It was the obsessive thoughts that were the very devil, Fairfax had finally realized, after multiple conversations with Nancy.  And Mike too.  The horsefly peskiness of them that had plain worn her out.

What made you think you could have a party? You could have infected everyone—how careless!

Evan and Angela could have died because of you! Everyone on Facebook hates you. You are a colossal failure.

They flew at her and stung her soul—the regrets, mistakes, what-ifs, how could yous.  In desperation, Fairfax would screw her eyes shut and pray like she did as a child, with a fierce determination to a deity in the sky, as far removed as the closest star.

Lord God, please help me, please help me!

And that God, a cold exacting version drummed into her head from Bible stories and Sunday School, answered back in the old ruthless way:

You have sinned, bad little girl.  Your punishment suits your crime:  isolation, so far away from everything that you love that you might never come back.

So it had been for several months, since Memorial Day.  If she were being completely honest, though, Fairfax knew her thinking had been heading off track since March, with the advent of COVID-19.   With life becoming unpredictable, easily canceled, she had somehow regressed to perfectionism, a mindset she thought she’d jettisoned during her breast cancer experience.

The stunning house, the loving marriage, the ideal mother.

The perfect hostess.

Fairfax had learned long ago that these goals were not worthy because they were unattainable. They were mirage factories—you think you’d achieved the ideal, say your home is featured in Southern Living, but then you realize your living room as captured doesn’t look as good as you thought it did.  In fact, it’s totally wrong—you should have done this chair in blue and that one in cream.  Or, you post a glowing account of your children’s accomplishments on Facebook, only to delete it later because when you re-read it, it sounds conceited.  Trumpeting a high point in your life sucks the joy right out of it and plunges your bragging self right back into imperfection.

A goal that seems worthy, the best, the pinnacle, dissolves into tiny failures and the happiness you briefly (oh so briefly!) feel bursts like a bubble.  So shift your focus, girl. Look beyond your home, your environment.  Focus on something else.

Yet, the topsy-turvyness of COVID life had led Fairfax back into the land of illogic and misplaced focus. To wit, Fairfax felt surely she could best the virus, control it, bend it to her will by perfection!

Nope.

She had forgotten that going for God-like perfection only wreaks havoc.  To think that immaculate disinfection and organization and communication would beat a pandemic!  Oh, how egotistical! That she alone, Fairfax Figueroa would stand as a role model for wives and mothers, for all women, today: if we work within the rules we can all live and socialize as we did before.

Fairfax flushes red as she remembers the vanity popping into her mind when she planned that damn party:  an imagined conversation among housewives at Publix— “Fairfax Figueroa did it—threw an epic party during COVID!  Safe, hygienic—no one worried about a thing!”

How silly and vain! What a fool she was!

Let’s just face it, you were an a-hole.

Fairfax lowers her head to the kitchen table.  Its wood surface cools her forehead, and she breathes in and out. She fires off a warning to her own mind.

Stop it!

That’s what Fairfax says to the horseflies now.  She has learned that tactic from the Cathedral’s Spiritual Director, a woman named Helen.  It had been Mike’s suggestion that she call the Cathedral’s Spiritual Life Department, make an appointment.  And it had been good advice.

Sometimes, you have to be firm with negative thoughts, Helen had advised, use a direct command like “stop” or “get lost.”  Whatever works for you.  These obsessive, pesky stingers surface in times of high anxiety, and right now, the current state of the US and the world, was ripe for them. Fairfax should take heart that she was not alone in obsessing during this “international year of worry” as Helen called it, but she should still contact her primary care physician to be evaluated, just to be safe.

“Tell your GP what’s been going on,” Helen had urged with that spare smile which never faltered.  “I’m not a physician, I can guide you to better spiritual health, but the medical folks need be part of this conversation too. That’s the best practice, always.”

But Fairfax was reluctant to make an appointment with her primary care doctor—it’s been so long since she’s had a general, run-of-the-mill check-up.  All her doctors’ visits have been with specialists.  She’d rather just go see Peter Redmond again.  Tell him at her next visit now how she’d been feeling.  He understands her better than any doctor ever has anyway.

Yet, Angela had disagreed with that plan—she had urged Fairfax to see a therapist.  Which kind of made sense, since her husband is one.

She and Angela had gotten together last week, at Nancy’s suggestion. One of the horseflies, worry to death about that friendship, would not go away, no matter how many “Get losts” Fairfax muttered.  She started crying when she told Nancy she’d trashed the bond with Angela because she had not cared a whit for the Sykes’ health heritage.  That faded red and black mask in her backyard had morphed into a grim symbol of betrayal.  And something far worse.

Fairfax’s blindness to Angela’s vulnerability.  Because of her own privilege.

