When you get mad, my daddy used to like to tell me, Count to ten. When you get really mad, count to one hundred. I never was able to get much past thirty.
My temper gets the best of me far more often than I like and like all good children of alcoholics, I keep it to myself where it feeds on my dark side. I rationalize it, protect it, tell myself it's in self defense but the truth is that rage and resentment are eating me alive in small bites. Each workday brings a fresh wound and I dread the eight hours at the clinic, staying tensed for an attack, being so distracted that I make more rather than less mistakes, thereby giving the doctor all the more reason to lose his temper. More and more days run together in a blur of feeling targeted, defensive, angry and anxious. I have come to understand that it's time to move on - unfortunately, there are miles and miles between knowing and doing and my natural instinct to avoid change and newness kicks in with a self assured smirk. I hate my fears.
I have never been burdened with self confidence, never really believed I could actually do the jobs I've had, needing to be convinced by time and tenure. The thought of starting again terrifies me, the process of job searching is depressing and unsettling. The thought staying even more so. Too many of my decisions have been forced on me by circumstances, economic or otherwise. This small place between the rock and the hard place is getting too well worn for my taste, too suited to my anatomy. I am besieged by the need for a living wage, a suspicion that I'm not worth it, the weight of ever increasing debt, the knowledge that I'm not young, barely marketable, and have a world weary lack of faith in myself. There are too many days when it all feels like a facade. These are dark days to be out of work.
So I pull on my scrubs, apply make up and a false smile, and do my best to be invisible and unnoticed in the workplace. Don't screw up, I tell myself, relax, pay attention, get it done right and get on with it. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. My mind controls my attitude, I remind myself, and my attitude controls my actions. I have only this one day to contend with.
Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats - Voltaire
A lifetime ago it seems, I waited for her to be born - sitting in a waiting room at a local hospital, my husband pacing anxiously while I stitched. Nine months of anticipation had come down to these few hours - the first daughter of one of my dearest friends was about to come into the world.
She is a grown woman now, soon to have her own first child and I'm struck by the thought that life is circles within circles within circles. There are those among us who are born to parent and nurture, to pass on family traditions and stay close when needed, to sustain us. I expect this young woman will be of that sort, as is her mother. As are her sisters despite their very individual differences and personalities. As was her daddy.
When I was her age, childlessness was a step above treason and a woman who desired more than the traditional home, family and white picket fence was suspect. I spent considerable time and effort defending my decision not to have children although I was never able to clearly articulate why I didn't want them - it was simply something I had known for as long as I could remember, known with a certainty I had in no other area of my life. I didn't question it, didn't agonize over it, didn't wonder about it. I knew, as surely as I breathed, that I wasn't meant to have children and there was no good or bad to it, and absolutely no doubt. I sometimes wondered if I would find a man who shared my feelings or if marriage would be the trade off for knowing and keeping to my own mind.
My upbringing had taught me that children were a burden and a misery and it was something of a shock to discover that in some families they were treasured, included, even sacrificed for. My mother's constant demands for grandchildren was mystifying to me until I realized that it was all about appearances and the need to keep up. My brother finally satisfied her, producing two beautiful little boys - the very instant the first one was born, I was openly excused from the pressure to bear my own. In public, she doted on these boys, playing the unselfish and loving grandmother perfectly. Privately, she saw them as troublesome little urchins, always underfoot and in the way, undisciplined, overprotected, and consuming all their parents time and attention. She was, as she had been of her own children, jealous and resentful.
Children are designed to outlive and outshine us, to continue the circle, whatever it be made of. It reassures me to know that this child is wanted, will be loved, and will always know it. Miracles are all around us and we have but to look to discover them.
Twenty one ladies, the waiter protested half heartedly, Twenty one separate checks! Where's the justice?
We had to smile at his frustration. In contrast to the restaurant which was filled to capacity and beginning to sound more like a sports arena than an upscale dining establishment, the bottle shop was deserted, the lights dimmed to a mellow level on this Thursday evening. The restocking was done, the empty wine cases removed, the bottles dusted and the counters cleaned. We were, as we do most evenings, hoping for the occasional customer and killing time. Other than making change for a few cash tickets and filling a few requests for a particular bottle of wine, we were idle while the restaurant looked like a coordinated but futile effort to herd ants.
It was then that we noticed the cat, a good sized orange tom, casually strolling past the section of Reislings and headed for the dining area. This was so unexpected that it took a moment or two to comprehend, then remembering that we were governed by health department rules, we sprang into action. Regrettably, our hesitation had given the cat the advantage and with a defiant over the shoulder look, he broke into a brisk trot and was nearly to the hostess stand by the time we caught up. Abandoning any hope of discretion, we unceremoniously scooped him up and made a hasty retreat back to the bottle shop. Table for one? a customer at the bar asked as we passed, Check his id! another yelled from a corner. No shirt, no shoes, no service! yet another called, hospitality industry humor being somewhat limited. The Lord protects fools and drunks, I thought to myself as I carried the unwelcome guest to the mall's outer door and deposited him on the sidewalk with a firm command to scat. He gave me a look that managed to convey contempt, resentment and injured pride all in one very cat-like expression then turned and sauntered across the parking lot. Your loss, I imagined he was thinking.
