Never Really Alone

Chapter Ten

I didn't speak to my mother again for almost a year.  Oh, I sent a birthday card and a brief note when Stephen and I moved into a little house we rented, about a mile from Aggie's, but I couldn't bring myself to talk to her.  Except for Sousa, I did call Sousa.  I got in the habit of talking to her every other Saturday when my folks would be in town.  Long-distance calls were an extravagance for us, but Stephen encouraged me because he appreciated the input into our mealtimes.  He was referring to the fact that I usually got at least one and sometimes two recipes every time we talked. 

Sousa helped to keep me grounded.  It took me a little while to get over all that had happened during my mother's visit.  She had left a tiny lingering doubt in the form of my mother's voice, quietly whispering in the back of my mind.  "You're not strong, Sarah Jane, you're ill.  You need a doctor, Sarah Jane.  You need help."

Regardless of the facts, of reality, I had heard these words so many times over the years, my brain had a hard time telling the difference between what was true and what wasn't.  But I was committed to finding a way over, through, or around her close-mindedness and judgmental thinking.  It was more than just deciding not to speak to her.  I had to make a conscious effort not to listen to that voice.  Sousa helped me do that.  She helped me to move on from my mother and her arsenal of poison-wrapped aid, to see her for what she was, a sad and frightened woman who after losing one daughter to death, felt that she had been in a constant battle for the mind of the other and had lost.

Looking at her from that point of view, I could only feel sorry for her.  Though I still wasn't ready to talk to her, I knew that perhaps there was at least a possibility for reconciliation, someday, sometime.  Until then, I was happy to talk to Sousa twice a month, and Stephen was glad that my cookbook was growing by leaps and bounds.

The little house Stephen and I rented was on the northeast corner of Thayer and Barnes Streets, and though it wasn't a large house, two bedrooms, one bath, we loved it.  Since it was on a corner it had a huge yard, and was circled with trees.  There were three lemons in the front, one on the side and two orange trees in the back.  Our landlord was more than willing to allow us to paint or do anything else to improve the property and in fact, encouraged us when we signed the lease.

But the first challenge, was, which room to start with?  The second was, what the heck do we do?  Stephen opted out of the decision, saying any opinion he had would only make things worse; to which I called him a chicken and he just laughed.  Miranda Jean, however, had very distinct opinions on where, what, how and even why in regard to any decorating decisions to be made.

Stephen and I took the larger, front bedroom which faced northwest.  It was in fair shape, with a pale, blue floral, striped wallpaper and hardwood floors.  As wedding presents, Jonah had given us an entire, maple bedroom suite and Aggie had given us a lovely, blue, chenille bedspread.  So there was absolutely nothing we needed to do in that room.

The living room was small, but cozy with a large picture window and wall to wall, gold carpeting.  It was desperately in need of a serious coat of paint, but any time would do.  The dining room was just off the kitchen, had hardwood floors and what remained of a pale, yellow color on the walls.  The second bedroom had a southeastern exposure. When the sun rose in the morning, all you could really tell about the paint, was that there was some. As to color, it was anybody's guess.  The kitchen was tiled in white and freshly painted in bright green with yellow accents.  I figured the best thing to do might be to just spin the bottle or flip a coin to decide which room to begin with, but Miranda Jean had different ideas.  She insisted that the second bedroom should be the first to be re-done.

"It doesn't make any sense," I said.  "That's the last room anybody is going to see and the last room we're going to use.  Why that room?  I think we should start with the living room.  We could do the walls in a deep, rich cream color and then find some drapes to match the carpeting.  I saw some really pretty lamps at that little shop downtown, next to Santorelli's Restaurant.  I have some money left from our wedding gifts that I can use."

Miranda Jean literally stomped her foot, not that it really had any impact.  You don't get much of a show when you're stomping a ghostly foot, after all.  "No!  You need to do the bedroom. You could paint it a nice pretty, rose color, or maybe a sunny, yellow and then do the window sill and the woodwork in white.  That would be really nice, don't you think?"

"Miranda Jean, what are you so worked up about?  What is the point of doing a room that nobody's going to see?  If I do the living room and then the dining room, we can have a party and everything will look great.  It makes more sense to do those rooms."

