Lucy’s breath went wild, and her eyes widened with the same fear she saw on Jeptha’s face. She ducked so Jeptha couldn’t see her. She needed air. She burst through the doors of the church so hard they slammed behind her and ran to her car. Leaning her arms on the trunk, her breath only grew shallower as tears flooded her eyes. She felt so alone. She hadn’t spoken to LouEllen since the day she kicked her out, but she missed her now with a physical intensity. She wanted one of her hugs. Lucy heard a car slow down on the highway and looked up, every cell in her body hoping it was LouEllen. But the car drove on slowly, the man and woman inside staring at her until they drove over the hill. Lucy realized what a sight she must be, wearing the long white dress she’d bought for this, her belly grazing the trunk of the car, tears streaming down her face.
She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the cold wind blow right through her dress. She breathed in deeply and blew out through her mouth, remembering the tricks that had helped her stop crying in the middle of class after her parents died. She’d gotten through that. She could get through this.
She thought of the night with the Christmas lights, remembering how full of certainty she had been. This was the right choice. She would walk back into the church, marry Jeptha, and give her baby a father. They would build a life and a family together. She didn’t need LouEllen to do that. This was her family now.
The baby kicked then, his foot digging deep against the side of her belly, so hard she could see a little ridge in her dress. “Shh,” she said to him, rubbing the hard spot. “It’s okay. We will be okay, you and me.” After a minute, the baby shifted inside her, and his foot pulled away from her side to parts unknown. Following his lead, she walked back into the church to get married.
13
JEPTHA WASN’T SURE THERE had been a happier day in his life than his wedding. He spent much of it pinching himself, sure there was no way it could be true. But Lucy had walked down the aisle, her white dress falling gently over her belly. She wore an expression he had never seen: her lips curved up in a small smile that trembled on and off, her eyebrows pinched together slightly. Like a doe with a new fawn, she looked both older and younger, tougher and more vulnerable than ever. Jeptha felt a sudden hunger for her. Not sexual, just all-consuming. He had to stop himself from rushing down the aisle and hustling her into his car. Instead, he gripped his wrist with the other hand and squeezed until it hurt while smiling so big his cheeks hurt for two days after.
Lucy held out her hand. His palm was sweating like he’d just washed it, so he wiped it on his dress pants before he took hers. A few people in the congregation laughed, but he didn’t care. He held on tight. He saw Lucy glance behind her for one brief minute, and his heart stopped. But then she squeezed his hand tighter and nodded at the preacher to start. The man said things, Jeptha knew, because they were married at the end, but all Jeptha heard was a drone like Charlie Brown’s teacher. He couldn’t stop smiling at Lucy, stunned that he’d somehow found himself here in front of her. She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, and she was marrying him. The preacher had to ask him twice if he wanted to marry Lucy. “Yes,” he finally said, never taking his eyes off her. “I mean, I do.” It was a testament to how shocked he was to be in this moment that he hadn’t even blushed when Deanna had whispered loudly, “About right, him not listening at his own wedding.”
He paid attention when the preacher asked Lucy the question, though. He was terrified she’d say no. He watched her as she looked at the preacher, listening to his words, nodding along. He saw her swallow hard before she answered. She looked at Jeptha and then out into the crowd. Afterward, everyone in town joked with him about how she was thinking of pulling a runner, but Jeptha knew it was LouEllen she was searching for. She turned back to Jeptha and gave him a smile before she said, “I do.”
Of course, LouEllen never showed. Not to the ceremony. Or the reception, such as it was. Just punch and cookies in the basement with a few baby gifts sprinkled in. Jeptha hated her for hurting Lucy that way. But as the weeks stretched on and he had Lucy all to himself, he loved her a little for leaving him as the only family Lucy had.
THERE WAS A simple joy in being sober and living the kind of life with Lucy that he imagined everyone else did. He was so caught up in it that he didn’t even miss drinking that much. Trying to be a better man for her and the baby seemed like the least he could do. The easiest way for him to be a better man was to stop drinking.
