Abbi drove past the red car on the shoulder in front of her house as she pulled into the driveway, the sporty kind, low to the ground and feisty. A reporter, she thought. But, no. Lauren appeared.
“Hi,” she said, not moving toward her.
“Nice car.”
“I borrowed it. Mine’s in the shop.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I heard. On the news.”
“You came for me?”
“Yeah.”
They made their way to the kitchen. Lauren filled the teakettle with water and cranked the burner to high. “Where’s Ben?” she asked.
“He ran away. Like always.”
The kettle’s wet bottom sizzled as the stove heated, and Abbi reached atop the refrigerator for a box of tea, standing on tiptoe. Her skirt shifted and the Fleet packages rattled down her leg. Lauren picked them up, fanned them in her fingers like a couple of aces.
“I couldn’t help it,” Abbi said.
“Com’ere,” Lauren said, pulling her close. Abbi started to cry, trembling a little, sniffling.
The kettle screeched, and Abbi moved out of Lauren’s embrace to move it off the burner. She took out her stoneware teapot, the one she’d made—the one Benjamin, soon after returning from Afghanistan, dropped and broke the spout off and then tried to glue back on without her knowing. She knew, but never said anything. He had held his breath each time she used it, always offering to wash it for her so she wouldn’t find the crack in the glaze, until finally she decided not to take it out unless he wasn’t home.
There had been times she had screamed at him for chipping other bowls and cups and platters she’d made, literally gone into rages about him not caring about things that were pieces of her. But that was before he’d left for Afghanistan, when pottery seemed important. How could he know she didn’t give a flying flip about some cooked clay with a bit of paint spattered over it now? She wanted him whole.
She wanted him home.
She steeped some lime-ginger rooibos in the pot and poured a cup for Lauren, one for herself. They sat, first at the table, then in the living room when the chairs grew hard and the tea cold. And when Abbi stretched out on the couch, Lauren cleaned the kitchen and left her be. She loved that about Lauren. She didn’t force things; she wasn’t afraid of the silences.
The cramps woke her. Subtle at first, slithery through her intestines, with a sort of gassy nausea in her middle. She wormed upright, pulled her knees into her chest and burped out some air. Groaned softly.
“How many?” Lauren asked. She was watching a movie on her notebook computer.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Can I do anything?”
Abbi shook her head, groaned again, in disgust this time. “I’m so stupid.”
And then the cramps came hard and fast, a jackhammer, and her whole body tensed in the wave of pain. She held her breath, squeezing the edge of the couch cushion with one hand. She tried to get to the bathroom before the cramping came again, but she was too slow; she squatted in the hallway, panting as the pain subsided, and crawled to the toilet.
The diarrhea poured out of her, like water. She wet a washcloth and cleaned herself, but feeling the familiar spasms in her gut, sat back down on the toilet.
She stayed in the bathroom, sitting on the floor between bouts, wedged in the corner where the wall and tub met. Lauren gave her a pillow, a blanket; she waited outside the door, reading to her— Psalms and Lamentations—washed the soiled towels and brought her clean ones. Finally, when the pangs produced only dry pressure, she stumbled across the hall to bed, changed her clothes. “Don’t leave,” she said.
“I won’t. Just let me call my parents and let them know.” She did, and then flopped on her back on Abbi’s side of the bed. Abbi balled up on Benjamin’s side, near the empty bassinet, in his smell, sporty and sour and thick. Her shirt rose, exposing a half-moon of flesh above the elastic waistband of her flannel pants, and she shivered from the air and pills.
She woke to the smell of meat. The bed was empty beside her, but she heard whistling from the kitchen, the
beep beep beep
of the microwave. She wound the extra blanket around her from ribs to ankles and followed the flesh-filled smoke down the hall.
“Carnivore,” she said.
“I’m surprised you keep bacon in the house,” Lauren said. “All those poor little piggies.”
“Ben buys it.”
“Want something else? I’m cooking.”
“I can’t. It will go right through me.” And she tugged the belt loop of Lauren’s jeans. “Thank you. For staying.”
“Abbi, this is the church. We’re called to bear each other’s burdens. Where else would I be but here?” Lauren flipped the bacon. “Mom’s dropping off the kids here. She has an appointment, and I didn’t want to leave you. I wasn’t sure how long you’d sleep.”
