Leaving

Splendid Hill, Texas is the flattest place you'll ever see. It's set at near sea level and has three bays, if you want to call them that, that comprises the western side of the city. The air usually hangs thick above our heads due to the pollution from the Skutte Refinery. The smell from that refinery permeates the air; you can never quite remove it from your hair or clothes. After traveling, I can always tell when I'm close to home because you can begin to smell Splendid Hill as you drive over the Winston County Bridge. Sometimes though, when the atmosphere isn't hazy from the chemical plant, you can almost see the other side of town.

Our home sits on the south side of town, near White's Cemetery across from the old high school. The cemetery is very old. The land underneath it is subsiding and some plots are sunken. Many of the headstones are cracked or missing altogether. Sitting on our front porch, I can see the weeds that cover the headstones like crude lace. We've lived here since 1983, when Manne found a job at the plant and I got my certificate of completion from secretarial school. Our house was built sometime in 1974 and is half wood, half brick. It used to be white, but now it's grey like the dirt yard it rests on. Our yard, like many of the yards in Splendid Hill, doesn't have grass. Our neighbor has one chinaberry tree in the front, but all we have is grey dirt. My favorite thing about this grey house is the large window that faces the street. About six years ago, I went down to the Splendid Hill Second Baptist Church garage sale and bought a nice, old wooden desk to put right underneath that window. Many days I find myself sitting at the desk just peering out of the window, watching the cars go by. As they speed by, I see flashes of white, like lightening. But, it is not lightening I see. They are tombstones, signifying the dead.

Today I am sitting at that desk, sewing. I am mending one of Manne's shirts so he can wear it to work tonight. He leaves me for work every day at 4:30 p.m. I joke with him a little, and say, "Manne, you know that I'll die if you leave for work again. I miss you dreadfully when you're gone. The house is so empty, sometimes I wish that it would talk to me, just for some company."

Manne just shrugs his shoulders a little and pats my head. It's the same thing every day. He'll then grab his grey lunch box and peck at my cheek and walk out of the door.

It has begun to rain. Not a heavy rain, more like a drizzle. It's enough rain to make the yard become a swamp, complete with soggy earth. I look out of the window and watch the rain drops stream down the face of the window. A clap of thunder makes me jump and sets off a car alarm several streets over. The sound of the alarm jars my nerves and sets me on edge. It is an urgent, consistent noise, meant to alert its owner of foul play. But today, it's only thunder.

I continue to sew Manne's shirt and think about the phone call I received two days ago from my long time acquaintance, Mrs. Hilda Middleton. Mrs. Middleton is one of those ladies who drips with Southern charm. She's a heavyset woman, now in her sixties with pure white hair and too much lipstick. She always calls me "sweetie," and catches my hand whenever she greets me. She is also the mother of David Middleton, my high school boyfriend. Love is more like it. Love. I loved David. His hair curled at the tips and would graze his brow. I would melt away just looking at him. He and I went together for about two years until he broke up with me for Christine Slanger, the new girl. How I hated her. Her blond hair was always braided and she would always be outfitted in the latest fashions. She thought that she was something. She would kiss on David in front of me and everyone else at school. She would always manage to relate trivial matters about her and David just to revel in my misery. In spite of high school torture, I loved David. I would forever think of his soft hands and even softer words that would travel from his lips and linger at my ears. Even when Manne and I got married, I would catch myself thinking of David. Then Tuesday morning, Mrs. Middleton called. I ran to the answer the phone so it wouldn't wake Manne up. I had been doing dishes, so I wiped off my hands on an old blue towel by the sink and picked up the receiver.

"Hello?" I asked quietly, hoping not to disturb Manne. "Virginia, this is Hilda. I hate to call you so early in the morning, sweetie, but I needed to speak with you," she said. Her voice sounded strange. It seemed like she was far away.

"Mrs. Middleton, are you okay? You sound as if you are on one of those cell phones," I said.

"Virginia," she started, her voice shaking, "Virgina, there has been an accident. David---"

"David? What kind of accident?" I asked, my voice raising an octave. She sighed the longest sigh I have ever heard and said, "There was a car accident on Farm Road 356. David was killed," she replied slowly.

I dropped the phone. It fell to the floor with such I clatter, I knew that Manne would wake up. But I didn't care. Time was frozen in my kitchen. My knees buckled and then I sank to the cold tile floor, where I sat for what seemed like hours with my mouth open, dumbfounded. I finally managed to pick up the phone again and hang it up.

I didn't call back Mrs. Middleton until the next day. I apologized profusely for hanging up on her. I felt as if my words were hollow. I felt hollow. I felt about as hollow as I had back in February 1985. The weather man on TV said that February 26, 1985 was the coldest day for any southeastern Texas city in four years. I spent thirteen hours in labor at the H. J. Huddle Memorial Hospital. The lights seemed too bright, as if angels were floating around the room, illuminating the darkness. I could just imagine, as I stared up at the low ceiling, that they were all around the bed, waiting for the baby to arrive to guide her into this world. My legs were propped up in the dreadful stirrups as the doctor told me to push. I pushed. I pushed as hard as I could. I had been waiting to deliver that little baby girl inside me for nine months and now was as good a time as ever. I took hold of the nurse's hand and pushed and pushed, beads of sweat running down my face and leaving wet spots on the front of my gown. The harder I pushed, the harder I squeezed until the nurse had to extract her hand out of mine. I broke off one of her fake nails. I was secretly pleased with my strength. I'd never exerted any force like that before.

