The Way of Women (16 page)

“Mommy, you’re scaring me.” Lissa put her hands on either side of her mother’s face and held her straight. Even so, her gaze wandered from right to left, tracking nothing.

“We don’t know anything for sure.” Mr. Johnson nodded, but while his words veered off, his head kept moving.

“True.”

“You got to keep the faith.”

“I know.” For Lissa’s sake if nothing else.

“You want me to turn on the TV?”

“I can do that.” Lissa slid from her mother’s lap. She took three steps and looked over her shoulder. “You want to watch cartoons?”

“Turn it to five.”

Lissa made a face but headed on into the living room without an argument. Within moments a news announcer could be heard but not understood.

“Mommy, look!”

The two adults exchanged sighs and made their way into the other room.

“… late breaking news of the eruption of Mount St. Helens.” A used car salesman waved toward a battalion of cars for sale, balloons bobbing above in the breeze.

“Try channel four.” In spite of the commercial, all she could see in her mind was the swift glimpse of virulent clouds of ash and steam and
whatever else the mountain was sending up. Gray, black, all the colors of sorrow.

All the other stations had gone to commercial breaks also.

After they’d watched the same film clips enough times to send Lissa hunting for her rabbit, Mellie forced herself to her feet, then clutched the sofa arm. Her right foot refused to function, nearly pitching her to her knees.

“Ouch.”

“You all right?” Mr. Johnson half rose.

“Just my foot’s asleep. Oh, ahh.” She wiggled her toes and flinched some more.

“Nothing to do but wait it out.”

“You mean my foot? Or …?”

“Either.”

She took a tentative step. And stopped until the needles quit dancing.

“Can I get you anything—coffee, tea?”

“No, thank you. I should be getting on home, but …” He stared at his hands clasped between his knees. His bony face made his eyes look even deeper. “If there’s any way I can help, well, you’d ask wouldn’t you?” Now those eyes pleaded for an answer.

Mellie nodded. “But what can anyone do right now but wait?”

“True, for right now.”

When Lissa left her place in front of the television and cuddled next to her mother on the sofa, Mr. Johnson heaved himself to his feet.

“Think I’ll head on home.”

“But you’ll come back for dinner. It should be ready about five.”

“You sure it won’t be a bother?”

Mellie shook her head. He always asked that question. “Never.”

“I’ll see myself out. You just take care of that little sweetheart there.”

“Bye, Mr. J.” Lissa waved, a small flicker of her hand.

“I’ll bring you back a surprise.”

“Really?” The word
surprise
always perked her up. “What is it?”

“Then it wouldn’t be a surprise, now, would it?”

Mellie smiled at their ritual, knowing he got as much pleasure out of it as she did.

“You rest a bit, and the surprise will be here before you know it.”

He gently closed the door behind him, leaving Mellie to wish for the only surprise that had any meaning right now. A call from her husband saying he was all right, Harv walking through the door right then. She stroked Lissa’s fine hair, grateful at the ease her daughter slipped into sleep. If only she could do the same. If only they’d been able to go to church, but with Lissa being so vulnerable to any kind of infection, that pleasure, too, had been taken from her. Usually, she watched one of the television preachers, but they’d slept in due to a restless night. As if any night were not restless.

Sometimes she listened to the Lutheran Hour, but if she moved now, Lissa would wake. Mellie chewed on the inside of her cheek, far too tense to sleep now, her usual habit when Lissa dozed. Otherwise, she would not have been able to keep going.

She leaned her head against the cushion and closed her eyes. Traveling back in time, her well-used antidote for overcoming the pain of the moment, she blotted out the visual of the mountain in agony. Had it only been a year ago when she and Harv took Lissa to Point Defiance for her fourth birthday? Not even a year.

“Harv, don’t let her touch them.” She’d shuddered at the thought of octopus tentacles touching her skin.

Harv whispered over his shoulder. “You want her to grow up to be a scaredy-cat like you?” The love in his eyes sucked the sting from his words.

She shook her head and brushed the fine tendrils of ash-blond hair from her face, locking the straight strands behind her ears. “Just don’t ask me to do that.” She watched as Harv leaned over the concrete lip of the petting pool and, reaching down in the shallow water, stroked the tentacle of the octopus, who had suctioned himself to the side.

“Me, Daddy. Me too.” Lissa nearly climbed up his leg so she could see better. When he hoisted her up to sit on the ledge, she leaned over with absolute trust that he would hold on to her.

“Ooh, Mommy, look.” One hand in the water, Lissa glanced over her shoulder.

Mellie took two steps forward and forced herself to do as her daughter pleaded. The tip of a suction-laden tentacle wrapped like a string about Lissa’s tiny finger.

“Easy,” Harv whispered, his face painted with pride in his gutsy little daughter.

Mellie swallowed a shriek and, clutching Harv’s shirt sleeve, buried her face in his upper arm. “That’s good, sweetie.”
No, that’s bad, get her out of there
.

“What does it feel like?” Harv asked.

“Like … like he likes me.”

“Lissa and her friend, the octopus?”

“Uh-huh. His eyes are open.”

“Hold still.”

“I am.”

I’m not
. Mellie tried to stop the tremors that lightninged up and down her entire body.
What if the creature …?

“Don’t worry.”

How many times had Harv given her that advice through the years?
Don’t worry. I’m not worried, I’m terrified. And he doesn’t get it
.

“What does he eat, Daddy?”

“Oh, crabs and fish, sea creatures.”

“He’s gone. Bye.” Lissa straightened up and wrapped her arm around her father’s neck. She stared at her straight finger, decorated with tiny pink suction marks, then into her daddy’s eyes. “Can we do it again?”

Harv hugged her to him. “Someday, let’s go look for a book about octopuses.”