“You don’t have to stay now. I’m okay.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m going in the shower. I probably stink.” Abbi hiked the blanket a bit higher. “Lauren, how did you get over being angry with God?”
Her friend plunged her hands into her pockets, leaned back against the counter and sighed. “God. He did it. Not me. I probably could have stayed ticked off forever. But He didn’t leave me there. If you step out and trust Him, He’ll do the same. He’ll show you that you don’t need anything else but Him.”
“I do trust Him.”
“This coming from the woman who eats Ex-Lax like candy.”
Lauren’s words devoured her, forcing her faith down the throat, through the stomach and intestines, coating it with half-digested excuses and gooey truth. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d gone to God first. It was always the refrigerator, the laxatives, the road.
And then, after she had purged and exercised herself dry, she went to Him, insides empty, head clear, dust and sweat washed away.
Oh, she prayed while she ran, but she wasn’t running to pray. She ran to fit into her size tens; the prayer was incidental, something to boost her spiritual ego.
Yes, I prayed today for an hour. And I read my
Bible, fasted on Sunday, and didn’t kill a single animal, contribute to global
warming, or support a Chinese sweatshop this week. Go me.
She locked the door and twisted on the water, unwrapped herself. Then she kneeled on the blanket and, forehead against the floor, begged forgiveness, laying her idols before the Lord. She thought of the men who prophesied in Jesus’ name, who healed the sick and cast out demons, the ones He told to depart from Him.
“Oh, please, please. Don’t say you never knew me.”
The shower ran cold by the time she stepped in. She washed gently, raw from the night before, and dried off, wrapping the blanket back around her to go into the bedroom and dress. A knock at the door. She peeked out the crack, and Lauren said, “There’s a woman here to see you. She said she’s your neighbor and she has pie.”
Janet.
“Don’t let her in.”
“I already did.”
“Fine, okay. Just tell her . . . I’ll be there in a minute.”
When she returned to the kitchen, Lauren and Janet each sat with an untouched piece of pie in front of them.
“I don’t know if you’d feel like eating or not, but when I don’t know what else to do, cook, remember? Want some?”
“Ah, not really. Not right now.”
“No eggs. No butter, no milk. Nothing you don’t eat.”
“I appreciate it, but my stomach isn’t up for it.”
Another knock on the door. Lauren jumped up, banging her thigh on the table, tripping over the chair leg. Katie dashed in and wrapped her arms around Abbi’s pelvis, her head ramming her sensitive stomach. “Oh, pie. Can I have some?”
“Abbi?” Lauren held Stevie, who grabbed for the table lamp, and cried when his mother moved out of reach.
“Go. Go. The kids don’t need to be cooped up here.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Okay, then. You call if you need anything. I mean it.”
“I will,” Abbi said, bumping her cheek against Lauren’s, her lips smacking at the air.
She wiped the crumbs from the table to keep her hands busy; then she took the broom from the pantry and swept them into a pile. The cat sniffed at the mound, walked through it, tracking dust and crust morsels back across the floor. Abbi didn’t bother sweeping again. She leaned the broom handle against the counter, and as soon as she stepped away, it slid and bounced off the stainless steel trash-can lid, echoing like a drum. She jerked at the sound even though she’d watched the broom fall. “I’m sorry. I’m really not up for company today.”
“This is the day you need it most,” Janet said, sliding a tract across the table to her, dark blue with a lighter blue tear in the center, and white script asking,
Why Did This Happen to Me?
“Jesus sees. Turn to Him.”
“Janet, don’t do this now.”
“I know it hurts. I know you don’t understand the big picture. But He does. And even in this time of hurt He deserves to be praised. ‘The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’ That’s what His holy Word says.”
“Does it now?” Abbi snatched the dishrag from the sink and squeezed. “I must have missed that part, given that I’m only one of those ‘God is love’ people. But that’s okay. That’s fine. You’re here to help me see the error of my ways. And while you’re at it, why don’t you tell me how you felt when your child was ripped from your arms. Oh, that’s right. You don’t have any kids. You praise God for that lately?”
Good one, Abbi. Thirty minutes ago you were prostrate before the Lord,
begging forgiveness. Now look at you. Yeah, you meant what you said.
