Against the Grain
- Lois Higdon Rice - January 2, 1982 -
This book is dedicated to Father Gerald K. Mayfield, an incredibly handsome
Roman Catholic priest, whom I see as the closest thing to a true Christian
I have ever met. He once said as a young man he had wanted to be a doctor,
and I say to him "you are a doctor, the doctor of souls." He diagnosed
my illness quickly and accurately and set me on a course of recovery that
took me in one year from a neurotic middle-aged woman on the verge of a
nervous breakdown to quite possibly the happiest person in the world.
The story is fictional, but the feelings are very real and I gladly share
them, hoping that those of you who live with an alcoholic and aren't fortunate
enough to run into a Father Mayfield may seek the help that is available
and come to fee as I now do that "Life is so full of a number of things.
I am sure we should all be as happy as kings."
Lynn responded instantly to the ringing of the alarm as she always did.
But this morning it seemed a little harder than usual to make . Sleep had
been so welcome when it finally came, so she would not hate to think of
the events of last evening. She just wasn't ready to begin thinking again,
but self-discipline took over and out she climbed.
It still seemed so strange to have to climb over the end of the bed to get
out, but their little apartment was so small, even with the side of the
bed she slept on being pushed flush against the wall, there was still little
more than walking room around the bed and chest, which were the only pieces
of furniture in the room. The big fan on top of the chest, which had been
a gift from her godmother, was humming smoothly along and stirring the crisp
white cotton curtains that hung at the open windows on or in east wall of
the bedroom. She wondered how she and Danny would have survived the heat
these first months of marriage without it, since they had no air conditioning
and as she thought she should remember to thank Aunt Madge again as she
finally reached the clock and stopped that awful ringing. How happy she
was that this was Friday and tomorrow she could just awaken on her own,
though she loved to get up early and usually did even on weekends, there
was still something terribly annoying about an alarm clock.
It was in these early morning hours that she most missed her parents' home.
How she longed so many mornings to hear her Daddy saying, "Rise and
shine, Sweetie" and then awaken to smell coffee and bacon cooking.
Maybe that is why she loved mornings so much, because of the happy memories
of having her precious father all to herself, since her mother and brothers
and sisters didn't get up as early as they did and she and her Dad could
sit and talk and drink coffee and listen to the Farm Report on the radio.
They didn't have a bushel of wheat to sell or a cow or pig to take to market,
but somehow it seemed important to know what the market was doing.
"Come on, Lynn, back to reality," she scolded herseof as she pulled
the pink rayon robe over her white lacey trousseau gown, and headed for
the tiny kitchen to make her own coffee. She had finally adjusted to the
idea that her little dream of the big breakfasts shared with her new husband
were never going to be after about two months of getting up, cooking pancakes
or biscuits, and then sitting and crying while they got cold as she tried
in vain to get Danny up to eat with her. Breakfast was still her favorite
meal of the day so she ate heartily before even thinking of getting dressed
for work, and accepted the fact that Danny just wasn't a morning person
as she was.
As Lynn walked through the bedroom on her way to the shower she stopped
to look at her sleeping husband. God, how incredibly handsome he was. His
long lean suntanned body stretched diagonally across the bed, the only comfortable
position for his six-foot-two stature in that short double bed. He was clad
only in those new but now pinkish shorts, which she had thrown into the
laundry with a new red T-shirt, never dreaming anything would fade in this
day and age. His thick brown wavy hair looked great even when tossled from
sleep, and even with his lids closed over those piercing brown eyes you
could tell how big and prominent they were. Long lashes completed the most
handsome part of him. Or was it his small straight nose that was his best
feature, or the straight teeth that didn't have a single cavity at age 24.
She concluded that Danny just had it all in the looks department. Did he
look that great to other people or was she just prejudiced? No, it wasn't
just her, he was just that handsome, and she still wondered how someone
as plain as she had been the one he wanted to marry. Everything seemed so
ordinary this morning and she thought maybe she had just imagined the events
of the night before.
