Tuesday Night Miracles (18 page)

“Listen, Dr. Bayer, I have to go. Forget about the singing-dream thing and me rushing from class like a big baby. It’s no big deal. I have a lot on my mind. I’m going to try harder. The happiness thing makes sense, really it does.”

Olivia wants to believe Grace. If only she and her classmates knew how easy it was to move through this and focus on the positive. Maybe she will have to trip them all in order for them to make that leap. After all, if a person is in midair she will either fall or put a foot out and land safely.

“You know that if you want to talk or need me you can call.”

“I understand, Dr. Bayer. Thank you. And …”

“What is it, Grace?”

“I just wanted to tell you that I’ve been carrying my needlepoint around.” Then Grace hangs up before Olivia can say another word.

Damn it, Olivia thinks, setting the phone back on the table. Damn it and alleluia! It’s a night of mixed blessings.

Much, much later, when Phyllis wakes to the sound of ice cubes dropping into a glass and the slap of Olivia’s slippers moving through the kitchen, she shakes quickly, jumps off the bed, and groans softly when she hits the floor and her brittle hips bounce.

Olivia’s hand is on Phyllis so fast that Phyllis jerks a little bit, and Olivia says, “Sorry, girl.”

Then Olivia makes another call. Phyllis can tell this is a good call. She often talks into the phone like this late at night, and so softly that Phyllis thinks Olivia is sitting there talking to her.

“Darling, I know, I know,” Olivia whispers to her sweetheart. “Can you be patient just a little bit longer?”

Phyllis hears the glass being moved off the table while Olivia is listening.

“I’m not sure how long this will take. It’s a hard question to answer. You know it’s an anger-management class. Court-ordered.”

There’s another pause. When Olivia isn’t drinking, she pets Phyllis. Phyllis wishes she’d get off the phone.

“They aren’t like that, not at all. I told you what I’m trying to do. I just can’t get them all to budge at the same time. And, yes, I know I’m out on a limb and this may not be the time to do it, but there I am, and it’s gotten kind of windy but I’m hanging on, sweetie. I’m your Livie. You know I have to try.”

The last thing Olivia says is “I love you, too”, and Phyllis understands the word
love
. It’s what makes her tail wag when she hears the key in the door.

Lots of quiet time passes and then, without warning, Olivia gets up and walks back to the kitchen. Phyllis is beyond startled to hear more ice cubes falling into the glass, but then she feels the fingers again and she melts into her soft bed.

The next time Phyllis wakes up is when she hears the empty glass hitting the table next to Olivia’s chair.

This rarely happens, and now Phyllis decides that she needs to go outside for a moment.

Olivia is not upset when Phyllis gets up and goes to stand by the door. She opens up the door and, fortified by the whiskey—two glasses, which is highly unusual on a weeknight unless she’s with Buffy—she doesn’t bother to put on a jacket over her well-worn navy terry-cloth bathrobe.

Phyllis has her little go-to-the-third-tree-stop-to-make-certain-Olivia-is-there-eight-times routine down to less than ten minutes. Olivia stays on the front step and waits.

It’s chilly for October, and even as the air makes her shudder and the stars are out in full force, Olivia can’t stop thinking about her conversation with Grace and how she needs to stay with it, work harder herself, try new things. But what?

Her ankles are starting to get cold, but Phyllis must not be rushed or she’ll have to do this again in about three hours.

One of the reasons Olivia has always loved living this close to the heart of the city is that she can hear it beating—trains, cars, horns, factory engines—without having to be too close. She also gets to have a tiny yard for Phyllis, and those all-important trees. Just as she is thinking she will go to bed without a bright idea, something drastic to shake up her Tuesday-night class, Olivia is startled by the sound of either a car backfiring or a gunshot.

Phyllis hears it, too, and stops where she is. No one had better hurt Olivia or there will be hell to pay! Phyllis instinctively barks at the noise.

When Phyllis runs back, without having bothered to take care of her business, she is relieved in another way to see Olivia standing where she left her and smiling wildly.

