Lighting Candles in the Snow

by Karen Jones Gowen

  I knew exactly what he was talking about. We saw it every day at Draper. In fact, our loan officers often dealt with clients who came in with horrible deals from other brokers that we had to fix. “What should I do?” I asked him, really wanting to know. “Do you recommend I stay in the business?”

  “You’ve done well, Karoline. People are always going to need home financing and reputable loan officers to assist them with the process. If you want to stay in the mortgage business, I’m sure you can find something.”

  I nodded dumbly at his standard feel-good, think positive response then made some kind of vague comment and left his office. I didn’t know what I wanted. Well, yes, I did. I wanted somewhere to go every morning where I felt needed and useful, where my work made a difference, where I could forget the garbage going on in my world outside the office.

  The new owners planned to close our company and combine it with their expanding Internet-based, loan-origination program located in Ohio. They offered us employees jobs if we wanted to relocate. None of us did.

  I polished up my resume and sent it out to banks and mortgage companies all over the Salt Lake Valley. I figured I’d get something within a week or ten days. Nothing. Not a nibble those first two weeks.

  My third week without employment, I made follow-up calls to my targeted list of ideal places to work and found that the crash had come sooner than even Mr. Everett had expected. All of a sudden, investors had stopped buying loans of any kind, anywhere. It was called the Mortgage Crash of 2008 and I found myself right in the middle of it, hopelessly seeking employment.

  Everyone had the same refrain. “Mortgage companies are shutting down. We’ve had to let people go. This isn’t the best business to be in right now.”

  Once again a career change stared me in the face. I was done with the mortgage business but had no idea where to go from there.

  My worst nightmare—no job to wake up for. Too much time on my hands. Too much time to think about questions that I couldn’t answer, like why my marriage failed. What had driven Jeremy to other women? When did he stop loving me? Why hadn’t I been enough for him?

  Without work to occupy me, I spent countless hours poring over my old journals as though a thorough analysis of my failed relationship would make the pain disappear.

  If Suzie and Rob set me up, I wouldn’t argue. I’d meet the guy, we’d go out, I’d remind myself that other men do indeed exist and maybe, just maybe, I’d meet one that was wonderful, kind and faithful. Someone who treated me like the center of his universe and loved me with his entire being– the way it used to be with Jeremy before . . . something, I’m still not sure what, happened to turn everything upside down.

  Aggression Cookies

  (Fun for kids, angry psychopathic people, and women whose ex-husbands cheated on them.)

  3 cups quick oats

  1½ cups brown sugar

  1½ cups all-purpose flour

  1½ cups butter or margarine

  1½ teaspoon baking powder

  Precision measuring is not important. Put all ingredients together in a bowl, then squeeze, pound, pinch, mash and slap dough as much as possible. The fiercer the pounding, the better the cookies. Beware of blood.

  Roll into small balls and place on cookie sheets. Flatten balls with your fist. Bake at 350º F for 10 minutes or less.

  Chapter Six

  Long hours of unemployment meant that I had more time to pore over the old journals. Bad idea, although I told myself it was therapeutic, that it was helping me get perspective and would no doubt contribute to my improved mental health; when actually, it became a sick obsession I couldn’t seem to control. Instead of putting our history in the past where it belonged, the intensive journal-reading sessions brought everything to the surface. Our years together became like old, raw wounds that I couldn’t allow to heal. Pick, pick, pick until the scabs opened and the fresh blood flowed out.

  Jeremy and I had dated an entire year before I met his mom. Whenever I asked him about his family, it was always, “There’s no family. It’s only Mom and me.”

  “I want to meet her.”

  “Sure, when she’s feeling better.”

  “What’s wrong? Is she sick?”

  He’d say, “She’s recovering from a fall.” Or, “She had an accident the other day.” But mostly it was, “She isn’t feeling well. She’s not up to visitors.”

  This woman seemed terribly accident-prone. Did she have some kind of disease that caused her to fall and lose her balance, like MS maybe?

