Chapter 10
Petals from Heaven
Jessie ordered her cap and gown and announcements for her upcoming high school graduation today. It took everything I had not to start blubbering about how much I’ll miss her when she leaves for college. I managed not to cry but had to at least let her know how much I was suffering, and so I casually mentioned the comfort foods I’m planning to consume nightly to fill the enormous void in my life her absence will create. And then I went into further detail about the 100 pounds I would gain during her college freshman year and the new muumuus I would design to house my considerable girth. Yes, I come from a long line of moms who having been guilting generations of children before me.
After we filled out the order form I sat in the hot tub and my mind took a walk through the choices I’ve made that have brought Jessie and I to this point in our lives. I thought about all of the men I had loved when my face wasn’t lacerated with quite so many lines. I’m so grateful I chose to marry Walter who gave me the most incredible gift of my two beautiful children. Although the marriage didn’t work out, I have certainly been blessed with Josh and Jessie.
While the warm, bubbling water swirled around me I drifted back to a time, and one little girl in particular, who would change the direction of my life forever and assure that I would one day become a mom.
I was in my early 20s and was passionately in love with a man named Michael. I truly lived and breathed for this man. Our love was so strong that I knew without a doubt we would be together until the end of time.
After dating for a year, Michael and I moved in to an apartment together and the passion and romance continued strong. We had a lovely view of the Sandia Mountains on the outskirts of Albuquerque and every morning we could see the sun rise behind the mountain as we sipped cappuccino on our third story apartment balcony. The terrace overlooked a small rose garden in which I could watch the seasons unfold.
From our very first date Michael had told me that the world was such a difficult place in which to raise a family that he had chosen not to burden society with children of his own. When I first met this man I completely agreed with that philosophy... until I met 6-year-old Abrianna, known as Abby to her friends.
Abby was the adorable daughter of my boss, Howard, one of dearest men I had ever known. I worked as Howard’s secretary for quite some time and he would occasionally bring Abby in to work with him and let her play in his office. She would inevitably drift over to my cubicle and ask for paper and a pen. She would then proceed to create stick figures which represented the people in our office. She made me laugh when she drew horns and a tail on the grouchy engineer who told us to quit giggling so that he could get some work done. He walked by that stick figure that afternoon and gave me a dirty look. I guess he thought the shoe fit. Abby drew many pictures for my cubicle walls and went into great detail about the people in them, their lives, their likes and dislikes, and those they most cherished. She would tell me great stories that went with each of her drawings.
Abby was a ballerina and she loved to dance. When her dad would bring her to work I would schedule time in the auditorium where there was a small stage. Rebecca was the conference room scheduler and she would join me in the back of the room where we watched Abby perform her ballet routines. At the end of her dance Abby would run to the back of the room where Rebecca and I sat to hug each of us, kiss our cheeks, and say, “Rebecca,” imitating her dad’s authoritative boss voice, “schedule this conference room for the same time next week and I’ll see you then.”
The next week Abby returned to the conference room and Rebecca and I spent our lunch hour watching her perform on stage. She had brought two packages of pink silk rose petals and was wearing her strawberry ice cream pink tutu, a pair of sequined angel wings, ballet shoes, and long, pink silk ribbons in her hair. I swear she was the cutest thing I had ever seen. Abby handed Rebecca and I each a bag of rose petals.
“Here,” she said. “You’re the angels and you get to shower me with magic petals while I dance.”
Rebecca and I tossed the petals into the air and watched them loft lazily over Abby as she danced and sang.
“Take these petals now, my friend
Which drift upon the quiet wind.
Think of God when petals fall
Listen close as angels call.”
That little girl completely captured my heart that day.
I took Abby to lunch after her private recital in the auditorium and was rather surprised to see how much food she ate. We ordered fried chicken and mashed potatoes and I swear she ate every bit as much as I did.
“Thank you for lunch,” Abby said. “That was the best! I’m so stuffed if you poke me I’ll blow up!”
“It’s too bad you’re so full,” I said casually. “Because Baskin & Robbins is just down the street and I was thinking about getting ice cream for dessert.”
“That’s a great idea!” Abby bubbled with excitement. “Because my food tube’s full but my ice cream tube is empty!”
Abby had begun to stir up some unsettling ideas in my mind. Perhaps I would like to have children after all. The thought of having a little person like this around on a regular basis had so much appeal. Life with Michael had been so simple before this charming little girl entered the picture. I had this great life I was building with him and we had even started talking about getting married. I knew that Michael was everything I wanted in a partner. He was intelligent and ambitious. He was kind and compassionate. We shared a love of hiking and bicycling, playing tennis, and cooking in the kitchen together. We took culinary classes together and shared wonderful, passion filled vacations. If we were apart I felt like something was missing and when we reconnected the world felt right again.