“I’ve got it,” Olivia says, reaching into her pocket for one of those tiny biscuits that taste like fresh gravy. “To hell with caution. I know I have to get these women on their own adventures and interacting in a setting that isn’t so restrictive.”

Phyllis has no idea what’s going on. She can’t believe her good fortune and eats the biscuit slowly, wondering if that loud noise will come back so that she can get another treat.

Two point nine hours later, when she finally does her business by the tree, Phyllis is just as happy, because Olivia doesn’t scold her for not going to the bathroom earlier.

Whatever it is that’s happening is very exciting and new. That’s what Phyllis thinks. Olivia isn’t as sure as she was when the idea first cataspulted into her mind, but to hell with that. She’s going to do it anyway.

“I’m taking them to places outside the ugly old county building, and who knows if I’m right or wrong,” Olivia says as Phyllis’s attempt at getting a second biscuit fails. “But I have to do it. I have to try.”

Phyllis just wants to get back on the warm bed. Sometimes Olivia makes absolutely no sense.

No sense at all.

19

The Black Dot

L
eah’s days have turned into an unexpected pattern that rarely varies, and she’s amazed at how quickly she has fallen into its predictable arms. Just as one of her housemates suggested, her fears, the constant looking over her shoulder, the way she jumped when a door slammed, a window banged, or anyone raised her voice—all those reactions have ever so slowly diminished.

During the occasional few moments of the day when she has time to stand in one spot, Leah realizes that her old life—surely not the memories that often drag her down like fifty-pound anchors—becomes smaller and smaller when she turns around to look at it.

Her own nightmares have begun to fade, and as she watches her children fall asleep each night she can tell that they fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer each day. All good signs. During the past weekend, when Jessie was busy drawing in the living room, Leah peeked over her shoulder and asked her what she was working on.

“It’s a new picture of our family, Mama,” Jessie shared, holding the picture up for Leah to see.

Leah was astounded. Her daughter had drawn a picture of her brother, herself, and her mother. There was no daddy in the drawing.

“That’s lovely,” she managed to say, her throat tightening.

“Mrs. Harrison, who talks to me about all the bad things, said it’s okay for just us to be a family now.”

“She’s right, honey. We are a family, and we will always be a family.”

“Mama?”

“What, sweetie?”

“Can we stay here forever? I like it here.”

Leah closed her eyes and wondered what to say. Even though she was mostly happy, there were still moments when she wanted to stop right where she was standing, lie down, have someone cover her with a blanket, and then wake her up when all the hard stuff was over. And there would still be plenty of hard stuff.

She finally told her daughter that they would stay where they were for a while and not to worry about anything. “It’s all going to be just fine, my little warrior. Just fine.”

Leah knows some people—Jane, for sure—would wonder how she could be so happy with so little. She has no car, no savings or checking account, no computer. Her children have three sets of clothing, one tiny box of toys, and they share two bicycles with the other ten children who live at the shelter.

Now, when she is standing in the front hallway waiting for her children to get off the bus, she feels absolutely rich. There is not one thing Leah Hetzer takes for granted, and for several weeks she has felt safer each day. There is always food to eat, there are locks on the windows, an alarm system, women who would do anything to help her, and she’s taking tentative steps to try to recapture the one dream she has allowed herself to hold on to all these years: a normal life for her children.

Everyone at the shelter always seems busy. There’s a group session every morning, when the women discuss pretty much whatever they want. All the women have a job at the shelter, even the children, and Leah refuses to surrender her position in the kitchen. Once her children leave for school, Leah runs errands or takes the bus to the employment office. She’s still the newest member of this little community and the only woman who is not yet working outside the shelter.

Three times a week she meets with her own counselor, who keeps warning her that she needs to slow down. “Some of our women have been here for eight months, Leah,” her counselor advised. “You need time to settle, to adjust, to examine every angle of your life. You still have tons of issues to deal with. Slow down so you don’t trip.”

