Chapter Eleven Lillian
Chapter Eleven
Lillian
The next hour of the trip passed in a tense silence, interrupted only by me giving Grady directions in between sips of sludgy coffee from the gas station. By the time we reached a rest stop for lunch, we’d settled into an uneasy truce.
Like so many arguments in our past, we stuffed it down and moved ahead.
Pumping quarters into a rest-stop pay phone, I wished we could afford one of those cellular car phones. Whenever I was out with Rosalynn, I worried about being able to contact help in an emergency. And on a more superficial level, I just wanted to check in with my mother more often.
Like every half hour.
Maybe that made me one of those helicopter parents, a term I’d heard recently. But when the worst happened to your child in the blink of an eye, looking away became all but impossible. I couldn’t imagine a time I wouldn’t hover right over her, ready to make the world’s quickest emergency landing.
The call threatened to drop for lack of funds, and I was tempted to accept it as a blessing.
Guilt made me pump coins back into the phone in spite of the not-so-subtle pressure from my mom about getting a dog.
She had been talking nonstop about a newspaper article she’d read featuring service dogs and how if the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, assistance animals would be more welcome in public spaces.
She continued to pressure me when I’d made it clear I couldn’t add anything more to my overflowing plate. Certainly not the care and training of a dog.
But since my mother was doing me a favor, I didn’t hang up. Instead, I grabbed some quarters and added more minutes to our conversation. “Okay, Mom, we’re good now. We don’t have much longer to chat, though, before I need to get back on the road.”
A fib, but a kinder one. Phone tucked under my chin, I watched as Grady set out our picnic lunch under a fat tree.
Traffic had been heavy, but we’d still made decent time, stopping just outside Fayetteville, North Carolina—the home of vinegar-based barbecue versus South Carolina’s mustard-based sauce.
An important cultural difference that starts heated debates.
“Tell me what you and Rosalynn have been doing.”
“Well,” my mother said, “we finished her bird-watching research project. She was especially excited about her drawings of a ruby-throated hummingbird and a wood thrush.”
“Wow, way to go.” A bluebird swooped under the covered walkway like a howdy-do from the report. “That wasn’t due until next week after break.”
“It doesn’t hurt to finish up early. That’ll just leave us free to do other things.”
I thought about the time I completed my sixth-grade diorama of a swamp ecosystem alone because Mom needed to drive an extra shift to pay for my braces.
I’d walked to the dollar store on my own to buy a pack of plastic critters.
I was glad for Rosalynn, but I also wished Della’s life could have been easier so we could have made memories like that.
“That’s nice, Mom. Maybe the teacher will give her extra credit.
I hope she didn’t make you do all the work. ”
“She’s an independent little student.”
Not surprising since Rosalynn had spent much of the past year being homeschooled while recovering from operations, including a corpectomy that removed part of her vertebrae to relieve pressure on the nerves.
Her spine was now fused with hardware, although she faced the possibility of surgical revision later down the road as she grew.
The deep desire for that mobile phone increased. “You’re checking her for pressure sores, right? And following the medications schedule? Her muscle spasms can be excruciating if you don’t catch them right away.”
I’d been unprepared for the neuropathy and spasms. I’d wrongly assumed that the paralysis meant no sensation at all.
The injury in her lower lumbar region—the L2, to be precise—had been a partial spinal cord injury, rather than a complete severing of the nerves.
She retained some feeling in the fronts of her thighs and in her hip flexors and abductors.
Her specialists had mentioned the possibility of her carrying a pregnancy to term.
But I could barely think beyond the end of each day, much less years into the future.
She was my child, and envisioning her as an adult .
. . That meant I wouldn’t have a say in keeping her safe.
“I hope you’re not wearing yourself out. ”
“Lillian, you’ve only been gone a few hours.”
“I know, but . . . lifting her has become more challenging as she’s grown.
” Rosalynn could stand for brief periods of time, and the physical therapists were working on helping her extend those moments.
The doctors had said her hip flexion and knee extension were weak due to quadricep and iliopsoas muscle involvement.
But they were cautiously optimistic she could one day use braces or a walker for shorter distances to help with independence.
Man, I wished I’d paid more attention in biology class, but I’d sure gotten a crash course in anatomy this past year.
