Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 02 - Spring Moon (9 page)

“She can learn something new like everyone else. None of the hillbillies can believe you’d hire her, and we’re big inbreeders. Asp enjoyed your hillbilly comment. I’ll hear that for the rest of my life.”

“You told everyone? Did you tell Chana?”

“Eric did.”

“I was just thinking about Celeste’s reaction.”

“You always do. What I really don’t understand is why you keep taking care of her. It’s not like you two were some big love match. She got pregnant to make her boyfriend jealous, and then sneaked around with him. She even threw over her own daughter for him.”           

“We can go see someone. Sort it out.”

“You go, I’ve seen enough someones. It’s not me with the blind spot.”

“Well, you’re not going to take off with my children.”

“Our children. I’ll never cut you off. The last thing I want is for them to lose their father. I realized today that we will always be running into each other. After Chana and Adam are married, you and Celeste will probably end up seeing more of my family than I do. I could see myself in the back of the church next year with Chance, while you and Celeste are in front with Eric and Anna, and Meggie is the flower girl.”

“Jesus, Hannah. This is crazy. You need to come home.”

“I need to go to bed while the babies are asleep. I’ll call you when I get to L.A. Meggie loved the wedding, now she thinks marriage is a fairy tale.”

“Come home,” he said.

“Nite,” I said.

No one was home from the wedding when I finally fell asleep.

I was up early to a quiet house. Dress bags, jackets, shoes, and flowers, with browning edges and a deathly smell, were scattered around the living room. I got the kids dressed and quietly packed the car while Meggie had a bowl of cereal. Eric came into the kitchen wearing sweats and bloodshot eyes. He poured coffee.

“Charlie’s parents know how to throw a party. It loosened up after you left,” he said. “Arthur wore shades and sang karaoke to “Wild Thing.” Mom sorta danced back up.”

“In those shoes? I’m sorry I missed that,” I said. “I really like Charlie’s family.”

“They’re happy about Samantha. I got video. Jon called. He thinks you might have some postpartum depression thing going on.”

“That’s convenient. It’s more like postpartum clarity.”

“Have you considered going home early?”

“No. I’m going up the back way this morning, take it easy. I plan to stop at Grandma’s grave. Maybe I’ll stop at Grub ‘n Scrub for lunch.”

“What’s Grub ‘n Scrub?”

“The truck stop where I met Stroud. Trip down memory lane. I googled him, he still lives in the area. They make great soup.”

He sat down and watched me nurse. Anna came in wearing a robe, poured coffee and kissed Meggie good morning. She glanced around at the dark cloud hanging over the room.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“I talked to Jon. He’s going to put Celeste in charge of our biggest asset. It’s all she knows how to do,” I said. “I need to get on the road while the kids are put together. I’m unhappy, Eric, but I’m not depressed. Except about making the same mistake. At least I have the kids this time. I don’t regret them. Or having Chana in my life. I’ll feel better when I’m making my own money again.”

“Jon can take care of you,” said Eric. “You need to take some time to think this through.”

“Even if we stay together, I don’t want to have to depend on him. I don’t need to think that through,” I said. “You never know what’s around the corner.”

I walked out of the kitchen and into Chana who had been listening outside the door. She was still wearing her pearls.

“Those pearls are beautiful, CC. Your dad loved the pictures. I’m leaving in a few minutes. Is Adam up? I want to say good-bye.”

“He’ll be out in a minute. You need help?”

“Can you get Meggie in her car seat? Have her go potty first.”

I put Chance in his car seat. Adam carried Meggie out and strapped her in. We had hugs all around. Adam had his arm around Chana as they watched us drive away.

I stopped in Solana Beach to say good-bye to Mom and Arthur. Mom had more new clothes and toys for the kids.

“Did you stop by Judith’s?” asked Mom.

“So she could tell me Meggie won’t ever be as beautiful as my hillbilly not-daughter? I don’t think so, Mom. Why did you tell her that?”

“I don’t know. It just slipped out.”

“It always slips out,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “What’s this about seeing Alan?”

Mom always referred to John Deere Stroud as Alan. His trucker name was Stroud; his real name was Alan Watts. I’d had another boyfriend with two names once. He was a criminal with an alias. Stroud wasn’t a criminal as far as I knew. He was a biology teacher turned truck driver. He was a good man as it turned out.