Privilege.

That was another worry that had turned into a horsefly.  A bad one.

It’s not just her, Fairfax has realized through her conversation with Helen.  Whole sectors of the country are realizing how entitled they’ve always been in their own little bubbles.

You think you’re great because everybody likes you and mirrors that back to you, but the truth is you’re white, and white gets treated better.  Even when you’re nothing special. 

Fairfax is so weary of her newest worry that she lacks the mental strength to bat it away.  Instead, she lifts her head from the table, rolls her shoulders back, and says a prayer.

Thank you, Lord, for Angela.

For Fairfax continues to draw strength from their afternoon spent together.  She had walked to Angela’s house on Avondale Avenue, grappling all the way with how she was going to apologize, get the words out about herself, about her status in this world that she was just beginning to understand.  Which she didn’t really yet totally comprehend, to tell the truth.  Yet Fairfax did see now that, when she was planning the party, she hadn’t thought about certain groups being more vulnerable than others.  Her ignorance had been carelessness.

Angela had texted her to come around to the back deck when she got there, so Fairfax trudged past the hedge and through the gate, her heart sinking a little with every step.  Yet her first sight of Angela lifted her spirits.  Dressed in bright yellow, sipping a Coke, Angela had lowered her mask, and given her a big grin.

“Fair, my goodness, you are a sight for sore eyes!” She’d pointed at the lounge chair spaced ample distance from hers.  “Take a load off and catch me up on what’s been going on!  You’ve got a cold drink right there beside you.”

With that exuberant greeting of old, Fairfax had breathed easier.  She settled into the chair, snagged the napkin from underneath the nearby Coke and wiped the condensation from her mask-fogged sunglasses. She and Angela proceeded to discuss all manner of things.  Halloween, how neither one of them would be handing out candy this year. Their latest COVID tests, both negative.  Evan’s indecision about a major at Florida State University.  Fairfax’s visit with Helen, her advice to make an appointment with a medical professional.  Which led Angela to the topic of therapists, how they were the right choice for just the sort of problem Fairfax was having.  Her husband Nate’s practice was bursting with new patients.

“You’ve never seen anything like it, sweetheart!” Angela exclaimed.  She finished her drink and tossed the can into the nearby recycling bin.  “Doctor Nate says people are losing their minds over this thing.”

And that’s when Fairfax decided to come out with it, confess her deepest shame.  The horsefly, a monster of one, badgering her.  It was time to state it outright, masked face to masked face. Fairfax exhaled a humid breath, and then the words tumbled out, one over the other.  How she had endangered Angela’s family’s life because of her own puffed-up sense of herself.

Her privileged self.

Fairfax sank down low in the lounge chair and asked in a weak voice, “Can you forgive me?”

And Angela’s response, her loving, level-headed response, was a balm to Fairfax’s troubled heart.

“Girl, I will forgive you if that’s what you want, but I don’t need to.  You are a good person, doing the best you can at any point in your day.”

Fairfax had tried to interrupt, “But my privilege…”

“Forget that! Look, I know you, Fairfax Figueroa.  Your heart is always in the right place.”  Angela had chuckled.  “I really shouldn’t laugh, but Nate is right—you just have to find some kind of funny in all this!  Listen, some folks want to turn equity into a cockamamie ‘hardship contest.’ If that’s the case, well, then you might just win with your cancer.  That beats anything I’ve experienced so far.”  She sighed.  “But, Fairfax, that’s not the kind of friendship I’d want with anyone.”

And then, maybe because Angela had met her head-on with loving-kindness, Fairfax felt the real truth rise up in her, the absolute root of her behavior.  Rather right or wrong, she was going to tell Angela.  “The truth is, I don’t think of you as African American at all.  It’s not part of my definition of you.  I guess you’d call me colorblind.”

Angela had thrown her head back, brown braids flying.  “Fair, you can’t say that anymore, you know!” She closed her eyes and laughed.  “You can’t dismiss race like it doesn’t exist. That was the thinking when we grew up, but not anymore.  There’s research to show it’s not the best worldview.”

“Shoot, Angela,” Fairfax murmured, “I can’t seem to say anything right. I’m sorry.”

Angela snorted, her sinuses gurgling.   “Excuse me,” she apologized. “This post-Covid congestion is hard to kick.” She coughed and continued, “Fairfax, you do know people of color have thick skin?  We’re tough, we have to be.  It’s hard to offend any member of my family.  We Sykeses are not easily hurt, believe me.”

