“Okay, no need to get defensive. I just want you to be careful, that’s all.”
She prodded the bits of beef more vigorously. The grease sizzled and spit.
“Need help with anything?” he asked, opening the fridge.
“That would be against the rules.” She turned down the heat and leaned closer to the skillet to inspect whether all the pieces were evenly browned. Hard to tell. She flipped some of it over again. It looked gray. To be safe she gave the beef another minute and then drained the fat into a bowl, pursuing every stray morsel of meat until all was in its proper place.
John was standing at her shoulder. “What?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just watching.”
“Well, stop, okay? You’re making me nervous.” Setting the skillet on a backburner, she turned her attention to the bell peppers, which she had chopped by herself—not as quickly and efficiently as Mara, but evenly and carefully, fastidiously removing all of the little white seeds from each slice, even after reading online that they weren’t poisonous. She wasn’t taking any chances.
“You can put some oil in the—”
“Eh-eh”—she thrust up her arm to cut him off—“shhh.”
He opened a can of soda. She wished he wouldn’t drink that stuff. Bethany would not be a soda drinker. “Isn’t there some basketball game on?” she asked.
“Nope. Not until Sunday.”
She motioned toward the front room. “Well, go watch news or something. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
“Yes, ma’am!” He saluted and left the kitchen humming “Hail to the Chief.”
Charissa waited until she heard him turn on the TV before she poured some oil into a second skillet. Then she added broccoli and carrot slices to the yellow, red, and green peppers. Their dinner would be colorful even if it wasn’t flavorful. John could add his own spices. Bethany didn’t like them.
As she rotated the vegetables in the pan, she ruminated on his perfectionism comment. Quick to deny it as a motivation, she now considered the question again: Why did she want to go with Mara to New Hope?
She could give good answers. She desired to serve her friend well, to love well. She wanted to cooperate with the Spirit in crucifying her self-centeredness, and the discipline of service was a way to accomplish that. But was her interest in crucifying her self-centeredness also a self- centered pursuit? Why did she want to be free of selfishness? For her own sake or for the sake of others?
Ugh!
Ugh and gross.
The peril of self-examination, Charissa thought as she mixed the vegetables with the beef, was that it could easily deteriorate to self-analysis and self-preoccupation and a myriad of other self-focused remedies that kept her looking at her sin and failures instead of at the cross. Jesus, help me, she murmured, and turned down the stove.
When John offered to do the dishes, she didn’t argue. She still had a couple of student essays to grade. With her feet propped up on an ottoman, she made her margin notes and corrections in red. They had already crossed the midpoint of the semester, and most of them still couldn’t identify dangling modifiers, make subjects and verbs agree, or use apostrophes correctly. And if she read one more “should of” or “take for granite,” she was going to scream. She had already given them a list of common errors that spell-check wouldn’t catch. And these were just the micro-level edits. It was disheartening how many of the students still couldn’t form a cogent argument with supporting details. What had she actually accomplished in the classroom? Not much, evidently.
John gave a “whoop” from the kitchen and came bounding into the family room holding his phone. “Dad scored tickets!”
“For . . .”
“The game in Detroit!”
She stared at him blankly.
“Final Four against Connecticut!”
As if to echo her father’s exuberance, Bethany landed a kick that doubled Charissa over. John didn’t notice; he was typing rapidly with his thumbs.
“Basketball, I assume?” she said, her hand on her abdomen.
“Michigan State, Sunday night in Detroit. Can’t believe he managed to get them. I knew he was trying, but it was a long shot.”
Charissa returned to her page. John sat down on the edge of the couch. She could feel his gaze upon her. “What?” she asked, not looking up.
“My parents are wondering about coming down here for the weekend, and then Dad and I can drive over to Detroit Sunday.”
“They want to stay here?”
“No, no. They’ll stay in a hotel. They were planning to come in April anyway, remember?”
