Hello Loved Ones (9 page)

“See, the thing is,” Sally said. “I’m planning to…” She stopped and chewed her lip. “Well, I’m taking him to the banquet with me.”

Lenny whipped his head around. It must have been his bad ear. It was crazy, what he thought he heard her say.

“I wrote him a letter and invited him,” she said.

Just like that! Like she was talking about a friend or a teacher or even a local celebrity! Didn’t she know that their dad and all the bad memories wrapped up with him belonged to Lenny? You don’t go messing with that. Not without asking.

“Have you lost your mind?” Lenny asked, incredulous.

“I put it in the mailbox this morning. During church.”

Grandpa shook his head. “That’s ill-advised, if you ask me.”

“How’d you know where to find him?” Lenny was going to kill Rhoda, that little piece of trash! He should have known it would get out. People just had to talk, didn’t they?

“Frannie let me use her phone to call the V.A. in Grand Rapids. She said her mom never checks the phone bill. They gave me his address in Kalamazoo and I mailed the letter today. Mom doesn’t know.”

Kalamazoo? But Dad wasn’t in Kalamazoo. He was here, in Holland. Could it be that what Rhoda said wasn’t true? Or maybe he lived in Kalamazoo and just drove down every once in a while to shag Rhoda’s mom. Now he wished he’d asked Rhoda for the details.

“He won’t write back,” he said, hoping he was right. Jeez! Here he was worrying about how he might ask his dad to a baseball game—baseball! His dad’s favorite thing on earth! —and Sally invites him to a stupid banquet? So now if he showed up it would be because of
Sally?

“You don’t know anything!” Sally said vehemently.

“I know it’s about the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.” He was shouting. He looked around frantically, convinced his dad really was driving up. Everyone, including Pastor Voss, was looking at him, perfect reminders of the trap he was in.

He punched at the air. “Dammit Sally!”

He’d rather die than have his dad see him for what he was. A prisoner. A janitor. A nothing. If only he didn’t have to work at the church! What if he said
screw it
and left now? Would the police come after him? He ought to just take off, hitchhike out West. He’d get caught for sure, standing out on the highway all day. He needed a train or a bus. Which meant he needed money. He’d have to steal it.

That was a problem. Breaking a kid’s nose was one thing, especially a rat like Cash. But stealing, that was just plain wrong. Look how long they’d scraped by with Prudy working two jobs. They’d never taken food stamps or any other government hand-out. Just clothes from the church, but that’s what churches were for.

He picked up his Louisville Slugger and leaned toward Sally. “If I ever see his face around here I’ll take this baseball bat and hit a home run against his head.” Lenny swung and it purred through the air. Let them all think he was a hothead. If he was mean it was because he had to be.

Sally ducked. “Why do you have to be like that?” she asked.

Good question. She’d never understand. He wished there was another nose he could smash, since he turned out to be so good at it. He settled for a big black beetle unlucky enough to be crawling up the nearby tree. He leaned over, held his bat out straight, and ground the bug into the bark.

“Splat!” he said, and laughed.

“You’re probably what’s keeping him away,” Sally said.

His laugh petered out. “Let’s hope so.” But it hurt to hear. He always believed she thought more of him.

“All I can say is, thank God you’re leaving!” Sally ran inside, pushing the screen door so hard it knocked back against the wall before slamming shut with a whine and a whack.

“Whatever happened to being nice to the birthday boy?” Lenny asked sullenly. As if being the birthday boy had ever meant a goddamn thing.

Grandpa sucked his teeth loudly but said nothing. From across the lawn the rest of his family studied him like he was some species they’d never seen. They didn’t call over
everything okay there?
They didn’t care to hear his side of things. They just stared, too hot and fed up with him to bother being nice. Hell, they probably hated him. The lowly, dying beetle sure did. On the tree trunk the damn thing’s legs were still twitching, like he was trying to kick Lenny for what he’d done.

Prudy

Prudy Van Sloeten watched her daughter Sally sulk into the house. Let her go. And her son Lenny, standing over there with his face screwed into a scowl. She was tired of both of them. Of course she loved her kids. But lately she was seeing them differently. It was like working on some chore, like ironing or repainting the front steps. You think you’ve done a fine job, and it’s not until you fold up the ironing board and lug it back to the front closet, or rinse out the paint brushes and hammer the lid back on the paint can, that you notice your mistakes. A rumpled cuff you missed, a corner piece of wood that shows raw when the sun strikes just so. That’s how it was with her kids. Now that they were nearly grown, her job nearly done, she was seeing her mistakes. Nell so serious and plain, old before her time. Sally miserable and searching. Lenny a common criminal. She’d done a bang up job, all right.

She turned to Pastor Voss. “Don’t mind them,” she said.
That
was dumb. If it weren’t for her kids, he wouldn’t be here at all. She only went to him because she didn’t know what else to do. She hesitated. “I suppose I should thank you, pastor.”

“Prudy,” he said quietly, “you
can
call me Phillip.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

He sighed. “Whatever you say.”

That tone! It had been awhile since he’d used it with her, but it still infuriated her.

“So I’m calling the shots now, huh?” she asked.

“Prudy…”

“You offered to help with Lenny! If you don’t want to…”

“I never said that.”

She didn’t know why she was snapping at him. She knew her role. She’d practiced it long enough. But she was feeling unhinged. Maybe it was the heat. Or having him here. Or her son turning 18 and moving out. Maybe it was the wondering, what would her life be like once her kids were gone? Without them she was nothing. Never mind the hard work she’d put into raising them, the years of scrimping and saving and praying. Now Lenny was the bad kid. She was the bad mother.

