I fought daily to be normal when I was anything but, trusting no one with the truth. Somewhere along the way, I’d adopted the notion that if one went through motions long enough, they became real. Maybe, I surmised, I could outlast it. So, I choked back apprehension and smiled when I felt like weeping, creating a desperate cheer to drive gray from my days and black from my long dreadful nights.

Heather entered the local junior college. She dated Ralph Stevens – now enrolled in his second year at Clemson – longdistance. Toby, precious Toby, with his innocence and affability, skimmed through time unaware that his mama teetered on a tightrope so flimsy, a gnat’s sneeze could send it crashing.

Dawn was my balm, anchoring me to sanity. Our nightly ritual was to bathe together, she astride my birdlike soapy thighs, as we chatted about everything under the sun, giggled like Doofuses, then sang to the rafters her current favorite, bouncing between You Are My Sunshine, Bingo was His Name and Frankie Valli’s My Eyes Adored You.

Afterward came cuddling time, piled in my bed, singing softly her choice spiritual verses. Music was, and would forever remain, intrinsic to our bond. Then prayer...that soft little voice asking God to bless Mama and Daddy and my Heaver (Heather) and Toby never failed to leave my throat knotted like a pretzel.

I didn’t stop praying in those days of hazy suspension. Had I done so, I’m convinced the strength to nurture and sustain my family would simply have fled.

Truth was, the only time I felt right was when Kirk held me in his arms as he did so often now. His warm touch would – momentarily – seize that loosed, clanking thing inside me and press it back in place. His wonderful hands and lips, in private, calmed and validated.

Kirk’s libido had, most definitely, recovered from its sag.

Seemed like honeymoon at times, what with the sexual awakening.

Yet, without fail, the morning-after found me desperately engaged in battling it, that elusive, unnamed thing inside me that, sometime between lovemaking and dawn, disconnected.

It clamored in my gut like rocks agitating in MawMaw’s old wringer washing machine. It left me gaunt-eyed and vigilante. Of what? I had no idea. And despite life’s uneventful, outwardly peaceful flow, it flailed about, groaning, Something is wrong.

“How’s it going, Chuck?” Kirk thrust out his hand to my bedridden brother.

Chuck’s face burst into a grin, transforming his gaunt features from torpid to alert. “Great! Just great, Kirk! C’mon, pull out a chair and sit a spell.” We were up for Friday and Saturday, having gotten the news, via Anne, of Chuck’s rapid slide into despondency.

I leaned to kiss his cheek and his frail arms engulfed me in a fierce hug. “Ahh, Sis,” he said gently, “it’s so good to see you.” He released me and wobbled his head around, searching. “Where’s that Toby?”

Like a rowdy hummingbird, Toby swooped in, alighted on the bed, and in a flurry of hugs and furious pats, uncle and nephew renewed affections. Heather was next. Her endearments, though more composed than before, were just as warm, leaving me misty-eyed at the mellowed change in my brother.

Anne and Dad arrived shortly thereafter to spend family time together with Chuck. We all wanted desperately to give him the sense of family he needed, a thing he’d so lacked. Now, we could rally for him, carry him on our shoulders and backs if need be to lift him above his placelessness. Of all the family, I could most sense Chuck’s desperation to belong somewhere. It twisted my heart.

“Anne,” Chuck said, reaching out to take her hand between the bed’s guard rails, “I want to eat with ya’ll tomorrow.” He weakly rotated his head till he sighted Daddy. “Can you come get me, Dad?”

My father nodded, nostrils aflare. “Wild horses couldn’t stop me.”

Chuck’s tired, pale face relaxed. Glowed waxy white.

That evening, after leaving the convalescent home, we prepared for bed at Anne’s and Dad’s.

I raised my brow at Anne. “Will they let Chuck come?” They, meaning the convalescent home staff. In view of Teresa’s territorial, power stance, it was doubtful.

Anne bit at her bottom lip, eyes worried. “I don’t know, Neecy.”

“We’ve got to do some tall praying,” I said.

“Yeah,” Anne nodded slowly. “I don’t want to fight Teresa.”

