Bent Road

Chapter 2

Daniel opens his eyes and there, peeking through the bedroom door, is Mama. Smiling, she presses one finger to her lips, draws her hands together, holds them to her cheek and tilts her head as if to say, “Go back to sleep.” The door closes and Mama whispers with Elaine on the other side. She is probably telling Elaine that things will be fine. Since the day Dad sat at the head of the dinner table and announced that the family was moving to Kansas, Elaine has pouted and Mama has told her things would be fine, just fine.

Waiting until Mama’s voice fades down the hallway, Daniel sits up and shades his eyes with one hand. At the foot of the bed, a statue of the Virgin Mary, wearing a brown shawl over a simple blue gown, stands on a small end table. Her arms reach out, as if toward Daniel, but both hands are missing. The paint has chipped away from her wrists, uncovering the red clay she is molded from. The Virgin Mary is bleeding. On the table near her feet lie her missing hands.

“Hey,” Evie says from her spot next to Daniel where she had been sleeping. “We’re here, aren’t we?” She first smiles at the Virgin Mary but frowns when she notices the missing hands. “This is Grandma Reesa’s house.”

“Guess so,” Daniel says, pushing his hair from his eyes.

Evie pops to her knees and crawls to the head of the bed. “Come see,” she says, leaning so the fan propped in the window doesn’t hit her. “It’s Kansas. All the way, as far as I can see.” She starts jumping, the box springs creaking every time she lands.

“Hush already,” Daniel says, not sure why he cares except that the bleeding statue makes him think Grandma Reesa likes a quiet house.

“There’s cows, Danny,” she says. “Four of them.”

Daniel crawls across the bed until he can see out the second-story window. When he’s kneeling next to Evie, who is standing, they’re almost the same size. She lifts onto her tiptoes and smiles down on Daniel. He rolls his eyes at her but doesn’t say anything. Evie’s being small stopped seeming funny when she was six. Now, at nine years old, she is lucky to be mistaken for a kindergartner. Even though Mama says Evie will grow plenty tall in her own time, Daniel knows she is hoping that people will be smaller in Kansas, that she will be the right size.

Besides seeing four cows, Daniel gets his first glimpse of Kansas in the daylight. He cocks his head, trying to decide if the buildings outside are crooked or if Grandma Reesa’s house tilts. He wonders what Mama will have to say about Grandma’s crooked house. Before they left Detroit, Mama smiled every time Dad mentioned Kansas, but it wasn’t the smile she gave when she was really happy. When she smiled about Kansas, Mama never showed her teeth and she always nodded her head along with the smile, probably thinking the nod would do the trick if the smile didn’t.

Beyond the garage and shed, brown fields outlined by barbed-wire fences stretch to the horizon. Dad says most of the old fence posts are made from hedge tree branches and a few from limestone. He says there will be plenty of fence post driving in Daniel’s future, plenty for sure. That’ll make a man of him. Squinting out the window, Daniel counts the posts that carry the fence up and over the curve in Bent Road where the tumbleweeds were snagged up. The man he saw last night must have run through Grandma Reesa’s pasture and hopped the fence at the hill’s highest point. No sign of him now. Dad said it was probably a deer, but Daniel is sure it was a man-a large man in a big hurry. Dad promised to check the ditches to make sure the man wasn’t lying there dead. Daniel drops his eyes back to Grandma’s driveway where the four cows raise their heads and together walk toward the fence. He hears it before he sees it, a truck driving up Grandma Reesa’s gravel drive.

“Hey,” Evie says, popping off the bed, her bare feet skipping across the wooden floor. “Look at this.”

“Yeah, what is it?” Daniel says, still watching through the window.

A red truck pulls around the side of the house and parks in front of the sagging garage.

“They’re dresses,” Evie says. “Look how many.”

