River Angel

by A. Manette Ansay

  Lorna’s van was full, so they moved on to Maya’s Escort. Still, there were three big boxes left, and as Maya and Lorna pulled away, Big Roly found himself volunteering to drop them off.

  “I’ll just throw ’em in my trunk,” he said. “I pass almost right by there on my way to Ambient.” As he spoke, he glanced back at the marquee. Now the man was leaning against the pole the marquee was mounted on; it shook a little whenever he shifted his weight. Big Roly thought again about the possibility of a security guard—not that he’d use that title. Greeter, maybe. Welcomer. Some nice retired person in a bow tie and a trim uniform, who’d say hello and help with packages and discourage loitering. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen drifters at this intersection, begging change from shoppers, aiming thumbs toward the I-90/94 split.

  “That’ll save me the trip,” Cherish said, more to her mother than Big Roly. “I need to work on a paper for school.”

  Ruthie said, “We don’t want to inconvenience Mr. Schmitt.”

  And though, in fact, it wasn’t exactly on his way, he said, “It’s no inconvenience.”

  “So I’m done, then?” Cherish said. “I can go?” Big Roly looked at her. Her face was the same smooth beautiful mask. But there was something in her voice that reminded him of a dog whining at the door to get out. That high, straining note.

  “But, honey, you promised to work on the mural.”

  “I know, but I have a paper,” Cherish said. “History.”

  Ruthie sighed. “OK. Just be back to pick me up at two.”

  “Keep the car—I’ll walk,” Cherish said, and she started across the parking lot, zipping her coat.

  “I don’t like you walking by the highway,” Ruthie said. “Cherish? Take the car.”

  Cherish was walking backward. She took a pair of mittens from her coat pocket, jammed her hands into them like boxing gloves. “But Lisa Marie is picking me up.”

  “What are you going to do with Lisa Marie?”

  “I told you,” Cherish said. “We’re working on this paper, OK?” She spun around and kept right on walking. Ruthie sighed, a quiet, helpless sound, and Big Roly was embarrassed for her.

  “Teenagers,” he said foolishly. What did he know about it? But Ruthie nodded.

  “It’s a hard age,” she said. “That’s what everybody tells me. And she misses her father so. More than she used to, it seems to me. Though she won’t talk to me about it.”

  Big Roly didn’t know what to say.

  “She was so good about everything after he died. When people offered condolences, she’d say, My daddy is living with God. A child’s faith is truly something to witness.”

  “That it is,” Big Roly said awkwardly.

  “Well,” Ruthie said. “I suppose I should fetch you that rent.”

  She led him into the small back room, where her desk was wedged between the refrigerator and the wall. There was a hot plate, and a microwave too; a space heater stood beside the bathroom door. All these things had been donated, and Big Roly felt a small bubble of guilt when she pulled the cash box out of the top drawer and began counting out fives and singles. True, he was renting this place at a fraction of what he could get for it, but that was a result of the verbal agreement she’d given him two years earlier. She’d taken out a second mortgage on her land—one hundred acres running alongside the Onion River—and when Big Roly heard about it, it didn’t take much to put two and two together. She had Tom’s pension from the post office, sure, and a small income from renting out her fields, but Cherish was probably looking at college, and taxes had just gone up and were set to go up again. Ruthie made a few dollars from her sheep; in addition to selling the meat, she sheared them, carded the wool, and spun it into rough, beautiful yarn she used to make sweaters and scarves and blankets she sold in the craft tent at the summer festival. She tended a huge vegetable garden; made and sold wine from each fall crop of grapes; kept a roadside stand in the summer, stocked with apple butter, spiced pears or tomatoes, homemade cheese from her nanny goats, fresh eggs from her Rhode Island reds, ground-cherry pies. Ten dollars here, five dollars there—clearly, Ruthie’s financial condition was troubled.

