Things Worth Remembering (2 page)
I stand in the middle of the living area and look around. I smile at Marcus, who’s standing in the doorway, clearly anxious to leave.
“Come here,” I say.
I can tell by the look on his face that I’m holding him up. He’s a man with a mission, and he will not be satisfied until we have accomplished it. I know he wishes we were in Indiana now, getting out of the car in time for dinner and greeting his future in-laws, Luke and Kennedy Laswell—or to his way of thinking, a second set of parents. He is far more eager to arrive than I am.
Still he comes to me.
I put my arms around his waist and look up at him. “The next time we’re in this apartment, we’ll be Marcus and Maisey Blair. I think that calls for a serious kiss, even if we
are
getting a late start.”
He kisses me sweetly, and I can’t help wishing it were possible to fast-forward my life just this once, and
voilà
, it’s not Monday evening with a long week ahead of us, but it’s Saturday night, and Marcus and I—standing before a profusion of white flowers and flickering candles—have just been pronounced man and wife.
Kendy
Luke and I are sitting on the front porch in comfortable wicker chairs, drinking unsweetened tea and reviewing a movie that was far more entertaining than I expected it to be. It is too late on a Monday night for there to be much traffic on the state highway that runs in front of our house. We have been peering into the darkness for quite some time, and finally bright headlights illuminate the night and a car turns into the driveway.
Driveway
is something of a misnomer; the house is set at least fifty yards from the road.
“False alarm,” Luke says as the car backs out and heads in the direction it came. It isn’t rational, but I’m rather irritated at the car and its unidentified driver. Those headlights significantly elevated my heart rate. Maisey called when she and Marcus crossed the Indiana line, and I was sure that had to be them.
I’m about to go inside and refill our glasses when Luke says, “More lights.” And this time a car turns in and makes it all the way up the drive.
Hallelujah!
Luke and I walk out to meet the kids.
“Finally,” Marcus says, getting out of the car and stretching. Luke and I give him a hug. We’ve made that drive many times and know exactly how he feels.
Then there is Maisey—her blue eyes bright in the porch light; her brown hair, strikingly streaked with natural highlights, pulled into a ponytail. She looks fit and adorable in layered tank tops and rolled-up sweat pants. She comes around the front of her car and gives her dad and me a quick hug. “Sorry we’re late,” she says.
“What happened, honey?” I ask, the four of us walking to the back of the car. Marcus pops the trunk, and the men begin to unload the luggage.
“Since we weren’t leaving until this afternoon, Gram asked if I’d come in so she could take me to lunch.”
“We were leaving at one,” Marcus said.
“Tentatively,”
Maisey countered. “I thought we were just going out to lunch, but instead she had a surprise shower for me. Wasn’t that a nice thing for Gram to do?”
It was an
unbelievable
thing for my mother to do.
“It was very nice,” I say, recovering from the incredible.
“I told Maisey her grandmother was cutting it close,” Marcus said.
All of us tromp into the house with our share of luggage. There’s a lot. They have packed for this week and for their honeymoon as well, since they are flying out of Indianapolis.
“Maybe she
was
cutting it close,” Maisey says, “but it was still nice.”
All of us are standing in the entry, looking at Maisey as though she must have more to say. I grab the duffle bag sliding off her shoulder.
“Actually, I’m the one who made us late,” she says, taking the bag from me. “Since I was at the office, I wanted to finish an article for next month’s newsletter instead of letting someone else do it. I’m sorry if I messed up dinner or anything.”
“Well, there’s pie,” I say, “in case you’re hungry.”
“I’m starved!” Marcus says.
“Oh, guys,” Maisey says, wilting before our eyes. “I’m so tired and not in the least bit hungry. Do you mind if I crash?”
Her question is rhetorical.
She’s looking at Luke—of the three of us, the one most likely to support this relinquishing of our time together. Even he seems surprised, though.
“Well, sure,” he says. “Go to bed if you’re tired—we have all week.”
