Love Street - Marcy Miller

by Liz Zuercher


The Millers live down the street from Little Chad, backing up to the hill.

Marcy Miller pulled into her driveway after taking the three big kids to school.  The baby had fallen asleep in the car seat and she was so preoccupied she grabbed the bag of stuff she’d picked up at the drug store and was in the kitchen unloading it before she realized she’d left him in the car.  That made her start to tear up and she shook her head hard to make it stop.

“Don’t do that,” she told herself out loud.  “Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry,” she said, willing herself to get a grip.  She went back out to the garage and opened the back door of the black Chevy Suburban and looked at her son.  So sweet.  So peaceful.  He was a really good baby.  She had nothing to feel sad about.  It’s what she’d wanted – a passel of children and a beautiful home and a great husband who would do anything for her – why didn’t she feel happy?  What was wrong with her?

Marcy unhooked the clasp on the baby’s seat harness and lifted his dead weight, feeling a twinge in her lower back.  At almost a year old he was getting to be a chunk of a baby.  Her other three had been slight like her, willowy and light, but Jack was going to be more like his dad.  Tall.  Solid.  Substantial.  Jack’s head fell to her shoulder and he whimpered like a kitten and then lifted his head, looked around and started to cry.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay, Jack,” she said quietly.  “We’re home now.”  She ran her hand over the top of his head, smoothing down the tufts of thick brown hair that stood on end, making him look like a little ragamuffin.  He was still in his footed jammies, the ones with Superman flying around, red and blue and yellow on a white background that had turned a little dingy no matter how much color safe bleach she put in the washing machine.  He quieted and laid his head back down on her shoulder, putting his thumb in his mouth.

The phone was ringing as she and Jack walked into the kitchen.  She put Jack into the high chair and picked up the receiver, but by that time the caller had given up.  She didn’t much care if they’d left a message.  She wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone anyway. 

Jack was starting to fuss, pounding on the high chair tray, so she grabbed the box of Cheerios from the pantry and poured a few onto the tray.  She filled up a sippy cup with apple juice, handed it to him and hoped he wouldn’t fling it across the room the way he’d just discovered was lots of fun.  Thank God today he just wanted to drink his juice and play with the Cheerios.  She couldn’t deal with a feisty kid today, not this morning.

She was making a slow cooker beef stew for dinner, so she started cutting up vegetables and getting the meat browned.  The onions made tears come to her eyes again and this time there was no stopping them.  Her period was late.  She looked at the drug store bag on the counter.  She was afraid to use the early pregnancy test.  She was afraid of what it would tell her.  God couldn’t be doing this to her again.  Please God, I just can’t do it again.  Isn’t four enough?  She put the butcher knife on the cutting board, pulled out one of the bar stools and sank into it, burying her head in her arms on the counter, tears flowing strong now. 

She prayed for forgiveness from God and her husband and their evangelical parents and her pastor for not wanting another child.  She prayed for it not to be true.  She prayed for guidance. 

“Jesus, help me,” she cried out loud.

Just then Jack let out a joyful squeal and threw the sippy cup across the room, where it hit the tile floor, popping the lid off and sending sticky apple juice all over the floor and the cabinets.  Jack laughed like a wild animal, so pleased with what he’d been able to do, and he looked at her with a big grin and sang out, “Mama!  Mama!  Cup!” 

Marcy couldn’t help herself.  She let out her own wild animal scream at the top of her lungs, and Jack’s face turned from delight to fear to clouds of concern.  His laughter stopped and he started to cry along with his mother.

* * * * *

Marcy didn’t listen to her phone messages until after she’d picked the kids from school, dropped Charlie off at soccer practice and took Tiffany to her dance class.  Carl would pick them up on his way home.  Ashleigh had a big project for school that involved looking through magazines and cutting out geometric shapes that occurred in nature, so Marcy had set her up at the kitchen table with a stack of magazines, blunt scissors, a glue stick and construction paper. 

She put Jack down for a nap and wished she could lie down herself, or fill the bathtub with hot soapy water for a long soak.  Or walk out the door and never come back, she thought.  The idea stopped her in her tracks halfway down the stairs.  She didn’t mean that, she told herself.  Yes you do, came into her head.  You certainly do want to run away, get as far away as you can.  But what good would it do?  Her family still needed her.  She had responsibilities, huge responsibilities that couldn’t be ignored.  She loved them all, but she was so tired.  It all felt so overwhelming.

She thought about the pregnancy test.  She hadn’t been able to bring herself to use it yet.  Instead, she had hidden it under her bathroom vanity, deep in the back of the cabinet behind a Costco-sized box of tampons that she hadn’t needed for at least six weeks by her calculations.  Maybe tomorrow she’d do the test.  Maybe she’d get her period tonight and wouldn’t have to take the test.

