When the Morning Glory Blooms (9781426770777)

by Ruchti, Cynthia

  If his words had been any louder, any cheerier, any more casual, she would have felt justified giving him a swift kick in the shin. But they soothed with the brief comedic relief that brought her legs back under her.

  “You have to go. And I’ll be fine.” Her vision misted over. “Poor Monica.”

  Gil kissed her forehead. “I’ll be praying.”

  “Thanks.”

  He glanced at his watch. She knew what that meant.

  “You really don’t mind taking a cab to the airport this time?” She followed him out the bedroom door.

  He paused midstep. “Becky, you don’t need one more thing on your plate right now.”

  “And that’s one of the reasons I love you.” She tweaked his barely there love handle.

  “Besides,” he said, resuming his walk toward the front door, “you need to put on your detective hat and find out if Monica knows the fully story of what Brianne did before you call her.”

  What Brianne did.

  Two rooms away, Jackson let out a lusty cry. Her grandson. Alive.

  Poor Monica.

  “Secrets kill, Lauren.” Becky held Jackson on her hip while Lauren stuffed a graffitied notebook and an apple into her backpack, a toaster pastry dangling from her lips.

  Lauren slung one backpack strap over her shoulder, partially chewed the bite of pastry, and mumbled, “It’s none of our business.”

  “Honey, Monica’s my dearest friend.”

  The cross-eyed look Lauren shot at her said, “Yeah, that’s been obvious lately.”

  “We haven’t talked much recently. But she needs to know I care.”

  Lauren drained her glass of orange juice, puckered at its tartness against the taste of powdered-sugar frosting, and tweaked Jackson’s knee, as if that were enough of a parental good-bye for the day. “Maybe it’s none of Monica’s business either.”

  Becky shifted the baby onto her other hip. He smiled as though oblivious to the reason for the sudden tension in Becky’s spine. “None of Monica’s business?”

  “Mom, I don’t want to be late for school.”

  Since when?

  “Can we talk about this later?” Lauren grabbed the doorknob.

  The open kitchen door let in a chilled gust, a portend of frosty conversations.

  “Promise me we will talk. If Monica knows, she has to be hurting like crazy. If she doesn’t, she deserves to know, and then she’ll be hurting like crazy.”

  Lauren’s sigh pushed the icy gust deeper into the room. “She knows, okay? She’s been, like, crying for days. Brianne’s a mess. But that’s what happens when good girls fall.”

  The door banged shut. It must have gotten caught by the wind.

  As she waited on Monica’s stoop, Becky looked at the reflection of herself in the glass storm door that protected the fancy wooden double doors. If that wasn’t a sight. She was the suburban version of a bag lady. A diaper bag slung over her left shoulder, knock-off purse on her right, left hand clamped onto the handle of a massive infant carrier, right hand gripping an insulated casserole holder.

  Casserole. As if that would help anything. She took a quick look at the bushes on either side of the door. Were they dense enough to hide a marine-blue covered casserole dish? She bent to try. The diaper bag slipped off her shoulder and knocked into the infant seat, waking its occupant. Crouched into a chiropractor-unfriendly pretzel shape, Becky dropped the dish behind the arborvitae. Her purse slid down her arm and joined the casserole just as the door opened.

  “Becky? What on earth?”

  Forget the purse. Forget the wild rice shiitaki oriental bake. Becky stood upright and steadied both herself and the infant seat. “Can we come in?”

  “With the baby?”

  Yeah. Bringing the baby was a bit of a stinger, but I didn’t have an option. “If it’s okay.”

  “I don’t know.” Monica’s eyes showed the puffiness of recent flooding. Becky wished she could offer her friend flood insurance, but moms can’t qualify for coverage. She knew that for a fact.

  “Just a few minutes?” Becky shifted the weight of the infant carrier. The baby giggled. Oh, Jackson, not now.

  “How’s he doing?” A flatline question.

  “Fine. Monica, I’m here because I want to know how you’re doing.”

  “I’m sure you do.” She turned and entered the depths of the house but didn’t close the interior door.

