Chapter 8
Eight
mulish (adj.): unreasonably and inflexibly obstinate
Carly
“I’m telling you, Lucy,” I say into the speakerphone, “some days I just want to grow out my roots and wear puffy vests and therapeutic shoes like other women my age.”
I almost mean it too. Earlier today my Yvonne emailed a series of social media posts for me to approve. And there was my headshot, the same one that has served me comfortably for the last seven years. Today it stared back at me like a stranger. Like someone from a previous life.
Never would I ever swear on a stack of Bibles, but if I did, I’d swear that about four years ago, some kind of collagen-slurping demon snuck into my bedroom while I slept and sucked every ounce of suppleness out of my face. All of it. Overnight, I kid you not.
I always knew I’d get old, of course. It just never occurred to me that I wouldn’t get a practice run.
Anyway, a person’s headshot should have integrity.
Mine is lying through her lipstick! How often people who meet me must think to themselves, Holy prunes, Batman, Carly Montgomery looks so much older than I expected.
Not that I altogether mind the aging part.
It’s a blessing denied many. Most of the time it doesn’t freak me out.
After all, everyone else is aging around me.
My Roger’s aging. I mean, the man may as well retire the hair gel—his bald spot refuses to be disguised.
All my friends are aging. Aging movie stars keep popping up in my Facebook feed, tucked amid the videos on how to apply eye makeup to drooping eyelids. Those I watch, of course. Every time.
Just think, someday I will never again have to shave my legs.
How many times have I performed this drudgery?
Newsflash: One would think that when one is postmenopausal, with a grand total of fourteen hairs growing on each leg, those fourteen hairs might do one the kindness of gathering into a single patch.
Nope. Still have to shave the whole leg.
No, what freaks me out is worrying that it will freak out my girls.
Does it scare them to notice that their mom is whizzing past her prime—at least, as defined by our culture’s skin-deep definition of beauty?
Is that why Vanessa keeps sending me new lotions to try, ones made with goat milk from her in-laws’ own herd and heavily infused with ingredients designed to seek out, maim, and destroy any and all free radicals?
Are my wrinkles the inspiration for my older daughter’s entire homespun cottage industry?
Okay, that sounds a bit ridiculous, now that I hear myself think it.
“Mom,” Lucy says, drawing me back to the conversation at hand. “I can’t picture you in anything that isn’t flowy and flattering. Well, fitted, maybe. Puffy, never. If Willie Nelson and Ann Taylor had a baby, that’s your style.”
I guffaw. Oh, Lord, the sound of Lucy’s voice goes down like a frosty glass of iced sweet tea on a hot Tennessee day, with a double shot of serotonin added.
“At least until you move back to the Northwest. Then you might have to reconsider puffy.”
“Is Ann Taylor even a real person?” I say.
Wait. Back up. Did Lucy just suggest we move back, closer to her and Chase?
“No clue.”
My final hours in Lucyland earlier this week sure felt like the last glorious inch of coffee in the pot.
I’d been absolutely aching to hear her voice.
Made it all the way to Wednesday evening before daring to cue up her number.
Then drove Roger batty with all my waffling about whether to press the call button.
“Is it too soon to call?” I’d asked.
“’Course not. Stop wringing your hands. She’s still your daughter.”
“FaceTime is too presumptuous, don’t you think?”
“Just call. And put her on speaker, would ya?”
“What if it’s a bad time? Am I helicoptering?
I’m helicoptering, aren’t I?” Lucy has always clung to her routines, and I’ve always maneuvered so as not to disrupt them.
She’s always been so very, very capable.
Which is why I struggle to know where I fit into her life.
What could she possibly need from me? In some ways, sending financial help only serves to underscore the emotional distance between us.
“Hon,” Roger had said, tearing open a new bag of sunflower seeds, “you’ve got a long way to go before either of our girls would call you overbearing.”
“You really think?” Suddenly Lucy’s face was keenly before me, in that moment of anguish and admission. Her quivering chin. Mom, I’m stuck.
That’s when I’d finally pressed the call button. Lucy is a grown woman, after all. If it isn’t a good time, she’ll let it go to voicemail.
“FYI, hon,” I say to her now, “your father just came in.”
“Hey, Pop.”
“Hey, tiger,” he says, perching himself on the edge of the recliner.
“Hope you don’t mind I’ve been eavesdropping off and on.
Some business about interviewing a sheriff or something?
Just wanted a chance to say how proud I am of you, honey.
I’m sure you’ll nail it. And you’ll turn out a first-rate article.
Like I said when you were little, someday everyone’s going to know your writing. You’ll see.”
The other end of the line goes quiet for a few moments, as if Roger’s words are hovering somewhere over central Oregon, struggling to find an entry point into our daughter’s heart.
“Thanks, Pop,” she says finally.
“Go get ’em, tiger.”
Can Lucy hear the squeeze of emotion in her father’s voice? I don’t see how she could miss it.