By nine the crowd had thinned out and only a handful of tables were occupied. The twenty one ladies with twenty one separate checks had come and gone, their evening out completed, their server disgusted by the scant tip they had left, tempted to follow them into the parking lot and say that they had forgotten their change. Instead, he shrugged, cleared the table and like the cat, moved on.
You just can't shame a cat or a bad tipper.
And that's how the Indians won back their land, my daddy finished, now close your eyes and go to sleep.
The underdog always won in my daddy's bedtime stories, good villains overcoming tragically flawed heroes was a staple of my imagination and he catered to it when he storied me sleep. There were tales of cowboys and Indians,
knights and dragons, good kings and bad. No Cinderella stories for me, no fairy princess awakened by a true love's kiss - my world was far more black and white and real. He would finish the story, turn out the light and then I would hear his footsteps going down the stairs. Sometimes quiet followed, more often an argument broke out and there would be muffled shouting and tears - he was not an easy man to provoke but my mother was drunkenly persistent and never satisfied until she thought she had won. He was prone to giving in to maintain a tenuous peace, almost never seeing the harm in refusing to fight back. He hated taking sides and it was far less trouble and strife to let her have her way. He was too often snared between his wife and his children, forced to try and arbitrate a solution that satisfied no one, to mediate in what had become a merciless war - if the noose became too tight, he fled for the safety of work, drained and out of words. Inflamed by this desertion, my mother would blame us for driving him away, stagger up the stairs and drink herself into oblivion.
Bless the peacemakers, the Bible says, for they shall be called the children of God. I saw little evidence of this growing up. It seemed to be that peacemakers only lost on all sides and that every small victory was temporary at best. The pretense of family was fragile and transparent, held together by the social stigma of divorce and shame.
Even with my imagination, I couldn't conjure up the image of a time when my parents might have been young and happy and in love - it was a foreign thought in a unfamiliar language, almost an obscenity.
My grandmother, widowed and living a solitary life that seemed to please her, blamed herself. My daddy blamed his own failings. My brothers and I blamed our mother for the foolish decision to have children in the first place.
No one blamed the forbidden word of alcoholism.
The house on Lake Street, a modest white two story with black shutters, a fenced backyard and a maple tree suitable for climbing, kept its secrets and its stories. It invited no one in, preferring to stand and wait, perhaps hoping to become a home. One by one, we grew and made our escapes - my mother died, my daddy remarried,
the children moved on and new children moved in. It pleased me to think that different children would be hearing different bedtime stories, that the house had been given a fresh coat of paint, a facelift, and a second chance.
Every house deserves a shot at becoming a home, the neglected ones most of all.
I won't! the little boy on the playground yelled, And you can't make me!
Around him, the circle of children threw taunts and called him names but he stood his ground, defiantly crossing his arms and looking fiercely back at them. His lower lip trembled when the first rock was thrown and he began to cry with the second one but he was surrounded and there was no place to run. Slowly but without hesitation, the other children began to close in on him and just as I put down my camera and headed in their direction, a teacher noticed the commotion and ran to intervene. Time out! she shouted and broke through the small circle with ease. Children scattered in all directions like leaves in the wind. She took the little boy's hand in her's and led him away, speaking in a low, gentle voice and keeping a close watch around her - he clung to her skirts, eyes cast downward on his small, muddy, sneakered feet, wiping away tears with one balled up fist. I watched her sit him down on the entrance steps and put one arm around his shoulders. She ruffled his hair and gave him a hug, then produced a bright blue handkerchief from her pocket and casually put it into his hands. When he finally began to speak, the schoolyard grew unnaturally quiet, the eyes of all the children, those who had made up the circle and those who had not, seemed to focus in on the two figures on the steps. Not long after, the bell rang and the playground emptied. The teacher and the little boy were the last to leave, walking side by side through the double doors and still holding hands. I hoped that whatever it had been about was over but had my doubts - there are children who are as equally capable of mob mentality and cruelty as any adult - and sadly, there's a little bit of predator and prey in all of us, no matter our age.
Recess was over and the deserted schoolyard was now silent and dusty - it might have been a vacant lot save for
the swings and slide, the jungle bars and the well worn baseball diamond. There was a hint of sadness to it, a barely lonely feel as if it were calling to the children to come out and play again. I won't! I could almost hear the little boy shouting again, And you can't make me!
It didn't seem important what the stand off had been about - it had been important enough to take a stand for.
