Why Sarah Ran Away with the Veterinarian

by Newall, Liz;

  By late November and December, I can see them almost every morning. And in the evening, if the clouds are just right, the sun lights the western sky with fiery pink, and the earth reaches up to meet it with layers of evergreen and cobalt blue. Sometimes I cry. It’s so beautiful. And it pulls me so. Jack says, “Good God, Sarah, cry over something ugly, not beautiful.” And I know such a sight should be calming but it sends my restlessness leaping out in flames. Like the morning I left with Michael. I’ve wondered if I would have gone in haze or fog too thick to see the mountains.

  Whatever the pull, by last winter I was feeling it again so strong I could hear a voice calling me by name. I tried staying busy but the voice grew louder and louder. “Escape mechanism,” Andrew would say, or “prenatal nerves” or “the voice of your own subconscious.” Maybe so. I didn’t tell Jack. But when he phoned out of the blue and asked me if I wanted to go to the mountains, I took it as the hand of Providence. Jack didn’t actually say “mountains” but he did say “trip” and he let me do the choosing. Close enough.

  It was spur of the moment, totally unlike Jack. Usually he has to research geographical climate, peak season, room rates, and exact distance before we do any traveling. But this time we just left, not even certain where we were going. We took our time—also uncharacteristic of Jack—and we drove back roads, stopped at lookouts and little mountain stores.

  I kept searching for a country store, like Papa’s, the one Mama and Aunt Kate grew up in. Mama had been on my mind since Aunt Kate’s talk with me, not Mama as Mama but as Vivienne, a pretty girl longing for something she couldn’t find at home.

  Most of the stores were geared for tourists—rubber tomahawks, jointed plastic snakes, Taiwan baskets, ceramic bears. But we ran across one store, not as big as Papa’s must’ve been, but the same atmosphere as Aunt Kate described. The Frasers owned it, Annie and Clem. They were what Byron and Shelley and Keats would have called “noble” in their simplicity and closeness to the earth.

  Annie had a rhythmical quality about her. Her voice was sweet and sad and joyful all at the same time. She told stories about babies and animals and kinfolk, more mythical than real. I grew dizzy on her voice. So dizzy I almost fainted. She had me lie down on a bed in the back room of the store: The headboard was beautiful, burled walnut that shone almost golden in the light of the window. I rubbed it with my open palm.

  “It’s alive,” Annie said. “When you fall asleep, the wood grain whirls all around you. But it moves back in place when you wake up.” I stared at the swirls, thought I saw movement.

  “You come up here for answers—didn’t ya?—where everything is alive, where everything seems right,” she said, touching her hand to my forehead. I nodded. “No fever. You just overwrought.” She lifted her hand and stared into my eyes. I closed them but I could still feel her stare. “I can read eyes,” she said. “Not just the seeing part but the lines around ’em. Can tell if you’re lucky, how many babies you goin’ have, if you got enemies, things like that. Even chilrun have lines, not so many but they have ’em.” Her voice drifted in and out like the tones of a dulcimer.

  “You got restless eyes,” she said, “green like oak leaves in summer. Done caused you problems. You and ya lovin’ ones.”

  “The baby,” I said, not opening my eyes. “Tell me about the baby.”

  She ran her fingers around the outside corners of my eyes. “You lost babies already, ain’t ya?” I nodded. “This baby goin’ be special—if it lives.”

  “Boy or girl?” I asked.

  “Hard to know the way ya carrin’ so tight and all. Hope for a boy.”

  “Why?”

  “If it’s a girl, I hate to tell ya, she’ll break your heart. Her pa’s too.”

  “What if it’s a boy?” I asked quickly.

  “If it’s a boy, he’ll bring you and his pa together. You got problems?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Either way, this baby’s special, you’ll see it around the eyes.” She squeezed my wrist.

  I fell asleep. A while later, Jack woke me and we left.

  I didn’t tell Jack what Annie had said. I wasn’t even sure if she had actually said anything or I had dreamed it. But I thought about it all the next day as we wound through the Nantahala Forest. Jack had predicted ice, and he was right, as usual. Tree trunks and mountain laurel and sheets of granite all slick and shining with ice. Most of the time, he drove in second gear, a slow-motion, almost soundless ride through a land of silver. Annie’s words seemed even more prophetic.

