No Weapon Formed (Boaz Brown)

by Stimpson, Michelle

  Must be nice to attend conferences at beach-front hotels.

  “So you’re just going to hop around all day with a sock on your foot?” he pressed.

  “No. I’ll wear a slipper. It’ll be fine.”

  “Shondra, why don’t you take off today? Let me drop the kids off at daycare on my way to work, and you can go get an X-ray,” he offered. Again, a decent gesture. But left up to my husband, the kids would arrive two hours late.

  I packed the last bottle in Zoe’s bag and zipped it closed. “Can’t. We’re interviewing new teachers today. And Seth has a field trip. He can’t be late.”

  “How can anybody be late to daycare?” Stelson questioned, which only proved my point.

  Seth came barreling into the kitchen from his bedroom and all I could think was: Save my foot! I snatched my leg and turned my entire body away from him. “Seth, it’s time to go.”

  My husband swooped up our son and pulled him into a tickle-hug. Seth’s brown locks swayed as he attempted to break free of Stelson’s grasp. When all else failed, Seth struck back by tickling my husband, who burst out in contrived laughter. “Oh, you wanna tickle me back! You wanna tickle me back! Well, I’ll tickle harder!”

  Seth’s laughter filled the room. Even baby girl found their game hilarious. She opened her mouth wide and let out a wail that Stelson couldn’t ignore. With Seth still in his embrace, my husband walked toward the deadly high chair and used his other hand to gently tickle our daughter under her slobbery chin.

  Of course, her full cheeks pushed her eyes closed as she laughed uncontrollably. Zoe’s tighter curls didn’t whip around like Seth’s. Her features aligned more with her African-American heritage than our son’s, who could have easily passed as Caucasian with his blue eyes and fair skin.

  God knows I wanted to join in their game, but the clock was ticking. We were already seven minutes past leaving time. I placed a hand on Stelson’s arm. “Alright, we gotta skedaddle, honey.”

  Stelson set our son on the floor. “Go get your shoes.”

  For some reason, Seth always obeyed my husband’s orders the first time given. I wished I could record Stelson saying every command and just play it for Seth.

  Still in his bathrobe, Stelson leaned against the stove. He crossed his arms and eyed me as I stuffed baby carrots into one of the compartments of my lunch container. Sometimes, he just watched me. Admired me, he’d say. I’d heard that men were visual, but I think my husband was even more visual than the average man because he could go from zero to “let’s go to the bedroom” in ten seconds if I walked past him in a wraparound dress and a pair of heels.

  Well, he used to be able to turn it on that fast. Lately, though, he wasn’t as excitable. Maybe we were just getting older. Maybe I was having a hard time shedding the second-baby weight. Or maybe both.

  I continued my routine, giving him an eyeful of me doing everything possible to keep myself looking good for him. But when I realized I’d forgotten to pick up another salad mix at the grocery store, I huffed, “Aww man!”

  “What?”

  “Forgot to get the salad mix.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I remembered exactly how I forgot. I’d caught Seth popping a grape in his mouth and given him a two-minute lecture on how that was almost like stealing. In response, he started gagging and hocking, trying to bring the swallowed grape back up, which drove me to the point where I was almost ready to slap him on the behind and end the whole scene.

  “No! You don’t need to vomit.”

  “But Jesus doesn’t want me to steal,” Seth had whined sincerely.

  “Jesus understands,” I said. “Just don’t do it again.”

  Yep. That’s how I forgot the salad mix. “Never mind. I’ll order delivery for lunch.”

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” Stelson said in an I-told-you-so tone.

  I shut the refrigerator door and faced him. “Do what?”

  “Work outside the house.”

  I rolled my eyes and limped toward our bedroom. “Let’s not go there this morning, okay?”

  He followed, which annoyed me all the more. “Could you put her in the swing?” I pointed at Zoe to throw him off.

  A minute later, he was beside me again, watching me dab on lipstick and brush my light brown skin with powder. Thankfully, my flawless complexion had returned after giving birth to Zoe. I unwrapped the scarf on my head and brushed my hair out of its sleeping position and into the chin-length bob style that required almost no maintenance. Though this style wasn’t its best without bumping the ends with a flat iron, I had to give myself credit for wrapping it up the previous night so I wouldn’t have to throw a donut back there.