Janet stood, slowly, a stunned flatness glazing her eyes. “I . . . I’m just going to go. You can return the pie pan wh-when you’re finished with it.”
She went, and Abbi took the pan and a fork, stomped down on the waste can’s foot pedal, and scraped every last bit of pie into the trash.
Breakfast tasted better when he didn’t have to make it, Matthew decided, the fat, soggy waffles drowned in syrup and margarine on his plate. He cut them on the grid lines, dividing each one into nine even squares. Mrs. Larsen added batter to her cast-iron waffle maker, dropped the lid, and put it on the burner. “There’s more coming,” she said.
In the two weeks he’d stayed with them, Mrs. Larsen made breakfast every day. Sometimes pancakes, sometimes ham and eggs and hash browns. Waffles. Cheesy casseroles. Matthew didn’t think she allowed cold cereal in the house.
He saw the syrup ripple in the little glass pitcher in front of him, looked up. Pastor Larsen, dressed in a pale green shirt and striped tie, had sat down at the end of the table. Matthew had never seen him without a tie—even at night, reading his newspaper with socks off and feet up; then he loosened it so the polyester hung slack around his neck, but he didn’t remove it.
“I forgot to tell you I got a ride for you for Monday. Posie Peppmuller said she’d be there to pick you up at two thirty.” Pastor Larsen winked. “You know that means she’ll be waiting at ten to two.”
Matthew nodded, signed
thank you
.
“We’re glad to do it.”
He hadn’t taken the medi-bus to dialysis in two weeks, either. The first day he’d stayed at the Larsen house, he scribbled a note to the pastor, asking him to call the center to change his pickup location. He didn’t want to wait at the apartment complex, though he could have.
“I can take you, pick you up,” Pastor Larsen said.
I don’t want to be any trouble.
“It’s no trouble.”
If you’re not too busy. I can just tell them the change when I get there today.
“Don’t do that. We’ll get someone to take you wherever you need to go. Whenever.”
That is being trouble.
“How long have you been going to that place?”
A year. About.
“Every day?”
Matthew shook his head.
3 days a week.
“How come you never told anyone about it?”
He shrugged.
“It’s no secret that we’ve not been the best we could be toward you,” Pastor Larsen said. He patted the side of Matthew’s head. “We told ourselves we didn’t want to stick our noses where they didn’t belong, but really we had no clue what to do for you, boy. This is something we can do. Let us.”
So Matthew did. And he had to admit he’d enjoyed the shorter rides, getting home a bit more than an hour earlier each night, leaving school only twenty minutes before the end of the day.
He had a bed now, too. And a bedroom, a closet for his things, a desk and dresser. He wasn’t sure how long he’d stay with the Larsens. Pastor said as long as he needed to be there. Matthew didn’t expect Heather would let him back into the apartment. Ever.
The first day after Skye’s arrest, Matthew had gone to school despite his exhaustion and the putrid feeling in his gut. He wanted to see Lacie, and he needed to see the nurse. Heather hadn’t tossed his medication out with him. The pastor brought him early, and he waited on the sidewalk until Lacie bounded off the bus and into his arms. “Mommy said bad things about you.”
He pressed her into his rib cage, rocked her back and forth. Sienna walked past, eyes thin slits of disdain. And then Jaylyn, hair still wet from her morning shower and sleek in a ponytail. She carried two backpacks. Hers. And his.
“Hey,” she said. “Thought you might need this.”
Thanks.
“Your pills are in there. I don’t know if I got all of them. I was . . . in a hurry.”
I’ll check.
“You okay?”
I guess.
“You have a place to stay?”
What do you care?
“Lacie, go inside,” Jaylyn said, prying the little girl’s arms from around Matthew’s waist.
“I don’t want to,” Lacie said.
“I don’t care. Go.”
“Wait for me Monday, too, Matty.” Matthew nodded, and Lacie stuck her tongue out at her sister before disappearing into the school.
Jaylyn slipped her ponytail through her O-shaped fingers, and when she got to the end she stuck her hair in her mouth, chewed it. She wore no makeup. “Lacie cried all night for you.” He turned his head, and she stepped around in front of him. “Ma will come around. She will. She’s just, you know, being all mama lion.”