The Edge of Grace

by Christa Allan

  The coffeemaker reassembled, the dishwasher started, and the emptiness of the house reverberated. I looked around, seeing not furniture or flooring or keepsakes, but an emotional assault. I didn't need to be held hostage by memories on a combat mission, lying around my house, waiting in picture frames and used bottles of Aramis cologne, and notes on birthday cards, all of them ready to ambush me.

  "Well," I said to the pantry, "this soldier isn't going into battle on an empty stomach." I found a box of granola cereal, poured some in a coffee cup and spooned vanilla yogurt over it. I leaned against the island and considered my options as I ate.

  I could wander around Whole Foods Market. Usually on Saturdays there was something to sample on every aisle. I could taste-test myself through the store and consider it research for my catering business. Or I could go to the bookstore and hunt for a cookbook I didn't already own. Or I could call Julie and meet them all at the bowling alley. Or I could defer to my standard coping mechanism when faced with an overdose of reality. I could take a nap.

  Naps became my drug of choice after Harrison died. How else could I forget those days potty training my son and diapering my husband? Days I wanted to call Ms. Easterling, my ninth grade teacher, and tell her I'd grasped the definition of situational irony and could pass the test now. Remembering the medical supply company replacing the bed that made me a wife with the one that sentenced me to being a caretaker. Some days I'd stumble to Julie's with Ben in my arms. She'd take him from me, and I'd succumb to exhaustion in their guest room.

  There were days I'd hear Ben's sweet lilting almost two-year-old voice as he toddled from room to room, accompanied by the waddling wooden duck he pulled behind. "Where Daddy? Where Daddy go?" Only when I slept could I escape the echoes of his forlorn confusion.

  But like most addictions, the solution for making the pain disappear became the problem. Unless I entered eternal sleep—and there were certainly those days I'd considered it— I'd still be doomed to face life without Harrison.

  I scraped the last bite of cereal out of the cup. Now I'm doomed to life without a straight brother. No nap was going to change that either.

  I called Julie and told her the pity party had ended early.

  "The guys just started their second game. If you're desperate for entertainment—I know I am—head on over," she said.

  I tossed my cell phone in my purse without checking for missed calls, turned on the house alarm, and left. Driving to the bowling alley, I reminded myself to apologize to Ben for snapping at him this morning after David called. My poor child's toes curled in on themselves inside his shoes, and I fussed at him for his innocent question. He physically lost his father; he didn't need to emotionally lose his mother.

  And Harrison witnessed it all now. And more.

  Blindfolded, I'd know if I landed in a bowling alley. Stale cigarette smoke and sweat swirled between layers of spilled beer and soft drinks, marinated in French fried grease, and topped with a sharp chemical spritz. Clearly, recipes were overtaking my life.

  The smell settling on my shoulders, I searched for a tall woman with hair the color of a new penny. Even Julie's voice wouldn't break the rumbling thuds of bowling balls exploding into thundering crescendos of pins.

  A few lanes from where I stood, Ben darted in my direction. "Mom! Mom! You came. Cool!" He high-fived me and showed off his clunky black and silver bowling shoes. "Mr. Trey rented these, so I gotta give 'em back when we leave."

  I followed him, stepped into the pit and tossed my car keys into one of the empty chairs. I sat next to Julie who manned the scores. "Surprise. I made it."

  She smiled. "I knew you loved me more than you loved Rachel Ray."

  "Actually, you barely edged out John Besh and his recipe for Strawberry Ravioli." I patted the top of her head. "Where are your boys?"

  "After Nick's ball landed two lanes over, Trey thought the kid might need a break. They're at the snack bar," she said. "So, you get to watch Ben solo."

  Ben finished tying his right shoe and gave me a thumbs up.

  "Okay, Ben, show your mom how the pros do it," Julie said.

  Ben grabbed a green speckled ball from the rack and shuffled to the foul line.

  He swung his spindly arm back, forward, then flung the ball toward the pins. It landed like a meteor hitting concrete, slid into the head pin and then spun into the gutter. I watched his thin shoulders sag, and I wanted to knock the other pins down with the sheer force of my will. How dare they disappoint my child.

