Bent Road

Chapter 24

Celia props the last dish in the drying rack, hangs her dish towel on the hook over the sink, and taking one last look around the kitchen to make sure everything is in its place, she flips off the light. Daniel and Evie’s rooms are quiet, have been since dinner. Daniel didn’t eat a bite. Celia will make pancakes for breakfast-his favorite. A light still shines in Elaine’s room where she and Ruth are quietly talking, probably planning the bodice for Elaine’s wedding dress or picking the flowers for her bouquet. Elaine thinks lilies but Ruth likes carnations. Checking that someone locked the back door and giving the deadbolt an extra tug, even though Arthur has twice done the same thing, Celia walks toward her bedroom and meets Arthur as he comes out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, the steam from a hot shower following him.

His skin is thicker since they moved to Kansas, like a hide. His face and neck are dark, his hands rough, his back and chest broad. Celia touches his collarbone as she slips past him into their bedroom. He smells of soap. He takes her hand, stops her, makes her look up at him. She knows what he wants. He wants Celia to believe in him, to trust him. Laying her hand flat on his chest, she closes her eyes, breathes in the warm air about his body and prepares to tell him the truth. While he was in the shower, she called Floyd, even after Arthur said it would do no good, that it would only stir up Ray, stir up more trouble. She called Floyd and told him that Ray tried to take her little girl. She lied to Arthur and she was hateful to him, if only in her thoughts. Not once, not ever, in all their years together, has she been so hateful. Not even when Arthur brought home the new truck and lashed her Detroit life to it, did she have a hateful thought. She made herself trust him then and she wants the same now. More than anything, she wants to trust him.

Pulling their door closed, Arthur backs Celia toward the bed. As she lowers herself, Arthur standing before her, she lifts her hands and lays them on his stomach, bending her fingers, gently denting his dark skin with her nails. If he is more of a man now, then she is more of a woman. When they lived in Detroit, Arthur wore a starched shirt to church, shined his shoes once a week and sat for a haircut every fourth Tuesday. Celia wore pearls on Sundays and set her table with pressed linens. But here in Kansas, Arthur’s shirts are fraying at the collars and cuffs and Celia’s pearls are packed away in a box in her top dresser drawer. They are different, both of them.

Letting her hands slide down Arthur’s flat stomach, Celia pulls apart the towel at his waist. She needs him to make her feel clean again because the showers and shampoo and soap did not. She needs Arthur to make her forget the way Ray looked at her or the feel of him grinding himself into her thigh, to make her forget the thought of Ray with her little girl, his dirty hands touching Evie’s yellow hair. Clawing Arthur’s back, she draws him down on top of her and buries her face in his shoulder where the muscle dips into his neck. He pulls her skirt up, presses aside the crotch of her cotton panties, and forces himself inside of her with one quick motion. The pain lasts only an instant. His movements are quick, fierce, almost angry. Pressing his face into the mattress, he muffles a groan. And then his breathing quiets. He shudders and is still. Celia needs something more, wants something more. But it’s over.

Waiting until Arthur has rolled off her, Celia inhales a full breath, sits up, unbuttons her blouse and skirt and pushes them to the floor. The night air chills her damp skin where it was pressed against Arthur. Kansas has made her body harder, like it was when she was younger. Her stomach is flat again though marred by silvery white lines where it stretched for her babies. Her hips are soft and white, but narrow, slimmer than they were in Detroit. She reaches for Arthur’s hand and places it on her left breast, holding it there until he begins to roll her nipple between two fingers. He breathes faster again, slips the same hand between her legs and presses apart her knees. Celia lies back, exhaling and not hearing the dry grass that crackles outside her window.

Evie rolls on one side, afraid to close her eyes because every time she does, she remembers the red silky inside of Olivia’s neck and the black blood that she lay in. Daniel tried to cover her eyes before she saw but he was too slow. Evie always thought blood was red. Now she wonders why babies are blue and cows bleed black blood. She should have asked Uncle Ray. He is more of a cowboy than Daddy. Uncle Ray would know about blue babies and black blood, but he didn’t want to talk much on the ride home. He didn’t even ask about Aunt Eve’s dress even though it stuck out from under the bottom of Evie’s coat. She saw him looking at the blue ruffles. Mostly, Uncle Ray looked like he hadn’t slept a single night in his whole life.

“Girl ought to wear trousers when it’s so cold” is the only thing he said.

Thinking that next time she sees Uncle Ray she’ll ask him about black blood, Evie rolls over and looks at the drawer where she hid the picture of Aunt Eve and Uncle Ray. Mama made her return the rest of Aunt Eve’s things to Grandma Reesa and she has to write an apology letter on Mama’s best stationery so they can send it through the mail. Mama doesn’t know Evie kept the picture.

