Lonely Souls

by Rosemary Fifield

  “So can I feel your buns?”

  Dawson laughed out loud. “No.”

  She reached forward to do it anyway, but he was quicker than she and grabbed her hands to hold them away from his body. “I said no,” he said, and the smile was gone from his voice. He released her hands, and she slipped them into the pockets of her sweater.

  “Are you still mad at me?” she asked, tipping her face up toward his.

  “I just don’t get it, Shelby. This morning you wanted nothing to do with me.”

  “I got scared when I realized how angry you were with me.”

  “Scared of me.”

  “No, scared of what I had done. Scared that you were done with me. And I realized how much I didn’t want that.”

  Dawson was silent once more, and Shelby was suddenly overcome with nauseating fear. “Say something, Dawson. Please.”

  “I don’t know what to say. Except that I would never turn it off and on like that. I love you, Shelby. I’ve told you that before. It doesn’t just shut off.”

  “But it can be dampened. Or something. Right? Because you’re more cautious now. Something’s changed.”

  “I don’t ever want to be accused of taking advantage of you. In any way. Including your money, or your land, or anything else. I’ll stay clear of you first, to prove it’s not true.”

  “Don’t stay clear of me, Dawson. I don’t want you to stay clear of me. I don’t think you want to take advantage of me. I told you, I don’t know why I said such a stupid thing.”

  “People tell the truth when they’re upset.”

  “But it’s not true. I’ve never thought anything like that about you.” Shelby turned away in angry frustration. “God, I wish I could see your face! I have no idea what you’re thinking.”

  Dawson’s hand lightly touched her scarred left cheek. “Hey. It’s okay. We’re okay.”

  She gave him a tentative smile, still not sure that he trusted her the way he had before.

  “I’m going to bed now, Shelby,” he said quietly. “Thanks for the massage. You’re really good. You could make a career out of that.”

  “Thanks. Good night.”

  She listened to the sound of his bare feet crossing the wooden floor on their way into the kitchen and heard the door to the upstairs open and close. The stairs on the other side of the far wall creaked as he took them two at a time up to the second floor.

  “Ma, I need to talk to you.”

  “I thought you might.” Miriam put the last of the laundry into the washing machine and closed the lid. She and Sonny were in the cellar, standing on the cement pad her boys had poured years ago to keep her washer off the dirt floor. The ancient field stones comprising the foundation of the house rose up from the dirt around the pad. Outside, Sonny had lined the foundation with bales of hay before the snow came to help insulate the old dug basement from the winter cold.

  “It’s not what you think. I need to talk to you about Cassie’s baby.”

  Miriam looked up at her son’s worried face, and her heart skipped a beat. “What about Cassie’s baby?”

  “It’s not mine, Ma.”

  “I know. That’s what you’ve been saying all along.”

  “But I’m thinking of claiming paternity when it’s born. So I could keep it.”

  Miriam stared into his dark eyes and saw the apprehension they held. “Why?”

  Sonny drew a deep breath and the apprehension spread across his earnest face as he looked at her. “Because it’s ours. It’s a Penfield.”

  Miriam stared at him for a long moment, then closed her eyes and pressed one hand against her breastbone as his words swam through her mind.

  “Ma! Are you okay?”

  She opened her eyes to find him anxiously watching her. “I’m not having a heart attack, if that’s what you mean.” She drew a deep breath to calm herself. “So, you’re telling me this is your brother’s child.”

  Sonny nodded.

  “How …”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Miriam’s eyes narrowed in anger as she looked at him. “It matters in every way, Sonny! Did he … attack her too?”

  Sonny nodded, his face tight with pain. “I didn’t want you to know. But there’s a good chance Cassie is going to put this baby up for adoption if we don’t claim it.”

  “Why can’t she just give it to us? That’s what Matthew Littlefoot did.”

  “It’s not 1962, Ma. You can’t do that anymore.”

  Miriam leaned against the washing machine and stared past him at nothing in particular. “Are there more?”

  “More what?”

  “More women that he’s … raped?” She hated saying that sex-laden word out loud, especially to a man, but “attacked” was too benign for the things her son had done.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “So that’s why Donna left him?”

  “I don’t know. Most of this is news to me, too.”

  Miriam closed her eyes again and shook her head, trying to absorb it all.

  “I was a child of rape, wasn’t I?” Sonny’s voice was barely audible. “Pa never had any kind of relationship with my mother, did he?”

  Miriam opened her eyes to look at him. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine your pa seeing her as anything other than someone to take advantage of. She was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was always amazed that Matthew Littlefoot didn’t kill him for ruining his daughter. I don’t know what stopped him.”

  Miriam put her arms out and surrounded Sonny, pulling him close to her ample bosom and resting her head against his chest. “Claiming paternity seems like a huge sacrifice for you to make because of your brother’s behavior.”

  Sonny put his arms around her in return. “It’s just a piece of paper. I don’t care.”

  “What if it’s a girl?”