"C'mon, Virginia, we're almost there," the doctor urged, sounding about as breathless as I was.

I felt as if my lower half was pulling apart as I pushed one more time, hard. Then I felt empty as the doctor pulled the baby from the confines of my body. I cried hard, racking sobs that penetrated the stillness of the room. I asked for my baby.

"You just lie here, Mrs. Grimm, " the nurse told me, her eyes on the doctor. I cried harder and tried to reach for my baby. I wanted to hold the precious child that Manne and I created.

The nurse took a syringe off of the instrument tray and stuck the needle into a bottle of liquid. I tried to move, but could not. I was too weak. She held the syringe up to that bright light and tapped on it and the injected the fluid into my IV. I soon fell fast asleep, all pain melting away. I woke up hours later to my red-faced mother. Manne was sitting in the corner, smoking a cigarette. He had a tense expression on his face and his brow wrinkled as he took one drag after another. There was a "No Smoking" sign above his head. I looked at my mother and she took me in her arms. I cannot remember what happened after that.

I would learn that my baby had been stillborn. We called in a priest and named her Gloria Raye Grimm. We then buried her two days later. Only four people attended the service even though there was a funeral announcement in the paper.

I have not been the same since then. I have lost all interest in life including routine activities. I think the farthest I've gone since then is to Mitchell, TX, which is about a fifty minute drive from here. I mostly spend my days cleaning and cooking. Once a week, on Monday, I go to Karen's Sews & Bows and take a sewing class from nine to ten thirty in the morning. I go grocery shopping once a month because I do not have the strength to do it any more than that. The doctor I started going to said that I was depressed. He could call it whatever he wanted, but that wasn't going to change me. I was starting to see things more clearly and I knew what I had to do. I quit my job at the tax service I worked for to stay at home and take care of Manne; taking care of all I have left.

Manne's alarm clock is now going off. I put down my sewing and go in and shut it off for him. I need to get him ready to leave. I walk down the long hall leading to our bedroom, still thinking of Gloria and David. I suck in my breath deeply. My doctor told me to do this whenever I feel stressed. It does not help. My hands are trembling and I feel like my medication has run out.

I open the door and walk inside, setting down Manne's shirt on the chair by the bed and switch off the alarm clock. I sigh and stand there for a minute in the calm, chewing on a fingernail. I look at Manne's slumbering figure and chew harder on my nail. He looks so peaceful to me. His brown hair contrasts sharply against the white pillow case. He usually doesn't look this happy. Ever since Gloria left us, he has been always angry. Especially at me. Especially when I quit my job. But he doesn't understand. If I don't protect him, he will leave me and I cannot let that happen.

I kneel down on the hardwood floor and run my fingers along his forehead and talk to him a little.

"Manne, time to get up. Didn't you hear the alarm clock?" I say to him, almost in a whisper. I know that we need the money, but I really don't like him leaving me for work.

Manne stirs out of his slumber and opens his eyes to stare at me. "What time is it?" he asks, fumbling for the alarm clock.

"It's 3:32," I answer, looking away at the floor. I see a roach making its way toward the closet door. Its little brown body scuttles across the floor, traveling like the cars outside of my window. It did not know that I was there, watching its every move, waiting for it to notice me. It climbed over the toe of Manne's work boot and slipped under the crack of the closet door. "Hell, Ginny! You know it messes me up when I sleep even a minute over. We don' need that foreman gettin' all fired up at me again," he says, bolting upright in the bed.

I grab on to the wooden bedpost and pull myself up. I feel sick to my stomach. I feel the back of my neck grow damp as I began to feel ill. I stand motionless, only looking at my bare feet.

"Well, don' jest stand there, Ginny. You gotta git me ready for work," he says as he walks over to the bathroom and puts up the toilet seat.

"Sorry," I mumble, digging my thumb nail into my flesh. I take his pants off of the hanger on the back of the chair and lay them on the bed. I put his shirt next to it. I step back a little and then pick up the shirt and hang it over the back of the chair so it won't wrinkle. Manne despises wrinkles. I go over to the bureau to pull out his underwear and socks as Manne flushes the toilet and belches. I take out the socks when I stop. The socks fall out of my hand as I reach for a small gold plated frame on the top of the bureau. Underneath the dust that has collected is a picture of my father, Don, right before he left my mother. He is smiling and has his heavy arm around Manne's shoulder. His pack of cigarettes show through the flimsy blue polyester shirt. I think his teeth are yellow, but the picture has been warped by age and time.

