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It was hard for him to get out of bed for early morning Mass, but it had pleased his wife when he joined her from time to time, before she had gotten sick and died.  He made himself get up at least one weekday morning a week and go to Church.  It was the old man’s way of performing penance, and his way of remembering her.

He fished her rosary from his pocket.  He never prayed the rosary, but it made him feel close to her as he held it in the Church where she had prayed it so many times, and where she had lain in her coffin in front of the altar.  Most of the congregation was elderly women, some still wearing the shawls on their heads from the old days.  The priest came from the side of the Church and stepped onto the altar as the opening hymn was lazily sung.  He kissed the altar, and the comforting familiarity of the Mass began.  Though he tried to pay attention, his mind often wandered, but he felt at home and welcome nonetheless.  Father strode to the lectern for the Gospel reading, as the congregation sat back to hear.  When the old man had been a small boy, his dad had sometimes read stories to him and his sister from a small children’s Bible before they went to sleep.  After awhile his dad stopped reading those stories, and when he was a little older he remembered the Bible and spent one morning looking in vain for it.  Now, at Mass, he often closed his eyes and pretended that his dad was again reading him a story while he lay in his bed.  The voice drifted to him.

“Seeing his mother there with the disciple whom he loved, Jesus said to his mother, “Woman, there is your son.”

In turn he said to the disciple, “There is your mother.”  From that hour onward, the disciple took her into his care.”

On his way home the man stopped at the drug store and bought a newspaper.  As he came to his house, he remarked to himself that it was warm enough to get into the garden and weed.  The tulips, red and yellow, were up and in full bloom.  As he unlocked the door to his house, he saw that the young Hispanic woman who rented the house next door was just leaving.  She looked like she had been crying.

Marie awoke most mornings with a dread that was so persistent, she often thought that it sat at the edge of the bed, waiting for her to open her eyes.  The nausea this particular morning was more acute than before.  Marie slowly made her way to the kitchen to make a piece of toast.  No butter, nothing on it.  She found that eating at regular intervals through the day kept the morning sickness at bay more than eating three larger meals.  Sitting at the kitchen table, she stared out of the window as she swallowed the bland, toasted bread, hoping for the effect the same way one waits for aspirin to begin to act upon a headache.

She had determined to call Gene’s house again, but she did not know how she would succeed in talking to him.  He never answered the phone anymore, and his mother and sister simply told Marie that he was not home, and then would hang up the phone.  One time she even cried as she begged to speak to him, and Gene’s sister Kathy listened silently as Marie tried to make her understand that she needed to talk to him, but after a few moments Kathy murmured “Sorry … ,” and a dial tone followed.  Possibly she could walk to the house and demand to be let in, perhaps make a scene until they allowed her to talk to Gene.  He was a coward, Marie decided, hiding behind his mother after pretending to be a man in her bed.  She resolved to go and see him.

By the time she dressed, the morning sickness had subsided, and she combed her black hair as she thought of what she might say to Gene.  Stepping out onto her porch, she locked the front door, resolving to choose her words as they came to her.  She would let her heart speak, although she wondered if she should still trust her heart since she allowed it to be swayed by one like Gene.  It was a warm spring morning, and she walked along the sidewalk, watching a group of robins chattering in the elm trees that lined the street.  Some were hopping near the curb, looking for bits of string, or small sticks, to carry back into the trees.

The two of them had met at the home of one of Marie’s friends, and Gene had been one of a group of young men, boys with beards, that would hang around the house whenever the girls were together.  Gene was a pest, like all of the boys were, all of them uttering inane comments to the girls in their desperate attempts to gain any sort of favor.  Gene started to pay special attention to Marie, and after weeks of walking her home, actually just following her, she consented to allow Gene to pick her up one evening to see a drive-in movie.  Neither had ever been to one, but it sounded wonderfully old fashioned and, to Marie, she decided that the idea was romantic.  Gene had behaved for the most part, and Marie rewarded him with a few moments of kissing when he brought her home.  His mouth was too eager, and she could feel his teeth behind his lips as he pressed his skull against hers.  Much later Marie figured that Gene had chosen her out of her group of friends, because she was the first to have a place of her own, the little cottage she was renting near the supermarket where she had been promoted to front-end manager.  She supposed now that Gene probably decided that his chances of scoring were best with a girl who had instant privacy.  As she shuffled down the sidewalk, she wryly saw that Gene’s calculations had been largely correct.  She wanted to sit down and rest, but there was no bench, not even a low wall to lean on, so she ambled on.

