Her Other Half

Sandy pulled her long, black hair into a sloppy ponytail, then rinsed her hands and began kneading. The mixture felt cold and nasty as it squished between her fingers, the scent of raw meat, egg, breadcrumbs, and spices repugnant to her nose and empty stomach. As soon as the boys left for the bus stop, she’d jumped headlong into the task of feeding the crock-pot before so much as pouring her morning cup of coffee. This afternoon—crammed full with little league practice for the boys, a dentist appointment for her, and a stop by the church to set up for the missionary conference—held no time for dinner prep. It had to be done now or they’d end up in the McDonald’s drive-thru, spending money they really didn’t have and eating junk food they certainly didn’t need.

On TV, the crowd of Times Square Morning Show viewers cheered from behind the velvet rope that separated them from the show’s host. Jimmy left for work before Sandy and the boys woke up, and had left the set on. When Sandy came down, the weatherman was there to greet her with a sunny forecast. She glanced at the TV screen. Two chubby blond women in the group jumped up and down like cheerleaders holding a cardboard sign with the words, “Happy Birthday Grandma Eleanor!” written in red marker.

Sandy’s birthday was this Saturday. Her thirty-sixth. What would Jimmy and the boys get her? Would they remember? Thank goodness for girlfriends or she’d never have a cake baked for her. That was all right. She’d long been accustomed to her male-majority household with its lack of frills or sentimentality and its abundance of muddy footprints and bathroom humor. God gave her sons and one goofy but lovable man.

She expertly scooped handfuls of the greasy slop and formed them into reddish golf balls, then plopped them on a growing pyramid on the countertop. She’d quickly brown them, then set them to cooking in sauce—jar sauce today, no time for home made—in the crock-pot. Once that was accomplished, she could relax a bit with her Bible and coffee, maybe read a page of the Daily Bread devotional magazine, before zipping through the shower and starting the laundry.

The Early Show’s host announced a special performance by Montgomery Gentry, eliciting screams of delight from the Times Square crowd. Sandy wasn’t a country fan, listening usually to strictly Christian music, but she smiled at the song’s lyrics, and since there was no one but Lazarus the goldfish there to see, swayed her hips a little to the slow, bluesy beat.

I ain't tradin' in my family's safety
Just to save a little gas
And I'll pray to God any place, any time
And you can bet I'll pick up the phone if Uncle Sam calls me up
You do your thing, I'll do mine
Hey, I'll worry about me
You just worry about you
And I'll believe what I believe
And you can believe what you believe too

Jimmy was a military transplant she never would have met had he not been stationed in her New England town around the time she graduated high school, and a proud member of the NRA. He’d certainly appreciate the song’s sentiments.

She’d cleared all but about two meatball’s worth of gook out of the green and brown pottery bowl she’d inherited from her mother when the phone rang. Why did it always wait until her hands were messy? For a moment she considered ignoring the ring, but then thought better of it. Could be something about the boys—a playground injury, forgotten homework. Could be Jimmy calling from work or the pastor relaying details about the conference.

Sighing, she elbowed the tap on and plunged her meaty hands under the flow. Resisting the grease, the water beaded and rolled off her fingertips. The country singer droned on.

I ain't gonna spare the rod
Cuz that ain't what my daddy did
And I sure know the difference between wrong and right
You know, to me it's all just common sense
A broken rule, a consequence
You do your thing, I'll do mine

The phone persisted.

“Coming!” she called apologetically into the empty house and squirted a blob of yellow dish soap into her palm. She scrubbed frantically, trying to beat the answering machine, and then dried her hands on the way, using her nightgown, which was headed to the wash soon anyway.

She was there in the foyer, reaching for the phone when it happened. With her fingertips brushing the handset, she hesitated, distracted by a note on the foyer table. And something else. She leaned over, inspecting the items, vaguely aware that the machine had answered the phone.

You have reaching the home of Jimmy and Sandy…

That’s when her world exploded. The deafening sound of it drowned out everything else—the screeching brakes of the garbage truck and the barking of the neighborhood dogs, the distant voice on the answering machine, and both Montgomery and Gentry. The shock of the blast sent her hurtling to the floor. She felt pressure on her back, forcing her down. For a moment there was nothing, then a wave of nausea. Panicking, she realized that half of her body, or very nearly half had been blown away. Pain such as she’d never known radiated from her core to every extremity, and she wished she were dead. She felt herself bleeding, it seemed from everywhere at once, her life spilling on the freshly shampooed carpet. God, help me.

She’d always wondered if it was true, what they said about one’s life flashing before one’s eyes, and now she knew it was. The images scrolled before her like a lifetime's worth of home video playing in fast forward. Only the flashes began not at childhood, but with meeting Jimmy. The two of them sitting on opposite sides of a folding chair circle, a bible study for singles at a local church. She remembered the heat in her cheeks every time she peered up from her Bible and caught him looking at her. Right away she’d wondered, “Is he the one, Lord?” And he was. The movie trailer of her life continued, Jimmy, handsome and smiling his lop-sided smile, his eyes glistening as she walked toward him, her face hidden behind a wedding veil she’d embroidered herself. Jimmy squeezing her hand and whispering encouragement as birth pains threatened to tear her in two. In her present agony, the pains of labor seemed a joke. She saw Jimmy and the boys dragging a far-too-large Christmas tree through the woods. The boys learning to walk—toddling from Sandy to Jimmy and back again. Picnics, Halloweens, yard sales, baptisms… everything. Mostly, she saw she and Jimmy entangled in the darkness, making love in the antique bed they found at the flea market in Madison-- the bed their children were conceived in. She hadn’t been his one and only- he'd had other girls before her-, but he’d been hers. For a moment little things flashed through her mind—his pet names for her, the jokes just between them, the mole on his lower back. Then the slide show stopped and confusion swelled. Why, why, why...

She moaned, a deep, choking guttural moan that grew in volume until it filled the room and her head. The pain was too much. Too much. She could hardly think clearly to begin the process of reasoning how or why this terrorist act had occurred in her quiet home on Wren Street.

She didn’t know how long she laid there, tides of pain and shock overwhelming her. Then the phone rang again. She lay listening to it ring—once, twice, four times and then the machine. A moment later it started up again. From the kitchen, the traffic woman informed the TV audience about a traffic jam on I-95. Sandy marveled that life continued while she lay here bleeding. People continued on to work, the garbage truck—now a block away—kept moving from house to house, and the Times Square multitudes still pulsed through the street. While she bled and bled and bled.

Again the phone rang, the caller obviously frantic to get through. Shaking, she dragged herself to the foyer table, struggled to reach up and retrieve the handset from its cradle. When she did, the note came fluttering with it. The gold ring—a simple wide band—came falling too, the morning sun glinting off it briefly in mid-air before it plopped silently on the rug.

Numbly, she hit the “talk” button and croaked a greeting into the phone. Her voice sounded hollow, robotic.

“Sandy?” It was Don Hester. One of Jimmy’s pals. He sounded surprised that she finally answered. “You are there. I was about to give up. Where’s your other half?”

She stared at the ring, lying abandoned like her on the rug.

“Hellooo? Sandy? I said where’s your other half?”

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Words from their wedding ceremony seventeen years ago. Sorrow welled up and spilled from her eyes as the reality of it hit her. “Gone.”

Her other half was gone.