“Mom?” Ashleigh was calling her.  “Mom, I need help.”

“Just a minute,” Marcy replied.  “I’m coming.”

After she showed Ashleigh what a diamond shape was, she checked on her crock-pot stew and started putting together a salad, which she figured the kids wouldn’t eat.  She’d try anyway.  Maybe she’d get lucky.  Right.  Lucky would be not having another baby so soon, or ever again. 

She thought about calling her mother, and picked up the phone.  That’s when she remembered someone had called in the morning and she hadn’t picked up in time.  The line was beeping, so she listened to the message.  It was Kristen.  Something about a meeting of the moms tomorrow morning.  Something about Eddie Petrocelli’s fake animals.  Who cares, Marcy thought.  Who cares what he puts in his front yard?  What business was it of hers?  Of theirs?  But she erased the message and dialed Kristen’s number anyway.  Maybe it would be a distraction.

* * * * *

Marcy sat at the kitchen table by herself, lost in thought.  The kids had been fed and tucked into bed.  For the third night in a row Carl was working late.  She looked over at the empty place setting where he should have sat and eaten dinner with them, the stew that was his favorite and had been cooking all day.  She had set a pretty table with the slate blue woven place mats, the cloth napkins he preferred with a swirly pattern of blue and white and beige and the silverware they had gotten as a wedding gift from Carl’s grandmother.  Slate blue candles sat in pewter holders waiting to be lit, and the potted ivy in the center of the table reached out arms of green toward the edges of the table.  Carl liked the dinner table to be a calm, soothing place for the family to gather at the end of the day, which was hard for Marcy to manage with four children under the age of ten.  Still, she tried to make things nice for the family, for Carl. 

The stoneware soup bowl waited on the placemat for the stew to be ladled into it, but by this time, ten o’clock, Marcy was pretty sure Carl wouldn’t want stew when he got home.  He had called at four in the afternoon to let her know he’d be late again.  He wouldn’t be able to pick up the kids from their activities, so Marcy had had to wake up Jack from his nap and load him and Ashleigh into the Suburban to make the rounds for the other kids.  The three bigger kids were all starving when they got home, so Marcy scooped up some stew for them and sat them down at the kitchen counter to eat while she fed Jack and nibbled at a piece of sourdough bread she’d buttered and put under the broiler to go with the stew.  She didn’t bother with the salad for the kids – they wouldn’t eat it anyway and she didn’t feel like listening to the whining that would definitely follow the setting out of anything green and leafy.  Even though they didn’t finish all their stew, she let them have ice cream bars for dessert so she wouldn’t have to deal with the please, please Moms.  She didn’t have the will to be a diligent mother tonight, except when it was bedtime.   Tonight she was desperate to get all the kids to bed.

By eight o’clock the kids had all been either sent or put to bed, and Marcy curled up on the sofa to wait for her husband.  She watched a mindless show on television until nine o’clock, when she decided she’d better eat something and grabbed the salad from the fridge, poured some ranch dressing over it and picked at the bits of chopped tomato and lettuce.  Nothing tasted good.  She dumped the rest of the salad down the disposal, turned on the water and flipped the switch, welcoming the loud grinding sound that drowned out the noise of the thoughts in her head.  She tried to imagine another baby.  The thought of physically having another baby in the first place made her shudder.  And then taking care of it.  That was a whole other thing.  She stared down at the disposal.  She wished it were as easy as shoving the salad down the drain – not having a baby.  She was horrified that such a thought would pop into her head and she flipped off the disposal to stop the grinding.

“Forgive me, Lord,” she whispered. 

Standing at the sink, she looked out the window at her back yard.  She couldn’t make out much in the dark, but she thought she saw something moving beyond the rear fence.  She blinked her eyes to try and focus, but it didn’t help.  She couldn’t make out anything and figured she was imagining things.

By ten o’clock as she sat alone at the kitchen table, she knew what she would have to do.  Carl would never understand, but he would have to respect her decision, wouldn’t he?  She sat waiting to tell him that she thought she was pregnant again, and that she just couldn’t have another baby.

At eleven, she put the stew away and washed out the crock-pot.  She put away her husband’s soup bowl and set the silverware back in the drawer.  Picking up Carl’s placemat and pretty cloth napkin, she carried them to the dining room buffet and smoothed them into the top drawer.  The unlit candles and ivy plant stayed on the kitchen table like they always did.  Leaving the light on above the cooktop for Carl, Marcy climbed the stairs to the master bedroom and went to bed.  Her morning would start early, so she couldn’t afford not to sleep.  Sleep was elusive, though.

At midnight she heard the garage door open.  She heard Carl stumble over something downstairs and make his way up the stairs and into the bedroom.  She didn’t move from her side, her back to him, when he got into bed smelling like garlic and jasmine, rolled away from her and went to sleep. Marcy stared into the darkness.