Copyright © 1998 by PJ
Vera Hummel had put in her request in early February. "Amy, please don't include me in planning for the primary department on Easter Sunday. I know it's a big day at the Sunday School but...."
"What is it, Vera? Of course, I'll mind your not being here. You haven't missed a Sunday, and we depend on you terribly."
"I'm sorry," she offered. "And all of you might as well know: I'm pregnant again. The baby's due in July. Can you imagine? I finally got my little girl started to Kindergarten and the boy is in second grade and here I am, faced by another five years with the pre-school set."
"Oh, Vera!"
"I thought since the children would be out of school that week before Easter we could take a trip together. When will I get away again?"
She wanted to visit her only sister. Her two children grew excited about riding on a train, Her husband George encouraged her to go. Whatever misgivings she had about the primary department at the Sunday School observing its holiday bereft of her assistance she set aside in the aftermath of family enthusiasm about the projected trip. "Moreover," she rationalized to her husband who paid no attention when she spoke of matters concerning the Sunday School, the other teachers might as well learn to get along without me. I can't help past June. I'll be home with the baby for months. I've never cared for the nursery arrangements at the church." Indeed, also to be considered was the little contact she had maintained with her sister Frances. When did the business of housekeeping permit socializing with any other adult, let alone her midwestern relatives who rarely made their way to her home in California?
The church had become, at best, a preoccupation. Two of the women in the primary department she considered fanatics in terms of ferreting out possible agonies for the young, agonies that bespoke failures on the part of their religious mentors in lesson planning, activity planning, song participation. She was wearied by so much pre-directed excess of spirit. She wanted rather the unstructured wanderings of familial discourse -- Mother's cyst, Daddy's kidney stones and whatever happened to Joe-you-remember who did the imitation of a woman putting on her girdle on the school stage for PTA Talent Night. The tunnel vision of her fervent colleagues bent on projecting some glimpse of God's love to those between the ages of six and eight had parched the wellsprings of her Christian spontaneity. In her Sunday participation she liked best to play the untuned piano and sing the simple lyrics of the children's musical worship of their Heavenly Father. She rejoiced when one of the children came forward with six, seven, one or two more pennies and dropped pennies in the jar with a ringing, filling sound echoing God's care of them, all of them well combed, clothed, fed, doctored. Their faces lighted when they sang the birthday song suggested by the new curriculum.
To be honest, she did not like Mrs. Reynolds who equated quiet children of good posture with goodness. There were children, according to Mrs. Hummel's impetuous theology, children who squirmed during the glories of the five-minute worship service who were good children. There were children who were greedy with crayons and kept four and five colors to themselves during the activity time who were good children. Yes, she knew surely she needed some respite from her Sabbath service, for she pleaded that God's love would not be hidden from those who chewed gum, dropped quarterlies, elbowed classmates at line-up time.
That year Spring came to California with little remittance of fog and clammy weather for coastal dwellers such as herself. By the last of March a new recruit for the primary team consented to observe the ten o'clock session. Apologetically, Wanda Stuart emerged from the foggy parking lot, blunted her nose against the window and finally entered the long room with her son, a second grader. "I've never" she explained, "done any teaching. I don't know the first thing..."
But Mrs. Hummel smiled. "You'll be fine."
Mrs. Reynolds acted as lead teacher. "We need help with the nature committee. Mrs. Stuart, would you mind helping that boy in the corner? He's brought his shell collection. He'll tell the children about it. Just sit with them."
Mrs. Hummel took her place at the piano. She always worked with the music committee. There were two children spinning the piano stool and she asked one to turn pages for her and the other to hold up the sheet of newsprint on which she had printed in big letters the words of the new song. Soon she had seven children for her group. "Now just hum while I play the music, boys and girls." She hummed very loudly herself and one by one the children began to hum with her. It was a simple song about sun and one blue flower.
"Why," a voice interrupted, "O why don't they sing `The Old Rugged Cross' anymore?" Standing at the piano was a woman in a many-flowered hat. She was a lean woman, unsmiling. Mrs. Hummel recognized her as the mother of a little boy who seldom joined the music committee but who usually kept to himself at the book table. "When I went to Sunday School, we sang `The Old Rugged Cross' and `Onward Christian Soldiers.' You don't hear the children singing those songs anymore."
Thankfully, Mrs. Hummel agreed, "No, you don't."
"Well, I think it's a shame. And I could say all the books of the Bible when I was in the third grade."