After a few weeks she had convinced herself that she loved him.  It allowed her to open herself to Gene with an easier conscience, and while Gene clearly enjoyed the sex more than she did, she loved playing house with him, thinking that one day they would legitimize their relationship.  Sewing a rip in his jeans, trimming his hair, or making him a lunch of shrimp with rice, were ecstasy to her.  When Gene would set the kitchen table, pour two glasses of milk, and discuss his job as they ate across from each other, Marie felt a warmth that exceeded anything she felt after Gene would lift his sweating chest from hers.  Still, it was all part of taking care of him, and she was certain everything, even the sex, would improve after they were married.  She never dared speak of marriage to him, but she felt it wasn’t necessary.  Surely he would become attached to the comfort of their lives and desire to make it permanent.

She was almost at Gene’s mother’s house, and her contempt for him increased as she neared his neighborhood.  He had been so eager to push himself into her.  Yet she still became paralyzed with embarrassment when she recalled the incredulous look on Gene’s face when she told him she had every intention of keeping the baby.  Their ability to communicate ceased from that moment on.  Gene could not understand why there had to be consequences for, what seemed to him to be, a recreational act.  He made her feel naive and, in many subsequent discussions, would get angry with her, telling her that he would drive her to the clinic and fix things, or he would be done with her.  By the time that he stopped seeing her altogether she was not surprised, but she was genuinely shocked by the level of support Gene received from his mother, even now.  She was acting as Gene’s personal shield against his responsibilities, deflecting her as if she were some kind of scam artist after his money.

The sun was high in the morning sky, and the heat had a numbing, though pleasant effect, as it penetrated the layers of skin on her face.  She wished she could go back in time and not be pregnant, so that she could go carefree to the beach and bake in the sun as she used to, just a few years ago.  How little she valued that time, when she awoke to any number of freedoms, of choices which she could pursue or relinquish with little or, too often, no thought.

There were birds in every tree, automatically busying themselves, following every instinct without a care about what might happen tomorrow, next week, or next year.  They continued to carry natural and man-made debris aloft; dried grass, string, bits of paper or last year’s leaves invisibly adorned the internal boughs of the elms.  She needed to be like the birds and do what she knew she must, and leave the rest to whatever would happen.

Marie was willing to go it alone; in fact, she was resigned to that future.  She wasn’t sure what she wanted from Gene in the form of financial support, in fact, she doubted whether he was in a position to provide any.  She had heard from one of her girlfriends that Gene was no longer showing up at his job, and couldn’t figure out what that could mean.  Marie’s mother had taken the news of her pregnancy stoically, and offered to allow Marie to return to Colorado and live at home until the baby was ready for day care and Marie was able to find a new job.  This wasn’t her first choice, but it gave her a tremendous amount of relief to have that option, and she knew she would have to give it some serious thought.

As she neared Gene’s mother’s house, Marie asked herself what it was exactly that she expected from Gene, and how she realistically thought he would react to any request for assistance.  She did not know the answer to these questions.  A bus stop offered a small Plexiglas shelter with a curved, white plastic bench.  She sat down, ignoring for a moment the heat that had accumulated in the semi-enclosed space.  She tried to think, figuring that this might be her only chance to talk to him, and even at that she might only have a few moments, depending on how his mother reacted to Marie showing up.  She closed her eyes, and was instantly overwhelmed by loneliness of a kind she had never experienced before.  She sensed that it was a mature feeling, one that she would have to get used to.  Why should she have to do this alone, she thought in anger, eyes squeezed tightly closed.  And she realized that what she wanted from Gene, more than anything else, was for him to acknowledge that this situation was a serious one, something that he was a part of, something that wouldn’t be resolved by a visit to a women’s clinic.

“Getting on?”

Marie hadn’t noticed that the bus had pulled up to the stop.  She looked in shock at the driver, who had opened the doors and was waiting patiently for her.  It took a moment for her to come out of her reverie and slowly shake her head.  The driver smiled, somehow understanding that she was in no mood to be hassled.  “Maybe next time,” he shouted as the doors electronically closed and the bus simultaneously released itself from the curb, hissing and squelching.  Marie automatically stood up, feeling that she had interrupted something, and wishing to be uninterrupted from her thoughts.  She made her way quickly to the house now, wishing to get the confrontation over.

As it turned out, Marie never had to experience the awful moment of pounding the door and getting past the protective mother.  She saw Gene pushing a lawn mower out of the shed in the back yard, and she opened the side gate.  Gene heard the lift of the gate latch and looked up to see her.  Marie was glad that he merely stood and waited for her to approach; she half-expected the coward to run into the house.  Perhaps he had come to the realization that he owed her a listening, at the very least.

“Let’s take a walk,” she suggested, with more fierceness in her voice than she expected to deliver.

“I’ve got work to do,” Gene responded.  Immediately seeing her distress, he added, “I’m listening, go ahead.”

“No.  Your mother will be out in a few minutes when she doesn’t hear the mower start, and I need more than a couple minutes.  You have to.”  She started moving toward the gate, and the forcefulness of her plea drew him out after her.  With Gene in tow, she crossed to the alley and, once out of view of his house, she turned and waited for him to come up beside her.  They walked silently to the end of the alley, across the street, and down a grassy incline to a narrow creek guarded by a series of large, mature, weeping willows.  The creek was fairly high, still carrying the spring rains to the river that ran through the center of town.  In a few months, its annual duty complete, it would slowly dry until, in July and August, children could safely walk on the stones in the muddy bed, looking for arrowheads.

