When we reached the the top of the first level, Ivy glanced over at me. “I read somewhere that the ancients believed that climbing their temple was a meditation that would bring them closer to heaven.”
“Heaven or Nirvana?”
Ivy shrugged.
“Sounds like Angkor Wat,” I offered. Again Ivy merely shrugged. In my stomach I felt a sharp pain that made me suck in my breath hard as I realized the truth of what was going on. Someone, somehow, had broken Ivy’s heart. Or maybe not broken her heart, but struck at the very essence of her being. This was no unfaithful boyfriend, or even a lost job. This was disaster.
When we reached the top of the second level, Ivy led us over to the far railing that would allow us a view of the green plane below. If it had been a clear day we could have seen all the way into St. Louis — the Arch, and the vague skyline beyond. That day what stretched out before us was wet grass and trees made brighter by the gray clouds overhead.
“I forgot the nacho chips,” said Ivy, leaning on the rail.
“No biggie,” I said, consciously mirroring Ivy’s attitude.
I let her be quiet for a while. I could hear her mentally sorting and straightening. Putting all the information I was sure she was going to give me in neat little stacks on the desk of her mind. This would be an important step. Ivy didn’t like turmoil. If I allowed her all the time she wanted, I would get the facts. If I rushed her, I would get emotional vomit she would later be embarrassed that I heard and saw.
“I’m going to tell you a story, and I want you to tell me what you think,” she said after several minutes.
“Okay.”
“Back during parent-teacher conferences, one of my student’s fathers came in, and seemed quite taken with Mom and Dad’s wedding picture — the one I keep on my desk. I thought it was odd at the time, but I let it go. Then I started seeing him around town. Lots. Really lots. And he always wanted to talk. But the questions he was asking were... I don’t know. They were off. He didn’t just want to know what part of Illinois I was from, he wanted to know my parent’s names, and the ages of my siblings. Things that seemed nosey. So I started avoiding him.”
I nodded and licked my lips in a way to show I was listening, even though I was staring into the distance.
“Today, I ran into him when I stopped to pick up coffee and nacho chips on my way out of Anna. He stopped me, and asked me about Mom’s chocolate toffee cookie recipe. He acted like he’d eaten them before. Like maybe she’d made them just for him, and asked me to get him the recipe. Said he missed them. I told him no, that we didn’t give out that recipe to strangers. He said that he wasn’t a stranger. He was family, or at least he was my family. When I asked what he meant, he said that I should go ask Mom why she’d kept us apart. I left.”
“What’s his name?”
“Dylan Morris.”
“Doesn’t sound familiar. Long lost uncle?” I guessed.
“Unlikely. He was so indignant. Like somehow he was owed a relationship with me.”
“How old was he?”
“Maybe three or four years older than Mom.”
“So an uncle is possible. And definitely not a grandparent, or something like that.”
“Yup.”
“Doesn’t seem likely though.”
“So, I should just ignore him right? Just go home and pretend that he doesn’t exist? I mean he’s clearly mistaken,” said Ivy.
“I guess it depends on what you want,” I said to her.
“I want to know the truth.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. I need to be able to go back and tell Dylan Morris to shove it. He has no business going around spreading half-rumors about my parents.”
I tottered a moment between telling her she was crazy, and telling her what she wanted to hear. I picked the middle road. “Is it possible he’s not implying what you think he is implying?”
“Even if I don’t have the details right, Kay, he’s clearly implying they are in the wrong, somehow. That they’ve been covering something up. That’s not right. They wouldn’t do that.”
“They wouldn’t do that? Are you sure about that? What if they thought they were protecting you and your brothers? Would they cover something up then?”
She was quiet. I knew she resented what I had just done. I was supposed to agree with her. If I agreed she could go home and not worry about Dylan Morris anymore. If I agreed with her then she could put this all behind her without digging any deeper. But she also wanted the truth, which she was not going to get by ignoring too-obvious hitches in her plan.
A strange kind of friend I must seem to be, not letting her let herself off the hook. The simple truth was that Ivy wouldn’t let herself off the hook, either. She would worry and pick at the situation until she was frustrated and said something outrageous, potentially rude, and most certainly destructive to her mother. Which would only make the situation worse. Here, at the top of an old Indian mound, I had one chance to at least put the brakes on her inquest. In order to apply the brakes, I had to bring her around to planning her approach. Which meant bringing her around to dealing with the obvious possibilities opened by Dylan Morris.
Finally, grudgingly, like a displeased bull dog, she turned to me. “I guess if they thought they were protecting us, they might hide some details from the past.”
“Okay, so let’s think of a way to approach this that isn’t going to lead to yelling and tears.”
“Like what? ‘So Mom, did you sleep with anyone before Dad? Is it possible I was the product of an unwise affair? I don’t think that’s going to play well in Charity.”
“Why not work his name into the conversation? Just see what she says. Approach it slowly. Give her lots of time to come clean with you, or at least admit she knew him back in the day. You’re probably going to get more truth from her if she doesn’t feel attacked.”
“The indirect approach.”
“Yes.”
