“Mommy?”
* * * *
It took me eighteen days to decide, but I did it. I stare at the duffel bag and rolling suitcase that are open on the couch. Both look like wide, gaping mouths that are ready to devour the hope and the future that God says I have. That’s stenciled on my wall. Some of the letters have worn off through the years so now it reads: I now the p ans I have for yo , pla s for a hope and a futu .
I don’t know what my futu holds, to tell you the truth, but anything has to be better than this. I realize that people have different thresholds for their low point. Anyone who has ever dealt with an alcoholic knows that just because you think they’ve hit bottom doesn’t mean they have. But generally speaking, I’m pretty sure being dumped at the altar and then falsely declared dead by suicide is a low enough point to consider a new life plan.
My friend, Becca, disagrees. She’s standing next to me, looking into the same gaping suitcase holes that I am, but with a completely different perspective. Her hands are on her hips, which is the first indication she believes she’s right. The second is that her belly is swollen with new life growing inside, which changes the chemistry in women’s brains to believe they have insight into all life, in any form, in any predicament, regardless of their own life experience. It doesn’t say that in What to Expect When You’re Expecting, but I’m certain a lot of men can confirm my suspicions.
“You’re sure you’re not just running away?”
I’ve assured her for seven days, ever since I told her my plan to go to New York City. But that hasn’t taken. So I try a different approach. “I live in a small town that most of the country can’t pronounce. Humiliation rests behind every corner. Why would I need to run away?”
She starts to answer but I interrupt her. “Example, and I’m just pulling this out of the pile of four dozen examples. But I was at the grocery store a few days ago. I have about six items in my basket. I get to the cash register to pay and the cashier says to me, ‘It’s paid for.’ I ask her what she means. Apparently the lady in front of me handed the cashier a hundred dollars, asked her to pay for my groceries, and then wanted to give me the change.”
Becca can’t even sell it as it comes out of her mouth. “It was a nice gesture.”
“It’s pity, Becca. I don’t want to be pitied. I don’t want any of this. I want out.” I gesture toward the small round table I’d eaten most of the meals at in my life. On top of it I’ve constructed a house of cards. A house of all the cards that have been sent since my death and all the new ones sent since my resurrection. There are of course no cards made for people rising from the dead, so people are sending awkward ones, like the one today meant for someone getting a promotion. Congratulations! We know this is well deserved! “Look at this house I built.”
“Nice.” She doesn’t smile.
“That’s what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks. Building a three-foot house of cards out of cards.”
“I should get you a Popsicle. That’s what you need. Just one of those blue Popsicles that makes you feel so good.”
“You think a blue Popsicle is going to solve my problem?”
Becca sighed. “It’s just that my grandmother said something to me once. She said if you are not happy, geography isn’t going to change a thing.”
“That of course insinuates that I am the problem. Save that psychobabble advice for the ladies at the nursing home—you know, the ones who have no control over their geography. They can’t even choose whether they want to go to bingo or not. They just get wheeled in there, like it or not. I have the freedom to go and do and you’re saying I shouldn’t?”
Becca softens a little. Her hands leave her hips. Even that big, sassy ball sticking out of her tummy appears to deflate a bit. “It’s just . . . by yourself? New York City by yourself?” She chews a nail that hasn’t grown past the nail bed. “We’re just small-town girls, Hope. I mean, what do we know of the big city? When you were going with Sam, that was different. He was with you. He’d lived there once. But how are you going to survive in a city like that? By yourself?”
“First, you’ve hit your quota for saying ‘by yourself’ to me. No more. Obviously, yes, I’m by myself. That was evident the day my wedding fell apart. So there’s no reason to reiterate it. Second, why should I stop chasing my dream because Sam isn’t coming with me?” I pull one of the cards off the house of cards. I flip it over and point to the New York City address and the “Heaven Sent” logo on the back.
Becca arches a brow. “You’ve already been to heaven. And back. And I’m not entirely sure about this, but if I’m guessing, heaven isn’t in New York City.”
“Becca, my entire life I’ve been too afraid to leave Poughkeepsie. To chase my dream of making cards professionally. These”—I point to the one in my hand—“well, yeah, they’re kind of sappy. But they got published. And they’re very popular. We received dozens of them when I came back from the dead. And I look at these, Becca, and I know . . . I can do better than this. I’m good at greeting cards.” I say this with a grand gesture. I bump the table. The entire house of cards falls down—revealing my mother, who was apparently standing there listening the whole time.
It’s such a shocking exposure she actually covers her privates even though she’s fully dressed. But indeed, she has been exposed.
“You can’t leave! Your life is here!”
“Mother, what life?” I take a breath, realizing I’m going to have to defend this decision once again. That’s why I need to get out of here, so I don’t have to explain anything to anybody anymore. “Taken inventory lately? I even lost custody of my twin bed.”
“I’m working on getting that back.” Now my mom has her hands on her hips. “No one’s going to publish your cards.”
“Now that’s just mean.”
She nods heartily in agreement, her eyes watering. “I know it was. I’m just desperate.”
