Threads

by Patsy Brookshire

  David's father had been a Baptist minister in Virginia. When David was small his parents moved the family to Utah. Three families came with him from Virginia, all with equal purpose, to bring the True Word to the Mormon heathens. Their original goal had been Salt Lake City. Within a week of their arrival, Preacher Smithers and his small, fervent group found out that, "The Devil had those people caught tightly in his talons." Preacher Smithers decided the Lord was telling him that he hadn't meant Salt Lake City at all. Better to start small, perhaps some place where the Devil hadn't got such a firm hold.

  Thus inspired they moved, hurriedly, as David remembered it, to a small town about fifty miles away.

  They prayed and worked hard. After fifteen years the score was BAPTISTS: one. The Lutheran family changed to 'good Baptist Christians' because the Baptist church was convenient, and a maybe two, the possible a Mormon woman who was friendly. MORMONS: everybody else, including David's brother who married a Mormon girl, becoming an LDS convert. David married Amy about that time. She being from the Lutheran family the Baptists figured they were at least even, but weren't sure.

  Preacher Smithers was hearty in his approval of the marriage, considering the disaster that had befallen the eldest son. He encouraged David to move on to less soul-endangering surroundings. They feared the exposure of future grandchildren to the predominant religion. David would have left anyway, as he was filled with a longing for an ocean he'd never seen.

  His success as a painter was slow, but he worked lumbering and part-time as a hired hand. They never starved, and David was content to remain by the sea for the rest of his life.

  Their unusual ideas of life were a mixture of what they saw in their growing up, and from reading. David told me that there was more than one approach to life and marriage. He was determined not to get set in a mold. "It makes moldy people," he would later tell me.

  He had a bit of the preacher in him, too. Not in religious ways, but he loved to talk, and could at times be most stubborn to have people agree with him. It was amazing to him that Amy didn't immediately grasp the truth of his ideas. "But, it's so clear!" he would shout.

  That was always the end of the sermon, because Amy would say, "Amen, David." He would purse his lips in annoyance, but stop.

  But David's strongest holdover from his father's influence was what he called his inability to swear properly. I first heard his expression, "Cotton pickin' thunderbolts," when he went to push a stick farther into a campfire and burned his hand on the fire in the coals. He dropped the stick and exploded with the oath.

  I laughed. I'd expected "Damnation!" at least, and told him so.

  "I've tried." Clearly, he was hurt at my laughter. "But it just doesn't work. I had it pressed in me hard as a youngster that only bad people swear. I never really believed it 'cause Amy's Dad seemed to get relief from a good "Damn!" now and then. Other than that, I just didn't hear much swearing where I grew up. But I was willing to learn. After Amy and I left home, I worked with a lumber crew and practiced everything I heard--not around Amy of course. But, you know, Sophie, something was wrong." His eyebrows wrinkled in bewilderment.

  "Every damn came out sounding like darn and Hell! always made me nervous. The worse ones were beyond me. They stuck in my throat and sounded weak when they came out. The guys laughed at me. They called me... oh, never mind."

  I wanted to explore that, but he got red so I let it be.

  "I gave it up and went back to my old home words. I decided it's not what you say as much as how you say it. I get just as much satisfaction from a good, hearty 'Cottinpickin'!' as Mr. Swenson did from his 'Damn'."

  I think it was David's only defeat, except for me, and I wasn't a complete loss.

  The next two weeks went on eternally. Every day after the boys left for work, David would stop at the cabin. We would have a cup of coffee and then go for a long walk on the beach or build a fire and sit and talk. One thing we didn't do in that two weeks was make love. I wanted to, he wanted to. But I stopped him, thinking, if I maybe wasn't with child we should quit while we still had the time. Suddenly the chances I had taken seemed so foolhardy. I wasn't ignorant of the facts of life. But the passion I felt for David had swept all caution from my mind. For two weeks, we didn't do it.

  We talked a lot, but David never said he was sorry for making me pregnant, because he wasn't. He hoped I was.

  And I hoped I wasn't.