  So Big Roly stopped by one day, sat down on the couch in Ruthie’s living room, and drank the tangy rose hip tea she served him. The old dog Mule sprawled at his feet, groaning with dreams; the cats blinked sleepily along the windowsills; the good thick odor of baking bread wafted in from the kitchen; but as she talked, Big Roly took in the cracked plaster over the fireplace mantel, the patched front window, the sound of the utility room toilet running nonstop, and the faint musty odor he knew meant a problem with the septic tank. He observed the paintings Cherish had done over the years—inspirational scenes, mostly, with a couple-three sunny landscapes—and noted that all were unframed, stuck to the walls with pushpins. If Ruthie was forced to sell—and he understood she did not intend to—but. If she was forced, she would come to him, let him work out a civilized offer. Keep everything simple. Quiet. In exchange, she could have the gas station for her ladies’ meetings for fifty dollars a month. It was just an agreement between old friends, he assured her, nothing anyone else needed to know about. Especially not the city, he’d thought to himself. Buddy Lewis had reported the council wanted to purchase land for a second public park; if the Mader farmstead went on the open market, eminent domain gave them first dibs. So Big Roly stuck out his hand to shake on the agreement, and then Ruthie said, perfectly friendly, “You’ll never get this land.”

  And, perfectly friendly, he said back, “What makes you so certain?”

  “Because I’m going to pray for a miracle,” she said, and the way that she said it, he believed it might be true. Part of him hoped it would be true—he had no desire for Ruthie Mader to experience any more unhappiness. He even felt a small flutter of joy when, last year, she’d won that Bingo pot. But he could afford his joy, his generosity. She was only delaying the inevitable. And gracious God—that river view, barely a mile beyond the city! That gentle swell where her house and outbuilding stood, high enough to be out of the floodplain! Those fields sloping gradually down to the water, cleared and sown with sweet peas—unbuildable floodlands, of course, but scenic as all hell. Big Roly had already spoken to an architect. The condos would be tasteful, authentic to the “river town theme” the City Council itself had told the Planning and Zoning Commission to encourage.

  When Ruthie turned and held out the money, Big Roly took it, and the little bubble of guilt went ping and disappeared. “You still praying for that miracle?” he said, quite sincerely, and she said, “Absolutely.” Big Roly could not imagine believing, with such certainty, that God or anybody else was out there listening to your prayers.

  “What else are you ladies praying for these days?”

  “A little of this, a little of that,” Ruthie said. It was what she always answered. Big Roly had heard that the women discussed deeply personal things. It was said that they had visions, even talked with the dead. Every now and then, they’d hold an evening meeting, and when they got to praying and singing, you could hear them halfway to the highway bridge and back.

  “I guess I better be going,” he said. “Me and Christina got a long day ahead of us.”

  Ruth nodded at the window. “Look at her,” she said. Out in the field, Christina stood beneath the trees, staring up into the dead black branches. How small she was against the backdrop of all that white, beneath the wide blue cradle of the sky! Yet in six years, she’d be driving for real. In eight years, she’d be gone. Somehow eight years didn’t seem as long a time to Big Roly as it once would have.

  “When Cherish was that age,” Ruthie said, “we’d walk to the cemetery every Sunday after Mass. We’d take turns telling Tom everything that had happened during the week, and so I heard what Cherish was doing at school, and with her friends, and around the house—in a way, I knew her better than if Tom had been alive.”

  “She sure is a pretty girl,” Big Roly said, hoping th
is was the right thing to say. “Prettiest Festival Queen we ever had.”

  “That’s when she started seeing this new boy, Randy,” Ruthie said. “I don’t think he’s good for her. She hardly talks to me anymore.”

  “Aw, Ruthie,” Roly said helplessly. He wasn’t any good at conversations like these. He thought of telling her he’d seen Cherish behind the McDonald’s, then dismissed the thought. The worst thing you could do in a situation like this was get involved. And besides, maybe it hadn’t been her. It couldn’t have been. “A pretty girl like that, she’ll have another boyfriend soon. You wanna get the door while I carry these boxes out?”

  Outside, he dropped the boxes into the trunk. The man wasn’t under the marquee anymore; Big Roly glanced up and down the highway, but he was gone. Vanished. Big Roly hit the horn, waved Christina toward him, patted his pockets for his gloves. In spite of the sunshine, it was damn cold. So much, he thought, for all that global warming hoopla.

