Mourning Becomes Cassandra (3 page)

I’m pretty standard: average height, average weight, brown hair and eyes, reasonably attractive, and it took Troy half the year to figure out we were more than friends and that he actually preferred me to his girlfriend. But he loved me ever afterward, even when I had various misgivings and misplaced affections.

“Here, dear. Dear?”

The elderly woman next to me pulled gently on my sleeve. In her other hand was the offering plate, which she was apparently trying to pass along the row. Apologetically, I smiled at her and handed the basket to the usher; I had been deep in an argument with God.

Although I felt like the estranged, drag-of-a-great-aunt who shows up at the holiday dinner just to put a damper on things, I still attended church. Even that first year when I could barely get out of bed I came. Unwilling, alienated, completely absent in spirit, I came. Why, I couldn’t exactly say. Maybe because I’d gone all my life. Maybe because I didn’t have anything else to do. Maybe because I was afraid if I let this go as well, there would be nothing left to me; I would disintegrate—float away on the wind.

Back in the days before my life went down the toilet we’d always gone to the 9:30 a.m. service. It was the big family one—loud band, all our friends, the nursery and Sunday school jam-packed. We assumed 8:00 was for the blue hairs, the “frozen chosen” Troy jokingly called them—all the grandmas and grandpas who got up at 4:30 and wondered why the church didn’t have a 6:00 a.m. service.

In the past year Joanie and Phyl tried several times to get me to join them at the Sunday evening service, the
de facto
singles and college gathering, but post-death-and-destruction I went to the 8:00 a.m., preferring to sit among strangers who wouldn’t ask any questions. It turned out Troy and I were wrong: grandparent-types made up only one contingent of those around me; there were also harassed-looking young parents whose kids woke at the crack of dawn, active types who wanted to get church out of the way before a day hike, and morning persons of all generations.

The early service had several fringe benefits, moreover. For one, it was a piece of cake to get a seat. This morning when I slid into the very last balcony pew, the little old lady there smiled at me benignly and without recognition. Probably a widow, too. Two peas in a pod, that was us. For another, since Troy and I never attended the traditional service, there was nothing to remind me of him. Hymns with a choir and an organ actually carried me back to my study-abroad quarter at Oxford, where I attended a little church close to Magdalen College. After a brief, intense crush on my brilliant tutor with the lame orthodonture, I had returned, tail between my legs, begging Troy to take me back.

I only knew one of the hymns this morning, which was fine, since I didn’t feel like singing. Or listening to a sermon or praying or talking, for that matter. It was the last weekend of the summer vacation, so a guest speaker was filling in for the senior pastor. During the sermon my mind wandered frequently, but the general topic was the joy of service. The joy of getting outside oneself. Well, if there was ever a place I’d love to be right now, it was outside myself. But what would I do? No more volunteering in the nursery, like I used to. Besides the germs and diapers, I didn’t want to see any little children who would remind me of Min. And I’m sure all my friends picking up and dropping off kids would rather just “get ʼer done” without having to see me moping about the place.

For a few minutes, to avoid deep thought, I pictured decorating my new room. I could paint the walls a dark buff. Re-cover the cushion in the window seat for a reading area. Hang that chickadee painting some friends gave me by the book case. Then I planned my first few dinners. Was vegetarian cooking out? Did everyone eat fish or beef? I had forgotten to ask. Then I thought of Great American Novels still waiting to be written. The sermon was still going.

Defeated, I screwed my eyelids shut. It was almost embarrassing to try to talk to God, since I hadn’t been praying for months. Who wanted to talk to someone you were mad at? Especially if He wouldn’t answer, and nothing could be resolved?

Arguing with the Almighty was also a fairly new experience for me, dating only from when he let Troy and Min die. Was it too much to ask, that He could have let Troy’s heart fail when he was sitting on the couch at home, with me right next to him to call 9-1-1? Or was it too much to ask that He could have spared Min? Min had spent 90% of her time with me, for Pete’s sake, and one of the few times she’s alone with her dad, they have to be in a car, and his heart has to give out suddenly? Troy’s death I could almost get my mind around—a bad heart is a bad heart, and since he was only 31 we hadn’t known about it. But what was the deal with Min? What part of His Wonderful Plan for My Life did it screw up to leave her on earth?

