Tuesday Night Miracles (34 page)

Of course she could have fled in the night. When she talks about this, she looks directly at Kit. She could have packed up the baby and one diaper bag filled with clothes and taken a bus to Kansas. Better yet some tiny city in Oklahoma or Idaho, where no one would think to look for her. But then what? At least they had a place to sleep and the baby had clothes and Leah had her plan.

And no, Kit, why would he leave? He had a factory job and his buddies and his favorite sports bar and someone to do everything but talk for him. He also had his own father as a role model, and even though she willed him never to come home, to run away, to pack his own bag and leave, she knew that he didn’t have the courage to live his own life.

Yes, she thought of killing him. Leah drops her head and is ashamed. She is ashamed when she tells them how she wished he would die in his sleep or have a horrible car accident or get his head stuck in one of the machines at work. She thought of hitting him with the shovel, stabbing him with a knife, borrowing a gun from one of the men who came into the gas station.

“I hated those thoughts, but they came all the time,” she says. “They invaded my dreams when I did sleep and sometimes made me wonder if I was going insane.”

Leah’s honesty is almost frightening to the other women. Leah is the baby, the quiet, lovely toddler of the class, and she is baring her soul. Kit, Grace, and Jane look down at their own hands, thinking about what they should have shared—and still can—as Leah continues.

Somehow, Leah explained, because she knew they would want to know, she had managed to avoid sex. Mostly, but not always. The stress of the way she was living began to affect her menstrual cycles, and one night when she couldn’t fight him off, and was too tired to try, they created her son.

Something strange happened after that—something Dr. Bayer could explain in just a few minutes as control, ego, and something akin to testosterone-driven eminent domain—and the husband became nice. He surely wasn’t loving, but he expected the baby to be a son, and for all those months while she carried Aaron the husband backed off.

This wasn’t an easy pregnancy, and Leah fell behind in her studies and toward the end stopped altogether. She told herself that she would get back to it as soon as possible, and that ended up being two years. And the next time she started a class it was so much harder.

They were barely making it financially, and he forced her to let a friend watch the babies so that she could work full-time. And then a few years became a blur.

Grace and Kit know about that blur. It’s like watching a three-hour movie in five minutes. There is no time for anything but an occasional good cry in the bathroom while sitting on the toilet seat. The days and nights become so endless they bump into each other until everything feels, looks, sounds, and appears the same. It could be morning one minute and late night the next. Dishes never get washed and there seems to be dozens of people eating, drinking, and sleeping in a place where before there were just three.

Of course, during those hard, long years, women who are mothers sometimes disappear. They are still walking around inside their clothes. There are bones and skin and blood inside the shoes, socks, and pants, but the person who once helped form those items into a woman with a personality and a life beyond what she does for everyone but herself has vanished.

It’s as if there is a secret airport in Virginia or, better yet, in the middle of Alaska or rural Mississippi, where specific parts of these mothers have gone to hibernate. In one hangar there will be rows of laughter. Two hangars down there will be the sounds of women rolling over and sleeping until they are no longer exhausted. Around the corner, the drive and energy that could propel dozens of women to open businesses, finish graduate school, or complete a marathon is stretched out on long planks that seem to go on forever.

Those years are a time of great sacrifice, when the babies need everything and if you love them you give them everything and then a little bit more of everything.

Leah can’t actually remember what happened while both children learned to walk and while she lost that part of herself that had been paving a road to freedom one small brick at a time.

Her next confession hits all of them like a new slap on the face. Once, she left. She left her babies and she was never going to go back.

“I’ve never told anyone this part,” she continues, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “This is so hard for me to admit, but one night I did leave, and I drove and drove and I had no idea where I was going, but I ended up outside the town and when I turned to look all I saw was a blur of lights.”

Leah pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car. She thought about what it might be like for her son and daughter to wake up and find her gone. She thought about what he would do and how they would live. And still she lingered.

