The Fence My Father Built

by Linda S. Clare

  More retching sounds coming from the bathroom reinforced my point.

  Rubin shook his head. “Don’t you think she's been punished enough?”

  “What would you know about it? You don’t even have kids.”

  “Look, she's making choices. She may not be legal, but she's old enough to make decisions.”

  “That's the point,” I said, aware that my voice sounded shrill. “It's my priority to help her make good choices. So maybe you were right. Move away and my job gets easier.”

  Rubin froze, as if I’d slapped him. “Fine.” He stood up and yanked at the screen door before turning back to me. “You think you wrote the book on living out here? I’ll tell you something, lady. Linc Jackson owns this town, and we’re the outsiders. Good luck making it past December without a friend or two.” He kept his hand on the door.

  The fires of regret inched up my cheeks. Since when was I the perfect parent? Here was someone who had the moral fiber to come over and apologize. Wasn’t that worth anything?

  “I didn’t mean that … about the moving,” I said and extended a hand. “I’m just trying to raise my kids right.”

  After a few moments he smiled but didn’t accept the handshake offer. “I know I don’t have kids to worry about,” he said softly. “I should have watched them more closely. Really, I’m sorry for the trouble I caused.”

  I could feel my indignation melting, but I resolved to stay clearheaded. He opened the screen again.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said, the words slamming me back into reality. Jim looked up from his pig bed. I nodded, and Rubin left.

  Aunt Lutie came out from her room then. Her thin knee-length gown fluttered, silhouetting her spare frame. “Everything okay out here?” she asked, looking back toward the bedrooms.

  “No, but that's all right.”

  “Well, you know where to find me if you need to talk.”

  “I just need some sleep.” I exaggerated a yawn.

  “Honey, you know your daddy wanted to be here for you, don’t you?” Her words poked a hole right through my soul.

  I couldn’t fight the waver in my voice. “Aunt Lutie, I don’t know anything anymore.”

  “Well, he did. Right up until the day the good Lord took him, he was calling your name. He was too ashamed to find you, but I know he loved you.”

  “Really?”

  “As the Lord is my witness.” She sat down on the sofa beside me and put her arms around me. She smelled faintly of talcum powder.

  I had too many questions. Did I have brothers or sisters? Had he tried to find me? Did he have my picture? “I want to know everything, Aunt Lutie.”

  She smiled that closemouthed smile, got up and went down the hall. She brought out the cardboard shoebox—the corners of its lid flayed out like wings—and set it next to me. I watched her rummage through an odd assortment of papers ad dog-eared photos, until she brought out one snapshot of a toddler standing on a wicker chair.

  “Your daddy carried this with him everywhere he went,” she said softly, handing me the picture.

  I stared at myself, only recognizing a similar smile and the same way I still squinted my eyes when I looked into sunlight. I held it, but I didn’t cry at first.

  Lutie scrabbled through the contents of the box. “There was something else,” she said. She shook her head. “I can’t imagine where it's run off to.”

  “A journal?”

  “That's it. He wanted you to have it. Wrote in it just before the Lord took him. Now where could it be?”

  “I’ve got it,” I said. I was tearing up again. “It's safe.”

  “Oh, I’m tickled you found it, honey. He loved you so much, and he wanted to share his faith before he passed away.” Lutie looked past me to the table of photos. The lace curtains stirred.

  “I’m glad to have it, Aunt Lutie.” I didn’t say that I was still not ready to leap into Jesus’ arms. Not yet.

  But I told her everything, about Nova, about Rubin. I even asked her why she’d punched Linc and where my father's grave was.

  “Joseph always said expensive funerals were not for him. We scattered him all over the stream on Doc Rubin's place. That's where he went to sit and think. It's where things from our ancestors are buried. “

  “The relics? The Nez Perce tribe?”

  Lutie shook her head. “The Nez Perce reservation is in Idaho. Around here it's mostly Warm Springs, like Doc Rubin's friend you met.”

  “Denny's Warm Springs Indian?”

  “He's one of the few who escaped the bottle. Started out drinking like so many of the young people, but instead, he went to school and now does a lot to keep our heritage safe.”

