Some Kind of Normal (11 page)

"What?"

"If my blood sugar goes low, and no one knows it
because I'm asleep, I could die, right?"

"That isn't going to happen, Ash."

"But what if it does?" She sounds like the little
girl who used to be scared of flying monkeys coming out of her
closet to whisk her off to the witch's castle.

"Would you feel better if I test every hour, just to
make sure?"

"Would you?" Her lids are heavy again.

"Sure."

"Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you stay with me for a little bit?"

I turn off the light and sit on the bed again. I hum
the lullaby I sang to her every night when she was a baby.

"What song is that?"

"Hush Little Baby."

"I forget the words. Can you sing it?"

And so I sing.

"Hush little baby don't say a word;

Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird.

If that mockingbird don't sing,

Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring.

If that diamond ring turns brass,

Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass."

I sing slow, almost in a whisper, and I feel Ashley
curl up in a ball, her legs pressed against mine.

"If that looking glass gets broke,

Mama's gonna buy you a billy goat.

If that billy goat won't pull,

Mama's gonna buy you a cart and bull."

I think about her as a baby, all wrinkly and pink,
tufts of blond fuzz sticking out of the yellow blanket the hospital
wrapped her in.

"If that cart and bull turn over,

Mama's gonna buy you a dog named Rover."

Her breath slows, and I notice for the first time the
heavy sighing is gone.

"And if that dog named Rover won't bark,

Mama's gonna buy you a horse and cart.

And if that horse and cart fall down,

You'll still be the sweetest little baby in
town."

I hum a bit more and then stand to go. She reaches
out and holds my hand. "The other one, Mama. Sing the other
one."

I'd forgotten I used to sing a different one to her,
also. It's been so long, it surprises me that she remembers. I lay
my hand on her head and try to remember the words.

"Hush little baby, don't you cry;

Within your dreams you can touch the sky.

With you in my arms I feel whole,

Because you are my heart and soul."

She reaches up and squeezes my hand. "You'll check on
me in an hour?"

"In an hour," I say and slip out of the room.

Travis nearly scares the bejeezus out of me, standing
right outside the door. "I haven't heard you sing in a while."

I shrug. "We got no more babies." He looks like he'd
like to say something and then don't.

After he goes to bed, I slip out into the backyard
with a cigarette and stare into the sky, which is all black and
dotted with brilliant stars sharp as the pin-prick ends of a
thousand needles, a sky completely unlike the landing pad at the
hospital in Austin.

I breathe in the smoke and let it fill my lungs slow
and hold it there a second or two before blowing out real slow. I
watch the smoke circle up into the darkness and fade away on the
breeze. I take another drag, and another, willing myself to not
think about tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after, but just
this minute, this next test, this moment when we are all home and
safe. I squash the butt end into the flowerbeds and cover it with
dirt.

I check Ashley's sugar before I go to bed. She barely
stirs when I prick her with the needle and squeeze out a drop. She
rolls over when I let go, before I can wipe the blood, and I see it
smear across the pillow. It's down almost 50 points.

I set the alarm for an hour, but I can't get to sleep
anyway. I think about the prescriptions we have to get filled
tomorrow, and the grocery shopping, and Logan's ball game, and the
church car wash. When I check her again it's under 200. It has gone
down so fast I'm too scared to sleep again, and I lie on the floor
next to her bed another hour and check again. It stabilizes at
160.

I finally crawl back into bed at four in the morning,
and wonder how I used to nurse the kids when they were babies. I
did this hour thing all the time, and I don't remember ever being
this tired.