Marcus helps Maisey lug their things from the entry hall up to their rooms, and then he hurries back downstairs for pie and conversation. A more affable young man I have not met, and Luke and I must look something like his parents would look sitting here, filled with pride and love, watching him eat with gusto and listening to him talk about life since he last saw us.
After Marcus finishes two pieces of pie, he insists on rinsing his own dishes and putting them in the dishwasher before he borrows a book Luke has been telling him about and heads to his room.
As we part at the bottom of the stairs, Marcus says, “Maisey and I will be down for breakfast bright and early tomorrow morning!”
This sounds like sweet reassurance rather than a statement of intention.
Does Marcus sense my disappointment?
I like to think myself capable of concealing or, better yet, dismissing disappointment. But it’s hard. First we forfeited the anticipated evening, and then the night. If only Maisey had been hungry rather than exhausted—hungry to sit awhile, to eat and talk and laugh. The third Monday in July is here, and it turns out that so many components of contentment still lie beyond my reach.
These thoughts accompany me as I head into our bathroom and put on my gown and robe to begin my nightly ritual. Mother used to say you age a year every night you neglect taking off your makeup. She read that somewhere. I doubt she believes it, and I surely don’t, but along with brushing my teeth and taking my calcium and multivitamin pills, I seldom overlook my three-step routine: clean, exfoliate, and moisturize.
Luke’s already asleep when I turn out the bathroom light and walk into our room. Doubting I can sleep just yet, I confiscate my Bible from the oak table and start into the living room so I won’t disturb Luke.
“Read here,” he says.
“Oh, I thought you were asleep.”
“Almost,” he says. “But you won’t bother me.”
“I thought this might help,” I say, holding up my Bible.
He doesn’t seem surprised that I need a little help.
“Try Psalm 37,” he suggests.
I sit down, put my feet up on the chaise, adjust my robe, and turn to the Psalms. I have had occasion to practically memorize a few of them, but not this one.
“Psalm 37?” I ask.
He nods.
I turn to it and begin reading. “ ‘Do not fret,’ ” I read aloud.
I look at Luke. He smiles before he closes his eyes, unable to keep them open any longer.
Silently and slowly I read the first eleven verses of Psalm 37 and find wise words that are not altogether unfamiliar:
Trust
God, delight in him, wait on him
.
I return my Bible to its place on the table and turn out the light. I know I could not have received better advice, and I plan to heed it, but I can’t suppress a sigh
as I carefully make my way across the room in the dark and slip into bed beside my husband.
Kendy
I open my eyes and can hardly discern the dresser six feet from my face.
Not good.
I had wanted to sleep until the sun filtered through the white slats of the plantation shutters to grace the bedroom with warm and reassuring light. I turn the digital clock with its brightly lit numbers toward me, and I groan ever so slightly.
I’m quite sure this day will require more than five hours’ sleep.
Luke is still sleeping peacefully. I nudge him over on his side and snuggle up behind him. I may be awake, but I don’t have to get up. I have never slept until noon, but today I would like to try.
I’m pretty sure Maisey would appreciate it.
Will I ever quit longing for the Maisey who was once mine?
She was thirteen when a vein of irritation and a strange sadness began to run through our relationship. Make that a pulmonary artery of irritation. No book, workshop, or Mom’s Night Out prepared me for it. Can puberty possibly effect such a vast and enduring change? Can a mother’s crisis?
I would have thought our closeness, the envy of all my friends, immovable.
But
immovable
is a God word.
I’m so glad Marcus calls her Maisey. I wondered if she’d give up her nickname when she went away to college. She might prefer Mother to Mom now, but I have not switched from Maisey to Maize, though I chose the name Maize with love before she was born. When they placed her in my waiting arms and she looked up at me with such interest, the warmth of a summer afternoon filled me, and I knew the name fit. But Maize became Maisey in no time.
“My sweet girl Maisey,” I used to sing as we rocked and rocked, “is more darling than a daisy.” When I took down the teddy bear border from her pink little-girl room, I painted the room yellow (Maize Yellow—think silk tassels in an endless field of ripened corn, delight of my eyes, nourishment for the world) before I stenciled daisies around her wide white window frames.
