by Chris Fabry
We were a mile down the road, almost ready to hit the interstate, when Ruthie asked about Arron’s family. I told her about Mr. Spurlock and how mystified I was that my mother hadn’t given the news. “She usually tells me about every birth and death in the county, or I see it in the paper.”
“Maybe she did and you just forgot,” Ruthie said. “You were probably busy with those babies of yours. The whole world could have exploded when I was in the middle of my pregnancies and I wouldn’t have known it.”
She was right. I seemed to have the ability to focus fully on one thing, to narrow my life to certain tasks. At times I had to turn the radio off just to do the dishes. “Do you think that’s why I have such a difficult time sleeping?” I said after we turned onto the interstate. “I focus on one thing and can’t let it go until I’m finished?”
Ruthie shrugged. “That’s one way we cope with life. Makes it a little easier, I guess. Breaking it down to bite-size portions. You could have a lot worse things, if you ask me.” She opened her purse and pulled out a PayDay. I pulled the wrapper off for her, peanuts dropping on the front seat, and she picked at them like a bird taking communion. “One of life’s little pleasures. You want half?”
I shook my head and marveled that like a child she could take such delight in the candy bar. The night before, Darin had run into the kitchen and hugged his father. “I got new toothpaste!” he yelled. You would have thought he’d just won a trip to some exotic island. Later, he begged and whined, “But, Mom, I’m hungry for brushing my teeth!”
“You get much sleep last night?” Ruthie said as she chomped, the nougat sticking to her uppers and making her sound like some cartoon character.
I watched cars speed around us as Ruthie stayed about 20 mph under the speed limit. “No, I spent the night with a quotation book and Max Lucado.”
“Don’t tell his wife.”
I laughed. “You know what I mean. I get so tired that my eyes droop. I feel like I can’t stay awake another second, and then suddenly I’m awake and all I can think about is falling asleep again. By then, it’s over. I’ve lost the battle and have to do something else.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone yet who’s died of lack of sleep. Do you have a lock on that closet door of yours so nobody can walk in on you?”
“When it’s really bad, I’ll lock it, but most of the time I want to be available in case the kids get up and wander. That’s one good thing about it. I’m always available.”
“Your husband ever stay up with you?”
“He’s such a heavy sleeper. I don’t think he understands. It’s like trying to explain the ocean to someone who’s never seen it. How can you describe something so immense? or the way the sand feels?”
We eased into a rhythm of driving and talking and silence. I tried the radio once, an AM station giving the news about a highway fund being blocked at the capitol. The former governor was under suspicion of fraud. An investigation into three robberies at gentlemen’s clubs in the valley.
Our tires hummed on the road and provided the soundtrack for our trip, background music for the conversation. As we passed another of the seemingly endless patches of green trees coming to life, Ruthie began singing. I thought I had experienced it all until I heard her blast out “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
I joined in, which is what you have to do as a native of the Mountain State. Some people stand at the singing of the “Hallelujah Chorus.” West Virginians stand, at least in their hearts, at the singing of “Country Roads.” I remember the first time I heard it on a radio station, though the song seemed like it had always been there.
There’s something peaceful and melancholy about the way the words and the music coalesce, like the dirt roads that crisscross my state, that wind through the hills and rocks and trees and make their dusty way home. West Virginia has a soul that remains untouched by the outside world. No matter how many chain stores and restaurants try to take up residence, they seem strangely out of place. There are parts of the state where it seems no human being has set foot. Arrowheads still wash up on creek banks, remnants of life burrowing deep into the land. Take a lungful of air, especially in the spring, and you take in a fecund aroma of history. This is not the tidal plain smell of shrimp and salt water but an ambrosial aroma of manure and wet, fertile ground waiting for someone to turn it over and plant. The ground screams to be worked by farmers, yearns for the violation of the till and plow. To have seeds planted deeply in verdant soil.
Most people know West Virginia from news stories of tragedy. The torch the state holds is alcoholism and the lottery, and those who take but a cursory look will see only the vacant stares of children from a front porch littered with washing machines and spare tires. A bad Foxworthy joke. A redneck, hillbilly, barefoot, incestuous, drunk, blaze orange, country music, cigarettes-rolled-in-your-shirtsleeve, tobacco-chewing, NASCAR-loving cutout.
The Deep South has its poster children of Confederate flag-wavers and men in white sheets. West Virginia, since its inception a state not allied with the South, carries its emblems on its sleeve, the curving, unending back roads that seem to lead nowhere to those on the outside.
But not every road has an end.
A state defined by its political divisions—a Democrat, union stronghold for economic reasons, but flag-waving, committed to any war our country decides to fight.
Some think of West Virginia as a place they need to escape. But most people here, if they have a steady job, a good church, and a satellite dish, wonder why anyone would want to leave.
“You thinking about him?” Ruthie said, snapping me from my self-induced trance.
I told her my thoughts about our state, the people, the past, and the future. I should have known Ruthie was more concerned about the present.
“What’s your heart telling you right now?” she asked.