  My monthly never came and my breasts got tender, and I threw up in the morning, two days in a row. The second morning, afterwards, I was sitting in front of the cabin on the bench Willie had made. I was being still, breathing in the cool of the morning, watching the fog lift over the sea, when David came down from his place and sat on the bench beside me. Zack and Willie had gone to work hours before, so we were completely alone. Except I wasn't feeling alone. I knew I was growing a child within me.

  I was happy to see David, I needed his comforting hands holding mine. And his words. "Hey, sweet." He glanced at me with worried eyes. "What's up? Wanna walk?"

  "In a minute." I shifted on the bench to face him, my view changing to the length of the beach. In the distance I could see a family of Mom, Dad, dog, and three children going toward the waves, the kids kicking at the sand, the dog leaping around them all.

  "I wonder, David, with all your smarts, is this baby a boy? Or a girl?" I watched his face.

  His white teeth showed as he grinned widely. I remember that moment so clearly. He swallowed, hard. I reached out and touched his Adam's apple, just a light stroke. He took my hand and put my fingers to his mouth, kissed them.

  "Oh, a boy would be nice this time, or a girl, one or the other. You choose." He leaned his head back and closed his mouth, just laughing from deep inside.

  I snuggled into him, not caring who might see.

  He put his arm around me. "Wanna walk?"

  "Yes, indeed. We've been waiting for you." I felt full to bursting over, full of energy and love and a need to move.

  He jumped off the bench. My end flew up so I started to fall. He caught me, pulled me up straight, and dropped my hands, grinning.

  "Race you!" he shouted, then remembering my condition, fell back. "Oh, I guess not."

  I took my chance, dashed past him, down the path, not running full tilt but keeping ahead of him.

  "Not fair," I heard him say through running breaths.

  "I never said I was fair." I got to the water first. He let me to be sure, but I enjoyed my triumph. For just a minute he took my hand and we walked that way a few feet before he remembered my need for caution in public and let it go. I just sighed, confused with both happiness and sadness. For that morning, happiness won out.

  David had enough sense not to dance around when we were sure. He was just quietly happy. The corners of his mouth would twitch with a held-back grin when he looked at me. He took to patting my belly and breasts in a pleased and protective way. At first it annoyed me, but his joy was catching. And I was never one to mope for long about something I could do nothing about.

  The last week before Amy came home we made our plan. David arranged with the landlady for me to continue to rent the cabin. He told her that I would be staying to help with his wife. I told the same story to Zack and Willie. I don't think Zack believed it, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He didn't care what happened to me as long as he wasn't around to be shamed. He left for California a week before Willie was to go home.

  Willie was outside when Zack was leaving. He turned to me at the door and said, nastily, "I do hope you've had fun." He looked from my face to my belly, and left.

  It shook me. I was afraid he'd say something to Willie, but when Willie came back he was all smiles as usual. That was on Sunday.

  Wednesday morning David stopped for his coffee. He asked how the quilt was coming along. I knew it was an excuse to get into my bedroom. I hadn't worked much on the quilt for the last three weeks. I pulled him behind the curtain where he took me gently in his arms. "Soph?" he sa
id.

  "Yes, please." His touch on my back was a welcome fire.

  We lay down on the bed, close together. He was leaning over me, kissing me, with his hand stroking my belly when the curtain flew back. There was Willie, a look of murder on his face. I think if he'd actually caught us making love he'd'a killed us both.

  "So, Zack was right!" he yelled. Before we could move he'd pulled David off the bed and flung him on the floor like a feather. He stood for a second staring at me.

  I was so scared.

  "You're no better'n a whore."

  David wasn't a fighter. That wasn't his way, but at that moment he'd have killed Willie or died trying, before he let me be harmed. He jumped up, both his hands flexing, balling into fists and flattening out in front of him at Willie.

  "Get out of here!" The words snapped from him to Willie with the force of a whip. His cold anger shocked Willie.

  It stopped him long enough for me to roll off the bed and at least die standing up. I thought of rolling under the bed, but as much as I longed for a rock to crawl under, I feared David was in danger of being beaten to death by my strong ox of a little brother. I dodged past them and ran into Willie's room where I got his deer rifle, which he always kept loaded.