“I always hate that. It seems like I’m trying to trick her,” said Ivy.
“You aren’t trying to trick her. You are trying to give her some unpleasant information gently.”
“I don’t think I’m going to get any information that way,” she said with a scowl. I was relieved to see her scowl. She was slowly pulling out of heartbroken and getting her fight back. Even the color was coming back to her face.
“You need to remember that whatever did or did not happen may not be any of your business. It may be something private that Dylan Morris should never have brought up. You need to be prepared not to get all the answers right away, or ever.”
She glowered and glared. I met her gaze without flinching. “You know I’m right.”
“Yeah,” she said, finally.
For a while we both leaned on the railing. A change of topic seemed necessary. “You know, on average, new teachers quit after three years in the classroom.”
“I’d heard,” said Ivy.
“I’m thinking of quitting after next year.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s not your thing.”
“I’m not sure what else I’ll do.”
“Maybe what you need is a younger grade. High School can be difficult.”
“No. I’m a really bad teacher. I’m not patient. I spend time day dreaming about being able to hand out corporal punishment. I’m not even sure I really like kids anymore.”
Ivy laughed. “I’m not sure all of that makes you a bad teacher. I’ve wanted to spank a couple too.”
“I’m pretty certain it’s not a good sign.”
“You could always go back to school.”
I shrugged. “Seems like a waste when I don’t really know what I want to study.”
“We’ve got three weeks, we’ll put our heads together and come up with something.”
I looked up at her and smiled. She’s tall, I’m not. “What we lack in practicality, I’m sure we’ll make up in quantity.”
“I’m scared,�
� Ivy said, going back to our previous topic without preamble.
“I know. But you can’t find the answers you want up here. So what are we going to do?”
“How am I going to face her?”
“What’s the worst that could happen? We’re talking about your mother here. The woman who is — right now — pacing from the kitchen to the living room window and back, waiting for you to come home. Do you think she would disown you for asking a few questions?” I asked.
“I’m pretty sure Dad makes those stories up.”
“I don’t think he does.”
“You know we’re not close. Not friends. Just mother and daughter. She’s always liked the boys better than me.”
“She loves you. She’s just not good at communicating with you.”
“Kay Kay, what if it’s the worst possible explanation?”
“Which would be what?”
“I’m not Dad’s daughter.”
In a way I was relieved. Whatever the truth was it would be easier for her to deal with if she’d prepared for the worst. In a way it saddened me. A beautiful daughter, three good looking sons, parents that loved each other, and who loved their children. The Brandts’ were my idea of heaven when I was little. They were, in my mind, still the picture of a happy family. How I had envied Ivy her family. I’d been careful to hide that particular sin from my father. My craven little covetous heart. Always accepting the scraps of the love that encompassed my best friend and which she accepted as her right.
Ivy was watching me carefully as I started off into the distance trying to find some words of comfort. I was coming up low on the comfort and I knew it, so I decided to tread softly into the romantic. Hoping all the time that I wasn’t painting a picture for her that was even less true than the one she’d originally had.
“I think you’re used to a certain story. We’re story-telling creatures. It only makes sense. Your story is about two people that loved each other in spite of a twenty-year age difference. It’s a story about how they were thrilled to know you were on your way into the world even before they got married. It’s a story with hearts and flowers all tied up with a neat bow. I’d give you even money it ends ... and they lived happily ever after. And I’m sure it is very comforting. I don’t know how it could be anything else. It provides you with a pretty high ideal of life and love. I think you need to prepare yourself for a different sort of story.”
“I like that story.”
“Sure, I do too. It’s a great story. But if what you are afraid of is true, then there is another story too. One about character and compassion, and what makes a person worth loving for a lifetime. Doesn’t make the first story untrue. In fact, it may make the first story more true.”
“Always you with the paradoxes and the riddles,” said Ivy. I wasn’t looking at her, but I could hear the eye roll.
I smiled to myself. That was Ivy. All about the upstanding character and the personal honor. No shades of gray. No in-between places. Now, if Dory would just level with her and put this whole mess to rest one way or the other. I didn’t hold out much hope for that, though. Dory, along with being the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in real life, was a very private person. She didn’t like to talk about the past. Especially if it was before she married Linus. She had never liked answering Ivy’s thousands of questions. Which made a lot of sense in light of Dylan Morris.
Then I had a horrible thought. What if Dory didn’t know the truth either? Which could mean that Linus didn’t know the truth.
In an instant the part of me that was raised by my father jumped to judge. Dory, as much as I had always adored her, was a whore too. Bad enough that she had gotten pregnant by the man she married before she married him, but to compound that sin by sleeping around on him, too. The mere thought enraged me. In that moment, I was certain that Dory deserved to have retribution called down on her by Dylan Morris. Had I been all-powerful I would have wiped her off the earth with thunder bolts. Had I been my father, I would have driven her from the midst of my congregation with a roaring indictment.
I squished down that part of me almost as soon as it rose up from the shadows. But I wasn’t fast enough. Ivy caught the harsh look in my eyes the hard set of my jaw, and immediately knew what I was thinking. She’d been around my father enough to know what he would have said, too.
