Club Sandwich (13 page)

I awaken at three in the morning remembering when I first got my period. The last girl in my class. Right in the middle of church. I
held Mom’s large King James Bible behind me over the crimson spot as the congregation flowed from the pews and down the aisle. I made it to the bathroom unnoticed, turned my skirt around, and rinsed it, not very well, watching the pinkened water skip over the folds of cloth and down the drain.

Mrs. Tolsen helped me. She said little, but patted the wet spot patiently, over and over, using the entire supply of brown tri-fold towels from the dispenser on the wall.

“I’ll go get your mom, Ivy.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Tolsen.”

She walked to the door, placed her gnarled hand on the push plate, then turned. “Darn that Eve.” Then she disappeared.

Mom and I were the last ones to leave that Sunday, the warm, summer air removing all traces of the event other than the bloodied panties at the bottom of the ladies’ room trash can.

I
seem to remember some old movie, perhaps an adaptation of
Dante’s Inferno
, with people wailing and gnashing and clawing and committing all manner of sin, and Satan standing like an Egyptian captain, feet spread, hands on hips, with his head back and his mouth wide open in devilish laughter. He triumphs, souls writhe in torment, and all because of him … Him … HIM!

But these days, now that I gather in the years to my heart and have seen heartache as it ages, I think Satan laughs hardest at the quiet moments of humankind, those times when a person fails to recognize or receive the lavish grace and mercy sown his way. And there one sits at one’s kitchen table alone, silent wreckage all around, lives destroyed or at best limping along. And nowhere to go from here.

Yes, I’m convinced Satan’s laugh rings like a bell in the eerie quiet of destruction. He declares in smug satisfaction, “I have destroyed this person. I have taken the image of God within her and crushed it beneath my heel.”

He’ll have to stop laughing soon enough. Nobody wanders past redemption when God still loves us.

The alarm clock buzzes, and I quickly stifle its voice. Five thirty already. My column awaits. Rusty sleeps peacefully, and I let him slumber on. He’ll have the kids all day.

I slip on a pair of boxers and a T-shirt, pull on some socks, and after setting the kettle to heat, I fire up Old Barbara.

Having self-absorbed siblings affords me the luxury of writing whatever I please in my column without fear they’ll ever pick up the paper and read it. Today, I’m talking about being there for your family. I’ll birth my frustration in print and feel much better before heading to the hospital. I’d hate for Mom’s radar to start bleeping, alerting her to the fact that something’s bothering me. At least not until she reads the back issues of the
Lavalier
, once recuperated.

The kettle screams, and I jump up, yanking it off the burner before it wakes up one of the kids. I don’t need Trixie bugging me right now. I really don’t. Love her. Love her better when she sleeps, her blankets swaddling her baby warmth, her cheeks blooming in the heat.

I’m awful.

I reconsider calling her by her full name, Bellatrix. Bellatrixes surely possess a more staid pattern of behavior. Bellatrixes never scream, “Wake up!” right in your ear at 6:00 a.m. Bellatrixes never remove all the laces on all their shoes and tie them end to end, then drag your favorite stuffed animal from childhood around the dirty yard. Bellatrixes go to bed early and wake up late. Bellatrixes play quietly with their dolls. Bellatrixes love vegetables.

Oh well, what can you do?

Oh, Trixie, Trixie. My baby. I do love you so. Maybe I need to pray more. For you. For me. For this broken little family.

Column number two comes as easy as microwavable macaroni and cheese. Mr. Moore’s wisdom, simple and profound, generates plenty of fodder.

I’m on a roll. You know what gets me? How people justify their sin with some made-up ideology. Take the feminists for example. They wanted to have sex with everybody, get great salaries, and squeeze out children before the biological clock wound down—in other words, do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, with whomever they wanted, and curse the rest of the world. But who could do that and justify it on their own? No. They needed a movement. “We’ll call it feminism. Yeah, yeah, yeah! And whenever anybody questions our actions, we can point to a higher authority than ourselves. We can get all high and mighty and act like this is all for the greater good. Stuff convention. Stuff the fact that someone else might suffer for our actions. We learned this in college so it must be right! Right?”

Feminist studies.

Look alive, girls! If you can’t be a woman by the seat of your pants, you can’t begin to claim the honors. That’s what makes us who we are, we feline wonders, who, when suddenly falling from the heights, can twist, turn, assume a proper vista of the situation, and land on our feet. We are the ultimate survivalists, the potentates of practicality. We’ve lived that “Just Do It” slogan since the garden. Let’s face it. As the original sinner, Eve was the one responsible for original sin, but Adam still takes the brunt, as in “In Adam all die.” In this, I do believe the soft spot God feels for women shows itself. After all, we may bear our children in pain, but we also feel the first movements of that tiny parcel of humanity inside of us. We nurture and protect the very beginning of life. Somehow God entrusts us with this very thing, the most important act of being human. I for one am grateful.

