“I’m not a churchgoing man,” said Frank one night, sitting outside with Reni on lawn chairs, looking up at the stars. “But how can a person think there’s not a higher power when they look up at this? Or when they look at this?” he added when Merit came out to sit with them.
Mr. Paradise was bowlegged and scrawny and wore dated clothes and a hairstyle that should have been retired into the Greasers Hall of Fame, but he was their mother’s prince and therefore royalty to the girls.
“So what do you hope it’ll be?” Jewel asked one evening, helping him and her mother plant impatiens in the shady wedge of earth under the backyard maple.
Mr. Paradise patted the soil for a moment before saying, “Well, a healthy baby would be wonderful. A healthy baby girl would be divine.” He looked worriedly at Merit. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d be perfectly happy if it was a boy.”
“I know you would, Frank,” said Merit, aware it was the truth. She divided a clot of pink and peach flowers. “I know that whatever we have, we’ll be thrilled.”
When Merit gave birth to a healthy six-pound-two-ounce girl, she was thrilled. Frank, on the other hand, was way past thrilled.
“It’s Portia,” he said in the reverent tone newscasters used when Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon. “It’s our Portia.”
She wasn’t a beautiful baby in the classic round, plump way Merit’s other daughters had been; Portia had bandy legs and wrists the circumference of a pencil and a head that, until she got hair, was decidedly pointed. She was a colicky baby, and Frank, insisting that Merit try to sleep, walked the floor with her, patting her tiny back and feeling just as bad as she did when she bunched up in pain. She often woke up Jewel and Melody with her cries, but it was hard to bear any resentment toward someone who brought such happiness into the house. It didn’t hurt that the baby loved to be sung to by the sisters, pursing her tiny mouth into an O of astonishment and kicking her feet in rhythm and pleasure. When she got older, Melody would put her in a little backpack when she played the piano, and the baby would jump up and down with excitement, singing along in baby syllables, kicking Melody’s kidneys. Portia was pampered and petted and never in want of arms to hold her or lips to kiss her.
Now, as a three-year-old, the little girl was being groomed by her two older sisters in preparation for Reni’s college graduation ceremony.
“Hold still, you little monkey,” said Jewel, trying to brush the small girl’s hair.
“Don’t wanna hold still,” said Portia. “Wanna play with Dolly.”
“Don’t you want to look nice for Reni’s graduation?”
“Alweady look nice. Look at my pwetty dress.”
“Your dress is very pretty,” agreed Melody. “Now your hair needs to match it.”
“My hair’s alweady pwetty,” said Portia of her yellow hair.
“But it also needs to be brushed,” said Jewel, “so you don’t look like a wild animal.”
“I like wild aminals—wild aminals like lions.” She curled her fingers into claws and let out a leonine roar.
“Good heavens, is there a lion in the house?” asked Mr. Paradise, appearing in the doorway.
Portia bared her teeth again and roared, sending Frank down the hallway calling, “Help!”
Delighted, the little girl giggled, holding her fists to her mouth.
“What a naughty little lion you are,” said Jewel, fastening a barrette in the yellow fluff of her sister’s hair. “Scaring your daddy like that.”
“He’s not weally scared,” said the three-year-old wisely. “He’s just foolin’.”
“I don’t know,” said Melody. “He looked pretty scared to me.”
A cloud of concern passed over Portia’s pixie features.
“Daddy?” she cried, and was out of the room in a shot.
AFTER THE FAMILY had settled itself in their seats and before the ceremony started, Merit excused herself. Emotion welled up inside her—Reni graduating from college!—and she wanted to be alone for a moment to compose herself. She found a drinking fountain and ducked her head toward the spigot, slurping up the cool water.
Standing up, she wiped her mouth with a ridge of knuckles and found she couldn’t move her hand off her face.
She had known Eric was coming, but that didn’t temper her reaction toward seeing him. A person might be warned of a tornado, but there’s a vast difference between hearing a siren and seeing an airborne car or an uprooted pine tree whirl past you.
