Things Worth Remembering (17 page)

A lady came in to wash her toddler’s hands and looked at Mom leaning and me pacing and the wand sitting on the counter. “Good luck,” she said as she was leaving.

Mom smiled, checked her watch, took a deep breath, and looked at me with wide eyes. “Okay,” she said, and we walked over to the counter to discover the verdict.

“Mom!” I yelled, giving her a huge hug. “That’s the biggest, brightest plus sign in the history of the world!”

Kendy

They say more women die from heart attacks than men. But still I’m shocked to think my mother could have had one. At sixty-five, she still seems young to me. And she has always seemed invincible. Her company sends her to Mayo to get a thorough physical every other year, and when she turned fifty she began taking advantage of the gym in her building, exercising most days on her lunch hour or before leaving for the day.

I once told her she could get exercise by simply walking to work, but though she won’t admit such a thing, I believe she likes her Lexus and the space reserved for her in the parking garage way too much to walk. Plus, I doubt she’d want to be seen on the street in walking shoes. But I imagine the main reason she doesn’t walk to the office is her belief, possibly an unconscious one, that the ten minutes it would take would be better spent making herself indispensable to the company.

Over the years that philosophy has paid off. The fall Margaret took me off to college, Mother kissed me good-bye and said she knew I would do well in my studies and that I had the good sense to make wise choices and take good care of myself. She also said she’d miss me, but I doubted that very much. If she missed me at all, the transition was helped immensely when she was named CFO that October, the first woman in the history of the company to hold that position.

Mother is in surgery right now, and I feel panic welling up within me. I want to be there more than I could have imagined, and I want to be there
now
—goodness, someone besides her boss should be there—but nearly five hours of interstate lie between me and the hospital.

Mr. Phillips said the procedure was routine, but sometimes routine goes awry.
Dear God, please don’t let Mother die.

It seems to me she has not begun to live.

That sounds so judgmental, and I, above all people, cannot stand in judgment of anyone else’s choices. But I can’t help but be sorry Mother gave everything for her job, for however good that job has been, it does not love her. And I wonder, can one pass on a meaningful legacy to a utility company? I don’t doubt that my mother has been appreciated or that she will be hard to replace; nevertheless, the company will get along just fine when she packs her things into a cardboard box and turns out the lights in her office.

I wish Mother had diversified her time as she has done her portfolio.

I do find it interesting that she has apparently made so much time for Maisey this past year, helping her find a wedding dress, helping her and Marcus find a good apartment with reasonable rent, and hosting a wedding shower, for goodness’ sake.

Of course, Maisey has not minded asking for her help. I wasn’t very good at that. When Mother said she didn’t see how she’d have time to help me find a wedding dress—“Such short notice, Kennedy”—I told her not to worry about it, Margaret would help me. I was twenty-three and didn’t need all that much help anyway. But the thing is, Margaret and I had so much fun the day we found my dress, and it makes me sad Mother missed out on it, as she missed out on so many things. At the time, I felt sorry for myself. Today I feel terribly sorry for her.

Luke was spared Mother’s fate; unfortunately, my breaking his heart provided his reprieve. After I lost the baby and finally told him about Clay and me, his job ceased to be his number-one priority. Out of all the misery, there is this one good thing: He and Maisey have enjoyed each other so much.

I see now that the special bond between them began the minute he picked her up at camp the Friday we lost the baby. She felt the need to protect him, and she compensated, as best she could, for the son he would not have. The months I was lost to them and to myself were not the sole cause of her exclusive devotion to her father, her switch of allegiance—as I have always thought.

I began to come out of that dreadful depression the spring of her eighth-grade year, but the girl I knew so well and loved so deeply was nowhere to be found. I’ve blamed those debilitating months of seclusion for our breach, but now it seems so obvious they weren’t the cause.
My
Maisey would have tiptoed into the dark room of my depression and curled up beside me without saying a word or requiring one. She would have come day after day, week after week, until I could speak again.