Slow down! Leah wants to run as fast as she can. She wants to get a job, go back to school, find an apartment, make new friends, stand in the window of her own kitchen and watch leaves twirl, snow fall, rain dance. There are other dreams to uncover and surely new ones to nurture, but for now Leah is trying to regain her grace, make amends, listen to whoever cares to share thoughts and time with her.

And sometimes the waiting and the necessary patience frustrates her.

Leah steps outside to wait for her son and daughter on the front steps and doesn’t realize that Sherry, the woman who has been giving her useful advice, is talking to someone on the short path that leads to the sidewalk.

It looks as if it’s Sherry’s mother.

Leah doesn’t know if she should go back inside the house or stay where she is. The two women don’t see her, and they are obviously mother and daughter. They are both standing with their hands on their hips in the exact same spots. They have matching features and almost identical dark hair, although the mother’s hair is streaked with gray.

And they are having an argument.

“You have no idea what it’s been like, Mother,” Sherry is saying through her teeth.

“I warned you. I did. But you never listen. You’ve never listened to me.”

“This is not the time or place. This is not what I need to hear now. Go away. Go away!” Sherry has raised her hands and looks as if she is going to shove her mother out of the way.

Leah reacts instinctually. She jumps from the small porch and screams, “Stop it! Just stop it!”

Sherry turns and faces her, and there is fire in her eyes.

“What the hell are you doing, Leah?”

“She’s your mother. Don’t hurt her.”

“This is none of your damn business!”

Sherry takes a step closer to Leah, and Leah raises her hand without thinking. Just then her counselor, Joyce, comes out of the house and shouts, “Leah! Back off!”

Leah drops her hand and immediately goes pale.

“Go into the house, Leah,” Joyce orders. “Sherry, you stay.”

Leah obeys as Joyce touches her arm and whispers into her ear.

“Sometimes walking away is the best thing to do,” Joyce tells her. “You’ve lived in fear and the self-protection mode a very long time, and not everyone who raises their voice is going to be violent. You must pause. Use this as a learning tool, not as a setback.”

Later, when the house is quiet, Leah slips out of bed, walks to the lone window in her room, raises the curtain, and looks into the dark heart of the night. And she weeps while she also looks into the blackness of a part of her heart that she has avoided for a very long time. When she finishes, much, much later, Leah holds up her hands and sees that in spite of the dishwater her fingernails aren’t chipped and her hands look lovely.

She smiles and turns her back on the darkness, and searches for a bright room so that she can write about what will truly make her happy.

20

The Blue Dot

G
race is pretty damn sure that her L5 is about ready to slip south and cripple her. Her back is killing her. The stabbing pain has lodged itself just above her left hip and she’s been sitting on an ice pack for the past twenty minutes and wishing she had smuggled a bottle of vodka into her desk drawer.

And wouldn’t that cause a new ripple in her half-dead life. She can see it now:
Angry nursing supervisor already attending anger-management class caught slurping vodka while signing off on patient medications
.

It’s closing in on 7
P.M
. and Grace is exhausted. Three people called in sick, God knows what Kelli is up to, her back aches, her feet ache—every part of her body aches—and the headache that lately never seems to go away is dancing across her temples. At least the dance is not a full-blown rumba yet. There’s one for the good guys.

Evan had slipped into her office with a steaming cup of really good coffee, and that was at least a few minutes of relief and encouragement.

“Grace, you know you’re really good at what you do,” he said smiling, as he handed her the coffee.

“Really?”

That smile always makes Grace’s knees weak. “Oh, Grace! You help so many people, and I know you love what you do.”

He was right, but sometimes it’s hard for Grace to remember the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction she often gets after a hard day’s work.

No one would ever call Grace Collins a slacker, except probably Grace Collins. She’s able to see her life only in bits and pieces, and she refuses to acknowledge the miles she has under her belt. She works hard and, in spite of her misgivings, has managed to keep her house, stay on top of most of her duties as a mother, and rise through the ranks because she is a gifted nurse.

And she’s pretty much gotten to this exact spot alone. Her parents all but disowned her when she divorced, and she has always felt as if she were running to catch a bus that has just left without her.