  What I knew of Northwest Native Americans was limited to a few old books I’d read. “Maybe I’ll go over to the creek,” I said. “I’ve got plenty to think about.”

  She patted my shoulder and then stood up. “Listen, honey. Linc tries to make you think he's so big and bad, but I have a secret he doesn’t know about.” She leaned closer. “Our ancestors and God's angels are looking out for us.”

  I sighed. Maybe she’d think I was yawning. If she mentioned angels one more time I’d fall apart again.

  “Angels, please watch over us,” Lutie said.

  I was too tired. Something in me snapped. “Stop it,” I clamped my hands over my ears. “I don’t want to hear about angels,” I said and jumped up. “No angels ever helped me.” I paced across the rug and avoided glancing at the Jesus picture.

  “Only trying to help,” Lutie said. She looked sad. I realized that I’d started fights with two people I liked, while Nova, the teen drinker, was in the bathroom sick.

  “Oh, Aunt Lutie, I didn’t mean—” I squeezed her bony shoulder. “Too many things are happening at once, I guess. I’m sorry.”

  “No need to apologize, Muri, honey. I’m on your side and so are the—uh, God's messengers. You know what I mean.”

  “I do.” I smiled at my aunt, and she got up to go to bed. “I think I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight.”

  “Night, then. Sweet dreams, Muri.” She switched off the light and returned to where I could hear Tiny snoring loudly. I lay down and stared a long time into the still purplish night.

  9

  If I hadn’t witnessed flash floods in Tucson I might have been terrified the Sunday it rained in Murkee. I remembered from my college days the way the weather sneaks up on creatures of the desert. The sky opens, and everything runs for cover. Even the bushes cling to the earth for dear life, while mad waves of brown water rush through arroyos, kangaroo rat dens, and rich people's homes.

  No rich people here, unless you counted Linc Jackson. But the deluge poured out in much the same sequence. First came a few fat dusty drops that then invited the masses, pelting the reddish soil; the flicker and jolt of faraway lightning, followed up by its thunderous roll, and little streams flowed down the ruts in the yard and soon formed a shallow lake. Jim's swine siblings begged to come inside too.

  “You’re dreaming, pigs,” Lutie said. The entire roof dripped and leaked. We all rushed around with pots and pans and buckets that filled up too quickly. I scooped as many of the family photos as I could from the table by the window, and Lutie took down the lace curtains she was so fond of.

  Tiny and Tru formed a bucket brigade, emptying containers into the kitchen sink. Nova, hung over but useful for once, crammed her clothing into empty trash bags to keep it dry.

  “Does the roof always leak like this?” I asked my uncle, already suspecting the answer. He exchanged the full containers for empty ones like someone who’d done this before. I swabbed the floor with a bath towel. The knees of my jeans were soaked.

  “Well, last year we didn’t get this much rain,” he said, taking the sopping towel to the sink for me. He smiled. “At least not all at once.” His hands wrung out brownish water, and he handed the soggy towel back to me.

  “Let's pray the sanctuary isn’t leaking like a sieve,” Lutie said. “Tiny, ca
n you drive me into town as soon as we get these leaks under control? I have to show up for Sunday school.”

  Tiny eyed the roof, which was leaking in more spots by the minute. Outside the rain poured down in sheets. Visibility was probably about ten feet.

  “My Pearl, I’d be glad to drive you, but I think we best wait out this storm,” he said. “Remember last year? I came close to getting the truck stuck.”

  Lutie sighed. “Sunday evening will just have to do then. Lord knows we don’t need to get stuck in the mud.” She rolled up her sleeves and went back to wringing out towels.

  I smiled and kept mopping, trying to prevent leaks from penetrating any of the numerous paper sacks that crowded every corner. They were full of Lutie's empty soda cans, but the prospect of the bags turning to a pulpy mess was enough reason to keep them dry.

  The rain slammed like marbles against the roof. Aunt Lutie looked up at the ceiling now and then, eyeing the growing wet spot right over her portrait of Jesus. She finally darted over and took the picture down and carefully protected it with plastic wrap, the kind that clings to itself and everything but what you want it to stick to. When she finished it reminded me of a large cocoon.

  “Dear Jesus, you going to drown us?” she said to the picture, tucking it beside that crocheted blanket I’d left on the sofa the night before. “You’ll be safe over here.”

