“Delancey.”
“Yes.” The woman looked up and nodded. “That’s right. That’s very good. But Matthew Delancey Fry doesn’t have a sister.” She went back to her charts. “One brother—deceased.”
“Please—I need to know where he is.”
“Confidential.” The woman kept making x’s.
“I’m his only friend.”
“He’s gone. Climbed the fence and walked away. But you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Where’d he go?”
“Look, I don’t know and I don’t care. You’re his friend. You tell us.”
Iona walked toward the river and stood on a cliff overlooking the dam. Ice jutted from the shore. She was his friend, but she didn’t know where he’d go. The roof of the cave collapsed, the shed burned to the ground, the basement windows were boarded shut. She hoped he really was free this time, and hated herself for what she knew that meant.
Sometimes she wished she were as brave as Matthew. She saw him gun the engine and plunge his mother’s Buick into the Snake. The windows were rolled up tight; the boy in the bubble howled with laughter. He had time to decide: Do I want to die? The car floated for a moment, hung in the water, then sank, nose first, the weight of the motor pulling it down to the bottom. Matt saw the riverbed, churning water, jagged rocks, jagged teeth in his brother’s mouth. He stayed calm, rolled down the window an inch at a time, let the water pour in slowly, so there was no fierce wave to drown him, no rush of current to toss him senseless. When the window was down and the car full of water, he simply swam away.
Iona imagined his face and hands, his naked feet, pale and bright as the crescents of little moons in the dark water. What have you done with your shoes, you little shit? His mother slapped him, as if the shoes were the most important thing, more valuable than her car, more precious than a boy’s life.
Perhaps he’d thrown himself in the river without a car this time. You can always stop the pain if you’re willing to make the jump. Now he was trapped beneath the ice near the bank. He’d rise up with the first thaw, bloated and blue.
What else would this river give up in the spring? She saw the skinny yellow cat with its spiked fur, bobbing among beer cans and used condoms. She saw a dog with a bony white head, paddling upstream, exhausted, afraid. She was seven years old. His head went under and came up again, his eyes dark and terrified as her own eyes in the mirror hours later. The dog disappeared a second time and never broke the surface again. A stray, Hannah said, don’t waste your tears. She wiped Iona’s face with the corner of her green apron. The cloth was rough and smelled of the fish her brothers had caught and her mother had gutted.
Iona stared at the ice. She saw dark shapes forming beneath the surface, the shadows of clouds moving across the sky, the vague outlines of drowned animals.
21
Jay Tyler made himself walk, hobble, that was more the truth, though he hated the word, that image of himself. He remembered a child’s riddle: What walks on four legs in its youth, two when grown, three when old? Now he knew the simple answer. He banged his cane into the cement—he’d just gotten to the last stage faster than most.
A week ago he’d seen Matt Fry scuffling across the bridge, miles from home. Jay was driving that day, and he pulled over, said: “Hop in—it’s cold.” Matt kept moving. He was thicker than Jay remembered, still thin but no longer frail—a grown man. “It’s on my way,” Jay said, which was true, since neither one of them seemed to be going anywhere in particular. But Matthew didn’t answer, didn’t even nod.
Now Jay limped from one end of town to the other, till every muscle ached, till his bones hummed like tuning forks struck hard, ringing through his body. Sometimes he stole Darvocet from Delores when he got home, to numb the pain, and sometimes he stayed awake with it, to feel the throbbing, to know his body again.
This morning was raw and clear, the gusts on the bridge fierce as they whipped down the canyon of the Snake. He saw how people looked at him, quickly and with disgust, as he himself had looked at Matt Fry. His denim jacket was flannel-lined, not nearly warm enough. Even so, the armpits of his T-shirt would be ringed with sweat when he got home. His jeans hung loose in the butt. He no longer bothered with underwear, and the wind seared through the cloth, shriveled him—that was the part no one saw, his only secret. He wore fingerless gloves, like a beggar, a wool watch cap, sneakers, two pairs of socks. When he got home his toes would be stiff and cold, bright red. His hair stuck out from under his cap, long light hair, not just blond, streaked with gray now, already, old man.