It was cruelty more than age that had trampled on the handsome face of Eric Iverson. To Merit his was the face of a hardened criminal sneering out at the world from a post office Wanted poster.
Merit turned, pretending she didn’t see him but she had only taken a few steps before she felt his hand touch her arm. She flinched as if snakebitten.
“Merit,” he said, and she forced herself not to scream, not to shield her face.
“Eric.” Her mouth was so dry that her upper lip caught on her teeth.
“How many years has it been? My God, you’re still absolutely ravishing.” He looked her up and down. “I’m glad I didn’t bring Pam—she would not appreciate seeing what a beauty my ex-wife still is.”
“Excuse me, Eric, I have to get back to the ceremony.”
“Come on, Mere, it hasn’t started yet. Don’t tell me you can’t give the father of your children a couple minutes.” He grinned, but Merit could see the tension in his jaw.
A group passed them in the hallway, including a small boy holding the hand of a solid-looking patriarch, and Merit wanted nothing more than to take the other hand and be led away from Eric to safety. But anger flared up amid the pile of fear and intimidation she had raked up around herself, and that flare was strong enough to ignite.
“Look, Eric,” she said, wondering how long she could stand there without her heart beating, “you’re not the father of all my children, and—”
“It’s pretty obvious with your youngest.” Eric chuckled, looking at his fingernails.
Merit was torn between two desires: the rational desire to walk away and the irrational one that wanted to know what he was laughing at. Irrationality won.
“What’s so funny?”
Eric looked up from the fascinating scenic vista his fingernails offered him. “Well, come on Mere, you’ve got to admit that one’s not going to win any beauty contests.”
All sorts of thoughts imploded in Merit’s head—Don’t lower yourself to his level! Don’t defile yourself! Just walk away!—but her brain was listening to no command other than the one that bellowed, Smack him!
Her arm drew back, and a second later her palm, in a deep resounding crack, slapped against his cheek.
Shielding the wounded side of his face with his hand, he gaped at Merit, but it didn’t take long for his surprise to turn to rage. Merit stepped back, frightened and sickened by the fury in his eyes, the same fury she had seen dozens of times in their marriage.
“Why, you—” he began, but his threat was cut off when two elderly women, fanning themselves with the commencement programs, turned in the hallway toward them.
“Good evening, ladies,” said Eric, as cordially as a cruise director. “Big night tonight, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes,” said one of the women. “My grandniece’s graduation!”
“My granddaughter’s,” said the other.
Eric’s smile twisted into a sneer as soon as the women passed them.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” he said, and the menace in his voice turned Merit’s knees to jelly. Nevertheless, there was no way her words could be stopped.
“And don’t you ever say anything that reminds me how truly mean and stupid you are,” she said, “because if you do, I won’t just slap you; I’ll do what you did to me all those years and beat you silly.”
“Come on, you know I never beat—” he began, but Merit held up her hand and shushed him.
More than anything she wanted to get away from him, away from th
e toxic cloud that was his aura, but she wanted to let him know one more thing.
“Life with you was hell, Eric, but I guess I had to live through hell to get to paradise.” A zip of pleasure made her eyes round and her mouth purse—my gosh, she had said a line worthy of the Angry Housewives!
I can’t wait to tell them, she thought as she hustled toward the commencement stands, where she’d watch the eldest of her four spectacular daughters graduate magna cum laude.
November 1993
HOST: AUDREY
BOOK: The Stand by Stephen King
REASON CHOSEN: “I like to read fun and scary horror stories because our own horror stories are scary enough but never fun.”
It was in counseling Faith that I finally came to realize how strong my own faith was.
“I think I might want to be some kind of minister,” I said to Grant a couple days after I had returned from New Orleans.
We were sipping peach brandy in Grant’s cozy little den, whose walls he had painted deep scarlet and whose sofa and chair were upholstered in a deep green velvet. It made you feel Christmassy in a no-pressure, don’t-have-to-buy-any-gifts sort of way.
