The Art of Losing Yourself (5 page)

C
ARMEN

The summer between third and fourth grade, I developed an obsession with Mary Poppins. I watched the movie on repeat—over and over and over again until I knew every line by heart. There was this one scene at the beginning of the film where Bert entertained a crowd with a slightly spastic song and dance. The wind shifted and he fell into this odd, trance-like state.
“Wind’s in the east, mist comin’ in…Like somethin’ is brewin’, and ’bout to begin…Can’t put me finger on what lies in store…But I feel what’s to ’appen, all ’appened before…”

I’ve often thought how convenient it would be if this happened in real life. If change would announce itself before arriving. At least then, we could brace for it beforehand. But change did not confer with the wind or the mist. It often came when we least expected it, which made its beginning difficult to pinpoint. For the Banks family, change began when Mary Poppins floated in on her umbrella after all the other nannies blew away. For me, I believe, it began with a mental breakdown in a Toys “R” Us parking lot.

I took a deep breath.

I can do this
.

I simply needed to walk into the store, print a list, pick the first item, smile at the cashier, and leave. No reason to think. No reason to browse. No reason to imagine what might never be. I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror, ran my fingers beneath my eyes, and tucked a strand of wavy hair behind my ear. Despite straightening it earlier, Florida’s humidity always managed to coax out my natural curl.

Hitching my purse strap over my shoulder, I stepped out into the muggy air and headed toward the front doors of Toys “R” Us, peering once or twice at the cloud-dotted sky—big, bright, sharply defined pillows outlined by a blanket of blue. They were the kind of clouds my dad and I used to spend hours looking at when I was a little girl. The kind of clouds Mary Poppins sat on while powdering her nose during the opening credits.

The doors slid open with a blast of cool air and the heels of my tan pumps went from clunking to clicking as they hit composite tile. I veered right, toward the Babies “R” Us portion of the store, where a friendly faced woman in a purple-collared shirt stood behind a counter.

“Is this where I print out a registry?” I asked.

“Sure is. What’s the last name of the registrant?”

“Dolten. D-o-l-t-e-n. First name is Katy with a y.” Katy was a good friend from church, one I should be happy for. Correction—one I
was
happy for. Truly. The problem wasn’t my lack of happiness; it was the inescapably deep pang that accompanied it.

I waited as the lady typed the name into the computer, printed out the list, and handed it over, recognition seeping into the chocolate brown of her irises.

In different circumstances, I might have stuck around and talked about the weather. People liked when I did that. Today, however, I was on a mission. I thanked her for her help, then scanned the first page of the registry. Everything was already purchased. I shuffled to the second page. Then the third.

What in the world?

Not until the fourth did I find a few unpurchased items—all inexpensive and unrelated. A Philips Avent BPA-Free soothie pacifier, Safety First Sleepy Baby nail clippers, a bulb syringe, bathtub stacky cups, and a Diaper Genie refill. I flipped to the fifth and final page, hoping for something bigger, like a bathtub or a baby carrier. Something that would require visiting one aisle, and one aisle alone. I found nothing but more miscellaneous odds and ends.

I moved my finger down the list until I found the aisle number for the pacifier, then made my way to the right place. Tunnel vision. That was the key to survival. I didn’t look at the adorable baby clothes surrounding me on all sides. I didn’t look at the happy mothers with their adorable children looking at the adorable baby clothes surrounding me on all sides. I didn’t think about how desperately I wanted to be one of those mothers.

With my shoulders pulled back, I convinced myself that it would happen. Maybe not in the conventional way I had imagined when Ben and I got married, but that didn’t matter now. What mattered was that as of last week, we officially took our place on the adoption waiting list. After all the classes and the required reading, after all the frantic cleaning to prepare for the home visits, after fingerprinting and background checks, credit reports, references, never-ending
paperwork, and a substantial chunk of money, I’d finally put the finishing touches on our portfolio and sent it off to our agency’s social worker. One day soon, I’d join the Mother Club and that deep, inescapable ache would let go of my heart and melt away.

I marched down an aisle, picked up the pacifier, then turned down another aisle for the nail clippers and syringe. I managed five items altogether before my hands were officially full. Time for checkout. Halfway there, someone called my name.

