What Doesn't Kill You

by Virginia DeBerry

  But by days nineteen, twenty and twenty-seven I realized my little run-ins with Amber and Julie were the least of my problems. Each day I checked my date book, counted on fingers and toes, but it added up the same, which meant I was late—for a very important date, and for me, that was unheard of. It had been thirty-three years, and you could time a Cape Canaveral shuttle launch by my period, except when—I couldn’t even finish that thought. I cleaned behind my refrigerator, planted tulip bulbs, sorted my pantyhose drawer—anything to distract myself from what hadn’t happened yet. But hard as I tried, I kept coming back to Ron and our impromptu wedding celebration. I still couldn’t call up the teeniest flash of a kiss, the feel of his hands, nothing. I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t want to. But whether I remembered or not, it happened—I’d found the evidence and thought I was home free. I mean, I’d gotten through twelve years with Gerald without even a scare. Now I was expecting to be a grandmother, not to be expecting.

  As day twenty-nine of my permanent leave rolled into day thirty, my house was spotless, but I was a wreck. I dragged out of bed before dawn, made coffee—not that I exactly needed fresh brewed caffeine. I was already wired. The morning news, complete with grizzly headlines and flash-flood warnings, did nothing to distract me from the soap opera that played in my head all night. “Amber, honey, remember when you were little and you begged me for a baby sister or brother?” I couldn’t imagine forming my lips to say those words, or what she would answer when she found out who the daddy was. Then I had this horrifying thought that it could have been Gerald too, which made matters worse. That’s when I had to get out of my house and do something or I was going to peel my skin off. So I tucked my nightgown in my jeans, pulled on a baggy sweater, my raincoat and my favorite hide-everything hat, and walked out—

  —into a monsoon. It was so dark the streetlights were still on. The rain came down sideways and the wind was strong enough to rock my car. If I had good sense I’d have gone back inside, but crazy people don’t care about storms. I wasn’t sure I could drive the mile and a half to the drugstore—the one I don’t usually go to—without running off the road, but I also couldn’t sit home starting a list of girls’ and boys’ names.

  Who knew there were so many home pregnancy tests? When I had Amber, there were maybe three. Now there was a wall of pastel boxes. How many styles do you need? I made sure no one was looking and picked one up. “A plus sign means you are pregnant.” Not on this day—middle-aged, unmarried, unemployed and pregnant was definitely not a plus. I didn’t have the patience to stand there reading labels like I was comparing laundry detergents. So I snatched the only box that wasn’t a sweet baby color because I was not feeling pink or blue. It looked like medicine and I needed to go home and take mine like a grown-up.

  I seriously considered leaving a twenty on the shelf and shoving the test in my pocket, but I would have turned to stone if I walked out and the alarm went off. So I plowed up the aisle, filling my little red basket with tissues, chips, cough medicine, lightbulbs—whatever was within reach—to keep my secret safely hidden. And when I got to the register, I rifled through a plastic tub of nail clippers to avoid looking the white-haired clerk in the eye, although I swear I noticed a little twinkle when Mrs. Claus handed me the bag.

  I went in my door pulling off soggy clothes, down to my wrinkly nightgown, and headed straight for the bathroom, where I soon realized that no amount of squinting and holding the directions up to the light was going to help me read them. Then I had to dig around for the dollar-store glasses I only needed because they squeezed too many words on a piece of paper the size of a Post-it. “For best results test should be taken first thing in the morning.” Like I could wait one second longer. So I peed on my hand, my leg and the toilet seat before I got my aim right and hit the strip. Then I watched the second hand creep around the face of my watch and prayed the line wouldn’t turn blue. After seven minutes I couldn’t tell what color it was. Gray? Lavender? Mauve? Now, I’ll admit I wasn’t seeing anything clearly at that point. I’d gone past worrying about telling Amber, to imagining what I could say to Ron—and/or Gerald. I already felt like I’d cheated on him, which, under the circumstances, didn’t make any sense, because Gerald went home to his wife. But when I showed him wedding pictures, I felt guilty every time Ron’s smiling face appeared. Not crazy enough to confess, but I did feel sorta bad, and somehow announcing I was pregnant by another man was not the way I would want to end things.

