by Sarah Smiley
Even though she was still too far away, I knew she had on white panty hose with no socks, and that her deceased father’s tie clip was fastened like a brooch to her collar. It was her “uniform” of sorts, and I never expected anything less. Only Doris could get away with wearing panty hose, tennis shoes, an old wool sweater, and an antique tie clip all in the same outfit.
She walked toward us, a subtle frown on her soft, wrinkled face and her full skirt swishing behind her, then gave us her typical hello: “Well, I declare! I’ve never seen such gooney people in all my life. I tell you, I’m never traveling by train again.”
I hugged her around the shoulders and could feel her frail bones beneath my arms. “Hello, Doris,” I said. “Good to see you.”
“How are you, dear?” She pulled back from my embrace and studied my face. “Am I ever happy to be here! Lord willing, I’m never riding by train again. Did I already say that? I’ve never seen such goofy people in all my life.”
She bent at the waist to look at Ford and coo at Owen. Mom and I each picked up one of the Adidas duffel bags at Doris’s feet and started to lead her toward the door. I knew Doris would complain about the trip the whole way home, and that she would say a few more times that she would never travel by train again, but neither Mom nor I believed her. Doris is terrified of flying—a trait she has passed down to her daughter and granddaughter—and though she would talk about all the “gooney people” on the train, after the shock of the trip wore off, suddenly she would tell us they were the most magnificent and interesting people she had ever met. “In fact,” she’d say, “I think I’ll write a book about them.”
From the backseat, Ford was mesmerized by Doris’s commotion—her loud voice and nonstop chatter—reminding me of the way I felt as child . . . like Doris was a one-woman circus.
Doris had never been to my new house, and I was both excited and anxious to see her reaction. When my grandfather Big Jack died two years before, Doris had to move out of her home of more than thirty years and take up residence at a “retirement apartment.” During the transition, she gave me many of her most treasured belongings that wouldn’t fit into the new place. Those pieces—an antique sideboard standing against my red wall, an oil painting of a basket of flowers hanging above, and Mom’s old red rocking chair from when she was a baby—filled the front room of my house with the comforting smell of baby powder and old wood I remembered from Doris and Big Jack’s home. On the piano’s ledge, next to the metal lamp, was a framed picture of Big Jack standing on the beach, waving hello with his hat, and a brittle sand dollar Doris had found in the sand for me when I was younger.
We stepped inside the front door and Doris put a hand to her chest when she saw the room. “Lord, have mercy!” she said. “It’s gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous!”
“So you like it,” I said. “You like the red? Mom thinks I need to change it.”
“Heavens, no!” Doris said, tightening the wool sweater around her neck and throwing a loose end over her shoulder. (She wears a sweater at all times—even indoors and in the heat of summer. She says it makes her “sinuses feel better.”)
“See, Mom,” I said. “I knew that color was perfect. Even Doris likes it.”
“Now wait a minute,” Doris said, her face suddenly turning into a scowl. The jowls on the sides of her face shook. “I didn’t say nothing about likin’ that red wall. Don’t you be dragging me into the middle of this. I meant that my piano is gorgeous. Simply gorgeous.”
I sighed with defeat.
Late that night, after Mom and the boys had gone to bed, I stayed up to sit with Doris on the couch. Doris never sleeps in a bed. Even before Big Jack died, she slept on the couch while he went upstairs. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be with Big Jack—even if he was a Republican—it was more about Doris’s anxiety, or her “sinuses,” as she liked to say. The couch was her personal crutch, and when she settled into the throw pillows on my sofa, I knew she wouldn’t be getting up again for the rest of the trip, except to get a cup of coffee and to use the restroom.
“How are you, dear?” she said and patted my knee. Tanner was lying nestled against her shoes. She had always been fond of Doris, and seemed to be the most comfortable near her.
“I’m fine, Doris. Just fine.” I looked down at her hands, the loose skin and spots of brown across them.
