Wings of Glass (3 page)

Shame warmed my cheeks. Trent was right. I should snap out of it and start being a better wife. No wonder he didn’t love me. No wonder God didn’t think I could handle being a mother. I hadn’t been faithful with what he had provided.

These thoughts should have motivated me to get it together and clean up, but they just sucked me drier. I made my way to the bedroom—blissfully dark—and lay down.

I dreamed that I was a bird. My wide, beautiful wings carried me high above the clouds, high above my troubles, onward toward heaven. The pearly gate was almost within reach when a boom of thunder hurled me back to earth. . . . I rolled over, burying my face deeper into the pillow. The racket grew louder. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I sat up.

Someone was pounding on the front door. Maybe the church lady was back. The forcefulness of the pounding told me that was unlikely.

Trent.

He must be home from work and forgot his key. I wondered why he didn’t come in the back. I almost never kept that door locked.

Supper! I didn’t know what I was going to make. I hadn’t even washed the dishes from breakfast, for crying out loud. He was going to kill me. I threw the sheet off and tore out
of the room toward the front door. Excuses whizzed through my mind. I was sick, the church lady upset me . . .

The knocking grew more insistent as my trembling hands fought to turn the doorknob. When I opened the door, I almost fainted in relief to find one of Trent’s drinking buddies standing there instead of him. It was no surprise Boston reeked of liquor—he never didn’t—but he wasn’t stumbling for a change. That, along with the brightness of the sun, told me it was not as late as I feared. “Howdy, Penny.”

With a curt nod, I acknowledged him. Manny, I could not stand that man. Couldn’t stand any of your father’s so-called friends. The way I saw it, they were the reason for my constant isolation, our poverty, and in my twisted thinking, even for his affairs. I guess blaming them was safer than blaming your father.

He scratched his chin with those dirty fingernails of his. “I hate to be the one to tell you . . .”

It was like time stood still then.
He’s dead,
I thought.
My husband is dead.
And then a strange emotion came over me, one I hadn’t felt in a very long time. Hope.

So many thoughts bounced around my mind. What would I do first? Call Mama? Get a job? I could start going back to church proper every Sunday. Find out if my childhood friend, Lucy, had gone to college like she said she was going to do.

And then more somber thoughts. The funeral—how would I pay for it? Maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I would just pack up my belongings and leave before anyone could ask me what kind of arrangements I wanted. But where would I go?

“. . . accident.”

“Accident?”
Accident
didn’t mean dead. The hope I’d been holding seeped out of my hands like grains of sand, quickly replaced by guilt when I realized I was disappointed.

Looking back, Manny, I shouldn’t have felt ashamed for fantasizing about him dying. I should have considered myself a woman of exception for not trying to kill him myself. But here’s a little marital advice for the future—if you start thinking your only hope for a happy future means the death of your spouse, it’s time to get some help.

“What kind of accident?” I asked.

He ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. “He’s in the hospital.”

Not dead.
Thank God,
I forced myself to think. “What’s wrong?”

“He cut through a pipe that still had fuel in it. It exploded in his face.” He kicked the doormat. “They took him to St. Joe’s. You need to get over there.”

A pipe exploded in Trent’s face? I feel guilty admitting this, but my first reaction wasn’t pity in hearing that. You know what raced through that head of mine?
Great. Now he’s going to be even meaner.

But he wasn’t, Manny. It was the craziest thing.

IT HAD BEEN
over a year since I’d first set foot in St. Joseph’s Hospital. That time, the doctor had told Trent to leave the room, then asked me how I ended up with a broken arm, a black eye, and a gash across my chin. After I repeated my lame story for the second time, she tried to hand me a card for a halfway house for battered women. Just in case I knew someone who needed it.

Thinking of that doctor now as I made my way down the hallway, I wondered what my life might be like if I had taken the card she offered. That, and how your father and I were ever going to pay for all of this if worker’s comp didn’t cover it.

As I passed a group of nurses, I had to remind myself they couldn’t know we were deadbeats, but something about the way one of them eyed me made me wonder.

