The path winds, but gently, and other, lesser paths feed into it. At one such intersection a doe springs back in sudden alarm, crowding the fawn on her heels, but we are past them and gone before she can take full alarm and bound away. Pan laughs aloud, and I find that I, too, have breath for laughter. “Come on!” he urges me suddenly, and drags at my hand, and we are racing, going as fast and faster than I dare, heedless of any suddenly low branch or obstacle in the trail. The sleeve of my shirt snags and rips, but I do not care, I am keeping pace with him, right on his heels, crowding him, daring him to go even faster. He does, and then, “Stop, stop, stop!” he is hissing. Chortling nervously around his warning, he slides to a stop, turning, his arms opening wide, catching me before I plow into the barbed-wire fence that suddenly springs up before us. A deer could lift over it easily, and perhaps Pan could, but I could not leap it any more than I can stop my headlong rush. I crash into him, but he catches me easily and spins with me, burning out my momentum in a dizzying whirl.
The world tumbles around me and halts suddenly. I am holding to him, panting, gasping, scarcely able to stand. My arms are around him and I can feel his lungs working, his ribs floating in and out as he pants with me. I laugh brokenly, around my quest for air, laugh in the joy of the run, and he laughs with me. I turn up my eyes to look at him, and his face is too close, his eyes too big. I no longer have breath to laugh, cannot remember how to pull more air into my lungs. I close my eyes as his mouth falls on mine, I think I must not do this, but I want this kiss more than I have ever wanted anything. His lips are soft, his beard a rough caress against my face, he clicks his teeth against mine, deliberately, I think, like a deer battles its velveted antlers against a tree. For one instant I am electrically aware of him, of every place that our bodies touch, of every place where I am bound by the constraints of clothing and our skins are separated.
We spring apart at the same instant, two magnets with poles suddenly reversed. He backs into the forest, his dark skin blending with the evening light of the trees, only his white smile like a beacon, drawing me.
I could follow him, right now, I could pull him to the earth atop me, there would be no one to know but me, no one to punish for such a secret sin. It could be a present I give to myself, a secret thing as sweet and remorseless as a candy bar eaten in private, away from your brothers and sisters. I would be depriving no one by doing it, taking nothing away from anyone, would only be giving myself something I need, need very badly. I take a step. “Lynn-nnn!”
My name is ringing out over over the flatlands, over the chicken yard and the cow pasture, and I turn to see if I can see Tom, if he can see me, standing here at the edge of his world, teetering on the edge, ready to leap off it. But he cannot see me, he must be on the other side of the little house. The place looks squat and sheddish seen from here, a converted milk house, plain as day, not the cute little guest house Mother Maurie makes it out to be. And her big house is no more than a great box of timber plopped down on a flat place and painted white, I see how plain it really is, no cushioning of plants around it, the few shade trees and scattered bushes struggling alone to survive on that baked, bare place she calls a yard. How has she fooled me this long, made me think her home a large and desirable place? It is a box that shuts out the world, and I turn my back on it.
But Pan is gone, the path is empty and darkening. As clear as if he had spoken them, I hear the words, “Not yet.”
Not yet. But soon.
“Lynn-nn!” The name rings out again, and I imagine I hear a doleful note in it, a questioning, a wistfulness. Tom. Teddy.
I open my mouth. “Com-ing!” I send my own cry ringing back to him. I step on the lowest strand of barbed wire, lift up the next one, and slip through. Back within fence, back among the cows.
TWELVE
* * *
The Farm
June 1976
“Where the hell have you been?”
I am just inside the door, it is scarcely closed behind me, and already I am too hot, stifled by the tiny house. The long run has disheveled me, and my body is still throwing off heat from my exertions, heat that does not disperse in this house but clings and wraps around me like a piece of cellophane stuck on gooey candy. It is a breathless insulation, hermetically sealing me from Tom’s anger.
“What the hell is wrong with you, anyway, taking off like that? You know I’ve got to work, and off you go, leaving me stuck with Teddy. Mom asks me when you’re going to get your laundry out of the way so she can do hers, I have to say, ‘I don’t know, I don’t even know where the hell she is.’ How does that look to my parents?”
“I went for a run in the woods,” I say as he draws breath, but he doesn’t hear, he has only paused in his tirade. He goes on as remorselessly as a D-8 Cat rolling over saplings. I try to listen, but there is too much for me to try to match up. I feel like a severed limb trying to reattach itself to a body. Artery here, bone there, yes, yes, and a zillion tiny arterioles that don’t want to match up. Maybe it’s the wrong body. I don’t want to hook back into this life, I want to turn and run out the door and back across the pasture. Tom is still listing his grievances.
“I come in, there’s no dinner, the house is still a mess, so we go over to Mom’s to eat and Teddy has a screaming fit, and ruins the whole evening for everyone.”
Click. All the danger lights go red in my mind. Immediacy rescues me from my disorientation.
“Where’s Teddy?” I demand.
“In bed,” Tom declares firmly. “Where he belongs. Dad warmed up his hind end, and then I told him to go to bed with no supper. That kid is getting totally out of control, and it’s no wonder, with you off …”
“What the hell went on while I was gone?”