He was adamant about not wanting a family, and I knew that part of the reason we were a couple was that I had agreed with this. He did not want to be involved with someone who wanted children. I was young, though, and so was he and I thought that there was a possibility that he could change his mind if he got to know Abby the way I had.
I decided to invite Abby and her parents to our apartment so that Michael could see how a child could enrich and enhance one’s life. He knew my boss Howard and his wife Vivian from a number of company social functions we had attended, and I knew he really enjoyed them. I wanted Michael to see the side of Abby that I had been so blessed to get to know. I was just sure that he would fall completely in love with this little girl who had brought so much joy to my life in the short time we had known one another.
The evening finally arrived and Michael and I welcomed Howard and his wife Vivian and Abby in.
“Hi, Abby,” I said as she bounced into the apartment with her dance bag in tow. “I hope you’re hungry. We’re going to order your favorite pizza for dinner.”
“That’s cool,” Abby said. “I didn’t know if you’d remember dessert so we stopped on the way and picked up some ice cream.”
“Thank you, Abby,” I said. “That was very thoughtful.” She took a quart of Ben & Jerry’s out of her dance bag and handed it to me.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Cherry Garcia is my favorite!”
“Abby, I’d like you to meet my boyfriend Michael” I said as Michael came into the living room.
“Hi, Michael,” she said extending her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Michael said shaking her hand.
“Did Lucy tell you that I’m going to dance for you?” Abby asked.
“She did tell me that,” Michael said. “She says that you’re quite the gifted ballerina.”
“I’ve been dancing since I was 3,” Abby said, the pride obvious in her voice. “My teacher says that if I stick with it I could be a famous dancer someday. Do you like my tutu? It’s new.”
“Um, yeah,” Michael said clearly looking uncomfortable. “You probably want to change before dinner, though. You wouldn’t want to get pizza
on your little dress.” He turned to me then and said, “How about that pizza? Does anyone else want a beer?”
Abby looked a bit sad that Michael hadn’t shown more interest in her new dance wear. However she did her best to win him over.
“When I do my dance for you, I’ll let you be the angel,” she said. “That’s the best part. You can shower me with rose petals.”
“You know,” Michael said, still looking a bit nervous. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t make a very good angel. But you can do your little routine after dinner and I’m sure you can recruit someone else to be the angel.”
Abby looked down, obviously hurt.
“Michael,” I said. “You might enjoy being the angel. Rebecca and I got to be angels last week and Abby really got a kick out of it.”
Abby perked up and looked hopefully at Michael.
“Let’s just order the pizza,” Michael said. “Lucy, you know better than anyone that I’m just not cut out to be an angel.”
“It’s all right, Abby,” I said. “I’ll be the angel again. Besides I know just how to do it since I practiced last week. Michael can just watch and enjoy the show.”
Michael phoned in the pizza order and Abby tried her best to engage this man who seemed determined from the moment she came into our home not to like this little girl.
“My mom made pizza for my birthday,” Abby told Michael. “She made a smiley face with the pepperoni and called him Mr. Pizza Face. My brother was mean and ate a giant piece of the pizza’s face. Then he stuck his tongue out and told me that he was eating Mr. Pizza Face’s brains. It was mean. It really did look like brains. I couldn’t eat the pizza after that; it was just too gross.”
“You mean your mom didn’t make you eat it after all the work she went through to make your special dinner?” Michael asked.
“Mom’s nice. She would never make me eat brains.”
“It wasn’t brains,” Michael argued. “It was pizza.”
“But it looked like brains,” Abby said adamantly.
“But it wasn’t brains, it was pizza,” Michael said childishly. “My mom would have made me eat it. She wouldn’t have let me waste food.”
“Your mom must have been really mean,” Abby shot back. “You probably like to eat brains! I’ll bet you eat them every day!”
“All right, you two,” I intervened. “Behave yourselves or I’ll put you both in time out.”
“How about a beer?” Michael said. “On second thought, how about a couple of shots and a beer?”
Well, this wasn’t turning out at all the way I’d planned. Michael went into the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. He then reached into the liquor cabinet for a bottle of tequila but stopped when he saw the disappointed look on my face. He closed the cabinet door, opened his beer, and sat down on the couch to pout.
“Abby,” I said. “Why don’t we go out to the balcony and get it ready for your show?”
“All right,” Abby said. “I don’t want to stay here with this brain eater anyway.”
To this Michael rolled his eyes and finished off half the bottle of beer.
Abby and I went outside and arranged the patio furniture so that most of the balcony could be her stage. Just as we finished the buzzer sounded with the arrival of the pizza.
We all sat down at the kitchen table and loaded up our plates with slices of pizza.
Michael watched Abby as she took her first bite of the meal.
“How do those brains taste?” he asked her.
