the things I can't control
by dawn gilchrist-young

A lot of my friends think these mountains are ugly in winter, but I think the soft grays on the ridge tops and the lavenders down in the hollows make this season prettiest of all. I guess I like a lot of things my friends don’t like—rodents, spiders, bad storms, and bad men.

Or maybe it’s not so much I like them, but that they fascinate me because they can’t easily be controlled. In a world where we love to segregate the good from the bad, the night from the day, and ourselves from the blood and dark that’s where we all come from, I guess I like the few things I see that seem to be part of both what’s ugly and beautiful all at the same time. I like those poems by poets like Andrew Hudgins, people who maybe recognize sex and spirituality aren‘t all that different from each other, that a good fistfight can clear the air as well as a lightning strike. I like calling a spade a spade, seeing the winter branches against the sky. I don’t mind that winter means old age and death in all the literature I‘ve read. When another poet says the tree branches are calligraphy against the sky, I think it’s just another way of saying it’s the writing on the wall, you know? But I think too much, everybody tells me that. So I’ll do like my Buddhist friend does, and I’ll come back to the present. This is my present: I’m pulling into the driveway right now with my husband, Troy, and our new baby, and I see Troy has decorated the tree branches next to the house with pink ribbons. We’re bringing home our first and only baby. I didn’t plan to have any, and I sure don’t want to have any more with Troy, but he may be thinking something else sitting over there all quiet in the driver’s seat. Since I plan to finish my degree while Virginia’s little, and then go on and get a few more after she‘s in school, I don’t plan to have any more babies with anybody.

Don’t get me wrong. Troy’s not a bad man, just complicated. Mother will tell you different, and so might a few others, and I know what all the abuse literature says about men like him never getting over the need to control a woman. But the abuse literature just lumps all the abusers together, never taking into consideration the individual and what he’s been through or what he‘s like those times when you see what Lucinda Williams means when she sings about her bad man’s “sweet side.” My friends all say that makes no difference, that Lucinda Williams is about screwed in the head anyhow, but I happen to think better of her. I mean, she had an English professor father, and she could’ve gone any route, but she chose to sing and drink and hang with outlaw men with chips on their shoulders.

As for the sweet side, I saw Troy cry when he told me about his own mother leaving him alone and going off for days with one new boyfriend after another when he was little, and I watched him hold together while he held his Mamaw, who mostly raised him, one last time after she told him good-bye at the end of her lung cancer. As soon as he was out of her bedroom and in the car, he laid his face against the steering wheel and cried harder than I’ve ever seen any woman do. And he cooks for me and cleans when I’m working (which hasn’t been real often lately) or at school, and I once saw him catch a black widow in a jar and let her go way up in the woods. And, yes, he also blows up sometimes for no reason I can gather and beats the holy shit out of me. So he’s complicated. And I’m planning on leaving after he bonds with this new baby, whom I named Virginia after the writer I love best.

Men are complicated, period, and I like them, or most of the time I do. My friend Therese tells me that if a woman stays married to a man through his forties then she’ll sometimes find herself with a real prize around fifty when he finally quits being an asshole. Of course, she says, by then he’s lost his looks, but you can get over that with a man that touches you the right way and really listens when you’re talking. I’m hoping if I stay with Troy just long enough for him and Virginia to begin to love each other, then when I leave him he’ll get the help he needs for her sake as well as his own. He’s not hit bottom yet for a wife beater, and I don’t plan to be here when he does. Besides that, the life he wants is no longer the life I want. He’s sent me to the emergency room twice, but it was early in our relationship, and his blowups have not been as bad in the three years since, which also goes against all the abuse literature. And, no, I’ve never pressed charges. Like I said, he’s complicated.

