The Sky Beneath My Feet

Chapter 10


A Night Visitor





Every morning a clump of fresh flowers lies at Rick’s threshold, partly obscured under the falling leaves. I’m not sure where Deedee’s picking them. Maybe she drops in on the florist each afternoon during her break from painting. Since the birthday party, we don’t see her as much. According to Roy, she spends most of her time working on the mural.

“It’s extraordinary the way she goes at it,” he tells me. “The priest had the bishop over for a look, and he seemed almost jealous that she wasn’t doing her mural for the cathedral. You really should go by and see it.”

But I haven’t visited the parish church. Why should I? I get an eyeful every time I climb the stairs. Without even asking permission, Eli drove a nail dead center in the upstairs landing and hung Deedee’s portrait of his sainted father. Hauling clean laundry upstairs, I keep imagining myself tripping and falling backward. Landing at the foot of the stairs, my legs twisted at odd angles, the painted Rick staring down at me, thinking, Serves you right.

Days have passed and I still haven’t confronted Eli about the marijuana. I make a point of sniffing him when he comes home. So far, nothing. Maybe Gregory got it wrong? I don’t think so. More likely, Eli knows his uncle recognized the smell. He’s taking more precautions now. This could be all in my head, but I imagine him on his guard around me, waiting for the moment I bring the subject up, ready with counterarguments.

So I’m biding my time, hoping to catch him off guard.

While cooking or doing dishes, washing and folding clothes, I remember the flat expression on Sam’s face when she emerged from the shed. Resignation, I guess. What did Rick say to her? I imagine him giving some kind of Scared Straight speech, taking advantage of her disorientation. If life at Mission Up wasn’t enough to scare her straight, though, how could Rick manage the job? Try as I might, I can’t visualize that scene.

I’ve called Gregory several times to check on the girl’s progress back home. After the joyous, tearful reunion—most of the emotion coming from her mother—Greg managed to get her into a drug counseling program. But she’s depressed, he says, rarely leaving the house. She hasn’t returned to class and probably won’t anytime soon. I suppose Rick’s miracle only went so far. From the description, it sounds like Sam is anything but healed.

“Is that how you want to end up?” In my imagination, I confront Eli with the question. And in my imagination, he breaks down and renounces pot in perpetuity.

I keep the key to Stacy’s beach house on my nightstand. I’m still sleeping on my side of the bed. If I’m careful, I can turn the covers back and get a good night’s sleep without disturbing the tucked-in side where my husband used to sleep.





“You can’t drop out,” Holly says. “You can’t put your whole life on hold.”

The phone feels warm in my hand, we’ve been talking so long. Talking in circles, rehashing the same themes.

“How am I dropping out?”

“What about last night? You missed the makeup party.”

“That was last night?” Another one of the church ladies selling cosmetics on the side. The printed invitation is pinned to the fridge with magnets, half covered by another invitation to a party about cooking utensils.

“You’re supposed to be my wingman at these things.”

“Your wing-person,” I say. “And I thought you were my wing-person.”

“Ha, ha. It was funny the first ten times you said it. The point is, you’re bailing on things. People notice stuff like that.”

“I’m supposed to be on vacation.”

“Yeah, but everybody knows by now that you’re not. The boys are still showing up to school every day. People see you at the grocery store.”

“Can’t I take a break? Look at Rick. Nobody’s giving him a hard time.”

Which isn’t exactly true. I keep taking messages from Jim Shaw, who doesn’t understand why Rick never returns his calls. I leave Post-its on the bathroom mirror every morning, reminding Rick that Jim’s waiting. I even go to Starbucks every morning for an hour, sipping coffee I could have made for myself at home, giving my husband time to sneak into the house, use the bathroom, and (hopefully) take a shower. He never leaves any notes in reply, even though I placed the stack of Post-its on the back of the toilet with a pen on top.

“Just don’t forget about tonight,” Holly says.

“What’s tonight?”

“It’s the book club, Beth!”

“The book club, right. Which book is it again?”

“You’re killing me, you know that? Let’s meet for lunch.”

“I have plans for lunch.”

“Really? What plans?”

“Plans,” I say. “I have to go to Barnes and Noble, for one thing.”

“To get the book.” Her frustration escapes in a loud sigh. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Beth. I really don’t.”

