​​​Chapter Forty-Seven
Wren

Rhonda came bright and early, way before we were to hit Morningside. She lightly pawed the front door like a small mouse, which wasn’t necessary. Mom and Jerry were already at work, and I was in the living room watching Recess and eating half a poptart. I invited her in and offered her the other half while we watched cartoons in silence. And then it wasn’t so silent.

“My mom’s getting an abortion.” It’s something I don’t need to be talking to Rhonda about, but I can’t tell Jerry, and my mother’s zipped in and out like a fairy on acid this week. She’s not all there, and it makes me miss her.

There’s a million answers swimming the shoreline of Rhonda’s face but all she says is, “Oh, okay.”

“She’s not a bad person.”

“You don’t have to convince me.”

“I was trying to convince myself.”

“Not to outdo you or anything, but my mom died when I was ten. Cancer. And before that she was a partier. Alcohol, coke even. Here. White Smoke. Of all places. And the principal’s wife.” She talks to the leftover quarter of pop tart in her hand. “My mom.”

Coke. I start to remember who Rhonda’s mother is. She helped get my mom arrested although Mom wasn’t doing much to save herself from the situation. I remember playdates, trips to the mall. I remember Rhonda’s curly hair.

I remember Rhonda. But I like her too much to have to tell her the truth.

So instead, I ask, “What was she like?” even though I know on some level. Loud. I remember her being loud. But on so many others, I don’t. Because it’s always like that with people. You can know a million different shades of someone while somebody else has been wading in their gray for far too long.

“I made her be the moments she loved me. All the rest I clipped away and let my Dad handle.” She puts her poptart in her mouth and chews thoughtfully with her mouth closed. That would be nice, I think. To have a dad handle it.

It was a quiet ride to Morningside. I looked out for Leslie, but she never showed. Instead, I stood next to Aleski Bjorkland who kept pointing at the curtains and saying “sheets.” Finally, a nurse came and shepherded us to the dining room where the residents were gathered for a 50’s sock hop. I do the math and realize a lot of the residents were roughly in their thirties during the 50’s. I try not to roll my eyes.

“There she is,” Mrs. Ling says behind me. I turn, and she’s sitting in a pink sweater and pearls at a table with two other ladies. “They tried to put one of those, what do you call them? Poodle skirts on me. I told them it would be the death of them.” She smiles and reveals her small, white teeth. I smile back and sit next to her. And I weigh the feeling in my chest. Relief.

We watch the parade of nonsense before us for a little while. The nurses and events director are dressed up in what I’m assuming is their best sock hop garb, dancing and twirling around. It makes me a little sad. Like this is all I’ll have to look forward to one day.

“Oh it’s not all bad,” Mrs. Ling says, reading my thoughts. “We get Jell-O on Saturdays,” she says and lifts her taupe plastic bowl of green slime. She laughs, and I do, too. She looks peaceful.

“How can you be happy?” It comes out all philosophical, like I’m trying to expose the root of an issue plaguing all of mankind.

“Well, I’m the only one in charge of something like that. And I’m not always a fan of the alternative.”

“But how can you be happy when everything sucks? When everything’s beyond your control?”

Mrs. Ling nods. She considers the question with a soft face, but she gives a hard look. “Your circumstances aren’t where joy is, Wren. Joy is only found in Jesus.” One of the ladies at the table nods, overhearing Mrs. Ling. There’s a wet trail snaking down to her chin.

“What does that even mean?” There’s something inside of me that rolls its eyes at that statement. Something that doesn’t even feel like it’s a part of me. But I defer to it, the way it elbows out all my other thoughts and sits fat in my brain. Why would I ever give up control to someone else? To a man no less? I think we already know where trusting the opposite sex has gotten me.

“It means giving everything, your thoughts, your heart, your life, your decisions, giving all of them to God. As much as you think you can outwit a situation, you can’t. It’s there. It’s looking at you like a cat looks at a dish of milk. It will lap you up. But God is the cat’s owner. You put your faith in Him, and He locks up the cat. Or He leaves the cat so you get the opportunity to silence your fear. Either way, it’s His game. And we all play our part. Some very well with His help. Others, slowly sinking.

I have a hard time looking into her eyes, but when I do, I’m swallowed by another wave of relief. I wore my good pants today, the only pair I have that doesn’t have holes or safety pins running through them. For once, I’m dressed like I can actually process the world around me. And something Mrs. Ling says takes hold.

“I used to believe in Jesus.”

“You never stopped,” says Mrs. Ling. “You just hid Him so you don’t have to look Him in the face.”

We watch the makeshift sock hop end, and I’m suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of fifty bowls of Jell-O. We spend more time as a group playing bingo after the plates are cleared. We chat for a bit. The woman who was crying is named Bonnie. Her husband Dwayne died last month, and she says the only thing that gets her through is her faith. She pats her Jell-O -stained napkin at her eyes, her mouth. Something in me elbows hard, and there’s a radiating pain at the front of my forehead.

It’s time to leave. I hug Mrs. Ling and tell her goodbye. I say thank you, which I think is barely audible, but she fires back with a strong, “Don’t thank me. I’m only the messenger.”

In the car, Rhonda fires up the engine and gives me the once over. “You look different.”

“It’s because I am,” I say.

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