When I wake, Travis is already gone. Logan's locked
in the bathroom, and Ashley is deeply asleep. I stand over her, not
wanting to wake her because it's been such a tiring week, but
wanting to make sure she's still alive. Unlike the last month, her
breathing is quiet and light. I'm thankful for these little
things.

~~~~

The second full day home is Sunday and tired or not,
we all manage to haul ourselves out of bed and dress in Sunday
best. Curious eyes follow us as we slip in a back pew a few minutes
after the service begins. A few friends wave at Ashley and she
waves back, obviously happy to be back. Logan whispers to Travis
and then slides out to move up a few rows where his buddies are.
Travis and Ashley pick up in the middle of the song easily, but I
busy myself stowing my purse and finding a hymnal, even though the
words are up clear as day on the screen behind the pulpit. When I
finally can't postpone it anymore, I move my lips in time to the
music, but I have no voice.

The truth is, although I was the one who told Travis
we needed to come to church, I've just never taken to it the way
the rest of the family has. I suppose it's natural for Ashley and
Logan to feel comfortable here. They've never known anything else.
Sunday after Sunday, since they was in diapers, we been here
singing the same songs with the same people, year after year. The
same groups of kids moved with them from nursery to preschool,
graduating into the grade-school Sunday school classes, in AWANA
and Girls in Action, and youth group. They done the same car washes
year after year, went to the same summer camps, ate the same fried
chicken and cornbread at the same picnics. It's no surprise they
fit like red in a rainbow here.

I play the game, too. I bake my share of pot-luck
dinners, and I learned where all the books of the Bible is. I nod
like I understand when Pastor Joel speaks, and I pretend to write
notes on the back of the bulletin and file them in my Bible to read
later. Really, though, I'm writing grocery lists, 'cause I just
don't get it all. The church is something of a social clique, and
even after all these years I feel on the outside looking in.

I sing the songs, but I don't feel them the way
Brenda and Yolanda do, who close their eyes and sway when the music
gets loud and sometimes sing through tears. I read the words and
just don't get why someone would cry over them. And then I fear God
is going to strike me dead for not getting it.

It's not that I don't want to get it. Who wouldn't
want to feel like there is some God out there who made the whole
universe and still knows them, though they be a speck of dust, and
loves them. I tried to pray a couple times that God would make it
real to me like it is to them, but I feel like I am talking into
space. I figure if there's a God up there he's probably just
laughing at me. Or cussing me out for smoking, and maybe it's that
one cigarette a night that's keeping him from talking to me. And I
figure if I wanted him enough, I'd give it up, so maybe it serves
me right.

Every time I walk through the church doors I'm a
hypocrite, pretending to feel like God loves me, when I don't
really even know if he's there. But I can't speak this to anyone,
'cause they all know God loves them. Even Travis, who coulda cared
less when I first told him we should go to church.

I think God speaks to Travis because Travis sings
like he means it. When everyone has their eyes closed for silent
meditation, I peek over at him and his mouth is moving like he's
talking without sound, and I think he's actually talking to God. I
suspect he actually thinks God is listening.

Since we been coming, the service is always the same.
Announcements, songs, prayers, offering, sermon, invitation. The
invitation is the part at the end when the pastor invites those
moved by the Spirit to come forward and pray for God to come live
in their hearts and forgive their sins. I'd heard all that in the
Lutheran church, except no one marched up any aisle in front of the
whole congregation, so no one knew who was praying and who was just
closing their eyes and thinking what to have for lunch.

One Sunday, not too long after we came to First
Baptist, I felt Travis move next to me, a slight, uncomfortable
kind of moving, and when the choir sang Just As I Am, on the second
verse, he got up and walked all the way down that long aisle and
right into the open arms of the pastor. And I sat all by myself in
the pew, feeling the piercing stares of those around me, wondering
what was going on.

Going forward meant you'd never been saved, and
everyone figured we'd been saved long ago. I figured we had. We'd
gone to church all our lives. Not Baptist, but Christian churches.
We believed in Jesus and God and the Bible. Ain't that what saves
you? But there was Travis, walking forward like the sinner
repenting, and all eyes looked at me.

And after that Travis started reading the Bible, and
getting interested in the men's group, and when he wasn't working
Saturdays he went to prayer meetings. But he never said nothing to
me about it, and I don't ask, 'cause I'm waiting for God to talk to
me like that, too. Except he don't.

The sermon today is about faith in praying, and I
feel like Pastor Joel is staring at me when he says God will give
us anything we ask for if we ask believing in him, and I can't help
but wonder if Ashley is asking God to take away her diabetes, and I
hate myself for thinking it's never that easy.

After the service people crowd around Ashley like
she's a celebrity, asking how she is and telling her how much they
prayed for her. She takes the attention with grace, answering
polite, and then skips off with the other girls out the back.
Travis takes over the answering until Dot and Yolanda break up the
group and turn the conversation to the pro-life demonstration this
afternoon.

There's a potluck at the church but we go home to
eat. It's simpler that way. For now. I figure as we get used to
this, it'll be easier going out, but for now, home seems safer. We
eat sandwiches, 30 carbs apiece, and carrots with ranch dressing.
We can't do chips, but Travis discovers his pork rinds don't have
no carbs in them so we munch on those instead. We skip dessert.

Travis and Logan beg off the pro-life rally this
afternoon. I'd rather stay home myself, but Ashley pleads with me
to go. The bus is leaving the church at two, so we barely make it
there before it pulls out. Ash wants to go on the bus with the
kids, but I want to take the car.

"I thought you were supposed to chaperone us. You
can't do that from the car."

"Ms. Brenda said they got enough parents on the bus.
They just need me at the march."

"Well, then you drive and I'll ride," she says, as
though this is so logical I shoulda thought it myself.

"And let you go all by yourself?"

"No. I'll be with 45 of my closest friends."

"And what happens if..." I don't know how to say it.
"You know, if something happens?"

"It's Austin, Mom. It's forty minutes away. What can
happen?"

Oh,
let me list the things
, I think.

"They're waiting, Mom." I look at the bus and curious
eyes are looking down at our conversation. "You are so embarrassing
me. It's not like I haven't traveled on the church bus a thousand
times."

"But not with--" I start to say diabetes, but then I
bite my tongue. I want her to feel normal, but I don't want to
treat her that way.

"I have my meter." She opens her purse and pulls it
out. "And jelly beans." We settled on jellybeans as emergency food
because they're easy to count, one carb apiece, and easy to
carry.

"Okay," I say, thinking this may be the biggest
mistake I've ever made. "But I'm following behind and walking in
the march with you." "Okay." She high tails it up the bus steps,
and I watch her through the windows, waiting for her to wave at me.
She don't even look back.

