Me and Mom Fall for Spencer (23 page)

Me and Mom Fall for
Spencer

Chapter Thirty-Four

There is a ten year old girl who’s lost
her wings. She comes home from the hospital but she stays in her room. Her
mother cajoles her out with a new Barbie doll. Go down to the coffee table. I
bought you something.

She doesn’t want to go down to the
living room. She is not living anymore. But her mother prevails and so she goes
down the steps and she can see the bright pink package, the coffin with the
doll in it, waiting for the girl’s hands and voice to bring her to life.

But the girl turns and runs back up the
stairs, trips and keeps going until she’s in her room, until she can close her
door and dig her way in to the back of her closet.

Her mother puts the doll on her bed, and
later, when the girl comes out of the closet she sees the doll, freed from her
package, posed by her mother to stand and look ready for the beach.

The girl stares at the doll and tries to
figure out how to get around her, how to shove her under the bed where she’ll
never have to see it again.

At first she’s afraid. But then she
feels something more, something that wants to break loose and make the loudest
noise. So she screams and grabs the doll and runs from her room and throws the
doll down the stairs.

Her mother finds it, picks it up. Her
mother stands at the bottom of the stairs, the doll in her hand the way the gun
was in his. Her mother yells her name and says she has to stop being like this,
she has to try to be normal. She has to try.

The girl is not against normal. She just
doesn’t know how to find it. She doesn’t know what it is now with the rooms so
quiet, so free of his angry voice and his violence. She doesn’t know what it is
with her mother home, with Frieda gone and her house stained and silent, with Jason
angry and distant, with her hero fighting…in the hospital.

She doesn’t know how to go outside when
she carries this scar burned into her, this mark that sets her apart from
normal.

That fall she goes to school, but the
first day she leaves and walks home. The school calls her mother. Marie comes
home, frantic, searching for her daughter. She finally thinks to look in the
girl’s closet, and there she is, hugging her knees.

Merle comes every day. He has books and
paper, and ideas. He looks at all of her art the way some people notice nature
and talk to God. Merle considers the artist.

She can explain the pictures and they
start there. They are not necessarily good, they do not necessarily show
talent, but they reveal the artist she was…then. And they make her remember
herself…
before.

So it starts around her art, and it
segues to Leonardo
Da
Vinci. She likes Leonardo and
the way he captures spirit along with flesh.
Along with soul.
Merle explains the difference.
Da
Vinci paints the
layers of human life, the layers which lead to the divine…the Artist. He paints
the Artist in the man.

Who can do that? Who can paint the
seen
and the unseen?

But it’s there.
In the
Mona Lisa.
Most say this is the most famous painting in the whole world.
She is no more
beautiful
, perhaps not as beautiful as
others, Merle says. But it’s the light. That’s why people have lined up for
centuries to gaze upon her. They are drawn to the light in her face.

This girl may be ten years old but she
is captured by this idea. She knows it’s there…the light. She knows what she’s
looking at in
Da
Vinci’s work. She knows because
she’s seen
its
opposite…her father’s lips, her
father’s eyes, her father’s deeds. There’s her father…but there’s Mona Lisa.

The dark proves the light, Merle says. And
Da
Vinci captured the light and Merle says
,
it’s her job to find it in every created thing…the light. It’s
her job to allow it to be free in herself…the light. It’s her job to move as
far away from the darkness as she can…to find the light and give that away and
to encourage it in others.

“Is this normal?” she asks.

“It is exceptional,” Merle says.

“Is exceptional better?” she asks.

“Yes,” Merle says.

She has no idea how to do this, be this
light, but the idea is a rope, and she’s holding it.

By this time
Leeanne’s
mother has asked…
Leeanne
won’t go to school.

And that’s how it begins, the three of
them, Merle’s lofty ideas, the girl’s hunger for them and
Leeanne’s
droll humor as she sighs deeply while Merle and the girl go off into the
endless possibilities…the stars.