He cares more for his work then he does me, she tells me, he doesn't bother to remember my birthday, he won't help with the baby, he disappears when my family visits. She is dry eyed and calm, not exactly matter of fact but close to it, as if she's talking about someone else. He wants to be best friends, she continues, not married. And that's just not enough for me.
She seems grounded in this conversation, her voice is firm and her tone resolute if a little nostalgic. I begin to understand that she has thought this through, that the decision to end her marriage has been made. Papers have been filed, custody decided, living arrangements altered. She is not about to retreat or change her mind, choosing instead to openly admit her mistake and move on. She will neither make the best of it nor suffer in silence while life passes her by. I won't make my child miserable by staying in a loveless marriage and being miserable myself, she says with a shrug, She needs two parents who love her and I need a husband not a best friend.
This conversation, predictably enough, starts me to thinking about the odd and unlikely partnerships that we form during our lives and that leads to imagery - two people setting sail in a small boat, the wind at their backs and everything appearing to promise a long and peaceful journey. One, a hopeless romantic, imagines riding the waves and is overflowing with joy. Tumbling emotions spill out at every turn and she is starry eyed with hope. The other, a placid pragmatist, prone to tamping down his feelings and being most at home with comfortable silence, looks only to drift in quiet waters. They each, in their own way, think in terms of risk and reward, they are young, they love each other, they can overlook their differences. Marriage is the next natural step. Neither anticipates that two people steering in different directions will capsize the boat and while each has a moment or two of doubt, in the end they unite, take their vows, and begin new lives. In due time, a child is born, whether her roots are in passion or a blend of tradition and obligation, no one can say but her presence is clarifying. The small boat is barely large enough to accommodate three, especially when two are in mild but constant opposition and inevitably, it breaks apart on the thinly disguised reefs. Friendship, it turns out, survives the journey and continues. Love does not.
I imagine all this as I listen to her speak of loneliness and forgotten birthdays, of feelings that go unappreciated and unheard, and of meaningless conversations about irrelevant matters. If we're not careful, I think but don't say, we can drown in our own expectations.
It's nearly Christmas, a hard time to separate and start anew but the journey goes on, if not for better or worse, at least for the foreseeable future. We travel on the high seas or drift in quiet waters, together or apart, but the journey goes on.
Aunt Minnie loved to walk in the rain.
When everyone else ran for shelter, Minnie donned her bright yellow slicker and boots and went adventuring. You'll catch your death of cold! her aged mother protested, but Minnie just laughed and set off round the Old Road. She strolled and trotted and flat out ran up the hills and down, gathering wet flowers and rocks as she went, passing by the breakwater at full speed, arriving at the square breathless and alone. She crossed the cove, then up to the pasture, then back through the cemetery and down to The Point. Sometimes Willie Foot joined her and together they jumped in and out of the muddy ditches, holding hands and singing, but mostly she traveled alone. She always ended up at Sparrow's where the old man would give her hot vanilla tea and warm buttered bread, then she skipped home - wet to the bone, muddied up, and laughing with delight at her mother's worry.
Girl's not quite right, my grandmother would say crossly as Minnie passed by, She'll catch her death of cold one day.
Minnie waved cheerfully as she trekked up our path. I expect she will, Miss Hilda seconded. She had been caught unprepared by the sudden downpour and taken refuge with us for the duration of the storm. Most unwise to tempt fate and nature in such a fashion, she added and struck her leather boot with a sharp blow from her walking stick. Our ever practical Miss Hilda had neglected to bring her umbrella, Nana told me later, and she was testy at her own forgetfulness. More tea? Nana asked and Miss Hilda accepted with a grim smile.
Minnie crossed the strawberry field, hopped over the ditch, and gradually the fast moving yellow slicker faded into the fog and mist. Her mother would be pacing by the front windows and wringing her hands as mothers sometimes do - after the stillborn twins, this was her only child and despite the fact that Minnie had turned fifty something that summer, her mother saw only a child and a young child at that - she had never reconciled to her own aging and stubbornly refused to accept Minnie's adulthood. She was unfailingly free with motherly advice - always read with the light over your left shoulder, don't fidget, take a sweater, clean your plate, be home before dark, look both ways before you cross the road, never accept a ride from a stranger, don't forget to say your prayers. It wasn't clear when Minnie had simply stopped listening - at some point, her rainwalking had turned into cheerful defiance and to her mother's despair, her regularly dispensed advice went unheeded.
You're an ungrateful child, her mother would complain, and you're going to catch your death of cold.
Mama, Minnie would reply patiently, I'm a grown woman. Let me be.