“I’m not going to see Stroud,” I said. “I was kidding.”

“Eric said you googled him.”

“I was curious. I’m not going to call him.”

She looked at me thoughtfully.

“I know you’re not happy right now,” she said. “But don’t do something that can’t be undone.”

“Why is everyone so worried about Jon? He’s not worried about me.”

“I’m not worried about Jon. I think the idea of hiring Celeste is asking for big trouble. I’m surprised he’s that stupid. I’m worried about you. I know you.”

“Mom, I’m not up for one of your playbook clichés right now.”

“I don’t have a cliché for what you’re going through. I’m just afraid you’re going to do something that makes you feel bad about yourself. You’ve been so happy the last few years. So proud.”

“I guess.”

“You have your beautiful children.”

“I know, Mom. I thought I had a beautiful husband too. I need to go. I can only drive a little while before I have to stop for one of them.”

Traffic on the 5 North was slow to Oceanside where I made the cutoff. The back route was lined with more cookie cutter housing developments than the last time I’d driven that way. Flat malls crowded the slivers of space between the foothills and the freeway. They provisioned BBQs and spa chemicals, all the necessities of bedroom community survival. Half the places looked abandoned.

A dry chaparral breeze ruffled sleeping Meggie’s soft curls. Chance slept with parted lips. My breast twinged when I looked at him, he’d wake up soon. He noshed all day and slept all night.

I broke free of malls and into the long stretch of hillside avocado groves that always put me in mind of donkeys and Italian men in rough cotton shirts. Ten miles out the clean air, with green under-notes, began to sour with the ammonia smell of cow shit and chemicals from the dairy farms up ahead. I passed the Grub ‘n Scrub, an oasis of badly maintained truck stop diner with a rundown motel to the side. The vacancy sign flickered.

Most of the rooms had been converted for showers. No one rented the rooms with beds. Truckers carried their sleeping compartments like snails, but they used the Scrub for showers and to do a load of wash. It was like a hot pillow stop, with hot showers. Stroud said the occasional hooker hung around. His sister and her husband owned it; they discouraged the hooking. The food was excellent. I’d never seen a room.

Stroud and I had our first encounter in his Volvo station wagon. We didn’t consummate our opening salvo because I’d had a rare burst of self-respect and cut it short. Unfortunately the chemistry was overpowering and I invited him to L.A. for a visit when Steve was in New York for work. We spent two nights having more sex than most people have in two years. I’m still surprised by it, and Jon is no slacker. The mess that followed turned into a painful and inelegant end to a bad relationship with Steve. I wasn’t proud of it, and I didn’t regret it. It had been more than six years and I still hadn’t figured out how to put it at ease in my mind.

Jon had never seemed like a bad relationship. Not in the beginning when I tried to fight him off long-distance, not at those rare times that we fought up close. Not now when we were struggling long distance again. I couldn’t get over the feeling that some part of him would never commit to our relationship. I might be imagining that. Maybe it was me but, maybe not.

We knew people who were friendly with their ex-spouses. The charge was gone. What was left was at best, friendship, at worst, annoying familiarity. The charge was not gone for Celeste. There was unfinished business. They’d had a child without ever being lovers. How do you finish that?

Jon couldn’t bring himself to create a boundary. It hurt.

“Mama, I need to go potty.”

“Okay, Angel, hold on. I’ll find a place to stop.”

“Now, Mama.”

I pulled off at the next exit. They were grading for another empty mall, there wasn’t a bush in sight. The road was empty ahead so I headed back to what I knew. I parked at the Grub ‘n Scrub and got them out of the car like it was on fire. Meggie was making nervous sounds because she needed to go so badly. I couldn’t wait for her to get to the age when she could give me a few minutes notice.

“It’s okay, Meggie. Come on, hurry hurry.”

I held Chance in one arm, and took Meggie’s hand to half help, half speed walk her into the diner. Stroud’s sister, Joyce, grabbed menus and headed our way as I bolted into the bathroom. I got Meggie on the toilet, and then I got on the other one with crying Chance.

“Mama, help.”

“Hold on, Meggie.”

I got my pants up one-handed then squeezed into the stall with Meggie who had unraveled enough toilet paper to print
War and Peace
ten times, in two-point type. It was wicking up the suspicious looking water on the floor around the toilet. I tore it off before I realized that was the last of it.

