Paint Chips Read online

  Why had my childhood been so much better? I wasn’t a better person than she was, God didn’t love me more. It just had to do with the choices that our parents made. My mom and dad made good choices, they spent a lot of time with my brother and me. They wanted us to have good lives. Grace’s family chose the way of selfishness. And she paid the price for their decisions. That wasn’t just unfair. It was unjust.

  I moved toward the bedroom door, still ajar for the sweater sleeve. I heard Grace moving around inside. I opened the door slowly. It creaked. All the doors in that house opened noisily. I think that had to have been on purpose.

  Grace looked at me when I walked into the room, her eyes red. She rubbed her face on the shoulder of her shirt, wiping away tears, but smearing her mascara.

  “Dorothea, I swear, I’m so sorry. I know you’re really flippin’ honked off at me right now.” She sobbed as she tried to fold her clothes. “I’m a bad person. Just please don’t hate me. I promise, I’ll throw everything out. Just don’t hate me.”

  “Oh my goodness, Grace! I don’t hate you!” I walked to her and helped her sit on the edge of her bed. I sat next to her. “Stop, just stop folding that for a second. I want to talk to you.”

  “What’s wrong with me, Dorothea? I just don’t know how to clean up my crap.” She dropped the jeans in a lump on her lap. “There’s junk all over the place. I know what I need to do, I just can’t seem to get it done. I don’t know how.”

  “Don’t cry, Grace,” I said. “I’m not that mad about it.”

  “It’s like it’s the only thing I can control. You know? Like, I’ve never been allowed to make one single decision for myself. Not ever. But I can choose to throw my clothes on the floor or whatever. Sometimes I think I’m crazy or something.”

  She let her head fall heavily on my knee. I patted her silky, blond hair, soft and smooth, like the hair of a china doll.

  “You know, I’m just the opposite,” I said. “I try to keep everything picked up and looking perfect so I can feel like I’m in control. Funny, huh?”

  “I guess.” She sat up slowly. “Was your mom really clean?”

  “Yup. She was crazy about it. Seriously, she’d always find something to scrub no matter what. She never even gave dust a chance to get on things.”

  “I don’t remember my mom,” she said. “She left when I was really little. I used to have a picture of her. She was pretty young when she had me. Lola’s kind of the only mom I’ve ever had.”

  “You could do a lot worse.” I patted her knee. “She loves you.”

  “You think so? Sometimes I feel like I’m such a big problem for her. She never acts like I am, but she has to be really annoyed with me all the time. I mean, all the cussing and attitude and stuff.”

  “You think cussing would make Lola not like you?”

  “I don’t know. Wouldn’t it?”

  “No way. And you aren’t a problem.”

  “But sometimes I’m a huge brat.” Grace pulled her legs up, sat criss-crossed.

  “Um. Do you remember how bratty I was to you just now?”

  “Yeah. But I kind of thought I deserved it.”

  “You didn’t. It was wrong of me to be like that.” I stared at the floor. “I was just being dumb. I’m really sorry.”

  “Yeah. I forgive you,” she said. “Hey, can I tell you what really worries me? I’m so afraid that I’m going to do something to make people leave me again.”

  “I know. It’s scary, isn’t it?”

  Grace nodded her head.

  “You know I’ve been here for a long time, right?”

  “Yeah. Like four years or something.”

  “Five.” I cleared my throat. “That’s a long time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you know what? In all that time I’ve never seen Lola stop loving anyone. No matter what they did.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” I smiled at her. “And trust me, you’re the best at cussing, but you aren’t the meanest.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll just have to work on that.” She looked around the room. “Man, this is so embarrassing.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah. Like, I wanted to talk about it in our group therapy. But I was just way too ashamed.”

  “You’re seriously ashamed of this?”

  “I know. It’s really stupid. I mean, I’ve told them all about everything else that happened in my life. Like the old days with my uncle and then with my pimp. And that’s some pretty nasty stuff. But a bunch of clothes on the floor is what embarrasses me.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t be embarrassed.” I grabbed her hamper. “How about we just try and clean up one thing a day. We’ll start slow and move to something different tomorrow.”

  “I can try that.” She reached for a pile of clothes. “I just need to make sure I don’t get overwhelmed.”

  “Okay. That makes sense.”

  “It might not be easy. I might freak out big time. I might cuss a lot.”

  “That’s fine.”

  Grace snorted in laughter.

  “You know what, Dorothea? That was the longest I’ve gone without cussing. I’m pretty proud of myself.”

  She followed that with a ten-dollar string of expletives.

  I decided I wouldn’t turn her in.

  Cora – 9

  Thursday. Visitor’s Day. The weeks often moved slowly between Thursdays. Between my times with Lisa. I couldn’t let myself think about what it would have been without the visits from her. I spent my Wednesday evenings in anticipation of seeing the one person in the world who actually came around for me.

  Lisa arrived a little earlier than usual. She walked straight to the head nurse. The two of them stood behind the observation window. Their discussion became heated. Lisa made a call from the telephone on the desk. After a moment she handed the phone to the nurse, smiling smugly. She made eye contact with me and gave me a thumbs up.

