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Falling Out Of Bed
Mary Schramski
WAKE UP! WAKE UP! LIFE IS HAPPENING WHILE YOU SLEEP…Melinda had never questioned her perfect life. Why should she? Her husband's successful, she's not working for the first time in years and their only daughter is in college. Her father–a workaholic, perfectionist, runner and health nut to boot–is happy and healthy, too.Or so Melinda thought until her father quite literally falls out of bed. Suddenly her formerly robust parent is in jeopardy, and their roles are reversed. Melinda's life changes in the blink of an eye.But with the changes, unexpected blessings come her way, too. Because as she and her father bond, Melinda realizes she's been sleeping through life–and starts discovering what really matters….
“Dad,” I finally said.
He turned around and his expression was a study in wonder. He gestured to the world outside. “You know, life is really beautiful.”
I went over to the window, stood next to him. More light flooded the room, us, the yard.
“It is, isn’t it?”
“I’d forgotten how really wonderful life is.”
“Most mornings I come out here and take a few minutes to enjoy it.”
“You’re a smart girl.” He stared at me for a moment. “I was just thinking how much I’ve missed. I was always working.” He sighs. “Trying to make buildings perfect.” He glances out to the yard again. “But life doesn’t have to be perfect, does it?”
“Maybe our flaws are beautiful, too.” I think about this, hope it’s true, feel good that we’re talking. We both stare at the yard and, suddenly, it turns bright with sunlight.
Mary Schramski
Mary Schramski began writing when she was about ten. The first story she wrote took place at a junior high school. Her mother told her it was good, so she immediately threw it away. She read F. Scott Fitzgerald at eleven, fell in love with storytelling and decided to teach English. She holds a Ph.D in creative writing and enjoys teaching and encouraging other writers. She lives in Nevada with her husband, and her daughter who lives close by. Visit Mary’s Web site at www.maryschramski.com.
Falling Out of Bed
Mary Schramski
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
From the Author
Dear Reader,
The idea for Falling Out of Bed came to me through a conversation with a dear friend. Over cups of tea we talked about what we thought to be important in our lives, and how those ideals guide us. After our conversation, I began imagining a character struggling with what she believed in and how her family might help her evolve. Melinda is the brave protagonist in Falling Out of Bed, the one who learns about love, hope and believing in things she cannot explain.
Sincerely,
Mary Schramski
www.maryschramski.com
To you, the reader
If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Even the seasons form a great circle in their
changing, and always come back again to where
they were. The life of a man [woman] is a circle
from childhood to childhood and so it is in
everything where power moves.
—Black Elk
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PROLOGUE
Second Week in October
I’ m on my knees by the oak tree. For my forty-second birthday my father sent me fifteen daffodil bulbs from a mail-order catalog. I don’t garden, so after I opened his gift I walked down to Elizabeth’s house and asked her how to plant them.
She smiled, patted my shoulder. “Dig really deep, Melinda. Then wait for miracles to appear in the spring.”
I looked at the bulbs. “All that from daffodils?”
“Oh, they’re more than that. They prove there’s always hope.” Then she reached inside the box, touched one of the rough woodlike seeds and looked at me. “We all need hope.”
I shook my head, laughed. “I guess you’re right, but my life’s pretty wonderful right now. I’m not sure why my father sent me these. Maybe I’ll find out someday.” I closed the box, gave her a hug and walked home.
The telling autumn breeze washes over me and I stare at the daffodil bulb in my palm. The tiny orb looks so dark against my skin. How can something so hard and ugly produce a delicate flower?
CHAPTER ONE
First Week in January
“D ad’s back still hurts,” I say as I walk into our family room. My husband is sitting in his recliner watching TV and canned laughter fills the room.
David looks at me. “It’s probably just a pulled muscle. Your father’s healthy as a horse. He’ll be fine.”
“I know.” Deep down I’m not sure this is true, but I press my lips together, tell myself not to worry. At seventy-two years old, Dad’s a health nut, a runner, a person who is never sick.
David turns his attention back to the TV. The huge Sony big-screen, the actors and the fake laughter have taken over our living room as they do most nights. The woman on TV is having a baby and the entire family—husband, children and mother-in-law—are in an uproar, worried and nervous for her.
Our lives, on the other hand, are easy. Our only child is doing well in college, by choice I haven’t worked in over a year, and David is happy. I taught junior high for eighteen years, but I quit because I was bored and dreaded going in each day. We didn’t need the money and now I spend my time volunteering at the library, thinking about what I’d like to do when I go back to work, and keeping our house immaculate.
David, in the TV’s shimmery light, looks rested from our uneventful weekend. He laughs again and the sound echoes against the ten-foot ceilings of our home. My husband loves TV. He always has. When we were first married, I asked him why he watched so much. He explained that watching TV was the only thing to do while his mother worked nights.
This was the opposite of what I experienced. When I was growing up, before my mother and father divorced, the four of us sat in our living room, listened to music and read.