  “What if?”

  “I’m assuming you’d rather have a boy to help out on the farm.”

  Sonny’s laugh held no humor. “How much has Blake helped out on the farm without being told to do something? Nat was always better at it than he was. All the girls were.”

  Miriam released him with a nod. “You’re right. It wouldn’t matter.” She looked up into his earnest face once more. “So is this what you’re going to do?”

  Sonny nodded. “If you agree. It’s going to mean we’ll have a baby to take care of. Unless Cassie changes her mind after it’s born.”

  “Is ‘we’ going to be more than you and me?”

  Sonny sighed and his dark eyes focused on the wall behind her. “I don’t know, Ma. Shelby changes like the wind. I can’t depend on her.” He looked down at her once more and his face was taut with concern. “I know this could be hard on you, if it’s just the two of us. That’s why I decided I had to tell you the reason why. But maybe I shouldn’t have. Because now you’ll feel obligated to take it, whether you’re up for it or not.”

  Miriam smiled up at him. “Are you saying I’m too old?”

  Sonny smiled back at her. “Do I look like a guy who’s lookin’ to get whooped by his ma?”

  Miriam turned and led the way toward the bulkhead that opened up and out into the backyard where her clothesline waited. “I take it there’s no chance you and Cassie would ever tie the knot. If Shelby was out of the picture, I mean.”

  “There’s always a chance, until she marries someone else, I guess.” Sonny reached around her to open the heavy door, and sunshine streamed in around them. “Nothing’s over ‘til it’s over.”

  Miriam smiled as she stepped outside into the second warm day in a row. “You’re such a good man, Sonny. I’m very proud of you.”

  Sonny looked up at the clear sky overhead as he stepped out to stand beside her. “I’m trying” was all he said.

  Grant and Larry stood beside the gathering tank nestled in the bushes at the foot of Shelby’s driveway. A feeble stream of sap was trickling into it. Grant sighed and looked up at the blue sky. This was the ultimate
April Fool’s Day joke for a sugarmaker.

  “It only got down to thirty-eight at my place last night,” Larry said. “I’ll bet it was warmer here.”

  Grant turned away and climbed back into his truck. Yesterday the sap had run well, but now there was not enough to even worry about. Larry climbed into the passenger seat beside him. “Good day to clean the pans,” Grant said.

  They returned to the sugarhouse and did as Grant had suggested, draining the pans of residual sap in varying stages of density and working at removing the niter that accumulated when minerals hardened on the sides of the pans during boiling. They carried more wood into the shed that opened into the sugarhouse directly in front the firebox and neatened up the various corners where assorted items had accumulated during their boiling frenzies. This warm weather was an anomaly that would not last. The weatherman was already talking about a storm building out over the Atlantic.

  They made the rounds of their gathering tanks in late afternoon and agreed there was no point in keeping the sap that had pooled in small amounts in the bottoms. It had sat in sixty-degree temperatures for hours and would be sour anyway. They dumped the tanks and set them up for when the sap would run again, then headed back to the sugarhouse. Larry drove away in his own truck, and Grant went into his cabin to fix himself some supper.

  He was feeling restless without an evening of boiling ahead. His daily routine had become so rigid, he no longer knew how to entertain himself. He considered going to his parents’ but that wasn’t how he truly wished to spend a Friday night. He needed something more.

  He had been out of touch with Marcia long enough that he no longer knew Teddy’s schedule, but then, seeing Marcia wasn’t what he wanted either. He was lonely for female companionship, not sex.

  In addition to having no electricity at his cabin, he also had no telephone. Most of the time, he preferred it that way. His parents took messages, and when he needed to make a call, he could always go to their house. But they were home tonight, and if he went to use the phone, he would be expected to visit.

  He would just have to ride over to Cassie’s house and take a chance that she would be home.

  He hadn’t been to Floyd Marsh’s place since the night of the man’s heart attack. That night only the youngest girl, Amy, was home, but she had done everything right when she found her father sitting in his car pale and sweating with a crushing pain in his chest. After they had put Floyd into the ambulance, Grant had called Shelby’s house to alert Cassie, but Cassie was out on a date with Dawson at the time. He had gone back to the sugarhouse then, for he had abandoned Larry when his beeper went off, and he hadn’t attempted to connect with Cassie since. She had moved back home, of course, since Shelby was also attacked that night and had yet to return to the farm.

  Floyd’s wide driveway was filled with cars lined up behind his well-drilling rig. With three daughters of driving age, plus himself, Floyd was bound to have several vehicles there at the same time. Still it was possible something special was going on, in which case Grant would simply leave.

  He parked on the road in front of the house and stepped down out of his truck. A cold wind was coming down the valley from the north, and the sky had clouded over; the weather was changing, as he had hoped. He smiled to himself as he rounded the end of his truck and headed toward the Marsh’s low-slung fifties-style ranch house with its big picture window. The drapes were open and the living room was brightly lit. Inside, Floyd was sitting in a recliner with a colorful afghan around his shoulders, and beside him, seated together on the couch, were Cassie and Dawson Penfield. They were talking to a fourth person in a high-backed chair that he could not see, but that person’s identity no longer mattered to him. Cassie and Dawson were obviously back together. He turned on his heel and walked back to his truck, climbed inside, and drove away.

