crossed at the ankles on the toile. She reached behind the pillows to retrieve a lightweight quilt. The air-conditioning felt good on her face but cool on her arms and feet. Wrapped and settled, she opened the book and waited for the words to make sense, for her world to make sense.
The words swam on a sea of “How can this be happening?” After several failed attempts at page one, she closed the book and stared into the dark.
Seasonal Affective Disorder. That’s what she had. An inability to function well in a season when thick clouds formed by budget-nervous school boards block out the sun and make life-altering decisions. The medical community could offer no lamp for that kind of S.A.D., no uniquely designed light-emitting apparatus that would make a difference.
Light-emitting apparatus. That’s what she needed.
“Don’t mock me,” she said to the barely visible stepping stone illuminated at the head of the garden path. She couldn’t read the inscription from this distance, but she knew it by heart:
Your word is a lamp before my feet
and a light for my journey.
—Psalm 119:105
“Is it wrong to allow myself to be miserable for a while?”
The words scared her. Two months ago she would never have imagined making a statement like that. The RIF decision had changed her into someone even she wouldn’t want to be around.
Chapter 5
5
Good. You’re home.”
Ania sounded relieved. Lucy stared at her cell phone. Where else would she be on a jobless weekday morning in the summer?
Summer. Lucy used to call it summer break. Not a season, but a half-rest between school years. “Where are you calling from?”
“The library.”
“That would explain the clandestine whisper voice.” Lucy mimicked her friend’s tone.
“I think I may have discovered a way we can sue the school board.”
“Ania, we’re not suing the school board.” Lucy fingered the tiny copper hoop earrings she wore—another gift from Ania. She glanced out the laundry room window at the thermometer near a hanging basket of flowers. That warm already?
“We wouldn’t get very far suing for what they did. These RIFs are happening all over, sad to say. But we might be able to get them for how they went about it.”
Lucy closed the lid of the washing machine and punched the code that started it filling with water. Nothing happened. She bumped a spot to the right of the control panel with her fist. Success. “ ‘Get them?’ I don’t have any desire to exact revenge.” Not that she hadn’t prayed God would.
“Sure you do. Don’t let your sadness override your anger, Luce. We need to take action. Can you come over to the library while I’m still here?”
It took all of three seconds to rehearse her plans for the day. But poring over legalese wouldn’t improve on that schedule. “I’m stuck here until after eleven at the earliest. Charlie has my car. His is in the muffler shop.” Yes, it was only a mile or so on foot—each way—but . . .
“This is just preliminary anyway. I’ll e-mail you links to the information I found.”
“I don’t want to even think about taking legal action, Ania. Really.”
“You’ll change your mind when reality kicks in and you have to start waiting tables at Bernie’s.”
The idea lodged in her throat like a crosswise potato chip—not likely to kill her, but highly unpleasant, considering. She’d worked at Bernie’s during summer breaks from college. Had her career path come full circle?
Lucy returned to the task of taping around the windows, doors, and cupboards in her kitchen. She’d start painting when Charlie returned from his trip to the home improvement store. Picking out a color online changed the whole “send husband to the store for paint” challenge.
She hoped.
Ania had asked one more question before hanging up. Had Lucy picked her poison yet? Ania’s poison of choice? Cheetos. Crunched one at a time, in rabbit bites. A tension-easer, she claimed.
Lucy’s choice? She stopped pouring coffee into the white porcelain mug with an inset for a stack of Oreos. “Developing a new food addiction is going to help how?” she’d asked Ania, pulling a different mug from the shelf that held her collection. Something plain, with no handy compartments for Oreos, caramels, or Cheetos. Lucy dumped coffee from the first mug into the second. She would have been proud of herself, but she couldn’t get past mourning the missing cookies.
The bright blue painter’s tape clashed with the faded, nondescript blue on the kitchen walls. From a distance, it looked as if she’d trimmed her kitchen in Ugly. This stage—the ugly stage, the in-between—always lasted longer than she hoped. Befores and afters hold merit. A “was” full of memories and a “future” full of awe. But this middle? When nothing looked or functioned as it should? Lucy fought agitation with every strip of blue tape she positioned.
She could strip off the white crown molding at the ceiling and risk splintering one of the pieces, as Charlie had the last time they’d painted. Or she could climb the ladder and tape the entire perimeter of the room. She opted for the latter—and the ladder.
Fifteen minutes into the process, her neck and shoulders threatened mutiny. She allowed them a short break, during which she refilled her disturbingly plain coffee mug and clicked the remote to start her playlist of music.
Bad idea. Bad, bad idea.
Lucy didn’t hear professional musicians, auto-tuned and digitally mixed. Her mind heard children’s voices, children’s talent on the instruments. Children discovering the power of music to change things. Children finding expression, coming out of themselves to care about the community of sound, pushing themselves past what they thought unconquerable limits, discovering not only a safe but soul-enriching outlet for their emotions.
She abandoned the ladder and grabbed a stack of Oreos.
“Just a few,” she told the room trimmed in Ugly. She resealed the cookie bag and tucked it deeper into the pantry. As if that would prevent a return trip.
The hated stage—between before and after. Music swelled around her, a soundtrack for her mood. Ladder height made her dizzy. It had nothing to do with the sugar rush. She switched from coffee to iced tea and retreated to the deck to wait for Charlie to return with paint.
The sun hadn’t yet climbed over the roof and the maple—a formidable team that eliminated Lucy’s need to open the deck table umbrella. She’d left the music on in the house. Filtered through walls and windows, it seemed less threatening to her sanity.
The swivel-rocker patio chair welcomed her presence as if it had been waiting for someone to recognize what a beautiful day it was. Above the decibel level of the filtered music, she heard the thrum of hummingbird wings. The bird darted in and out of the fuchsia Million Bells’ tiny, petunia-like blossoms.
The