I forced my gaze off her onto the glass-walled patient rooms to the left. Within each lay a poor soul attached to
all kinds of tubes and gizmos I couldn’t begin to imagine the purpose of. Nurses hurried in and out of those rooms looking busy and burdened. A dark-haired man sat at the front desk, tapping his knuckles against a phone receiver as he stared at what I guessed to be a bunch of heart monitors. When I told him who I was, he pointed me to the last room on the left.

I hesitated and took a peek before entering. With his eyes patched with squares of white and his body hidden under blankets, I barely recognized him. His hair lay slicked back off his forehead, which was partially wrapped in gauze.

He shifted around in the bed like he couldn’t get comfortable. When I stepped into the room, the smell of cheap perfume slapped me in the face. Its source stood facing the window, dressed in skinny jeans, heels that belonged on a street corner, and a pink ribbon tying up stringy black hair. This was not the same woman with the nose ring and pocked skin I was reasonably sure Trent had cheated on me with last time.

I cleared my throat. Trent casually reached for the lidded cup on his bedside table and took a sip from the straw. He either didn’t know I had walked in, or else didn’t care. The woman, on the other hand, whipped around like I had screamed her name. The heavy streaks in her makeup told me she’d been crying.

I was suddenly conscious of my threadbare sundress, scuffed sandals, and eyebrows that desperately needed to be plucked. Ignoring her, I went to your father. “Hi, baby.”

He jerked his head back in surprise. “Penny?”

I stepped closer. “I’m so sorry you’re hurt.”

When he felt the air for me, I stepped into his touch. His rough fingers fell first on my face, then down my arm to my hand. From the corner of my eye, I watched the woman’s reaction. When she flinched, I knew she was no mere friend or coworker. You could have fried bacon on my face, but there was no way I was going to let either of them know how I felt—she didn’t deserve the satisfaction, and I didn’t deserve whatever Trent would give me for accusing him of what he was sure to deny.

“Are you hurting?” I asked, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice.

He touched the gauze patch on his right eye as if making sure it was still there. “Not too bad. They’re giving me pills every four hours. But I can’t see anything.”

He smelled of sweat and cigarettes. I wondered how he had managed to sneak a smoke in this place, but knew better than to ask. The question would only be treated like an accusation.

The woman in the corner began to sob. I wanted to yank her by her ugly black hair and run her right out of the room. She had no right to cry over my husband. Let her be sad over her own stinking man.

“I’m sorry, babe.” Trent sounded on the verge of tears himself. “I don’t know how we’re going to make it now.”

Before that moment, the only time I ever heard your father say he was sorry was after he’d sobered up and seen the bruises he gave me the night before.

“I could loan you money,” the woman whispered. She snuck a glance at me as she rubbed at the place on her arm above a faded rose tattoo. “I already told him I could loan y’all a little money until you’re back on your fee—” She cupped her face in her hands and went back to crying.

Since Trent couldn’t see me, I rolled my eyes. “Ain’t that sweet,” I said with a touch of sarcasm. “But we’ll get along just fine.”

He turned his face in my general direction and patted my hand. “That’s my girl. The Taylors ain’t no charity case, are we, One Cent?”

I didn’t know why he was talking to me sweet all of a sudden, but I didn’t much care. I liked it better than the alternative. “Is it permanent?”

He sighed and gave a half shrug.

The woman wiped the black from under her eyes as she stared down at my hand in his. “The doctor said they don’t know just yet. Only time will tell.”

I pretended like I didn’t hear her. Who was she to be talking to his doctor like she had a pony in this race? “Well, what did they say,
Trent
?”

“Norma’s right. Time will tell.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. Norma. Suddenly I hated that name.

She walked toward us and stopped at the end of the bed. “He was real bad when he came in. He already looks better.”

I couldn’t stand it a minute more. “Who are you?” I asked.

She looked to Trent as if he could see the question on her face.

He dropped my hand. “For crying out loud, Penny, don’t start. Norma’s our new supply clerk.”

It was all I could do to stop myself from saying something smart. “You gave him a ride here, then?”

She looked at the doorway as if contemplating making a run for it. “I . . .” She looked at Trent and waited for him to finish for her. When he didn’t, she continued. “An ambulance brought him in. I came soon as I heard.”