“Carmen?”

Mandy approached from a distance, dressed in yoga pants, a Blue Angels T-shirt, and a baseball cap with Just Do It stitched above the brim. She waved enthusiastically as she closed the gap between us. “I thought that was you!”

I swallowed a groan.

Mandy Thom was the president of the Bay Breeze High School booster club. She had three sons. Her eldest played quarterback for the University of Central Florida. Her middle son was Ben’s first-string tight end. The last time we’d seen each other had been during the booster club’s annual spring trivia night—a fund-raising event that brought in the entire town of Bay Breeze. Mandy put Ben and me at her table, which meant I spent the evening listening to her flirt with Ben and gush about what a cute couple we were and when were we going to give her some gorgeous Hart babies to coo over already?

She meant well. She really did. That didn’t, however, make the urge to run away from her any less real.

“How are you?” She wrapped her arm around my neck and gave me a squeeze. “Can you believe another season is upon us? I’m so excited I could just cry.” Mandy’s thick southern accent turned words like
cry
into two syllables.

“Ben’s been hard at work, that’s for sure.”

“Of course he has. It’s Coach Hart.” She gave me that knowing look of hers and waggled her eyebrows. The booster moms were very open about their affection for Ben. “That husband of yours is too good to be true, I’m telling you. The way he loves those boys? And this year’s lineup? He’s gonna be the first coach at Bay Breeze to win back-to-back state championships. I just know he will.”

I fumbled the pacifier.

Mandy picked it up off the floor and handed it over with wide eyes. During
last spring’s trivia night, I told her about our adoption. As soon as she asked me how much the baby was going to cost, I knew it’d been a mistake. “Oh my heavens, does this mean what I think it means? Are congratulations in order?”

“Oh, no. These are gifts for a friend.” I took back the pacifier and tightened my grip on the Diaper Genie refill. “We’re, um, still waiting.”

“Bless your heart. Y’all have been waiting so long.”

“Well, technically, we haven’t.” According to our social worker, once on the waiting list, some couples were matched with a child within months. Others waited years. The possibility of the latter made me feel like a dried-out husk. “Not nearly as long as some couples, anyway.”

“So how does that work—y’all just have to wait until some woman picks you off a list?”

“Basically.”

Mandy looked horrified.

I crept toward the nearest cash register, eager to get away.

“That must be so hard. How much control do y’all have in the process? I mean, do y’all even know what kind of baby you’re gonna get?”

“A human one, I hope.”

She laughed and swatted my arm. “You know, I was thinking about you a couple weeks ago.”

“Oh?” I stepped up to an open lane and dumped my items onto the conveyer belt.

Mandy pushed her cart behind me, even though there was at least one open register to the left. “I was having lunch with one of my cousins. There’s a woman from her church who adopted recently. Do you know it took them three tries? The second time, they actually had a sweet baby girl for two weeks, and then the birth mom changed her mind and they had to give her back. Isn’t that just awful?”

Yes, it was. My worst nightmare, in fact. So nice of her to bring it up.

She seemed to realize her snafu, because she rushed on to explain that the woman had a six-month-old boy now and they were all as happy as clams. All the pain had been worth it. God had a plan. His timing had been perfect.

I pressed my lips together and nodded.

“Twenty-seven fifty-six, ma’am,” the cashier said.

I removed my billfold from my purse and slid my credit card through the
machine. I scrawled my signature, careful to keep my strained smile in place.
She means well…She means well…She means well…

The cashier handed me my bag and the receipt.

“I’m so tickled that we ran into each other, Carmen. Please tell Coach Hart that I say hello, and I’ll see you tomorrow night. First game of the season.” Mandy raised her fist into the air. “Go Sting Rays!”

“Yep, go Sting Rays.” I gave my own fist an awkward pump, said my good-bye, and hurried outside, frantic for a proper breath. I wasn’t sure at what point the air inside Toys R Us grew too thick to breathe. Mandy’s words had brought in a high tide of what-ifs. What if we were never chosen? What if we went through the same thing Mandy’s cousin’s church friend went through? What if Ben and I were doomed to forever be in this place we’d found ourselves, with no hope of getting out? I tried my hardest to shut the questions off.

God had a plan…

It was something I believed once, a long time ago. But now?

