“How’s your dad doing?”
She was reading my mind again. If she wanted Dad in here, she should call Dad in for a conference. He needed this little talk, not me. I didn’t have to say anything I didn’t want to. I was trying to be good, and if I did things right this time, we all might be okay. My heart raced and my head felt dizzy.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said and stepped out, turned down the hall, closed my eyes, and let the stars fall into the darkness. Why did she steal my papers? Why did she read them? I clung to the door frame until the dizziness passed.
When my vision cleared, I saw the school secretary typing. She was oblivious. That was one of my favorite words Mom had taught me. Did I look as bad as I felt? In the bathroom, I ran the water until it was cold and waited, periodically splashing my face. The tingling in my hands subsided slightly as I shook them out, but my legs still felt wobbly. I gripped the gray marble sink to brace my weight and counted to sixty before I returned. Mrs. Clevenger hadn’t moved, and all the kids from my class played outside. They were free.
“Abby, it’s okay to be sad,” Mrs. Clevenger said. “I watch you and sometimes …” She hesitated so long that I looked up. “It makes me want to cry.”
Well, that made two of us.
“I just want you to know I’m here if you want to talk.” She leaned forward and folded her hands across her desk. I felt like the little girls out on the playground who quit pumping. The pendulum wound down, and inside I was so tired and my head hurt and before I could control myself, I was crying.
Mrs. Clevenger pushed a box of Kleenex across the desk but didn’t say anything. Neither did I. She tricked me. When someone says, “I care,” or “I understand,” it makes me cry even when I don’t want to. Even though crying sometimes feels good and releases the pressure. So if I said anything right now, it would be all over and I’d have to say everything, and so I stopped crying and stopped talking and the pressure built and my head pounded. Enough to make me a little scared.
“And so you probably feel afraid?” she asked.
I nodded. I thought about all the nights Mom woke me up saying, “Shhh, shhh, it’s just a nightmare.” And then I answered in a whisper, “A little.” Pink elephant. Pink elephant, Pink elephant. The lady was a mind reader. How maddening. I frowned so hard it hurt.
“Maybe angry, too?” she asked. I didn’t respond. I wanted to leave. She wasn’t Mrs. Jennings. She wasn’t my friend. Maybe if I thought angry thoughts, I would not cry. You are mean. You are mean. You are mean.
“Am I the only one you’re mad at?”
“No,” I said, too easily.
“Then I’m in good company.” She smiled slightly. She was not going to make me smile. “So tell me what’s going on, Abby.”
What could I say? Where would I begin? I stared beyond her.
“Give it a try, Abby.” At last I sighed and blurted out something about everybody else.
“Dad’s not going back, Mom’s going on, and I don’t know what Matt’s doing!”
“I remember Matt.” She smiled in remembrance. How nice to see somebody talk about Matt and smile. “He was the kid who could explain anything,” she bragged. “Did you know that when I taught something new, I asked Matt to help the struggling students so they could understand?” Mrs. Clevenger paused. “I thought he’d be a teacher when he grew up.”
She didn’t need to convince me. When we unwrapped new games at Christmas, it was Matt who read the directions and translated them for the rest of us. He taught me to sound out letters and showed Joel how to pedal his trike.
“The funny thing about Matt was that he was a really good kid.” And then she laughed and shook her head as if recalling a great story. “But he could really get himself into trouble.” Her face sobered. “He’s in trouble, isn’t he, Abby?”
I nodded. Matt had always been accidentally in trouble. As early as I could remember, Mom and Dad would debate whether he deserved a spanking for his “accidents.” But his naughtiness was so innocent, they just couldn’t punish him.
Now he was not accidentally in trouble. He was deliberately in trouble. I knew it, but Mom and Dad didn’t. Matt left at all hours with the wrong kids and acted like he didn’t need any of us. What was I supposed to do? If I said something, would it make everything worse? But if I did nothing, would something bad happen?
If Joel were alive, this never would have happened. Matt would not have disappointed his greatest fan.
