The bell above the Toot ‘n’ Totem jangled when the five women entered. The convenience store greeted Amanda with the distinct smells of coffee and hot dogs. Fresh doughnuts shone in a gleaming case.
“Hey, girls,” a familiar voice called from a side booth. “Y’all headed out for the retreat?” Dale Ochs sat with a group of men gathered over ceramic mugs.
“Yessir,” Shelinda said.
He waved them over, but Amanda pretended not to see. Instead, she wove her way past boxes of paper towels and found the women’s restroom, wondering what she’d gotten herself into for the weekend.
The stall next to her clicked shut. “I like your shoes,” Kendra Sue complimented.
“Thanks.” Amanda wore her most rugged style, hiking boots that Mother hated. Mountain shoes. “I like yours too.”
Kendra Sue had on Birkenstocks with rainbow fleece socks. “They’re my traveling shoes.” She did a little tap dance on the floor, and Amanda laughed. “Got to be fashionable, you know.”
“You got any extra toilet paper over there?” Pam called from the other side. “I’m out.”
Amanda passed some under the divider. “Here you go.”
She finished up and washed her hands. Missy stood by the sink, and the hot-air dryer whirred behind Shelinda. “I always add chilies to my cheese grits,” the taller woman was saying. “It adds that little bit of pep.”
“I’ve heard blue cheese is good too,” Missy said.
“Chocolate,” Shelinda announced as she followed Amanda into the shopping area. “We need chocolate.”
Dale Ochs and his cronies had left. The women loaded up on candy bars and diet Cokes. Girl food. Pam bought a fried burrito and Missy sipped a blue Slurpee.
“Just don’t spill it on the seats,” teased Shelinda.
Next to the register was a plastic bucket with a picture of a child’s face on it. Help send Lou Bell to Houston for chemo treatments! read the handwritten paper. God bless you!
She was a beautiful girl, with a front tooth missing. Her smile spoke of innocence and hope.
Amanda put money in and took her bag from the cashier. The bell jingled again and she found her spot in the Suburban. They hit the highway at top speed, leaving the Panhandle behind in a great golden river.
Shelinda drove while Kendra Sue rode shotgun in a dual role of navigator and conversation starter. In the second row, Amanda and Pam presided over the snacks. Missy sat in the third row of seats, stuffed in with the jackets and extra blankets.
Time flew as steadily as the Michelins over the asphalt as they talked nonstop, pausing only to sing along to songs pouring out of Shelinda’s CD changer.
Kendra Sue flipped a page in her book of questions. “All right, here’s a good one. ’When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?’”
“Children!” Pam perked up as if she’d waited the whole ride for this precise moment. Dressed in a vibrant pink and green running suit, she made a violent swish sound as she twisted toward Amanda. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve just been dying to ask-when are you and Mark going to start?”
The blood rushed from Amanda’s head. The highway whirred outside as vertigo blurred her vision.
Kendra Sue winced. “You know, Amanda, you don’t have to answer all the questions. We just want to have fun. Not be… well… nosy.”
“Nosy yourself! I’m a grandma. It’s not nosy, it’s natural.” Pam was undeterred by the gentle rebuke. “My daughter in Chitapee started right away. Didn’t want to be hauling toddlers around when she’s forty-five. Not like some women do these days.” She wrinkled her nose at such thoughtlessness. “So, when?” Pam urged a response.
“That’s a good question,” Amanda stalled. Her voice sounded like it came from someone else. “Our parents wonder the same thing.”
“Now, that’s no kind of an answer.” Pam’s face took on a bulldog quality. “Why not start now? Mark’s got a good job, y’all have that adorable little house. What’s holding you back?”
“It’s not that we’re holding back, exactly.”
“Aha! Next year maybe? It’ll be so much fun. We can have showers, I’ll host. You won’t want for a thing-”
“We’re not supposed to.” Amanda blurted the words out, a short burst of gas from the cesspot. She clamped her lips shut, forbidding any more to escape.
“Not supposed to? Not supposed to what?” Pam’s face contorted into shock, then compassion. “Oh, Amanda. You poor thing! What you and Mark do in the bedroom is all right.” She patted her knee. “It’s the Lord’s design, you see. For the man and woman to come together. Tell her, Kendra Sue. You taught that study on marriage. Tell her about the leave-and-cleave.”
“I don’t think that’s what she means.” Kendra Sue set a soft gaze on Amanda. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Wait a minute. Why in the world shouldn’t she be supposed to? Other than adultery, fornication”-Pam numbered off sexual immoralities like a grocery list-“lust, lewdness-unless you just flat-out can’t.” She appraised Amanda’s figure. “Some sort of a condition?”
Amanda wished a large hole would open up in the bottom of the Suburban and she could roll to safety, or get crushed by an oncoming car. Either way, she didn’t mind, as long as removal from Pam’s presence was part of the package.
