Bless Her Heart

by Sally Kilpatrick

  “Rain, I don’t want everyone to be in my business!”

  “Then I’ll buy it!”

  I just looked at her until she realized what would happen if one of the clerks sold a pregnancy test to a teen girl. News would canvas the town in less than twelve hours, and our mother worked just a block away so she’d hear it quicker.

  “Fine, fine. I’ll go with you, though. Moral support.”

  Usually, I bought pregnancy tests in bulk in Jefferson where no one paid any attention to me, but I’d run out some time back and had refused to buy more in disgust at my inability to procreate. At this point my period was later than it had ever been. This had to be it, didn’t it? I mean, finding out I was pregnant on the very day I asked for a divorce would have to be an important codicil to Murphy’s Law and thus the only logical outcome, right? “I’ll get my purse.”

  Rain squeed. “Yay! This is so much more fun than going to school.”

  I shot her a dirty look for her schadenfreude, but my own heart leapt with excitement at the possibilities. I hadn’t thought about Rain as an aunt. There was such an age gap between us, we’d never really been that close—other than wiping her butt when she was a baby. Harder to get much closer than that. She’d been only a child when I married Chad. I still remembered the uncertainty in her eyes as she prepared to walk down the aisle, an ungainly overage flower girl at seven or eight. She knew me as the older sister who made her go to bed on time but who also snuck her Happy Meals when Mom wasn’t looking. She hadn’t figured me out yet, which was fair since I had yet to figure her out.

  Heck, I wasn’t too sure about myself, but that little flower girl was now a teenager—almost a college student—and she was dragging me across the parking lot to the back entrance of the drugstore. I stopped in the middle. “I don’t know if I want to know.”

  “Come on, Pose, doesn’t this day deserve at least one good thing?”

  Heck, yeah, it did! I started walking but stopped again. Could I handle a negative test? Just one more bad thing in an already horrific day?

  “Posey. Stop being a chicken.”

  My feet began moving before my brain caught up. Liza had used those words hundreds of times to get me to do stupid stuff. There was the time we took toilet paper and rolled the principal’s lawn because he’d made the dress code more restrictive right after we’d done our back-to-school shopping. Or the time she talked me into helping her “borrow” a goat to let loose on the football field. I’d drawn the line at climbing the water tower, but she’d gone to the top and then waved at me so hard, I was afraid she’d topple over.

  Somehow, I found myself on the drugstore aisle that held feminine plumbing products and pregnancy tests. They didn’t have my preferred brand and, of course, they charged more than the stores in Jefferson, but I picked out a box with three tests and proceeded to the cash register. Rain’s hand still held mine, her once impeccably manicured nails digging into my palm ever so slightly.

  Mrs. Hunter didn’t say a word as she rang me up. She didn’t crack so much as a smile, and for that I was grateful.

  My breath came in short gulps as we walked back to Love Ministries. It was lunchtime, and I knew that morning pee was the best pee.

  And the fact I thought things like “morning pee is the best pee” was a sad testimony to how long I’d been trying to get pregnant.

  Rain followed me to the bathroom door.

  “I may have it down to an art form, but you are not going to watch me pee on a stick.”

  She nodded, and backed against the wall, taking her phone from her back pocket. I entered the bathroom, locking the door even though Love Ministries held no one other than my sister and me. Carefully, I undid the packaging, all the time saying a prayer. After more pregnancy tests than I could count, my prayer had come down to one word, repeated over and over: please.

  I sat on the toilet arranging my legs in such a way that I could accomplish my task with little muss or fuss. Once done I gingerly set the stick on top of the little metal box generally reserved for used sanitary products. I forced myself to get up and wash my hands in the sink. At this point I could guess what three minutes felt like. Even so I looked down at my watch and began to time just so I would have something to do. The tiny bathroom didn’t offer me room to pace as I did at home.