All that fall and some of the winter
Cyro
is in the hospital. Sue can barely take care of
herself. Marie takes food Sue won’t eat.

Jason is a ward of the street, mostly
staying with Merle and Pearlie. But more and more the girl takes responsibility
for him. It keeps her from thinking of herself. Jason is a lost puppy with no
one to love. He moves toward her.

It’s important for Jason to stay in
school. From the hospital
Cyro
insists. He feels Jason
has too many uncertainties and needs the familiar routine.
Cyro
is a man of uniforms and discipline. It’s all he can give Jason…from a
distance.

Merle does what he can to catch Jason
up, for he’s not been able to start with his class. But by Halloween he is back
in the classroom, often raising holy heck, but he’s there.

And
Cyro
comes
home and Sue goes in to the hospital for the last time. By Thanksgiving she’s
in the ground and Merle is driving
Cyro
back and
forth to physical therapy.

And Jason belongs to the girl. No more
dolls.
Just real things now, hurting things.
The girl
grows strong for him.
And
Leeanne
.
She takes care of them, corrects their school work, makes Jason use the right
colors on his homework, turns his backwards letter around, lectures him,
rebukes him, mothers him,
fathers
him.

Cyro
loses his leg. She takes him treats. He does not give her his light. He has no
light now.

It’s Pastor Stanley,
it’s
Merle. By the next fall
Cyro
emerges in a chair and
he goes up and down in the street, up and down, faster and faster. And her
mother stands in the window and watches and smokes and is silent. And slowly
the girl takes care of her too.

And Jason wants to run after
Cyro
all the time, and he does, but sometimes
Cyro
won’t let him so he sulks, he gets in trouble at
school, and he spends as much time at the girl’s house as he does his own.

And one night, the girl stands on the
porch with Jason and they are counting the times
Cyro
goes up and down, up and down, and Sarah feels safe, and Jason is proud.

Cyro
flashes his light at them, and they run to him. He sends Jason in to the house
to get ready for bed. Jason lets the door slam. He gives the girl the
flashlight he takes on his runs. “You’re my deputy now,” he says.

“For what?” she asks.

“For the street.
You and me…we’ll keep the bad guys out,” he says.

Then he wheels away and she stares after
and figures well, he needs this light, so she runs after and she turns on the
light and tries to run fast enough to keep the bright circle before him. But he
doesn’t want that. He sends her to the sidewalk, his side of the street. He
says he’ll take hers. He tells her to stay even. And they walk.

It’s
Cyro
who
tugs on the rope in her hand, the rope put there by Merle and Leonardo
Da
Vinci. It’s
Cyro
who teaches
her to climb.

I tell Spencer all of this.
In the dark.

“My Sarah, my Sarah,” he says to me. He
cries for me. He tells me it’s not pity,
it’s
compassion…it’s rage…it’s sorrow, it’s a river of sorrow, it’s his heart
breaking open. It’s love. He says I have to let him catch up to me.

I’m dry-eyed. I’m observing a proper emotional
response through him. I’ve never known the way to view it, so I have not gone
up in my personal hot air balloon and looked down on it.

Until now, until the
safety of him.

“My Sarah,” he says, his hands against me,
his arms holding me.

If there is sleep it’s in patches. I am
sleeping with my eyes open. I’m at rest. It’s not a green valley, not that. But
I just am. I am still.

I don’t want to leave him. I don’t want
to be apart from him. It’s not sick. I’m done with that. It just is. I want
him…sickness, health, rich, poor, until the River Jordan, and even then if I go
first, I’ll wait in the light, my arms reaching for him.

It’s still dark when I see it, the
bright shape, the finger drawing close, and I gasp, ready to protect Spencer,
ready to shield him as it draws near, and comes close, so bright, and I feel
the warm touch over my heart and I close my eyes.

It was always hers…the scar she made
when she touched me there.

I tried to tell Mom at ten years old.

“No,” she said. “Don’t ever say that
again.
Ever.
They’ll think you’re crazy. They’ll lock
you up in here and you’ll never come home,” she said this to me that day,
hanging over my hospital bed.

