Bless Her Heart

by Sally Kilpatrick

  “Hi, Granny,” I said.

  “Who are you calling Granny? And hush or you’ll wake the baby.”

  Sure enough, at her feet sat a doll’s cradle with a swaddled bundle inside. Since last I’d seen her, Granny’s “baby” had progressed from a cheap dollar store doll to a Cabbage Patch whose cutesy expression unnerved me.

  A lady in pink scrubs entered from the kitchen. “Oh, hello. I’m Miranda. You must be Posey.”

  Huh. People in Chez Adams still talk about me.

  I shook her hand.

  “I’m the nurse. Or,” she said as she winked, “I’m your grandmother’s cousin Mabel. In fact, you should probably call me that. I don’t mind.”

  “Thanks, Mabel.”

  “Everyone else is in the kitchen,” Miranda/Mabel said. I headed in that direction, wondering what I’d see next. As I left the room, Granny shouted, “Mabel, come quick—and bring the castor oil!”

  I looked over my shoulder, but Mabel, as I’d decided I would call her, was nonplussed as she explained to my grandmother why she didn’t really need what she’d requested.

  When I entered the kitchen, Rain sat at the table working on her nails. A textbook sat open beyond her. Mom stood at the stove stirring something in a big pot.

  “Smells good,” I said.

  “Vegetable soup.” She didn’t even turn around to hug me, but I got the sense that she wanted it to seem as though I’d never left rather than I was moving in.

  Taking a seat across from Rain, I asked, “How’s Granny?”

  “The same,” Mom said.

  “She’s crazier by the day.” Rain held out her nails and blew on them.

  “She’s suffering from dementia. She’s not crazy,” Mom said.

  “Upgrade on the doll?”

  “The other one lost her head, but she has to have one to keep her calm and grounded.” Mom turned away from the stove and reached for the bowls. “Did you decide to give up anything for Lent?”

  Ah, the classic conversation change. “Actually I did.”

  Both Mom and Rain looked at me in eager anticipation. I let them sweat it for a few extra seconds, entirely too satisfied with myself. “I decided to give up church for Lent.”

  Rain laughed out loud as Mom cried, “What?”

  “After being married to a preacher and working in a church for over five years with only two weeks of vacation, I need a break. I even went to church on my off days. I need space.”

  “Okay, then,” Mom said in that strained tone that suggested she had so much she wanted to say but she refused to influence me one way or another.

  “Respect!” Rain said, offering her open palm for a high five. “Next you’re going to tell me you want to try out the Seven Deadly Sins just to see what they’re all about!”

  “What?”

  Rain rolled her eyes then gestured for my hand. She clipped fingernails as she spoke. “I forget you don’t go to the Catholic Church. So there are, like these seven virtues but also seven main sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Envy, Wrath, and what is that last one?”

  “Pride,” Lark answered.

  “Yes, that’s it!”

  “I know what the Seven Deadly Sins are. You just surprised me,” I said as she put down my right hand and gestured for my left. I hadn’t wanted a manicure, but I supposed the price was right, and Rain apparently wasn’t going to take no for an answer. My nails were so short she’d already moved on to cuticles and buffing.

  “Where did you learn all of this?” Mom asked.

  “Ha, you think I chose Dad’s church just to be a contrarian, but I like the Catholic Church. It’s not perfect, but then again no church is. Besides, I like to see Abuelita every week.”

  “And here I thought we were more concerned with the Ten Commandments than a set of specific sins,” I said.

  “Tomato, tomahto.” Rain inspected her handiwork and began applying a clear coat. If she ever wanted to make extra money, she could definitely work in a nail salon with her speed and accuracy.

  “How do you think one would go about sampling the Seven Deadly Sins?” I asked.

  “Posey! Don’t even joke about such things,” Mom said. “Sins hurt others as well as yourself. Think about your karma.”

