Torment

All day the clouds have been building over the bitter chocolate mountains north of town.  The desert floor is a skillet, sending heat waves into a slate sky.  A hot wind rakes the chapped city.

From her front porch stoop, Rose can see the time and temperature sign on the bank building where she works.  4:10 pm.  One hundred seven degrees.  She runs her hand through her brown hair, a crop of weeds in this humidity.  The glass of ice tea beside her sweats profusely.  She’s waiting for her daughter and son-in-law to pull into the driveway in their blue compact.  They’re stopping over on their way to California to show Rose the latest addition to the family–her new grandson.

Rose prays she can keep her mouth shut.  It’s too late for words now, anyway.  But she’s unhappy about the baby.  Carrie is still a baby herself–eighteen years old.  Dan is twenty.  Rose can’t get past the feeling that they’re two kids playing house.  And after all the talking Rose has done about her own life, how she ruined it by marrying young, having children, mooring herself to a home and family.  She thought Carrie would know better.  Rose wanted her daughter to have a career, to live a little before settling down.  She even offered to pay for Carrie’s first year of college.  But Carrie wanted none of it.  “College?” she said.  “Mother, I don’t even want to work.  Dan’s got a good job.  I’ll stay at home with the kids.”

The wind shifts direction, blowing stiffly out of the east.  The old eucalyptus in the neighbor’s yard fights the new weather, bending and twisting, its leaves silver against a charcoal sky.  A white plastic bag whips down the street, ballooning into a kite that’s carried high into the air.  A moment later, a wall of orange dust sweeps across the valley floor.  The sign on the bank flashes 4:11.

Rose remembers the day she went to the bank with Carrie to cosign for the car loan.  A pregnant woman stood in front of them, so ripe she could have burst.  The other women in line fawned over the woman, but Rose was repulsed by her.  For one thing, to hear her talk, you knew she had the IQ of a stone.  Just what we need in the world, Rose thought, another stupid child.  And later, when Carrie went over and felt the woman’s watermelon stomach, it was all Rose could do to keep from scolding her daughter.

During the car ride home, Carrie said, “Wasn’t that pregnant woman cute?”

“Cute isn’t the word I had in mind.”

“I guess you’re right,” Carrie said.  “It’s hard to be cute when you look like that.  But you know what I mean.”

“Has it ever occurred to you, young lady, that there’s a population crisis in the world?  It’s ignorant people like that who keep the numbers going up.”

The comment stunned Carrie.  She turned to her mother with an open mouth.  Just out of high school, and still so much the teenager, Rose thought.

Carrie said, “I don’t understand you, Mother.  Are you against people having children?”

“Of course not.  It’s just that somebody’s got to think about overpopulation.”

“If you felt like that, why’d you have kids?”

 “Because I was as stupid as that girl in the bank.”

“But if you hadn’t had kids,” Carrie said in her innocent way, “Luke and I would never have been born.”

The sky is a darker shade of gray.  An aluminum can jangles down the alleyway behind the house.  White doves fly against the wind like wounded airplanes.  Rose goes inside, standing at the screen door to watch the storm’s progress.

She didn’t even want to attend the wedding, but her ex-husband, Bob, talked her into it.  It was a small affair, maybe twenty people, held in the downtown park where Dan and Carrie had met.  Dan’s parents were all in favor of the union.  They looked young enough to be Dan and Carrie’s older siblings.  Dan’s father, Jim, owned a construction company that had an office in El Paso.  Dan would run the business there.  The thought of it made Rose laugh.  She couldn’t imagine anyone so young with so much responsibility.  But Dan wanted the responsibility.  That’s the part that troubled Rose most.

All through the ceremony and, later, during the reception, Rose struggled hard to be the happy mother of the bride.  The mixed drinks helped.  She drank too many.  While she was drunk, she had a revelation.  What the hell, she thought, who am I to decide what’s right and wrong?  If this is what they want, then so be it.  As long as they’re happy.  Happy is what counts.  But when Rose sobered, she went back to her original feelings.

Two weeks later, Dan and Carrie packed their belongings into a small U-Haul trailer, hitched it to the blue compact, and left for Texas.

* * *

After several months, when things had settled in Rose’s mind, she got an unexpected visit from Dan’s mother, Donna.  Donna was an attractive woman who had given Dan his blue eyes and blond hair.  As far as Rose was concerned, Donna seemed like a nice woman, but she talked too much.  That day, she pulled into the driveway and sat in the car for a moment.  Rose happened to be in the living room, and when she heard the car she looked out, wondering if she knew anyone with a red convertible.  She didn’t even recognize Donna until Donna had climbed the porch and rang the doorbell.

Rose had to play the part of affable in-law.  “Donna,” she said, “what an unexpected surprise.”

Donna wore a yellow sun dress that showed off her figure.  A huge straw purse hung from her wrist.  “I’m not in the habit of dropping in unannounced,” she said, “but this is a special occasion.  I assume you’ve heard the good news.”

“Good news?”

“You’re kidding?” Donna said.  “You haven’t heard?  Carrie’s pregnant.”