“Me, either,” I agreed. “We can’t make Teresa do diddly. We can only take care of our own attitudes and leave the rest to the Almighty” Something in me leaped at my own words. Something fearful. Nausea squeezed my stomach and tapped at my throat reflex.

The kids escaped to Anne’s small back den – a converted porch – to watch television and teen-gossip.

Dad, Kirk, Anne and I sat in the den for a long time, contemplating. I tucked my bare feet under me and snuggled against sleepy-eyed Kirk, who melded to the sofa’s crook like a sprawled lab retriever. His fingers played over my arm in an abstract yet intimate caress. Callie had just this week told me she could see Kirk’s renewed reaching out to me. Tonight, as usual, the warm reciprocal thing in me twanged like a happy banjo at Kirk’s touch, even as the subterranean thing in me shrieked why? I had consciously – desperately – buried my doubts about Kirk’s fidelity when Kirk buried Roxie. Literally. But in moments like these, just the words, “..we can’t make Teresa do diddly,” spewed them up like angry seltzer bubbles.

Remembering Kirk’s full speed ahead, blinders devotion to Roxie in my hours and months of need, left me shaken and sick anew.

I can only work on me, I reminded myself. Just the thought made me feel exhausted.

I abruptly sat up and glanced at the wall clock. Kirk stretched and yawned, rubbing his abdomen sluggishly. “I think I’ll turn in, folks,” I forced lightness into my voice. “A long day ahead.”

“Good Lord willing,” Anne stood and began picking up empty tea glasses. “we’ll eat lunch with Chuck tomorrow.” She stopped and, glasses dangling from limp hands, gazed desperately at me. “I pray he’ll get to come this time.”

Fear shot through me, but I managed a smile. “He will.” Please, God.

Shortly, we retired for the night. Kirk fell asleep instantly, his arm tangled around my torso. My own sleep was sporadic and restless. I was on automatic pilot again, my norm for twilight time, and was relieved to hear Anne puttering around as the sun rose, rattling pots and pans early the next morning.

Daddy and Kirk left for the convalescent home at ten thirty-five. Anne sent our lunch menu for the nurses to check against violations. Chuck’s diabetic diet had to be kosher.

“Why don’t you call?” I suggested. “No use sitting on pins and needles wondering.”

Anne rushed to snatch up the phone and call. I went to check on Toby, who romped with Lynette outside while Heather hung out with Dale. Cole had gone to get Leigh, his current and according to Anne, serious girlfriend, to join us for lunch.

I chatted a minute with the teens, folded into white front porch rockers.

On my lazy return, Anne nearly slammed into me, grabbed my arms and squeezed. “The nurse said Teresa left a note saying we could pick up Chuck any time we wanted to.”

We gazed at each other through tears.

“Only prayer could have changed Teresa’s heart on this,” I whispered.

“For now.” Anne’s face sobered for a long moment, then brightened up. “But we’ve got today.”

“Yes’m,” I nodded, tilted my head and smiled, linking hands with hers. “That, we do.”

“Teresa didn’t want to come?” Anne asked Chuck as, complying with his wishes, she disconnected him from his portable oxygen-tank.

“Said she had plans.”

“What about Poogie?” I asked, disappointed. I’d so wanted to see my niece.

Chuck languidly shrugged his shoulders. “She’s with her other grandma. Busy.” Pain, beyond physical, marred his handsome features as – with Dad’s solicitous assistance – he moved slowly, laboriously, to the table and took a reserved place of honor at its head.

I fought down a niggling feeling of nausea as I seated myself. Nervous stomach, no doubt. It settled as I began to eat and soon, we all laughed and bantered as though back in carefree teen years.

Chuck ate two helpings of Anne’s macaroni-cheese pie and two pieces of fried chicken. “Lordy, this is good.” Eyelids half-mast, he grinned a dopey grin as his scrawny hand rubbed his swollen, distended stomach.

Afterward, Trish sang Chuck’s favorite, Amazing Grace, and on the second verse, became so choked she fell silent for a full minute. Anne rose abruptly and fled the room, but not before I saw tears spiraling down her cheeks.