I learned in the church’s Grief Recovery class what I already knew intellectually: that it was okay to be angry at God. But it still made me uncomfortable. Maybe my faith had tended too much to the what-a-friend-we-have-in-Jesus side, only to discover that that friend was not averse to letting circumstances stab me in the back. It felt like having the faithful family guard dog, who rescued you from house fires in the past, turn on you and maul you. Bad analogy, I know, to compare God with a dog. Sit, Lord. Stay. Lie Down. Turn water into wine. Fix my every problem. And heaven knows no one has ever gotten God to heel. On the other hand, like an unruly pet, faith could be euthanized when it didn’t meet expectations.

The atheists and agnostics in my life were trying hard to bite their tongues, but I could read their thoughts:
Cass, doesn’t this prove it’s all random, or that, if there is a God, He’s a jerk? Religion’s great if you find it comforting, but in your case, shouldn’t you get off your knees and stop worshiping this figment of your imagination?
And on bad days I thought they were probably right, but on other days, most other days, I figured God is God, and He can do whatever He pleases. While I certainly wish He would have asked for my input in this situation, I was willing to believe there were more things going on in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in my philosophy.

The speaker was talking about some time he made some big
faux pas
at the homeless shelter, and the people around me chuckled appreciatively. So fine—God was God, and Troy and Min were gone, for whatever reasons. Now what? What on earth was I supposed to do with my life? And was there any way I could get through the rest of it under the radar?

I had woken up that morning with a faint headache after dreaming about Min: her first birthday, and the terrific face she made when she first tasted frosting. Hey, Minnie was my first baby, so like millions of other first-time moms I was something of a nutrition Nazi. One of my food rules was that we weren’t going to give her any sugary sweets for the first year, to see if it could prevent her from developing a sweet tooth. In my zeal, I considered a sweet tooth the gateway condition to childhood obesity and early-onset diabetes. But my experiment didn’t work. After that first puzzled taste, Min licked every speck of frosting off her cupcake and begged for more. Like mythologists of old, I learned that once desire was out of the box, there was no stuffing it back in. Min spent the remaining months of her short life being an absolute sugar fanatic, willing to do anything for M&Ms or a cookie, and I worriedly imagined her first high school boyfriend getting whatever he wanted from her for a couple Oreos.

Once Min tasted sugar, there was no pretending she was going to be content thereafter with only sour, salty, bitter, and umami. Could I?
If I lay low, God—keep my head down and behave myself—will you let me be? I leave you alone—ask for nothing—and you leave me alone?

I wouldn’t say the heavens opened and angels ascended and descended, but the speaker sat down at last, and a teenage girl stood up to speak, recapturing my attention.

She was average height and maybe sixteen, with lank brown hair and conservative clothing that she looked rather uncomfortable in. She cleared her throat a couple times and glanced nervously to someone seated off to the side.

“Hi, I’m Ellie,” she read from her cards. “I came to Camden School last spring after being kicked out of my old high school for doing drugs. Camden School is an alternative school for students like me who haven’t been succeeding in the regular public school system. I’d been doing drugs since middle school and gotten in lots of trouble and didn’t know how to change my life. At Camden School I meet with a substance abuse counselor and get lots of one-on-one attention from my teachers. They really care about me here, and I have been sober for four months. I really missed school this summer and seeing my friends and teachers, and I can’t wait to start again next week. I am also excited about getting a mentor this year. A mentor is an adult who can hang out with me regularly and do occasional activities with other students and mentors. This church is one of the big financial supporters of our school, and I want to say thank you for helping people like me. We also depend on many volunteers at our school to help with fundraising and special events and tutoring and mentoring. If you would like to help in any of these areas, please see the information in the bulletin. Thank you.”

