Cracks in the Sidewalk(3)

I told her about my imaginary family and how I could picture each and every one of them right down to the freckles on their noses. After she’d laughed at how much alike we were, Elizabeth said, “I hope and pray I’ll be a good mom—like you.”

It’s funny how hearing your child say something like that can cause a lump to rise in your throat. Elizabeth reached over and wiped a tear from my eye, and then we just sat there grinning at each other. In that moment I felt like my cup was full to overflowing, and it’s stayed in my heart all these years.

David was born six months later. Two years after that Elizabeth gave birth to Kimberly, a beautiful little girl. I loved both of those babies as if they were my own and could barely wait to babysit.

“If you’ve got errands to do,” I’d say, “I’ll be happy to take the children.”

“I know, Mom,” Elizabeth would laugh. “Trust me, I know.”

Back then when life seemed to be about as good as it could possibly get, I never imagined the sadness that would take over our lives.

Neither did Elizabeth.





1984



When Winter Wanes

In the early spring before the trees had begun to bud and snow flurries still came and went, Elizabeth Caruthers felt the movement of the baby she carried.

“It’s probably gas,” her mother said. “Two-and-a-half months is too soon, unless you’ve got the date wrong.”

Elizabeth flipped through the pages of the calendar alongside the refrigerator. A calendar filled with reminders of birthdays, dinner parties, pediatrician appointments, and asterisks noting all the prior months when she’d been disappointed to find she was not yet pregnant.

She had never needed the calendar before, but in the last month Elizabeth had grown tired and forgetful. She attributed it to the headaches, a malady she hadn’t suffered with David or Kimberly. Carrying them, she’d been in the best of health.

She scrunched the right side of her face into a half-frown. “I suppose it’s possible I’ve gotten the dates mixed up,” she murmured. “Maybe figured wrong.” She turned to the sink, filled a tumbler with water, and chugged it.

“I’m obviously forgetting something,” she mumbled, then refilled the glass and drank again.

Claire McDermott knew her daughter, and she sensed this pregnancy was different. Elizabeth was barely ten weeks, but she looked like a woman six or seven months along. And there was the faraway look in her eyes. The weariness that kept her in bed most mornings. The unenthusiastic shrug she gave in response to things that were previously cause for delight. The day before when Claire said, “Oh my gosh, look at how fast David put that puzzle together!” Elizabeth simply nodded.

Then in early March things changed even more. Elizabeth no longer noticed David’s achievements or the way Kimberly fastened a crooked diaper on her baby doll. When Claire pointed them out, Elizabeth simply gave a weary sigh and mumbled, “Unh-huh.”

Jeffrey also noticed the change. He began to pick at her for everything imaginable.

“Look at you,” he’d say. “You’re fatter than Aunt Sophie!” He found fault with Elizabeth’s appearance, criticized her weight gain, claimed she did nothing to control the children, and insisted the house looked worse than a pigsty.

At times Elizabeth had to bite her tongue to keep from pointing out the true cause of his irritability—Caruthers Couture. A disastrous retail venture that failed to catch on. At one time Jeffrey had been the ideal husband, a man who adored his wife and covered her with compliments as lavishly as ladling hot fudge over ice cream. Now his words were resentful, harsh, and, at times, even cruel. They tore through Elizabeth and left her hiding inside herself.

When that happened, she’d try to remember better times. Times when he’d promised eternal love and placed the world at her feet. But how could she remember those things when she sometimes couldn’t remember why she’d opened the refrigerator door? Last Tuesday, a morning when Jeffrey had been at his absolute worst, Elizabeth poured a puddle of coffee on the breakfast table because she’d forgotten the cup. On days like that she leaned on her mother.

The distance from one house to the other was less than two miles. Claire jumped from her bed as soon as the sun cleared the horizon, ran a brush through her hair, and drove the short distance. She had to be there in time to dress and feed David and Kimberly. Well, she didn’t actually have to, she wanted to. Claire knew a woman had her grandchildren for only so many years. Then they grew too old and reached the age where a display of affection generated an indignant, “Geez, Grandma!”

“Good morning,” Claire called out as she sailed through the kitchen door.

“What’s good about it?” JT grumbled.

Most mornings he ignored Claire, which she preferred if he happened to be in one of his moods. She filled the pot and set the coffee to brew. “Have you had breakfast?”

“No time,” he answered flatly, then tore through the house looking for an inventory report.

“Is this it?” Claire fished a stack of papers from beneath David’s coloring book.

JT snatched the papers from her and stuffed them into his briefcase.

~

Caruthers Couture was in the downtown area of Westfield, a place where most merchants had thriving businesses. When Jeffrey cleaned out their savings account to purchase an expensive line of evening wear and designer clothing, he swore his store would make millions. It didn’t. In fact, for two years it ran a deficit month after month.