Ninety minutes later, alone in the Barnes and Noble café between a neurotic-looking man doing what looks like grad school math homework and a table full of young mothers rolling strollers back and forth with one hand and holding caramel Frappucinos in the other, I sit staring at the back cover of tonight’s book.

The two groups I belong to couldn’t be more different. One of them, which Holly calls the Smart Girls, is mostly professional women, trying to keep up with all the books everybody is talking about . . . everyone who listens to public radio, at any rate. Despite the group’s unofficial name, hanging with these overachieving ladies, I feel anything but smart.

The second group, the one meeting tonight, Holly calls the Bodice Rippers. The nickname isn’t entirely fair. Yes, there are plenty of bodices in the books these ladies choose, along with corsets, bustles, and bonnets, but rarely does any of that dainty lace get ripped. Instead, the invariably strong-willed heroines keep their Brinks-level chastity belts locked tight. They find God and they get their man.

The Bodice Rippers read to escape, and the Smart Girls read to keep up. Holly reads to have a good-natured laugh at them both (though she enjoys the books on both sides immensely, whatever she may pretend to the contrary). And me? I guess I show up just to help. I’m always afraid that the night I don’t show up, nobody else will come either. I hate to leave the organizers in the lurch.

If there’s one thing I hate more than that, though, it’s having to keep the two groups separated. The ladies are all from The Community. Most are at least acquainted with each other. But they run in different circles and turn their noses up at what the other group is reading. The Smart Girls pump me for ridiculous details about what the Bodice Rippers are reading, while the Bodice Rippers try to get me to agree that the Smart Girls only read so people will keep thinking they’re smart.

At least with Pampered Chef, all you have to do is show up! There’s not a three-hundred-page cover charge to gain admission.

The moms at the next table leaf through magazines and drop the first names of a bunch of celebrities as if they’re people the women know. Whenever one of their phones pings with a new text message, the conversation lulls, but they talk straight through any noise that the various babies make. When the moms laugh too loudly, the math nerd on the other side of me gives them a stern look. Not that they notice.

“I can’t hear myself think,” he mutters, snapping his textbook shut.

But he doesn’t leave. He digs through the satchel between his feet and finds a set of earphones. Soon he’s cocooned in a buffer of preemptive sound, still looking perturbed.

On the front cover of my book, a nondescript beauty in black mourning holds a small bouquet of blood-red flowers. Over her shoulder, a rakish hero stands with his back to her, twisting his head around to give a view of his nondescriptly handsome face. They look like models in costumes, not historical people. I’m going to buy the book, but this cover irritates me.

Confession: I don’t actually want everybody to be beautiful, not in that unlined, creaseless, symmetrical way. Android beauty, like it comes out of a test tube. Beauty without blemish or mark. Not only do I not identify with such people, I don’t believe in them either. I don’t even find them attractive. This is what makes watching television so hard: they don’t cast actors anymore, only models. When they make the movie of my life, they’d better cast a character actor in the lead.

Don’t try to tell me I’m not a character.

I have a balance on one of my gift cards, which takes the sting out of buying the book. Instead of retreating to the house, I drive around for a while and end up at Panera, where I hold down a table for the rest of the afternoon, flipping pages as fast as I can.





In the end, I lose my nerve. The thought of making an appearance in front of the Bodice Rippers is too much for me. They’ll ask about Rick. If Stacy’s there, she’ll want to know why I’m still not in Florida. There will be too much explaining to do.

And then they’ll ask me what I thought about the novel.

At home, I hole up in my bedroom. Eli comes and goes, followed by Jed. At dusk, Holly starts calling. Probably to offer me a ride. After the third or fourth attempt, I switch off my phone.

“You’re being stupid,” I tell myself.

Snatching up the novel, I head downstairs, fully intending to go to the book club. What did I skim the novel for, if I’m not going to go? But I leave the book on the kitchen counter, pretending I’ll pick it up on the way out, knowing I’m not going anywhere. Night falls and I curl up in an armchair, letting the clock tick down.

A funny thing about me: when I skip out, I also hide out. I don’t cut one event to enjoy another. Instead I hunker down at home where no one can observe me playing hooky. “You might as well have gone,” Rick will say, not understanding. Once the start time has passed and there’s no chance of making it to the book club in time, I breathe a sigh of relief.

A knock at the door.

Jed and Eli don’t knock, of course. They come and go as they please. So it must be Holly, driving over in person to call my bluff. Well, I won’t give her the satisfaction.

