Bent Road Part 7

Celia watches the bird, both of them motionless. Steam rises up where Arthur made his cut.

"Well," Arthur says. "Tell me. We've only got a few minutes. That water ready?"

"No, I, well . . . Ruth is putting it on."

Reesa tugs at the knot tied around the bird's legs, testing that it's strong enough and then walks to the house. "We need the water for scalding, Celia."

It is the kindest tone she has ever used with her daughter-in-law.

"Ruth is pregnant," Celia says before Reesa can disappear into the house.

Arthur drops both hands to his sides and his chin to his chest. The porch light shines on the threesome, throwing a long thin shadow that falls at Celia's feet. Reesa stops at the bottom step leading to the back door. The bird, hanging upside down, its neck slit open, its blood slowing to a trickle, begins to beat its wings in the air. Celia jumps backward, Arthur doesn't move and Reesa dabs her neck again with her ap.r.o.n. The bird wildly flaps its wings one final time before hanging lifeless. Its heavy body sways on the end of the rope, but eventually, even that motion slows and stops. The only movement, tiny feathers, floating, spinning, drifting on the cold night air.

"What is it doing?" Celia asks, backing out of the yellow light.

"Dying," Arthur says. "What do you mean, pregnant?"

Celia glances at Reesa, who has taken her foot off the first step, and says, "Just that. She's pregnant."

"You knew?" Arthur asks Reesa.

She nods.

"How is she pregnant for G.o.d's sake? She's forty years old."

Celia takes two steps forward, back into the light, and c.o.c.ks one hip to the side. "Forty is not so old."

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Celia, this is not funny."

Reesa steps closer. "It's not meant to be funny, son. Ruth has carried three other babies over the years, but never more than a few months." She lowers her eyes and shakes her head. Her shoulders droop and roll forward, and her chin rests in the rolls of her neck. When she exhales, her breath shudders.

"Then why now?" Arthur asks. A dark shadow covers his lower jaw and his eyelids are heavy. He pulls off his leather gloves, and holding them in one hand, he shoves his knife in his back pocket and rubs his forehead.

"What do you mean, why now?" Celia says, holding up a hand to silence Reesa. "Why, it's not so hard to figure out. Look at her, after these months since we came back. She's happy. She's healthy. Thank G.o.d, she's healthy again. This baby has a chance."

"What chance does it have with a father like Ray?"

"Arthur," Reesa whispers.

Celia takes another few steps toward Arthur. "You will never call this baby an 'it' again. He or she will have everything. Love and a home and . . ."

Arthur leans forward, spitting his words in Celia's face. "What home? Our home? Christ, this is why she won't annul the marriage, isn't it? He'll be back, you know. You think this is how it'll be? Well, it won't. He'll be back and he'll want his wife and that baby."

"You don't know that. Maybe he'll stay in Damar."

Celia doesn't believe it even as she says it. She wishes the rumors were true. She wishes Floyd Bigler had shipped Ray off to Clark City where he'd rot and die behind those block walls. Instead, Arthur and William Ellis, Ray's other brother-in-law, threw Ray in the back of William's pickup truck. William, having had his fill of Ray's drinking over the years, agreed to keep him just long enough. When Arthur came home stinking of vomit and whiskey, Celia asked him what "long enough" meant. Arthur shrugged as he stripped off his clothes. "Let's hope long enough is long enough," he had said.

"He'll be back, Celia," Arthur says. "That's for d.a.m.n sure. You think any father is going to let his son grow up in another man's house?"

"We don't know it will be a boy."

Arthur throws his gloves on the ground. He looks like he wants to kick something, but the only thing close enough is the dead bird. He seems to think about it but kicks the ground instead.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Celia. Boy or girl, it doesn't matter. You think I'll be able to keep Ray away? I have to work, you know. I can't be here every G.o.d d.a.m.ned second. You think I'll be able to keep Ruth and her baby safe?"

Celia closes her eyes but does not back away. She can smell the aftershave Arthur splashed on for Father Flannery, his worn leather gloves, his wool jacket. He is more of a man now that they are living in Kansas. She would never say it to him, imply that he was less before, doesn't even like to think it. Waiting until Arthur has finished shouting and the night air has fallen silent again, Celia opens her eyes.

"Yes," she says, hoping Arthur will protect them all, hoping he is stronger here in Kansas because he has to be. "Yes, I do."

