Beauty from Ashes

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

I know I’m probably breaking two or three of the Ten Commandments right now, but I can’t help checking the time on my phone every thirty seconds. It’s not that I hate church. I’m not that kind of person. I know some people believe that Christians are all self-righteous hypocrites, but I could never say that. Not after living with Sandy. I sometimes go months without thinking about my past, about the anonymous foster parents that gel together in my memory like giant, faceless blobs. But it’s different with her. It’s hard to say where I’d be if Sandy hadn’t taken me in. Probably so strung out on drugs my teeth would have fallen out and my hair gone frizzy like in those posters warning kids against meth. I’m proud to say I haven’t touched the stuff. In fact, I could count on one hand all the times I’ve taken anything harder than speed. I’m sure that if it weren’t for Sandy, I’d be way more screwed up than I already am, and that’s saying a lot.

The funny thing is, Sandy and I went years without talking. She didn’t even know I was pregnant. We never had a falling out or anything. It’s just that after I finished high school, I packed up and left the East Coast faster than a hooker at a truck stop.

I never looked back. Which is a good thing. I remember before I got pregnant with Natalie, I was at an interview trying to land a job at this assisted living home. After I left the convenience store, I really needed the money. I’d already been out of work for three weeks, and my bank account was overdrawn by day five. My landlord told me to apply for unemployment, but I knew if I did, I’d have to explain what happened at the convenience store, which I wasn’t ready to do. Not yet. Maybe not ever. So I was at the assisted living place, Winter Grove, and I was talking to this shaggy-bearded director, and he asked about my greatest strength. Just to keep me on my toes, I’m sure. All the blog posts I read in preparation told me he’d want to know about my weaknesses.

So I couldn’t figure out what answer he was looking for. In school, I was always pretty good at English and grammar. I have a vague memory of winning a spelling bee back in second or third grade. But seriously? If all I’ve got to do is take old people to the toilet and back, why would this Tom-Hanks-in-Castaway lookalike care how well I did in English class?

I thought about telling him something sappy about relationships or whatnot, how I’m just full of compassion and love helping people, especially the frail and infirm who can’t even raise their spoons to their mouths without dribbling applesauce down their chins. But I wasn’t sure I could get through an answer like that without gagging. I couldn’t tell him the truth, though. Couldn’t tell him that my biggest strength was making sure I never got stepped on. Ever. A childhood in foster care teaches you like nothing else to fend for yourself. But I knew this director wasn’t looking for an employee like that. He was staring at me, his brows knit together like he knew as well as I did this interview was a waste of our time, and I was about to stand up and leave when it hit me.

“I’m really good at moving forward,” I told him. He still looked kind of bored, so I tried to explain. “I never look back.”

And I still feel that way, for the most part at least. That’s why I went so long without thinking about Sandy. Why I never tracked her down online or sent her a pregnancy announcement. As good as she was to me, she belonged to my past, the past that I walked away from as soon as I finished high school. I didn’t even wait for the ceremony. Sandy mailed me my diploma a week or two after graduation. She called me a couple times once I moved, but then I stopped making payments on my cell phone, and a few years went by where we didn’t talk at all.

Natalie changed all that, of course. Just like she changed everything else. I hope I don’t sound like an ingrate or anything. I never said all the changes were bad. Like marrying Jake. A hundred stress points right there, and the online quiz doesn’t know if we have a happy marriage or not. A hundred points whether you’re married to a hen-pecked mama’s boy or an abusive drunk who cracks two of your ribs then dumps you off at the ER before he goes out to party with his bar-hopping buddies.

The pastor’s droning on, it’s something about King David, and I remember enough from the Bible to know that he wasn’t really the poster-boy for righteous living. I pull out my phone, swipe the screen, and check the time again, wondering when the sermon is ever going to end.