The Edge of Grace

by Christa Allan

  "Just don't let me find out, okay? And tell Ben I'll call him after dinner."

  I wandered into the office while I waited for cheesecakes to cool. I wanted to find a source for new business cards and to check my email, which I hadn't done in days. I scrolled through the usual smatterings of advertising, occasional spam, and book club announcements, but stopped when I spotted an email from Sidney Washington. All I knew about Sidney was he would be running as a third party candidate for state representative for our district. But if rumor was true, he didn't intend to stop there. Some talked about his ambition to run for governor.

  Ordinarily, I deleted political junk mail without even reading beyond the subject line. Except, this time, my name was the subject line. Both my stomach and my jaw dropped when I read the email. Mrs. Washington belonged, of course, to the Junior League and heard Caryn's Canapés would be catering. I'd come highly recommended from friends of theirs who were either teachers or married to teachers who had ordered my meals. The Washingtons wanted to discuss a menu for a party the night of the elections.

  For almost two years, I struggled and wondered if there would ever be a payoff. And, in the past two months, the offers were not only astoundingly profitable, but amazingly connected. And this could be big. This could mean space to breathe. This could mean time out of the kitchen. This could mean saying "yes" to something Ben wanted instead of watching the shade of disappointment on his face hearing "no."

  The election was at least six months away, which meant sufficient time to plan, but I needed to start meeting with them soon. I breathed deeply to still the wiggling in my gut, wiped my hands on my sweatpants, and clicked "reply."

  I wrote I would be honored to be a part of the celebration. I hoped a celebration. I honestly didn't know enough about politics to know if he'd be a cinch winner, but I did know the incumbent had been involved in a few indiscretions that didn't make him popular. At least not with female voters.

  The buzzer for the cheesecakes sounded. I covered them in foil, put them in the refrigerator and went back to the office. I remembered thinking that I needed to log off and get some sleep, but I wanted to check out one more website designer before shutting down.

  My left arm felt numb when I woke up. I must have fallen asleep with my head propped on my arm and my hand somewhere in the vicinity of the mouse. I wiped the crusty remnants of drool off my arm. The monitor had timed out and flashed photos of Harrison and Ben and me. Still in that in between state, I tried to shake off the sleep like it was a design on an Etch-a-Sketch. I checked the time. 9:00 a.m. Something I needed to do—what was that? Then I remembered. Ben. Ben was supposed to be home.

  I slapped around my desk to locate my cell phone to call Julie. I'd just started to punch in her number when I heard the front door slam, and Ben and Julie appeared at my office door. Both of them wore faces that might have worked for a horror movie audition, but not for a Saturday morning.

  "Mom!" Ben shouted, his face an upside down version of what it was seconds before. He ran to me and threw his arms around my neck. "I was so scared."

  If I didn't already know I was awake, I would have thought I was still sleeping. I hugged Ben. "I'm fine. I'm fine." When he released me, I looked at Julie. "What's going on?"

  I couldn't read Julie's expression. She was either relieved or annoyed or a mixture of the two, but with an overdose of annoyed. She strolled in, shoved aside a pile of papers I'd thrown on the sofa, and sat. "Just a minute." She called Trey." She's fine. Asleep. Call you later."

  "I thought Nick had a dentist appointment?" I yawned, felt the early morning slime that coated my mouth, and wished I had a bottle of water nearby. I peered in the mug by my keyboard. A half cup of murky coffee. Thankfully, it was far enough away that I didn't knock it over in my comatose state.

  Julie cleared her throat. But in a way that let me know it was for effect not for need. "I sent Ben home before we left for Nick's appointment. He came back within a few minutes. I heard him screaming my name while he was still outside." Ben sat on the sofa next to her and nodded. Julie patted him on his knee and smiled. A gracious smile.

  "Wait. Ben came home before I woke up? Why did he leave? I'm confused." I pulled my hair off my neck, found a rubber band in the drawer and yanked my hair into a ponytail. It felt like damp mop strings on my neck.

  Julie turned to Ben, "Can you get your mom a glass of water? I'll bet she's thirsty."

