Club Sandwich (16 page)

“Okay then. I’ll be out front.”

“You’d better be. Sorry about your brother, though, Ivy.”

“I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Yeah, but a DUI. Dang.”

A DUI?!

Okay, I guess the butter on the T-shirt didn’t count as number three after all.

I’m going to kill him.

Rusty’s filled with a lot more sympathy than I am.

“Oh Ive. He needed a lesson, and this could be it.”

“Rusty! He totally denied it was his fault.”

“He’s just scared.”

“I hope so. I hope he’s scared to death.”

“Well, at least you had a good day at the restaurant.”

Good. He doesn’t want to talk about it either.

“Oh yeah. Those guys ran the kitchen like clockwork.”

Rusty chuckles. “Anybody get a burn?”

“Nope. They behaved themselves.”

He rises from the kitchen table where we’re drinking a late-night cup of tea. “That just tickles me. I had no idea chefs behaved that way.”

“They’re very territorial.”

“Well, maybe that’s a good thing. Makes cooking macho.”

Yep, still a very male profession.

“Thanks for doing all that today, Rust.”

“Sure. You know, it’s providential that this all happened when I was home. I don’t know how you would have done it by yourself.”

“Me either.”

“You’re a good woman, Ivy.”

So stay home this time, Rusty. Get a job here and help me.

But I don’t say it. Why?

Because apparently I’m not important enough.

I can’t sleep. Big surprise there. Sometimes that’s okay. Sometimes God uses those times to draw me into communion with Him. He reminds me that no matter what’s going on around me—crumbling marriages, DUIs, broken hips—He’s busy with plans of redemption. Not just for the people I love, but for me, too. He is the Great Physician, as so many people call Him. Able to heal not just physical troubles, but emotional, marital, and spiritual trials. He loves Brian. He loves Brett. He loves Mom. He loves Rusty and Lyra and Persy and little Trixie. He loves me.

God loves me.

A basic understanding of that overwhelming love grows inside me. God loves all His children. Even Harry.

The thought actually comforts me.

So I cast all my cares upon Him. Jesus told me to do that, to come unto Him. And if I don’t, if I think He doesn’t care about all this, I’m questioning Him and calling Him a liar.

It’s tempting, actually, to hang on to trouble. And sometimes I succumb, pulling into myself, trying to convince myself I can handle my life just fine, fine, fine. In fact, sometimes I turn rather holier-than-thou about it, as if I’m doing God a favor by not bothering Him. How ridiculous, because in His omniscience, because He feels the pain of His creation, He’s already bothered in a way. He feels the groaning. He knows our frame. He remembers we are dust.

I groan softly. Begging Him to work, to blow in like a cleansing wind, to stay true to His promise that He is not slack, that He will provide a way of escape, that all things work together for the good of those who love Him and, in that great omniscience, all those who will love Him. Brian will love God someday. Someday he will stand with the great throng and bow his knee with every
knee and confess with every tongue that Jesus Christ is Lord. To the glory of God the Father.

I can trust Him. He is not a liar.

I lie in the dark stillness of my room, consumed by the brightness of His love, His purity, the cleansing fire of His wondrous mercy that will one day abolish all sin, all death, all rebellion. All unfaithfulness, all addiction, all pain, and all loneliness.

I
remember the trunk of my mother’s olive green Chrysler Newport. When we packed up for our family vacations, Harry actually stood our suitcases up in a row. Seven of them across the trunk, easily arranged. When the auto manufacturers reduced the area, the bickering began. Our first flat-trunked car being the Chrysler Cordoba, Ricardo Montalban and his Corinthian leather, and really, does Corinth even exist anymore? Mom was actually more spatially minded, but my father failed to see that, let alone admit it. Perhaps he would now. Who knows?

One day Mom pulled up to the house, the trunk of the Newport filled with red plastic ten-gallon water jugs. They stood politely together, like a line of red-caped troubadours patiently waiting to woo the princess. Mom recruited Brian to unload the trunk and haul the containers into the kitchen.

“What are we doing?” Brett asked Mom.

“We’re storing up water.”

“Why?”

“They’re planning on poisoning the reservoir at Loch Raven.”

Loch Raven Reservoir lay three or four miles from our split-level home in Lutherville.

I didn’t think to ask who “they” were. According to the John Birchers, “they” were always up to mischief somewhere or other.
But here we are in the new millennium and no communist takeover yet. No doubt their attention has turned to the Middle East these days.

Mom filled the bottles, and Brian dragged several down to the lower level. The remaining two ended up in the front hall closet between the wall and a green vinyl vacuum-cleaner box with a hinged lid. Our closets were famous for junk. But this square box held moldering treasure galore: sweaters with rusty zippers, old tennis racquets I’d strap to my feet with yarn and pretend were snow-shoes (Harry had a fit the first time I did this and ruined the strings), old hats, gloves, scarves, and a stuffed lamb with a tinkle bell inside. Oh, and my parents’ duckpin bowling balls from their bowling-league days. Each had a little trophy on the desk in our living room. Mom’s said:
LAST-PLACE CHAMPS
. I think they had more fun back then.