  “I will be your spirit guide,” Rain said with an impish smile. “Except for lust. I can’t help you there. I guess I could point you in the right direction, though.”

  “You’ve both lost your minds,” Mom said. “If you put bad into the universe, it will find you.”

  “Fine, karma. I’ve got it,” I said with a wink to my little sister.

  Rain favored me with a radiantly devilish grin.

  chapter 10

  I decided to take the next day off and I would’ve dearly loved to have slept in, but I woke up long before dawn and couldn’t go back to sleep.

  For some reason, I picked up the book Amanda Kildare had left behind. If people thought you could go to hell for reading it, then why not? I was about twenty pages from the end when Rain breezed through with a Pop-Tart in one hand and her backpack slung over one shoulder. “Where’s Granny?”

  “Mabel took her for a walk.”

  “What are you reading?” Rain crinkled her nose. “Oh, you’re reading that book.”

  Her prudish behavior surprised me. “You didn’t like it?”

  “No. I wanted to throttle what’s-her-head’s inner goddess, and he was so . . . ugh.”

  “At least he let her look over a contract first,” I said.

  “Wait. What?”

  “I said at least she had some choice in the whole thing,” I said without looking up from the page where the heroine finally walks out the door. I hear you, sister. “Hard limits and safe words aren’t bad.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Well, it’s not that different from my experience with Chad, to tell the truth. He held control of the finances and told me what to wear and where to work. He even bought the Camry without consulting me.” He also obviously wanted to spank me, but I wasn’t about to discuss that similarity between my life and that book with my sister.

  “Posey, that’s not normal.”

  “Maybe not, but Paul does tell wives to submit to their husbands.”

  “I don’t think that’s what Paul meant.” My cynical little sister’s face radiated pity. So help me, if she blessed my heart, I would leave the house and never return.

  She shook it off, and I silently thanked her for it. “That’s not how relationships work. Don’t you read books? Watch television? Something?”

  “Chad got rid of the television a year after we got married. Said the cable bill was a waste of money. He picked out all of the books in the house.”

  Rain held up one finger then dropped her backpack and trotted down the hall. A few minutes later, she returned with a stack of romance novels.

  It was my turn to crinkle my nose. “Really?”

  “Hey, these books have men who know how to treat a woman. You’ll see.”

  “I’ve got to go job hunting tomorrow.”

  “So? I wasn’t saying you had to read them right now.” Rain plopped on the love seat across from me and put her feet on the coffee table.

  Eighteen. How could she know anything about anything at the age of eighteen? Did she really think a few books—fiction at that—could teach me anything? “What makes you the expert on love?”

  She waggled her eyebrows. “I know things.”

  “How many things? Does Mom know you know things?”

  She sat up and leaned forward over her knees. “Mom only knows what she wants to know. She made Dad give me the birds and the bees talk. Because that’s something you want to hear from your father. I overheard her telling him that she didn’t think she was a good example to me so he should do it.”

  “At least you got a talk, and, hey, she did run off and come back pregnant with me. For all I know my father is an axe murderer.”

  “Yeah, but she raised you and s
he loves you,” Rain said softly. “If you want to be mad at anyone, it needs to be Chad.”

  Out of the mouths of babes.

  “You know,” Rain said as she stood, “I know I said you didn’t have to read any of those books right now, but I’m thinking we need to ease you into these sins with some good, old-fashioned sloth. Be lazy and read today.”

  “I’ve been reading all morning,” I said.

  She shrugged. “For it to be sloth, you need to go to extremes.”

  Outside someone laid on a horn. Rain rolled her eyes, but jumped to her feet. “Even the bus driver wants me to go to school. Mom told him not to let me miss the bus.”

  “They’re both right,” I said. “Now go get edumacated.”

  She made a funny face to hide the fact she found me at least slightly amusing and then ran out the door.