My hand settled over the flatness of my stomach, even as I attempted to keep the memories away. But they were stubborn, intrusive things, dredging up handfuls of doubt I was so sick of holding. Once upon a time, I naively thought God would bless Ben and me for doing life His way. Yet there I sat in the driver’s seat, a bag of baby items resting in my lap, with nothing but aching arms and an empty house.

A ray of sunlight broke through the clouds and reflected off a parking sign straight ahead: For Expectant Mothers.

My composure snapped.

Without warning, without forethought, I shifted into drive and hit the gas, a wild scream tearing up my throat. My car lurched forward and rammed into the metal post. The sign remained standing. Its resiliency blistered all reason. I threw my car into reverse, backed up, and ran into it again, flooring the gas until a loud crunch rent the air.

I blinked several times with the steering wheel gripped in my hands. Then I rose up in my seat. A stork carrying a bundled baby was taking a nosedive toward the cement.

C
ARMEN

I couldn’t let go of the steering wheel. All I could do was stare at the damaged sign bent beneath my bumper with wide eyes and a dry mouth and trembling hands.

A mother-child duo walked past my car. I could feel the woman staring into my window. I sank lower into my seat, wishing I had Mandy Thom’s Nike hat. After they passed, I dared a peek. Her young son gawked at me over his shoulder as his mother dragged him inside, away from the crazy lady behind the steering wheel.

I reversed so my car no longer sat on top of the sign, and for a brief moment, I considered driving away. The parking lot was mostly deserted. I could make a run for it. But even if my conscience would have allowed it, the surveillance cameras up above put that plan to death. They had no doubt caught my battle with the sign on tape and, most likely, my license plate number too. There was no escaping. I would have to go inside and confess.

I stared toward the store, listening to the occasional jet engine overhead, considering the implications of what I had just done. The adoption process was an incredibly invasive one. Over the past several months, our entire lives had been sifted like water through a sieve, all to ensure that Ben and I were fit to be parents. If the store manager decided to press charges, I would have a police record. And then what?

I rested my forehead on the steering wheel and shook my head—back and forth, back and forth—until knuckles rapped against my window.

A man with a square jaw and silver hair looked down at me through the glass. Judging by his apparel, he was the store manager. I stepped into the humidity with my heart in my throat.

“Ma’am, are you all right?” He leaned back on his heels to take a good look at my bumper and the sign. When his attention returned to me, his brow went from furrowed confusion to raised surprise. “Well, I’ll be. You’re Carmen Hart with Channel Three News. I’d recognize you anywhere.”

I swallowed, unsure what to say. I knew how I typically responded. A big smile, a friendly handshake, followed up with some banter about the weather. This, however, was not a typical situation.

“You’re my favorite weather girl since Stacy Pine back in the eighties. You don’t even know it, but you join the missus and me every weekday morning for breakfast.”

The manager was a fan. I could have fainted with relief. Instead, I leaned toward him with a conspiratorial wink. “For future reference, I take cream with my coffee.”

He chuckled and stuck out his hand. “Dale Benson.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Benson,” I said, giving his hand a shake.

“Mighty fine pleasure, indeed.” And then, as if remembering the reason why we were meeting, he surveyed the bent sign once again. “If you don’t mind me asking, Mrs. Hart, how exactly did this happen?”

“I, uh…” A nervous laugh bubbled up my throat. I what? Dale might be a fan, but what if that backfired? What if he went home and told his wife and she decided to post about the odd encounter on Facebook? I didn’t just represent myself; I represented the entire news station. I was a public figure and public figures did not mess up, at least not publicly. “I am really, really sorry about this. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I am fully prepared to write you a check covering all damages.”

Dale scratched his temple.

I held my breath and begged God for a break. One measly little break.

He tucked his thumbs into the waistline of his pants. “Well, I don’t see any reason to call in a report to the police station over a dented sign. Or any reason to have you pay for anything when we have some extras in our warehouse. I think the important thing here is that nobody got hurt. You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No, I’m not hurt. Are you sure you don’t want me to write you a check?”

“How about this? You give me an autograph and we’ll call it even.” The manager smiled. “It’s the missus’ birthday on Saturday. I think she’d be pleased as punch if I stuck your autograph inside her birthday card.”