Efficiently, Mrs. Reynolds appeared. "You're going to be missing church services, Mrs. Drake. The choir's assembled."
The face under the flowered hat seemed small, weighted. "Oh, you're trying to get rid of me. That's what parents get when they ask questions about all these new teaching methods."
"My goodness," exclaimed Mrs. Reynolds, "ask all the questions you want. We need help here. Why don't you join us?"
Precisely then the woman started for the door. "No, no. You wouldn't put up with me. I'd have them using those little brains to mem-o-rize, You wouldn't put up with me."
"Children," Mrs. Hummel suggested, "you hum, and I'm going to sing the words through once." But she didn't make a start of the words.
A lean, olive-skinned boy fixed her with his black eyes. "Why don't we sing `The Old Rugged Cross'?"
A little girl who was wearing a stiff yellow organdy dress and white gloves decorated with seed pearls put in, "What is an old rugged cross?"
"Well," Mrs. Hummel took a breath. She looked out for Mrs. Reynolds who took unkindly to theological digression. "The old rugged cross is the cross Jesus was crucified on." She well knew that the crucifixion was not touched upon until fourth grade when the children entered the junior department.
The same little girl, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, persisted, "What is Crucified?"
"Oh my," whispered Mrs. Hummel. She thought at first she'd put off the question by saying they could ask mommies and daddies, the way children were directed to ask mommies and daddies about how the kitties got in the mama cat's stomach when that sort of question inevitably was asked. But she reasoned that that was no way to treat her music committee who had been in the past true and honest with her and had hummed and led the singing and pointed to the words most dependably. Resting her forearm on her abdomen, leaning forward slightly, she began to put the words together the way she remembered them: "Crucified means Jesus was nailed to a wooden cross. The Roman soldiers drove nails into His hands and feet and lifted Him, that way, on the cross."
Mrs. Drake's pale little boy had sidled up to the group and with the other children pressed about her. He put in now in the silence that followed her words, "Yes. And they didn't give Jesus anything to eat and drink."
The little girl in yellow organdy smoothed her skirt with the white gloved hands. She wanted to know, "Did he die?"
And Mrs. Drake's child replied, "Of course, he did, you silly!"
The children had no other questions but one by one they drew away from her. As if for warmth they huddled together. Their eyes remained upon her unblinking. "Wouldn't you," she asked them, "like to sing the song about the blue flower once again?"
Two or three heads nodded. She turned to the piano. Stanley stood beside her ready to turn the pages of the thin hymnal with songs especially prepared for grade levels one through three. Sad voices praised God and the sunshine that had made a blue flower. Though she tried to play the piano brightly, the song became a dirge.
"In the warm sunshine...."
"Now try it one more time. Are you remembering the words? This is a happy song. You'll be teaching the song to the whole class." When she started to play, she noticed that Mrs. Drake's boy, though he continued to stand beside the piano, was not singing. She paused. "What's your name?"
"Johnny."
"Johnny, why don't you hum with us and pretty soon you'll know all the words and want to sing."
He enunciated precisely. "I don't do lots of singing. But I'll try humming."
"Well, we're glad you joined our committee this morning. Aren't we, boys and girls?"
The children affirmed nothing, and she began to play again. Once again the spring song chilled her spirits. "In the warm sunshine...."
Her voice loud, Mrs. Reynolds interrupted them, "Why what's the trouble, Mrs. Stuart? A spider? Oh, don't you worry about that."
It was unlike Mrs. Reynolds to speak out during the time of committee meetings. Mrs. Hummel and the singers turned to the newcomer Mrs. Stuart who had stood up and backed away from the nature study table. Mrs. Stuart was a youthful woman with long dark hair and a pretty face. Her eyes were very wide now and seemed transfixed by some object on the nature table. Her young, high bosom rose and fell rapidly. As if to stop a cry, she put one hand to her mouth.
Johnny Drake said, "They got a spider at the nature study table. It's a black widow. I saw Andy bring in a black widow spider. He told me he found it in his garage." He put his hands on his hips. "I notice lots things, I guess. I look around, and I listen pretty carefully."
Andy and the other members of the nature study committee had risen from their small, white-enameled chairs and backed away from the low table. Andy was howling, "I didn't mean my spider to get out of the bottle. I'm scared of black widow spiders. They bite."
Johnny in a confidential way for only the music committee to hear observed, "They have poison. Black widows are poisonous spiders."