“Sarah! Herren! Rutherford!” she said, squeezing my knee hard. “Don’t you be thinkin’ you can just say ‘I’m fine’ to me. This is your grandma Doris talking. Don’t you forget, I can see right through you like Saran Wrap.”
I laughed as I watched her set her lips in a determined frown meant to prove her stubbornness.
It worked. There was no use hiding anything from Doris.
“I just feel overwhelmed sometimes,” I said. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for this. I’m not a strong military wife like Mom has always been.”
“Sarah Herren,” she said. “You mean to tell me that little girl who organized all the neighborhood children to make a homemade sequel to Gone With the Wind isn’t capable of this? Don’t you be telling me you can’t make it without a man! Lord, have mercy, you rule this roost anyway! What makes you think you can’t survive without that ol’ Dustin? I don’t call you Madam Queen Bee for nothing.”
She paused for effect and looked me directly in the eyes. “You are Sarah—Sarah Herren Rutherford. There isn’t anything in this world you can’t do. And don’t you forget it. And don’t you forget that your momma—as high and mighty as she may seem—has had her moments, too. She just doesn’t talk about it like you and me. You know, you and me, we’re talkin’ folk.”
I patted her hand. “Yes, Doris, yes, we are . . . talkin’ folk.”
Doris has this way of seeing through me. Sometimes I’m afraid even to have the slightest thought in front of her because I know she’ll be able to read my mind in an instant. I wouldn’t dare think about sex in her presence! If anyone has ever truly had telepathy, it would be Doris. She says the ability is something she inherited from her grandmother, but I don’t know, sometimes I think Doris is merely a reflection of myself, and vice versa. No one can keep me in line better than she can.
Doris adjusted the sweater around her neck and sat back into the cushions. “Did I ever tell you about the time Big Jack moved me all the way to Boston, away from my daddy, and we didn’t even have a car?”
She had told me the story many times before, but I didn’t say so and let her reminisce.
“There I was with a newborn baby,” she said. “I didn’t know a soul in the whole darn city. And where was Big Jack? Off studying law. Can you believe that? After all those years being away with the war, then he comes back and hides away in an old law library. I felt certain that old man was having an affair on me. One night I found a phone number in the pocket of his jacket. I said, ‘Jack, whose number do you have in your jacket?’ and he just smiled at me. I said, ‘You old bird, tell me whose number this is or I’m going to stay up the entire night singing “I’m Henry the Eighth”!’ And wouldn’t you know your grandpa didn’t answer! No, he let me sit there singing all night like a fool. The next morning, he was walking out the door, on the way to that old law library, and he said, ‘Doris, the number in my pocket is ours.’ ”
Doris laughed and put her palms against her moist cheeks. “Lord, have mercy!” she said. “That old man, I tell you. What a fool I was. I didn’t even know my own phone number. Talk about being stupid! Boy, was I ever unprepared.”
She sighed and bent down to pat Tanner at her ankles. “Oh, but I miss that old bird,” she said. “I miss him every day. There’s not a day in my life I would change . . . not for all the money in the world.”
Tanner moaned happily and turned onto her side so Doris could pat her belly.
“Speaking of money,” Doris said, “I hope you don’t let your husband give you an allowance.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I mean, don’t just sit there like a
fool and let your husband do everything while you wait on him hand and foot, cooking and cleaning and . . . and . . . and being stupid. It’s not ‘his money’ or ‘your money.’ It’s your money together. And don’t you forget it.” She frowned. “Do you own a calculator, Sarah?”
“Well, of course.”
“Do you know how to use it?”
“Doris! Don’t be silly.”
She stopped patting Tanner and folded her arms across her chest. “I’m just sayin’ you wouldn’t believe all the women who have no idea about their family’s finances. Some women go their whole lives letting the man do everything, and where does it leave ’em? It leaves ’em at my retirement apartment helpless and pathetic without their old bird. You don’t want to end up some ninny who can’t take care of herself, do you?”
