Me and Mom Fall for Spencer (25 page)

“Let me tell you something about them Sarah…you’d
meet them…like with Davis…God I don’t even want to say his name…but you’d meet
them and love them. That’s how it is. They can work it…you know? They have
perfect skills for drawing people in, and if they can’t there’s their endless
money. But there’s always an agenda…always…and it’s more about them than you.
Every time.”

“Was there a woman, Spencer? Is that
what it is?”

I feel his dread. He’s ashamed. “That’s
part of it. We were going to get married. I find out my own so-called brother
betrayed me with my fiancé. And they all knew. When I found out…they think I
broke down…fell apart. I know that’s what they think, that’s what they say, a
breakdown. But Sarah…it was a break-through.

“I had to get away from them. He’s their
son. Not me. Then he has the nerve to approach you?
To come
here and approach you?

They’re getting married. That’s what
this is about…Davis and Carolyn. Brenda and her baby boy came here so I could
lift it off of them…the guilt. What am I supposed to do?
Be
his best man…drive there for Christmas? See how it is?”

He looks at his hand, flexes his
fingers. “It’s not that I haven’t let it go…I have. I’m not in love with
her…they can have each other.
 
But my
parents…my real parents are dead, Sarah. It just took me a few years to realize
it. You think I wanted to bring all that here between us? I’ve been too happy. I
left all of this bullshit on that trail.”

Inside me, a new movie is being
threaded, ready to run. “How…did your parents die?”

“Dad had a plane…he was a pilot. Sometimes
if someone in town lost a loved one out of state…Dad would pick up the body. Mom
only went with him one time. He crashed shortly after take-off down in Texas…a
malfunction. They were killed. I was only eight when I went to live with Aunt Brenda
and her husband Walter. They had a kid my age. You’ve met.”

“She called you Erich.”

“Spencer is my last name.
My real father’s name.
When I went to live with my aunt I
thought it was a fine idea to let them change my name to Jorgen. But…I’ve
changed it now.”

“And Erich?”

He shakes his head.

“Gundry?”

His smile is sheepish.
“The guy who ran the motel in Oregon.”

“What’s…wrong with
Erich?
The name?
You said….”

“My grandfather.
He was in it with them.”

“She looked so sad…your aunt I mean.”

“I pretty much adored her. She stepped
in after the loss. She was…great.”

“Did you and Davis get along?”

“I didn’t make an issue of things. But I
knew very young we had different
..scruples
, different
ways of seeing life. He’s very likeable. He has this…charm.”

Spencer is also charming but I don’t say
this. “You taught high school?”

“Yes for seven years. But I did go into
the family business when…Walter got sick--cancer. Brenda was beside herself. During
that time Brenda also introduced me to Carolyn and…we dated and it was all the
same circle. I dodged the marriage bullet so long I finally succumbed to the
pressure and proposed hoping for the world’s longest engagement.

“The family business entails selling
industrial equipment and includes a great deal of travel. I like travel but it
wasn’t my ideal for a marriage, me being on the other side of the world from my
wife. But going into it was a compromise…for Brenda. I had to help the family
out…or it was presented as such. The whole family wanted me rich and
successful. It’s like joy came, and Walter was doing better. Brenda had been so
worried and depressed, then…but she was happy again.
 
Looking at it from this vantage point, I can
see myself selling out bit by bit. It was my own fault.”

“Did you…love Carolyn?”

“I love you, Sarah. I had
an affection
for her. It’s all I seemed capable of. Before
Carolyn even. I hit a wall, like I couldn’t find the willpower to love someone.
You taught me the
difference,
I’ve never been like this,
never felt like this. Carolyn got the old me…dishonest…to myself and to her,”
he says looking at me, his eyes…he wants me to get this.

“I was so preoccupied I didn’t see it. When
I found out, I walked away. There was nothing to stay for. I pulled my money
out of the bank and took a long, long walk to clear my head. After a winter of
my own lousy company I picked a small town, a small life. I came here. I met
you. And it all makes sense.

“They did me a favor. I fell for you the
day I looked through that jungle along the fence. This beautiful creature
looked back at me. It moved me to shave.”

“Me too,” I say, and he laughs.

I slowly put my arms around him and he
lays his head on mine. “Will I ever meet her…this woman you call mother? Did
you give them any hope for the future, Spencer?”

“I told them to leave. I’d get in touch
when I was ready.
If I was ever ready.”

“You said that? They are your family, Spencer.
She took you in. You…you hurt together…and maybe…she saved you. It’s like you
don’t believe they can ever learn…as you have. You don’t have any hope for
them,” I say, realizing I have this whole philosophy that has kept me hanging
on to Mom.

“They betrayed me. I don’t trust they
won’t hurt me again, or worse hurt you. And that I’m not willing to risk.”

I know this is his deepest fear.
 

But I realize I’m different. I keep a
crack in the door, right or wrong, it’s what I do. Even with Fred, if he
wouldn’t have died that day…I’d probably be going to the prison on Father’s Day
or something weird like that. I’d crack the door and hope a sliver of light might
touch him.

