You are certainly not our physical shape. Yet you made humanity in your image . . .

Saint Augustine

Chapter Forty-One

Ellyn

On Sunday, long before dawn, I wake to a roar of wind and the spatter of rain pinging against the windows. In the distance an angry ocean roars. Great. I roll over, pull the sheets and blankets up around my ears, and close my eyes. I will my brain to remain inactive by focusing on the dark interiors of my closed eyelids.

I will go back to sleep.

But just as my brain is headed back to dreamland, it triggers my olfactory system. Unmoving, eyes still closed, I inhale through my nose. I sniff—once—twice. I pull the blankets tighter around my face and breathe the air from the warm pocket the blanket creates.

I’m imagining the scent, right?

I sigh. No, something smells.

Stinks, actually.

Shoot! I throw the covers back and sit up. What in the world? I swing my legs over the side of the bed, slip my sock-clad feet into my slippers, and then head to my closet for my robe. I wander through the dark house, flipping lights on as I go. I follow my nose to the kitchen, where I stand sniffing.

“Ugh.” The stench fills the kitchen. I turn in circles trying to detect where the smell is coming from.

Something is rotting. Or rotten.

Food?

I shake my head. Food could never smell that bad.

I head toward the kitchen sink and the smell seems to get stronger. I bend down and place my face near the garbage disposal. I breathe deep and then lift my head so fast that it bangs against the faucet.

“Oh, Lord . . . what is that?” I back out of the kitchen while rubbing the lump on my head. I turn in the living room and go to the front door. I open the door and gulp breaths of clean, damp air. Standing in my small foyer, I close my eyes and listen to the rain as the cold wind blows around me and into the house. I stand there until my heart rate and breathing become normal again and consider my options. Then I turn and head back to the kitchen.

You can do this, Ellyn.

First, I go to the fridge, grab a lemon, and quarter it. I toss it into the sink, and turn on the faucet and garbage disposal. “Oh Lord, let it be this simple.”

You should know better by now.

“Shut up, Earl!” I’m really getting tired of the nagging.

I step back from the sink and sniff. The fresh scent of lemon intermingles with the scent of—I sigh again—death. It’s the smell of roadkill that lingers in my kitchen. There’s no denying it. But what died and where? The smell is stronger near the sink, but it’s not coming from there.

I slam my hand against the faucet, turning it off, then turn on my heel and leave the kitchen again. I need coffee, but there’s no eating or drinking anything in there. My gag reflex threatens a revolt. I make my way upstairs to the guest room, flip the light switch, and then eye the small single-serving coffeemaker I keep in the room. Yes! I choose a pod from the small wooden box next to the brewer, slip a pottery mug under the spigot, and put the pod into the machine. As I wait, the scent of fresh coffee soothes me and I feel my shoulders relax, but just a bit.

“Lord, I need a simple solution to a pointless problem.” I wait, hoping for divine inspiration but nothing comes to mind. “Fine.”

I take the cup of coffee and reach for some of the powdered creamer I keep on the tray with the coffeemaker. Then I stop. The creamer is full of high fructose corn syrup. Sugar. My hand hovers over the creamer for a few seconds. Since my episode at the hospital last week and the recognition of God’s intervention, I haven’t struggled at all with sticking with my vegan, no-sugar, diet. But now . . .

Oh, phooey! I dump a couple of heaping teaspoons into my coffee. I take the mug and sit in the natural-colored linen upholstered chair in the corner of the room and sip my coffee. I start to apologize to God for my weakness, but something stops me. Instead, I whisper, “Thank You.” I hold the cup close to my nose and breathe in the rich aroma. So much better than the stench downstairs.

Then I make a plan.

“Hi.”

I sit on the front step, letting the wind and rain batter my overheated body. I hold the phone in one hand and wipe my damp brow with another.

“Hey, you, happy Sunday.”

“Yeah, not so much.”

Sabina laughs. “Uh-oh, what’s wrong?”

“This is serious.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. What happened?”

“Well, I mean, it’s not that serious.” As I talk some of my frustration diminishes. “In the grand scheme of life, I guess it’s not a huge deal. But I woke up several hours ago to a horrible smell. I mean, Sabina, it’s bad.” I hear her chuckle. “Okay, you get your scrawny behind over here and smell it. That will stop your laughing.”

“Oh, you are funny. Okay, so what’s the smell?”

“It’s . . . I think it’s . . .” A smile comes to my face and I begin laughing as well. “Really . . . it isn’t funny . . . it’s just that I . . .” I catch my breath. “I thought I could handle it. I thought I could take care of it myself. But then I saw fur . . . and . . .” I stop laughing as the reality hits me again. “I don’t know what to do. I just can’t . . . I can’t.”

“Fur?” Now she’s serious.

“It’s a rodent, of some sort. Rat, maybe. Or squirrel. It died in one of the walls in the kitchen. Oh, it stinks!”

“At the café? Can’t Paco—”

“No, at my house.”

“So call an exterminator. They’ll figure it out for you.”

“It’s Sunday. I called. No answer. I left a message—told them it was an emergency. But—”

“Ellyn, I don’t know if you can call it an emergency.”

“Oh, yeah? Easy for you to say. Again, come smell it.”

“You know, I’ve got a lot to do today.” She laughs again.

“Listen, I’ve almost got it. Really. I traced the smell to a cabinet in my kitchen. You know that wall that juts out from the bank of cabinets around the sink? It’s under there—behind one of those cabinets.”