  Once, I’d told myself to be busy with other things and then come back to the test. That day I’d changed out the laundry and loaded the dishwasher, then fielded a phone call. I forgot about the test all too well. I still remembered the joy of the positive reading, then the agony of going to the OB only to have him tell me that I wasn’t pregnant and that you could get a false positive if you left the test out too long.

  I wouldn’t leave this test out too long.

  I washed my hands again so I could chew on my nails, but then I didn’t want to chew my nails so I paced: two steps toward the toilet, and two steps back. The bathroom felt as though it were closing in on me. I checked my watch, but only a minute and a half had passed. My eyes darted in the direction of the test, but I willed them to look away. Instead, I looked into the mirror, checking my face for clogged pores. I found a few, but the search didn’t take a full minute and a half.

  Now my mind wandered back to what in the heck I was going to do about Chad and this baby, but I couldn’t allow myself to think any more about the baby until I knew there was a baby to think about. A nasty inner voice told me I needed to call him back right then and beg his forgiveness because there was no way I’d be able to make it without him. Flawed as my husband was, hadn’t Jesus said to let those without guilt cast the first stone?

  That nasty voice sounded a lot like Chad himself.

  For the first time in ten years of going through the motions like a robot, I came to a very important realization: I didn’t want Chad to be involved in raising my child. I had been so focused on becoming a mother that I hadn’t thought too much about the father, but today had certainly brought that issue to the fore. A glance at my watch told me the moment of truth was at hand. I took a deep breath and reach for the test.

  Negative.

  Slumping against the wall, I allowed myself a moment of despair before I began the pep talk portion of the pregnancy test process.

  Posey, remember your mantra about early morning pee? Also, you’re totally dehydrated. You can try again first thing in the morning. Tomorrow really is another day.

  I wrapped the test in toilet paper and washed my hands yet again in water so hot my hands hurt. I steeled myself for Rain’s eager eyes as I reached for the doorknob. Sure enough she stood up straight when I opened the door, her large brown eyes full of question and hope. “And?”

  I shook my head, the tears pricking at my eyelids. She deflated like a pricked balloon, and I realized having someone with me meant she would need a pep talk, too. “Look, Rain. It’s still early, and the tests are most effective first thing in the morning.”

  “So you can try again?” she asked, already bolstered because her young life hadn’t brought her anywhere near as many negative tests.

  “Yes, I can try again.”

  She reached for my hand and squeezed it. “Whatever happens, it’ll be okay, Posey. I know you think you don’t have anyone but Chad, but that’s a lie he’s been telling you. You have me and Mom and Granny and Henny and Liza.”

  “Liza’s mad at me.”

  “She’ll get over it.”

  “Granny’s senile.”

  Rain shrugged. “I think she’s actually getting mellow in her old age.”

  “And Mom . . .”

  “Mom loves you. I know she’s, well, her, but she loves you. Promise.”

  Good thing my mother loved me since I would be begging her for a place to stay by the end of the month—especially now that I’d managed to alienate Liza.

  “We need some lunch,” Rain said. “Let’s close this place up and get some lunch.”

  As we walked toward the front door, a tall black man in a flawless gra
y suit entered the building. He took one look at me and grinned, “Ring around the Rosie!”

  “Malik,” I said with a weak smile. Malik Foster and I had gone to school together. He refused to let go of the nursery rhyme nickname. “What brings you here?”

  He frowned. “Well, I’m afraid I have a bit of bad news.”

  I laughed, but the sound came out hollow and humorless. “Why not? Everyone else has bad news today. Why not you?”

  “Is Chad here?”

  “No.” I bit back any thoughts I had on Chad or his whereabouts.

  Malik had the decency to look sheepish as he scratched his head. “Well, Chad’s behind on the payments, and I’m afraid we’re going to have to foreclose.”

  That answered my question about whether or not I still had the receptionist job I hated. “Of course, you are.”

  “I’m really sorry, Posey, but it’s business. I work for the bank, and I don’t even have to come here to tell you guys, but I thought that was the least I could do since I helped Chad get the loan.”

