Originally mailed on April 15, 1997
You may remember that Grandma had Louella's kids and had given Louella a deadline to snap out of her funk and start taking responsibility. Well, the deadline came and Grandma heard nothing from Louella. Just as she was about to call Sam, the kids' father, her phone rang. It was him. He had received a call from the hospital saying that Louella had checked in and would be there for a few days, and that she would like him to take care of the kids. He and Grandma arranged a time for him to pick them up, and they have been staying with him ever since.
I must say, Sam has surprised us. A worse than indifferent father under ordinary circumstances, he has proven to be compassionate and responsible in a crisis. He has agreed to keep the boys for as long as Louella needs him to, but has no plans to seek custody. And he's even putting himself to some trouble, driving the boys to school every morning so they won't have to leave their classes (Sam doesn't live in Lansing). In addition, he has not told his parents (who, you may recall, are the ones paying Louella child support since Sam defaulted) that he has the kids on a semi-permanent basis, so they are still sending Louella bi-weekly checks. It feels more than a little dishonest, and Nona says, "That's sure big of him, being so generous with someone else's money," but Louella needs it because she can't work full-time at the moment.
Her hospital stay was psychiatric, the diagnosis depression. No surprise there. She spent nearly a week in the hospital and didn't call any of us or allow us to visit her, but she did talk to her sons and we got slightly garbled updates from them because Grandma is still baby-sitting two afternoons a week. Nona, Grandma, and I took an enormous liberty while Louella was hospitalized and cleaned her house, did all her laundry, checked her mail and paid all the bills, and bought groceries once we knew she was coming home. We were afraid she'd be offended but more afraid that coming home to chaos would cause her to backslide.
As it turns out, she was grateful for our help, but she's been slow to pick up our friendship again. She improved in the hospital and has been home for several weeks, on anti-depressant meds and seeing a therapist twice a week, but she's keeping herself pretty isolated still. By orders of her shrink she has cut her hours at work drastically, but she has no disability insurance so money is tight. With the help of some understanding and flexible faculty, she does expect to finish her semester in school, but she says she has little energy beyond that.
Sam is doing well with the boys, though when he picks them up from Grandma's house on her baby-sitting days he always talks to her for at least half an hour about all his questions: do the boys need a bath every night, what is the best bedtime, should they carry lunch or buy punchcards for hot lunch at school. Even when Sam and Louella were married, Louella did all the parenting, apparently, so Sam is often confused these days.
The chaos in the boys' lives these past few months seems to be affecting them; little Sam has reverted to bedwetting, and Mark is having nightmares almost every night. Grandma says the boys and their father are a haggard bunch from lack of sleep. She keeps suggesting to Sam that the boys should be in therapy as well as their mother, and Sam says, "Yes, I suppose that would be best," but he has taken no steps.
In cheerier news, I had a surprise visit from Splash during her spring break. She spent a couple of nights in our guest room (I love having a guest room. After living in an efficiency for so long, I love having rooms -- plural -- at all) and we had a good visit. She likes the work she's doing in grad school but feels isolated from other women and from her queer community. She has had no sex at all in Illinois and the tension showed. She even made a half-hearted pass at me one night while Nona was out on an emergency call, but it was more for old time's sake than because she is still attracted to me.
Sometimes I wonder if my friendship with Splash can survive without sex. She's always been inconstant and neglectful; she's always made decisions without thinking them through; she's always been very young, with all the lack of judgment that accompanies the age, including the belief that certain things -- like popular music -- are very important and always will be. Great sex has more than compensated me for any tribulations, but there is no more sex, so I wonder what will become of us.
We did well for two and a half days during her spring break, but I can see the relationship changing. I would expect us to get more equal as she gets older, but it feels like, without sex to pull us into a certain intimacy, I am falling more into the role of Mentor and Elder Advisor. For the whole time she was here, we talked about almost nothing but her: what should she do about sex in Illinois; did she make the right decision to go to grad school; how can she know whether her life is on the right track? She called me an old married woman and cracked many jokes at my expense on the slowing down of life in middle age, the tedious requirements of lawn care and home maintenance, and the tepid pleasures of making love to the same woman every Saturday night, but she was not interested at all in a serious discussion of the many satisfactions of commitment and domestic harmony, a topic on which, I assure you, I have a great deal to say.