  “No, she has bad luck,” Jeremy would explain.

  Finally he took me to see her. It was because he wanted to move in with me and I refused, saying that our relationship could go no further until I met his mom. Family was important to me. I needed to know where Jeremy fit into a family structure. He knew everything about my background and all I got from him was, “It’s just my mom and me.”

  The visit happened after Jeremy had snagged an agent for his second novel. The first book, the one he was promoting when he first approached me at Books and More, had been published by a local small press in Salt Lake City and done well enough to catch national attention.

  He was on top of the world, with a couple substantial royalty checks that year, and an agent negotiating the sale of his new book to a big New York publisher. He kept talking advances. The big advance meant that he’d arrived, that he was finally a real author, not just another writer working on a novel that his friends hear about but never see.

  Once I met Jeremy’s mom, I saw where his obsession with money and success came from. Before that I didn’t understand the focus on the big advance and the royalty checks, because like me, Jeremy lived simply and wasn’t a spender. We both liked to make money, we just didn’t like spending it.

  We approached her house, a small brick bungalow in the Rose Park area of Salt Lake City. Salt Lake doesn’t have slums, only divisions of real estate with varying degrees of prosperity, like the East side, the West side, Downtown, trendy Sugarhouse, the suburbs. The West-side, Rose Park area is one of the poorer parts of town, although far from being a slum like what you’d see in Chicago or St. Louis.

  Rose Park has shaded neighborhoods with solid brick homes and grassy green front yards. The houses are small, built in the 1920s. Widespread commercialization surrounds the residential areas, causing noise and traffic in what once must have been peaceful neighborhoods. The majority of the homes, though modest, are well-maintained but others have deteriorated and fallen into disrepair.

  Jeremy’s mom’s house was one of these. Grass was interspersed with weeds and there was debris everywhere. As we made our way up the sidewalk, Jeremy kicked a lawn ornament that had fallen into his path. It slammed into the chain link fence at the side of the yard.

  “Why does she keep this shit?” he exclaimed angrily.

  “Jeremy,” I said, confused by his vehement response. “Why did you kick it like that? Why not move it out of the way?”

  “Because it’s garbage. The whole place is garbage. You’ll see.”

  He unlocked the front door and pushed it open. “Mom!” he called. “I brought someone to meet you. Are you dressed?” Turning to me, he said, “She’s usually in the front room here. Maybe she stayed in bed today.”

  The house reeked of cigarettes. It was dark and cluttered, with a narrow path that one could follow across the living room to the kitchen. I could see most of the home’s layout from my vantage point at the front door. It was a typical square bungalow with two bedrooms and a bath on the right, and on the left, a living room leading to the kitchen in back.

  “Hi, Mom,” Jeremy said in a low tone. “I didn’t see you at first, thought you might not be up yet. Why don’t you turn on some lights in here?”

  It took me awhile to tell who he was talking to. Until she spoke, I didn’t see her in the darkened, cluttered room.

  “Well, bring her in then.”

  Like many very large, older women who don’t go out
much, Mrs. London wore a flowery muumuu. How had I missed her? She sat in a corner arm chair smoking a cigarette. Slippers with no heels barely covered her bloated feet. She and her chair were crowded by items stacked on both sides and in front of her. People lay open on her lap. She closed it and placed it on top of a towering stack of TV Guides, newspapers, movie magazines. I think I even saw a pillow wobbling there on the precarious pile. Her ashtray balanced atop another collection of junk on the same table.

  I wanted to dig in and start cleaning up the place, throwing stuff out. I watched as the burning cigarette teetered on the edge of the Welcome to Las Vegas ash tray. Jeremy went to give her a hug. I held out my hand to shake. I’ve learned from living among the Mormons how to shake hands. It’s a convenient practice that serves many purposes. She grasped my hand and held it a moment. Hers was warm and rough, pudgy yet small.