It was a drama that was played out between them daily and never took a sharp turn. Minnie had been raised to be respectful to her elders and she did her best to be a dutiful daughter. Even after the advice turned to criticism, even after her mother became querulous and quarrelsome and often forgot her name but never all the things she was doing wrong, even then Minnie brushed it off and overrode her by taking no offense and maintaining her good nature. In the end, it was her mother who caught her death of cold and after a short and intense bout with pneumonia, she died one early evening in June, just as Minnie was taking supper off the stove and just after she had reminded her not to burn the potatoes. Minnie slipped into her yellow slicker and boots and went walking - it was the only time anyone could ever remember seeing her out in clear weather and when she returned, with Sparrow at her side, she packed away her rain gear and never put it on again. She had no more need of protective outer wear.
Dark, cold rain coming down on a January night. I wake from nonsensical dream of coloring my hair and nails silver with a heartbreak of a movie about a missing child playing on the television and a cat asleep on either side of me. Just for a brief moment I have a sense of not quite knowing where I am and I have to stop and think what day it is and whether or not I have to go to work in the morning - then I remember, it's Saturday. The quick nap I decided to take at six has stretched past midnight and the dogs are anxious to be let outside. You can't ever make up sleep, my daddy used to tell me, But it's always fun to try. The dogs make a desperate and abbreviated foray into the backyard, I give them a treat, and then we all burrow back under the covers. The cats resume their places, Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek's search for their son ends tragically and a happy song and dance musical with Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds follows. I recognize the lyrics of "Singin' in the Rain" and think how appropriate for such a night, then close my eyes and luxuriate in the thought that it's now Sunday and I can snooze another eight hours. Can't make up sleep, indeed, I think, just watch me.
When I open my eyes again, Gene and Debbie have tapdanced their way into the sunset and Esther Williams is a lovesick, singing mermaid. It's just before six am and I decide I can get away with another couple of hours. The next voice I hear is Edward G. Robinson in "Brother Orchid", a little known and tender hearted film about a reformed gangster hiding out in a community of monks. After fourteen hours of relatively uninterrupted sleep, I'm finally ready to get up and go. My daddy would be proud.
Later that day, I sit by my friend Henry's bed and read while he sleeps peacefully. It's been almost seven weeks since his stroke and his pain is still excruciating and chronic, his progress seems non existent at times - if he wakes while I'm there, all the better, but I will not interrupt his rest - this battered and gentle man is deep in depression and if there is any escape in sleep, he deserves it. The rehab center is busy and loud, televisions blare from every room - not the sweet old movies that lull me into sleep but modern day, blood and guts cop shows that shout with gunfire and car chases, chattering commercials for life insurance and mobility scooters, weight loss cures, bankruptcy. The only realism here is the suffering. I wonder if all this noise seeps through his sleep and into his dreams the way it does mine of if the pain drowns it out. Two hours pass and still he doesn't wake - I put my book aside and slip out.
As a refuge, sleep is a good place to go.
A dish of pearl necklaces lays on the floor in pieces. A plant is overturned, the bed clothes in disarray, a lamp is leaning against the wall, several framed pictures are missing and there are forty seven open windows on my computer. Sitting amid this destruction, looking wide eyed and innocent and a little proud of themselves, are the two youngest cats.
My mother liked to tell me there would be no supper if I didn't clean up my room and I have a sudden urge to repeat this threat, vain though it would be. So who won? I ask instead and they meow in unison, jump off the bed and trot to the kitchen. Must've been a draw, I tell the small brown dog who is anxiously whining at my ankles, reminding me that she had nothing to do with this minor disaster and that she's hungry. The black dog joins in and soon there is a chorus of barking and meowing echoing all through the house. It's seven against one and pointless to argue.
It's on days like this when I wonder how normal people live. I imagine walking through the front door and finding the house in the same condition as when I left - being able to kick off my shoes and watch the news, fix myself a quiet dinner and eat without fending off animals, go through the mail in peace, have a bed to myself. There would be no territorial arbitration sessions, no time outs, no breaking up disputes, no scoldings or reprimands, no litter boxes to change daily. If they weren't being nibbled on, plants would thrive. Earrings would stay paired. Eye glasses and bridgework and lipsticks would be safe from being turned into chew toys. Pizza might be even be delivered without a battle plan to insure the safety of the driver. I would, I suspect, be bored, lonely and more than a little unfulfilled - there would be too much empty space and too little warmth in a house without animals.
Life is meant to be shared, if not with the same species then with another.
The happy optimism and indiscriminate niceness of some people notwithstanding, we are not all meant to get along. There are times when the most we can hope for is to keep it civil.
