I’d much rather see Birdie struggle with a pillowcase, than an unhappy husband. Some things never get easier.
I hear Melanie ask Clay what he thinks about this change in plans. I move to the hallway door to hear his reply. “Your mother says she can handle it.”
I don’t know why he’s being this way. Myra would do the same thing for me, I’m sure.
Only Birdie has anything to say at dinner. Afterwards, Clay settles into his chair with the newspaper and watches the news on TV while I’m washing the dishes with Melanie.
The doorbell rings. Birdie runs from the kitchen. “I’ll get it. I’ll get it.” She opens to the door to reveal Rachel Winston.
Mrs. Winston steps across the threshold with her miniature poodle squirming in her arms. “Hello, Norah. Clay. Hi, girls.”
“Come in and have a seat, Rachel.” Clay stands up and tosses the newspaper onto the floor.
Mrs. Winston sits on the edge of the sofa and places her Fifi on her lap. “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m sure you’re busy with the new baby.”
“No,” I lie. “I was just finishing up the dishes.”
DC begins to cry. He’ll be ready to eat soon, and then he’ll probably be awake for a while.
Clay lifts him out of the bassinet. “I’ll change his diaper.”
“Thanks, honey.” I turn my attention to Rachel. “How are you?”
“Okay, I guess. Bob should be home in a day or so. You know he’s been on special duty for a week now.”
“I know. You must miss him.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Melanie frown, not so much that anyone but I would notice, but I can’t put up with her being disrespectful to adults. I lift my brow at her, and she looks down at her hands.
“Bob wants me to go visit my mother in New York until this whole Castro thing blows over. He’s worried about me being so near the bases here in case something happens.”
I hear Melanie suck in a panicked breath and look at her. She’s pale. I know how worried she is about the Cuban situation, and she’s been exposed to a lot of bad news tonight: the Mayfields evacuating, and now Rachel Winston leaving Jacksonville for safety. It seems like an awful lot. Even I’m feeling edgy. “Mellie, why don’t you go see what Birdie’s up to?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Rachel says, “I hope I didn’t upset her. I know Melanie is the sensitive sort.”
When Melanie is out of the room, I say, “Things must be pretty serious if Bob wants you to go to New York. Does that mean he knows something we ordinary civilians don’t?”
Rachel lifts her slim shoulders and rubs her hand down the poodle’s back. “He won’t say much about it, really. I’m just glad to go see my mother.”
Come to think of it, Stephanie’s father has to report to his ship tomorrow. I wonder how many families are preparing to tell husbands and fathers good-bye tomorrow morning.
“I was wondering if Melanie would get our mail for a few days. I’m leaving first thing in the morning, and Bob won’t be back until Thursday.” Rachel pulls a five-dollar bill and a key out of her pocket. “I’ll pay her, of course.”
“Rachel, put that away. Of course, Mellie will get your mail for you. We’re neighbors. You don’t need to pay her.”
Melanie comes back to the living room with Birdie following closely behind her. Birdie kneels in front of Rachel so she can pet her dog. The dog snarls and Birdie yanks her hand back.
“I was just telling Mrs. Winston you’d be happy to collect their mail while she’s gone.”
“Yes, ma’am, I heard.”
“Thanks. I’ll bring you back something nice from the city.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Winston.” Mellie goes into the kitchen to put the key in the drawer where we keep stuff like that.
Rachel doesn’t get up to leave. I have to make more small talk, I guess. “You’re going to miss seeing the Mayfields. They’re coming to stay with us for a few days until they can get base housing.”
“Frankly, I’m surprised they are coming to Jacksonville,” Rachel says. “It seems like Joe would want them to go further north. Doesn’t Myra have family in Ohio?”
“I don’t think Myra wants to go back to the cold weather. She said something about the kids not having coats anymore, since they haven’t been back to Cincinnati in a while.”
“But still, they would be safer there.”
“Rachel, you know we’ll be perfectly fine here. Nothing is going to happen.” Can’t she see my two girls right here?
“Well, I wouldn’t—”
“Listen, I know you have a lot of packing to do, and I’ve got to get the girls ready for school tomorrow.” I’ve had enough of her doomsday. “We’ll take care of the mail for you.”
Rachel rises. “I should be going. Tell Myra I said hello, okay?”
“I will. Have a safe trip.”
Finally, she’s gone.
Clay enters the living room and glances from me to the girls with a worried look on his face. “What’s going on?”
I reach out for DC and walk to the couch. “Nothing really. Girls, will you please finish the dishes?”
Finally, I can close my eyes and have a moment of peace. After I put DC to bed, I’m going to call Lola and find out why she left us like she did. Somehow, I’m sure Clay did something to upset her.
Atlanta, Georgia
LOLA
It’s eight o’clock. I pour myself another drink. Of course, I’m already so drunk I can barely keep my eyes open. Too bad the liquor won’t slow down my thoughts. I haven’t really slept since I left Norah’s, only that nap in the car.
I’m still raw from the cop’s
picnic
.
I throw back the rest of my drink, fill up the glass again and reach for the bottle of Seconal. I take one, washing it down with the booze. Instead of replacing the cap, I pour out the pills on the counter.
The capsules look like red jewels on the white countertop. I push them around with my finger. Are there enough?
They really are pretty: oblong and shiny red, like red patent leather. One, two, three, four, five… I’ve only got twenty left and can’t refill my prescription for another three weeks.
How many did Marilyn Monroe take?
I can’t remember. I could take the twenty pills, open my last bottle of vodka and get in the bathtub. Nice hot water. I’d be so relaxed. Maybe I’d fall asleep. Slide down and down and down.
I line the pills up: four rows with five pills in each row.
