Shoot! I throw the covers back and sit up. What in the world? I swing my legs over the side of the bed, slip my sock-clad feet into my slippers, and then head to my closet for my robe. I wander through the dark house, flipping lights on as I go. I follow my nose to the kitchen, where I stand sniffing.
“Ugh.” The stench fills the kitchen. I turn in circles trying to detect where the smell is coming from.
Something is rotting. Or rotten.
Food?
I shake my head. Food could never smell that bad.
I head toward the kitchen sink and the smell seems to get stronger. I bend down and place my face near the garbage disposal. I breathe deep and then lift my head so fast that it bangs against the faucet.
“Oh, Lord . . . what is that?” I back out of the kitchen while rubbing the lump on my head. I turn in the living room and go to the front door. I open the door and gulp breaths of clean, damp air. Standing in my small foyer, I close my eyes and listen to the rain as the cold wind blows around me and into the house. I stand there until my heart rate and breathing become normal again and consider my options. Then I turn and head back to the kitchen.
You can do this, Ellyn.
First, I go to the fridge, grab a lemon, and quarter it. I toss it into the sink, and turn on the faucet and garbage disposal. “Oh Lord, let it be this simple.”
You should know better by now.
“Shut up, Earl!” I’m really getting tired of the nagging.
I step back from the sink and sniff. The fresh scent of lemon intermingles with the scent of—I sigh again—death. It’s the smell of roadkill that lingers in my kitchen. There’s no denying it. But what died and where? The smell is stronger near the sink, but it’s not coming from there.
I slam my hand against the faucet, turning it off, then turn on my heel and leave the kitchen again. I need coffee, but there’s no eating or drinking anything in there. My gag reflex threatens a revolt. I make my way upstairs to the guest room, flip the light switch, and then eye the small single-serving coffeemaker I keep in the room. Yes! I choose a pod from the small wooden box next to the brewer, slip a pottery mug under the spigot, and put the pod into the machine. As I wait, the scent of fresh coffee soothes me and I feel my shoulders relax, but just a bit.
“Lord, I need a simple solution to a pointless problem.” I wait, hoping for divine inspiration but nothing comes to mind. “Fine.”
I take the cup of coffee and reach for some of the powdered creamer I keep on the tray with the coffeemaker. Then I stop. The creamer is full of high fructose corn syrup. Sugar. My hand hovers over the creamer for a few seconds. Since my episode at the hospital last week and the recognition of God’s intervention, I haven’t struggled at all with sticking with my vegan, no-sugar, diet. But now . . .
Oh, phooey! I dump a couple of heaping teaspoons into my coffee. I take the mug and sit in the natural-colored linen upholstered chair in the corner of the room and sip my coffee. I start to apologize to God for my weakness, but something stops me. Instead, I whisper, “Thank You.” I hold the cup close to my nose and breathe in the rich aroma. So much better than the stench downstairs.
Then I make a plan.
“Hi.”
I sit on the front step, letting the wind and rain batter my overheated body. I hold the phone in one hand and wipe my damp brow with another.
“Hey, you, happy Sunday.”
“Yeah, not so much.”
Sabina laughs. “Uh-oh, what’s wrong?”
“This is serious.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. What happened?”
“Well, I mean, it’s not that serious.” As I talk some of my frustration diminishes. “In the grand scheme of life, I guess it’s not a huge deal. But I woke up several hours ago to a horrible smell. I mean, Sabina, it’s bad.” I hear her chuckle. “Okay, you get your scrawny behind over here and smell it. That will stop your laughing.”
“Oh, you are funny. Okay, so what’s the smell?”
“It’s . . . I think it’s . . .” A smile comes to my face and I begin laughing as well. “Really . . . it isn’t funny . . . it’s just that I . . .” I catch my breath. “I thought I could handle it. I thought I could take care of it myself. But then I saw fur . . . and . . .” I stop laughing as the reality hits me again. “I don’t know what to do. I just can’t . . . I can’t.”
“Fur?” Now she’s serious.
“It’s a rodent, of some sort. Rat, maybe. Or squirrel. It died in one of the walls in the kitchen. Oh, it stinks!”
“At the café? Can’t Paco—”
“No, at my house.”
“So call an exterminator. They’ll figure it out for you.”
“It’s Sunday. I called. No answer. I left a message—told them it was an emergency. But—”
“Ellyn, I don’t know if you can call it an emergency.”
“Oh, yeah? Easy for you to say. Again, come smell it.”
“You know, I’ve got a lot to do today.” She laughs again.
“Listen, I’ve almost got it. Really. I traced the smell to a cabinet in my kitchen. You know that wall that juts out from the bank of cabinets around the sink? It’s under there—behind one of those cabinets.”
By now, I’m standing back inside the house just near the front door so I can hear Sabina better. I keep opening and closing the door so I can take breaths of fresh air.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Remember the fur?”
“Oh . . .”
“I took everything out of the cabinet and bashed in the sheetrock with a hammer. I thought if I could do it inside the cabinet rather than on the other side of the wall, I wouldn’t have to have someone repair the sheetrock. I could just patch it myself with plywood or something.”