  “Hurry up, Scootie!” he called, waving again, and he was about to get into the Lincoln to wait for her there, out of the wind, when he was struck, again, by how small she looked, how insignificant. Vulnerable. Like a field mouse or a rabbit. And with that thought, his gaze swept the sky, looking for the hawk. A terrible fear rose in his throat. “Come on!” he shouted, and he began walking toward the edge of the parking lot where the snowmobile path led out into the field. But this was ridiculous. She was absolutely safe. No predator would plummet from the sky and snatch her away. No drunken teenagers or drifting men would carry her off in broad daylight. No lightning could strike in the middle of winter. He surprised himself by breaking into a wild, clumsy run. She reached the edge of the parking lot just as he did, and he wrapped her in his arms, amazed by the sudden, solid safety of her body, living and real and whole.

  “You must be half froze,” he said into her hair, trying to disguise his emotion.

  “I think I saw an angel!” Christina said. “I think I maybe saw one in the trees!”

  “I think I’m maybe seeing one right now,” Big Roly said, and he kissed her hard on the forehead, smothering her giggles. The field looked no different than it always did. In the distance, at the slumbering construction site, the jaws of the crane swung slightly in the wind. There was nothing in the sky, nothing coming down the road. The wind felt warmer too. It was a lovely, clear March day.

  Ridiculous, Big Roly thought.

  To the Editor:

  My wife and I came up from Chicago last weekend in order to relax in a peaceful and scenic environment. Saturday afternoon, we walked around the downtown and fed the ducks in the park, feeling as though we’d stepped into a Norman Rockwell painting. Our accommodations at the Moonwink Motel, while far from luxurious, were adequate, and we settled in for what we thought would be a good night’s rest. Imagine our surprise when we heard squealing tires and profanity just outside our window. Apparently, the parking lot is a gathering spot for drunken youths. When we called the front desk to complain, these youths revved their engines and drove away, only to return an hour later, radios blasting. You wouldn’t want to print what they said to me when I went outside to reason with them. Does Ambient not have a police department? Does its Mayor not care what kind of impression Ambient makes to those who would patronize its businesses? We will not be back, and we will let others know of our experience here.

  Sincerely,

  Dr. & Mrs. Robert J. Barrington

  Lake Forest, IL

  —From the Ambient Weekly

  April 1991

  six

  Cherish Mader sat at her bedroom desk, physics textbook open, waiting for her mother to leave. It was Saturday night, one week before Easter, and Ruthie had an eight o’clock meeting at the Faith house. But at a quarter till, she knocked on Cherish’s door. Cherish braced herself and said, “Come in.”

  It was always the same thing. Ruthie would sit on Cherish’s bed and chatter on about nothing until Cherish wanted to scream. Then she’d ask if anything had been on Cherish’s mind. “You seem so quiet lately,” she’d say. “You’re always up in your room.”

  And Cherish would say, “Homework. You know.”

  And that would be the end of it.

  But tonight Ruthie said, “I know you’re busy, but you’ve been promising to finish the Faith house mural since the beginning of the year. Maybe tomorrow?”

  “Maybe,” Cherish said. “I’ll see how much schoolwork I get done tonight.” She truly hated that mural; it had been Maya Paluski’s idea in the first place. Of course, Maya stuck Cherish with Jesus and reserved the angels for herself. There just wasn’t much you could do with Jesus—people had certain expectations. So Cherish’s Jesus was turning out pretty much like all the others she’d seen. He had good muscle tone. His skin was bare and shiny, as if he’d been shaved and dipped in oil. His loincloth was draped just so, with nothing bulging underneath it. His face and hands and feet were still blank spaces: Cherish kept saying she needed more time. How was she supposed to know what Jesus’ face looked like? And the wounds in his hands and feet—gross. They’d have to be life-size. Big as dimes.

  “Physics,” Ruthie said, glancing at the open textbook, and she shook her head. “Sounds difficult.”

  “It’s OK,” Cherish said.

  And Ruthie said, “There’s something else. Sweetheart? Lisa Marie’s mother called. She says that last Saturday night Lisa Marie went to Milwaukee without permission. With her boyfriend.”

