our savings to buy. In pitch darkness, I looked up at the stars and told myself,
No more
.
Somehow I changed that flat tire by myself, while Vickie comforted Phillip, tired and crying in the backseat. With each twist of the lug wrench, I felt a piece of myself come unhinged. No matter how hard we tried, something always set us back.
With the last lug tightened, I sat back on my heels, my arms aching. I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t live without any savings; I wouldn’t raise Vickie and Phillip without a real future.
On the way home, as the headlights illuminated the endless row of tall, sturdy cedars lining the country road, I silently recited the one psalm I knew by heart: the Twenty-third. I glanced in the rearview mirror; Phillip’s head rested in Vickie’s lap. Her head drooped at an awkward angle against the backseat. From the time I’d brought Phillip home from the hospital as a newborn Vickie had been by my side, my assistant mother. Sometimes I thought she had far more patience than I did. I leaned my right arm across the back of my seat, brushing the cold vinyl, to prop up her head as best I could. I wanted to scoop the children up and hold on to them as tightly as possible, never letting them experience pain or frustration again. Turning into the driveway, the gravel crunching underneath the wobbly tire, I’d made up my mind. I was going back to work.
C HARLES AND I argued about it well past midnight. He couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t let him be the sole provider—the way things were supposed to be, and had been since biblical times, he said. I couldn’t justify my position in a way that Charles accepted. Countless times in the months afterward we rehashed the same argument: circling each other, the tension in our marriage escalating while my desire for a job grew inside me as relentlessly as kudzu.
When Charles had given Vickie, now in elementary school, only a dollar for spending money for her most recent Sunday-school trip to Rock City in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I was beside myself. Standing in the kitchen trying to follow the recipe off theCampbell’s soup can for the green bean casserole I was fixing for dinner, I shook my head to myself, thinking about Vickie’s embarrassment the day before when she hadn’t been able to buy anything at the gift shop like the rest of the group. I hadn’t had a chance to discuss this with Charles yet, and I was anxious to do so, unable to get anything right all day when sewing or cleaning.
I heard Charles come in the front door, and my agitation increased. I knew he’d take off his blue windbreaker and hang it on the coatrack in the hall before he went to wash his hands. I waited for him to come into the kitchen and sit at the table to talk while I finished cooking supper. When he finally walked in, he started a pot of coffee, a gesture that usually gave me a sense of comfort but that now irritated me. I didn’t ask him about his day like I always did. I barely let him sit down before I said, “Next time Vickie goes on a retreat, she needs more than a dollar.”
He put a spoonful of sugar into his empty coffee cup before he answered. “I don’t know why she needs more than that. That’s plenty to cover her lunch.”
“That’s only enough for a hot dog and Coke. It doesn’t leave anything for the gift shop.”
“She doesn’t need anything from the gift shop.”
“She just wanted a little something to take home. That’s all.” The coffeepot started percolating loudly, the brown liquid splashing furiously against the small glass knob on the metal top.
Charles stared at the coffeepot. “She’ll have to learn she can’t always have what everyone else does.”
For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why Charles thought it was okay for our kids not to have the same opportunities as everybody else. If anyone knew how
that
felt, it was Charles. He had been the child who carried eggs and butter to school to pay for his lunches,
No more
.
Somehow I changed that flat tire by myself, while Vickie comforted Phillip, tired and crying in the backseat. With each twist of the lug wrench, I felt a piece of myself come unhinged. No matter how hard we tried, something always set us back.
With the last lug tightened, I sat back on my heels, my arms aching. I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t live without any savings; I wouldn’t raise Vickie and Phillip without a real future.
On the way home, as the headlights illuminated the endless row of tall, sturdy cedars lining the country road, I silently recited the one psalm I knew by heart: the Twenty-third. I glanced in the rearview mirror; Phillip’s head rested in Vickie’s lap. Her head drooped at an awkward angle against the backseat. From the time I’d brought Phillip home from the hospital as a newborn Vickie had been by my side, my assistant mother. Sometimes I thought she had far more patience than I did. I leaned my right arm across the back of my seat, brushing the cold vinyl, to prop up her head as best I could. I wanted to scoop the children up and hold on to them as tightly as possible, never letting them experience pain or frustration again. Turning into the driveway, the gravel crunching underneath the wobbly tire, I’d made up my mind. I was going back to work.
C HARLES AND I argued about it well past midnight. He couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t let him be the sole provider—the way things were supposed to be, and had been since biblical times, he said. I couldn’t justify my position in a way that Charles accepted. Countless times in the months afterward we rehashed the same argument: circling each other, the tension in our marriage escalating while my desire for a job grew inside me as relentlessly as kudzu.
When Charles had given Vickie, now in elementary school, only a dollar for spending money for her most recent Sunday-school trip to Rock City in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I was beside myself. Standing in the kitchen trying to follow the recipe off theCampbell’s soup can for the green bean casserole I was fixing for dinner, I shook my head to myself, thinking about Vickie’s embarrassment the day before when she hadn’t been able to buy anything at the gift shop like the rest of the group. I hadn’t had a chance to discuss this with Charles yet, and I was anxious to do so, unable to get anything right all day when sewing or cleaning.
I heard Charles come in the front door, and my agitation increased. I knew he’d take off his blue windbreaker and hang it on the coatrack in the hall before he went to wash his hands. I waited for him to come into the kitchen and sit at the table to talk while I finished cooking supper. When he finally walked in, he started a pot of coffee, a gesture that usually gave me a sense of comfort but that now irritated me. I didn’t ask him about his day like I always did. I barely let him sit down before I said, “Next time Vickie goes on a retreat, she needs more than a dollar.”
He put a spoonful of sugar into his empty coffee cup before he answered. “I don’t know why she needs more than that. That’s plenty to cover her lunch.”
“That’s only enough for a hot dog and Coke. It doesn’t leave anything for the gift shop.”
“She doesn’t need anything from the gift shop.”
“She just wanted a little something to take home. That’s all.” The coffeepot started percolating loudly, the brown liquid splashing furiously against the small glass knob on the metal top.
Charles stared at the coffeepot. “She’ll have to learn she can’t always have what everyone else does.”
For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why Charles thought it was okay for our kids not to have the same opportunities as everybody else. If anyone knew how
that
felt, it was Charles. He had been the child who carried eggs and butter to school to pay for his lunches,
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