by Ash Davidson
Colleen had brought her breakfast every morning—a canned pear in a bowl of its own syrup. That last day, she’d found her slumped in her chair. A cigarette still smoldered in the bear-paw ashtray, a long gray cocoon of ash.
Mom? Colleen had asked. Like Verne had left her body, like she might be hiding behind the door.
After she died, Colleen barely left the cabin except to feed the cows, Mom’s Bossys, or to help Marsha in the mill office two days a week. Finally Enid came tromping over Deer Rib Ridge with Marla on her hip—she’d moved into Eugene’s trailer house out Lost Road when she got married. She carried armloads of their mother’s clothes out into the yard and burned them, like the tracksuits and slippers were all contaminated. There, Enid said, stirring the embers where bits of cloth still smoldered. Like she’d checked off the first item on a list and could now turn her attention to the second: getting Colleen out on the town.
Klamath wasn’t much of a town, even back then, when the pulp mill, the plywood mill, and the old-growth sawmill were all running double shifts. But Enid had done her hair, dragged her to a Sanderson shindig looking like a painted doll, left her standing by the bonfire alone. She’d crossed her arms. If she hugged tight enough, she might transport herself home.
A man had pulled a toothpick from the corner of his mouth and tossed it into the flames.
Cold? he’d asked. She recognized him, one of the loggers who came in for his checks. He’d shrugged off his coat and held it out until she accepted it. It still held the warmth of his body. The sleeves hung past her knees. He cleared his throat—a nervous habit, she would learn—his blushing undetectable in the firelight. The wind stirred. She coughed, eyes watering.
Smoke follows beauty. He’d cleared his throat again and offered a handkerchief, embroidered RG, creases crisp, as though it had been kept folded, untouched for a long time. Without thinking, she’d wiped the lipstick off on it, stared at the red smear.
That’s better. He’d smiled. The left corner of his mouth hung up, as though hooked. Later he’d confessed he’d repeated her name over and over under his breath, but somehow, in the gulp of air he took between reaching out his hand and her shaking it, he’d swallowed it. You’re Enid’s sister, he’d said instead. His callused hand felt rough enough to strike a match off.
He’d waited for her to say her name, then nodded. Cold-hands-warm-heart Colleen. He was quiet. She wondered what he thought of her.
A few weeks after the bonfire, Eugene had brought him out to the cabin for dinner. Enid hadn’t told her they’d invited him, and then suddenly there he was, ducking through the kitchen doorway with a paper pie box. Fresh lemons, only the finest.
Didn’t want to come empty-handed, he’d said.
Colleen, you remember Rich.
Can I help? he’d asked, eyeing the potatoes.
Enid had nudged her. Let him peel a potato.
He’d pushed his sleeves up and washed his hands, slow and methodical, the way a doctor might. A tall man, but it wasn’t the first thing you noticed about him. The way he’d ducked in the doorway, headfirst, it was his eyes she’d noticed, how they seemed to ask permission.
Nice place, he’d said.
It was my mom’s.
He’d nodded, as though he understood. There was a fresh scrape across his knuckles. Logger works with one foot in the grave, Dad had said when Mom pushed him to get a timber job.
Rich had peeled potatoes with a knife in silence and handed them to her to chop. Finally, he began to talk. The park took the land my house is on, he said. I can stay twenty-five years, or until I die. I was born in that house. So was my dad. My granddad built it. You know how I found out? They sent me a letter. Thing was, I never opened it until today. It was just sitting on the table all this time. I’m glad too. I opened it up this morning, but I knew I was coming out here tonight. Instead of stewing over it, I just thought about you. He handed her the skinned potato, slippery white chunk jumping out of her hands.
All done? Enid had asked, Rich standing over a sinkful of skins.
Almost cut my damn thumb off, I was so nervous, he’d confessed later.
More meat on the skins than in the pot. Colleen’s line, when they told the story together. I thought, I better marry him before he starves to death.