“That what we’re about to do is scaring me half to death. When I think of actually seeing Will again after all this time . . .”
“You told me about him watching out for you once. Were there other times he helped you?”
“I suppose there were. I think he was always watching out for me.”
“And you were attracted to him?”
“Yes and no. He seemed safe. He had a certain promise when he was younger, but as I compared him with others in high school, he seemed more like the kind of guy you went for if you wanted two kids and a trailer. You know? I measured people by what kind of chances they’d take, how far I thought they’d get out of the hollow.”
“He didn’t look like he’d move far?”
“Right. We talked once on a school trip—he drove his dad’s car and I didn’t want to ride the bus. He wouldn’t turn on the radio. He wanted to talk.”
“What did he want to talk about?”
“Plans after high school. College, that kind of thing. I said I wanted to go as far away as possible.”
“To get away from your parents?”
“From everything this town had done to me. Stifled me. Held me back.”
“Isn’t it interesting this is where you wound up?” Ruthie said. “Do you see it differently now?”
I checked the side mirror at the cars in a line behind us. “It’s ironic that I’d end up in a church I hated as a kid, yes. It’s ironic I’m fighting the same type of ladies I remember my mother fighting. But I kind of feel like I’ve come full circle and I’m not afraid to . . .”
“Face the truth?” Ruthie said quickly.
I looked in the mirror again.
Ruthie craned her neck. “What is it? What do you see?”
“There’s a dark car hanging back a few hundred yards. I thought I saw a car like that at the Exxon station—around the side.”
“You sure you just don’t want to answer my questions?”
I smiled and watched her give the gas pedal a slight touch.
Ruthie ran her hands across her knees, knocking peanut crumbs to the floor. “Are you afraid you�
��ll still have feelings for him?”
I glanced at her and frowned. “I have children. I have a good husband. And my rear end is widening. Oh, and I’ve made a promise to be faithful. You know, as much as the rest of the world says it doesn’t, that still means something. I don’t care if I had so many feelings my toes curl—it doesn’t change the facts or my choices.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. I wouldn’t have encouraged you to come with me if I didn’t know it.”
“You would have come by yourself?”
She nodded. “There are some things I have to find out.”
“What?”
Ruthie turned. “You know, I think that is the car from the Exxon station.”
“Stop it!” I laughed. “What horse do you have in this race? What do you get out of it?”
“I know some old women who can’t keep their traps shut for two minutes, but not this old bird. There are some things you’ll just have to guess.” She adjusted her seat belt away from her wrinkled neck and sighed. “At what point did you give up on this guy?”
I reached up and grabbed the handhold above the door. “I guess it was right around the time of the accident.”
“Did you go to his trial?”
“No. Mom and Dad didn’t even let me see the paper. They were really shaken. That someone we knew could do such a thing was a shock.”
“Your parents knew you and Will were friends.”
I chuckled. “He used to come by the house and talk with my dad about cars. He even helped install a back patio once. Oh, Ruthie, you should have seen that boy without a shirt on. Even his abs had abs.”
When we’d had a good laugh, she tilted her head back on the headrest. “So they liked him?”
“They were a bit wary of him. I don’t think they ever considered us a match. There were a lot of other prospects, boys with brighter futures and ambitions. I think they saw his road a little limited.”
“A dirt road that led back into the hills.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, sometimes you can be right about that. Did he ever say what he wanted to do with his life?”
“I remember him talking about a piece of land his father had given him. Back on top of the ridge. He said it would be the perfect place for a house and to raise a family. I thought it was strange at the time that he was talking that way, thinking about a family and a house instead of going out and conquering the world.”
“Some people know what they want early.”
“I guess. But look where it led him. Look where he is now.”
Ruthie pulled off the interstate. “There’s a rest area here. I have to tinkle like a big dog.”
While Ruthie went to the bathroom, I found a phone and called home. I already missed my little family. The morning is always the most difficult, with backpacks and lunches and assignments. It’s so hard for me to throw away any of the papers they’ve worked on, and half the ones I toss I wind up fishing out of the trash and putting in their baby boxes. I want them to remember these happy days trying to learn the alphabet or struggling with spelling.
The phone just rang, and I pictured Richard at the store with Tarin, buying diapers and applesauce. Such a good man to let me go, I thought. But why doesn’t he feel threatened?
Ruthie returned and soon we were heading north again, into the teeth of a budding spring and new life everywhere we looked.
“Busting out all over, isn’t it?” she said.
“It’s beautiful.” The smell of lilacs was overpowering.
We arrived at Clarkston a half hour early and parked near a small roadside picnic table surrounded by maples. It was one of those flat scenes, almost like a picture in some newspaper report about government-subsidized farmland. Through the trees I could make out the hazy silhouette of the prison, surrounded by fences and razor wire. I expected something bigger, I guess. A complex of buildings or guards with dogs, but the structures looked prefabricated, like they’d been thrown together in a few days.
Ruthie walked carefully over the uneven ground carrying a brown paper sack of chicken salad sandwiches and fresh greens. She sat daintily, propped her cane against the end of the table, and opened a plastic container of cucumbers in white vinegar.
