Are You Sitting Down? (8 page)

I stayed up most of last night and the early morning preparing food and cleaning the house to get ready for the arrival of the kids t
o
day
.
Christmas Eve.
Travis was driving up from
Memphis
to stay for three days.
It was still to be d
ecid
ed if anyone else would be staying the night, but if they
did
all the sheets were fresh and the beds were made.
I put fresh to
w
els out in the upstairs bathrooms, along with the girls’ favorite soaps and lotions.
I
placed
small bags of chocolates
on
the pillows in the bedrooms.
These days, with everyone grown, there were no assigned sleeping quarters.
The grandkids might end up in one of the boys’ old rooms, but there’d at least be a su
r
prise waiting there for everyone.

I spent an hour or so putting up more decorations.
Small t
a
bletop Christmas trees
now
adorned the vanities in the bathrooms and the nightstands between the beds in the kids’ rooms.
Back in the day when the house was full, I’d put a tree up in every room.
The boys’ bathroom had a tree decorated with American flags and green tractors.
The girl’s bathroom tree had lace,
strings
of plastic pearls, and small soaps wrapped in pink twill.

In the bedrooms, the trees had
tiny
stockings hung on them where the kids could find little treats and gifts all throughout the month of December.
Even when it was just me and Clare here, I still bought stocking stuffers for her.
It’d been
several
years since she left.
These days, it was not rare for several weeks to pass without me going into their
old
empty
rooms.
I kept the doors shut except to the spaces I lived in.
It made the house f
ee
l smaller.
With all of the kids here for Christmas
this year
, I just wanted the house to feel like old times again, for them and for me.
So, I went through the house and opened every door
this morning
.
  It expanded and creaked, sighing with relief. Despite winter, the house was coming alive again.

After filling the feeders, I decided to take a walk down to the property line where the barn had been.
The sun had just started to crack the gr
a
y sky.
First,
I went back inside to change into warmer clothes and to make sure the stove was turned off.
When we bought this house in 196
6
Martin
,
the
eldest,
was
one year
old.
Frank and I married in 196
3
and a small
upstairs
apartment in the city was our first home.
When Martin was born in
‘
6
5
we both decided we wanted more kids but would need a larger home.

The two-story colonial
, built by the
Dogwood
family who also founded
and named
the community,
was the first home we’d looked at.
Back then,
it was
one of only four homes on
the dirt-clad road
that ran through
Dogwood
.
There are over thirty homes on
Main Street
now.
With the ten acres of trees surrounding
us
,
we
felt like
we
were the only house
around for miles
back then
.
Even in the winter when the apple trees had dropped their leaves and their thin limbs were practically transparent,
we
still couldn’t see the neighboring house
when looking out the window
.

Many generations ago, the
Dogwood
family had planted a
fruit
orchard on the property
to make a living.
Mr.
Dogwood
kept a fruit stand out in front of the house and sold
produce
to downtown markets
.
Since the family business had long been retired and Mr.
Dogwood
had passed on many years ago, most of the property had been divided and sold for co
m
munity d
e
velopment.

When Mrs.
Dogwood
died in early 1965, none of her
few
existing family members wanted to live in the house.
The older generations were all resting in the cemetery nearby, and the younger generations had moved away and didn’t care about where their roots had started.
Frank and I purchased it for a steal from
her
money hungry grandchildren.
It’
d
practically tripled in value since then.
With three bedrooms and two baths,
this house
was the perfect size to grow the family.
Frank’s mother passed in
1980
.
We used money she left us to add a
n
other bedroom and bathroom, and to make some other much needed improvements to the house.
I was pregnant with Seba
s
tian before
construction was done
.

It’d been months since I walked the property line.
The four acres I still owned were thick with old apple, plum, cherry, and pear trees that had stopped producing ample fruit back before Frank died.
Like me, the trees had grown old and retired.
It’s odd how I remember things based on if they happened before or after I lost
him
.
When the children were young, we spent many Sunday afternoons playing in the orchard and filling bushel baskets of fruit.
I’d bake pies and bread, and Frank would give some of the harvest to friends and neighbors.
In autumn when the leaves fell, we’d all rake the
m
.
The kids would play in the piles, while Frank and I bagged the
leaves
for the mulch bed.

