M. Jean Pike's Blog, page 11

This Tom

I’ve been going through some more old stories. It’s shocking to think I wrote This Tom twenty five years ago. It appeared in the Autumn, 2000 edition of About Such Things Literary Magazine. I hope you enjoy it

This Tom

It comes unexpectedly, this hurting, this anger. Usually when Tom’s tried really hard at something and failed. Like this car-bed he made for our son, Rusty, for his second birthday.

When I mentioned that I’d seen it in a magazine- the cute little trunk that opened and closed, the headlights that actually blinked – I never dreamed Tom would try to build it.

He worked on it for weeks, after having plotted it on a graph in his head. His big hands felt their way, cutting and planning, guided by a working man’s instinct. Tonight he dragged the whole lopsided, cherry-red mess up from the basement and put it together in Rusty’s bedroom.

Rusty flipped the switch. He squealed when the headlights flickered. He opened the trunk and threw in his collection of stuffed animals. Then he scrambled across the checkered sheets, his man-in-the-moon head bobbing over the little steering wheel.

“Barooom!” he shouted. “Babababarooooom!”

I looked at Tom, who was grinning at the wall. At Rusty, grinning at Tom. Then I took a good, hard look at myself, the only one in the room who could see what a hot mess the car-bed was. And I felt lonely. And angry. And betrayed. Stupid, I know. Tom didn’t ask to go blind. When he promised me happily-ever-after, he had every reason to think he could deliver.

I was 18 when we met, living with my mother in a bile-green duplex on the broken side of town. Tom was living in the other half. On Sundays, he’d come around and fix things for us. He was 30- closer to my mother’s age than mine. Having struck out at marriage three times, she seemed to sense Tom’s attraction to me and figured it was my turn at bat. I’d never even been in the ballpark before, but I’d spent enough time watching through the fence that I had a pretty good idea how the game worked.

Tom was a mighty good player. I remember sitting on the porch, talking to him, while he replaced shattered windows, patched broken steps. I’d watch his big hands work and wonder how much damage they could do, sadly recalling one of my mother’s former husbands. I’d look into Tom’s hazel eyes and try to see broken dishes, battered bones.

He won me over an inning at a time. There were flowers. Movies. Dinners out. Places with flickering candles and white linen tablecloths. And there was gentleness. Tom’s callused hands holding mine. Never touching me until the night I became his wife. For better or for worse. I was 20 and Tom was 32. Who knew “worse” would come so soon?

When he’d tucked Rusty into the car-bed, Tom followed the sound of my self-pity into the bathroom, where I was changing to go out.

“Think he likes it?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?” I said, pulling a clean T shirt over my head. “He loves it.”

“Is it all right, though?” he asked for the bazillionth time. “Does it look like the one you saw in the magazine?”

After four years I’d gotten good at lying. I worked hard at it because I couldn’t bear to hurt Tom’s feelings. Not this Tom. One discouraging word and he deflated like a tire with a slow leak.

“It’s great, Tom,” I said, squeezing his hand. “Really.”

His lips searched the air for mine. My hesitation was slight. Not more than a two-second, head- jerk reaction. Like I said, I’d gotten good. But Tom was better.

“What’s wrong, Les?”

“Nothing, hon,” I said. “I’m just tired.”

“Why don’t you call Denise and make it for another night, if you’re tired?” he asked, wrapping his arms around my waist.

“No, I don’t mind going.”

I said it casually, not wanting him to hear the truth in my voice, that I couldn’t remember when I’d ever wanted to go anywhere more.

Fifteen minutes later I kissed my son goodnight and pulled on my raincoat. Tom followed me to the front door. He inclined his face to the sky, listening. “It’s really coming down.”

“I shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours.”

“Be careful, Les,” he said, hugging me.

The windshield wipers slapped out a rhythm as I drove toward Ashland, two towns away. The wind whistled through the plastic that was taped to my broken window, flooding the car with the heady scents of rain and summer flowers. And memories. I blinked back tears, thinking of another storm. One that came unexpectedly. On Thanksgiving day. A year into our marriage.

Karen Carpenter was singing a Christmas song on the oldies station. The meal was finished, our guests, gone home. Tom was washing dishes while I changed into jeans and a comfy sweater.