  Stelson started in again. “This is the kind of morning I want to avoid. You’re rushed, the kids are rushed. We can’t even enjoy a game of tickling—you won’t even go get your foot X-rayed because it’s go-go-go.”

  “No. It’s go-go-go because I didn’t have an alarm clock. And the reason I didn’t have an alarm clock is because you were snoring so loud I had to leave the bedroom in a rush, which is also the reason why I hurt myself.” I knew better than to tell him the whole truth—that my toe was a bit worse than “hurt”.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” he apologized.

  “I know you don’t mean to keep me up. It’s just…I can’t get any sleep when you snore. That wouldn’t change if I stopped working.”

  “I don’t like sleeping with the TV on, either, but I’ve learned to work around it.”

  “TV is background noise. Snoring is…invasive.”

  My left foot grazed the bedroom covers, which alarmed me. Maybe Stelson was right. Maybe I should stay home, prop my foot up, and protect it from the likes of 700 high school students who might be roughhousing in the hallways and accidentally step on my toe, which would cause temporary insanity, thereby making me knock the fire out of somebody.

  Note to self: Stay in the office today by any means necessary.

  I balanced myself on one leg and bent over in the closet to retrieve the purple foldable slippers I usually reserved for clean-up after a long day of activities at church. The satin, barely-there shoes were the only option for my swollen foot. Hopefully. But seeing as I couldn’t actually put them on in Stelson’s presence without him inspecting the damage, I crammed them into my Louis Vuitton bag and slung it over my shoulder.

  “My work is part of my ministry. We’ve already discussed this. ”

  “What about your ministry at home? To me and the kids? ”

  “Am I not a great wife and mother?” I challenged him. “I mean, I’m up sometimes all night with Zoe. If not with Zoe, with you snoring. And Seth...God knows he drains me to the very last milligram of my patience sometimes. ”

  Stelson eased toward me.

  “Watch the foot,” I warned.

  He planted a kiss on my nose as he caged my waist in his arms. “Honey, you’re a great wife. An exceptional mother. And I know the kids and teachers at Plainview High School are more than blessed because of your service as an assistant principal. You gotta look around, though.” He threw his glance at our unmade bed, at the stack of clothes on the ottoman, and the shoes strewn across the scraped hardwood floor.

  “Hey. You’ve got two hands, too,” I reminded him.

  “It’s not just the mess. It’s the fast food. It’s you. You’re always stressed. The kids get what’s left of you after work,” he listed.

  “I know. I told you, I’ve got some people lined up to interview. A personal chef and a housekeeper. I just have to find someone I trust enough to leave alone in our home,” I reminded him.

  He squeezed my behind. “And I’m not getting enough of you.”

  I pulled back. “Is that what this is about? Sex?”

  An exaggerated frown appeared. He nodded. “That’s part of it. A BIG part of it.”

  “We just did it before you left. Thursday night,” I refreshed his memory.

  “Yeah, and now it’s Monday,
” he said.

  “And? Can I help it if you weren’t actually here?”

  “No, but when I come back from a trip, I would like some time alone with you,” he said with a tad bit too much machismo for my taste. And yet, his puppy-dog eyes and the soft lines in his forehead gave him a distinctly desperate expression that outweighed my annoyance. Can’t blame a man for wanting to have sex with his wife.

  “Okay, okay. You win.”

  His eyes squinted. “I don’t want to win, Shondra. I want us both to win—which, coincidentally, is not what happened Thursday night.”

  He had a point. Lord knows I was tired Thursday night. Just rolled over in bed like “go ahead.” I’d thrown in a few sound effects, but my mind never veered into the passion lane.

  “It’s not that simple for me, Stelson.”

  “We’ve never had this problem before,” he recalled.

  “We’ve never had two kids—”

  Zoe’s cries from her swing signaled the end of our morning routine, finished or not. “We gotta go.”