Only it doesn’t sound like Holly’s knock. For one thing, Holly would pound on the door. “I know you’re in there. Your car is in the driveway. Come on out before I come in and get you!” This knock is tentative, and there’s no follow-up. A knock that’s done its duty and is ready to give up.

Overwhelmed with curiosity, I go to the front window and ease one of the blinds up for a peek. The porch light is turned off. Whoever’s at the door is standing too close for me to get a good look. But I can see the back of her profile—it’s a woman, but not Holly. This one is smaller, thinner, with a wild explosion of hair. Goose bumps raise on my forearm. I think it’s Sam.

I rush to the door. Before opening, I take a deep breath.

“Oh,” I say. “Hi.”

“If this is too weird, me turning up like this, just say something and I’ll take off.”

It’s not Sam. It’s Marlene. The dreadlocked girl from the Rent-a-Mob meeting. The one who used to be in Jed’s youth group, who made such an impression on him. He’ll be sorry he wasn’t here.

“Come in, come in,” I say, urging her inside. I reach for the wall switch, bathing the porch in warm, gold light.

This is perfect. If Holly complains about my nonattendance, I can tell her an unexpected visitor turned up.

“I’m sorry to just show up like this. I would’ve called, but I don’t know your number.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference. I turned off my phone.”

“What happened the other day, it didn’t feel right. It’s kind of been chewing at me ever since. I still know some people from the church, so I asked how to get in touch. One of my friends told me you lived next door to that wonderful house. I’ve always loved that place.”

“It is wonderful. The people who live there are wonderful too.”

She nods. “I know Deedee Smythe—I mean, I know of her. I know her work.”

Marlene’s dreads are loose and free, and she wears an ankle-length tank dress, an old-lady sweater, and sandals, with an oversized fringed bag slung across her chest. She declines coffee and soda but perks up at the mention of tea, eventually choosing Darjeeling from the box of packets I hold out for inspection. Milk and no sugar. While I boil water, she looks around the kitchen, peering down hallways and up the stairs, her hands clutching the strap of her bag.

“I know it’s strange to just turn up out of the blue—”

“Stop apologizing, Marlene. I’m happy to see you. If you look up those stairs, you can see an example of Deedee’s recent work. She’s painting a mural at the Catholic church just up the hill.” I wait until she’s had a few moments to inspect the picture. “You recognize who it is?”

“Oh,” she says. “How funny.”

“I’m not sure who he’s meant to be. Not Judas, anyway, or he wouldn’t get a halo, right?”

“Probably not. To be honest, I didn’t realize she was still painting. The way people talked about her when I was growing up, I assumed she was retired.”

“You grew up around here, then?”

She nods. “Over toward Loch Raven, on Chapelwood.”

“Wow,” I say. “Nice.”

“They sold the house after the divorce, but I still drive by sometimes. It’s strange to think of other people living there. But this place is really great. Did it used to be part of the big house?”

“Everything around here was. There’s another carriage house kind of thing, and some outbuildings. The family has sold off bits and pieces over time. Deedee and her mother are the last of the line, I guess, and after Margaret’s gone, Deedee threatens to move to California.”

“I could never do that,” she says. “No seasons.”

“I know, right. This is my favorite time of year.”

When the tea is brewed, Marlene clutches her mug in two hands, inhaling the steam. She’s such a cute girl, really. If she’d take some of the metal out of her face, get rid of those awful dreads . . .

She notices the book on the counter for the first time. Sets her mug down to pick it up. As she flips the pages absently, I wither inside. Embarrassed.

“It’s for a book club,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I decided to skip it. I just couldn’t get through the thing. You know how it is.”

Now my cheeks feel hot. It’s like the Jesus fish all over.

She sets the book down. “It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to read anything for enjoyment.”

“They keep you busy in school,” I say, wishing it had been a Smart Girls book on the counter. Why’d it have to be a Bodice Ripper?

“So, the reason I came . . . the thing is, your sudden exit really stirred things up. We had a good discussion after that, a lot of us. I guess you could say that I was deputized, though I did volunteer. Everybody wants to, like, apologize.”

“Apologize for what?”

“I think you know. We kind of turned on you all the sudden. I feel kind of ashamed.”

“Oh, don’t say that.”