The morning silence is pierced by the ranting and raving of Aunt Lizzie's stray cats - it comes through my open window with a startling clarity and is immediately followed by an uproar from the dogs which in turn is immediately followed by a steady stream of loud albeit mild cursing from my grandmother. They have interrupted her morning routine and being a woman who likes her peace and quiet, she doesn't take kindly to it. Stop that damn racket! I hear her yell, uncertain if this is directed at the dogs or the cats but then I hear water running and the sudden slam of the back door. She plows through the tall back grass like a runaway tractor - there is an explosive Take that! and a violent splash - then abrupt silence. Looking out my window, I see the two cats slink away, looking very much like drowned wharf rats, and my triumphant grandmother, wooden bucket in hand, with a satisfied smile. She tramps back through the yard and the back door slams again. When the dogs protest, I hear her tell them Hush! There's more where that came from! She is not a woman of idle threats and they settle down at once.
Order is restored and soon after the smell of biscuits, bacon and maple syrup is in the air - the dogs arrive in my room with a clatter of tags, leaping onto the bed to deliver morning kisses, their regular wake up call. The factory whistle blows sharply, announcing that it's seven o'clock and time to rise and shine. Breakfast is on the table and Nana is already busy with the Monday morning wash, meticulously feeding wet clothes through the old wringer washer and into her ancient woven basket. By the time the factory whistle blows again for mid morning break, the wash will be hung in the morning sun, the breakfast dishes washed and put away, the kitchen swept and counters rinsed. She will give me a shiny new quarter for filling the woodbox and then send me out to play. From the playhouse, I see her take off her apron, straighten her shoulders and march across the yard to Aunt Lizzie's back door. She doesn't bother to knock, hoping, I imagine, to catch Lizzie in mid flight back to her daybed in the kitchen where she has played at being invalided for as many years as I can remember. The yelling commences at once - two old women in a screaming match over a pair of stray cats - and as usual, it's a draw. Lizzie suggests my grandmother mind her own business, Nana threatens to let the dogs loose. Lizzie hollers for her to get her ample backside out of her house, Nana calls her a scrawny, flea bitten bag of bones who's never had a sick day in her life.
There is a crash of metal, a shattering screech, my grandmother emerges with a look of pure fury and barely avoids being hit by an airborne sauce pan before she kicks the back door shut. And stay out! Lizzie bellows. With pleasure! Nana shouts back.
Politeness, Adlai Stevenson wrote, is the art of choosing among our real thoughts. Perhaps, but in the real world of flawed family and relations, it's more useful to be able to duck and dodge.
New Year's Day starts chilly, breezy, and a little on the gray side. The streets are littered with dead, dry leaves that snap under my feet and make an unwelcome rustle on the pavement. The neighborhood cats chase them - and each other - across the lawns with reckless abandon, pouncing with the grace and majesty of tigers, then losing interest when they meet no resistance. The only sounds are the wind and the plaintive howl of the fenced in beagle two doors down.
I wash down two aspirin and an antidepressant with a glass or low salt V8, give the dogs instructions to wake me when the sun comes out, and rearrange the collection of sleeping cats to make room for myself under the covers. My last waking thought is that later I might drive to the lake with my camera - there is a rumor that several brown pelicans have been spotted. Before I was old enough to be in school, my grandparents took me with them to Florida in the winter and I've loved the short, squat bodied, comical looking birds ever since. They always make me think of warm winters and glass bottomed boat tours, cozy Spanish looking guest cottages and miles of flat, white sand stretching out to meet the incoming ocean. There were always pelicans and sunsets and trips to the circus's winter quarters, shells to seek out and Ida, an enormous, cheerful, uniformed housekeeper who arrived just after breakfast each morning to chase me outside before beginning her cleaning routine. She had been born and raised in Daytona and had been cleaning cottages since her teens - she knew the guests, their families, their likes and dislikes and their histories and had become as much a part of this winter escape as the sun and sand. Nana would often sit with her in the tiny kitchenette, drinking coffee and chatting as if they were old friends, much to the chagrin of my grandfather who frowned on the help taking such liberties. Nigger maid don't know her place, he snapped at my grandmother, She's hired help, not staying next door for Christ's sake! Nana would clear the table with a bitter and defiant smile and she and Ida continued their morning routine each day. She rarely opposed him but in this she took a stand and refused to give in. It was a peculiar place to draw a line in the sand, my daddy said when he and my mother came for their regular week's stay, and shrugged.
Though I was taught otherwise, there was no liberal bias in my family - staunch republicans one and all, they stood opposed to most everything I came to believe in. Welfare was a giveaway program that rewarded those too lazy to work, homeless shelters were a waste of perfectly good space, all alcoholics lived in gutters and panhandled for their next drink, anyone not Caucasian and Protestant should be avoided, integration was an inherently evil idea and poverty was self inflicted. None of this was spelled out in words, of course, we were taught by example rather than lecture and slowly I came to understand the concept of hypocrisy in my own family. The slogan of the funeral home my grandfather owned - proudly emblazoned on subway walls and billboards all over the city - Serving All Faiths - was true enough, although some faiths were served more proudly than others.
Brown pelicans in this part of Louisiana, like tolerance and kindness, are not all that common but I keep looking.
