The Trophy

© Simon Lawrence | Dreamstime Stock Photos

She sat, shifting impatiently, in the waiting room of Dr. Brian McAdams.  He hardly looked old enough to know how to use a stethoscope, but she had heard he was the best and these days she needed all of the help she could get.  She picked at her already shredded cuticles while contemplating her reaction to the news she was about to receive.  It’s going to be the same as always, she thought.  He’s going to tell me that it didn’t work. He’s going to look at me through those awful wire rimmed glasses, the ones that made him look like a used librarian, and he’s going to tell me no.

Her eyes shifted to the posters filled with smiling happy families that lined each of the four walls in the rustic, cabin-like doctor’s suite.  They mocked her.  A fertility doctor should know better than to burden his patients with the pitying faces of those lucky enough to have what they want.  She resisted the urge to grab the Sharpie from the medical assistant’s desk and deface each and every one of them.  “Liar,” she would scrawl. “No hope.”  She would surely be asked to leave, but the part of her that hated every last one of her nosy small-town neighbors, almost didn’t care.  Almost.

She tried to flip through a six month old copy of “Home and Garden,” but her mind couldn’t latch on to anything she was reading. It didn’t matter, she thought. Rose gardens were for rich people and she and Rick were barely getting by these days.  With rent already one week past due, she’d be lucky if she had four walls to call a home in the next month.  But none of it mattered.  The only thing that meant anything anymore was having this baby.  A quick, frustrated turn of a fragile page and she’d ruined yet another doctor’s rag.  She tossed it aside, suddenly aware that she’d flipped through that exact issue at least four other times in the past few weeks.

She thought about how rare it was to have a specialist like Dr. McAdams in a place like Whistle Creek County.  The optimist in Gale was grateful to have him there, even if the procedures never seemed to do anything.  Rick always thought that it was a waste of their money, but Gale insisted.  Their dream family was worth the seemingly endless doctors appointments, the mountain of frustration and the thousands of dollars already invested. Maybe this time, she thought.  Maybe this time if I think really positively he will say something different.  Maybe this time will finally be different.

Her jumbled thoughts followed her all the way into the doctor’s “gentlemen’s lounge” office.  The walls of his inner sanctuary were covered with stuffed trophies of past hunting excursions.  Forget having enough mileage to operate a stethoscope, she thought, was he even old enough to own a gun? She physically shook the thought from her head as she tried to relax back into the deep, cool leather chair.  Relaxation was difficult these days.  Nothing seemed to slow her heart beat down to anything near tolerable.  A bead of sweat that had been forming on her palm suddenly broke free of her clammy skin and dropped to the floor.  The bearskin rug it landed on had always given her the creeps, but she tried not to think about it for fear of vomiting up the half of an apple she managed to choke down during lunch.

“Maybe we should just get started,” she said.

Dr. McAdams smiled at her warmly, but she could feel his pity.  She knew what his answer would be.

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait for Rick?”  He asked.  “It might be best to have him here for this.”

She couldn’t stop them.  Before he even had the chance to sigh in awkward frustration, they flooded down her face – a steady stream from an angry river.  She gasped as she doubled over in the chair, the pain in her chest making it difficult to breathe.  Dr. McAdams joined her on her side of the desk, crouched down beside her and patted her back, a forced sign of comfort.  A soft, inconsolable growl started from deep within her, rolled through her chest and finally roared out of her throat.  She didn’t even bother trying to stop it like she had in the past.  It wasn’t worth pretending anymore.

“There are other options you know.”

She mumbled something even she couldn’t understand through her sobs.  She wanted to tell him that nothing short of her own biological child would be acceptable.  Adoption was not an option.  She could feel his hands running across her back.  Over and over again his hands rose and fell in a half-hearted caress and it made her want to slap him.  Life is not an inspirational poster, she thought.  Everything will not always be okay.

“You need to calm down.  This stress that you are putting on yourself is not healthy for you.”

