In the Neighborhood of Normal

by Cindy Maddox

  She was still in ICU, still in critical condition. He caught himself trying to figure out what he would say at her memorial service, and he had no words for that sermon either.

  He had officiated at more difficult funerals, strictly speaking—the sudden deaths of younger people, for example—but few that had been as difficult emotionally as this one will be. Might be, he corrected himself. There was still time. There was still hope. But what was hope? And what good was it?

  He loved Mish—and not just in that vague way that some pastors talked about loving their parishioners. She was so endearing. Yes, she was quirky, eccentric even, but in such a loveable way.

  He had buried plenty of people he cared about, but this was different for him because the whole situation had been so preventable. If Mish hadn’t believed this whole “follow the love” business, she never would have gone to that park. It was her delusion that had put her life in jeopardy. Stephen didn’t like for him to use that word for Mish, but it was better than saying her faith had caused it, like he’d accidently done with Juliann. He still felt a flush of shame every time he remembered that Mish may have heard him say that. She had mumbled “it doesn’t matter,” but he wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Did it not matter that she’d heard him? Did it not matter that the woman wasn’t Jesus? What didn’t matter?

  Jeff was left with only one conclusion for himself: none of it mattered. What he did for a living—it didn’t matter. He tried to keep his small church alive in spite of the statistics that said the church in America was dying. Sometimes he felt like his efforts were worthwhile, but inevitably he would come back to the realization that he was rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. No matter what he did, it didn’t make a difference. He tried to help people, but most of the time he failed. He tried to help people believe in God, but he wasn’t even sure why. He wasn’t sure he believed, so why should they? He wasn’t sure it mattered.

  And then there was his dad. His shining example. His mentor. His symbol of everything a minister was supposed to be and do. If even he couldn’t do this job with integrity, how in the hell was Jeff supposed to?

  “Pastor Jeff?”

  Jeff looked up to see Carl standing in the doorway. He tried to smile, but Carl was the last person he wanted to see at the moment. The reminder that he was about to lose another person he cared about was just too much.

  “I won’t take much of your time,” Carl began. “I just came from my doctor’s office and wanted to give you an update. Is that okay?”

  “Of course,” Jeff lied. “Come on in.”

  They took their usual seats, but this time, instead of staring at his pants leg, Carl looked him straight in the eye. “I’m afraid you won’t be getting rid of me quite so soon.”

  “Does that mean…” Jeff fumbled for the right words. “What does that mean?”

  Carl smiled. “I told my doc I wasn’t going to do the aggressive treatment he suggested, and he gave me another option—a low dose of chemo that won’t cure me, but it will probably buy me a little time, without bad side effects.”

  Jeff grinned, but Carl held up his hand. “It’s no guarantee, but I think it’s worth a try. And I think I owe it to my family to try. After all, my first grandbaby is on the way!”

  “Oh, Carl, that’s wonderful! Congratulations—on the baby, I mean. And I’m so glad you changed your mind about the treatment.”

  “Well, that’s the other reason I came by. I wanted to thank you for our talk. I expected you to argue with me, which you did a little, but then you understood and accepted my decision. I had been so busy thinking about how I could defend my decision—to you and to my daughter—that I forgot to make sure it was really what I wanted to do. And then you asked me if I had no reason to live. I’ve been thinking about it, and I do. I have lots of reasons to live. Oh, I’ll still say ‘no’ to drastic treatment or what they call extreme measures. But if I have a chance of even one more year with quality of life, I should take it. Life is a gift. I don’t want to throw away the gift just because I don’t like the whole package.”

  Jeff, already on the verge of tears before Carl had come in, was having even more trouble holding them back now. “Thank you,” he began and then stopped and cleared his throat. “Thank you for telling me, Carl. I’m glad something I said was helpful.”

  Carl stood up and grabbed Jeff in a big hug, patting him on the back before he let go. “I don’t know if it was you or God, but I guess it doesn’t matter. Either way, I’ll take it.”

  19.

  Several Weeks Later

  Mom, I don’t have anything to wear,” Juliann called over her shoulder as she stared at the closet. When she and her mom had gone back to their house to pack up their clothes, she had taken almost everything, not sure when she’d be back. But she hadn’t thought to pack her dress clothes. She had a black dress that would be fine, but it was at her house. Her old house. Her dad’s house.

  She turned around when she heard her mother enter the room. “Can we go back to the house and get my black dress?”

  “No, we can’t,” her mother said softly.

  “Come on, Mom. We can do it when Dad’s at work,” Juliann argued. “It’ll take, like, two minutes.”

  “No, we can’t,” she repeated. “He changed the locks.”

  “Shit,” Juliann announced as she plopped down on the bed.

  “Indeed,” her mother replied, sitting next to her.

  “What does he want?” She knew her father, and she knew he did everything for a reason—usually for some personal gain. He wanted something.

  Her mom played with a loose string on the floral bedspread, not meeting Juliann’s eyes. “He wants a meeting.”

  “With me,” Juliann said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Actually, with both of us.”