Frieda…Merle…they cracked the door. Maybe
they are why I’m this way.

Spencer is justice. Like
Cyro
.
 

But I hope. The world needs both. I do.

Spencer moves to stand on one of the stairs
below me. He leans toward me, his hands on my shoulders.

“You’re my life,” he says with all this
verve like he’s about to make a great speech. Of course with his ass to the
yard that way it’s only a matter of time before Lucky or Ned say hello. Spencer
stands and swats at the offender. “Mother-
effers
,” he
yells.

Now we’re laughing. I stand with him and
we are wrapped up in one another. “You should have introduced me to her at least.”

“Baby I’m sorry,” he says kissing me
with that plump sore lip. “I’m not…but I am.”

I get it. I do. “After all, I’ve never
hid Mom. She fell in love with you too, you know.” I try to smile, but the idea
of Mom loving Spencer…or anyone really, and yes I can finally admit it, we have
to smile at least.

Then I hear a tiny noise near the
backdoor and I realize she’s been listening possibly to our whole conversation.
Spencer has heard it too, and we stare at one another.

“We’ll be different,” he says. “Look at
it this
way,
it won’t be hard to do better. We’ll make
a great life.”

I know that we will. We already are.

Me and Mom Fall for
Spencer

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Theory has it that the moon was once a
part of the earth and there was some kind of a collision and it splintered off
and took its rightful place in the universe reflecting the light in its own
unique way back to the mother-ship. I tell this to Spencer that same night his
family shows up, as we stand in the yard looking up at the big, full dinner
plate made out of some kind of green cheese.

It reminds me of him, leaving his
family, standing apart and alone…taking the sun…and making it
special…beautiful.

He tells me he walked away from a life
he no longer believed in. He left it, left them behind. And he walked to me, he
said. Okay, he rode too, on a bus. But he found me.

Here’s how it goes. The next morning we
are driving Merle’s Cadillac to take Pearlie and
Leeanne
to the airport. Spencer likes the Cadillac and Pearlie asks him if he wants to
buy it and he says yes. And he offers to write her a check. He always carries
one in his wallet, and she wants two thousand dollars and he scoffs at that and
pays her six.

She’s going to fight him on it, but
Leeanne
says, “Take it, geez.”

So with his check in her pocketbook
Pearlie tells me to be good and she pats my cheek. I watch
Leeanne
lead Pearlie’s red hair through the gate beyond our reach.

Then I cry. I’m about to get my period,
but still, I cry then, about…everything…Merle, Pearlie, and change. Spencer’s
parents dying. Spencer being hurt, leaving his life, his family. Frieda.
My dear God, Frieda.
Fred…miserable life,
awful death.
Cyro
.
Sue. Jason.
Leeanne
.
Little
Leeanne
.

Mom...her shoulder and
the pink strap and all her bad dates from the internet.

For all the dogs in the shelter who will
never find homes.

And
Leeanne’s
uncles, that one who was homeless especially and the other guy going to find
him and both of them too weird and according to
Leeanne
,
too disgusting to attract wives.

And finally, I cry a little for me…just
a little.
 
 

I am just like Ned, the worst…because
I’m loved.
 
Love makes me a big cry-baby.

I am so hungry…for Spencer.
 
He drives far enough out from the city, no
one around, just us and the Cadillac, and a full front seat, a barge in the big
river of life, and I stop crying and take off everything, with his help, and he
has his pants around his ankles and his shirt is somewhere in back, where I
threw it, and my chest makes a sucking sound against his we are sweaty and worked
up and this big car is rocking and the steam on the widows frosts the glass and
walls us in, and he knows how to move me, and he slides me one way or another,
and he says, “Oh, like that…Baby like that.”
 
And I don’t say a word I just do what I’m told, what he wants, it’s all
that matters because he takes care of me, like his guitar, hitting it right,
right and good…and we make beautiful music together.

 
“If you don’t marry me I’ll die,” he says
filling me, pump and pump.

“I will,” I tell him.
 
“I already have.”

“Yeah?
 
Tomorrow?
 
You’ll do it tomorrow.
 
I won’t ever let you go.”

“I won’t go.”

“Yeah?
 
Yeah.
 
You’re mine.”

“Yours.
 
Forever.”

No one loves like
us,
no one could…like us.
 
No one grinds like
us,
no one gets entwined like us, goes blind like us,
designed like us, for us.

 
I
don’t deny him a thing.
 
I let him look,
I let him touch.
 
I’m made for this…for
him.
 
And I let him know he’s mine and I
want to know what he wants, how he wants it…my hands…my lips…my hips and all
the dips, all his…just take.
 
And
give…until we melt and seep away.

I want to tell you that I marry Spencer
and it all goes away, the trouble with Mom,
the
trouble with Spencer’s family. But of course it doesn’t go away. There is
always lemon in the sweet tea, right?

But it does move a little.