I met my then mother-in-law's friend, Abby, when I was twenty five and she was forty - I was instantly enchanted.
She wore silky fitting white linen trousers that stopped just below her knees and never seemed to wrinkle, a loose, v cut sleeveless top with vertical red stripes that left her midriff bare and was barefoot. Her hair, rich and auburn and tinged with grey at the sides was cut short and chunky, it moved freely with her every movement. A single strand of pearls and a plain gold band on her right hand were her only jewelry - For dress up, I add an ankle bracelet! she told me with a wide smile. She was tall, trim, and deeply tanned with an athlete's body, the easy grace of royalty, and a tendency to speak her mind - a woman of means, independence and spirit.
She had just come from Sante Fe, she told us, where she had purchased a bed and breakfast inn with the proceeds from the sale of her horse farm in Layfayette. I watched her curl up Indian style with a glass of iced coffee ( she had gotten this herself, over the anxious protests of the kitchen staff and declining the glass of early morning champagne and beignets ) and tell of her tales to become an innkeeper, about which she freely admitted, she knew nothing. But then I didn't know anything about horses or boutiques or restaurants, she said gaily, You're never too old to learn something new! My mother-in-law smiled tolerantly and continued to trim and arrange her flowers. A maid appeared at her elbow, whispered in her ear and scurried away - she gave Abby a dark look. You made own bed again? she sighed, how many times have I asked you .....but Abby hushed her and gave me a wink. They always promise not to tell and then they always do, she said, I really am the most hopeless house guest! And then she laughed, a genuine, uncontained sound, not in the least ladylike or delicate. My mother-in-law looked away, trying to hide her own smile.
This sinewey, elegant woman had, I learned, a history of casting off convention like an unwanted shawl. She had been educated in Europe but her roots were pure Texas and after finishing school she had returned rebellious and strong willed. She married early and quickly discovered that she had no taste for the lifestyle, once divorced she had stayed that way, going her own way at her own pace ever since, her freedom bought in part by family money and in part by her own labor - two years in the Peace Corps, a commune in upper New York state, a California winery for three growing seasons - all in all, an unstoppable woman with an unquenchable thirst for the next adventure. More, she was at home in her skin, she knew her own mind and refused to listen to the proper people or the naysayers. She had found her place in the world, embracing its unpredictability and wild side. She laughed off conflict, evaded arguments, gently chided those who would chide her first, and went about living with a spirit that others couldn't help but admire and envy - joy at all things, peace of mind, confidence in her own being, charity in her heart and open arms for all. She held no grudges, stayed too long at each dance, greeted each sunrise as if it were her first and last.
She was indeed, the most hopeless of house guests and was welcomed at every door.
Dexter discovered the bear cub one clear morning just as he was firing up the still. Startled at the rustling in the surrounding woods, he grabbed his shotgun and marched grimly toward it, fully prepared to run off any interlopers with as much force as necessary - it was, in his opinion, defense of whiskey and sacred ground, a matter not to be taken lightly.
The cub, Dex had no idea of how old he or she was and certainly no thought of danger, was snared at the edge of an abandoned well, hind feet caught in web of wire and splintered boards, front feet precariously snagged on a fallen tree limb. Dex could see he was losing ground as he struggled and at first he took careful aim, intending to shoot and walk away with a pelt that might bring a few precious dollars from the tourist trade - sentimentality and poverty do not walk hand in hand - but then the cub raised his head and gave him a pitiful look and the old bootlegger hesitated just long enough to lose the will to fire. Don't seem right to shoot a fella when he's already down, he grumbled outloud. He lowered the shot gun and cursed mightily then squatted down and begin to ponder on how to free the small creature and incur minimum risk to them both. The possibility that there might be an anxious or hungry mother bear in the vicinity crossed his mind no more than what he was to do with the cub if he managed to free him - Dex was what Nana called "a hand to mouth kind of guy", never much for long term planning. He began crawling toward the cub on his hands and knees, watching intently for any sign of hostility, but the little bear just continued to hang and scrabble at the edge of the well, looking frightened and tired, making small bear noises Dex thought might be crying. Pulling on his old work gloves as a last minute precaution, Dex propped a plank under the cub's hindquarters and levered him up - it took all the old man's energy and breath - but the cub got hold of solid ground and pulled himself up. Slowly and carefully, Dex approached him and gently disentangled him from the wire and wood, speaking all the while in what he hoped was a soothing tone ( the only thing he could think to say was a Bible verse he had learned as a child so he recited the 23rd Psalm over and over ) but keeping his knife within reach. He had pretty much decided he could take the cub if it came right down to it - he was older and less agile but the bear was injured, any fool could see that one hind leg was at an unnatural angle and likely fractured. Finally freed, the cub skittered away from the well and regarded Dex with an appraising look, the broken back leg a dead weight. Reckon Rowena could set that, the bootlegger told him mildly, Iffin we could get you to her. He considered the problem for several minutes then shrugged his shoulders and got to his feet. In for a dime, in for a dollar, he said finally, and walked toward the cub, took a deep breath, and in one easy motion, scooped him off the ground from behind and carried him to the wagon. The little bear squirmed some but made no serious protest.
