by Donnna Salli
“I’ll kill you bitches,” he yelled. He repeated it half a dozen times and fired the shotgun blindly into the field.
“He’ll be all right,” Mama said. Her arms were around me, and I felt her shaking. Her hair was unpinned, falling in our faces. We stayed there all night—even after Wallace went inside and probably passed out. Mama kept saying to me, but really to herself, “He’ll be all right. You’ll see.” But she didn’t sound sure, and in the morning, after Wallace had somehow got himself off to work, we crept inside and packed. And that was the end of Stepdaddy Wallace. Mama and I went back to Grandaddy’s and never left again.
After that, I couldn’t abide the smell of soil anymore. Laying in it that way for a damp eight hours, I wouldn’t help Marcus in the garden for love or money. “Marcus,” I’d say, when he’d ask, “I’d sooner pay for my flowers and produce in gold bouillon than have to remember that night more than I can help.”
My brother Joe was born soon after. Luckily, he looked just like Mama, and I was young enough to still take a chance on loving him—actually loving him. The fact that there’s some of Wallace in my brother just makes his steady good nature that much more a miracle. We all adored Joe from the start. He was a big, strong baby—so big and strong that he walked before he crawled. He’d pull himself up along the edges of things and speed along on tiptoe. We had to watch him closely. He pulled Grandaddy’s spittoon down on himself and broke a toe before he was a year old. To this day, when he walks he looks like he’s about to break into a run. Just seeing Joe brings a smile to my lips.
Mama had a hard time birthing that big baby. Doctors then didn’t always know what they were doing—not that they do now— and Mama ended up with her female organs hanging out. The only thing that eased the pain was a sitz bath, so Grandmama and I would fix her one at least once a day. She wore a truss for years and when I married Marcus, he paid for Mama to go to a surgeon, who sewed her insides back up where they should have been.
Seeing what had happened to Mama, I had my doubts about men and marriage and babies. But like a fool, I got myself in the family way and ended up jumping off the bridge. Just like every woman.
Marcus is a meat-and-mashed-potatoes kind of man, so I set to mashing. The phone rang. About time, Marcus, I thought. Where the hell are you? I gave my hands a quick wipe across the apron and answered, fit to chew him out. But it was only Babs Alderink.
She said, “Hi, Lucy. I’m calling to remind you about the Worship Board meeting Tuesday night.”
Worship Board. I’m telling you. We used to call them committees. Now, they’re boards. Some on the committee—not Babs, she’s all right—are something else. They’ll try every fad that comes along. I’m surprised we’re not all wearing crystals. They’ve got to bring in flutes or guitars, when we have a perfectly fine organ we paid a pretty penny for. Well, at least they’re there, in church. I don’t get people who never darken the door. Don’t try to tell me God’s not important—most can’t even swear without Him.
Then there’s Pastor Cross. Now, Pastor Grange was comfortable, like an old shoe, but he could pitch some fire and brimstone. Cross wouldn’t know brimstone if it set his hair on fire. Jesus the shepherd is well and good, but let’s not forget Jesus the table turner. Oh, Cross is all right for a minister, I guess, but no matter what you say to him, he looks like butter wouldn’t melt in his crack. And talk about a bleeding heart! He fills his sermons with teary lamentations about injustice in places we can’t do anything about. All he accomplishes is that we all feel guilty and no one has a pleasant worship experience. It’s no wonder churches in this country are in such bad shape.
I can’t see bringing politics to the pulpit, or letting it all hang out. Marcus and I have always agreed on one thing completely— you’ve got to play your hand close to your chest. I make a practice of not telling anyone anything personal, or important. People are going to believe what they want, anyway.
“Thanks, Babs,” I said. “I’ll be there.” I hung up and said out loud, “If I’m not in the clink, that is, locked up for murder.”
I feel bad about it now, but that’s what I said. Things weren’t always like that between Marcus and me. They were good once— real good—which, considering life with Wallace, was sort of a surprise. If I do say so myself, I used to be a looker. I inherited Daddy’s dark hair, with Mama’s auburn tints, and I cut a nice-looking female figure. Not too little, not too much. Marcus said he noticed that about me, right off.