  "Sure. Be right back."

  As soon as his body cleared the door frame, Julie scooted to the edge of the sofa and her calm demeanor scooted away at the same time. "The reason he left," she said, with a long emphasis on re-son, "was he walked in here and when he saw you, he thought you had died." She closed her eyes a moment, and I felt like the sludge in my coffee cup.

  "Caryn, I probably could describe what I saw on your son's face and heard in his voice, but I don't think you really want me to."

  At that moment, I knew exactly what he looked and sounded like and, for Julie, it was a rerun of earlier years when I ran to her door, Ben in my arms, to tell her Harrison had died. I buried my face in my hands. How could I have done this to my child?

  "I didn't know I was going to fall asleep on my desk." I sounded more defensive than I meant to.

  "I get that. I'm not suggesting you did this on purpose. "

  Ben stepped into the room with a water bottle and a glass of ice. "I didn't want to spill the water, so I brought this." He set them both on the desk next to me. I pulled him close and kissed him on his cheek.

  "Ben, I am so sorry. I never meant to scare you. I feel terrible."

  "I felt my heart go like this." He put his hand under his shirt and patted his chest as if his heart pounded through it "That's when I ran back to Nick's house."

  I rolled the desk chair out so he could perch on my lap, but Julie wasn't finished with me yet.

  "Ben, sweetie, could you do one more favor for me? See if your mom has a Diet Coke, would you? And can you bring me a glass of ice just like you brought your mom?"

  He wiggled away from the chair, but leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. No matter how many baths he took, he still smelled like freshly mown grass. I expected him to pout at another request, but he didn't see it as a diversion tactic. He saw it as a way to do something for Julie.

  "You bet. I'll be glad to serve you, ma'am." He grinned and bowed as if he had just addressed the Queen of England.

  "What a great server you are," said Julie. "I'll be sure to pass that on to the head waiter."

  "Okay, what now?" I asked, opened the water bottle and took a sip to swish in my mouth. "I must have terrible morning breath."

  "You know, for someone who just scared the crap out of your son, you're taking this all quite casually."

  "What do you want me to do now? Promise I'll never fall asleep at my computer again so my son won't be terrified and think I died?" I took a second noisy gulp. "Okay. I promise."

  "You have to get a grip on your life and your business. I know you need the money. But you're taking on too much. It's already a problem for Ben. He spends more time at my house lately than his own."

  "I thought you wanted to help. If Ben being there is a problem, let me know."

  "No. Ben's not the problem. You're hearing me, but you're not listening. You're the problem. Or at least your total 'overwhelmingness' is."

  "I just need to make it through the holidays." I knew this was not the time to reveal I'd just taken on another job, even if it was months in the future.

  "You can't keep doing this on your own. Did you already forget that you had someone to call when you needed to?"

  "Give it up, Julie. I'm capable of doing this without David's help."

  "If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if you worked like a maniac because in some cosmic redemption it would either make David straight or make you forget he wasn't."

  I wanted to tell her how stupid I thought that was, but Ben walked in with her Diet Coke.

  "Here," he
handed Julie her drink and glass. "Mom, since you're okay and everything, can I go watch TV?"

  "No problem. Not too loud, though."

  "Can I get something to eat? We ate breakfast a looooong time ago."

  "Sure, just be careful you're not picking through food I'm cooking with."

  "I won't," he said as he sprinted out the room.

  I stood, pulled my sweatpants away from where they'd bunched around my hips, and slipped my feet back into my flip-flops. I relocated the stack of papers on the sofa to an empty spot on the floor, and sat in the empty space with my feet propped up on my desk.

  "Trey brought Nick, so I guess that means you're stuck with me until they get back," Julie said.

  "You can stay as long as you stop beating me up."

  "Is that what you think? I'm Caryn-bashing?" She emptied her can in her glass and paused to sip the carbonated mountain of fizz before it all bubbled over. "How long have we known each other? You know I'm going to tell you the truth. And the truth is you've stretched yourself so thin, I could slip you between the pages of one of those cookbooks piled on your desk."