  When I got back David was on the floor , blood streaming from his nose. Willie raised his boot and I knew for certain he'd stomp him to death.

  I pointed the gun straight at Willie. "You touch him again and I'll shoot you right now."

  Willie stopped his boot in midair. I meant it, and he knew it.

  David knew it, too. He staggered up.

  "For God's sake, Sophie!" David almost fell into me. "Don't! Don't shoot!" His voice was rough, raw, almost like crying. I knew he was afraid I'd do it before he could stop me.

  All the fight went out of Willie. His face twisted as he pulled in his anger. He turned away from us, ripped roughly at the bedroom curtain and pushed through to stumble to the kitchen table. He jerked a chair out and almost fell into it.

  He was crying. "I don't understand, I don't understand."

  David reached outward and put a hand on his shoulder. "Willie, Sophie and I love each other."

  Willie's shoulder jerked to throw off David's hand. "Love!" He spat out. He made it sound like a dirty word. "A married man loves his wife."

  He turned, glaring, to me. "And to think I stood up for you when Zack had it figgered out all along. If he only knew."

  Willie and I had always been close, it shattered me to hear him talk like that. The mention of Zack was like sea water on a fresh wound. I didn't care what Zack thought of me, but I knew I could never go home again if Willie told Mom and Dad, or anybody in the family. There'd be no way to ever explain David and me. None of the sisters would have ever trusted me with their husbands again, though they needn't have worried. In the Elms, no one played around with married people.

  As for the baby, I'd already cooked up a story about a quick romance with a fisherman after Willie left. After a mythical wedding, and the baby had come, my husband would conveniently drown in a storm on a fishing boat. It was a wild idea, and now I realize, very thin, but it was the only chance I had of saving any face at all. The baby would have to be explained, sooner or later, but I didn't intend for it to be this way.

  "Willie, you must never tell Zack. You must never tell anybody. They'd never understand. They'd hate me. You know it."

  I must have got to him with the wildness of my appeal. He glared at me for a long time. "Okay, Sophie. But it's the last favor I ever do for you." Abruptly, he stood up.

  David put a protective arm around my shoulders.

  "You needn't worry," Willie said, the fight gone from him. "I'm through with the both of you. I'm going home."

  He went to his room and threw everything he owned into his old bag. Before he went out the door, I handed the moneybag of his savings to him. He looked at it queerly, then took the money out and stuffed it into his old bag. He dropped the empty bag onto the floor.

  "I forgot my lunch," he said, and then went out, closing the door firmly behind him.

  "Forgot his lunch? Whatever did...?"

  David pointed to Willie's lunch pail, still on the table where I set it for him every morning. We hadn't even noticed it.

  12. But It's All Arranged...

  Maybe it was my condition. After Willie left the tears started. I cried 'til I thought my heart would crack or my guts fall out. It hurt. All the fear I'd held bottled up came out in one great gush. Something dried up in me that day. Only one more time was I to cry so deeply, and even then...

  After it was done, I was drained, like a stone, cold and lifeless. If anything was going to shake out that baby that day ought to have done it. But, thank God, it didn't.

  David worried about me. For the next few days, he coddled me like a beloved sick child, bringing me tea with honey in it, cooking soup, trying to make me laugh. Finally, somehow, I came back to life again, to myself. It was impossible, with David around, to stay gloomy too long. He was like life itself, always positive that things would turn out for the best.

  He stayed at the cabin until it was time to go pick up Amy. I dreaded his leaving, afraid I'd never see him again. I knew if I was Amy and he suggested to me what he was about to suggest to her, that my reaction would be to get him away from there as fast as I could, or demand that I go. Knowing that Amy's hold on him was longer and stronger than mine, she just might be able separate us.

  That's one of the reasons I told him I would not agree to live with him and Amy. If she was half the woman David said she was, she just might be able to put up with me at a distance, unseen. The truth? I couldn't imagine facing her. Willie's reaction had been so severe against me, and he was my own flesh and blood. What might hers be?

