Written on My Heart (11 page)

E
very car and truckload that went up the hill from The Point toward Stoughton Falls broke my heart. We took some of the furniture from the house, but left most of it there, where it would wait in the silent dark of wintertime for our return in late May. We mothballed furniture, covered everything with old sheets, and tied our heartstrings to a post on the headboard of our bed.

Finally everything was done. I stood in the doorway that September twilight, unwilling to turn out the hall light while Bud sat in the car with our cranky baby. Finally, my finger pushed the light switch, I heard a tiny click, and Grand's house went to sleep as we bumped up the hill and away. I didn't look back and I fought not to cry.

About halfway to Stoughton Falls, I looked at the side of Bud's dashboard-lit face. “We're summer people now,” I said to him.

He grunted. “Who'd a thunk it?” he said.

I kept myself busy the first few days by arranging furniture and putting things away. Arlee and I went outside often. She played while I cut the grass with a little rolling mower we bought at the Elephant Mart down the road. We watered the one sorry rosebush sprouting under the picture window. Traffic was heavy on Route 100, especially during morning and evening commutes into Portland, about twenty minutes away. I found that if I shut my eyes and tried hard enough, I could
imagine the
whoosh
that the cars made sort of matched the sound the harbor tides made as they washed in and out. Homesickness came in roiling waves, but I didn't dare call Dottie or Ida. I didn't want them to think I was a sissy. I told myself to get with the program a hundred times a day. I thought about Bud. “This is fun. This is an adventure,” I said to Arlee, often.

“Fuh,” she replied.

“Fun,” I agreed.

I cleaned the trailer and sometimes I made bread and when I had gone through my little routine, I willed Bud to come home early. He was done for, most nights, but after he washed away the daily grime he kept Arlee out of trouble while I made supper. He put her to bed and read her stories, after which he joined me in the living room and later, in bed. When he was home, it was a good and quiet time.

“It's almost like a vacation,” I said. “Just us. No Stella or Grace. No Ray, no . . .”

“Bible-thumping mother?” Bud said.

“I love Ida,” I said.

“Me too, but just us is fine with me.”

All that couldn't last, of course.

One October morning, I told Arlee to stay out of trouble while I ran to the bathroom to throw up. Dr. Anna Pulsifer told me that the baby I was carrying was due on May 8th. The nausea would pass, she said. But she was wrong.

Being the queasy, pregnant mother of a toddler was a pain in the ass for both Arlee and me, but we made a game out of it. When the urge struck I stuck her in her playpen, held up my finger, said, “Wait,” and ran for it. She learned to stay put until I returned to her and we went into the kitchen where, with me shaky and sick, we shared crackers.

“I don't understand this,” I said to Ida, over the phone. “I was never sick with Arlee.”

“Each one is different,” Ida said. “I was the opposite. Couldn't keep anything down with Bud, but Maureen was another story. No rhyme or reason to it. Ginger ale and saltines worked for me.”

It didn't do the trick for me, and one night, after a busy day of running for the toilet and chasing Arlee, I said to Bud, “I'd like to have this baby now, please.”

“You need some help? Ma will come help.”

“I know,” I said. “But I don't want to bother her. What if she wants to have Bible study? She's so much better than I'll ever be. It makes me nervous that she thinks I'm going to hell after I die.”

“She loves you anyway,” Bud said.

“So you agree I'm going to hell after I die?”

“Walked right into that one, didn't I?” Bud said.

“Hard to walk around it,” I said. “I don't need help. I can handle this.”

But it got worse. A couple of days after a half-assed Thanksgiving for the three of us, Bud left work to rush me to Portland to Maine Medical Center's emergency room. After they stuck a needle in my arm to pump fluids into my dried-up body, and told me I had something called hyperemesis gravidarum (a fancy name for Puke-itis), Bud called it.

“Arlee needs someone who can keep up with her,” he said. “And you need to rest.”

Ida showed up two days later and put me to bed with soup and crackers.

“I know you're not hungry,” she said, “but you have to keep trying.”

“Where's Maureen?” I asked her as she sat on the bed and watched me eat.

“Madeline's keeping an eye on her. When you lived alone in Grand's house, we watched over you more than you knew. She'll be fine. And so will you.”

“Doesn't feel that way right now,” I said.

“The baby's healthy, I'm here to watch Arlee and I'm glad to do it, and Bud can go to work. That takes pressure off all of you.”

“I appreciate it, Ida, but I'm still sick as he—. I mean a dog.”

Ida smiled. “Florine, you can swear in front of me. Jesus won't take off points for a good swear, now and then.”

“I miss Arlee,” I said. “I know she's in the living room with Bud, but I'm losing so much good time with her.”

“She seems to be just fine. Babies are resilient. She knows you don't feel well. They pick up on a lot. She's got her daddy out there with her.”

“I know,” I said, trying not to get irritated. “I know she's tough as nails. I'm saying
I
miss spending time with her.”

“You'll get that time back when you're better. She's loved, she's happy, and she knows you're nearby. You need to stop worrying and concentrate on getting better.”

What I really wanted was someone who would listen to me whine and feel sorry for myself. Ida was no fun. Everything she said made sense. I sighed and plugged away at the soup and crackers. Nausea met them halfway down, but I was determined to keep the food in my stomach. I was more afraid of disappointing Ida than I was of losing precious fluids.