The water would come up over my face. Would I wake up when my nose filled? Would I come splashing out of the water, gasping for air? That would be a waste of these red beauties and a good bottle of liquor.
I open the drawer right in front of me and take out a butcher knife. It’s too big. It looks frightening. If it looks scary just resting on the counter, how will I be able to make myself drag it across my wrist?
The paring knife looks more manageable. I lay it on the counter and put the butcher knife away. I move the twenty red capsules to a straight line beside the small knife, then I push the knife into the middle of the line, making a scraggly arrow.
Pointing the way to where?
Hell, for sure.
Mama always said that suicide was the one unforgivable sin.
Like the rest of my sins can be forgiven.
Like it matters. I’m already in hell.
Can I just check out? Can I leave without ever talking to Norah again? Without telling her how much I love her? Can I stop my suffering without asking Mellie, sweet Mellie, for forgiveness?
She’s only twelve. Can she understand enough to begin to forgive me? She knows about Michael and the car crash, but nobody knows how much pain I’ve lived through since then. Not even Norah.
Oh, she understands that my heart was broken and my back was injured. She knows I take medicine to help with the physical pain.
Even if I could explain to her how I feel inside, she wouldn’t get it. How could she? Her life is perfect. She has her children. She has Clay.
I pick up the knife. Hold the point to the bluish vein in my wrist.
Press.
My flesh resists, like a thick-skinned tomato against a dull knife. I push the point in about an eighth of an inch before I feel the burn, the pain just before it punctures. I pull the knife away.
Norah has never felt the point of a knife on her wrist and wondered what it would be like to push it all the way through, to watch the blood well up, to make the cut deeper and wider. No, Norah has never hurt like this.
But she would hurt like this if she knew what I’d done on Saturday night, what I’d wanted to do on Saturday night. What Clay almost did to her. Yeah, she’d understand a little bit then.
If Norah had spread herself on a picnic table and let an ugly cop use her body so she wouldn’t have to pay a ticket or go to jail, Norah would understand this pain.
I gather up the pills in the palm of my left hand. They look like candy. How many can I swallow at one time? Maybe four at time. Five swallows and they’ll be gone. Then I’d fill up the bathtub. Maybe put in some bubbles. That would feel nice.
The last thing I’d feel is warm water and tiny bubbles bursting against my skin. The last thing I’d hear is that crinkling, popping sound of bubbles around my ears.
No, I think I want to hear music. I put the pills back on the counter and go to my records. I choose five and stack them on the spindle, turn on the record player. The sound fills the room, but I turn it louder. It needs to be louder for me to hear it in the bathtub.
In the kitchen I gather up the pills again, top off my glass. I balance my hands like I’m weighing something on a scale. Red sins in one hand, amber sins in the other. All heavy, so heavy.
The shrill ringing of the phone scares me out my skin. I scream. The pills jump from my hand to scatter across the kitchen floor. My drink sloshes all over.
The ringing continues as I kneel on the floor to pick up all my pretty red pills. One, two, three…seventeen. Three missing. They probably went under the stove. I stand up, place my seventeen pills on the counter and get the flashlight out of the drawer.
Finally, the phone stops ringing.
I gather the last, lost pills from beneath the edge of the stove and blow the dust from them. I can’t throw them away. I don’t want to put them back in the bottle. I fill my glass again and put the three pills in my mouth. Swallow. I’ll only have four more swallows to finish the job.
My head is floating like a balloon with no string attached. I need to go to bed. I’ll think about sins tomorrow. The phone rings again. It seems like it’s going to ring all night if I don’t answer it.
“Hello?” My voice sounds weak.
“Lola? Are you okay?”
“Who is this?” The voice sounds so far away. “Norah? Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s Norah. Tell me, are you all right? You sound terrible.”
“I’m okay. I’m just tired. I’m so tired.”
“I imagine so, leaving my house and driving so late at night. Or should I say early in the morning?”
“Both, I guess.”
“Well, I’m glad you got home safely.”
“Yeah.” I lean against the wall and slide down to sit on the floor. My eyes just won’t stay open.
“Listen, I’m sorry for whatever Clay said or did to make angry enough to leave like that.”
Adrenaline shoots through me and my eyes flash open. “What did Clay say?”
“Nothing. He wouldn’t tell me what he said to make you mad, but he’s been such a bear all day. If he was like this after I went to bed last night, no wonder you took off in the middle of the night.”
I need to focus. I have to keep talking, make sure the lie keeps going. “I remembered this meeting today. You know I have trouble sleeping. I decided to hit the road.”
“It doesn’t sound like you’ll have any trouble sleeping tonight.”
“No.”
“Lola.”
Norah stops talking and once more that hot energy surges through me. It’s that feeling of being caught doing something wrong and it makes me feel like such a child. What I did wasn’t the crime of a child.
“What?” I need to know that things are all right there. That the damage I caused isn’t permanent. That Clay still loves my sister. That someday Mellie can forgive me, even if she can never understand what was going on between her Daddy and me. I want my sister’s family to settle back into their routine, somehow.
“It’s just that nothing seems to be right. Nothing is normal. Did you watch the news?”
I can’t help but sigh with relief. She’s upset about the Cuban situation. “I missed the news because I was at my meeting,” I lie. Again. One more can’t hurt. I was sitting in my living room drinking, instead of watching the nightly news broadcast.
“It seems to be getting serious. Myra Mayfield called this afternoon. They’re being evacuated from the base in Guantanamo Bay. She asked if she and the two kids could stay with us.”
“Evacuated?”
“Of course, I told her they could stay with us. They have no place else to go right now. They’ve been promised base housing as soon as it’s available. That’s one of the reasons Clay is so grouchy. He doesn’t want them to stay here.”