by Lisa Samson
And I just laughed and laughed.
“Sing for me again, pretty girl!” he cried.
And I waved him off.
And how many years ago was that?
And how different could Johnny and Brad be?
The silence swelled around the good doctor and me as if we’d suddenly been stuck inside a ham or something.
I turned to Johnny. “I’m sorry if this is awkward.”
“Awkward?”
“Yeah. I mean I’m not much of a conversationalist.”
“Lark, awkward is hardly this. You want awkward? You should see some of the surgeries I’ve performed. You’d be surprised at how many people actually wake up in the middle of an operation.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Yep.”
“That was not nice.”
“I know.”
He smiled at me as we just walked along with our hands in our pockets, enjoying the breeze of nighttime. When he dropped me off twenty minutes later at the porch door, he said, “Hey, I’ll say a prayer for your mom.”
“Well, thanks.”
“Yeah, well, I noticed she’s on for a stress test tomorrow at the hospital, and I figured you must be worried too.”
“Yeah.”
Worried? A stress test? Oh my word! I’m going to kill her. But I tried to smile. “Thanks for the walk.”
“Sure, Lark. I’ll see ya.”
“Yeah.”
I hurried up to my room.
Leslie
I SNAPPED ON THE KITCHEN LIGHT around midnight. I just couldn’t sleep with tomorrow looming so close. In a week August will hit. Where did the summer go? I wanted to do so much with Larkspur and Sweet Pea. At least I’m halfway to finishing Larkspur’s sweater. So far she suspects nothing.
“Prisma?” I called. Voices ring so in dark kitchens.
She poked her head out of her door. “Yes, Mrs. Summerville?”
“You all set for tomorrow?”
“Of course. And Asil will bring the car around bright and early. If you want a snack you’d better eat one now.”
“No thank you. Well, maybe a cup of tea.”
“I’ll get it for you.”
“Oh no. I’ll do it myself.”
“Suit yourself, Mrs. Summerville.”
She closed the door to her room and I stood in the kitchen, my gaze circling around the cabinetry that bordered the room. I had no idea where she kept the teacups. And what about the stove? Should I have to light it with a match first?
I clicked the switch and went upstairs to bed.
PRISMA
“I DIDN’T WANT TO DO THAT, LORD. We both know that woman cannot make a cup of tea.”
“Don’t take one to her, My girl. I’ve got plans for Leslie Summerville.”
Hope filled my bosom. “You do, Lord?”
“I do. Did you think she was beyond hope?”
Shame on me.
Leslie
GOOD HEAVENS! I expected the Grim Reaper to walk in any minute! Is that any way to see if someone has heart problems, to try to kill them? Flannery volunteered her Nikes for the ordeal, but foolish me said, “Oh no, no. My Grasshoppers will be just fine.”
Foolish, foolish woman.
And then I climbed down from the infernal contraption, changed back into my clothes, and thought to myself, “What’s worse? Walking on that thing, or putting my nice pantsuit back on not having bathed first?”
I voiced that to Prisma, who sat there in the waiting room reading one of those corny religious digest things. “Well, Mrs. Summerville, I’d say the fact that you were capable of even thinking something like that shows you’re not as bad off as you thought.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Well.”
So Prisma says, “Let’s go for a little drive, why don’t we? It’s still early.”
I rummaged through my pocketbook for my lipstick. If I were really in such good shape I’d have remembered to retouch them in the changing room and not put on a makeup demonstration right there in the waiting room. “Where do you want to go?”
“I was thinking of going over the Bay Bridge.”
“That’s quite a drive.”
“I know. The last thing you need is to go home and feel sorry for yourself.”
I gave her my best glare, but inside, I knew she was exactly right. Not that I’d ever say that out loud! Good heavens, no. “That’s twaddle, Prisma, but I’m too exhausted to argue.”
We had a lovely time lunching together in a little inn overlooking the Bay. Asil smoked cigarettes out in the parking lot, which embarrassed me to no end for some reason. My emotions swim right up at the surface these days, and I hate it.
Tonight at supper Flannery forked up some of Prisma’s sauerkraut and stabbed a bite of crown roast of pork with it. She knew about the test, somehow, but I determined to stay my course and say as little as possible. Prisma swore she hadn’t said a thing, and I believe her. She hasn’t lied to me yet.
“So what’s next now that the treadmill thing is done?” Flannery asked.
I eyed my salad with an emaciated piece of grilled tuna placed on top. Bless Prisma’s heart, she tried to arrange everything prettily, but it was still a salad. “What do you mean, Sweet Pea?”
“At the doctors’. What’s next?”
“How should I know?”
“You mean you didn’t ask?”
“Well, now, why should I?” I set down my fork. “We don’t pay them so that we can take care of ourselves, now do we? I think I handled it all quite well, and I’m sure everything is just fine.”
Prisma brought in a small boat of some thinned out, vinegary dressing. I’d never really cared for blue cheese, creamy varieties of dressing, but now that I can’t have them … well! “Mrs. Summerville, the medical establishment isn’t what it used to be.”
“You said it, Miss Prisma!” Flannery sipped her water.