Gene surprised Marie by initiating the conversation.  “I guess you’re having the baby.”  He waited, and assumed by her silence that his conclusion was right.  Marie was silent, because she knew that if she spoke at this point he would become angry.

He continued.  “It’s not right that I should have to worry about raising a baby.  We never talked about you getting pregnant.  I can’t believe that you let it happen.  If you had asked me if I wanted to have kids, I would have said no.”

There was a pause, and Marie would have filled it if she could.  All of her anger, which had fueled her decision to see Gene, was being replaced by a mental paralysis on hearing his words.  He stopped to pick up a stone, which he pitched into the creek.  “I’m joining the Navy.  I report in ten days.”  The words came like shotgun blasts.

Marie bleated, “You’ve created options for yourself, where there are none for me.”

“You have an option.  You’re not taking it.”  He paused, gathering himself.  “I’ll pay for it.”  Another stone arced into the water.

Marie started to weep quietly.  “Will you pay for the birth?  Will you help at all?”

“No.  I’m offering you a chance to start over.  So we can both start over.  This is your best option.”

“Killing our baby is no option.”  She turned and climbed up the bank, leaving Gene staring into the water, as if waiting for something to emerge from it.  By the time she was half of the way home, Marie felt a degree of calmness come over her.  She had succeeded in confronting Gene, and while his responses were unsatisfactory, this was not a surprise to her.  She had verbalized her resolve, as he had verbalized his cowardice.  She knew now for certain that she was on her own, and there was a certain comfort in having at least established that fact with Gene.

Marie was exhausted by the time she came to her walkway.  She almost shuffled to the porch door, the sickness having swept over her again.  She wanted to get something into her stomach, lay down, and have a good cry.  Then she would start to make plans, and decide whether to stay in town or visit her mother.

From his garden, he watched her unlock her door and go back inside.  She had been gone for awhile, maybe two hours, and she looked more distraught than when she left.  He wondered what was wrong with her.  He did not know her beyond a smile and a hello from time to time.  He did not know her name.

On hands and knees he gently folded peat into the flowerbed, taking care not to disturb any bulbs that hadn’t broken through the soil yet.  After awhile he straightened up to examine the effect that Spring was having thus far on his yard.  The crabapple tree had progressed from pushing out deep red buds and was now in full white bloom.  Just a few weeks before, the tree was still in its winter dormancy, as were his tulip bulbs, and the large sugar maple in the front.  It occurred to him that the first order of business for all of his plants and trees in the Spring was to bloom and ensure procreation, even for the lowly dandelions, which he was working hard to prevent.  It was only after this flurry of propagation, only after the future was taken of, that his crabapple tree, and the rest of his yard, could settle back into a solemn, swaying green for the summer.  Very much like people, he thought, though he and his wife were never able to have children.

He looked over the fence and could see her sitting at the table in her kitchen, head in hands.  He wondered what was the matter with her, and if it was something really important or not.  Whatever it was, it was important to her now, he decided.  He hadn’t seen the man hanging around for a while, so maybe they were fighting.  He tried to return to his gardening, but he could not help but continue to watch her.  She seemed to be crying.  Eventually he starting weeding again, making room for the emerging bulbs and for the annuals he would plant in a few weeks.  His mind remained on the girl next door, sorry that she lived alone and seemed to have no one to talk to.  He did not have the courage to approach her and ask if he could help her, although his empathy flowed out of him in pulsations, in a silent rhythm with his hands as they worked through the soil.

The evening brought a lessening in humidity, along with the scraping, atonal symphony of crickets.  Marie sat on a lawn chair that was missing several of the plastic straps, watching a pair of mourning doves settle into an evergreen tree for the night.  She’d been there awhile, trying to keep her mind empty so that she could just feel the last of the heat.  As soon as the sun sank below the tree line, a soft breeze lifted the wisps of hair that weren’t trapped by the plastic clip in her hair.  Slowly, she lifted herself and moved around to the front of the house, remembering that she’d forgotten to check for mail.  There was an ad from the local bank, offering a low, low APR, and a bill from Sears for, among other things, the tape measure she had bought for Gene a few weeks before.  Money thrown away, she sighed.

As she approached the front door, she noticed a small bundle of newspaper, and as she neared it, she saw there was something wrapped in the newspaper.  She bent, picked it up, and the aroma of the flowers met her before she had them removed from the paper.  They were a large bouquet of tulips, peonies, and lavender blossoms.  Taking them into the house, Marie wondered where they came from.

This entry was posted on July 5, 2012 at 7:08 pm and is filed under Fiction with tags morning mass. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.