“Hey Mom, is Rosalynn free to talk? I’d really like to hear her voice, and I’m about to run out of change.”
“Of course,” my mother reassured me. “She’s putting her plate in the sink, then she’ll be right over.”
“Thank you again for holding down the home front this week.” I didn’t know how we would have managed without her. I just wished we could pamper her somehow. My mom had worked so hard for so many years.
“And you’ll give some thought to what we talked about earlier?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “About investigating the possibility of a . . . Well, you know what? I put some flyers in your purse.”
About service dogs. I should have known she wouldn’t let go of the subject that easily, even though I had told her I wasn’t ready when she’d mentioned it again—and again.
Thank heaven Della hadn’t spoken the actual words “service dog” out loud this time with Rosalynn right beside her. “I saw them, Mom.”
“Have you shown them to Grady?” I snuck a glance at him as he paused unpacking our meal to scoop up a wayward Frisbee.
He soared it back toward two teens a few yards away with athletic ease. The whole rest stop was tailor-made to pick at the scabs on my heart. From a family of six parked at a table to a couple chasing a toddler sprinting away from their blanket.
And most painful to see, the older man and woman holding hands as they returned to their land-barge-size sedan. What magic had they discovered to weather life’s storms? Or had they found each other in their later years, lucky to have gotten happily ever after the second go-round?
“I haven’t.” In fact, I hadn’t brought up the subject at all to him. This trip was about peace, after all. Not introducing more issues to wade through.
“Here’s Rosalynn.”
“Hey, Mom.” My daughter’s voice reached to me through the sound waves, making me ache to see her. “Where are you and Dad? Are you still on track to get there tonight?”
I clutched the phone harder. “We’re making good time. We’re having a picnic lunch outside of Fayetteville. If all goes well, we’ll reach the campground in Alexandria before dark.” Sharing a tent. Just the two of us. “Are you being good for Nana Della?”
My mother had planned on being called Granny, but Rosalynn had a mind of her own from the moment she could talk, labeling her “Nana Della.” I refused to think of what grandparent name I might have wanted for myself, not if it meant any risk to my daughter.
“Of course. I’m thirteen, not three,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “Since we finished the homework, we went to Blockbuster and rented a couple of movies—Batman and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. We’re going to roll coins while we watch, you know, for Nana Della’s ‘laundromat ministry.’”
Once a week, my mom hung out in the nearby Suds and Duds offering to pay for people’s washing since she remembered how tight finances could be for those who couldn’t afford a washer and dryer.
Even on vacations, Della would thumb through the yellow pages and track down the nearest laundromat to help everyone from college students to the unhoused.
Our washer had broken when I was ten, and Mom had to save up for eight months to buy a replacement. We collected cans and bottles to turn in for cash. She kept a jar on the counter at all times for loose change. Walking past a nickel on the sidewalk was a crime in Della’s eyes.
We spent every Saturday pumping quarters into the washer, then taking the clothes home wet to save money. Being poor left a mark.
See a penny, pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck . . .
“Sounds fun,” I said. “Sorry I wasn’t there to help with your school project.”
“That’s okay. Nana Della has an adventure planned for us tomorrow—”
“Shhh.” Della’s voice cut her short, then came on the line again. “Lillian, we have to go before she spoils our surprise. Y’all drive safe now and we’ll check in with you again tomorrow.”
The call disconnected, and it was all I could do not to crawl right through the line to demand more information.
Grady’s warm hand on my shoulder stopped me. He held up a bag of Skittles from the vending machine. “I realize we said no unnecessary expenses, but this is my way of saying thanks for getting on the road before sunup.”
His gesture and smile reminded me of the Grady from when we first married, before the daily grind of life, bills, and routine. Before he’d started drinking and I’d grown bitter. He’d stopped drinking, but I hadn’t found my way through the bitterness back to trust.
Forcing a smile, I plucked the Skittles from his hand. “Thank you. I wish I could say I woke up with a joyful heart.”
He chuckled, the sound deep and familiar. “You’re welcome. The Skittles and I acknowledge your sacrifice.” With a palm on my lower back, he steered me toward our picnic table. “What did your mother say?”