"Sarah Jane, you can do all the rooms.  I just think you should start with the bedroom.  Besides you've never painted anything before, so maybe you should start out with a room that nobody's going to see, kind of like practicing.  Then do the others, you see?"  She had the most pleading look on her face; as if she were waiting in line to see Santa at the department store.

She had a point.  I had never painted anything before and it did make sense to get all of the big mistakes out of the way on a room that wouldn't be right out there in front of everyone.  "Maybe you're right.  Besides, it's not a big room, so we won't need a lot of paint."  So off I went to the hardware store, returning with two gallons of 'Misty Morning', a pale buttercup-yellow, and one gallon of 'Extra-Bright White' enamel. 

Though Stephen had opted out of the decision making process, he hadn't been allowed to opt out of the work.  Between the two of us, starting right after dinner we were completely finished by 10:45, when we dropped exhaustedly into bed and quickly fell off to sleep.

I made it a habit to rise every morning with Stephen to make coffee and breakfast, but the morning after we painted I woke with a severe headache and nausea that I couldn't control.  Stephen wanted to stay home with me, but I pushed him out the door telling him that I was sure I'd be feeling fine soon.  But the nausea kept on coming.  It appeared in waves, rising with threats of losing anything that might be lingering in my stomach and then ebbing to a welcome reprieve of uneasy calm.

Thankfully I was spared becoming intimate with both the commode and the bathroom floor.  I was one of those people who could count on one hand the number of times I had actually tossed my cookies.  Regardless of how I felt, I would do almost anything to avoid it, and that morning was no different.  However, feeling crummy or not, I was still working for Aggie three days a week and was due in at eleven, so the nausea waves would just have to return to whatever diseased ocean they came from and leave me be.

The diner traffic was light that Thursday and LeAnn took the bulk of it.  Though I told her I could handle my share of the customers, she looked me up and down and dove in like a whirling dervish, pouring coffee and flinging french fries.  I was relegated to taking care of the counter customers, which were few and they rarely lingered.  By the time we locked the door at seven-fifteen, I could have kissed her for sticking me behind the counter. 

Though I didn't feel as though I'd worked very hard, I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open and the waves of nausea, which had stopped for awhile, seemed to be returning.  I wondered aloud if maybe I had picked up some kind of flu bug, and asked Aggie if she knew of anybody else who was sick and she just looked at me, smiled and shook her head.

"Sarah, honey, it's not flu that's got you tired and ready to put a cot in the bathroom.  Think about it for a minute.  I'm sure you'll come up with an answer.  You're a bright girl, or should I say, woman?"

LeAnn looked up from the table she was wiping down.  "You got that right, Aggie!"

I had no idea what they were talking about.  What did getting the flu have to do with being smart or being a woman, or anything like that?  "I'm glad you're both having a good time with this, but I'm really feeling pretty awful and if you don't mind Aggie, do you think I could beg off on the dishes tonight?  I'm just done in.  I promise to make it up to you on Saturday."

"Sure, don't worry about the dishes, I'll take care of it.  But don't leave just yet, okay?"  She came over to where I was standing and literally pushed me into a chair, then sat down beside me.  "Honey, I don't want to intrude, but seeing as how you don't have any family here, well I kinda feel as if I'm your family and you need a woman right now.  Alright?"

I just looked at her.  "Okay."

"Good," she said.  "Sarah, when are you due to have your next, uh...monthly visitor...you know...your...?"

Suddenly the fog I had been covered in all day lifted, as if I had been trying to make out the image in a stained glass window, but without the sun, it was impossible.  Now, the sun was burning right through it and I understood everything.  How could I have been so dense?  "Oh my God!  Do you really think I could be pregnant?  Aggie, oh my God!"  I could feel the corners of my mouth pulling my lips into a smile that I couldn't control.

"You tell me honey.  Could you?  Seems like you've got some pretty telling symptoms going on.  So, how about my question, when is your monthly visitor due?"

