Renee's Prayer

Parish

Chapter 25: Renee's Prayer

The night before. Monday night. October seventh. The surgery is tomorrow morning at 7:30 at the Baton Rouge General, and tomorrow morning is in ten hours, and the ten hours are the night, and the night is the thing that Renee must cross the way Clem crosses the bridge, from the here to the there, from the before to the during, the crossing requiring the structure, the structure being the bridge that Renee will build tonight, the bridge being the preparation, the preparation being the prayer.

Renee does not pray. This requires clarification. Renee does not pray in the way that the women of Bethel Baptist pray, which is with the hands folded and the eyes closed and the words addressed to God in the formal language that the praying uses, the language of the petition, the language that says: Lord, I ask. Renee does not fold her hands. Renee does not close her eyes. Renee does not address God in the formal language, because Renee's relationship with God is the relationship of a librarian with a very large collection, the relationship that says: I believe the collection exists. I believe the collection contains what I need. I am not certain of the cataloging system. I will find what I need by looking, by searching, by the systematic examination of the shelves, the examination being the faith, the faith being: The thing I need is here. I will find it. The finding is the prayer.

Clem is asleep. Clem went to bed at 9:00, the 9:00 being early for Clem, the early being the body's preparation, the body doing what the body knows to do before the surgery, which is: rest. The body resting in advance of the thing that will be done to it, the resting being the body's version of the prayer, the body's petition being: I will be strong enough. The resting is the strengthening. The strengthening is the body's faith.

Renee let him go to sleep. She sat on the edge of the bed while he closed his eyes, the sitting being the watching, the watching being the thing she does when the thing she cannot do is the thing that needs doing, the thing that needs doing being: Fix this. Fix the thing inside him. Remove the thing. Make the body whole. The thing that needs doing is the surgery and the surgery is tomorrow and the surgery is Dr. Nguyen's hands and not Renee's hands and the not-Renee's-hands is the helplessness, the helplessness being the condition, the condition of the person who loves the person who is sick, the condition that says: I cannot reach in. I cannot find the thing. I cannot remove the thing. I can only be here while someone else reaches in.

She touched his hair. She touched it the way she touches the spines of the books in the library, with the fingertips, lightly, the light touch being the librarian's touch, the touch that says: I am here. I know you are here. The being-here is the contact. The contact is the care.

He slept. She rose. She went to the kitchen.

The kitchen is the house's center. The kitchen is the room where the morning coffee is made and the evening rice is cooked and the invoices are written and the phone calls are received and the life of the house is conducted, the conducting being the kitchen's purpose, the kitchen being the room that holds the life the way the box holds the practice, the box in the bed of the truck holding the syringes and the medications and the instruments, the kitchen in the center of the house holding the food and the dishes and the schedules and the lists and the life, the life being the thing that the kitchen contains.

Renee cleans the kitchen. The cleaning is not necessary. The kitchen is clean. Renee cleaned the kitchen after dinner, after the rice and the smothered pork chops and the green beans, the dinner that she cooked because the cooking is the evening's practice, the practice of feeding the man who has spent the day feeding the animals, the feeding being the care that returns, the care going out from the truck to the parish and coming back from the kitchen to the man. The kitchen is clean. Renee cleans it again.

The cleaning is the prayer.

She wipes the counters. She wipes them with the cloth that she keeps beside the sink, the cloth that is always damp, the dampness being the cloth's readiness, the readiness that says: I am prepared to clean what needs cleaning, the cleaning being the maintenance, the maintenance being the care, the care being the wiping of the counter that is already clean, the wiping being the repetition, the repetition being the prayer's form, the form that says: I will do this thing again. I will do this thing that I have already done. The doing-again is the prayer. The doing-again is the offering. The offering says: I cannot control what will happen tomorrow. I can control the counter. I can make the counter clean. The clean counter is my offering. The offering is my prayer.

She organizes the refrigerator. She removes the containers. She checks the dates. She discards the thing that has expired — a container of yogurt, the yogurt three days past, the three days being the margin that Renee does not tolerate, the not-tolerating being the librarian's standard, the standard that says: The expired thing must go. The shelf must be accurate. The contents must be current. She reorganizes. The milk on the left. The eggs on the door. The leftovers in the containers stacked by size, the stacking being the order, the order being the prayer.