Across the room, Evie holds a blue dress up by its hanger, rotating it so she sees both sides. The dress flutters as the fan sweeps across the room, the tips of its hem dragging on the wooden floor. Frowning, Evie pulls at the frayed ends of a piece of blue trim left unstitched at the collar.

“Stop that,” Daniel says. “You’re getting it dirty. Those are Grandma Reesa’s.”

Evie frowns at the bleeding Virgin Mary. “No they aren’t. Grandma Reesa is too big for these dresses.”

“Well, they belong to somebody.”

“Whoever wore these was small like me,” Evie says, holding up a second dress. “Not big like Grandma Reesa.”

“Just put them back and close that door,” Daniel says as a second truck that is towing a trailer pulls into the drive. “I think Uncle Ray and Aunt Ruth are here. We’d better get downstairs.”

Letting the hug fade, Celia slowly pulls away, feeling that Ruth’s slender arms might never let go. While Arthur is tall and broad enough to fill any doorway, his older sister is petite, almost breakable, and her skin is cool, as if she doesn’t have the strength to warm herself on a hot August afternoon. On the other side of the car, Ruth’s husband, Ray, shakes Arthur’s hand. Reesa stands behind them, watching, nodding.

“Damn good to see you,” Ray says, taking off his hat and slapping it against his thigh. Underneath, his dark hair is matted and sweat sparkles on his forehead. Even from several feet away, he smells of bourbon.

After shaking Arthur’s hand, Ray replaces his hat and bends down to look through the truck’s cab. His cloudy gray eye, the left one, which Celia only remembers when she sees him up close again, wanders off to the side while the eye that is clear and brown stares at Celia. He winks the bad eye.

“Well, if you damn sure aren’t still the prettiest thing I ever seen,” he says, scratching his two-day-old beard. “The good Lord’s done well by you, Arthur.”

Ray’s good eye inches down Celia’s body and settles at her waist. He had looked at her the same way on her wedding day, like her taking one man meant she would take any man.

Celia wrinkles her nose at his sour smell. “So good to see you, Ruth,” she says, reaching for the pie that Ruth holds out to her.

“It’s strawberry.” Ruth straightens the pleats on her tan calico dress. “We had a late season this year. Thought they’d never ripen.”

Celia cups the chilled pie plate. “You always did bake up the nicest desserts.”

Celia says this even though her own wedding was the last and only time she saw Ruth. Almost twenty years ago. They were barely more than kids; Ruth a new bride herself. The years have worn heavy on her, stooped her shoulders, yellowed her skin, and peppered her brown hair with gray, though she still wears it in the same tightly knit bun that she did all those years ago.

“Arthur said you had an accident on your way in,” Ruth says, still pressing her pleats. “You and the children are all right?”

Celia rubs her neck with one hand and rolls her head from side to side. “Shook us up a little. Frightened the children, but we’re fine.”

Once they finally settled into bed the night before, Arthur had said they probably saw a deer. Or maybe not. Never could tell. “But that spot at the top of Bent Road is a tricky one,” he had said. “Better take it slow next time.” Celia had rolled over, putting her back to him, and said that perhaps next time he would be inclined to slow himself down. When she woke this morning, she had a sore neck, an ache in her lower back and made Arthur promise to check the front of her car for damage. He found nothing but still couldn’t say for sure what they had seen out there.

“Good God damn,” Ray shouts to the driver of a second truck towing a trailer into the drive. “I don’t pay you to drive like a fool, boy.”

A young man steps out of the other truck. His light brown hair hangs below his collar and covers the tips of his ears. He wears a sleeveless chambray shirt, the frayed shirttail left untucked. Ruth tells Celia that his name is Jonathon Howard. He’s a local boy who has come to help Ray, though he’s not so much a boy anymore.

“You don’t pay me at all, Ray,” Jonathon says. “Quit all that fuss you’re making.” He nods at Celia and Arthur, tugs on the raw edge of his Silver Belly hat and walks toward his trailer.

