Chapter Fifty

It would have felt more comfortable swallowing a bucket of knives. But no matter. Marge was in it now, and if Marge knew anything, it was that she wasn’t in control no matter how hard she tried to right this ship. It wasn’t a moment in the shower, crying in the hot water or a knees-to-chin type moment in her dark closet. It was as she was putting pants on her son, a grown man, who couldn’t do the job without her. It was that act that taught her all she needed to know about God, and how she had always gotten it so wrong. God was the one dressing her, keeping her fed, keeping her whole and alive. And that face of her son’s, how peaceful and reposed, not fighting or struggling against her like he once would have done. But accepting what this moment was between them and finding the peace in it.

How much she still had to learn.

She didn’t mention any of this to Walt, one, because she didn’t feel like having an “I told you so” moment. But deep down, she knew her husband wasn’t the “I told you so" type. It was more that she didn’t know how to put this revelation into words without the flood gates opening and all the shame in her heart drowning her where she sat in the passenger seat of their car. How terrible, all those years, fighting against the “wrongness” of life when really, she had been spared even through the hard parts. Time and again, God had delivered the life raft only for her to poo-poo it, eyes scanning for something better. Her parents’ love, an ability to understand her siblings, Lenny’s temperament, the night a random stranger turned her life to dust. How often had she combed through everything, straining to see the bad in it so she could face it head on and make it submit to her will. But nothing had. Not her son’s condition, or her daughter’s anger, or Walt’s patient heart. The lesson Marge learned buttoning her son’s pants and carefully taking him in her arms was one that was cellular. It was like God Himself had opened her up and put something new inside, fresh eyes to an outside world she had hated for so long. And Garrett didn’t even move a muscle.

As Walt moved the car through the parking lot of the courthouse, Marge felt like she was sitting inside a shark on the move. They glided slowly, surreptitiously searching for ankles to bite, until they came to a nice wide spot near the front. Marge felt a spark of glee until the thoughts of why they were there tampered it down. Travis. Her heart was bleeding. There had been tiny slashes all these years she kept taping up, but when she went to Franklin’s house to complain about the hussy—the lawyer—each one ripped away leaving her raw to the touch. But Franklin had hugged her anyways, and there was something about that she just couldn’t fathom—the thought of loving something so unlovable.

She dreaded this. She dreaded that the entire family would be there. She dreaded seeing her grandson in a jumpsuit, baby-faced and scared. She dreaded seeing that cousin of his, Douglas, because she was scared of what she might do to him. She was scared of guiding her son through bright lights and squeaky doors and a metal detector that would certainly chirp at him. She was tired of the unpredictability of the world, as unpredictable as her own emotions. And now she felt like she didn’t even have her old mask to cover the worry in her eyes.

“It will be okay,” Walt said, like gospel. And for once, Marge chose to believe him.