  Wish she were here now. I can almost see her, feel her presence. “Annie?” I say out loud.

  “I’m Debbie,” the nurse says, her hand on my wrist. “You’re doing just fine, Mrs. Brighton. But don’t you want somebody from your family with you? Mr. Brighton or your sister? We’ll make them behave,” she adds with a smile.

  “No,” I say. “Not yet.” I feel a new contraction. Rising white hot from the small of my back. Pressing upward straight through me. It’s worse … getting worse … worse. How did Donna say to breathe? I grip the bed railing. Try to relax, I tell myself, it’ll pass … relax … my brain whispers, relax … It passes. I catch my breath, wish I were somewhere else. For some reason I think about my family all seated around the Sunday dinner table.

  The Sunday after our mountain trip, we had dinner at Donna’s.

  “Sarah, I want to hear all about your trip,” Donna said right after the blessing. “Daddy, have some casserole and pass it on. It’s Chinese. Real easy. You just put in some of those Chinese vegetables, they come in a can. And a can of chicken.” She glanced at Andrew. “Only, I had to use tuna. Sent Andrew to the Dixie store, you know I always go, but I was doing Daddy’s laundry.” We both looked at Daddy. He was sniffing the casserole. He dipped out a spoonful and passed the dish to me.

  “Andrew got tuna by accident.” She looked back at Andrew. We all did. “Tell them why, honey.” He didn’t speak. “Because,” she said stroking him on the arm like a child, “he saw the ‘Chicken’ part of ‘Chicken of the Sea’ and bought it! He didn’t realize they were talking about fish!” Everybody laughed. Except Andrew. He made a weak attempt. “Then he forgot the water chestnuts. So I just used pecans. You know you can substitute. I forgot to write down chow mein noodles—that wasn’t Andrew’s fault—but I had a can of tater sticks on hand. They’re just as crunchy.” She passed the peas to Andrew. “Now tell me about your trip.”

  “Ice,” Jack said. “All the way from Nantahala to this side of Brevard.” He looked at me and smiled. “But we met an interesting couple, didn’t we?” He pressed his knee against mine.

  “They had a country store,” I said, spooning a little casserole, as little as I thought I could get by with. “Aunt Kate, it must have been like Papa’s—oiled wood floors, rows of huge glass jars, tools—nothing touristy.” I passed the Chinese tuna to Jack.

  “And a wood stove,” Jack added. He looked at the casserole, then at Donna. She was zeroed in on his spooning hand. He dipped out a serving no larger than mine and passed the dish quickly to Kate. She waved it by and sent it to Andrew. Andrew graciously received it and made two grandiose scoops. Donna beamed. Daddy rolled his eyes.

  “The Frasers,” Jack said. “Annie and Clem Fraser, the mountain couple. They both spoke this thick mountain dialect. Andrew, you would have enjoyed that.” Andrew was scraping tater sticks off his casserole. He looked guilty. “Mr. Fraser said he farmed a little too. His wife delivered babies.”

  “And she could read the lines around your eyes,” I added.

  “Now that’s interesting,” Donna said. “Don’t skimp on the casserole. Law, I forgot the Jello salad. It’s orange with carrots and pineapple. It’s real pretty. I did it in a mold like Mama used to.” Donna headed for the kitchen.

  “Sure she didn’t read palms?” Andrew said, reaching for a roll.

  “She read eyes, lines around the eyes.”

  Andrew split the roll in two and pushed th
e casserole toward Charlotte. Charlotte pushed it toward Scarlet. “Guess she surmises the more lines, the older you are or the more ultraviolent rays you’ve been exposed to. A wrinkle-reader of sorts.” He seemed pleased with himself. He loaded a blob of Chinese tuna minus the tater sticks onto his fork, smiled, and popped it into his mouth like he’d made a point. He chewed a few times then quit smiling.

  “She didn’t talk about age or sun,” I said, feeling slightly annoyed. “She said even children have lines.” Charlotte and Scarlet looked at each other. “She can tell how many children you’ve had, if you’re lucky, if you have any enemies, things like that.”

  Donna came back to the table carrying a platter of Jello chunks. She set it in front of the twins. “Couldn’t get it out of the mold in one piece,” she said. “It’ll taste just as good.” Scarlet rolled a chunk onto her plate and pushed the platter toward Charlotte. Charlotte did the same.