  Becky propped open the storm door with the infant carrier, retrieved her purse, then followed the trail of grief-crumbs Monica left for her. She found Monica in the formal living room, perched stiffly on the edge of the middle couch cushion with her palms down on the adjoining cushions. The signal was clear: if you choose to sit, it won’t be near me.

  Settling into a nearby wing chair, Becky noted, “We picked out that couch together. At the Hanson’s going-out-of-business sale.”

  “Well, that makes everything all better.”

  A shroud of silence dropped over them—not gauzy but suffocating, like felted wool, a weave so tight no light or breath could penetrate.

  All of Becky’s rehearsed words died for lack of air. She’d dropped her arsenal of hurt over Monica’s judgmentalism the day Monica’s pain surpassed her own. Not the most noble reason. It would take her a while to work that one out to a godly conclusion. But even her “Monica, I’m here for you. Monica, we’ll get through this together. Monica, how can I help?” words couldn’t overcome the stifling lack of oxygen in the room.

  She didn’t intend to wait for an apology. God, thank You for healing that in me. Monica’s my friend. She needs me. I lay it all down, all the cutting, galling pain of her betrayal, her air of superiority, her accusations about how my inadequate parenting skills led to Lauren’s fall from grace . . . as if grace has no guard rails. Now help me find the words to—

  “How could she do such a hateful thing?” Monica’s lips stretched across teeth that didn’t separate as she spoke.

  “I’m sure Brianne was just scared, Monica. Unsure of what to do.”

  “I’m talking about your Lauren.”

  Instinctively, Becky reached for the infant carrier on the floor at her feet. She set it rocking. “What does Lauren have to do with this?”

  Monica snugged her arms around herself. The action didn’t stop her body’s trembling. “Her hateful lie.”

  “What lie?” Becky’s skin rippled.

  “You don’t seriously believe that story about my Brianne, do you? Becky, think about it.”

  Jackson squirmed, arching his back against the protective restraints. Quiet, Jackson. Please be quiet. He voiced his little-boy impatience.

  Monica turned her head away from the sound. “Don’t you think that pretty much says it all?”

  Becky had never been kicked out of anything, much less the living room of her best friend. Not a movie theater. Not art class (although if she’d been the teacher she might have found the excessive giggling exit-worthy). Not even the Bible study she attended with the purpose of tormenting the facilitator with unanswerable questions. That was BA—before her awakening, before she dared to entertain the idea that the Bible was truth and anything she didn’t understand about it was her lack of insight, not God’s.

  The drive home from Monica’s was as painful a trip as she’d ever experienced. If she could have explained . . .

  Explained what? Her theory that Brianne was not the girl Monica thought she was? That Monica’s worship-leading, halo-sporting, clean-as-the-immaculate-Mary daughter wasn’t? Explain that Monica and Becky should have been closer than ever, that they now shared a common—all too common—sister-pain. Broken dreams for their daughters. Regret they’d never outlive. Deceit clouding the birth of their first grandchildren.

  Ah, and that’s where their stories diverged. Becky’s grandchild lived. Monica’s was gone.

  But how could Monica assume Lauren made up the story? How could she think such a thing? How could she transform from a lean-on-me friend to a get
-out-of-my-house—What? Not an enemy. Lord, please not an enemy. A friend temporarily dislodged, disillusioned, despairing, disenfranchised.

  I thought Lauren said Monica knew.

  A bubble of bitterness burst in her stomach. Monica, how could you doubt me? How could you leave me when I most needed you? And how could you lock me out when you most need me?

  Becky could well understand denial. Denial had planted itself firmly in her gut when Lauren’s “flu bug” turned into something more. It had seen that first home pregnancy test as the newest model of turkey thermometer. It had whispered, “Not my daughter. Not my daughter. No, not my daughter.”

  Lauren didn’t understand, and voiced as much with her persistent “What’s the big deal?” Second-generation denial. Twenty-first-century morals notwithstanding, Lauren had bypassed not just the traditional or God-honoring method but also the most-likely-to-bring-lasting-joy method of becoming a mom.