Mrs. Reynolds was bending over the nature table. She was holding in one hand the quarterly magazine of curriculum directions which she usually carried rolled up like a pointer. Mrs. Hummel put arms around as many of her singers as she could enfold, "Everything will be all right, children."
Two of the little girls were shaking.
Then Mrs. Reynolds, after a preliminary inspection that had apparently assured her the spider was indeed a menace, grasped her rolled-up quarterly firmly and dealt the spider a sharp blow. Obliquely, the shriveled black body glided to the painted concrete floor. The fatal swat had flattened the spider and played havoc with the symmetry of its eight legs. Mrs. Reynolds tilted the rejected nature study on the end of her quarterly and, alone, completed obsequies at the corner wastebasket.
It was time for the worship service then. The children made a seated circle about the improvised worship center. Vera had brought a blue flower for the glass vase and she straightened it before she seated herself beside young Mrs. Stuart. She said to the woman, "I hope you'll join us at our next planning session. We're so sorry...."
Mrs. Stuart put her fingers together as if in prayer But her hands shook badly. She whispered, "I'm going to try."
To set an example of quietness for the children, they said no more during worship service, and one of the third graders read the scripture. When Mrs. Hummel went to the piano bench, the music committee formed a choir at the front of the room and she was surprised that all of them remembered the words to the new song. The blue flower and the song seemed a promise of spring though outside the fog had not lifted.
Later, after worship time and the ensuing activity period, when they were putting the boxes of crayons into the cupboards and seeing that each child remembered his picture of Springtime in God's World, she found a moment to say to the new volunteer, "I know you're Wanda Stuart. I'm Vera Hummel. Can't we go to the planning meeting together? I'll be glad to stop by for you."
"Oh, would you?" And they made arrangements before they left to attend church services. The sun beamed on the white church tower and the robed choir gathered for the second church service when the first notes of the organ lifted to the newly blue sky. Only a scrim of fog smudged the horizon.
She had such mixed feelings about going out to night meetings. On the one hand she was usually tired, or felt that she was tired. Her obstetrician thought she was in fine health, but, considering she was in her thirties, had prescribed a bit of thyroid. The medication helped the tiredness, she supposed. But vaguely it remained. She'd thought if her husband ever really talked to her in the evening she might feel better, but he appeared bored by her little recitals of daily happenings. It was almost seven by the time he arrived from the office. The thing that she enjoyed about going to night meetings was that they did give her some opportunity to talk with other people. She didn't honestly know how to talk with her own children. She listened to them She was a good listener. But, perhaps with everybody, she listened only with the hope of someday speaking out her mind, all those little worries that went unverbalized the dim anxieties of the numb tiredness. If only she could talk to someone....
She asked her husband when he came to dinner, "Did you remember I was going to the planning meeting for the Sunday School this evening?"
"Oh, is that tonight?" He helped himself to mashed potatoes. "I suppose that means you'll want me to get the kids ready for bed."
"I'll manage if you don't want to."
"Seems like that's your job. After the day I put in at the office. I'm surprised you're staying with this teaching so long. When are you going to quit?"
"I told them I'd help till June."
"I don't see what you get out of it."
"Maybe if you'd try meeting some of the people at the church...."
"I've tried before. In the valley. Have you forgotten? Never could do enough for them. And you had to be superintendent of the Sunday School there, had to take over. Christ, I had enough of that."
"You enjoyed your choir work."
"Sure. And holding the baby during rehearsals."
"That happened once."
"One time too many."
"But you've never been inside this church. And it's been a long time since I did that stint as superintendent. Six months... that's all I worked on that job. The church needed me. I enjoyed the planning. Everybody helped.... I know it's silly of me, but I felt I was doing something."
"Sure."
"Do you think there's something wrong with me because I enjoy going to church and being with people?"
"Let's not talk about it."
"Why not?"
"Look, I've had my problems for today. I want to relax when I get home. Can you get off my back for once?"
"Sorry." She turned to the children. "Anybody for more mashed potatoes?"
She cleaned up the kitchen and got the children ready for bed before she left. "Don't bother Daddy now," she cautioned them. "He's had a busy day." Her husband was sitting at the kitchen table with a book and a beer when she at last went out the door. She advised, "I should be home around ten-thirty."
