Potter Springs

by Britta Coleman

  I need Sundays for us, a lover’s Sabbath, not waiting for hours while you schmooze with the tithers after church.

  She picked the broken pieces out. Ones missing the pointed white tip, or cracked in half. These, she ate. But their sweetness spread bitter on her tongue.

  I need to talk about our child. The one who died. Let’s use words like loss and grief and heartache and admit our lives aren’t anything like we thought.

  But unspoken sorrows had fermented to anger. Acid, just below the surface. Amanda feared the sputtering bile would burn them both, should she crack that lid.

  “I need,” she started, the words choked inside her. Their sharpness hung on the sides of her throat. Fresh burrs on tender flesh. “I don’t know what I need.”

  “Come on. It’s all set up. A chance to get away. You’ve been so … unhappy.” A protein mustache covered his lip. He looked like an oversize boy. Lost and bewildered.

  “So, why would I want to get away? To be unhappy with people who don’t even know me?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I’m sorry if I’ve been a burden-”

  “I can’t stand seeing you like this.” His confession strung an invisible banner in the late-morning air.

  She played with it in her mind. Folded the streamer into new shapes.

  I can’t stand seeing you like this.

  I can’t stand seeing you.

  I can’t stand you.

  It tried to tangle her, this twisted string. Knotted up, she closed her eyes and prayed for freedom. The sun touched her face through the screen door, but not enough to warm her.

  “Although”-Mark took a heavy swallow of the thick drink- “I’m glad you’re taking an interest in the house.” He glanced uncertainly at the glow-in-the-dark skeleton, kicking his heels up on the front door.

  “This is your solution? Sending me to Colorado? So you don’t have to see me like this?” She stared back at him, not caring about her red eyes and inflamed nose. He should be used to them by now.

  “Stop. You know that’s not what I mean.”

  “I don’t have a say in this at all, do I?”

  “No. N-o, Amanda Reynolds. You have no say-so.” Surprising her, he set the glass on a nearby table without a coaster. His tennis shoes squeaked on the hardwood floors.

  He folded her in his arms. She smelled the salt on his skin, the sweet of the drink on his lips. She folded herself into him, wishing she could disappear.

  “See, I can do it,” he whispered. “I’m taking a stand. You need to go to Colorado.”

  They stood in the doorway, embracing. Appearing, for all the world to see, like snuggly newlyweds.

  “For both our sakes, you need to go.”

  THE WOMEN ARRIVED for Amanda nearly a week later, early Thursday morning. They swarmed out and grabbed her bedding from the entryway. A few waved to Mark, as an afterthought, but mostly they buzzed around his wife like a prize pie at a summer fair.

  Amanda stood as if frozen, not showing her panic. Mark sensed it, though. A silent, high-pitched alarm. An impending warning.

  Mark rubbed her arm. “Mandy, you remember Shelinda James, from moving day? And here’s Missy Underwood and Pam Hart. You might not know Kendra Sue McAllister. She leads Bible studies at the church.” He gestured to a woman with glasses and mousy brown hair.

  “Hello.” Amanda stayed stock-still.

  He wished she would give them a chance. Give him a chance. He missed the dazzling Amanda, the one who lit up a room with her presence. Her fire. Her laughter. The spirit that made him soar.

  If he saw her glimmer again, even just for a second, it might give him the strength to carry on.

  Maybe he hoped for too much. Maybe this was all a huge mistake.

  Shelinda tugged Amanda’s sweatshirt sleeve. “Don’t look like that. We’re fixin’ to have some fun!” The woman laughed at Amanda’s dour expression. “Just wait until we have our evening celebrations. The ones where we cut the heads off live chickens! Course, that’s after the public confessions and ceremonial cleansings. I’m telling you, it’ll bring you close to the Lord!”

  Mark didn’t find Shelinda’s gentle terrorization of his wife remotely funny. Then he caught a hint of Amanda’s smile as she followed the others to the bus-size SUV in the driveway.

  God bless Shelinda James.

  Mark loaded Amanda’s suitcase in the roomy luggage area. He rearranged sleeping bags and hanging clothes in a more efficient arrangement. Finished, he quizzed Shelinda. “I’m assuming you know the way?”