Instead, he woke up with Lucy at 6:00 a.m. and made coffee—half regular and half decaf—and got out the cereal stuff while Lucy showered. They ate together, talking about their days and the baby before Lucy left for work. While she was gone at work, Jeptha spent his days cleaning out the trailer to make room for all the baby stuff Lucy insisted they needed. They both knew that the pitiful corner of the living room they’d assigned to the baby was a sad cousin to the room that LouEllen had all done up in her house. But Lucy never said anything, so neither did Jeptha. There was no way he could get his trailer looking as nice as that, but he was determined to try. Remembering that Lucy had once said she wanted a bright turquoise room, Jeptha set to making it happen for her.
Standing in the paint aisle at Walmart, he called her. She was only about three hundred feet away from him, manning her checkout lane, but he wanted the paint to be a surprise.
“What’s your favorite color blue again?” he asked.
“Jeptha, I’m working. Teresa’s gonna kill me if she sees me on the phone.”
“I know! But just quick, when you say turquoise, do you mean like that pale robin’s egg color or bright turquoise like the sky in summer before sunset?”
“The sky in summer before sunset. Bright.”
“Thank you kindly!” Jeptha said and hung up. He hauled two cans of flat paint up to the mixing station and, handing the paint chip he’d picked to the kid manning it, told him, “This one, bright as you can make it.”
He grabbed a brush, some tape, and a roller, determined to do this right. He checked out at the aisle farthest from Lucy and ran out the door before she could see him. Back at the trailer, he taped around the windows and the floor and moved all the baby stuff they’d shoved into a corner into the bedroom. He slapped up one coat. While he waited for it to dry, he assembled the crib he’d picked up at LouEllen’s house a week back, where he’d wilted under her hard gaze the whole time he took it apart and hauled it out. When the first coat was only a little tacky, he did the second, grateful that today was a long day for Lucy. This was Jeptha’s first home improvement project on his own home, and it was taking longer than he’d thought it would. Finally done, he sat on the couch and surveyed the room, thinking how good it looked and how nice a beer would taste.
Fingers fluttering, he pushed all the furniture back where it belonged and brought the crib over. He set it in the corner between the armchair and the couch. They’d have to lean over the arms of both pieces of furniture to get the baby out, but it was the only spot for it. He found the bag of baby stuff that Lucy had bought and put a bright yellow cover on the changing pad. He laid it down on the kitchen table beside a basket she’d assembled full of diapers and wipes and such a vast variety of ointments that Jeptha wasn’t sure if they were having a baby or prepping for surgery. It seemed unsanitary to have poopy diapers on top of the table where they ate, but it was the only flat surface, and they’d both agreed it would have to do. Then Jeptha assembled the swing Lucy had bought. It was a no-go. The damn thing took up six feet of real estate, a fact that Jeptha didn’t realize until after he’d pinched his finger three times setting it up. They’d have to settle for the bouncy seat that Lucy had mentioned. It would fit under the kitchen table.
Exhausted, Jeptha finally sat on the couch. The idea of a beer flickered briefly in his mind, but he pushed it away and turned on the TV, watching The Day After Tomorrow for the eight hundredth time until he nodded off.
“Jeptha,” he heard from beside him on the couch. “Jeptha.”
/>
He opened his eyes. Lucy was staring at the room, smiling.
“You like it?” he asked.
“It’s perfect.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
“No,” she said, holding his hand. “It’s perfect. I got to pick everything out and you did the hard part.”
He laughed. “Well, I’ve got to take that swing down. You can help with that.”
“Yeah, that ain’t trailer-sized,” she said, looking over to where it took up their whole kitchen floor. “I about killed myself getting past it. I’ll take it back tomorrow. Get that bouncy chair.”
“I measured. It’ll fit under the table.”
Lucy squeezed his hand and leaned back against him. “I love this movie,” she said, tucking her legs up under her and spreading the blanket over them both. He put his arm around her and held her to him, thinking he’d be okay if he could spend the rest of his life right there.
