“If we could just incorporate a ritual,” I said. “Something we do every day to keep us tuned in and focused on each other.”
I wasn’t saying what it was I really wanted. I wanted him to listen to me with more rapt attention. To look at me the way he did when we first started dating.
“Honey,” said Davis, “this is marriage. The quotidian details are what it’s about. I’m sorry if I was out of it during dinner. I had a tough day. I’m tired. On Saturday I’ll be sparklier, okay? We can dress up for dinner. We can really enjoy our night out on the town. But tonight, I’m not very good entertainment.”
I felt like I was drowning. I felt that we would never understand each other. How well can any two people understand each other? We’re so trapped in these bodies, these egos. As if my loneliness stemmed from his not cracking more jokes! From his not dancing the soft-shoe to entertain me!
I used to complain of the same thing to Frederick. I wanted more of his attention. I wanted his eyes fixed on me. I wanted him to be enraptured. He said I couldn’t always have the spotlight. He said I was too used to the concentrated attention of the audience.
I started to cry, again, and Davis, who once upon a time would have jumped to comfort me, stayed put.
I knew that no human could ever love me the way I wanted to be loved.
“I wish we could pray together,” I said.
“You can say a prayer if you want,” said Davis. “I’ll bow my head.”
I smiled. I felt so pathetic. “What if we’re praying to different gods?” I asked. “The god of the atheists and the god of the believers.”
“You want me to believe not just in God but in multiple gods?”
I smiled. And then I made the leap. You cannot imagine how self-conscious I felt. “Will you say a prayer for me and I’ll say a prayer for you?” I asked. I sounded like a goddamn Michael W. Smith song. I sounded like one of the Crispy Christians from Coventry.
“Can we do it in bed?” he asked. “I’m so tired.”
A part of me wanted to lash out at that, at what I so easily could have read as rejection. But I took two deep breaths and was able to say, “Okay.”
Yoga breathing. A trick of my mother’s.
I MET HIM in bed after brushing and flossing. I figured I might as well get ready to go to sleep if I was going to lie down. I lay beside him, on my side. I held both his hands with mine.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello.”
“I’m probably going to sound really disingenuous and cheesy,” I said. “I’ve never prayed out loud before.”
“You don’t have to do it,” he said, “if it makes you feel self-conscious.”
Again I felt a flash of irritation. I wasn’t saying I didn’t want to do it, simply that I was aware I might sound sanctimonious or silly.
“I’m doing it,” I said. “Okay. Here we go. Dear God, thank you for giving Davis life. Please bless him and keep him safe. Please let him feel loved and cared for, both by me and by others…”
I kept going. The words came easily. How different it is to pray aloud for a person rather than to simmer in silence, angry that he won’t change to suit your needs. When I got to “amen” my feelings were softer and kinder toward Davis than they had been when I started the prayer. Softer and kinder and perhaps even a little more distant. A little more distanced from my own pit of need. I was aware, for a moment, of his needs and desires. I was aware, for a moment, that his life mattered independently of mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Accidental Catholic
(Missy, Summer 2006)
During a time in my pregnancy when it seemed my belly grew bigger by the minute, a girl in my English class, Fatima Ramos, gave me a card with the Virgin Mary’s picture on it. The card was blue and Mary, who wore a gold crown and cradled the infant Jesus in her arms, looked Hispanic like Fati. Fatima said that her sister carried a card just like mine every day during her pregnancy. I asked Fati if her sister had a girl or a boy and she said a boy. I asked how old her sister was and she said fourteen.
I kept that card with me during the nine months I carried Grace, wearing out its edges by constantly rubbing it with my fingers. I even took it to the hospital with me when it was time to deliver.
Before I got pregnant, I’d never considered how young Mary was when she had Jesus. She was even younger than me, and she wasn’t married either, at least not when she first got pregnant. I wouldn’t dare tell anyone that I sometimes compare myself to her, that it comforts me to do so, because they’d shoot back that she was a virgin (me too, sort of) and she was chosen by God to bear His only Son while all I am is a damn fool who let herself get knocked up by a stranger whose phone was disconnected by the time I called to tell him the news.