I told myself that in the months of my illness several things happened to change everything: She went through the throes of puberty; she began to count on Luke for everything—lunch money, rides, basketball tips, good-night kisses; and she developed a preference for constant company, especially Jackie’s. There was little room for me when I returned from the far-off country of my despair, and I have reluctantly tried to accept that as the price of desertion.

Last night at the dinner table, I understood the full extent of what Maisey and I have lost—and why. I wonder if, for me, there could be a worse moment.

I would rather have died when Maisey was a child than to have hurt her so badly.

CHAPTER FIFTEN

Maisey

We are almost to the door of Victoria’s Secret when Marcus says he wants to look for a hat while I exchange my gift. He says he has no desire whatsoever to weave in and out of a store full of merchandise that, as far as he’s concerned, should not be publicly displayed. It seems he was traumatized twelve
years ago when his mother dragged him through another Victoria’s, looking for a pretty something or other for one of her daughters-in-law.

“But don’t you want to help me pick out something else?” I ask as we stand near the display windows.

“I trust your taste completely,” he says, heading for Lids, a store that doesn’t offend his sensibilities. “Call me when you’re through,” he adds, holding up his cell phone.

Well, it’s thirty minutes later, and I’m through. But when I finished my exchange and reached in my purse for my cell phone, I discovered I had left it at home, as I tend to do if I’m not careful. Do pay phones still exist? Will a pleasant stranger lend me her cell? I’m trusting Marcus will figure out what I’ve done and meet me where he left me.

I’m sitting on one of the couches in the wide hallways near Victoria’s Secret, waiting. What else can I do? I scan the crowd, looking for him. I turn and look behind me. Lots of people but no Marcus. I wish he would come. Surely he can find a hat faster than I found something we’ll both like. I’ve put the sack containing my rather skimpy but very tasteful new “sleepwear” on the cushion beside me, warding off any other weary shopper until Marcus arrives.

Soon, I hope.

Circle Centre is remarkably busy for a Thursday morning. That and my lack of attention is why I almost decked my middle school orchestra director when Marcus and I first arrived and rounded the corner by Banana Republic.

“Maisey,” she said when we stopped short of body slamming each other, “I’m thrilled to see you, dear.”

She looked at Marcus and asked if he was the lucky young man I was going to marry on Saturday, and though I had experienced a moment of doubt this morning, I assured her that he was. She said she’d be there with bells on and that my English teacher for both the seventh and eighth grades was coming with her. “Wouldn’t miss it,” she said as she walked away, hunting for a cinnamon roll.

I started taking violin in the sixth grade, as soon as I started middle school. Mother thought playing an instrument was a great idea, even though she herself had given up the piano after six years of lessons. She had learned to hold her hands in a way that didn’t enrage her fanatical teacher, and she had mastered such classics as Beethoven’s “Für Elise,” but she knew deep inside that she was never going to be a great pianist.

Skill she could acquire. Skill she
did
acquire. And when the church is in a pinch, she will help out—if the worship minister gives her enough notice. When you hear her play “Amazing Grace,” you have to wonder if she was right to give up piano performance for lack of “the spark.” She took me to a concert in Indy once and spent most of her time holding her breath or placing a hand over her heart as she watched and listened to the pianist. The woman mesmerized even me as she sat on the edge of the piano bench, erect and regal, her fingers flying over the keyboard with remarkable precision, providing what Mother called “profound interpretation.” We just sat there when the curtain fell, and as everyone around us began making their way out of the auditorium, she said, “Now that’s spark, Maisey. That is worship.”

Although we have a piano, I never really wanted to play it, except when I was a toddler and thought lifting the lid and pounding the keys to be great fun. (There’s a picture to verify that in the baby album.) So Mother was glad I expressed an interest in the violin. If I developed the skill, it would be satisfying, and if I found I had the spark, well, that would be exhilarating.

For my part, I was just giving in to Jackie’s pleading. She was the third of five children, and her mother insisted that all of them take some kind of music lessons, even though Jackie informed her that child number three, sad to say, had been born without the music gene.

“Please, please, please,” Jackie had said the first week of middle school. “
Please
be in the orchestra with me.”

“What will I play?” I asked.

