Things Worth Remembering Page 2

  These thoughts accompany me as I head into our bathroom and put on my gown and robe to begin my nightly ritual. Mother used to say you age a year every night you neglect taking off your makeup. She read that somewhere. I doubt she believes it, and I surely don’t, but along with brushing my teeth and taking my calcium and multivitamin pills, I seldom overlook my three-step routine: clean, exfoliate, and moisturize.

  Luke’s already asleep when I turn out the bathroom light and walk into our room. Doubting I can sleep just yet, I confiscate my Bible from the oak table and start into the living room so I won’t disturb Luke.

  “Read here,” he says.

  “Oh, I thought you were asleep.”

  “Almost,” he says. “But you won’t bother me.”

  “I thought this might help,” I say, holding up my Bible.

  He doesn’t seem surprised that I need a little help.

  “Try Psalm 37,” he suggests.

  I sit down, put my feet up on the chaise, adjust my robe, and turn to the Psalms. I have had occasion to practically memorize a few of them, but not this one.

  “Psalm 37?” I ask.

  He nods.

  I turn to it and begin reading. “ ‘Do not fret,’ ” I read aloud.

  I look at Luke. He smiles before he closes his eyes, unable to keep them open any longer.

  Silently and slowly I read the first eleven verses of Psalm 37 and find wise words that are not altogether unfamiliar: Trust God, delight in him, wait on him.

  I return my Bible to its place on the table and turn out the light. I know I could not have received better advice, and I plan to heed it, but I can’t suppress a sigh as I carefully make my way across the room in the dark and slip into bed beside my husband.

  TUESDAY

  CHAPTER TWO

  Kendy

  I open my eyes and can hardly discern the dresser six feet from my face.

  Not good.

  I had wanted to sleep until the sun filtered through the white slats of the plantation shutters to grace the bedroom with warm and reassuring light. I turn the digital clock with its brightly lit numbers toward me, and I groan ever so slightly.

  I’m quite sure this day will require more than five hours’ sleep.

  Luke is still sleeping peacefully. I nudge him over on his side and snuggle up behind him. I may be awake, but I don’t have to get up. I have never slept until noon, but today I would like to try.

  I’m pretty sure Maisey would appreciate it.

  Will I ever quit longing for the Maisey who was once mine?

  She was thirteen when a vein of irritation and a strange sadness began to run through our relationship. Make that a pulmonary artery of irritation. No book, workshop, or Mom’s Night Out prepared me for it. Can puberty possibly effect such a vast and enduring change? Can a mother’s crisis?

  I would have thought our closeness, the envy of all my friends, immovable.

  But immovable is a God word.

  I’m so glad Marcus calls her Maisey. I wondered if she’d give up her nickname when she went away to college. She might prefer Mother to Mom now, but I have not switched from Maisey to Maize, though I chose the name Maize with love before she was born. When they placed her in my waiting arms and she looked up at me with such interest, the warmth of a summer afternoon filled me, and I knew the name fit. But Maize became Maisey in no time.

  “My sweet girl Maisey,” I used to sing as we rocked and rocked, “is more darling than a daisy.” When I took down the teddy bear border from her pink little-girl room, I painted the room yellow (Maize Yellow—think silk tassels in an endless field of ripened corn, delight of my eyes, nourishment for the world) before I stenciled daisies around her wide white window frames.

  When Maisey was younger, Luke tended to use her proper name and liked to tousle her hair and declare, “Maize is amazing!” Sometimes he’d just look at her—over the breakfast table, for instance—and shorten it: “A-maz-ing.” Though she must have heard it hundreds of times, she never failed to smile when he said it. Who wouldn’t?

  After I finally got in bed last night, I lay here over an hour wishing, wishing I could sleep. But my mind would not settle down to rest; it insisted on thinking.

  About the irony for one thing—the wedding irony.