  Becky sensed a sigh originating near her navel and working its sad way through her chest and lungs before exiting through her nose. Jackson dozed in the backseat. They should have been home by now, but the eviction from Monica’s had reset Becky’s internal GPS—recalculating—and had made the normal route home seem wrong. Everything was wrong. She’d crawled over piles of her own hurt in order to make an effort to comfort Monica. Not only had she failed at that, but the breach now gaped wider than ever. The conversation had derailed so badly, it had been like a smoking, runaway locomotive with no track underneath it at all and a years-long friendship dead ahead. Dead. Ahead.

  The parking lot by the city pond was vacant. Russet-, flame-, and mushroom-colored leaves skated across the asphalt like the weak-ankled children who would soon skate across the pond’s surface. Another few weeks.

  Becky pulled up to the edge of the parking lot barrier, with the car facing the water. She left the motor running for Jackson’s sake and leaned her forehead against the steering wheel. These are the very scenes God must have wanted to prevent—a child with a too young mother and no known father, a baby and his mom with iffy futures, a grandmother with a broken heart and a broken friendship because her judgmental friend refused to believe the truth.

  Without lifting her head from the steering wheel, she reached for the console between the two front seats and popped it open. Her fingers pawed through the sunglasses, breath mints, and paper napkins until they rested on her pocket-sized Bible. She drew it out, closed the console with the back of her hand, and opened the Bible on her lap where she could see it without moving her throbbing head.

  The print was so fine in a Bible that small. Her eyes worked hard to bring the words into focus.

  The book of Lamentations. Perfect.

  Chapter three, verse forty-nine.

  “My eyes will flow unceasingly, without relief, until the LORD looks down from heaven and sees. What I see brings grief to my soul because of all the women of my city.”

  Whoa. Spooky-accurate.

  Verse fifty-two. “Those who were my enemies without cause . . .”

  Double whoa!

  Her eyes drifted to the bottom of the column of print. “LORD, you have heard their insults, all their plots against me—what my enemies whisper and mutter against me all day long.”

  She stopped there. The text veered off into, “Pay them back what they deserve, LORD.” She didn’t want to go there. Lamentations—written before Jesus came to give grace new meaning. Grace that started with disappointment and ended with forgiveness. Grace that took what happened in the backseat of a guy’s car—just guessing—and turned it into the cherished child whose soft breaths told her he might be a snorer someday. Grace that now cradled her uniformed son. Grace that gave the kind of second chances Lauren had been offered.

  Tears fell on the pages. She leaned back and rested the back of her head against the stiff headrest.

  Lauren.

  Monica couldn’t be right, could she? Lauren wouldn’t have lied. What would be the purpose?

  Except to throw a little of the gossip limelight off herself.

  She wouldn’t!

  Becky’s cell phone buzzed. Caller ID told her it was Gil. She answered with, “My eyes will flow unceasingly, without relief, until the LORD looks down from heaven and sees. What I see brings grief to my soul because of all the women of my city.”

  “Becky? Becky?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “I take it the talk with Monica didn’t go well?”

  Oh, Monica. One of us is a fool. And either way, it stinks.

  The call lasted until Jackson woke from his nap . . . two minutes later. It was long enough for Gil to ask a couple of questions that would stick to her soul like fresh tar to a dress shoe. Did it bother her more that Lauren might have lied or that if she did it meant she was pregnant again? Did it bother her more that Monica didn’t believe Brianne had ended an unplanned pregnancy or that Monica didn’t believe Becky? Was she more upset that their friendship seemed over or that Brianne’s relationship with her mother was in serious trouble?

  The temporary answer was all of it. She hated all of it. Equally distressing. If she had time to think about it, she might answer differently. But the smell of a soiled diaper and the cry of a hungry child ended the call and all hope of thinking.

  Gil had one closing question: What now?

  How often had they asked themselves that in the past months?

  What do we do now?

  Best-case scenario—someone would come forward on her own with the truth.