I swiped mine away and was relieved that Chuck, laid back in the La-Z-Boy, had his eyes closed, enjoying, soaking up the love and fun time with his family. Trish resumed her song and finished it, eyes glimmering with unshed tears.

All too soon, the day was used up. Chuck hugged us all ‘bye’ as Daddy prepared to take him back to Pinehurst Convalescent Home. We, too, piled into the VW for the long drive that would put us home near midnight, pulling out of the drive just before Daddy’s white Toyota. I craned to see my brother’s face, pressed to the car window watching me leave. I smiled and waved.

His wan face brightened and I saw the pale hand lift.

My brother. Myself.

My nervous stomach continued to plague me. One morning, I vomited.

It can’t be, I thought, wiping my face with wet washcloth, peering at my white face in the bathroom mirror. Terror seized me. I can’t be.

I spun away from my reflection and fled the idea.

A week later, I could no longer escape. Terror clutched at my gut.

“Kirk, I’m pregnant,” I blurted out as I washed dishes at the sink.

Kirk’s reaction baffled me. “It’s not – right,” he muttered, taking my arm to turn me, gazing at me with tortured eyes. “It’s not fair. Not now. Not when – ”

“What?” I asked stupidly, hurting that Kirk rejected our creation. Procreation, our children, had always been sacred. My world shifted and tilted. My fingernails bled as I clutched at meaning.

The flailing thing inside me grew more pronounced.

“You had such a difficult time with Dawn, Neecy,” Kirk reminded me softly, his hand running gently through my hair and cupping the back of my neck.

“I know,” I whispered, fear spiraling through me like crazy bursting balloons shooting in all directions. Ice water filled my belly and my head spun. I closed my eyes and felt Kirk’s lips brush mine, then his forehead sweetly mesh with mine as our breath mingled.

“Neecy,” his face lifted only a fraction, so that his eyes locked with mine, “I can’t – can’t let you risk your life again.”

I gazed at him, stunned. “Kirk – you don’t want me to...to have an abortion, do you?’

His eyes clouded with such agony, my breath caught. “I can’t let you go through that again.” His head rolled back and he groaned, “I feel like such a heel, letting this happen.”

“But Kirk – ” My eyes filled with tears of confusion. And gut-wrenching fear. “I can’t do that. I couldn’t live with myself – ”

His mouth went grim and his fingers closed around my arms like vises. “You might not live at all if you do.”

His quiet words exploded through me like glacial anacondas, slithering, choking, squeezing...plowing a path of panic. Its blast toppled me from my flimsy highwire, plunging me into instant, numb capitulation.

His hands rubbed my arms desperately. “Don’t you see, Neecy,” his moist, tormented eyes pleaded with me to understand, “I can’t lose you.”

I was somewhere else. Not in me. I cannot explain how I became misplaced. How I became someone else reflected in Kirk’s eyes. In the coming week, I moved in a petrified trance. Kirk gathered Heather for family counsel. She surprised me by agreeing that she, too, was concerned about my going through another childbirth.

“Too, Mama, I wouldn’t be here to help you. I’ll be away at school next year.”

I wilted away a bit more.

Heather put her arms around me. “The main thing is – Mama...I don’t want anything to happen to you. We need you more than ever.”

I seemed to have ice water for blood. Panic attacks seized me between bouts of nausea.

Kirk arranged for me to see Dr. Temple, a Christian doctor. We went together for counsel. “Do you want to have this procedure?” my physician friend asked, having heard Kirk out.

I looked at him through a haze. “I – I can’t go through this again,” I spoke past dead lips.

Dr. Temple took my hand. “I understand Kirk’s fears. But it’s you I’m concerned about, Janeece. Because you’re the one who will live with this decision in years to come.”

I looked dully at him. I tried to make sense of the terror in me. Of my numbed heart. Of my non-functioning brain and code of ethics. Where was I?

“I can’t face childbirth again, Dr. Temple.” I slowly shook my head, felt panic rise until I could barely breathe. I can’t...I can’t...I can’t.

“There, there,” he soothed. “I’ll make the arrangements for you.”

