Stretch Marks

by Kimberly Stuart

  “‘Your people?’ Your people? Mother, this is not Highlands Cove. It’s Chicago. We have different ethnicities, races, socio-economics.… And no one likes to be grouped according to his or her people by a privileged white woman fresh off a cruise ship.” Mia was panting. She slowed her pace to catch her breath.

  “Well, excuse me, Miss Hoity-Toity PC Queen,” Babs said. She huffed along, oversized purse swinging from her shoulder. “I was merely pointing out my sympathy for the black race.”

  Mia groaned.

  “And I don’t think Mr. Wilson was offended one iota. I think he liked me.” She waited for Mia to open the door to her apartment building.

  “My point, Mother,” Mia said, pushing the door open with her shoulder, “is that it might be a good idea to think before you speak around here.” She rummaged for the tiny key that opened her mailbox in the foyer. Before the little door opened to reveal the day’s deliveries, she heard Babs coo.

  “Sam, dear, how are you?”

  Mr. Lamberti shuffled out from his apartment opposite Silas’s and nodded quickly to Mia. “Hi, Mia. Hello, Mrs. Rathbun.” He sighed and ran one paw through the wispy gray strands he’d combed over a shiny bald dome.

  “Sam, how many times must I insist you call me Barbara?” She lengthened the word until it sounded like the final strains in a Karen Carpenter tune.

  Mr. Lamberti shifted on his feet and sniffed self-consciously. “All right,” he said, avoiding Babs’s gaze but smiling shyly at Mia. “Barbara, then.”

  Mia sifted through the letters in her box. Electric bill, cell phone bill, subscription offer to Parents magazine, which jarred her. Her prime suspect was definitely Frankie, as the girl had engaged in a subtle but tenacious battle to start planning for a nursery and registering for baby gifts.

  Babs looked over her shoulder and glimpsed a fund-raising mailer from PETA.

  “Oh, for goodness’s sake, Mia,” she said. “Certainly you aren’t one of those militant vegetarians.” She turned to Mr. Lamberti. “I’ll bet you’re a man who can appreciate a good steak. Am I right, Sam?”

  Mia didn’t hear his response. She was staring at a plain white envelope she’d found at the bottom of the stack. The handwriting was Lars’s, distinctive and angular, like he’d broken many pens and pencils from pushing too hard on the point. Mia’s heart began to beat more quickly and she felt her hands gripping the paper to the point of discomfort.

  “I’m going up to shower,” she told her mother, who nodded cheerfully before returning to the discussion of where to get the best New York strip for the best price.

  Mia took the elevator, willing her heart to slow down as she rose, story by story.

  13

  Hail Mary

  Mia forced herself to unwrap slowly from her zip-up sweatshirt. Bending down to untie her shoes, she needed to adjust for the belly that pressed down on her legs. She’d begun to feel the flutterings of a kicker within her womb, though she was never quite sure if she imagined movement or if she really was experiencing the first steps toward communication with her child. It seemed fitting that the baby would start a maternal relationship with kicks and jabs. She often felt the desire to perform such catharsis with her own mother.

  She walked slowly down the hall to the bathroom, clutching the letter in her hand. Lowering herself to the plush rug in front of the sink, she carefully slit the envelope from one back corner to the other. He’d written on yellow legal paper, the way he began every piece of writing he did for hire.

  Dear Mia,

  I’m not exactly sure how to begin a letter like this. Perhaps an apology is the best way, the only way to start.

  I’m sorry.

  The emptiness of those words must resound even more loudly where you are, but I offer them anyway as a necessary point of departure.

  Mia heard a creak from the front hall and the sound of her mother taking off her coat. She reached over to shut the bathroom door and turned on the shower.

  I write to you from Seattle, which is sufficiently far away to feel I’ve removed myself from you and our “situation,” but not far enough to feel very good about it.

  Mia felt a wash of anger that their child had been reduced to a word within smug quotation marks, but she couldn’t stop herself from reading on.