So I put it away in one of the rooms…in
my head. I put it there for safe-keeping…the touch that melted my skin.

Mom said it was a bullet, the same one
that killed Fred, stopped his heart. But I knew it was Frieda. I always knew.

She died for me.

When I open my eyes it’s dark and quiet,
and Spencer is whispering my name in his sleep, and maybe it was a dream, the
light…and her touch.

I know my skin will stay marred in the
same way. I know that I am healing. And my life will speak of this light touching
me in the dark. And people…my own children…will hope.

Me
and Mom Fall for Spencer

Chapter Thirty-five

There is this new place Spencer and I
have
found,
this new world we’ve somehow had the good
fortune to land upon. We are stepping from the sanctuary of our boat now and
making our ways onto the dry land. He wears a pilgrim hat, me a bonnet. No
turning back.

“What are you thinking?” he asks, moving
his hand through my hair.

“I’m thinking of pilgrims,” I say. We
are still lying in his bed, and it feels like a dream.

He laughs.
“Thanksgiving?”

“You and
me
disembarking a row-boat.
Entering a new country.”

“Is that what we’re doing?”

 
“Yes.”

“Hmmm.”
He tries to read it…my brain. His big hand is cupping the back of my head. “I
look like Roger
Chillingworth
and you look like
Hestor
Prynne,” he says.

“Wasn’t Roger…old?” I think of saying,
‘thirty-seven,’ but I don’t.

“I guess. But I could work with the
pilgrim idea…it could be like a French maid if I took my trusty knife….”

We are silent then, comfortably silent,
as his hands smooth over me. “Your skin is so soft,” he says running his hand
down my arm and gripping my fingers, “Except for your hands. These hands are
very hard working,” he says, lifting the subject, slowly kissing each of my
fingers.

He sounds playful but when I raise my
head and look at him, he has tears in his eyes.

“I shouldn’t have told you,” I whisper.

“You should have,” he says firmly.

“I upset you.”

“I’ll live,” he smiles sadly. “We said
‘love,’ right?”

“I did,” I say.

“I did first,” he reminds, one brow
lifting.

“You’re braver.”

He shakes his head and resumes the
finger kissing, “I don’t think so. Not even close.”

The dogs are pushing their noses at us. They’ve
had the run of the place. Spencer gets up and I’m knocked into silence watching
him. He’s beautiful, but he wouldn’t say so. His lack of interest doesn’t take
it away though—he’s beautiful. Not only because I love him. He’s gifted with
beauty.

He pulls on his boxers and leads our
cheerful amigos out. He’s back quickly, but he’s not happy. He gets into bed
with me and I can feel it in him, the trouble. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.
That
living room…I don’t know how you’ve come back here.
I was an ass
to…French fries. You should have told me to shove the whole hot pan of
grease….”

I don’t want to get out of this bed. It’s
all so much easier lying here. “Hush. You took my fear away.”

He eases some. “Sarah…do you see
yourself staying here?”

He’s made me see myself without him. He’s
made me look in to the future and I’m alone.

“I mean…could you ever leave here?” His
arms twitch around me.

“It never came up.”

“Have you made sure…I mean you
went
to college.”

“Now and then.
I did most of it on-line.”

“And what about your
work?
Your company…?”

“I visit time to time.” I’d seen Aaron
at the funeral. He had the good grace not to question me about work.

“Can you leave here? Do you do alright
when you’re away? Is it some…you’ve heard of agoraphobia?”

I rear back to look at him. “You think I
have it?”

We stare at one another. “I have no
idea,” he whispers.

“I don’t,” I say.

We resume our positions, holding one
another, my head resting on his chest.

“Sarah, I’ve been
a
damn
tumbleweed you know.”

“I don’t, Spencer,” I whisper, because I
don’t know much. He’s started to tell me, from his being here, backward to
Oregon to the Pacific trail. He’s told me that much, but not the before. “You
were boxed in or something. You said it had no bearing on right now?”