  “Did she do you, Sarah?” Donna asked. She looked at the casserole, three-quarters full. “Maybe it needs to set. Some dishes taste better the day after, lets their flavors mingle. Like Mama’s vegetable soup.” We all nodded. “We’ll have it tomorrow.” My side of the table nodded again. Andrew and the twins looked desperate.

  “Did she do you?” Donna repeated, sliding her chair closer to the table.

  “Do what?”

  “Tell your fortune. I heard you saying something about reading eyes.”

  I looked at Jack. He was staring at me. “Not really,” I said, “but she did seem to notice things.”

  “The man told me,” Jack added quickly, “that neighbors came to his wife to find out when to plant.”

  Daddy perked up. “I used to know a man who could do that,” he said. “Emmet, Emmet … I forget his last name. I was a little boy at the time. He could read the moon—the rings around it, its color, things like that. My own daddy wouldn’t plant ’less Emmet gave him the go-ahead.”

  “Did he charge anything?” Andrew asked, lifting his eyebrows.

  “Not that I recall,” Daddy said, staring in the distance. “Course, we probably kept him in vegetables.”

  “Every culture,” Andrew said, slipping into his lecture voice, “has its own brand of mystics and psychics, depending on what’s important to them: winning battles, proliferating, farming. Most are fakes and most have a price.”

  “Like fortune cookies!” Donna said. “That reminds me—Wilene down at Holly’s Hair and Then Some said that new Chinese restaurant out on the bypass is okay but they use too much MG.”

  “You mean monosodium glutamate,” Andrew said.

  “That’s right, Andrew,” she said, stroking his arm again, “but its initials are MG. And Wilene said if you don’t take your fortune with you, they take that little slip of paper right off your plate and bake it up in another cookie. She’s got the same one three times. It said, “The fool only talks. The wise man only listens.’”

  “Maybe there’s some truth,” Andrew said, looking straight at Donna.

  “Maybe so,” Aunt Kate added, looking straight at Andrew.

  “Aunt Kate, I almost forgot,” I said, “I brought something for you.” I pushed back from the table, reached for my purse, and pulled out the small brown bag of fireballs.

  Aunt Kate took the bag and carefully unrolled the end. Her face lit up and for an instant she looked like the little girl in the portrait with Mama. “Hot damn!” she said. Andrew looked at her hard and nodded toward the twins. She ignored him. “I haven’t had any of these in forty years!” She popped one in her mouth.

  “What are they?” Donna asked, straining toward our side of the table.

  “Fireballs,” Aunt Kate said. She looked around the table. Her eyes settled on Andrew. “Y’all want some? How about you, Andrew? Bet you didn’t have these in Massachusetts.” She stretched her arm toward him and shook the open bag.

  Andrew looked suspicious. He peered in cautiously, then relaxed. “Jawbreakers,” he said. “We called them jawbreakers and they came in fruit flavors.”

  “These are different,” Aunt Kate said, rolling the ball with the tip of her tongue. “Try one.” She smiled and shook the bag again.

  Andrew looked around the table. We were all watching him. He reached inside the bag, selected one red ball, and slipped it into his mouth. He tucked the candy into his left cheek, smiled, and nodded at Kate. She was still rotating her fireball with her tongue. Andrew quit smiling. He shifted the ball to his right cheek. It looked like he was rubbing the inside of his left cheek with the tip of his tongue.

  He reached for his tea glass. Half-full. He emptied it in one gulp. He shifted the ball again and searched the table.

  “What you looking for, Honey?” Donna asked. She was folding her napkin into smaller and smaller squares.

  “The pith-er,” Andrew mumbled.

  “The what?” Donna asked.

  “The tea pith-er,” Andrew said. Daddy was starting to make little noises, coughing-like noises but not exactly.

  “Pit-cher, Andrew, we call it the pitcher. It’s in the kitchen.” Donna didn’t make a move to get up.

  Andrew stared at her, his eyes wide, they were starting to tear. “Plea-th, get it!” he tried to whisper, “now!”

  Kate looked at her own glass. It was full. She kept her fireball rolling. Donna rose from the table, slower than usual, and headed for the kitchen. Andrew crammed his hand in his glass and trapped an ice cube. He threw it into his mouth. His nose was starting to run. He dapped at it with his napkin.