  “She did?” Cherish said.

  “She says you and Randy were with them.”

  “Lisa Marie said that?” Cherish tried to keep her voice steady.

  “No,” Ruthie said. “But Mrs. Kirsch seems to think it’s a possibility.”

  “I was here last Saturday,” Cherish said. “Studying. I told you good night, remember?”

  “I know,” Ruthie said. “But I promised I’d speak to you.” She paused. “Lisa Marie came home quite upset. Something about Randy. Drinking too much, that kind of thing.”

  “He’s not like that around me,” Cherish said. “Maybe with other people, though. I’ll ask him about it.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Well,” Ruthie said. “I’ll see Mrs. Kirsch at the meeting tonight, and I’ll tell her I spoke with you.”

  “OK,” Cherish said, but when Ruthie reached the doorway, she said, “Mom? You would have heard me take the car. Or if someone had picked me up, you would have heard them in the driveway.”

  “I know,” Ruthie said. “Don’t worry about it. I just want you to remember…” She paused again. “If anything ever should come up, I’m always here for you. You can talk to me. About anything.”

  “I know,” Cherish said. “Have a good meeting.”

  Cherish watched from the window until the sorrowful red eyes of her mother’s taillights disappeared down the driveway. Then she shut her physics book with a slam and tried to decide what to do. It didn’t sound like Lisa Marie had ratted them out, not exactly, but still. She’d have to call Randy. Something had to be done. She rolled a fat doobie, sucked the bitter smoke deep into her lungs, holding it, holding it, concentrating on the rows of dolls that lined her bedroom walls. Barbies and Mrs. Beasleys. Raggedy Anns and Cabbage Patch Kids. Betsy Wetsys and Love Me Tenders and even Snow White with all seven of her dwarfs, still in their original boxes. Her mother had been giving her dolls ever since she could remember. It didn’t seem to matter that she was seventeen, that she’d stopped liking dolls a long time ago. The smaller dolls stood erect on tiny stands, steel rods stiffening their plastic spines. Others lolled in bassinets and cradles, rode in miniature strollers, slept, sucked thumbs, fingered real human hair. Some wore hats and elaborate dresses and intricate leather shoes. Some could cry or crawl or eat, but most of them simply stared straight ahead, smiling their manicured smiles: empty, symmetrical, perfect.

  Cherish exhaled. Sweet smoke circled her head. When she was a little girl, people often said she looked just like
a doll, and she’d think of her dolls’ cool plastic cheeks, the unnatural paleness of their skin. She’d stare at her face in the bathroom mirror; it seemed normal enough to her. She wondered what it was that people saw when they looked at her, and they always seemed to be looking at her, exchanging remarks in hushed voices, whispering into the backs of their hands. She’d never forget the day her mother caught her in front of the mirror—it must have been just after Dad died. Vanity was sinful, Ruthie had explained. Cherish’s beauty, like all things, was a gift from God, a tool to be put to good use for His honor and glory, did Cherish understand? Cherish hadn’t known what to say. Before that moment, she’d never realized she was beautiful.

  She smoked the rest of the joint down to its dusty tip. The pot had been a gift from Randy; he’d tucked it into the plastic-lined makeup bag she kept in her locker at school. Nobody dared slip Randy Hale anything less than grade A. Randy wasn’t someone you messed with. He was captain of the wrestling team, an allstate middleweight champion. Once, when somebody parked him in at school, he and Paul Zuggenhagen picked up the back end of that person’s car and dropped it, picked it up again and dropped it, until they had bounced it to the edge of the lot and wedged it between two trees. Cherish thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen. That was Lisa Marie’s biggest problem. She had no sense of humor. She took everything too seriously. Cherish tore a piece of paper out of her notebook, scrawled: Went to bed. Hope the meeting went well. She taped the note to the outside of her bedroom door, set the door lock from the inside, and pulled it shut behind her; she’d pick the lock with a bobby pin when she got home. Downstairs, she phoned Randy, told him to fetch Paul and meet her at Lisa Marie’s.