by Haven Kimmel
Rebekah sighed and tried to sleep but her eyes kept opening without her permission and her hips against the hard futon ached so badly they felt broken. When she walked it seemed she was walking on a broken pelvis, too, bones grinding against bones like the graphics in an arthritis commercial. Was it a Tuesday? Tuesday was a good deal like Monday, or Wednesday, for that matter. In fact, the only different day was Sunday, which Peter spent with his parents. Rebekah had gradually withdrawn from the visits and dinners, citing exhaustion. Kathy came to see her sometimes, and always brought a gift for the baby. There was no animosity between them, just an unspoken agreement built on common sense. Sometimes on a Sunday, Hazel would stop by with Oliver. It was such a brief time—a couple hours at most—and each time Hazel was there, Rebekah saw precisely how much she had missed, what was gone of his life already and would never be reclaimed. He had been just a sprite when she left, and now he was a strong, almost stocky towheaded boy. A little Viking.
She turned over, with difficulty, to her left side. Today was not Sunday, so there was no Hazel, no Oliver. No Claudia. Rebekah’s eyes stung, and she took a deep breath, trying not to cry. Claudia had never called her, not one time. She’d never come to see her. As far as Rebekah knew, she’d never inquired after her, didn’t care how she was.
Rebekah moved to her bed, where she lay on her side and thought about Claudia. She told Hazel some things, like how often she dreamed about Claudia and the content of those dreams, but there were other things she didn’t say. She didn’t say, for instance, that sometimes she awakened in the night, her mouth dry and her heart skipping around in her chest, because she harbored an irrational, overwhelming fear that someone else was living in Claudia’s house. She would lie in the dark and feel first the fear and then a sweeping sensation of jealousy she’d never, ever known before. It was not what she’d felt when she heard about Mandy and Peter, not at all. That had been mostly confusion, shock—a domestic threat. This was something else; this was a monster. Every week she found a way to ask Hazel, in a roundabout way, whether Claudia and Oliver were alone at the house, and every week Hazel said of course. Who else would be there? Each time she asked, Rebekah both wanted to know and did not want to know, all at once. There was a pause in the air between the asking and the answer, and in that pause was a thrill. She couldn’t explain it. She did know that more than once she’d imagined someone—someone not at all like Rebekah—cooking, or walking down the stairs with Oliver, and Rebekah simply killed her. It was impossible, she would tell herself in more lucid moments, that she was dreaming of killing anyone, even a nonexistent person. Impossible. And yet the feeling didn’t go away, month after month—the fear and dread and the grisly violence remained right on the surface of her consciousness. Alive: it was a living feeling, and when it came Rebekah felt herself sit up, wake up, her bruised bones thrumming, her senses sharp as knives.
She opened her eyes. In front of her was Peter’s dresser, the top of which was littered with his belongings—loose change, scraps of paper, souvenirs, she didn’t know what it all was. Yes, she did: it was irritating, that’s what. And there was his guitar, propped up on a cheap stand in the corner, getting dusty. He never played it anymore, claiming he needed privacy in order to compose. She had imagined, during their conversation on Christmas Day, spending evenings in front of the fire, the light flickering, Peter singing. If she was honest, and why not, she didn’t have anything else to do, she’d somehow put Claudia and Oliver in the scene, too; they had been in the background, enjoying it with her. There was nothing she wouldn’t have shared with them, including her miraculous reconciliation, her Great Love returned to her.
Maybe she would go out and sit on the porch, try to take a walk down to the mailbox. Her sciatic nerve was pinched; the long ligaments under her abdomen were in constant pain. If she stood up too fast she fainted. But standing up gradually gave her time to look down at the bedroom floor, something she usually avoided doing. There were gaps between the cheap pine boards, wide enough for hair and dirt, even coins, to collect there. Kathy had painted the floor an institutional blue-gray that had worn badly, become more depressing than the unfinished boards themselves. The nylon area rug Peter had put next to the bed was unraveling. All manner of debris, even dead leaves, were gathered in the corners and against the baseboards. Rebekah put her hand over her eyes, took deep breaths. Something very bad had happened, and she was unable to think about it clearly. All the clues were here, but her mind was so sluggish, her motivations and desires were so distant from her they might as well have belonged to a stranger.
In order to stand, she had to believe she remembered how. She argued with herself, was persuasive, and the next thing she knew she was standing. Rebekah had imagined, back in the mythical, unpregnant time, that she would never waddle as most pregnant women did. She would never waddle, she’d never dress stupidly, she’d never complain. Today she wore a gigantic flannel nightgown Hazel had brought home from the store. There was a hole under one arm and the hem had come out. Without socks or shoes, the floor was clammy, gritty, but she had a hard time reaching her feet without help.
Rebekah took a step forward, moaned involuntarily, then waddled back into the living room. Peter’s fish fought the good fight in their dirty aquarium, and right next to the struggling real fish, animated underwater creatures swam through a black, clean sea on the screen saver on Peter’s computer. Rebekah sat down at the desk, touched the mouse, and the fish disappeared, leaving behind the text of Peter’s last conversation with Mandy. This happened every day. The first time had been an accident; Rebekah had been cleaning and saw her name. She turned away without reading the exchange. But the second time it happened, she realized Peter wasn’t just careless—it didn’t matter to him if she read what he wrote at night.