“But?”
“But then I took a little gardening shovel and was digging out the insulation and stuff and I found . . . droppings.” I take another breath of clean air. “Oh, Sabina, in my kitchen! Anyway, I found the droppings and then the next shovelful I pulled out had a clump of fur in it. So . . . I knew. But now . . . I can’t . . . I can’t make myself . . .”
“Well, girl, of course you can’t. That’s a man’s job. Call Paco.”
I begin pacing back and forth in the foyer. “No. No, I don’t need Paco. I just need . . . well, you know . . . moral support. I thought if you could come over and just . . . be here to encourage me. Cheer me on.”
Sabina begins laughing again.
“Seriously, I know I could do it then.”
“I’m not coming within fifty feet of any rat, dead or alive. Not doing it. Either you call a man or you’re on your own.” She pauses. “You know, Ellyn, there are some things men are good for.”
“Yeah, okay, I’ll take care of it myself.”
“Ellyn, stop it. Call Paco or someone.”
“I don’t want to take him away from his family on a Sunday morning.”
“Then call Miles.”
“No. He did enough for me last week. Anyway, you know, I can’t just call him for something like this. I don’t want him to feel like I’m using him.”
“He’s a friend, Ellyn. You told me he said if you needed anything to call him.”
I consider it. “No, I’m not calling him.”
“Oh give me a break. He’d love to help you. In fact, God probably let that big ol’ rodent die in your wall just so you’d have to humble yourself and ask a man for help—good man, by the way.”
“So now you believe in God?”
“Whatever. Just call Miles.”
“Okay, okay.” I hold up one hand like she can see me. “I have to go. I smell a rat!”
As I’m pushing End on my phone I hear Sabina say, “Call him, Ellyn.”
Some friend she is.
I drop the phone into the pocket of my robe and turn and face the direction of the kitchen again. I can do this—I can. I will! I cover my nose with one hand and walk back into the kitchen. Bits of sheetrock and pink insulation are strewn over the floor in front of the open lower cabinet. And next to the small shovel is the clump of . . . fur.
“Oh, Lord. I can’t!”
You’re such a wimp, Ellyn. It’s just a dead rat. Just get down on your hands and knees and dig it out.
I bend down, pick up the gardening gloves I was wearing before calling Sabina, and put them back on. I get back down on my hands and knees, grab the shovel, take a deep breath, hold it, and put my head back inside the cabinet. I reach toward the area in the open sheetrock where the fur came from and I dip the shovel back inside and begin to dig again. As I pull out more of the pink fluff, some of it brushes against my wrist just above one of the gloves.
I scream.
I’m back on my feet so fast it’s a miracle.
I run from the kitchen back to the front door and out to the step. I throw the shovel down, rip the gloves off my hands, and choke back a sob. “I can’t. I can’t do it.” Defeated, I plop down on the step again.
I can think of nothing else to do.
I bury my head in my hands and bang a fist against my knee.
I sit there a few minutes, then I get up and storm back into the house, slamming the door as I go. I climb the stairs to my bedroom, rip my damp robe off, and toss it across the foot of my bed. Then I go to the bathroom to blow my nose. As I do, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
My hair is a mass of chaotic red frizz, my green eyes are bloodshot, and my eyelids swollen and as red as my nose. I look down at the loose yellow flannel pajamas I’m wearing. The back bottoms of the legs are tucked into my socks and on my feet are my fuzzy slippers.
Call Miles? Looking like this? Yeah, right.
I move back toward the mirror and look at my reflection again. I take a brief inventory and let my mind go where I’ve fought for so long to keep it from going. I focus into my own eyes staring back at me from the mirror. And there . . . I see the truth.
I am afraid.
Afraid of men. Just as Rosa said.
But why?
Shivering now, I wrap my arms around myself.
As I look at myself—I see me. Not me, the chef. Not me, the friend. Just me, and me alone.
Alone.
Fat.
Ugly.
“No, Earl. You’re wrong.” The words come out on a whisper. “I’m created in the image of God.”
The words embarrass me. They are foreign—not something I’ve applied to myself before. But I swallow my fear—or try to. I look in the mirror again and still see just me. But there is determination shining in my green eyes.
That’s when I make a decision.
I shut the bathroom door, turn the shower on, undress, and step inside the steaming stall. I lather my hair with floral shampoo and stand long enough to allow the hot water to ease the tension in my shoulders.
After I shower, I blow-dry my long hair. I use product. I even dig out and plug in a long-ignored straightening iron. And then, I put on a little of the department store makeup.
That done, I head for my closet.
I pull the pair of black sweat pants off the shelf and reach for an olive sweater that I know sets off the color of my eyes. I put on shoes and earrings. I glance at myself in the full-length mirror—but just glance. If I look too long or think too much, I’ll change my mind.
Then I go to the bed, take my phone out of the pocket of my robe, and I call. “Hello, Miles? It’s Ellyn.”
Yet let us seek more diligently and not lose heart.
Saint Augustine
Chapter Forty-Two
Miles
“Ellyn? Are you feeling all right?” I assume she’s calling with a medical issue.
