Shambles by Debra Monroe

Author:Debra Monroe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction: General, Fiction: Literary, Fiction: Women
ISBN: 9780983547730
Publisher: Engine Books
Published: 2011-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

NINE

I got home and had what?

Phone messages, Mike Cleary here, call me, hope you’re fine, Mike again, call me. At the post office, a letter from the lawyer in Cleveland. Bad news? I didn’t open it right away. And a note from my dad saying he was coming but he didn’t know when: “Stand by. Clue U in later.” Also Dannie a few blocks away in a duplex with her landlord, who was jealous of her new girlfriend she’d met at the grocery store, and I had more trouble than ever keeping Dannie away, keeping her at bay, because, face it, I’d let her in when I shared food with her, motels, two thousand miles of road. And every time I looked out the window I saw my bad-luck charm, the ill-gotten car, my mother’s big-finned car that had taken her uptown, downtown, but nowhere happy or safe. Yet it was better for Esme in case of an accident, I told myself, also convenient, four doors, getting her in and out, strapping and unstrapping. When I first got Esme, I’d asked Creola Wheat for the best advice she had. I was thinking which carseat to buy, how to test bath water or sterilize bottles, clip her tiny nails. Protect me from misjudgment, I meant. Creola looked at me. “Enjoy her,” she said. This takes time. First thing I carved out of my schedule, church.

I know the idea that faith is like a mustard seed that can take root anywhere, on a sandy rock maybe, but is also hard to hold onto, not drop. Still, I’d pray at home, I decided, Do-It-Yourself.

I started thinking what to get rid of because I was remembering my dad in wintertime with five, six, seven holes in the ice, a tip-up in each, which is a rig that lets you ice-fish from far off, a flag popping up if you have a bite. He’d get his tip-ups going and lose one fish heading out to check bait somewhere else. He ran his life like that, wood-chopping, fiddling with Airstreams, teaching at the reservation, guiding hunters. I couldn’t recognize anything big or total in my life either. I was seeing my obligations in a one-speck-at-a-time way; I’d lost my place.

Each of us is here to fill a gap. If you start thinking otherwise, remember Satan is a big, fat liar. A lady at my church says so. I don’t go for blame-it-on-Satan talk, but I do think it’s best to get on the side of something good. After I put Esme to sleep one night, I got on my knees and asked: what am I meant to do? The answer seemed obvious, raise Esme. But she’s not a room to clean, a term at school, one task done, another to move onto. With a kid you can’t see where you’ve been. Or if you do, it’s bad news; you’ve left your mark, too late. Or you don’t even notice you’re a bad parent, can’t see it. Like on Thanksgiving I gave Esme Gerber sweet potatoes and myself a TV dinner.

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