Quaker Summer - Women of Faith Book Club

Five months ago I raised Gary and Mary Andrews from the dead. I took a wrong turn trying to find a Pampered Chef party to benefit Will’s eighth grade trip to New York City, and there it stood as close to the road as ever, their old house. Superimposed over the improvements of the recent owners, a small bungalow with cracked siding, smeared windowpanes, and a rusted oil tank figured into my vision. The mat of green grass dissolved into an unkempt lot of dirt and weeds supporting a display of junk: an old couch, a defunct Chevy, and rusted entities the purpose of which I never could say.

What happened inside that house remains there. All I know for sure is that Gary and Mary Andrews climbed onto our school bus every morning and never waved good-bye to anybody. We’d pull forward in a throaty puff of diesel, away from that little frame house, its once-white paint as gray as the dirt that always outlined Gary’s hands and shaded behind his ears. As a sixth grader, I didn’t realize children weren’t responsible for their own cleanliness, that Mary’s hair never glinted in the sunshine or smelled like baby shampoo because nobody helped her wash it; nobody thrust their fingers into her curls and scrubbed away the dust of a tumble in the yard with the dog; nobody applied a nice dollop of cream rinse to untangle knots from windy hours outside. I never stopped to think nobody in that house cared about them.

God help me.

So I sit now in the anonymity of my car, praying somebody steps out. Perhaps they’ll look around, notice me sitting here, walk forward and ask if there’s a problem.

No. No problem. I just knew the people who used to live here. Might you know where they live now?

No movement, no fluttering of the drapes, no shadows behind the blinds. Always quiet here. It always was.

I pull off the side of the road, the heavy tires eating the gravel. I turn for home. I’ll find myself back here again soon. It’s become the way of it.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

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I fell asleep last night to the eerie strains of “Blackbird,” my last conscious thoughts of broken wings and sunken eyes. Waiting for moments to arrive when broken wings fly and sunken eyes see, waiting for that moment of freedom, flying into the light.

If I had to listen to one musical artist or band or composer for the rest of my life, I’d choose the Beatles. Their music encompasses all the emotions, all the moods, and all the tempos I’ll ever need, taking me back to my childhood when my father would slip an album on the stereo, set the speed to thirty-three, and push the lever up to automatic. The fact that my father was younger and definitely cooler than the other dads around only helped the Fab Four become the thing to an elementary school girl who should have been listening to Bobby Sherman or the Osmond Brothers. I never really did go for the teen sensations.

Lying on my stomach, I would watch from eye level, chin resting on the back of my hands, and stare, gaze stuttering in and out of focus as the record fell to the turntable on the floor by the couch, the arm lifted, swung backward then forward, diamond-tipped needle poised with promise over the smooth outer rim of the vinyl disc. As it dropped with slow precision, I held my breath wondering if it would really make contact with the disc this time. Those old hi-fi systems didn’t miss the mark often, but they did enough to glue your eyes to the entire process and make your heart skip a few beats until the needle found its groove.

And then, after the static and scratch, Paul sang about his mother, Mary, comforting him, telling him to “Let It Be.”

I was a daddy’s girl, my mother having left him when I was two and then died not long after in a motorcycle accident with one of her precursor-hippie boyfriends. Nevertheless, I closed my eyes for the duration of the song, wishing she still existed and could lift her hand and rest it on my shoulder. She must have done that long ago.

Or maybe not.

During the strains of “Blackbird,” I dreamt of my father for the first time in many months, his dark, winged hair breezing back from his wide forehead. Snuggled in the comforter freshly snapped down off the line yesterday afternoon, I wallowed in the numbness of slumber as he returned anew. Nobody told me how precious dreams of the dead become, how our own subconscious somehow gifts us with the time and space to once again be with those who have left us behind.

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And so I lay basking in my father’s presence, wishing so much for more time. But isn’t that always the way? There he was, living in that little house in Towson, and I only saw him once a week. How differently I’d do things if I’d known he was slated for an autumn death. An accident at work. He was a plumber, a fact that used to embarrass me, an expert at redoing historical houses during his last decade.

