CVC

by Gloria Vanderbilt

  “Yes, well, the laneway here will take you back to the main road. As you can see, I’m quite busy, just now, so I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me.” Rose wiped her muddy hands against her pant legs, leaving streaks of dirt across the fabric.

  “Oh yes, I see. What a brood! Given your husband quite a quiverful. He won’t be shorthanded if he meets with enemies at the gate! Not shorthanded at all!”

  “Are you from a church, Brother Ambrose?”

  “No, madam! From no church. Not from a church, no! I preach, I suppose, but not from a pulpit. I’m more of a wanderer.” He hopped nimbly over the row of lettuce plants toward her.

  “Oh. I ask because of your name, of course. And I recognized the psalm, about the quiver of arrows and the enemies at the gate. The one about receiving the blessing of children, as frequently as God allows. I love that passage. My husband and I have been very blessed, as you can see.”

  “Blessed four times already, I see!” He turned to the children who were stomping in puddles.

  “No, Brother Ambrose. Five times blessed, if you count the baby.”

  “There’s a baby?”

  Rose had left Christopher in his bassinet back at the house, hoping the infant would bawl himself to sleep. She chewed at a hangnail until it started to bleed.

  “Tsk, tsk. Forgot the baby, did you? Bad mommy!” Brother Ambrose waggled a disapproving finger. “The children, the poor children!”

  “You’re here about my children?” Rose raised a hand to her throat. Brother Ambrose crept forward, looming so close she could smell his mildewy breath. She took a step backwards, almost tripping herself.

  “Please excuse me, I should run back to the house. It seems I’ve left Christopher behind. How mindless of me! I think I hear him crying.”

  “Is your husband at home, madam? Perhaps I should speak to him. You’ve gone rather pale. Quite pale. Perhaps you need to sit while I speak with your husband, alone.”

  “Arthur’s not home.”

  “More’s the pity. Gone whoring about town, has he? Leaving you stuck here with his dirty brats? What a shame you opened your womb to a whoremonger.”

  Brother Ambrose spoke as softly as silk bandages being wrapped around open wounds.

  “What are you talking about?” Rose twisted at a clump of her hair, yanking at it until her scalp hurt.

  “Now, now, there is no call for that tone. No call! I’m here to help. Just to help.”

  “With what?”

  Brother Ambrose sighed and shook his head. “The children! To help with the children!”

  He raised his hands and pressed his palms against her temples. Images flickered through her mind, like billboards whizzing by. Her husband in bed with other women, two or three at a time, all laughing together. The ladies at the church pretending to be friendly, yet mocking her behind their hymnals. The lacy curtains in the houses around town pulled shut, hiding slick, sweaty bodies writhing, fornicating. And worst of all, the Sunday school room filled with children who looked like her own brood but belonged to other mothers, all from Arthur’s seed!

  “It’s not true! It can’t be true!”

  “Listen to me, Rose. Pay attention. I have a message for you. Hear the Word!” His arms were now outstretched toward the sky. “Your children need to be saved! You need to show them God’s grace!”

  “Saved from what?”

  “They are not righteous. Their mother laid with a whoremonger and soiled her loins. Liberate them from sin! Sin! The sins of the father!”

  Rose heard his jawbone unhinge and then click back into place.

  “Come for a walk with me, Rosey, down to the pond. Let’s talk for a spell about what needs to be done to save you all from ruination! And damnation!”

  Arthur held the leather-bound photo album open, spread across their laps. The pages were made from stiff, black paper and each photograph was held in place with gold foil corners.

  “Look how pretty you were, Rose. And young.”

  He was pointing to the first portrait, taken just before she’d left for the church, in the living room of Rose’s parents’ home.

  “Remember how hot it was?”

  She felt sodden – a side effect of the new medication. Hallucinations. All the fancy words the doctor used about her disordered thinking, her disruptions in the house-hold. Her arms felt heavy so she rested her hands, folded and still, in her lap under the heavy book. Arthur dabbed at a corner of Rose’s mouth with a tissue balled up in his hand.

  “Remember the grasshoppers, how they got caught up in the lace of your skirt?”

  Rose remembered her innocence, how she had saved herself until that day, giving herself to her husband. Trusting him.

  “Here we are standing at the altar, saying our vows. That was the best day of our lives, Rose. The best day.”

  Rose recalled how the headlamps bounced and lit the way as they drove their truck down the gravel lane to the farmhouse. Their little white farmhouse. Giddy from wine. Arthur’s fingertips on the pearl buttons that ran down the back of her wedding dress. The mounds of tulle and lace on the floorboards of their bedroom.

  “We’re going to be happy again, Rose. You’ll see. You’re just a little tired from the baby. We’ll get you home and everything will be right as rain.”

  Back to her children. Yes.

  “Nana Marie is going to stay for a spell. Until you get back on your feet, back to feeling like your old self.”