  Dawson had not been this uncomfortable in a long time. He had been in plenty of high-tension situations before, but the rules of engagement had been different and the players were generally his peers. Tonight he and his mother had come to explain to Floyd Marsh why Dawson would be claiming paternity for Cassie’s unborn child.

  Cassie sat beside him, huge and uncomfortable on her own, both physically and emotionally. She and Dawson had agreed on his claiming paternity, but that meant she had to explain to her father why she had lied to him about who the father was, a lie that had caused him to further humiliate himself by confronting Claude Bennerup about something the man had never done.

  Miriam sat in the high-backed chair across from Dawson and Cassie. She had brought a plate of homemade ginger snaps after learning they were Floyd’s favorite, and a large bowl of veal stew to give Floyd’s daughters a break from cooking dinner every evening. Now she leaned forward to start the conversation that would turn this into more than just a neighborly visit to a recovering cardiac patient.

  “Mr. Marsh, we want to talk with you about Cassie’s baby. She wants to put it up for adoption. And we would like to adopt it.”

  Floyd Marsh cocked his head to one side as though he had mis-heard her, then turned to look at Dawson. “Why would you want to adopt Claude Bennerup’s spawn?” His gaze shifted to Cassie, seated beside Dawson, and his eyes narrowed. “It ain’t Claude’s, is it?” he said, with a curl of his upper lip. He gestured toward Dawson with his chin. “It’s his.”

  “It’s not his, Dad.” Cassie’s voice was shaking. “If it was, he wouldn’t need to adopt it.”

  “And that’s why we’ve come to talk to you,” Miriam continued. “Adoption costs money, for both parties. But if Sonny says it’s his—even though it isn’t—the courts won’t be involved. No lawyers. No papers.”

  Floyd turned back to look at her. “So your boy here is going to say it’s his so you can have it. Why?” He turned once more to glare at Dawson. “If you all want this baby so bad, why don’t you just marry my daughter and get it over with? You’ve been porkin’ her for years.”

  Anger immediately inflamed Dawson’s cheeks, but Cassie gripped his arm to calm him. He took a deep breath and clenched his jaw to keep himself from responding as she said, “No, he hasn’t, Dad. Sonny and I have never … done it. I’d swear to that on mom’s grave.”

  Floyd raised his chin and looked down his nose at Dawson. “Why not? What’s wrong with him?” He turned back to Miriam once more and a small smile came to his face. “Oh, is that it? It’s how you get the only grandchild you’re ever going to get out of this here boy? Have him claim somebody else’s?”

  Dawson pulled his arm out from under Cassie’s hand and rose to his feet, his chest swelling with anger. He gave his mother a long, meaningful look, then walked to the front door of the house, opened it, and went outside. The night air was chilling down and the wind had picked up considerably. His down vest was inside, but he wasn’t going back after it. Floyd Marsh had always been a son of a bitch, but he had tolerated the man for Cassie’s sake. And the man had tolerated him while making it clear he was none too pleased about his oldest daughter hanging out with a half-breed. Now Dawson needed to walk away before he did or said something he and his mother would both regret.

  His mother’s car was parked at the far edge of the driveway. He went to it and sat down in the passenger seat, rubbing his upper arms with his hands to warm himself inside the cold vehicle. The pulled muscle in his shoulder was aching again, and he reached over to massage it as best he could with the opposite hand. Perhaps, once they were home, Shelby would agree to massage it for him again.

  Thinking about Shelby calmed him considerably. They had had a relatively good day today. She had agreed to come out with him to mend fencing for an hour or so, and they had worked together, she pulling the barbed wire taut around the cedar fence poles with the fencing tool while he hammered in the staples. He had explained to her about hardware disease, which could occur if a grazing cow ingested something sharp like a fencing staple or nail or a piece of wire. The staple could work its way through the wall of the stomach portion c
alled the reticulum and into the pericardium, the covering of the heart. To avoid that, he had to make sure he found every staple or piece of wire he might drop in the pasture. Plus, he had given each of his cows a large, capsule-shaped magnet to swallow that sat in her stomach to attract and hold any small metal objects she might inadvertently ingest. The trained scientist in Shelby had been fascinated by the whole thing, and they had gone on to talk about her former career as a medical technologist working in a hospital lab. That had led to a brief conversation about her late husband, and then their afternoon together had come to an abrupt end when she said she needed to go in; walking on rough surfaces had put a lot of strain on her re-knit pelvic bones which were starting to ache. He had feared she would go into one of her funks then, but by suppertime she had become social again. At that time, however, he was in a funk of his own, worrying about this encounter with Cassie’s father.