Written on My Heart (25 page)

B
ud lurched from the driver's seat, started for the house, realized he'd left his headlights on, and wove his way back. Finally, he stumbled through the door, shut it, saw me, and stopped. “You still up?”

“No,” I said. “I'm a ghost, standing here, watching her sloshed husband come through the door.”

“You do look faint,” Bud said. He laughed. “Christ, all's you need now is a rolling pin,” he said.

“They're down to The Point,” I said.

“The Point, The Point, the precious Point,” Bud said in a singsong voice. “I'm starved. We got anything to eat? We should, you bought groceries.”

“Yes,” I said. “Get it yourself. I don't want to talk to you. You're in your mean son-of-a-bitch mood. I'm going to bed.”

“Wait a minute, dammit. Sit down for a minute.”

“Why should I?”

He said, “Look, you've been wanting to know what's up with me? Well, I'm ready to talk. So, sit down. Wait, I got to piss like a racehorse. What does that mean, anyway?” He chuckled as he swayed on an invisible tightrope down the hall to the bathroom.

As he passed me, my nose took in the burn of whiskey, along with the stink, the gloom, and the stale smoke that buries itself in the
clothing of barflies. I walked to the front door, opened it, and sucked down fresh, cold air. I shut the door, closed my eyes, and waited for a comforting word from Grand.
To have and to hold
, she said.
Thanks
, I said.
I got that
. I sat down at the dining room table.

Bud banged his way out of the bathroom. He looked at me and frowned, his fuzzy brain ticking away. Finally, it occurred to him. “You going to make me a sandwich?”

“Make your own fucking sandwich,” I said.

“Oooh, oooh,” he said, and giggled. “Make my own fucking sandwich. Okay then.” He snickered his way into the kitchen, where he hauled out meat, cheese, bread, mayonnaise, and mustard. He clanked around as if we had no sleeping kids.

“Quiet down,” I said.

“Can't help it,” he said. “Stuff makes noise.”

When he was finished, he cut the sandwich crosswise from end to end instead of across the middle, which was the way I always did it. “See,” he said, holding the two halves up. “I like it cut this way. You always cut it the other way.”

“I don't know as we've ever discussed it,” I said. “And frankly, so what?”

Bud sat down at the table. “So, this is why I don't like Robin.” He bit into the sandwich. Bread stuck to the roof of his mouth and he smacked as he ate. Why the hell did I fall in love with you? I wondered.

“Why don't you like her?” I asked.

“Because, she reminds me of Susan.”

“Why does Robin remind you of Susan?”

A piece of cheese fell from his sandwich and landed on the page of a coloring book. The unicorn on the page sported a turquoise mane, courtesy of Arlee and her shades-of-blue crayon army.

Bud grinned. “Aw, isn't that some pretty,” he said. “We got good babies. We got that, at least.”

“I hope we have more than that,” I said.

Bud slammed his sandwich onto the table. “Jesus Christ, Florine,
it ain't that I'm not happy. I ain't, but you're not the problem. Problem is, I'm twenty-three years old and I got a wife and two kids. And that might be all I ever have.”

“If that's all you ever have, you're a lucky man,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “But here's the thing. Susan, well, she wanted me to make something out of myself. Instead, we got together, you got pregnant . . .”

“With a little help from you,” I said.

“Yeah. I was there. I remember,” he said. “Anyway, Robin reminds me of Susan: Going to college. Having a career. Someone who's making something of themselves. She reminds me that I'm not.” He leaned over the table toward me and I studied the red veins in his eyes. “You know what Robin asked me before you got home today?”

“No,” I said. “I have no idea.”

“She says, ‘If you could do anything you wanted, what would you do?'”

“What did you say?”

“I asked her what the hell was wrong with what I was doing now.”

“And she said what?”

“She said, ‘Oh, don't get me wrong. What you do now is fine. I just wonder about people and what they'd do, if they could.'”

“Well, what would you do?”

“Fuck if I know!” he shouted, and I shushed him. “That's the thing. Goddamn her, why did she have to bring that up? She got me to thinking, anyways. Why
can't
we do what we want, Florine? I'm scared all I'll ever be is a shit mechanic in a shit garage working for shit money.”

“Well, when the kids are in school, I'll have my GED and maybe . . .”

“My god, that's years from now!” Bud cried. “In the meantime, heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to fucking work I go and you stay home, doing whatever you do all day.”

I gave him a look that he knew enough to respect, even in his drunken state. “I do my share,” I growled, “and more. Be patient, and for the love of all that's holy, lay off the goddamn whiskey.”

He started to say something.