She paused and looked up at me real hard, squinting her eyes, and making me feel transparent again. Had I thought something out of line?
“What?” I said defensively.
“Oh, I’ve been watching you, honey,” she said. “The way you stare off into space at the kitchen table. The way you mope around when someone mentions Dustin. Oh, yes, I’ve been watching you.”
Her gray eyes, which always have a white light in them due to cataracts, looked me up and down. She drew in her bottom lip and set out her chin, almost pouting.
“And that answering machine message,” she said.
“What? What are you talking about?”
She was nodding her head slowly now. “When you and your momma were out getting the boys’ dinner tonight, I played the message on your machine from that doctor person.” Her eyes narrowed. “And I know exactly what’s on that mind of yours, Sarah. I can read you like a book. But you listen to me. You’ve got a beautiful family, a fine husband, and this gorgeous house. Don’t you dare go doing something stupid and mess all that up.”
Her thoughts pierced me. I stumbled for words. But there weren’t any. She would see through any attempt I made to disguise myself. So instead I leaned over and placed my head on her shoulder. She patted the side of my head with her bony hand and said, “There, there,” just like she used to when I was little.
I listened to her soft breathing and faint heartbeat, and suddenly the fear of losing her someday struck me. I had nearly fallen apart when Big Jack died while I was pregnant with Ford. Big Jack had been like a second dad to me. He called me “Miss Scarlett” and “Miss Punkin” and his “favorite granddaughter” (I was his only granddaughter), and he sent me silly cards “just because.” I felt like the most beautiful and special person in the world with Big Jack.
It would be doubly traumatic to lose Doris.
“I love you, Doris,” I said, looking up at her.
“I love you, too, darlin’.” She patted my head again. Then she pulled me upright and looked me in the eyes. She was scowling again. “Now you remember what I told you,” she said. “Don’t you go messing anything up. You take good care of those babies and Dustin. And never forget that God is love. Do you hear me?”
I nodded my head, swallowing back a lump in my throat.
“And, Sarah?” she said.
“Yes?”
“Grow out your eyebrows, child! For Heaven’s sakes!”
I laughed. “OK, Doris. OK.”
9
GOD IS GREAT, GOD IS GOOD; LET US THANK HIM . . .
I never called Dr. Ashley back (although I did replay the message often, looking for clues—a tone in his voice, a word I had missed). I’m not sure why, except that calling him felt wrong.
Like a strange dream that leaves you feeling icky about a particular person the next day, each time my fantasy and reality of Dr. Ashley met in the middle, I chickened out and was unable to follow through. For all the daydreaming I had done about Dr. Ashley, you’d think I would have been thrilled to call him back. But no, I just settled for listening to his message over and over and over again, until his voice started to sound like a chipmunk’s.
It was pathetic! I had never seen him outside the hospital, and I wasn’t even sure I’d recognize him without his blue scrubs and white coat, yet there was an undeniable connection between us, one of those confounding “sparks” you feel but can’t explain.
Or was it just me who felt this? Was the connection really between us? Or was it all in my head?
Doris and Mom left the next week. Dad was returning from his detachment and Mom wanted to be there when he got home. She would drop off Doris at the train station on her way out of town. As they pulled out of the driveway, Doris waved and I could see that Mom was crying. I held back tears myself, watching from the front door with Ford on my hip. I was both excited to have my house back again, and scared . . . to have my house back. Each time my mom leaves, it’s like flying out of the nest all over again.
I couldn’t wait to talk to Dad and hear about his trip to the ship. But when I called him a few days later, he was downright bland with the details: “He looked like the same old Dustin to me,” Dad said.
I don’t know why I expected more. If I wanted the real scoop, I’d have to send my mom or Doris out to the ship. Why did I think Dad—a man—would give me the answers I really wanted: Did Dustin look happy? Was he thinner? Heavier? Did you see him talking to any women? Did he talk about me?
But no, Dad just told me the basics and then said, “Uh, I don’t know—do you want to talk to your mother?”