  Lucky for me, the test I bought was a twofer. Clearly, they expect you to screw up the first time. So I drank three bottles of water and did the whole thing again. This time the line seemed rosier. I was almost happy, until I checked the instructions. They specifically said not to drink three bottles of water and repeat the test because the results would not be accurate, which meant I was back at the starting line, and I still didn’t know what color it was.

  So I did what any woman in my predicament would do. I begged my doctor’s office for an appointment. After much sighing and clicking of computer keys the receptionist told me the doctors were booked solid, but a nurse practitioner could squeeze me in in an hour or so, if I could get there. If I had to flag down a police car I was going to get there. And when she said squeeze me in, she wasn’t kidding. The office was jammed with women of every size, shape and trimester, and they all seemed to know each other. I hoped not to be pledging their sorority—Sigma Gamma Round.

  After giving up my seat three times to women who were sitting for two and trying to find magazines without “baby” or “maternity” in the title, they finally called my name.

  Margo—we’d agreed to first names—had spiky blond hair and wore a white cotton jumpsuit like a mechanic’s, minus the grease. When she asked the reason for my visit, it came shooting out like a hot, shaken soda. But she stayed cool, flipped through my chart, asked my age, and then whether I still used my diaphragm. I mumbled something like, “Most of the time.” But for Amber’s wedding, it never made the suitcase. What for? I wasn’t planning to need the love dome. So much for planning.

  Margo did an exam, drew some blood, said she’d call with results the next day.

  I almost leaped off the table. “Tomorrow?!”

  She said the pregnancy-test results would take a few hours, maybe longer. There was no need to wait. I assured her I didn’t mind. Right then, I didn’t want to be by myself. So I resumed my vigil in the waiting room, every second hoping that in the next one I’d hear my name. Three hours and fifty-four minutes later I did.

  Margo quickly put me out of my misery. “Well, you’re not pregnant.” I have never been so happy not to be something. But before I got to feeling too good she announced she was waiting for more test results to confirm the likely cause of my missing cycle. It was a symptom of perimenopause. Was she talking to me? I could not be old enough for menopause—peri or otherwise. I guess she’d seen the blank stare before, because she launched into a song and dance about changing hormone levels and the irregular periods, night sweats, mood swings and other fun that could be coming my way. It almost made me wish I was pregnant—not just old. Margo stressed that I shouldn’t slip up on birth control or be having unprotected sex. Just what I needed, sex ed for seniors, but at least I could skip the Lamaze refresher course. The bad news—most of my eggs were scrambled, but there were still enough good ones to fry my behind. I wrote a check for my copay and left with a handful of pamphlets about my “new stage of life” and a nonspecific bad attitude.

  So the last thing I wanted to see when I turned into my block was a crowd in my driveway. Not just neighbors—there was a fire engine out front, behind the squad car with the slow-spinning red and white lights. The news van was around the corner. Didn’t they have some corruption to cover? My blood pressure was normal when Margo took it, but I’m sure it shot up in the high triple digits as I stepped out into the murky mist to find out what was going on at my house.

  Soon as I walked up, the crowd parted, giving me a prime vie
w of the gigantic Norway spruce that had towered over my backyard, the tallest tree in what I considered my own little piece of forest. During my absence it keeled over—fell diagonally across my property and left a gaping hole where the roots used to be. I couldn’t believe it. The top reached out to the street where it was bound in yellow police tape.

  After determining I was the home owner, the sergeant proceeded to tell me how lucky I was. “That thing coulda come down on somebody’s roof, a car. It even missed your lawn furniture. Rain musta loosened it up and the wind just took it.” A lot like Dorothy and Toto. Then he said I had to clear it out of the road in forty-eight hours or face a summons.