Quickly I did some calculations in my head and I felt my smile grow even larger.  "It isn't due at all.  It WAS due about three and a half weeks ago.  But with all the moving into the house and unpacking and everything, I just wasn't paying attention, I guess.  Ohmigosh, I might be pregnant.  I mean, I could be pregnant, I'm ohmigosh, I've got to tell Stephen!"  I jumped up and nearly knocked over the chair in my excitement.

Aggie caught the chair and settled me all in one smooth movement.  "Easy girl, easy.  Be careful, you're going to knock yourself silly before you even have a chance to find out if it's true.  Just sit here and try to settle down a bit.  Stephen will be here soon and you need to be a bit calmer when you tell him.  Men take these things a bit differently than we women do."

She was right.  I had discovered that Stephen was very protective of me and unless I wanted to be treated like a fragile china cup for the next nine months I had better be very matter-of-fact when I told him our potential good news.  Then another thought struck me, kind of like ice water thrown down my back.  I had no idea how Miranda Jean would take this kind of news.  Although she tried to hide it, I knew she was a little bit jealous of Stephen.  How would she feel about all the time and attention I would need to give a baby?  I just didn't know and to be honest, for the first time in my entire life, I wanted to keep something secret from my twin sister.  I didn't know how I felt about that, I really didn't.  It was unnerving.

****************

Keeping a secret from Miranda Jean was like trying to ask the sun not to rise, but hoping no one would notice.  It was impossible.  Aside from the morning sickness which lasted all day, and the fact that as much as Stephen tried to keep it to himself, he couldn't seem to stop himself from blurting out potential baby names every so often, for what appeared to be no reason at all.

In any other situation I probably would have found it amusing.  He would be involved in something as innocuous as reading the newspaper and all of a sudden he'd shout out, "Franklin, how about Franklin?"  Or during dinner I would be telling him an amusing story about a customer at the diner, and I would pause to take a breath, and then, wham! "Sarah, I was thinking, do you like the name Marianne?  I really like the name Marianne."

Well, Miranda Jean had never been a slouch in the thinking department and it wasn't long before she put it all together and came up with the answer.  Though when she came to me for confirmation, she claimed that she'd already known, and for longer than I had.  "How could you know before I did?  That's impossible, you're just fooling around."

"I'm not fooling at all, Sarah Jane.  Why do you think I wanted you to paint the other bedroom?  Now it's all ready for your baby, isn't it?"

I didn't mean to, but suddenly I was staring at her as if she'd suddenly grown a second head.  "But how could you know?"

She shrugged, "I'm not sure, really.  It just kind of came to me.  I just knew.  But I was right, wasn't I?  You're going to have a baby, a real baby.  "When will it come Sarah Jane, will it be soon?"

She sounded happy, even excited.  I felt embarrassed  and ashamed about trying to keep the baby a secret.  Of course she would be happy.  How could I have felt any differently?  "Not until December.  The baby will come in December, around Christmas time."

"Christmas?  But that's forever away, it isn't even summertime yet.  How can you stand to wait so long?"

Same old Miranda Jean, impatient as always.  For me, though, the days seemed to be flying by.  "It seems like hardly any time at all.  There's so much for us to do to get ready.  There's nursery furniture to buy and I want to try to make some curtains.  We have to decide on a name, and well there's just so many things to do.  I saw some wallpaper with nursery rhyme characters on it that would look so cute, maybe we could put it just on the window wall.  Really, December will be here before we know it.  And speaking of Christmas, I'll have to get all the gifts bought and wrapped before the baby comes too."

"Calm down, Sarah Jane.  You're turning a raindrop into a tornado.  You and Stephen can get all that stuff done in plenty of time.  You're just being a worry-wart, as usual.  It's just a baby, after all.  How much trouble could one little baby be?"

But of course, she was looking at things from a child's point of view.  For her, buying a crib, some toys, baby bottles and a dozen diapers was probably all the preparation that was needed.  In fact, once she got used to the idea of a baby, aside from insisting that she should have her say when it came time to pick a name, she wasn't all that interested in it.  After all, the only impact the pregnancy had on her, was that it seemed to occupy a good portion of my thoughts.  That got old in a hurry for Miranda Jean.

