by Sarah Smiley
I stared at him a moment. How did he know I was alone? How did he know I have boys? And why hadn’t I heard of this “Community Church” before?
“I’m sorry. We already have a church,” I said, closing the door. It was a lie, but I was scared.
The man put his foot between the door and the frame. “If you’d just hear us out,” he said. “We’d like to ask you—”
“I’m sorry,” I said, looking down at my wrinkled clothes. “I just woke up and I’m a bit disoriented. Do you think you could come back later?”
Come back later? Dammit, Sarah, I said to myself. Just tell this guy to get the hell away!
“We won’t be in your neighborhood later, ma’am, and we really would like to talk to you. You see, we just baptized Rachel down at the river. Have your boys been properly baptized?” He inched himself farther into the doorway.
My heart was beating in my throat. Ford peeked out from between my legs.
“They have,” I said, “and I really appreciate your asking, but I just got up, and I’m really—”
Tell him to leave, Sarah. Tell him to leave!
“And have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” the man asked.
I pushed harder on the door, hoping he couldn’t open it all the way with his weight.
Owen woke up and his crying floated through the house to the foyer. It started as a soft whimper but quickly escalated to a frantic wail. If the man heard Owen’s cries, he gave no clue. He was staring directly at me.
“Look,” I said. “I really need to go get my baby and I don’t have time. If you could just leave a card or something—”
No, Sarah! Just tell him to leave, dammit!
“Are you telling me this is an inconvenient time to accept Jesus into your heart?” the man said.
Tanner had woken up now, and she staggered into the foyer, stretching each of her hind legs before noticing something was amiss. When it occurred to her that the man at the door was a stranger, she leaped forward, her long nails clicking on the wood, and started barking. She would never go outside without my permission, so I didn’t bother reaching down to grab her collar. She stood at the threshold and barked so excitedly her whole body shook.
Took you long enough, I thought.
But the man didn’t seem frightened by Tanner’s display. I guess twenty-five-pound, elderly dogs aren’t that much of a threat.
“That’s a purty dog you got there,” the man said. He winked at Ford. “Is that your little puppy, son?”
My hands were trembling; muscles in my stomach tensed. Yet I was still smiling at the stranger and the girl with bangs, wasn’t I?
What is wrong with you, Sarah? Just tell the man to leave!
Then suddenly, feeling a bit like a mother bear protecting her cubs, I pulled back my foot and kicked the man’s shin. He doubled over and I slammed the door. I flipped the metal latch—click!—and pressed my back against the closed door.
“We only want to help you,” the man called out. “May God bless you and your family.”
That afternoon I met Jody and Courtney for lunch at a deli downtown.
“So you just kicked him?” Courtney said, unfolding a napkin and placing it in her lap. “Right in the shin?”
I nodded. “Yep, I actually feel kind of bad about it though.”
Jody was still paying for her meal at the counter, so I cut Ford’s grilled-cheese sandwich and gave half to Jody’s son. “Here, Michael, eat this,” I said. “Your mom’s on her way.”
He took a bite of the nine-grain bread and stuck out his tongue. “Yuck! What is this stuff?” he said.
I turned back to Courtney. “Isn’t there a story in the Bible about Jesus knocking on a man’s door, but the man doesn’t recognize Jesus and turns Him away?”
“I can assure you, Sarah, the man at your house wasn’t Jesus.” She took the cap off her bottled water. “You did the right thing.”
“No, no,” I said, shaking my head and staring down at the table. “I just slammed the door on Jesus, didn’t I? My gosh, what kind of person am I? What does that do to my karma? Or is it dharma?”
“You did not slam the door on Jesus!” Courtney was beginning to sound irritated. “And it’s karma. K-a-r-m-a.”
Jody walked up and dropped her tray on the table. A piece of bread fell off the top of her sandwich, exposing a pile of tomatoes and bacon.
“Who shut a door on Jesus?” she asked and looked back and forth between us. “Oh, wait, let me guess—Sarah?”
