by Jo Barney
Kathleen has folded the towels and is running her hand through her damp hair “I feel better. You’re right. I’ve concocted a story that is built on nothing but fragments of distrust.” I see a flicker of the strong woman who stirs within the wet, blotchy body now pulling on a jacket. “Before I give up completely on my marriage, I need to know the facts, decide if they are worth the kind of sadness that is making me crazy this morning. I’ll see him tonight. He owes me an explanation.” At the door she adds, “I won’t let him leave without giving me one.”
Should I call Brian? No. Kathleen, wet or dry, can do it much better than I. I go to the door, let Brody in, wipe his paws.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“I’ve decided to love my wrinkles,” I tell Lynne when she answers the phone.
“That’s good,” she says. “You’ve earned them. What else is new?”
“We should go shopping for a bride’s matron’s dress.” I’m experimenting with the idea that pleasant thoughts will be a salve for the painful ones lying just under the surface. “Maybe plan a little party before you take the leap; invite Sherry and Eleanor and your sister and others to send off your marriage vessel with a christening of wine and giggles?” I’m trying too hard and she knows it.
“So what’s really on your mind, Edith?
I begin to tell her of Kathleen’s visit, her tears, my decision to not reveal the secret I know, and of the meeting on Monday, when I hear a click on the line. “Someone is trying to get through. I’ll call you back right away.” I never do that to friends, but I’m wired so tight I’m close to suffocating. I push the button. “Yes?”
“You sound funny, Grandma. What are you doing?”
It’s Meg. “I’m practicing breathing. How about you?”
“We want to bring pizza by tonight and watch Nickelodeon. Daddy says he’ll bring us by. Is that okay?”
“I’d like that. Come as soon as you can.”
“Daddy says it’ll be in an hour or so, and that we should bring our homework so you can help us before the TV.”
“I’ll do my best. Is your father there?”
“No, he talked on the phone to Mom and then talked to us. She says it’s okay with her.”
The hesitation in these last words signals an uncertainty about who’s in charge. Sounds as if Kathleen is, at this moment. Hope she got her hair dried for this evening’s event, and maybe a little makeup. Helps to feel beautiful when facing the unknown. At least that’s what Pretty Woman taught me. That thought reminds me to call Lynne back.
“Geez, I never thought you’d do that,” she says. “Hang up when we were about to discuss baggy eyes and snaky hand veins.”
“Actually, we were discussing a couple of marriages, including yours and the one that’s making me nuts.”
“So are you still nuts after the call?”
“More so. Let’s change the subject. Is it true that Preparation H will make bags under one’s eyes disappear? Or is that a myth?” There it is again, that word.
“I had a friend who tried it. Her bags disappeared but her cheeks tightened up like Joan River’s third facelift. She couldn’t open her mouth. She learned later that she rubbed in a bit too much, maybe half a tube, in an effort to look forty again. Much classier to wear slightly tinted glasses with terrific frames.”
“Okay, we covered that subject, and I’m assuming you’ll call when you want to go shopping for a dress for me, but give me a day or so to get over whatever is happening in my son’s life.”
“Not your problem, friend. Remember.”
“That’s become my mantra.” Not a very good one, though. Despite my attempt at being cheerful, I’m close to tears. “Why can’t I just let go?”
“Pizza and a couple of happy TV watchers will help that. No matter what happens to that family, you have become a beloved grandma. Kids need grandmas. To go to when things get weird at home.”
“What if the grandmas are weird?”
“All grandmas are weird. Veiny hands, blond hair that doesn’t match anyone one else’s in the family, wrinkly pokable cheeks, ancient word processors, and shelves of terrible records, yellowed-paged books, stupid games, and sometimes, jars of cookies, pizza without olives, soda pop, ears that listen without criticism, warm breaths as they say ‘Good night, don’t let the bed bugs bite’ and she lands a kiss right on a grandchild’s lips.”
“Damn. I feel better.” And I’m pretty sure I do. We hang up, and I wait for Winston and Meg to arrive. When they knock, they’ve come alone to the door, pizza-box smell preceding them, their father waving a hand from the car.
We play Crazy 8’s, eat pizza and watch a silly Disney movie, walk the dog, look over three math sheets, and it is bedtime. They agree to go to sleep here at my house, until Daddy picks them up. I find two old T-shirts in my bureau. “Okay? These’ll make it easier when your father comes; you can go home in them.” And I discover two tooth brushes in a drawer, new, from Art’s and my last dentist visits. “I’m afraid you’ll have to share a bed,” I say as they come T-shirted into my bedroom. “With me. At least until I’ve read you a story.” I lie down in the middle, and the children climb in on each side of me.
“What story?” Meg asks.
I’ve found another book in the box in the hall closet. “This is one I read to your father a long time ago. It’s kind of old, but you might like it. The Little Prince.”
“We have that! Daddy has read it to us.”
I reflect for a moment on the strands that tie us together, the books, the meals, the memories. “Good.” And I begin.
“The End,” I whisper a long time later then close the book and climb out at the foot of the bed so I don’t disturb my two bewitched listeners. Meg dozes with a frown, and I lean over her to kiss her, and she sighs. Winston peeks at me from under half-closed lids when my lips touch his. “Good night,” I say. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
“Light,” Winston whispers. I leave the door open, the hall light on.
When the phone rings an hour later, I expect it to be Brian, but it isn’t. “I need to tell you something,” Lynne says. She sounds all clogged up, like she’s been crying, and I get ready to hear that Wednesday/Saturday man has backed out. “Get me a Kleenex, honey,” she says to someone so I guess he’s still around.
“What?” I ask. “You sound awful.”