Mom…the vagina I came from, moved into
the rental house two weeks before I married Spencer right around Thanksgiving. Remember
my vision where we were both dressed like pilgrims?
Prophetic.
Not only did we dress like
Chillingworth
and Prynne
for Halloween, but our anniversary would forevermore be marked by turkey and
cranberry sauce.

So Mom goes on more dates and spends
time occasionally playing cards with
Cyro
until she
goes on a trip with some teacher friends over Christmas break, Costa Rica, and
comes back enlightened.

For one thing she’s all about muumuus. She
wants to simplify and takes all of her knick-knacks and most of her non-muumuu
clothing she’s left behind in my house, to Good Will. She says she’s a grazer
now, just passing through, traveling lightly. She won’t be staying in any one
place for long, the world is her home and doors will open or something. And
that philosophy takes her from the rental, across the street where she house
sits for
Leeanne
for the rest of the school year. Who
knows where she’ll go next?
   

And
Cyro
gets
a new leg, and
Cyro
trains Dusty so well he walks him
without a leash, walks him every night before bed, down to
Leeanne’s
,
and home, God help us…home in the morning.

Jason goes to basic training in Missouri.
Afghanistan is a real possibility.

And winter passes and Spencer wants to
tear Frieda’s house down to welcome spring. But
I don’t know,
I really don’t
. It is emotional for me and I become a giant hoarder,
hoarding a whole house all of a sudden. This place, it’s an altar for me. I’ve
done business here…with the devil, sure, but maybe with God.
Frieda
for sure.
And Spencer…plenty of business with him.
So there’s light here. But enough light to cover the sins of my father?

Spencer tells me to make a Sophie’s
choice, my house or Frieda’s. Put like that...I pick my house. So he gets the
permits, hires the crew to salvage and demolish, eventually making it a smooth
dirt patch.

“It’s a grave,” I say.

“No,” he argues, “it’s a fresh start. Isn’t
that what a grave is?”

“If heaven is real,” I say, sticking to
the basics.

“It is,” he says, his arms coming around
me.

And I know it is. God couldn’t have made
Spencer…or Frieda or Merle just to end them in a box. I know there’s the
stipulation about Jesus, but they have each been a savior to me.

Spencer is willing to remodel my
house…his and mine now. But I don’t see the need. So we clean and repaint, but
we don’t use beige. He likes
Cyro’s
yellow kitchen so
well he does ours that way and I paint fruit and vegetables on the walls.

The dogs like the big yard because Spencer
takes down the fence that divided the properties and cleans the fence row and
plants grass. And the garden, it’s bigger this year, all across the back half
of the lots we’ve joined. And at the market that June, I sell and he sings and
we make a lot of money and the expansion at the shelter begins.

That fall Spencer registers to teach a
couple of on-line classes and one for real at the community college. He’s
wetting his feet, he says. And I visit my office, and Aaron. He and Christine
are engaged. And he’s happy about it, like he can’t believe his luck.

And we host game night and ask the new
family who bought Pearlie’s to come over. We ask Mom but she’s going to a
play…with
Cyro
. I can’t believe
it,
I make her say it twice. So I go home and try not to feel…confused.

So the new neighbors come and we play
Catch Phrase and I make Alfredo and Spencer plays his guitar a little and the
guy has a banjo and they sound okay together.

And before Halloween we take
Leeanne’s
dogs to her in Florida because she’s going to
spend another winter with Pearlie, too. I don’t recognize Pearlie at first,
well either of them because they’ve gone blonde. And
Leeanne
,
she’s easy in the sun, she’s a natural here.

It’s close to Thanksgiving when Spencer
and I meet Brenda and Walter outside of Chicago for dinner. He’s
right,
they are charming, and right or wrong I can tell,
they love him.

Brenda asks to be able to see the
baby—we’re having one--when he comes in July, and Spencer says he’ll let her
know, and in the meantime I promise her I’ll post lots of pictures.

And they tell us Davis suffered Spencer’s
fate, only this time it wasn’t a cousin Carolyn cheated with, but Davis’s
co-worker.

Spencer plays the world’s littlest violin
right there at the table for Brenda and Walter. They stare at his hands seeming
to believe he is actually producing music. I can’t believe how serious he is,
how serious they all are. I want to tell him to put his ‘instrument’ away, but
he’s so self-satisfied I can’t bring myself to ruin his moment.

We are married a year. Winter is losing
its punch and I am getting bigger. So on Sunday we drive to the country and
visit a piece of property there. Spencer thinks about buying it, living on a
small farm, and all the things we could grow. Not right away…but we could buy
it now.

And then later…possibly
a mule.
I say that, but he doesn’t think it’s so funny. He
says he’d like a Kubota though, whatever that is.

I still walk the block, now more than
ever. With two and sometimes three dogs, it’s not an option. And Spencer goes
with me, unless he’s working.

It’s different though, so different.

All those years, I wasn’t looking for
bad guys.

I was looking for love.

Me and Mom…we fell for Spencer. And
everything started to change.