BUT AS THE days passed, costs added up, Lucy’s exhaustion grew, and Jeptha got more and more stressed. Never more than when he thought about how little money they had and how much more they would need once the baby actually arrived. The tobacco was all in and sold, so there was nothing to do but wait for the check from Bobby, who’d been dropping hints about it not being as much as he’d hoped. Jeptha couldn’t figure that—they’d grown more and lost none of it this year. But Bobby kept insisting costs were up and prices were low, quoting Jeptha this number and that number. Jeptha had never had a head for figures and eventually stopped asking, accepting that he’d get what he’d get and there wasn’t much to do about it.
He’d called around to see if anyone was doing any construction work that he could get on, but the projects were all shut down for the winter. He had gotten a couple days of work helping Dick Slocum frame out an addition for him and Ethel’s grandkids to stay in when they came to visit, but the last day of work had been tacking up heavy plastic sheeting to keep the winter out for the next few months. They wouldn’t start up again until after the baby was due. Jeptha grew desperate—he’d never minded being out of work and having just enough to get by, but now the look on Lucy’s lined, exhausted face and the oncoming train of baby expenses made him bow to pressures he’d heard about but never understood.
He spent three days eyeing his dad’s old suit in his closet, hating the man and everything that had touched his abusive, drunk, cheating body, but finally one cold morning, he manned up and got dressed. When he came out of the bedroom, awkwardly adjusting the shirt collar where it scratched against his neck, all the weariness on Lucy’s face lifted. The old Lucy—the light, happy child he first remembered from church when he was a boy himself—surfaced.
“You’re going to an interview?” she said, her voice full of as much hope as he’d ever heard.
“Gonna try,” he replied, and kissed her hair, loving the soft, purply scent of her shampoo. He walked out the door that day, feeling like a Taylor who might make something of himself. Then he came back in to grab the job ads he’d forgotten.
The look on Lucy’s face sustained him through the drive to town and down through the ammunition plant’s gates. Parking his car, he began to imagine commuting down here every day, getting a paycheck, being the kind of steady man that Lucy could depend on. He walked through the doors to the receptionist, paper in hand.
“I come about the job y’all got, ma’am,” he said.
She was all done up and looked him up and down like he was her equal. The suit, he thought.
“Wonderful. Which one?”
“Um, the open one?” he said, unaware there was more than one.
“Okay, please go down this hall and to the second door on the left. They are interviewing candidates. Oh, and fill this out,” she said, handing him an application form.
Jeptha looked down at it. It was double-sided, covered on both sides with boxes asking about work experience. He made his way slowly to the room, reading it as he went. It was nice of them to give him a pen, but he wasn’t sure what he’d need it for. He could fill out his name, of course, and he was fairly sure he remembered his social, but the work boxes were a mystery to him. Tobacco grower, he guessed he could put down, but for dates? He’d been doing it all his life—could he put that? And construction, well, it was odd jobs here and there. How did he put each of those into dates?
By the time the HR lady stuck her head through the door and called his name, Jeptha had sweated through his undershirt and his button-down and was working his way through the already rank fabric of his father’s uncleaned suit. He thought he’d been nervous at his wedding, but that was nothing.
He shook the woman’s hand, not catching her name because he was too caught up in her perfect hair and red lacquered nails, cut short and professional, and sat at the chair across the desk from her.
“Now …” she said, looking down at the paper, “Jeptha. You have worked construction.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She was silent. Jeptha was silent.
“What kind?” she finally asked.
“All kinds, really, ma’am. Framing, painting, roofing. You name it, I’ve done it.”
“With a company? I don’t see one listed.”
“No, ma’am. On my own, as they needed me. Nothing full time,” Jeptha said. That didn’t seem to be the right answer, given the pursed lips and throat-clearing that followed.
“And your farm?”