I look down at the card in my hand. It’s so sappy, like it came straight out of a tree. Sticky with the residue of a useless kind of hope, the kind one sits around and waits for instead of going out and getting. All these words, they’re meaningless. Prayers that sound good on a page, rhyme well, tickle the ear, but have no use otherwise. Well, I refuse to write sap. Refuse it.
“Dad always loved my cards.” Sure, they were all the ones I created when I was kid, but even then I had a certain edge, a certain way with words. I didn’t care about butterflies and rainbows, I can tell you that. I once wrote an entire poem to give to the old lady that sacked our groceries, wishing her a windfall of money so she could sit and her ankles wouldn’t swell. Just sayin’, that’s how I saw the world. It’s how I still see the world. But now, I have an even newer perspective—one that most women don’t have, but should.
I cover my face with my hand as my mom’s hands shoot into the air. I always know it’s coming yet each time it always feels misplaced—which obviously it is, but there’s a pattern you’d think I would’ve settled into by now.
“Lord! Tell her if she stays she’ll find love here!”
To my surprise, my hands shoot toward the ceiling. Becca stumbles backward. Even my mom looks caught off-guard. Her mouth is open, mid-prayer, but nothing is coming out.
I look up at the ceiling. Notice some cobwebs and a moldy patch from where the roof leaked in ’88. I don’t see the Almighty, but that doesn’t stop me from shouting at him: “Tell her that love and all the pain that comes with it—I don’t need it! None of it!”
My mom catches her second wind. Now she’s back in gear. “You know love, Lord! It sneaks up on ya! Tell her it’s sneaky!”
“Tell her that it’s my time! It’s my chance to be heard! Which has never been a part of my—”
“But you gotta be in that right place to be snuck up on, Lord! Like Poughkeepsie!”
I drop my hands. Becca gives me a wistful, sympathetic
look. “Mom, I believe you just proved my point. I’m trying to state that I’m never heard and then you interrupt—”
“I hear the Empire State Building is a perfect place to find love.” It’s Becca this time who keeps my declaration from fully escaping, but at least she’s now seen my perspective.
I turn to my mom. I take her hands. Tears, fat and bulbous, are welled in her eyes. I know this is so hard for her to understand. All she’s ever known is me, Poughkeepsie, and our little way of life. “Mom, this is my chance to say something. To give something to people in pain. To help them laugh at pain.”
She is so lost. “Oh, honey. Pain’s not funny.”
I realize it right then. No matter what, she will never understand I have a gift. She will never see what it does to my soul to see someone laugh at something I wrote. It’s my balm, but it’s not hers.
“Maybe it’s not,” I say to her as gently as I can. “But can you support me? Just this one time?”
My mom slides her hands to either side of my face, right at the cheeks. I don’t know if she’s going to slap me, squeeze me, or pop me. “At least I can take comfort.”
I try to smile, but her hands are in the way.
“When this fails, you’ll be back. I’ll save the couch bed for you!”
5
It was the strangest feeling, to not be connected to someone for years and then to suddenly feel an inexplicable—even relentless at times—tug toward them. Yet Jake was, for all intents and purposes, just on the sidelines. An onlooker. At the right place at the right time . . . or seconds late, as he felt. So many regrets had been running through his mind over the past week. If he’d not stopped to get a drink on the way to the wedding, he might’ve been able to intervene, to save Hope from this terrible mess.
He felt helpless, too, unsure if he should visit her at the hospital. He’d gone a couple of times but always felt out of place, even when he was the only one in the room. Yet it seemed she didn’t have a steady stream of people coming and going. It was mostly her mom and her friend, Becca. They couldn’t be there all the time, so maybe he should be.
Then he would talk himself out of it again. This was how every day at the shop began and how every day ended.
“You should go see her.”
Jake whipped around, holding cut stems in his hand that he intended to toss in the trash fifteen minutes ago. Once again, he’d gotten lost in his thoughts.
Mindy stood there, her head tilted to the side, a compassionate smile on her lips.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Hope. You should go see Hope.”
Jake blinked. How could she have read his mind like that?
Mindy grinned, stepped forward, patted his shoulder. “Jake, I’ve worked for you for several years now. I’ve always known you to stay on task and get things done.” She glanced toward the front counter of the shop, where ticket orders were piling up.
Jake looked at his feet. “Mindy, I’m sorry. I know I’ve been distracted.”
“Don’t apologize. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that when we’re consumed with something, we ought to figure out why. You witnessed something horrible to someone you once knew. The fact that you can’t get her off your mind says something.”
What did it say? He had no idea.
“It says that you need to go see her.”
Jake walked to the counter, sifted through some of the tickets. “I’ve been to see her, Mindy. Twice since the day of the accident. I mean, I’m not family. I’m not even a friend. What am I supposed to do there? She’s in a coma, so what’s the point?”
“The point is, you can’t stop thinking about her.”
Jake held up the tickets in his hand. “I think we better get to these pronto.”
