There are five pieces—all sterling silver, except the nice big tray it sits on, and that’s silver plate. I brought it in to show Mama Carla one day and she told me it’s probably worth close to seven thousand dollars. By now, she said, it may be worth more than that, and I need to have it insured. Maybe one day, after I get my health insured, we can give thought to that.
SIX
WILDA
Let me start by getting something out of the way. I am one of those women who compares herself to others. Yes, I’m well aware of what healthy people think about that, and I agree, it’s exhausting. Trust me, if I could do something about it I would. I’m constantly worried I’m not good enough, smart enough, or attractive enough. Lord knows I weigh too much, but at fifty-eight, I’ve come to accept that malady.
As long as I’m baring my soul, I may as well make a second confession. This is somewhat confidential because I don’t want every Kim, Jane, and Mary to know my personal business, nor can I afford the judgment. I tend to believe I’m dying. As the saying goes, I’m always waiting on the other shoe to drop. If I even hear the word “cancer,” any joy I may be experiencing at the moment screeches to a halt; my mind flips a 180 and I imagine I’m lying in a hospital bed with a chemo drip attached to my chest.
Likewise, if I read an article about someone who has recently contracted, say, Lyme disease, I’m off to my laptop frantically googling the early symptoms. For the next few days, I’m certain I’m experiencing headaches, fatigue, and joint pain. I have Hysterical Lyme Disease.
I wasn’t like this in my early years. It didn’t happen until my mid-thirties.The best I can figure is that my later-in-life infertility was the catalyst for my fear of doom. Sometimes—well, all the time—I can’t help but wonder what the heck went wrong down there. Because I wasn’t infertile to begin with. I had given birth to two perfectly healthy little boys before I turned twenty-eight.
Ironically I grew up not knowing the first thing about boys. I was the eldest of two girls, with no brothers or male cousins, and I attended an all-girls school. Daddy died when I was eight and my only uncle lived seven hours away from Memphis in Gulfport, Mississippi. My entire childhood revolved around periods and panties. Once I became a wife, not giving birth to a daughter had never once crossed my mind. Until I became infertile.
To make matters worse, my own mother, Eleanor Dyson, dubbed my womb “the hostile uterus.” That happened after she had the boys for an entire weekend. Mama, who lived less than three miles away, had invited the boys to “Mimi Camp,” an entire weekend full of fun with their grandmother. Only five hours into camp, Jackson, age four, had scribbled on Mama’s brand-new yellow couch with a fresh tube of lipstick he had found in her purse. When she called with a camp report later that evening, after the boys were in bed, she declared my uterus “hostile.” “Little girls,” she added, “would never do something that destructive.”
The good Lord must know what He’s doing,was the only thought that gave me comfort while Haynes and I raised our two little mischief-makers. I was twenty-six when Cooper was born and twenty-eight when Jackson came along. By the time I was thirty-nine, despite not having used birth control for eleven years, I threw in the towel and flat gave up all hope of ever dressing a little girl in hand-smocked batiste dresses from Memphis’s finest children’s store, The Women’s Exchange. Like my mother had said time and time again, “I guess girls aren’t in the cards for you, Wilda.”
What’s more remarkable? I wasn’t that sad about it. Curious as to the reason why—most definitely—but not sad. Beside the fact that I rarely got a break, a weekend away from the boy-grind every now and then, there was nothing to be sad about. Haynes and I had two perfectly healthy, albeit strong-willed, beautiful boys. Their athleticism rivaled that of any other boys in their classes. Haynes swore they were each destined to be Ole Miss football players, which suited me just fine since that was our alma mater.
A few years later, still not using birth control but having a much-better-than-average sex life, I accidentally brought up my infertility while on a phone call to Mama. I say “accidentally” because I knew better. “I had my pap this morning,” I began. “Dr. Patterson still can’t find anything wrong with me. Don’t you find it curious I got pregnant with Cooper and Jackson no problem at all?”
“Why Wilda,” Mama said with atsk. “I don’t know why you’re still bringing this up, dear. You’re in early menopause.”
“Early menopause!”Oh dear God, I thought, there goes my body, my sleep, our sex life. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Well. Even if it’s not, it’s too late, honey. You’re thirty-nine years old, for heaven’s sake.”
“That’s not too—”
“It’s downright dangerous for a woman your age to have a child. Your chances of Down syndrome skyrocketed once you turned thirty-five.”
I tried to object. “That’s a rarity, Mother. All kinds of women are having healthy babies later in life. Look at Julianne Moore and Christie Brink—”
“In vitro.They all had in vitro. I read all about it inPeople.Don’t tell me you’re thinking of taking that route. It’s ten thousand dollahs a pop.” Mama knew full well that Haynes and I couldn’t afford IVF—not that I would even consider it after two healthy children.
“Never mind, Mother. I just thought you’d want to know that there is something wrong with me down there.”
“Oh for gosh sakes, Wilda. I didn’t raise you to be a prophet of doom.”
I was dying to slam the phone down and scream, “Look who the kettle learned it from!” But I was raised never to talk back to my mother, so I bit my tongue. And faked a reason to hang up.Oh dear God,I thought in horror,like mother like daughter.
Wilda, by the way, is not pronounced Wild-uh. It’sWill-duh. And I’m not wild about it if that’s what you’re wondering.
“Things can turn on a dime” was another of the clichés Mama often used as if it were a proverb I needed to live by. One week to the day after my pap smear, Dr. Patterson’s nurse left a message on my answering machine to please call her back. Upon hearing her voice, I slumped into the chair beside the phone in the kitchen and spiraled down a hundred-foot well of despair. There it was. The Big C. Why hadn’t I eaten better and exercised more often? It wasmy own fault. How I managed to pick up the phone and dial Haynes’s number was beyond me.
“I’ll be dead in six months!”I shrieked the minute he picked up his office line. I didn’t even wait for his hello.
“Oh no,” he said wryly, no concern in his voice whatsoever. This was not my first near-death experience.
“Haynes! At leastactlike you’re concerned.”
“I am concerned, Wilda. But we’ve been here before. What’s wrong now?” I could envision him—elbow propped on the desk, thumb and two fingers supporting his forehead, eyes rolling.
“Is someone in your office?”
“No.”
