WITH THE LORD’S HELP

Music, music, music. It sings thru the trees as the leaves dance in the breeze. Fields of yellow dandelions blink in the morning sun, smile at me. High, high in a maple tree that is filling out with pale green leaves, I see a robin fluttering, fluttering as it feeds its nestlings. Where is the father robin? Has he flown the coop, left the feeding, the error of his folly, all on the mama robin? You can bet your life on it!

My sister, Diane, lives with my husband, Ralph, my teen son, Gordon, and me. Ralph and I have planned very carefully for years on one child, and so far our plan is working–well sort of working. Diane and her five year old twin daughters have been with us for 6 months. Ralph and I love them dearly but it is tough when best laid plans go astray and the future is totally unpredictable.

Diane’s Alex flipped out, made a mess of 6 lives. You guessed it. He happened to find a younger, sexier woman than Diane, not much more than a teen, 20 ½ to be exact. He simply tipped his hat to his wife of 12 years and daughters and moved out.

My sister, my dear sister, cried herself dry. Her lips cracked. Her eyes puffed like eclair dough. Alex mailed unacceptable, almost useless, child support money weekly. It did little more than pay for the food I put on our table. I called him a lot. ‘What about insurance, mortgage payments? Doctor’s aren’t free. The girls out grow their clothes almost as fast as Diane hems them.’ He told me to mind my own business and I, with great anger in my voice replied, ‘When you next walk out of you pretty new apartment, go out in the street and forget to watch traffic on your left. Maybe we’ll all be happy if a truck kills you. If that doesn’t happen, I may kill you myself!’ I slammed the phone hard and hoped I burst his ear drum.

Concerned but not bashful, I approached Alex’s parents., explaining the situation of which they said they hadn’t heard. Their dismay was clear. Their world was disrupted too. When I left their house, I had a check in hand for $1000, that was going to help, but not much. It was not a viable answer.

Gordon was in his bedroom working on his term paper, Diane was bathing the girls, getting them ready for bed, when the phone in the kitchen rang. I heard Ralph’s gasp in the living room. ‘When? Where? How did it happen? Yes, I’ll leave now, should be there in 30 minutes.’ I learned only a simple fact and was told not to tell Diane yet, but out of my mouth and mind popped, ‘Oh, my god. He heard me tell Alex to get killed and he sent the truck. I did it. I did it and I’m glad!’

Guiltily, I tried to remove the blame from my shoulders. Selfishly, I saw the insurance money, maybe a little, maybe a lot. Whatever it would be would help. More selfishly, I saw the chance Diane would find a small cozy place for the three of them.

An hour later, when Ralph returned from the ME’s, I sat with him while he gave Diane the news. Poor sister, poor sister, was struck almost dumb. Tears fell that I thought had dried up months ago, flowed again. I held her, consoled her, until she said to me, ‘I’m not crying because Alex is dead. I’m crying because god took so long to get him off this earth–into it. We’ll be okay without him- in fact, we’ll all be better.’

Out the window I saw a very red breasted male robin fly up to the nest in the maple tree and drop a squiggly worm into an open beak. The trees were humming. The sun was yellow and happy. The past was over and the future is wide open.