  Ben turned around, shrugged his shoulders, and grinned. "I got one!"

  Julie patted my hand. "See. It's all a matter of perspective. Maybe it's time to follow your son's lead."

  A kernel of annoyance dug itself under my thin skin. "Not now, okay? I get it. You're not talking about bowling." I smiled at Ben as he waited for the return to burp up his ball. When he stepped up to the lane, I returned Julie's hand pat. "And I'm not going to talk about David."

  "And that's exactly the problem—"

  "Problem? What problem?" I heard Trey before he appeared from behind me juggling three fountain drinks, his shirt pocket lumpy with bags of candy. "Hey, Caryn, glad you made it," he said, not seeming at all surprised that I did.

  Julie reached for a drink. "Just girl talk," she answered. I knew that tone. She used it when Trey asked the price of her new shoes. "Not much," always meant "Don't ask, you really don't want to know." Trey rolled his eyes in my direction. He probably figured he was shut out of a girl conspiracy. But I felt shut out of a Julie conspiracy. It was quite un-Julie-like to not divulge code-orange information to her husband. Though neither of us had moved, the space between us widened.

  Somewhere between my confusion and curiosity, Nick materialized from behind Trey. He handed me one of the two drinks he held. "I saw you come in when Dad was ordering our stuff. We got an extra for you."

  4

  Baking the Cranberry Walnut Biscotti to bring to Julie and Trey's house the next morning, I redefined hell: every appliance that bings, buzzes, and burps will be there. Without off buttons. Maybe my baking therapy had burned itself out. The year after Harrison died, I gave away cakes, pies, muffins, cookies, bread. No one ever worried I'd end it all like Sylvia Plath kneeling in front of the oven. I had too many other things to put in there.

  When friends of friends started asking for my pumpkin bread during the holidays, my catering business began. Actually, David suggested it. He and Lori had taken Ben to the park after David asked, "When's the last time your son breathed air that wasn't controlled by a thermostat?" My blank stare answered for me.

  They returned about two dozen loaves of bread later, lined up on the counters like bloated bricks. The scent of cinnamon soaked the kitchen. That's when David, using his official big brother voice, nestled the words "allocation of resources" among a slew of others, and, next thing I knew, I owned a catering business.

  David always had big picture brain. I'd look at a pile of manure and think, "shovel." My brother would see the same pile and look for a horse.

  "Where'd that brother go?" I shot back at my reflection in the glass oven door. The timer screamed, took a breath, and screamed again. "Okay, okay. Gimme some time to put on the mitts." I opened the door and pulled out the baking stone, the citrusy scent making itself at home in the kitchen. Once I slid the stone on a cooling rack, I took off the mitts, and reset the timer for ten minutes. "The tyranny of the timer," I said to the speechless biscotti and laughed at myself. But the laughter soured with the memory of years when time was my enemy. Never enough or too much of it.

  My phone rang while I searched the cabinets for a cookie tin. I reached over the counter to grab the phone where I'd plugged it to recharge overnight. Something I forgot to do more times than I remembered. If Ben hadn't been at Julie's, I would've silenced the thing. David left five messages in two hours. Every flash of his number tormented me. Silent pleas I forced myself to ignore so I'd not be taken hostage by loss and pain. How many times c
ould there be a ransom?

  This time, it was Julie who called. "Didn't you tell us you were bringing over breakfast?" She already knew the answer, but it was her way of telling me I should've already been at her house.

  "Hey, on my way soon. I promise," I answered and tried not to slam cabinet doors as I hunted and wished I'd invested in that label maker Harrison used to bug me about buying.

  "In fact . . ." I reached over my head and grabbed a tin on the top shelf of the cabinet. As I pulled it off the shelf, I realized—too late—it actually supported three smaller ones I couldn't spot from my vantage point. I managed an, "Uh oh," and scooted to the left before they hit my head instead of the floor. They crashed against the Mexican tiled floor like cymbals.

  Instead of a screech from Julie, I heard a sigh and then, "Let me guess. You didn't use the step stool. Was that your head they landed on?"