“I hate myself for that moment—for lingering, and for thinking I could even do it. I went back and sat on the steps, and when he found me I just said that I couldn’t sleep. How could I even have thought of leaving them? What is wrong with me?”

No one says a word. Finally, after Leah wipes her eyes, Dr. Bayer says, “It’s okay, Leah, go on. No one is judging you.”

After that Leah said she grew tired of hoping. But one day the teacher came back and all he did was set down some coursework on the counter, where there were stains from spilled soft drinks, lottery-ticket stubs, and the greasy handprints of toddlers who had wiped their hands across its surface.

“It’s time,” he whispered. And then Leah looked down and on top of all that crap she saw the beautiful white pages of typing paper that held assignments for sophomore English.

“I started back with a vengeance,” she says. “The kids were six and four, and in all those years I had never seen my mother or my father. I may as well have been living in France.”

This makes her laugh. France! Leah tells them that one day, out of the clear blue sky, the husband came home and told her that they were moving closer to the city. He said pack up, we’re moving, and Leah asked him if they could move to France instead.

“He hit me hard on the face that night,” Leah said, her smile vanishing as fast as it had appeared. “He wanted to remind me who I was, and I couldn’t help it but I started smiling and I couldn’t stop, which infuriated him.”

His plan, she found out later, was to get her closer to the city so that he could finally disappear. He was worried that his father would stop him, and that’s why he found a new job at a new factory, which in his father’s eyes would be a kind of promotion. He would start the job, save some money, and then maybe take the boy and leave.

But the money didn’t come so fast and another year went by, and Leah was designing her own plan of escape. She was two classes away from earning the associate’s degree that would get her into a state-school program with an internship. The angel teacher was still helping her and, in fact, had gotten her a new job working part-time at a small bookstore, where it was easy for her to study and soak up even more of the knowledge she craved.

If she wanted to, Leah could stop now and not share the rest of her story. Grace, Jane, and Kit could finish it for her. In an amazement of predictability, considering where Leah now lives, they could guess what happened next. And they would be absolutely correct.

The husband found out what Leah had been doing all those years behind his back. Here she was getting smarter and more educated than he was while he busted his hump paying the rent and feeding them and she did nothing but raise a couple of kids he didn’t want anyway and earned a little money so he could make his truck payment.

The night he set the apartment on fire, both of the children had horrible early fall colds. This was just weeks ago. He came home late, thought they were all sleeping, drugged up with some of that over-the-counter cold medicine he had so thoughtfully brought home. But Leah wasn’t asleep. She was in the bathroom studying, and that threw him into a rage.

And when he started hitting her it was Leah’s turn to rage. She fought as if her life depended on it—and it did. She struggled and clawed and then crawled into the bedroom, where her son and daughter were sleeping when he started the couch on fire with what she would later learn was charcoal starter fluid.

While Leah called 911, he doused the carpeting and set that on fire. Then he tried to get into the bedroom, where she was huddled with the children, and finally, when sirens were rounding the corner, he ran out the door and was caught before his feet hit the sidewalk.

Leah finishes by dropping her hands on top of each one of her legs and then leaning forward as if she is about to send a team out of the huddle.

“You know what happened next, because that’s why I’m here. I lost my tempter one night at the shelter and hit my children,” she concludes, dropping her voice in a way that makes everyone know how ashamed she remains. “And don’t say it, please.”

“Say what?” Grace asks, absolutely shattered by what she has just heard.

“Don’t say I could have left. Don’t say I was just as much to blame. I was there. I know what was and wasn’t possible. Now I have to run as fast as I can. Now there is absolutely no time to waste.”

While Jane, Grace, and Kit reassure Leah that they aren’t thinking that or about to say anything except that they’re sorry, Olivia is thinking about the word
love
. Throughout Leah’s long, revealing, and terribly sad story, the word
love
was never once mentioned. It is a word that must be as seductive and intoxicating to Leah as Jane’s dwindling wine collection is to her.