Nobody knew that wall was ready to fall down. They were just doing the initial walk-through. He was only fifty-five. The cool morning air spirals the window curtains, and I inhale the breeze off Loch Raven to the bottom of my lungs. At the crest of the hill beside our home, earth—turned over and ready for planting by the farmer who lives next door—casts its loamy smell over the yard. As yet, the sun rests below a horizon unadorned but for the crabbed Dutch elm standing long past its expiration date. I hate that bleached thing. Why my neighbor, a sweet widower nicknamed Jolly, doesn’t pull it down is as much a mystery as his very name. As far as I know, nobody knows Jolly’s real name, and Jace and I wonder if Jolly even remembers. Maybe it actually is Jolly. Jolly Lester. I always figured it was John or Jacob or maybe James.

Jolly tries to live up to the name. Lord knows the man tries. But some days, especially when the rain falls in a light slick from a platinum sky, his sepia eyes tell me he misses his Helen with the longing of someone who loved one person all of his life and was content, even honored, to do so. And Helen loved him back.

The distant buildings of Towson peek over the trees, and farther yet, Baltimore lies hidden to me here. But life is beginning again in those places that formed me into this woman I’ve become, for good or for bad.

I should pray. My father taught me to pray.

Jace stirs. “You awake, Hezz?”

I sit up and grab for my robe. “I need to get that turkey in the oven so it’s ready for sandwiches for the party this afternoon.”

“What party?”

“We’re having the end-of-the-year party for Will’s class here, remember? I’ve got a ton of stuff to do. At least I decorated the cake already.”

“Forgot. Would you like the shower first?”

“Nope. You go on.”

“What kind of cake?”

“Triple chocolate with white chocolate buttercream icing.”

“Mind if I take a piece to the office?” His mouth stretches into a smiley ribbon. He closes his eyes and I stare at my husband. Most women imagine that plainer women who’ve stolen a handsome man as their own must feel smug and superior having scored an undeserved hottie. Obviously, we’ve got brains or money or an extraordinary sense of humor to have nabbed such a prize.

Let me say, it isn’t as easy as it looks. I know what people think when we walk into a restaurant. Tall, lean, good-looking Jace with his wavy brown hair and smoky eyes, his easy assurance, his ruddy skin warming up the room. They must wonder how on this green earth a little old roly-poly like me ended up with a movie star like him.

For the first ten minutes I’m conscious of myself in ways Jace has never made me feel. But he’s just Jace, even in posh restaurants, placing his hand on the rounded waist that expanded with the growth of his child, smiling into eyes wrinkled from many afternoons squinting in the sun at swim meets, and laughing at my jokes that are only funny because of context, not content.

And they don’t know that cucumbers give him terrible gas, that he can be a real jerk when he’s sick, that he shuts down when he’s mad, and that he still draws stick figures. They don’t know that he doesn’t call his parents nearly enough . . . that he gets upset about my spending habits, which I must admit are sometimes a little over the top. But it’s too beautiful a morning to think about that.

I give his head a quick scratch. “I’ll get you a cup of coffee, sweets.”

Eyes still closed, he smiles. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Well, looks notwithstanding, that’s probably true. Because I’m a good Christian woman, I seek an almost-perfection from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same. I volunteer at school; I once hosted a foreign exchange student; I color my hair, exercise at least three times a week to keep my temple from collapsing; I wear lipstick. Sometimes I wear two colors at once to manipulate the perfect coordinating shade with whatever Eddie Bauer or Talbots dreamed up for the season.”

He squints. Why not continue?

“I tote a Vera Bradley purse with matching change purse, cell phone case, and makeup bag—which, honestly, I’ve never liked, Jace, but the Vera rage burned a couple of years ago at church, and I convinced myself a quilted handbag with a Noah’s ark theme was not only a fine idea, but a potential witnessing tool, like a Jesus fish or a cross necklace.”

“It’s just a purse, hon.” Jace leans up on one elbow. “You sure you don’t want to shower first?”

“You know, I figured if I wore it steadily for three years, it would come to about ten cents a pop, and surely that’s not bad, is it?”

Jace shakes his head, throws back the covers. “No, Hezz, it isn’t.” Under his breath he mumbles, “That purse is the least of it.”

I wonder how long it’ll take before he sees the new deck furniture. I’m glad I remembered to hide those bags from T.J.Maxx.

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