All through dinner he’d wiped at his mustache, like he was self-conscious of something stuck in it. Colleen had felt the same embarrassment, though she thought she’d concealed it a little better. Marla had a new pencil and spelled his full name right on the first try.
Richard Gundersen, he read. Well aren’t you just as bright as a dime?
Marla climbed up onto Colleen’s lap and Colleen bounced her on her knees—giddyup—covering her ears when Eugene cursed.
Don’t bother. Enid rolled her eyes. She hears it all at home.
Her first word was “sonofabitch,” Eugene had announced proudly.
Marla’s first word was “sugar.” “Sonofabitch” was Colleen’s, Enid had corrected him.
Mine too, Rich volunteered. Colleen had wondered if he was just being kind.
Mom took her to the lunch counter at the Woolworth’s in Redding, Enid explained. Had her all dolled up. Waitress comes over. Does she talk? No, she don’t talk. Made a liar out of Mom.
Everybody had laughed, even Colleen, embarrassed by a scene she couldn’t remember.
Well, where do you think I heard it?
From her! Enid squawked. Where else? Enid could shriek and make a party, her laughter turning to confetti in the air.
Across the table, Rich had smiled. A spider had crawled across the counter earlier, while he’d been peeling the potatoes. He’d set the knife down, scooped the spider up, and taken it outside, a care Colleen had never seen a man—never seen anyone—take.
At the end of the night, she watched him crouch in the driveway, scratching Mom’s old dog behind the ears, watched him thumb a toothpick from his front pocket. She’d wondered if he’d meant what he’d said.
I like him, Enid had announced, tilting her chair back on two legs and crossing her arms, challenging Colleen to contradict her.
Shh, Colleen had hissed. He’s still out there.
Don’t you think Colleen ought to go out with him? Enid asked Eugene.
Eugene sank back in his chair, the spirit that had animated him through thick wedges of store-bought lemon meringue, gooey and too sweet, drained away.
Don’t matter what I think, he said.
Eugene had brought him to dinner a second time, then a third. Then, one night, Rich had turned up at the cabin alone. Afterward, she’d lain with her head on his bare chest as he recited all the times he’d noticed her before the bonfire—a teenager pushing through the crowd at the Only, looking for Laverne; standing off by herself, watching the fireworks on the Fourth—all these moments when she’d felt so alone. She’d listened to the vibration of his voice, the pump of his heart, his breathing regular as the tide.
Your skin is so soft, he’d marveled that first night. He’d made her feel that way. Like a marvel.
* * *
She turned toward Rich, an arm’s length away in the darkness, breath catching in his nose. What would he say now?
November 5 CHUB
The clinic smelled like picked scabs. Chub’s dad tapped his foot. A lady came through the swinging door.
“Graham?”
His dad stood. Chub followed the lady into the room with the lie-down chair. She put on a paper mask with a nose and whiskers, like a giant rabbit with a ponytail.
Your dad’s afraid of the dentist, his mom had whispered when he’d said goodbye. He’d breathed in her flowery smell. Hold his hand, okay?
* * *
When Chub came back out with a new toothbrush in a plastic wrapper, his dad stood again, in a hurry to leave.
“You hungry?” his dad asked.
Chub shook his head. Raindrops tadpoled across the windshield. He’d rinsed with water from the paper cup, but he still tasted c
herry. The dentist smell had gotten into his clothes. His dad fiddled with the radio. The heat vents smelled like burning dust and old pennies. The radio fizzed. His dad clicked it off. The wipers scriff-scraffed. He thought about what Wyatt had said.
“Did Uncle Eugene ever kill anybody?” Chub asked. Wyatt had climbed up into Uncle Eugene’s truck and dug the stamped metal tag out of the glove box. They’d taken turns holding it. Wyatt said it was from the war and that Uncle Eugene had killed three soldiers in tunnels underground.
“Maybe,” his dad said. “Sometimes you have to in war.”
“Were you in a war?”
“I never was.”
“You never killed anybody?”
“No,” his dad said.
“Would you?”
His dad sighed. “If I had to. To protect you and your mom.”