  Rose had a feeling that her old self was gone for good. Black pages were flipped. Rose stared at a brownish water stain on one of the ceiling tiles above them. A leak, concealed. Rose thought she could smell the black mould that festered on the other side. Rotting and wild like the decay in the choked-off pond at the rear of their property.

  “I think the doctor would like to see you stay for a few more days, but won’t home feel nice? That’s what I told the doctor. Your own bed! Our bed, all clean and nice.”

  Rose sighed, eyes wandering to the window that over-looked the courtyard at the hospital. The trees outside must be filled with birds, Rose thought, though she could hear nothing of them through the panes of the window painted shut, dead white. Arthur reached across and grabbed Rose’s chin, jerking her head back to face him.

  “Don’t you be rude and look away when I’m talking. Stay focused, Rose. Stay focused on me when I’m talking to you.”

  Rose tried harder. When they got back to the farm, and the older children rushed out to meet her at the car door, Rose almost fooled herself with her smiles and open arms. We must look like one of those happy families in a store-bought picture frame. It would take vigilance to hide the darkness that had taken hold of her, a darkness that the medication only dulled. Be pleasant and focus, Rose, she told herself.

  As she washed up from breakfast one day, Rose saw Brother Ambrose leaning against the gate to the orchard, staring at her older boys who were supposed to be picking apples. Their small sneakered feet pounded the hardened earth, branches heavy with autumn fruit whispered against the sleeves of their windbreakers. Brother Ambrose’s face darkened with what seemed like disgust.

  “You wayward, rebellious boys! Disobedient, uncouth, ill-mannered delinquents! Rose! Rose! Don’t you ever look at what they’re doing? Don’t you care?”

  The boys continued with their game, unmoved by the scolding, indifferent to the old man. Rose wiped her hands on her apron and sighed.

  Nana Marie, Rose’s mother-in-law, looked up from her mending. She’d settled herself into the spare bedroom during Rose’s hospital stay. She was a large woman with a loud voice and a cackling laugh.

  “What is it, Rose?”

  “The boys. They’ve made a mess out back. Apples everywhere.”

  “Oh, well. Boys’ll be boys, I suppose!”

  Nana Marie’s loose-fitting cotton blouse was unbuttoned to the cleavage between her sagging breasts. Rose imagined her husband as a baby, latched there, pulling and sucking. It sickened her. Rose shuddered
to think that her own babies had clasped those same nipples when Rose was away, Nana Marie’s sour milk force-fed into their pink mouths.

  “You’ve come unfastened, Nana Marie.”

  “These buttons just won’t stay done up!”

  “Arthur wouldn’t like it.”

  “It’s nothing our Arthur hasn’t seen before.” Nana Marie made no move to fix her shirt. She went back to her mending.

  The forked tails of the barn swallows looked like serpent tongues. Fading afternoon sunlight filtered into the hayloft through the rippled glass of old windows. The flapping wings stirred up swirls of dust motes. Rose lay on her back among the hay bales, listening to the birds. Some heckled, others dove at her head. Brother Ambrose let the barn swallows chastise her for a spell. He laughed and danced, his long limbs flapped, his hard-soled shoes thumped against the floorboards. He raised his open palms to the roof to encourage a boisterous crescendo among the birds. And then, with a clenching of his fists, all noise ceased except for the creaks and groans of the old barn as the wind gusted outside.

  “My dear Rose. Swallows in the rafters, cow’s milk for ever after!”

  “Arthur will be wondering where I am.”

  “If that man were concerned about you, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

  “Don’t speak ill of my husband. Please.”

  “Don’t please me. Please the Lord. Please Him through the sacrament of baptism.”

  “They’ve been christened. All five. At our church.”

  Rose was on her feet now.

  “Don’t you walk away from me, Rose. Don’t you dare!”

  Rose stopped.

  “That baptismal font was impure! Did you see the water blessed? Did you see it with your own eyes?”

  “Our minister is a good man. We trust him.”

  “Trust him? Him, of all people? That wretched man who comes slithering around here, insinuating himself. You disappoint me, Rose. You disappoint the Lord above. The unclean will not be received. Hear the Word. Your boys, Joshua and William. The twins, Marjorie and Margaret.”

  “I’m a good mother.”

  “Are you really? What about Christopher! Toddling now, isn’t he? What a wayward brood, defying you at every turn.

  Lost, lost. All of them lost.”

  Nana Marie was peeking through the farmhouse curtains as Rose appeared in the laneway, rushing from the barn.

  “Here she comes now.”

  “I told you, old woman,” Arthur said, not looking up from his newspaper. “Rose always comes back. Don’t let her see you watching out for her. You know that upsets her.”

  “She didn’t see me, don’t you worry. Help me get the children to the table. I’ll start dishing up the stew.”

  “Kids,” Arthur called.

  “Arthur, please just go and round your brood up. It’s like having six children in this house instead of five.”

  “That’s my food you’re cooking, in my kitchen. You show me respect.”