  I understand if you think I’m a coward and unworthy of contacting you after the way I reacted to your news. You’re right. I showed nothing of bravery. Even now I’m hiding behind my cowardice by writing instead of calling.

  Or how about a visit, Mia thought wryly. A visit would be appropriate.

  But I’m hoping you’ll recognize this small step I’m taking and allow me to begin a conversation with you once more. I’m feeling very overwhelmed, Mia, and very scared. This is not what I’d planned for our lives, certainly not now, and I’m having difficulty figuring out how I should respond.

  Mia brushed off a tear that landed on the paper and smudged the ink.

  I’ll call soon. Or you can call me, if you’d prefer. I just want to talk. Maybe we can figure this mess out, the two of us. We always were pretty good together.

  Love, Lars

  She sat with her legs splayed in front of her, the purple stripes on her yoga top muddied with tears. The spray from the shower drifted over the toilet, the sink, the floor, and her hair, but Mia didn’t get up to pull the curtain. He was ruining it, she thought. One letter, one look at his penmanship, his awkward sharing of his thoughts, reminders of the intimacy they’d earned after so many years. The defenses she’d carefully constructed over the months he’d been gone were crumbling at their foundations, even as she scurried around trying to keep them upright. He’s a jerk, she said with authority to herself. So what if he’s a familiar one?

  She stayed there weeping until her eyes began to feel uncomfortably puffy and Babs knocked at the door.

  “Mia?” she called. “Are you all right?”

  Mia blew her nose into a wad of toilet paper.

  “Honey? Can you hear me?” Worry had crept into Babs’s tone. “You’ve been in there a very long time. I thought you were concerned about water conservation.”

  Mia reached up to turn the doorknob. She looked up at Babs through a fresh onslaught of tears. “Lars was the one worried about water conservation. I’m worried about the energy crisis.” Her final words erupted into a wail and Babs dropped to her knees to gather her daughter into an embrace.

  “Oh, honey, what’s wrong? Are you feeling blue? Is it your figure? Sweetheart, you don’t need to worry one bit. All those curves will go back to the right places after the baby’s born.”

  Mia cried into her mother’s shirt.

  “Now you’ll need to be patient with yourself,” Babs continued. “It takes nine months to grow a baby and it will take at least nine months to go back down to your regular size. Even then you might have to think about surgery.”

  Mia shook her head and showed Babs the letter. “Lars wrote. He wants to start talking again.”

  Babs stared at the paper. Her eyebrows knitted together and she lifted her gaze to Mia. “Is that a good thing or a despicable thing?” She spoke carefully and watched her daughter’s face for a reaction.

  Mia’s mouth lifted into a shaky smile. “That’s the question, isn’t it?” She shook her head, grateful for her mother’s uncharacteristic restraint. “I don’t know yet.”

  Babs nodded slowly. “Honey, I don’t know a lot about a lot of things, but I do know matters of the heart are more like a minefield and less like a Hallmark card, no matter what the songs say.” She rose from her knees, creaking and moaning with every pop. “I’m old, Mia. I’m getting old.”

  Mia laughed and reached for another bunch of tissues as her mother turned off the shower.

  “Listen,” Babs said. She pulled Mia to her feet and
cupped her swollen face between her hands. “I’m not one for mush, but this has to be said.” She furrowed her brow in concentration as she looked into her daughter’s eyes. “You are a beautiful, talented, smart woman with a big, big heart. You got the best of both of your parents and none of our flaws, which is nothing short of a miracle, considering we both had our share.” Babs swallowed hard as Mia’s eyes welled once more with tears. “You’re going to give yourself time to figure out how to respond to this letter. I’ll help you if I can, but I’m not sure I’m your best resource when it comes to man advice. Better ask Frankie. Or that nice girl from your high school graduating class—what was her name? Tiffany? Brittany?”

  “Lindsay. Lindsay Dunlop.”

  “Right. She married very well, I hear, and could have some pointers.”

  Mia sighed and blotted her eyes with Kleenex.