He didn't look up from his book. It was his habit to read thick novels in the evening. The children were piling the sofa cushions in front of the television. The five year old was objecting to the program and the seven year old was refusing to change the setting. She prefigured the vision, a fantasy of bodily injury and broken furniture, lamps, fixtures, that would greet her return. Bleak wailing imparted a soundtrack for her mental wanderings; three pairs of accusatory eyes peered through the devastation and mutely condemned her desertion.
Things looked much worse at Wanda Stuart's. The Stuarts had four children, the eldest probably eight or so and the youngest staggering about in a dirty undershirt and diaper that sagged ominously. Wanda wanted her, before they left, to come back to the bathroom to meet her husband. Joe Stuart was crouched in the bathtub grimly setting maroon plastic wall tiles. One wall of the bathroom looked rotted and was peeling.
"Glad to meetcha." Mr. Stuart grimaced. He was a heavy, long man who fit badly into the tub.
She smiled and said, "We certainly are glad to have Wanda in the primary department." In response he muttered something she thought it best not to hear.
Wanda suggested, "Joe maybe you've worked at it enough for this evening."
He groaned.
"Darling, try to look at the children now and then. I think all their cartoons are over."
"Tell them Daddy's going to kill 'em if they don't behave out there. Or send them on in here." He managed a big smile for Vera. "They might as well knock out the other wall. What the hell?"
On the way to the car Wanda started in on the kind of plumbing troubles they had and how much trouble Joe had had once removing the toilet after she'd flushed a diaper down it.
In contrast to the Stuarts, the Reynolds living room was a model for one of the TV family series settings or like a page from any good woman's magazine. The most improbable thing in it was a beautiful earthen jar of freshly cut, exquisitely arranged garden flowers. Her husband greeted them with tolerance and warmth. He said that he was leaving for a meeting of the Indian Guides with their only child, a tall boy who was well mannered at Sunday School and who made very fine grades at his elementary school. In appearance Mrs. Reynolds suggested a woman who had no concerns but her manicure and her coiffure. How did she manage? The other woman present at the meeting was Sue Lightfoot who was a close friend of the Reynolds. It was known that she also had a pleasant social husband and enjoyed couples' activities. Both the Reynolds and the Lightfoots had positions of responsibility in the married people's group at the church. In envy Vera Hummel sighed. It crossed her mind that George had gulped down about a pint of vodka after his last attempt at coupled conviviality.
In the Reynolds' dining room they sat around the polished table, reflecting themselves in the dark mahogany surface of the table. They bowed their heads for Amy Reynolds' brief, effortless prayer. How naturally Amy talked to God. In her abdomen Vera felt the new life stir, bounce: she had been aware of quickening for only a short time. The baby seemed more active than she remembered the other two. No, her own praying was an insecure arrangement as if she had nervously plugged into a busy switchboard and doubted the efficacy of her connection. If she had not sensed a brittleness about Mrs. Reynolds, she might have liked her. But she envied her, instead, desperately and at the same time for some personal nastiness, disparagingly. For the disappointment with herself as mother, the planning from childhood all shattered by a thousand disillusions, she could weep with abandon. The past year gritting her teeth she'd examined herself and committed herself to further trial, a course of finishing it with the little boy and girl, going ahead with the mistakes but getting done with it. She'd seek a career for herself and win praise after they were in school all day. It would be no time at all. She was a college graduate. Her life was before her. And then there had been the fact of preparation for a new baby. A new baby...a new isolation. Unreachable little face...small ears and pink mouth, hungry...and all reminders of the sham of her emotions when they feigned love. She was too severe, though, had demanded too much of herself. Was her loneliness self-willed? Did it, indeed, exist?
"Vera, what do you think of that?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, Amy. I had my mind...."
"Well, I know you won't be with us for Easter. But we want your ideas. Tell her what you've been thinking, Sue."
"I'm trying to figure out how to implement some of these curriculum ideas." Sue looked at Vera and narrowed her eyes slightly. "The quarterly is pointing out how we can't ignore all of the things children associate with Easter -- you know, like chicks and bunnies and that kind of thing."
"Eggs." Vera put in. "Sure we always hide eggs for the children. My husband...George is a great one for hiding eggs in all sorts of places. The kids love that. I mean, he doesn't go to church much, but he can be awfully good with the kids. One year he made bunny ears for both of them and several of the neighbors. I don't know...I remember once I had a toy bunny that hopped when you squeezed one of those little rubber bulbs."
Sue leaned back in her chair. "Yes, that's the kind of thing."
"I suppose they could draw pictures of hunting Easter eggs."
