Mom said the words never and been and born with huge spaces in between. “What else are you planning on wishing away?” she continued. “What about all of us? What if one day we bring you grief?” Mom had way more questions than I had and they kept coming. “And does that mean you wish we never married because then we’d never have had Joel?”
I bit my lip so hard I tasted metal. I licked the blood away and swallowed hard, trying not to cry.
“You asked me a question,” Dad said.
“I did. You’re right. That’s fair,” she admitted. “But your response to life is unfair. It’s like you can’t or won’t make any new memories and we’re supposed to live with someone who’s stuck with only regrets. I can not do it.” Mom separated and spliced can and not with great enunciation. Can not had never seemed more deliberate. What did that mean? Was she giving up on Dad? Or was it just that she could not do something anymore? I was confused.
“STOP IT! JUST STOP IT! I hate it when you guys fight,” I yelled. Everything inside of me after months of quiet was churning and incensed. I wondered how many of Mom’s not-so-nice vocabulary words gleaned from the newspaper I could remember and spew unguarded and unchecked. Insidious, detrimental, catastrophic, menacing, horrendous. I searched for a word that would describe the hateful way we treated each other. “I despise it when you fight.” I jumped out of my chair and screeched it across the floor. I searched for a word. I needed somebody to be at fault. The only thing I was sure of was that it wasn’t Joel. He didn’t ask to die. Matt had a smirk on his face. What was wrong with him? Was nobody on my side?
“You care more about Joel than you do about us. He’s dead, but we’re still here,” I blurted out and then gasped. I couldn’t believe I said that. Matt’s eyes widened. The smirk was gone.
“Quite a question, Renee,” Dad said, as if to blame Mom.
“Quite an answer, John,” she said. They hadn’t listened to me. Mom looked at Matt and then me. She sighed and I could see I’m sorry written on her face. “We love you. We’ll get through this,” she said. I wasn’t convinced. Mom reached for Matt, who backed away. She got up and hugged me, but it seemed as forced and contrived as her words. I kept my arms at my sides until she let go and then ran upstairs and away from the questions. Something was very broken and somebody needed to fix us, fast.
I practiced my piano differently that day. I really pounded the keys and it felt good. I turned each legato song into staccato and each pianissimo into forte. The pieces were now unrecognizable, and I liked them that way.
That night Mom came into my room to put me to bed—something she had rarely done since Joel died. I pretended I was asleep but she tucked in my covers anyway. As she turned to leave, I whispered, “Are you going to leave him?” I knew about these things. Jennifer’s mom had left her dad.
Mom paused in the crack of the door, backlit by the hall light.
“Why would you ask, Abby?” she answered, without turning around. I was afraid she couldn’t face me. “Are you worried about that?” She didn’t come right out and say no, so I knew leaving him must have crossed her mind.
“You’ve thought about it,” I pointed out. And now that I’d vocalized it, it was something I had to consider, too. Who would I live with? Would Dad be able to take care of me? Would Mom have to go back to work? Where would we live? Would Mom get one kid and Dad the other? Did losing Joel really have to mean losing our family?
“I’ve thought about a lot of things,” Mom said, shutting the door and cutting out all light. “And sometimes leaving seems easiest.” She sat on my bed. “Your dad can’t move on, and I have to. But that doesn’t mean I’ll be able to move on by leaving him. Some things you can never leave behind; you have to work through them instead.”
The possibility hovered like stagnant smoke. I needed more reassurance than that. I wanted to know we could have a happy ending, even if I couldn’t imagine how.
“What will you do?” I persisted.
“Abby, let me explain something.” She lightly stroked my hair. “When you were born, I loved you, but I cried a lot. I didn’t think I’d ever be a good enough mom. Everything just seemed too much to handle. It was like being in a dark tunnel, and I wondered if I’d ever get out of it. But I did.” She paused and took a long, slow breath. “Your dad walked me through that tunnel, and thank God I was able to become a mother to you and Matt,” she said with new energy. “I feel guilty about some of those weeks—months. But what can I say? I did the best I could. I’m sorry.” Her fingers continued playing with my hair, but her words stopped. I was pretty sure she was done.