Tom stops, dumbfounded. I don’t blame him. In the sudden silence it is as if some other person has spoken, some third party neither of us knows interjecting her fury into our conversation. Tom falters. I realize I am glaring at him, that I am suddenly furious. I take a step closer to him, and he sits down at the table.
“We were trying to eat dinner,” he says defensively. “Mom and Dad had been good enough to stretch things out for us, so we were at the table. And Teddy asked about the pony, and Dad had to tell him that it had turned out the pony was a bad deal. The farrier told us that he foundered last year and probably wasn’t as sound as he looked. So Dad decided against getting him for Teddy. And besides, it wasn’t a very good idea in the first place, because what in the hell would they do with a pony after we left again? Waste of money.”
I am sick. There are two parts of me, a head part that is hot and angry, and a stomach part that wants to throw up on Tom, that wants to drench him with the bitter acid churning within it. Betrayal. I stare at him, daring him to go on with his little tale.
“So,” he says, speaking more slowly, “Teddy started crying, saying he’d promised, and it wasn’t fair, and that if he couldn’t have a pony, he wanted to go home right now. So Dad told him, go ahead, go home and go to bed, brat, and Teddy said, no, he meant all the way home to Alaska. And Dad said, fine, start walking, little baby boy, because no one else wants to go back there. And then Teddy shouted that Dad was a liar and didn’t keep his promises and he didn’t like him anymore. All of this at the table, mind you.” Tom struggles to find a little righteousness. “Damn it, we never were allowed to carry on like that at the table when I was growing up!” He looks at me for some confirmation, for me to be shocked at Teddy’s rudeness. I stare back at him, cold as a snake, waiting.
“So anyway,” he goes on, hurrying now, “Dad told him to pipe down, and Teddy wouldn’t and so Dad spanked him and we sent him straight to bed.” Takes a breath. “The kid is getting totally out of hand, Lynn! He …”
That voice speaks again. “If he ever touches my kid again, I’ll kill him.” Yes, that’s me talking, I idly think, or at least someone I agree totally with. “Furthermore, Teddy is right. If he’s not getting a pony, I think we should all go home. R
ight now.”
Tom is staring at me. “What’s wrong with you? You sound just like that kid. Lynn, that doesn’t make a bit of sense! Just because Teddy isn’t getting a pony is no reason for us to pack up and leave!”
“No?” I ask. “Why not? It was the only reason I ever had for staying.”
Tom’s eyes have gone round. He looks younger suddenly, groping. Something fierce in me realizes why he was so frantic when I wasn’t home. He doesn’t like this any more than I do, he was as outraged, but he cannot admit it. Instead he is angry at me because I wasn’t here to step between, to prevent it from happening, to draw the fire to myself. To protect our child. That other fierce one sticks the knife in, twists it. Gladly.
“Your father was wrong,” I say unequivocally. “He promised and he broke his word. We’ve always taught Teddy that was wrong. And we both know Teddy doesn’t need an animal in perfect condition. He’s not thinking about riding off into the sunset, he’s thinking about having a pony for a friend. The fact is, Tom, that your dad doesn’t want to spend the money. He made the offer because he thought he had to in order to get what he wanted. Well, now he’s got it, you’ve said we’ll stay. So he figures he doesn’t have to go through with the bribe.” I have him in the cross hairs now. “He’s wrong, though. No pony, no commitment. Teddy and I are going home.”
“Lynn …” He is strangling on disbelief. “You can’t just leave me like that! What will my folks think? How can you do a thing like that? Don’t I mean anything to you, doesn’t our marriage mean …”
“You left me first,” I say, and I know I don’t have to explain it, the guilt is in his eyes, he has known it all along. I throw the words anyway, cold and sharp as chunks of ice. “It’s in everything you’ve said. You never worried about where I was today. You only wanted me to be here to do the work you think is mine. Watch the kid, dry the clothes, make the dinner, get between Teddy and your old man. Funny. You used to be able to do all those things just fine. Back when you thought we were married.”
I turn around at a soft sound. Teddy is behind me, wearing a grubby T-shirt and his pj bottoms. His face is still smeared with dust and tears. Tom hadn’t even bothered to clean him up for bed. It is fuel for this consuming, fearless anger. I crouch down to be on his eye level. He is frightened, and I realize he has never heard Tom and me quarrel like this, has never heard us clash without conciliation.
“Let’s get cleaned up for bed,” I tell him, and I take his hand and lead him into the bathroom. We wash our faces and brush teeth. I pull off his dirty T-shirt and drop it on the floor. Screw it. Screw being tidy and wifely and all that shit. This is Teddy and me.
“I didn’t get any supper,” he tells me, and the whole of his grief is in that statement.
“Me, neither,” I tell him. “We’ll just have a big breakfast instead.” It’s an I-don’t-care-so-there act of defiance we are sharing, and some of the pain goes out of Teddy’s eyes. Tom is still sitting at the kitchen table when we come out of the bathroom. He thinks I will put Teddy to bed and come back to finish the argument. He’s wrong. I take Teddy into the bedroom. I throw open both tiny windows, to let in as much of the night as I can, and we cuddle up in the big bed, Teddy in the curve of my stomach like a much younger child. Teddy goes to sleep very quickly.