“Listen to me,” I said. “Arlee goes to school in two years, and Travis goes to school in four years. I will start working on my GED now. Robin got me to thinking today too. Maybe I can sell sweaters and other knit goods. I can bake. I can do lots of things. I'm good at math. Maybe I can do something in a store, or be a bookkeeper. In the meantime, we can work on what it is you really want to do. Give it time. We have time.”

Bud stared at me for about half a minute. Then he stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and forced it down his throat. He said, “I'm tired. Tomorrow's Sunday. I get to sleep this shit off and watch television all day.” He got up and kissed me on top of my head. “Night,” he said.

Off he went, leaving me to clean up the mess he'd left behind.

I
couldn't even shake Bud awake the next morning. The kids and I did our thing without many tears or too much drama for a couple of hours before Arlee decided to wake Daddy up to come and play with us. The sorry-assed version of Bud that appeared in the hallway made me laugh.

“Not funny,” Bud said.

“You're right. It's not,” I agreed.

The kids and I went outside while Bud drank his coffee. During the night, as we had slept, warm air had blown in, producing a late thaw that put the snow on the run. As we watched, a giant icicle toppled forward onto the front lawn. After a while, I took Travis inside to sit with his father while Arlee and I made snowmen. In all, we made ten of them, all different sizes, standing all over the lawn. We went inside at about noon to find Bud feeding Travis lunch at the table.

I made peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff sandwiches for the rest of us. I cut Bud's sandwich the way I had always done it. When I set it in front of him, I said, “Is there anything else I can do for you? I hope it's up to your standards.”

“Why the sarcastic tone?” he asked.

“You don't remember?”

He shook his head. “I don't know what the hell you're talking about.”

“Evidently, I haven't been cutting your sandwiches the right way for all the time we've known each other. Last night was the first night you'd ever said anything about it.”

“Christ,” Bud said, and ran his hand over his face. “Who cares?”

“That's what I said. But you cared about it, last night,” I said.

“I'm sorry. I can't remember anything I said. Can we just forget about it?”

“No. You said some things last night that make me wonder about what you want in your life. If you're not happy, maybe we can try to fix it. If not, well, we can't, I guess.”

“What's that mean?”

“I don't know, yet. But you married me. You didn't choose Susan. You knew, or at least I thought you knew, the differences between us. Now, I'm not sure you ever left what you had before. Sounded to me, last night, as if you wished you were doing something different. You didn't seem to think that my suggestions were good enough. And you were drunk on your ass. You figure out what you want, let me know so I can make plans. You keep drinking, and the kids and I will leave you.”

The look on Bud's face went from confusion to denial to regret. He looked down at his sandwich, then at Arlee, who had taken apart her sandwich and was dragging her index finger through the Fluff on the bread, and at Travis, who was nodding off in his high chair. Neither of us had raised our voices, and I didn't intend to do that.

“Arlee, eat the sandwich,” I said. “Don't play with it.” I looked at Bud and said, “And you, don't play with
me
.” I left the table and went into the bathroom, where I sat on the john for about ten minutes, trying to calm down and wondering if we had enough Windex to clean the bathroom mirror. It was spotted with toothpaste, and it probably always would be. “What's the frigging point,” I said. I left the bathroom and went across the hall to clean the bedroom.

Bud shuffled up the hall and leaned against the door frame. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you too,” I said. “But you're an asshole.”

“Not all the time. Not most of the time.”

“More and more of the time.”

The phone rang. “Want me to get it?” Bud asked.

“No,” I said. As I brushed by him, he took my arm and turned me. His lips touched mine for a second. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I'll stop drinking. I promise.”

“You should be.” I hurried to the end of the trailer to pick up the phone.

“Hi, Florine,” Ida said. “How are you all doing?”

“Oh, peachy, Ida,” I said. “How are you guys? Arlee misses you.”

“We miss her and Travis,” Ida said. “I'm calling for a couple of reasons. First, before you hear it from anyone else, Pastor Billy is staying here with us for a couple of weeks. He's in Bud's old room.”

“What? Why?”

“Well, he's been going through those cancer treatments for a while. I've been keeping a close eye on him, every Sunday. He's just been looking worse and worse, and finally, last Sunday, he stopped halfway through his sermon and told the congregation that he had to sit down. Before I could move, Maureen jumped up and helped him out. And then, Florine, I could hardly believe it, she went up to the pulpit and she led us in hymns for about ten minutes, and finished up with prayers! I was so proud of her. She did all of this on her own. She's just turned sixteen years old!”

I smiled. “Grand would be proud of her,” I said, thinking about the grin that would have crossed her sweet, worn face. “She's a keeper for sure.”