When we met, I was waitressing at the Bottomless Cup, and he was home for the summer from college up north. He came in one morning, early, as I was taking the order at a table by the door. He nodded—I noticed how his eyes flashed blue—then he moved to the counter, hitched his pant legs up, placed the flat of one hand on the stool and mounted it from behind.
Phoebe Dalkins was working the counter. She gave it a quick, wet swipe in front of where he’d sat down and said, “What can I get you?”
“You can get Red over there to bring me some sausage and biscuits, please, ma’am.” The whole restaurant was listening.
“Red, hmmm? All right. Lucy, this one’s yours—I’ll get the fellows from the granary.” She gave me a watch-out-for-him look as she passed.
I knew who he was. Everybody did. The Talbots own the farm equipment factory back home and are local royalty. Marcus acted like someone used to getting what he wanted, but I gave him a run.
“First of all, I’m Lucy, not Red. My hair is brown.”
“It’s red in the sun.”
“Hadn’t noticed any sun in here.”
“You didn’t notice me, either, parked out front when you left yesterday. The door opened and you stepped out into the light, pulling pins. That hair was fiery, a billowing sun. Lord-ee, Miss Lucy. If I was ancient and an Egyptian, I’d have got down on my knees.”
The granary guys took to snorting and sniggering.
“You want a shovel with those biscuits?” I said.
Marcus had it all, societally speaking, and damned if he wasn’t a pretty boy to boot. Lust and practicality saw me coming a mile off. I was wanting to be caught. I thought I was doing the right thing. Marcus was handsome, he had a way that reminded me of Daddy, and like I said, I was in the family way. I’d gotten myself into something and my monthly was late. I was pretty sure I was pregnant but hadn’t told a soul. A girl’s a tad reluctant, when she’s not sure who to blame. I was in the bad spot of needing to find baby a name. I looked the situation over from every side. It seemed to me we could all come out ahead. Marcus would have a wife in his bed—a decent-looking one. I’d have a husband’s boots under mine. And the dear little problem would have her daddy and never know the difference.
I feel sorry for women who get sentimental about these things. A while back, our church had a Women’s Convocation. A hundred-some ladies showed up. Toni Sprague-Heller was the speaker. She teaches at the college, social stuff, and Bugs Fletcher had asked her to talk about marriage. Toni has ideas that will give you whiplash. She’s a feminist. Now, I’m amused by women who see the Devil everywhere, though I agree with some of what they’re saying. After watching Mama and Wallace, I figured if a man laid a hand on me, I’d shoot his nuts off. Why all the anguish? And why get suicidal? I can’t see making yourself penniless over some pie-in-the-sky principle.
Look at Toni, and you’ll see a quiet redhead. Well, a quiet redhead in a funny pancake hat. Then she opens her mouth. I ask you, why a fancy word when a plain will do? And why a hundred words when ten are as good? Bugs got us off on a sidetrack, asking Toni what she thought about changing the words in old hymns—all those morons taking out the He’s and His’s. Toni said she didn’t know, she didn’t feel strongly, then she went on for a half hour about words having power. She said something about the way we talk being a mirror. I don’t think a one of us really got it.
Toni’s out to save the world—she’s got this bumper sticker, ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DIFFERENCE—but at least she backs her talk with the goods. At
the women’s shelter she’s right in the trenches. She told us there are people in her field who believe a day will come when no one will get married. That raised a few eyebrows. The idea is, we know that marriage doesn’t work. People are figuring out they can live together, even have children, without signing on the dotted line or going through some ceremony.
And wasn’t I born forty years too soon?
Well, sometimes your contract is clubs. Jan Doren brought up the news coverage on domestic violence since Nicole Simpson died. Toni said the attention is great—we need our eyes opened. After living with Mama and Wallace, I couldn’t agree more. But she also said you’ve got to look at the whole story. Some researchers into that kind of thing, at it for twenty years, have found most families aren’t violent. But in the ones that are, the women are just as likely to haul off on their partner. She even pointed out, and this tickled me, lesbians will take a whack at one another as often as normal people will.
Toni moved us into discussion groups afterwards, and, in ours, some pathetic views came out. Bugs had lost her husband, a year or so before, and was recently engaged. Good God, I thought when I heard about it. The woman’s a martyr.