She looked at him, but the image was blurred.  That must be how he saw her, she thought.  Messy, lacking stability, falling apart.  She was a failure.  What is this woman who cannot bare a child?  He would never understand her. Even she didn’t understand her.  She knew that she was nothing.

Just one more trophy in the room.  One more life taken, wasted and mounted on the wall.

The Spare Bedroom

Photo courtesy of Sura Nualpradid

 

Convincing myself is the hardest part.

A family should be more than a white picket fence,

And a glossy green Christmas card

With four matching snowflake sweaters. 

A family is more than a picture perfect picket fence.

As intended rooms shift from nursery to guest bedroom,

Thoughts of snowflake sweaters melt in the musty night.

Sometimes dreams are meant to be revised –

Like altering a nursery to look like a spare bedroom.

I cried when we changed the color from blue to beige

But dreams, like blueprints, often need revision

When the structure isn’t strong enough to survive.

Raindrop tears faded from blue to beige and 

We mourned the pictures we would never hang to a

Weakened structure not strong enough to survive.

But strength and grace breathe life when least expected,

One day mourning phantom pictures never erected

And the next changing our world, seeking

Grace in a bland beige life we never saw coming.

Fighting back, we built something from nothing

Because exchanging, changing, rearranging our world

Was all we felt we were fighting for.

It was a lie, building something from nothing –

A fairy tale we told ourselves to sleep better at night,

Pixie dust and a happy little thought worth fighting for,

An ever-shifting, always drifting family portrait. 

I dreamed a dream of sleeping soundly at night

But everything amasses – or passes – in time. 

Just blink and risk missing our shifting family portrait,

Some things in life may change, while others simply

Stay the same as time all but passes us by.

Strong structures can’t be built in a day.

That’s just the way it is, life’s only constant is change –

Perfect picket fences don’t always outlast storms

And steady family structures aren’t built in a day.

Picture perfect changes, it rearranges – I know it’s true, 

But hanging that over the mantel is the hardest part.

Heart to Heart

© Laurin Rinder | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Don’t spend your lunch money on ice cream or candy; always be pleasant with company; stop smacking your gum, it makes you sound like a cow; always brush your hair before bed; don’t mix plaids and stripes; never talk to strangers; here’s how you wish on a shooting star – oh no not that one, that’s just a satellite; look both ways before crossing the street; don’t cross your legs when sitting in a chair, just bend your knees and cross your ankles; always wear a skirt to church on Sunday; always go to church on Sunday, if you can’t make Sunday, there’s a Saturday evening mass; don’t you dare talk back to me, young lady; never put celery down the garbage disposal; or forks, never put forks down the garbage disposal; wash your face every night, even if you feel like you’re too tired to move; always take out the trash before it starts to smell; don’t rile up the dog like that – if she pees on the carpet, you’re cleaning it up; stay away from pot and booze; but if you drink, don’t drive; have you thought about wearing a little makeup to hide the imperfections?; remember to just be yourself; always watch what you eat; don’t use Sun-In in your mahogany hair, it will only turn it orange; don’t give your heart away too quickly, but try not to keep it locked up too long; if the tag says “dry clean only” you should take it to the dry cleaner; wipe off some of that eyeliner – you wear too much makeup and it makes you look cheap; did you even brush your hair this morning?; don’t wear jeans that are too low, too tight, too faded or too shredded; No, I won’t pay for modeling classes, it’s a scam; you can make yourself miserable or make yourself strong, the effort is still the same; never mix aspirin and alcohol; the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach; here’s how you setup a savings account, here’s how you setup a checking account; here’s how you apply for a loan; always take time for yourself; stop slouching, you look frumpy; your shirt’s a little low, perhaps a sweater would make you look descent; if you get a tattoo, I’m not paying your $40,000 a year tuition; courage is the power to let go of the familiar; remember to bake the pie for twenty minutes at 350, then another 30 minutes at 325; don’t worry, your day will come; never live with more than one cat; you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression; never travel abroad alone; smile a little more, you always look so sad; you don’t need a boyfriend now anyway, you should concentrate on your school work; it’s not that I don’t like your hair, I just liked it better when it was blonde; did you forget to iron that blouse?; here’s how you get a red wine stain out of your khaki slacks; here’s how you get a red wine stain out of the carpet; here’s how to get a red wine stain out of the couch; I saw that boy the other day, the one you said used to make your heart flutter – why didn’t you marry him?; always carry five dollars in your purse, just in case; the will of God will not take you where the grace of God cannot protect you; stop being so damn pessimistic, you’ll never get a man that way; nothing can come into your experience unless you summon it through persistent thoughts; be careful when talking to strange men; always cook a meatloaf with ketchup, not salsa; never cry in the workplace, if you need to cry go outside; when are you planning on giving me grandchildren?; have you eaten today?  You’re a little cranky; you should have taken that job in Chicago; that dress really isn’t flattering on you; always take chances and never look back; your father and I have papers in the top dresser drawer, a written copy of our wills, account numbers, just in case; never be afraid to talk about your fears; don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