Flipping through the question book, Kendra Sue burst out, “I know-how about another question?”
Amanda twisted her pillowcase until the flesh of her fingers turned white. She stared at its floral folds as if she’d find a different strain of conversation wrapped around the dark green vines.
“Found one.” Kendra’s announcement released an iota of tension from the now confining quarters. “Pam, your turn. ’Who is the person, living or dead, you most admire?’”
Pam moved on from her impromptu interrogation to wax eloquent about her ancestors, children and, of course, Jesus. Amanda prayed instant and numerous blessings on her new best friend, Kendra Sue.
A small pressure fell on Amanda’s shoulder. Light as a leaf in October, a touch to get her attention. Missy, quiet in the back.
“You’ve lost a baby,” she whispered.
It wasn’t a question. The truth. Uttered and made real.
Amanda hadn’t told. She’d held fast to the unspoken promise. Loyalty to Mark, to her own integrity, had built an ugly, stucco facade. Slapped together with pain and hypocrisy, the weight had nearly suffocated her.
“Yes.” A slab of moldy plaster fell away. Amanda wiggled her seat belt to turn backward.
“I’m so sorry. My goodness.” Little fingers grasped hers over the seat back. Strong and dry and warm. “I’m just so sorry.”
Narrow beams of light streamed into Amanda’s cave, bringing fresh air and hope. She breathed it in deep. “Thank you.” Not knowing what else to say, Amanda simply tightened her fingers and held on.
“I’ve had two,” Missy said. “Miscarriages, I mean.”
“You? But you’ve got the baby, the other children. And they’re all-”
“Healthy as can be. Doctor said one in four is a miss. Can be genetic, can be a fluke.” Missy wiped her watering eyes with her free hand. “Didn’t feel like a fluke at the time, though. Felt awful.”
“I know.” And Amanda’s wasn’t a fluke. Her body was the fluke. Her womb, a failure. Close to impossible, the doctor had said. His eyes as cold as his hands.
But she couldn’t reveal that part. Not to Missy. Not to anyone.
“It took a long time for me to even get back to church.” Missy looked down. “See, we’d told everybody, and then when I wasn’t pregnant anymore, I just didn’t know how to face them.”
Amanda couldn’t tell if her car mates were oblivious to the conversation, or were allowing privacy for kindness’ sake. Sound traveled strangely in the Suburban. Hard to be sure. Still, she took comfort in their discretion, even as she kept her voice low. “How did you?”
“Do what?”
“Start facing people?” Amanda wondered if she’d ever be able to face people again. To be herself and not the person hiding behind the stucco.
“Oh, it started small, I guess. The ones who came to the house after I lost the baby. The friends who cried with me, who let me talk about it. And then, of course, God helped. But not for a while. Right after it happened, I didn’t want anything to do with God. Too hurt, maybe.” Missy’s voice ran in a rush. “I know that’s not the spiritual thing to say, to the pastor’s wife and all.”
Amanda shook her head and nodded at the same time. “No, it’s okay. Go ahead.”
Missy’s chin thrust out. “It’s true. I was mad at God, and I didn’t want to pray or go to church or hear about his blessings at all. ’Cause the way I saw it he’d stolen my blessing away. Coulda stopped it, but he didn’t.”
“So how’d you … you know … get over it?”
“I don’t think you ever get over something like that.”
Amanda’s heart shrank. Not ever?
“I guess I just learned to get through it. Crying makes it better.”
“I can’t seem to stop crying,” Amanda confessed. “Over everything.”
“Talking helps too. That’s how I started up with God again, realizing he hadn’t forgotten me after all. He sent those women, girlfriends, to walk me through it.”
“I haven’t been able to. Talk, I mean. The dates”-Amanda met Missy’s gaze and risked honesty-“they don’t add up right. For a pastor’s wife.”
Missy chewed on her lip for a minute. “Jimmy and me, ours are that way too.” She blushed. “I won’t say anything. You can trust me. And if you ever want to talk about it…” Missy tipped her head toward the other women, now belting out show tunes from Oklahoma. “Oh, the cowman and the farmer should be friends…”
“Other people will understand too. If you give ’em a chance. You might be surprised.”
Amanda eyed her fellow carpoolers. Yes, they might surprise her. Yet, life had taught her, she mused over the next few hours, not all surprises were good ones.
THE COLORADO RETREAT center resembled an old-time log cabin village, nestled amidst pines and mountains. The air thinned, and emerging from Shelinda’s Suburban, Amanda felt lighter too. The late afternoon sun blazed high, yet the heat didn’t seem to reach the parking lot. Amanda hugged herself against the cool, and drank deep of the scent of wilderness.
“We’re here!” Pam announced to no one in particular, unfolding from the vehicle.
Kendra Sue dug in her book bag. “I think they’ve got us bunked in the main cabin.” She pointed to a larger building.