“Yeah.
I’m an ass. Every time I look at myself next to you, I cringe, baby.”

“What I’ve been through Spencer…what
I’ve shared…there’s nothing remarkable there so don’t over-think it.”

“You don’t see yourself, Sarah.”

“You see how low it sets the bar for me?
I’ve heard people say that…you’re functioning. It’s a miracle. I heard that a
lot in the hospital. So what…functioning now becomes this walk on the moon? I’m
functioning. So what? Other people have to go to college…contribute. I just
have to…get dressed!” I think of all the times Mom told me to put my pants on. It
makes me smile.

“You’re smiling,” he says. “Thinking
about right now? Your birthday suit?” he asks skimming a hand over me.

I laugh. I’m not but close enough.

“Sarah…you can’t know what you mean to
me.
 
I want to say it….”

Mad kissing.
 
Nothing between us.
 
We make love, this love, this painful,
desperate joy.
 
There is no slowing down,
such an eagerness…to join.
 
But first,
just his hands on me, his fingers touching, the pads on each one rough and
soft…his touches, his eyes intently watching his hand…on me.
 

“You’re mine,” he tells me as his
fingers stroke between my thighs, and I am wild and crazy now, insane to feel
him touch me, and my hand is over his and I break apart and this rippling
euphoric heat lets loose in me and what a trick…of God’s…to put this in place,
to create us with such a capacity.
 
To share this…in love…to let us fly.

He pushes into me and I am like a
water-slide in there, a wicked ride and he says, “You’re hot inside, you’re so
hot,” as he gasps and pushes himself in and out, and he’s telling me in frantic
whispers how beautiful I am and how much he loves me.
 
He’s a talker now, a revealer.
 
He’ll never let anyone hurt me, he says.
 
He’ll never let anyone hurt me again.
 
I’m his.

After he fills me, we lay like that,
sweaty and not wanting to break the chain.
 
He keeps tension on my hips, holding me to himself.
 
He is kissing me, softly kissing me, and I can
easily bear his weight, just now, he can’t crush me.

“I love you,” he tells me.

“I love you,” I repeat.

“I guess…would you marry me?”

“Yes,” I say with a certain amount of
surprise because I already know I would.

“You would?” Now he’s surprised.

“Yes,” I say again.

“I can’t believe it.”

“Why?
 
You think there’s someone else?”

“Oh, you’re settling for me?”

“I’m not getting any younger.”

We do get separated then as he rolls me
around on the bed and I squeal.

Later….

We are in the shower and he is soaping
every inch of me praising my body like one might a new religion.
 
I know I’m average, but it’s like he’s making
me beautiful while he goes on, it’s like I’m becoming beautiful.
 
I think even I can see it.
 
Even knowing I’m still
average.

I wash his back and he has his hands on
the wall and his head is bowed and he’s groaning.
 
“That feels so good,” he says.
 
I reach around and grip his pole, and I guess
men are like that all the time when a naked woman is nearby cause he is, always
like this until we have just done it, then he goes soft but I haven’t seen him
that way, I haven’t looked.
 

I have soap and I hold him there and he
likes it so much he leans back into me, shows me how to do it better, gripping
my hand like I had his earlier, and I stroke him that way and I feel so in
control of him, and it’s new and it’s powerful and generous all in one because
I love him with this crazy feeling.
 
And
he comes in the air and a little on the wall and his body shudders and never in
my life…have I experienced this.

So later….

We share secrets now, so many already,
and how he came on the wall and he called it, ‘the little
fishies
,’
as he washed it off and that was pretty funny.
 
I’m still laughing on the inside when I answer the door.
 
I figure
it’s
Mom,
but no she’s back at work, or probably
Leeanne
wanting
to make sure I remember I’m driving her and Pearlie to the cemetery later.
 

But I open the door and
it’s neither of those, it’s a woman and she looks…expensive.
 
Now she is beautiful.
 
And right away I know.
 
Somehow…he belongs to her.