A bear? Rowena said unbelievingly, A bear with a broke leg? Lord have mercy, you old fool, what am I 'sposed to do with a bear with a broke leg?
Reckoned you could fix 'im, Ro, Dex told her with a hopeful grin and lifted the cub out of the wagon. Rowena, as soft hearted a woman as the island had ever known and well regarded for her powers of healing, sighed. Bring him into the barn, she told Dex, I'll do what I can. Don't 'magine he'll be all that much trouble what with being lame and all.
Rowena tended the cub all that summer, feeding, poulticing, caregiving. Dex visited almost every day and by fall, the bear was well recovered, considerably grown, and caught between being too tame to release, and too wild to keep confined. He needs a name, Dex suggested. He needs a home, Rowena protested. The argument went on for several weeks, might still be going on to this day but for the happy accident of a Canadian Wildlife Agent, a nephew of the Haynes sisters, who happened to visit that Christmas. Hearing about the bear - who had by then been christened "Whiskey" - he visited and offered to relocate the animal to a Cape Breton wildlife park. The move was accomplished the following spring and Whiskey lived out his years in his natural environment, safe, free, and still wild at heart, a perfectly ordinary black bear but for a mysterious and life long love of ginger ice cream and blackberry jam. The bootlegger and the animal healer brought both each time they visited.
It was, Dex and Rowena came to agree, a perfect ending to the bear story.
They never did manage to agree on the name.
"There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave it into a cloth that feels like love itself."
John Gregory Brown
It's being taught to ride a bicyle, getting help with your homework or delivering Girl Scout cookies, being driven to school on a snowy morning, learning to ice skate, having company when you practice chords on the piano. It's listening to music and sharing crossword puzzles, being tucked in at night, getting an advance on your allowance. It's being taught to play bridge, ice cream cones after church, a shoulder to cry on no matter what, a hug on a bad day. It's holding on and letting go at the right times and for me it was loving through a bitter estrangement right up til the day he died.
Such are the things I remember about my daddy, a good if flawed man with a perpetual look of weariness and an over developed sense of responsibility. It's difficult to be loved and protected by one parent and considered an affliction by the other. I never found peace with my mother, didn't love her, couldn't even bring myself to like her and in the end was repulsed by her. My daddy overcame his own conflicts and stayed by her side all through the lost months of cancer. Perhaps he blamed himself, perhaps he found a way to forgive, perhaps he believed he had no other choice. He had made his bed and he would lay in it without complaint. I chose not to be a part of this drawn out, inevitable drama and accepted our estrangement as a consequence. Looking back seemed useless.
In hindsight, I wonder if we did little more than finally arrive at a predetermined destination on a road we had been traveling all our lives. Neither of us understood the other - his belief that death overcame our history, that only reconciliation mattered in this final time, that we must all surrender our personal needs and emotions to be part of a grieving family, all seemed heartless to me. He saw my refusal to forgive as stubborn and vindictive, an ultimate last strike at a dying woman - petty, selfish and wrong. The gold cloth that we had woven over the years - in all fairness, mostly behind her back and possibly never as strong as it seemed -
had frayed, become ragged at the seams and finally come apart.
It was a painful time and I like to believe that he came to feel some regret, as I did. There were times when I considered retracing my steps and taking back my words but the damage had been done and my own flaws - pride, anger, obstinacy - held me back. It would have been a hollow apology and I suspect he would've seen right through it.
Some three decades later I still think of those last days and wish I could alter the outcome. I wonder if time travel were possible, would either of us have done anything differently, all the while knowing in my heart that neither of would have or could have. Family shapes us to meet a collective need, a greater good or a greater evil. The lessons we learn are no match for free will and we either embrace it or escape it. We all have something to recover from, sacrifice for, or simply live with.
We all follow whatever threads we weave for ourselves.
To put it simply, some days are of made of gingerbread and some are made of madness. Some people too.
I see the number on my cell phone and hesitate, knowing that if I answer, chances are good that it will not be good news, may even be hysteria. The process of finding a rehab bed for my old friend, Henry, is not going as well as hoped and his wife calls several times a day - she leaves me weary and impatient, caught between wanting to offer comfort and hope on one hand, strangulation on the other. If she's having a good day, she will be attentive and reasonable, calm and sane. If not, she will revert to sobs and self pity, a veritable weeping willow of complaints, angry at the world. My own day is not going well as we are understaffed and badly overbooked and after several rings I let it go to voice mail - I'll return the call later when my mind is clearer and I have time to listen. Lately I find it's helpful to ration my energy as it seems to be in limited supply.
