Bent Road

Chapter 10

Leaning against the kitchen sink, her arms crossed, Celia taps her lavender slipper. Reesa struggles out of her chair and shuffles after Father Flannery. Facing Celia on the opposite side of the kitchen, Arthur stands, his arms also crossed. He lowers his head, staring at her from under the hood of his brow, and as his mother passes, he steps aside to make room without ever taking his eyes off Celia. Daniel and Ian have disappeared down the basement stairs, and Elaine, pressing a finger to her lips so Evie won’t speak, leads Evie out of the kitchen toward her bedroom.

Celia and Arthur stand facing each other, not moving and not speaking. The floor creaks as the two girls pass, and when they have closed the bedroom door behind them, the house falls silent. Ruth slips into the small space between the side of the stove and wall, puts her hands in her apron pockets, and lowers her head. Outside, Father Flannery’s engine starts up. Arthur straightens to his full height and unfolds his arms.

“Put a pot of water on to boil. The big pot,” he says and follows his mother outside.

Celia, thinking Ruth is no bigger than Evie tucked between the wall and the stove, turns toward her and smiles. When they moved into the house, the stove sat square in the corner, but Reesa moved it because she said a person would want to get a mop in there. She said Mrs. Murray wasn’t much of a housekeeper, God rest her soul, so it wasn’t any wonder the stove was pushed to the wall.

“I’ll speak to him,” Celia says, wrapping her arms around her own waist. “You don’t have to go back, Ruth. We want you here. With us. It will work out. It will.”

Ruth nods. “I have to tell him. Waiting won’t solve anything.”

“No,” Celia says, as gently as she can, as gently as if she were talking to a sick child. “Let me.”

Ruth nods again. She starts to slip back into her corner until Celia pulls out a chair from the kitchen table and motions for her to sit. In the months since they moved to Kansas, Ruth’s skin isn’t as pale as it once was and she lifts her eyes when she talks to a person. Now, after sitting for a few minutes with Father Flannery, she is back again, to the frail woman, carrying a cold strawberry pie, who stepped so carefully out of the truck on the Scotts’ first day in Kansas.

“Thank you,” Ruth says. “I’ll put on Arthur’s water and start supper.”

Celia smiles, and walking onto the back porch, she grabs her blue sweater from the row of hooks near the door. She breathes in dry, cool air and presses the sweater to her face, smelling her own perfume. It reminds her of Detroit because she doesn’t bother with perfume here in Kansas. Taking a few more deep breaths, as if the cold air will fortify her, she pulls on the sweater, straightens the seam of each sleeve and steps outside.

The sun has moved low in the sky, hanging barely above the western horizon. Soon the chilly afternoon will be a cold evening. She would have said it smelled like snow had she still lived in Detroit, but she doesn’t know if Kansas snow smells the same. Pulling her sweater closed, she walks down the three steps toward Arthur, who is standing just beyond the garage.

“What do you need the hot water for?” she calls out when she thinks she’s close enough to be heard. Crossing in front of the garage where she can see around the far corner, she stops and drops her arms to her side. Arthur and Reesa stand at the edge of the light thrown from the back porch. “What are you doing?”

“Ma brought it for supper,” Arthur says, without looking up.

“I have soup and sandwiches,” Celia says. “Ruth is laying it out.”

“Now we have chicken.”

Standing next to Arthur, Reesa tugs on a rope tied off to a beam jutting out a few feet from the garage’s roofline. On the other end of the rope, a chicken hangs, suspended by its wiry, yellow legs. The bird is nearly motionless, seemingly confused by its upside-down perspective. Arthur grabs its head and Reesa steps back.

“I need to talk to you, Arthur,” Celia says, buttoning her sweater’s bottom two buttons and squinting at the bird. “Reesa and I both need to talk to you.”

Gripping the chicken’s head in his left hand, Arthur raises his eyebrows at his mother. Reesa dabs the folds on her neck with the corner of the yellow and white checked apron tied around her waist.

“Whatever it is can wait,” Arthur says. He lifts the knife in his right hand as if inspecting the sharpness of the blade and rotates it slowly. It would have sparkled if there had been any sunlight.

“No,” Celia says, glancing at Reesa. “It really can’t.”

In one seamless motion, Arthur rolls the bird’s head slightly to the left and pulls the knife across its neck. He doesn’t cut so deeply that the head comes loose in his hand. Instead, it dangles as if hanging by a hinge. Blood shoots out, a bright red, perfectly shaped arch. Celia lets out a squeaking noise and stumbles backward. After the initial gush, the blood slows and begins to flow in a smooth steam that lands in a bucket that Arthur kicks a few times until it is in the right spot. Then, with the knife still in his hand, he says to Celia, “Okay, what is it?”

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 apron. 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 God’s sake? She’s forty years old.”

Celia takes two steps forward, back into the light, and cocks one hip to the side. “Forty is not so old.”

“God damn 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 God, 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 damn 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.

“God damn 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 God damned 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 mass. 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 casseroles, 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 basement 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.