Chub rested his head against the window. Woods blurred past. His dad pulled off at the cemetery. He dug some agates from his pocket. Chub picked four.
“Take one more,” his dad reminded him. Chub picked a red one, polished and slippery.
The gate clanged behind them. They visited his mom’s parents, then his dad’s. Chub set one agate on each of their piles. He’d never met any of his grandparents. The last agate was sweaty in his hand by the time they came to the baby’s grave. His dad tucked his chin to his neck, saying a prayer. When he was done, he nodded for Chub to add the red agate to the little pile for his baby sister who died. He felt a little jealous.
* * *
At home, Chub raced down the hall and catapulted onto the bed, landing with his face on his mom’s stomach.
“Ouch,” she said. “Let me see those clean teeth.”
“Why are you in bed?” Chub asked.
“I didn’t feel good, so I was resting,” his mom said, pulling the hot water bottle from under the covers. She smiled but her eyes were sad. “Where’s your dad? Did they fix his tooth?”
Chub shook his head.
“They didn’t?” She groaned, pushing him off. “Ready for lunch?”
“You okay?” his dad asked her, coming in.
“Fine.”
“You’re not—?”
“Of course not,” his mom snapped, her face turning red. “How could I be? It’s just cramps.”
His dad had stood a long time at the foot of his baby sister’s grave, like he was waiting for her to come running up the path.
Chub dragged his sock feet down the hall carpet and across the living room to the dark rabbit lamp. He reached out to touch his fingertip to the lamp rabbit’s nose, holding his breath for the one magic spark that might finally zap the bronze creature to life.
November 6 COLLEEN
“ ‘The early bird gets his own damn breakfast,’ ” Colleen read. The new cross-stitch hung from a nail above Enid’s sink.
“Gertie made me that,” Enid said.
Across the table, Eugene’s great-aunt nodded, her white hair in curlers, though Eugene had never so much as fried an egg in his life. He’d barbecue, but indoor cooking was a woman’s job.
Through the kitchen window, Colleen could see Rich standing off from Eugene in the yard, like he didn’t trust him not to squirt him with the hose, resting all his weight on one leg. His knee was bothering him.
“Boys,” Gertie said. “Always coming home hurt.”
Enid dumped kernels into the air popper and lowered the hatch. “Legs heal. It’s backs that do you in.”
Eugene had Alsea’s feet pinned in one hand, hosing off her bare butt.
“He’s going to drown that baby,” Gertie said.
Enid and Eugene had been fighting. Colleen could tell by the way Enid avoided looking at him; her glance would burn a hole. Colleen tidied a heap of unused disposable diapers. They cost a fortune.
“I can’t do cloth without a washer. They stew in the bucket until Eugene has to bury them.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Colleen said.
“You were thinking it.”
“That water’s cold,” Gertie marveled. “Don’t that baby ever cry? What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Enid’s nostrils flared; she was ready for Eugene to drive Gertie home to Oregon.
The air popper bumbled. The first puffs shot from the maw onto the floor.
“Shit.” Enid grabbed a mixing bowl.
Gertie clucked her tongue. “I don’t see why you need all these fancy contraptions.”
Eugene dropped the hose, held the baby up by the armpits, and nibbled her toes.
“Better get some clothes on her,” Gertie said.
“He’ll bring her in.” Enid plonked a stick of margarine into a skillet.
Colleen flinched—another stab of cramping. Her period had come yesterday, a heavy flow. She felt weepy. She wished she could lie down.
“You hear about Helen’s baby?” Enid asked. “No brain in its head.”
“Helen’s?” Colleen braced her arm against the counter.
“There’s a name for it. Mar-la! What’s that thing called?”
“What thing?”
“What the Yancy baby had?”
“Anencephaly,” Marla called back.
“Anen-what?” Enid yelled.
“Anen-ce-phaly!” Marla yelled back.
“Same as what’s-her-name’s, right? Its brain all shriveled up?” Enid looked to Colleen.