“Bugs,” I said. “Get a cat. You can leave for a few days and they’re fine.”
“You don’t know,” she said. “You have Marcus. I miss having someone, someone who’s there for me every day. The kids have their own families. I can’t expect them to drop everything and take up the slack.”
Bea Markowski’s husband has advanced Alzheimer’s. I watch her in church sometimes and don’t know if I more pity or admire her. She rubs his back like they were the two of them there alone. She said, kind of hesitantly, like Bea does, “I love Art and wouldn’t trade him for the world, but aren’t you afraid you’ll end up nursing an invalid and fighting with his kids?”
Toni was checking in with the groups, and she walked over just as Bugs said, “Frank’s kids are wonderful. Besides, there’s no guarantees in life. I could have died in childbirth, too, but I had babies anyway. Well, I guess that may be because I couldn’t say no and they just came along.” That got her a laugh, especially from Naomi Kinnunen, an old gal who had a litter every other year. The laugh encouraged Bugs, so she rambled on. “I’m hearing that what I eat these days could do me in, but I say grace and eat three square meals anyway. Since I’ve got to eat, or die— I eat. I want to be with Frank, and that means marriage, whatever it brings. None of this living together.” Bugs turned to Rena Cross, sitting there with her mouth zipped up, like always. “What do you think, Rena? About marriage?”
Now, I don’t know why everybody looks to the minister or his wife. It seems to me they might be the most naïve people in town. Rena Cross is a smooth one. She thought for a while, like she might say something a real person would say. Then she comes out with, “If I answered, I’d be spilling Cross family secrets. You wouldn’t want that. Besides, Toni’s the one to ask. She maybe knows me better than I know myself.”
Toni spun on her heels. “Don’t look at me!” We all looked at her anyway, so she signaled the whole group to give her their attention, then she said, “I’ve got to say this. Life brings all kinds of experiences. As you’re talking here, don’t compare yourselves.” She set the groups to discussing again and turned back to us. “I’d guess Rena would rather be married than not.” She smiled this rueful-looking smile and said, “Then there’s me. I’m not so sure. You’d think someone who’s spent years teaching Marriage and the Family could have pulled off her own marriage better than I did—oh! I just compared myself. . . . Don’t tell the others.”
We all laughed. If you ask me, the woman’s on the outs with a pearl of a man, as good-natured as he is good-looking. He’s always opened the door for me at church with a wink and a cheeky “And how’s Mrs. T?” He’s disappeared since their trouble, and I have to say I miss the impertinent thing. I wouldn’t mind having thirty years back. I wouldn’t waste it, like some women do. Of course, the ladies couldn’t leave me out of it. Bea turned to me. “What about you, Lucy?”
I looked them all right in the eyes, paused, and said, “If something happened to Marcus, I’d never get married again.” They all clucked and nodded—I’d said just the right thing, as usual. But where they took my words to mean I was that much in love, what I really meant was I’d be rid of him. And no, siree, I wouldn’t need to cozy up to some limp geezer to continue to live life in the manner I’m accustomed to. Money’s the only thing that sets a woman free. The old feminists knew that—but try telling the new breed. It’s not a hard-enough concept. There’s not enough whining and blaming in it.
That’s what I said. But that was another day. Now that it was getting on toward six, I was starting to get worried. When you’re my age, plain old pissed-off-ness at your spouse isn’t so easy to come by. Whether you like him or tolerate him, you’re always thinking at the back of your mind, Maybe something happened to him.
Dinner was ready, if the old man would just show up. I was getting more and more concerned, and I went and stood at the window in the street-side sitting room. The Murphy kids across the way were raking huge piles of leaves by yard light and burrowing into them, the way kids will. Just watching, I could smell the loamy odor of leaves on the ground, could hear the crunch crunch sound they make. The wind was picking up, sucking the leaves as fast as the kids could rake.
Their mother stuck her head out. “Aaron, button your coat.” The boy made a distracted attempt at buttoning with one hand and kept on raking with the other.
