by Pamela Morsi
“No reason, I just wanted to talk to you.”
“If you want to talk, make an appointment with a therapist,” she said. “Edith told me you really need one.”
“You’ve spoken with your grandmother?”
“She said you’re going through ‘the change’ or something,” Brynn answered.
“I’m not going through ‘the change,’” I told her. “That’s just Oprah’s latest topic. I’m just a little confused right now. I went through a very scary, life-threatening experience.”
“Mother,” Brynn retorted with a long suffering sigh. “It was a car wreck and you weren’t even injured.” She chided me as if she were the adult. “You are always so dramatic. Dr. Reiser says that your life is just so comfortable that you have to exaggerate your little day-to-day challenges.”
“Dr. Reiser doesn’t know me,” I pointed out.
“Oh puh-lease, Mother,” she said. “Everybody knows you. You’re practically a type—shallow, egocentric narcissist.”
“That isn’t who I am,” I insisted.
“Isn’t it?”
There was more truth to her observation than I wanted to acknowledge.
Chapter 4
SUNDAY IS THE busiest day in real estate. Business properties are big on Wednesday. New homes and developments hit the top of the radar on Saturday. But existing family homes, the bread and butter of American real estate, makes its biggest splash on the last day of the weekend. That’s when house hunters are out in force, and brokers are frantically competing for their attention.
The housing section of the newspaper hits front porches about 5:00 a.m. By seven-thirty my phone is already ringing. For most of the week, it’s a waste of money to even buy space in the classifieds. On Sunday, I think reading them must be more popular than the sports page. I always have a couple of my current listings highlighted, and more often than not, I have an open house scheduled.
So I have always considered it particularly admirable on my part that on this most crazy and hectic of days I almost always attend church.
Not that it is easy. Inevitably, as the service begins, I will be standing out on the front steps. All around me smokers frantically suck down that last bit of tar and nicotine to get them through the hour service. Unhappy babies scream at the top of their lungs as frazzled young mommies or daddies juggle them up and down ineffectually. Teenagers, momentarily safe from parental supervision, neck and grope in the parking lot. And real estate brokers, like myself, take care of some inevitable last-minute crisis on our respective cell phones.
I don’t think I’ve seen the processional in at least ten years. But I usually make it to my seat before the opening prayer.
With lots of limestone, dark woods and neo-gothic flourishes, St. Jude’s is one of the oldest and most architecturally beautiful churches in the city. It is also the prominent religious institution of wealthy and powerful Protestants. The Loftons have been parishioners there for generations. They actually have their own pew. As do most of the “better-known families” in town. Which may not be the only reason that the congregation is always back heavy. The pews in front, with their little brass plates upon the side, are often empty. Still, the nameless attendees who must sit where they can, all crowd in the back, as if unwilling to risk the possible humiliation of being ousted from a seat that was spoken for.
The Loftons sit sixth row, center section. Both David and his parents are faithful members. W.D. seems to attend out of a sense of personal duty; Edith, because Oprah has repeatedly stressed the importance of faith in a balanced life. David goes, I think, because it fits into his schedule. He has a regular foursome dawn-patrol tee-off. They are done in time to dress for services. Beyond that, my husband’s religious motivation is a mystery to me.
Though I have attended with David for twenty years and raised my daughter here, I am not actually a member of the congregation. Not that I am in any way opposed to that. It is simply that joining requires attending workshops and courses, participating in rituals, that sort of thing. I never really saw any advantage in it. I have all the privileges of being a part of St. Jude’s without any of the burdens or obligations.
I slipped in at the last moment and took my place at David’s side as inconspicuously as possible. I nodded to my mother-in-law, who gave me a warm smile that seemed strictly for public consumption.
David, who was in deep discussion with his father, didn’t even glance in my direction.
“I was completely off on my irons,” he was whispering. “My drivers were good and my putting was above par, but I could have just stayed home for all that the irons did for me.”
I picked up the prayer book and feigned glancing at it as I scanned the front of the room. I spotted Lexi sitting with her slightly slump-shouldered and gray, older husband. In a vivid red suit, she sparkled like a beam of sunshine in the dark, somber interior.
I saw Teddy, too. She didn’t have Lexi’s style or chic. She was as drab and conservative as I was myself. I have always been a little unsure of my fashion sense. I think Teddy dressed that way because she wanted to be taken more seriously. I’m not sure how well that was working.
What definitely was not working was the little fur-puff hat that Beverly Mullins had on. Gil’s wife sat two rows up from me and across the aisle. The hat was probably mink and undoubtedly expensive. Her recently deceased father-in-law had left Gil and Beverly very well-off. And the fact that the old man’s will had forced Gil to sell controlling interest of the family business to Gil’s cousin, Henry, had put even more money in their pockets. But even mink could be worn miserably. It might have been all right if she’d put her hair up. But, as usual, she’d simply pulled it all together with a clip at the nape of her neck. Her hair was almost the exact color of the hat, giving her a Davy Crockett appearance. Lexi caught my eye. She indicated with a glance that she too had noticed the would-be coonskin cap, and we shared a catty grin at Beverly’s expense as the music ended.