  “Hello there,” she said, before letting go and waving us toward the sofa. “Go ahead and move that stuff there on the couch and sit down.”

  The sagging sofa had seen better days. Its surface was covered with more of the same objects I saw throughout the room—mail, magazines, half-empty bags of potato chips. An open box of chocolate-covered cherries, which had been my favorite Christmas candy when I was a kid, peeked out from the debris.

  A little dog that had been curled in the lap of his mistress jumped down and onto the couch, spilling chips and candy about. He sniffed at the chocolate-covered cherries, licking one or two in a picky manner.

  “Mom,” Jeremy reprimanded her, moving the box away. “The dog can’t eat chocolate. It gives him the squirts. And if he gets too much it will kill him. You know that.”

  “He only takes a little now and then, no harm done,” she replied in a defensive tone. “Besides, Fluffy has the squirts so much anyway what difference is one little piece of chocolate going to make?”

  Jeremy gathered up stuff to clear places for us to sit. I started to help then thought better of it. I pulled back before touching anything, nervous about where Fluffy might have done his squirting.

  “Sit down, will you, Jeremy? You’re making me fidgety watching you standing there puttering around with that junk. Just set it anywhere. Set it on the floor.”

  She sounded cross. People crowded in their homes by possessions often seem irritated by them, like the clutter has become an unwelcome guest impossible to live with or to get rid of.

  Jeremy was stacking items on a side table next to the couch. He took his foot and cleared a place on the floor in front of us so we wouldn’t have to rest our feet on top of garbage. The stench in the place was nauseating, and I wasn’t sure it could entirely be blamed on Fluffy’s squirting habits. Around Mom’s chair I had noticed that it was particularly rank. I wondered how many hours a day she sat there, because it smelled like she never left.

  That first visit is burned into my memory. My parents were always gracious to visitors, offering them refreshment, asking polite questions while they sat in the living room of our always tidy home. I had to keep reminding myself that it’s not good to start out a relationship by comparing parents and judging.

  When Jeremy’s mom started the conversation by asking him questions about me, I tried to reserve my judgment and not get offended.

  “What’s her name?” Mrs. London asked abruptly.

  “Mom, please address Karoline. Her name is Karoline, with a K. Don’t talk to her like she’s not here.” Jeremy used a patient tone with his mom, like he was the parent.

  There might come a time when I would be in that situation with my folks but I couldn’t imagine it. Mom and Dad were healthy, vibrant, enjoying retirement. In their mid-sixties, they looked ten years younger than Mrs. London. I wondered how her age compared to theirs. Jeremy was closer to Suzie’s age than mine; perhaps his mom had him when she was older, making her seventy-plus, was my guess.

  “Karo-line, is it?” she repeated in a mocking way. “What’s the difference between that and Karo-lyn?”

  “Er—it’s spelling and pronunciation basically,” I responded in a small and rather squeaky voice. I felt like a mouse, buried under debris, scrutinizing the lady of the house with my dark bright eyes. I blinked.

  “Karo-line,” she repeated, again with the sarcasm. “With a K.”

  “Um, yes,” I said evenly, trying to ignore her rudeness. She was Jeremy’s mother, and I should get off to a good start in our relationship.

  Jeremy was uncharacteristically silent next to me. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to hold his hand, but he seemed withdrawn, untouchable, perhaps lost in his reflective memories of growing up in this home. I wondered if he had brought friends over as a kid, if his mother had always been like this. I was proud of Jeremy for pulling himself out of such an environment. With only a high school education, he had become a writer with a promising career.

  I glanced at his face, stiff and expressionless, so unlike him. His hands pressed down on the tops of his thighs. Now and then he would move them back and forth against his jeans, his fingers tight together.

  His mom lit another cigarette.

  Jeremy broke the silence. “Mom, you got anything to drink? It’s polite to offer a guest something to drink.”

  “Sure.” She waved toward the kitchen. “Help yourself.”