Arlee's second Christmas passed with Ida, Maureen, Bud, and sometimes me gathered around a tiny tree. Bud had driven to The Point to bring Maureen to Stoughton Falls and they had gone out into the woods together to cut it down. They put the tree up and we decorated it with ornaments and lights Ida bought from Elephant Mart. I stayed in bed for most of the holiday, but we did the best we could. Maureen went home after a couple of days, and Ida stayed on until the second week in January 1973, when a boatload of flu snagged against the shore of the new year and caught Maureen off guard.

The day after Ida left, Bud said, “You going to be all right?”

“I'll do my best,” I said.

We struggled through to the middle of March. Bud took me in for fluids twice a week. He and Arlee found something to do while they
pumped and plumped me up. Some days were useless as far as my being able to help, but somehow, as Ida had noted, Arlee sensed how I felt. We took long naps on my bed. Bud went to the Stoughton Falls library and got a library card. He toted home piles of children's books recommended to him by the librarians. I read to Arlee in bed or on the sofa, or we watched
Sesame Street
and
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
. At night, Bud completely took over.

I still felt sorry for myself, but Bud was getting impatient and tired, and his mother's matter-of-factness crept into his conversation more and more. One night when I whined, “Do you still love me?” he snapped, “Don't be so foolish, of course I do. But I'll tell you right now, I'll be goddamn glad to see this one come out.”

In late March, the nausea came back full tilt, and my back began to act up, to the point where I could barely walk, let alone run after Arlee. I was too sick to care for her, and Bud reached his wits' end.

The morning I couldn't get up, he said, “Florine . . .”

I said, “I know,” tears streaming down my face.

We packed Arlee's clothes and her toys and Bud took her down to The Point. She left me with a smile on her face, snuggled in her Daddy's arms, carrying Dodo the donkey. Rivers of water ran down my face from the time I heard Bud pull out of the driveway until the time he returned to hold me in his arms and tell me that she was playing a game and eating a cupcake when he'd left her.

I took the sheets off her crib mattress so that I could hold them to me and smell her. At night, I imagined her squeaky voice calling out for one of us.

“Goddamn quiet,” Bud said one night in bed.

“I hear her talking and running through the trailer,” I said.

“I do too,” he said. “Drives me crazy.”

“Do you think we can drive down to see her?”

“You really want to do that? Even if you could, it would rip you up to leave again.”

He was right, but that didn't make it any easier.

Once, Ida let me talk to Arlee on the phone, but it confused her.

“Mama?” she said. “Mama?”

“Here, honey,” I said. “Mama's right here.”

“Mama. Mama. Dow.” When Ida let her go, she ran through the house calling my name, which killed me.

Not having to care for both Arlee and me eased things for Bud, but he still had to come home to my grumpiness. It was hard to carry on a conversation when all I wanted to do was throw up. Every day I got up after Bud had gone to work to try to make some kind of supper for him, but that was a lost cause. The baby had gotten big, and my dizziness made it almost dangerous for me to try to do anything. Bud had to make his own meals, plus bowls of soup, ginger ale, and crackers for me.

And then, of course, my fear of losing Arlee forever in some way surfaced because she wasn't right there in front of me. I knew her grandmother and her aunt would protect her with all of their fierceness and love, but accidents happened. I had nightmares where I couldn't get to her, and others where I couldn't find her. I had nightmares where I saw Carlie walking off with her, and I couldn't catch them.

Apparently, how I acted out during those dreams affected Bud's sleep, because one night he woke me up and got tough with me. “Cut this out,” he said. “I miss her too. Let me sleep. You sleep. Let's all sleep, for chrissake.” He brought me a glass of water and said, “Now, go to sleep,” and I did.

One Saturday morning, after he brought me a bowl of oatmeal and then sat on the bed beside me, I said, “You didn't sign up for this, Bud. I'm sorry.”

A quick flash across his face told me that he thought so too.

“Of course, I didn't sign up for it either,” I said, my temper at the ready.

“I know,” he said. “It's been a tough time for you.”

“I guess this is what life is,” I said.

“Christ,” he blurted out, “I hope it gets better than this.”

That made me mad. “Well,” I said, “if you don't like it, feel free to go.”

He looked at me as if I was crazy. “Sometimes,” he said, “I get to say what I'm thinking without being yelled at. It's been tough for all of us. I was just getting it out by saying that. No sense in sugarcoating it. Give me a fucking break.”

“Why don't you take a fucking break,” I yelled, and he did. He slammed out of the trailer and didn't come back until the afternoon. He walked into the bedroom and mumbled, “I'm sorry.”

“I am too,” I said, but we were still both tender to the touch and we weren't ready to make up. He went into the living room, leaving faint traces of something that smelled like whiskey behind. By nighttime, we were over it. We held each other and I told him I was sorry.

I decided that thinking good thoughts no matter how I felt would be better for my baby. I put my trust in Ida and Maureen and focused on Arlee's brother- or sister-to-be. I closed my eyes and rubbed my belly, which made the baby kick and move. I turned on the radio and let it hear the latest songs. Baby liked the Carpenters, Elton John, and John Denver the most, or at least I did. I sang Elvis and the Beatles to it in a rusty voice while I stretched out on the sofa or in bed.