the project i'm working on
The ring of the Blackberry startled Lily. It was after midnight, but she was still up—would be for a couple of hours yet. The caller ID read “Azalea”. Lily knew what she would hear on the other end.
“Lily? It’s me.”
“Zaya, what’s wrong?” Lily asked. Azalea had pronounced her name “Zaya” as a baby and the nickname had stuck. Now only Lily called her that.
“Can you meet me at Denny’s for a soda?”
“Baby, I don’t want to leave the kids. Why don’t you just come over here?”
“Because I’m already at Denny’s and I ran out of gas.”
“Ok, I’m coming. Is Susie with you?”
“Yeah. She’s eating pie.”
“Do you have your wallet?”
“Um, not sure. Ugh, no.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Lily got into her geriatric Dodge Colt Vista and went to meet her stranded sister. The day Azalea was born, she was assigned to Lily. Violet and Iris each had one of the twins, Daisy and Poppy, to help care for. Lily had Azalea. Lily helped with the diapering, dressing and hand-holding of Azalea. Lily had been the carrier of the lunch money, the defender from line budgers and bullies, and the pusher of the swing. She had retained a sense of ownership into adulthood. This was also part of the reason Lily couldn’t stand Azalea’s jackass husband.
As a child Azalea was fearless. She would climb trees and jump off of monkey bars and spin and spin until she fell breathless on the grass. Lily would watch with admiration. This was another reason Lily couldn’t stand Azalea’s jackass husband: he made her fearful.
Lily pulled into the Denny’s parking lot. It took the engine several seconds to realize the key was off. With a rattling fart it fell silent. Lily found Azalea and her daughter at a booth in the back corner.
It was worse than Lily had feared. Susie sat in a booster seat. Her broad, flat, incessantly happy, chromosomally impaired face was orange with pumpkin pie filling. She banged her spoon excitedly when she saw Auntie Lily coming. Azalea had been crying. Her eyes were red, her mascara was everywhere but her eyelashes, and she was wearing her nightgown and flip flops under her blue knit duster.
“Geez, Azalea. What happened?” Lily asked as she shooed the waitress away with a traffic cop gesture.
“Sam and I had a big fight.”
“Are you okay?”
“No, I mean, yes. He didn’t hit me or anything.”
“Good, ‘cause that’ll be the last thing he does.”
“Lily, don’t.”
“I’m sorry. Tell me what happened.”
“Well, he got home from golf and I wasn’t back from the clinic yet. I mean, I had dinner in the crock pot. Everything was ready. Then he starts with, ‘where have you been?’ and ‘Who were you with?’ I showed him the amoxicillin from the clinic with the date and time on it. He checks my odometer. I don’t know where he thinks I was or what he thinks I was doing. So I put Susie to bed and he tells me she needs warmer pajamas if she has an ear infection again. So I changed her pajamas and put her back down and got into the tub. He walked in on me while I was shaving my legs. Then it’s, ‘who’s this for?’ And I tell him it’s for church tomorrow and he says, ‘Short strokes will give you a better shave than long ones.’ So I start using short strokes and I cut myself and he says, ‘your blade is dull. I told you, you don’t change it often enough.’ So I get out of the tub and he starts getting frisky and I tell him I’m not in the mood. He’s bee criticizing me all day. And then he’s like, ‘Oh, so your punishing me by withholding sex.’ Then Susie started crying so I went in and rocked her till he was asleep and I came here.”
“Did I miss the part about the fight? I mean, what I’m hearing is that your husband was a prick all day and you put up with it until he fell asleep.”
“Lily, don’t. You know he can’t help how he is.”
“Is he off his meds again?”
“Well, he started to feel good and so he decided he didn’t need them.”
“Zaya, he does this every time. He gets through his depressive cycle, he starts to get to baseline, he goes off his meds, he gets manic and starts acting crazy and suspicious, and you end up getting hurt.”
“Lil, he can’t help it.”
“Zaya, he can take his pills.”
“It’s not like he’s dangerous. At least he doesn’t hit me.”
“Yet. Zaya, Baby, don’t you think that’s a pretty crappy bare minimum?”
“He’s my husband and he’s sick. I can’t abandon him. Dana Reeve stood by Christopher.”
“And now she is also dead. Azalea, he is killing you by inches and you are the only one who doesn’t see it. You used to be Fire Woman, remember? You used to howl at the moon. You used to have light in your eyes. Azalea, look at yourself. You are in public in your nightgown at 1:00 in the morning with your sick little girl because your husband is going crazy and he’s bent on taking you with him.”
Azalea sobbed, “Lily, don’t tell Mom.”
“Why on earth would I do that?”
“What am I going to do, Lily?”
“I can’t tell you what to do. I can tell you what I wish you would do.”
“I can’t leave my husband. He’s Susie’s daddy.”
“What do you want to do tonight, Zaya?”
“Can I stay with you, just for tonight?”
“Absolutely. Will you do a favor for me? Will you just go talk to the women at the shelter? You don’t have to make any decisions, just get information. Tomorrow right after church.”
“Sam will be at church and he’ll want us to go home with him. He’ll be mad enough that I left tonight. I don’t want him to make a scene at church.”
“Monday when I wake up?”
“We might not get back before he gets home from the office.”
“That’s it, Azalea! Don’t you see? He has you afraid to get help, afraid to be with your family. We are going right now! Get Susie in the car I’ll pay for the pie.”
Lily got to the counter and found that their bill had been “taken care of” by the lady in the next booth. Lily found this random act of kindness touching but also humiliating. Was it because this stranger had a soft spot in her heart for Downs children, or because she had overheard and wanted to help this emotionally battered wife? Maybe she had been alone and scared in the middle of the night. Lily heard her mother’s tape looping through her head, “Must we air our dirty laundry in public for everyone to see?”