  I was quite old enough to plan my own wedding twenty-four years ago, but I couldn’t help being disappointed that Mother didn’t make time to help for the sheer pleasure of it. Maybe, as she said, she didn’t have the time; after all, I had given her only three months’ notice. But I’ve always thought her involvement would have made it easier to walk down the aisle without a father by my side.

  There was nothing atypical about my mother’s choice; I should have expected it. But her abdication of even this unique opportunity struck me as sad well before I had a daughter of my own and found Mother’s choice unfathomable. Long before Maisey held out her hand and showed us her engagement ring, I began anticipating the days we would spend together preparing for her wedding.

  But she has not wanted any help, or at least she has not wanted my help. She has taken care of everything. When people ask me for details about the wedding, I smile and say, “It’s a surprise.”

  Irony upon irony.

  Dwelling on irony is as unproductive as wishing for sleep.

  Clearly, I was fretting—big time.

  Recalling the alternatives from Psalm 37, I did the one thing that can always calm my restless soul. I turned my worries and sorrows into prayers. I had only two petitions as I lay there. I asked God to supernaturally intervene so that Maisey’s wedding will be as wonderful as we imagined it would be when she was a child. And I asked him to please help me sleep.

  And he did. Five hours is better than none.

  Do I hear six?

  I throw my arm over Luke, yawn deeply, and close my eyes.

  Maisey

  I open my eyes and see the daisies.

  They have danced around my window frames since I was twelve years old.

  One week before I turned fourteen, I announced that all I wanted for my birthday was to have my yellow room painted lavender. Dad lowered his paper and said, “You’re kidding. Why would you want that? You love your room.”

  Loved, Dad, loved. I had loved it a lot.

  I just shrugged my shoulders. I had a reason, that’s for sure, but I would never have told him what it was, not in a million years.

  Mom stopped sweeping the kitchen and looked horrified.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” she finally said, “but we already have your present.”

  They said we could talk about lavender later, but I’m twenty-two and getting married in five days, and here I am in my yellow room staring at the happy little daisies. I’m sure they’re here to stay.

  I hear a tap on the door and am relieved to hear Marcus whispering, “Maisey!”

  I sit up and finger comb my hair, hoping to look at least decent.

  “Come in!” I call, so ready to see him.

  When he opens the door and stands there in his T-shirt and cargo shorts, his dark hair still damp from a shower, I am struck by his beauty—even two years and four months after I first laid eyes on him.

  He leaves the door ajar and walks across the room. Pulling up my bedspread, he places the extra pillow vertically against the headboard and leans against it. He stretches out his long legs and crosses them at the ankles, and I notice once again what nice feet he has.

  “Good morning,” he says, leaning over to kiss me.

  I turn so that his kiss lands on my cheek. Covering my mouth, I warn, “Morning breath.”

  Fearless, he moves my hand, gives me a quick kiss on my mouth, leans back, and smiles.

  “Up and at ’em,” he says. “Your folks will have breakfast ready soon.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You should be. You had a granola bar for dinner.”

  “I had two. Maybe I’m just too excited to eat. And I want to fit into my wedding dress. It�
�s soooo beautiful!”

  “So you’ve said. Let’s see it.”

  “Like that’s going to happen. Saturday’s coming. Besides, even if I wanted to show it to you, which I most certainly do not, I couldn’t. Gram’s bringing it with her on Friday.”

  “She’s coming that early, huh? I figured she’d swoop in around six on Saturday, drive straight to the church.”

  “Well, you were wrong, weren’t you?”

  “Maybe, but I’m not wrong about breakfast. You need to eat, so would you please get in the shower?”

  “I thought we were supposed to have some lazy days before the craziness begins.”

  “You’re awake. What’s the problem? Come on. I’ll wait for you on the patio. It’s a perfect day. In fact, we should have gone for a swim this morning before I cleaned up.”

  I’m not at all ready for him to go when he jumps up and takes off with one more “Come on!” I hear him very nearly running down the stairs, and I know I should get going.