  Juliann thought about that for a minute. She could see several ways this could go. Her dad could play nice, try to convince them he had changed, promise Juliann a new car, blah, blah, blah. Or he could go into one of his rants and try to intimidate her mom into giving in. Most likely he would try the nice route and get mean when it didn’t work. If it didn’t work. But what if it did? Would her mom cave and go back? Maybe it was time to have that hard talk. She took a deep breath. “Mom? Why did you stay?”

  Her mom stood up and turned toward the door. “I don’t really think this is the time for that conversation. We have lots of other things to deal with and—”

  “Mom! Sit down!” Juliann was shocked that she had actually given her mother an order, then shocked even more when her mother actually obeyed it. She took her mom’s hand. “I’m not being judgey. I just need to understand.”

  Her mom let out a heavy sigh. “I’ve always known this day would come. But I’m going to need some chocolate for this conversation. You with me?”

  Juliann tried to smile as her mom pulled her to her feet. They went to the kitchen, and Nicole opened the pantry door. “Cookies or candy?”

  “Yes!” Juliann answered. “And chips.” She couldn’t help but smile as she pulled them out of the sparkling clean trash compactor where Mish kept them.

  They gathered their stash and went to the family room. Juliann found the remote and turned on the gas fire, then they took their places on the sofa beside the dog. They sat for a few moments without speaking, Juliann waiting for her mother to take the lead.

  “I was going through a difficult time when I met him,” her mother began.

  “Difficult how?” Juliann asked, but her mother hushed her.

  “I need to tell this my way. You need to be patient.”

  Juliann bit her tongue.

  “I was going through a difficult time,” she repeated, “and Daniel was so thoughtful, caring. He promised he would take care of everything, and I believed him. He was almost done with law school and—since he was smart and charming—he showed ever
y sign of being headed for a successful career. I did not have resources—you know your grandparents were never wealthy—and his promise of a house at the country club sounded so inviting. It’s not that I married him for his money. It just added to his appeal and to the idea that he was rescuing me. I truly loved him. I couldn’t believe he had chosen me and I felt so lucky that he would marry me, especially given the circumstances.”

  “What—” she started to ask, then stopped herself. “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “He was okay at first—moodier than I expected, but we’d had such a whirlwind romance, there was a lot I didn’t know. The problems really started after you were born. Not that it was your fault!” she rushed to explain. “It was mine. I had postpartum depression. Bad. I got overwhelmed by—well, by everything. I took care of you, but that’s all I did. I stopped taking care of myself. He would come home from work wanting dinner on the table, and I’d still be in the clothes I’d worn the previous day, last night’s dirty dishes still in the sink.”

  Juliann couldn’t keep quiet. “He expected you to cook and clean when you’d just had a baby? What an ass!”

  Her mom gave her a sad smile. “I know. But I didn’t know that then. He had already started isolating me, so I didn’t have friends I could talk to. One day he lost his temper, and he said he never should have married me and that I was useless and that I better snap out of it. And when I didn’t respond, he grabbed me and pushed me against a wall. That was the first time. He told me he could kill me if he wanted to, and I said he should go ahead, put me out of my misery.” She paused, rubbing her neck. “He used that as an excuse to have me committed. Said I was suicidal.”

  “Committed?” Juliann burst out. “Like in a mental institution?”

  “The psychiatric floor of the hospital where you were born, actually. They transferred me to a lovely inpatient mental health facility. I was there for a month. Daniel never came to see me. When I got out, he was nice again—as long as I kept the house clean and had his meals ready when he wanted and kept you from crying too much. But you know your dad—the quiet never lasts. The next time he got abusive, I threatened to take you and leave. That’s when I found out his plan. If I ever left, he would sue for full custody because I had a history of mental illness. If I ever left him, he would take you away from me.” She took Juliann’s hand in hers. “I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you. And I couldn’t stand the thought of abandoning you to him. So I stayed in order to be a buffer. I made a deal with the devil and that’s the price I had to pay.”

  She let go of Juliann’s hand to reach for a cookie. But she didn’t eat it—just stared at it. “All that time I had one way out—one piece of information that could have saved us both. I was just too scared to use it.”

  Juliann took a deep breath. She had a feeling that whatever was coming next was going to be big. She put a hand out to the dog, who licked it, as if puppy kisses could protect her from what was to come.

  “That ‘whirlwind romance’ I mentioned? We got married so fast because I was pregnant.”

  Juliann was surprised—they had never told her—but it’s not like that mattered. She felt a little let down, having expected something much bigger.

  “The baby wasn’t his.”

  Juliann’s mind swirled as she tried to figure out what that meant. “But…the…the baby,” she stuttered. “That was me.”

  Her mom nodded. “That’s the circumstance I was talking about. I found out I was pregnant shortly after we started dating. I expected him to dump me when I told him, but he didn’t. He said he didn’t care if he was my first—he would be my last—and he assured me he would love my child as his own.” She looked pleadingly at Juliann. “I thought I was doing the right thing for you, for us. My boyfriend had broken up with me and gone off to join the military and I didn’t know how to reach him to tell him I was pregnant. And I didn’t want him to marry me out of guilt or responsibility when he had already said he didn’t want to be with me. That’s why, when Daniel wanted to marry me, I thought I had hit the jackpot. I didn’t realize he would hold it against me for the rest of my life.”

