Things Worth Remembering (16 page)

“They transferred to the new church where their kids and grandkids were going.”

“That’s true. But my grandparents helped establish our congregation. They were charter members, Maisey. That may not mean much to you, but it means a lot to Dad and Clay.

Clay would never have changed churches if he hadn’t thought he had to.”

“Well, whose fault is that?”

“You just need to know that no one acted like nothing happened. Including me. That’s when I moved my office here and started working from home.”

“’Cause you had to keep an eye on her.”

“Maisey.”

I get up and throw my bowl in the sink. “Really, Dad, I don’t know why you didn’t leave her.”

He shakes his head. “Are you serious?”

“Let’s not talk about this right now,” I say.

Leaving the kitchen, I tell Marcus I’m getting my stuff and will meet him at the car.

But here I stand, lost in my closet, looking for the pink sack containing those ridiculous red-net pajamas that I plan to return today.
Where is it?
The stupid thing couldn’t just disappear. I’m making such a mess of this closet.

I hate messes. I’d say the conversation I just had with Dad was a mess—a heck of a mess.

I hear Marcus coming up the stairs. At least I hope it’s Marcus.

“There you are,” he says, joining me in the closet. “I started for the car, but you weren’t there.”

“I can’t find the darn sack,” I say.

“It’s not in here, honey; it’s on your dresser.”

I start to cry, and he puts his arms around me, letting me sob into his Colts T-shirt. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay.”

“He should have left her, Marcus.”

“I can’t see your dad ever doing that. And why should he have left her?”

“You know what she did.”

“I know what you saw.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means a lot of things, honey. It means you should talk to your mom. Your dad’s right: There’s a lot you don’t know.”

I wipe remaining tears off my face with the back of my hand and look at him. “And I don’t care.”

Marcus seems shocked, but he recovers and looks at me calmly. “I’d hate to think that’s the difference between you and your dad.”

I wonder if I’ve heard him right.

“Your loyalty should
so
be with me, Marcus. It really should!”

He takes the sack from me and removes my purse from the doorknob and hands it to me. Or more accurately, he shoves it at me. “Let’s just go if we’re going,” he snaps.

So, this is Marcus upset.

At the top of the stairs, he stops and makes a final comment: “I think the vows we chose include ‘for better or worse.’ Do you want to reconsider that demanding little phrase?”

I want to cry,
Objection!
That is so out of context. Anyway, that vow causes me no pause, since there’s also a vow about keeping ourselves only unto each other.

I might just tell him that later, but for now I’m ready for all talk to cease. I check to see if my iPod is in my purse, and I follow Marcus down the stairs, thinking that what I might want to reconsider is our wedding.

Kendy

The phones rings just as I’m putting away all the hair paraphernalia. I run to get it when it becomes clear no one else is going to pick up.

“May I speak to Kennedy Laswell?”

The voice is unfamiliar, and I hope it’s not some sort of telemarketer. But the voice sounds more official than irritatingly cheerful, so I respond as pleasantly as possible.

“This is she.”

The man quickly identifies himself as Phillip Jamison, a name I recognize. It strikes me as surreal to be standing in my bedroom on a summer morning talking to the president of Mother’s company.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news, Kennedy.”

These are words no one wants to hear. What follows is necessarily dreadful. I wonder in the space of a few seconds what horrible thing has happened to my mother.

“What is it?” I whisper.

“Your mother had a heart attack in her office this morning.”

My
mother? Ever efficient, ever in control. Oh, Mother, this was not in your Day Planner. You were going to finish a week’s worth of work in four days—performed, as always, at the distinguished level—drive five hours tomorrow to bring Maisey her wedding dress, and sit by your only child on Saturday to watch the marriage of your only grandchild.

But all that has changed, hasn’t it?

Dread fills my heart. Tim Russert comes to my mind, sitting at his desk, preparing for Sunday’s
Meet the Press
, gone in a moment.

“Is my mother alive, sir?”

Give me the bottom line—Mother would be proud of me.