My friends Therese and Beverly both know about my plan, (they’re part of it), and they both think I’m crazy to not leave right now—heck, to not have left after the first beating. What they don‘t really know is Troy, and how unique he is, not the stereotyped abuser. I mean, he wants me to get my degree. He’s not jealous of other men in my classes or my friends. Not only that, but Therese doesn’t know what it’s like to grow up without a daddy, though Beverly does. I don’t want that for Virginia, because I know all too well. So when I leave, Troy and I will have an agreement, one that I hope will let little Virginia get accustomed to living in two places, so she’ll never know anything different—just two loving parents in two separate homes. And, yes, Troy is badly “flawed”, as Therese says, but he’s also capable of reason and compassion. He’ll never hit Virginia, and I know he‘ll work with me to do what‘s right for her. He and his Mamaw together pretty much raised his two younger brothers, and he worked his ass off cutting and hauling wood to provide clothes and good shoes for them, and he drove himself and them to every school event they had. Troy always made sure they never felt abandoned like he did.

But we’re already up the driveway and to our house now, so this reverie is going to end and real life with me and Troy and Virginia is about to begin—at least for a little while. I act surprised that there are pink ribbons blowing in the cold breeze on every little limb on the dogwoods we planted last spring, even though Bev and Therese told me what he‘d done.

“That’s beautiful, Troy. Really beautiful,” I say, tears coming to my eyes.
I‘m moved, even though I knew in advance. Most men would’ve bought a big Wal-Mart ribbon and put it on the mailbox, that, or nothing at all since we‘re bringing home a girl. Troy’s bought what looks like must’ve been thirty yards of rose colored velvet ribbon, and he’s tied a bow on every single branch, with enough left hanging to catch any wind that blows. I find myself wondering what it would be like if this meant a new beginning, if the three of us might always be like this. But it’s a dangerous way to think.

“I thought that would be nice. When I heard the weather was supposed to be dry all week, I thought I could do something real pretty and it would stay pretty for more than just a little while.”

He looks down at Virginia, her new skin only a shade or two lighter than the ribbon, and says, “I did the ribbons for you and your mommy.” She doesn’t open her eyes, but I’ve told him all I’ve read about babies and voices and how that‘s part of the process of forming attachments, and he continues to talk to her in a soft and steady voice while he undoes the belt that holds in place the new car seat.

As we get out of the truck and walk up the gravel path to the house, I notice a piece of pink ribbon that’s blown off one of the branches. It’s caught in the fake shutters on the living room window, and I walk past, reaching for the end of the ribbon as I do. What comes out is more than just ribbon; attached to the end is an almost translucent light brown spider, its infamous little violin shape barely noticeable on its back, its spiny legs working to get a better purchase on the velvety surface.

I’m aware that it’s the wrong time of year for spiders to be out, and I wonder what weird weather trend or botched DNA made this one go about everything all wrong. But then I think again, and I wonder if maybe I’m looking at it the wrong way—maybe it’s a miracle that this little creature, poison and all, is even trying to survive on the end of a ribbon in an Appalachian February. If I were a poet, I think I could make something of this. As it is, I want to show it to someone, but Troy’s already inside with the baby, and the little recluse is working his way up the ribbon toward my hand. I read not long ago that there still isn’t any anti-venom for a brown recluse bite. Still, I take my time, walking to the edge of the porch to drop the ribbon over the rail. I’m sure that the freezing temperatures tonight will end things a lot more gently than I could by smashing the spider under my shoe. I trust the winter night to do what I prefer not to. But Troy is calling my name, and since I don’t want to explain why I’m still out here, I take one more look at the spider below as it collects itself on the rich rose velvet my husband cut by hand. I guess I don’t mind if it survives somehow, makes its way to a spot more hospitable. Even though I can’t say I believe in omens, I do believe in metaphors. But it’s going to take some time before I figure this one out.

I am a high school English teacher at Swain County High School and a native of Swain County, though I now live in Cullowhee. I read a lot, write a part-time column for Smoky Mountain News, and do a lot of international and white-trash cooking for my husband, daughter, and incontinent dog.