My father arrived home from his optometry practice that night, upset about something as usual. Mom clicked in from the kitchen on her high heels, spatula in hand. They never kissed hello. I think that stopped sometime before I was born. In fact, I’ve often wondered how I was even conceived. I hate to admit it, but Harry grew happier after he left.

“Dinner’s almost ready, Harry.”

Harry hung up his suit coat. “What the heck are these red bottles?”

Only he didn’t say heck.

“Peggy Robinson got word they’re going to poison the water.” And Harry said nothing. Even now, I wonder that he didn’t ask who, or say a word further.

Now I know there were some things better left unsaid.

Maybe Harry got tired of being married to a nut. Maybe he got tired of living with a woman who lived in fear.

I shouldn’t feel guilty, but I do. If only Mom would complain, I might feel vindicated about my inner grumblings. But she bears up under the rehab with a grim smile. She does, however, mumble at the demonic foam appliance she must keep between her legs. How in the world anyone can grab a single wink with that thing, let alone an entire night, mystifies me. But then I’ve never been a great sleeper. Have to have a fan running, total darkness, and my own pillow.

We brought her to our house yesterday. Brett mercifully drove her sedan, as Mom could just as easily climb the Matterhorn as climb into my Blazer right now. Of course, Brett will count this as having done her part for the next month, I’m sure.

And now that Mom’s here, I can bet my life and the life of my children that I won’t get any offers of help from my siblings. I hate seeing my mom like this, the woman who never traipsed outside without makeup and heels. I heard it all the time. “Your mom is so pretty. Your mom always looks so nice.” She looks old, and I don’t quite know what to do with that truth.

Brett’s “on a second honeymoon” now. Marcus planned a trip to Aruba, just the two of them, next week. Mom, who never really trusted Marcus, admits mixed emotions, but believing in the sanctity of marriage and knowing the fallout of fidelity gone awry, she hopes for the best. I do too, I have to admit.

Mom has always been strong. Physically and emotionally. But when my father left, she told the truth, laying out his shortcomings
before her children in a way psychologists would frown upon. She probably just didn’t know what else to do.

She sat us in a line on the couch. I was twelve, Brian fourteen, Brett sixteen. She twisted her wedding band around her finger. “Well, Dad’s gone.”

“Where to?” Brett.

“With
her
.”

Brett nodded and looked down. Brian cursed.

“Brian. Please.” Mom.

I said, “Who’s ‘her’?”

“Janice.”

“Why would he leave with a girl named Janice?”

“He loves her.”

A hot flush filled up my cheeks. “Doesn’t he love us anymore?”

Mom shook her head. “I don’t know.” She grabbed my knee. “But of course he’ll always love you kids.”

I began to cry. But he loved Janice more. Even at twelve I could do the math.

Mom sat beside me. “But I can tell you, I’m not going anywhere. We’ll see this thing through together.”

“He left before and came back.” Brian.

“He did?” I asked.

They all nodded.

Mom put her arm around me. “I didn’t think you were old enough to know those other times, Ivy. I just told you he was away at conventions.”

It’s not like Harry was ever close to us. An arbitrary melody in our lives, he sang his own descant at will, leaving the true composing to my mother. The sad part? As devastating as the news seemed to be, it ended up making very little difference in the day to day.
Dear God, if I die suddenly, I hope a tizzy erupts. I hope I’m that necessary.

Brian leaned forward. “But he may come back this time too, right?”

Mom stared him in the eyes, her own eyes drooping into her dark circles. “I told him if he left this time, I was done. That I’d never take him back again. He left anyway, Bri.”

“So you’ve decided for us that we won’t have a father around?” He bit his bottom lip.

Brett turned on him, a fierce glow in her brown eyes. “No. He decided he didn’t want to be one, Bri. Big difference. Don’t you ever say anything like that again! Mom’s not to blame! Dad’s a creep. Face it. He’s scum!”

Brian ran from the room. A few seconds later, his bedroom door slammed shut.

“Brian makes me so mad.” Brett.

Mom stood up. “It’s okay, sweetie. He’s got a lot to deal with. You all do. But we have to be a team or this isn’t going to work.”

Brett ended up in her room too, and I went grocery shopping with Mom, like we always did on Thursday afternoons. She said yes to everything I asked for, including the large, clear, glittery rubber ball that still lays in my nightstand drawer.

Well, I wish we tackled life that way now. Go team, go, and all that. As soon as Brett and Brian got their driver’s licenses, they began carting me around to and from school, sports activities, and—when I reached ninth grade—my student internship at the
Lavalier
. I really should move on from that paper, but Baltimore holds on to me like Elizabeth Taylor holds on to her diamonds.

I suppose they feel they paid their dues on the front end of our
odyssey. And maybe they’re right. Maybe that’s why I feel like I can’t speak up. Maybe that’s why I can’t stand my father. I can point to that day we three lined up on the couch as the beginning of it all.