Now that he mentioned it, yes. But an entire weekend? She was thinking their visit would be a day trip. “I’ve got a lot of work to do this weekend, John.” She didn’t relish the thought of entertaining Judi while John and his dad left for the day. “It’s really not good timing right now.”
“And when will it be good timing?”
She wrote “Good use of metaphor” in the margin and turned the page.
“Charissa?”
“Hmmm?”
“Can you put that down a sec? I’m trying to talk to you.”
And I’m trying to grade, she silently replied. She set the essay on her lap and folded her hands primly.
“You said yourself that you’ve got a good handle on your work right now, that you’ve got extra time to give to Mara, to be at New Hope. Seems the same principle of ‘going the extra mile’ should apply to family, right?”
He had a point. She didn’t like it.
“Do it for me, will you?” he said. “Please? They want to see the house.” Subtext: the house for which they generously gave the down payment. “And they want to be able to buy some things for Bethany.” Subtext: they’re excited about their first grandchild and want to participate in preparing for her arrival.
She exhaled slowly. “Okay. Fine.”
“No—if you’re going to be that way about it, then forget it. I can just tell them you don’t want them coming.” He resumed typing.
He wouldn’t, would he? “John, stop.”
He looked up at her, thumbs still poised on his phone.
“I’m sorry, okay? You know I don’t like things sprung on me. If they’re going to stay in a hotel—”
“They’ve already said they will.”
“Then, okay. But don’t expect me to go on long shopping trips. I hate those.” She had endured enough of them at Christmas. She wasn’t doing it again.
“No, I know. It’ll be fine.”
“And you’re going to have to rein in your mother if she starts offering all of her ideas about how to decorate the house or things to buy for Bethany or—”
“I know, okay? I know. I will.”
“Okay.” She picked up her pen.
He rose and kissed her on the forehead. “Thanks, Riss.”
“Mmm-hmm.” If someone asks you to go one mile, go two, Jesus said. Charissa was fairly certain he didn’t mean you should walk those miles whining and complaining or acting like an imposed-upon martyr. She would need to do some serious praying before her in-laws arrived. And she’d probably be on her knees—figuratively speaking—all weekend long.
Becca
No amount of wheedling—and Becca had tried every possible angle for several days—persuaded Simon to change his mind. He was going to Paris for a writing weekend. Alone. “But why can’t I come with you?”
His back was turned toward her as he stuffed clothes into a carry-on bag. “I told you, Rebecca. You’re a distraction.”
“I thought I was your muse.” She flopped into his armchair.
“You are. But how will I get any words written if you’re there with me?”
She was going to retort that he was the one who had invited her to spend an entire summer with him in Paris, and how was that going to work? Then she thought better of it. She didn’t want him changing his mind about that. “I’ll let you write. For hours and hours. I won’t bother you at all.
I’ll go to museums, and you can do your Hemingway thing at the café. And at night . . .”
He zipped up his case.
“Simon?” Her fingers hovered at the top buttons of her blouse. “Simon, please.” He couldn’t just leave her like that. She couldn’t bear the thought of an entire weekend at his flat without him, and she didn’t want to be alone at hers. “Please, Simon. Take me with you. I’m—” begging you, she nearly said. But there was schoolgirl flirting, and then there was desperation. And she was skirting desperation. She needed to dial it back.
“I’ve got to catch my train.” Giving her a quick peck on the cheek, he grabbed his bag and strode out the door. When the iron gate clanged shut behind him, she was still rooted in the spot where he had abandoned her.
“You didn’t tell Simon about what’s-his-face from the club, did you?” she asked Pippa on the phone later that afternoon.
“What? Of course not! When would I even see Simon or talk to him?”
“I don’t know. Sorry.” Becca lay back on Simon’s bed, listening to the rumble of traffic from above. She had never noticed how loud his flat was, between the screeching hiss of buses and the pedestrians who streamed along the sidewalk carrying on loud conversations. Maybe she would go back to her flat to work. “He’s just acting a bit . . .”