“The sin crop.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tobacco, ma’am. Sorry, that’s just what we call it. On account of them saying it ain’t good for you.” Jeptha wiped his soaking palms on the suit pants, horrified to see visible sweat marks. He pressed his hands against them so the woman wouldn’t see.
“I see,” she said. “But no plant experience.”
“No, ma’am. But I can handle equipment. All kinds. Been doing it all my life.”
She sighed and removed her glasses. “Well, thank you, Mr….” She glanced back down at the paper. “Taylor. Oh. From Allen County?”
“Yes,” Jeptha said, slowly. That couldn’t be good.
“Well, thank you for coming in,” the woman said, stacking up her papers.
“That’s it?” Jeptha asked, confused. Wasn’t she going to tell him what the job was about, show him the plant floor?
“We’ll be in touch,” she said, standing up and motioning to the door.
He understood then. She was saying no but didn’t want to dirty her pretty red nails with the actual word. He couldn’t help himself. “So I ain’t getting this job,” he said.
“We’ll be in touch,” she said again.
A simple “no” would have been easier, he thought as he trudged back out the door. At least that word meant something. “We’ll be in touch” was useless, a meaningless statement that would never be true. Jeptha was sure the devil would be shoveling snow in hell before he ever heard this woman’s voice breathing down his phone line.
He flopped into his car. His fingers twitched—they were alive and nervous in a way that Jeptha recognized and hated. He ached for a drink, for the numbness that flowed through him, suddenly remembering the joys of alcohol. Then he saw a shirt of Lucy’s, abandoned there on the passenger seat. He lifted it to his face—the grapey, earthy smell of her filled his nose. He picked up the paper, found the next job he’d circled, and pointed the car down the road.
JEPTHA SPENT THE next two weeks trying for jobs. He left every morning, buoyed by the look on Lucy’s face, and returned every night as beaten down as he’d ever been. He heard “no,” or some version of it, more times than any man ever should. Against all odds, Lucy kept a sense of hope. Jeptha couldn’t bear to be the one to bring spit-moistened fingers to that flame. Any hope he had had was worn down to nearly nothing by the end of the two weeks, and he was right back where he knew he belonged. There was no suit-wearing job at the end of the rainbow for him. Never would be. But Lucy still believed, so Jeptha forced himself on.
At breakfast one Thursday, Jeptha emerged in the suit, and there was no change in Lucy’s face. Maybe she was just tired, he told himself, worn out from not sleeping at night.
“Good morning,” he said.
She flashed him a tired smile and then looked back down at her cereal.
“You all right?”
“Couldn’t sleep last night,” she said. “It’s a long day today and tomorrow.”
“I know you got Walmart and Judy’s today, but what’s tomorrow?”
Jeptha saw her take a deep breath, her nostrils flaring. He closed his eyes, trying to think what he’d said to piss her off.
“You don’t remember,” she said flatly.
“Remember what?” He was panicking. He had no idea what she was talking about. Her due date, he thought wildly. No, that was March 4th. They were still weeks away.
“Childbirth class. It’s at six tomorrow night,” she said, glaring at him.
He looked at her blankly. Then a vague memory came trickling into his head—her telling him to make sure he put a certain date in his calendar, at which point he’d thought, but hadn’t said, What calendar? Looking at her face, he guessed he should have found one and put this date on it.
“Of course you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she said, sighing in a way that sounded more disappointed than angry. Jeptha recognized it because he’d heard it all his life, from everyone who had ever asked anything of him. She sounded like his mother, like his teachers, like she had the night he’d shown up so late at the Fold.
“If you can’t remember childbirth class, I don’t know why I’ve been hoping you might be able to get a job. What on earth was I thinking?” she asked, putting her head in her hands.
He wished she was angry still, wished that he was trying to counter that as opposed to this deflated, resigned Lucy.
“I’ve been trying,” he said, his voice rising slightly. “Ain’t nobody hiring right now.” He knew that was a lie. They were hiring. They just weren’t hiring him.
Holding on to Nothing Page 16