  I stared at my hands. Thin. My fingernail polish was thin. My savings account was thin. My patience was thin. Everything except my body. My tired body. I wished Ben knew how to make coffee because a cup of fresh ground Southern Pecan would be a treat.

  I loved having coffee in bed with Harrison on Sunday mornings. I loved having Harrison in bed on Sunday mornings. Tomorrow was Sunday, but only the memories would be in bed with me.

  "Hey . . . are you still here?" Julie waved her hand near my face as if cleaning a smudged window.

  Maybe it was the memory of Harrison that set me off. Or the lack of caffeine. Or needing a pedicure. "Do you know what it's like to be a single mother? No. You have no idea what my life is like. I'm responsible for Ben every minute of every hour of every day. Physically, emotionally, financially. Everything depends on me. When your husband dies, a lot of your choices die with him."

  "I'm not sure what you mean," Julie said.

  "That's exactly my point. You can choose to ignore or pay attention to your husband, in and out of the bedroom. You can choose to work or stay home. You can choose between being lonely and alone."

  "I didn't come here to fight with you, remember? Your son thought you'd died. Why do you persist in being so stubborn and controlling? Why don't you ask for help when you need it? You hardly asked for help taking care of Harrison. If you didn't have Ben to take care of, you probably would have sat here suffering in silence."

  "What happened to 'I'm not Caryn-bashing'?"

  "I'm not bashing. I'm asking. Let me—let somebody—help you. Stop thinking that asking for help is a sign of weakness."

  "If we're going to be honest, after that day in the bowling alley when you obviously didn't want me to say anything about David in front of Trey, I'd been waiting for you to explain what happened. You never have. I don't know if I can talk about my brother in front of Trey or not."

  "I didn't plan to not tell you. Sometimes I think I'm protecting people from being hurt, but it happens anyway." She sank back on the sofa. "Trey had the same college roommate for two years. A few months after graduation, the guy tells him he's gay. Trey hasn't been in contact with him since. Not because Jonah's gay . . . well, maybe partly . . . but he couldn't believe he lied to him for so many years. He trusted Jonah, and he thought Jonah trusted him. But if he couldn't tell him the truth, then Trey figured he didn't. Anyway, I wanted to tell Trey myself. Not have him hear in a bowling alley that someone he's considered a friend for years came out."

  "And you told him since then?"

  Julie looked away, then back. "Yes. I told him. I don't think he wants to see David anytime soon."

  17

  Go to sleep an hour later; wake up an hour earlier. A few more days of this, and I'd meet myself in the middle. Julie helped me assemble the last of the school lunches, and she volunteered to deliver them while I learned how to let go.

  Well, maybe loosen my grip.

  I learned Ben and I could survive on peanut butter and jelly, while I finished a tomato-caper-black olive sauce for stuffed ravioli with artichokes, feta cheese, and fresh herbs. I learned the vacuum cleaner didn't require weekly exercise, especially if the clutter covering the floors made navigating it seem like an episode from The Great Race.

  I learned I didn't want to be the person my mother would have looked at, made the sign of the Cross, and said, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." According to my mother, had God not been watching over her, she would have been the homeless person begging at a corner, the woman who died in surgery, the mother who lost a child, or the abandoned wife who gained fifty pounds. God's grace was her tragedy-proof vest. I don't think I inherited the vest. According to Julie, I've already inherited God's blessings, no charge. I didn't get this God of give-aways, especially since lately He seemed the God of take away.

  The past few Sundays, Ben attended church with the Pierces, and this Sunday he came home revved about the children's choir. "The songs are fun. We sang one called 'Walk in Jerusalem.' And you get to clap. Loud. In church." Still wearing his new jeans and button-down polo shirt, he smiled from the inside out. "It's cool, Mom. When you stop cooking, can you come with us?"

  I reached in the bottom cabinet for more plastic containers, relieved he couldn't see me say, "Sure," because he would have known that it really meant, "We'll see."

  "Aw-right! Can't wait to tell Nick," he said.

  "One more thing to feel guilty about," I told the smoked oysters under my breath as I mashed them for a pâté. They ignored me.