“Mom, you don’t have to be sorry.” I turned to face her. “I don’t remember it.” My eyes had adjusted and I could see her silhouette. I reached for her hand and laid mine on top of hers.
“Well, that makes two of us,” she agreed. “But you see, I think maybe Dad has his own tunnel now.” Mom explained it as if to reassure herself. “I need to cry, but I can’t,” she confessed, looking to where Joel’s bed had been. “I can’t because Dad can. Dad can take this time-out, but somehow I have to keep everything moving forward. I have to get Dad through the tunnel.” I wondered if Mom had any idea how long the tunnel could be, and then as an afterthought, she apologized. “And here I am dumping on a nine-year-old.”
Mom’s words were sad, but there was something almost hopeful in the way she said them. Sort of like what we had learned about oil paintings in Miss Gettman’s Great Masterpieces unit. She had shown us a painting of a room with heavy drab colors but one area strangely illuminated. She asked us to determine the direction of the light source and to speculate about what it could have been. After that, whenever I looked at a painting, I looked for the source of light.
“It’s okay, Mom. I like talking to you.” I leaned against her. “Sometimes at night I used to talk with Joel. We’d whisper to each other in the dark. I still do. I don’t know if he can hear me, but it makes me feel better.”
Mom was quiet. I wondered what she was thinking about my talking in the night. I frowned in suspense.
“That’s good,” Mom said at last, and I relaxed. “You can talk to anybody you want to, Abby.” She stroked my arm. “And maybe it would help for you to talk to the counselor at school—if you want.”
And then Mom took both my hands in hers and said, “Every day I feel a little different. I have new feelings that aren’t always good, but they’re new and I’m feeling something. And sometimes in that mixture of feelings there’s hope.”
If Mom had hope, then I knew our painting had a source of light. I didn’t know what it was, but something made the drab colors brighten.
She squeezed my hands tightly. “Abby, for now all we can do is hope.”
SEVENTEEN
Twist and Shout” blared over the gym loudspeakers, and so that’s exactly what fifty-three fourth graders did. Our PE class plus Mr. Lemke was really shaking it up, and it wasn’t pretty. Mr. Lemke loved blasting his Beatles music as loudly as he could get away with, so that’s what we exercised to at every PE class.
Not only was Mr. Lemke going prematurely deaf, but he didn’t look anything like Jack LaLanne, my television model of fitness who swam the Golden Gate Channel towing a twenty-five-hundred-pound cabin cruiser and who could do one thousand chin-ups when I could only do three.
I didn’t feel like jumping jacks today. I felt sluggish and couldn’t make my muscles move. Like most nights, I had tossed most of my sleep away and awakened tired and worried.
Despite the lyrics, I wasn’t working anything out in my life or on the gymnasium floor. Rita jumped and I flapped my wings apathetically. Then as if on cue, we pointed to each other, exclaiming the lie that we really looked good, and we twisted and shouted in a frenzy until my head spun and everything was tingly and dark and the next thing I remember was lying on the floor with Rita hovering above.
“Are you okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“You fell down or something.”
&
nbsp; “I’m fine,” I said quickly.
“Are you sure? I should tell Mr. Lemke.”
“No, Rita. Don’t. I’m okay, really.”
I was pretty sure I’d fainted. People fainted all the time. It was not a big deal, but if Rita made it one, everybody would be looking at me and then Mom and Dad would have to know and tonight I had plans.
The song ended and Mr. Lemke said it was time for cooldown and stretching, so Rita joined me on the gym floor as he played “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” one of the most depressing songs I’ve ever heard.
“Can you come over after school?” I asked.
Rita looked around as if Mr. Lemke could hear us talking. But his ears were already ruined by rock and roll. She didn’t answer. I could tell she was having to think about it.