  If Julie couldn't distinguish between the floor and my head, being late was the least of my troubles. "Step stool. No. Head. No. I'll be there in a few. Bye."

  I found a pair of jeans on my bedroom floor and a sleeveless tee that passed the sniff test, clipped a barrette around my cranky curls, arranged the biscotti in the newly dented tin and headed out of the house.

  The street was so deserted it could have been a stage set for one of those cowboy showdowns. Not a surprise considering the three-digit heat index. In late spring, the lawns of St. Augustine grass stretched down the street, monster-sized emerald patches made square by the bands of concrete dividing one from another. But a few weeks into June, the fringes of the grass that met the street had already been scorched black. Just crossing the street felt like fighting my way from under a wet blanket.

  Julie opened the door before I knocked. The plus side of having glass doors is being able to see company before it knocks. "Come on in, fast." She left a space wide enough for me to squeeze through, then shut the door as if the humidity morphed into a stranger who tried to sneak in with me. "I don't know why you bothered with the oven. With the temperature outside, you could've baked those on the sidewalk on your way over," she said as she followed me into the kitchen.

  "If it's this blistering now, we're going to need ice baths by August." I handed her the biscotti, then peeled the front of my T- shirt away from my neck. White may not have been the best choice. "It's scary quiet. What did you do with the boys?"

  "Well," she said, arranging the biscotti on the plate like wagon spokes, "the biggest boy is on the golf course. I sent him out with a frozen Gatorade, and told him not to blame me if he died out—" She looked at me, the arch of her chestnut eyebrows lifted over her round hazel eyes. An "oops" washed over her face.

  Julie's face softened, her cheekbones more pronounced by the wisp of color that floated underneath the surface of her skin. "And the other two boys were still sleeping when I last checked. They stayed awake late, I'm sure. I found Nick asleep on his bedspread with his Wii control still in his hands, and Ben curled up on the other end of the bed instead of on the top bunk." She pushed the Sunday paper aside and set the plate on her distressed oak kitchen table. Distressed, she'd told me when they bought it, because it already knew it'd be holding frozen meals.

  I pulled two coffee mugs from an overhead cabinet. "Guess maybe the trick is taking the controls away before bedtime," I said, and cringed as soon as the last syllable of the ghost of my Mother spilled out of my mouth.

  "I'll remember that next time." Julie's sarcasm confirmed what I heard in my voice.

  "Okay, my oops this time," I said, filled the mugs with coffee and brought them to the table.

  She smiled, glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner, and said, "I'll wake up the boys. Trey's going to be home in time for us to make the noon service."

  I watched her walk down the hall while I waved away the lingering steam rising from the coffee. She took a few steps, then turned to face me. "You know, you and Ben are welcome to come with us."

  Julie's frequent invitations had dulled the razor of guilt-tinged anxiety that once sliced my spirit. She didn't sense the sharpness any more either, but like an actress in a never-ending play, she continued to rehearse the line. But my response was equally scripted, "No, not today. Maybe another time."

  I never revealed that some Sundays, while I rinsed leftover breakfast dishes, I'd watch as their SUV eased out of their driveway on their way to church. When it pulled away from their house, it was as if my unfulfilled dreams left with them, crashing against the concrete like empty cans tied to the bumper. Sometimes I wondered if God could ever fill that emptiness. An emptiness not even my sweet son sliding his way down the wood floors into the kitchen could fill.

  When Nick said, "Ben, look. Your mom made those stick things," Julie headed straight for the pantry and emerged with three different cereal options.

  The boys amused themselves swiveling around on the kitchen counter stools between cereal bites. I refilled my coffee mug while Julie rummaged through the kitchen junk drawer for a needle and thread so she could sew a button on Nick's khakis. "Why are buttons sewn on like the kid's only going to wear the pants once?" She shuffled and reshuffled clutter and produced what looked like a designer matchbook, holding it like a mirror in front of her face. "There you are."

  "I know you didn't start smoking. What is that?"

  Julie plopped into the chair across from mine. "This is a sewing kit from the Grand Hotel. Remember?" she said and lifted the cover to reveal a needle and six different colored threads.