  “Sure do,” she sassed back. “Colorado’s what, west of here?”

  “Oh.” Frosty breath exited in a puff of anxiety. Mark attempted a chuckle, but it sounded more like a hiccup or a wheeze. “Do any of you have a cell phone? Just in case?”

  To the chorusing yeses, he nodded, approving. He walked Amanda around to her side. Kissing her brow, he whispered, “I’ll miss you.”

  “Me too.” She clenched his shirt, tight.

  “And I love you.” He tugged her fingers away, squeezed them and let go.

  “Me too.” She turned to stuff her pillow in the car.

  The door, larger than the entire broadside of Amanda’s Toyota, closed and latched. Sealing his wife’s future for the next three days.

  Maybe his as well.

  They scraped away, running over his morning newspaper. Mark waved until he couldn’t see them anymore. Precious cargo.

  His day stretched before him, the pink light just touching the oak next door, brushing on its pointy leaves.

  The house looked at him. Empty.

  Her car sat in the open garage, dust covering the faded red paint.

  An idea struck him with pleasure. He got the keys and started the Toyota with a clinking hum. Backing it out, he found the floorboard full of muck and the seat seams stuffed with crumbs. The interior would need a full cleaning too, but he’d start with the exterior.

  The water from the hose splashed cold on his hands, liquid ice. He relished the sting and the soapy bubbles, caressing the hatchback’s dinged panels, washing at the rust. The sun rose higher and warmed him at his work. He whistled through the easy labor.

  He needed to do this for her. He needed to show her, without words. A small thing for the woman of his heart.

  He only wished he could do more.

  CHAPTER 17

  retreat

  The bell above the Toot ‘n’ Totem jangled when the five women entered. The convenience store greeted Amanda with the distinct smells of coffee and hot dogs. Fresh doughnuts shone in a gleaming case.

  “Hey, girls,” a familiar voice called from a side booth. “Y’all headed out for the retreat?” Dale Ochs sat with a group of men gathered over ceramic mugs.

  “Yessir,” Shelinda said.

  He waved them over, but Amanda pretended not to see. Instead, she wove her way past boxes of paper towels and found the women’s restroom, wondering what she’d gotten herself into for the weekend.

  The stall next to her clicked shut. “I like your shoes,” Kendra Sue complimented.

  “Thanks.” Amanda wore her most rugged style, hiking boots that Mother hated. Mountain shoes. “I like yours too.”

  Kendra Sue had on Birkenstocks with rainbow fleece socks. “They’re my traveling shoes.” She did a little tap dance on the floor, and Amanda laughed. “Got to be fashionable, you know.”

  “You got any extra toilet paper over there?” Pam called from the other side. “I’m out.”

  Amanda passed some under the divider. “Here you go.”

  She finished up and washed her hands. Missy stood by the sink, and the hot-air dryer whirred behind Shelinda. “I always add chilies to my cheese grits,” the taller woman was saying. “It adds that little bit of pep.”

  “I’ve heard blue cheese is good too,” Missy said.

  “Chocolate,” Shelinda announced as she followed Amanda into the shopping area. “We need chocolate.”

  Dale Ochs and his cronies had left
. The women loaded up on candy bars and diet Cokes. Girl food. Pam bought a fried burrito and Missy sipped a blue Slurpee.

  “Just don’t spill it on the seats,” teased Shelinda.

  Next to the register was a plastic bucket with a picture of a child’s face on it. Help send Lou Bell to Houston for chemo treatments! read the handwritten paper. God bless you!

  She was a beautiful girl, with a front tooth missing. Her smile spoke of innocence and hope.

  Amanda put money in and took her bag from the cashier. The bell jingled again and she found her spot in the Suburban. They hit the highway at top speed, leaving the Panhandle behind in a great golden river.

  Shelinda drove while Kendra Sue rode shotgun in a dual role of navigator and conversation starter. In the second row, Amanda and Pam presided over the snacks. Missy sat in the third row of seats, stuffed in with the jackets and extra blankets.

  Time flew as steadily as the Michelins over the asphalt as they talked nonstop, pausing only to sing along to songs pouring out of Shelinda’s CD changer.

  Kendra Sue flipped a page in her book of questions. “All right, here’s a good one. ’When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?’”