I say, “You go, girl!” and mean it with the fullness of my heart.

I click Save and whiz this column and the other two off to Tony. My feminist readers will e-mail flames, and I’ll love it. And now, with three in the bag, I’ll be free to care for Mom next week. Thank you, God, for this bit of grace.

Can’t wait to hear the phone call from Tony. I’d better start formulating my arguments right away.

I actually shower and dress before the crew awakens. As I try to cover up my dark circles, Rusty hums downstairs, and that telltale sputter awakens my nose to the aroma of the coffee. Now tea accompanies me through the wee hours just fine, but coffee is the great awakener. Something spiny and operatic swims inside it, something longing to bop you on the head and scream in your ear. I hurry through the rest of my “toilette,” as my grandmother called it, to steal a few moments with Rusty. I’ve thought about Mitch way too much even with my husband home. I need to bolster myself, to attack the problem at its source.

He sits at the kitchen table sipping from a mug emblazoned with the name of some small recording studio in Nashville, maybe, or Memphis, the type of place that lays down the tracks of a gospel barbershop quartet. The popularity they’ve been gaining in this day and age of hip-hop and technopop amazes me. Rusty, a true performer, plays the part well. But at home he’s so different, so placid and peaceful. I used to love that he saves that precious part of himself for us.

Keep talking him up, Ivy. Don’t meander down the stupid path.

A mug, a packet of sweetener, and a spoon rest on a paper towel
in front of the coffee maker. I reach for the pot. “Get a good sleep, Rust?”

“Not bad. Probably better than you did after all that happened yesterday. You doing all right, hon?”

I fix my drink. “Yeah. Sent three columns to Tony this morning, so that’s off my chest. I’m going to toast an english muffin, then head on back to the hospital.”

“Just sit. I’ll get it for you.”

I pull out a chair, take a sip of coffee, and hold my head in my hands. “You know, Rust, I’m going to have to bring her home here to recuperate.”

“I figured as much. Hopefully she’ll be out in a few days, and I can help you with the hard part.”

“Brett’s place would be so much better, with that guest room on the main floor, a housekeeper three days a week. But if I so much as hint at it, she’ll blow up.”

“She’s having it really rough right now.” He shakes his head. “Not that it excuses her.”

Good boy.

“I know. I feel like I can’t ask anything of her. I’m sure she’s thinking, ‘Why me? Why now?’ as far as Mom’s concerned, even though it won’t really affect her one iota.”

Rusty leans down and kisses my cheek. “It’s a good thing Dorothy has you.” Rusty calls my mom Dorothy, like she’s more than just a mother-in-law, she’s a dear friend. Which is true. If Mom and I weren’t so close, I’d be jealous.

“Even if Brett did take her in, it wouldn’t be for long, and she’d never let the rest of us forget her largesse. I don’t want to be forever in her debt that way.”

“I’m sure your mother doesn’t want that either.”

True. But right now, I’m sure my mom has yet to think of it. I’m sure she’s awakened, felt the pain, and wondered when they’ll unstrap that ungodly foam triangle.

“Darn that Marcus. Why now?”

“Bad things come in threes.” Rusty sets the muffin in front of me. “Here you go, Ive. Eat up. You don’t know when your next meal will be today.”

“I hate hospital food.”

“Well, hon, you can always get around that.”

I take a big bite of the muffin for his benefit. He slathered on so much butter it literally drips down my chin and onto my clean T-shirt, the last clean T-shirt in my drawer.

Drat! Can’t even one little thing be easy today, Lord? Well, maybe I can count that as the third bad thing.

Rusty sits down. “I have an idea. Why don’t I go in for an hour or two this morning? Then you can come in around ten, and I’ll take Trixie to the bowling alley. She’s first up on the Daddy Date List.”

“Bowling?”

“She’s talked about nothing else since I got home.”

Wow, that was a quick answer to prayer.

He points to the phone book atop the fridge. “I’ll call the medical supply company and get a bed delivered.”

“Thanks, Rust.”

He needs to be home here with us. He’s better at this stuff than I am. Lord, make him stay. Make him want to stay.

Mom sits up in the bed drinking a cup of tea. “Hello, dear!”

“Hi Mom.”

“I’m so glad Rusty came. I was hoping I didn’t have to eat breakfast by myself.”