“A bit what?”
“Off. A bit off, that’s all.”
“Maybe he’s stressed.”
That was probably it. Simon didn’t like his job, he wasn’t making progress on his novel, and he needed some space to clear his head, to focus. If Pippa hadn’t been in touch with him—and really, it had been paranoid to think she had—then there was no way Simon would have heard about the disaster at the club. And hadn’t he acted fine on their dinner cruise? It was only the past couple of days that he hadn’t seemed quite himself.
Becca rolled over on the bed, clutching Simon’s pillow to her chest. If she believed in prayer, she would pray for him to have a productive writing weekend and then return to her rejuvenated in his passions. But she didn’t believe in prayer. Her mother had believed in prayer, and a whole lot of good that had done her.
“You clubbing with us tonight?” Pippa asked.
“After last week? Not a chance.”
“Oh, come on. Get your mind off Simon, off your mu—” Though Pippa broke off before she enunciated the final consonant, Becca felt heat rush to her face. “Off your books,” Pippa said. “Off your classes. You’ve only got—what?—a month left in London? You’ve got to make the most of it, right?”
Right. And the list of things she wanted to experience in London in the short weeks remaining did not include another evening surrounded by drunk men trying to grope her. “I’m going to the National Gallery tonight.” Becca said it as if she had decided on the plan hours ago instead of right at that moment. The museum was open late on Fridays, and though she had visited it several times already, the vastness of the collection meant she hadn’t yet viewed some of the famous pieces she had studied in an art history course during her sophomore year.
With Simon away, it was the ideal opportunity to return. She had tried several times to persuade him to go with her, but he’d declared that if he never saw another lily pond or ballet dancer or bowl of fruit, it would be too soon. In Paris at Christmas he had humored her masterpiece quest because it was her birthday, and she wanted to go to the Louvre. But while she followed the horde of tourists to the Mona Lisa, he had insisted on working on his manuscript in the café. He’d seen the painting, he said, and didn’t understand what the fuss was about.
After working another hour on a paper, she left Simon’s flat and rode the Tube toward Trafalgar Square, which, even on a chilly, damp April evening, was packed with people posing for pictures beside the fountains, clamoring upon the stone lions, and picnicking on the steps beneath Nelson’s Column. Demonstrators gathered there too, holding their signs about climate change and gay pride, while a tubby, bearded man with an American accent bellowed into a bullhorn, informing the masses that they were going to hell if they didn’t repent from their sins and turn to Jesus Christ for mercy and forgiveness. “Believe the good news!” he shouted as he tried to shove pamphlets into the hands of those skirting by.
Becca hadn’t anticipated being assaulted by a street evangelist, and she made sure she avoided eye contact when she brushed past him. “Believe the good news!” he barked again. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing good about it. She hurried up the steps of the museum, her hands stuffed into her coat pockets. So much of her time with her mother at Christmas had been colored by her mother’s attempts to share her faith, all of which seemed to be rooted in judgment and condemnation of her relationship with Simon. Her mother had insisted otherwise, saying she only wanted to share her own growing sense of confidence in God’s goodness and love, that she wanted Becca to experience God’s love too.
Some love.
At least this museum didn’t contain trigger points for grief. As far as Becca knew, her mother had not visited here during her weeks in London. Too bad, she thought as she steered clear of the tour groups filing toward the Impressionist wing. She would have loved Van Gogh’s sunflowers.
Michelangelo, Titian, Rembrandt, Raphael. Becca methodically ticked the most famous artists off her list while recalling what she had learned about painting techniques and composition. Chiaroscuro, her professor would say as she pointed out the play of light and dark in Caravaggio’s paintings. Becca lingered at Supper at Emmaus, Caravaggio’s famous depiction of a beardless, resurrected Jesus sitting at a table with astonished disciples, and tried to appreciate the piece from a technical perspective: the shadowing on the garments, the light on Jesus’ face. It was as if candlelight flickered from within the painting. But as for the depiction of Jesus, Becca preferred the mural of him at her old church, painted by some parent, probably. At least in that picture, Jesus had energy and spirit, like he was playing with the children. Here he looked mellow and detached, completely lacking vigor and passion. Resurrected? He looked like he had just been awakened from a nap.
