Things Worth Remembering (15 page)

Kendy

I wish I could apply my makeup without looking in the mirror. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m about a 2.4 this morning, even for the over-forty demographic. I enjoy my
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magazines, but if the contributing editors were sitting on the edge of my tub watching me get ready, they’d wonder what has happened to one of their faithful readers. They should not immediately assume the answer is sleep deprivation. I actually ended up getting eight hours’ sleep last night, a gift from a merciful God.

I hope Maisey slept.

Luke was gone, his side of the bed cold when I opened my eyes at seven-thirty. I can’t say I was unhappy about it. Hiding out here alone all day sounds pretty good to me. But I’ve had a talk with myself and have called on the Lord this morning, so as soon as I finish getting ready, which seems to be taking longer than usual, I’ll find Maisey and ask her to talk with me. I will be kind but firm. It is time.

I have no control over my thoughts this morning, or I would not be sitting here trying to pinpoint when exactly the Clay mess began.

I’d seen approval in his eyes from the moment I walked into his office for an interview. But it was no different from the approval he showed any of his enthusiastic and hardworking teachers and staff. He put together excellent faculties for the schools in his district and took pride in their performance.

I taught only three years before I had Maisey and took a six-year hiatus to stay home and spend as much time as possible with the child I’d thought I might never have. As much as I loved teaching, I loved time with my daughter more. I returned to the classroom when she started first grade, and Clay told me more than once that I should be voted Teacher of the Year. My third year back I did receive that honor. My fourth year back was even more special to me because I had so many of Maisey’s friends in class, including Jackie and Heidi. I considered asking Clay to break a rule for me, just once, and let Maisey be in my class too, but I sucked it up, as the kids say, and didn’t try to interfere with standard policy. But I did want my daughter in class and was glad when weather kept us inside during recess and the fourth graders could go to any fourth-grade classroom for their free time. Seeing her in my room, mingling with her friends and my students, delighted me.

That same year something happened, a small thing really, that made me almost uncomfortably aware of Clay’s approval of me. It seemed different from the norm, moving beyond mere approval to overt and possibly excessive admiration. On a stormy afternoon that spring, Clay was doing a walk-through in the elementary building and stopped by my classroom during an indoor recess period. Maisey and her friends were in the back, playing Twister while other groups of children played quietly together in other parts of the room. This allowed Clay and me to talk about Maisey’s spending the night with him and Rebecca that Friday and going with them to Indy on Saturday to see Miller and Anne.

But fourth graders are seldom quiet for long, and Clay and I noticed that three kids playing hangman on the whiteboard seemed to be having some sort of argument. The boy in the middle I didn’t know well, but the other two students were mine and not contentious as a rule. The unknown quantity threw down his marker and called my sweet boy stupid.

Both of my students looked at our visitor like he was an alien. “Oh,” the girl said, “we don’t say that in here.”

“Say
what
?” he snapped.

“We don’t say
stupid
,” she said
.
“This room is the
positive
zone.”

After this clarification, my two students looked at me and smiled.

“So,” Clay said, sitting on the edge of my desk, “this remains the positive zone, does it?”

“It does,” I said.

He started to say something else and then stopped himself. But he smiled at me, and his smile lingered long enough that I had to look away.

But it was the wreck a year later, I think, that began the nearly imperceptible change in our relationship, though all I felt at the time was cared for and grateful.

It was a warm Friday in April during Maisey’s fifth-grade year. I remember it well, for hardly a day went by that spring that I didn’t realize school days with Maisey were almost over. Counting down the days—something only the overly introspective do—tinged all of them with sadness.

My car was the sole one left in the parking lot when Maisey and I left the building. I unlocked the car with my key fob, and Maisey jumped into the back seat and clicked herself into a seat belt. (She tended to scream if I started the car before she had taken this safety measure.) “Hey, Mom,” she said when she was all settled, “can we stop on the way home and get a malt?” We often stayed late on Fridays so that I could get all my work done to facilitate a carefree weekend, and we typically rewarded ourselves in one way or another for such a fine display of discipline. It was also a particularly beautiful Friday, and Luke was out of town, so despite the fact
that a chocolate malt probably contains three thousand calories, I told her that was a great idea.