Her days are managed and outlined by her work schedule. The one blessing is that as a supervisor she can work the first shift because she is the top of the totem pole, with tenure, and because she has an advanced degree. But she doesn’t even consider that. She does consider the extra shifts she tries to pick up to help cover her attorney’s fee and the Tuesday-night class and the fact that Kelli is mostly useless and she has to handle most of the household chores herself.

Her mother would have a major fit if she saw Kelli’s room or the kitchen at this very moment. It’s not as if Her Highness would drop in, what with her and Grace’s father being out of the country again, but the one time her parents did drop in unexpectedly it launched three months of such verbal abuse that Grace considered going into hiding.

“How can you live like that?” her mother exclaimed, after they found the house in what she thought was a shambles. Her father remained silent, which was mostly normal.

“Like what?” Grace was coming off a second-shift emergency assignment, both her daughters had decided they were allergic to washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and brooms, and she was barely making ends meet.

“The beds weren’t made. There were dishes in the sink. Your kitchen floor was disgusting. I did not raise you that way.”

Grace wanted to reach through the phone and slap her mother really, really hard. Instead, she calmly told her off.

“This is my reality show, Mother dearest. I work fifty hours a week. No one helps me. I am a single mother. I just put myself through graduate school one frigging class at a time. My daughters are not in jail. They eat and sleep and have clothes. I’m sorry I’m not the beauty queen you wanted who married a rich banker. Get over it.”

The only good thing that came out of that conversation was that her mother didn’t speak to her for two months. Two lovely, angst-free, serene months.

Some things never change, Grace reminds herself, finally closing her file folders, turning off the light, and not so much walking as sliding out the door.

When she finally pulls into the garage, the first thing she notices is that Kelli hasn’t bothered to set out the garbage for tomorrow morning’s pickup. It smells like dead cats and dogs, and there are at least five bags seeping into the already filthy garage floor.

She can hear some loud and absolutely ridiculous rap music playing before she even pulls open the door that leads into the kitchen. She’s been trying hard for months to hear something besides “I wanna hump you” every time Kelli has her iPod stoked to the max.

When she walks into the house, Grace is already five speeds beyond overdrive. Hungry, thirsty, exhausted, and, in a qualifying round for a six-week spa vacation from her life, the last thing she needs is to see the remains of Kelli’s previous three meals on every counter in the kitchen.

She snaps.

Grace drops her bag, hobbles down the hall in her old white work clogs that should be out in the garage with the rest of the garbage, and pounds on Kelli’s door.

“What?” Kelli yells from behind the door.

“Get out here. Now!”

Grace thinks she hears “fuck you,” but she isn’t sure if it’s Kelli or the asshole on the iPod. It really doesn’t matter. She’s absolutely fried.

Kelli pulls open the door and her jaw is set, the music is still blaring, and from what Grace can see it looks as if a car has driven through the room.

There’s a moment when either one of them could back down. Grace could be an adult and say something like “Hi, I’m home,” or Kelli could be an almost-adult and say, “Mom, I didn’t hear you. Hi.” But instead Grace goes to the place she always goes, and it isn’t pretty.

“What the hell? You didn’t do the garbage. The kitchen. Your room. It looks like a pigsty in here, and I just worked twelve hours.”

“I was just going to do it.”

“I bet.” Grace sprays, so that Kelli has to brush her mother’s spit off her face.

“You have no idea what I do so you can have a roof over your head, clothes, that damn music blaring. You could care less.”

“Mom, seriously, chill,” Kelli says, backing up, a line of fear beginning to parade across her eyes.

“I’ll chill. Someday. I’ve had it. I have just had it.”

Grace turns to leave, but not before she sees that Kelli has started to cry. She turns away. Ashamed, and now even more exhausted, she storms into her own bedroom.

“What is wrong with me?” Grace whimpers into her hands, with her eyes closed.

When she opens them, she sees the notes of happiness she has been working on for Dr. Bayer. She bends down, touches the few pieces of paper, and then turns to run and find Kelli. And when Kelli falls into her arms and Grace apologizes, she knows exactly what she will write as soon as she gets back to her room.