Enid hadn’t pressed her for details, but she knew Colleen had seen Melody Larson’s baby die. The tears Colleen had been holding back all morning leaked down her cheeks.
“That wasn’t your fault,” Enid said.
“I know.” Colleen wiped her eyes. “Poor Helen.”
“Evangeline’s granddaughter had a baby like that,” Gertie said. “Up near Five Rivers.”
Eugene came in.
“You don’t put that baby down, she’ll never learn to crawl,” Gertie said.
Eugene laid Alsea on the table, planted a kiss on Gertie’s cheek, scooped up a handful of popcorn, and left before Enid turned around. The kids pawed into the bowl around Chub, each a mirror of a child Colleen might have had. Enid had never lost a single pregnancy.
Colleen shook the thought from her head, stepped over abandoned sweatshirts, and pushed out the back door.
“Colleen, tell your husband he’s coming with me,” Eugene said, as though she’d appeared to prove his point. “If I shoot myself in the foot, I’ll need him to carry me out.”
“Might shoot me by accident,” Rich said.
“You’re lucky I don’t shoot you on purpose. Big high-climber here snags himself on a stub branch, drops his radio two hundred and fifty feet. Almost took my damn head off.”
Rich poked the fire. He wouldn’t tell her how he’d hurt his knee, torn his shirt nearly in half, and gashed his back, only that it was his fault and he was lucky nobody else got hurt. Used up one of my nine lives today.
“Come on. Sixty-forty.” Eugene doused the grill with lighter fluid.
“Colleen doesn’t like venison,” Enid interrupted, coming out.
“Elk then. A nice Roosevelt.”
“Norm’ll jump so far up your ass you’ll need fifty feet of line to reel him out,” Rich said. The tubby game warden turned up at Eugene’s every once in a while, sniffing around the burn barrel.
Eugene grabbed the flyswatter, snapped it, and examined the rubber webbing with the curiosity of a man inspecting the contents of a handkerchief after a productive sneeze. Enid wrestled open lawn chairs. Whatever they’d been arguing about—money, always money—Enid was still picking at it, telltale crease at the bridge of her nose.
“We could all be eating crab legs for Christmas,” Eugene said, fishing cold beers from the creek.
“I’m already the orphan of a drowned man, I don’t need to be the widow of one too,” Enid snapped.
“I can swim.”
“So could he.”
The kids streamed out the back door to race leaf boats in the creek. Marla stood at th
e window—fifteen, a permanent babysitter, curse of the firstborn. She looked heartsick. The boy at the overlook, maybe. Colleen felt a stab of worry. Or was it guilt? She waited a few minutes, then went inside to find her. The shower ran behind the closed bathroom door and there, in the hallway, was Agnes, holding a glass jar, beam of sunlight setting her hair on fire. A pretty child. A shame about the eye.
“Who do you have there?” Colleen asked.
Agnes showed Colleen the salamander, slick and speckled. Colleen couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen one. They used to be in all the creeks.
“Are you going to have a baby?” Agnes asked. Her lazy eye wandered off across the room.
“No, sweet pea. Why?”
“You’re hugging your tummy.”
“Oh.” Colleen dropped her arms. “No.”
Agnes looked up at her. Colleen put her hand on her head. The yellow legal pad with its waterfall of names still waited in her nightstand drawer. Iris. Summer. Lily. Rose. What would it have been like to have a little girl?
Outside, Enid was fiddling with a battery-powered radio.
“You’re red as a lobster,” she said when Colleen came back out with Agnes.
“It’s hot in there.”
“Tell me about it. That woodstove will cook us all in our sleep.”
Johnny Cash crooned from the radio. And my shoes keep walking back to you. Enid dialed it up. Eugene pulled Agnes into a do-si-do, then wheeled Mavis in to take his place and pulled another cooled beer from the creek.
“Bring me one,” Enid called.
He popped two more, handed one to Colleen, and clinked his own against Enid’s, a peace offering. He put on a good show, but he was tired. If Rich’s checks were small, Eugene’s were smaller. He dropped into the grass, took his cap off.