  “Children!” Pam perked up as if she’d waited the whole ride for this precise moment. Dressed in a vibrant pink and green running suit, she made a violent swish sound as she twisted toward Amanda. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve just been dying to ask-when are you and Mark going to start?”

  The blood rushed from Amanda’s head. The highway whirred outside as vertigo blurred her vision.

  Kendra Sue winced. “You know, Amanda, you don’t have to answer all the questions. We just want to have fun. Not be… well… nosy.”

  “Nosy yourself! I’m a grandma. It’s not nosy, it’s natural.” Pam was undeterred by the gentle rebuke. “My daughter in Chitapee started right away. Didn’t want to be hauling toddlers around when she’s forty-five. Not like some women do these days.” She wrinkled her nose at such thoughtlessness. “So, when?” Pam urged a response.

  “That’s a good question,” Amanda stalled. Her voice sounded like it came from someone else. “Our parents wonder the same thing.”

  “Now, that’s no kind of an answer.” Pam’s face took on a bulldog quality. “Why not start now? Mark’s got a good job, y’all have that adorable little house. What’s holding you back?”

  “It’s not that we’re holding back, exactly.”

  “Aha! Next year maybe? It’ll be so much fun. We can have showers, I’ll host. You won’t want for a thing-”

  “We’re not supposed to.” Amanda blurted the words out, a short burst of gas from the cesspot. She clamped her lips shut, forbidding any more to escape.

  “Not supposed to? Not supposed to what?” Pam’s face contorted into shock, then compassion. “Oh, Amanda. You poor thing! What you and Mark do in the bedroom is all right.” She patted her knee. “It’s the Lord’s design, you see. For the man and woman to come together. Tell her, Kendra Sue. You taught that study on marriage. Tell her about the leave-and-cleave.”

  “I don’t think that’s what she means.” Kendra Sue set a soft gaze on Amanda. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Wait a minute. Why in the world shouldn’t she be supposed to? Other than adultery, fornication”-Pam numbered off sexual immoralities like a grocery list-“lust, lewdness-unless you just flat-out can’t.” She appraised Amanda’s figure. “Some sort of a condition?”

  Amanda wished a large hole would open up in the bottom of the Suburban and she could roll to safety, or get crushed by an oncoming car. Either way, she didn’t mind, as long as removal from Pam’s presence was part of the package.

  Flipping through the question book, Kendra Sue burst out, “I know-how about another question?”

  Amanda twisted her pillowcase until the flesh of her fingers turned white. She stared at its floral folds as if she’d find a different strain of conversation wrapped around the dark green vines.

  “Found one.” Kendra’s announcement released an iota of tension from the now confining quarters. “Pam, your turn. ’Who is the person, living or dead, you most admire?’”

  Pam moved on from her impromptu interrogation to wax eloquent about her ancestors, children and, of course, Jesus. Amanda prayed instant and numerous blessings on her new best friend, Kendra Sue.

  A small pressure fell on Amanda’s shoulder. Light as a leaf in October, a touch to get her attention. Missy, quiet in the back.

  “You’ve lost a baby,” she whispered.

  It wasn’t a question. The truth. Uttered and made real.

  Amanda hadn’t told. She’d held fast to the unspoken promise. Loyalty to Mark, to her own integrity, had built an ugly, stucco facade. Slapped together with pain and hypocrisy, the weight had nearly suffocated her.

  “Yes.” A slab of moldy plaster fell away. Amanda wiggled her seat belt to turn backward.

  “I’m so sorry. My goodness.” Little fingers grasped hers over the seat back. Strong and dry and warm. “I’m just so sorry.”

  Narrow beams of light streamed into Amanda’s cave, bringing fresh air and hope. She breathed it in deep. “Thank you.” Not knowing what else to say, Amanda simply tightened her fingers and held on.

  “I’ve had two,” Missy said. “Miscarriages, I mean.”

  “You? But you’ve got the baby, the other children. And they’re all-”

  “Healthy as can be. Doctor said one in four is a miss. Can be genetic, can be a fluke.” Missy wiped her watering eyes with her free hand. “Didn’t feel like a fluke at the time, though. Felt awful.”