She sat down and got situated, divvying up French fries and sodas between her boys, as I retold the story about the man and the girl. Jody nearly blew lemonade out her nose. “Only you, Sarah!” she said. “Remember that time some high school girl came to your door?”
“Yes, please don’t remind me. Do we have to go over this again?”
Jody’s round face was red with amusement. “She said she needed to practice her public speaking, right? Isn’t that what it was? She said she was nervous talking to strangers, and you slammed the door in her face. That girl will probably be in therapy for the rest of her life.”
“I thought she had a gun,” I said.
“She did not have a gun!” Jody turned toward Courtney. “The girl came to my door, too. She was selling books to raise money for the band.”
Courtney put a napkin to her mouth to hide her laughter. “Did she come to your door before or after Sarah’s?” she asked.
Jody smiled. “Well, before, of course. I’m sure the girl went straight to therapy after Sarah was done with her.”
“Very funny, guys,” I said and leaned over the stroller to put Owen’s pacifier back in his mouth. “The girl had her hand in the pocket of a long black trench coat and it looked like a gun. What was I supposed to do?”
Courtney groaned. “I don’t know why you even open the door for these people. Don’t you have a peephole? Why do you even give them a chance?”
“I just feel bad for them, I guess. I don’t know.”
We all focused on our meals for a moment. Ford threw a French fry on the floor and Jody’s younger son, Brandon, giggled. Jody was watching them and smiling. Soft crow’s-feet appeared at the sides of her eyes.
“A year is a long time,” she said softly, and it seemed like the entire deli came to a halt.
In fact, didn’t the world stop just then?
The three of us looked back and forth at one another. We knew Jody was saying what we all were thinking: The guys were gone and we could feel it in every part of our day, every inch of our being.
Then Courtney broke the silence. “Well, you know what I always say: just more closet space for me!” She chewed noisily on her salad and smiled at us.
The clattering of plates and utensils coming from behind the deli counter seemed to resume. Life resumed. And I knew then that I had already settled into a new state of existing.
It happens to military spouses at different times, but eventually everyone wears her new reality—the reality of being alone and afraid—like a cast. And as with a broken limb, you learn to function in spite of the crippling sense that you’re just barely hanging on. It’s only later that you look back and say, “How on earth did I get through that?”
I looked at Courtney and Jody. They were chewing their food and glancing around at the other diners—some of whom were with their spouses or whole family. And there we were, three lonely women trying to pretend everything was OK and that our lives were “normal.” Whatever “normal” is.
I leaned in over the table and said to them in a whisper, “I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow.”
Courtney gasped. “With the Cute Doctor?”
“Of course, who else?”
“I don’t know how you do it,” she said.
“Do what?”
“How you can go for an exam with this man who you claim is so incredibly attractive.”
“Courtney’s right,” Jody said. “I could never go to a male doctor. I jus
t wouldn’t feel comfortable.”
“Especially because all these military doctors know we’re alone half the time,” Courtney added.
I put down my sandwich and wiped my mouth. “It’s not like that, guys. The Cute Doctor wasn’t always cute. He became that way—I’m not sure exactly when.”
“I think psychologists call that transference,” Jody said.
Courtney wasn’t buying it either. “So you’re telling me you never knew he was cute until Owen was born?”
“Exactly. I mean, obviously I knew he was good-looking, but I never got nervous around him, like I do now.” I took a sip of tea and stared out across the restaurant. A man was helping his wife take a baby carrier out of the restaurant. “I don’t know. It’s hard to explain,” I said. “Dr. Ashley is so sensitive, and attentive, and calm. He takes care of me.”
“Well, just be careful,” Jody said. “It’s fine to have a crush—married people are allowed to notice attractive people, after all—but don’t let it come between you and Dustin.”
For someone who was normally unemotional and never revealed much about her own marriage, Jody surprised me with her insights into other people’s relationships. Her ability to stay objective was something I admired.
“How very perceptive,” Courtney said and smiled at Jody. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“What?” Jody said. “You think you’re the only one who can be prosaic?”