“Yes, I’m fine. I’ve been fine, good actually, since last Monday.”
“No more problems?”
“Not at all.”
I relax. “Good. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I have another type of problem and I was wondering if . . . well, I could use some help. I mean, if you’re free.”
I hesitate. There’s a part of me that wants to tell her to call someone else, but I know that’s not what God would have me do. “I was going to head to church, but tell me what’s going on.”
After she’s explained her predicament, I chuckle. “I bet it smells bad.”
“Really bad.”
“I’ll come on over.”
“Do you want to go to church and then come? It can . . . wait.”
I smile. “It can?”
“Oh. Well, sure.”
I laugh. “I’m on my way.”
I make a quick change from church clothes to jeans and a sweatshirt. As I do, I remind myself that God’s asked me to love Ellyn in the way He loves her, which also means sacrificing for her. Not that getting a rat out of her wall is a big deal. The sacrifice will come with the tug on my heart when I see her.
I grab my car keys and go.
When Ellyn opens her front door, I’m struck by two things: her—and a reeking stench. “Wow . . .”
“I told you it was bad. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it when I came in last night, but it was late and I went straight up to bed without even turning on a light down here. I didn’t even go into the kitchen. Then I woke up around 4:00 and something smelled, so I got up and . . .”
She’s nervous. Why? And what did she do to her hair? It looks so soft. I jam my hands into my pockets to keep myself from reaching out and touching her hair. Oh Lord, help me.
“I’m babbling. Sorry. Here, come in out of that weather.”
I step inside. Her house is cold—all the windows open, though it’s not helping the smell much. I follow her into the kitchen, where she covers her nose and mouth with her hand and points to an open cabinet with a mess in front of it.
I look from the mess to her. “Do you have a plastic garbage bag?”
“Sure.”
She goes to her sink, and grabs a bag out from the cabinet underneath, and hands it to me. “Great. I’ve got this, you go back outside.”
“No. I can . . . help or . . . wait.”
“Out!” I smile and point back toward her front door. Once she’s gone, I take a deep breath, hold it, and pick up the gardening shovel she left on the floor near the cabinet. I dig in the wall until I feel the problem, then shovel out the dead rat. I drop it in the open garbage bag, tie the top of the bag in a knot, and then run to the front door. I do it all in one breath.
“Got it.” I hold up the bag and then join her out on her front step. “Where’s your garbage can?”
“That was fast. You’re amazing! It’s on the side of the house on the other side of the driveway.”
I run through the rain, dispose of the rat, and then run back. I shake the water off and go back inside, leaving the front door open so the house can continue to air out. I find Ellyn in the kitchen, sweeping the mess out of the cabinet and off the floor. I get another garbage bag out from under her sink and hold it open as she, using a dustpan, fills it with bits of insulation, droppings, and sheetrock.
“Do you have any rat poison?”
“No. I’ve never needed it.”
“I’m surprised—seems like mice and rats would come with living on the headlands. You’ve been lucky.”
“I guess so.” She empties the dustpan one more time.
“I can pick some up, and then come back and patch the wall. I can just screw a piece of plywood against the hole since it’s inside the cabinet—that’s easier than patching the sheetrock. I’ll drop some poison in first.”
“Rea
lly? You don’t . . . mind?”
“No.” Her smile makes it worth it.
“Miles, thank you so much. I tried to do it myself. I should have been able to, but . . .” She shakes her head.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You did an amazing job. How did you pinpoint exactly where the rat was?”
She laughs. “I have a great nose.”
“Evidently.” I chuckle.
She empties the last of the debris into the bag. “I need to disinfect the floor and cabinet.” She looks up at me. “Have you had breakfast?”
“Not yet.”
“This will only take me a few minutes. Why don’t you come over to the café and I’ll make you breakfast? It’s Sunday, so I need to get over there. If you’d like, you could even stay . . .”
I watch as her face colors, the freckles on her cheeks almost disappearing with the color.
“I mean, if you want to, you could stay for lunch. It’s our Sunday tradition—the staff and their families.”
Her invitation entices me. I think a minute. “Thanks, Ellyn. It sounds great, but I have some things I need to get done today. Why don’t you leave your key under your mat and I’ll go get the rat poison and a piece of plywood. I’ll get this patched up and then head home.”
“Oh. If you’re sure . . .” She looks down at the cabinet—away from me.
“Yes, thanks for the invitation. Maybe another time.”
“Okay.”
After I finish, I put Ellyn’s key back under her mat. I get in my car and turn toward the headlands. I’ll take Hesser Drive around the loop. The rain has let up and the sun is breaking through the clouds. I glance out at the water and sky as I go. I round the corner, heading toward Lansing, and see someone, hood up, hands in pockets, walking the trail out to the point. I slow to a stop and watch her.
Then, as if she knows she’s being watched, she turns and looks at me. I pull into the nearby parking area, get out of the car, and wave at her. She doesn’t wave back, but she starts walking toward me. I step over the log between the parking lot and trail and go to meet her.
“Hey, gal. Good to see you.”
“Hi.”
“Taking advantage of a break in the weather?” She doesn’t look well.
Invisible Page 22