“They don’t answer to the patient anymore; they answer to the insurance companies.”
“Oh, fiddle!” I said. And then wondered where that word came from. I hadn’t said “fiddle” in forty years!
Flannery and Prisma laughed themselves silly.
“I’ll call the cardiologists tomorrow,” said Prisma.
Lark entered the dining room and slid into her chair, placing her napkin on her lap just so. “Sorry I’m so late, Mother. Some lady called and was reaming me out because my prayers ‘didn’t work.’ ” Lark sighed, and my heart broke for her. “What do you say to that?” she said.
I huffed inside. Treating my daughter like that, when she gives of her time so faithfully! Who did that woman think she was? Probably some no-good from West Vir—
Oh, stop it, Leslie.
Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle!
Why I learned so little from Charles when he was alive is beyond me. Talk about a content person. That trip to the treadmill gave me a lot of food for thought as I stepped lively and waited for my life to flash before my eyes at any moment.
I lay on the couch, two sofa pillows beneath my head. Law & Order, my favorite show, aired, and I felt so mad at myself because I just couldn’t seem to stay awake.
“Mother?”
Lark must have entered the room while I dozed. “Yes, Larkspur. Oh, that’s a pretty shirt.” She had changed into a blouse with poet sleeves.
“Thanks.”
“Is that new?”
Oh my stars! The eleven o’clock news just ended?
“Uh-huh. Flannery picked it up for me at the mall today. They actually had a clearance rack, 80 percent off.”
Inside my mama was screaming, Don’t talk about prices and purchases.
“That’s a good deal.”
“Yeah. I feel a little silly in this thing though.”
“Oh no! It suits your artistic nature, dear. You look like you did when you first started playing in that band.”
Did I really say that?
She sat d
own on one of the plush chairs near the sofa, setting down her prayer-line phone headset. “I tried to catch you earlier today, but you were asleep. And then I went to practice at St. Dominic’s. Prisma told me you were doing fine though.”
“Yes. It was a lovely day.”
“You feel all right?”
“Of course I do.”
“Was it tiring? The stress test, I mean.”
“Good heavens, Larkspur, stop asking so many questions. I’m fine! I still want to know how you found out about it.”
Without another word she kissed my forehead and left the room.
I do my best to try to keep from worrying her. I think I am succeeding. But one never knows with Lark.
Truth to tell? More and more each day I feel like the dodo bird. The last of a dying breed. And you know, who really misses the dodo bird these days anyway?
Tomorrow I’m calling all my committees and telling them I’m taking a sabbatical from charity work until after the Christmas holidays. I’ll blame it on Lark and Flannery and their move back home. The ladies will remember the fire and feel sorry for me. “Of course, dear. Your family needs you,” they will say. And I’ll say, “Yes, they do.”
And I’ll wish to goodness that was the truth.
Lark
WELL, LORD, SHE’S SHUT ME OUT AGAIN. For a few days I’ve thought maybe we could come to some kind of understanding. I was even foolish enough to think these health difficulties might have been a vehicle to bring us closer. Guess not.
I can already hear You saying it’s up to me to reach out. But she’s the mother, Lord. She’s the mother! I know, I know, she doesn’t know You like I do, and I’ve got to remember to be compassionate.
I remember a sermon I heard on television once. The pastor said, “You’re the only Bible some people will ever read.” So, if that’s the case, then things don’t look good for my poor mother! If I’m her Bible, then …
Oh, God. Oh, God. I hate feeling so tortured all the time. I really do. A little peace, Jesus, a little peace. Help me not to worry so much about returning to my vomit. Help me to put it all behind me. But isn’t that what I’ve done, put it all behind me? And now I’m back here. Back on Greenway.
And I have no idea if I’ll ever garner the courage to leave.
Johnny Josefowski called me just as I turned on my CD player, gearing up for the evening calls. Just wanted to know how I was doing and said he was looking forward to study group next week and how about going out after mass one Sunday for lunch or something? I said, “Where to?”
“Someplace close. I promise.”
“You sure you won’t get me into the car and the drag me all the way down Route 40 or something?”
“I really do promise, Lark.”
“Well, yeah then. Okay.”
Gosh, I’d been doing so well. No ants for over a week. And now, they swarmed under every square inch of skin.
Help me, Jesus. Help me to do this.
I sat down at the organ and played and played. And after who knows how long, I turned around to find Mother and Prisma on the couch.
“Well, Prisma,” Mother said. “I just got a little taste of heaven. You?”
“You know it, Mrs. Summerville. You know it.”
“You feel better, dear?”
I nodded. “I do.”
Flannery
I’M SITTING HERE IN THE QUIET OF ST. DOMINIC’S watching Mom play. To tell the truth, I did feel a little guilty when she said I never came to church with her. And, you know, she’s always been supportive of my art, the least I can do is show up at church every once in a while to hear her play.
If she only knew what a special woman she is.
Get this! Grandy got a call from Jake the other day! I answered the phone, and it went like this.
“Hello?” That’s me talking.
“Yes ma’am. Is Mrs. Summerville there?”
“Which one?”