  She turned to the boys. "Nick, stop picking the raisins out of your cereal and bring me your pants." Nick spooned his outcast raisins into Ben's bowl, slid off the stool, and headed to his bedroom.

  "That was a fun place." Ben's words sounded as if they'd traveled for a year to arrive in this moment.

  We vacationed in Gulf Shores last summer. Our two families plus David and Lori. Trey wanted someone to play golf with. Told Julie and me he needed male bonding. Guess that didn't work out so well for either one of them.

  "It was fun, wasn't it?" Julie licked her thumb and forefinger and slid one end of the beige thread between them. "Ben, do you remember when your Uncle David tried to get your mom to parasail?"

  Ben looked at me, his shy grin so much like Harrison's. "He kept telling her he'd catch her if she fell. She didn't think he was funny."

  He was right. Later that night, I'd told David that Ben had already lost a father, he didn't need to lose a mother too. What I didn't tell him was the truth. That the idea of being 500 feet in the air hanging from a parachute terrified me. I'd faced enough fears by then. I didn't want to wrestle another one.

  Nick zoomed in, tossed his pants in his mother's lap, and challenged Ben to one more game before he left. Ben hopped off his stool, dashed after Nick, then put on his foot brakes right in front of me as if he'd hit a wall. "Mom, when are we going to see Uncle David?"

  I glanced at Julie. She jabbed the needle through the button without so much as a peek in my direction. Strange. Julie more often pounced into conversations, not engaged in stealth approach.

  Ben scratched the top of his head and waited, his eyes wide, as if they could tug the answer from me.

  Ice clattered into the bin in the freezer. I finished my coffee and leaned against the cross-back chair. "I'm not sure, Ben," I said and hoped being subdued meant the words would land softly. "He's—"

  "Okay," he said, his voice echoed the dullness in his eyes. He pulled his shorts up from his hips where they'd settled and walked off, leaving a trail of quiet.

  My heart followed him, but it couldn't stretch across the void my words had caused.

  "So, what are you going to do about David?" Julie snipped the thread, folded Nick's pants, and set them on the table. "More coffee?"

  I shook my head. She emptied the carafe into her mug, then set the microwave timer. "To remind myself to tell Nick to take a bath before church," she said and sat down at the table.

  "Why do I have to do anything? Shouldn't David do
something?" Like go back to the one I knew. I reached for a biscotti, but drew my hand back as if it'd been slapped. If food would anchor these emotional waves, I'd need more than an Italian cookie. I'd hold out for the pecan pie cupcakes with caramel cream cheese icing I planned to bake this afternoon.

  "He did. He told you the truth." She dunked what was left of her biscotti in her coffee. "And you're punishing him for that."

  "Well, now we're even."

  5

  Mom, don'tcha think I'm too old for these?"

  I looked up from my desk where I'd been flipping through Emeril's latest cookbook when I heard Ben's voice. He must have just stepped out of the bathtub. He stood just inside the door to my office, his hair plastered to the back of his neck. In the front, where he'd probably pushed it off his forehead, it stood like a brown fence. Fat drops of water rolled down the sides of his face. With one hand, Ben pinched closed the Disney beach towel he'd wrapped around his body and locked under his arms. It seems Mickey might have made two trips around Ben's pretzel-thin body.

  Water glistened in the hollows between his collarbone and shoulder. Ben and Snowball, our neighbors' lab, shared a postbath philosophy. Why use a towel when you can just shake?

  He stretched out his arm to show me the Ironman pajamas clutched in his hand. "So, whaddya think?" He waved them up and down, then brought the bundle to his chest and sniffled, wiping the edge of his nose with his bent forefinger.

  My brain started to download an answer. I opened my mouth to speak, when something almost imperceptible, a whisper of time between child and boy, settled in the back of my throat. I stopped. He wasn't asking the question because he thought he was too old. He was asking because he didn't want to think he was too old.

  I stood and opened the door to the bathroom off the office. My answer tiptoed out. "Why don't you pop in here? Just throw them on so you can stop shivering, and we'll talk about it."