  “Okay, Mom. Thanks,” he responded, returning her sarcasm. He got up and headed to the kitchen.

  She took a deep drag on her cigarette while looking after him. “Bring me one, too, will you, son?” To me she said, “He’s a little rough around the edges, but Jeremy’s a fine boy. You know that, don’t you?”

  I nodded. Yes, I did know how fine he was. I thought he was wonderful, everything I wanted in a man: passionate, attentive, disciplined, focused, and incredibly good-looking. He knew how to dress. He was clean and smelled delicious, with a sense of style all his own, a kind of artiste meets bad boy. Madly in love with him, I couldn’t get enough of Jeremy London back in those days.

  She stared me down. I desperately wished Jeremy would hurry up with those drinks. Finally she said, “You be good to him and he’ll be good to you. He has a big heart, that one. He tries to hide it, but it’s there all the same. A person can’t hide a big heart, can they? The kindness and generosity and love come out no matter how hard you try to stop it.”

  I heard the tabs pop and Jeremy came back in with two Bud Lights, his favorite beer. Either his mom kept it for him or it was her favorite, too. He set one on her table, making sure it stayed secure.

  To me he said, “Water or soda, babe?”

  “Nothing for me, thanks. I’m not thirsty.”

  I was tempted to say, “Just a bit of cheese, if you don’t mind” in a high British accent but figured neither of them would get my mouse joke. I kept my mouth shut. Quiet as a mouse, I thought, faintly smiling.

  Jeremy sat down and took a long drink of his beer. He held the can tightly, using his leg as table. The coffee table was piled too high to see one inch of the surface, pretty much like the rest of the decor.

  “You don’t drink?” Mrs. London asked, addressing me this time in a more civil tone.

  “Uh, no, I don’t drink alcoholic beverages. Never have.”

  Her eyes widened. “What, are you a Mormon? Jeremy, is she a Mormon?”

  I was not shocked by this question. Since I had moved to Utah I had been asked if I was a Mormon more times than I could count. “Are you LDS?” was the most common way to ask. Or it might be phrased in any number of ridiculous variations, such as, “Are you a member of the dominant religion?”

  Personally, I found Mrs. London’s straight-out question more to my liking than the typical beating around the bush. Although the queries about my religion from strangers no longer surprised me, I still considered it impolite, like asking an older person their age, or if you dye your hair or vote Democrat or Republican.

  “No, I’m not a Mormon,” I replied, not sure if this would please or displease her. Knowing Jeremy’s feelings about the religion
, I assumed his mom didn’t like Mormons either.

  “Then what are you doing in Utah?” she countered.

  I really didn’t want to go into the whole tale of how my sister came to Utah and got baptized a Mormon, and how I followed her after I graduated from college because the one job I wanted more than anything else had fallen through due to a strange twist of events and no fault of my own, and because Suzie’s always been my best friend despite our age difference.

  To get straight to the point, Mrs. London, I am in Salt Lake City where Suzie and her family are all I’ve got, besides your very attractive son Jeremy here. With that long, smooth brown hair and those eyes that could melt chocolate.

  I said none of that although I had a feeling Jeremy’s mom would have found it interesting. She struck me as someone who studies people and likes to know their stories.

  “Where are your folks from? Do they live here too?” she asked me.

  “My sister and I grew up in Illinois but then my parents retired to Florida, where they live now,” I responded shortly, not wanting to go into detail but hoping it didn’t sound like too curt of a response. I hurried to add, “Not too far from the beach, making it a really nice place to visit when I can get away from work.”

  She gave me a sharp look before turning away to pick up her drink. In that one brief glance, I sensed a lot more going on with this woman than TV, pop culture magazines and her little squirty dog. I got the feeling that Jeremy’s mom, like her son, hid deep emotions below the surface.

  In Jeremy’s eyes, the depth and intensity of his being burned in him like a light that never went out. I felt his eyes on me. I turned and saw him smiling at me. He reached for my hand and held it, warming my cold fingers.