We stood up. We sat down. We stood up. We knelt. We stood. We sat. It was over and we filed out.
The sermon touched me virtually not at all. I’m not faulting the quality of the teaching or the delivery of the message. Honestly, I was rather in the habit of not listening. Sunday church was an extension of my social world. I’m not saying that I went there only to see and be seen. But I do admit to attending more out of routine than moral obligation.
The promise that I’d made in those frightening moments in the car felt more like an obligation than any religious injunction I’d ever encountered.
As David and I took leave of his parents and made our way through the parking lot, I considered that. My words, when I was trapped inside the car, indicated a belief in something that could make things change, in someone who could intervene. But I was not really aware, on a rational level, of any belief in that someone or something at all.
“Do you want me to take you to lunch?” David asked.
I shook my head.
The Loftons always went out for a meal after church. I was never interested, and my work was paramount on the biggest real estate day of the week.
“I’ll just drop you off then and grab a bite at the club,” he said.
I didn’t bother to answer. David had just come from the club. He’d already played eighteen holes that morning. I knew he wasn’t headed back there, but I’d grown accustomed to letting him get by with those little lies.
He unlocked the passenger’s side of his Volvo and opened it for me. It was an achingly sweet and deferential gesture. David might be carrying on a tacky affair with a bleached blonde twentysomething, but it was still in his nature to be attentive to his wife. I was grateful and I let him do it. Though when he shut the door behind me, I held my breath, claustrophobic, as he walked around the car to let himself in.
The minute he turned the key, I hit the button to open the sunroof.
He glanced in my direction.
“You’re not quite over it yet, huh.”
/> “It’s stuffy in here,” I lied. “Smells like golf shoes.”
He shrugged with apology.
The rush of traffic trying to get out of the church parking lot was horrendous, as usual. At least in the Volvo I felt relatively safe. In the Z3 I would have felt like a bug about to be squashed by a hundred, three-ton SUVs.
Of course none of these Suburbans or Expeditions were even close competition to the eighteen-wheel tanker that had squeezed me up against that guardrail and made my little BMW into a fiery coffin. A chill went through me. I was still afraid, I was still very afraid. And I couldn’t quite comprehend my survival. After all these years of not thinking much about my life, I now saw it as if it were over, and I wanted more.
I gazed out at the gray, overcast autumn day and the neighborhood lawns passing beyond my window.
“David,” I asked, “do you believe in God?”
“Sure,” he answered quickly and with complete confidence.
I looked over at him. It was strange, I suppose, that having been married to the man for twenty years this was the first time I’d thought to ask that.
“Do you ever…well…pray?”
He looked at me, puzzled. “Didn’t we just do that?” he asked rhetorically.
“No, I don’t mean in church,” I said. “I mean, do you ever ask God for things?”
“Like what things?”
“I don’t know, not things really. Do you ask God to help you?”
“Well, yeah,” he admitted.
“Really?”
“Sure,” he said. “All the time.”
“Does he answer?”
“He doesn’t speak to me from a burning bush,” David said, sounding a little defensive.
“Of course not,” I agreed. “But still, you ask him and you feel like he answers.”
He nodded. “If I’ve got something that I have to make a decision on and I’m not sure which way to go, I put it to him.”
“What do you say?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you say when you ask God to help you?”
“Well…it’s not so much that I say anything,” he explained.
David appeared increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation.
“Do you just assume that he knows and then assume that he answers?”
“I don’t assume anything,” he said. “I let God give me a sign.”
‘A sign.’
“Yeah, it’s like this, if I need to decide whether to enter the Pro-Am this year, I say, ‘Okay, if I make this hole in three strokes or less then the answer is yes. If it’s four, then it’s no.’”
I stared at him for a moment, disbelieving.
“You think that is the same thing as praying?”
“Well, maybe it’s not exactly praying. But golf is not completely a game of skill,” he assured me. “Luck plays a big part.”
“And luck is God?”
He nodded. “Well, sure,” then added, “if I think it’s not luck I do two out of three.”
So much for the omnipotent golf gods.
“Have you thought any more about therapy?” David asked me.
“I’m fine,” I assured him. “I lived through a frightening experience. But it’s over now and I’m almost completely back to normal.”
He chuckled. There was a skeptical sound to it.
“Well, if this is normal, it must be a new kind,” he said. “I don’t ever remember having such a deep conversation with you.”
The truth made me a little defensive.
“We’ve talked about serious stuff before,” I insisted. “Maybe not often, but sometimes we do. Anyway, we don’t have all that many serious things to discuss.”
“No, I guess not,” he agreed. “And we usually don’t talk at all on the way home from church. You’re always on the phone.”
“Oh my God!” I said suddenly, digging my cellular out of the bottom of my purse. “I forgot to turn it back on.”
It rang as soon as I did.