Matt not only passed down his mitt, foam baseball, and toddler-sized basketball; they came with loving instructions on how to catch, dribble, and throw. Joel proudly wore the hand-me-down glove as Matt carefully tossed the ball into Joel’s extended mitt.
When Joel died, it felt like I lost two brothers. Mrs. Clevenger would never understand that. I wondered if Matt’s truancy had red-flagged him, like a referee in a pickup game of flag football. If my grades were bad, Matt’s could only be worse.
“And Joel?” she continued. She must have taken my silence as an unwillingness to talk about Matt.
“He’s not coming back and I miss him.” I looked down and closed my eyes as tightly as I could. I would not cry. I counted one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand … and then blurted out, “He’s not coming back and so nobody else can come back. It’s sort of like reading a sad book I can’t get out of my head.”
I looked up at her and I held the tears back. I was almost proud of what I had said. It sounded so logical, and I didn’t even cry.
“You did a good job of describing your feelings,” she said, confirming my analysis. A nearly imperceptible weight lifted, and I took a sudden breath in relief. “Mrs. Jennings showed me some of your stories from last year. You could be a writer. You have a way with words.”
Any other day and I could have smiled. I did love words. Words that were magic. Words that could heal. Where were my words now?
“You haven’t gotten to the end of the book, Abby,” she reminded me. “And it doesn’t have to be sad.”
The school bell clanged and I winced. Neither one of us moved. The recess lady lined up the classes, and Mrs. Clevenger looked out the window to check on her students.
“Recess is over,” she said at last. “Can we talk again another day?” I considered her offer and nodded. “Come in anytime you need to talk, Abby. Remember, you can’t change anybody else. But you can write your own story differently.”
SIX
The October afternoon was cold and quiet, and the half-naked trees surrounding our church cracked in the wind. The sidewalks leading up to the front doors were littered with leaves, and I wondered how long before they’d be covered with snow.
When we opened the heavy wooden doors to the sanctuary, Mom disappeared into the darkness and I slipped into the back pew.
Mom laid out the bulletin across the top of the organ and surveyed Sunday’s assignment, her first Sunday back at the organ.
Mom opened Organ Introits and Offertories and played “Holy, Holy, Holy,” stumbling so badly, she flipped to the second hymn. Mom’s struggle with the notes made the melody unrecognizable. I had no idea what she was playing. Finally she resorted to “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” as if she needed the reassurance. I made my way up the center aisle and sat beside her on the bench.
Because our organ faces forward, Mom’s back is to the congregation. But with her personal rearview mirror, Mom can watch the bride make her entrance or spot the pallbearers arriving with the casket. When she plays the organ, she looks like she is driving a bus straight through the purple curtains at the front of Bethel Springs Presbyterian, and I’m sure there are many Sundays she would enjoy doing just that.
I leaned back and looked at her face in the mirror. Then I leaned forward, and I saw myself.
I don’t look anything like her, which is not a good thing. My mother’s dark brown hair is lush and thick and almost out of control. My thin brown hair is stick-straight. Her skin is ivory, and I have f
reckles. Mom’s nose is little and turns up slightly at the end; mine is long and straight. Lots of the ladies at church say, “You’ll grow into your features,” and I’m sure it’s not a compliment. Mom almost never wears lipstick because her lips are full and a rich shade of burgundy. My smile is all teeth like Mom’s, but not nearly as straight and organized. And when I grin into the organ mirror, my lips nearly disappear in a thin colored-pencil line of pink. Her eyes are green and mine are a mixture of brown and gray, but when her eyes twinkle, I can almost imitate them. Especially if I practice. Sometimes the eyes tell me I am her daughter.
When Dad and Mom first came to Bethel Springs Presbyterian, one of the deacons asked Mom if she had any organ background, and she nodded yes. Unfortunately, no one has arrived to relieve her of the bench. The deacons probably have their regrets in “hiring” her, and I imagine finding her replacement is most likely an anonymous request on the church prayer chain.