He called into the bathroom. “Hey, why don’t you get your cute bottom out here and help me?”

“Hang on, I’m almost ready.”

“For what?”

“The Black Friday sales start tonight. We’re going to Walmart.”

“Walmart? No, babe.”

“Come on, Tom. The boots I’ve been wanting are going for a steal. And so are the big-screen TVs.”

He came up behind me, nuzzled my neck. “You don’t want to go out tonight, Les. It’s snowing.”

“Yes… I do.”

He planted a kiss at the base of my neck, the spot that always made my knees weak. “Nah…”

“What if I said I’d model the boots for you when we get home? Just the boots and maybe my raincoat?”

“Ahhh, I’d say bring me my coat.”

They found Tom fifty feet from the car, swathed in shards of glass, moaning my name. I was in the front seat, barely conscious. Clutching a blood-soaked Walmart bag containing a pair of boots I later threw away.

The rain slowed me down. By the time I found the address in Ashland, the parking lot was full. I parked along the side of the road and hurried toward the chapel, praying I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. Tom thought I was at Jim’s Diner, lending support to my sister, Denise, who was going through a divorce. Another lie. The truth would have hurt him worse.

After the accident, we’d gone from surgeon to surgeon. Tom had endured marathon surgeries, a battalion of drugs. When the last transplant failed they stopped talking about procedures and gave us pamphlets on support groups. They were out of solutions, they said. Tom would have to find a way to live with his blindness.

He learned slowly, put safety pins in all of his clothes – one for red shirts, two for blue. He rearranged the furniture and the kitchen cupboards, plotting the layout on a graph in his head. By summer he’d begun making window boxes. Filling the beds at the end of the driveway with a haphazard carnival of color and scent. Honeysuckle and daisies, platoons of roses soldiered along the fence. He came back to life the way they did. One blossom at a time. He came to believe he could still make things, like beef stew, love, babies.

The night Rusty was born Tom sat beside my bed in the birthing room, brushing tears of joy from his sightless eyes. His voice was hoarse, cracking. “What’s he look like, Les?”

It brought the hurting, because he’d never know. The anger, because he was willing to accept that. I couldn’t.

I’d read about the faith healer in the paper that morning, how he’d cured a woman in Binghamton of cancer, a man in Elmira of AIDS. I started remembering old Sunday School stories about how Jesus had healed the leprous and the lame. And the blind. For the first time in four years I had a ray of hope to cling to.

Inside, the chapel smelled of Bayberry candles, a scent that I will forever associate with hope. An organ played softly. Every seat was filled. I wedged myself into a pew in the back, just as the music stopped. A hush fell over the chapel as the faith healer stepped up to the altar. He was short, balding. Disappointing in his ordinariness. Then, in a voice louder than thunder, he began to give a message of hope. I listened, heart pounding, knowing he was Tom’s last chance.

When he’d finished his message, he lifted his hands toward the ceiling.

“Father,” he prayed. “I ask tonight that You, who bestow Your gifts as You see fit, might place Your healing power into the hands of Your humble servant. I ask, not for my sake, but for the sake of these, Your children, that they might believe.”

The organ started to play again. “Just As I Am.” I stood, despite shaking knees, and made my way to the front of the church. The faith healer looked at me. Right inside me. His eyes moved tenderly over my scars.

“You have a very great need,” he said.

Not a question.

I swallowed the lump that thickened in my throat. “I’d like to stand in for my husband,” I croaked. “He’s blind.”

The faith healer laid his warm, strong hands across my eyes. Electricity that had little to do with the storm outside crackled in the air around me.

“Father,” he said. “Heal this woman.”

I stood at the altar, bewildered, as the healer moved to the woman beside me. As he began to pray with her, I realized it was over., My last ray of hope had been extinguished. My husband was not to be healed that night. In that moment, my world went as dark as Tom’s.

I was still crying when I got home. I sat in the driveway for what seemed hours, staring into the darkened windows of my home, until, like the skies above me, I’d spent the last of my rage.

Father, heal this woman.