“Hold on,” I said.

I grabbed a fresh wad of paper from the other stall and took it back to her. She was so little she looked like she could fold in half and slide right through the black commercial toilet seat and into the bowl. Her underpants were down around her ankles. She was gazing at the partition covered with hieroglyphic graffiti, and running her finger through a pictograph, drawn in red lipstick, of a dick with hairy balls with arrows pointing at a license plate number. Texas. Recommendation or warning? I didn’t know the subculture.

“Hop off, Meggie, you look like you’re going to fall in. You can dry when you’re off. Pull up your underpants so they don’t get wet.”

She managed to get off but I had to do the drying part one-handed so she could hang onto her underpants with one hand, hold up her dress with the other, and watch. Chance cried on. He turned red from being almost upside down. I managed not to bang his head on the overflowing used sanitary products container. Meggie pulled up her underpants and I pulled the back of her dress out of the elastic. I backed out of the stall sweating. She exited smiling.            

Then began the hand washing. She couldn’t reach the faucet so I turned on the water, and then picked her up with my free arm so she could rinse her hands. She wasn’t strong enough to dispense soap so we skipped that part. Bad mother.

She played on in the water. I set her down and turned it off. Then I hit the air dryer button. She stuck her face underneath and played like a dog with its head out the window. Chance had raised his pitch to be sure he was heard over the noise. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Not good.

We squeezed out the door, past a flat-faced woman in Carhartt overalls and work boots, and emerged from the dark hallway to the waiting Joyce in her brown and orange uniform.

“Restrooms are for customers only,” she said.

“Yes. Okay,” I said. “Then we’ll have lunch.”

She led us to a table by the window and dragged over a booster seat that probably hadn’t been clean since it left the factory. I got out a wipe and took a stab at it. All I managed to do was start a two-hour project with a one-minute antibacterial wipe. I decided most of the food was so stuck, not even Meggie’s little neck gripping fingers could worry it loose.

I pushed her in, and then slid into the booth after the diaper bag. Chance was still crying and people were giving me the
shut that kid up
look. I stuck him on a breast, threw a diaper over my shoulder and blew my bangs. They didn’t move. He took a shuddery minute to transition from sobbing to sucking. It was finally quiet.

Joyce came back with silverware and a menu.

“We’re just going to have a grilled cheese sandwich,” I said. “Milk for her, can you put it in a juice glass? I’ll have coffee.”

“That’s it?”

“Do you have any fruit?”

“We have fruit cocktail.”

“No, that’s too much sugar.”

“He makes it.”

I ordered fruit cocktail.

She put a tall straw in a small plastic juice glass so naturally the first thing that happened was that Meggie tipped the whole thing over. Milk ran both directions. I dammed the white flash flood headed my way with the diaper, but Meggie had a lap full. I broke Chance’s state of bliss and set him on the seat, which really pissed him off. I pulled my shirt closed over my exposed breast and jumped up to help her off the seat and out of the pool of milk.

“It’s okay, Meggie. It was an accident.”

“I’m wet, Mama. Mama, wet.”

“You’re okay. Stop crying.”

She acted the same way about spilled milk as she did about puking. She could really take it over the top. Chance was crying on the seat. Joyce came over and I asked her to wrap up the food. She rolled her eyes and cleared the plates. I gathered up Chance, diaper bag, and Meggie who was still crying and walking with her legs apart while rivulets of milk ran down her legs and into her socks. I paid the bill and grabbed the brown bag of food.

I had to tear the plastic off some toy my mother had bought so I could protect her car seat from her wet butt. I had everyone strapped in before I realized I’d left the diaper dam on the table. Screw it. There were diapers in Los Angeles.

I pulled out onto the highway and drove a few miles to the farm stand that had been there for decades. It was just a shack when we were kids, but had grown into a big production with phony country doodads hanging from the rafters and checkered cloths on the display tables. I parked in the shade by a picnic table and hauled everybody out again. I got out the new bouncy sling thing that Mom had stuck in the trunk and strapped Chance to it. It was a relief to have both arms free. I got out a change of clothes for Meggie, stripped her down, and used a hose by the community dog water bowl to rinse her off. She loved to drink out of the hose. I used the dry part of her milky dress to wipe her down and dressed her in clean clothes and flip-flops.