I couldn’t stand to hear one more word come out of her fish lips. “That’s very kind of you, Norma, but I’ll take care of my husband now.”

She frowned and looked at Trent.

He reached for my hand again, and I set it in his. Then he did something that made me almost forget she was even there. He brought my hand to his lips like I was his princess.

It was all Norma could do to keep it together as she said her good-byes. When she turned around at the doorway to look at us one last time, I bent down and kissed Trent’s lips. I had to fight not to cringe, knowing her lips had probably just done the same.

I listened to the click of her high heels fade down the hallway, then asked, “So how long have you worked with her?”

He dropped my hand and huffed. “C’mon now, Penny. If I had something going with her, would I have kissed you with her in here?”

Yeah,
I thought.
That’s exactly something you would do, because you like hurting women.

“We got bigger fish to fry than your paranoia.”

I wanted to say my so-called paranoia hadn’t been so crazy the night I opened the back door of our car to get a blanket and found him having what looked an awful lot like a lover’s quarrel with some bleach-blonde.

But I held my tongue. Trent’s eyes might be as useless as his memory, but his hands looked just fine.

I HADN’T REALIZED
the true weight of the boulder I’d been under until it lifted.

During the two weeks your father was in the hospital, the sky seemed bluer, the spring air sweeter, and for once in a very long time, there was peace in our home.

That morning I woke with the sparrows, dusted an already clean house, and even put on a little makeup just because I felt like it. It was afternoon when I decided it was time to give some attention to the flower beds.

I sat Indian-style on the grass I’d mowed the day before, wondering why Trent always made cutting the lawn sound like it was more work than building the Taj Mahal. If I had known how easy it was, I would have been doing it all along. To think, all this time, I was embarrassed about a yard I could have easily been keeping up myself.

Smiling at the realization, I plucked sprouts of rogue seedlings from between a grouping of wildflowers. The rainbow
of blooms before me grew vibrant and healthy despite their neglect. I gently pinched the stem of the fullest pink flower, leaning in and sniffing its roselike scent, deciding I would add this one to the bouquet I’d cut for the kitchen table.

After I tamed the weeds, I lay down right in the grass, bent my arms behind my head, and looked up. The underside of the daisies set against the blue sky made for a striking contrast. Sunlight outlined the petals in shades of gold, and I sighed in contentment.

As I wiggled my bare toes on the grass carpet, a butterfly fluttered by, landing on a purple flower I didn’t know the name of. I watched it with longing.
How wonderful it must be,
I thought,
to be able to just spread your wings whenever you like without someone following you around trying to swat you out of the sky.
When the butterfly set off and a bumblebee moved in, a feeling of déjà vu washed over me. Scouring my mind, I tried my best to recall the memory fighting to surface.

I stared so long at the sky the sun blurred into a halo, and the memory I’d been searching for finally emerged. It was my thirteenth birthday, and I had insisted I was too old for a party. When the morning came without even the slightest bit of fanfare, I had to blink back the tears.

Sitting outside in my childhood yard, feeling sorry for myself, I had watched a bumblebee land on the honeysuckle vine next to me. He scurried flower to flower, feverishly collecting nectar as if it might be the only chance he might ever get. When at last he flew away, I noticed the vague smell
of something freshly baked, and I knew before I even turned around that your grandmother was beside me.

She sat down and wrapped her arm around my shoulder. “Happy birthday, Penny.” She wore her thin brown hair pulled up in a ponytail, highlighting the streak of white at the nape of her neck.

I faked a smile. “Thanks.”

“Thirteen years ago today, your daddy rushed me to the hospital. You were the easiest birth. I knew you were going be something special when—”

I rolled my eyes in typical teenage fashion. “Not again, Mama.”

She untied her apron and slipped it from around her waist. “Too old for public displays of affection. Too old for parties. Too old for memories now too?”

I shrugged her arm off me and picked at a blade of grass.

Your grandmother looked up at the sky, smiled, and said, “I see a pineapple.”

Sneaking a glance upward to see what she was looking at, I said, “Not now.”

She lay back in the grass and pulled at my arm until I begrudgingly flopped down beside her. “All right, your turn, birthday girl.”

I wanted to be left alone, and at the same time didn’t want to be left alone, which I guess is the way kids that age feel most of the time. “C’mon, Mama, I’m not in the mood.”