I climbed the stairs and padded down the hallway, drawn by the glow of Rusty’s nightlight. A sure sign he’d had a bad dream. He and Tom were curled up together in the car-bed, fast asleep. Rusty was cradled against Tom’s chest, utterly protected. As I listened to the soft rhythms of their breathing, a peace like none I’d ever experienced began to swirl inside me. And I began to understand the faith healer’s prayer. God had healed Tom a long time ago. It was I who was broken.

Tears rained from my eyes and down my face. Tears of healing. For- in that moment – there was no hurting. There was no anger. There was only love.

For this little, gentle man my husband was creating. Not the tumble-in-the-grass boy we’d dreamed about on those days on my mother’s porch, but a quiet boy. A boy who was learning to identify birds by their song, flowers by their scent, music by the colors it made him feel.

He’s building a very good man, my Tom. A kind man. Brave and gentle and strong.

The Merry Month of… Rain?

Is it me, or does it seem to you that each month this year has flown by quicker than the last? Seems I just turned the calendar to May and here I am, flipping it to June. May was quite a month, weatherwise. Lot of rain, lots of wind. If I read the stats correctly, Southern Ohio got 7.75” of rain this month. Thank heavens there were some sunny days sprinkled in, too.

Miss Emma and I did not fare much better in logging “park miles” in May than we did in April. We managed just 12 laps, a little over two miles. She got a new set of boots and if you saw my post from a little while ago, you saw that she was having trouble getting used to them. I’d planned to take her to the park to practice but so far the weather and my work schedule have had other ideas.

Rainy days are good days for reading. I managed four books for the month.

I started with Britt Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman. I was thrilled to find this in hard cover at the library sale, since I loved A man Called Ove. It was a quirky story about an older lady finding her place in life – in a most unlikely place. The characters were fun, and the plot was entertaining. I gave it four stars. I’ll just say I wasn’t thrilled with the ending and leave it at that.

Beautiful Liars by Isabel Ashdown. This was well written with good characters and a plot that kept me guessing. Two friends try and solve the long- cold case of the murder of their high school friend years after the fact. The ending took me by surprise, that’s for sure. It didn’t “wow” me enough for five stars, but I gave it a solid four.

Whispers in Autumn by yours truly. This book came out in 2010 and to be honest, I had not thought about it in years. When I saw my sales ranks moving around, I was actually quite surprised, because tbh, no one else had thought of it in years either, lol. I decided to pull it off the bookcase and see how I felt about it all this time later. It was my first (only) attempt at Romantic Suspense. I saw a lot I would have done differently, were I writing it today. The reviews were mixed, from 1-5 stars. I gave it a four.

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena. I so wanted to give this book five stars. It was a deliciously twisty police thriller about a kidnapped infant. It kept me up reading well past my bedtime. If only the author had ended the story one chapter sooner Once again, loved the book – hated the ending. Four stars.

On the social side of things, I did a lot in May (for me). Early in the month my ladies’ group met for Bible Study. Always a wonderful time of food (both physical and spiritual) and fellowship. The lesson has stayed with me this month, making me more mindful of my blessings. I attended a lovely Mother’s Day banquet catered by a local restaurant. I celebrated two of my friends’ birthdays complete with cake and presents and a Memorial Day picnic with Zweigel’s– Yummm. (IYKYK!)  Pretty full calendar for an introvert!

On the writing front, I’m still plugging along on Blackberry Summer, as I eagerly await my ARCs for Superheroes (Coming Aug 22!) and my cover art for Chester’s Miracle (Coming Nov 1!)

Around the yard, my prairie flowers have spread quite a bit from last year and are blooming their little yellow hearts out!

The zinnia seeds I planted out back are taking off. I don’t see any evidence of the ones I planted in the front bed yet, so I put in a few marigolds to give the space some color.

And I got a beautiful hanging basket for my porch!

So… hello June. This month I turn 62. I don’t have any particular thoughts about that. I got my age angst out of the way at 40 I’m just happy to have made another trip around the sun. But talk about time flying. Wasn’t I just 32?

Angels and Friends

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Hebrews 13:2

Nothing says Welcome Home like a beautiful hanging basket I was late getting mine this year but when I spotted this beauty I was so glad I waited. It’s another rainy day in Ohio. I’ve got the coffee on and the day off. Angels and friends, you are welcome here!