  “I know.” And Amanda’s wasn’t a fluke. Her body was the fluke. Her womb, a failure. Close to impossible, the doctor had said. His eyes as cold as his hands.

  But she couldn’t reveal that part. Not to Missy. Not to anyone.

  “It took a long time for me to even get back to church.” Missy looked down. “See, we’d told everybody, and then when I wasn’t pregnant anymore, I just didn’t know how to face them.”

  Amanda couldn’t tell if her car mates were oblivious to the conversation, or were allowing privacy for kindness’ sake. Sound traveled strangely in the Suburban. Hard to be sure. Still, she took comfort in their discretion, even as she kept her voice low. “How did you?”

  “Do what?”

  “Start facing people?” Amanda wondered if she’d ever be able to face people again. To be herself and not the person hiding behind the stucco.

  “Oh, it started small, I guess. The ones who came to the house after I lost the baby. The friends who cried with me, who let me talk about it. And then, of course, God helped. But not for a while. Right after it happened, I didn’t want anything to do with God. Too hurt, maybe.” Missy’s voice ran in a rush. “I know that’s not the spiritual thing to say, to the pastor’s wife and all.”

  Amanda shook her head and nodded at the same time. “No, it’s okay. Go ahead.”

  Missy’s chin thrust out. “It’s true. I was mad at God, and I didn’t want to pray or go to church or hear about his blessings at all. ’Cause the way I saw it he’d stolen my blessing away. Coulda stopped it, but he didn’t.”

  “So how’d you … you know … get over it?”

  “I don’t think you ever get over something like that.”

  Amanda’s heart shrank. Not ever?

  “I guess I just learned to get through it. Crying makes it better.”

  “I can’t seem to stop crying,” Amanda confessed. “Over everything.”

  “Talking helps too. That’s how I started up with God again, realizing he hadn’t forgotten me after all. He sent those women, girlfriends, to walk me through it.”

  “I haven’t been able to. Talk, I mean. The dates”-Amanda met Missy’s gaze and risked honesty-“they don’t add up right. For a pastor’s wife.”

  Missy chewed on her lip for a minute. “Jimmy and me, ours are that way too.” She blushed. “I won’t say anyt
hing. You can trust me. And if you ever want to talk about it…” Missy tipped her head toward the other women, now belting out show tunes from Oklahoma. “Oh, the cowman and the farmer should be friends…”

  “Other people will understand too. If you give ’em a chance. You might be surprised.”

  Amanda eyed her fellow carpoolers. Yes, they might surprise her. Yet, life had taught her, she mused over the next few hours, not all surprises were good ones.

  THE COLORADO RETREAT center resembled an old-time log cabin village, nestled amidst pines and mountains. The air thinned, and emerging from Shelinda’s Suburban, Amanda felt lighter too. The late afternoon sun blazed high, yet the heat didn’t seem to reach the parking lot. Amanda hugged herself against the cool, and drank deep of the scent of wilderness.

  “We’re here!” Pam announced to no one in particular, unfolding from the vehicle.

  Kendra Sue dug in her book bag. “I think they’ve got us bunked in the main cabin.” She pointed to a larger building.

  “I hope we’re roommates.” Missy trailed alongside Amanda, juggling her pillow and a duffel bag.

  “I’d like that.” They stepped into the warm hallway, already filled with women ready for the retreat. Some smiled and said hello to Amanda as they walked past.

  “Oh, here’s mine. I’m with Kendra Sue.” Missy smiled an apology, waved bye and disappeared across the hall. Next door, Pam informed Shelinda that she needed the bunk by the bathroom as she had severe diarrhea that morning and would most likely be up all night.

  Amanda found her room-two matching name tags announced that her roommate would be Peggy Plumley. A nice surprise.

  Shelinda shot a look and mouthed, “Wanna trade?”

  Amanda grinned and shook her head no. Inside, she put her suitcase and pillow on the bed closest to the door. A picture window framed the soaring mountains outside. Atop each single bed, covered in patchwork quilts, lay school-type paper folders. Hers was green.

  Inside, a stack of inserts detailed the weekend’s activities. She skimmed through the lists of sessions, meal schedules, and noted the free time to go hiking or take a nap.