I used to enjoy sitting with her on the bench. When I was little, I fussed so much in the toddler room that Mom bravely endured my busy fingers during church. In quiet moments she took my pudgy hands with her long, slender fingers and held them securely so I couldn’t disrupt the service by plunking the key for the lowest pipe in the sanctuary.
I always tried to copy her hands as she played. Sometimes she would quickly brush my hand away while trying to keep pace with the hymn. Other times, she plucked my fingers off the keys between verses. But she gave up as I grew older and more experienced, realizing I was merely copying her notes an octave higher and we were playing a unison duet of sorts.
But I quit sitting on the organ bench in kindergarten when she tried to clean my face in the middle of a service. I vowed then and there I would never spit on a handkerchief and wipe egg off anybody.
Even today Mom could not play the fancy arrangement of “Near the Cross.” Though the time signature is ¾, she had no feel for 1-2-3, 1-2-3. I tapped my fingers on the console to keep her on tempo. Usually the congregation can stay together if some brave soul stomps a foot to the beat. When Mom’s foot slipped off the pedal, I decided I wasn’t much help and that it embarrassed her having an audience.
“I’ll go check out a book,” I said and left her alone.
When I opened the door to the library, I was surprised to find Miss Mary Frances pasting neat rectangle pockets into new books.
“Can I help?” I asked, trying not to breathe in the smell of rubber cement. And then I remembered what Uncle Troy had told us and wondered if she knew that I knew or if Uncle Troy had relayed Dad’s mean words.
“I can always use some help,” Miss Mary Frances answered, almost putting my fears to rest. Maybe Uncle Troy had spared her. “Could you flip through the file cards and look for overdue books?”
I loved the file card holder filled with three-by-five cards. Date. Name. Returned. I loved the straight blue lines where I could sign my name. Once my goal had been to check out every book in the library so that every time someone took down a book, they’d see my name.
But today I knew to look for anything over a month after checkout and was pleased to pull six cards from the stack.
“Done!” I proclaimed. “Six late books!”
“That would have taken me quite a while, young lady!” Miss Mary said, smiling at me. “Now, how would you like to paste these stickers in the front of these books?”
I read “Given in Loving Memory of _________” scrolled across the stickers.
“I don’t know,” I said. In Loving Memory. That was like old, dead flower arrangements. I didn’t want my name at the front of a book and to be famous for dying; I wanted people to remember I lived. “Maybe I could file the returned books instead?”
“That’s a better idea.” She took the stickers back.
I studied the letters and the numbers on the spines and found their exact locations. The order and precision of the library pleased me. I scanned the children’s books, knowing the little kids always stuck them back in the wrong places. One picture book about the life of Jesus was in backward. I opened it, remembering it was one of Joel’s favorites, then flipped to the back pocket and took out the card. There was his name. The J was backward, but the rest was readable.
“I helped him,” Mary Frances said, almost apologetically, as if she had cheated. “He made the J, but I wrote the rest,” she added over my shoulder.
I smiled. Somebody would remember he lived.
When Mom came down, she looked surprised that I wasn’t alone and stood hesitantly at the door as if an uninvited guest. Like me, she probably worried how much Miss Mary Frances knew about Dad’s treatment of Uncle Troy. But as we filed the remaining books, Mom was drawn in and began surveying the typed categories Scotch-taped to each shelf: Old Testament. New Testament. Presbyterian History. Commentaries. Family.
“Death. Loss,” Mom said, brushing her fingertips along the spines of another row. “Nothing on death and loss.” I turned to Miss Mary Frances, who didn’t even look up as she painted rubber cement.
“Try Grief,” she said, and I wanted to scream, We have!
“Nobody says anything that helps.” Mom dropped her hands to her sides. I wanted to hide beneath the table. To be a kindergartner again.
“I know.” Miss Mary pressed the In Memory rectangle across a page. “There really isn’t anything to say.”
“But you might share …,” Mom prompted.