And without a moment’s hesitation and without ever being able to account for her answer, she said, “The violin!”

So I borrowed a violin from the pool of instruments available at school and began to learn how to draw a bow across those mysterious strings. Mother couldn’t believe I didn’t go through a screeching stage, and after I had been working at it almost two years, she walked through the room where I sat practicing and said, “I do believe I detect a spark.” I had my own violin by then—I got it the Christmas I was in the seventh grade, and I did love playing it. I suppose that’s why my teacher loved me so much. Of course she loved all of the students in her fledgling orchestra, even Jackie, who played the cowbell and triangle and was relatively happy about it; Jackie says percussion was her only logical choice.

In the eighth grade I made the decision to switch to the cello. The sound was deeper, richer, even more sensuous, and best of all, more mournful, which appealed to me very much at that point. The instrument was huge, and because I had also begun playing basketball, toting it around seemed like cross-training. I didn’t mind the size. I felt at one with this instrument, wrapping myself around it as I played.

During a concert my senior year, I had a solo that moved me to tears whenever I practiced it at home. The night I performed it, I did not cry but closed my eyes as I played, and I heard my mother’s words: “That is worship.” And when the piece was over and the applause began, I looked into the crowd and caught, by accident, Mother’s eyes instead of Dad’s. And by accident I smiled, but only for the briefest moment, and then I turned my eyes to my music stand, preparing myself for the next selection.

“Hey!” Marcus says from behind me, and I jump a foot. I have been abruptly jerked from the stage to a couch in the mall.

He laughs. “I thought you were going to call.”

“No phone,” I say. “Sorry.”

“Want a bite?” He holds out that mall delicacy, the cinnamon roll.

Marcus doesn’t keep grudges.

He gives me a bite and hands me his coffee while I grab my sack with my free hand and put it in my lap, where it will be safe. I do hold grudges—I tell him he has forfeited his opportunity to see the exchange, at least until we get to Hawaii. He has no problem with that and takes another bite of his cinnamon roll.

“You’re going to spoil your lunch,” I say.

“When has that ever happened?”

He sits beside me and we share the rest of his cinnamon roll, and since I won’t allow him to look in my sack, we talk about my orchestra teacher and Jackie’s cowbell and my cello.

He loves to hear me play. I didn’t play basketball in college, but I was in the orchestra and I was part of a string quartet that had many opportunities to perform. Gram even arranged for us to perform at her company’s Christmas party last year. Marcus says I have to find a way to use my talent now that I’m out of school, and I will try.

Playing my cello has always brought me relief when sadness has threatened to overwhelm me. I sometimes wonder if God in his kindness prodded Jackie to make such a bizarre suggestion all those years ago.

Who can say? But when I play, it is to him I give all my gratitude and praise.

Kendy

I have hit the road again after a bathroom break. I also picked up a large drink, which no doubt will necessitate another break before I leave Illinois. I take my sunglasses off the top of my head and put them back on my face, where they are very much needed. I’m so thankful for a working air-conditioner. I just passed a van full of kids who looked happy enough even though all the windows were down and furnace-hot wind was blowing their hair all over the place and doing nothing for the sweat gleaming on their red faces. I feel rather guilty. I should wave them over and ask if some of them want to ride in my car for a while. They could cool off, and I could take a break from thinking.

Just a short break would be nice.

This much I know—I didn’t intend to hurt Maisey or Luke or anyone else. I didn’t
intend
anything.

My car was totaled after the wreck, and we didn’t buy a new one until a week later, a week and a day later. As a result, Clay gave Maisey and me rides to and from school that whole week, which is what Luke’s uncle would naturally do. The only memorable conversation I recall from that week—mainly we chatted about school concerns—took place the day Clay commiserated with me, and Maisey too, about Maisey’s impending graduation from elementary school to middle school. He seemed to get how difficult this would be for me especially. I would not see her at lunch and recess, I would never again look up to see her rushing into my classroom after the final bell rang, and I would no longer have the pleasure of her company as we rode home together after school, chattering away about one thing or another. Those had been blessed years.