“I do. And I apologize. You were going out on a limb even showing up, and we pretty much hacked the limb off. Chas was really bummed out. He would’ve come himself, but I thought it would be weird if a whole bunch of us showed up unannounced.”

“Well . . . apology accepted. Thank you.”

“There’s more.”

“I don’t think I can take any more.”

“We would like it if you would consider coming to D.C. with us. So we can make it up to you.”

“The big demo? I don’t know, Marlene—”

“Don’t say no. Just think about it. You have no idea how much fun it will be. All those people together in one place, letting our voices be heard. It’s liberating. Really. It’s better than a concert even. And it’s peace, Beth. It’s not abortion or gay marriage or anything that might get you in trouble.” She grins over her mug at me. “Everybody wants peace.”

You’d be surprised, I think. I’ll bet Peggy Ensign doesn’t. Of course, last time we met, Marlene thought everybody was prochoice too. It’s surprising how much we can know, and still not know the world as it really is.

Eli comes in through the back door, carrying his new messenger bag. He stops in his tracks, looking at Marlene. Then he smiles. “You’re not the same girl.”

“This is Marlene,” I say.

“Nice to meet you. I thought for a minute you were the junkie from the other day.”

“The what?”

“It’s an inside joke,” I say. “Eli, have you eaten?”

He’s already heading for the stairs. “Over at Damon’s.”

“My son,” I explain. “He just turned sixteen. You were in the youth group with my other son, Jed.”

“I remember. He’s really tall.”

“He’s grown a lot since then.”

As if on cue, Jed appears. He recognizes her at once, despite the facial jewelry and the hair. If anything, these changes make her more fascinating to him. He stands there, staring, answering my motherly questions in monosyllables. Marlene notices the attention and glances away bashfully. They are nothing like the couple on the book cover lying faceup between them, but I can’t help seeing the similarities.

Oh, Jed.

“I was just telling your mom about this demo in D.C., trying to get her to come. A whole bunch of us are going down for it. You should too.”

Jed clears his throat. “Okay. Sounds great.”

“Awesome,” she says, glancing away again.

My turn to interrupt. “You know, I haven’t said I’m going.”

“Mom,” he says, managing to pack so much into the word. I’m embarrassing him just by being here, and betraying him by not going along with the plan.

Unlike Eli, Jed won’t clear out. He lingers silently, which pretty much kills the conversation. Suddenly the age gap between Marlene and me seems a mile wide. She finishes her tea and apologizes again and practically begs me not to back out of the D.C. trip. Jed burns holes in me with his laser beam eyes as she makes the final appeal.

“I guess I’d better get going,” she says.

“Let me write my number down, in case you want to call.” I jot my mobile number down on a pad, then get her to write down hers. Then I walk her to the door, Jed following a few steps behind.

After she’s gone, I turn to confront him.

“Now, don’t get any ideas, my boy.”

“Ideas about what?”

He doesn’t stick around for an answer. Now that Marlene’s gone, there’s nothing to interest him downstairs. I return to the kitchen to clean up. I switch on my phone, now that I have an excuse to give Holly. When I reach for the pad to program Marlene’s number in, the page is missing, ripped out, the perforated leftovers sticking out of the coiled wire.

“Oh, Jed.”





After microwaving the last of my tea, I take the mug out back. Sitting in one of the outdoor chairs, I gaze up at the sky overhead, a soft throw somebody from church gave Rick for Christmas a few years ago around my shoulders. The moon and stars are hidden behind thick clouds, bringing heaven closer to earth, almost to the treetops, or so it seems from my seated position. As I watch, the cloud cover shifts. The wind pushes it gently from left to right. It’s easy, watching this movement, to imagine the earth spinning, to imagine myself perched on the uppermost curve of the world. Some ancient, experiencing it the same way, would have mistaken this for a spiritual experience. I wonder sometimes how much of our understanding is based on what amounts to optical illusions.

The shed is dark tonight. What is Rick doing in there? I try to imagine and find that I can’t. As near as the structure is, it seems more distant to me than the clouds above. Rick feels less present somehow. I no longer sense him out here the way I did at the beginning of his exile.

That’s progress of a sort.

I could feel him everywhere once, during the first weeks after we met. I was a senior in college, pre-law, excellent grades, already on track for my stellar career. My parents loved the idea of a lawyer daughter, and I loved the thought that I could help people. Already I’d interned at a firm that did lots of pro bono work. One of the partners had even told me I had an affinity for the law.