Lynn, I swear you should give lessons in self- deception", she thought
to herself as she caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror. You don't
get puffy eyes from imagination and you know darn well you cried yourself
to sleep last night. And puffy they were. Lynn had large prominent blue
eyes that had such dark circles under them at times it looked as if she
were wearing eye make-up when indeed she wore no make-up at all except for
some quickly applied pink lipstick. She had been blessed with olive skin
that never sunburned or freckled and seldom had a blemish on it so just
never got into the habit of make-up as most of her friends had. Her mother
had always complained that her nose was too long for her face and it had
always made her think she wasn't pretty, but Danny had often said she was
pretty to him, especially when she smiled, which was most of the time, and
showed her pretty straight white teeth. Her smile was so big and seemed
to cover her whole face until it usually looked as if she was winking at
you when she smiled. In fact at times people said something about her winking
at them when she had not intended to do so. Her light brown hair, which
was always sun-bleached by the end of the summer, was incredibly curly and
she referred to it as her Little Orphan Annie hair. Danny always said he
wanted her to wear it long, but he finally agreed that it was better short
so at least it could be controlled a little. Besides he liked the idea that
she could shower and wash it and be ready to go anywhere in fifteen or twenty
minutes, especially in the summer when she could brush it dry in the wind.
Lynn showered quickly, wrapped a towel around herself, grabbed a cup of
coffee and went to the front porch to let her hair dry. Luckily their front
porch was really on the back of the house converted to apartments , so it
was ideal for privacy and caught plenty of the Oklahoma wind this morning
to quickly dry her hair. She decided she would walk to work this morning
and call Danny from the office to awaken him. He would probably be upset,
since he worried what the neighbors would think of him if he let her walk
to work and he drove the only car they had. She never could convince him
that she loved the one-mile walk in the morning and it was ridiculous for
him to get up an hour before he had to be at work to take her. Besides,
when she had only herself to rely on she was always on time -- six years
on the job and had only been late one time because of car trouble, but now
married three months and she'd been late four times.
She laughed at herself as she tiptoed into the bedroom and quietly opened
the chest drawer to clean panties and bra. Why did she keep thinking she
had to be quiet to prevent awakening Danny? She'd be lucky if she got him
to hear the telephone to get himself to work when she called him from the
office. As quietly as possible because she wanted to walk to work, she slipped
into the undies and pulled over the crisp blue pique shift her mother had
sewn for her. She didn't want him to awaken and make her want to drive her.
She took her pantyhose and low heeled sandels to the living room and sat
on the couch to put them on. Maybe she should mix some orange juice for
Danny before she left, she thought, but decided time was too short, so picked
up her short shoulder bag and was off.
"Oh, what is so rare as a day in June" lines of her favorite poem
filler her thoughts as she walked in the clear crisp morning she loved so
much and her heart wanted to sing as it always did, but now alone and without
the routine of dressing and preparing for work to occupy her mind she had
to face the events of last night and decided it best to spend the twenty
minutes it took to walk.
Lynn walked as always: very, very, fast. Her friends had always complained
that there was no way they could keep up with her because she moved so fast
and that even had she walked slowly her legs were so long they had to take
two steps to her every one. But it was just natural to her to move fast
and she just couldn't walk any other way. Now that she was walking and had
no more morning routine to keep her mind off the night before she could
not avoid the thoughts any longer. Maybe better to get it thought out before
she arrived at the office and the nice ladies there started with the usual
"How's our little bride today?" "How long do you have to
be married before people stopped saying that to you?", she wondered.
She was afraid that if they started that today she would break into tears,
because she knew that they all loved her and wished her the very best, and
she loved them in return. They had followed her romance through all their
courting days with more interest than their favorite soap opera and Lynn
was so open she never minded sharing the joys and even the little fusses
she and Danny had. The wedding had seemed as much theirs as hers as they
relived their youth through her, and they had been so generous with showers
and gifts they had fully equipped the little apartment. But how now could
she burst their romantic idea about her and Danny by even hinting at what
had happened to her the night before.
Items on this page are
© Copyright 1995 Lois Rice, All Rights Reserved..
If you have comments or would like to speak with the author,
send email to lois@wildrice.com