by Lois Ruby
“Well, what’s he like?” I asked. I pictured a face with pink bumps just ready to burst, and thin blond hair, and watery gray eyes. The total package came to five foot three, and maybe he sniffed a lot. But Miriam didn’t realize I meant, what’s he like physically.
“Very serious,” Miriam said. “Not like you.”
“I can be serious.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“Yeah, well there’s a lot you don’t know about me.” How do I explain why I got mad all of a sudden? Maybe because I’d had a long day, and it didn’t end the way I’d expected, and now I was being asked to defend my personality, which Diana already understood so well. I was starting to fume, and sneezing about six times in a row didn’t help my disposition. “Why’ve you got all those man-eating plants around?” I moved one plant over to the window, out of whiffing distance. Jesus, two years of allergy shots. I shoved some moldy flowers into the corner behind the chair.
“No one’s keeping you here,” Miriam said, handing me a couple of tissues out of the box on her tray table. It was like something your mother would do, handing you a Kleenex when you were crying at home about being called a sissy for crying about being called a sissy at school.
I hated the way my voice sounded after I’d had a sneezing fit. “I guess you want to get back to your magazine stuff, anyway.”
“Not really,” she said, shrugging. “It’s boring here.”
“But this guy in Emporia, he’s waiting anxiously for your letter.”
“I doubt it. I just didn’t have anybody else to write to.”
She eased herself back against her pillow, with her hands behind her head and her legs crossed at the ankles. Her eyes were closed. Good thing, too, because mine were wide open as I noticed for the first time that there were definite signs of shape to this girl. For some crazy reason, her bare feet embarrassed me. Me, who’s always looking for fresh flesh.
“I acted like an idiot the other night. I apologize,” she said. Her eyes were still closed.
“Not exactly an idiot,” I assured her. “Moron, maybe. Imbecile, possibly; cretin comes to mind. But you definitely weren’t idiotic.”
“Anyway, thanks for coming by, Adam.”
“Am I leaving?”
“Probably,” she said.
Saturday night, and here I sat beside the bed of a homely, stubborn religious fanatic. There were parties going on all over the east side, CD players and car stereos blasting, food and drink for the taking, videos, go-carts, poker games, dragging Douglas. I wanted to get going, but I couldn’t take my eyes off those neat, square, faintly bluish toenails, and how the first toe gently crossed over the second, the way I used to cross my fingers as a kid to tell myself that the lie I was telling was only a white lie.
I stayed, even though we didn’t talk at all for fifteen minutes. I’d never been quiet with anyone before.
At home, my father had big news.
“Adam, your mother and I have debated about this all day, and I’ve decided to take the case.”
“What case?” I asked, with very little interest. My father was always taking unpopular cases, like he represented an abortion clinic bomber and, another time, a kid who went crazy and shot two teachers. He almost always won, but not before his name was dragged through about twelve miles of mud, and he never even made expenses on these hot cases. But my dad is the kind of man who can’t resist the causes no one else would dare touch. A bleeding heart, that’s what my father is.
“I’m representing the church.”
“Oh, yeah?” I was thinking about the guy with the serious acne in Emporia, about buildings in Greece, about the curl of Miriam’s toes.
“Your friend with the cancer? I’m representing her church against the State of Kansas. You know how I chew up these church-state issues. This one’s going to be a humdinger.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Told by Miriam
Mr. Bergen came to visit me, and I could see what Adam would grow up to look like. He had a very chiseled face, with a sharp nose and cheekbones and a healthy tan, and he still had a full head of dark, unruly hair. I liked him.
“Before this is done, you will hate me,” he said. “I’ll make your life miserable, because I have to know absolutely everything if I am to win this case for you. I have to know every symptom you experience, no matter how personal, and I have to know every facet of your religious belief, no matter how intimate. Do you understand?”
I nodded. I was getting used to being invaded.
“Fine. We’ll get along.” He slid a yellow pad out of his worn briefcase and pulled the cap off his fountain pen with his teeth. “Any questions?”