  If he hadn’t come home with me, I might have slept all morning, but Marcus, like Dad, is a morning person. Actually, he has many of Dad’s traits. I noticed that right away.

  We met in a way I’d recommend to anyone who wants to know what someone is really like. Our campus houses joined forces to build a house in Mexico the spring break of my sophomore year, and we ended up riding in the same van, though I sat in the front, and he and his buddies sat in the back. We exchanged smiles and little else on the way down, except for somewhere in west Texas, when he asked me if I wanted a drink of his Dr Pepper. On the way back, it was a different story. We sat side by side in the middle of the van and talked about life as the youngest of five children and as an only child. Most of the time, though, he loaned me his shoulder, and we took long naps resting our heads on either side of a shared pillow.

  We were exhausted from mixing concrete, hauling lumber, nailing up chicken wire, troweling on stucco, and doing anything else that putting up a two-room house required. It wasn’t much of a home, we thought, standing back and looking at what we had accomplished when our workweek came to a close. But the family we built it for had been living in a cardboard hovel, and they seemed to think it was a palace. It was during this week that I saw how dependable and hardworking Marcus is. He is also pleasant and kind. Unlike a few on the team, he ate any meal the host family generously and sacrificially prepared for us, and he always cleaned up the work site and then himself, never complaining about the trickle of cold water that passed as a shower or the truly disgusting bathroom conditions. These qualities drew me to him more than his incredibly good looks.

  I was so hooked.

  He was too, though. He said he began falling for me when he saw me—sweat dripping, hair tied back in a bandanna— patiently showing the ragged children who had congregated around me how to mix concrete. He said he was “irrevocably” in love with me when, after a day of hard work, I brought out the Play-Doh I had packed and let the kids make colorful houses of their own, constructing a whole village before they were done. When they showed us their masterpiece, we clapped as if they had just unveiled Michelangelo’s David.

  Returning to the university after that exhausting and exhilarating nine days, we unfolded ourselves from our middle seat, limped off the van, and exchanged bandannas and phone numbers.

  We were a done deal.

  Kendy

  “Are you going to sleep all morning?” Luke asks, wearing nothing but his black boxer briefs.

  I glance at the clock that now reads 7:46. “That was my fervent prayer.”

  He walks to his closet, takes a pair of jeans off a shelf, and pulls them on. “I’ll start breakfast. That boy has an appetite, doesn’t he?”

  “He does,” I say, throwing back the covers. I get up and stretch. “Isn’t that nice?”

  Luke pulls a black T-shirt over his head. I love him to wear black anything, from T-shirt to tux to boxers.

  I head for the bathroom but stop to give him some advice.

  “Listen, if the kids aren’t downstairs, slow yourself down and read your paper before you start breakfast. Okay?”

  “Okay, but hurry.”

  Luke is obviously ecstatic a new day has dawned. He is the ultimate morning person; if there were a club for such people, he would be the logical choice for president.

  “Don’t bother with your hair,” he says. “Leave it natural.”

  “Oh, Luke.”

  “I mean it,” he calls from the living area on his way to the kitchen. “I like it that way.”

  Actually, he likes my hair any way I wear it. My hair—“the color of roasted coffee beans,” Luke noted on our first date— is one thing he consistently compliments me on, whether it’s curly, straightened, or pulled up. He also said early on, maybe on that same date, that he hadn’t expected someone with such dark hair to have sky-blue eyes. I told him I hadn’t expected someone with light brown hair, very nearly blond, to have such warm brown eyes. A little flirting going on, for sure—we were both quite pleased with what we saw. Aging, I’m happy to say, has not changed that.

  He is back with a glass of orange juice just as I am wrapping myself in a towel and stepping out of the shower, steam hovering. The juice isn’t a bribe; he brings it most mornings, but this consideration puts me in the mood for compromise.

  He leaves as quickly as he came, and I sit at my vanity, applying gel to my hair and scrunching it, encouraging curls, even though I’ll be pulling the mess into a loose sort of bun after I put on my makeup and get dressed. Opening the top drawer on my right, I set out the items that will transform my face into all it can be. At forty-nine and forty-seven, Luke and I look pretty good, and we feel even better.