I had just entered an intersection a few miles from school when I noticed in my peripheral vision a car not slowing down for a stop sign. I knew instantly that it was going to hit us broadside, and I made the split-second decision to turn my car sharply to the right, in the direction the renegade car was going, thinking that would minimize the impact. How can one think of so many things in a few seconds? The boy slammed into the left front fender of my car with so much velocity my car spun around and smashed into the back of his car. When both vehicles finally came to a stop, I was frantic to unhook my seat belt so I could see if Maisey was okay.

“Whoa!” she said when I turned and looked at her. She seemed fine, but I was immensely reassured when she added, “Can we still get a malt?”

That’s when her door was yanked open and Clay was there, yelling, “Maisey, are you okay?” As soon as he saw that she was, he opened the front passenger door. “Kendy,” he said, sitting beside me. “What about you, honey? Are you okay?” He put his hands on either side of my face and looked into my eyes as though that would best tell him what he needed to know.

“I think so,” I said, pulling back and gingerly touching my rib cage, hoping everything was where it should be. “My ribs hurt, my left shoulder is aching, but yes, I think I’m okay.”

He didn’t look convinced. “You could have been killed!”

I would never have imagined that Clay could be so upset, especially when he had seen for himself that we weren’t hurt. Nor would I have ever imagined he would, under any circumstances, touch my face.

What a strange thought to have while sirens blared and emergency vehicles began to arrive. Finally I thought to ask him if the other guy was okay.

Clay said he didn’t know and didn’t much care, but he went to check when I asked him to. Meanwhile EMTs checked on Maisey and me and insisted on taking us to the hospital for a more thorough examination. Clay had returned and said the guy—“driving without a license, by the way”—was in pretty good shape, considering. He also said he’d take care of having my car towed and that he’d come to the hospital and get us when he had tended to everything else.

After Maisey and I had been thoroughly examined and X-rayed, I called the number Luke had given me and told him about the accident and subsequent visit to the hospital. I told him both of us were sore and bruised in a few places but fine otherwise. He was relieved to hear Clay had actually seen the accident, had taken care of the car, and was coming soon to take us home. Luke was thankful we were okay and said he’d get home as quickly as he could wrap things up there. Where was he that week anyway? I couldn’t remember.

We were ready to be released when Clay arrived. Maisey ran to him, and he scooped her into his arms and walked over to where I was signing some papers.

“Did you two check out okay?”

I told him what I had told Luke, only I added that I had a killer headache. “But considering how bad the car looked, I’d say we’re in great shape.”

“We need a malt,” Maisey said when Clay deposited her next to me.

The lady behind the discharge counter said everything was in order, and as Clay, Maisey, and I headed for the sliding doors of the emergency room exit, Clay took my daughter’s hand and said, “Three chocolate malts, coming right up. Three
large
ones.”

Maisey smiled.

I did too. “Thanks, Clay,” I said.

“For what?”

Excuse me?

“Well,” I said, “for everything.”

Maisey

I’m up and almost ready when I knock on Marcus’s door and tell him I want to be on the road to Indy by eight. He looks at the clock and then me and says that’s ridiculous, that the stores we are going to probably won’t even be open when we get there. I tell him Wal-Mart will be and I want to get some things there too.

He looks extremely skeptical—he always has a hard time interesting me in a Wal-Mart run. But without too much prodding he gets up, and in fewer than twenty minutes, he meets me downstairs. I have just come down myself and wonder, as I have many times, how anyone can get ready as quickly as he does.

“You probably even made your bed,” I say.

He looks at me like I’m nuts, and I take that for
Are you
kidding me?

I tell Marcus I want to stop and get something to eat on the way, but he walks toward the kitchen, saying something about Raisin Bran. I take that for
I have my rights too
.