“Yes,” Ida said. “Well, anyway, Billy was so weak after the service he could barely stand up. A few of us were going to take him up to Long Reach, to the hospital, but he didn't want that. He wanted us to drive him back to Spruce Point, to his house. ‘No,' Maureen said, ‘you're coming home with us. You're staying in Bud's room, until you feel better. Right, Ma?' I thought, Well, why not? and so I said yes. Billy objected some, but Maureen was not going to give an inch, so we brought him back here with us.”

“How's he doing?”

“Well, he sleeps most of the time,” Ida said. “I know from living with Sam's cancer that rest is what he needs. When he's awake, Maureen sits with him and they talk about the Bible and such. And, until they can find another pastor to take his place for a while, Maureen is helping him to find other people to lead the Sunday service. She works on his sermons with him. I just may have a preacher in the making in the family!”

As Ida went on, her not-a-chance-in-hell-of-ever-being-a-preacher son bumbled around in back of me, perfuming the air with the sharp remnants of last night's liquor. “I can't believe it either,” I said, “but Maureen's always been headed toward the light, as Grand would say.”

“She has, hasn't she,” Ida said happily. We went on to talk about the kids and how everything was going. It was hard not to tell her the truth. Maybe she would have understood, but it may have brought Sam and his sad journey to the forefront, and right then she was so happy about Maureen.

“How's Glen?” I asked her, digging for a change of subject. “Have you seen him?”

“Oh, that's the other thing,” she said. “He's moved out of the house. Cleared all of his stuff out a few days ago and lit out for who knows where. I went and checked the house. He cleaned it as best he could, being Glen. I'll give it a good go-over before you all come down. Do you know when that might be?”

“Well, it might be earlier than you think,” I said. “I don't want you to worry about cleaning the place. The kids and I might come down for a few days soon. It would be a nice change from the trailer.”

“Be great to see you,” Ida said. “We'd love to see the kids! I might have to come up there to see you, instead of having them down to the house, just until Billy's stronger.”

“That's fine,” I said. “I understand that. Do you have any idea where Glen went?”

“I don't,” Ida said. “I haven't had a chance to ask Ray.”

Poor Glen. Another lost soul out driving around in the butt crack of winter. Maybe Bud knew where he had gone. I hoped that Bud could find himself too, before he wandered too far away.

That night, while Bud dozed in front of the television, I put Travis and Arlee onto her bed and let them play for a few minutes before I read to them. Travis stared into space before his eyelids closed, while Arlee and I went on for at least another story. Afterward, I carried Travis to his room and his crib, settled him, and tucked Arlee into her bed. I walked into our bedroom and turned on the radio, which set on a small shelf above our bed. I picked up my knitting needles, both filled with loops of yarn the color of Travis's eyes. I stretched out on my bed and watched a sweater grow before my eyes. My mind turned toward Grand. She had set me down beside her in a rocker on the porch to teach me how to knit scarves. I was impatient and I treated it as a contest.

“Done,” I would yell, and she would say, “Well, let me look at it.” She always found places where I'd slipped a stitch or suddenly knitted looser or tighter. “Do it again,” she'd say as she ripped out my work. “Make sure your work is steady.” Eventually, I learned and, although I liked to see the results, she had been right. It was more important to make sure the work was well done.

Thinking of Grand took me to The Point.
The precious Point
. I sighed.

“What's going on?” Bud said from the doorway.

“I was thinking about The Point, The Point, the precious Point,” I said.

Bud ignored me. “What did Ma want?”

I told him about Billy and about Maureen's becoming a substitute minister.

He smiled. “Where she came from, I don't know. Probably the best of Ma and Dad.” He looked at me. “He did have a good side, you know. He wasn't just a drunk.”

“No one is just a drunk. No one is just anything.”

“That's right. And just because I drink once in a while doesn't make me a drunk.”

I slipped a stitch and fixed it.

“Is that all you think I am?” Bud continued. “A drunk?”

“Is a dumb girl who didn't finish high school and got knocked up all you think I am?”

“What the hell?” Bud said. “Don't take what I might have said last night to heart. I got the right girl. I'm smart enough to know that. Jesus, give me some credit.”

“You should hear yourself when you're bombed. You'd think you were a dink too.”

“I think I'm a dink every day,” he said.

“I don't think that,” I said. “Unless you've been into the sauce. And if you think you're a dink every day, I'm sorry for you for thinking that.”

“Well,” Bud said, “you should be inside of me.”

“I've got enough shit to deal with.”

My knitting needles clacked. Bud inhaled and exhaled. The refrigerator engine snapped on, droned for a few minutes, and then turned itself off.

“Well,” he said. “I'll come to bed soon.”

My needles flashed as I picked up the pace.