As the nesting instinct took hold and began to create certain feelings in me as a new mother, she could see that my focus on the baby was turning me further and further away from her.  And though Miranda Jean was as present as always, I noticed she had become quieter, in a way she seemed somehow lost.

Everything became clear, in fact came to a startling halt one hot July day.  I had set up the sewing machine on the kitchen table, because it was the coolest room in the house.  With the windows and back door open, if you also opened the front door, you could get a nice cross-breeze.  Since the temperature had reached ninety by ten that morning, it was important to keep cool, especially when you were five and a half months pregnant. 

I had found some yellow organdy, and was attempting to make some cafe curtains for the baby's room.  All of a sudden the fabric seemed to freeze and stopped feeding through the machine.  I turned it off, checked to see if the bobbin was jammed and when it wasn't, I turned it on and tried it again, again it froze.  This time I turned it off and stood up and when I did, I saw Miranda Jean scrunched down under one of the chairs, holding onto the fabric, so it couldn't feed through the machine.

"Miranda Jean, what are you doing?  You're going to rip the material or break my sewing machine.  That's not funny.  What do you think you're doing?"

"What do you think I'm trying to do?  I'm trying to get you to pay attention to me, that's what!  All you ever do anymore is stuff for the baby.  The baby, the baby, the baby!  That's all you ever talk about or even think about anymore.  You don't hardly pay attention to me at all.  And when you do, all you want to talk about is names for the baby, or baby clothes, or the baby's room.  What about me, Sarah Jane, don't you care about me anymore?  What about me?"  Her shoulders slumped and her lips were drawn down in a pout.  She really looked as if any minute she might throw herself down on the floor and start kicking and screaming.

Her words, though petulant and accusing, were absolutely true.  How could I explain to her what pregnancy had done to not only my body, but my mind?  I couldn't even explain it to myself.  I hadn't expected to feel such powerful emotions.  It wasn't just a maternal pull that tugged at me, I felt as if I were wrapped in cotton batting, not really a part of the outside world.  Every thought, every action, even the way that I moved was reflective of the child I carried in my body.  On some deep level my mind and my body had become one in sheltering and protecting that little life.  So every thought, every action, in some way revolved around either waiting for the baby, preparing for the baby, or having the baby. 

It wasn't something I did intentionally, it just happened, it just was.  But where did that leave Miranda Jean?  She was accustomed to getting one hundred percent of my attention.  Of course she'd had to adjust those expectations a bit when I married Stephen, and she had, but this was something that needed much more than a small adjustment.  "I know I've been pre-occupied with the baby and I haven't given you much of my time lately, have I?  I'm really sorry, Miranda Jean, really I am.  It's hard to explain, the baby just kind of takes over every part of me, but it doesn't mean I love you any less."

Her expression didn't change and the tone of her voice became harsher.  "It doesn't feel that way, not at all.  I don't know why I hang around here anyway.  You'd probably be glad if I just disappeared, wouldn't you?  Then you wouldn't have to even think about me."

I took a step toward her, but she backed away from me.  "Miranda Jean, you know that's not true.  I love you very much and you know I don't want you to ever go away, not ever."  I held my arms out to her and said, "Come here, please...come here."

She turned her face to me with a look I had never seen before.  It was just plain, naked anger, and it frightened me.  Then she walked over to the counter and with a sweep of her hand, she sent an empty bowl and a glass filled with lemonade, crashing to the floor and then disappeared.

My streaming tears mixed with the lemonade and soapy water on the kitchen floor.  That was how Stephen found me when he got home, on my hands and knees cleaning up the rest of the sticky mess and broken glass left by Miranda Jean's fit of anger.  He knelt down beside me and took me into his arms.  I tried to tell him what happened, but I could barely get out more than a few words between the sobs, ragged breaths and hiccups.  The only thing I was able to communicate to him was that she was gone, and I wasn't sure if she was coming back or not.

All I remember after that was Stephen lifting me into his arms, carrying me into our bedroom and laying me on the bed.  Then he took his shoes off and climbed in with me.  The next thing I knew, the morning light was breaking through the curtains and my alarm was going off.