  Worst-case scenario—Becky would guess wrong about who was right and either alienate her daughter or her best friend forever.

  As she pulled into the driveway, she stifled a curse word—a word she never would have thought of using before the current crisis. If Lauren were pregnant again, she’d once more stolen Becky’s “right” to celebrate hearing the words “Mom, Dad, we’re pregnant!”

  There was supposed to be a video. Becky and Gil, side by side on the couch, would open a small box while a glowing Lauren and her ultraresponsible husband looked on, filming, elbowing each other and holding back goofy grins. In the box, a tiny pair of crocheted booties and a note in kid scrawl: I’m so glad you’re going to be my grandma and grandpa! Love, Little One.

  There was supposed to be a shout heard ’round the world, echoed in a flurry of phone calls to every extended family member, neighbor, church friend, college roommate, hair stylist . . .

  “We’re going to be grandparents!”

  “We’re so happy for you!”

  There was supposed to be unbridled joy with no smudges.

  And now, there was supposed to be a Jackson-sized undershirt with the words “I’m the big brother” announcing an addition to the family. A too-soon addition, granted, which would generate a few raised eyebrows and sympathy for the new mom’s energies. But the congratulations would be encouraging. “Kids that close together will be great playmates for each other. Lauren and her husband will get through it. Why, I had a cousin whose kids were nine and a half months apart. That’s right. And the second child was triplets!”

  Becky would post ultrasound pictures on her social network profile page. Gil would carry laminated copies in his wallet and on his cell phone and show any flight attendant who asked, “Do you have grandchildren?” Not that he looked old enough for a question like that.

  These days, Becky felt old enough for people to ask, “Do you have any great-grandchildren?” Concern ages people. She wondered if the youth-serum scientists knew about that component.

  What’s the big deal, Lauren? It changes everything. It saps most of the joy. All of the joy except the sweet warmth of a baby’s hand against your cheek.

  And now what?

  Wisdom, don’t fail me now!

  She didn’t need to know today. God promised there was nothing hidden that wouldn’t be revealed. At one time, that made her squirm. Now she counted on it.

  Lord, reveal the truth . . . in Your timing. I’m not the cent
er of this, the reason for it, or the only one affected by it. I’m going to need Your hold-me-back grip to keep me from trying to fix this myself. It’s unfixable, isn’t it? No good answer. Someone’s going to be hurt. Someone already is.

  Lauren dropped her backpack and shoes just inside the back door and tossed her jacket over the shoulders of a kitchen chair. “Hey, pumpkin face. How are you doing?” She tickled Jackson’s belly just above the waist belt of the bouncy chair in which he was safely strapped while Becky browned hamburger for spaghetti. She grabbed a ginger snap from the cookie jar. “Hey, Mom. How was your day?”

  Becky stopped stirring the hamburger. Such a ridiculously normal conversation. A few glorious seconds of normal. “Tell me about yours, first.”

  Lauren poured herself a glass of milk, grabbed another cookie, and pulled her cell phone from her jeans pocket. “Sorry. I gotta take this text.”

  Perfectly normal.

  “Purse Suede. Get it?”

  “What?”

  “Mom, think about it. Purse Suede. Say it fast. Sounds like persuade, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess.” Becky kept one ear tuned to Lauren’s exuberance while she listened for the oven timer to signal that the garlic bread was done. Judging by the divine smell of buttery garlic, the ding would come any time.

  “It’s perfect, Mom. I wouldn’t even really have to finish this last year of high school.”

  Becky thumped her fist to the middle of her chest—two punches—to restart her heart.

  “Superdramatic, Mom, but just listen, will you? If I can make enough of these Purse Suede purses—and you know I’m creative because art’s, like, my best grade—I can work from home and sell them online, and then I could help out more with Jackson. And then, by maybe spring, I could get an apartment and you wouldn’t have to watch him at all.”

  The bullet points of how many ways Lauren’s career plan spelled disaster lined up neatly in Becky’s mind.

  What would grace say? Well? I’m waiting, Lord.