Peter referred to her by name, or by the initial R. Rebekah had spent most of an afternoon trying to figure out who was speaking, and what on earth they were saying. They seemed to employ a language invented by three-year-olds. Today’s conversation went like this:
Luvrboy614: whats it like
Panda7892: hot sunny
Luvrboy614: hot is nice
Panda7892: when r u coming
Luvrboy614:?
Panda7892:!
Luvrboy614: I told u
Panda7892: 2day is margaritas at Cactus Charlies b there by 5 or else
Luvrboy614: else wut
Panda7892: like that time in Indy
Luvrboy614:!
Luvrboy614: I WISH
On and on they went, for hours every night. The thrust of their dialogue, if it could be said to thrust, was that Luvrboy had gotten himself in a trap (Mandy’s words); Panda was doing some ‘dancing’ in addition to just generally enjoying existence; life would be perfect if they could only be on the beach together, drinking strong alcohol and getting good tans. Today there was this little philosophical blip:
Luvrboy614: wut i miss most about u is u r feral
Panda7892: wuts that mean
Luvrboy614: like a wild animal
Panda7892: screw u
Luvrboy614: sigh
Neither Peter nor Rebekah ever mentioned Mandy or Florida or Happy Hour at Cactus Charlie’s. Their conversations were always innocuous, there was never any confrontation. When he came through the front door, or if Rebekah called him at work to ask him to bring something home with him, he always said, “How ya doing, kiddo?” in just the way he’d always talked to her. Sweet. He was a sweet man, and she got it—she understood that he was always kind and cooperative, and he always did exactly as he pleased. Kathy had told her that when Peter was in elementary school, she would send him to his room to do his homework, and an hour later he’d come out with his baseball bat or a comic book. She’d say, “Homework done?” And he’d say, “It sure is,” with a smile so convincing Kathy didn’t check, and the homework was never done.
Rebekah sat back, sighed. She needed a pillow behind her back but couldn’t have one without getting
up and going to the couch. There was another letter, an actual letter she’d been carrying around unread for three days since she’d found it tucked under the windshield wiper of her car on Sunday. That night she slid it under her pillow, but found that having it there wasn’t conducive to healthy sleep, so she’d moved it into the book she was reading. Yesterday and today she’d carried it in the pocket of her mammoth nightgown, and taking it out she discovered it had bent to the shape of her thigh and the flap had come unsealed. On the front was her name written in her father’s handwriting. She recognized it as she would a photograph of him. She took out the folded pages of lined notebook paper, put them back. Just looking at them, the awkward way they’d been arranged to fit in the envelope, made her sad. What could cause a man like Vernon Shook to put pen to paper? She closed her eyes, tried to imagine him sitting at the kitchen table, so full of…what? There was nothing there, no anger or sorrow or regret. She could see the table, exactly as she’d left it, but not her father. And not her father writing. What made her finally take the letter out and smooth the crumpled pages on Peter’s desk wasn’t curiosity—she was too tired to care, really—but the thought that someday she’d have this to tell Claudia in person. Oh, by the way, I got a letter from my dad. Claudia would look up from what she was doing, or she’d turn from the kitchen sink, and say Really? And then Rebekah would take it out of her pocket, just like she had a few minutes ago, and Claudia would accept it, smoothing it out on the counter at Hazel’s, or next to the toaster at home, just as Rebekah was doing.
Dear Rebekah, I bet you didnt expect to get a letter from me, you know I am not much of a writer as I had to leave school too soon to help grandpa on the farm. Now Rebekah there are lots of things you dont know and I am not about to tell. Times before you was born and like and we could have been a different family if things had worked out different but their not. This house is sure not the same as it was, I come home of an evening and its quiet. The Bible tells us we will be change in the twinkle of an eye and I look toward that day when I will see your mother again and others I have love. But this is not a sermon, it hurts just to hold a pen so long I dont see how Pastor does it. I thought I was to be called up to the ministry, I was sure of it but there was something so heavy on my heart and the Elders couldn’t forgive although God will take it up with me on that glorious day ALL will be forgave. Was a long dark time I forgot Gods will not mine be done. Keep that in your mind Rebekah about Gods will when I say this next part. I know you arent any more living with that woman thank the Lord, though one day I seen you at the grocery and my heart about stopped as you had that baby, I thought how could that be him so soon. Now you are back with that other one and whatever you are thinking about him you are wrong. Pastor says nothing pleases the Lord like one of His own comes home. You may recall Cyrus and Penny Jester, well they have been marry 9 years and never blessed with children. If you keep your child he is hell bound there is no more to say. We have all of us prayed and prayed over it and Pastor says the Jesters can have your baby and we will make him new as an angel. I counted and no when your time is and I will come right to the hospital and take that child from the arms of Satan to the heavenly kingdom of god, this is what I want to give to you as last things from
Your father,
Vernon Shook
Rebekah folded the letter and placed it back in the envelope, her hands shaking. White stars danced at the edge of her vision. She ran her finger over her name written in her father’s hand. If she had one wish—no, that never worked—if she could wish something, it would be to see Ruth as a girl. And what if Rebekah were able to say to Ruth, don’t, don’t marry him, he will eat away your spirit like a cancer, would she do it? Would Rebekah sacrifice the finely calibrated puzzle of her own genes? Her red hair, which was Vernon’s, after all; the set of her jaw? And would Ruth, knowing how the story ended, listen to her?