Across the kitchen, Mama’s bed creaks. Sometimes, when the house is dark, Evie hears it. Mama always says they are making up the bed with clean sheets. Tucking in hospital corners, straightening the quilt, fluffing the pillows. Soon enough, Mama is done tucking her sheets and the house is quiet again. Maybe Evie can sleep without closing her eyes. Cows do that sometimes, or is it horses? Another question for Uncle Ray. But Evie isn’t a cow or a horse. She tries closing her eyes. First one, then the other. Everything is black for a moment and then she hears a knock. Maybe Mama is making the bed again. Evie opens her eyes and sits up. She hears another quiet knock. Tapping on glass. Tap, tap, tap. Someone is at the back door.

Daniel wants to bang on his wall. He wants to punch a hole all the way through to Elaine’s room and into her fat mouth. She and Aunt Ruth are still whispering about the wedding. All night long, probably all through dinner, and even now when they should be sleeping. Elaine doesn’t care one damn bit that Olivia died. She doesn’t care that Evie wore Aunt Eve’s dress to school or that everyone calls Evie a nigger lover. She doesn’t even care that Evie almost got swiped like Julianne Robison. All she cares about is studying and finishing high school so she can have the wedding that she spends all night, every night, planning with Aunt Ruth. Daniel sits up, lunges toward the wall he shares with Elaine, pulls back his fist, ready to punch a hole all the way into her room, when he hears a knock. The last time Mama checked on him, he pretended he was asleep so she left his door ajar. Unwrapping his fist and dropping his hand to his side, Daniel walks to his open door and listens. Yes, someone is knocking.

Ruth keeps talking, thinking that Elaine won’t notice the quiet creaks coming from Celia and Arthur’s end of the house. She gathers the fabric at Elaine’s waist with the fingers that stick out of her sling and weaves a straight pen into the satin sash. “That should do it,” she says as Elaine muffles a laugh. “Now, be still.” Ruth ignores the giggle. With so much to be sad about that day, the laughter is sweet. “I can’t keep taking this in. You need to eat better. You’ll waste away to nothing by the wedding if you’re not careful.” She folds over another patch of loose fabric farther down Elaine’s hip and this time when she smiles at the quiet creaks, it’s because they make her feel that maybe things will be fine again. In these quiet moments, the house binds together.

“Will that do?” Ruth says, patting Elaine’s hip and looking past her into the mirror on the back of the door.

Elaine so resembles Celia, though her features are dark like Arthur’s. Still, she has her mother’s long, soft waves, and even late at night, her eyes and cheeks shine the same way Celia’s did when she smiled at Arthur through a cascading white veil.

“Perfect,” Elaine says. “Just perfect.”

The creaking stops and the house is quiet.

“Let me help you,” Ruth says as Elaine wiggles out of her wedding dress.

“I need to use the restroom first,” Elaine says, stepping off her stool and reaching for the doorknob as she hops from side to side.

She must have been holding it, waiting for the creaking to stop. They both begin with a smile before breaking into giggles.

“I can’t wait anymore.” Trying to muffle her laughter, Elaine opens the door a crack. “Did you hear that?” she says, turning toward Ruth.

“Sounds like someone is on the porch.”

“Who would come so late?” Elaine says, and stepping out of her dress, she slips on a robe.

Ruth waves Elaine aside. With one hand pressed to her full, round belly, she says, “I’ll have a look.”

Celia opens her eyes. She rolls her head toward the dark window. No moonlight. No sparkling Battenburg lace curtains. Next to her, Arthur’s eyes are closed. Covering her bare chest with one arm, Celia sits up and feels for the quilt. She finds it at the end of the bed and tugs but it is tangled in Arthur’s feet. She tugs again, causing his eyes to open, and she hears it. A knock at the back door. She drops the quilt.

“Arthur,” Celia whispers, poking his shoulder. Yes, she hears a knock. Louder now. “Arthur, did you hear that?”

Arthur rolls on his back to see Celia leaning over him, barechested. He lets out a quiet moan and reaches for both breasts.

She pushes his hands away. “Shhhh,” she says. “Listen. I think someone’s at the back door. Do you hear it?”

Reaching with one hand for the spot between Celia’s legs, Arthur mumbles something about the wind. Celia slides off the end of the bed, yanks the quilt from under Arthur’s feet, causing him to startle, and after wrapping it around herself and securing it by tucking in one end, she stands and looks straight into the eyes of a black silhouette standing in the window.

“Arthur,” she says through clenched teeth.

