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“Is it lunch?” Bowman asks. I don’t have to check the time to know we’re not even an hour past breakfast.
“Not yet.” I hear the annoyance creeping into my voice but can’t help it. I’m not cut out for taking care of children long-term.
“Can I get a snack?”
“Not yet.” When I’m tempted to envy Mel, who gets to leave the house for four hours twice a day, I just imagine her with that busload of fifty or more kids. I can’t have it harder than she does, can I?
But I guess that’s a silly way to look at it. We do it so often, though, try to cheer ourselves up by reminding ourselves there are other people suffering more than we are. What’s the point? You don’t look at a happy couple and tell them, oh, cut that out. Don’t you know there’s lots of people out there who have it so much better than you? That’s the interesting thing about sadness (and happiness for that matter). It’s not as relative as we like to make it out to be. You can be having one of the best days of your life and still suffer that bittersweet feeling in your gut, the sense that things can’t stay perfect for long. Or you can experience joy in the middle of such intense sorrow you’re sure your soul’s about to crumble like the pages in a two-century-old book and it’s only the grace of God coupled with herculean psychological fortitude that keeps you from melting into your grief right then and there.
I don’t pretend to know all the answers. I’ve learned more about human nature from novels than I’d ever glean with a psych degree. But I think maybe Tolstoy had the right idea when he talked about how happy families are all alike in their happiness, while the sad ones each experience grief in their own way.
Well, Tolstoy would get a kick out of this trailer. Mel’s home certainly isn’t a hub of peaceful togetherness and brotherly love, especially not today. I’ve just put Gabby in time-out in her high chair for biting her brother’s arm. Not that I blame her. Bowman was playing on her fear of the toilet by chasing her around the house with the plastic lid over his head calling himself the potty monster.
At least the baby’s getting used to me. I wonder what’s going to happen now that we’ve trudged all the way to Friday, Jasmine and I. Because now she’ll have all weekend with her mommy, so I’m a little worried Monday’s going to be a disaster when Mel goes back to work.
For the moment, things are relatively calm. I’m starting to wonder if maybe I’ve gotten past the worst of working here. But this weekend I’ve got to get out. I still don’t know what I’ll do. Mel and her family aren’t church-goers. I don’t want to make a big deal about it or anything. Christians are always getting such a bad rap for shoving religion down everyone else’s throat, and that’s not my style. But I could probably use a good, solid service. Those chapel meetings they made us go to at the women’s shelter were nothing but fluff, like picking up a book you expect to be an encyclopedic Bible study only to find out it’s nothing but a Pilgrims magazine’s devotional, the kind they keep as bathroom reading at Orchard Grove Bible.
Now there’s a church for you. I haven’t been in nearly a year, but I know if I ever return, it will be exactly the same as when I was a kid. I’m not talking about the pastor or anything like that (Orchard Grove’s one of those special sorts of churches that goes through about a pastor a year and prides itself on how many unworthy men it’s permanently disqualified from the ministry), but the people there are always the same. I could go back this weekend to find the exact faces I worshiped next to when I was a high schooler. A little older, a little more weathered, but it’s one of those churches that is deathly stubborn in its refusal to change. I mean, you should have heard the uproar when they thought about switching from piano to a weighted keyboard. And that was only a couple of generations removed from the Great Organ-Piano Debate of 1964.
“Can I be down?” asks the repentant Gabby, so I take her out of her high chair with a warning against biting anybody again.
“Is she supposed to have that?” Bowman asks, and I lunge across the living room (all five feet of it) to take the electric cord out of the baby’s mouth.
“Gotta go potty,” Gabby tells me, which is her way of saying she wants me to sit in the hall and watch her valiantly sit on her plastic chair (the same one her brother chased her around the house with) for twenty or thirty minutes. I glance once more at Jasmine. As long as the baby’s happy and safe, there’s nothing pressing I need to get done. As far as jobs go, sitting in the hall pretending to be interested in a toddler’s elimination habits doesn’t require an awful lot of energy.
Gabby yanks down her pants — after naming every single Disney princess on her pull-ups — and squats on the kiddie toilet. I’m glad I don’t remember this phase of my own childhood. I don’t really remember anything before first grade, which is why I couldn’t say if Chris and I were in kindergarten together or not before his family moved away for those few years.
I hate that I’m thinking about him all the time. It’s gotten even worse since I started writing out our story for you. But actually, the depression hasn’t been too bad lately. My meds have definitely been helping. The way my mom talks about it, you’d think that anti-depressants shut down every receptor in your brain and feed your cells to little hungry zombie-demons, but it’s not like that. You’re still exhausted, but at least you’ve got a little boost to help you work your way through it.
Mom still doesn’t know I take the stuff, but it’s not any of her business, especially now that I’m on state insurance. That’s one reason I don’t like going back to visit. Even if she won’t ask me directly if I’m on anything, she’ll make sure to give me her opinion on pharmaceuticals over a series of daily lectures.
I’m actually surprised she hasn’t called me. She’s out east visiting my brother, but it’s been two weeks or longer since we last talked. That either means she’s busy with the grandbabies or she’s devising some way to guilt-trip me for my negligence.
“It’s not coming,” Gabby whines from her potty.
My back’s got a kink in it, and I’m ready to get off the floor. “Well, maybe you should get dressed and try again later.”
She pouts, probably thinking about the promised Skittle she’ll receive after making a deposit in the chair. “I’ll try a little longer.”
Great. I glance over my shoulder and see that the baby’s busy trying to pull up on the TV stand. I can’t believe it. Nine months and already acting like she’s about to take off walking.
I think about Gracie. It’s torture and will leave me despondent the rest of the day, but I can’t help it. They’re so close in age but completely different. Gracie’s not as chubby, but her smile’s even bigger, and she has these adorable dimples. My own mom’s not the sentimental type, so she doesn’t have album after album of baby photos of me like some families would keep. I don’t know if my daughter looks like me or not.
Does it matter? What’s the point of thinking about her now anyway? Why do I torture myself?
I shut my eyes. I can picture Gracie against my chest. Peaceful. Solid. I thought a newborn would feel more fragile.
My little baby ...
No. That’s the part I can’t forget. The part I can’t get over.
I love her so much that my arms ache from longing to hold her again.
I love her so much that my soul stings whenever I look at her photo and realize I haven’t been there to watch her grow up.
I love her so much, and she doesn’t even know who I am.