The Big Bang (31 page)

“What’s true?” Maryellen put the key into the lock.

“I mean, Dad tells you to have a yard sale and, like, the next minute, you start organizing committees and have info donuts made up.”

“You know I love yard sales.” Maryellen was beyond touched to have Eva acknowledging her hard work. “And your dad only needs a few more dollars and he’ll finally have the down payment money for land to build a real church.” She even had a lump in her throat. “Great, huh?”

“Great we won’t have to have a bake sale every five minutes.”

Maryellen clicked open the door and let her daughter in first. “Amen to that.”

Eva flipped the lid on a donut box and began to refill her basket. “Mom?”

“What, honey?”

“Don’t you ever get sick of all the stuff he makes you do?”

Maryellen didn’t dare look up for fear of what might show in her face, starting with exactly how sick she was of running bake sales. How much she hated wearing Sunday clothing to complement whatever Frank wore. . . How much she hated the way he made her talk.
Tell me you want my big hard manhood inside your tight, shaved pussy…
“What do you mean by that?”

“I dunno,” Eva said. “Like this camp thing.”

The sigh she’d anticipated from Eva fell from her own mouth instead. Why hadn’t she known from the first missed eye roll opportunity that altruism might have little to do with Eva’s unexpected
spirit of service
? That her compliments were likely as calculated as they were heartfelt? “You’re still anxious about going?”

“I never wanted to go.” Tears began to run down her face. “I don’t want to go.”

Could she blame her? It wasn’t like Frank had ever discussed other possibilities, asked Eva for her input, or so much as considered any of Maryellen’s own trepidations before writing the essay, filling out the paperwork, and signing his daughter’s name to the application. “You know,” Maryellen said, “I do understand.”

Eva, whose face looked open and hopeful in a way she hadn’t seen since before Frank announced his big surprise, practically fell into her arms. “I knew it!”

Frank was wrong to sign Eva up for camp without consulting her. More wrong for forging an essay in his daughter’s name. At times, his neglect of her feelings and needs could even be considered criminal. But, as she stroked Eva’s dark hair, the crystals shimmered on that odd charm necklace she always seemed to be wearing.

Had taken off her first communion cross to wear it.

“Mommy,” she sobbed, “you have to get me out of going to that camp.”

Maryellen had cracked the door to the basement, smelled the burning incense, and taken a couple steps. Spotted Eva. Saw her eyes sparkle in the candlelight that bathed the room in shadowy light. “Eva, I don’t think I can—”

“You’re the only one who can.”

“You know as well as I do that once your father makes a decision…”

“I hate him.”

“Eva!”

She pulled away. “I do.”

“Honey, he loves you and he’s looking out for you in a way that someday you’ll be grate—”

“Why don’t you look out for me?”

Maryellen felt like crying herself. If only Eva knew how much she did to shield her daughter from the full force of Frank’s righteous convictions. It nearly broke her heart to take Eva’s pet stray to the pound to spare both of them from Frank’s plan to mitigate certain rabies by putting a can of spiked tuna under the deck. “He’s promised me he’ll take you shopping for a car as soon as you get back.”

“Like I really believe that.”

Frank was wrong for signing his daughter up for a camp she had no interest in attending, but so right, even if he had no idea why. Their daughter needed the support, influence, and redirection of a Christian youth community away from home.

“So, you’re going to just let him send me off?”

If only she hadn’t seen Eva wearing that cape and holding that strange knife. “You never know. Camp could end up being a million times better than you ever expected.”

“Or a million times worse.”

The buzz of outside noise filled the otherwise silent room while Maryellen figured out how to clarify what was clearly not what Eva wanted to hear. “Sometimes, when I find myself in a situation where I’m uncertain or don’t think I’m going to like it, I force myself to smile.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I know it sounds kind of hokey, but things don’t seem so bad when you’re smiling.”

“Like in
The Sound of Music
?”

“In a way. It’s how I deal with tough situations.”

“And starving yourself.”

“Eva!”

Any remaining glimmer of openness or possibility in Eva’s face fell away and was replaced by a steely emptiness. “You know, your smile didn’t seem forced after the potluck when you were gobbling up those Red Vines.”

Maryellen swallowed a shot of licorice-flavored bile and with it the fear of what she might say in the face of exactly this conversation. “Yours did.”

And now it is done…

“Wasn’t forced at all,” Eva finally said.

“What was going on in that basement, with your friends?”

“We were hanging out.”

“Hanging out doing what?”

Eva’s face contorted into a smile, but one Maryellen hoped never to see again. “Seemed like you were really, really high, Mom,” she said.

“I…” Maryellen managed to say.
Little Witch
, she couldn’t.

“Whatever.” Eva grabbed her donut basket and started for the door. “I’m not going to camp.”

“T
his is Will Pierce-Cohn,” he said, enunciating his last name. “I live at 46923 Songbird Canyon Court and my home warranty number is 532122 A as in apple, Z as in zipper. I came home from vacation last night and discovered a large crack running across the interior side of my family room exterior wall. I need to get someone out here right away to take a look.”

***

Tim Trautman pulled the closing documents from the file, located the warranty fulfillment information, and dialed the number.

You have reached Star Warranty Fulfillment Inc. Please leave your name, number, builder,
and purpose of your call. Due to the large number of recent claims, you may experience a delay in response time, but a representative will return your call as soon as possible. Please do not call the emergency line unless this is an emergency. Be patient. We will get back to you.

