My Name Is Venus Black(67)

It had hurt her more than once to be the brunt of Joe’s irritation or on the receiving end of his annoyance—only to witness him moments later gently shushing their screaming toddler with the kind of ridiculous tenderness that meant Venus could do no wrong.

Ha. Venus could do no wrong. Oh, the irony. And how impossible it seems to her now that Joe’s little princess could so quickly morph into such a difficult child and then an angry teen and then…And then Inez was nobody’s mother.

When she reaches a large piece of driftwood, she sits down on it and runs her fingers through the sand, which is soft this far from the water. It brings to mind the sandbox Leo disappeared from. Tears threaten, but Inez holds them at bay. It’s too cold to cry.

She zips her coat higher and settles in to watch the waves. The monotony of the tide is somehow reassuring. She closes her eyes and prays for Venus to forgive her. Prays for Leo to come home. She recalls how the Inez of six years ago wouldn’t have been caught dead praying—for anyone.

It wasn’t that she’d been some kind of committed atheist. Or that she’d had some terrible experience at church, although her dad’s Greek Orthodoxy had left her cold. It was simply that she never thought the concept of God had much going for it. She figured religious people just wanted to feel superior.

But all that changed in the space of a week when she lost everything that mattered to her. Even in the early throes of grief, Inez had understood that when you lose as much as she had—her entire family—you also lose your chance to enjoy the kind of casual disregard for God that regular people can enjoy.



Almost immediately, all the questions about life and death and God and meaning crowd in—the ones that have no real answers and yet you can’t stop asking them over and over, like how could a good God let this happen? But, then again, how could she turn her back on God when—if he existed—he might guide Leo home if she prayed hard enough?

At first, anger at God seemed the only way forward. But it takes a lot of energy to keep your dukes up against an invisible being who won’t fight back. So while Inez often mocked Shirley’s simple faith in God as a loving “higher power,” she came to envy it, too. Not because she thought Shirley’s trust was necessarily well placed, but because it seemed to bring her so much comfort.

Soon, the question for Inez became: What does one do with a God you are exhausted from hating but can never forgive?

And then one morning Inez thought she got her answer. She awoke from a dream about Leo. In it, Leo seemed happy and was talking to her about God. She got out of bed feeling strange, dazed. When she went to shut her bedroom window, before she could lower the pane, a waft of soft, sweet air swept through the screen and into her face. Her soul seemed to let out a small cry as something heavy inside fell away.

She stood there for a while, breathing deeply, feeling relief. Staring out at her blue hydrangeas, damp with dew, she suddenly knew as surely as she knew anything that God didn’t mind if she couldn’t forgive him. He didn’t expect her to. And it didn’t change how he felt about her.

Given this small but stupendous revelation, Inez’s rage began to lessen. She didn’t become religious or start going to church. But she did start praying. She never once gets on her knees—God forbid. She never prays when she doesn’t feel like it—because why bother? She never prays for herself, because fuck herself. But she prays for Leo and Venus many times a day.



It’s not that she trusts God to answer. That jig is up. But she prays as a way to hang on to hope.



* * *



—

WHEN INEZ FINALLY twists around to check on her things—the blanket and wine she left down the beach—she spots what appear to be several teens eyeing her stuff. She remembers her wine, and she worries they’ll grab it and run. That’s what she would have done at their age. She stands up and casually waves at them, hoping a friendly approach will save her pinot noir.

The idea of the kids stealing her wine panics her more than she knows it should. Even though she doesn’t usually drink during the day, today—maybe tomorrow, too—she plans to make an exception.

She quickly strides back down the beach, hoping to seem relaxed. The boys appear to argue and then finally walk away from her spot. As soon as she reaches her blanket, she sees with relief that the wine is still there. She plops down, grateful she remembered an opener, ashamed to realize that if she hadn’t, she would have broken the bottle open on the rocks.

She pulls the cork and revels in that lovely, familiar puff of air being released. As she fills her ruby goblet, she’s conscious of the fact that classy people drink wine from clear wineglasses. But Inez has had these scalloped goblets since before she married Joe. By now they’re like dear friends who have stuck with her through the worst moments of her life.

And tomorrow is guaranteed to bring plenty of those. Shirley and her bowling partner, Marianne, are the only ones aware of her Sunday plans—and they both begged her to let them help. “It is going to be traumatic,” Shirley insisted. “You shouldn’t do something like that alone.”

Of course, Inez knows Shirley is right—it’s probably unwise to tackle something like this without support. But for reasons that are hard to explain, she feels like she owes it to herself, or maybe to Venus, to face the basement alone.