“No,” Miss Mary Frances said sternly. Though I couldn’t read Miss Mary’s face, I knew she was not angry. “But I could listen,” she concluded. “That’s all I can do.”
I thought about that. I wondered if anybody had ever wanted to listen to her talk about a baby who never took a breath.
Mom turned toward the window, her back to Miss Mary Frances, as if unsure how to begin.
“They just want to tell me why I should feel better so they can feel better. I’m supposed to get on with life.” She sat down at the table across from Miss Mary Frances as if they were close friends, when the only connections they had were my piano lessons and two terrible and unexplainable losses.
“Joel’s been gone two months, and yet it’s almost like my friends have forgotten. Like it never happened. Why do you suppose that is, Miss Mary? Why don’t people talk about him anymore?”
I knew the answer, and I think Mom did, too. They wanted the sadness to be over. If they mentioned his name, we would remember him, it might make us cry, and that would make them uncomfortable.
“Matt goes to school, Abby goes to school, and John goes to the basement or out to I don’t know where. That’s when there’s no Joel. I miss him all day.”
Miss Mary Frances took Mom’s hand and put it between her paper-thin ones. Why wouldn’t Miss Mary say something, anything?
“He was in his daddy’s arms,” Mom began slowly, really looking at Miss Mary Frances. “But it wasn’t his fault.” And then Mom retold the story in tears and gestures. Questions unleashed, questions I had never heard. But then, who could she have asked? The ladies from her circle, which Joel had called her “round” meeting? Certainly not. “How could it happen? The car wasn’t going that fast. Why couldn’t John hang on to him? It was our first big family trip. Why then? What’s going to happen to us now?”
Too many questions. When Mom finally took a deep breath, she exhaled out all the weariness and exhaustion. I hadn’t seen her cry that hard since that awful day in the hospital waiting room.
“They want to help you forget,” Miss Mary Frances answered at last. “But you can’t,” she said with a sigh. “You never will forget. And the memory of him—even with all the pain—will always be sweeter than if you could.”
That night, when I went to bed, the moonlight illuminated Joel’s crib and his toddler bed nearby. I could see his stuffed animals, caged and lonely, some with their arms hanging out of the bars. I wanted to fall asleep and forget about the day, but when I said my prayers, I couldn’t stop thinking, “If I should die before I wake …” I
didn’t want to die. Not yet. But it seemed so possible, especially when I had to stare at that crib. I tossed. If I fell asleep I might dream terrible thoughts.
Then the door opened a crack and light spilled in a long, thin strip across the floor. I wondered if Dad was thinking about me or the empty crib. And then I realized I was now the youngest child, the baby of the family.
“Good night, Abby.”
If I said, “Good night,” he would just leave. Not at all like my first memory of him when he used to rock me to sleep. Every first memory should be of being held. Maybe every last one, too.
“You used to read to me,” I said and waited. Would that make him close the door, or would he stay?
“This is George. He lived in Africa,” Dad began, sitting down on the bed. I held my breath. Joel’s favorite story remembered. “He was a good little monkey and always very curious.” We had grown to love Curious George because our own Curious Joel had brought the monkey to life. Dad stopped.
“Remember how Joel liked when Curious George fooled the fire department?” Dad asked. “How many times did Joel try dialing 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, just like George?”
“Too many.” I laughed.
“Remember his birthday?” Dad asked. “He wore that silly bandanna hat the whole day. And everybody got a red balloon,” Dad said softly. “Everybody got a red balloon, just like George.”
I wondered if it was a good time to tell Dad about Matt. Or if I should tell him that tonight I would probably have another nightmare or that Mom cried when she went to the grocery store or that I had a lot of missing homework. Or that I had wasted the lunches Mom packed, the ones that cost us something when we had little income, throwing them away instead of bringing them home so Mom wouldn’t ask for an explanation. But that would mean I’d have to describe a feeling in my stomach I didn’t understand. I might be really, really sick and that worried me, too. Where could I begin?
Stars in the Grass Page 5