Leah would be so easy to love, and Olivia hopes that will happen someday as soon as Leah can reach in just a bit further and learn to love herself. She’s close. There is a hint of forgiveness glowing behind her eyes, and how Dr. Bayer would love to see the glow radiate everywhere.

Leah sits back, finally finished, and all the Tuesday-night anger clients look exhausted and emotionally drained.

Then, before she can continue, something wonderful happens, something that Dr. Bayer will think about for a very long time, something that will make her forget her own buckets of self-doubt.

The women get up one at a time—first Grace, then Jane, and then Kit—and walk over to hug Leah. They each whisper something in her ear, and it is Jane who holds on to Leah the longest. Dr. Bayer doesn’t get to hear what they share, and that’s a good thing. They all deserve this moment.

And so does she.

39

Reflections of Change

N
o one is moving when what seems like a marathon Tuesday-night meeting finally ends a record-setting three and a half hours after it started.

Dr. Bayer is startled when she looks at her watch after Kit finishes speaking and realizes it’s closer to eleven o’clock than to ten. The women have even managed to share what they like about themselves. All four of them look as if they have just pulled an all-nighter. Dr. Bayer jubilantly exclaims that they have done fabulous work and if they keep it up she may be able to release them all in four weeks, before Thanksgiving.

When Dr. Bayer rises, and Kit invites them back to her house for next week’s session—if they are indeed meeting the following week—Jane, embarrassed by her emotional reaction to Leah’s story, jumps up so quickly that everyone is startled.

Dr. Bayer can tell by the drooping faces and loose limbs that the women have actually tried this evening and are not just physically but emotionally exhausted. She’s not surprised that everyone wants to get the heck out of there and process as soon as possible, herself included.

But before anyone else can get up, Dr. Bayer stops them all.

“Wait, girls! You didn’t think you’d get away without a white envelope tonight, did you?”

Olivia hands each of the women an envelope, decides at the last moment to have them meet again before she announces their graduation projects, and says, “Good luck. See you next week. I can’t wait to see how you handle this assignment. And—”

“And what?” they all say in unison.

“We are going to talk about the assignment in class. Out loud. Like big girls.”

This should be a good one, they all silently agree.

The other women scurry to rise as Jane grabs her coat, says a quick thank-you, and exits as if she just remembered she forgot to turn off the stove.

Leah’s story, Dr. Bayer’s discussions on life, and some very genuine conversations about change have obviously affected everyone in interesting ways. As Jane streaks out the door, Dr. Bayer also realizes that everyone deals with emotional issues differently. Jane may simply need to be alone or something struck a very raw nerve.

Jane pulls into her driveway, clicks the garage door open, and then slowly moves into her designated parking spot. She’s absolutely thrilled that Derrick isn’t home, and doesn’t even bother to worry about where he might be at close to midnight in the middle of the week.

Exhausted, Jane sits in the car while the heat slowly evaporates. What just happened? Why did she embrace Leah and bother to ask questions? Could the other women see that she was visibly moved by Leah’s story? How did this all happen?

Before she can try to answer her own questions, Jane remembers the white envelope and quickly rips it open. Oh! Will this class never end?

The heated leather seats continue to remain warm as Jane pulls down the mirror inside the visor. Maybe if she looks into her own eyes she will see the new woman who just became emotional and actually hugged someone in front of three other people. And why did the moment feel so normal?

Jane is a woman riddled with so many secrets that she feels as if she’s been juggling her entire life. Was it really so hard to let go a little, Jane? And why is it so damn difficult to be honest? Why can’t she admit that she has lost not just her clients but huge doses of her self-confidence? Why can’t she tell them that she still feels winded all these years later from finding out that she was adopted? Why can’t she even tell those women, or anyone, that she’s adopted and it’s affected her entire life? What about the constant wondering about her birth mother and her plan for a new career and a life that will expand beyond what she has ever dreamed possible? What about Derrick and her inability to open herself to him?