Ruth stands on the back porch. Father Flannery's cologne hangs in the air, rich and spicy. She breathes it in, the same smell as Sunday morning ma.s.s. Waiting for her face to heal, she hasn't been to St. Anthony's for almost a month. Celia and Arthur were afraid of the things people might say if they saw the swollen eyes, blackened and bruised cheek and jaw, split lip. They wanted to protect Ruth. In the early years of her marriage, Ruth had been afraid, too. The first time Ray put a fist to her, she hid her cuts and bruises with powder and scarves, but then she realized that people knew the beatings were inevitable, and shouldn't Ruth have known the same?

Through the screened door, she listens for Arthur and wishes he would come inside so they could deliver the food to the Robisons. Going there takes her close to church, a half block away, takes her close enough to feel like she's still being a good Christian. Now that Ruth is living with Arthur and his family, she rides along on the deliveries to the Robisons and walks the food to Mary's front door, even puts it in the refrigerator and cleans out the spoiled leftovers, mostly things Ruth brought the week before. She hopes Arthur will still take her, that he won't be too angry.

Mary never asks why Ruth suddenly started coming along, but she knows. Everyone knows. And every week, as Ruth jots baking instructions on the notepad near the telephone, Mary Robison tells Ruth to stop troubling herself, that all this lovely food won't bring Julianne home. Nothing, nothing, will bring Julianne home. Ruth always smiles as best she can and continues to bake the pies and mix up the ca.s.seroles, because once, when they were so much younger, she and Mary Robison were friends, and Eve, too. The three of them, when they were young, when they had long, shiny hair and bright, clear skin, before husbands and children, they were friends. Because this is true, and because maybe, even though she can't let the thought settle in long before blinking it away, Ray did something awful to Julianne Robison, Ruth still takes the food.

Ruth's first lie to Floyd was a reflex. Standing in her kitchen, Ray watching her, Floyd slapping his beige hat on his thigh, she nodded yes, that Ray had been home all night. She lied out of reflex, the same as a person raises her arms to her face to fend off a fist. She lied because she was afraid not to. A hundred nights, Ray had gone off without telling Ruth where he was going, and a hundred nights, no little girl went missing. But the night Julianne disappeared was different. Ray remembered that once he had been happy. He remembered Eve because she skipped out of Mother's back door and stood right before him, smiling up with blue eyes and tender, flushed cheeks. Only it wasn't Eve, it was Arthur's youngest, and as deeply as Ray must have remembered what it was like to be happy, the moment he walked back into his own home with Ruth, he must have remembered that it was all gone.

"Daniel," Ruth says, when a set of footsteps stop at the top of the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs. She turns toward the house. "Is that you?'

"I'm sorry, Aunt Ruth." He is about to close the door but stops when he sees her. "I didn't see you out there."

Ruth points across the porch to the gun cabinet in the back hallway.

"I think you didn't quite get things put away as you'd like," she says. "I thought you might want to tend to it before your father does."

Daniel scoots a small stool to the cabinet. He can't quite reach the top where Arthur keeps the key to the lock.

"Thank you," Daniel says, as the cabinet hinges creak and the lock snaps into place. He stands in the dark doorway, the kitchen light shining behind him. "I think your water is boiling. Do you want me to shut it off?"

"No, thank you."

Outside, Arthur and Celia's voices fade.

"You know, Daniel," Ruth says. "Your father, when he was a boy, he was a good shot. I'll bet you are, too. In your blood, you know. Are you a good shot?"

Daniel shuffles his feet and clasps his hands behind his back. "Yes, ma'am," he says. "I guess I am."

"So I thought."

"Is everything okay, Aunt Ruth?" Daniel asks, setting the stool back in its spot on the porch. "Aren't you cold out here? Do you want a coat or something?"

Ruth smiles into the darkness to hear Daniel's voice sounding more like a man's than a boy's. These children, Daniel and Evie, are ghosts of her childhood. Daniel so like his father, a young Arthur, working his way toward manhood, hoping nothing will derail him. Evie, resembling Eve so strongly, sometimes too painful to look at.

"I'm fine," she says, nodding toward the cabinet. "You take care."

"Yes, ma'am."

Beyond the screened door, Mother stands at the bottom of the stairs, her back to Ruth. As large as she is, Mother looks small there at the bottom of the steps, her head lowered, her shoulders sagging. Past Mother, on the far side of the garage where the porch light barely reaches, Celia and Arthur have started arguing again. Arthur's voice is tired and desperate, as tired and desperate as Ruth has felt for twenty years, while Celia's words have hope, the same hope that Ruth knows is growing inside her. She felt this hope with all three of her babies, but knew, even from the beginning, that none of them would live. Ray had beaten them out of her. Not literally. He never even knew they had been there, nestled inside Ruth's womb. Sadness killed those babies.