The six acres I sold had yet to be developed.
The land was still in much the same condition as when I divided the property except now it was overgrown with dead brush and a few trees had fallen, and the barn
was gone
.
Its
brick found
a
tion had been left, but now looked as if it were slow
ly being claimed by the earth as the dead foliage collected around it.
Even though I knew the old man who had bought the property, I still felt like a trespas
s
ing stranger.
My heart raced a bit like a kid exploring wheat fields and making mazes by bending down the crop, hoping they d
id
n’t get caught.

I smiled, standing there in the middle of the foundation where the old barn had been.
Frank walked the entire pro
p
erty once a week, an old farmer mending fences.
When I started
walki
ng with him, it became our usual weekly stroll just to e
s
cape from the house and the burden of children.

The creak of the old barn door turning on its rusty hinges, and the
long
strands of
sunlight leaking
through the
gaps
in the walls
too
k
us back to a younger time. We were
teenagers
kee
p
ing warm
in the back seat at a drive
-
in
all over again
.

Ellen, Travis, and Sebastian
were
the end result of three trips down to the barn over the years.
Frank was a great lover, so adventurous.
There wasn’t a tree on the property that hadn’t seen our aging bodies.
We made love in the barn or on the ground beneath the spring blo
s
soms many times.

After he was gone, the immediate decision was to sell off some of the property because I couldn’t take care of it by myself.
I hated to do it because I was selling off the pla
y
ground of our memories.
Not only was the land our funny love shrine, but it was also where the children grew up playing.
Those memories would never escape my heart and my head though.
Frank was gone, the kids were all grown up and Martin and Ellen now ha
d
kids of their own, so letting go of the land where our lives had happened wasn’t as hard as I thought it
would
be.

Clare

Obese fucker
,
I
thought to myself.
Who just sits t
her
e and watches a car almost explode
?

His face looked familiar, but I was used to dirty old men gawking at me when I walked by.
Eventually, they all started to look the same. Mr. Greer never looked at me that way.
He might have been an old coot, but I felt comfortable around him.
I didn’t even need the milk for Jake.
I just stopped there to sort of check in on Mr. Greer.
I’d known him my whole life from my parents taking me into the grocery when I was small.
He’d give me a sucker and tickle my arm.
Later, I
’
d
stop
in to buy cig
a
rettes from him on the way to high school.

Now living in an apartment downtown, I still stopped at the grocery when I came to visit mom.
Then
this whole mess with the gas happened.
Mr. Greer would hate to see me ever drive up again. I remembered hearing on the news how a spark from static electricity can cause
flames to ignite
, but I never gave second thought to it.
Something like that would never happen to me.
It seemed that was my motto in life, but whe
n
ever I thought it, something usually did happen.
Like two years ago when I had never planned to get pregnant.

My right hand stung.
The hot metal handle of the gas nozzle had burned when I pulled it out.
I was going to put the handle in the snow to extinguish the fire, but the blistering sting caused me to drop it.
At
a stop sign, I put my right mitten back on as if covering my hand would somehow make the pain go away.
I couldn’t find the left mitten.
I’d search for it before I got out of the car at Mom’s.
It was probably in the back seat with Jake.
Thankfully, the hum of the car and its rocking m
o
tion had soothed
him
back to sleep.
I looked at him in the rearview mirror.
The redness from crying so hard had faded from his fat little face.
It had not faded from mine.

“Pull yourself together, Clare,” I
whispered
to myself in the mirror.

I pulled strands of hair from my face and turned the r
a
dio back up a bit.
Christmas music blared from every station. I left the dial on a station playing some guy I didn’t know, but at least he wasn’t singing about the holidays.
Instead, he was singing about how everything can change in a New York mi
n
ute.

“What about a
Ruby Dregs
minute?” I said out loud to the radio. “Nothing ever changes in this damn town.”

I turned the heater down because I’d broken into a sweat.
I wanted to crack the window for some cool winter air, but I was afraid the sound of the wind pouring in might wake Jake again.
My stomach and chest felt tight.
A hot ache pushed itself u
p
ward. I was only a few blocks from Mom’s house, but I needed to stop the car right now.

I pulled the car off to the side of the road.
I hesitated with the emergency lights for a second, but then there was no time to turn them on anyway. My throat burned. I opened my door wide enough to bend over and out.
The cradle of the seat belt kept me from going much further.
Resting my for
e
head on the door handle, I held my hair to one side and let the burning ache expel onto the pavement.
Long spider web strands of spit hung in the air
,
not wanting the poison to escape.
I wiped them from my face with the mitten and turned my head to look down the street.
There was a car in the di
s
tance.
I leaned back up and shut the car door gently to avoid waking Jake.
I didn’t want anyone to drive by and see me getting sick
, and
I prayed it wasn’t one of my siblings.