  Seth was crouched on the floor in his socked feet with one shoe on his foot, the other on the couch where his behind should have been.

  I checked my phone. We were now officially twelve minutes behind schedule.

  Before he could protest, I hoisted Seth onto the couch and shoved the other shoe on his foot.

  “No!”

  “Seth, honey, we’re late.”

  He covered his shoe laces with both hands. He begged, “Mommy, I can do it.”

  “I’m sorry. Maybe tomorrow,” I said, grabbing one set of laces and quickly tying them.

  “But Sister Heller said I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me, Fer-ip-i-gans four and fifteen,” he cited.

  “You’re close. It’s Philippians four and thirteen,” I corrected him, “and Jesus will help you tie your shoes faster if you practice more, in the future.”

  Because he knew better than to resist me physically, he threw his head back against the couch and voiced his objection through cries.

  Stelson came dashing into the living room. “What’s wrong?”

  Seth answered for us, “Mommy’s tying my shoes, but I wanted to tie them.”

  I finished the second shoe and gave Seth directions to go get his backpack from his bedroom. He obeyed, albeit with tear-filled eyes.

  Stelson parked his hands at his waist and whispered, “Why wouldn’t you let him tie his shoes?”

  Zoe’s continued cries divided my attention. I answered Stelson as I pulled her from the swing. “Because it’s taking him too long and we’re in a hurry.”

  “It’s important for him to be able to do things for himself,” my husband lectured. “What’s going to happen to him when you’re not around, Shondra? You want him to be the type of kid who can’t do anything without Momma?”

  “He’s four!”

  Stelson slapped his hand into his palm. “He’s a boy who will one day be a man. I don’t expect you to understand this, but you have got to let him try to do things on his own. Maybe you could get him up a little earlier.”

  I motioned for Stelson to hand me the baby’s diaper bag from the kitchen. “Um, no. If I wake him up earlier, that means I have to get up earlier. Not gonna happen.”

  “Then I’ll take him to school,” Stelson suggested.

  “When? On the one or two variable days a week when you don’t have to be across town by six o’clock? I don’t think so. It’s not worth confusing the routine. We gotta go.”

  I left Stelson standing in bewilderment, thinking to myself: He just doesn’t get it.

  Chapter 3

  I dropped the kids off at daycare without incident, staggered back to the car and sped out of the parking lot with every intent to clip off as much lost time as possible. My Honda was getting to be as old as Methuselah, but she could get up and go when necessary.

  I called my best friend, Peaches, on my way in to work. She lived in Philadelphia, which put her an hour ahead of me, so I knew her morning was well underway.

  “Hey, girl.”

  “Hey. You’re just now heading in to work?” she questioned.

  “Don’t start. I’ve had a crazy morning already. Stelson snoring, baby crying, and I stubbed the mess out of my toe. My foot is so jacked,” I vented.

  “And you’re headed to the doctor’s office, right?” she asked in her mothering tone. I suppose as the mom of four children, she had mastered the art of indirectly telling people what they ought to do.

  “No. I’m going to work. If it gets worse, I’ll go to a twenty-four-hour clinic when I get off so they can confirm that it’s broken—after Stelson gets home from work.”

  “Girl, you crazy,” she dismissed my perfectly sane plan. “A broken bone is good for at least two days off work in my book. And you know I was the H-R queen.”

  I could only agree as she recalled the person she used to be. The best friend I used to know. In the five years since she’d married Quinn, Peaches had turned into the most domesticated, all-natural guru in my phone contact list. She had jumped into wifehood and stay-at-home-mommy-world with both feet after vowing “I do”. Took some convincing to get her down the aisle, mind you, but once she married Quinn, she never looked back. Just packed her stuff, scooped up her nine-year-old son and kissed Texas good-bye. Then she popped out two more stair-step kids—a girl and a boy—and put the brakes on her career in order to take care of house and home.

  “Just ask the doctor to give orders to keep your foot elevated and iced for the next forty-eight hours. Maybe you can catch up on the sleep you lose to snoring. Did you try the lavender snoring remedy I emailed you?”