“Oh yes, dear. I’m sorry; I should have made that clear right away. In fact, tests indicate that damage to her heart was minimal. An angiogram did show a substantial blockage in one of her arteries, and her doctors recommended a balloon
catheter. She’s just been taken to surgery. Try not to worry; her surgeon assured us it is a routine procedure.”

“Routine?”

“That’s what he said, and I think it probably is. If all goes as well as everyone anticipates, she’ll be resting in her room before noon. So you see, there’s good news too.”

He pauses, probably anticipating a response at that point, but I am still trying to process everything I have heard in such a few minutes.

Finally I manage one socialized word. “Yes.”

Too brief. I try again. “Yes, that’s good news.”

“I could have waited to call you until the surgery is over— your mother suggested that—but I thought you’d want to know now.”

I finally gain a measure of composure. “I’m so glad you called, Mr. Jamison. Of course I’m thankful to know as soon as possible.”

He tells me the name of the hospital where Mother is, and I tell him I’ll be there as soon as possible. “By three, I hope.”

Luke walks in while I stand here with the receiver disconnected but still in my hand. I’m looking out the window—one second, praying; the next, trying to collect my thoughts.

“Who was on the phone?” he asks.

“Mother’s boss.”

He looks as bewildered as I must have looked when Mr.

Jamison was trying to tell me the bad and good news.

“Mother’s had a heart attack.”

“What?”

“Yes, at the office, shortly after she arrived this morning, I guess. I really don’t have many details, except it was a mild attack, she has a blocked artery, and she’s having balloon surgery as we speak. I need to go, Luke. I need to see her, and I need to get Maisey’s wedding dress. You knew Mother was bringing the dress tomorrow, didn’t you? There’s no way she’ll be able to come to the wedding now. She probably won’t be released from the hospital until Sunday. And even if she is released Saturday, she won’t be coming to the wedding. I’d like not to bother Maisey about it yet.”

“Maisey just left.”

“Left?”

“She and Marcus are returning some things in Indy. I suppose we should call her and let her know what’s going on.”

“No, no. Give the girl some peace. I’ll have the dress home and hopefully a good report on Mother before she has a chance to worry about it.”

“I have a meeting at the main office this afternoon,” Luke says, “but I’ll make some calls and have someone else cover it or have it rescheduled. You shouldn’t go alone.”

“Don’t do that. Someone needs to be here when the kids get home. And actually, I think I’d like to be alone today—if you don’t mind. The drive will probably do me good. Then I’ll see Mother, make sure she’s okay, get the dress, and drive back. I should be home by ten or eleven.”

He doesn’t seem to like that idea much. “Don’t you think you should stay there overnight? That’s a lot of driving.”

Suddenly I really
see
Luke, and I’m amazed at the conversation we’re having, so businesslike. It’s true I was glad he was gone when I awoke this morning—what could we say to make this day something more than bearable? But in this moment I want very much for him to stretch out on the chaise so that I can lie beside him before I go. I want to feel his strength and warmth, hear his heartbeat, and whisper what my heart repeats when it has nothing else to say:
You are my beloved.

But there is no time for that, and I’m not sure I would follow through with that lovely impulse if there were time, not
this
day.

Instead I say, “Do you know what tomorrow’s going to be like? Oh my goodness, things will be crazy up to and through the rehearsal dinner. I just want to get this done and get home.”

I go into my closet and exchange flip-flops for espadrilles and grab a blazer to wear with my T-shirt and jeans. When I return to the bedroom, Luke hands me my purse and my cell phone.

“Thanks,” I say.

“You’re welcome,” he says. “Be careful. I hope everything will be okay.”

“I do too.”

Luke heads for the shower, and I head for the garage. It goes without saying that I will be careful—our daughter’s wedding is two days away.
But how,
I wonder,
can everything possibly
be okay?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Maisey

Marcus seems content enough, watching the road and listening to ESPN. I have been listening to my iPod since we left the house. The first fifteen minutes we were on the road, I gave rapt attention to the countryside flying by the passenger window, remembering for some reason that this scenery has charmed my mother for decades. And I must admit, I love it too. Gram cannot grasp the concept. She honestly feels like she’s back to nature when she sits on her tenth-story patio balcony among the lights of the city and catches a glimpse of her hanging fern and the pot of red geraniums on the glass table next to her.