  I spent the rest of the day gobbling up one of Rain’s romances and then another. The first was a historical with an arranged marriage and a wife who pressed for her wifely rights. The second took place in modern times with an abused heroine who learned to love again. Chad had told me romance novels would give me unrealistic expectations, but the afterglow from two hard-won happily-ever-afters left me wondering if he were the problem instead of my supposedly high expectations.

  Maybe someday I’d find that sweet and ardent lover Julia had talked about. I lay back and basked in the ending of the second story, closing my eyes to rest them. Warm afternoon sun washed over me. Having sore eyes, the beginning of a headache, and tight muscles felt positively decadent.

  One thing I did know: I wasn’t about to get hitched any time soon. Chad had almost killed my sense of self, but I would find it again. I should clean up and head over to Ben Little’s office to find out how to get rid of my husband, but it was late so I picked up a third romance novel instead. Rain hadn’t even cracked the spine on this one. I lifted it to my nose, enjoying the new book smell and then sighed happily as I flipped to Chapter One.

  Sloth was my favorite.

  * * *

  After supper I thought I should do at least one productive thing since I’d have to spend the next one looking for a job. As the sun set, I rang Liza’s doorbell. She came to the door in her ubiquitous yoga pants with her hair standing up and a fussy baby on her hip.

  “You have got to quit waking this child up.”

  “It’s seven o’clock at night. I thought this would be the one time I wouldn’t wake up the baby,” I said as I stepped inside. Liza’s tiny house looked as though a tornado had been through. It had to be eating her alive.

  “Up is down. I thought we had a routine going, but now I can’t get him to sleep through the night anymore.” She paused to yawn. “To top it all off, I think he’s trying to start teething.”

  “Hand me the baby.”

  She relinquished the child, and I took him gratefully.

  “Why don’t you go take a nap.”

  “Posey—”

  “I won’t take no for an answer,” I said, dancing with my honorary nephew. His fussing had already abated—probably because he wanted to know why the crazy lady was bouncing him so.

  “I only have an hour before he’ll want to eat.”

  “Go,” I said.

  She trudged down the hall, and I sat with Nathaniel in the recliner. “Little man, you need a nap, too. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

  We rocked for so long I almost went back to sleep. I could hold Liza’s little boy forever, starting at his sweet expression, those sooty eyelashes, those delicate and expressive tiny hands. For half a second I considered taking my best friend’s child and bolting. We could find a little town out west, maybe a cottage that looked on a lake. I would raise him as my own, and he would call me mother. God, I wanted my own child with a visceral need I couldn’t explain. Maybe that’s what women referred to when they spoke of their “biological clocks.” All I knew is that I needed a baby, wanted one with every fiber of my being no matter how irrational it made me sound.

  Nathaniel sighed in his sleep, and the pain of longing intermingled with the joy of holding such an exquisite creature.

  Envy.

  I had envied my best friend ever since she’d so excitedly told me she was expecting. Shame washed over me in heat and then chills as I thought about how brusque I had been with her, how I hadn’t properly expressed joy and excitement with her. I’d been so selfish, so caught up in how unfair it was for her to accidentally get pregnant when I’d been trying so hard. I’d been a bad friend long before the other morning when I’d bristled at her well-meaning suggestions.

  Envy was not my favorite.

  I needed to atone.

  Carefully, I slid the baby into the bassinet in the corner. Based on the pile of blankets by the recliner, it looked as though Liza had been sleeping out in the living room—probably in the hopes that Owen could get some sleep before his long work shifts. Liza needed to understand that she needed sleep, too. Quietly, I moved around the living room picking up papers and stacking the mail. Empty diaper and wipes boxes went to the kitchen. While in the kitchen, a glance into the laundry room revealed a load of dirty clothes so I started a load. With an eye to the baby, I cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. When Liza entered the living room an hour and a half later, Nathaniel still slept, but all surfaces were clear, and dishwasher and washer hummed in the background.

  Liza looked from baby to clean room to me then to the kitchen beyond before whispering, “Am I in the right house?”

