Can I Get An Amen? Page 21

  She slipped her sunglasses up onto her forehead. “I have had it up to here”—she raised her hand well above her head—“with Christmas shopping. I’m telling you, if I see so much as one more twinkling light, I think I might vomit.” Brenda giggled, delighted by Parker’s practiced, clichéd suburban angst.

  “Ellen,” she said, turning to me, “is Philip in? I have some papers I need him to sign.”

  “Um, yup,” I said as I brought the phone to my ear. “Let me ring him.”

  She held up a familiar-looking heavy, white, watermarked envelope with crisp blue type and an elaborate crest. “Can you believe that Austin is starting at Horton already?” she trilled.

  Philip answered. I was instructed to send Parker right in. When she came out she again waved the envelope in victory. “One more thing checked off the to-do list! You are so lucky, Ellen.” She kept walking as she spoke, letting her words trail behind her. “You wouldn’t believe how busy these kids keep me!”

  Brenda looked at Parker, then at me, with an uneasy, confused expression. She was unfamiliar with the cruel side of Parker.

  On her way out, Parker passed Mark, who held the door open for her as she sashayed regally out of the office. His eyes scanned the expansive lobby and made their way up to the mezzanine, looking for me. I didn’t wait for Helen to call me and tell me that he had arrived. Instead, I grabbed my things and hurried toward the stairs, bouncing down them with a grin on my face. He met me at their base.

  “Hey, you,” he said, brushing the hair off my face.

  “Hi,” I said, inching closer.

  “Let’s go get you some lunch.”

  Though it had stayed cold, all signs of the weekend’s pristine snow had vanished, transformed into gray slush that gathered at the edges of the street. It was as if Monday was reminding us that all that white was too romantic, too special to linger. As we walked, Mark reached for my hand.

  We passed window after window of elaborate displays, all elegantly done in natural tones or tasteful metallics. It wasn’t a colored-lights-and-tinsel sort of town. “What are you doing for the holidays?” I asked, not wanting to assume that he celebrated Christmas.

  “I usually spend Christmas with some friends, since my family is so far away. This year we’re actually going to do some volunteer work.”

  I squeezed his hand. “Of course you are,” I teased.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You are so good,” I said, turning to see his profile against the backdrop of the shops.

  He reddened. “No, Ellen. I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. You are so kind and honest and good.”

  He pulled us to a stop. “Ellen,” he said, turning toward me, words forming on his tongue.

  I wrapped my arms around him. I wasn’t going to let him deny it. With our bellies pressed against each other, I felt his stomach growl. “Come on,” I said, pulling him forward. “You’re starving.” His feet reluctantly followed.

  We sat with our legs intertwined under the table, talking about the holidays and our plans. He told me how he missed his family, how he wanted to plan a trip to Africa soon. “You would love it, Ellen,” he said. It wasn’t an invitation, but I allowed my mind to meander down that path.

  I, in turn, gave Mark the highly edited version of my family turmoil. The years-long feud between Kat and my parents became a little tiff; weeks of silence and resentment became a communication issue. “I think it’s taking its toll on my mother. She and my dad have been really stressed-out lately about some other stuff, so this is just the icing on the cake.” And again, as whenever I revealed a small personal detail to Mark, I immediately felt as though I could tell him everything and anything. But there’s time, I reminded myself, remembering my too-early confession about Gary. And about me. No need to rush it.

  After a quick lunch, Mark walked me back to the office. He tucked us into a small side street next door to my building and leaned against a brick wall. “I’ll see you Friday,” he said, pulling me close to him. He looked at once proud and mischievous as he added, “I’m making dinner.”

  “You can cook?” I asked, not quite skeptically, as it seemed that Mark could do anything.

  “I can make a thing or two.”

  I leaned up and kissed him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Kat never did call my mother. Instead, she came walking defiantly into the house. It was Thursday evening. Aunt Kathy and my mother had gotten home late the night before from Connecticut. I didn’t know where my father was.