“Well, maybe … but wouldn’t you rather come to my house?” she asked. “Or maybe we could go sledding down Terror Ridge?” I wondered if she was offering other choices just in case I wanted to get out of my house or if she didn’t like coming over anymore. I had to admit, playing at my house wasn’t like it used to be.
“We can sled,” I said at last, rather weakly, too tired to argue the merits of a playdate at my house. I’d play with her this afternoon, but tonight was special. I had to bring my palm branch to the Ash Wednesday service.
Last year on Palm Sunday the preschoolers had run in with their palm branches, and the elementary school kids had followed singing the “Hosanna” song. Last year, Dad had told the congregation to wave their branches like a banner and imagine they were in Jerusalem. He explained that Jesus’ followers didn’t want somebody to heal their wounded hearts; they wanted a battle warrior. They were saying, “We want a king! Down with Rome!” He said that maybe the only ones who were truly innocent in their praise were the children.
Joel loved it all. I thought we had a picture of Joel waving the palm branch and almost dancing up the aisles. Probably only Joel could have gotten away with that in our decidedly Presbyterian church. I can almost hold the snapshot in my hand, but after I looked all over for it, I had to admit it was only in my head. The picture we never took.
Dad challenged everybody to save their palms to be burned the next year. I liked the way Dad planned it out, my palm branch recycled, everything coming full circle the way the hands on a clock go around and return to their spot and the way seasons come and go.
The ashes from last year’s Palm Sunday branches would mark our foreheads on this year’s Ash Wednesday. We would wear the mark of a sinner and the remembrance that we were forgiven. Absolution. After church that day, certain women in the Hannah Circle twisted and tied the palm branches into crosses and handed them back to us.
The two palm frond crosses were still pinned to my bulletin board. Now I had to find somebody to take me to the service.
After sledding the afternoon away with Rita and then doing homework adding up Roman numerals and memorizing a list of spelling words, I climbed on my bed and took down the two yellowed palm crosses. I kept them behind my back as I headed downstairs, where Dad was in the kitchen making what I hoped was dinner.
“What’s cookin’?”
“The Whites’ clocks,” Dad said. “I’ve got one on the burner and one in the oven.”
“I don’t get it.” I pulled up a chair near the oven, feeling the warmth from the boiling water and the heat from the oven.
“They said these clocks didn’t work. But they really just need a cleaning,” Dad explained.
“But won’t the oven wreck them?”
“No, they’re full of dirt and grease. I took a toothbrush and some gasoline and scrubbed the mechanism. Now it’s getting a boiling bath.” Dad pointed to the clockworks on the front burner. “But if I don’t dry it off, it’ll rust, so I put the boiled clockworks in the oven on low.”
I shook my head. Looked risky to me.
“But I can’t do that with a clock with wooden gears. Just the ones made of metal.”
“So will that take all night?” I asked.
“No, just another hour or so. Why? Did you have something in mind?”
“Sort of …”
Dad drew up a chair, sat down, opened the oven, and gave it a peek.
“Want some dinner?” he teased. Mom was working late again at Miss Patti’s and we were on our own.
“I’m not hungry for clock,” I said softly. “Besides, we probably don’t have time for dinner,” I added, almost stalling, knowing time was easier to tell than the truth.
Matt came in the back door and slammed it behind him.
“What’s cooking?”
“Time,” Dad said.
“I want to take my palm branch back.” I offered up the two crosses from last year.
“I see.” Dad stood then, lifted the pot from the stove, and poured the boiling water into the sink. The steam enveloped his head and I couldn’t see his face. “I can’t, Abby.” He put the clockworks on a pan and slipped it in the oven with the other piece.
“Then I’ll go by myself,” I said.
“It gets dark too early. I don’t want you out alone.”
“I’ll take her,” Matt said. I turned in surprise.
“You’re on probation,” Dad reminded him.
I looked at Matt quizzically. Did he say he’d take me just to get out of the house?
“It’s only a few blocks. You can trust me to get her to church.”
“And back?” Dad asked.
“And back,” Matt answered.
“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for you two to spend an hour together in a familiar pew,” Dad said, baptizing the next clock in boiling water.