She puckered her lips and pinched my side playfully. “Well then, maybe I’m not in the mood to give you your present.”

Her touch tickled, but I was too stubborn to laugh. Instead, I huffed. “Fine. I see a porcupine.”

She turned her head toward me and raised her eyebrows. It was then I noticed the fine lines starting to etch into her fair skin. “Penny Elizabeth Carson, you didn’t even look up.”

“Yes, I did,” I lied.

Her mouth twisted into a smirk. “Okay then, show me which one.”

I hurriedly scanned the sky. Not a single puff of white came even remotely close to looking like a varmint, but I pointed to one just the same.

She surprised me by saying, “Huh, I can see that.”

As I turned to see which cloud she was looking at, I felt like my heart would burst. She held her head to the side and squinted so hard it must have been blurring those clouds all together. I had no earthly idea why, but it made me want to cry. You make that same face sometimes, Manny, and it gets me every time.

Your grandma and I lay like that for a few minutes until she sat up suddenly and told me to come on in the house and get my gift already.

When I pushed open the screen door, I was hit with a chorus of family and friends yelling, “Surprise!” I couldn’t get the smile off my face as I scanned the small crowd. The happy smiles of my cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends all met me . . . and then my stomach sank. Of course Daddy wouldn’t be here. He’d be out working the field as if it were any other day.

Snapping out of the memory, I looked up at the sky, searching for pineapple clouds, and wondered how my parents could have ever fallen in love. Mama had to be one of the sweetest women to ever walk the earth. Despite Daddy’s barbwire personality, she had done her best to make both him and me happy. Some days I hated him for the way he treated her. Other times, like today, I just felt sorry for them both.

The difference between Mama and me was she would never voice her opinion if Daddy hadn’t asked for it, which he never did. At least I called Trent out on his bad behavior most of the time. Not that it made any difference. Maybe my mother had spoken up too, once upon a time. Maybe she just got tired of nothing ever changing, and eventually admitted defeat.

How was he treating her now that I wasn’t around to provoke him? Maybe things had gotten better between them. Maybe losing me had helped Mama find her voice or helped Daddy mute his. It had been so long since I’d seen them, they’d become like a far-off dream—the king and queen of a childhood fairy tale I once read.

I wondered if Mama could possibly miss me as much as I did her. And then I had an epiphany.

Trent was blind. He couldn’t check the phone records anymore to see whom I called.

My parents had only one phone number all their lives, and I hoped that hadn’t changed. I jumped up, brushed off my backside, and raced inside, nearly tripping over the hem
of my dress. Resting my hand on the phone receiver, I closed my eyes and prayed for the words to speak.

I dialed their number fast so my mind didn’t have time to question my fingers’ memory. She picked up on the first ring as if she’d been standing beside that phone all those years, just waiting for me to call. Now that I’m a mother, I think she probably had.

“Hello?” She sounded so old, Manny. So tired.

My heart pounded and I lost my breath.

“Hello?” she repeated.

I think I might have whimpered then.

“Penny? Penny, is that you?”

I don’t know why, but I slammed the phone down so hard it should have cracked. When it rang right back, fear paralyzed me. It must have rung a dozen times as I stood there just staring at it.

Finally I found the courage to jerk it to my ear. “Mama,” I heard myself say.

My next words were, “Is he there?”

He was in the field, of course, same as always. I have no idea how long we talked, Mama and me, but there had been full light at the beginning of the call, and dusk by the time we hung up.

I told her of my courthouse wedding to Trent, about our little tar-papered house, and anything else I could think of. Of course, I left out the way Trent used his fists to tenderize my face on a regular basis. I suppose when I made her promise not to call me, she might have had her suspicions.

Joy and sadness both flooded my heart as we said our good-byes. There wasn’t time to dwell on either emotion, because the second I put the receiver in its cradle, it rang again. With a smile, I snatched it up, thinking Mama wanted to tell me she loved me one last time, but it was Trent hissing that he’d been trying to call me for over an hour. I felt sick to my stomach as I waited for the barrage of questions and accusations about who I was talking to, but all he said was, “I’m coming home.”