I make plans swiftly, without remorse. I’ll pack tomorrow. It shouldn’t take more than an hour. Phone for a cab? But the only phone is at the big house, and I do not want to ask to use it. I don’t want to see any of them at all, I don’t feel I have to justify or explain what I am doing. Let them figure it out for themselves. No, I’ll just take the old pickup and leave it at the airport. It may take them a while to find it in the parking garage, but that won’t be my problem. I’ll put the tickets on our charge card. I decide to get fifty dollars cash from the bank on the way, but to leave the checkbook here on the kitchen table. There is a savings account in the Fairbanks bank, with sixty or seventy bucks in it. It will have to be enough. I think, I can call Annie from the airport, she’ll pick me up. It is all neat and tidy. I fall asleep thinking how much fun it will be to see our Bruno puppy again.
The funny thing is, I don’t think of Pan at all. He doesn’t come into it. At least, I pretend he doesn’t. I try not to think that the only reason I have the strength to leave Tom is because I have someone else to run to.
I have no doubts that when I get to Fairbanks, he will find me there, in the summer woods behind my cabin.
I have heard that after a seizure, some epileptics feel exceptionally clearheaded and optimistic. I don’t know if that’s true. I only know I awake easily, coming alert like animals do, instantly, with no lingering drowsiness. Morning is still very new, and Teddy’s body is a sweet warmth against mine. I sniff the top of his head, where the blond stubble is growing into a soft downiness again, smelling that indefinable child smell about him. I shift my body slowly away from his, tucking the blankets around him before the warmth can escape. It is cooler this morning, a promise of a gentler day to come.
I am halfway dressed before it all comes back. How I saw the faun yesterday, how I am leaving today. I feel sorry. Something has ended. Something that was once very good is all done. But the sorrow doesn’t change my resolve, doesn’t even make me think about changing my mind. It is the same way one feels when sweeping up a treasured keepsake that is irrevocably smashed. I wish it hadn’t happened, but it did. And the thought of leaving the Potter family farm is a cool stream of relief flowing through my parched soul. Pan is somehow a part of all this, so intrinsic that I don’t waste time trying to draw lines between what is real and what is not. It doesn’t matter anymore. Briefly I wonder if I’m crazy, and then I think that it doesn’t matter, either. Because if doing this is crazy, then it’s a hell of a lot better than whatever I was before I decided to do this.
I go out to the kitchen, fill the toy kettle with water, set it on the stove, and turn the flames up high, send them licking blue and yellow against the enamel bottom, then I go through the house, opening all the windows wide to the morning cool, letting it flow into the house and displace the heavy house smells of cooking and cleaning products.
The door is last, and I throw it open to the day, heedless of the flies that will come in. Let them buzz and make spots on the wallpaper and die, legs up, on the windowsills. I don’t care. The sky is high and pale blue with a wispy tracery of high clouds. The air is moist with dew that will burn off too quickly, but now it makes it possible to smell the dry grass standing in the fields, the oil and diesel from the equipment, the chickens down in the chicken yard.
Someone is walking down the long driveway. He is like a figure out of a dream, bareheaded, blond in the new sunlight. His jeans are faded, his checkered work shirt is open. He is leading a fat black-and-white pony by a loop of baling twine. The crunch of his boots and of the pony’s hooves remind me of chewing ice. The pony’s ears are up, and he has an intelligent, friendly face. I stand still, watching Tom come, wondering.
He knows I am watching him, but his eyes do not meet mine. Not until he is at the bottom of the steps. The twine is too short to tie to the railing, but he tries. Then he looks up and says, “The tack-and-feed won’t open up for another two hours yet.”
I stand still in the door, looking down on his upturned face, still wondering what it all means. “I had to wake the guy up to buy the pony,” Tom tells me, trying to make his voice light. “Boy, was he pissed,” and it is on those words that his voice breaks, everything breaks loose and comes out. “Please, Lynn, I was wrong. I’ve been treating you bad, I see that now. Don’t go. I love you.”
So this is winning, and as it stabs me, I know it is the only thing that can hurt worse than losing. Making someone you love break like this and plead, making those strong hands shake with fear, it is an abysmal thing to do and I have done it. Tears sting my own eyes. A cold part of me wonders in an aside if Tom ever feels this bad when he makes me give in, if Tom suffers at all when he forces me to cap
itulate. But somehow it doesn’t matter if he feels it, because I feel it, and it’s part of how I’m made. My kind of love does not seek mastery, does not want it. “Please stay,” he is saying. “I’ll try to make it right.”
“Tom,” I say, and come down the steps to take him in my arms. I hold him as if he were Teddy, badly frightened by a sudden fall. There is the same stiffness in his body, the same unevenness in his breathing. He holds me closer, as if he would pull me inside his body. This is real. I rub my face against him, and I know what is true. This is real, we are real, and though we nearly broke it, our love doesn’t have to be broken.
“If you say I’ve lost you, Lynn,” he says, and I know he is crying, “I’ve lost everything.”
Cloven Hooves Page 15