“Octopi.” Mellie turned from the concrete pool wall and stuck her arm through her husband’s. “ ‘Octopi’ is the plural.”

Her mind switched from happier days to the burgeoning clouds she’d seen on the television.
Harv, where are you? Please call. I need you to call
.

A knock on the door brought her back from nightmare-ridden sleep, her neck cramped from lying sideways on the couch. Lissa still lay with her head in her mother’s lap, sound asleep, her breath puffing out lips that had once been rosy. Mellie held her daughter’s head while she slipped out and laid her back on a pillow, for a change without a cry of protest.

Mr. Johnson gave her an apologetic smile. “I woke you, didn’t I? I’m sorry. You need your rest whenever you can get it.”

“That’s all right.” They both were whispering.

“I’ll come back later.”

“No.” She laid a hand on his arm. “She’ll be awake by the time I make the gravy.” They tiptoed into the kitchen, and Mellie gently closed the door behind them.

“Have you heard anything new?”

Mr. Johnson shook his head as he set a box wrapped in pink paper on the table.

Mellie pulled the roaster pan from the oven and set it on a cold burner. With each motion of dipping potatoes and carrots from pan to bowl, she reminded God that Harv should be walking in the door any minute now. She set the crockery bowl in the cooling oven to keep warm, and with the meat on a platter ready to slice, she turned on the burner to start the gravy.

“Can I help you?”

She nodded. “There’s a salad in the fridge, covered with plastic wrap, that you could slice some tomatoes into.” She pointed to the two tomatoes she’d been saving for this special occasion. Harv loved tomatoes, even the winter ones. But these were special, grown in Mr. Johnson’s greenhouse, so they were vine ripened and had real flavor.

Lord, please, let him be here to enjoy the tomatoes, please, please
.

She dumped flour in a cereal bowl, added water, and stirred it into a paste to add to the now bubbling juices in the pan. With each flick of the whisk, she repeated her plea.
Harv loves my gravy, Lord. Let him come home to enjoy it. Please, please bring him home
.

“Mommy.” The plaintive cry from the living room announced the end of Lissa’s sleeping time. The tone said it was time for more pain pills. With the new prescription, they no longer waited until the pain grew severe but tried to keep a maintenance dose in her increasingly frail body. Even so, sometimes the pain got away from them.

“Here, let me.” Mr. Johnson took the whisk from her hand and nodded toward the waif now standing in the doorway. “She needs you.”

Mellie took the bottle and dropper from the shelf and the juice from
the fridge. Pouring them together, she knelt in front of Lissa and handed her the small glass. “Drink it all.”

Lissa nodded, downed the drink, and handed the glass back, swiping the back of her hand across her mouth. Purple streaked her cheek. “Hi, Mr. J.”

“Hi yourself. That box on the table might be for you.” He gave the gravy another whisking and shut off the burner.

“My s’prise?”

“Could be. You’d better check.”

Lissa glanced at her mother, caught the nod, and, dragging her blanket by one corner, took the box and sank to the floor. “I like pink.”

“Now, how do you s’pose I knew that?”

“I told you.” She glanced down at her pink overalls and shirt. “And my clothes are pink.” She dug into the wrapping paper folded at the sides.

Mellie watched, keeping her hands in her lap when they longed to make things easier for the little one.

With the tip of her tongue peeking out from between taut lips, Lissa finally got the paper loose without tearing it like so many other children would have. She loved pretty things and would often draw on the back of wrapping paper, tracing around the designs and coloring them in herself, then folding the paper into hats and boats and even butterflies. Harv had taught her such folding when she was too ill to play but well enough to want something to do. Harv had taught his daughter many things.

“Mommy, look.” Lissa held a foot-long stick with a heavy string attached to a bit of brown-gray fur.

“For Kitty and me.”

“You’d better look deeper.”

“ ’Kay.” Lissa pulled more pink tissue paper out of the box before raising another wrapped package. Her eyes sparkled as she set to unwrapping it.

“You are so good to her. Thank you.”

“Most welcome. Seeing her excited gives me great joy.”

“Ooh.” Lissa held up a card with a pink bead bracelet and a ring with a pink stone attached to it. “Thank you.” Lissa stood and leaned against him. “Please, help me put it on.”

Mr. Johnson, I love you
. Mellie wanted to hug the man herself.

While the other two admired the new jewelry, Mellie glanced at the clock: 5:00 p.m. He should have been home by now. Or called.

God, what will I do if he never comes home?

S
urely he’ll call as soon as they get out.

At the ringing of the telephone, Katheryn turned from her pacing and flung herself across the room.
Please, God, let it be them!

“Katheryn?”

“Yes.” She slumped against the wall, needing the solidity to hold her up.

“Have you heard?”

“Yes, Mother, if you are referring to the eruption.”

“Did they go up there after all?”

“Yes. And no, I have not heard from them.” She closed her eyes and expelled the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “Please, I have to get off the line so David can get through. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

“Are you going down there?”

“I don’t know. Goodbye, Mother.” Katheryn hung up the phone, knowing she’d cut her mother off, but right now the incessant questions were more than she could bear.

Back to the pacing lit by flashes of anger. Why had he insisted on going to the mountain when experts proclaimed it unstable?
David, I swear when you get home, I’ll kill you myself. Oh, God, Brian, my son. Please, I want to see my son again. Surely you wouldn’t take my son
.

She switched on the television, turned it off when nothing new was reported, then turned on the radio only to hear “Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it.” If she heard that one more time, she’d rip the cord from the wall and heave the thing across the room. No sense listening. He’d call. Or someone would call. But what if they were injured so badly they couldn’t call?

The front doorbell rang, but before she could get to it, Susan used her key to enter. “Mom! I came as soon as I could.” The two women met in the middle of the room, arms locking them together.