  “But before I forget, your obstetrician’s office called while you were in the shower. Or on the bathroom floor getting misted.”

  “What did they say?”

  “They called to confirm your ultrasound appointment for Wednesday at three.” Babs’s eyes lit up like candles. “May I come? Please? Please, Mia?”

  “Come to my appointment?” Mia clutched her head, which had begun to pound with a new flush of hormones in the aftermath of emotion. “I suppose so. If you really want to and have no other plans.”

  “I’d thought about taking that lovely river cruise, the one about architecture? And I have a mani-pedi appointment at noon, but I can do both of those any day.” Babs clapped her hands together. “Oh, thank you. I’m so, so excited. This is the fun part. And don’t worry. I’ll be quiet as a mouse. You won’t even know I’m there unless you summon me.” She smiled at Mia and pulled an arm around her waist as she ushered her to the living room. “Now you sit down and I’ll get you a few squares of dark chocolate. Nature’s best mood lifters.”

  Mia watched Babs swish from the room and allowed a tiny crack to form in her protective wall.

  The next morning was a Sunday and Mia made a special effort to snuggle deeper inside her covers to take advantage of a late morning’s sleep. Her eyes were still slightly swollen from the weeping-shower experience the day before, so when she woke at nine unable to drift back to sleep, the heaviness in her eyelids disoriented her into thinking it was much earlier than it was. She pulled on a bathrobe and shuffled in slippers to the kitchen.

  “Good morning,” Babs said as she beat Mia to the cupboard to retrieve a tea mug.

  “You’re awfully chipper,” Mia said in a man-voice, any unexpected affection for her mother from the day before evaporating in the merciless clarity of morning. “Why are you all dressed up?”

  “These old rags?” Babs waved a bored hand across her red pencil skirt, silk blouse, and four-inch heels. “Just something I dug up from the bottom of my bag.”

  Mia raised one weary eyebrow in her mother’s direction.

  “And ironed,” Babs added. She handed her daughter a steaming cup of tea.

  Mia sloshed a bit of cream into the cup and swirled the liquid into a lazy tornado. “Where are you headed?”

  “I thought I’d go to church.” Babs’s back was turned to Mia as she rinsed her breakfast dishes in the sink. “Our services on the ship are usually very disappointing. We have to accommodate all preferences, but usually the Methodists win out. Very opinionated, those Methodists. I’ve sung many ancient hymns on the deep waters of the Caribbean.”

  Mia sipped her tea while leaning one hip against the counter. “I didn’t know you were still a churchgoer.”

  Babs shrugged slightly. “I’ve never been as consistent as my parents would have liked. But there’s nothing like the birth of one’s first grandbaby to get one to the altar, as it were. This baby will need to be baptized, you know.” She wavered at the look on her daughter’s face. “Just a little sprinkle?”

  Mia shook her head. “I haven’t decided on any of that. But as for this morning, there are a million churches in Chicago. I’m sure you’ll find one that suits you.” She sat down at the kitchen table and opened the newspaper.

  “We can go wherever you want,” Babs said. She swirled water and soap inside a glass before dumping it out. “I thought we could leave in a half hour or so and start wandering. Surely there’s a good ten thirty or eleven o’clock service close by.”

  Mia smirked over her cup. “Thanks for the invitation, Mother, but I’m no longer required to go to church with you. Adulthood exempts me from the guilt.”

  Babs looked injured. “Well, I can’t force you.” She was quiet for a moment. “But it would be some nice mother-daughter time. And I’ll take you to lunch afterward.”

  Mia could feel the weight of this decades-long argument settle with a familiar thud in her chest. “I don’t think—”

  “I know, I know,” Babs said quickly. “The church has been used as an instrument of torture, it spreads propaganda that has nothing to do with the peace-loving, granola Jesus of the Bible, it suppresses the rights of the women and the cause of the poor, and so on and so forth.” She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and looked up at Mia. “I’ve heard you.”

  “Great,” Mia shrugged. “So we don’t have to have this conversation again. You are free to attend church as consistently or inconsistently as you’d like and I’m free to do the same.” She turned back to the paper.