I watched her enjoy the food, standing because I was tired of sitting, but she patted the bench and wiped a bit of potato salad from the corner of her mouth. (It was the best potato salad in history—I found out by spreading some on a saltine.) I sat, my back against the rough edge of the tabletop. Limbs hovered over us like arms reaching down.
“I’ve been thinking about that dream of yours,” she said.
I faced her. Thoughts of the prison and my family and how far from home we were and who was waiting on the other side of the fence melted away. “What dream?”
“The one you told me about. With you and the baby and your father.”
It had been nearly a week since I’d had that dream. It only changed in small ways. One night I would notice a picture on a table or the upright piano in the living room. Another night I would catch a shadow of someone slipping out of sight into a back bedroom.
“Do you think you know what it means?” My heart would not have beaten harder had a serial killer escaped through the razor wire and headed straight for us.
Ruthie crossed her legs in that prim way, nearly wrapping the left completely around the right like a wisteria vine. “What is it that bothers you most about the dream?”
I closed my eyes for a moment. There was no sense in being aloof. By this point I was convinced she could see into my thoughts whether I wanted her to or not. “It’s my indifference. That I don’t really care for the child. I love my children. That’s what bothers me most. I’m not really ready to have another, but if that’s what God—”
Ruthie held up a hand. “Don’t jump the gun on me. And remember, I’m not saying this is the best interpretation or the right one. But I’m convinced God sometimes wants to communicate outside the usual box.”
“Tell me.”
“Have you ever thought that maybe this baby might be something else entirely? something other than a child?”
I hadn’t. It seemed so simple and clear that this was about a real child. “I’m listening” was all I could say.
She folded her hands, as if she were about to pray. “What if this child represents something else about your life? Would you be open to that?”
“Yes, but what?”
“Think about it. You bring a child to your father. He nurtures it, cuddles it, holds it, and you walk away.”
“Ruthie, would you just—?”
“What if this man who is supposed to be your father is not really your father?”
“My husband? Richard? Could that be it? That I don’t really care as much for my children as I thought? I don’t understand. . . .” A new thought crept in. “What if it’s Richard? What if it means he’s only interested in new things? I’ve grown up and the baby . . . You don’t think he’s having an affair, do you?”
She howled. When she was done, she wadded up her trash and stuffed it back inside the paper sack. Then she stood, using her cane, and walked to the waste can.
“That’s it? You’re not going to tell me?”
Ruthie pointed a crooked finger at me. “I want you to use that head of yours. Think about it. The baby is not a baby, and your father is someone else.”
“But if you—”
“You can’t rush these things, Karin. You’ve had this dream for a long time, and the ground has been stirred up even longer. When you’re ready to hear it, when your head and your heart come together, you’ll know.”
“That’s not fair. If you know something, why won’t you tell me?”
“I know enough to know this is not the right time. I’ll let you noodle on it a little more. Besides, there’s a fellow in that building over there, and I don’t want to keep him waiting.”
I couldn’t help staring at the building and wondering. “I’m not s
ure this is such a good idea.”
She patted my shoulder as she passed on her way to the car. “You’ll be fine, girl. We’ve come this far. Let’s see what the old boy has to say.”
Danny Boyd
What’s the hardest thing about losing your sisters? my counselor said. He had come out with me to walk the hills where I felt a lot more comfortable. I don’t much like rooms inside anymore.
I guess it’s the silence, I said after a while. Not hearing all the squeals and the fighting over who owns which doll and stuff like that. Comparing Christmas presents. None of my mama’s high-heeled shoes striking the hardwood floor when they get into her closet and dress up. And not hearing Mama laugh while she’s standing at the door looking right at them and then hollering at them to get out of there.
I don’t know what it is about walking that kind of loosens up the tongue, but it does. We hiked up a ridge overlooking the town, and I got a feeling in the pit of my stomach that things were going to change. That everything was going to be all right with some time and distance. Then I saw the road and what my mother had done.
He must have seen something come over me because he asked what was wrong. He said the word troubling—which has to be a counselor word. I would have said bothered or who put the burr under your saddle or something like that.
I pointed to the curvy black snake that slithers through our town—the main road leading in and out. In a clear spot where no trees blocked our view was a kind of a shrine to my sisters. Friends of the family and people who knew about the accident had started it. Little kids brought stuffed animals and flowers and made signs saying We Miss You. Every few weeks the highway department came and took it all down, but Mama would be right back there the next day. On Valentine’s Day, there were red hearts and roses. At Christmas she wrapped up fake presents and tied them to the guardrail. Their birthdays were the worst. She’d put the number they’d be that year on a poster and draw a cake.
Some people probably thought Mama was losing her mind, but I kind of think she was trying to keep it. Others probably thought she wanted everybody to remember her babies and how old they’d be. To keep it before them and remind them that it could be their babies under the earth. But I don’t think so. I think she wanted to remember. I think she was worried she was going to get busy and look up one day and catch herself not thinking about them for once.