  “That’s kind of you. Chad isn’t here. I don’t know when he’s coming back. As long as my name doesn’t appear anywhere on those papers, you do what you need to do. All I ask is that you give me a little notice to get a few things out of here.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

  “What?”

  “We need to auction off anything that belongs to the church to help offset the amount owed.”

  “In that case, all I need is my purse,” I said.

  “I really am sorry,” Malik said.

  “Thanks for letting me know,” I said as I brushed past him with Rain behind me. I wrestled the key from the ring and tossed it at him. “Lock up when you leave.”

  He sputtered something about how that wasn’t the way to do things, but I was already on my way to have pie for lunch. And a huge juicy cheeseburger. With fries.

  Or a grilled cheese sandwich since I’d already spent most of my cash to buy breakfast for my little sister.

  The love offering! I still had the offering the church had given as a birthday gift to Chad.

  “Know what?” I asked my sister. “We’re having lunch. On Chad.”

  Maybe, after lunch, I’d feel like visiting the bank to see about rescuing my Camry.

  chapter 7

  It took almost all of the money in the Oatmeal Reserve, four hours, three pitying looks, two hand pats with an “Are you okay?” and one heart blessing to get my car back. Mrs. Winkenhoffer, who was at the bank making a deposit, was the worst hand pat offender. Her twin sister, Imogene Dale, completely blindsided me with a “Bless your heart” as she led me back to her office, where she worked as a loan officer. I should’ve seen that one coming—twins, after all.

  Home again finally, I knew I needed to start packing, but I couldn’t make myself get up from the couch even if I did hate it. Chad had picked out the leather monstrosity that stuck to my legs in the summer and chilled me in the winter. Before we married, he’d shown me the little brick house and told me I could decorate it in any way I liked. Then he’d put me on an “allowance” and proceeded to pick out several pieces of furniture himself. There was probably a metaphor for our relationship in there somewhere.

  Looking around the room I didn’t see much of anything I wanted to save. Certainly, I didn’t want to save the ugly old curio that had belonged to Chad’s grandmother. It would serve him right if I sold it in a yard sale, and my frequently stubbed toes would thank me. Come to think of it, I didn’t want any of the angel collection it housed, either. The figurines with their blank faces creeped me out. Liza had given me the best friend angel about the time Chad took up the ministry. Not long after, I’d dropped the figurine and broken off both wings. Superglue had put them back together, but the epoxy could only do so much. Meanwhile, Chad decided angels were the perfect things for his wife to collect, so they had poured in from friends and congregation members.

  They looked like an army of faceless assassins.

  I stood, finally, and took the one angel Liza had given me—that one I would keep—and I closed the door on the other ones. In the guest bedroom, I took some photo albums from my childhood and teenage years out from under the bed and stacked them into a low rocking chair. I would take the chair, one that had belonged to my grandmother, the one I’d put so hopefully in the corner when I mentally made plans to make this room into a nursery. The closet held a few of my dresses and Chad’s summer wardrobe. I’d sell all of it.

  Something niggled at the back of my mind as I turned to go, something I couldn’t quite remember....

  My camera.

  Liza had mentioned how much I used to love photography. What I’d never told her—or anyone, really—was that my love of photography waned as Chad’s interest grew. Unfortunately, his favorite pictures to take were those of me in compromising positions. I’d finally hidden my camera, telling him it was broken.

  I felt around on the top shelf of the closet, yanking down old blankets in the process. Sure enough, my old digital camera fell to the floor but landed on one of the blankets. It needed batteries now, but blessedly the special battery hadn’t corroded. If memory served, a pair of double-As would work long enough for me to see if the pictures were still there. The junk drawer in the kitchen yielded two batteries, and I took a deep breath as I turned the camera on and went to the saved photos.

  I had deleted nothing.

  Looking at the photos made me sick, and I itched to delete them.

  No.