I COULD SPEND all day pressing my nose against Grace’s belly, just taking in that smell of baby powder and new life. Of course I don’t have all day to spend; I’m lucky if I get a few hours with her when she’s not sleeping. RD is still mad at me for quitting school, but after a month of trying to go to class, do my assignments, take care of Grace, and earn enough money to keep her in diapers, I realized I was failing half my subjects, and what was the point in going if I wasn’t going to pass? It was hard enough going through eleventh grade pregnant: once I had Grace, school became impossible. I’ll never forget that first day back in class when I thought about Gracie and my breasts started leaking. I didn’t have a clean shirt to change into either.
Truth be told, I’m learning more from being a mama than I ever learned in the classroom. Not that that’s going to help me when an employer wants to see my diploma, which is why RD says I have to get my GED.
THE NIGHT THE e.p.t made a plus sign, Mama started yelling that she was going to kill that Charles Parker for knocking me up.
“This explains it all,” she said. “That’s why he ran off before RD and I even arrived in town. He was too ashamed to look us in the face after what he did to you.”
“Mama,” I said, “Charles Parker may be a lot of things, but he ain’t the daddy of this baby.”
“That’s why he drove you all the way to North Carolina. He knew you’d give him a return on the favor, didn’t he?”
“He took me because he wanted to be on Salt, least that’s what he said.”
Mama humphed. “You’re sure you two never got together? Not once? The Parkers have a lot of money, you know, and if you’re carrying their grandchild they’re bound to help you out.”
“Mama, Charles was about as interested in having sex with me as a cat is in taking a bath. He doesn’t like girls. He’s not interested in them.”
“I never heard of a seventeen-year-old boy who wasn’t interested in girls, unless he’s queer. Is he queer?”
I nodded.
“Oh good Lord. I should have figured. Well, whose is it, then? You better go ahead and tell me because there ain’t no use hiding it now.”
I tried to explain to Mama exactly what happened between Dwayne and me, that we didn’t have sex but that he did spill himself all over my underwear. I told her that I thought of the baby as God’s, since Dwayne and I didn’t have sex but I still got pregnant. Angry as I’ve been with Him, I figured He meant for Gracie to be born. Mama just looked at me like I’d sprouted a second head.
“It don’t matter how Dwayne’s junk got in you, it did, and that means he’s the father of the child. Not God. Girl, you have got to get a little realistic about life. You have got to learn how to be a Christian and still know what’s what. You have got to learn to apply the rules of church to church and the rules of the world to life. Every Christian does it. Think about it, if we didn’t, all we’d do is give away our money and get slapped on both sides of the face.
“You ain’t the Virgin Mary, girl. You just got humped by a man with fast sperm.”
After that Mama started making all kinds of commotion about suing my Daddy or suing Dwayne or suing the church that financed Salt. But then RD, who’d been li
stening quietly from his seat in the La-Z-Boy, told her to calm down, saying that the last thing we needed to do was to chase two deadbeats into a courthouse, that regardless of who was to blame for this, when you got right down to it there was nothing a judge or lawyer could do about the fact that I was the one who was pregnant and I was the one who was going to have to bear and raise this baby.
I WONDER IF after that angel told Mary she was pregnant, Mary lied and told people the baby was Joseph’s. It might have been easier that way, easier to have people think she was a slut rather than crazy. Don’t get me wrong, I know that there’s a big difference between Mary and me. She was pure and I am not. Still, I bet a lot of people thought she just got knocked up like any other girl.
WHEN WE FIRST got back from North Carolina, before we realized I was pregnant, Mama didn’t tell Mrs. Parker about anything that had happened while she and Mr. Parker were off in San Francisco. Telling Mrs. Parker about Charles and me would only complicate things, Mama said, and it might even put her job in jeopardy because Mrs. Parker might think I was bad news.