Manne walks in from the bathroom, sees the socks and my quivering form and says, "Dammit, Ginny! You never gonna get any better if you keep foolin' around with all this nonsense. What you need to do is be useful. I seen Margie at the pharmacy and she said that she's gonna get a job at the elementary school bein' a cafeteria lady. You could do somethin' like that ‘stead bein' all cooped up here. Look at you. All you do is mope ‘round tha house and cry all day. You're startin' to make me---" he says to me, taking hold of my bony shoulders.

His words slap me in my face. I look up at him, knowing what he means. I shake free of his grasp and pick up the socks and put them next to his pants. He shakes his head at me and walks into the bathroom again.

"Ginny, go ‘n make my dinner. I want one of them TV dinners you bought tha other day," he says, not looking at me.

I start to walk out of that room as he calls after me, "I need you to shave me, Gin. You know if you don't want whiskers, you gotta shave. You know I hate it. My daddy had whiskers and there ain't nothin' wrong with it," he says.

I groan inwardly. As much as Manne makes me do all of these chores, I know that I love him. I know that while I'm still sick, I can't do anything else except take care of him. After Gloria, after David, after Daddy, I only have Manne. Mama even, is gone away. She remarried this traveling salesman from Vegas and I haven't seen her since 1994.

I walk into the kitchen, switching on the light. Another roach hurries across the floor, finding its home under the kitchen sink. We never had roaches at mama and daddy's house. I wonder if mama and daddy now have roaches because they are no longer together. Roaches only come around things that are rotten. The roach is making its way toward the garbage that we hid out of sight under the sink. I stand in the middle of the kitchen momentarily, glancing at the rotary phone hanging on the wall. At first, I hear the crash of the phone on the floor and then I see the ghost of myself crumpled up in a heap on the yellow tile. I feel my head grow light and I begin to sweat. Then, as quick as I imagine this, I am there, on the floor, gasping for air. I place my hands firmly on the floor in order to balance myself, but it is no use. I do not call for Manne, for he will get angry because I am having one of my fits. The world is spinning and suddenly the floor comes crashing up to my face. It hurts.

As I lie there, waiting for my breathing to calm down, I think of my house and Manne. I would not, do not want to be anywhere else in the world. It's a funny thought and I begin to laugh hysterically. I do not have anywhere else to go.

I stand up, using the cabinet doors for support and make my way over to our secondhand refrigerator. I open the freezer, noticing that Manne forgot to fill the ice trays and take a spaghetti and meatballs TV dinner out of the freezer and pop it in the oven. I chew off the rest of my hangnail, causing it to bleed a little. I suck on the blood and shuffle my way back to the bedroom.

I laugh out loud as a walk down the hall. Everything seems to be fitting into place. I see the angels watching over me and Manne from the ceiling above and I look to my left and David is standing beside me and I see my mother and father, arms linked, near the open door of our bedroom. I hear Gloria crying, but I cannot see her. I cry out and hit my right shoulder against the wall. I turn and hit the wall back.

"Ginny, what's all that racket you're makin'?" Manne asks. I smile, knowing that I have the secret to keeping my life together. I jump up and down a little and clasp my hands together, smiling at David. He winks at me.

Manne needs me to take care of him. I am the one who can hold everything together. I need to be strong for mama and daddy, David, Gloria and Manne. I will not ever lose them, really. They will always be with me because if they won't, then why can I see them?

"Ginny, are you gonna help me with this or not?" he asks, frustrated. I walk into the tiny bathroom and go over and wrap my arms around Manne, giving him a kiss. He leans forward a little, unsure of my impulsive action. He breaks my kiss almost instantly and brushes my brown hair out of my face. He then turns back to the mirror, straight razor in hand. Manne insists on using a straight razor like his father did. He thinks it gives him a closer shave. He always says that if he's not going to have his beard, then he's not going to go around with stubble on his face like some vagabond. "Let me help you with that," I say, taking the razor out of his hand. It glimmers in the bright light of the bathroom. He looks at me, emotionless. "Oh, Manne," I say, my eyes gleaming, "I can make it all work out." I am smiling now, something I have not done in thirteen years. I take the razor and begin to gently trace it down the foam which covers his face. "Manne, you don't need to go to work today," I say to him evenly.

"What are you talkin' about?" he asks, holding still. He looks at me, questions filling his eyes.

"You don't ever have to leave me again. We will stay right in our nice grey house and watch the cars go by out of the window. We can take walks up and down the driveway, like I do every day after lunch, only this time you'll be with me. Just you and me and David and Gloria and mom and dad," I say, trembling with excitement.

I move behind him to see his face in the cabinet mirror. I stare at his eyes and he looks back at mine. My arms drop to my side and I sigh, content. I have pulled the root of my depression up out of that grey earth and transplanted it where it can now create life. I can walk along the garden I am creating, where grey is not a color and loneliness is not a feeling. Manne looks at me. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but then promptly shuts it. He is very quiet and he knows what I mean. I press my head into his back and then lift my head and meet his eyes in the mirror. I smile at him.

"You and I will be together forever. You'll never have to leave me for work," I say as I run the blade of the razor across the base of his throat.

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