  The pieces were starting to fall into place inside Juliann’s head. “That’s why he always called you a slut, wasn’t it? I thought that was just his standard insult to women. But he was reminding you that he took you in when you were pregnant, and in return you should be, like, eternally grateful or something.”

  “Yes,” her mother said simply. “And that’s why he was so furious when he found out you had gotten pregnant. To him, it proved that you were like me. He had tried so hard to make you like him, to make you really his.”

  Finally, she said, “But I’m not.” She had been waiting to say the words, saving them until they would have her full attention. “I’m not his,” she repeated. “He’s not my dad.” She looked to her mom for confirmation.

  “No, he isn’t,” her mom answered, looking at her warily, clearly not sure what to expect in response.

  Juliann grabbed a throw pillow from the sofa and tossed it up into the air with a loud whoop. “He’s not my dad!” she shouted. “The jackass is not my dad!” She grabbed the pillow as it fell. “Wait! Then who is?”

  Her mom didn’t speak right away. When she finally did, it was with a misty kind of voice that Juliann hadn’t heard before. “He was a very kind and gentle young man who would have married me, even though he’d already broken up with me. He would have been a good father to you.” Her voice hardened. “And I will never forgive myself for being too proud to track him down and tell him.”

  Juliann didn’t know how to respond. She wished her mom had chosen differently, too, but it seemed rude to say so. She had tried to protect her mom from getting hit. But she couldn’t protect her from her own guilt.

  Her mom stood suddenly, smoothing her dress over her hips. “But that’s another conversation for another day. Now we have to figure out what you’re going to wear. We have a Celebration of Life to attend.”

  ***

  Jeff stood in his office, staring at what he planned to say. He wasn’t sure it was right. He wasn’t sure it was enough. Mish deserved better. But it was all he had to give.

  The phrase reminded him of his favorite professor in seminary. One day in class she was talking about class participation, trying to encourage everyone to participate whether what they had to say was brilliant or not. She said, “Sometimes it’s like a potluck dinner. You go, and there’s all this good food, and you feel bad because all you have to give is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that got squished at the bottom of your backpack. But you give it anyway because it’s all you have. And you just never know—a squished peanut butter and jelly sandwich might be exactly what someone else needs.”

  Thank you, Dr. Newsom, he thought to himself as he put his tablet under his arm and headed to the door. As he turned the lock he paused to look at the photos on his bookshelf. The first was one of his favorite pictures of Stephen, taken at a scenic overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Beside that was a candid photo from their wedding day, both of them laughing with their heads thrown back and their arms around one another. Last was a picture taken at his seminary graduation, his parents on either side of him. His mother was looking at the camera, but he and his dad had been looking at each other. Jeff could still remember the joy he’d felt when his dad looked at him with such pride. The relationship brought no joy now, only confusion. He’d finally spoken to his father, but when his dad began to offer excuses, Jeff had cut him off. He wasn’t ready to hear them. It would take time. But he would try. He had witnessed the corrosive power of regret—in Mish’s son, Bob, and in so many before him.

  On his way to the sanctuary he stuck his head into the reception hall to do one last check.

  “Everything is fine here, Pastor Jeff. Stop hovering!” Opal said with a smile. He smiled back at her. She really was a dear. Bossy, but a dear.


  He went to check on the family, but they had already entered the sanctuary. It was time.

  He walked onto the platform and nodded at the organist, who brought the prelude music to an end. He cleared his throat and stepped into the pulpit, then took a deep breath before speaking. Their little church was packed to the rafters.

  “Friends, we are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Artemisia Louise Atkinson.” He looked down at the front row and saw her in her wheelchair, wearing a fuzzy purple hat to cover her scar and bald head. On her lap was an ugly little dog. Technically speaking, only service and therapy dogs were allowed in the church, but there wasn’t a soul who would tell Mish that today. Not even Ruth.

  He smiled at her, and she grinned back, her smile as wide as the sky and about as bright. “As you all know, we were afraid we would be gathering here for Mish’s funeral. Things did not look good right before or after her surgery, and many of us were preparing for the worst. When Mish beat the odds, she found out all the wonderful things we had planned for her service, and—true to form—she decided she didn’t want to miss the fun. So we agreed to throw a Celebration of Life now, while she is here to enjoy it. Now, while we have time to tell her—” He swallowed hard over the lump in his throat. “While we have time to tell her how much we love her. And to celebrate her life—past, present, and future. So let’s begin by singing one of her favorite hymns, ‘Amazing Grace.’” He started to sit down, then remembered. “Oh, with one word change. Instead of ‘saved a wretch like me,’ we will sing ‘saved a soul like me.’”

  “There ain’t no wretches in this house!” Mish called out, and the congregation laughed.

  Jeff studied Mish as they sang. She wasn’t back to her normal self yet. The doctor at the rehab facility had been reluctant to let her attend today because she was still so weak. Jeff had a suspicion he had agreed only because he knew she would do it anyway, and this way he had a say in her transportation. Nobody knew how long she would need to stay there before returning home. If she ever returned home.