  "I'm gonna change my clothes." He sniffed the air in the kitchen, then peered into the bowl in front of me. "That's people food? Yuk. It smells like dirty feet."

  The kid was two for two, and it wasn't even lunch yet.

  The Junior League luncheon was two days away when Sidney Washington called me as I seasoned three dozen petite crab cakes with tarragon and mango sauce. I'd forgotten I'd mentioned in my email he could contact me if he had questions before we met.

  "Caryn Becker?"

  I answered, "Yes," and almost launched into a blathering of thanks when the voice spoke again.

  "Hold on for Mr. Washington, please."

  If the oven heat in the kitchen hadn't already wilted me, that abruptness would have.

  I hit the "speaker" button and started to wrap the finished cakes in foil. But when I moved the first batch to make room for the second, I slid the box of foil over too far. The box batted the telephone receiver off the island, and Sidney's hello sailed through the air with it. I leaned over to grab the phone, mashed my elbow in the unwrapped batch of crab cakes, and sent them crashing to the floor. His second hello came as the phone scuttled across the tile like a turtle on its shell and crashed landed into the baseboard. The crab cakes splatted on the floor near my toes.

  I dragged my hands across my apron, reached for the phone, and managed to answer before Sidney spoke again.

  "Did I catch you at a bad time?"

  In the summer, a frosty voice like his would be appreciated. No, you didn't catch me at a bad time. You caused the bad time. "Absolutely not. What can I do for you Mr. Washington?" I squatted on the floor and picked up the ruined crab cakes.

  "My campaign manager neglected to consult my calendar before she scheduled me into yet another meeting."

  He paused. I opened a roll of paper towels to finish wiping up the mess.

  "So," he said, "We need to reschedule our appointment."

  I wet an arm's length of paper towels, sat on the floor, and wiped a few tears and hours of work away. "No problem at all. What did you have in mind?"

  "I can meet you the same day and time the following week. Can you be there then?"

  I hadn't seen my planner in days, and I didn't have time to find it now. "That date is fine," I answered as I tossed a dozen crab cakes and a mess of paper towels in the garbage can.

  "Well, t
hen, we're set."

  "Yes, I—"

  "I'm sorry. Lurlene just informed me a conference call is waiting. I'm looking forward to meeting you. Good-bye." And the phone went dead.

  The mattress disappeared beneath me, and I rocked as if laying on the deck of a sailboat, the waves gently taking turns lifting me up and then down and then up and down. I felt myself surrendering to the quiet rhythms when a blast of noise broke through and shoved me back into my bedroom.

  I must have set the alarm volume to its highest because when Steven Tyler hit a high note, I shot up from the mattress like someone had doused me with ice.

  I fumbled around in the darkness, hoping to find the reset button before Aerosmith launched into its screeching chorus again. Two hours of sleep. But today was the day. The Junior League luncheon would be over. I could redeem my life.

  For a while last night, I considered not even trying to sleep, but my legs refused to support me, and I wasn't sure my brain did either.

  Determined to make myself as efficient as possible, I had typed and printed two "TO DO" lists. One for my purse and one taped to the back of the front door to remind me of everything I needed to walk out with.

  I'd even ironed my new Jillie Willie Girlfriends in the Kitchen apron, my black linen skirt and made sure the new emerald cashmere sweater from Banana Republic still fit.

  I showered, not bothering to wash my hair since I'd braid it. I didn't want there to be even a suggestion of hair in the food.

  The kitchen looked as if the pantry and refrigerator had packed for a long trip. Whatever wouldn't spoil was packed and labeled in plastic containers. Everything else was in the refrigerator until it was time to leave.

  I zapped a mug of leftover coffee in the microwave. It hardly seemed fair to even call it leftover since I'd just made it not so many hours earlier.

  I woke Ben and had breakfast waiting for him on the table." You made pancakes this morning?" Even in his barely awake stage he was shocked.

  "Well, sort of. I made some a few days ago, then I froze them. Now you can just pop a few in the toaster and, bingo, pancakes."