That evening as Matt and I neared the church, we were welcomed by a glowing fire. I watched people place their frond in the fire barrel and I handed Joel’s to Matt. We dropped our fronds into the fire, the sudden burst of flame lighting Matt’s face. Then we headed to the balcony where we sat alone, invisible. I counted twenty-three people, six bald heads in the congregation. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to wear an ash smudge, but I did want to see what happened to the twenty-three palm branches; and unlike other churches with morning services, we only had a few hours to bear the mark.
“In the Old Testament, ashes have been associated with sorrow and remorse,” Reverend Davidson began. I wondered where he was going with this and didn’t know whether I’d like it or not. Reverend Davidson always did church in a new way, which both interested and concerned me. Would people like him better than Dad? Would our vague housing extension continue long enough for Dad to come back? “‘Roll in ashes; make mourning as for an only son,’” he read from Jeremiah 6:26. “But in the New Testament, we know that our sins were forgiven by God’s only Son’s death on the cross.”
I gave Matt a sideways glance. Was he listening? I wished Dad was here. Dad was more “associated with sorrow and remorse” than with New Testament forgiveness.
“On Ash Wednesday, we wear the cross. The ash cross on the forehead was a practice begun in the twelfth century. Ashes from burned palm branches were mixed with oil and smudged on the Christian’s forehead as a reminder that we are sinners needing forgiveness.” At this point, someone brought in the ashes and dribbled oil into the bowl.
“As we sing ‘Amazing Grace,’ please make your way to the altar to receive the mark of the cross.”
One by one, Dad’s congregation came forward to be touched by Reverend Davidson. Matt and I filed down the winding balcony stairs and into the aisle. I knelt and lifted my face to receive the powdered cross on my forehead. Looking down the altar rail, I could see Matt wearing the sign of the cross. We returned to the balcony with our mark, the last to be seated.
“Today we’re going to do something different,” Reverend Davidson continued. “You see the mark, but do you understand the inner significance?” he asked. “We need to walk out with the mark on the inside. Turn to your neighbor and wipe off their mark. And as you leave tonight, carry the mark inwardly.” I was glad Mom wasn’t th
ere. She would have spit on her hankie and ruined it.
But when I looked at the cross on Matt’s face, I didn’t want to wipe off his mark. And I wanted mine to stay, too. I shook my head no and he nodded that he understood. Matt already wore the mark inwardly for a reason neither of us could explain.
After the third big snowstorm followed by a layer of sleet, the hill behind the junior high, dubbed Terror Ridge, was a sheet of ice. Each day after school, Rita and I would walk the half mile dragging our toboggans to sled away our afternoon. When we tired of that, we built an ice fort at the bottom of the hill by peeling off sheets of ice from the top of the snow and stacking them in layers for the walls. Even the older boys helped us construct the fort. Though we sometimes sat inside to get out of the wind, it was much more fun to build than to play in it. We called it the icehouse because it took buckets of water splashed between layers of ice to make the house freeze solid. Now whenever we sledded too far, we hit the gouged area missing its surface of ice, making the ride so rough it felt like we were in a paint shaker at Nichols Hardware.
One night when the moon was barely visible, our friends decided to go night sledding and we ran home with the news, begging Mom to let us join them. Dad came in from the kitchen with a hot cup of something to nurse whatever he was coming down with and, after hearing our plea, was unmoved.
“I don’t want you kids out there on that ice,” Dad said.
“But Dad, we’ve been doing it for the last two afternoons.”
“That hill behind the junior high?”
“Everybody does it.”
“That’s steep and there’s a stream at the bottom,” Dad argued.
“We never go that far.”
“Yes, but it’s too slick now. It’s like sledding on glass.”
“It’s just ice, and it’s the same ice we sled on by day.”
“Then why go at night?” Dad asked. “If it’s the same ice you sled on by day.“
“But Dad, everybody’s going there tonight. Please?” I begged.
“We don’t have to do what everybody’s doing.”
Stars in the Grass Page 15