Inspired By Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” and conversations with my mother.  Thanks, Mom!

Hands

© Lucila De Avila Castilho | Dreamstime Stock Photos

His cuticles were torn, just like mine.  Rough and callused around the edges, his fingernails were yellowing with years of hard labor.  Dirt looked like it was permanently stuck in the wrinkles along the back ridges of his knuckles, pounded into the dry crevices.  There was a scar along his right palm, a gash he had earned digging ditches in Norris.  He couldn’t afford to get it properly looked at, at the time and he didn’t like attention being drawn his way, so it never quite healed properly.  Stretching from the flesh just below his thumb and into the gap between his pinky and ring fingers, the long white disfigurement was a constant reminder of the life he led that I knew nothing about.  A life that stretched beyond the horizon, a life that required him to wake well before dawn so he could be on his way, traveling northeast toward Norris where the dam was being built.

I watched that hand many times, studied it.  Saw the freckles that formed a clump just beyond his wrist.  Seven freckles in the same formation as the seven sisters, and just like the Pleiades, one shone of a slightly lighter color than the others.  Saw the veins that snaked along the top, allowing life to course through him.  Saw the black stain underneath his discolored nail, a sign that blood had pooled there and never had a chance to escape.  Saw the way his hand fit so lightly over mine, almost as if one was made to hold the other.  I saw how he cared for me; maybe at one time he even loved me.  But no matter how hard I tried, when I looked at them, I never saw loving hands.

No Place Like Home

© Kurt | Dreamstime Stock Photos

 

She waits patiently across from her father

Restlessly fingering a delicate blue album,

Precious memories of their family,

When he was her father and she still his daughter.

It used to bring their home comfort.

Now it stares out at them, damning and cold. 

 

The tile beneath their feet breathes cold,

And she is reminded of her father.

She wishes he would – or could – comfort

Her – rewind, repeat then put it in the album.

She longed for him to see her as his daughter,

The missing piece in his fractured family.  

 

But two shattered pieces don’t make a whole family.

Even when warm outside, their home sits cold.

She plays the dutiful daughter

And he the doting father

Smiling faces to fill the delicate blue album.

They know it is a simple comfort,

 

To a mother who fakes comfort

In a precious heirloom blanket while her family

Falls apart to the soundtrack of a Beatles album.

It skips through “Let it Be” leaving her cold

And wanting just one moment more, with a father

Who can’t whisper words of wisdom to his daughter.

 

And so she wonders if any daughter

Could possibly bring warmth and comfort

To this lonely man called father.

She wonders if every family

Sits together, in their kitchen – a Cold

War brewing over an old tattered album.

 

She wants to scream, “It’s just an album,

But I am your daughter!”

But in this house desperate cries fall on cold

Ears.  She knows she should stop seeking comfort

In the arms of her frigid family. 

Home, she learned, was further, not her father. 

 

Home was tucked away in an album that couldn’t comfort,

And this cold house was all she knew of family –  

A daughter sitting silently across the table from her father.