I wanted to place my hands on both sides of Dale Benson’s cheeks and plant a big wet kiss in the center of his forehead. Instead, I searched inside my purse for one of my business cards, swirled my name in black pen across the
back, and laughed when Dale said he’d “see” me tomorrow morning. By the time I got back into my dented car and drove away, my entire body was shaking.

Thank You, Lord
.

It was the first expression of gratitude I’d offered Him in a long, long time. I had no idea the offering was premature.

I picked up a playing card from the deck, slid it in between an eight of clubs and a nine of hearts, and discarded a king, even though I suspected Aunt Ingrid had at least one.

Every day after work, I drove to the Pine Ridge Continuing Care Retirement Facility to visit with my great-aunt. We played Gin Rummy 500 on her good days, War on her bad. Hearts in the dining hall with friends on her exceptional days, which were fewer and farther between.

She looked at me over the top of her hand, paused for dramatic effect, then picked up the king, laid it with two others, and discarded her final card facedown.

I smiled. Aunt Ingrid was having a good day. All things considered, so was I. I still couldn’t believe the store manager let me off the hook so easily. The entire ordeal had restored some of my faith in God’s grace. Maybe He hadn’t forgotten about me after all.

Ingrid counted her points. I counted mine, then added both to our running totals while she shuffled the deck and dealt with the proficiency of a cardsharp.

“How’ve you been sleeping?” I asked, picking up my cards one at a time.

She harrumphed, whether at the question or the way I collected my hand, I wasn’t sure. According to Aunt Ingrid, a card player wasn’t supposed to pick up her cards until the full hand was dealt. I’d never been very good at waiting. “Last night I dreamt that Gerald bought me a rhinoceros.”

Chuckling, I moved an ace of spades next to its accompanying king.

“There was this giant box under the Christmas tree that kept moving. Gerald told me to open it, and when I did, I found a full-grown rhino with a wreath around its horn. It started singing ‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.’ ”

“The rhino?”

“No, the wreath.” She dealt my final card and started arranging her hand. I couldn’t help noticing the thinness of her wrists. It wasn’t enough that dementia was stealing her mind; osteoporosis was eating her bones. “It was the most bizarre thing.”

“Dreams can be that way.”

“It’s the first one I’ve had in a long time. I miss them.”

I thought about my recurring nightmare as of late. I wouldn’t have minded some dreamless sleep. I drew a card, laid down three jacks, and discarded a five.

Ingrid muttered something about a lucky deal. “I woke up thinking about Christmas.”

“Yeah?”

She discarded a two. “And how nice it will be celebrating at The Treasure Chest.”

I looked up from my hand. We hadn’t had a Christmas party at The Treasure Chest since her husband, Gerald, died four years ago. In fact, Dad and I had to close down the family-run motel and board it up last April when the manager quit. It had been incredibly depressing to see the place I’d loved so much in such a run-down condition.

“Remember the Christmas parties we used to throw when you were a kid? Gerald would dress up as Santa Claus, and you and your cousins would nearly wet your pants with excitement.”

I smiled a nostalgic smile. “What about the Christmas Dad surprised me with a guinea pig?”

“How that little devil ended up in Mrs. Pennington’s shower, I have no idea.”

My smile grew wider. Mrs. Pennington had sprinted out of her room faster than I’d ever seen a woman run. After my Christmas pet had been safely returned to its cage, Aunt Ingrid spent a solid hour assuring Mrs. Pennington that The Treasure Chest did not have unusually large mice. “Or the time Ben tried making Dad’s eggnog?”

Ingrid put her hands on top of her dark hair and let out a hoot. “That recipe called for two pints of rum, and he used quarts instead! I think my Scot of a husband was the only one who enjoyed it.”

“And that Irishman in room 4.” I shook my head. “Ben felt awful.”

Aunt Ingrid’s coffee-colored eyes twinkled with an entire labyrinth of
memory. One I wished I could crawl inside and live in again. “Well,” she said, “it was an honest mistake for our cabana boy to make.”

Cabana Boy
.

The two words nudged up against my affection, as if attempting to rouse it from a deep and abiding slumber. How long had it been since I’d thought about that nickname?