By now, I’m standing back inside the house just near the front door so I can hear Sabina better. I keep opening and closing the door so I can take breaths of fresh air.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Remember the fur?”

“Oh . . .”

“I took everything out of the cabinet and bashed in the sheetrock with a hammer. I thought if I could do it inside the cabinet rather than on the other side of the wall, I wouldn’t have to have someone repair the sheetrock. I could just patch it myself with plywood or something.”

“But?”

“But then I took a little gardening shovel and was digging out the insulation and stuff and I found . . . droppings.” I take another breath of clean air. “Oh, Sabina, in my kitchen! Anyway, I found the droppings and then the next shovelful I pulled out had a clump of fur in it. So . . . I knew. But now . . . I can’t . . . I can’t make myself . . .”

“Well, girl, of course you can’t. That’s a man’s job. Call Paco.”

I begin pacing back and forth in the foyer. “No. No, I don’t need Paco. I just need . . . well, you know . . . moral support. I thought if you could come over and just . . . be here to encourage me. Cheer me on.”

Sabina begins laughing again.

“Seriously, I know I could do it then.”

“I’m not coming within fifty feet of any rat, dead or alive. Not doing it. Either you call a man or you’re on your own.” She pauses. “You know, Ellyn, there are some things men are good for.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll take care of it myself.”

“Ellyn, stop it. Call Paco or someone.”

“I don’t want to take him away from his family on a Sunday morning.”

“Then call Miles.”

“No. He did enough for me last week. Anyway, you know, I can’t just call him for something like this. I don’t want him to feel like I’m using him.”

“He’s a friend, Ellyn. You told me he said if you needed anything to call him.”

I consider it. “No, I’m not calling him.”

“Oh give me a break. He’d love to help you. In fact, God probably let that big ol’ rodent die in your wall just so you’d have to humble yourself and ask a man for help—good man, by the way.”

“So now you believe in God?”

“Whatever. Just call Miles.”

“Okay, okay.” I hold up one hand like she can see me. “I have to go. I smell a rat!”

As I’m pushing End on my phone I hear Sabina say, “Call him, Ellyn.”

Some friend she is.

I drop the phone into the pocket of my robe and turn and face the direction of the kitchen again. I can do this—I can. I will! I cover my nose with one hand and walk back into the kitchen. Bits of sheetrock and pink insulation are strewn over the floor in front of the open lower cabinet. And next to the small shovel is the clump of . . . fur.

“Oh, Lord. I can’t!”

You’re such a wimp, Ellyn. It’s just a dead rat. Just get down on your hands and knees and dig it out.

I bend down, pick up the gardening gloves I was wearing before calling Sabina, and put them back on. I get back down on my hands and knees, grab the shovel, take a deep breath, hold it, and put my head back inside the cabinet. I reach toward the area in the open sheetrock where the fur came from and I dip the shovel back inside and begin to dig again. As I pull out more of the pink fluff, some of it brushes against my wrist just above one of the gloves.

I scream.

I’m back on my feet so fast it’s a miracle.

I run from the kitchen back to the front door and out to the step. I throw the shovel down, rip the gloves off my hands, and choke back a sob. “I can’t. I can’t do it.” Defeated, I plop down on the step again.

I can think of nothing else to do.

I bury my head in my hands and bang a fist against my knee.

I sit there a few minutes, then I get up and storm back into the house, slamming the door as I go. I climb the stairs to my bedroom, rip my damp robe off, and toss it across the foot of my bed. Then I go to the bathroom to blow my nose. As I do, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

My hair is a mass of chaotic red frizz, my green eyes are bloodshot, and my eyelids swollen and as red as my nose. I look down at the loose yellow flannel pajamas I’m wearing. The back bottoms of the legs are tucked into my socks and on my feet are my fuzzy slippers.

Call Miles? Looking like this? Yeah, right.

I move back toward the mirror and look at my reflection again. I take a brief inventory and let my mind go where I’ve fought for so long to keep it from going. I focus into my own eyes staring back at me from the mirror. And there . . . I see the truth.

I am afraid.

Afraid of men. Just as Rosa said.

But why?

Shivering now, I wrap my arms around myself.

As I look at myself—I see me. Not me, the chef. Not me, the friend. Just me, and me alone.

Alone.

Fat.

Ugly.

“No, Earl. You’re wrong.” The words come out on a whisper. “I’m created in the image of God.”

The words embarrass me. They are foreign—not something I’ve applied to myself before. But I swallow my fear—or try to. I look in the mirror again and still see just me. But there is determination shining in my green eyes.

That’s when I make a decision.

I shut the bathroom door, turn the shower on, undress, and step inside the steaming stall. I lather my hair with floral shampoo and stand long enough to allow the hot water to ease the tension in my shoulders.

After I shower, I blow-dry my long hair. I use product. I even dig out and plug in a long-ignored straightening iron. And then, I put on a little of the department store makeup.

That done, I head for my closet.

I pull the pair of black sweat pants off the shelf and reach for an olive sweater that I know sets off the color of my eyes. I put on shoes and earrings. I glance at myself in the full-length mirror—but just glance. If I look too long or think too much, I’ll change my mind.

Then I go to the bed, take my phone out of the pocket of my robe, and I call. “Hello, Miles? It’s Ellyn.”