Are You Sitting Down? (10 page)

The sucking sounds coming from upstairs would haunt
me
for months to come.
They reminded me of the vacuum the de
n
tist used to extract excess spit from m
y
mouth when I was a little girl
, not a living human thing growing inside of me now
. A nurse called me upstairs and told me to bring
Chelsea
’s purse.
She
had to give them more money b
e
cause
she
had lied about how far along
she
was.

“Your turn,”
she
said lying on a sofa in the recovery room.

“I can’t do it,” I mumbled.

“What?
You can’t keep that baby.”

“Yes, I can.”

“
Clare
, it will be a constant reminder of what ha
p
pened.”

“My baby will remind me I can change all this.
Life doesn’t have to be this way.”

I walked out and left
her
lying t
h
e
r
e.
I never saw
her
again. Outside, a pro-life picketer tried to pull m
y
hair.

“I didn’t do it,” I said.

“God bless you, child.
Your baby will be blessed,” they said letting me
pass by
.

Eight months later, Jake was born.

*
*
*
*

T
h
e
r
e was a tapping at the bathroom door.
I opened the door to find
Mom
standing t
h
e
r
e holding Jake.

“Is everything okay in
her
e?”
Mom asked.

“Everything’s just fine,” I said, taking Jake from
her
.

“Come downstairs and visit with us then.”

“I need to get everyone’s gifts out of my car.”

“Want us to help?”

“No.
No, I can do it,” I said stuttering.
I was still trying to clear the events of the morning from m
y
head.

“Are you okay sweetie?”
Mom
said putting a hand to
my
forehead as if checking for a fever.

“I’ll be fine.
Just need some coffee.”

“I’ve got a pot brewing downstairs.
I’ll go make you a cup.
Cream and sugar?”

“Yes, please.”

I followed
her
down the stairs and watched as
she
di
s
appeared into the kitchen.
I hurried back outside and got in the car.
I almost felt like I wanted to drive away and disappear.
I had not wanted to arrive like this.
I always panicked when life handed me the unexpected.
Before, I would have shrugged it off as bad luck and thought I deserved whatever happened to me.
But now, I took it personal.
I still blamed myself, but now it was because I worried so much about Jake and whether or not I was a good mother.
I had been a disappointment to my mother too much growing up; I didn’t want to be that way with Jake.

I popped the trunk in case they were watching me from the window.
I checked the ignition for m
y
keys.
They weren’t t
here
.
I checked the floorboard and the seat.
M
y
purse was still upstairs in the bathroom, but I knew I had not put the keys in t
here
.
I opened the door and looked on the ground in case they’d fallen out.

“Looking for these?” Travis said, dangling the keys in front of me.

“Shit!
You scared me,” I said.

I didn’t know how long he’d been standing t
h
e
r
e.
I swiped the keys from his hand and got out of the car
, and h
e followed me back to the trunk.
I started loading his arms with gift-wrapped boxes.
Travis remained quiet, just looking at me.

“What?”
I asked him, like someone mistrustful of
the
pe
r
son looking at them.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re thinking it,” I snipped
,
roll
ing
m
y
eyes.
It was a typical sibling reply.
“I’ve been
here
five minutes and we are already arguing.
Just like old times.”

“I’m not arguing,” Travis retorted.

“Then what do you want to say?”

“I’m just going to say I saw what’s in the glove box.”

I didn’t look at him.
I didn’t say anything.

“You aren’t going to find happiness in those little pla
s
tic bottles,
Clare
.”

“I’m not looking for happiness.
Just some nice subst
i
tutes.”

With the trunk empty, I slammed it shut and hurried into the house.
Travis stood t
here
for a minute
, lost and looking
as if u
n
aware
I’d ended the
conversation, and then he followed me into the house.

Lorraine
 

Frank was my first boyfriend, and the only man I’d ever been with.
It was a bit odd to have taken interest in someone else now.
Calvin was a retired farmer who’d lost his wife about three years ago. All the kids ha
d met him, except Travis, so I was very excited about Travis being here for Christmas this year.
There was some resentment among the kids concerning their mother seeing another man
now
, but I think they unde
r
stood that even I deserved not to be alone the rest of
my
days.

“He makes me happy,” I told Ellen.

“As long as he’
s
good to you,” Ellen said.

“
He is
,” I said, feeling like she probably did when I questioned her about Mark
back
when they were dating
.

“Have
you guys had sex?” Clare asked with a giggle.

I blushed and laughed, and kindly told her it was no
ne
of her business.
The truth was Calvin and I were both beyond the need for physical pleasure in life.
These days an arm around the shoulder while watching a movie and sharing a bowl of m
i
crowave popcorn, or a kiss on the cheek at the end of the night
was
just as satisfying.
The comfort of a man in the house or just someone to talk to instead of these walls was enough for me.

Frank and Calvin were totally different in demeanor and looks, so I have no idea why I was attracted to Calvin.
As we get older, I guess
our
tastes change in lots of things.
For i
n
stance, w
hen I was young, scrambled eggs were a daily staple in my parents’ house.
My Mom raised chickens in a coop in the backyard, so eggs we
r
e plentiful.
I hate
d
them now probably because I ate them everyday for breakfast, and sometimes for dinner, when I was a little girl.

Frank was tall and lean.
The man could eat two ha
m
burgers in one setting, and I don’t think he’d ever gain
ed
a pound
since the day we married
.
His hair was thinning and he looked very studious.
But h
e was a teacher and accustomed to wearing thin white shirts with bold neck ties
, and heavy green or brown pants with freshly shined shoes.
Over the years, the heavy wrinkles around his mouth and across his forehead b
e
came deeper and much more precise.
When he smiled he almost r
e
sembled a comedy mask hanging above a high school drama stage.