“Okay,” she says. “But Mom, seriously, about the vest . . .”
“Yeah, no. Don’t you worry about me, punkin. I didn’t really mean that.”
At least, I hadn’t meant that exactly. Something may be rubbing me wrong lately, but I fear whatever it is goes well beyond my wardrobe.
After we hang up, Roger settles into the recliner, munching away. I better get on dinner. But then he has the nerve to say, “Well, hon, what’d you decide to do about your Bible study?”
All I can do is gape. “You say that as if I have a choice. Obviously I have to start all over.” This should be obvious, considering that my bright-pink notebook, with all my work—research, notes, verses, prayers—is no longer in my possession. I can’t find it anywhere.
The only plausible explanation is that I left it behind for the United Airlines cleaning crew. Don’t even get me started on my experience with their customer service line.
“What?” I ask. “What’s that look on your face?”
“I don’t have a look on my face.”
“You do. You do have a look. See? There it is. Fess up.”
“Ah, babe,” Roger sighs, “it’s just that . . . I mean, I know you’re under contract. But more importantly, I know you. I know who you serve. And it’s not your publisher. At least, it never used to be.”
Ouchy.
And just like that, in my mind’s eye I’m back on my knees, wetness seeping through my black crepe dress, on a perfectly manicured green lawn under an elm’s weeping arms on a too-sunny day, draped over a too-shiny casket.
Thinking, Lord, I am undone. I’m forever undone.
Caskets this small do not belong in this place.
Boys my son’s age do not belong in them.
Come back to me, my love. How will I ever endure such an overlong road until I see your face? Come back. Or take me to you. How far away are you, my darling? Close enough to feel my love?
I drop my forehead to my hands. Massage circles in my temples.
How is it I can still so easily voyage across an ocean of years, as if it’s only a step outside my heart’s front door?
I will never not be gutted by the remembrance of raw, gaping desolation.
Unsoothable aching. The sting of eyes that have shed a river of tears.
A vacuous hole no person or thing could ever refill.
Nor will I forget what came next.
My pleading. And my promise.
Oh God! If somehow I manage to live through this—if you’ll help me to merely survive—I will serve you with everything in me. Until my dying day, I will serve you.
As if he knows just where I’ve traveled, Roger cues up his best attempt at a soothing voice. “Oh, Carly. If you don’t mind me saying, it seems to me like your check engine light is on. If you were a computer, I’d say let’s run a troubleshoot.”
I stiffen. “For heaven’s sake, Roger, I haven’t got time for that, and you know it! I can’t shut down for service. I’ve got too many metaphoric tabs open!”
“Now, now. Don’t be getting all discombobulated. Forget what I said, babe. It was a lame thing to say. You’re not a machine. And, actually, that’s more to my point. You’re a living thing, is what I’m sayin’. A beautiful garden, in fact, and—”
I lift my brow. I shouldn’t tease, but, well . . . “Very poetic, babe.”
Rog looks wounded. “Please don’t dismiss this as a joke. I’m just sayin’, seems like there are rhythms in life. Intentional rhythms. Times we’re meant to push hard and times we’re meant to rest and let God fiddle with us.”
“Oh, he’s fiddling alright.” I gulp past a lump in my throat. That pressure behind my eyes—tears? I won’t have it. Maybe later I’ll cry my heart out before the Lord. Maybe. Because, of course, any fool can see there’s truth in what Roger’s saying.
I left Oregon with those very thoughts stuck to me like pine sap.
“Well then, maybe you oughta consider letting him have his way with you. Maybe he knows what he’s doin’.” Because my husband’s no dummy, he knows to soften unsolicited advice with a wink.
All this congeals inside me like one of those horrific Jell-O salads my friends’ non-Italian mothers used to serve in the 1970s.
Nope. Can’t go there. Not now.
“How can I help?” he asks.
“Just . . . commiserate. That’s all.”
“Okay, you got it, babe. I’m commiserable.”
I nearly smile. Draw a ragged breath. Roll my shoulders a few times. “Hey. Here’s an idea. What’s say you and me boogie on down to Chester’s for a burger and sweet potato fries?”
Rog levels a patronizing scowl at me. Clearly, he’s exasperated with my refusal to sit with the seriousness of this conversation. But I know how to smooth things over.
I have my ways.
I do a slinky little come-hither walk over to where he sits in the recliner, drop my rear end into his lap. I rake my fingers through his sparse, silvering hair and knead his neck muscles. Boy, they’re tense. Man, he’s warm. And still so strong.
“C’mon, big guy,” I say. “Applewood smoked bacon . . . Guinness fried onions . . . Swiss cheese . . . you know you want it.”
I’ve got him.
“Oh, alright, fine,” he says dolefully, as if I’ve just suggested we go clean the kitty litter box. But I know better.
“Hey,” I say, in as alluring a tone as I can pull off. “I may be a hot mess, but I’m a fun hot mess. Right, babe?”