Stand

"I put it up high for now," Myra bubbles, "so WOBBERS don't get 'em."

Myra perched on the kitchen bench, scuffles a bale of flashcards onto the top shelf of the old pine wardrobe. The bench, lugged caddywhompus away from the table, knocks against a potted plant when she jumps off. Dead leaves rustle like old newspapers. She patters away, eyebrows still arched.

Then, I'm on c-span. Deep furrows cultivate my forehead as we parse out committee hearings on the IRS scandal.

"Look at that. He's not gonna answer the question," I blurt. "They always do that when they are lying. If they did what was right, they would just SAY it."

Janie frowns deeper than my furrow. We watch the man wheedle out of more questions. "I just wish I could hold him down and MAKE him answer," she spars. We nod, consternation splayed out.

"Well, you just have to get proof. Then, it doesn't matter what they say." I grouse. We nod again. Emotions weave in tandem.

"I'll tell you why if you are a president and you LIE it's so dangerous," Jane says.

"Why?" The conversation, shoulder to shoulder, we watch the man repeat the same non-answer again and again.

"'Cause," she says, "people like us watch and find proof. And if you won't answer a question, we're like: HE"S GUILTY. And you'll just be impeached or whatever." She frowns again at the missing pieces.

Then it's Sunday. We coax the morning scatter of oatmeal bowls, socks, and blankies into the home team all suited for church.

Somewhere between the memory verse and a missing sandal, I find Myra crouched in the sunroom. I pause and slow the melee.

"What are you doing?"

She stands, steps past a flat of coleus. "Not hiding," she says.

"What?" Another tip-toe step, eyes flitted up and to the right. "Why were you hiding?" I turn like the noonday sun, full and direct. She measures out another small step, me, a full-grown one, and I encircle her in my arms. All the way around, my hands smooth over the back of her arms.

"From WOBBERS."

I stroke her arms, perfect and smooth. "Do you know how to pray about that?"

"'Name of Jesus, go away, monsters," she whispers. I nod. That's pretty good.

So it is, with robbers and liars, we weave with the threads we understand, trace out truth and right, and make our stand.

Gratitude:

4489. The overnight temperatures dip below freezing. Of course, Craig has our 65+ tomatoes tucked under a feather shield of reemay.

4490. Dad and Mom join us for ham salad and soup, towering bowls of ice cream and chocolate sauce, conversation, another chapter in the story, love.

4491. Craig's mom brings up the last of the garden plants.

4492. Friends join us for dinner. We compare notes on laughter and discipline, diapers and daily routines. We barbecue burgers, linger over brownies, let the children run and whoop and slide another pearl on the string of friendship.

4493. Joey falls in love with his hand-me-down Nike sandals.

4494. "By the way," Jane reports, "I renewed Psalm 1 in my mind. By Saturday I'm gonna know it."

4495. A friend brings me fiddle head ferns ripe for butter and garlic and new porcelain white measuring cups, pristine as snow.

4496. Craig and I have a date night tucked away in the folds of the house.

4497. Friends invite us into their morning: brunch and sunlight, family encircled around the long kitchen table that keeps going and going until there is a place for us all and plenty of bacon and conversation and then volleyball out in the yard. It's the kind of brunch that lingers until almost three, coffee cups drained and filled and filled again, and we all leave filled up will the woven words between us, happy in all the cracks.

4498. Craig's parents drive up for a barbecue at our place. Lynn brings homemade hamburger buns and the burgers turn gourmet. Spur of the moment, we puncture the evening with the laughter of our children and the seesawing of our lives together.

4499. Friends call and ask what time they can come to help us paint the living room moss green.

4500. I slide into Sunday night with a headache and clear mind, confident once again of each tired step.

4501. Craig greets me with a smile, home from work. It feels like the day finally begins.