“If your father had suspected any of this, he’d never have let us be friends,” Ivy said as I felt the ridged glare melt from my face, and my jaw unclench.
“He wasn’t so keen on the idea anyway.”
“I know.”
“He always considered me a failure when it came to your family. I was supposed to convert you all to Unbridled Holiness. I didn’t do my job. Sorry. It was a knee-jerk reaction.”
“It’s okay. Like John always says, Kay Kay’s got her preaching face on. I understand.”
“Still, it was a rush to judge when all we have is the most basic suspicions. No excuses for that.”
“If you think I haven’t wondered the same thing...”
“Yeah, but you’re her daughter. I’m not even family.”
“They’d disagree if you said that.”
“Sure. But it would still be true.”
Three
The only part of the rest of that day I remember clearly is the walk I took with John that night. John, the oldest of Ivy’s three younger brothers, had been a good friend of mine since his sophomore year of high school, and my freshman year of college. I’m ashamed to say he had tried to befriend me before that, but the combination of his youth, and the fact that he was male, made me keep him at arm’s length. I wasn’t used to having boys show interest in me, even just friendly interest.
We walked the dirt roads that night as we often did, through the corn fields toward town. I gave him the college graduation present I had gotten for him. It was a cookbook about cooking for one. I teased him about all the girls he was stringing along. He teased me about all the men I was supposedly stringing along. We were both persistently single. Me — by choice, in a way. Him, because he only seemed to notice a girl was interested after she gave up on him, and started dating someone else. We did not speak of Ivy. We never spoke of Ivy. Their relationship was close, but not easy. If he had noticed anything odd about her mood, he did not mention it.
I suppose it may seem odd that I don’t remember more. Arriving at the Brandt’s is something I do in much the way I make coffee in the morning. I remember that it happened, I reap the benefits of having performed the actions, and I plan to do it again. But was it yesterday or the day before that I spilled coffee grounds on the floor? Was it the year we were twenty-five, or the year we were twenty-six, that Dory met us on the lawn with limeade instead of ice tea? I just have no idea.
I do know there were hugs exchanged all around when we arrived. John, Mark, Lemuel, and Ivy’s father Linus were called in from the back yard where they were putting plants out in Dory’s garden. I know we were sent up to put our bags in the room that had been Ivy’s all her life. I’m pretty sure that while we were up in Ivy’s white and yellow princess room, I started to unpack. I usually do.
At dinner, we all chatted. Dory carried on for a while about the new pastor at the Lutheran church. She thought he was cute. Linus, never very outspoken, summed him up as young, nervous, and single. I remember mentioning I had an appointment that Monday to look over the church paraments and start repairs. But this, too, is a conversation that could have happened any year. I made those paraments, and every year I look them over, and make repairs as needed. I really only remember that the appointment was for a Monday that year, in the light of other events. Context, not the constancy of my memory.
Later that night, after my walk with John, after a game of Monopoly and a glass of wine a piece, Ivy and I would stay up whispering in the dark. She, laying under the frilly yellow canopy of her girlhood bed, while I occupied the trundle bed next to it. We did not talk about fathers, or Dylan Morris, or Dory. That much I rem
ember. Instead we made plans for our vacation. Shopping, reading, getting a jump on our work. It was good to be home.
What I do remember vividly is the next morning.
I guess we all have our own private little traditions. One of mine is that whenever I return to Charity, I buy a new dress to wear to church on Sunday. It’s not that St. Paul Lutheran is a particularly formal congregation. Even if it was, I’m not even a member there anymore. In reality, I guess I barely was a member there. Still, it is my church home in a way no other church will ever really be. So I shop, and I make sure I look nice on Sundays when I’m there. That year I had purchased a sea-green sundress with a light cream sweater to wear over it. I thought I looked very well. Not pretty, exactly, but interesting, and attractive.
I was standing with Linus and Dory in their kitchen, waiting for the others to be ready, drinking a cup of Linus’ good coffee, when the phone rang. Linus answered it, probably expecting it to be a choir member needing a ride, or the pastor wondering about a change for the morning service.
“Keziah, it’s for you,” he said moments later, handing the old-fashioned handset to me in a way that stretched the yellow cord across the kitchen door. As he backed away, and I lifted the phone to my ear, I saw him stage whisper “Susan” to Dory. Dory frowned.
“Hello,” I said.
“Keziah, it’s Susan. I need your help. Your father got arrested. We’re in Dresden, Kentucky. We don’t have any way to get him out. We don’t have the money, and they only want to turn him over to a family member. Please come.”
“Susan, I can’t.”
“Please, Keziah. He doesn’t deserve to be locked up like this. He was just following God’s lead.”
Now Susan and I, neither one of us are idiots. We both knew “following God’s lead” in this case probably meant “was doing exactly what he’s been accused of”. I sighed deeply on the edge of telling her no. Then Susan pulled out the big guns.
“Do it for me, Keziah. If you can’t bring yourself to do it for him, do it for me.”
The Color of Ordinary Time Page 2
