Ruin Falls

by Jenny Milchman

  Only Matthew’s appetite appeared to be intact. He shoveled chunks of chicken onto his fork, using one finger to push.

  “I put my purse in Paul’s old bedroom,” Liz said. “Is that where you’d like me to sleep?”

  Matthew and Mary exchanged glances.

  “Don’t see as there’s much choice,” Matthew said.

  “We only have the one spare,” Mary apologized. “Paul was our only.”

  Liz looked up.

  “Is our only,” Mary corrected hurriedly.

  Matthew’s eyebrows intersected in a frown. “We’re modest people, and it’s served us well. I tried to teach my son to live that way, too.” His own tone contained no note of apology. Rather, his implication seemed to be that Paul had strayed from the family tradition.

  “I think we’ve done the same,” Liz retorted.

  But she couldn’t keep up any sort of bold front. Thinking of the ways they’d tried to connect both children to nature and the earth, to help them understand where their sustenance came from and what went into its creation, made Liz long with a dizzying pang for Ally’s eager affinity. She even missed the constant squabbles required to stop Reid from forming a Jenga pile with rocks, or making him weed in the gardens as opposed to locating buried seeds with fingers that seemed able to see beneath dirt.

  She fingered the slick oilcloth on the table. “Why has Paul done this? You must know something. It was like you were expecting me when I arrived.”

  Matthew’s gaze fell hot upon her. “We figured you’d be coming because a cop paid a visit before you got here. It wasn’t any surprise to see you after that.”

  The piece of chicken that Liz had been trying to chew turned to paste in her mouth as understanding finally dawned. The babysitting cop’s friend on the Junction Bridge force. He had delivered on his promise.

  Liz brought her napkin up and spat out the lump.

  “The policeman asked some questions,” Mary said quietly. “Whether Paul had been here with the children, things like that.”

  Liz stood and pushed back her chair, its legs grinding across the wooden floor.

  “I see. That does explain things.” She paused to take a breath. “Thank you for dinner. I’ll be sure to leave first thing in the morning.”

  Upstairs her phone began to ring.

  Her in-laws looked up, their faces startled by the sound. It occurred to Liz how quiet and muted this place must be most of the time.

  When Liz finally reached the phone, Jill delivered the news as any good doctor knew to: swiftly, definitively, leaving no room for false hope.

  “They’re not here, Lizzie. It doesn’t look as if anyone has been inside since you packed up the place.”

  In the background there came a faint mew of bewilderment, one of Andy’s noises. Jill’s voice grew distant as she sought to comfort her son.

  “Andy, sweetheart, come here, no, not over there …”

  Liz’s cell phone had been plugged into the sole electrical outlet in the room; it sat in the wall beneath a window. Liz heard a smart thwack as her forehead hit the glass. Outside, night had finally fallen and everything was dark, as wide and empty a blank as all that lay before her now.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Liz lay on top of a thin sheet, blanket puddled on the floor below, too hot to sleep although exhaustion pulled at her like weights. Whatever adrenaline had driven her here, prompting her crazed rush at Matthew in the yard and subsequent confrontation with him by the phone, was now drained. Time spent in this house had come to nothing, and the recession of hope left Liz limp and helpless.

  The cattle lowed miserably from the fields or their stalls; they were uncomfortable, too. A faint breeze stirred the curtains at the windows, but the temperature was so hot that the current of air provided no relief. Every now and then the sky lit greenly, casting an eerie glow over the room: somewhere far off, heat lightning was spiking. Liz got up and shoved the splintering frame of the window another inch or two higher. She turned around beneath the sloping eaves.

  Clues that at some point this room had been inhabited did exist, although they were hard to discern. There were a few lighter rectangles on the wall, where poster-shaped outlines hadn’t faded in lockstep with the rest of the paint. And the closet door was slightly ajar.