In the days that followed, I forced my life back into a more normal mode. I resumed working with a renewed enthusiasm that was only partly feigned. I clearly remembered my promise to do good. But I hadn’t gotten specific. Selling real estate is good. It’s honest, much-needed work, and it requires significant amounts of energy and creativity. Much more so than simply writing checks.
However, there was one more check that I wanted to write. I wanted to write it and simply put everything behind me. The man who had rescued me deserved a reward. Yet I hesitated to take that final step to closure.
Finally, on a Saturday morning, not too early, not too close to lunch, I drove out to the area of town where it had all happened. I hadn’t been out that way since that awful night. The very idea of being there again gave me an eerie feeling. I slowed down as I passed by, expecting to see something, but except for some scarring on the guardrail, there was no evidence that a man had died here, or that I had lived through the most frightening moments of my life.
I took the exit and backtracked to the Bluebonnet Manor Assisted Living Center. The parking lot was about half filled and I pulled the Z3 into a space that faced the freeway. As I got out of the car, I gazed down toward the site of the accident. It was a very long way. My vision was better than twenty-twenty with my contacts, but I couldn’t distinguish anything at that distance. I might have been able to see a wreck, but I wouldn’t have seen anybody trapped inside a car.
No one could have seen me. No one could have heard me.
I made my way to the wide, glassed-in entryway. Inside, the foyer was wide and nicely furnished with wood floors and expensive area rugs. A massive dark wood desk that was grand enough to be a dining table was the predominant feature of the reception area. Unfortunately, no one was seated there. A sign read Check In At Nursing Station, so I wandered on past and into the living-room area, which was rather heavily occupied.
A row of wheelchairs were parked in front of a television set that was turned up unpleasantly loud. The occupants didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the blaring game show with its flashing lights and excited, screaming participants. On the numerous couches, other aged people sat quietly, some watching, some not. One woman was talking nonstop to nobody in particular. Her conversation sounded as if she were recounting a bridge game. She was dressed to the nines, sported gigantic hair and makeup heavy enough for the stage.
I spotted a high counter at the juncture of two wide hallways. I took that to be the nurses’ station, though no one was there either. I walked over and stood for several minutes just waiting.
I had assumed that an assisted living center was somehow different from a nursing home, that the patients would be younger, healthier, and that the atmosphere would be more upbeat. I saw absolutely none of that at Bluebonnet Manor.
“May I help you?”
I was startled out of my thoughts by a heavyset woman in a pink uniform pantsuit. Her words were polite, but her tone was not. She sounded annoyed. As if my presence was unwelcome.
“I’m here to see Chester Durbin,” I said.
She gave me a long, assessing look. “Are you a member of the family?”
I probably should have told her that I was the woman Chester saved in the car accident, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to confide anything to the woman.
“No, I’m…I’m a friend,” I answered.
She immediately seemed to lose interest.
“Twenty-two,” she said, pointing down one of the hallways. “He should be up in a chair.”
I made my way in the direction she indicated. Like the main room, this area was heavily populated with patients, some in wheelchairs or pushing walkers, others on their own, but still hanging close to the wooden handrails on either side of the corridor.
Room twenty-two was near the far end of the vinyl-tiled passage. The door was half-open. More than a little hesitantly, I peeked inside. I thought I had the wrong room. I double-checked the number beside the
door, then looked again.
In the yellow glow of a gaudy table lamp, a very little old man, emaciatedly thin, sat in a faded recliner. His plaid sport shirt hung upon his frame as if a couple of sizes too large. His legs were crossed in front of him and looked like there was more trouser fabric than flesh and bone. His feet were bound up in some kind of strange bandage material and he wore little slippers that had a high-tech look, quite incongruent with the rest of his fashion statement.
“Mr. Durbin?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I was disconcerted by the sight of him, familiar, yet so unlike what I remembered.
“Yes, come in,” he encouraged after a moment. “You’re looking for me?”
“Ah…ah, yes, sir,” I answered, stumbling a little over the words. “I’m Jane Lofton, remember me?”
He laughed. “At my age, I’m lucky to remember myself,” he joked.
“I’m the woman from the car,” I said.
His brow furrowed, puzzled. “The car?”
“The car in the accident,” I said. “Down on the freeway. You saved me.”
“Of course, you’re the young lady in the convertible,” he said.
I never bicker with the word young when used to describe me, and I certainly didn’t in this case. My rescuer seemed infinitely older than I recalled, and surprisingly frail.
“Have a seat, have a seat,” he coaxed, patting the threadbare armchair beside him. “Let me have a look at you.”
With hesitance, I seated myself, wishing I hadn’t come. I should have just put a check in the mail.
He leaned forward slightly, a grimace distorting his face as he peered at me through rheumy eyes and thick glasses.
“You’re looking real good this morning,” he said.
I nodded. “I’m sure I look a lot better than I did that night. I’m feeling a lot better, too.”
“Good, good,” he said. “Wasn’t that something? I can tell you that night was the most excitement we’ve seen around this place in a month of Sundays. Your life must be a lot more interesting.”