The first pregnancy had surprised Ruth. The baby didn't come in the beginning months of marriage. Ray had needed her, almost loved her in those early days. Together, they had mourned Eve, leaving no room for anyone else, not even a baby. Soon after, Arthur left to follow the best jobs in the country all the way to Detroit, but really Father drove him away, and Mother said no one should judge what's between a man and his son. Best to let things rest in peace. Arthur's leaving was the end of something for Ruth and Ray, or maybe it was the beginning of living with the truth, and this was when Ruth felt the smallest inkling of her first baby. She didn't arrive with a vengeance, this baby that Ruth was certain was a girl, but with a blush of nausea, a hint of fatigue, the tiniest shift in perspective. And then she vanished, bled away in spots and smudges that Ruth bleached out in the bathroom sink while Ray slept in the next room. Then came the second and third. Something inside her, some glimmer of hope, sparked those babies that bled away like the first. Ruth knew that without hope, no more children would live or die, so she gave up on happiness and a future and that was the end of her babies-until now.

Chapter 11.

Standing together in the small hallway between the kitchen and the back porch, Celia straightens Arthur's collar and centers his newly polished belt buckle.

"That should do it," she says, patting his chest with both hands.

"Do I have to go?"

Celia lifts up on her bare toes, kisses him once, but he pulls her back, and starts the kiss over. He smells like soap and the aftershave Celia insisted he splash on after she made him shave.

"Yes, you have to go," she says, wiping away the pink smudge on his upper lip and giving him one more quick kiss before ducking and slipping from between his arms.

"I shouldn't be leaving all of you alone." Arthur looks into the living room where Ruth and Evie are thumbing through a photo alb.u.m, a table lamp throwing a warm circle of light on them. "Where's Daniel? He should be in here."

"He's outside," Celia says. "Watering Olivia like you told him to. We'll be fine, Arthur. Everything will be just fine."

In the week since Celia told Arthur that Ruth is pregnant, he has begun locking doors, something he didn't bother with once they left Detroit and the smell of burnt rubber behind. He comes home every day now over his lunch break, has fixed the locks on two windows, and has started barking at everyone in the house, except Ruth, about things like scooting in chairs and shutting off lights.

Celia takes his wool coat from the hook near the back door, and in a whisper that won't carry to the living room, she says, "You go have fun. It'll be nice that you and Jonathon spend some time together."

"I see the boy d.a.m.n near every day."

"That may be, but you're going all the same. Enjoy. You always fare well in poker. We'll all be fine, just fine."

"You lock up after I leave?"

"Good enough," Celia says, kisses him one last time on the cheek and locks the door behind him.

Evie runs a hand over the patchwork quilt lying across her legs as Aunt Ruth points to a pink satin square.

"This was your Aunt Eve's first Sunday dress," she says. "And this piece is from your father's favorite pair of jeans. He wore them until his belly was bursting through the b.u.t.tons."

Evie snuggles into Aunt Ruth, laughing at the thought of Daddy having such a big belly and searching for another quilt square that might belong to Aunt Eve. "What about this?" she asks, tracing a line around a lavender calico patch.

Aunt Ruth shakes her head. "That was mine. An ap.r.o.n from a doll I once had."

Next, Evie points to a green velvet square, and as Aunt Ruth nods and smiles, Evie leans forward and brushes one cheek against the soft fabric. It doesn't smell like Aunt Eve should smell, sweet like a flower, but instead like Grandma Reesa's bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Eve's favorite Christmas dress," Aunt Ruth says. "She tried to wear it to school once. Mother caught her at the back door because the hem stuck out from under her overcoat. My goodness, Mother was angry." Aunt Ruth pulls a red leather photo alb.u.m back onto her lap and flips through the early pages. "Here. Yes, here is a picture of that dress."

Evie wraps the quilt around her shoulders like a cape and presses closer to Aunt Ruth's side. "Do you think she looks like me?" Evie asks, staring down on a little girl standing on the steps of St. Anthony's, the same steps where Evie plays every Sunday morning while Daddy and Mama say their h.e.l.los.

Touching the little girl's picture, Aunt Ruth smiles through closed lips, nods but doesn't answer.

"Did Aunt Eve love the green dress as much as she loves the dresses in her closet?"

"Yes, I'm sure she did."

"Why does she have all of them?"