On Bruce and Chris and life before the World Wide Web

I did most of my growing up in the 1970’s, before cell phones, before social media, before computers were a way of life. In my school there was a total of one computer. A ginormous old thing that took up half of the office. To my knowledge no one but the school secretary ever used it.  Our lives were pretty simple. We wrote letters and then camped out by the mailbox for days waiting for a reply. We took photos and waited two weeks for them to be developed. We played Barbie Dolls and 45 speed records. We watched Charlie’s Angels and Welcome Back Kotter. We rarely ate in restaurants. Instead, we sat down to a big family dinner at our own table every night. And we made up games.

Many of our games were played while washing the dinner dishes. It made the hated chore a little more bearable.  We had a set of BBQ tongs that lived in a kitchen cupboard. One tong was an oversized fork and the other was a spoon. For some reason my sister and I called them Bruce and Chris.

One of our favorite games was The Bottom Object. This is how it worked: We filled the rinse side of the sink with hot water – as hot as we could stand it. I’m talking hot enough to melt the skin off your hands. A fork or spoon (one of Bruce and Chris’s children) was dropped in first. The washer had to wash the dishes as quickly as possible while the dryer used Bruce and Chris to retrieve them from the hot water. If you dropped one, you had to let the washer put two more in the sink before you could continue. If Bruce and Chris were able to retrieve their child, (The Bottom Object) before the washer finished her stack, and you avoided getting scalded, you won the game. And got the dishes done in record time

 When my mother passed away my father moved to a much smaller house and a lot of their possessions went into an estate sale. I helped him sort and decide what to let go of and what to keep. During the course of that week, I boxed up Tupperware, spare sets of dishes, and tablecloth and napkin sets without a second thought. When I came upon Bruce and Chris, I held them in my hands for a long time. No one had used them in years. It was likely no one would ever use them again. But memories of those long ago after-dinner dish games invaded, and I could not let them go.  I’d lost so much already.

Years later, when dad passed away, my siblings and I had more sorting and deciding to do. I kept the ice cream scoop. My mother’s mixing bowls. Her recipe book. The stainless steel cookware she’d received as a wedding gift. And Bruce and Chris finally went into the donation box.

I sometimes wonder how they’re doing.

I kind of wish I’d kept them.

Happy Memorial Day!

I’ve always loved this photo of my dad as a young boy quite literally looking up to his older brother, who at the time was home on leave from the Navy. Years later, my father would become a Navy man himself.

To those who have served, past and present, thank you.

Happy Memorial Day!

Research… Sort of

I had the day off today and the plan was to get the laundry caught up, read a couple of chapters of an ARC I am reviewing, and then get back to work on Blackberry Summer. I had planned to write through the chapter I am working on. I figured 2500 words should do it. I managed 560

I left off at the halfway mark in the story a couple of weeks ago. It was a pivotal chapter and I really threw the reader a curve ball if I do say so myself. The reader is going to wonder how on earth I am going to resolve this story problem and still deliver the required “Happily Ever After.” Truth is I am wondering the same thing myself. I’ve written myself into a corner and it’s going to take a lot of creative juice to get myself out. (I LOVE it when that happens!) But I just couldn’t find the energy today for the research I am going to have to do. So I did a different kind of research.

I’ve been seeing where authors are including recipes in the backs of their books. Since my story mentions a blackberry cobbler I thought it might be fun to include my mom’s recipe. I have not had it in years, but I remembered it being amazing So I pulled out the recipe and gave it a trial run with some blackberries I had in the freezer from last summer.

It was the most delicious research I have ever done

Miss Emma’s New Boots

Chester got a set of boots recently that were wayyy too big for his feet. Since I have been considering getting Emma a set to maybe help protect her paws (she is allergic to grass) Chester’s “mom” gave them to us to try out. I think they are going to take a little getting used to, lol.

Another one from the box

I know I should be working on Blackberry Summer, but I’m having so much fun going through these old stories. I had forgotten I wrote some of them. This one appeared in The Iconoclast in 2001. At the time I was trying my hand at flash fiction. The Box came in at around 1100 words, a snapshot of a marriage at its crisis point. All these years later I see room for improvement, but at the time saying anything with less than 3,000 words was huge for me

The Box

On the morning of his fortieth birthday, Scott O’Bryan found the box. Old and scuffed, it would have been invisible had his wife not hidden it inside another box. Metal, with a flimsy dollar-store padlock. He pulled it out of the closet and opened it. Thirteen years of Larry’s postcards lay nestled in yellowed newspaper. He fanned the postcards out, like a deck of playing cards in his hands, and wondered what Deana had meant by saving them.