Kids. Our Joey was born seven months after we got married. I started seeing Marcus the day we met but put him off a couple weeks before giving in. You know what I mean. I didn’t want to appear too anxious. A few weeks later, I told him I was pregnant. I’ve got to say, he never flinched. One thing about Marcus is he’s never shirked duty. Before I could turn around, we were in front of the J.P., and in the fall I went north with him. The family bankrolled us without any trouble, and we’ve been here ever since.
Lucky thing, Joey came late rather than early. First babies being so unpredictable, the timing didn’t seem that far off. Of course, it was perfectly obvious to anyone nosy enough to count that I’d fished without a license—but it wasn’t obvious I’d fished with somebody else.
Joey is my one true happiness.
He looked enough like me to make up for the lack of Marcus in him. What he does have of Marcus’s is his drive. He has a high-paying job as an arts administrator in Boston and a summer home on the Cape. Marcus and I take Amtrak out there every summer. It’s a funny thing—I’m happy on the train. It was a train that took Daddy, but he did love them. He’d tell me about the rising and falling of the whistle, the way the landscape moved past—fast up close, slow farther away. It’s sad. We have to drive to catch the train, there are only freight trains through here now. Getting rid of the old train system was the stupidest thing this country ever did.
Joey calls a couple times a week. He’s so lucky in his friends— artist types, most of them. Writers, painters, musicians. And my favorite—actors. He fits with them, and that makes this mother happy. But I can’t get him to settle down. “Oh, Ma!” he groans, when I prod him. “Leave it alone. I’m very happy the way things are.” He smiles Daddy’s smile and makes pudding out of my heart. Now, I know wedded bliss is an old wives’ tale. But the arrangement does have its benefits, and it bothers me that Joey’s getting to an age where no one’s going to want him. If he would just meet someone and settle down, I’d feel I’ve done my job.
Marcus doted on him from the moment he was born. They were fishing, playing ball, and going on camping trips almost before Joey was out of diapers. Our photo albums from that period are one long series of snapshots of the two of them. Marcus holding Joey as if he was made of porcelain, at a week old. Marcus with Joey on his lap, holding two fluffballs, the first of many kittens. Marcus standing alongside Joey at the circus pony ride, keeping him upright when his legs were too short for th
e saddle. Father and son striking identical, hand-in-the-pocket poses on either side of a long stringer of bluegills and perch.
We didn’t worry at first that there weren’t other babies coming. But by Joey’s third birthday, we were starting to wonder, and by the time he was six, we were concerned. No one talked about such things, the way they do now—unless it was behind your back. Babies were acts of God, and so was the lack of them. But the Talbots have never been folks to take difficulties laying down, so Marcus swallowed his pride and asked old Doc Mortenson about it.
No one in a small town knew much back then about why people couldn’t have babies, even the doctors. Doc referred us to a Dr. Sylvester down at the U. We made the long trip one bright spring morning. It was the last bright morning we ever spent together.
Marcus had his semen checked. Believe it or not, it was all they could do. When we went back in for the results, Dr. Sylvester cleared his throat. He said, careful as a kitten on tinfoil, “You have very few sperm, Mr. Talbot. Almost none at all.”
Marcus turned sort of blue, didn’t move a hair.
I felt myself go pale.
Dr. Sylvester blundered on, “It’s a hard blow, I know—the sort of report I regret having to give a couple. I can’t say if there are problems with Mrs. Talbot, but the low sperm level alone makes pregnancy unlikely. The bad news is there’s nothing to be done about it. Frankly,” he said, as if he’d never heard of goings-on behind the woodpile, “it’s remarkable you have your son. You ought to be thankful for him.”
Gentle as he was trying to be, the doctor’s words hit me like a house wall falling. I knew what he was saying, even if he didn’t. My vision started to blur, and I got this hot, dizzy feeling. I had visions of Wallace stumble-dancing around the backyard, firing his gun. A feeling of panic hit me, and waves of stabbing contractions started rolling through my lower body. It took me a second to recognize what was happening. I couldn’t believe it. Fully clothed in the doctor’s office, I was having a climax—without anyone laying a hand on me. A while back, I read in a ladies’ magazine at the hairdresser that what happens in our bodies when we’re afraid is linked to what happens when we do the deed. My head was nodding so hard, over a mystery explained, that the receptionist came over and asked if I was all right.