More and More

So she would go out every day at lunch time with a bag from McDonald’s.  She bought him two lunches and that way she wouldn’t feel guilty about not bringing him dinner as well. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be out at the cemetery at night with a crazy man and a tagger than was still out there and had some kind of axe to grind. He seldom came up to the office and she would go down into the pasture to find him. For a few days she didn’t see him at all. But she left the bag on his shopping cart and the next day it would be eaten. She carried the trash out if she could spot it. Other days he would be sitting there waiting. He never looked at her, but did keep on mentioning Deedee from time to time. Did he even realize who she was? The tears on the first day made her think he did, but there wasn’t any way to really know.  There was troubling talk about people snipping him or poisoning him. He seemed to like popping about, that was the only was she could explain it. He would just leap up and then settle down in a different place. She never went very close. He would move off if she did. She would tell him things about her life. None of it sunk in,

She was stymied about what to do with him. She could have him committed somewhere, she supposed, but she didn’t think that was a great option. Somehow that would make him hate her, she thought.  She kept thinking that perhaps she could coax him into her car, take him home and give him a bath. That once he was inside and cleaned up, he might settle down and be lazy about being schizophrenic. She knew that would never happen, but if he was willing to follow her, she might give it try. He wouldn’t follow her. So she was going to just him be until something changed. The winter was still far off. He was surviving, as he had done for the last twenty years, without her help. And now it was probably easier because she was at least feeding him. She was going to go to thrift store and bring him back some better clothes by the end of the week. This could go on for a while. At least until the owner of the pasture realized he was here and the sheriff would probably show up and run him off. She needed to find the owner and head that off.

Her lunches were her rambling on about New Orleans. She had grown to love the city, and all of its excesses. She left out the trade, the way she made money. She talked about the Saturday afternoon strolls through humid run down neighborhoods. The old black men that were all forever gentle and kind. The food. The rain that came for just an half an hour every summer day right after lunch. Mardi Gras. The church bells, the streetcars and the music. The way everyone talked so slow and patiently. The alcohol that could make an evening glow like real romance. The snails on the sidewalk after the rain. The big porches and big windows that you could walk through. The way leather would turn green if you left it in a drawer too long. The Hurricanes that always seem to miss the city. The antiques you could find everywhere. The odd little places you could live that were sheltered by moss covered trees. And you could be a lady 24 hours a day and that was fine because it was the south. The old while men with their moustaches and white hair and suits the color of ice cream. And canes.  And they might even call you missy, if they were sweet on you. She wasn’t sure what had started this pouring forth of the things she missed, but he seemed to sit and witness her while he ate, even if he didn’t hear what she was saying.

She knew it couldn’t go on forever.

The morning sickness didn’t go away. And it got worse.

The day of the shower came quickly. Her new friends seemed to rejoice in putting this on. Susan came early with a couple of trays of hors d'oeuvres. She helped tidy up the place and arrange chairs out in the living room. She had even brought a bag of fold-up cardboard baby shower decorations, which she proceeded to tape up on her walls and across the front window. Everything was pastel yellow, pink and blue.  Another lady came with a cake and baby shower paper plates. Sarah brought a couple bottles of Champaign.  The other women she didn’t know, but it soon became apparent that they were from the same church. The wife of her sharecropper came, who she hadn’t seen since that first night when they had laid claim to furniture and knickknacks that had belonged to father and mother. One even brought her three month old baby.  And they all brought presents for her. They ended up with ten women coming. Daydee was lost at sea.

“So how did it go with the bank?” Sarah asked her as they were arranging the food out on the coffee table.

“They gave me a three month grace period. No payments, nothing.” Daydee told. “I didn’t think banks acted that way.”

“John said that night that he hadn’t Edward that mad in a long time. He stormed out and slammed the door.” A woman said, that Daydee guessed was Sarah’s friend whose husband was on the board.

“Thanks everyone, for everything,” Daydee told them.

They opened the Champaign. Susan passed out pieces of yarn to everyone including to Daydee.

“Okey, the idea is to tie a knot at your guess at the length of Deidre’s tummy measurement. And Deidre, you get to do it too. You won’t win.”

They all were holding their yarn up, eyeing her waist. It had gotten larger in the last two weeks, but she had just been telling herself she was getting fat and it was too early to show. But now she realized that she was showing and they were all happy about it. So then she had to stand up as each woman got to try out their yarn around her waist. Daydee’s was way too short. There were two that were very close, so she had to be re-measured to decide on a winner. It was her sharecropper’s wife.   She won a box of chocolates. This prompted stories about when they all started to show. One woman claimed she didn’t until the last three months. They all agreed that they didn’t like strangers walking up and touching their bellies. But they thought it was expected so they let people do it. Daydee had never seen anyone do that to a pregnant woman- maybe the culture was different in the south. It was a little worrying, knowing that she’d be expected to let people touch her. Maybe she wouldn’t.

The next game was sort of a ‘who’s got the needle’ with a diaper pin. Daydee had to go out of the room and when she returned all the women had their hands together up in front of them like it was a prayer circle. Daydee’s job was to go from one woman to the next and ask them by name if they had the safety pin. The answer was replying to her by name and telling her no. Daydee was supposed to find the safety pin by reading their faces. The hard part was remembering their names and being embarrassed by having to ask again. The ladies took it stride. There were a couple who tried to act as if they were lying when they said they didn’t have it. The rolling of eyes or the giggling was just silly. She knew before she got to Sarah that she was the one that had the pin between her hands. She tried not to let on that the game was too easy. The Champaign was being passed out freely and the group was definitely getting tipsy. They were having fun trying to tell her the truth.

The next game was where you tried to pass a cucumber held between your knees to the person next to without dropping it. The women were turning red and laughing hysterically. Only one who did it successfully was Susan, Jack’s wife. The women collapsed in their chairs, exhausted and flushed. Daydee hadn’t rubbed up against so many women ever in her life. She hated to see what else there was to come with this group. Over cake and drinks, they began to get sentimental and each had their own story to tell about childbirth and raising their children and the early times before the kids entered school. Daydee was feeling her age. They had all had children in their twenties and early thirties. By the time, she could trade stories like these she would be fifty. Most of the party was a little younger than she was right now.  She doubted if she would be able to play the cucumber game at fifty. It turned out that this was as risqué as they got.

Then came opening the presents. There was an abundance of things. Clothes and a diaper bag and a bathing tub and bottles and diapers and more clothes. She found herself getting overwhelmed by their generosity. She tried to ooh and aah like she thought she was supposed to do, but soon found herself choking up and near to tears. This only seemed to endear herself to them more. She got hugs then with each present. She didn’t know how she would be able to come out of this.

There had been a time in her life (most of it actually) when she would have had to get up and walk out of the room and not come back. She had hated and mistrusted intimacy that much. How dare anyone give her anything. Only the johns were allowed to bribe her, because they were all so many blubbering idiots anyway. Friends, in the world she had come from, were only hardened cases like herself, who might loan an aspirin after a long hard night or distract a barfly for a minute so you could make your escape. But that was it. You didn’t ask for anything. They didn’t either. There were moments of kindness from total strangers- that was enough. A funny little bookstore clerk with an Amish beard who asked you if you were all right. A wino who winked and waved and hollered that you were as beautiful as always and never asked for change. The hotel security guard who called you ma’am. And the waitress that called you honey, even though she called everybody honey. And one old drunk printer who had ink stained fingers and who tried to make you laugh and paid you and could hardly ever get it up.