  “You didn’t spit out, did you?” Aunt Kate asked, suspicion in her voice.

  Donna reappeared with the tea pitcher. “Why Andrew, you’re almost out of ice,” she said. She set the pitcher in front of him and whisked away his glass. “Get anybody anything while I’m up?”

  “I-th!” shouted Andrew. Then he started chewing, more biting than chewing, like Bilo after fleas. He swallowed hard. Reached for Charlotte’s glass, drained it and swallowed three or four more times. Then he opened his mouth and panted—“Haa, haa, haa, haa.”

  “Oh, Andrew!” Donna said. “You sound like you’re in labor!” Andrew mumbled “fresh air” and rushed from the table. No one laughed, not until we heard the front door slam.

  I start to laugh now just remembering. Another contraction stops me. You can make it, I tell myself. Make it. Make it. Make it. Make it … I’m as dry as Andrew must have been. Something in the shot they gave me or maybe I’m panting like Donna and Andrew.

  “May I have some water?” I ask.

  “Sorry, no water,” Debbie answers with nurse-pleasantness, “but I’ll get a moist towel and hold it to your face.”

  I close my eyes. Rest.

  Another pain awakens me. Sharper … longer … longer … longer … like all the miscarriages clumped together. I try to separate from my body … float my brain up to the light … look down and watch myself. It doesn’t work. Dear God, it hurts! The sound of pain rises in my throat. I grit my teeth, try not to cry out. I hear movement. A male voice, shouting. “Give her something! Can’t you give her something?”

  Debbie’s words float in and out, “Better … not too sedated … better for both.”

  It eases. I open my eyes. Jack stands over me, pressed against the bedrails. He strokes my arm. “I’m here to stay,” he says. “Don’t argue with me, Sarah.”

  I start to open my mouth. Another contraction. From my soles to my scalp, pulling me in a ball. I grip the bars to keep from folding up, hold my breath, squeeze my eyes hard. I rock myself like a baby trying to fall asleep. Rock … rock … back … and forth … and back. I feel Jack’s hand against my cheek. The bed begins to move. I open my eyes again. Jack holds on to the side.

  “We’re taking her,” Debbie says, trying to pry Jack’s hand loose from the rails.

  “I’m staying with her,” he says.

  “Did you make arrangements?”

  “I’m staying,” he repeats.

  Debbie looks from Jack to m
e, then back to Jack. “Okay,” she says, an edge to her voice, “but you can’t go like that. Wait here until I get back.” She grabs the foot of the bed and starts to pull again. Jack holds on a second longer like he’s in a tug of war. Then he lets go.

  More pain. Both faces fade as the bed rolls into the hall. Light after light after light whirls above me. Another room. A huge circle of florescent light. So bright I can hardly keep my eyes open. Voices. People in green gowns, caps, masks. Nothing showing but eyes. Suddenly I want Jack, need Jack. I want to scream his name. More eyes rush in. Lean over me. Blue, deep blue. “Jack?” I say. He nods. A brown curl escapes from underneath the green cap. He squeezes my hand. I squeeze back. “You look silly,” I whisper. He nods again. His eyes squinch up at the corners in a smile.

  Another set of eyes hang over me. Brown! Dark as night! I panic. Michael’s here! How did he know? I look at Jack. He doesn’t seem to notice. “You’re doing fine, Mrs. Brighton,” the brown eyes say. I recognize the voice. Dr. Fleming.

  I relax. But only for a second. Another contraction grips me, so strong I feel I’m being squeezed in two. I nearly sit up with the pressure. “Keep pushing, Mrs. Brighton,” someone says. I close my eyes, catch my breath, and bear down with all my strength, with the energy of the universe ringing in my ears. Again and again.

  “It’s here!” a male voice shouts. A female voice cheers. Someone presses hard on my empty abdomen. I rest my head, afraid to open my eyes, afraid to hear any more.

  A hand strokes my forehead, pushes back my wet hair. I look up with blurred vision. Blue eyes, bright as the sky, fanned out in a line like a geometric pattern, blue touching blue touching blue. I blink a few times and focus. Jack’s eyes hold mine.

  “Congratulations!” a voice shouts. I recognize Debbie. She lays a squirmy, wet, beautiful creature across my heart. “Mr. and Mrs. Brighton,” she says, “you have a boy.”