He went down to breakfast, thinking of the latest postcard, one that had arrived last week, from Barbados. The one he threw in the trash. He remembered how he’d pictured himself and Deana, rather than the pretty, plastic people on the postcard, laying on a blanket beside a turquoise beach. Wishing they were there. (Larry had actually written that.) He found a mean little sense of satisfaction in the fact that he hadn’t shown it to her. That her collection was one postcard short.

He took his place at the breakfast table, took note of the sullen way in which Deana sat, eyes closed against the morning sun. He buttered a slice of toast, ignoring the sourness in his stomach and the tent that was being erected in his back yard.

“What’s wrong, Dee?” he asked.

“The tent’s wrong.”

“The tent’s fine.”

“It’s huge. It looks like a huge red toadstool.” Then, as if it had been all his idea, “This party is turning into a migraine.”

“You’re right. Let’s not have it.”

She glared at him. “I’ve invited sixty people.”

“So un-invite them.” He drained his coffee cup. “Tell them I died or something.”

“Oh, brilliant, professor. We’ll tell them you died.” As she dumped the rest of the coffee pot into his cup, a dark pool sloshed over onto the table. “You never appreciate anything I try to do for you.”

“I’d rather not have sixty people around to watch as I go over the hill,” he said stiffly. “I think I told you that.”

“How do you think I feel?”

“About what?”

“Nothing. Here.” She shoved a list across the table.  “Run to the store for me, will you? I’ve got a million things to do.”

“That sounded like a shot at my age.”

“Don’t be so sensitive.”

Sensitive. He shoved the list into his pocket, remembering when sensitive was a good thing. The night they’d sat in his car on Louck’s Hill Road. The night Larry didn’t marry her.

You’re so sensitive, Scott. How can you be so sensitive when your brother is such a jerk?

He’d watched as her tears tumbled into warm champagne. She’d been shattered. A beautiful, broken doll he couldn’t stop mending. Sorrow and salt. Satin and pearls. He’d wanted it all. She’d made him crazy. Crazy enough not to care that he was her second choice.

When he returned from the store, the bathroom door was closed. He hovered outside, testing the air.

“I’m back,” he announced.

“Did you get everything?”

“Yes. Can I come in?”

She was putting on lotion. Honeysuckle. He slid his arms around her, his hands lingering on her breasts.  She pushed him away. “I told you, I’ve got a million things to do.”

“I’ll be quick.”

 Her short bark of laughter stopped him cold. He hated when she made him feel inadequate. It wasn’t just sex. It was the money he didn’t make. The extravagant vacations he couldn’t afford. This house she’d had to have and then hated within a year.

It was the same year she’d started hating the house that Larry’s postcards had started coming. From Spain. Hawaii. Niagara Falls, New York. She pretended not to care about them, but for days after receiving one, Scott would find himself on the wrong side of a locked door. Until she’d gotten over them. Until she’d forgiven him for not being Larry.

At six o’clock she found him on the porch, drinking vodka and staring at the tent.

“You’re not drinking already, are you?”

“No.”

“You should go,” she said. “They’ll be here any minute.”

He drove through town, seeing only boxes. The box on Elm he’d grown up in. The box at Maple and Third where he worked. The one on Princeton where he’d married Deana, at twenty- four. Now he was forty. Forty. Still wanting the things he’d wanted then. The things he had. Yesterday he’d thought that made him a success.

“Surprise!”

He pasted on a smile and stared into the faces of his friends. He wondered if he’d ever known them. An hour in, half drunk and feeling mean, he wandered away from the party. Sick. Tired. Sick and tired of being careful not to talk too much about his work or his hobby, collecting vintage comic books, or anything else that might embarrass Deana. He gazed at the neat rows of houses beyond the fence. More boxes. He wondered how he’d come to be here, and what had made him think he wanted this. Deana found him and coaxed him back to the buffet.