Backing away from the window, she trips over the quilt and, as she stumbles, each step yanks down the blanket until she is naked again. The black silhouette still stands in the window.

“Arthur, someone is there,” Celia says, squatting behind the bed and gathering up the quilt.

Arthur sits up, swings his legs around so that he is staring directly into the window. He is close enough to touch the glass. It’s black. Empty.

“No one there, Celia,” he says.

“Well, I saw someone. And I heard knocking.”

Arthur exhales, loudly enough that Celia can hear, stands, pulls on the jeans draped over the end of the bed and walks past her, giving a playful tug on her quilt. She slaps his hand and gathers the cover under her chin with two fists.

“It’s probably Jonathon. That kid might as well put his name on the mailbox.”

As Arthur opens the bedroom door and steps into the kitchen, Celia whispers, “Jonathon wouldn’t peek in our window.”

“Suppose not,” he says. “I’ll give a look.”

Evie pulls her robe closed and presses her face to the glass in the back door that leads onto the porch. With each breath, a frosty patch balloons on the window. Soon, she can’t see outside. Rolling her head to the left, she presses her ear against the cold, wet glass. Quiet. She looks again and, seeing nothing and hearing nothing, she takes a step back, pulls the sleeve of her flannel nightgown down over her hand like a mitten and rubs a circle in the icy patch of glass.

“Evie,” Daddy says.

A light switches on in the kitchen.

“Evie,” he says again, taking a step toward her.

He fills up the small hallway that leads from the kitchen, past the basement stairs, to the back door.

“Step away, Evie.”

Evie smiles at Daddy, turns back to the window and looks up to see Uncle Ray’s face where it was dark before. She knows it’s him because he wears his hat high off his forehead, but something about Uncle Ray isn’t quite right. As Evie steps away, he steps forward. His head sways, like it’s not screwed on tight enough, and one shoulder hangs lower than the other. Pressing both hands against the glass, he says something and smiles a crooked smile.

“What?” Evie says, stepping forward again and putting one hand on the door handle. It’s cold but she squeezes it anyway. “Uncle Ray’s out there,” she says, looking back at Daddy.

Uncle Ray doesn’t scare her like he used to, like he did on the night he asked for pie, because Aunt Eve loved Uncle Ray even if one of his eyes wanders off where it doesn’t belong. She loved him so much she wanted to marry him but then she died and he had to marry Aunt Ruth. He wouldn’t even be mean at all if Aunt Ruth had died instead.

“Don’t open that, Evie,” Daddy says, taking another step toward her. “Come away from there.”

Uncle Ray looks over Evie’s head. He sees Daddy standing behind her. Daddy isn’t wearing a shirt and his feet must be cold, too. The handle is warm in Evie’s hand now. Uncle Ray isn’t smiling anymore, and in the dark, his cloudy eye is a black hole. With one hand, he knocks on the glass. With the other, he rattles the door.

“You tell Ruth to come out here,” Uncle Ray shouts through the glass. “I should have left your girl to freeze.”

Now Mama and Aunt Ruth are standing behind Daddy. All three of them creep closer, looking like Daddy and Daniel when they found a rattlesnake in the barn. Daddy snuck up on the snake with a long-handled spade. He hacked it in two and said to Daniel, “Careful, son. Rattlers never travel alone.” They found another snake coiled up in the back corner of Olivia’s stall, its tail shaking like a tin of dried beans. Daddy hacked it up, too.

“Evie, honey. Come on back to bed,” Mama says, peeking around Daddy. “You must be so cold.”

Aunt Ruth, standing at Daddy’s other side, nods.

“You know they think I was taking their girl, Ruth? That what you think, too? That why Floyd’s got his God damn dogs over at our house?”

Evie presses against the door, the knob still in her hand. She can feel Uncle Ray on the other side, jiggling the handle, wanting to come in. He shakes it harder. It sounds like the second snake when Daddy crept toward it, the dry hay snapping under his black boots. Evie frowns, imagining that Daddy is carrying a long handled spade.

“Go on home, Ray,” Daddy shouts, taking another step toward Evie. “It’s too late for this now.”

Daddy must make Uncle Ray mad because he starts banging on the door. Just over Evie’s head, his fist pounds into the glass. The door rattles in its frame. Evie knows what Uncle Ray is doing is bad. She can see it in Mama and Aunt Ruth’s faces. Their eyes are wide and they are both leaning around Daddy like they want to scoop up Evie and wrap her in her favorite patchwork quilt. Evie presses against the door. The glass shakes overhead. Uncle Ray is pounding with both fists now, probably because he sees Aunt Ruth. He wants to talk to her and to see his baby. That’s what he said in the hospital. That’s all he wants. And now the men with dogs are at his house and he’s mad about it. Daddy reaches to grab Evie’s arm.