“Well.” And you could hear his discomfort. “Uh, the uh, the uh—”
“Older one?” I supplied, holding back guffaws.
“I suppose that might describe her, although …”
Weren’t cowboys supposed to be men of few words?
Ha! This was great!
But I had mercy. “I’ll get her for you.”
“Thanks.”
And do you know what? Grandy shooed me out of the room. Just shooed me right out! I loved it.
So the service is ending. I’m at the eleven o’clock mass, so I can try to convince her to go out for lunch.
She sure looks nice though. Her hair is actually back in a bun and not one of those puffball, Midwest ponytails she usually puts it in. And she’s got that poet shirt on with a new black skirt. I said to her this morning when I gave it to her, I said, “Mom, I found this skirt the other day. It’s no-iron too.”
She took it from me. “You think? I mean I’m used to a fuller skirt.”
I sat down on her window seat. “You know, a slim silhouette makes you seem taller. And black does too.”
“Really?”
She pulled off her pajama bottoms, and I almost gasped at the sight of her in her underwear. I had no idea she’d gotten so thin. Oh, Lord, I prayed. You’ve got some work to do on this one!
She pulled it over her hips.
It’s a size two. And that makes me, Miss Size Ten, absolutely sick. But hey, I’m healthy, right?
“Do you think that new blouse would go?”
“Absolutely.”
And now, as she’s finishing the postlude, I’m admiring my handiwork. She actually let me do that bun in her hair. Although when I tried to clip in one of my little butterfly barrettes, she drew the line.
She’s closing up the organ now, and look, there’s a man coming up to her. A really big, older guy, sort of a Santa Claus fellow wearing a polo shirt and jeans.
She’s opening the organ back up, and he whispers something in her ear, and she starts playing “Charleston.”
Well, what do you know!
I just sit and drink it all in. It’s not like a lemonade on a cold day, this. It’s like that first sip of hot chocolate after a day of chopping wood in the cold forest.
We sit together at the 3 B’s. Me and Mom and her new friend Johnny Josefowski. See, I was right when I said earlier that she had a crush on him. She’s blushing and this little curled piece of hair has escaped her bun and grazes her chin.
She looks like a woman. My gosh. My mother actually looks like a woman.
On the way home, she’s apologetic. “I’m sorry if that bored you, Flannery.”
“Are you kidding? I loved it.”
“Really?”
“Oh, Mom. You really don’t get it, do you?”
She looked out her car window and said, “I guess not.”
Lark
TUESDAY MORNING I EXAMINED MY FACE in the bathroom mirror. I used to live such an exciting and different life, back before Brad left, not this boring, eccentric existence I inhabit now. Some eccentrics are labeled that due to their exciting, highly unusual lifestyles. Others are labeled that due to their static existence, their set-in-my-ways manners, their fears, their escapes into weird-dom, or religion, or string art.
Grabbing the scissors from out of the medicine cabinet, I pulled on an overgrown piece of hair. Why do I examine my face like I do? I remind myself of one of those gardening-type ladies with scraped-back hair, the kind who like herb farms, salt ware, and New England, and support the local children’s theater.
“Mom!”
Flannery stood behind me.
“Don’t!”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t cut your own hair anymore.”
“I do just fine at it.”
She lifted a particularly shaggy portion. “You call this fine?”
Didn’t she realize she was committing the unpardonable sin of the beauty world? “It’s acceptable.”
“Acceptable? Is that all you want from your hair? Acceptable?�
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“Well, no, but—you know, you’re getting a little disrespectful.”
Let’s nip this all right in the bud.
“Nice try. How about if I do it for you?”
“Flannery, you don’t know how to cut hair.”
“I did it for girls in the dorm all the time.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. You’d be surprised at the spending money you can make doing stuff like that.” She closed the lid on the toilet and reached under the sink for a pair of bona fide haircutting scissors.
“Where in the world did you get those?”
“Bought them at college. And I color hair too.”
“But you don’t have a license!” As a former nail artist, I knew you needed a license to do anything.
“Not at school, Mom. People are glad for a cheap haircut. It’s not like they’re going to report you to the state or something.”
“But I don’t want a real haircut.”
“Look at how uneven it is.”
I crossed my arms. “So you’ve been examining my head, I see.”
“Ever since I got home from school. Now sit down and stop arguing. I know what I’m doing.”
“How short are you going to cut it?”
“I’m just trimming, okay. Shoulder length would suit you. Long hair on short women makes them look even shorter.”
How did she know all this stuff?
“And … it will still be long enough to put back in a bun.”
“I usually wear it in a ponytail.”
“It will be gorgeous if you used some gel and hair sparkles and pull it back, Spanish-like. I’ll even make you a black snood.”
“A snood?”
“Think of how much easier that will be.”
“I don’t care about easy, Flannery.”
I lied. I hated any time I spent on doing hair. Why fight her like this?
“As Grandy would say, it looks quite ‘ghastly’ hanging around your face. Especially the way you wear it during the day with that grade-school headband.”
“Ghastly? Oh, come off it, Flannery. Ghastly is a bit strong, isn’t it?”