When Maisey was younger, Luke tended to use her proper name and liked to tousle her hair and declare, “Maize is amazing!” Sometimes he’d just look at her—over the breakfast table, for instance—and shorten it: “A-
maz
-ing.” Though she must have heard it hundreds of times, she never failed to smile when he said it. Who wouldn’t?
After I finally got in bed last night, I lay here over an hour wishing, wishing I could sleep. But my mind would not settle down to rest; it
insisted
on thinking.
About the irony for one thing—the wedding irony.
I was quite old enough to plan my own wedding twenty-four years ago, but I couldn’t help being disappointed that Mother didn’t make time to help for the sheer pleasure of it. Maybe, as she said, she didn’t
have
the time; after all, I had given her only three months’ notice. But I’ve always thought her involvement would have made it easier to walk down the aisle without a father by my side.
There was nothing atypical about my mother’s choice; I should have expected it. But her abdication of even this unique opportunity struck me as sad well before I had a daughter of my own and found Mother’s choice unfathomable. Long before Maisey held out her hand and showed us her engagement ring, I began anticipating the days we would spend together preparing for her wedding.
But she has not wanted any help, or at least she has not wanted
my
help. She has taken care of everything. When people ask me for details about the wedding, I smile and say, “It’s a surprise.”
Irony upon irony.
Dwelling on irony is as unproductive as wishing for sleep.
Clearly, I was fretting—big time.
Recalling the alternatives from Psalm 37, I did the one thing that can always calm my restless soul. I turned my worries and sorrows into prayers. I had only two petitions as I lay there. I asked God to supernaturally intervene so that Maisey’s wedding will be as wonderful as we imagined it would be when she was a child. And I asked him to please help me sleep.
And he did. Five hours is better than none.
Do I hear six?
I throw my arm over Luke, yawn deeply, and close my eyes.
Maisey
I open my eyes and see the daisies.
They have danced around my window frames since I was twelve years old.
One week before I turned fourteen, I announced that all I wanted for my birthday was to have my yellow room painted lavender. Dad lowered his paper and said, “You’re kidding. Why would you want that? You love your room.”
Loved
, Dad,
loved
. I had loved it a lot.
I just shrugged my shoulders. I had a reason, that’s for sure, but I would never have told him what it was, not in a million years.
Mom stopped sweeping the kitchen and looked horrified.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she finally said, “but we already have your present.”
They said we could talk about lavender later, but I’m twenty-two and getting married in five days, and here I am in my yellow room staring at the happy little daisies. I’m sure they’re here to stay.
I hear a tap on the door and am relieved to hear Marcus whispering, “Maisey!”
I sit up and finger comb my hair, hoping to look at least decent.
“Come in!” I call, so ready to see him.
When he opens the door and stands there in his T-shirt and cargo shorts, his dark hair still damp from a shower, I am struck by his beauty—even two years and four months after I first laid eyes on him.
He leaves the door ajar and walks across the room. Pulling up my bedspread, he places the extra pillow vertically against the headboard and leans against it. He stretches out his long legs and crosses them at the ankles, and I notice once again what nice feet he has.
“Good morning,” he says, leaning over to kiss me.
I turn so that his kiss lands on my cheek. Covering my mouth, I warn, “Morning breath.”
Fearless, he moves my hand, gives me a quick kiss on my mouth, leans back, and smiles.
“Up and at ’em,” he says. “Your folks will have breakfast ready soon.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You should be. You had a granola bar for dinner.”
“I had
two
. Maybe I’m just too excited to eat. And I want to fit into my wedding dress. It’s soooo beautiful!”
“So you’ve said. Let’s see it.”
“Like that’s going to happen. Saturday’s coming. Besides, even if I wanted to show it to you, which I most certainly do not, I couldn’t. Gram’s bringing it with her on Friday.”
“She’s coming that early, huh? I figured she’d swoop in around six on Saturday, drive straight to the church.”
“Well, you were wrong, weren’t you?”
“Maybe, but I’m not wrong about breakfast. You need to eat, so would you please get in the shower?”