  Nova came in and carefully sat next to the afghan. “I need Excedrin—now,” she said, fingering her temples gingerly. “Worse … splitting … headache.”

  “Careful, missy, you’re about to sit on the Lord,” Lutie answered, lifting up one corner of the throw. “I’ll see what we have in the way of hangover remedies.”

  Nova winced. “Too loud … whisper,” she rasped, tacking on “please?” after Lutie clucked her tongue. “A glass of water too?”

  My aunt smiled. “I know. You have a mouth full of cotton, poor baby.” She went to find a pain reliever while Uncle Tiny explained to Tru the dangers of alcohol. He told him all about the morning-after effects: the dry mouth, the pounding headache, and the aversions to bright lights and the smell of frying bacon. Halfway through the description, Nova pleaded with him to stop talking. “Might … hurl … again.” Tiny obliged and winked at Tru.

  “That,” he whispered, “is one good reason not to drink.” Tru nodded. He always looked serious and intense whenever Uncle Tiny handed out wisdom. I hadn’t counted on this little bonus when we moved here; my son, so lost most of the time, had found a friend in his new relative. Chaz had been flaking out on visitation so much that Tiny was the closest thing to a father image my son had. Perhaps this is what it felt like to have family.

  The rain let up by late afternoon, allowing all of us to rest. The drips now plunked slowly, as annoying as the leaky faucets in the house. Nova complained incessantly, when she wasn’t sleeping, and Tru had that “cabin fever” look that kids get on rainy days. Even my aunt and uncle appeared to be weary of so many bodies crammed into their home. I wished we had somewhere else to go to give them privacy. Truthfully, I would have given almost anything for a few hours by myself.

  Next thing I knew, Lutie was wearing a flowered dress and had her Bible tucked under her arm. It was Sunday night, after all. “I’m ready,” she said. “Muri, you and the kids want to come along? We have a fiddler and a banjo and can they ever get the gospel rolling. Don’t we?” Tiny nodded. He held open the screen and Lutie got up to leave.

  “What time is it, anyway?” Bleary-eyed Nova wanted to know. After she had slept on it for so long, her hair looked more electric than usual. It was all bunched up on one side, giving her head a lopsided look.

  “Day's nearly over, honey,” Aunt Lutie said and stepped back inside the door. “Come join us at services, will you?”

  “Services?” I said.

  “Red Rock Tabernacle. We’d love to see your sweet faces in the pew.”

  “Maybe if we had more warning, Aunt Lutie. I’m a mess, and Nova is still nursing her hangover.”

  “I wouldn’t be caught dead in a church,” Nova said.

  “A polite no, thank you will do,” I said. I glared at my daughter.

  “I’ll go.” Tru volunteered, and my aunt and uncle accepted him as the delegate from the family. “Come on, dork,” he teased his sister. “In church they don’t care if you’re ugly.”

  “Leave me alone,” Nova moaned and retreated back to bed. She didn’t understand how difficult a simple thing like being alone could be.

  Lutie wasn’t offended, at least that's what she said. “You go on now,” she said, “get some rest, Nova. There's plenty of time to get acquainted at church.”

  Tiny's truck roared outside, and Lutie hustled to join him. “Pastor likes to start at 6:30 P.M. on the dot,” she said over her shoulder. “On the dot.”

  When they were gone my ears filled with silence. I grabbed a Barbara Kingsolver novel and dove in, and then I realized I’d chosen Pigs In Heaven. I laughed. In Murkee, truth was stranger than fiction.

  The next morning, Tru busied himself floating sticks in the many puddles outside, and Tiny stretched out his huge frame on the sofa. Lutie and I finished cleaning up from the rain. We scrubbed pots and pans and washed soggy towels, while Lutie yakked about church. I admit I wasn’t paying attention to anything except the task at hand and the million thoughts streaming through my mind.

  Tru came back inside and was the first to notice. “Hasn’t Uncle Tiny been sleeping a long time?” he whispered to me. I’d gotten lost in a daydream about buying books for the Murkee Lending Library.

  “Uncle won’t wake up, Mom,” he said, tugging at my arm. “Something's wrong.” Lutie always harped at Tiny to watch his “sugar,” but most of the time he appeared to eat whatever he pleased.