  “No! You know I don’t fool with all that natural stuff you send me. I’d be running all over town looking for frog sweat and ant spit, listening to you.”

  Peaches coughed and faded for a moment. “I almost choked on my smoothie. Shondra, you stupid.”

  Frog sweat and ant spit. I had to laugh at my own joke. “Girl, I’m tired. That’s what I am. Deliriously tired.”

  “So what happened with the housekeeper?”

  “I haven’t found one yet.”

  “You know my mother is chomping at the bit to get her hands on Zoe. Since my kids and I are out of town and no one in my family has had any babies lately, she’s always asking about yours,” Peaches reminded me.

  “Your mom is a grandma. They’re supposed to step in every now and then, not every day,” I said.

  “Have it your way. But are you even looking for help yet?” she nosied.

  Oh, the hazards of having a best friend who knows you too well. “You know, I can’t open my house to just anybody. Don’t you have to give the housekeeper a key? A pass code to the alarm system? I’m not comfortable with the idea.”

  “Well, I’ll be praying for you to find the help you need. If it’s God’s will,” she chastised.

  “Have you been talking to Stelson?”

  “Not exactly,” she avoided my question. “But you know…he and Quinn are Facebook friends. Every once in a while, they might IM one another.”

  “Uh huh.” A conspiracy. “Look, Peaches, you know I can’t stay home with my kids. They would drive me crazy. I’d be depressed. I’d get fat. It would actually be counterproductive, I promise. But why am I explaining all this to you. You know me.”

  “Yes,” she sided with me, “I know you. And I know you’re always tired, which makes you extra cranky, irritable, and very hard to deal with, I might add.”

  “Look who’s talking! You were the president of the bad attitude caucus for several consecutive terms,” I reviewed the record for her. “And you were the card-carrying member of the independent woman club. Almost cost you a relationship with Quinn because you didn’t want to lose your identity!”

  “True that, but I resigned from both clubs when I learned to rest in Christ,” she said. “His yoke is easy, His burdens are light.”

  I, too, had memorized Matthew 11:30 in Sunday s
chool. Back then, the problem was: I thought a yoke had something to do with eggs, and I thought a burden was a wooden log, for some reason. Yet, I had to admit to myself that even with a developed vocabulary and forty-one years to my credit, the verse didn’t mean much more to me now as an adult. My life wasn’t a tragedy, but it was nowhere near easy and light.

  I turned in to the school’s parking lot. With only a few minutes before the first bell, the closest slots were already taken. My spot, however, was reserved clear as a bell: Assistant Principal Only.

  However, somebody in a late model red Kia Optima couldn’t read. “I know this person did not park in my spot,” I shared my thoughts aloud.

  “Don’t get mad. They were probably in a hurry,” Peaches attempted to calm me. “And you are late, sweetie pie.”

  “What time I get here is irrelevant. And there’s not another empty parking place for, like, fifty yards! I can’t wobble all the way across this lot!”

  “Go in peace, Shondra.”

  She got on my nerves sometimes, riding around on her Jesus-bike. “Enough with the kum-ba-ya, Peaches. Talk to you later.”

  “Bye, girl.”

  I circled the lot a couple more times. Nothing. Except for one spot marked with bright blue and white. Handicapped Only. I am disabled at the moment. I eased into the spot, making a mental note to look out my window in half an hour to see if the non-reading culprit had backed out of my reserved space. If so, I’d ask one of my colleagues to move my car to its rightful position. If not, I’d ask our campus officer to write the offender a warning ticket.

  I worked hard for this position! How somebody just gonna park in my spot? I felt my heart rate increase with every step from my car to the main entrance. Since every other step sent a painful jolt up my foot, I grew even angrier. I wonder if they’d park in the nurse’s spot! The counselor’s spot! No! They would NOT!

  Granted, the handicapped spot had actually put me closer than my normal position, so I should have been happy to take a few less steps. But was I? No. I was mad. Why is everyone against me? Why did Stelson get so upset about the shoe thing? When will Peaches get over her natural self and stop trying to make everyone live to be 150?