Belabored Chapter 26: Tanya

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” – C.S. Lewis

            Life stinks.

            That’s my considered opinion, after 18 years on this dreary, nonsensical, unfair planet.

            Mom and David are gonna put Ralph to sleep. He’s my dog. I love the way he curls up with me in bed. He even lets me cradle him like a baby, which i­­­s no small undertaking – he’s a big, awkward amalgamation of fat and fur. I don’t even mind when he grabs my spot when I get up for a drink or to pee. He looks at me with those devilish brown eyes and moves over when I tell him to. He understands everything I say to him. More to the point, he understands me.

            He loves to wait for me at the front door. We have a glass paneled storm door that Ralph loves to look out of, like a sentinel or something. One time we forgot to lock it and Jess ran out when no one was looking. Ralph somehow knew she wasn’t safe and howled his head off to warn us. I can always hear him barking in that low, moany voice of his when I pull up in the driveway. Then he gets all excited and wags his tail when he sees me coming up the walk.

Ralph’s pretty much my best friend. The thing I love most about him is when he’s lying down on the rug and I’ll say to him, “You OK, Buddy? Are you good, Ralphie?” and then he’ll wag his tail at high velocity like a windshield wiper. Doesn’t matter how many times I ask him; he never gets tired of playing the game.

And, oh, how that dog can eat! Doesn’t matter what or when. We actually have to keep the kitchen trash can off limits in the cellar way so he can’t get into it. Once Mom got an emergency phone call and had to leave in a hurry. She had the trash can out in the open because she was tossing scraps into it as she was cooking. When she came home, he had knocked over the whole thing and strewn chicken bones, potato skins, and other disgusting debris all over the downstairs. We had to call the emergency vet because we were afraid he might have eaten some of the bones. Let me tell you, it wasn’t a pretty sight solving that problem. Let’s just say the back yard got well fertilized after that disaster, and guess who got elected to clean up the mess. I complained a lot, but to tell you the truth, I love him so much, I would do that and a lot more for him if I had to.

To top everything off, I found out a Christian singer I used to be really into is going through all kinds of divorce drama. His wife’s claiming he has a porn addiction and cheated on her. He doesn’t seem to want to go quietly into the night, and is firing back with all kinds of allegations of his own.

Somehow, with everything that’s going on with Ralph and my body, I decide to take it out on Mom about the singer, Charlie Granger. I know it’s crazy. I should be trying to find out for sure whether or not I’m pregnant, but I keep thinking it can’t be possible. If I go get it confirmed, I’ll have to figure out what to do, and I can barely hold it together as it is.

When I tell Mom about Granger's messy, so-called Christian life, she looks positively stricken. I know it’s mean, but I can’t help snarking at her, “So, what do you think of your God now? His followers sure do a great job of following Him, huh? Oh, and by the way, I haven’t heard from Pastor Kaplan – or anyone else at that church, either, for that matter – since that ‘intervention’ you staged, so please don’t do that again.”

When I turn to walk away, she stops me in my tracks.

“Tanya Elizabeth!” she calls after me. When she starts out that way, I know I’ve crossed the line.

“What?” I growl. I know I’m being really snotty with her lately, but somehow it makes me feel less horrible about Ralph when I bark at someone else. 

Her tone changes. Instead of laying into me, which I deserve, she sort of appeals to me.

“Tanya, Honey, I know you’re hurting about Ralphie. We all are. Believe me, it’s the last thing your fa – I mean, Dave and I want to do. I can see you’re miserable.

“Honey, I’ve been where you are. But, Sweetie, God is only a whisper away. And yes, Christians do disappoint us. Regularly. I’d say, over the course of my lifetime, I’ve been more disappointed than not in the church and the people in it. But I learned a long time ago, I’m not following flesh and blood. I’m following the opposite of those things. If I put my faith in Charlie Granger or [here she inserts the names of other well-known church people], I’d have quit the church a long time ago.

“David coined a phrase which I’ll never forget when we were car shopping,” she continues over the objections I’m starting to raise. “Please, Sweetheart, let me finish. Then I promise to listen to you. Deal?”

“Fine,” I mutter, assuming the most exasperated expression I can manage, and wondering why she called me “Sweetheart” when I’m being so rough on her and her God.

“Thanks, Honey. Anyway, you remember recently when we were trying to find a minivan? Well, I guess Dave’s a better judge of character than I am, or maybe he’s just bought more used cars than I have. Anyway, I was really liking the salesman, and he was giving us a really smooth sales pitch. When he left us alone for a few minutes, I was sort of singing his praises to David. You know what he said to me? ‘Bonny, I can’t afford to fall in love with the salesman.’

“And guess what? He was spot on. We looked at Carfax, and it turned out we’d have been the third owner, the report was full of alerts – the car was a lemon!

“Dave was right. Just because you like someone’s message, or the way he’s delivering it, that doesn’t get you off the hook from doing your homework. You’ve gotta look at the facts, and check out the product itself, not the guy who’s pitching it.

“The thing is, Christians are people, and people are made of dirt – you remember God created the first people from the dust of the earth, right? – which  is why their actions are often so dirty. Let’s face it, so are ours. You of all people know about some of the mistakes I’ve made. But those same mistakes have turned out –” her voice catches in her throat, “well, they’ve turned out to also become my greatest gifts. They humbled me, and somehow God turned around what could have been an awful mess and made it into a glorious girl named Tanya Elizabeth Ritter.”

I grab the opening she’s just given me.

“Oh, so I’m a mess? Thanks a lot! I suppose –”

She surprises me by coming right back at me, but not in a Mom-ish way, just firm and commanding.

“No, Tanya, that’s not what I meant, and you know it. You’re the furthest thing from a mess. You have a lot of growing still to do – we all do – but there’s no doubt in my mind that God has great things in store for you. David and I both believe that. Can’t you see how much we love you? You’ve always made us so proud. And you always will.”

Something in me breaks. I start to bawl like a baby. I don’t know why. I let her put her arms around me, and even put mine around her.

I wish I could tell her I might be pregnant. But how can I disappoint her when she just said I’m the greatest thing since the microwave? To be treating her so rotten, then have her tell me how special I am, then spring this news on her?

I can’t bring myself to do it.