Donna might as well have slapped Rose in the face.  “Pregnant?”

“We found out yesterday.  Isn’t it exciting?”

“Exciting,” Rose said, doing her best to maintain composure.  “Come in.  Sit down.  Can I get you something?  Coffee?”

“Coffee?” Donna said, fumbling with the latch on her basket purse.  “This is a special occasion.”  She extracted a bottle of champagne.  “Do you have glasses, Hon?  I was afraid they’d break.”

 Rose didn’t know what to do except go to the kitchen for the wine glasses.  When she brought them back, she said, “I’m not accustomed to drinking so early in the day.”

“Neither am I,” Donna said, “but this is a celebration.”  She forced the heels of her thumbs against the plastic cork, which exploded like a mortar round from the bottle, putting a small dent in the spackled ceiling.  Rose held the glasses out while Donna poured.  Then they clinked glasses together in a toast.  “To children,” Donna said.  Rose said nothing.

Donna finished her champagne in a swallow and poured another glass.  She gestured with the bottle to Rose, but Rose waved it off.  Donna said, “Isn’t it wonderful?  We’re going to be grandmothers.”

Rose sipped the champagne, took a deep breath, and confronted her visitor.  “I don’t know what you’ll make of this, Donna,” she said, “but I’m not as excited about the news as you are.”

“You aren’t?  Why not?”

“Perhaps you haven’t noticed how young Carrie is.  She’s still a child herself.”

Donna said, “Nonsense–I had Dan when I was eighteen.”

“Carrie should have gone to college.”

“She didn’t want to,” Donna said.  “Besides, that’s all water under the bridge.  We can’t change what is.”

Rose could see there was no point in discussing the matter further.

Later, when Donna left, half a bottle of champagne remained.  Rose finished it.  She was angry and hurt that Donna had found out about the news before her.

When the baby was born, Donna and Jim drove out to see it.

* * *

Now, Rose looks up at the dent in the living room ceiling and gets mad all over again.  She despises this grandson she’s never seen, despises him for everything he represents.  As soon as she thinks it, she feels guilty.  It’s not like her to be this way.  She doesn’t hate kids.  She’s just upset at her daughter’s stupidity, and she’s afraid she’ll say something offensive when they arrive.

The smell of rain is in the air, promising relief from the heat.  Rose hears the patter of drops on the roof, tapping out a syncopated rhythm on the swamp cooler’s metal shell.  Then the sky bursts open.  The temperature plummets like the rain.  Within a second, a river of water runs down the driveway and around the corner, merging with the torrent raging along the street.  When she thinks it can’t come down any harder, the rain hammers the house, pounding with a fury so great the roof creaks.  Lightning crackles across the sky, forcing Rose to shut the door.  A millisecond later, a clap of thunder explodes, rattling the pictures that hang on the walls.  She goes to the living room window in time to see a spear of lightning stab the earth.  A crash of thunder follows.  Hail begins to ricochet off the windows.  Soon it pummels the glass–shotgun blasts that threaten breakage.

When the rain begins to slant in from the west, Rose runs to shut the bedroom window.  She looks out at a black sky and thinks about Carrie and Dan.  She pictures them trying to drive here in the storm, the car’s windshield wipers helpless against the downpour.  Dan will panic, see the glowing red taillights of a car that has pulled off the road, accidentally plow into the car’s rear end.

Rose shakes off the image.

Eventually, the hail stops.  The lightning shifts to another part of town.  After a distant bolt, Rose counts the seconds until the thunder.  One-thousand one, one-thousand two, one-thousand three.  The rain falls more gently.

Fifteen minutes later, it stops.   The sky brightens.  She goes into the other room and opens the front door, breathing the fragrant new air.  Rain drips from the eaves, kerplunking into puddles formed at the corners of the house.  The driveway river is now a stream.

While she stands watching the water trickle into the street, the phone rings.

It’s Carrie.  “We’re not coming,” she says.  “We got a late start this morning, then we got held up by an incredible storm.  Dan wants to drive straight through before we hit any more bad weather.  I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“The west side of town.”

“Can’t you even stop by for half an hour?” Rose says.  “You know I want to see the baby.”

“We can’t, Mother.  Really.”

“Then you’ll drop by on your way home?”

“I wish we could.  But Dan has to get right back to work.”

“When will I get to see the baby?”

“Maybe you can take some time off and drive out to El Paso.  You know you’re always welcome.  I’ve got to go now–Dan’s signaling for me to get off the phone.  Take care of yourself, Mother.”

When Rose hangs up, she goes to the fireplace and looks at her daughter’s graduation picture on the mantel.

* * *

After supper, Rose sits on the front porch stoop.  The sun has slipped below the jagged western horizon, glazing the sky with an orange mist.  Overhead, the first stars appear.  Above the mountains north of town, two cumulus clouds touch.  Lightning arcs between them, making their insides glow like luminaria.  Rose pictures the blue compact traveling across the dark desert, Dan and Carrie talking about California, the baby sleeping soundly in the car seat in back.