Christmas, Reverend Swan said. Right now his heart wasn’t in it. Right now he just wanted to lie down in his quiet bedroom.

  16. Throwing Snowballs at the Status Quo

  The only plant in Wynn’s Cut and Curl is a plastic potted palm. An artificial palm needs no water or sun or love. People don’t feel compelled to talk to a plastic plant, the way they might with a plant coursing with chlorophyll, a plant they expect to grow and propagate. You could subject a plastic palm to loud rock music, freezing temperatures, and cigarette burns all day long, and not evoke a single response. It shows no stress and no happiness. It just is.

  “I feel like that damn plant,” said Wynn Winchester. “A pregnant plastic palm. Harvey says I look beautiful. But what does Harvey know? I’m tired, too tired to do my own hair, after doing other women’s all day. Too tired to sew baby clothes, clean the house, cook. Harvey practically lives on canned spaghetti. Freda, do yo
u ever feed your family that spaghetti in a can?”

  “The kids love the pasta shaped like the alphabet, but Lewis goes after the stuff that looks like space monsters. I’d rather eat turpentine sandwiches myself.”

  Wynn wrapped the last of Freda’s hair around a pink roller. Thirty rollers, thirty pelvic squeezes. Two weeks ago, she and Harvey started Lamaze classes. They saw a film of a baby being born, which Harvey considered a blockbuster. He hightailed it to the library the next day and checked out more books on childbirth.

  “Harvey’s a fount of advice,” I said, leaning back in one of the dryer chairs. The bubble was pushed up. I flipped through one of Wynn’s magazines, looking for tips on keeping your sex life alive.

  Wynn snorted. “He monitors my milk intake. He counts how many cookies I eat. Every time I turn around he’s begging me to pant in his face. And some days I just don’t feel like it. I bet those other women in Lamaze class practice panting every chance they get. They’re going to breeze through childbirth like a mother cat having kittens and pop right back into size nine pants. I’m going to be screaming at Harvey and hyperventilating. And the child will be in college before I ever see the narrow side of a size twelve.” Wynn sighed. “Freda, was Lewis with you when you had your babies?”

  “Every one. They couldn’t keep him out of the delivery room. Lewis was birthing babies with me long before it was the fashionable thing to do. He held my hand, talked to me, wiped the sweat from my face while the other fathers wore the linoleum off the waiting room floor. There isn’t a man on earth I’d rather have a baby with than Lewis.”

  “But when you were pregnant, didn’t Lewis drive you crazy with his helpfulness? Didn’t you ever want to tell him to leave you alone?”

  I looked up and saw a shadow drift across Freda’s face.

  “I’ve never wanted Lewis to leave me alone. Some men thoroughly enjoy fatherhood. I’d rather have one who cares too much than one who doesn’t care at all. They had to drag my daddy out of a bar every time my mother was ready to have a baby. She had to drive him to the hospital. It’s a time to share, my mother said; you want someone around even if he is half drunk and pukes all over the nurses’ station.”