“One.” I wasn’t sure how to ask it. He was patient with my silence. While he waited, he took off his suit coat and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt. I did not want to be aware of the dark hair visible beneath his shirt. Uncle Benjamin and Uncle Vernon always wore white T-shirts under their dress shirts; I thought all men did. And then I thought about whether Adam’s shoulders would be as broad as his father’s when he was a full-grown man, or his hair as dark.
“I was wondering,” I began.
“Shoot.”
Should I? The man seemed so tolerant. I wondered if Diana resembled Mr. Bergen’s wife, when she was seventeen, and whether Diana was Jewish. How could Adam and she go together if she wasn’t Jewish? Did Mr. Bergen approve of her? All this flitted through my head as I tried to formulate my question. “What I was wondering was, you tell me that you have to know everything if you’re to win the case for me. What does winning mean, exactly?”
Mr. Bergen cleared his throat. I knew I’d asked the wrong question. Questions were my downfall. But a lot depended on his reply. He answered, measuring his words very carefully. Uncle Vernon used to say, “Lawyers are famous for saying as little as possible, in the most number of words, kinda like politicians.”
Mr. Bergen said, “It means we win the right for your mother to determine how your illness is to be treated.”
It seemed simple enough, but I knew it wasn’t. “And that means I win?”
He tilted his chair back, rocked for a while. “It means that the church wins, it means that your family wins, it means that freedom of religion, as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, wins.”
“And me?”
“I’ll tell you, Miriam Pelham, you’re asking the wrong person.”
“But you’re my lawyer!”
“I’ve got faith in the U.S. Constitution, and I’ve got faith in the American judicial system. But I haven’t got your kind of faith.”
“You mean you don’t believe God will heal me?”
“I mean I haven’t got your kind of faith, that’s all I mean. Now let me ask the questions for a couple of minutes.”
As soon as I was over the bone biopsy and all the test results were in and they were sure about their diagnosis, there wasn’t anything else the doctors could legally do. They had to let me go home. Gerri Kensler, my SRS social worker, came to explain the terms.
“Okay, here’s the deal. You’re officially in SRS custody. That’s State and Rehabilitative Services. But the state’s letting you live with your mother if you do a few little things.”
I snapped my suitcase shut. “Like what?”
“Well—” Gerri flipped through legal-sized pages on her clipboard. We’d only been into this a week, and there were already pages and pages about me. Gerri was pretty and black and made-up like a model in a red knit suit that would have been perfect on Diana. She said the right things, but I didn’t think she cared much about me. I’d heard that she had about sixty other kids to deal with.
“Okay, I found it. You’ve got to take your temperature twice a day, seven a.m. and five p.m., and keep a record of it. Then, every two weeks, on Fridays, you go in to see Dr. Gregory. The hospital will do periodic blood work and bone scans, unless things turn sour before then. And don’t go to Europe or Bermuda or anywhere. That about c
overs it.”
“It’s just so ridiculous, Gerri. I’m going to be fine. I’m a lot better already, thank God. And you’ve met my uncles. Can’t you just see them bringing me to the hospital every two weeks to see Dr. Gregory?”
Gerri pressed her lips together as if she were blotting her lipstick. I’d never seen anyone with such deep, wide lips, which she outlined in a dark brown shade. “Sure, I can see it, Miriam, because you and I don’t have any choice in the thing. It’s like the judge is king, and he says how it’s gotta be in his kingdom. We just do what he says. Ask your lawyer; he’ll tell you. It’s because you’re what we call a CINC.”
“I know, I’ve heard it nine hundred times this week—a Child In Need of Care, like neglected and abused children. But that’s just it, Gerri. I’m seventeen and not exactly a child. In seven months I’ll be voting.”
“Yes, but SRS can legally maintain custody until you’re twenty-one.”
“Anyway, I’m not abused or neglected. I’ve got a good, loving family and church. They take care of me.”
“Fact is, Miriam, that’s not the way Judge Bonnell sees it. He says your family is neglecting you by not treating your disease.”