She has always done this. She has always organized when the organizing is the only thing she can do, the only response to the thing she cannot fix, the thing that is outside her hands' reach, the thing that her hands cannot repair or shelve or catalog or stamp or file. When Margaux was born and the labor was long and the labor was hard and the delivering was the thing that Renee's body was doing and that Renee's mind could not control, the mind did the thing the mind knew how to do, which was: organize. Renee organized the hospital room. She organized the pillows. She organized the blankets. She organized the items on the bedside table — the water cup and the straw and the tissue box and the lip balm — the items arranged in the order that made sense to the mind that needed the sense, the sense being the control, the control being the prayer.

When Colette had the fever. The fever at three years old, the fever of 104.2 that would not break, the fever that sent them to the emergency room in Natchez at 11 PM, the fever that the doctor said was viral and that would break on its own and that the breaking would come when the breaking came, the coming being the thing they must wait for, and Renee could not wait, could not sit in the chair beside the crib in the emergency room and wait for the fever to break, could not be the person whose hands were empty while the child's body burned. She organized the diaper bag. She organized the car. She organized the items in her purse — the wallet and the keys and the insurance card and the tissues and the pen — the items organized into the order that the fear required, the order being the prayer, the prayer being: I am doing what I can. What I can is not enough. The not-enough is the human condition. The organizing is my response to the not-enough. The response is the prayer.

When Renee's mother died. When the call came from Natchez, from the sister, from the voice that said: Mama has passed, and the passing was the fact and the fact was the grief and the grief was the ocean, the ocean being the thing that the grief is, the vast uncontainable thing, the thing that cannot be organized, that cannot be shelved, that cannot be filed under a number that places it in the correct section of the correct shelf in the correct room of the library of the life. The grief could not be organized. But Renee organized. She organized the funeral. She organized the flowers. She organized the food. She organized the guest book and the programs and the seating and the music, the organizing being the prayer, the prayer that said: I cannot bring her back. I can arrange the chairs. The arranging of the chairs is the offering. The offering is the love. The love is the grief's form. The grief's form is the organizing. The organizing is the prayer.

Tonight. The night before the surgery. Renee in the kitchen.

She organizes the hospital bag. The bag is on the kitchen table. The bag is a canvas tote from the library, the tote that says VIDALIA COMMUNITY LIBRARY in blue letters on the side, the tote being the bag because Renee uses library totes for everything, the library totes being the bags that Renee has, the bags that the library provides, the bags being the library's offering to the world, the offering being: Here is a bag. Carry things in it. The carrying being the bag's purpose. The bag's purpose tonight being: Carry the things that Clem will need at the hospital.

She packs the bag. She packs it the way she does everything, which is systematically, with the order that is the librarian's nature, the nature that says: Every item has a place. Every place has an item. The items and the places correspond. The correspondence is the order. The order is the care.

Clem's robe. The blue robe that he wears in the house on the mornings when the morning is slow, the mornings that are not the 4:30 mornings but the rare mornings when the practice allows the sleeping-in and the sleeping-in produces the robe, the robe being the garment of the rest, the rest that the hospital will require, the six weeks of rest, the robe being the uniform of the recovery.

Clem's slippers. The leather slippers that Margaux gave him for Christmas two years ago, the slippers that he wears on the porch on the evenings when the boots come off and the evening begins, the slippers being the footwear of the not-working, the not-working that the hospital will require.

His toothbrush. His razor. His deodorant. His reading glasses. The items of the daily maintenance, the maintenance of the body that will be maintained by the surgery, the surgery being the larger maintenance, the maintenance of the body at the level of the organ, the organ being the prostate, the prostate being the thing that the surgery will remove, and the items in the bag being the maintenance of the body at the level of the daily, the daily maintenance continuing while the larger maintenance is performed, the daily and the larger being the two levels, the two levels of the care.

A book. Renee packs a book. The book is the thing that Renee gives, the thing that the librarian gives, the giving of the book being the librarian's universal prescription, the prescription that says: Here. Read. The reading will do what the reading does, which is: carry you from the here to the there, from the hospital bed to the world inside the pages, from the body in the gown to the mind in the story. The book is the librarian's medicine. The book is the librarian's practice. The book is the librarian's prayer.

