Merriton

“God dammit, Kit Kat! Where are the divorce papers?!” Mira’s angry voice was scolding her through the telephone. Kit Kat didn’t want to talk about those papers. She furtively walked into the kitchen and pulled them out of the cabinet where she had stuffed them months ago.

She tried to think of an excuse. “I don’t know, Mira. I signed them and sent them out the next day.” She looked at the envelope that Mira had included to return them. No FedEx or UPS, just a manilla envelope with some stamps. “Maybe they got lost in the mail. Are you sure you didn’t get them?”

She could hear her sister seething on the other end of the line, but she continued, “You know, it was so long ago, I don’t even remember how I sent them. Wasn’t that before the holidays?” Kit Kat looked around the kitchen guiltily, wondering if Mira would believe her. She could hear her breathing. “I guess I could send them out to you again…”

Kit Kat felt the release of relief and smiled. “Yes, go ahead. They’ll be the same won’t they? I won’t have to read them again, will I?” Mira answered, “No, they’ll be the same.” She could tell that her sister didn’t believe her, but had decided to send the papers out again.

Lecture averted, Kit Kat relaxed and opened the pantry in the kitchen. Mira asked, “Is your stomach still hurting?” She laughed and replied, “No! I stopped eating wheat and dairy and it all cleared up. I’ve been off them for about a month now and I don’t have any diarrhea or gas. I’m SO much better!”

At the thought, she looked at her pantry again. So many of the things in there had wheat in them, from the Pringles to the macaroni and cheese. She found a plastic grocery bag and started filling it with everything that she couldn’t eat anymore. She dropped the half-eaten box of Kashi cereal into the garbage.

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those gluten free people. God, I have a friend who won’t even eat something that’s TOUCHED wheat.” Kit Kat laughed, “That’s because it hurts like a mother-fucker.”

The vulgarity of her words stopped Mira mid-rant. Kit Kat felt a little self-conscious, but it was the bare-faced truth. She clarified, “I don’t know if I can fully describe the pain. Not only did it double me over and sometimes even wake me up in the middle of the night, it was HORRIBLY embarrassing. I never knew when I would need to go and when I did, sometimes I would even mess my pants.”

She sighed and realized how very grateful she was to be free of that pain. “You know, it wasn’t that gastroenterologist who even cured me. It was A.S.” Mira couldn’t believe her, “No way!” Kit Kat nodded and looked at the ingredients on the Red Vines. She was shocked to see that the candy had wheat in it as well. “Yeah, she did! Of course, she did call me a bitch like three times in that same conversation, but right now, I could just kiss her because my stomach doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“I’d call you a bitch, too, if you were dating my ex-husband.” Mira replied and they both laughed. Kit Kat answered, “I don’t know if you’d really call what John and I have done dating. He has taken me out to dinner a few times and we’ve gone to the typical date places, but he hasn’t even tried to kiss me. He barely even holds my hand. It’s all really weird.”

Of course, a conversation with Mira wouldn’t be complete without a lecture of some sort. “You know, you shouldn’t even be SEEN with him. With the right pictures, Dave could convince a judge you were guilty of adultery and get a ton of alimony. You not only have to BE faithful to your husband. You have to APPEAR faithful as well.” The lecture ran off her back like water. “It doesn’t matter.” Then she drew in a big breath. “Oh! And I didn’t even tell you the worst! For Valentine’s Day, he gave me a Book of Mormon!”

Mira laughed and shouted, “NO!” Kit Kat walked out of the kitchen and grabbed the book, still in its box. “Yes he did! And it wasn’t even a new Book of Mormon! It was one of those old ones from the Seventies that was gold and shiny with Egyptian writing on the outside that was supposed to look like the golden plates. Remember those?!”

Mira answered, “Yeah, Mom used to have one.” At that moment, Kit Kat froze, book in hand. What had John said about the book? It was supposed to be like the one from The Stained Petticoats of Miss Eliza Smith. At that moment, the Valentine’s Day scene flashed in her mind. Edward Watts, the gentleman farmer, had presented Miss Saunders with the bible that had been sold with the estate to pay off her family’s debts.

“Kit Kat? Are you there?” She gingerly opened the book in her hand. On the first page, there was one word written: Townsend. It was her mother’s handwriting. Kit Kat instantly burst into tears. “Are you okay?”

He hadn’t given her just any old Book of Mormon. He had found an old Book of Mormon at the DI thrift store that had belonged to her mother. “Mira?” Kit Kat could barely talk through her tears. “Yeah?” She sniffled and tried to get her words out. “What did you do with those old books that none of us wanted when you cleaned out the house?”

“NO! I gave them to the DI. Did he actually FIND one of Mom’s old books?!” Kit Kat couldn’t give her sister any more than a simple yes and a goodbye before she hung up the phone. She lifted the book to her nose and smelled the dusty pages. They smelled like her parents’ home and her childhood. She felt as if she owed John a huge apology.

And she thoroughly forgot to ask Mira whether she had ever dated Samson Tso when he lived in San Francisco.