Relief washed over Fairfax then.  She felt like she’d been to confession, cleansed herself of her deepest sin.  It was okay.  Her friendship with Angela was safe, a sacred place to be her true self. So Fairfax asked the question that had been begging for an answer. “So, do you see me as white? I would hope that I’m no color at all to you.” She looked at her own lightly freckled forearm.  A mole there looked bigger than it had a few weeks ago. “I’m just your friend,” Fairfax finished, stroking the bump of pigment.

Angela had closed her eyes for a few seconds, then opened them in a lazy flutter. Her mocha-green irises mesmerized Fairfax from a social distance.  “Yes, Fairfax, you are my good friend. But…” She paused.  “No, no ‘buts.’  Let me say AND instead. AND I’ll surely always see you as white.  Life taught me this discernment for survival, and I’m sorry.”  Angela pursed her lips, continued, “Well, no, let me change that.  I’m not sorry about my race’s ‘worldview,’ as Nate would call it.”

“That’s okay.  I get it.” Fairfax had replied.  Her voice felt gentle and spare, taking wing like a butterfly.  “You have to keep yourself safe.  And your family.” She reached out her hand toward Angela, too far away to touch her, yet suspended there in solidarity.

Angela stretched her arm out in response.  Their hands hovered there, harmonious in close distance. “I’m glad you understand.” Angela continued, her voice steady amid the emerging chirp of crickets.  “It’s not easy for some white people to grasp.  They think what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander.  If we’re serious about equal, we all need to think alike, act alike, accept the status quo as it is right now, in 2020, that kind of thing. But we can’t do that.  At least not yet.” Angela tapped her chest with an index finger.  “Our history has made us who we are.  Our past has molded us into this role.”  She paused.  “The role of survivors. It’s why my family has succeeded and made it to the present day.” Angela swallowed down the gathering thickness in her voice.  “Lord, the stories I could tell you about Jacksonville in the 50s and 60s. My parents…but let’s not go there.  At least not today.”

Fairfax had nodded, reached for her drink, took a sip.  Silence settled over them while Angela closed her eyes again, nestled deeper into her chair.

Then Fairfax remembered the other purpose of her visit. The mask, the abandoned one from the backyard Memorial Day party—returning this possession to its owner.

Restitution.

Fairfax pulled the freshly laundered item from her pocket and aimed for Angela’s lap.  “Here you go-AAAHHH!”  A scream garbled her words.

She’d pitched the mask straight into Angela’s head.

“What the!” Angela shook her braids, and the red and black fabric bounced into her lap.  “Now, Fairfax, you may not like the fact that you’re white, but don’t take it out on me.”

“No, no…” Fairfax had started.

“I’m just kidding, you crazy thing!”  Angela grabbed the mask, examined it.  “You giving this to me?”

“It’s your mask.  From the party.  I found it in the bushes, washed it with a Lysol booster.  Sorry it’s been so long, but…”

“This isn’t mine.” Angela held up the mask, stretching it between two fingers.

“Yes, it is.  It’s University of Georgia.”

“Uh, no it is not, Ms. Observant. See there?” Angela’s fingers now snagged a tiny tag.  “That there’s a cat, not a dog.  This must be a Davidson mask.”

“Oh, Lord.”  Fairfax felt like laughing.  “A wildcat. You’re right.”

“Of course I am,” Angela had replied. “You got anything else you need sorted out, Ms. Fig, you just come to me.”

After her visit with Angela, Fairfax had texted Jack and told him she had his mask.  One he must have lost during the party.  Her son had replied, with a quick thanks, and a “wundrd wut happnd 2 it.” Leaving his mother wondering what had happened to her youngest child’s spelling skills.  Jack’s education…was he really getting a good one, now that most of his classes were virtual?  Such a thin substitute for the real thing, live, in-person classes.  Raising your hand, the whole of you visible to everyone as you struggle to voice a question.  Talking to friends after class, some banding together, planning to meet in the library later to exchange notes.

Though, come to think of it, Fairfax herself never spent much time in the library at the University of Florida.  And she skipped far too many of those face-to-face classes and still managed to graduate.

Her minds shifts now to her oldest son at the very same school.  He would be graduating in 2021.  Would there even be a ceremony?  More important, would there be any kind of job market for him?

Was all their money for the boys’ education being wasted?  What kind of world would her boys inherit?

It’s very sly how the horseflies start their buzzing. Fairfax sighs.

Enough!

Okay.  Fairfax looks around the kitchen.  Maybe it is time to make that appointment with her primary care doc. Or just move up the appointment with Dr. Redmond.  Or should she find a therapist instead, maybe Nate Sykes, PhD?

Though the obsessive thoughts still bug her, she can tell she’s made progress in reclaiming a bit of her old aplomb. Mike has said so; he kissed her last night and told her she was looking better, acting more like her old self.   Nancy has said much the same thing, though she attributes Fairfax’s upbeat turn to sorting things out with Angela.