“Go on, Ray,” Daddy shouts.

“What’d you tell them?” Uncle Ray keeps beating on the glass.

Evie pulls away from Daddy and wraps both hands around the knob. It’s so warm now, almost hot. Daddy grabs both of Evie’s shoulders. His fingers dig into her arms, like a snakebite, like a rattler bite. She cries out. Her breath fogs the glass. Uncle Ray looks fuzzy. Maybe he smiles, but Evie isn’t sure because the glass is cloudy. He pulls back both fists in one motion and brings them down as Daddy lifts Evie up and away.

“What’d you tell them?” Uncle Ray shouts.

The glass shatters into tiny pieces and rains down like the fuzzy-tipped seedlings Evie and Daniel blew off the tops of dandelions when they first moved to Kansas. Dangling from Daddy’s arms, Evie watches the feathery glass sprinkle down around her. Daddy holds her, crouched over, shielding her so she can’t see Uncle Ray or the door or Mama. Only the feathery glass. The house falls silent.

Because she can’t breathe very well, Evie twists and squirms until Daddy stands. He turns away from the window, and after taking a few steps toward Mama and Aunt Ruth, his body tensing each time he steps on a piece of glass, he hands Evie to Mama like a cup of hot soup, carefully so none of her spills over. Laying her head on Mama’s shoulder, Evie can see Daddy. He is staring at the broken window. Uncle Ray is there, his fists frozen where they hit the glass. He looks at Evie, or maybe he’s looking at Mama. Mama sets Evie down, gathers the top of her robe under her chin with one hand and waves at Evie to go back into the kitchen. Yes, he’s looking at Mama. He smiles.

Daddy stands still for a moment, watching Uncle Ray smile at Mama and then he lunges, leaping over the scattered glass. He grabs at Uncle Ray through the broken window, but Uncle Ray is gone, across the porch and down the steps. Daddy throws open the door.

“Arthur, no,” Mama shouts. “Leave it be.”

But Daddy doesn’t listen, and he runs after Uncle Ray.

Hearing the glass break, Daniel slips by Elaine, who has just hung up with Jonathon. She grabs for Daniel’s sleeve, but he is too quick. A few short steps and he is across the kitchen and standing at the top of the stairs that lead to the basement. He reaches for the gun cabinet but it’s locked, and the spot where Dad’s shotgun usually hangs is empty. But Daniel’s rifle is there, right where it should be. Aunt Ruth hears him, grabs his hand and shakes her head. He pulls away from her. This time, he’ll take a shot. He’ll have his own gun and the trigger won’t be too heavy. He could shoot Uncle Ray, kill him dead just fine with his.22. And he’d do it, too, in three perfect shots, if the cabinet weren’t locked. No time to fish for the key. He pushes between Aunt Ruth and Mama and follows Dad out the door.

Before Daniel crosses the porch, a light flips on. In the center of the gravel drive, near the garage, Dad catches up to Uncle Ray, whose legs can’t keep up with his top half. He is stumbling and falling from side to side until Dad grabs his collar. For a moment, Uncle Ray is steady on his feet until Dad yanks him backward, causing Uncle Ray’s boots to fly out from under him. Landing flat on his back, he lets out a groan. As Dad kicks Uncle Ray in the side, wincing and bouncing on one leg after he does it because he is barefooted, snowflakes begin to fall, sparkling in the porch light.

Making no noise, Dad drops down and drives one knee into Uncle Ray’s ribs. Something cracks. Sitting on Uncle Ray’s chest, Dad holds him square with his left hand and beats him in the face with his right. Uncle Ray’s shoulders bounce off the ground with each punch. He lets out muffled grunts, like Dad is beating all the air out of his lungs. The black tangled hairs on Dad’s chest sparkle with wet snowflakes. He pounds Uncle Ray’s face again and again until a set of oncoming headlights flash around the corner of the house. With one fist caught in midair, Dad stops. His sparkling chest lifts and lowers, and thick frost floats from his mouth, up and around his head and neck. Daniel turns and squints into the bright light. Stepping out of the truck and seeing Dad and Uncle Ray, Jonathon reaches back inside and flips off the headlights. He pulls on his hat and tugs the brim low over his forehead.

“How about I take it from here, Arthur?” Jonathon says.

Dad stands, his bare feet straddling Uncle Ray. He nods and says, “Good enough.”