  “Good morning, Cora,” she said after a few moments. She was breathless with excitement as she crossed the room toward me. She sat opposite me at the table.

  I looked down at my hands.

  “How have you been this week?” she asked, her eyes beaming. “Good?”

  “Oh, I suppose so,” I answered.

  She pulled two cans of diet soda from her bag. “Here ya go.”

  “Thank you.” I accepted the can. “How long have you been coming to visit me?”

  “A few years.”

  “And in those few years I have never known you to bring two cans of soda.”

  “Well, I thought you might be getting sick of sharing with me. I figured you’d like your own.” She smiled. “Besides, we have something small to celebrate today.”

  My heart pumped. Blood rushed to my face. The sound throbbed in my ears. I had very little to celebrate in nine years. Whatever Lisa had to tell me would change me, I could tell. One couldn’t go for so long in mourning just to have a celebration that wasn’t life altering.

  “You have some mail.” She placed a large manila envelope on the table in front of me.

  I popped open my can of soda and took a long sip. It burned as it went down my throat. My eyes never left the envelope. I didn’t recognize the handwriting on the envelope.

  “It took me a couple phone calls and a near fist fight with Nurse Naomi to get permission to give these to you.”

  “What is it?” Nervousness crept into my voice.

  “Why don’t you open it and find out?”A smile lit up her entire face.

  I opened the flap and closed my eyes as I pulled out the contents of the envelope. The slick, stiff stack of paper in my hands, I opened my eyes. Flipped through the photos.

  Steven and me at our wedding reception.

  My handsome husband kissing my pregnant belly.

  Pete an hour after he was born.

  Dot’s first birthday cake smashed all over her face and in her hair.

  I flipped through them, barely ab
le to see through the tears.

  Pete on his first bike.

  Steven in his uniform holding Dot.

  All four of us standing on the porch the day we moved into our house.

  “I thought these were all lost.” I whispered for fear that I would break to hear my own voice. “How did you know?”

  “Know what?” she asked.

  “That this was all I’ve wanted. I never thought I would see these pictures again.”

  Delight consumed me. The images of my loved ones moved me well past gladness. Laughter filled my soul and erupted from my mouth. A smile lifted my face. I’d not really smiled in years. I breathed in the refreshing air of joy that the pictures had brought me. But then the laughter broke into a sob. Lisa put her hand on mine.

  “I know you love your family very much,” she whispered. “Why don’t you tell me about them?”

  I found the picture from my wedding reception. Steven, again, donned his dress uniform. I wore a light blue sundress. My red-brown hair cascaded over my bare shoulders. The two of us stood by a large cake, posing just before cutting huge slabs to feed each other. Memory overwhelmed me.

  “Steven’s parents came from Oregon the week after we eloped.” I shared the picture with Lisa. “His mother threw a reception for us.”

  “You eloped? The two of you must have been a very spontaneous couple.”

  “Well, sometimes spontaneity helped me avoid certain unpleasant situations.”

  “What would that have been?”

  “Oh, there were just a few people that I would have rather not had at my wedding. It’s not something I like to talk about. Anyway, I arranged things in such a way that there was no one to invite. And with the reception, I simply left the invitations up to my mother-in-law.” I looked at the picture. “I never gave her a list of guests to invite. She was so absorbed with how she wanted everything, as usual, that she didn’t give me a second thought.”

  “And what did your parents think about your elopement?”

  “It didn’t matter,” I said, waving off the question. “The reception was wonderful, but exhausting. So many people came, all with presents for our new life together.”

  “When you look at that picture what do you see? What does it make you think?”

  “I see a couple of naïve kids. I only wish I could warn them about what was headed for them.”

  “Would anything have been different if you’d known about all that was going to happen to you?”

  “I don’t think I would have allowed myself to be with him. I would have run off and just been by myself.” I looked at the ceiling, trying to hold back the tears. “Sometimes it’s safer being alone.”

  “Interesting.” She paused. “Do you think Steven would have felt the same way?”

  “No. I don’t believe he would have changed a thing. He would have wanted to be with me no matter what the future held for us.”

  The other visitors began walking into the room. I quickly slipped the pictures back in their envelope, not wanting to share the goodness with them.

  Lisa and I talked about life. I told her about art class. She told me about the construction on the house she was having built. We talked about novels and movies and music.

  Small talk.

  We had shared a moment so filled with emotion and then only shortly afterward we talked about trivial things. Maybe I just needed to talk about a few things that didn’t matter. Those were always the easier topics of discussion for me. The difficult, the complex—those were the things that had the power to break me into bits.

  Lisa got up to leave. She gathered the empty cans.

  “I wanted to make sure you understood that those pictures are yours to keep.” She slung her tote over her shoulder. “There’s a note in your case file. Dr. Emmert thought they would help you with some of the healing process.”

  “He’s a kind man.” I stood. “Sometimes I worry that he feels he’s wasting his time and efforts here. At least with me. I can’t seem to open up to him.”