  I stood and opened my arms out to her. “I’m sorry, Liza. You were right, and—”

  “You do not want to hug me. I don’t think I’ve showered since the Reagan administration.”

  “Pretty sure you’ve had a shower since kindergarten.”

  “Whatever. It’s bad.”

  “I don’t care,” I said as I hugged her.

  “You are so forgiven after all of this,” she said. “How’d you like to babysit sometime?”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to mention that Chad liked for me to spend nights at home, but it didn’t matter what Chad liked anymore. “I’d love to.”

  “We can have a sleepover like old times! You can sleep on the couch.”

  I frowned. “Your couch is stuffed with pebbles and loathing.”

  She sighed. “I know. I hate it, too. It came from my Aunt Hyacinth. If you knew her, you’d understand.”

  “How would you feel about leather?”

  “That sounds fancy,” she said.

  “As it so happens I have a sofa that needs a home. It’s yours if you’ll help me out at the garage sale I’m having on Saturday.”

  “You’re on.”

  “As for babysitting, you should drop Nathaniel off with me at the house one night. Go out on a date with Owen.”

  She flopped down on the couch of hatred, wincing because it really was the hardest one I’d ever encountered. “That would be great. I’ve forgotten what he looks like.”

  “How about tomorrow night? Then we’ll yard sale it up on Saturday.”

  “Don’t you need to tag things?” Liza asked, her brow furrowed. At least she was getting some of her perfectionism back.

  “Nope. It’s a fire sale. Everything must go. I’ll negotiate. I’ll give things away after noon. I’m ready to be done with all of this.”

  “Any word?”

  How I loved her for not saying his name. “No. I think he’s under the false impression that I’m going to do as he’s requested. He’s destined for disappointment.”

  Liza smiled. “Looks like my friend Posey has returned. Welcome back.”

  chapter 11

  Today was not the day to sin with pride. I’d called the Board of Education since it’d occurred to me that they couldn’t call me about the supply position because I had smashed my phone. They “had nothing to tell me at this time.” A cursory glance at newspapers from both Ellery and Jefferson yielded few jobs with my lacking skill set. I found a few receptionist positions, but
they were all either on the other side of Jefferson or they required me to know software programs I hadn’t yet learned.

  Ellery had nothing.

  Nothing except for the fact my mother had left the house with a Help Wanted sign.

  That’s how I came to find myself standing in front of Au Naturel ready to ask my mother for a job after she’d already offered me a home. Most people would probably rejoice at how easily their problems had been solved, but pride pricked at me. I’d had everything so together. I’d been the child who didn’t make waves or cause trouble, the one who never even needed help with homework. Now I needed to ask my mother for a job.

  I took a deep breath and opened the door, wondering how long it would take the sound of the pan flute to drive me nutty.

  Mom stood behind the counter, her hair in a high ponytail. She looked up with a dazzling smile that always effectively hid whatever she was really thinking. “Posey, what a surprise!”

  “Hi, yes. I saw your sign, and I would like to apply for the job.”

  Her smile disappeared. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”

  Knowing that her refusal was a possibility and hearing it were two different things. Why had I thought I could count on her? Getting a roof over my head was more than I’d expected. “I understand.”

  I turned to go, willing my tears not to come until I’d closed the door.

  “Posey?”

  Why did she have to make everything so difficult? Couldn’t she just let me leave in peace? “Yes?”

  “How long would you need this job?”

  I turned around to face her. “I don’t know. I put in an application for a temporary position with the school system. I looked at other receptionist jobs, but most wanted someone who could act as an administrative assistant also, and I don’t know all of the computer programs they want me to know. I think they’re hiring at the Co-op, but they’re looking for someone who can do heavy lifting.”

  Mom chuckled. “I told myself I wouldn’t ever hire another family member after what your brother has put me through, but I can’t have you lifting those heavy feed sacks, now can I?”