At the back porch, the screened door squeals open and slams shut. Elaine walks across the drive, blotting her cheeks with a tissue. Though she is small like Celia-narrow shoulders, a slender waist, hips that flare ever so slightly beneath her skirt-she has Arthur’s brown hair and eyes.

“Elaine,” Celia says. “Come say hello to Aunt Ruth.”

Tucking the tissue into her apron and smoothing back her hair that hangs in dark waves down her back, Elaine steps around the truck’s open door and leans inside to hug Ruth. “So nice to meet you, Aunt Ruth,” she says, and standing straight, she looks down the drive toward the young man with the frayed chambray shirt. As if trying to get a better view of him, she leans away from the truck and stumbles over Celia. “Sorry,” she says.

“Quite all right.” Celia smiles and glances between Elaine and the young man.

“Celia,” Ray shouts through the truck’s open cab. Seeing Elaine, he studies her for a moment, tips his hat and stands. “Get those kids out here. Good God damn, I brought this thing for them.”

“Ray brought the children a cow,” Ruth says. “You go on and see it. I’ll check on lunch and send the children out.”

Celia steps aside to let Ruth pass. Across the drive, Reesa and Arthur follow Ray toward the trailer. Celia watches Ray, fearing that he’ll take another look at Elaine, but he doesn’t. As the three pass a small shed, which sets across the drive, Arthur stops and studies it, perhaps considering how to best fix the sagging roof or straighten the crooked walls. Reesa stops alongside him, stepping into his shadow. A thick patch of cordgrass grows around the small building and nearly swallows it up. The two of them stand silently for a moment, and then Reesa pats him on the back and, with both hands, gently pulls him away and they continue toward the trailer.

Celia knew there would be secrets between Arthur and his mother, a history that they share and that Celia has had no part in. Surely, Reesa knows what kept Arthur away all these years, and as they pass by, neither of them looking at Celia, it is clear that the past is already flaring up.

When everyone is clustered around the new cow and Ray gives a loud shout of laughter, Ruth walks toward the back door. She smells them before she sees them-a patch of devil’s claw growing between the garage and the back porch. The pink flowers, thriving in dry sandy soil, give off a nasty smell that is strong this year, stronger every year since Father died. He was dead and buried before Mother called to tell Arthur. “No need to trouble him so far away,” she had said. “It’s his own father,” Ruth said. “Let him make peace with his own father.”

Mother had turned away, the black cotton dress she wore to the church service only lightly creased. “A funeral is no place for making peace,” she had said. “That time is dead and buried for both of them.”

The flowers, whose feathery centers are sprinkled with red and purple freckles, have grown thicker this year and richer in color. The plant’s broad, heart-shaped leaves give off the bitter smell and pods hang like okra from the hairy stems. Eventually, the woody husks will split open and curl like claws that will grab onto passing animals who will spread the seeds.

As a new bride, Ruth had picked the plump green pods, sliced them and sautéed them in buttery onions and garlic. They’ll bring a strong woman twins, her mother’s mother once said. Ruth cooked up these pods because, had Eve lived, she would have done the same. In the weeks and months following Eve’s death, everything Ruth did was because Eve would have done the same. Ruth began to visit Ray every week since Eve no longer could. When his laundry piled up in the hamper, she washed it and hung it to dry on the line. She swept his floors, scrubbed his bathroom tile and left casseroles in his icebox. Because Ray was a young man who needed a wife and because it was the thing Eve would have done, Ruth married him and began to wish for a baby. But soon enough her marriage aged a few years, and Ray realized that Ruth would never be the woman he had intended to marry. She would never be Eve. So she stopped cooking the pods and never looked back when she passed a patch of devil’s claw.