It occurs to Jane for the first time that perhaps this class is a good thing. Maybe, even if she and the other women in the class aren’t quite on the same rung of the ladder, they really do have more in common than she has allowed herself to believe. Is that even possible? Did Kit sneak something into her coffee?

Right this moment, Jane is hard-pressed to think of any other women whom she could call and have a cup of coffee or even a glass of her beloved wine with. She wonders if all the so-called friends she had during the past ten-plus years were just hanging around because of the free lunches, spa afternoons when she received a bonus, or because, well, she’s Jane Castoria.

Maybe this is it. Maybe being nice at the meeting and playing the game by someone else’s rules is going to get her through this blip on her life screen. She surely feels good, even if she overexposed a few portions of what the other women might call her heart by being involved and interested during the meeting. And hugging Leah did feel wonderful.

“Jane, it’s okay,” she says out loud, still looking into her eyes, which are illuminated by the tiny white lights that surround the visor. “You did good tonight. Really.”

Jane smiles, shuts the mirror, turns the car off, and walks into the house. It feels so quiet and empty. Compared to Kit’s house with all those photographs on the wall, the candle, that damn flickering light she tried to ignore all evening, and furniture that was more battered than bruised, her house is a glimmering palace. Jane suddenly isn’t sure if that’s good or bad.

Derrick has left the lights on that run along the bottom edge of all the kitchen cabinets. Where did he go? When Jane looks at her diamond-studded watch and sees that it’s past eleven-thirty she starts to look around for a note. There are no messages from him on her cellphone or on the house answering machine. No note in the usual place.

This is almost as odd as Jane’s emotional breakthrough. She hasn’t confronted Derrick yet about her suspicion that he’s seeing someone else. Maybe she was wrong. He’s been quiet but that’s nothing new, and this morning he kissed her goodbye before he left. She stands in the quiet kitchen for a few minutes trying to remember if he said anything about where he might be going. Nothing comes to mind, and then her gaze falls on the wine. Jane walks over to the rack and puts her hand on one of the bottles. It’s cold and smooth, and she pulls it out and reads the label.

There’s no way she can remember where the bottle came from or how long it has been sitting in that lovely horizontal position. It’s a lusty California Zinfandel, and she cradles it for a few minutes, imagining what it would taste like if she opened it up, let it breathe, and then took a sip after she had swirled it in one of her deep-bowled, long-stemmed glasses.

A car passes in front of the house and she leans into the window to see if it’s Derrick pulling into the driveway, but the lights flicker past. Jane closes her eyes, spins the bottle in her hand, places it back in the rack, leaves the kitchen light on, and walks slowly up the long stairs and toward the dark master bedroom.

Grace has just pulled into her own driveway after dropping off Leah. She’s beyond weary and still can’t believe everything that happened at Kit’s house. Talk about spontaneous affection! It wasn’t as if the class had turned into a lovefest, but something had happened. Maybe it was those warm and fuzzy UGG boots.

The tiny one-car garage is so jam-packed with junk that Grace has mostly been parking in the driveway for about three years. Every night when the temperature drops like this, and she has to get out and move something before she can park, she vows to clean out the damn thing and use it as a garage and not as a massive storage bin. The space, like her own head, is probably filled with useless stuff anyway.

She can see a light in the living room and as she opens the front door—already a little upset because Kelli didn’t lock it—she’s hoping that her daughter has gone to bed. No more emotional stuff tonight, please. Grace needs some time to process what has happened and to sit alone somewhere inside her own house.

Kelli is not asleep on the couch, where Grace usually finds her if she comes home late. She turns off the light and tiptoes down the hall. She finds Kelli curled on her side with her reading light still on and the book she must have been reading on the floor. First Grace pulls the covers up and tucks the ends under Kelli’s back. Then she bends down to pick up the book Kelli was reading.