She chose the book carefully. She chose it the way she chooses all books, with the knowledge that the book must fit the reader and the reader must fit the book and the fitting is the librarian's art, the art of matching. The book is a novel. The book is a novel about a man in a small town. The book is a novel about a man in a small town who does a thing that the town depends on, and the doing of the thing is the man's life, and the man's life is the town's life, and the town's life is the novel's subject. She chose this book because the book is about Clem, the way all books that are about men in small towns who do the things that the towns depend on are about Clem, the aboutness being the recognition, the recognition that the librarian sees, the librarian who has cataloged her husband's life the way she has cataloged the library's collection, systematically, with love, the cataloging being the love's form.

She zips the bag. She sets it by the door. The bag is ready. The readiness is the prayer's evidence, the evidence that the prayer has been performed, the prayer being the packing, the packing being the preparation, the preparation being the offering, the offering being: I have prepared for what I cannot control. The preparation is my offering. The offering is my love.

She goes to the living room. She sits on the couch. The couch is the couch that they bought at the furniture store in Natchez twelve years ago, the couch that has held them for twelve years of evenings, the evenings of the television and the reading and the sitting-together that the evenings provide, the evenings being the marriage's time, the time that the practice gives back, the practice taking the mornings and the afternoons and the nights and giving back the evenings, the evenings on the couch being the marriage's compensation for the practice's demand.

She does not turn on the television. She does not read. She sits. The sitting is the not-organizing, the not-organizing being the pause between the organizing, the pause being the space where the prayer rests before the prayer resumes, the prayer resting the way the body rests between contractions, the resting being the gathering of the strength, the strength needed for the next contraction, the next organizing, the next act of the preparation.

She sits in the living room of the house on Carter Street and the house holds her the way the pew holds her on Sunday, with the structure that the years have built, the structure being the walls and the roof and the floor and the rooms and the furniture and the memories, the memories being the house's contents, the contents more valuable than the furniture, the contents being the thirty years of the marriage lived in these rooms, the thirty years of the mornings and the evenings and the 2 AM phone calls and the 4:30 alarms and the coffee and the rice and the daughters and the practice and the library and the porch and the chairs and the sweet tea and the parish, the parish being the house's context, the context being the thing that the house sits in, the parish surrounding the house the way the river surrounds the levee, the parish being the force, the force being the life, the life being the thing that the house contains.

She thinks about Clem. She thinks about him sleeping in the bedroom, ten feet away, through the wall, the wall being the distance that tonight feels like a levee, the wall holding Renee on one side and Clem on the other, the wall being the separation that the night imposes, the night being the last night before the surgery, the last night of the before, the before being the time when the cancer is inside and the surgery has not yet removed it and the not-yet is the condition, the condition of the waiting, the waiting being the night.

She thinks about his hands. She thinks about his hands the way she has thought about his hands for thirty years, with the attention that the hands deserve, the attention that recognizes the hands as the practice's instruments, the instruments that have been inside a thousand animals and that have held the parish's confessions and that have carried the weight, the weight that the hands carry, the weight that tomorrow will be carried by other hands, by Dr. Nguyen's hands, the surgeon's hands, the hands that will open Clem's body and find the thing and remove the thing and close the body, the hands doing to Clem what Clem's hands have done to the animals, the reaching-in and the finding and the removing, and the irony is not lost on Renee, the irony being the symmetry, the symmetry that says: The hands that heal will be healed by hands, the healing being the practice applied to the practitioner, the practice coming home.

She makes a list. The list is the prayer's most concentrated form. The list is the organizing reduced to its essence, the essence being: the items, the items in order, the order being the prayer.

She writes on the notepad that sits on the end table beside the couch, the notepad that is always there, the notepad being one of Renee's instruments, the way the scalpel is one of Clem's instruments, the notepad being the thing that the librarian uses to capture the items, the items being the things that must be done, the things that must be remembered, the things that the list holds.

The list:

Call Dr. Tran -- confirm coverage for practice through November 15.

Call Earl -- tell him Dr. Tran will handle the fall cattle work.

Call Marie-Claire -- Dex's joint supplement is in the clinic cabinet, second shelf.

Call Beaumont -- catfish follow-up, recheck in two weeks, Dr. Tran will come.

Prescription refills -- Clem's blood pressure medication, pick up Thursday.

Margaux -- arriving Baton Rouge 6 AM, meeting at hospital.

Colette -- arriving Baton Rouge 6:30 AM, driving from New Orleans.

Library -- substitutes scheduled through October 25, extend if needed.

Groceries -- stock for recovery, soft foods first week, soup, pudding, applesauce.

The list. The items. The order. The prayer.