  I thought I was pretty lucky too, until I called my insurance agent. Even though it made the storm-damage review on the evening news, she said that since there was no property loss, the removal was on me. Then she offered to review my coverage to see if I was adequately insured. Great. Do you know how much it costs to cart off a forty-foot tree? My lawn guy asked if I wanted it split for firewood, but soft wood makes smoky fires, so I just had him take it away. I’d buy some cherry when it was time to throw a log in the fireplace. Yes, it could have been a lot worse. It just wasn’t in my budget for the month. But I could handle it. And guess what showed up three days later—like I needed cramps and water retention on top of everything else.

  I managed to keep myself out of trouble for the next few weeks, did some things I’d been meaning to do—like get the car detailed, finish my Christmas shopping, organize the photographs I’d been stuffing in boxes for years. I arranged them chronologically in matching red leather albums so they’d look nice on the bookshelf in the den. And I gave in and got my eyes examined—bought some cute glasses too, because if my perimenopausal self needed reading glasses, they had to be cute. I never knew glasses could cost as much as jewelry. Good jewelry.

  A couple more pieces of Markson mail arrived, but I couldn’t bring myself to read them. I tried. I’d decide to rip open the envelope on the count of ten, but by nine I’d be too upset, so I’d chuck it back in the pile. I mean, normally I am very organized with my mail—sort it as soon as I walk in the door. Junk mail goes straight in the trash. Bills I file, and catalogs go in a basket by my bed for further browsing. Markson mail was none of the above. I wanted to write “Return to Sender” across the front but finally I decided I’d deal with it at the beginning of the new year. Out with the old, in with…something surprising. I loved surprises.

  And then Amber started asking me for Nana’s sweet-potato casserole recipe because she wanted all the traditional dishes at her first Thanksgiving dinner. There was never a recipe. I watched Nana make it, then Mom. Guess Amber was watching the Macy’s parade. You bake the sweet potatoes, mash them up and add butter, brown sugar, a handful of chopped pecans, crumbled bacon, pineapple, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg…then you taste it to see if it needs something. I had to make one to figure out amounts I could write down. It would have been easier to just bring the thing, but Amber had to do the whole meal herself, so I wrote it on an index card, had it laminated, then gave it to her in the casserole dish from her china pattern. I was passing on something precious, in something precious. That made me feel good.

  What wasn’t sitting so well was the prospect of Ron as a fellow dinner guest, but I decided not to sweat it. After all, they won’t convict you of a crime if you’re mentally incapacitated. I committed an indiscretion while suffering from stress-induced, champagne-assisted insanity. I’m sure it’s a defense in somebody’s court of law. Anyway, I figured I’d see him and wonder what in the world I could have been thinking.

  Wrong.

  Before he arrived I was perfectly relaxed, looking sharp in a cranberry knit-pants outfit I hadn’t been planning to buy, but it was too “me” not to. There was hooting and hollering from the football game in the background and I was sipping cider, talking to friends and family and staying out of the kitchen, per Amber’s request. But it sure smelled like Thanksgiving. Hadn’t seen Baby Son-in-Law yet. He was on a supermarket odyssey, trying to find the fresh pearl onions Amber had left off her shopping list and just had to have, bless him.

  I was feeling proud and, I’ll admit it, a little weepy, celebrating with my daughter and her husband in their first apartment. The folding tables they borrowed—since their dining-room set hadn’t arrived in time—were set with new china and linen, and they were starting traditions of their own. Mom and Dad didn’t make the trip since they’d been up for the wedding, but I was sorry they weren’t there to see it. Neither were J.J.’s parents, but the newlyweds were heading to Texas for Christmas.

  Then Ron came strolling in with a bouquet the size of an end table. And that smile. I made a break for the bathroom while he took off his coat, but I could still hear him so I turned on the faucet, squirted some mouthwash and started gargling. Don’t ask me why. After a while I was relaxed by that minty fresh feeling and composed enough, I thought, to speak to him like a rational adult, so I came out. Guess who’s waiting to use the facilities?

  He said, “That’s where you’ve been hiding.” For some reason my eyes fastened on his left eyebrow where the shiny black hairs stood up against the grain and I had the strongest urge to smooth them, but I knew better than to touch him. Instead I said, “What makes you think I’d be hiding from you?” and exhaled as I slipped by, but I still caught a whiff of that cologne. Damn.