  “But the church does do lots of good things like weddings and funerals. And soup kitchens! You love soup kitchens! Besides, you might just need their help one day, miss, and this is a perfect time to look for a place to start building relationships. I met your father at church, you’ll remember.” She wagged her finger at her daughter.

  “And look how well that turned out,” Mia said. She rose to dump the dregs of her tea into the sink.

  “Well,” Babs said, not a bit flustered by the mention of her failed marriage, “you can’t blame the church for that. We’d stopped going by that time anyway.” She stopped Mia on her way out of the kitchen. “Mimi, please. It won’t hurt you. And I won’t bother you about it for the rest of my visit.”

  Mia wavered. She rubbed her eyes with one hand.

  Babs saw the weakening of resolve and jumped in to the silence. “After all, you’re in good company, being knocked up with no husband. Think of the Virgin Mary!” She smiled in triumph.

  Mia shook her head. “It is amazing I am so well-adjusted,” she muttered as she walked to the bathroom.

  “Great! I’ll just pop downstairs and ask Sam about neighborhood churches.”

  Mia leaned her head against the tile as she waited for the water to warm. The Virgin Mary, eh? she thought. Not exactly an airtight comparison. She slipped into the shower and tried to prepare herself for a very long Sabbath.

  14

  House of Worship

  The usher sat them in the front row, so Mia couldn’t turn her head to confirm. But a brief sweep of the room when they’d entered had strongly suggested what she’d wondered during the cab ride to the South Side: She and her mother were the only white people in the building.

  Ebenezer Church sat aloft a lonely hill in a surprisingly quiet neighborhood. Very few people were out enjoying the spring weather when the cab dropped them off at the entrance. The service had begun before they’d arrived. Silas patted Mia’s hand as they ascended the set of stairs at the front of the building.

  “Don’t you worry, Mia honey,” he’d said. “All the people at this church are going to love you and your mama just like you’d been coming every Sunday since you were a child.”

  Mia had smiled at Silas and willed herself to keep putting one foot in front of the other. The relief of Babs’s promise not to pester her about church for the rest of her visit propelled Mia upstairs and into Silas’s home church. Babs winked at her as they entered.

 
“Aren’t you glad you came?”

  Mia felt the verdict was far from in on that. She’d come down to the lobby of her apartment building and found her mother and Silas laughing together. Babs had jovially explained that Silas had discovered her quest for a church and had invited the ladies to his.

  The congregation was in full voice when they entered the sanctuary.

  “Oh, I just love black music,” Babs said to Mia as they made their way down the center aisle.

  Silas exchanged warm greetings with parishioners on either side, all the while swaying with the rhythm of the music. After greeting Silas with a kiss or hug, the congregants would turn to Babs and Mia to envelop them in warmth as well.

  Babs was in her element. She spoke into the ear of one woman and complimented her on her wide-brimmed purple hat. Another woman farther down the aisle received unsolicited affirmation on how stylish her zebra print heels were, especially in Barbados, where Babs had just visited. When they finally reached an open pew in front of the podium, Mia watched in horror as her mother began to do the two-step, singing along loudly and clapping with great enthusiasm on the wrong beat. Silas seemed to be enjoying sharing his church with friends and would look at Mia every now and again, and pat her arm gently, a kind smile lighting his face and giving extra depth to the lines that traveled there.

  After twenty minutes of singing, Silas lowered himself to the pew. Mia leaned over to ask if he was all right.

  “Oh, honey, I’m just as good as ever. But these folks can outsing me any day of the week.” He nodded his head in time to the music, one smooth, brown hand resting on the red pew fabric beside him, the other hand tapping the beat on his knee.

  After another twenty minutes the music softened in gradual decrescendo from a rambunctious waterfall to a hushed and mournful river. Babs swayed with her eyes closed, her tanned legs showing prettily beneath the hem of her skirt. The baby offered a spirited kick in Mia’s belly, perhaps disappointed that the auditory fun was coming to a close.