She blamed Pastor Voss. This man she’d once slept with, this man she’d
loved
.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is difficult for me.”

He sighed. “It doesn’t have to be.”

“Of course you’d say that.”

“Look, you’re the one who wanted me here today.”

It was true. He didn’t need to be here. Certainly she’d dreamed many times of having him back in her house, sitting down to dinner with them, but never like this. Not because she couldn’t handle one of her kids.

And it wasn’t just Lenny. He was a kind of catalyst, like the expensive nylon stockings she had pulled from her husband Richard’s suitcase all those years ago, the ones that were not her color. She wore sand or suntan. These were dark taupe, darker than any white woman would wear. Prudy wasn’t surprised, but seeing them set something fluttering in her, something reckless and vengeful. So when Pastor Voss came to pray with her about her failing marriage, she wasn’t totally unaware of the possibilities. The poor man had just lost his wife, dead from a bee sting at the church picnic. Prudy considered herself a good Christian, but she couldn’t get over how unnecessary that was. Why didn’t the fool woman know she was allergic to bees? Or if she knew, why didn’t she wear one of those Medic Alert bracelets? She didn’t have to die.

It was all just so pathetic! Prudy had a husband who drank too much. So what? With two small kids, Richard always on the road, never enough money, she had felt sorry for herself. Unappreciated. Angry. This allowed her to serve the pastor homemade cookies and coffee on a silver tray and not feel guilty. She smiled at the way he settled himself awkwardly on her sofa, the way he nervously picked at the creases of his trousers and clasped his hands together in a way she found endearing. With their Bibles open before them, she took his hand in prayer. And when he began sobbing one night, she leaned into him, her arm tight around his shoulder. She closed her eyes and told herself she enjoyed their first kiss, that sudden, awkward, sloppy kiss. When it went on from there, her slip folded casually over the chair, his white tank-style t-shirts beside, what then? What on earth was she telling herself then?

This is love!
That was the main thing.
The Reverend Phillip Voss, a man of God, choosing me!
And he needed her. What a difference it made to be needed.

Then she got pregnant.

When she told Phillip he looked like he’d jump out of his skin.

“Does Richard know?” His eyebrows knit together, making a little tee-pee on his forehead. She hated that look! So helpless and pleading. So lacking resolve.

“What does Richard have to do with it?”

“He
is
your husband.”

“A fact you were happy to forget on a few occasions!” Here’s where it started, the
oh-NO!-this-is-not-the-way-this-goes
feeling.

“What I mean is…” He started pacing like an animal. A weasel, or an over bred dog. “He’s been home a few times over the last two months. It could be him.”

“Twice he was so drunk he passed out without touching me, and the other two weren’t at the right time.”

“I don’t see how you can be sure. Can’t you have some kind of test?”

“I don’t need a test!”

“Yes, but can’t you have one?” he said, speaking patiently, as if to a child.

“Why are you so surprised?” she asked. “This kind of thing can happen when people have sex.”

“
Please!
Don’t talk like that. I thought you’d taken care of everything. I thought you were careful.”

“I was, but…” Then she realized. “You don’t think I did this on purpose, do you?”

He stopped pacing. “Did you?”

“Are you out of your
mind?
” Yes, she wanted a life together, Phillip and her and Nell and Lenny living peacefully in the parsonage, a husband kind and steady who didn’t drink, or leave her so high and dry she had to dig through an underwear drawer or under the sofa cushions for change to buy a loaf of bread.

“I would never wish for a baby under these circumstances,” she said.

He held his head in his hands. “This could ruin me.”

“What about
me?
”

“Nothing has to change for you. You can have the baby.” He paused. “With Richard.”

“I don’t want to be with Richard!”

There was that pleading, weak look again. “He’s mostly gone anyway.”

“What are you saying?”

“I don’t know! I’m in shock!”

“You expect me to go on living with him? What about his drinking?”

“Maybe he can get help. Isn’t that why you came to me in the first place?”

“This isn’t about him anymore.”

Phillip took a deep breath and put his hands on her shoulders. “All I’m saying is let’s not act hastily. Let’s think this through.”

She pushed him away. “What is there to think about? Don’t you love me? Don’t you want to marry me?”

“Yes, but…” He was actually squirming! Only two days ago she’d been in bed with him, close enough to feel his heart beating on her cheek. And
now!

“Things aren’t so bad, are they?” he said. “The way they are?”

“Phillip, my God!”

She knew then. He did not love her. Most likely never had. Most certainly never would. Talk about a fool woman! What did she expect? Some kind of knight in shining armor riding in on a white horse to carry her off to the church?
Darling! Grab your two adorable children! You’re all moving into the parsonage with me. The church board? They won’t care that you left your husband when I explain to them the pure, redeeming blessedness of our love!
Not Phillip —soft, quivering, sloppy-kissing, cookie-crunching Phillip.

“What am I going to do?” she said. “I can’t pretend this baby is Richard’s!”

“I need time to pray on this. Please Prudy, I want to do what’s right.”

“I’ll send you a birth announcement, how’s that?”

She stormed out and he didn’t come after her. The coward! She hated him and she hated herself.

It only got worse when Richard came home, all hugs and kisses and cash, enough cash for her to open a savings account at the First Trust Bank.

Maybe Phillip was right. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. Richard was her husband, after all. It was just the drinking she despised, not him. If she could figure out a way to make him stop, everything would be alright. And there was Lenny and Nell to consider. For their sake she had to try to make it work.