“So, Scotty,” someone boomed. “what do you hear from Larry these days?”

Deana stiffened beside him. He thought of the shoe box she’d hidden in the closet. For the first time in sixteen years, he wanted to hurt her.

“He’s in Barbados. On his honeymoon, believe it or not. He finally got married.” His eyes slid to his wife’s stricken face as the news rippled through the tent.

“I didn’t know Larry sent a postcard,” she whispered.

“I didn’t show it to you. I didn’t think you’d care.”

“I don’t.” She dumped her half-filled plate into a nearby trash can and hurried to the house.

At midnight he stood alone by the bonfire, watching Deana’s shadow move across the bedroom wall. All of the vodka in Russia could not have dulled his fear. Watching Deana’s shadow. Knowing it could go either way. Knowing it would be decided tonight. When she came outside, moments later, she was carrying the box. He watched her cross the yard, his heart hammering in his chest.

“What’s in the shoe box, Dee?” he asked softly.

“Shoes.” She carried it to the fire, hugged it briefly, and threw it on. “Old shoes. What did you think?”

“Why did you save them all these years?” His voice cracked. “What did you need them for?”

“You’re being silly, Scott.” She reached for his hand. “Come inside.”

He pulled his hand free, wiped at his eyes, the trickle of mucus that had settled in the divet beneath his nose. “Larry didn’t get married.”

“I know.”

“Do you love me anyway?”

“Scotty, you’re drunk. Come to bed.”

She reached for his hand again. The bonfire popped and hissed behind him as she gently led him back inside.

My Monday Thankfulness Report

I haven’t thought about my blessings in a couple of days, so today seemed a good day to do that. I woke up this morning completely unaware of my body. By that I mean no backaches, no headaches, none of the various aches and pains that come with being 60. Thankful!

It was a lovely, cool morning so Miss Emma and I headed to the park. There were big doings there this weekend including music, bouncy houses, food and lots of people. I know this because my workplace is directly beside the park and we caught a lot of overflow on Saturday But today we had the park to ourselves and enjoyed a lovely, peaceful walk. Back home, I was able to cut Miss Emma’s toenails on both front feet! Cutting her nails is usually a four-day process. I do one foot each day until they are done. Some days, I can only do one nail. I will say Miss Emma does NOT like to be fussed with and leave it at that. Thankful!

A writer friend sent me a manuscript to Beta read and I am so enjoying it. I’m thankful for my fellow authors and the encouragement we give and receive from each other.

I enjoyed a thought provoking sermon in church yesterday. We sang this old hymn and it has been running through my mind for the last couple of days.

Ever have one of those nights? Last night was one for me. I couldn’t sleep. My mind would not shut down, would not stop reminding me of every mistake and shortcoming it could think of. I remembered the hymn we sang that morning and it’s glorious truth. I don’t have to rehash all of that old garbage. I don’t have to carry the weight of my sins. Jesus paid the price for them. Jesus paid it all. And for that, I can never be thankful enough!

Around the yard, new subscribers, and… a tornado??

Yesterday I finally had time to plant the petunias I bought at the greenhouse. By the end of summer they will be a profusion of pink and purple blooms spilling over the sides of my planter boxes. I find them to be kind of a high maintenance flower with all the constant dead-heading, but I forgive them because they are so lovely!

I planted some zinnia seeds in the front flower bed for some cheerful color. I’m hoping they will take. I decided to add a few snapdragons too. So dainty and sweet.

Out back, Mama and Daddy Blue Bird are feeding babies almost constantly. I love to hear the babies peeping. If my calculations are correct, they should be about a week away from fledging.

I love to decorate my flower beds with fun things. These little blue rain boots were a Goodwill find

I’m glad I got a few things done around the yard yesterday. It looks like Southern Ohio might be in for some severe weather this evening. The latest report shows a strong possibility of tornadoes for both Columbus and Cincinnati. That is a little too close for comfort. As of now, it’s just rain and some rumbles of thunder. Poor Miss Emma is doing her best to cope. She hates thunder

I wanted to take a moment and say thank you to my new subscribers! My community is small and it’s always such a joy to welcome new friends. I look forward to visiting your blogs and getting to know you

Stay blessed!