That weekend, which was Valentine’s Day weekend—the most dreaded of holidays for lonely wives—the Spouse Club was having a baby shower for Leslie, who had had her baby shortly after the men left. With all the commotion, no one had had a chance to do anything for her, so we combined the February Spouse Club meeting with a baby shower and a Valentine’s Day pity party. Melanie volunteered her home.
Courtney and I met at Jody’s house so the three of us could ride together. Melanie had instructed everyone to bring her favorite dish with a Valentine’s theme. This stretched even Courtney’s creative abilities: There just aren’t many “Valentine’s Day” foods. Well, there’s chocolate, obviously, but there are only so many ways to dress up chocolate so that you can outdo the other wives.
I was impressed when Courtney showed up with a bottle of wine covered with a homemade label: LOVE POTION #9. And Jody was arranging weenies on a tray when we walked in. One by one, she gouged a toothpick into the links, and then affixed a sign to the tray: SCORNED LOVER.
“Very nice, Jody,” I said. “And somehow, not surprising at all.”
“Yeah? And what did you bring, Mrs. Smiley?”
I laid a glass bowl filled with fluffy pink marshmallows and goo on the table. “I brought pink salad.”
“What is that?” they both said together, wrinkling up their noses.
I pulled back the tight Saran Wrap to give them a dose of the cold, fruity smell. “It’s my dad’s favorite,” I said. “His mom used to make it, so when I was growing up, he made it for Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
They both stared at me.
“What?” I said.
Jody shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just that, well, how does pink salad relate to Valentine’s Day?”
I put a hand on my hip and stomped my foot. “Oh, come on! Pink. Valentine’s Day. Get it?”
“No, we need to come up with a better name,” Courtney said. “Something more clever.” She put a finger to her pursed lips and looked up at the ceiling.
Jody laughed. “How about ‘bleeding heart salad’?”
“No, I’ve got it!” Courtney said. “We’ll call it pink passion-ate fruit. Jody, grab a pen!”
So the two of them were busily redoing my handmade label when Jody’s telephone rang.
“Could you grab that, Sar?” Jody asked without looking up.
I lifted the receiver and started to say hello when I heard heavy breathing on the other end.
“Jody?” a strained voice said.
“No, it’s Sarah. Can I help you?”
“Sarah, it’s Melanie.”
I put a finger in my ear to block out Jody and Courtney’s howling laughter in the background. “I’m sorry. Is that you, Melanie? I can hardly hear you.”
There was a moaning sound, and the phone dropped. I snapped my fingers at Jody and Courtney to get their attention. Their laughing wound down to a sigh when they saw my face.
“What is it?” Jody whispered. “Who is it?” She and Courtney crowded around me.
“Melanie? Melanie?” I said. “Pick up, Melanie. Are you still there?”
“I . . . can’t . . . get to the . . . phone . . .” she said between breaths.
I started to feel faint and passed the phone to Jody. Cold chills ran down to my toes and up through my neck. Courtney put an arm around my shoulder to steady me. “Don’t worry. Jody will take care of it,” she whispered. “Whatever it is.”
“Melanie!” Jody yelled into the receiver. “Pick up the phone and tell me what you need.”
Melanie must have responded because Jody was listening and squinting her eyes real hard. After several seconds, she started barking orders at Courtney and me: “Melanie’s having a miscarriage,” she said. “Sarah, go to her house and take her to the emergency room. Courtney, get on the phone and start calling the guest list. The baby shower will be over here now.”
I stood blinking and numb. “Me? Me go get her? But . . . but why me?” I followed close behind Jody, nearly clipping her heels, as she hustled back and forth between the kitchen and den. “Jody, I can’t possibly handle this. Please, you take her. I’ll stay here and do the party.”
Jody spun around and looked at me with an expression I had never seen on her face before. Her eyes and mouth were set so tight, I thought the blood vessel in her temple might rupture. “There’s no time for this, Sarah,” she said. “Go get Melanie and take her to the emergency room!”