“You said your brain was like a kettle boiling with bad thoughts,” Nancy had elaborated on their walk yesterday afternoon.

“I did?” Fairfax couldn’t recall saying this, but Nancy continued on, in that way a good friend has of reminding you of your own history.  And, as Nancy has remarked, a longitudinal friend is the best kind—one who knows you from young to old.

“Yes, you said your mind was a kettle.  I definitely remember that. So, the thing with Angela was brewing in your mind.  By talking to her, you, um…” Nancy tugged on the rim of her baseball cap, setting it deeply upon her scalp. “Hmm, how can I say this? By talking to Angela, getting all the turmoil out, you took the heat away.”

Fairfax had wanted to agree with Nancy.  Yet something was missing in her explanation.  Turmoil, whether about Angela or COVID or the general fracas of the US of A, would always be there.  You’d solve one problem, only to have another pop up in its place.  Granted, these were tougher times than the norm, but even when things settled down, Fairfax could easily see how she could manufacture one worry after another with little effort.  And any one of these anxious thoughts could be a stove to her kettle.

Fairfax had wanted to say that at the time to Nancy, but it sounded so negative, this way of thinking.  And she, Fairfax, was supposedly getting better.  Besides, Nancy had enough on her plate right now, she didn’t need to borrow any worry, that’s for sure. Her crazy unresolved job situation, which Peter Redmond was helping her with.  A collaboration that seems to have re-bonded the two of them, begging the question of what in the world was Nancy going to do about Adam?  There needed to be some resolution there.  Then, there was the ever-present Max factor in Nancy’s life.  He had been bold (too bold, in Fairfax’s opinion) and had kissed her! Took her mask down and gave her a smackeroo right there on Riverside Avenue! (The guy paid no mind to propriety, much less the law of the CDC!)

And now, there was Hurricane Zeta.  Which wasn’t the last letter in the Greek alphabet, though plenty of people thought so. Fairfax had had to correct Nancy, who’d not been in a sorority.

Zeta, Eta, Iota.  The storms were going to keep on coming at her much like her worthless worries.  How could she get away from them?  Escape?  Run away? But there was no place in the world to escape the world’s troubles. The only thing for it was to…

Abide.

The word rings in her mind, stalling her train of thought.  Nancy has used it several times lately, and it’s taken root. Helen, the spiritual advisor, had mentioned something similar—about waiting through this time, quelling the frantic mind.

Finding the calm in the storm.

Helen’s advice.  It had floated past Fairfax during their appointment; she hadn’t been able to fully grasp the depth of Helen’s words during their session, her nerves and thoughts were still popping about.  The spiritual advisor had offered examples and gentle suggestions for accessing this “calm within the storm.”

It was Fairfax’s for the taking, all she had to do was try.

“God is inside you, you know,” Helen had remarked. “Everywhere else as well too, of course.  But most important for you today, Fairfax, is to realize that God dwells in your heart and mind.  This divine bit of Him is your fuel.”

That revelation, or at least how Fairfax had understood it then, had sounded off-key that day.  Just plain wrong, when Fairfax was trying to eschew perfection, relinquish her desire to control everything.

If you’re trying to quit being god-like, how can you believe God is inside you?

In the church-like quiet of her home today, though, it hits Fairfax in a burst of the old pancake energy, bubbling in a burst of hope:  the actual bone-deep meaning of Helen’s sentence.

Well, my goodness.  How could she not have realized what had happened to her this year?  Her childhood concept of a God far removed, “up there,” had snuck back into her way of thinking, of praying.  And it was wrong for the times.  Wrong for her stage in life.  For the world’s present status.

Because what Helen had wanted her to realize is that God is as close as Fairfax’s own heart, her own mind.  If He’s “out there” in the universe, then He’s “in here” in her body too.  Of course!

There was a piece of the divine residing right here at the kitchen table with her, filling her up. He had been abiding in her all along.  And He didn’t make her god-like or omnipotent, vain or conceited.

None of those things.

He was her energy, her fuel.  Fairfax just needed to listen to Him.  To focus on His Heat, not the blistering worries of the world.

A calm comes over her—the deep quiet kind of calm.  No one is at home today but her—Mike has returned to the Florida Blue campus a few days a week, though masked, sanitized, and socially distanced. The silence he left behind had seemed irksome to Fairfax, fertile ground for the thoughts to breed and buzz through her mind, but this afternoon, it feels refreshing.  A fertile quiet in which to connect beyond her frazzled mind.  Or maybe within it. To sit in silence and listen to God.  To let any pesky thoughts fly away as the calm inside her builds and builds.

And speaks.