Grant’s eyes widened and he coughed discreetly, as if he wasn’t shocked by what I’d said but had only swallowed wrong.
“Some kind of minister,” he said, “as in a minister of culture or a minister of finance or a minister minister?”
“A minister minister,” I said, feeling like I wanted to burst out laughing and crying at the same time.
“Audrey,” said Grant, taking my hand and holding it in his like it was some sort of treasure. “How did this all come about?”
“It all started when you and Stuart invited me to go to church—I’ve told you that. For a long time I just tagged along for the brunch afterward, but . . .” I stopped for a moment, my feelings too big for words. “Well, more and more God has grown to be a presence in my life.”
“Audrey, you’re crying.”
“I am?” I swiped at my cheeks, and sure enough, they were wet. “Well, I just . . . I just . . . oh, Grant, in the hotel room in New Orleans, I saw God.”
“Was he there for Mardi Gras?” Grant let go of my hand to get to his brandy. “I’m sorry, Audrey, I shouldn’t joke about seeing God.” He took another liberal sip. “So what’d He look like?”
“He didn’t look like anything. I mean, there was no white beard or long robes or anything. He was . . . it was . . . more of an aura.”
“Well, maybe you left a light on.” Grant drew his mouth together in a thin line. “Sorry. No more jokes. It’s just that . . . well, I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone who’s seen God before, Audrey. And because it’s you—because I know you can see things other people can’t—well, it makes me believe you, and that makes me scared.”
“But you believe in God, Grant.”
He nodded. “That doesn’t mean I want to see Him. Or have my friends see Him. That just seems too . . . I don’t know, too weird.”
I sat for a moment, remembering everything, and even though I felt calm on the inside, I could feel the tears oozing out of my eyes.
“That night I was in my hotel room after Faith and I got back from visiting her hometown, trying to go to sleep, when all of a sudden—well, this light filled the space around my bed. I froze—really, I was scared stiff—but then all the fear just evaporated like teakettle steam when you turn off the burner. Instead I felt . . . I felt like a baby, Grant, a baby being rocked in loving arms that I knew would never drop me.”
“It sounds like a hymn.”
Nodding, I wiped again at the tears that were leaking out of me without my consent. “And then He said, ‘Help me, Audrey. I need your help.’ ”
“God asked you to help Him? Help Him do what?” Sitting on his legs, Grant leaned toward me on the couch until I could feel the heat of his breath and smell the peaches in it.
“Help Him in His work is what I think He meant.”
“Well, what did His voice sound like? Was it like Charlton Heston’s or more urbane, like John Gielgud’s?”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I don’t want to believe you,” said Grant. “I don’t want to believe that God would come into your New Orleans hotel room and tell you to help Him with His work. It’s too scary.” Two diamonds glistened in the corners of his own eyes. “But I do believe you.” The tremble that was in his voice zigzagged into his hand as he reached for the decanter on the coffee table.
He refilled our glasses and we sat there quietly, or as quietly as two people can be when their breathing sounds as if they’ve just raced each other around the block.
“So what did His voice sound like?”
“I don’t think I really heard His voice with my ears. I think it was just in my head, the way you hear your thoughts. And you know how your own thoughts sound like the voice you think you have?”
“What do you mean?”
I took a big sip of my brandy and the syrupy taste of peaches spilled down my throat. “Well, have you ever heard a recording of your voice and you think, ‘ugh, that doesn’t sound like me’?”
Grant nodded. “I hate hearing my voice. I sound so whiny.”
“And what does your thinking voice sound like?”
“Like Charlton Heston. Or John Gielgud.”
I smiled. “Well, I can’t say who my thinking voice sounds like, but I heard God in it.”
“So God’s a woman?”
“I . . . I don’t think so. No, I don’t think God’s a man or a woman. All I know is I heard God’s voice in my thinking voice.”