She moved on through room after room of religious art. How many crucifixion scenes did they need? If Simon were with her, he’d be making snide remarks and looking at his watch. She glanced at her phone. Eight o’clock. She hoped he was working diligently on his own art right now. That’s probably why he hadn’t returned her phone calls or texts.
“Where’s the Da Vinci drawing?” she asked a guard at the entry point to one of the rooms. She couldn’t leave the museum without seeing The Burlington House Cartoon, a famous work they had studied in class.
He motioned over his shoulder. “Through that doorway there.”
She nodded her thanks and entered a dimly lit room where several people perched on a bench admiring a large-scale charcoal drawing of the Virgin Mary seated on her mother Anne’s lap while holding the Christ child. Leaning forward, Jesus stretched out his hand to bless the toddler John the Baptist, who stood on the ground beside them, looking up into his younger cousin’s face. Note the triangular form, her professor’s voice reminded her, the unity of space, the play of light and dark. See how their glances keep the viewer’s eye within the composition. The drawing had stirred some controversy with a few of her fellow students—no doubt religious fundamentalist types—who had objected to Da Vinci portraying Mary with her mother when her mother had never been mentioned or named in the Bible. But it was a tender scene, and Becca had liked it.
Now that she was viewing it in person, what caught her attention was the tranquility of Mary’s countenance as she smiled at her son. She was exquisite. Breathtakingly beautiful. Becca stared at her, transfixed. The Mona Lisa possessed nothing compared to this adoring young mother.
From behind her, a man cleared his throat. “Sorry,” Becca said, stepping out of the way so that she wouldn’t block the view. She sat down on the edge of the bench. The drawing, the posted caption reminded her, was preparation for a painting Da Vinci never
made, and parts of the drawing were unfinished. The women’s feet, for instance. And Anne’s hand. Once the other visitors left the room, Becca moved closer. Mary’s eyes were fixed on Jesus, but Anne’s eyes were fixed on Mary, and she was pointing heavenward. Mary seemed oblivious to the gesture, all of her attention fixed on her child.
As Becca focused on the unfinished, pointing hand, she suddenly felt irritation swell within her, irritation she hadn’t felt when they studied the piece in class a year ago. That hand spoiled the scene, and the fact that it was unfinished made it all the more jarring. Was the pointing to heaven really necessary? Did Mary need a reminder, a lecture in that moment? Wasn’t it enough for them to enjoy sitting together?
Becca’s eyes stung with unexpected tears, not merely tears of sorrow but complex tears of anger and regret. She was angry—angry that she would never have an opportunity to introduce her own children to her mother. She was angry—angry at her mother for giving in to the diagnosis, for not doing everything in her power to fight the cancer and live. She was angry—angry at fingers that pointed to a God who did not answer prayer. She was angry—angry at a God who had refused to listen to the anguished pleas she had sobbed into the darkness the night her mother told her the news. Angry.
That peaceful, happy girl sitting on her mother’s lap and staring with adoration at her son—she had no idea the suffering her God had planned for her.
Poor duped girl.
Swiping her cheeks with the back of her hand, Becca pivoted away from the drawing and left the room.
seven
Charissa
By Sunday morning of her in-laws’ visit, Charissa was convinced of one thing: Ben Franklin’s “Fish and visitors stink after three days” adage considerably overestimated the shelf life of the latter. “How about if you and your folks head to church, and I’ll rest here,” she suggested to John when he emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel. She hadn’t yet taken full advantage of her pregnancy card during the past thirty-six hours of togetherness, and with twenty-four more to go, it was time to play it.
An Extra Mile Page 14