  Until I saw him unconscious on the sofa, I’d conveniently forgotten that he was diabetic. We took turns shaking Tiny, but he didn’t respond. I put my ear close to his face and felt small shallow breaths and smelled a fermented odor. His skin, pale and clammy, was a dead giveaway. My uncle was in a diabetic coma.

  “Has this ever happened before?” I asked, pulling on my sneakers. My uncle reminded me of a kid who’d keeled over one day in my library. We’d have to act fast.

  “It's his sugar again,” Lutie whispered. When she said it, sugar had a capital S. “The doctors over in Bend think he needs insulin, but he's stubborn as an old mule. Says needles scare him.” Her voice wavered. “They say there's new pills, but he won’t listen.” She knelt beside her husband. Her hands shook as she stroked his forehead. “Wake up now, honey,” she said. “Please, dear Lord Jesus, let him wake up.”

  The composure she had shown on the day Jim had been wounded wasn’t evident now. Instead, she wept and prayed loudly, unwrapping the cocooned portrait of Jesus as she wailed.

  “Should I go get Dr. Rubin, Mom?” Tru was visibly upset, but he looked ready to run for help. I wasn’t sure why, but right then I pictured my father, taking charge, calmly giving orders.

  “I don’t think we have that much time, son,” I said, and then turned to Lutie. “We’ve got to get him to the clinic fast. If we can just get him to the door, I can back the van right up.”

  “Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord,” was all my aunt could say.

  “We could roll him into that big wheelbarrow outside,” Tru said. The boy was a genius.

  “Go get it.”

  Even in the absence of my father's direction, I was surprised at how calm I was. My thoughts were crisp and sharp, and I wasn’t afraid. We’d get my uncle into the van (later we might laugh about how we’d toted him in the rusted-out Sears Special with the flat front tire) and I’d send Nova over to Rubin's to call ahead to the Murkee Clinic. Tru would keep an eye on Tiny while I drove to town fast, but not so fast that we got stuck in some mud puddle. I’d make sure that Lutie wore her seat belt and keep her from wigging out altogether.

  I’d never tried to lift a three-hundred-pound man before, but sometimes you do thi
ngs you never thought possible. With Nova and Tru's help we managed to push and shove Tiny, still unconscious, into the van. I put my ear to his face and was relieved to feel his breath again. At least he was still with us.

  Lutie and I both prayed, not caring who heard. Lutie was in a dazed state, and her prayers kept getting jumbled up with tears. After making sure Nova was headed to Rubin's, I set off. In my rearview mirror I could see Jim's snout pressed against the window.

  All the way to town I shouted back at Tru. “Can you feel his pulse? Is he still breathing?” I mentally rehearsed the CPR I’d retaken last year and instructed Tru to keep his uncle covered.

  “How much longer?” he kept shouting back, while Lutie gripped the dash and muttered “Lord, Lord, Lord.” I took a deep breath after I nearly hit another pothole still brimming with rain.

  The clinic in Murkee turned out to be staffed by Dr. Perkins, who looked to be about five minutes away from retirement. He sat at a desk, working a crossword puzzle. When I explained the situation his boots clunked sharply against the floor, and he moved faster than I thought he could. He grabbed his bag and went outside to where Tiny still lay in the van. I wasn’t foolish enough to try to lift my uncle a second time. Besides, Lutie, according to Tru, was “totally sketched out” and sat shivering next to her husband.

  “Now Lutie Pearl,” Dr. Perkins said softly, “Let me have a look. This young lady here tells me he's forgotten about that diet I put him on.” He examined Tiny and then addressed me. “We’ll need to call in the Medivac,” he said. “Right now.”

  I nodded. “How much danger is he in?”

  “Plenty.” He yelled back to his receptionist and instructed her to arrange for the helicopter to airlift my uncle to the hospital in Bend. He added, “Stat.”

  It took forever for the chopper to arrive. While we waited, the doctor got an IV going and Tiny moved in and out of consciousness. My uncle complained of how thirsty he was and guzzled two sodas, although he said he’d have preferred iced tea. “I’m just itching all over too,” he said. His eyes were ringed with dark circles.