Cars buzzed past him, swerved close enough for him to feel the rush of air pushing him toward the rail of the bridge. Day after day, he imagined himself falling—but, didn’t fall—kept walking instead, growing stronger, hoping to be muscular and lean, his old self, though he knew that was impossible, that he might be strong enough, in time, but he would never again approach his former elegance, never shoot toward the water, limbs perfectly aligned.
The little girls reminded him—Dory, Kim, Tina, dark eyes, honey hair, little hands—they drove past on Main Street, big in their car and safe. They honked to scare him because they were afraid. People moved out of his way as he lunged down the sidewalk. He took up more than his share of space, wild man with a stick, so women cringed against buildings, averting their gazes, clutching children to their thighs.
Sometimes he saw Willy Hamilton rolling past him in the cruiser. He thought he caught Willy looking in his rearview mirror, not once but many times, even blocks away, when Jay would be small as a broken toy in the distance.
He knew he looked mean, lurching along the street—eyes narrowed, teeth clenched, stick jabbing. When the women cowered, he wanted to whack them with his cane, to give them what they expected. But he longed for one to speak to him, to look at him as she would look at any other man, with kindness. He wished to be among the living, to pass close enough to the bodies of others to feel their warmth. Where shoulders rubbed or thighs brushed some small part of him might be healed, some tiny bit of rage might drop away. He was startled by the way he understood Matt Fry—clever Jay, who was going to college; pretty Jay, loved by the girls for his beauty; graceful Jay, who could spin toward water and fill the crowd with awe—how had he fallen so far? He remembered Iona Moon, what he’d heard about her and Matt when they were kids, and he wondered if she might be merciful enough to lie down with him too.
Cold wind in his face made him think of his mother. The pity he felt for himself tangled with the pity he felt for her, inseparable, twisted tight. She’d told him her river story that night in the kitchen after he and Willy had imagined her dead. She told him how she swam away and his father ran down the shore. Jay’s memory of this came from the body, not the brain; he felt himself pressed against his father, smelled the bitter odor of fear, tasted salt sweat. He felt the terrible heat and the damp matted hair of his father’s chest.
Seeing how they shared sorrow made Jay feel less alone for a moment but more afraid. She was just a woman, a person like himself; not a mother, just sweet Delores, who was once a girl waltzing with her father, dancing on his toes, a child who wanted life to be that simple and that good always, who was amazed by the disappointments of her life, how numerous they were, how small. He stood on the bridge, looking down at the water, and realized he was amazed too.
He thought of the prehistoric flood, Lake Bonneville ripping open this canyon of river, leaving behind giant boulders, cutting sheer walls that dropped sixty feet or more, five stories—you might as well leap to cement as hit water from that height. But there were cliffs he’d climbed to jump into the swift river. He remembered clambering up the hillside, the dry grass scorched by sun, so hard it sliced his feet. Swallows had built their nests in the shadows all along the canyon walls, mounds of mud and tiny stones, little pebble caves. Eagles soared with the updraft.
Downriver, he knew he would find the fish hatcheries, trout farms; at feeding time, fish churned the water, whirle
d it into a frenzy, and he thought of that whenever he jumped, what it would be like to swim among them, thousands of trout, to hit water thick with fish and feel their bodies everywhere rubbing against him in the dark river.
He had a vision of himself, now, flying off the cliffs again, his body lithe and straight, never broken. He wanted to soar, wanted to leap and spin into the green water, to be sucked down toward the sharp hidden rocks, dragged underwater, spit up downstream. You had to swim at an angle, yes, just like Delores had said, at an angle against the current, steady but strong, toward the bank, toward the place where you could clutch the rushes and pull yourself to the safe shore.
His chest ached from breathing so hard in the cold; his right knee had turned rubbery, and he had to lock his left to keep from slipping on the ice. He had gotten himself too far from home.