  I was alone at the kitchen table writing a Christmas card to Daniel when the back door swung open. From the look on Kat’s face, she expected—she hoped—for an ungracious welcome. Standing in the doorway for a moment, she let the cold, stark night air rush into the house. We looked at each other but said nothing. It seemed like such a simple thing, walking into our parents’ house unannounced, but it would be seismic in its repercussions.

  Mom came hurrying in from the family room. When she saw that it was Kat, she didn’t look surprised, only wearily prepared, like a battle-hardened soldier. She straightened her back, made the effort of taking on a more formal posture. “Katherine,” she said. It was a reprimand, an accusation, and a prayer. I knew that she was relieved to see Kat after so long, after so much anticipation, but now it would begin.

  “Where’s Aunt Kathy?” asked Kat coldly.

  Aunt Kathy, following my mother, appeared from around the corner. “Hey, Kat, honey!” she said nervously, in a futile attempt to defuse the situation. “You look as gorgeous as ever.” She strode toward Kat with open arms.

  Kat gave her a guarded but still somehow warm hug, with her elbows tucked into her sides and hips back. Aunt Kathy hooked her chin over Kat’s shoulder. “You girls are so lucky that you got your daddy’s height.”

  Aunt Kathy then leaned back and stuck out her chest, ready to deliver her breast-implant routine, but Kat peered around her and looked straight at my mother. “So what, no cozy little dinner with the Arnolds tonight?”

  My mother was instantly ignited. “How dare you come into this house and mention their name after the way you acted that night!”

  Kat rested the fingertips of her open hand daintily over her heart. “Did I offend your dear friends the Arnolds?” Though the words themselves were innocent, there was menace in her voice.

  “Don’t you start that, Kat,” spat my mother. “You offended everyone. And you humiliated your father and me.”

  “You humiliated yourselves.” Kat was brutally calm as she stood, seemingly feet above my mother. “With that fucking display. All the brownnosing and main-course bullshit.”

  “For your information, Katherine, you single-handedly ruined one of the most important dinners of your father’s career.” Angry tears had sprouted from Mom’s eyes, and she fought to continue. “He was working on a business deal with Edward. A very, very important business deal.” My mother was always insecure when discussing business matters, since it was then that she was most acutely aware of her poor southern roots and tenth-grade education.

  “Of course,” scoffed Kat. “A business deal.” Her arms were crossed casually in front of her. “If the Arnolds didn’t have money, you wouldn’t give a shit what I said to them.”

  My mother leaned toward Kat with her hand on her hip, her voice becoming loud and clear. “They were our guests, Katherine. And you were deliberately vulgar and attacked their son.” Looking away, she shook her head as if reliving the evening. “I had to call Lynn the next day and apologize for your behavior.”

  It was visible and instant, the release of Kat’s rage. “You apologized to the Arnolds?” She was now inches from my mother’s face. “You apologized for me?”

  “Kat,” I whimpered. “Come on.” It was a pitiful little plea that went unacknowledged as Kat and my mother stared at each other like old and formidable foes.

  “Of course I had to apologize!” said my mother incredulously. “I didn’t want the
Arnolds to think that we condoned your behavior.”

  “Fuck the Arnolds.” Kat’s voice shook the house. It shook it in the way it had all those years ago. It shook the air out of it, until everyone and everything was silent and still. Then Kat spoke again, quieter, fighting to regain the advantage of calm. “All you care about is what people think. It’s all you’ve ever cared about.” And suddenly, she wasn’t fierce and brave and strong. She was a wounded, scared teenage girl. She was what she had really been all along.

  We all knew the topic that she was circling, the unspoken event that had as much a presence in the room as any of us. Aunt Kathy took me by the arm. “Come on, Ellen,” she said as she led us out of the kitchen. Already we were invisible to my mother and Kat. We sat across from each other on the big, overstuffed leather couches in the family room, just out of sight. We could hear everything. We didn’t pretend not to be listening.

  “When are you going to stop this?” pleaded my mother. “When are you going to stop acting like some rebellious teenager? You need to let go of the past!”