“So maybe it’s true what they say in Sunday school?” asked Grant, his voice as light as a boy’s. “That God’s inside all of us?”
The simple logic of that first surprised me, then made me happy.
“Maybe so. Maybe He—or She or It—is.”
Grant raised his glass. “Then let’s drink to that. To God inside all of us—or is that sacrilegious?”
I shrugged and took a drink. “God probably appreciates being toasted.”
Grant clinked my glass with his own. “You’re gonna be a wonderful minister, Audrey.”
I BELIEVE IN LUCK and I believe in God. In my case, it seemed they joined forces like tag-team wrestlers, knocking away obstacles and putting the opposition in full nelsons and sleeper holds.
Doubt shadowed me as I began my pastoral training (taking classes with earnest men young enough to be my sons), but just as I was ready to admit I wasn’t up to the challenge, Kari might drop by with a plate of divinity (“Can you think of anything more appropriate?” she asked), or Slip might show me an article she clipped out of Time about sexism in the church and tell me how much the world needed strong leaders like myself, or Faith would give me a gift certificate for a full-body massage from a client whose spa waiting room she’d just redecorated. Merit, knowing how much I enjoyed Portia’s company, would send the little girl over and we’d spend a blissful afternoon playing or coloring, or Portia would quietly page through one of the many picture books I had saved from my boys’ childhoods as I grappled with subjects like forgiveness or eternity.
“Mama says you’re going to be a pastor,” Portia said one day as we were building a castle.
“Ouch,” I said as the sharp edge of a Lego met the soft edge of my butt. With my hands, I swept the area clear of all hard plastic and repositioned myself.
“I hope so,” I said, snapping a window into place. “Although sometimes it seems I’ve bit off more than I can chew.”
“You bit off more than your shoe?”
I chuckled and explained the saying.
“I don’t think I’ll be a pastor when I grow up,” said Portia, and I looked at the five-year-old wistfully, knowing how fast that time would come. I missed the screaming, laughing children who’d grown up and left the neighborhood, missed my own houseful of screaming, laughing boys. “Mommy says my grandpa was a pastor too, but he died.” She added another ro
w to the tower. “I don’t think being a pastor would be much fun.”
“How come?”
Portia shrugged her narrow shoulders. There was not an ounce of fat on her anywhere and she was all sharp angles, but I couldn’t imagine a more huggable kid. “I don’t think it would be very much fun having to love God all the time.”
I bit my lip, not wanting Portia to think I didn’t take her seriously.
“What do you mean, honey?”
The little girl looked at me with the bright blue eyes she’d inherited from Mr. Paradise. “I mean sometimes it’s fun to be naughty.”
I nodded. She had a point.
“You can still be naughty and be a pastor.”
The little girl’s eyes grew round. “You can?”
“Sure. I want to be a pastor but sometimes I want to do naughty things. Or say naughty things like poopy or potty-head.”
Portia looked at me for a moment as if I had lost my marbles. “Auntie Audrey!”
“Poopy, potty-head!”
It took only a second for Portia’s look of surprised outrage to change into a look of sheer glee.
“Poopy, potty-head,” and then besting me, she added, “Pee-pee, bottom, vagina!”
We stared at each other for a moment, our mouths O’s of shock, reveling in our naughtiness before bursting into laughter.
“Oh, Auntie Audrey,” she said after our laughter had sapped all energy out of our bodies and we sagged against each another, limp as noodles. “That was really naughty and that was really fun!”
“Yes, it was,” I agreed. “It was more fun than naughty, though.”
“But those were such bad words!”
“They weren’t said out of meanness.”
“Potty-head is mean.”
“Yes, but you knew I wasn’t calling you a potty-head. I was just saying the words because I knew they’d make you laugh.”
Portia sat for a moment, staring at the castle we’d taken a break from building. “So you can say some words to make someone laugh and that’s okay, but if you say the same words to make someone feel bad, then it’s naughty?”
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