Apart from addiction, I know little and understand less about mental illness. She doesn't hear voices, doesn't have hallucinations, she's worked in a law firm all her adult life and appears to be a valued and respected employee and yet .... how to explain the random episodes of violence, public screaming matches, free floating rage and frequent bouts of uncontrollable hysteria. A little madness goes a long way toward achieving an end and I admit that I've often suspected her breakdowns are selective and strategically well planned, happening as they do when she fails to get her way, meets any form of opposition from her husband and daughter, or wants out of a particular situation. Can this really all be nothing but a sinister temper in an unpredictable, jealous, resentful and moody woman? Or something far more serious and embedded, some twisted brain chemistry that might respond to treatment?
It's not for me to know, of course, but of one thing I have no doubt - this crisis will pass and once it does, no matter how it should end, we will both go back to our lives and this hastily built and improbable friendship will pass with it. Madness, I imagine, might be catching if you linger with it too long.
Shep knew when to call it a day.
He'd been up since before dawn, had watched the boats leaving from the cove with a sense of sorrow and nostalgia, had returned the friendly shouts of the outbound fisherman with an uncertain smile. He missed fishing, missed the labor and the camaraderie, missed the weariness at the end of the day. Now he spent his days collecting shells, a solitary figure in old work clothes, prowling the rocky coastline and trying to fill his hours. He was alone now, the children grown and long gone, Mary Louise laying still in her grave, three years now. Even his old rough coated setter, going on twelve and feeling her age, had gone lame and preferred to spend her days asleep in a basket by the fire. Shep still made his rounds unless the weather was too damp and his arthritis was acting up - morning coffee at McIntyre's, a little light housekeeping - Mary Louise would never have tolerated a disorganized household and it was the least he could do - then dinner at noon, prepared on the ancient hot plate or eaten cold, and then he went in search of shells. It was a comfortable, predictable if lonely routine, it kept his mental state occupied and his body relatively active. At seventy-two, in reasonably good health and still possessing an unclouded mind, he was as content as he could be. Each evening, he listened to his radio, ate a light supper of hard boiled eggs and toast or a cold sandwich, drank one beer and made one turn around the abandoned vegetable garden with the setter. He was exhausted by eight and in the old four poster bed by nine unless he happened to fall asleep on the rose patterned sofa Mary Louise had loved. He usually slept dreamlessly, the old dog at his feet, the house quiet as a tomb. He kept no clocks - after Mary Louise's death, he had to begun to imagine that the incessant tick tock might be footsteps coming up the path or worse, a voice he had no wish to hear. Now there was only the old dog's raspy breathing and the random calls of the nightbirds - he slept peacefully, depending on his body's natural rhythms to wake him, not needing to know the time - if it was light, he got up, if it was dark, he laid back down. Life had become unexpectedly uncomplicated for Shep - no television, no telephone, he still lit the house primarily with lanterns, not fully trusting the inexplicable science of electricity, his water came from a well and his transportation was an unused hay wagon hitched to a pair of elderly mares he had named Salt and Pepper. He and the setter, who's name was Tillie but who he usually just called Dog, rode into town once a month or so, otherwise he traveled on his own two good feet. He had never been off the island in his entire life and had no desire to see beyond it's shores. God put me here, he told his well meaning sons when they pestered him to visit, And here I reckon to stay. No amount of badgering, coaxing, incentives or pleading could change his mind.
They're good boys, Shep told Nana ruefully, But they don't understand about being rooted. This is where I belong, why, leaving would be like letting the garden go without water or sunshine.
Well, Nana replied with a philosophical shrug, It's always best to grow where you're planted. Know your soil, I always say.
Tillie was to see three more summers before she heard her last nightbirds - they were good, lazy years where she lay in her basket and watched the world go by through tired, sleepy eyes. Shep buried her one early evening in a grave facing the ocean. That fall he put the mares out to pasture with Rowena and dismantled the hay wagon for firewood. That winter, so Miss Clara wrote Nana, he began feeding the nightbirds, laying out a clear path of breadcrumbs from the trees to his porch and finally to Tillie's grave. In his will, a handwritten and yellowing parchment he wrote by lantern light and tacked to the back of the kitchen door, he asked to be buried next to Mary Louise. If my sons should come, James read - and they did, each bringing their families and staying the better part of the winter despite their busy lives - Tell them not to disturb Tillie's grave.
I reckon some of us hear angels or harps, Miss Clara remarked to my grandmother as they trudged through the snow to the cemetery, Or maybe even smell that evil smoke. Me, myself, I kinda like the idea of nightbirds. When she looked up, the skies were full of them and she smiled then scattered a
pocketful of biscuit crumbs over Shep's grave and called it a day.