All of that ambition turned fuzzy when I met Rick. It slipped into the region of memory where the distant past is stored. I spent all my time with him, and when I wasn’t with him, I was thinking about him. He had a way of filling my life, always present. I could almost talk to him in my head.

I was lovesick, in other words, and he felt the same way about me.

My friends thought I was crazy. His thought the same about him. They told themselves it wouldn’t last, that if it went on much longer they would have to intervene. So we dropped them, which left more time for each other. Time we put to use the way young couples obsessed with one another do.

The reality check arrived in the form of a plus sign on the pregnancy test. That’s how I told him, by showing him the stick. He didn’t take it the way I expected.

“I think this is a sign,” he said. “It confirms what I’ve felt all along.”

The sign said we should be together. The sign also said we should elope.

I graduated with honors, with a wedding ring (which I wore on a chain around my neck, since we hadn’t told my parents yet) and with an eight-week-old Jed growing inside me, concealed under the flowing cap and gown.

For a long time after that, we were happy. I never felt like I’d given up my life in favor of Rick’s. I never felt like the ministry thing was his career; I felt like we were doing it together, side by side. When we had Eli, we were thrilled. The first years at The Community were wonderful too. It was later that things started to change. After the church grew so large that most of the people there became strangers. After Rick accepted the job title that started to alienate him from himself.

He didn’t understand any better than I did what a Men’s Pastor was meant to do, but he was determined to be a great one. He had to take up golf, learn racquetball and handball. He had to follow sports in general much more than he’d ever done in the past. All the theology books from school went into boxes, replaced by the leadership handbooks, the best-selling self-help books, the guides to masculinity written by men who could only access the concept via cliché.

Ten years ago, even five years ago, Jim Shaw’s instinct about Rick would have been right. He did have a voice that mattered. He did have something important to say. But the last few years have changed him, hollowed him out. Is it any wonder he feels less present to me, when he’s hardly present to himself?

I’m not sure how much of this Rick could admit to. In the old days, I’d form a judgment on something only to find, when I shared it, that Rick saw things the same way. Now, not so much. He’s trying so hard to live up to expectations that he can’t admit to himself those expectations aren’t worth living up to.

Of course, it’s always possible I’m the one who’s wrong. Not everyone sees him the way I do. Clearly, Deedee has a different take.

These offerings of hers really puzzle me.

For a woman who’s lived her life alone, who has devoted herself to painting rather than a man, Rick’s actions must look so different. What looks to me like a deadbeat, she interpreted right from the start as some kind of hermit saint. Why was she so quick to idolize him?

Does she see something of herself in him?

Or perhaps it’s just the opposite. She sees something in him that is completely different, something utterly inaccessible to her imagination. A challenge.

You don’t leave flowers for yourself, after all.

You don’t appoint yourself to be your muse.

“You know what it is, Ricky boy. She admires you. Whatever she thinks you’re doing, it’s something she wishes she could do herself. But what that is, I don’t have a clue.”

I gaze at the shed, waiting for a reply. Nothing comes.

The last time I was outside enjoying the night, Gregory was walking with me. It’s hard to remember the details of that walk—all the intervening drama has blurred them—but there was one thing he said that seemed important. How did he put it? “Maybe this isn’t Rick’s time”—it was something like that. Maybe this wasn’t Rick’s time, it was mine.

What would my time even look like? A bus ride to our nation’s capital with a bunch of fruit loops and an infatuated son? A road trip down to Florida, maybe in a rented convertible, the wind whipping in my hair? Or something else entirely? Something I can’t even begin to imagine?

I take my mug inside, pausing at the door.

“Good night, Rick.”

A little wind, a little birdsong, leaves rustling across the lawn. But no reply from the shed. I wash out my mug, find room for the historical novel on the bookshelf, and retreat upstairs, full of the sense of possibility. Why shouldn’t this be my time?

The only question is what to do with it. Not what I’ve been doing, I know that much.

On the nightstand, Stacy’s key.

I really should have insisted on her taking it back. This key has become a symbol of derailment, the alternate autumn I was meant to live. It’s a painful reminder.

I squeeze the floaty in my hand. Hard.

It smells of plastic, and when I drop the key, my hand smells of plastic too. But when I bring it to my face and inhale the scent of my skin, I pretend what I’m smelling is the salty, crashing sea.