Jonathon walks a few yards across the gravel drive, his footsteps the only sound, bends down and slips his hands under Uncle Ray’s shoulders. Without saying anything to Elaine or Mama or Aunt Ruth, who are all standing at the top of the stairs, Jonathon drags Uncle Ray’s limp body to his truck, his boots leaving two thin trails in the dusting of snow that has started to cover the gravel drive. Daniel runs to the passenger side of the truck and opens the door. He blinks away the snowflakes that catch in his eyelashes and watches Jonathon try to lift Uncle Ray, but when he can’t quite get him into the truck, Jonathon looks to Dad for help. Dad, having not moved, stares at Jonathon for a moment before walking inside. First, the screened door slams shut, next the door off the kitchen. Mama and Elaine follow him but Aunt Ruth doesn’t move. She stands, watching Jonathon try to lift Uncle Ray into the truck.

“Dan,” Jonathon says. He breathes heavily and jostles Uncle Ray to get a better hold on him. “Can you give me a hand?”

Daniel glances back at Aunt Ruth, the only one left standing on the porch. She gives a nod, so Daniel steps up to Jonathon’s truck and grabs one of Uncle Ray’s arms.

“Should have left that girl to freeze,” Uncle Ray mumbles. Both Daniel and Jonathon turn away from his breath. “God damn dogs. Even dug up my yard.”

Clearing his throat and trying to suck in fresh air, Daniel slips under Uncle Ray’s left arm and pulls it around his own shoulders so he can use his legs to lift. Together, he and Jonathon toss Uncle Ray into the truck.

“Tell your folks I’m taking him to the hospital,” Jonathon says. Once Uncle Ray is inside the truck, Jonathon walks around to the driver’s side. “From the looks and smell of it, he’s mostly drunk. Nothing a few stitches won’t take care of.”

Daniel nods and steps back as Jonathon slides into the truck. Not certain why he does it, Daniel lifts a hand to wave good-bye. Starting the engine, Jonathon gives Uncle Ray a shove, causing his head to bounce off the passenger side door. He smiles and waves back.

Ruth counts out three tablespoons of coffee, plugs in the pot and watches, waiting for hot water to bubble up in the small glass lid. She startles, her shoulders and neck tensing, when Arthur begins to pound again. Each blow of the hammer vibrates through the floorboards. Soon, he’ll have the broken window covered over with plywood and they can all go back to bed. Daniel is with him, fetching nails and scraps of wood, just like he did when the two worked together to repair the broken window in the garage. Elaine has gone to her room and Celia is taking a shower. Ruth didn’t ask why she would shower so late at night when she’s sure to catch a chill and maybe a nasty cold. She knew enough, had seen enough, to know the answer.

Soon, steam begins to leak from the coffeepot and it gives its first gurgle. Outside the dark kitchen window is the beginning of a good snowstorm. Making herself smile first, Ruth turns to face Evie, who sits at the kitchen table, swinging her legs because her feet don’t reach the floor yet. With a creased brow, Evie watches Ruth. In the back of the house, Arthur begins to pound again.

“Your daddy and Daniel must be nearly finished,” Ruth says, taking a loaf of sourdough bread from the top of the refrigerator and readjusting her sling. Her arm isn’t so sore anymore. Tomorrow she’ll take it off. “Do you feel it? The draft-it’s almost gone. The house will warm up again soon. They’ll be hungry, don’t you think?”

Evie nods.

“And then it’s off to bed with you.”

Evie, still swinging her legs, leans forward and rests her chin in her hands. “Why does Uncle Ray hit you?”

Ruth stops in the middle of cutting a slice of sourdough and with her eyes lowered, she says, “I don’t know, Evie. Except that life is harder on some people.”

“Is it harder on Uncle Ray?”

“Yes,” Ruth says, finishing one slice and starting another. “I’d say it has been.”

“Because he wanted to marry Aunt Eve but she died and he had to marry you instead.”

Ruth nods. “Yes. Yes, that’s hard on a person.”

“But he wouldn’t hit you now. Since you have a baby in there.” She points at Ruth’s stomach. “He wouldn’t hurt the baby.”

Ruth lays down her knife and brushes a handful of crumbs off the counter into her palm, which she dumps into the sink. “No, Evie. He wouldn’t hurt the baby.” Ruth says it even though she’s not sure it’s the truth.

Evie stops swinging her legs and lifts her chin. She doesn’t look like a little girl when she raises her eyes to Ruth. Her skin is pale and gray, her eyes old and tired and the fringe of white bangs that usually hangs softly across her forehead has been pushed back, sharpening her jawline and cheekbones.

Tilting her head, Evie says, “Then maybe it’s time you go back home with him.”

Ruth smiles with closed lips. Her chin quivers. “Yes,” she says. “I think it’s time.”