Courtney stifled a laugh. We both stared at her.
“What?” Jody said again.
“Prosaic means ‘mundane,’ ‘ordinary,’ ‘colorless,’ ” Courtney said. “I think you meant to say ‘poetic.’ ”
I gazed at Jody. She didn’t like to be called out like that.
“Thanks. I’ll make a note of it,” she said and sneered across the table.
But Courtney just smiled with satisfaction.
The next day, Owen and I were scheduled for back-to-back appointments with Dr. Ashley, aka Cute Doctor. Owen was having his six-week checkup, and I was having my six-week postpartum exam. Because military hospitals are often understaffed and Dr. Ashley was technically our “family physician,” he scheduled the appointments one after the other to save me time.
I told you he was great.
I didn’t think I was nervous about the appointments until that morning, when I found myself painting my toenails and feeling nauseous each time I thought of Dustin.
It was true what I had told Courtney and Jody: While I once saw Dr. Ashley—with his slightly rounded shoulders, gold-rimmed glasses, and receding hairline—as a bit geeky, at some point he miraculously morphed into the world’s most incredible doctor and the sexiest, smartest man alive.
Once, when I was pregnant with Owen and obsessing over the possibility of having gestational diabetes, Dr. Ashley calmly said to me, “I know you worry about things, Sarah, but don’t lose sleep over this. It’s going to be OK, and I’ll call you just as soon as I get the test results back. Promise.”
Dustin, however, sat in the corner of the exam room, fed up with my hysteria. “You just need to chill out,” he said angrily.
We fought the whole way home that day, and when I told Dustin that Dr. Ashley had been sensitive where he was, let’s see . . . a jerk, Dustin said, “Yeah, it’s real easy for him to put up with you for twenty minutes every two weeks, but I’m the one who has to live with you!”
From the very beginning, Dr. Ashley and I had a certain kind of chemistry. Even before he became so cute, I always knew if he weren’t my doctor, we’d be friends. He was close to my age, single, and we shared the same sense of humor. Even the unpleasantries of being pregnant and going to prenatal exams were made easier with his lighthearted jokes and his radiant, toothpaste-commercial smile.
But that was before everything started to change. It was before Dustin, in predeployment mode, became distant; before I was facing another six months alone; and—most of all—before I was twentysomething years old with two kids and a house.
Ford, Owen, and I got to the hospital just after lunch and just in time to smell the aroma of heated meats and sauerkraut coming from the vendors on the sidewalk outside.
I have always said that going to a military hospital is a little like going to the store to buy Pepsi and coming home with the store brand “cola.” They are stripped of everything but the essentials. There are no carpeted waiting rooms with aquariums and glossy-covered copies of Child magazine. No, military waiting rooms are more likely to be littered with public-service brochures with titles such as “How to Discipline Your Children When Your Spouse Is Away,” and “Is It Postpartum Depression or Predeployment Blues?” And the brochures are never fanned out in a pretty way on the coffee table. Usually they’re just scattered across the seats and floor, with boot marks across the places where they’ve been stepped on. And like the lobby they reside in, the brochures are also stripped down to the essentials: stick-figure illustrations in black-and-white.
I went to a civilian hospital once. It was like arriving at a Saks Fifth Avenue after shopping at Wal-Mart: The automatic doors slid open, cool air-conditioned air feathered my hair, and the mahogany receptionist’s desk looked like a majestic ship surrounded by plump waiting chairs and sofas. I could swear I heard choirs singing and joyous bells ringing when I stepped onto the ceramic-tile floor and gazed at the wall filled with oil paintings and hanging greenery.
I had been admitted to the civilian hospital to deliver Ford because the military facility was full and could not accommodate me. The room I gave birth in was nicer than our living room. It had wood floors, an oak armoire for hanging up my clothes, and believe it or not, an actual remote control (with batteries and no duct tape holding it together!) for the large-screen television hanging across from the bed. The room was so cozy, I could almost forget I was there to give birth to an eight-pound baby and that my mother-in-law was bugging me about the pecan pie.