  “I can’t let go!” screamed Kat. “I can’t do what you do and pretend it never happened!” I could hear her sob. It was a pained, violent noise. “You made me have a baby.” More primal cries escaped her chest before she screamed again, “You made me have a baby!” It was an agony that served as irrefutable proof of just how changed Kat had been on that day in December. No matter how much we all wanted to deny it, she had become a mother.

  “You had to have that baby!” wailed my mother back, doubt and regret infusing her once-steadfast resolve. “The Lord made that child…”

  “Stop it! I don’t want to ever again hear that Jesus didn’t want me to have an abortion.” I closed my eyes, but Kat went on, her words coming fast and hard. “I bought that shit when I was sixteen and stupid, but I have heard enough. You were supposed to be protecting me. Not the baby, not your friends, or the church or anyone else. Just me.”

  “I did it for you!” My mother’s voice sounded raw and cracked, as if every word hurt, as if she had doubled over to get them out. “It was always about you. I made you have that child because I knew you would regret it for the rest of your life if you had an abortion. And I knew it because I do. I regret it. And not a day goes by that I don’t think about it.”

  I felt a breath of air fill my mouth and rush into my lungs before I froze. I looked at Aunt Kathy. She met my eyes only briefly, her expression unwillingly corroborating my mother’s confession.

  There were a few beats of silence, stretched-out seconds where I imagined Kat absorbing, trying to process what my mother had said. Mom didn’t wait for Kat to speak. “You are my child, Kat,” she said, her tone more plaintive. “I wanted to protect you. That’s all I ever thought I was doing.”

  I heard Kat give a cynical snort. “Right,” she said sarcastically, struggling to stay on script. “You were protecting me by taking away my choice. You had one, and you took away mine.” In her shock, Kat resorted to what sounded like lines from an after-school special.

  “Choice?” my mother asked quietly. “This was 1964. Georgia. We didn’t talk about ‘choices.’ ”

  And to that, Kat said nothing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Aunt Kathy brought her hands, which she held palm to palm, against her lips and closed her eyes. “Oh, Lord,” I heard her whisper. Then she took a deep, fortifying breath, and stood. With her arms crossed as if to fight off a chill, she walked purposefully toward the kitchen. I got up and followed a few steps behind. When she reached the doorway she paused, and I looked in over her shoulder. Kat and my mother stood facing each other. The gravity of what had just been said hung between them. My mother glanced toward us. Kat turned to stare out the window.

  “Patty, are you all right?” asked Aunt Kathy. She was the only one for whom my mother’s revelation did not come as a shock.

  Mom looked at Kat, who didn’t react, then back at us. She nodded.

  “Do you want to be alone?”

  Mom shook her head. “It’s all right.” Looking like she didn’t have the energy to support herself for one more second, she slowly pulled out a barstool and sat down, preparing herself for the things she now needed to say. And though Kat continued to stare out the window, our presence seemed to relieve her of her almost pathological need to fight back. She didn’t have to retort or retaliate. She could simply listen. And though I would piece the whole story together later, that night Mom gave us the bones of it.

  She was seventeen, the daughter of a Pentecostal preacher and more like Kat than anyone knew. When her father was traveling, she snuck out at night and went dancing. “It was a strange time,” she said. “This was right when the Vietnam War was about to get started. All the boys in town were joining the army, wanting to go fight. We were all for the war. There were no protestors, no conscientious objectors.” Her words were detached but somber, as if she was an academic lecturing on a tragic but distant era.

  “For years I pretended that I was somehow tricked, that I didn’t know what I was doing, but the truth is I knew exactly what I was doing. The boy’s name was John and he was leaving for the service. He thought he picked me, but I picked him. This was right when Daddy was getting bad, when all he saw was sin. He was so ugly.” She shook her head, her eyes seeing things that we couldn’t. “I hated it. I hated being his daughter. And so I did what I knew he would never forgive me for doing. Of course I didn’t ever want him to find out. I just wanted to hurt him without his knowing it. But I was like a little girl playing with an atom bomb. I had no idea what I was about to unleash.”