  I thought I was safe back on the couch, but then he stood somewhere behind me, talking to one of J.J.’s buddies. It was like I could feel him smouldering back there and then I was having goose bumps, which made me mad after all I’d been through on his account, so I got up and moved closer to the TV. Somebody asked him if he was still driving at Pocono Speedway, and I blurted out, “You race cars?” before I could shut myself up. He kind of swaggered, shook his head. “Used to.” Now I knew the man was crazy. Then he said, “Racing stock cars was my passion, but I gave it up about a year ago. Still do some customizing. Restoring classic cars is my main business.” Like I wanted to know about his passion. He added something about the good old days and his Demon Dodge, but by then I had tuned him out and glued my eyes to fourth and goal—stupidest thing I ever saw. Grown men crouching like bullfrogs in the snow, then slamming each other into the ground. For a ball? I couldn’t tell you what happened, but some folks cheered, some booed, and next thing I knew Ron was at my side talking about “Falcons or Lions?” I said, “What difference does it make?” I seemed completely unable to speak to the man except in the form of a question. Anyway, I wasn’t interested in the zoology quiz so I squeezed between two folks sitting in folding chairs to get to the crudité platter on the coffee table.

  I don’t know what got into me that day. I mean, the apartment was only so big, but whenever he was close enough for me to smell him, I had to move. After a while I felt like Ms. Pacman, eating whatever was in my path and trying to stay ahead of the Ron monster. The only place left to escape to was the kitchen, so I went for it—

  —only to find Amber, in tears, standing next to a gargantuan, golden-brown turkey. “Baby, it looks beautiful,” I told her, doing my best not to notice a tornado had hit the kitchen. Every pot, colander and melon baller she got as a wedding present was in use. I counted three pans of rice, ranging from scorched to paste. The collards looked a bit…al dente, and the peas, waiting for their pearl onions, looked a lot like soup. But she’d made a lovely salad, and the sweet potatoes looked just like Mom used to make ’em. Then she blubbered, “The turkey is still frozen. I thought it would thaw out in the oven.”

  I wiped her tears, like I used to when she skinned her knees and needed mother’s touch to make it better. Then I said it would probably be fine if she turned the oven up to 450 and covered the bird in a foil tent. Except I poked it with a meat fork. A harpoon would have been more useful. That’s about the time J.J. arrived with a bag of shallots because he thought they looked kind of like little onions. I got my hug and kiss, and I guess he never got the �
��no email” directive because next thing out of his mouth was, “You know, Mama Tee, I sent an email Turkey-gram to your job, but it bounced back saying ‘addressee unknown.’ What’s up with your IT people?”

  Busted. And at that moment my brain was as frozen as Big Bird. Sure, I could have blamed it on techno trouble, but that was more lie than I wanted to keep straight. All I could think of to say was, “I don’t want to talk about it,” which pretty much said it all.

  Except my child would not let it go, so I finally blurted out, “They laid me off, alright?” which was the first time those particular words came out of my mouth. It was a total shock to me. I mean, my chest felt tight and I wanted to disappear, just melt into a corner where I couldn’t see the two faces looking at me in total disbelief. But I didn’t have time to dwell on the full meaning of my revelation because Amber started having a meltdown. She’s always been on the emotional side. I used to call her my water girl—99 and 44/100th percent pure tears, which is exactly why I was not about to have this little chat before the wedding. Now, when I walked in the kitchen, I could tell she was already stressed. My child likes everything just so and dinner was looking like a page from a “how-not-to” guide. Anyway, hearing I got fired seemed to send her circuits one volt over the maximum and the sparks started flying. First, she snatched the bag of shallots and screeched, “What am I supposed to do with these?” and flung them into the sink full of dishes. Ker-splash! Then she just started sobbing. Between gulps she’d say stuff like, “How could they fire you? You practically started the company with Olivia.” Just what I needed to hear right about then. I tried to assure her I’d be fine, but that just made it worse, so I told J.J. to take her to the bedroom and let her calm down. I could finish dinner.