“No way!”
“Yeah. I did well enough, and it was fun, sort of like being a cheerleader in high school long after the fact. It was cool while you were there, but a few years down the road it feels oddly embarrassing.”
“Did you get the pink car?”
“No!”
“Sorry for not taking you up on the offer to do my hair. Why didn’t you tell me you were trained?”
“It’s a little embarrassing in my current circles.”
“Oh please. All of our families started out humbly. Why that’s such a crime I don’t know. We all have to go to the bathroom and shave our underarms, you know?”
We are silent for a moment, sipping our drinks as we whiz by the brick row houses with their white granite stoops. Every once in a while the aroma of frying bacon from a restaurant wends its way into the car. Mercy, but I love bacon.
Lark taps her knee. “Well, maybe Mother doesn’t have to shave her underarms.” She turns toward me in a quick movement. “So if you could do anything you wanted to do, what would it be?”
“I don’t know the answer to that question anymore.”
“Look out!” she yells, and I swerve the truck back into my lane, waving with the zippy hand of apology to the pedestrian I almost plastered against my jumbo bumper.
* * *
Lark and I enter the small church, the smell of lemon wax high on the air. I’ve never been to a Catholic church before. The chapel seats perhaps seventy-five people, and there’s no automatic projection screen that I can see. Some statuary, candles, a podium, and a broad table carved with Gothic arches embellish the sanctuary. The honey-hued wood, almost living despite the fact it was removed from its roots years ago, warms the sacred chamber where a trail of people dressed in white shirts with black skirts or pants now file into the choir loft. I watch with little expectation because, heaven help me, church hasn’t done it for me for years. Yeah, there are a couple of praise songs that make me cry. But I used to look up at my pastor, who was ten years younger than me and light-years cooler, and most Sundays I heard, Wok, wok, wokka wokka wok. I was usually worrying about the turkey in the oven back home or wondering if everything was going okay in the Junior High Breakout Jam (yes, they actually called it that) where the kids learned all about the issues they were facing these days, not about being like Jesus, being wise, being loving, or, gasp, being meek.
That’s right, folks, let’s make it all about you and then go have pizza.
Still, I sent Will every week because I was too lazy and maybe a little too overwhelmed to take his spiritual education into my own hands.
Lark leads me to a back pew on the far left near a window with St. Francis of Assisi glowing in stained glass.
I sit in a rainbow glow pulsating through the window at my left, and I’m wondering who Peter Claver was and why he was canonized, and I’m hearing this congregation, mostly African-American, sing—
Lamb of God, you taketh away the sins of the world;
Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you taketh away the sins of the world;
Have mercy on us.
Risen Lord, you taketh away the sins of the world;
Grant us peace.
They draw out the word grant, rising upward on the scale, and the rest follows in a glorious crescendo until the word peace is sustained and resolved in a note of stunning power when sung from the lips of those around me and the choir in front of me, who all look upon Jesus as the suffering servant and take comfort from His birth in obscurity, His death on the cruel cross, and all of the poor wanderings, with no place to rest His head, that happened in between.
I watch and listen with expectation, caught up in the reverent hush that fills the sanctuary.
The sanctuary.
Oh, so that’s why they call it that.
I was taught mostly to hope in the power of Christ’s resurrection and glorification. Those are wonderful doctrines, but they hold little meaning if He didn’t dirty His hands and feet, didn’t get sick, didn’t cry, didn’t long to scream in pain and frustration but couldn’t, not with the eyes of His children looking to Him to show them the way. He has grace on us because He gave Himself little.
Father Norman talks about what it means to be a peacemaker, and the concept is so new. A peacemaker? What about “Onward, Christian Soldiers”? Aren’t we at war with those who oppose God? Put on the armor and all that?
“Jesus never once lifted his hand against the body of a living soul,” the young black priest says, his skin smooth, his hands moving in punctuation. “My brothers and my sisters, we may be pressed, persecuted, and cast down, but only one Man, one Man, showed us the holy response. And the Lord Jesus Christ is all we have to go on.
“Pressed . . . but not crushed.
“Persecuted . . . not abandoned.
“Cast down . . . but not destroyed.”
Amens bless his words.
Lark leans toward me. “It’s a Baptist Catholic church.”
“I love it.”
And then we recite the creed and agree that someday Jesus will come again. But we are united in more than these beliefs. I’m not exactly sure what it might be. But that knowledge is newly secure.
I remember Sister Jerusha.
* * *
Jace and I lounge by the pool on the new furniture he still can’t get over I bought. Will and Nicola swim in the pool, doing handstands, seeing how long the other can hold their breath. Her black hair con- trasts with his hemp hair, her olive skin with his cream, and he’s falling for her, dear Lord, I can see that a mile away.
“Jace, what do you think Jesus really meant when He said, ‘Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me?’”
“Jesus never minced words, did He?”
“That kinda bugs me about Him.”
“I’m sure His contemporaries felt the same way.”