“After all,” said Mama, “I’m sure she hasn’t forgotten about the time you stole from her.”
I didn’t argue with Mama, but in my heart I really didn’t think there was much I could do that Mrs. Parker wouldn’t forgive me for. Sure, when she first realized I took her bird she said she didn’t want me coming to her house anymore, but a couple of days later she called back and said she hoped Mama hadn’t been too hard on me about it (I didn’t tell her that I got a whipping). Mrs. Parker said that she had probably made too big a deal about it, and that while it was important that I respect other people’s property, she understood “how awful it is to be surrounded by things you can’t have.” To tell the truth, her saying that hurt me worse than Mama’s strap.
Anyhow, Mama figured that since I made it home from Durham safe and with Daddy “out of my system for good,” everything was okay and it wasn’t necessary to spill the beans. Then I missed two periods and started to get fat, and we realized everything wasn’t.
WHEN MAMA FINALLY did tell Mrs. Parker about all that had happened between Charles and me and Dwayne and me, Mrs. Parker was understanding and kind, the way she always is. She apologized again and again for her son having taken me to North Carolina without telling anyone where we were going. She even said that she and her husband were considering sending Charles to a military academy for his final semester of high school.
Guess what? They didn’t.
Then she told Mama that she would pay for me to have an abortion since I never would have gotten pregnant had Charles not delivered me to Dwayne’s door.
“Let me help fix the damage my son caused,” she said.
Mrs. Parker even told Mama that we could hire a private doctor to perform the operation so I wouldn’t have to have it done at a clinic where there might be protesters.
Mama came home from Mrs. Parker’s house that night and told me what had been offered. She said she thought I should do it. “It might be a sin,” Mama said. “Probably is. But so is having a baby you can’t take care of.”
But Mama took care of me, and she was only seventeen when I was born, the same age I was when I had Grace.
Besides which, I knew I couldn’t kill a life that was already growing inside of me, the life that was making me crave mustard and that kind of lunch meat with the olives stuck in it. I had never liked either of those foods before. Matter of fact, I used to tease RD about the fact that he ate monkey meat.
My cravings proved that there was someone else, someone living inside of me, who was running the show. How could I kill that other being?
Think about what would have happened to the world if Mary had slipped off somewhere and aborted baby Jesus just to make things easier for herself. What then? I was angry with God—I still am—but that doesn’t mean I can turn away from His plan altogether.
Mrs. Parker was upset when she learned that I was going to keep Grace, but after a couple of weeks of looking at Mama with sad eyes, Mama said, Mrs. Parker went back to her normal, cheerful self. And that was what finally soured Mama on her, that Mrs. Parker was able to recover so quickly from the disappointment she felt over my life.
“You getting knocked up gave that woman maybe ten minutes of worry,” said Mama. “And then she was back to her old ways, all cooing and crooning over every little thing.”
In fact, Mrs. Parker’s good fortune seemed to grow with my belly. Charles was accepted at the college where she and Mr. Parker went: “Oh Faye, isn’t it thrilling?” she asked while Mama loaded the dishwasher. Her daughter was having her wedding in Atlanta, which meant Mrs. Parker got to plan it: “Faye, what do you think about passing around martini glasses filled with grits casserole? Is that fun or unappetizing?”
After I recovered from Gracie’s birth, RD got me a job working at Chick-fil-A twenty hours a week, the same one where he’s assistant manager. That was when Mama told Mrs. Parker that she was quitting her so that she could be at home, to take care of Grace while I was at work. Mama lied. She does help care for Gracie when she can, but she also lined up a cleaning job on Mondays and Thursdays. Her new client lives in Lawrenceville, which isn’t that far away from Loganville and is a lot closer to us than Mrs. Parker’s neighborhood. We try to schedule ourselves so someone is always home for Gracie, but when days get crazy there’s a lady down the street who keeps kids. She only charges three dollars an hour, which is about all she’s worth. If she does more than plop Grace in the playpen and turn on the TV, I’d be surprised.