She writes the list and the writing is the doing and the doing is the prayer and the prayer is the offering and the offering is the love. Each item on the list is a piece of the preparation, a piece of the bridge that Renee is building between the before and the after, the bridge that will carry them across the surgery, the bridge being the plan, the plan being the structure, the structure being the thing that Renee builds the way the Corps of Engineers builds the levee, with the materials available, with the knowledge on hand, with the faith that the building will hold.

She finishes the list. She looks at it. She looks at it the way she looks at the shelves in the library when the shelving is done, with the satisfaction that the order provides, the satisfaction being the prayer's answer, the answer that says: I have done what I can. What I can do is organize. The organizing is done. The prayer is complete.

She turns off the lights. She turns off the kitchen light and the living room light and the hallway light, the turning-off being the house's preparation for the night, the night that is the last night, the last night of the before.

She goes to the bedroom. Clem is asleep. His breathing is the breathing of the deep sleep, the breathing that Renee has listened to for thirty years, the breathing that is the sound of the marriage at rest, the sound that says: He is here. He is breathing. The breathing is the life. The life is the sound. The sound is the prayer's evidence.

She lies down beside him. She does not touch him. She lies beside him in the dark and listens to the breathing and the breathing is the practice's sound, the sound of the vet at rest, the vet who has been inside a thousand animals resting before the surgeon goes inside him, the resting being the body's preparation, the body preparing the way the bag was prepared, the way the list was prepared, the way the refrigerator was organized and the counter was wiped and the kitchen was cleaned, the preparing being the prayer, the prayer being the night's work, the night's offering, the night's love.

She lies in the dark. She has organized the hospital bag. She has organized the kitchen. She has organized the refrigerator. She has organized the list. She has organized the coverage for the practice and the schedule for the library and the arrivals of the daughters and the groceries for the recovery. She has organized everything that can be organized.

The thing that cannot be organized is the surgery. The thing that cannot be organized is the outcome. The thing that cannot be organized is the body on the table and the surgeon's hands and the cancer and the removing, the removing being the thing that Renee cannot organize, cannot list, cannot order, cannot file, cannot shelve, cannot catalog. The removing is beyond the organizing. The removing is the thing that the prayer is about, the prayer that is not the formal prayer with the folded hands and the closed eyes but the librarian's prayer, the prayer that says: I have organized what I can organize. The rest is not mine to organize. The rest is the thing I cannot control. The thing I cannot control is the thing I offer. The offering is: I have prepared. The preparing is the love. The love is the prayer. The prayer is: Hold.

Hold. The word that the levee says to the river. The word that the hands say to the animal. The word that the wife says to the night.

Hold.

She closes her eyes. She lies beside him. The breathing continues. The night continues. The parish is quiet outside the windows, the parish quiet the way the parish is quiet at midnight, the quiet of the sleeping place, the place asleep, the cattle asleep in the fields and the horses asleep in the barns and the goats asleep in the brush and the catfish asleep in the ponds and the parish asleep, everything asleep, everything resting, everything preparing for the morning, the morning that will come the way all mornings come, with the light, the light crossing the soybeans, the light crossing the levee, the light crossing the parish that Renee has organized and prepared and offered and loved.

The prayer is complete. The prayer is the bag by the door and the list on the notepad and the kitchen clean and the refrigerator organized and the practice covered and the daughters coming and the book in the bag and the robe and the slippers and the toothbrush and the counter wiped and the lights off and the lying-beside.

The prayer is the preparing. The preparing is the offering. The offering is the love.

Renee lies in the dark beside Clem. The breathing continues. The night crosses from the before to the during. The morning is ahead.

The morning will come. The surgery will come. The hands will come. The reaching-in will come. The finding will come. The removing will come.

And Renee will be there. Renee will be in the waiting room with the bag and the book and the list and the daughters, Renee organized, Renee prepared, Renee holding the thing she can hold while the surgeon holds the thing the surgeon holds, the two holdings being the two practices, the two forms of the care, the librarian's care and the surgeon's care, the organizing and the operating, the preparing and the removing.

Hold. The prayer that is the word. The word that is the levee. The word that is the wife. The word that is the night before the surgery in the house on Carter Street in Vidalia, Louisiana, in the parish that Renee has organized and that Clem has served and that the river runs beside and that the levee holds.

Hold.

The night holds. The house holds. The prayer holds.

Renee sleeps. The breathing beside her continues. The morning will come.