Wanda suddenly asked, "Why couldn't they make up stories about bunnies and chickens?"
"All right," said Amy. "You know we'll have a crowd and maybe more visitors than usual. Is there anything we can ask our mother helpers to do in the way of preparing activities? I think your story idea is a good one, Wanda. Let's have you take charge of that...."
Wanda put out one hand. "But...."
"Oh, you'll do fine."
After the planning was completed, Amy served a fudge cake and coffee using her Bavarian china and best sterling spoons and forks. Vera took a piece of cake and subtracted the calories from her diet. She'd been careful about her weight with the pregnancy and still scarcely showed though she was all too aware of the baby. Maybe she had been too stern with herself in dieting. Eating the cake, she began to relax. George would have put the children to bed and be waiting up for her. His job was a terrible strain. Neither of them had been brought up with sisters and brothers close to them. They both still resented the kind of social activities that had attracted their own parents and tended to shove children into the corner. What kind of relationship did she expect with a little boy of seven and a girl of five?
A confused state of well being engulfed her. She almost sobbed. "Oh, Amy, your fudge cake is delicious."
"Why, thank you, Vera."
The first day Mrs. Hummel was home after her trip Wanda called. "Did you have a good time, Vera?"
"Oh, wonderful," she said. We didn't do much, talked and talked, but I enjoyed seeing my sister. Frances has a little girl three, and the children were wild and difficult. I guess they knew George wasn't around to keep them in line. But they were good on the train. How about you, Wanda? How did Sunday go? I hope everything was all right without me."
"You won't believe it," Wanda began. "There were so many of them. And your music committee was fine, Vera. You've done a good job with them. They missed you, but they practiced several of the songs you'd already taught them. They missed you. We all did. You don't know. But your committee was a little choir and the best thing about that day, I can assure you. What a time!"
"What happened?"
"Do you remember we'd talked of little stories? How they were to make up little stories about chickens and bunnies? It started out all right. One of the second graders told a story about a lost Easter chicken, and he was really sweet. It had a happy ending. But then.... I don't know how it got started. They made up some character called Funny Bunny."
"Like a comic strip. Or a TV cartoon."
"Yes, I guess so. At first Funny Bunny was a good bunny, and he helped people. He delivered a few Easter baskets, you know. Then the whole thing got out of hand. I mean Funny Bunny started playing all sorts of tricks. He got terribly wild."
"And the children?"
"They began to get excited. And Funny Bunny got wilder and wilder. And then...."
"Yes?"
"You know Mrs. Drake's little boy. What's his name?"
"Johnny?"
"Johnny. Yes. Then Johnny called out, `Let's crucify him.'"
"No."
"Yes. And pretty soon they were all crying, `Let's crucify him.'"
Vera stopped her. "Where was Amy Reynolds?"
"She wasn't there then. She'd stepped out to take the offering over to the office. She wasn't gone but five minutes. Sue and I were there alone with them."
"What did you do?"
"That's the awful part. We didn't know what to do. And then they crucified Funny Bunny They crucified him. And that was the end of the story."
"Oh, my."
"We were glad when their parents came for them."
"Oh, Wanda, don't be discouraged."
"My husband says I'm nervous enough without looking for things to be upset about. I wish I were calm like you. I don't know...these four kids of mine. I'm always screaming at them. I didn't used to be like this. I thought maybe adding on to the house would help. What do you think?"
"Wanda don't ask me. Look at me. Waiting for a baby in this place that's too small for the four of us. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed getting away. The only thing was I knew I had to come back. And I knew I had to have the baby. When I was a little girl, I wanted to grow up and have babies so much. I really did. And do you know my first baby had seven bowel movements every day for at least a month and wanted to be nursed every two hours and cried every afternoon from four to six? And he became so enormous I could scarcely pick him up. And you think...." She began to cry.
"I'm sorry, Vera."
"But that's not all of it. Now he doesn't want to go to Sunday School. I have to drag him out of the car. He doesn't want to go to Sunday School. And his father won't go to church. You know...well, you haven't met George. George was so sweet, I don't know what's become of him. You'd never believe it. He had some kind of party here while I was gone. He didn't even bother to hide anything. And there's something going on with one of those dreadful women at his office. He went to a party once without me." Weeping, she bent over the phone. The baby stirred inside her. "And didn't come home till dawn. And he drinks. Oh, Wanda, he hasn't made love to me, doesn't seem to want me anymore. What am I to do? What am I to do?"