The oncoming car crept by.
I
t was no one I knew, just some young cocky kid with a goofy grin trying to act like he was checking me out.
He gave a nod with his chin as if he knew me, but every guy did that around here.
I faked a smile
but wanted
to give him the finger.
I turned on the left blinker and pulled back onto the road.
Mom’s house was just
a few blocks away
.
The
blinker was still flashing when I pulled into the driveway.
I parked behind Travis’
s
car.
He and Mom were ou
t
side unloading his car.
They paused to wave at me.
Mom approached the car, waiting for me to cut off the i
g
nition.

“Merry Christmas Baby Doll,” she chimed before I had opened the door.

“Merry Christmas,” I moaned getting out of the car.

Mom grabbed my neck and hugged me.
I
lightly
patted her on the back.

“Want me to get Jake?”
she asked.

“Sure,” I sighed.

Travis just stood there looking at me with a bit of doubt.
He could tell something was wrong.
I cowered toward him like a scolded puppy wanting to apologize
, trying to force a smile onto my face without bursting into tears
over what had ha
p
pened at Mr. Greer’s
.
I actually was happy to see
Travis
, but didn’t want Mom to think my tears were for him
.

He leaned down to hug me as I hurried to him with open arms.
I held him tight, trying to squeeze back my tears but it was no use.
I closed m
y
eyes and buried my face in the sleeve of his wool coat.
I felt dizzy.
Breaking loose from his grip, I wiped my snotty nose with my hand and ran inside the house
, a
sleeve covering my face to shield m
y
expression from them.
I ran upstairs and locked myself in the bathroom.

I splashed cold water onto my face in the old pink bathroom.
Pink shower curtain, pink soaps, there was even a pink toilet seat.
This was the girls’ bathroom when Ellen
and I
lived here.
I remembered playing with Barbies in the big pink bat
h
tub.
Mom even bought pink toilet paper for us.
Back then, I liked to pretend I was a princess and often played dress up with Ellen.
I’d sit on the vanity and pretend to do my make-up in the mirror.
Now, I hated pink.
I searched the drawers, unsure of what I was looking for.
They were full of wash cloths and guest towels.
Nothing comforting to be found.

I dug in my purse for my lipstick and eye shadow
, both now darker, more adult shades unlike the pretty pink and red colors Mom bought us for dress-up back then
. Up close in the mirror, I tried to reapply m
y
eyes.
Ellen had taught me how to put on eye liner in this very mirror.
My hands were too shaky now to do anything.

“
Pull yourself together,
Clare
,”
I whispered to the mi
r
ror.

It was no use.
I had more crying to do.
It wasn’t my life that had flashed in front of my eyes back there at the grocery.
My life had long ago lost its meaning and hope for any kind of momentous future.
I was a mom now, and all I could think about was that baby.
He was the importance of each and every day.
I had to be there for him, to bend and break the day so that he would not grow up and be like me.
And when something bizarre or accidental happened like today, it scared me to think that life was that fragile; and
that sort of stuff
was always ha
p
pening to me.
I cursed myself if Jake fell and scuffed his face
when tr
y
ing to walk
.
I stood over his crib at night, sleepless, just to make sure he was breathing.

Just a few years ago, I was not so responsible.
At twenty, my upper arms and back were already filled with ugly tattoos.
The tattoos covered the scars left by reckless bo
y
friends who beat me. I was thankful the bruises at least healed. Some of t
he scars I’d put there myself, but
I no longer beat m
y
self up
—
on the outside.
I still didn’t like the person looking back at me in the mirror now, but the girl from two years ago seemed even fa
r
ther away.

M
y
cell phone was full of friends.
They were all wrong numbers, the kinds of friends you never wanted your
m
om to meet because you knew she wouldn’t approve
anyway
.
They were from the “wrong side of town,” I could hear mom say. I called them friends because I never knew anything
—
or an
y
one
—
better. Like me, they wore baggy clothes and skipped class. After high school, they snuck me into bars and bought me drinks.
They shared their cocaine and
their pot
.
They intr
o
duced me to strange alluring men who gave me chills when they touched my hand
, who fingered me in dirty bathroom stalls
.
Instinct whi
s
pered in my ear that this feeling should have been fear
.
I should have been afraid,
but I didn’t listen.
That’s how I met A
n
dre.