“Hi, this is Tim Trautman at 35424 Wonderland Valley Court. I’m calling about some cracks around my living room bay window that should be covered under the home warranty transferred into our name by the Smithers family upon sale of the house. If someone could please call me back I’d appreciate it.”

***

Hope typed in the e-mail address for Star Home Warranty Fulfillment,
Request for service
in the Re: line, detailed the particulars in the body of the e-mail, and pressed send.

She put a check mark beside call about cracks on her to-do list and moved on to plant materials she needed to review.

***

“Frank Griffin, president of the Melody Mountain Ranch Homeowner’s here. I’m calling in both official and personal capacities. Seems we have floor tile cracking in some of the north-facing men’s and women’s poolside shower stalls. When you send your guys out, I’d also like to have you look at a damp area of carpeting in my basement I left you a message about last week. I figure it might help your backlog if you can double up and check both out together.”

***

U back?
Eva keyed into her phone.

Yep.
Popped up from Tyler almost instantly
. Got in late last nite.

Cool.

I guess if you can call a Disney cruise with parents who never stopped fighting cool.

Glad you are.
She took a deep breath and typed the sentence that she’d been rolling around in her head for days
. Need to talk
.
Meet me at the playground in ten?

Can’t. Parents are at it again about some crack in the family room wall or something and I have to babysit for my little sisters until they quit fighting.

Have to talk to u.

Really can’t.

Eva took a deep breath.
It really can’t wait.

“M
aybe I am crazy in the head.” Laney lay face down on the examination/adjustment/massage table of Dr. Sebastian, chiropractor, acupuncturist, massage therapist, and naturopath. “But before I give in to insanity, I thought I’d see what you have to say. Roseanne Goldberg swears you’re a miracle worker.”

“I do my best.” Bastian, as he asked to be called, placed a meaty hand on her left shoulder and another on the side of her face. “Hold still.”

If she didn’t feel so crappy, she’d definitely be appreciating his strong touch as he pulled, twisted, and cracked parts of her she didn’t know could make quite those sounds.

“Any better?”

“I still can’t breathe out of one nostril.” She moved her head from side to side. “But whatever it was you just did to my back definitely helped.”

“Hmm.” He reached for her hand and helped her into a sitting position.

She took a deep breath of calming patchouli and God knew what else while Bastian turned to face the computer on the desk behind him. After a few minutes of typing, he turned back, reached for her left foot, and placed it on a pillow at the end of the exam table. He reached for a small metal prod that attached to his PC via USB port.

“What’s that?”

“Tests your acupuncture points.”

“By computer?”

“In part.”

“What does it do?”

“Measures your energy imbalances.” Bastian poked her heel with the end of the prod.

By allowing some pony-tailed practitioner of seemingly everything but actual medicine to prod her with a metal cursor, wasn’t she simply confirming her diagnosis of crazy?

Music, like a rising violin scale, emerged from speakers mounted beside the computer.

“Liver is a little low.”

He poked her big toe.

Another rising scale followed by a low beep.

“So are your adrenals.”

She watched and listened to the machine hum, beep, work its way through scales in major and minor as he pressed points on both of her feet and moved toward her hands.

“Thymus isn’t bad.”

“So that’s good?”

He tucked a gray strand of hair behind his ear and pressed the prod between her right thumb and forefinger.

A mini fire alarm went off.

“You are way out of balance.”

“That’s what I’ve been told.”

He spun around on his chair and fiddled with the computer for what felt like forever. “I think I know what’s going on here.”

“What’s that?”

He pressed on her thumb.

The machine not only did a scale, it began to whine and ring.

“What was that?”

“The
a ha
moment.”

“As in you know what’s wrong with me?”

“Mold.”

“Mold?”

He nodded. “You’re full of mold.”

“Okay,” she said, her heart suddenly heavy with yet another nondiagnosis. “What exactly does one do for that?”

“Supplements,” he said.

“Supplements?”

“And…” He began to tap away on his computer again.

“And what?”

“If that doesn’t work, we send you on to a specialist.”

H
ope wrote JORDAN in black sharpie on the side of her urine specimen, sent it through the pass through, and joined the nurse for the obligatory weigh-in.

“Step on,” the nurse said pointing to the scale.

She slipped off her shoes and hopped on the scale. Things were great with Jim. He’d been sweet and accommodating the entire time he’d been home and checking in constantly since he’d left first thing Monday morning. She never said anything related to fertility, babies, or that she was counting down days for this appointment so she could get her relaxed but proactive plans for getting pregnant under way.

“Down almost four pounds from last visit,” the nurse said.

“Excellent.” She’d have some wiggle room she’d hopefully need soon. “My husband’s been out of town on business a lot, so I haven’t been making much of anything for dinner.”

She’d been so busy, breakfast and lunch had also become something of question marks.

Hope eyed the collage of baby photos lining the walls as she followed the nurse down to an examination room. “Actually, my husband’s in and out of the country for the next six months. He’s managed to rearrange his schedule so he can be here or I’m there during ovulation, so it’s really important that whatever the doctor may want to prescribe is timed so my fertility peaks when we’re together.” Hope paused for a breath. Why was she bothering the nurse with all this?

The nurse merely nodded. “First day of last menstrual period?”

“Friday, May thirteenth.”

She looked down at her chart and up at a wall calendar advertising Yaz. “And your cycles have been consistent at twenty-eight days?”

“Give or take.”

“By my calculations you were due for your period on Monday, then?”

“Don’t have it yet, but my husband was out of town until Saturday night, so there’s really no chance—”

“I’m sure it’s nerves.” The nurse’s tone was both bedside sympathetic and rote.