“It's not brains, it’s pizza,” she said as she folded her arms ready to defend herself and her choice in food.
“You see,” he said with a self satisfied look on his face. “That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier. The meal you wouldn’t eat on your birthday was pizza too, but you wouldn’t eat it because it looked like brains.”
“My brother told me it was brains. That’s why I wouldn’t eat it!” she snapped.
“Well, what if I told you this was brains?” Michael taunted. “Would you eat it then?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” Abby said.
“Well, it is brains,” Michael said. “It’s the brains of a giant octopus. See!” He opened his mouth and showed her the chewed up pizza. “Can you see the tentacles?”
Abby put her pizza down and started to cry.
“That was very mature, Michael,” I said. “Congratulations, you made her cry.”
“She started it,” Michael pouted.
“I can’t eat it!” Abby bawled. She walked over and climbed onto Vivian’s lap. “I don’t have to eat it, do I?” she asked her mom. “You won’t make me eat octopus brains will you?”
“No, Abby,” Vivian said. “You don’t have to eat it.”
“Come on, Abby,” I said holding out my hand to her. “Let’s go into the kitchen and I’ll make both of us a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
Michael got up and followed us into the kitchen. He retrieved another beer and sat back down to finish his dinner.
Abby had quit crying and was helping to make the sandwiches.
“If you eat the whole sandwich,” I said, “you can have ice cream for dessert.”
“I love PB & J,” she said. “I can eat all of this and more.”
“All right,” I said. “After dessert you can dance for us.”
Her face lit up then, octopus brains completely forgotten for the moment.
After dessert Abby went out to the balcony to get ready to perform her dance routine for us. Michael whispered to me and asked if I would meet him in the bedroom. He closed the door when we were alone.
“Why did you invite them here?” he asked.
“Because I like them,” I said.
“No other reason?” he asked. “Like maybe you’re trying to convince me that we should have kids?”
“Well, maybe,” I admitted. “Abby’s just such a great kid and I honestly thought that if you could get to know her the way I have you might change your mind about not wanting a family.”
“Look, Lucy,” he said. “I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. But I don’t want to have children. I don’t want the responsibility or the expense. I don’t want the childish arguments and I don’t want to give up doing all of the things I love to do. I want to be able to pick up and go skiing when I choose. Or fly to Italy or Rome. And I want you with me when I do these things. I want to have a nice home that won’t be ruined by kids and their messes. I want to drive nice cars; not a minivan. And I will never change my mind about this. Some people are just not meant to be parents, and I’m one of them. Surely this can’t be a surprise; we’ve discussed it a hundred times. I thought you agreed.”
“I did agree,” I said, “before I met Abby.” I left the bedroom then trying very hard not to start crying, but I knew I needed a few minutes to myself.
Abby was out on the balcony with Vivian waiting for the rest of us to join her so she could start her dance.
“Are you ready for the show?” Abby asked me.
“Not quite yet, Honey,” I said, trying hard not to let the flood gates loose. “I need to go downstairs and get something I left in my car. I’ll be back in just a few minutes. You practice until I get back.”
“All right,” Abby said. “But hurry back.”
“I will,” I reassured her.
I went downstairs and out of the building. I turned the corner and sat on a wooden bench which was surrounded by the modest rose garden. I started to cry and then began to sob. I was mourning the loss of a relationship that I knew I would be ending very soon. I grieved the loss of the love of my life, of the man that I had felt was quite certainly my soul mate. I knew that I could not stay in this relationship as that would mean I would never know the joy of being a parent. I wondered if I would ever love again and whether my heart would recover from this pain I felt all the way to my soul.
I sat quie
tly crying for several minutes when I suddenly noticed a pink rose petal lofting slowly through the air, and then another passed by and then several more.
I looked up and Abby was tossing the petals over the balcony railing, held tight in Vivian’s arms. Her sweet song drifted nearly as quietly as the rose petals on the breeze.
“Take these petals now, my friend
Which drift upon the quiet wind.
Think of God when petals fall
Listen close as angels call.”
I truly believed this was the voice of an angel at that moment, letting me know without a doubt that ending my relationship with Michael would be the first step toward my future life as a mom. I knew it would hurt to end this passionate love affair with Michael but in Abby’s sweet words I heard hope.
I stopped crying then as more petals rained down on me and started to laugh as Abby started to giggle; a sound I’ll never forget. That song brought me to a place in my life where I was open to having a relationship with a man who did want to start a family with me. Opening myself up to the greatest gift of my life, children.
As I sat in the hot tub tonight, thinking back to sweet Abby I thought how similar she and Jessie were. They had the same curiosity and love of ice cream, the same curly brown hair and brown eyes, and the same ability to melt my heart with a simple gesture like a handful of rose petals, helping me to see that life truly is beautiful and in it lies everlasting hope.
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