She took the tickets from him. “I can handle these myself. Go to the hospital.”
“No. Too much to do. I can’t leave you here by yourself.”
“I’ve got the sisters.” She touched his arm. “Jake, you’ve been very good to me. The best employer I’ve ever had. You’ve always watched out for me and my family. It’s the least I can do. There’s a young woman in a coma after the worst day of her life. She needs somebody there.”
Even as Jake shook his head in protest, he knew that’s where he wanted to be. His mind was there already, every part of the day. His body should follow. Jake hugged Mindy.
“I’ll come in tonight, help finish up these orders. Just leave them by the cash register before you lock up.”
“Go.”
The hospital was only fifteen minutes away, but it took him an hour to get there because he kept circling the building, then would head home, then turn around and come back. What was his hesitation? But then again, what was his obsession?
Finally, he made it inside the hospital elevators. When they swished open, he just stood there.
A little old lady, her purse clasped against her chest, stared at him. “Are you going to get off?”
He stepped off, but didn’t move. The elevator missed pinching his backside by mere inches. He didn’t bring flowers this time. He carried nothing except hesitation as he turned right and walked the shiny, white linoleum toward her room. Everything was so stark, so sickeningly clean and bright. The lights hurt his eyes. The sounds buzzed his ears. His head throbbed with uncertainty.
He paused right before her doorway. He could still leave now. He could just turn and go home and let fate carry Hope to wherever she was supposed to go. But for whatever reason, he didn’t. Instead, he stepped into her room.
Her friend, Becca, was at her bedside. Sobbing. Jake immediately regretted his decision to come. He’d broken into a private moment. He took two steps backward, trying to quietly and gracefully exit.
But Becca suddenly looked up. Then she gasped. Jake gasped too, but he tried to suppress it, which caused his lips to press together like a waffle iron and his cheeks to inflate like balloons.
Becca wiped the streaming tears. “I thought I was alone.”
Jake took a deep breath as Becca stood with effort, her belly round and protruding. “I’m so sorry,” Jake said softly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“It’s Jake, right?”
He nodded. They’d stood together the day of the accident, almost two weeks ago, but he’d barely seen her since.
“The flower guy?”
“Yes. I’ll just come back another time—”
“No, please. Come in.” She beckoned him with her hands. “I have needed to leave for twenty minutes but I hate leaving her alone.”
“Where is her mom?”
“I’m not sure. She is here some, but she spends a lot of time down at the chapel and I don’t know where else.”
Jake felt the tension between his shoulder blades release a little. “She does seem to like to pray.”
Becca raised a playful eyebrow. “You have no idea.”
Jake stepped a little closer to the bed, for the first time looking at Hope. She lay still, her arms crossed over her belly, a little thinner now. They’d taken the bandage off her head wound and there was just a Band-Aid over it now. Dark purple seeped around its edges, and he wondered if she still had stitches in.
“How is she doing?”
Becca shrugged, casting a desperate look toward the bed. She pulled the blanket a little higher. “The doctors can’t really tell us anything. They said it’s a traumatic brain injury. They have no idea when she’ll wake up. Or if.” She grabbed her sweater off the back of the chair and stepped next to Jake. “It’s so nice of you to come to check on her.”
“I just feel so . . . bad, about everything.”
“She definitely doesn’t deserve this. She’s such a great person. Talented, too.”
“Did they ever catch the person who did this?”
Becca shook her head.
She squeezed his arm. “Thank you for coming. I know she’s not alone now.”
Becca left and Jake just stood there for a long time, observing her and feeling guilty about it. She was truly as beautiful as the day he saw her all the way back in elementary school. He could still spot some of those features even now as she’d grown into a woman. Yet in this bed, she looked as fragile as a child. She probably hated the idea that people were just standing around staring at her.
“Hi, Hope. It’s Jake. You won’t remember me, but we . . .” He sighed. What a stupid thing to say.
“We what?”
Jake’s head jerked up. Hope’s mother stood in the doorway.
He jumped out of his seat while trying to keep a casual look on his face. By the way her mother eyed him, he could only assume his expression was betraying him in every way imaginable.
“I’m sorry. I was just leaving.”
“Wait.” Her hands were crossed at her chest. She was fully blocking the doorway. “Wait just a minute.”
A sickness roiled through his stomach, the kind you get from a roller coaster or having your zipper down in public.
“You . . . I know you . . .”
“Um, well, yes. I’m Jake, from the other day. I found Hope—”
“No. I knew you before that.”
“Yes. You ordered the flowers for the wedding from me. I was delivering them . . .”
“No. Before that.” Her mother’s eyes narrowed.
“We deliver the Columbine flower to your—”
“Before that.”
Jake cleared his throat. “Hope and I went to the same school.”
“That’s it!” Her expression now beamed delight. “That’s how you know my baby girl?”
“Well, I mean, no . . . we . . . you know, we didn’t run in the same circles. I hardly remembered her, you know . . . just kind of the name . . . I put it together days later . . .” He was never good at lying.
Greetings from the Flipside Page 6