She started as if she’d been sleeping, looked around at the bleak accommodations. She owned nothing, having left all of her belongings at Claudia’s, even her sewing machine. She owed nothing. There was a possibility, vague and fearsome, just at the edge of her consciousness, but she couldn’t reach it. Standing up from the desk chair was easier than from the bed, and soon she was on the couch, an old musty quilt wrapped around her. A fever was rising in her like a velvet curtain on a silent film, blocking the pain in her back and in her legs just long enough for her to fall asleep. Outside the sun was promising and the world was new; the trees, the soil in the fields surrounding the cabin awoke, and the baby, too, awakened but as if to thunder, and turned over, then turned again.
“Are you going to get one of these?” Hazel asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re stopped in front of the rawhides, I thought maybe you were going to get one for Bandit.”
“Oh. Sure, yes. Pick one out.”
In the child’s seat of the grocery cart, Oliver wrestled with his restraint. When he became angry enough, he pounded on the back of Claudia’s hands with his fists. He called her Ma, which made sense, and Hazel, Neem.
“Get the chicken-flavored one. She’ll like that.” Hazel lifted her glasses and read the label. “Is this what it claims to be, a raw piece of hide?”
Oliver had nearly figured out the clasp on the restraint when his fingers slipped off. Furious, he bounced up and down in the seat, rocking the cart.
“Whoa, Bamm-Bamm,” Hazel said, reaching in her bag for something to distract him. She pulled out a wooden boat, which he instantly stuck in his mouth. “If pieces of that show up later, don’t blame me. I wanted to bring the zwieback.”
“It turns to cement when it dries.”
“We would cross that bridge,” Hazel said, tossing the chicken-flavored bone in the cart. “Maybe we should give Oliver a rawhide. Like the kind for puppies?”
Claudia could see the grocery list she’d left on the counter, could see the first three items: milk, diapers, baby food. They went without saying. What came after? Subtle things like poultry seasoning and ChapStick. But not those. She tried to concentrate on what was before her, but she was in the pet aisle, which meant birdseed and cat litter on one side, laundry detergent and bathroom cleaner on the other. Was that it? Laundry detergent? She tried to picture the shelf above the washing machine, couldn’t remember anything about the last time she’d washed clothes.
“Hazel, why am I here?”
“To know God, love Him, and serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.”
“Was I out of something?”
“I don’t know, milk, diapers, baby food?”
“What did I say when you called? I said I have to go to the grocery store to get…you say the rest.”
“Yes, I wasn’t really listening.”
Oliver pulled so hard at the strap around his waist, one end nearly came dislodged. He looked up at Claudia and showed all eight of his teeth, the way dogs will when they’re happy, or before they bite. He cried Mamamamama, holding his arms up, pleading for freedom.
“He’s very manipulative, this one,” Hazel said. “Less like a Gemini than—”
“Was it animal? Vegetable? Was it food or something else?”
“—an Aries. But that would mean he was born much earlier than the date on his birth certificate.”
Claudia glanced around the store. She was too distracted to try to complete this errand, and the only sane thing to do would be to go home and when she got the list, come back. And that would mean enduring the countless difficulties of getting Oliver into his car seat, out of his car seat, all over again.
“Let’s head this way, shall we?” Hazel asked, heading toward Frozen Foods and Dairy.
“Eggs!” Claudia said, as soon as she saw them. “That was one thing, eggs. There was more, but that’s a start.”
It was June 25, more than a month after Ludie’s traditional day to begin spring cleaning. Claudia meant to abide by the ritual, even though the parts of the house she used got
cleaned all the time. This morning she’d started in her old bedroom, at that end of the upstairs hallway. She stripped the beds of the sheets Rebekah had slept on, and hung the comforter on the line outside. She took down the curtains, cleaned the windows, vacuumed behind the radiator, checked the closet. Nothing there to speak of, besides linens and some old winter coats. She polished the desktop, blew the dust off her books. She had closed the door behind her.
“Perhaps you were thinking of making peanut butter cookies,” Hazel said, checking the eggs for secret breaks.
That was it—Claudia saw the whole list. Baking soda, that was the subtle thing she’d needed. She wrapped her hands around Hazel’s head, smashing her puffy hair, then leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “Thank you, thank you.” Oliver waved, made his kiss-face, said, “Bye-bye, Neem. Bye-bye.”
“Do you want to come in?” Hazel asked, stepping out of the Jeep. “The cats would love to see Oliver.”
Claudia laughed, picturing poor Sprocket the last time they were there, tearing through the house with his tail tucked between his legs, fleeing from Oliver, who was giggling madly and doing his Frankenstein run, yelling, “HEE key key key key.”