“Please – ” I looked away. Shut my eyes tightly. “Make it as quickly as possible.” I couldn’t bear to know the little heart already beat inside me. Dear God! Why am I in this position? No matter what decision I made, I faced agony. Possible death. Somehow, I knew.

I turned to look at Kirk. He was so certain. He wouldn’t lead me astray.

Kirk loved me.

“Make the arrangements, Dr. Temple,” I whispered, tears in my eyes.

I rushed from the room.

We told no one, save those close. Only once did I allow Cal to hold and comfort me. Gene and Trish drove down that terrible week just to be with us. Lend support.

“I’m behind you, Sis.” Trish, dear Trish, always there.

“I understand,” Gene took my hand, then Kirk’s. “God understands.”

After that, I refused to discuss it. My body moved lethargically while my mind, a bizarre, mid-film video, repeatedly played that moment during Dawn’s delivery when death’s jaws locked about me, crushing the breath and life from me. Cocooned in sorrow’s opium, I’d survived, content to remain with or vacate earth.

Things had changed. No opium coated my raw nerves. ‘Things will only get worse with each pregancy, Janeece,” came Dr. Jennings’ warnings to haunt me, “you need to have your fallopian tubes tied before you leave the hospital.”

Now, anxiety curled and frayed my entrails. My emotions either sliced out the top of terror or checked out completely. Nighttime found me perched like an old crow on a gnarled, rotten limb, rocking and teetering toward an endless, bottomless pit. I dared not move lest I topple off.

My children need me. My children need me. The desperate litany held me there, safe.

No. Not safe. Will I, I wondered, ever again feel safe?

Kirk daily, hourly checked on me, encouraged me that it was the right thing.

I loved him. Trusted him with my life. If Kirk said it was the right thing. It was.

“I can’t go any farther than here,” Kirk held me in his arms outside the clinic door. He stepped back, hands grasping my arms. “I wish I could do this for you, honey,” he whispered, tears in his eyes. His features were ravaged, as though carved by Da Vinci.

I took a deep breath and let it out on a long, sad sigh. “That’s life.”

He kissed me, tenderly, with all the love in him. I realized then, that he, too, suffered.

I entered the waiting room like an apparition, white-faced, silent as death. Young women filled brightly colored sofas and love seats, chatting amiably.

Dear God. Let this be over. “Is – ” I faced the girl across from me. “Are you nervous?”

Her young, sculpted jaw rotated on chewing gum. “No.” She snorted softly. “Nothing to it. This is my second one.”

“Are you married?” I asked and hugged myself, feeling my teeth begin to chatter from the chill of dread.

“Oh, yeah.” She filed her nail, then closely examined it. “We aren’t ready for kids yet. Still got two years of college left.” Then she looked curiously at me. “How about you? Any kids?”

“I have four. That is – three. Living.” I could not leave Krissie out. Would not.

“Oh? Did you lose a baby?” She snapped her gum and dropped her file back in her purse.

“No.” My dull gaze fell to my pale, clenched hands. “An eleven-year-old.”

“Mrs. Crenshaw?” A cheerful nurse motioned me through a white door, down a white hall, into a white room. So antiseptic.

I paused inside the door. Frozen into place. A masked medical team, pac men, stared at me with compassionate eyes. The nurse led me to a dressing room, helped me undress, then assisted and settled me onto the table.

“Please – ” I stretched out a trembling hand to the nurse. “I feel so – ” Pooled tears spilled down my cheeks, into my hair, onto the pillow, “desolate.”

She took my hand. “I know.” Her voice was kind, caring.

Her face shimmered and floated. “I don’t take this lightly,” I whispered. “I want to die.”

“Oh, no, dear. It will soon be over.” Her fingers squeezed mine. “Just relax.”

I closed my eyes and prayed. God, you know I don’t want to do this....

The nightmare snatched and swallowed me up – to the whirrr of a vacuum’s sucking sting to my midsection – then spit me out onto a cold recovery table, where I lay stuporized. A fetal-curled zombie with no brain and no feeling.

An hour later, Kirk came by for me, his face nearly as ashen as mine.

“You okay?” he asked in a husky whisper, blotting with his palm cold sweat clinging to my brow.

I blinked. “Let’s go home.”

He took my hand and led me away.