Not all is perfection with me and Nona, though. I worry a lot if she goes out at night. As a locksmith, she doesn't get a lot of late night calls, but every now and then someone locks their keys in the car at a late movie or, worse, at a bar, and off she goes. I don't like it that she's a woman alone dealing with who-knows-who late at night. The phone rings at 2 a.m., she throws some clothes on and leaves, and I lie there imagining a truckload of racist, sexist pig-men waiting in a deserted parking lot. I don't sleep until she's home again.
Finally, she said to me, "You know, Harriet, you don't need to worry when I go out on an emergency call at night. I take care of myself very well."
I said, "But I do worry. Couldn't you stop doing emergency calls, and just do safe jobs in the broad daylight?"
"Yes, I could," she said, "and I considered it. But emergency calls pay a lot of money, and I don't get many. The risk and inconvenience seem outweighed by the lovely income. Besides, I'm cautious. If I don't like the looks of the situation when I arrive -- if the people are obviously drunk, for instance -- I don't stop. I'm not foolish."
"But looks can be deceiving! The most clean-cut, sober-looking person can be a murderer or robber!"
Nona said, "That's true, of course. And that's why I carry a gun in my toolbox."
I said, "You carry a gun in your toolbox?"
She said, "Of course I do. Haven't you seen it?"
I said, "Is it the thing in that black case?"
"Yes, that's it."
I said, "I thought it was a cordless drill or some secret locksmith tool."
"Nope, it's a gun. And I know how to use it. I used to do a lot of target shooting when I first got it, and I took a self-defense course the NRA offered, but now I go to the shooting range only once or twice a year to refresh myself."
I said, " Isn't it illegal to carry a weapon around like that?"
Nona shrugged. "What do I care if it is? My safety is more important."
I said, "This is upsetting me and I'm not sure why."
Nona said, "Are you afraid of the gun? I'll take you shooting some time if you are; it will help you get over that."
I said, "No, it's something else. Like you're not the person I thought you were."
"Because I carry a gun when I work? I'm a black woman working alone in people's homes, in parking lots, and on the sides of roads. The gun helps me to feel safer, so I can do my job."
"I understand that. It actually helps me feel safer, too. I mean, feel that you're safe. But, Nona." I thought for a minute about what exactly was upsetting me. "Nona, are you a liberal? I thought you were a liberal."
Nona laughed. "This is about politics? You are so funny!" and she kissed me. But she never answered the question.
On all other topics, however, we have found a perfect unity of mind and soul. OK, on most other topics we have found perfect unity. We're working through a few things, like Nona's preference for sleeping alone a couple of times a week. I can't approve of it. I miss her, and I always think she must be mad at me or something. And I like to get up early on Saturday morning and get things done -- like lawn care and home maintenance. Nona says Saturday is her only opportunity to sleep in, because she is a Sunday morning church-goer, and she wants to sleep in with me. So I am expected to lie awake in bed for two hours waiting for her to be done sleeping, because it upsets her if I'm already up and gone when she wakes up. And Nona likes to host church gatherings at her house; she always has, but her pleasure is enhanced because people are so impressed with my cooking. But I don't participate in church-related meetings, so I sort of hover on the periphery making sure the asparagus quiche is still warm and the coffee is brewed, and whenever anyone says something quietly to Nona, I imagine they're saying, "Is that the heathen? She sure can cook, for an infidel." And Nona enjoys many TV shows that I think are puerile. And she wants us to stick to an unreasonably low grocery budget. And I drive her crazy because I leave my mail on the dining room table.
But except for these things, we are dwelling in bliss, and our house must be the happiest in all the land.
Love,
© Copyright 1994-1999 Su Penn. Design by David Dierauer.
Previous issue | Next issue