Inside the kitchen, Ruth puts the pie into the refrigerator and lifts the lid on the cast-iron skillet where several pieces of Mother’s fried chicken sizzle and pop. A rich, salty smell fills the house. She turns down the flame, checks the timer on the sweet bread and slides a pot of chicken broth onto the stove. In the open window, the curtains hang motionless. Outside, everyone is still gathered around the cow that Ray bought cheap at the sale barn because no one wants an apple-assed cow. Patting the animal on its hind end and saying something that Ruth can’t hear, Ray throws back his head and laughs. Ruth steps away from the window and turns when footsteps cross the living room and stop at the kitchen’s threshold.

“Are you Aunt Ruth?”

Ruth dries her hands on a dish towel. “I am,” she says. “And you are Eve?”

“Evie.”

Evie has long, fuzzy braids and a heavy fringe of white bangs that fall across her forehead and catch in her eyelashes. Her skin is like pink satin.

“Evie,” Ruth says, trying out the name. “And you’re Daniel?”

Daniel is only a few months shy of Arthur’s height, and eventually, after some good Kansas cooking, he’ll be as broad, too. However, unlike his father, Daniel is blond with pale blue eyes that shine against his tanned skin.

“I’m so glad you’ve moved to Kansas.” Ruth pats her face with the dish towel that smells of soap and bleach.

“We’re happy to be here, ma’am,” Daniel says, staring at his feet.

“Please, call me Aunt Ruth.”

“Whose room is that upstairs?” Evie asks, tapping the floor with the toe of one black shoe. “The one we slept in?”

Ruth swallows before she can answer. “I’m not sure which room you were in, sweet pea.” She slips, forgets that Evie is not her sister, calls her sweet pea. A sugary, delicate bloom like Eve.

Evie looks at her brother and then at the ground. “The one with the statue and the dresses.”

“That’s Eve’s room,” Ruth says. Her chin quivers. She clears her throat. “My sister, Eve.”

“Eve,” Evie says. “Like me.”

Ruth smiles. “Yes, very much like you.”

“She’s small, too, isn’t she? I can tell from the dresses. Small like me, and you, too. Not like Grandma Reesa.”

Ruth laughs aloud. The first in so long. “She was perfect like you. The exact right size.”

“I like her dresses,” Evie says, standing where the living room meets the kitchen. “Will she come for dinner, too?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

The chicken broth has grown from a slow simmer to a rolling boil. From outside, Ray gives off another burst of laughter. Ruth steps aside and waves Evie and Daniel toward the kitchen window.

“Come,” she says. “See what Uncle Ray has brought for you.”

While Daniel hangs back, not seeming to care about the shouts and laughter coming from outside, Evie joins Ruth at the window and hoists herself up onto the counter for a better view.

“A cow,” she says, her pink cheeks plumping up with a smile. “Uncle Ray has brought us a cow. And he’s a cowboy, Dan.” She slides off the counter and turns toward her brother. “He’s wearing a hat and boots, too. He’s a real cowboy.”

Ruth brushes aside the fringe of bangs that fall across Evie’s brow. “You two should go on out and get a closer look.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Daniel says, taking Evie’s hand.

Evie stops before disappearing into the back hallway. “I’m glad we’re here, Aunt Ruth,” she says. “I’m going to like Kansas very much.”

“And we’re happy to have you.”

The hinges on the back door whine as they open and close. Pressing the dish towel to her face, Ruth returns to the kitchen window and breathes in the lemon-scented soap until she knows she won’t cry. She is a child again, nine years old, seeing her own sister, Eve. She was the oldest, perfect in almost every way. Evie is so like her, has her light blue eyes and shimmering blond hair. They could be twins, Eve and Evie, separated by many years but twins just the same.

Outside the kitchen window, Evie skips across the drive, kicking up small clouds of dust. Nearing the cow, she slows and walks to Ray’s side. She raises one hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes from the sun, and looks up at him. Ray steps back and lifts the brim of his hat as if taking a closer look. All these years, Arthur has lived with this painful reminder. Now Ruth and Ray will do the same.