  Liz wondered which bands her husband had liked, the actresses he’d stared at. Why had Paul never wanted to bring her back to this place? It’d been easy for Liz to go along with her husband’s reticence, caught in the drift of his current. Paul had a charisma about him, a magnetic draw. That much knowledge was potent in a man. His students were compelled by it, too; Liz used to worry about Paul having an affair with one of his female acolytes, not that the males were any less adoring. The thought made her tremble with rage. She’d worried he would cheat on her; instead he had robbed her of their children.

  She was squeezing her hands so hard that they throbbed. Liz forced her palms to unclench. She walked across the floor, skin sticky, chafing. The backs of her knees were slick, and her upper lip tasted salty.

  Liz drew open the dresser drawers. They were empty, giving off the sharp, clean tang of pine. Liz closed her eyes and pictured herself amongst a stand of trees. Cool, shadowed. The press of desolation would be easier to bear in the forest, anywhere green and growing. She crossed to the closet, and there she finally got a hint of former life.

  The metal rod was devoid of clothes, just a few hangers, but high on a shelf sat a football helmet, its green dome visible from below. When Liz pulled it down, a jersey came with it. Eastern Agricultural College in gold letters and a gold number twelve. It was the school Paul had graduated from and now taught at. She hadn’t known that Paul had played college ball, which seemed a strange omission on her husband’s part.

  There was nothing else on the shelf.

  Frustrated, Liz walked back to the bed and sat down, the sheet clammy, clinging when she tried to shift around. Sleep felt as far away as another planet. She reached for one of the books on the bedside table. Lord of the Flies. Next to it, two tomes of Shakespeare, then 1984 and Of Mice and Men. Books from a high school English curriculum. Only one volume didn’t seem to fit. Liz had read it a long time ago, but couldn’t imagine this would’ve been assigned in any class. Johnny Got His Gun. A gruesome tale, as she recalled, a war protest about a man so mangled, he became a prisoner in his own body. Liz removed the book from the row and flipped it open. Before she could start to read, a sheet of paper fell out.

  It was a letter of some sort, a note. The page had been torn from a spiral-edged notebook, and the words were like slashes across it, dark as daggers.

  I cannot forgive the unforgivable, and in any case, you don’t appear to be seeking forgiveness. I raised you to the straight and narrow, but you have shunned my teachings. From this day forward, you are no son to me.

  Despite her own fury, Liz blanched at this display of hardness and rage. Matthew wore righteousness like a king’s mantle, and it had led him to cut off his child.

  What had Paul done? Left home, and the family farm? This note seemed to hint at something more dire. I cannot forgive the unforgivable. What awful act had been carried out, and could Liz uncover it?

  She folded the sheet of paper until it was small enough to tuck into the pocket of her shorts. Then she replaced the book on the night-stand.

  In the minuscule box of a bathroom, Liz let cold water run over her wrists before soaking her hair for the second time that night. She placed a wrung-out towel upon her pillow, and with those moves completed, finally fell into a fitful sleep.

  She woke when a rim of gray lightened the sky. Even before a farmer’s day began. Liz dressed soundlessly in the clothes she’d been wearing, then drew the bedroom door shut, hoping Matthew and Mary would assume she was still asleep while she took a look around.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Liz had left her boots back at the hotel. Before leaving home, she’d wrapped them in plastic and crammed them into her suitcas
e, knowing she’d be on a farm soon enough. But in the car she’d worn sandals, nice shoes for travel. Now clods of dirt ruptured beneath the soles, sanding her feet. Matthew and Mary probably had extra pairs of boots stationed in the mudroom, but Liz didn’t want to make any noise that would alert them to her exit.

  It was a little cooler outside, but the air still felt solid as she passed through it. Liz scrubbed back her hair, already beaded with dampness, or perhaps it had never fully dried out from last night. She paused, fists on her hips. It was growing less gray out here, daylight fast approaching, and with it another sweltering sun.

  She’d walked a half mile from the farmhouse, steering clear of the stink that fumed the cow enclosure. The acres down here were devoted to feed, but not anything her father-in-law was growing. Instead, the bushy rows were flagged by miniature pennants.