  I am blessed. Extravagantly blessed.

  After the Lord God himself, Luke and Maisey top my list of blessings. Marcus has slipped into the slot for blessing number four. How grateful I am for him! Few things could be more wonderful than a daughter marrying such a good man, though I doubt my mother has ever had the ability to appreciate such a boon. But I was thrilled when Maisey brought Marcus Blair home, relieved she had chosen so well after one Blah and two Disasters. Marcus makes her smile.

  Please, God, let her be happy.

  She surely seemed happy when she showed us her ring at Christmas. She seemed happy when she called and told us she had found her wedding dress—or more precisely, told her father.

  Several things have hurt me in this life; not being with her when she found her dress five hours from home is on the list somewhere. Maisey had asked for a bride doll the Christmas she was five, mesmerized by her aunt’s wedding the fall before. Since then I’ve been dreaming of the day, or days, we would shop for her wedding dress. What can I say? A mother helping her daughter to find just the right creation for that momentous walk down the aisle strikes me as one of life’s happiest endeavors. The night she called to tell us about buying her “dream of a gown,” in part to prepare her father for the credit card bill, I sat beside Luke on the couch, a striking contrast to Maisey’s exuberance.

  My dejection seemed a tad inappropriate. “Being hurt because I wasn’t included is silly, isn’t it?” I asked afterward. “Not so silly,” he said.

  But she loves the dress; that’s the most important thing.

  Mother was with Maisey when she selected the dress. This was difficult to process, since Mother had allowed someone else to help me choose my wedding gown. One Saturday after going with Maisey for one of her fittings, Mother called on the way to her office in downtown St. Louis. “Maize looks like a princess in her dress,” she said. “No, let me amend that. She looks much more sophisticated than a princess. She looks like a queen, confident in her ability to lead and thrilled at the prospect.” Natural image for my CFO mother to conjure, though she actually laughed at her own excess.

  I couldn’t bring myself to ask Mother what the dress looked like. I did ask Maisey when she and Marcus came home for a few days at the end of their spring break.

&nbs
p; “It’s white,” she said.

  I managed to suppress a No kidding. (To be fair, I suppose she did have a range of options—there’s ivory, for instance.)

  Then Maisey, unable to squelch the excitement welling up from her heart, let details escape: The dress was strapless and straight—fitted but not too tight—the back of it falling into a short oval train. “Elegant,” she said in the end. “You’ll think it’s elegant, Mom.”

  I turned so she wouldn’t see the tears spring to my eyes. Not because I was so pleased to finally hear about the dress, but because she had called me Mom.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Maisey

  “Stay awhile, Dad,” I say as he stands up and collects his juice glass and the papers scattered on the patio table.

  “I’ve stalled long enough,” he says, tucking his reading glasses into the pocket of his T-shirt. “Time to start breakfast.”

  He waves at Marcus, who is making a turn at the shallow end of the pool, ready for another lap. Shower or no shower, Marcus decided this gorgeous morning called for a swim.

  “It’s not so hot yet,” Dad says. “I think we’ll have breakfast out here.”

  He kisses the top of my head on his way inside. I want to jump up and hug him and say, Really, Dad, stay with me awhile.

  I’ve been missing him. He’s been my go-to guy for almost a decade now.

  “Come on in,” Marcus calls, treading water under the diving board.

  He makes it look tempting, but my resolve is strong. “No way; I’ve had my shower. You practically insisted, if I recall.”

  “I’ve had mine too.”

  “But I’ve done my hair. Save your breath. It’s not happenin’.”

  “The water’s great. How can you resist?”

  I get up, walk to the edge of the pool, and dip my toes into the water, strawberry pink polish glimmering in the morning light. “I’ll sit here, but don’t get my hair wet. I mean it. Remember, the girls are giving me a shower this afternoon. A personal shower.”