Away from the horror. Away from death’s threat.

To my three children, who needed me.

I did not look back. Not then. Not for a long, long time.

I could not and live.

Survive. Because that’s what I did in those coming months. Simply survive.

Healing came so slowly I wasn’t aware of it at the time. Did not recognize it. I needed to go back to school and finish my last two semesters. But I didn’t want to miss a moment with Dawn or Toby. Heather, well, she’d migrated again to peer-land, a place not always open to me. We had our close times, but they became fewer and farther between in those coming months.

Kirk and I never talked about that day at the abortion clinic. It was as if, by our silence, it had never happened.

One day, Anne called, upset. “Oh, Neecy. I wish you lived closer.” She snuffled. “Chuck’s signed a paper donating his body to medical science.”

I gripped the receiver. “So – ” I grasped to understand Anne’s angst. “You’re saying?”

Anne’s furious intake of breath exploded in explanation. “Teresa hassled him into doing it, Neecy. He told me he didn’t want to do it.”

“Then, why did he?” I’d always admired those who nobly gave their remains to the study of medical science but felt it should definitely be the donor’s choice.

“Said she got on her knees beside his bed and pleaded with him to spare her the expense of a burial when the time comes.”

Anger cannon-blasted through me. “How could she?” I closed my eyes and clenched a fist. “She has no right, Anne. Chuck’s a human being with rights.”

My stepmother sighed, a long ragged sound from her toes up. “She’s got all the cards, Neecy. Holds ‘em over our heads like a whip.”

“A power trip,” I muttered, disgusted. “That’s what it is to her. A danged power trip!”

“If we want to see Chuck, we’ll have to bow to her wishes.”

I swallowed my fury. “You’re right. We do. But doggonit. I don’t like it one bit.”

There was nothing I could do. Later that night, I told Kirk about it.

Kirk’s face clouded, but he said little. Seemed off somewhere. He never said it, but lately, I’d felt, sensed unspoken needs behind that strong mask that rarely slipped. When it did, I glimpsed a look I’d never before seen. One quite like worship, that hitched my breath and stirred my love to new heights.

Yet, my feet still sought solid ground. I was convinced Kirk’s flirtation with Roxie was just that – a flirtation – but its undermining of my security had left ugly scars. Would they ever fade? I harbored deep, shameful emotions I could share with no one.

One was my concern that Kirk felt so comfortable with Callie. Another was her devotion to him that, until the traumas, had pleased me. BR (before Roxie), I’d never had a jealous bone in my body. It changed me in ways I did not like. It was as though, having brushed up against the fiery threat of Roxie, I was driven to protect, at all costs, my marriage.

Jealousy is a terrible, terrible thing, Neecy....Kirk’s words haunted me. Stopped me, many times, from making a fool of myself.

I took great care to hide my knee-jerk anxiety when, at home one night, after supper, Kirk asked Callie for a cup of coffee rather than me. I later discussed it with Kirk, who chuckled and said, “Neecy, Cal and I are together all the time at the office. She makes coffee for me every day so it’s just a habit.” Then, disappointment filled his green eyes. “Can you understand that?”

I did. But it still bothered me on some level. Kirk’s allegiance to Callie wasn’t unfaithfulness, per se. But because of it, I’d become, again, the invisible person, the unnecessary one. It was not a case of simple jealousy. But then, is jealousy ever simple?

I prayed desperately to rid myself of it. Still, over time, my relationship with Callie suffered.

“I’m going to have to move away soon, Neecy,” Callie told me one day in my kitchen. We’d just lunched on chicken salad sandwiches and potato salad left from the night before and faced each other across the oak table. “I hate to leave ya’ll, but Mama’s gonna be needing me.”

She gave me a little smile of regret.

The battle-shocked part of me did not see the plea in her eyes nor hear her plaintive ‘at least make a gesture of protest, Neecy!’ Not then. Not until years later. So, I picked up my frosted glass of iced tea and drew on it with my finger. “I understand, Cal.” I looked at her then. “I really do. You know I love you, don’t you Cal?”

Something sad flickered in her chocolate gaze. “Yeah, Neecy, I know.”