“What does it mean to follow Jesus? Surely it means to act like He acted, walk where He walked, and love like He loved. But that seems like an extremely tall order, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it does. It really does. I can’t help but think of Sister Jerusha.”
“Me either. I’m going to send a donation tomorrow.”
“You do that.” He looks down at his book and repeats in a whisper, “Yes, you do that.” A minute later, he sets his book aside, and soon after I hear his car wind down the drive. Maybe I’m not the only one with a twisty life right now.
Man, I wish God wasn’t starting to shake us up like this. Wouldn’t it just be easier to care about stuff like dinnerware, golf, school uniforms, and getting to that new restaurant that just opened?
* * *
I fall into bed with no piece of cake at the ready. Nobody wants my cake anyway. “Oh no, mine’s not good enough anymore, thank you, Carmen.”
Mercy, these sheets feel good, all smooth and clean. And I just shaved my legs today too.
Jace sets down his Tozer book. He’s a huge Tozer fan. Tozer all the time. He worships Tozer almost as much as those intelligentsia folks worship C. S. Lewis, like he’s another incarnation or something. “What’s that, hon?”
“Nothing. Just thinking about the cake for the freshman welcome dinner at school.”
“As if you don’t have better things to do with your time.” He picks the book up again and settles his reading glasses on his nose. “Like buy more stuff.”
“I’m sorry about the patio furniture. But those people really needed it.”
“I’m not questioning your motives, Hezzie. I don’t mind helping people, you know that. But where does it all end? I’m working as hard as I can as it is.”
“Is this about the tennis court?”
“Partly. I have dreams, hon.”
“We’re not enough?” Okay, so that wasn’t fair. And it was really lame. I hope he just ignores that, because he should.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now. I’ve got two surgeries tomorrow, and when we argue I can’t sleep.”
“But this is important.”
“Yes. And so is the money those surgeries will bring in. Much too important, if you want my opinion.”
I want to tell him I’ll cancel the order for the tennis court. But I can’t yet.
I lean over and pluck An American Anthology of Poetry off my nightstand. We read in silence for a while.
He lays down his book. “You know, it’s okay if you want to do something for yourself now, Hezz.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe you need a bigger purpose?”
“What if I like things the way they are?”
“Then that’s good.”
“Right?”
“Right, Heather. Right.”
“Just get back to Reverend Tozer, Jace.”
“I don’t know. You probably wouldn’t like what he has to say.”
Nope. I probably wouldn’t.
Five more minutes go by and I’m reading some Poe; he lays his book down again. “Do you ever think your spending habits come from a lack of direction? I mean, your heart breaks over those websites and TV shows, and all you can think to do is write a check. Don’t you want more?”
“You know, you’re starting to bug me.”
“Just food for thought, hon.”
Five more minutes; a little Longfellow.
I lay my book down. “I’m sorry, Jace, about your dreams going unfulfilled.”
“And yours haven’t?”
“That’s true, but I guess I’m used to taking care of things here, worrying about Will and you. I don’t even know what those dreams are anymore. I used to think it was the salon. But now, well, I really could start one up, we can afford it, and I’m smart enough to get it running on a profit in the first year. I actually was thinking maybe when Will graduates from high school, I could do it. But now Sister Jerusha and James Summerville and Lark are throwing a big fat monkey wrench into my plans.”
“You never told me you were thinking about opening up a salon.”
“I know. Can you imagine? One of the area’s leading cardiac surgeons married to a salon owner?”
He sits up. “You don’t think I’d think that, do you?”
“No. But everybody else would.”
“Oh, Heather. My gosh. I never realized.”
“So yes, I’m trying to keep up appearances, I admit it. But please at least admit there’s every reason why I should.”
I cannot believe I’m throwing this back on him, like it’s so uncomplicated, like he isn’t partially right that I’m a bored suburbanite with no greater purpose than to make my life look like an episode of Martha Stewart.
He peels off his reading glasses. “Who convinced you you had nothing to offer in and of yourself? That you needed all this to make yourself worthy? Please tell me it wasn’t me, hon.”
“No, Jace. Never, never you.”
“A tennis court isn’t going to make you the picture-perfect country club lady.”
“I know.”
“In fact, if we have a tennis court and a pool, why do we need to be members in the first place?”
“Beats me.”
“Right. We’ve got to figure something else out, Heather. I can’t keep working these hours; you can’t keep up this Jonesin’ stuff, because at the end of the day, we’re both still miserable even though we, quote, have it all.”
“I know,” I whisper.
He lies back down.
“What are your dreams, Jace?”
“Not tonight, hon. I’ve really got to get some sleep.”
If that isn’t the male version of “Not tonight—I have a headache,” I don’t know what is.
At 3:00 a.m. his pager beeps. He quietly pads downstairs to call the hospital. I follow him.
An emergency surgery. The lady he did a bypass on three days ago went into cardiac arrest. “I’m going to have to crack her back open, I think.”
“Poor thing.”
And three minutes later he’s zipping down the driveway.