I picked up my suitcase and winced in pain. Naturally, it didn’t escape her.
“You’re hurting, girl. What’s your family doing about that? They seeing that you get some pain pills? They getting you treatment for that bone tumor? Are they even giving you vitamins to build yourself back up? If they’re not, it looks like neglect to the rest of us who don’t have a fax machine directly to God. Now, I’ll stop by your home later to see you’re settled in and to tell your mother what she has to do.”
Just before Uncle Benjamin was due to pick me up, Brother James came to pray with me. He put his hands on my head. Usually he smelled of strong soap or of the faintly rusty odor of outdoor labor, but there was something different this time. I couldn’t place it.
“Guide this child through the days ahead,” he said, in his smooth, reassuring voice. “Visit her every hour of every day and hasten her return to strength. Give her caretakers the benefit of Your wisdom and compassion. Above all, ease her doubt, sweet Jesus, ease her doubt so the pain in her body and in her heart may be lifted. A-men.”
“A-men,” I repeated and opened my eyes. What smelled different? A new shirt, something on his hands? “Mr. Bergen was here,” I said. “I like him.”
“Good, good.” Brother James seemed distracted, with his hands jammed into his pockets and his shoulders hunched up. Or impatient, like someone waiting for a late bus.
“I was wondering how you picked Mr. Bergen, or did he pick us? Or did someone send him to us?”
“Someone surely sent him.” Brother James took one hand out of his pocket and pointed to the ceiling, which meant beyond the ceiling. “The Lord always provides. Mr. Bergen is good, the best there is, because his specialty is civil rights. Your rights are being violated, child, and your family’s rights, and your religious rights, and these Jewish lawyers, they’ve got some kind of conscience that’s hard to figure.” Brother James leaned forward and straightened a picture of Jesus on my table. “But we will use him, Miriam, as an instrument of the Lord, for our righteous purposes. We’ll take the Lord’s gifts, however they come to us. Mr. Bergen doesn’t lose his cases. Now, you’re not to worry.” Brother James got up and walked back and forth across my room. With his back to me, he said, “I believe he’s the father of that boy who visits you, is he not?”
“Yes, Brother James.”
“Well, the Lord works in mysterious ways, sure enough.” He paced some more, as we waited for my dismissal papers and Uncle Benjamin. “You all packed?” he asked.
I pointed to the suitcase in the corner, looking like an orphan at the train depot.
“Then I believe you’ve forgotten something, child.” He came back around the bed and handed me the picture from my bedside table. “You meant to carry it with you into your home, didn’t you Miriam? Right there in your two hands.” There was a knock at the door, Uncle Benjamin, no doubt. Brother James lay the picture of Jesus on my lap and leaned forward to kiss my forehead. Again I sensed an unusual odor. It reminded me of an animal you come upon in the forest, an animal that’s frightened at the sight of you. It must have been something he’d handled earlier that morning; I never smelled it on him again.
The closer we got to home, the stronger I felt. Uncle Benjamin turned into Old Wood Road, and I thought I’d never seen anything so lovely. That one particular day in early November, the trees were nearly bare, and a blanket of crisp orange leaves covered most of the lawns in our neighborhood. A few pumpkins still guarded the doors of my neighbors. Our house was the smallest on the block, and the prettiest, with its teal blue shutters and the awnings, like sleepy eyelids, over all the windows. I remembered when Uncle Vernon put up the awnings and taught me how to crank them open. The blue and gold stripes were as bright as a new flag. Now, after ten years, they had an easy faded look about them, as though they were proud of the weathering they’d withstood.
“We’re home,” said Uncle Benjamin.
Mama ran out to the driveway as soon as we pulled into the carport.
“Get out and let me see you. Why, you look wonderful, baby.”
Uncle Vernon ventured out. “Looking good.”
“What do you mean looking good, Vern? She’s the picture of health,” Uncle Benjamin said with a snort.