I took out my earphones a minute ago, just in time to hear yet another argument heating up on the radio—more on the steroid issue. How can that be? I gave Marcus a quick smile and returned to my tunes.

I’ve reclined the seat a little, and I’m hiding behind my eyelids. Marcus will say I slept most of the way to Indy, but he will be wrong. I am not asleep. Far from it.

I’m thinking, and how I wish I weren’t, about shopping in Indy with my mother. We used to shop till we dropped in a couple of really cool shopping malls. She and I made the trek to Indy several times a year from the time I started first grade through the seventh. We went when I was in high school too, but then Jackie or someone always shopped with us—the more the merrier.

I’m thinking specifically about a beautiful winter day that seems as long ago and far away as any in a fairy tale. I was in the seventh grade, and Mother and I were looking for a dress for the Valentine’s dance. I had confessed to Mother the thrilling fact that one of her favorite former students wanted to meet me in the gym and dance the night away—make that dance away the two hours between six and eight. I thought that was pretty nice of the guy, considering that only two months earlier my dad had refused to let me “date” him simply because that pretty much required holding hands in the halls between classes.

I told Mom I needed to look fantastic, and she understood. That shopping trip was unusually successful. We found a darling dress, grown-up but not too grown-up, and half off half price. Mom said we saved so much money on the dress I could get some shoes to go with it, my first pair with a little heel (which made me a little heel taller than my love interest), and a few accessories—a clip for my hair and a necklace I still have. Mother said I would look more than fantastic and maybe we could get out of the house before Dad noticed the heels.

Before we left the mall, we ate hamburgers and fries and shared a malt at Johnny Rockets, but the most memorable part of a memorable day was the trip home: Mom had to pull into a Wal-Mart so she could run in and throw up.

“Whoa, Mom,” I said outside her stall. “Did you eat too much? Was your hamburger bad?”

She came out looking pretty terrible and went to the sink to rinse out her mouth. She said this was the third time she had thrown up this week.

“I haven’t felt like this,” she said, wiping her mouth with a damp paper towel, “well, since I was pregnant with you, sweetie.”

We just looked at each other in the mirror over the sinks.

“Mom!”
I said. “What if you’re pregnant?”

“Oh, sweetheart, that’s virtually impossible. My doctor said
you
were a miracle.”

I smiled. I had always liked thinking of myself as a miracle.

“Maybe you’ll have two miracles. It’s been thirteen years since the last one.”

“True,” she said, looking doubtful and hopeful all at the same time.

“Have you missed a period?” I asked.

“I don’t really have regular periods.”

Better than nothing,
I thought while she cleaned the counter with her paper towel. I hadn’t had a period yet, and I was awaiting the event with great anticipation. Mother said I shouldn’t be so eager, that it really wasn’t all that much fun, but all my friends were good to go, and I didn’t like being left behind. Though I didn’t brag about it, I was more knowledgeable about what Caitlin called “the curse” than any of my friends who had made this rite of passage into womanhood back in, oh, the first or second grade.

So, standing with Mom in the Wal-Mart bathroom, I knew exactly what we should do. Actually, I suppose anyone who watches television would know. “Mom,” I said slowly, “we need to get a pregnancy test. We’re right here. Let’s do it.”

“That’s silly, Maisey. And a waste of money.”

“I’ll float you a loan,” I said, and she laughed.

Then, with no transition whatsoever, she grabbed my hand, walked out of the ladies’ bathroom, and headed straight for the Health and Beauty aisle. We stood there, staring at the vast array of testing options for a few minutes, until she finally grabbed a box. Rolling her eyes, she walked toward a cashier, saying, “The things I let you talk me into!”

Back in the bathroom after paying for our crystal ball, we stood staring at the little window in the plastic wand we had placed on the counter between the last sink and the wall. Mom said a watched pot wouldn’t boil, so she leaned against the wall, staring across the room, and I began pacing, circling the small bathroom. Mom said I would have made a good Israelite marching around the walls of Jericho.