It was noon, and White Falls was only thirty-two miles away. Iona Moon had plenty of time, too much time, and she wondered why she was trying to go home at all. Perhaps all her brothers would be in Missoula, working at the pulp mill for the winter, and she’d find her father in the house alone. She imagined knocking, then saw that the door in her mind was unlocked, open a crack—her slightest touch opened it more. She called their names, but no one came and no one answered. In each bedroom she found the bed neatly made, the white curtains washed. Who had dusted these dressers—mopped these floors—who had folded the clothes so neatly and put them all away? A Bible lay on the nightstand in her father’s room. She wanted to go inside and see the last words he had read but was afraid he’d find her here, sitting on his bed, holding his book. She opened her mother’s room last. The chair sat close to the bed—her chair, just as she’d left it. Leon’s carvings stood in a line on the dresser: little bear, little bird, perfect man, little woman. But the bed was stripped, the closet empty. She went to the window, saw her father below her, walking from the barn to the house. She ran down the stairs to greet him, and they stood in the kitchen, face to face. His sleeves were pushed up around his elbows; blood streaked his hands and arms. He had just delivered a calf. “Where were you?” he said at last. Then he turned to the sink to wash himself.
She crossed the bridge to Route 2, where the trailer homes clustered in the park. She thought of the girls she’d known in high school who might have married already and moved here, believing they’d found freedom. But babies came fast in tin houses. Each year a trailer grew tighter until it felt like a can of people, all lying on top of one another, smothering in the dark.
She made a U-turn back toward town. The buildings seemed shrunken, with flat roofs and small windows. There was one new sign on an old store: TATTOOS. She wondered how business was. She cruised out to the Roadstop Bar. Maybe she’d go shoot pool tonight, throw darts and drink beer. She saw herself laughing, head thrown back, one hand on her hip, cue stick tapping the floor while the jukebox moaned and a man confessed that he’d shot his baby by the river. She might talk to some boy who knew her by reputation, one of those older boys who had noticed her long ago but had never actually spoken to her until this night when he challenged her to a game of pool. Later, they’d go out to her car for an hour or two. She wished she had the blanket from Mrs. Hagestead’s. When the boy was gone she’d wrap it around herself and go to sleep. She’d have a dream and forget.
She passed Woolworth’s and the hardware store, the Mercantile and the White Bull. She saw the Park Inn, a bright yellow shack covered with white signs, the entire menu printed outside: fried shrimp, cinnamon rolls, burger deluxe. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning. She wanted to sit down with Eddie and eat a stack of pancakes, five high, a side of sausage, endless cups of coffee thick with cream. She wanted to hear him say: You don’t look like you could eat half that. Then they’d be at the beginning, and everything could start again. But she knew there was no point—because it would always end exactly the same way.
She drove out Willow Glen Road and finally stopped in front of Jay Tyler’s house. There were no footprints in the snow of his rose garden. She longed to touch his scarred legs and say: Now I understand. She wanted to tell him about Eddie, to explain the difference between grief and self-pity: the first makes you sad and strong, the second leaves you bitter. She wanted to say she hadn’t forgotten his body, that one lover did not erase another, that no matter how much he thought he had changed, his bones were still his bones, his blood his only, and if she touched him blind, she would know him even now, the unmistakable curve of his shoulders, the exact length of his arms.
She headed back to the numbered streets. Every yard had a fence. What were people trying to keep out? The most dangerous thing in this town was drifting snow. On Seventh, she expected to see Willy’s sky-blue Chevy, but instead there were two cruisers in the drive, and she knew what he’d done. Poor Willy, you could have spared us both that night last June, and Matt too, if only you hadn’t taken us to the tracks. She knew he meant to pay for this mistake the rest of his life; he’d chase down reckless drivers and rescue children lost in the woods, find old ladies who ran away from the Lutheran Home, pull despondent drunks off the bridge—he’d save them all, but not her, and not himself.
She kept driving. There was only one place she could go, one refuge in this whole town.
“Jesus,” Sharla Wilder said when she opened the door. “I thought you were gone for good, Iona.” She wore a tattered robe. Her mascara smeared into dark circles around her eyes. “What time is it?”
“Three o’clock.”
“Tell me everything.”
“Can I come in first?”