He grabs the cereal box, and I make myself two pieces of toast. While we eat, I keep an eye on the clock. Mom usually doesn’t come out of her room before eight on summer mornings, but I’m worried about how close we’re cutting it. Marcus is finishing his bowl of cereal at seven forty-five, and I’m relieved that my deadline is a possibility until I look up and see Dad coming in from outside.

“You’re up and around early,” he says.

He sits at the table with us, not bothering to get something to eat first, not even a bowl of cereal or a piece of toast. I ask if he wants some orange juice, and he says he’ll get some later. I almost jump up and get it for him anyway, but visions of Mother doing the same thing for me the night before keep me in my seat. I tell Dad that Marcus and I are up early because we’re going to return some things in Indy. I add that we’ll eat lunch there before we come back home sometime this afternoon.

He looks upset. “Don’t you think you should wait and talk to your mother first?”

Marcus looks at me, lifting one of his perfect eyebrows. He said the same thing when I awakened him so abruptly and told him my plan.

“Not yet, Dad,” I say, reaching for Marcus’s bowl to put it in the dishwasher.

“Hey,” Marcus says, “I’m not through.”

“Slow down, Maisey,” Dad says. “Nothing is pressing today. It’s time you talked to your mother.”

I stare out the window, wishing we had made our getaway before Dad came in, wanting the impossible. “Why?” I finally mumble.

“I’m sure there are things you need to know.”

I pick at the polish on my thumbnail. “I’d say I know too much.”

“Yes,” he says, “that’s true enough. Unfortunately, knowing that much requires knowing more.”

I turn to look at Dad. “Actually, Daddy, you’re the one who should be talking to Mother.” I look down, knowing my statement was presumptuous, knowing my outburst last night might have forced them to talk all night long.

“We talked about this a long time ago, Maisey.”

“What? When?”

“After your mom lost the baby.”

“I don’t remember her talking to anybody after she lost the baby.”

“You need to understand you don’t know very much at all about what happened to your mom and me the year after we lost the baby.”

That is
so
unfair.

“How could I? This place was a tomb,” I say.

“You’re right. It was a terrible time for all three of us. Your mom spent a lot of time in her room, and she didn’t talk to anyone much for six or seven months. Paula did manage to get a little out of her, but yes, I guess it
was
something of a tomb.”

“I don’t remember anyone but you in that dark room.”

“Do you remember that in the spring she was out of her room more often,
sitting on the patio and doing a few things around the house? Do you remember she began attending church with us regularly again on Easter Sunday?”

“I remember she came out at some point. So when did she tell you about Clay?”

“Not long after that Easter. I took some time off, and we talked about a lot of things, including Uncle Clay. That’s when I understood her depression had to do with more than losing the baby.”

“Then why have you always acted like nothing happened?” “We didn’t know you knew anything about it, or we would have talked to you, honey. What parents talk about such things unless they have no choice? You were thirteen years old! We didn’t even consider it. We thought the Clay issue and some of the things that led up to it were just between us.”

There shouldn’t have been a Clay issue!

“Of course we knew her depression couldn’t help but affect you, but we hoped you would be okay when she was herself again.”

I sit here, arms crossed, horrified that Marcus has poured another bowl of cereal while Dad has been talking.

“But you can believe this, Maisey: No one involved acted like nothing happened. Plenty changed.”

“Like what?”

“Well, for one thing, your mother took a job the following school year in another school district.”

“She had to; she had given up her old job to be with the baby.”

“Nevertheless, there was an opening in her building the following year, and she would have gladly taken it except she had made the choice to distance herself from Clay. She accepted a job in another district, and while it’s been a good job, for a lot of reasons, it wasn’t easy to leave her school. It helped that you were in ninth grade by then, but it was still hard. She and Paula had taught together for a long time.”

I roll my eyes.

Dad sighs.

“Do you remember Clay and Rebecca changing churches about that time?” he asks.