If the Ice Had Held
Page 22
“The war?” asked the soldier.
“Yes,” she said, and she held Melanie tighter. She did not like this, it felt wrong to her brother Sammy, but there was blood between the child and her, and she had only just realized they needed a story. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought it through already, or that Mae hadn’t, and the man, Andrew, has just made it easy. Sammy would have looked as handsome and as strong in a uniform, he would have talked nicely to a sweaty young mother on a park bench, if he had the chance. They visit some more, exchanging pleasantries, and between silent patches they watch the other people in the park.
“I would like to see you again,” he said.
“You have to meet my aunt first. I’m staying with her. Phone and we can make an appointment,” she said, being formal on purpose.
Andrew did phone, and when he came over the next day, Kathleen could see Mae asking every question she could think of while the former soldier sat in the little parlor.
“It’s unlikely that you know my son,” Mae said, “But I have to ask. I’ve not heard from him since the child was born.” She said his name.
“I don’t recognize him,” Andy said. “You can’t take it as a sign, though, about the baby.”
He was taking a risk, talking to Mae like this, Kathleen thought, but war might have changed his thinking, making him superstitious about everything, just like an old woman.
“The mail, ma’am, the mail is very unreliable,” he continued. “You might get nothing and then get five letters at once the next time you check.”
“That has never happened,” Mae said.
“It happens,” he said.
Mae said that in April when she heard the United States was pulling out, she was sure she would see her son soon, and that these last months have been the hardest.
“Of course,” Andrew said.
“Your folks must be happy you’re home,” Mae said.
“They’re gone, and I’m an only child,” he said. “I wouldn’t have joined up otherwise.”
Mae nodded.
The following day, when Mae checked the mail, there was nothing, nothing still, but there were also no army people who come to her door to bring her the worst news.
Whenever Andrew came to see Kathleen, they visited at the house, or they went only a few blocks away with the baby. She could tell he thought she should leave the child with her cousin, Irene, but she would not.
Only weeks passed before he offered her a ring.
He said to Kathleen that it was not completely logical for him to have come to love her after such a short time, but he did. He said he knew she and Irene were going to be leaving Denver soon, and he admitted that Mae had said as much, and that Mae had pushed him.
When he dropped to his knee, Irene and Mae were there in the parlor with its sagging furniture and dusty side tables, and Melanie was yowling. The ring was a slim gold band, set with one amber stone.
That night, in the spare room where Mae had crammed two twin mattresses, Irene reached across the patch of open floor, touched Kathleen’s hand. She begged her to remember their promise.
“I will,” Kathleen said.
“You should stay here with Andy, but I’m still going home,” Irene said. “School’s going to start. I can hardly imagine.”
“I know,” Kathleen said. She did not want Irene to leave.
“What’s he going to do when he finds out you’re a virgin?”
“I have no idea,” Kathleen said.
Irene’s leaving was nothing much. Her father came to pick her up and Kathleen embraced them both. Melanie was fussing in a way that alarmed Kathleen, but she tried to ignore it, and she saw Irene was trying to ignore it too.
Before her wedding night, Kathleen, on Irene’s advice, pushed her finger inside of herself as far as it would go, until she felt a catch and her knuckle was wet with a tiny bit of blood. She washed her hands and telephoned Irene long distance, a little breathless, telling her that it worked.
* * *
Andy and Kath decided to go to the courthouse, where Irene stood for them, and after, Kathleen’s parents and Aunt Mae and Irene’s father and the baby went to the park bench where they had met and broke a bottle of sparkling wine that they were pretending was champagne over it. While everyone was laughing at the crack of glass and the spray of bubbles, Andy took Kathleen’s hand and made her swear she would never tell Melanie that her father was gone, and he promised he would raise her as blood.
From the corner of her eye, Kathleen could see Irene, sipping out of a paper cup poured from one of the other bottles Mae had brought. She had turned fifteen, but looked older, in a becoming way. The sun was bright on her, and her father had her elbow, and she had kicked off her dress shoes. A little tipsy and starting to sing a drinking song they both knew while spinning on the grass, they reached for Aunt Mae and Kathleen’s parents until they’d made a rowdy circle. While the other people in the park looked at this family, they would never know it was started from circumstance and made by vows.
Melanie was in a stroller in the shade, and the circle moved until she was in the center of it. Mae and Kathleen’s mother’s shoes were off now, too. Other people in the park were approaching, and Mae hardly stopped her jig to pour them their own cups of wine, inviting them to dance on the crispy grass. Irene waved to Kathleen to join them.
Her new husband held one hand, Irene the other. The circle moved. Melanie screamed with joy at the commotion, slapped her tiny fingers together, surrounded by their promises.
Kathleen couldn’t help but think of Sammy, who would never get to hold Mel, Sammy who seemed so close in the light of the park—he would have loved this exact kind of celebration—Sammy who had broken through the ice, and Kathleen who tried to imagine it as a spray of diamond or crystal.
The dancing broke up and Kathleen poured another paper cup of wine, took one drink for herself, one for her brother.
If, if the ice had held, she thought, but in the heat it was hard to think of ice, until she caught Irene’s eye again.
Swear, Irene mouthed.
I swear, Kathleen mouthed back.
There were more and more people gathering, a crowd drawn by a crowd.
Melanie, in her stroller, still smiling.
The wine was almost exhausted but someone arrived with beer and the party erupted again.
Even though Melanie was not fussing, Kathleen went to her and lifted her daughter to towards the sky, sun at the child’s back.
The group was circling again, a rope of family and strangers around her, whooping and cheering and chanting, and Kathleen could not help but to get onto her tiptoes so she could reach Melanie just a little bit higher, melting away any of the cold or ice that might be left, the heat one more way to seal the secret.
Acknowledgments
Parts of this novel have been published in different form in the journals 10,000 Tons of Black Ink, Descant, The Tusculum Review, Hawai’i Pacific Review, The Green Hills Literary Lantern, and The Tampa Review.
About the Author
Wendy J. Fox is the author of The Seven Stages of Anger and Other Stories, and the novel The Pull of It. She received her MFA from Eastern Washington University, and her work has been published or is forthcoming in many literary reviews, websites, and blogs. Find her at www.wendyjfox.com and on Twitter @WendyJeanFox
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