SEVEN
I dropped Will off at swim team practice and didn’t feel like going back home, so I’m wandering down the aisles of T.J.Maxx, where a fabulous white sale has drawn in the bees of the cul-de-sacs in search of new looks for their bedrooms, baths, and kitchens. The prices are rock-bottom, folks. I fill up the cart with white bath towels, face towels, and washcloths, then head down the sheeting aisle.
Oh, why not? I’m tired of those brightly colored comforters in the spare rooms, and I know Sister J would appreciate them more than I do. One room holds two sets of twin beds, the other a queen. Today I’m laying aside the boldness of greens, reds, and golds and going for white down comforters and sheets so pure and crisp you’d think God sent them down like manna while you were asleep.
I load up another cart, then the car. Jace never goes into those rooms.
I feel like I’m going to throw up. I could take these things back right now.
But I don’t.
* * *
Before I pick up Will, I drive by the old house on Joppa Road. The Versailles garden still anchors the block, and my old neighbor bends down onto his knees to plant . . . looks like impatiens . . . in a shady spot near the front steps. Next door, our house hides behind overgrown shrubbery and drawn blinds guarded from the outside by the same shutters, but now they shirk beneath peeling layers of black paint.
Some things change. Some things don’t.
* * *
We pull up into the driveway. He’s home!
I tiptoe in, arms loaded, and hurry up the stairs, dumping my booty into the closets, already thinking I’ve got to get the steaks marinating. I pause by his study door, cracked open an inch or two. His bass voice carries.
“Yes, Bonnie, I’m definitely interested, but I have more than a few details to work out here. It’s something I miss, I can tell you that. I’ve never forgotten the ship.”
Bonnie Reynolds, his old friend from the hospital ship, is apparently on the other end of the line. She has kept up with medical missions, something Jace did before he started at Johns Hopkins.
He didn’t go to med school until he was twenty-six. After he graduated from college and earned his RN, he traveled around, worked on a Mercy Ship, and saw the world. He realized he wanted to be a physician, so he came back and I met him the summer just before he began.
“It’s going fine. I enjoy surgery, but the lifestyle is eating me alive. I never saw this as my life. I feel like I’m living somebody else’s life.”
His dream.
“Heather’s fine. She’s really involved at Will’s school and keeping up appearances here at the house.”
That wasn’t nice.
“But I can’t blame her. She sacrificed for so many years for me. I told her she needs to start doing things for her own sake, but I don’t know if she can, or if she even knows what that is.”
Bonnie’s an old friend and a dear woman. I guess he has always confided in her. She’s also happily married, so no worry there. Still, I feel an itch of betrayal at the base of my brain.
“You’re right about that. How can I pull her away from all this? She and her dad just scraped by. Her things give her great comfort. That’s definitely part of it.”
It’s true.
“I’ll get back to you about Chicago. I just don’t know how to tell Heather about all this. I almost did last night, but I just couldn’t.”
He stands up. I back away from sight but continue listening.
“I know, I know, Bonnie. Just pray for me, okay?”
Jace didn’t want this life we have—all the stuff, the cars, the big house. It was all me, Heather Reeves, trying to get out of that little Towson row house for good, trying to run away from the life she really deserved.
* * *
All is still. My eyes opened rather suddenly and I felt the slick of mucus and a raw throat. Darn these allergies. I tiptoe to the bathroom, fumble in the dark for the Benadryl, and try my best to turn on the water qu
ietly.
It sounds like Niagara Falls.
I swallow the pills and pad into Will’s room, a testament to the fact that he has always been no frills. Dark blue walls surround a platform bed, a dresser, and a desk with matching hutch. On the walls hang his artwork through the years in craft store plastic frames. Simplicity and neatness, however, do not go hand in hand. I move aside some books and a pair of sweats to sit down next to his sleeping form on the bed.
You’re something, bud.
I lay my hand upon the blanket resting atop his thigh, and he feels so warm and substantial underneath. So much to learn, so much to learn. He breathes, a gentle puff escaping his lips on the exhale.
I hope he won’t get waylaid like we did. We owe it to him to show him there’s more to life, but what is it?
What are we doing? Have we really drifted so far off course? We have it all, don’t we? We get along, live comfortably. But what’s it all really for in the long run?
And still, from here in my strawberry fields, I dream about that little shop every so often. I can smell the heather. Jace dreams too, of parched plains and dying people.
“Hezz?” Jace stands at the doorway. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Just thinking about things.”
“Want a cup of tea?”
“What time is it?”
“Five thirty.”
I stand up and cross the room. “Mercy, I thought it was a lot earlier. Yeah, tea would be nice.”
“Why don’t you go ahead and jump in the shower first this morning, and I’ll fix breakfast.”
A nice turnabout. I love that he never takes our arguments with him into the next day.
Ten minutes later, my hair still wrapped up in a towel, I sit down at the breakfast table. Jace’s scrambled eggs enjoy their own renown. He overdoes it on the cheese, which is why they’re so delicious. I sip my tea, steeped and black.
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