Aunt Ruth flips to the next page, and pointing out another picture of Aunt Eve, this one of a little girl sitting alone on Grandma Reesa's back porch, Aunt Ruth says, "They were to be for her wedding."

"Aunt Eve is getting married?" Evie pops up on her knees and pulls the quilt to her chin.

"Not now, sweet pea. A long time ago. She wanted each brides-maid to have her own special dress."

"So she made all of them?"

"We all did. She and I and Mary Robison. Mrs. Robison was, is, a wonderful seamstress." Aunt Ruth flips to another page in the alb.u.m. A picture pops loose as she lets the new page fall open. "Here we are," Aunt Ruth says, tucking the picture back into the white corner tabs. "All three of us. Your Aunt Eve wanted to work with Mary one day, to be as good a seamstress."

Evie leans forward and squints into the face of Mrs. Robison. The picture was taken long before she grew up and had Julianne, long before Julianne disappeared. The kids at school say that since Julianne is gone, maybe the Robisons will take Evie in trade. Maybe since Julianne was the same age as Evie and had the same white braids, the Robisons will make Evie move in with them. That very Tuesday at recess, Jonah Bucher said he was going to change Evie's name to Julianne. He said everyone liked Julianne better than Evie anyway. Every other kid said the same and they called Evie by her new name all through recess until Miss Olson made them stop or else she'd call every mother and father of every kid in school.

"What about you, Aunt Ruth? Did you want to sew, too?"

Aunt Ruth pokes both of her thumbs into the air. "I'm all thumbs. Never as handy as those two."

"Which dress were you going to wear?"

"I hadn't decided. Whichever Eve chose for me, I suppose. But she was young when we made those dresses. Only dreaming of a wedding. Someday."

"And did she get older and get married?"

Aunt Ruth closes the photo alb.u.m, patting the top cover three times and resting her palm there. "Sometimes things don't work out like we plan." She smiles down at Evie.

"Well, I think they're the most beautiful dresses. Maybe I'll use them when I get married one day."

"That would make Eve very happy."

In the kitchen, Mama is making cooking noises-pots and pans rattle and the gas stove goes click, click, click click, click, click as Mama turns on the back burner that doesn't work so well. Elaine is off with Jonathon's mama, learning how to make piecrusts. Evie wonders if Mama's feelings are hurt because Elaine would rather learn about pies from someone else's mama. Smelling pot roast and roasted new potatoes, Evie lays her head on Aunt Ruth's shoulder. The radiator kicks on, making her think of old Mrs. Murray, but only until she remembers that Mama said Mrs. Murray died in a hospital bed. Mama said no one was cooked up on that radiator or any other. Evie closes her eyes and lays her right hand on Aunt Ruth's stomach. as Mama turns on the back burner that doesn't work so well. Elaine is off with Jonathon's mama, learning how to make piecrusts. Evie wonders if Mama's feelings are hurt because Elaine would rather learn about pies from someone else's mama. Smelling pot roast and roasted new potatoes, Evie lays her head on Aunt Ruth's shoulder. The radiator kicks on, making her think of old Mrs. Murray, but only until she remembers that Mama said Mrs. Murray died in a hospital bed. Mama said no one was cooked up on that radiator or any other. Evie closes her eyes and lays her right hand on Aunt Ruth's stomach.

"Too soon," Aunt Ruth says. "In a few weeks, maybe."

Pressing her face into Aunt Ruth's arm where her nose and lips will warm, Evie knows the baby is too tiny to feel. Mama says it's like a bean now, like a lima bean, not a pinto bean. She says everyone has to take care of Aunt Ruth so her baby will have strong lungs and a healthy heart. Mama says when the baby comes, Aunt Ruth will move into Elaine's room and Elaine will move in with Evie, so Aunt Ruth and her baby can have a room all to themselves. Evie wants to ask Aunt Ruth if she will have a blue baby and will Daddy put it in the oven like they did Ian's baby sister. When Ian's dad first thought the baby was dead, he put her in the oven until the doctor could come. That's what Ian said. And then when they opened the door, she was kicking and breathing and all the way alive again. Instead of asking Aunt Ruth if her baby will be blue, Evie closes her eyes and imagines she is like the princess and the pea, except she will feel the lima bean in Aunt Ruth's stomach.

"Who was Aunt Eve going to marry?" Evie asks, thinking that she probably isn't a princess because she can't feel anything except the b.u.t.tons on Aunt Ruth's dress.

Taking a deep breath, Aunt Ruth lifts her chin, and says, "A good man. She was supposed to marry a good man."