Calvin
wa
s plump with thick bone white hair that st
ood
up on end with each hair looking like a perfect blade of grass.
From years of spiking his hair with heavy pomade, it now stood permanently at attention.
His skin
wa
s dark and spotted from years of working outside beneath the hot summer sun.
He always w
ore
blue jean overalls over a crisp tan or blue bu
t
toned shirt. Bags beneath his eyes h
e
ld stories of a farm boy who was up before dawn every morning to plow the fields.
The wheat and the corn were his only friends until he came in at dusk when it was too dark to see to get any more work done.
He has the same weighty wrinkles on his face as Frank did, even in the exact places.
They remind
ed
me of Frank which is why I think I like
d
Calvin so much, except his age lines
were
there from different reasons.

He’d started coming to our church on Sunday nights because he’d grown tired of being a hermit after his wife died.
Sometimes when our heart empties out we want to be alone, but sooner or later it too yearns to be around other people. At first, he sat in the back next to Mr. Manny Black, who had also started back to church around the same time.

Calvin soon learned that good quality conversation with Mr. Black was almost nonexistent, or that Mr. Black was a bit crazy.
Mr. Black always stopped me at the end of service to ask how Travis was doing.
I remained cordial with him because I was sad about the loss of his own son, and I knew how much Justin had meant to Travis.

The sight of Mr. Black himself was pitiful.
He'd gained so much weight
.
I don't know how he balanced himself sitting in the church pew, and seeing him stand up from it was quite a feat.
His hair was usually greasy, and so was his skin.
His old glasses looked spotted with paint and were held together with balls of Scotch tape
. H
e smelled like he had not bathed in days.

Calvin was a fresh glimmer of hope when I saw him that first day sitting there next to Mr. Black.
Mr. Black intr
o
duced me to him, and I thought maybe Calvin was a friend he had invited.
I remember he'd winked at me, and I think it'd made me blush a bit. The usual church trustees had already pounced on him, inviting him to the morning senior service or to Sunday school, feeling him out to see if his soul was in need of being saved.
Calvin politely shook their hands, but showed no inte
r
est in the activities they were eager
to initiate him
in.

A few Sundays later Calvin had moved from the back pew up to the middle where I sat.
I had arrived early in the sanct
u
ary and took the pew in front of him.
I turned around to greet him and ask how he was doing.
I'd made a sincere effort to r
e
member his name.
He remembered mine.
He invited me to lunch after service, and with no hesitation, I went.
Over chicken salad sandwiches at a darling little downtown cafe I'd never been to before, Calvin and I swapped life stories.
The sandwiches became a usual Sunday after
noon routine for us, even after we caug
ht ourselves repeating our
storie
s.

He eventually asked to sit next to me at church.
It sent the little blue haired ladies gossiping, but after all, they needed something to pray for forgiveness about.
Nothing was ever said out loud to me because they knew I wouldn't participate in the quarterly
women's bake sale if they did, and my lemon ice box pie was always a best seller.

Lunch with Calvin became dinner after the evening se
r
vice, which soon became movie night at my house with a bowl of popcorn
,
a
new
weekly ritual of ours
like the chicken salad sandwiches
.
That was four months ago, and my time with Ca
l
vin had been quite rejuvenating, some of the best moments I'd had since long before Frank died.
I was happy that
Calvin would
be spending Christmas with us this year.

As I stepped out of the old barn's foundation to head back up to the house, I smiled over the whole birdseed episode from two days ago.
It all
seemed trite, but it was necessary sometimes to step back and take a look at ourselves as if we were a diffe
r
ent person.
We shake our heads in amazement at the things we do or obsess over.
No matter how unimportant it was, the whole charade with the dead orioles choking on cheap birdseed would have to stick out in my mind as something much more important because there had been some discomfor
t
ing news that day which was much worse.

After buying the birdseed, I had a doctor's appointment.
It was to be a usual check up for heart rate, blood pressure, and all the other things to be concerned with at my age; but I was also going there to get the results of some tests the doctor had run a few weeks prior.

It was official.

I had abdominal cancer, some rare cancer no one else ever had in my family
that I knew of
.
It's a cancer that eats at your digestive system attacking the intestines and eventually the stomach.
Radiation or chemotherapy was not an option, but I'm not sure they were options I'd contemplate anyway at this point in my life.

The doctor said I had eight months, maybe
a bit
longer.
Eight months was plenty.
I'd go right at the beginning of autumn like Frank did.
That was always our favorite time of year because we enjoyed watching the leaves change.
It's funny how fall foliage is the most obvious change each year we can always count on happening, but actually everything else is changing around us in life as well.
Just sometimes we fail to take notice, or we don't want to.

At least this year would be a good Christmas.
So, I
chose
not to tell them.
I ha
d not even
told Calvin.
I wanted the kids and grandkids to be able to look back and have fond memories of the last Christmas they spent with me.
I ha
d
no plans for them all to be bedside this time next year watching me sleep, with hoses and monitors hooked up to me.
 
Holidays should be special.
I wouldn't have it any other way.

Back in the house, I rehea
ted
the oven and check
ed
the foil covered pots under the burner.
Homemade cookies and pies are the only thing that kept me up late last night.
Thanks to the new mega supermarket with the huge deli section that just opened in town about a year ago, I bought everything else pre-made.
Yams, green beans, corn, cornbread,
baked
beans, de
v
iled eggs, potato salad, and even a fruit tray were all bought at the
deli
.
And
Mr. Greer is smoking the ham for me.