~~~~

The downtown in Austin is crowded for a Sunday
afternoon. It takes a while to find parking, and I have to weave my
way through blocks of marchers to find where folks from our church
are gathering. When I find them, Pastor Joel and his humongously
pregnant wife are giving instructions about the route we're gonna
walk and where to meet up when it's over. When he offers to pray
before we leave, everyone holds hands and bows their heads. I'd
feel self-conscious but everyone downtown is from one church or
another, so we ain't the only ones praying. He has to yell real
loud to be heard over the commotion.

"Father God," he starts. "We know all life is
precious to you. You have formed us in our mother's womb; you have
created both our body, and the souls that inhabit them, and your
word tells us they are precious to you. Before we are even born,
all our days are written in your book."

I look around and see heads nodding. Ashley ended up
standing next to Brian Lee, and now their hands are clasped. It
makes me smile. I remember trying to figure ways to get close to
Travis, way back when. Some excuse to talk to him, touch him,
without it needing to mean anything.

That seems like a long time ago. And not so long
ago.

Pastor Joel is finishing up, about how God has a plan
for each of us, and he's quoting some part of the Bible that must
be important 'cause lots of people are saying it with him, and then
he's done and everyone says
Amen
. The group parts like the Red Sea, adults on
one side and kids on the other. I'm wishing Janise were here. The
Lutheran church in our town don't seem to be big into the
politicking the way the Baptists are, and I miss that about being
Lutheran.