  Liz squatted, aware of the passing time.

  The codes on the pennants signified this or that trial variety belonging to the big agribusinesses. They were created in labs, but tested on farms and ranchlands whose owners could earn more renting out their land than working it. So much endless green, even under the scorching August sky. Liz plucked off a leaf, and tasted it tentatively. Some breed of alfalfa, and over there was soy. The number of rows offering up so much uninterrupted abundance was staggering. Liz flashed to her own plots back home, the occasional dried-out husk, or failed exotic. The lack of variety, wrinkle, or mishap on these acres was creepy. The plants reminded her of the placid-faced wives of Stepford who blinked at everyone with identical looks of contentment.

  She spat out the leaf, brushed off her hands, and set out for a series of cornfields. The heat fought her every step of the way, pushing her back.

  If Liz hadn’t been someone who spent almost all of her days outside—in cold frames during the brutal Adirondack winters, but still, surrounded by earth—she might never have spotted the break in the acreage. Row upon row of vegetation, but here was one aisle that stood a little farther apart from its neighbors, a break in the monotony of spacing.

  Liz ducked between the high stalks, corn nodding heavy upon them. Soon this whole area would be swept bare by a combine, nothing left to dry to a parched beige, withering in the wintered-over fields. All that vegetation would be destroyed to make way for a new season’s identical planting, the old put to no use, not even made into compost. This was the type of farming Paul called quick and clean: everything cleared to make way for the next money crop, instead of circulated to replenish the land.

  Liz moved forward along the corridor of corn, trying to catch a glimpse of light at the end. The patch she was in appeared endless, green walls rising up on either side. It was so dense and close that her feet kept getting twisted up in leaves. Missed corn pods lay on the ground, their rows of kernels exposed like teeth. The sun had finally appeared in the sky, and Liz felt as if she were in a lidded pot. She didn’t bother to swipe greenery away from her face; the motion only made her hotter. The oversweet scent of fallen fruit filled her nose, and Liz sneezed. Then the row finally came to an end, and she found herself at the rim of a woods.

  Liz glanced down, registering the soft give of the earth beneath her feet. Dirt wasn’t supposed to be so buoyant and spongy by this time of year. Something was being added to the soil here, and the effect was that of an alien spring, the year’s most fecund time, unnaturally prolonged almost into autumn. Liz wondered how Pervadon or whoever owned these rows was accomplishing it.

  And then she spied a bright spot of color amongst the moldering pods.

  Not green.

  Pink, and purple, and some peach.

  It was Izzy.

  THE APPOINTMENT

  Abby spent at least a couple of days wondering what she had gotten herself into. Even worse, she wondered whom she had gotten into it with. She’d only met these people online, which basically amounted to not knowing them at all. Could she trust them any more than her soon-to-be ex-husband?

  She felt as if she were filling a role similar to the one she had held in her overlarge family: that of the forgotten little sister. For a long time, Bill’s constant contact and oversight had been a welcome change.

  But this was like a reversion to childhood. Since she’d sent that text, days had gone by when she didn’t receive a message with further instructions. There was no one to call, at least no one who routinely answered their phone. The thread on the website was basically moribund; nobody posted anymore. Meanwhile Abby was trying to obey the set of directions she had received; packing and preparing, while simultaneously having to go along with a life she didn’t expect to be living much longer.

  But for now there were tasks to be fulfilled. Enormous ones.

  Cody was to start kindergarten this year.

  The day of the first supervised visit with Bill arrived.

  If Abby didn’t keep the appointment, Cody would be taken into protective custody. A foster family would be responsible for making the sessions. Period, end of story.

  It was still hot out as Abby buckled her son into his booster. Back in the city, this would’ve been par for the course, but up here it was irregular, unprecedented weather. And Abby had dressed nicely—who knew what the court-appointed counselor might put in her custody report—although she was already regretting the sleeveless white dress, a relic from another age. The cloth was see-through with moisture.

  She turned the engine on, willing the vents to send cool air through fast.