“I feel awful. I did something, I shouldn’t have done. I thought I was being helpful, a friend. After I kept telling you to let Brian go, I got worried about you, how you might let whatever was going on with him mess up your own life, how you might even lose him if you did what you said you were going to do––narc on him, you know? Maybe even lose Kathleen and the kids.” Lynne blew her nose, sniffed, said, “Oh God.”
“Shit, Lynne. Just say it and get it over with.”
“It felt like you all were tied up in one big knot, no way for anyone to get it untangled. Unless I reached in and gave a string a yank. Brian. Brian was the string. I called him. Told him what you were going to do.” Her voice is a whisper now. “I’m so sorry if I fucked things up.” She stops talking. In the background I hear a male voice. “Breathe, sweetie. It’s going to be just fine.”
I close my eyes, so relieved I can’t talk either. Not Seth! Then I say “Yes!” so loudly Brody raises his eyebrows at me. “Yes. Breathe, friend. It’s going to be just fine.” And I tell her about the meeting, about the kids in my bedroom, and I begin to believe it too.
As we are about to hang up, the tangled knot almost undone, Lynne murmurs, “I guess I did okay, then?” And I answer, “Indeed. Very okay,” and both of us sigh “Love you” as we hang up.
A moment later the phone rings again. I hope to hear my son’s voice. Seth’s greets me. “You’ve had a big week. I hope it’s all worked out for you.”
I’m no longer annoyed that he knows something of what has been happening. He is interested. In my family. In me. I had hinted at my plan and he kept it to himself. He is trustworth
y. “I don’t know if it’s worked out. In fact, Meg and Winston are here, in my bed now, and their parents are somewhere talking. At least I’m guessing that’s what they’re doing. My role is to heat the pizza and read The Little Prince, and I’ve done both grandmotherly tasks. Right now, I waiting for one of their parents to come pick up the children and maybe to let me know what’s next.”
“A difficult moment. I won’t keep you, but I would like to go for a walk with you and Brody very soon. I find I miss you, Edith.”
“Brody misses you, too.”
Seth chuckles. “Not exactly what I meant, but it will do for now. Tell Brody I’ll be by in the afternoon. I’ll call him first.”
Chapter Forty
I am cold and reach for the throw on the back of the sofa. My other arm is caught under a cushion this time, and I pull it out and rub away the cramp. I must have fallen asleep. I check my watch. It’s after midnight. My heart contracts in a flurry of panic. The kids. I stumble to the bedroom, squint into the half-dark and see two bumps under the quilt, back to back as if they have agreed to ignore each other’s wiggly bodies.
I head for the phone. In my midnight breathlessness, a thought skims across my forehead. Something’s wrong. Maybe one of them hurt the other; maybe they are in the ER, unable or unwilling to phone. I blink and get rid of that scene. Stuff like that only happens in the Oregonian to really angry, sick people. Well, I think, as I pick up the receiver. They weren’t that angry—maybe sick, though.
“Stop it,” I say out loud. “If anyone’s sick, it’s me.”
A voice crackles in my ear. “Mom? Are you there? I didn’t hear the phone ring.”
Brian. “Where are you? I’ve been worried.” That is a little lie, of course. I’ve been asleep until five minutes ago. But still…
“We’re here at home. And everything’s okay, Mom, like I told you it would be. Everything. Are the kids asleep?”
“Everything?”
The phone rattles, and I hear Kathleen’s voice. “Everything, Mom. Brian told me the whole story, about Patty and Art and Latisha, and how he kept it all a secret until he had taken care of it all, so I wouldn’t be hurt. But the mystery itself hurt, like you said, not knowing is worse than knowing.”
Mysteries. Myths to explain them. Truth-telling to destroy them. Maybe someday over a glass of wine I’ll hear more about the telling of the truth that went on this evening. None of my business, though. But I have to ask, “So no other woman?” I know the answer, of course, but I want to find out if she understands that I also have kept back the truth from her.
“Only a new daughter. I’m not sure what I’ll do when I meet her and her mother. Brian says you know them both, that you like them. Maybe we can all…God, I’m exhausted.” She pauses, and I hear Brian whisper something. She answers, “Brian, no, I…okay…Mom, we wonder if the kids can stay until tomorrow. They can miss school…”
Kathleen is not angry with me for keeping the secret. I’m glad because I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her. “Of course, you deserve a break from parenthood. For one night, at least.” I rub my still aching arm, consider going back to sleep on the lumpy sofa. It will be worth it—my contribution to the resurrection of my family. “Come by around noon. Maybe I’ll have time to make a strata to celebrate.”
It’s too late to call Seth and invite him too. I’ll do it when Meg and Winston wake me up in the morning. I know Brody will be glad if his friend comes. I’m sure the rest of us will also be glad.
Acknowledgments
I so appreciate my first readers from writing group several years ago who reviewed the first pages of Never Too Late and got me started on the right track with encouragement and corrections about the accuracy of the medications and insurance. When the story seemed as finished as I could take it, I asked Janet Young and Peggy Bird, both great readers, to critique the story. Their comments inspired several re-writes and edits, thank God. Their continuing interest in the book kept me working on it, as did my patient husband who is a walking Thesaurus and is a handy person to yell at, like “What’s the name of those green things I put on salmon?” when I suffer a word block. Thank you, Don, for being in the next room and always answering, “Capers!”
About the Author
After graduating from Willamette University, Jo spent the most of next thirty years teaching, counseling, mothering, wifing, and of course, writing.
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Her writing first appeared in small literary magazines and professional publications. Since retirement, she has had time to write four novels and two screenplays.
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Her stories and essays, as well as the novels, reflect her observations of women’s lives and the people who inhabit them: the children, husbands, parents, friends, and strangers who happen by and change everything.
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