  Those photos could come in handy as an example of Chad’s sadistic side.

  I put the camera in my purse and then trudged to the master bedroom, looking at the four-poster bed with disgust. As long as I lived I would never sleep in another four-poster bed.

  The drawers full of thongs taunted me. I would burn them. Never could I understand why Chad wanted me to wear dresses that made me look like an extra on The Golden Girls while wearing scraps of lace underneath. Nope. I would be wearing jeans and T-shirts as soon as I found a job and earned enough money to buy what I wanted. In the closet I had an entire chest of drawers full of lingerie. Obscenely high-heeled pumps lined up around my closet floor. I’d burn those and the lingerie along with the thongs. The wigs would have to go, too.

  All of this had been Chad’s idea—he told me my constant harping on “ovulation” and “conception” were making him lose interest. He wanted me to “spice things up.” I didn’t have a problem with any of his plans in the abstract; I didn’t like the person he became when I wore what he wanted me to wear. He became mean and cruel and selfish, but up until this point I’d convinced myself that I was imagining things, that I needed to cut him some slack because I’d put him under too much pressure.

  Nope. He really was mean and cruel and selfish.

  Somewhat in a daze, I went to the laundry room for the largest basket I had, and I filled it to the brim with lingerie and wigs. Outside I went with a box of matches, and I made a pile of the lingerie and thongs and set the whole thing on fire. Only as I watched them burn did I realize I now had no underwear aside from the pair I was wearing and whatever might be in the hamper waiting to be washed. To make matters worse some of the synthetic fibers gave off an awful odor as they burned.

  Then I heard the police siren.

  I stomped at the fire but then caught the hem of my dress on fire and had to stop, drop, and roll. Len Rogers, stalwart sheriff of Yessum County, found me rolling on the ground.

  “Posey Love, what in God’s name are you doing?” he asked, his arms akimbo.

  “Um, I, uh. I felt the need to burn some trash,” I said as I stood and dusted myself off.

  “At ten at night?” He leaned forward and used a stick to pick up a charred bustier by a strap. When the strap broke and the bustier fell back into the fire, he fished out a wig that had burned to the point that it looked like a medieval monk’s haircut.

  I blushed to my core but dared him to say anything. H
e sighed deeply. “I suppose that this is a pile of leaves, then?”

  “What?” But then my brain caught up with my mouth. Technically, no one was supposed to burn anything inside the city limits except leaves and grass. “I mean, yes. Yes, it’s, um, a pile of leaves I never got around to burning.” Even though it’s March and the trees are budding out rather than shedding leaves.

  “I’m going to leave you with a warning,” he said. “But please don’t burn anything again. Mrs. Dale across the street got worried about you when she saw the smoke, said she was afraid you might be doing harm to yourself.”

  Oh. I hadn’t thought anyone would be worrying about me.

  “I won’t burn anything else, Len. I promise.”

  He nodded. “Good to hear. I’m heading home. You make sure that fire is good and out.”

  I should offer him something, but all I had was half a pack of Oreos. Maybe I’d make some brownies and drop them off at the sheriff’s department to say thanks for not adding a ticket to my day. He’d made it to the corner of the house when I yelled, “Hey, Len?”

  He turned around.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said with a smile and a nod.

  I surveyed my failed fire as the last of it smoked. I stomped on the ashes and then doused them in water.

  What had I been thinking? I hadn’t even had a bucket of water handy. I’d burned the whole pile instead of adding a little bit at a time. I could’ve burned the whole household down. The whole neighborhood, even.

  Posey, at one point you used to be smart.

  Once I was sure the fire was completely out, I put the wet remains in a trash bag and took it to the huge trash can. Inspired, I took one of the big bags usually reserved for lawn refuse and filled it with the high-heeled shoes I hated so much. Then I wheeled the can to the curb in the hopes that Chad had at least paid for the trash service.

  Maybe the best thing for me to do would be to go to bed. Surely, the next day couldn’t be worse. Surely.