  “Mama?”

  “Yes?”

  “When I lick my booster strap, it tastes yucky.”

  Even at a time like this, Cody could make her smile. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t lick your booster strap, Bun.”

  “Oh yeah!”

  Abby smothered a laugh. But forty minutes later, as they were nearing the address, laughter seemed far away. The one-story building, which housed a couple of medical offices, seemed too bland and innocuous to fill Abby with this much dread.

  She parked and got out, walking around to Cody’s side. She glanced over her shoulder, expecting Bill to be there. She could feel him—smell him almost—and she yanked Cody to her, just as if he really had been about to be pulled away.

  “Mama, ow!”

  Abby forced her grip to loosen. “Stay close,” she said, too sharply, to Cody.

  She looked around guiltily as she tugged him along. If the counselor cared about the dress Abby wore, surely her harsh voice, or how the stress of the situation was wearing fault lines in her demeanor, would be worthy of mention.

  Oh, how Abby longed to be away from here.

  She saw Bill inside every car, was afraid to tug the door open lest her husband be lurking behind it, a blameless leer of greeting on his face as he reached for their son.

  Instead the counselor stood in the waiting room, divided from the one where Cody was to be taken. Abby had only to sit in the chilly space, try to get her heartbeat to stop ramping up before suddenly diving, and wait for her son to return.

  She never saw Bill.

  But the anticipation that she might turned out to be even worse.

  Even though the counselor had warned Abby not to talk to Cody about the session, lest he feel pressure to respond in one way or another, she couldn’t keep one little how-was-it from slipping out as she unlocked the car.

  “Good,” Cody said. Then, “Ow!”

  He had tried to pick up his DS, and the black box must’ve been burning hot.

  Abby felt as if she were holding a flood back with her teeth. “Let me turn on the air, Bun.”

  They waited a moment for the seat belts to be cool enough to touch. Abby held the DS in front of one of the vents. Then she pointed the car north toward Wedeskyull.

  “You know what’s next on the agenda?” She glanced in the rearview. “Cody? Look up from your game.”

  “What’s next on the agenda?” A beat. “What’s a agenda?”

  Abby smiled. “The visit with your new teacher.”

  She had thought
it both odd and inspiring that Cody’s teacher had scheduled new student meetings on a Saturday. The teacher had said that she would be in school that day anyway, setting up. And what did Abby know? She’d never had a school-age child.

  “So we’ll go do that now, okay?” Abby said. “And then pick up some groceries for dinner. What are you in the mood for?”

  Again, Cody didn’t reply, but the normalcy was beginning to strike Abby as reassuring.

  The Consolidated School sat in a valley. It held all the grades, kindergarten through twelfth, in a brick building whose roof was pitched steeply enough to throw off all but a skin of snow, and thus was mostly impervious to winter’s battering. The kindergarten classroom was so bright and welcoming that it distracted Cody from his device, which Abby had forgotten to make him leave in the car. She dropped the DS into her purse with a guilty flush, then faced the teacher.

  “Hello, Mrs. Harmon,” the teacher said.

  “Ms.,” Abby corrected. “I’m not married. Or I won’t be soon.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Harmon. It’s nice to meet you.” The teacher crouched down. “And you must be Cody.”

  Abby watched while Cody toured the classroom with his new teacher, gratified to see how comfortable he seemed to be. Things couldn’t be in that great a state of upheaval, bad dreams notwithstanding, if Cody was able to adapt so quickly to a new situation.

  After the teacher had finished asking Cody his letters and numbers, then given him some worksheets to fill out during the last week of summer vacation, Abby asked if she could have an extra minute of her time.

  “Of course,” the teacher said.

  Abby set Cody up on the floor of the hallway outside, giving him back his game. Then she closed the door behind her and met the teacher by her desk.

  “What a sweet boy,” the teacher said. “He certainly seems compliant and eager to please.”

  Abby smiled briefly. “Thank you.” Then she wondered if the words had been meant as praise.