Mrs. Parker gave Mama a check for one thousand dollars on her last day of work. She told Mama to put it in a savings account for Grace, but that money is long gone by now. The bills ate it right up.
WHEN I GO to her crib each morning, she smiles and gurgles and reaches out her arms, thrilled to see me. I worry sometimes that she must think I’ve deserted her when I leave her room at night after singing lullabies. Mama says you have to let a baby cry herself to sleep or else she’ll never learn how to get to sleep on her own. Some nights it seems Gracie never stops crying, even after I sneak back in her room and pick her up again. One time when she wouldn’t stop crying I started up alongside her, the two of us wailing away with no end in sight.
If Mama would allow it, I’d let Gracie sleep in my bed with me. That way she’d know I’m never going to leave her. That way she might not start crying in the first place.
In the mornings when I scoop her up into my arms, her warm little body molds itself against mine.
RD LOVES GRACIE. She is the first person he goes to when he comes home from work, asking, “How’s our baby doing?”
Sometimes I get the feeling that he forgets that she’s Dwayne’s, that he thinks of Grace as his. To tell the truth, it doesn’t much bother me that he does.
To tell the truth, he’d have made a good daddy.
He don’t even mind changing her diapers, which Mama says is unusual for a man.
“I can count on one hand the number of times your daddy changed yours,” she said. “And your granddaddy, ha. He never once changed a diaper, even though by the time you were born he’d retired from preaching. All he did was sit around in that old ratty robe of his watching The 700 Club on TV. Never even occurred to him that he could have helped Meemaw out with you.”
Before I ran off looking for Daddy, Mama never spoke much about him or Granddaddy. But once I came back from Durham, she talked about them more and more, Granddaddy especially. I never knew how much she hated him. He could be real inspiring behind the pulpit, Mama said, but at home he was a bully.
“Granddaddy Meadows—though I called him Pastor Meadows back then—he literally had a shotgun by his side when he called Luke and me into his office to ‘discuss’ my pregnancy. He said Luke had two options: a wedding or a funeral, and he didn’t seem to care much which option Luke took. In fact, he looked a little disappointed when Luke said, ‘Guess we’re having a wedding.’”
Mama sai
d that Granddaddy Meadows was forever disappointed in Daddy, that he shook his head every time he talked about him. Granddaddy used to say that his son had a decadent streak that, regardless of countless attempts, no belt could beat out, that it resided in him the way the Holy Ghost resides in others, that it was what allowed him to impregnate a seventeen-year-old girl, and that it was what would ultimately cause his ruination.
MY FAVORITE THING to do is to watch Gracie while she sleeps, her belly rising up and down with her breaths. Standing over her crib, I cannot for the life of me imagine talking about her the way Granddaddy used to talk about my father. Maybe as babies grow up you start to feel less attached to them, but I don’t see how. I don’t hardly feel whole anymore unless I’ve got Gracie nuzzled up next to me. I put my hand on her belly and let it ride up and down with her inhale and exhale, wishing that I could breathe like she does, slow and assured, as if I knew for certain that someone was watching out for me.
I’M NOT READY to talk to God yet, but sometimes I talk to Mary. It’s funny. We learned once in Sunday school that Catholics aren’t real Christians because they worship the mother more than the Son. I believed that then, but now I don’t really know.
Sometimes I imagine that Mary watches over me the way I watch over Gracie in her crib after everyone has gone to sleep and I sneak back in her room just to look at her.
Maybe it’s wrong, but standing over Gracie’s crib, I pray to Mary. I ask for the bitterness I feel toward Daddy and Dwayne and yes, even God, to dissolve. I ask that we don’t have any unexpected bills this month, though more often than not, we do. I give thanks for the blessing of RD, thanks also that I can finally see that he is a blessing, to Mama and to me.
And finally, I pray that Gracie don’t fall in love with her missing Daddy like I once did with mine. I pray that Mama, RD, and me, tired and broke as we are, might somehow offer her enough.
Bound South Page 29