It was almost like a vacation. “But where are all the instruments?” I had asked the civilian nurse. “Where are the forceps and needles and speculums?”
At military hospitals, I was used to seeing these things—things a patient never should have to look at if she doesn’t want to vomit.
The large redheaded nurse turned and looked at me as if I were crazy. “For Heaven’s sake,” she said, “why would you want to see those things? We tuck them away in that wooden dresser over yonder.”
What a concept!
Yet, despite all my complaining about military hospitals, it felt like “coming home” when I stepped through the sliding double doors and walked the boys up the stairs to the family practice wing. After all, I was literally born and raised in military hospitals, and there was a certain amount of familiarity and safety in them for me.
Dr. Ashley had made my appointment near lunchtime, so there was no wait, and a nurse escorted me to one of his exam rooms as soon as I had checked in.
The barren room with fluorescent lights was frigid, so I bundled more blankets around Owen in his carrier and made Ford put on a jacket. Then I got out books and crayons from the diaper bag and handed them to Ford.
“Be good,” I told him. “And remember, no touching the dirty hospital floors and walls! If you need waterless soap, Mommy’s got it in her purse.”
I fidgeted with my hair and tried to find the best, most slimming, way to sit when Dr. Ashley came in.
A few minutes later, he came into the exam room dressed in blue scrubs and a white overcoat. He seemed to be moving in slow motion, like a Diet Coke commercial. I could almost imagine him with his shirt off and beads of sweat dripping down his back. My knees went weak at the thought. No, no, no, I told myself. I can control my feelings. . . . I can control my feelings.
Dr. Ashley smiled at me and the boys, then collapsed into a chair like an old friend falling onto his neighbor’s sofa.
“Man, what a day!” he said and pulled off his glasses to rub his eyes. “How have you guys been?”
“Grea
t,” I said, “the weather’s perfect.” Then I immediately cursed myself for doing small talk. Dr. Ashley wasn’t a small-talk kind of person—was he?
He pulled a pen out of the front pocket of his coat and flipped through Owen’s records. “So any problems with this little guy?” he said. “How’s his sleeping? And eating? Are you still nursing?”
I couldn’t look at Dr. Ashley’s deep blue eyes without feeling nervous, so I stared at a poster with a diagram of a uterus on it above his head.
“Yep. All good!” I said, purposefully avoiding the last question, lest I be forced to say “breast” or anything similar.
Why did I always feel like a teenager around him? I wondered. Why was I suddenly overly aware of my nose and my lipstick and my breath?
My foot tapped uncontrollably on the cement floor. I put a hand on my knee to steady it.
Dr. Ashley looked at me thoughtfully and put down his clipboard and pen. “Are you sure everything’s OK? You look a little tense. What’s up?”
“Nothing’s up,” I said. “Really! We’re doing great. And, oh, it’s a beautiful day out. Did I already say that?”
Damn!
Dr. Ashley smiled crookedly and pulled his spinning stool closer. Since when are crooked smiles sexy? I thought.
“You can talk to me about anything,” he said. “You know that, right, Sarah?”
I nodded and looked away. My foot started tapping again. I knew Dr. Ashley was going to grill me until I gave him an answer; he knew me well enough to know I was nervous. I had to come up with something. Wasn’t there anything that had been bothering me in the last few days? Anything that didn’t involve fantasizing about Dr. Ashley’s wispy blond hair?
Then, with a rush of adrenaline that reminded me of standing on the edge of the high dive when I was ten years old, I blurted out, “Well, so long as you’re asking, there is this little thing with Owen. It’s silly, really, but he . . . well, he sometimes smells like pancake syrup and . . . and . . . um . . . his pe . . . his pe . . . pe . . .”
“Penis?” Dr. Ashley supplied.
“Yes, that. Well, it’s . . . um . . . it’s, you know, kind of purple.”
Dr. Ashley cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. Did you say he smells like syrup and his penis is purple?”