“I hope we’re roommates.” Missy trailed alongside Amanda, juggling her pillow and a duffel bag.
“I’d like that.” They stepped into the warm hallway, already filled with women ready for the retreat. Some smiled and said hello to Amanda as they walked past.
“Oh, here’s mine. I’m with Kendra Sue.” Missy smiled an apology, waved bye and disappeared across the hall. Next door, Pam informed Shelinda that she needed the bunk by the bathroom as she had severe diarrhea that morning and would most likely be up all night.
Amanda found her room-two matching name tags announced that her roommate would be Peggy Plumley. A nice surprise.
Shelinda shot a look and mouthed, “Wanna trade?”
Amanda grinned and shook her head no. Inside, she put her suitcase and pillow on the bed closest to the door. A picture window framed the soaring mountains outside. Atop each single bed, covered in patchwork quilts, lay school-type paper folders. Hers was green.
Inside, a stack of inserts detailed the weekend’s activities. She skimmed through the lists of sessions, meal schedules, and noted the free time to go hiking or take a nap.
One sheet featured a caption, DRAW NEAR TO GOD, AND HE WILL DRAW NEAR TO YOU. Underneath it read, Welcome to Lakeview Women’s Retreat. Start your special time here by writing a letter to yourself. What do you want from this weekend? What are your hopes and prayers? What are you feeling, right now?
The rest of the page was blank, left empty for the answers. Except Amanda didn’t know the answers, and this felt like homework, so she shut the cover and lay back on her pillow.
You need to go, Mark had said. For both our sakes.
She cracked an eyelid and stared at the mountains. “But I don’t want to,” she said aloud.
The mountains made no reply, so she sat up and opened the folder. After locating a pen in the nightstand drawer, she kicked off her shoes and crossed her legs.
I feel…
The paper looked so white. The pen so dark. The loops of her handwriting naked against the page.
I feel… like an idiot. She stared at that, then scratched it out. I want…
She figured she could keep it light, and no one would know the difference. I want to lose five pounds. I want my hair to look halfway normal. The ink flowed freely while she scribbled down her thoughts, her handwriting worsened the faster she wrote. I want to not have to sit near or talk to Courtney Williams. I want to have a good time.
I want to go home.
Home. The word gave her pause, and she thought of Mark, waving in the driveway as they pulled away. Planning this for her, making the effort.
I want to be a better wife. She used to be a good wife, she thought. They used to be so great together.
She paused, remembering. The earlier days when they flowed, connecting like hot honey and butter in a delicious, decadent swirl.
When she could laugh, or make a face, and he knew her heart, her spirit. She didn’t have to explain herself. A time when neither of them had to try so hard.
Her chest tightened and she slowed her breathing, the pen hovered over the page. She thought of his tenderness. The little things he did for her, hoping she would notice. How he rattled around in the mornings, cleaning, driving her crazy as she tossed in the sheets.
His puttering made her nervous, sensing he wanted to clean her up too. To make her all better. But, try though he might, he couldn’t. And she didn’t know how to do it for herself.
The one thing she really wanted, she couldn’t have. She saw no use in putting it down on paper, to mock her. I want a baby. I want my baby.
She considered the page again, picked up her pen and wrote one last entry. I want to get better.
It was the first time she had thought that. The words swam before her and she put the pen down and let her tears run free.
The door opened and Peggy Plumley pushed inside with a suitcase the size of Dallas. “My Lord! Those stairs were a killer! How are you, honeygirl? Make the trip all right?”
She nodded and brought quick fingertips to her eyes, brushing away the moisture.
Peggy unzipped her shoulder bag and tossed a small package of Kleenex to Amanda as if it were the most natural thing in the world to find her roommate for the weekend in tears.
Of course, given their history as friends, the woman had every right to believe “in shambles” as Amanda’s most natural state. She unwrapped the package, revealing pink tissues that smelled of powdered flowers.
“Isn’t it great we’re together?” Peggy hung her shirts, nearly identical to the one she already wore, in a neat row in the closet. Finished, she heaved herself on the other bed and squished the folder there. “What’s this?”
“Some stuff we’re supposed to do before the sessions.” Amanda folded her letter and sealed it in the envelope.
“I can get to mine later.” Peggy stood, smoothed her top and braced her hands on her hips. “What do you want to do first?”
Amanda thought about it. Stay behind, have solitude, finish reading through her curriculum for the weekend. Maybe cry a little more. What do you want?
Laughter rang down the hall, and a succession of knocks sounded at the door. “Mandy! We’re hungry… let’s go eat!” Shelinda peeked in. “Oh, hi, Peggy. Y’all wanna check out the cafeteria?” Missy and Kendra Sue stood behind her.
“Well? What do you say?” Peggy made for the hallway.
I want to get better.
She must start small, and do her part. If she had bootstraps, she’d tug them, but instead she retrieved her lace-ups from the floor and smiled. “I’m in.”