“I’m an idiot,” Sharla said, stepping back to open the door wide. “I just woke up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No matter.” Sharla bustled down the hall, and Iona followed. “You hungry?”
“Starving.”
Maywood still hovered in the kitchen, her head floating on the yellow wall above the table. She watched her daughter scramble eggs in the skillet. She heard the kettle whistle and saw the toast jump out of the toaster, crisp and dark. Sharla slathered it with butter, scooped eggs onto a plate, stirred instant coffee in a mug of water, and whirled around to set this meal before the skinny, dirty girl. If Maywood Wilder had had hands instead of just a face, she would have covered her eyes to keep herself from witnessing her child’s weary defeat: Iona Moon had laid her head on the table and fallen into quick, deep sleep.
When she woke two hours later, Iona found the plate of cold eggs and a note from Sharla: Gone to the store. No work tonight—called in sick. Home soon.
In the bathroom, she stripped without looking at her body; if she caught herself in the mirror by accident she’d be surprised by a bony girl. Water ran over her, lukewarm at first, then hotter and hotter, as hot as she could stand it, and when she finally turned it off, her arms were sore and pink.
Sharla rapped at the door. She had clean towels and a spare robe, wool socks and a long T-shirt. “Thought you might need these,” she said.
Iona rubbed her hair with a towel, roughly, the way her father had when she was small. She tried to comb it, but it was too snarled—the comb snagged; her arms ached.
She found Sharla in the kitchen again, cooking macaroni and cheese. “Sorry about the eggs,” Iona said.
“No need to be.”
“I want to be glad to see you.”
“I know.”
Iona could only eat half of what Sharla gave her before she felt too full to swallow. Later they sat together on the couch, and Sharla poured a glass of wine for each of them. “Drink up,” Sharla said, “I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Bad news?”
“No—a blessed event.”
Iona glanced at Sharla’s belly.
“Not me,” Sharla said. “That would be bad news. Jeweldeen. Your old friend Jeweldeen is going to have a baby. Got married last summer—August—baby’s due in February.” Iona counted the months on her fingers. First one can come any time.
“Who?” I
ona said.
“Leon.”
“Leon who?”
“Leon, your brother.”
“No,” Iona said, “she wouldn’t.”
“Well she did.”
“Where are they living?”
“With your father.”
“Where do they sleep?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter? Leon’s room, I guess.”
But Iona knew they wouldn’t sleep there. Jeweldeen wouldn’t stand for it, that cramped, cold bedroom with its single bed and thin northern light. No, why would they sleep there when Hannah’s room was bright and twice the size?
“What’s wrong?” Sharla said.
“Nothing.”
Iona lay awake in Sharla’s bed thinking of her brother and Jeweldeen. Dangerous, Leon had said. Did he think of that the first time he lay down with her? Did the word echo weeks later when she said: I’ve got one in the oven? Iona remembered Jeweldeen’s body the summer they were ten, how they rubbed against each other, naked on the floor of the cellar, the very place where Sharla lay, years later. Dangerous. Leon had it wrong. A man’s danger was a small thing. But she figured Jeweldeen and Leon were a good match: they both thought of sex the same way. She hoped they’d each learned something since they’d been with her. Still, Iona preferred Jeweldeen to Leon—at least her skin was smooth, her hands clean. Maybe Jeweldeen had taught him to feign kindness. Maybe he wouldn’t have to move so fast or rub so hard if he took the time to get his pants off. And he’d done that. But she wondered anyway. Did Jeweldeen lie beneath him in the hayloft, as stiff and scared as Iona? That summer in the cellar, Jeweldeen said: This isn’t so great. Her body was pale, much softer than Iona’s. She was plump and almost had breasts; her hair smelled sweet as sugared apricots. Boys already liked Jeweldeen, and the man at the candy store gave her licorice whips.
Later, Iona learned that even boys who didn’t like you much might want to suck your lips and leave red marks on your neck. Boys were all knot and bone, push and shove; boys were sharp elbows, hard thighs. Their wet hair smelled like dog fur; their hands smelled of gasoline. They whispered names. But not your name.
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