  Amy held all the cards. With one word she could stop David in his happy tracks, and destroy me as well. She had only to say No, for I wouldn't fight for him. If he'd ever given the slightest hint that he was unhappy with Amy, I would have. But he never suggested leaving her. It never even occurred to him. It was more than the fact that that people seldom got divorced in those days; she was part of him. They were like the alternating threads in a piece of fabric, together they made a whole. If I had tried to replace her I'd have had to unwind them first and it would have weakened David. I loved him too much for that.

  During the time David stayed with me I managed to undermine his confidence in his happy plan enough to squelch some of his so-obvious glee. It annoyed the hell out of me that he was so fearless, and it seemed to me, unrealistic. Thus, when he left, he at least had some fear of Amy's reaction.

  I don't think I slept a wink all night. I walked the floor, and drank coffee. For a while the slice of moon lit the surf. Then clouds moved in and the moon slid on down the sky, making the night even darker. I was grateful for the dawn, so I could give up the pretense of sleeping. I made oatmeal and toast for breakfast and only nibbled the toast. I made bread more for the work of it, to have something to do, than because I needed it. I pounded and kneaded that dough until all the air bubbles were popped and the surface was shiny. Might have been the best bread I ever made.

  By the afternoon I was certain I'd never see David again. My palms were sweaty, my heart feeling heavy in my chest. I could feel it pounding. With every outside noise I went to the door and opened it, until I gave up and settled at the kitchen table. The bread had risen and baked and I'd even eaten a piece of it. I watched the waves surge in and out, the surf breaking with the white foam against the gray of the autumn ocean. I sat with my hands in my lap, not trying to busy them or my mind.

  Waiting.

  I was watching the clouds lighten as the sun set behind them when I heard David's knock on the door. My hands flew up and settled again in my lap before I was able to say, "Come in, David."

  He came in all smiles. His first words were, "Are you ready?"

  Ready for what: to be shot? Killed? Maimed in some horrible way by an outraged wife? I was too stunne
d to speak.

  He must have realized he'd been abrupt. He put his arms around me, lifting me to stand with my head on his shoulder. "Everything's all right. I told you it would be."

  I couldn't believe it.

  "Come on, she wants to meet you."

  At that, I pulled back. "Never."

  "Don't be silly, how are you going to live with us without ever meeting Amy?" He thought he had everything solved because he had been able to get one woman to agree to his crazy scheme.

  I was suddenly so weary that I had to sit down. He was looking around like he was deciding what I should bring with me.

  "I told you before that I wouldn't live with you."

  His forehead wrinkled and his eyes grew wide. "But Sophie, it's all arranged. Amy agrees with me, I'll fix it with the landlady."

  "Don't 'But Sophie' me. To have Amy agree to me even being in the same country with you is enough for me. I don't want to meet her, I couldn't face her. And I doubt--"

  "You're getting upset for--"

  "--that she really wants to meet me."

  He couldn't budge me. He finally had to accept it. That's the way it stayed for the next five months.

  13. A Bit of Fluff

  David visited every day. Amy sent books for me to read, though I wasn't much of a reader. Once in a while she sent soup and bread, which I ate because David saw to it that I did. He and I went for walks when the weather wasn't too stormy, me all bundled up like a mummy.

  I was uncomfortable outdoors. Amy had the advantage of being able to see me, to watch me through that telescope. David insisted she wasn't watching me, but I knew she could if she wanted to. I would have.

  The first month being alone wasn't so bad. October, a wonderful month along the coast. But as winter set in, and dragged on--oh, the loneliness. It got terrible. The rain wasn't too bad, at least it was something to watch, but the everlastin' fog beat me.

  It curled up and settled around the cabin, at first like a cozy blanket. After a while it became like a prison. Nothing but gray everwhich way I looked. The continual roaring of the winter ocean got on my nerves. When the big storms came, the waves smacked against each other with a loud CRACK! then thundered down on the sand. It was exhilarating when there was someone to share it with; alone it frightened me. Even with no storm there was always that noise of the water moving. I began to understand why Amy didn't go down anymore.