“The very picture.” Mama pushed me just out of range to have a better look, then pulled me to her again. Uncle Vernon took the picture of Jesus from my hands and an anemic plant, while Uncle Benjamin yanked my suitcase out of the car. They let me walk into the kitchen first, as if there were a surprise party waiting for me.
I loved the sound of the screen door bouncing against the door frame. Our kitchen smelled just the same, like a cup of cooled cinnamon tea. Mama had a perky bunch of yellow-orange mums in a glass on the table. The big portrait of Jesus over the table welcomed me home, too. We sat down to talk, in our usual places, but we did not talk about what we called “the case.”
Uncle Vernon began, as he always did. “So, it’s back to school, hunh? You way behind?”
“Mostly in physics. But I’ve kept up in English and French and all.”
“Are you hungry, baby?”
Suddenly I was ravenous for some real homestyle cooking, not stringy, watery, drab hospital food.
“Because I’ve got chicken fricasee on the stove, and mashed potatoes, and green beans with bacon, just the way you like them.”
“She baked you a pumpkin pie,” Uncle Vernon said. “Be sure and save me and your uncle a slice before you gobble it all up.” He smiled, either at me or at the thought of Mama’s pumpkin pie.
“Seems like this would be a good time to give thanks to the One who delivered Miriam back to us,” Uncle Benjamin said. “Shall we bow our heads?”
We ate the chicken and made small talk. Mama’s face was flushed, and her fingers danced lightly around the table as she filled our plates. Finally, the men grew tired of the conversation and picked up the paper.
Mama and I moved to the living room. I sank into the beautiful couch, remembering how I’d been tortured with pain the last time I lay on it. The afghan was folded into a neat square on the arm of the couch, as though no one had used it since Mama had tried, without much success, to warm me that day. We heard the men rustling the newspaper in the kitchen, commenting on obituaries and letters to the editor.
Mama whispered, “I guess you read a lot of poetry, those long days in the hospital.”
“Oh, yes. It kept me company. There was no one much to talk to there.”
Mama squeezed my hand. “There was no one much to talk to here, either.”
“You need a book of poetry, Mama.” I’d tried giving up the poetry, thinking that just having the book in my drawer next to the bed was enough. Just feeling the nubby binding, the cool white pages that I could almost read with my fingers as if the
y were printed in Braille. But those days when I felt so lonely and bewildered, lines of poetry wafted through my mind, and the sounds and words bathed my soul in warmth the way nothing else quite did. “This is Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mama: ‘I heard or seemed to hear the chiding sea/say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come?’ Isn’t that purely beautiful?”
“Very nice,” Mama said. Then after a few seconds, “But you musn’t lose sight of the lovely verse in the Book in Gold Leaf.”
“I never will, Mama,” I swore, but for one panicky second, I couldn’t recall a single line. Then I blurted out, like a baby’s wail in church: “‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you.’ Matthew 5:44.”
Mama was astonished at my enthusiasm for this passage. “Well, I declare! You haven’t forgotten Scripture.”
“Mama,” I whispered, “Adam Bergen may come over. Remember him?”
“Oh … my …,” Mama hesitated just a second and leaned over to hug me. “I’m so happy to have you home. I expect he’ll just stay a short while.”
Later that afternoon, Mama let him in and directed him to the rocking chair, and she and Uncle Benjamin and Uncle Vernon all hovered around. Poor Adam! He looked like a guppy in a tank full of barracudas, and the more anxious he got, the faster he rocked, until I thought he might catapult right out our front window. He ate about a pound of peanuts, tossing them way back in his mouth. I’m not sure he took time to chew them. I kept catching his eye, telegraphing him reassuring smiles. Twenty minutes was all he could tolerate, and also just about all the time I could keep from bursting out laughing. I gave him a nod that it was okay to leave, and we were all relieved when he bolted for the door.
“High-strung boy,” Uncle Vernon said.
“Nervous as a cat—”
“I know, I know, Benjamin—as a cat on a hot tin roof,” Uncle Vernon added.
I don’t think they knew that this line came from a playwright they’d not approve of one little bit.