Ellie delivered this entire speech on three breaths, tops, and when she sat down there was a wave of encouraging applause. Feeling a burning sensation in my chest, I scrabbled with the bulletin to look at the blurb on Camden School. As if they were a message for me, the letters seemed to jump from the page, like the red-letter sayings of Jesus in my mother-in-law’s King James.

But how could it be? My life was in shambles, and I didn’t know the first thing about teenagers or drug addiction. On the other hand, surely I could hang out with a teenager and encourage her to stay on the wagon and in school? But what would any teenager want with some pathetic woman who had lost everything and had no idea how to start from scratch? Didn’t they want hope, instead of, “Work hard and play it straight, and one day your life, too, might go up in flames”?

Discouraged, I wadded up the bulletin and threw it on the floor, only to glimpse the raised eyebrow of the woman next to me. Clearly she wasn’t excited about me littering in the Sanctuary. Too long used to behaving myself, I picked the bulletin back up and stuffed it in my purse.
Fine, God, I’ll keep it. But if you really have the crazy idea I should mentor someone, you’re going to have to make it a little clearer.

When the service let out, I darted out the front doors. It would mean a longer walk, but it would also mean avoiding most people I knew. Our church had torn down its 50s-style A-frame recently and rebuilt as big a building as the city would allow—modern, with huge windows of greenish Northwest glass and a modest cross on top, so as not to frighten people like Daniel, who wanted to vomit when they thought of church. For the entire sixteen months it took to rebuild, we met in the Bellevue High School gym, where the sight of the basketball hoops and the smell of Cafeteria Lunches Past gave former alums like me similar urges to vomit when they thought of church. Already we were bursting at the seams again, causing longtime members to complain that they didn’t recognize anyone, but there’s nothing like a mega-church if your goal is to avoid people. You have only to change services to cut yourself adrift.

Sure enough, besides throwing one wave across the parking lot to Dave and Sandy Lucker, I escaped unnoticed.

Phyl and Joanie were having a comfortable coze in the kitchen when I got home, Joanie still in sweats. Helping myself to coffee, I plunked down next to Phyl.

“How was church?” Joanie asked. “I can’t believe you go to the early service! Do they have to remove half the pews to fit all the walkers and wheelchairs?”

I blew on my coffee and reached for the half-and-half. “It wasn’t so bad. Just about everyone was ambulatory. I knew one of the hymns.”

“Who preached?” Phyl asked in her gentle voice.

“Some guy from Idaho. It was about service.”

“Yuck and yuck!” yelled Joanie. “Maybe I won’t go tonight. Who needs more guilt? I still haven’t recovered from the time Chaff went to hand out sandwiches to the homeless, and I got Mr. Complainer who didn’t like turkey. Who knew homeless people were so picky?”

“I had a nice conversation that time,” Phyl objected. “I met this lady with such a sad story, and I kept thinking, ‘This could be me.’”

Joanie rolled her eyes. “Well, next time I’ll hit up the ladies. I’m sure Jesus would have told my guy to just choke down the damned sandwich and be grateful.”

Phyl frowned. Before they could really get into it, I interjected hastily, “Speaking of Chaff, how was the hike yesterday? Was the cute new guy there?”

Joanie took the bait. “YES! Only, it turns out James is a mere 27, so a lot of us circling sharks had to quit chomping at his cage—”

“Joanie, I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” Phyl protested. “How can anyone at YAF try to get to know anyone, if you’re always going to make it sound so predatory?”

“But the good news is,” Joanie went on blithely, “James brought this friend—older friend—his old Sigma Nu big brother, I think—who is just as cute and just as cool, though unemployed.”

“He already asked Joanie out, of course,” sighed Phyl.

“He’s unemployed?” I asked skeptically. “Is he going to take you to the soup kitchen?”

Joanie shrugged. “We may have to scrounge for sandwiches the homeless people reject, but at least he’s cute. And I said Roy was unemployed, not unemployable. Big difference.”