How to Raise Your Mother
.

Her heart stops. It comes to a quick halt, as if it has just hit a brick wall, and then starts up again about fifty times faster than it was beating before she read the book title.

Oh, Kelli! Grace sets the book back down on the floor, switches off the light, bends down to kiss her daughter’s hair, which looks like a brown waterfall on the white pillowcase, then quietly leaves the room.

Grace stands outside Kelli’s room for a few moments, and feels as if her emotions have started running over each other. She has so misjudged Kelli and she’s determined to make it up to her. She’s also dying to sneak back into the bedroom and get the book so she can read it herself.

There is a long mirror at the end of the hall framed in cheap dark wood. Grace intends to walk into the kitchen and make herself a cup of warm milk with vanilla, one lovely childhood memory that always comforts her when she’s feeling exhausted inside and out. But as she begins walking she sees herself growing larger in the mirror and then stops in front of it so she can lean in and look into her eyes.

There’s enough light coming in through the front window via the porch light she has not turned off so that she can see herself clearly. There are so many red veins running through both eyes that it looks as if she’s coming off some kind of record-breaking drinking or non-sleeping binge. Her eyebrows are thick, and she realizes that it’s been over a month since she has bothered to narrow them into non-frightening arches. The skin under her bushy eyebrows is sagging so much that there is now a canopy protecting her eyes. There are lines and creases everywhere, and Grace isn’t sure if she should laugh or put a bag over her head.

“This is me,” she says softly. “Take it or leave it, world.”

Maybe it was because they were at Kit’s house, a warm, cozy home, instead of an institutional building. Maybe it was just time for this to happen and everything Dr. Bayer had been trying to get them to do, think, feel, and say finally rose to the top. Maybe everyone recognized the class as the last chance it was meant to be. Maybe they are all as exhausted as she is right this moment.

They had found at least a few common denominators beyond their anger. They all seemed to recognize that, with or without children or motherhood, they had shared emotions, dreams, aspirations. They even joked once, after Leah’s story, about pooling their talents of singing, dancing, joke telling, and Leah’s organizational skills to put on some kind of show to raise money for anger awareness or the women’s shelter.

At first it had been a joke, but then Dr. Bayer started hinting that they still had some pretty difficult tasks to perform for her and that there might be a final test or project. That’s when everyone really stopped joking, because they knew Dr. Bayer wasn’t joking, either.

Grace closes her eyes for a moment, when she thinks about how she snuck into the file room at the hospital and looked through Jane’s reams of notes, tests, and personal interviews. She knew that Jane looked familiar, and her snotty attitude was like a red flag indicating Jane was hiding something serious.

Grace hates herself now for crossing a professional line in a way she never thought she could and she has to think of a way not just to forgive herself, but to make it up to Jane. Even as she remains shocked at what she found, at the lies Jane must be carrying around—lies that perhaps add to her own anger, Grace knows she crossed a line herself that should never be crossed.

But even that is fixable.

“As Kit would say, Grace, let ’er rip,” she says, opening her eyes to the same woman, but with an ache for even more change wedged inside her heart.

Grace pushes herself away from the mirror, takes a deep breath, smiles, and has a sudden urge to pick up the phone and call Dr. Bayer to tell her that she’s going to try even harder. And, with that purpose rising inside her like a volcanic eruption, she walks into the kitchen to get her milk.

Before she makes it to the refrigerator, she stops by the kitchen table and bends down in the darkness. She can’t believe what she’s seeing. Kelli has set a cup and the jar of vanilla on the table, in the spot where Grace always sits. There’s a note:

Mom
,

You never talk about your Tuesday class. I know where you go and I know it’s hard. I just wanted you to
know I love you and I’m sorry for anything I’ve done to make your life harder
.

Kelli

Grace sits down, because if she doesn’t she knows she will fall to the floor. She picks up the note, kisses it, and within seconds is using it to wipe a flood of sweet tears from her face.