  “I think he understands that. He says nothing but great things about you.” She held my hand briefly. “He’s impressed by your intelligence.”

  “Well, that’s very nice of him.”

  “Cora, have a blessed week.”

  “Thank you. I shall try.”

  As she walked out of the dayroom, I realized I hadn’t asked how she came about the pictures. I supposed it didn’t much matter.

  Later that evening I took the envelope to my room. I studied the reception picture. Behind the cake was a mountain of gifts. We took several trips in Steven’s truck to bring them to our small apartment.

  I lay on my bed, closed my eyes and remembered the gifts.

  ~*~

  The day after the wedding reception, Steven’s parents went back to Oregon, and I could finally breathe. We decided we would spend our day sorting the gifts in our new apartment. We had moved to Grand Rapids when we returned from our wedding and honeymoon.

  We hadn’t had a chance to register for gifts. The guests simply purchased whatever they thought we needed. We ended up with four toasters, six sets of sheets in various sizes and colors as well as multiple collections of all things useless.

  Steven and I worked to stack the dishes in cupboards, arranging spoons and forks and knives in the drawer by the sink. Bed sheets and bathroom linens found a home in the hallway closet. Duplicates or things we didn’t want went into the center of the living room.

  It looked like a house-wares department exploded in our apartment.

  “What are we going to do with all this stuff?” I asked, plopping down on the sofa, pulling my feet up under me. “Your family went just a little bit overboard with the gifts.”

  “I told you they would.” Steven reclined next to me, head in my lap. “They love you.”

  “That’s nice.” I rubbed his short, fuzzy hair.

  “You’re about to make me fall asleep.”

  “Don’t even think about it.” I pushed him up into a sitting position. “We have to figure out what we’re going to do with all this.”

  “Do you just want to have a garage sale?”

  “We can’t do that. What if your Great Aunt Beatrice comes and sees the hand-monogrammed towels she gave us marked at a quarter for the set? It would hurt her feelings.”

  “You make a very convincing point.” He lowered his head back down. “I think I would have a better idea of what to do after a nap. I’m exhausted.”

  “No! I can’t function with things this messy. We have to figure this out right now.”

  “It’s not messy. It’s really just organized chaos.”

  “Chaos makes me nervous, Steven.” I stood and looked at the pile. “This makes me crazy. You really don’t want to see that.”

  “Okay, okay. But once we get this all taken care of, I am going to need a nap. And ice cream.” He smiled at me. “Those are my conditions of surrender.”

  “You are such a little boy,” I teased. “I accept your conditions.”

  Steven stood next to me and surveyed the towels and small appliances. He looked over the glasses and dishes and sheets and blankets. So many nice things, but far too much for us.

  “Let’s just give it all away,” he said.

  “Just like that?” I asked.

  “Yup.” He rolled up his sleeves. “We don’t need all this. We don’t even really want it. And we certainly don’t have any room for it. Let’s find someone who can put it to good use.”

  “Okay. Who should we give it to?”

  “Well, that’s the problem. I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t we ask someone at the church on the corner? That’s a Baptist church, right? They might know someone who could use it.”

  The Baptist church was the place of worship for a hundred dark brown, smiling, well-dressed people. Loud singing and preaching and exclamations emanated from that building every Sunday from early morning to mid-afternoon. They served soup every day of the week to anyone
who came through their doors hungry. They were sure to have an idea of who needed all our extra gifts.

  “Well, look at Mrs. Genius.” He put his arm around my waist. “I’ll walk down there and see if the preacher’s in the office.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  The pastor gave us the address of a brand new mission downtown that would use our donations. We returned to the apartment and packed the bed of Steven’s truck.

  “Can I ride along with you?” I asked.

  “I’d rather you not. It looks like it’s in a pretty rough part of town.” He kissed me through the open truck window. “I would feel better if you just stayed right here.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I just don’t want to take the risk.”

  “But aren’t you worried about going there by yourself?”

  “Hon, I’m a Marine. I think I can take care of myself.” He patted his seat. “And if anything gets a little scary I have Genie loaded and under the seat.”

  “I hate Genie.” His gun made me nervous.

  “Don’t worry, Cora. You’ll always be my favorite girl.”

  He put the truck in reverse and drove away. I imagined all the terrible things that could happen to him. My mind played through visions of muggings and robberies and violence. For the two hours he was gone, my mind spun a web of anxiety.

  At last, I heard the rumble of his truck pulling into the apartment complex. I exhaled, my fear dissolving. I looked out the window. The truck bed was empty. He waved and smiled.“Greetings, Maiden Cora!” he called as he walked through the door. “It’s ice cream and nap time! Well, not at the same time. That would be messy. I’ll take the ice cream first.”

  “Wait. First you have to tell me about the place you took everything,” I said, relieved and curious.

  “It was a shelter.” He sat on the couch. “And, for the record, I was right. It was a really bad part of town.”

  “And?” I asked, my hands, palm up, in front of my face.

  “And they were really glad to have all the things. They’re just starting out. And they’ve got nothing.” He put his hands behind his head. “It was like Christmas for them. The lady that runs the place kept saying that over and over.”