I guess parts of our childhoods stay with us forever.
For a moment, there is a square of silence before another TV commercial comes on. I hear the winter wind moving outside. It is extremely cold tonight and for some silly reason I think about the daffodil bulbs I planted months ago and wonder if they are all right.
I lie back on the couch, pull the soft beige Pottery Barn throw over my legs and open the book I was reading before Dad called. Yet the feeling my father’s backache is something more slips around me like a silk curtain.
Every once in a while I experience a weird intuition I can’t deny. These intuitive feelings aren’t anything supernatural or scary, but since I was about eight, some things turn out exactly the way I know they will. When this happens I always feel uncomfortable.
The most poignant one was the time when I was eight months pregnant. I dreamed about our unborn daughter Jennifer. I saw her dark thatch of hair, her beautiful slanted eyes and cupid lips. That morning, right after I woke, while David was still sleeping and sunlight sprang into the bedroom, I had no doubt our child would be a girl. And I was overjoyed even though David was hoping for a boy. Our daughter was born with the beautiful little face, the one that appeared in my dream.
Women seem to understand this story better than men. When I tell a woman about my Jennifer dream, she usually nods and smiles. Men don’t. David thought my dream was a coincidence. But I knew it wasn’t. And I tried to explain to him how I felt like a fraud and guilty about my best friend Vanessa’s death. How I couldn’t stop wondering why, if I have this intuition, I didn’t know my college roommate shouldn’t have gone for a ride with her boyfriend the night their car overturned.
David always says to forget all that. But it’s not that easy.
I’ve explained to Elizabeth about my intuition and she claims it’s a gift from God. Elizabeth and I are different in that way—she has a strong faith, I don’t. Before Vanessa’s death I believed there was some sort of God and maybe a plan for us all. But after, it was like someone took a rag and wiped my beliefs away. Now I think life is just a big petri dish.
David laughs again, looks over at me. “That was funny.”
“Sorry, I wasn’t watching.”
“Your Dad’s gonna be okay, Melinda. Quit worrying.”
“I know.” I smile and he smiles back, but at this moment, underneath my happy facade, I know our lives will never be the same.
My father and I are talking on the phone again.
I’m determined to cheer him up. Last night I left David to his TV shows and went to bed early. This morning I woke feeling better, upbeat. Beautiful winter sun was blazing into each room of our home and I thought, Of course Dad will be fine. Before I could phone him, my mother called and I told her about Dad’s backache.
“Stanley has always been strong as an ox. He’s flawless, and if he isn’t, he’ll make himself that way. Don’t worry, he’ll survive,” she said.
Her words of encouragement made me feel even better.
“I know I’ll be okay, honey,” Dad says through the phone line. “But my back sure hurts.”
“Does Motrin help?” I’m happy I can give him moral support and a little advice. We aren’t close and I’ve always wanted to be.
“No.”
“The doctors in El Paso will fix you up. Once you get their diagnosis, you’ll be better.”
Dad is going to an orthopedic surgeon this afternoon in El Paso, fifty miles from Las Cruces, New Mexico, where he lives. I wish we lived closer so I could drive him to the doctor. He and I see each other maybe once every three years. The last few years since his retirement, we’ve talked more on the phone and it’s nice. But this morning Grapevine, Texas, seems very far away from Las Cruces.
“Maybe today the doctors will have an answer,” he says.
“Of course. Call me when you get back with the good news.”
We say goodbye. I walk into the living room where there is a mélange of family photos on the wall. I study the photo of my mother and Dad before they divorced—smiling, standing close. Then my gaze settles on a worn black-and-white picture—my father at six months—staring into the camera with a look of baby surprise. His thatch of dark hair and slightly slanted eyes remind me of my daughter Jennifer.
I touch the glass with my right index finger, hope I don’t leave a smudge.
Of course you’ll be okay.
Of course.
For nine hours, David and I have been speeding down ribbons of Texas and New Mexico highways in my blue Toyota Camry. He is driving and I have asked him three times not to go over seventy-five but he won’t slow down. A little while ago I gave up trying to save our lives. Instead I got my stack of magazines from the back seat and began flipping through the glossy pages in an effort to not worry about my father.
The car slows and I look up. We turn off the freeway—the El Paso Exit 7. I sigh. We are here to lend moral support to my father who was diagnosed with bone cancer three days ago. When Dad informed me of what the doctors had found, I told him I would drive to El Paso to be with him, help him. He didn’t say, No, don’t come, but wondered out loud how I was going to make the drive alone. I pulled the phone away from my ear, looked in disbelief at the receiver, then reminded myself my father hadn’t been around much when I was growing up and maybe that’s why he didn’t think of me as an adult.
I look over at David as he navigates through the El Paso streets. I was surprised when he said he’d come with me. I imagined him staying home, working his regular thirteen or fourteen hours a day on his projects. But yesterday he called from his office, told me he’d rearranged his appointments so he could drive me to El Paso.