  The only person she told was Aunt Kathy. And then when her period was late, it was Kathy who helped her figure out what to do. “Kathy was volunteering at a hospital. One of the nurses there gave her the name of a doctor, told her what to say. Of course we had no money, nothing but a little savings each. So I sold a brooch, a gold brooch that Daddy’s mother had given me before she died. It was beautiful, filigree with a little sapphire set in there.”

  Kathy drove her to the doctor, two hours away, in a borrowed car. “We told Mother that we were going to see a friend who had just gotten married and moved closer to Atlanta. But I was sure she knew the truth, because when we got back, she just looked at me. She told me to wear the brooch to church that Sunday. ‘Patty,’ she said, ‘go get your grandmomma’s brooch. I’ll shine it.’ I pretended to go and look for it, then told her it must have been stolen.

  “When Daddy came home from his trip, he was on fire. Ranting and raving about everyone and everything. He and Mother must have talked, because he came into our room that night and ripped me out of bed. He made me get on my knees. It was like he was possessed. He had never been violent before, but Mother had to threaten to slit her wrists to make him stop. That finally snapped him out of it. Then he just put his belt back on like nothing had happened, and walked out of the house. My back was so raw I couldn’t lie down on it for weeks. I don’t know what exactly Mother told him. Sometimes I think all she said was that I lost his momma’s brooch.

  “That was the beginning of the end for Mother and Daddy. The next year is when she left. And Daddy was never the same.” She paused, as if trying to find her way back to the point. “I should have done right by my mistake but I didn’t. I wasn’t brave enough.”

  Later I would ask her how, after all that, she could still be, still want to be a Christian. She looked at me, both frustrated and patient. “Because God is real, Ellen. Jesus is real. No matter how Daddy, or Thomas Cope, or anyone tries to pervert it, that’s the truth. It’s not about what you’ve done or how much you can give. It’s about the Lord’s grace.”

  When my mother had finished, it felt like a hurricane had just ripped through the room; everything was leveled, but the worst was over. I tried to hug Kat; her stiff, hard body yielded only slightly. Then Aunt Kathy and I left Kat and my mother alone again in the kitchen; they had things to say that were between just them. And had my m
other thought to ask her, in those vulnerable, honest moments, Kat may have even told her. But as it turned out, after that night Kat was the only one left with a secret: the father.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  From the doorstep I could hear the music inside, rhythmic, pulsating beats that seemed to have their origins anywhere and everywhere but here, in this ho-hum little New Jersey neighborhood. I pressed the bell and heard the clatter of pots and pans inside, and the music dropped a few decibels. Moments later Mark appeared, wearing a plain white T-shirt and jeans. He opened the door to his cozy, eclectic little home and gave me a long, still kiss.

  “It’s good to see you,” he whispered.

  “It’s good to see you, too.”

  He took my hand. “Come on in,” he said as he led me inside.

  The lights were low, except in the kitchen, which was illuminated by harsh fluorescents that seemed all wrong. They were the utilitarian lights of pot roast and mashed potatoes, not whatever was generating the warm, exotic smells that had filled the house. On the stove sat a clay, cone-shaped pot with arabesque markings on the outside.

  “What are you making?” I asked, tempted to lift the lid.

  “Lamb tagine,” he said, his thumb pointed at the pot. “My mother used to make it, but I’m sure I’m going to massacre it.”

  “It smells amazing.”

  His smile was shy. “Can I get you a glass of wine?”

  “Sure. Please.” He uncorked a bottle on the coffee table.

  “Cheers,” I said as the bowls of our glasses met.

  I took a sip and let the pleasant burn roll down into my stomach.

  “Make yourself at home,” he said. “I just have a couple more things to do and then dinner is pretty much on autopilot.”

  “Do you need some help?”

  He shook his head. “You just relax. I got this tonight.” He headed back into the kitchen and began intently reading the instructions on a box of couscous.