  “Getting babies on that poor woman, even after the doctor said no more.”

  “No doctor is going to counsel me to thwart what the Bible teaches. That would be like inviting the devil in when he comes knocking at the door. God will not bestow more than we can handle, praise Him.”

  Nana Marie flashed her eyes. “Devil’s on the doorstep, Arthur. Knock, knock.”

  When Rose came in, Nana Marie was humming to herself and ladling stew into soup bowls from a cast-iron pot on the stovetop. Everyone looked up from what they were doing to stare at her. Caught in the act.

  “It’s pill time, dear. Let me bring you a glass of water,” Nana Marie said. “Be a good girl. Swallow them down, and eat up while the stew’s hot.”

  “I was thinking I’d stop taking them. I’ve been feeling so good.”

  “Don’t be silly, child. You heard what the doctor said. You aren’t going to get well overnight.”

  “But I don’t like the way they make me feel. It makes it hard to take care of things around the house. I can’t think clearly.”

  “Arthur, talk to your wife…”

  “It’s up to Rose. Maybe it’s time for her to stop. Get back to her old self. She was just a bit tired from the baby, that’s all. Sometimes you just have to force things to get back to normal.”

  The twins were staring at their mother, eyes wide, spoons poised over their bowls of beef and vegetables, their round faces smudged with grime.

  “Marjorie, Margaret. Look at the two of you. You’re both a mess. You should have washed those faces and hands before coming to supper.”

  The twins looked at Rose, saying nothing.

  “I’ll give them their baths after supper, Rose. The boys, too. Don’t worry about it just now. Let’s all of us just eat in peace.”

  “Well, I think they should wash up now.”

  “And I think you should let them eat while it’s hot. A little dirt never hurt no one. Arthur, don’t you agree? Arthur?”

  Arthur ate his stew from behind his newspaper. Nana Marie threw up her hands. Rose smirked.

  There was a dead bird on the floor of the barn, its neck limp and angled, its wings slack and legs folded back against its belly. Newly dead.

  “Joshua! My God! What have you done?”

  Rose had caught Joshua and William throwing rocks at the swallows’ nests, trying to make the little muddy cups fall to the floor so they could stomp on them, crush them. She yanked her oldest child’s arm, spinning him to face her. She pressed her palms to his round cheeks to hold his head in place, to compel his attention.

  “God is watching you, boy. Don’t you feel His eyes on you? Chickens don’t lay if the swallows fly away! That what you want? For all of us to suffer?”

  “The bird was dead. It wasn’t me!”

  “We’ve got to ask God’s forgiveness!”

  William stood with his thumb in his mouth.

  “I want Daddy.” Joshua twisted out of Rose’s grasp. “I want Nana Marie! You’re hurting me!”

  He ran from her without looking back.

  William did not move.

  Rose inspected the fallen nests, the carcass with the broken neck. Most of the barn swallows, the birds that had served as the consolers of Christ on the cross, had long ago abandoned their nests. No one could remember when there had been so few birds in the barn. But the echo of their chirps had not yet faded in Rose’s mind. She would always remember. These were the signs that Brother Ambrose had told her to watch for.

  Rose heard the swoosh of his overcoat behind her, Brother Ambrose whirling and dancing in the shadows. But when she turned to look back, there was only the dank lingering scent of something stale in the air. Taking hold of William, she strode toward the door.

  Nana Marie had gone to town for groceries. Arthur was hard at milking and other chores. Arthur thought that Rose having time alone with the children would renew her sense of responsibility, renew her purpose. Rose tried to settle the children to their home-schooling lessons at the kitchen table but Brother Ambrose was pacing back and forth behind her, muttering condemnations under his breath.

  “Rosey, Rosey, Rosey.”

  Rose bent over Joshua to check his sums.

  “Your son is lustful! Be mindful! Watch his eyes, watch how he watches you when you bend over him! Watch how he watches his sisters! The sins of the father, the sins of the father!”

  Rose tried to focus on the children.

  “Such lustful intent. Joshua has already sinned with his sisters. That boy is a sinner in his heart of hearts. A sinner and a liar. You know I speak the truth, Rose.”

  Joshua, William, Marjorie and Margaret were all seated at the table. Small Christopher was playing cymbals with pots and lids on the floor. Rose inhaled. They stunk of the well water they had been bathed in. They reeked of the Ivory soap that floated in the tub and the dollar-store baby shampoo that Nana Marie insisted on buying to save money. There was a stench about them of mildewy towels from the linen cupboard. Rose used to
like the smell of her babies. Now they smelled of having wallowed with each other.

  “Your young ones can’t keep their way pure, Rose. Their small minds being so set upon the flesh, they will not inherit the kingdom of the Lord!”

  Rose put her hands to her ears.

  “There is such wickedness among you. It shall be as scripture says, they have wrought confusion. If you do nothing, blood will be on your hands.”

  When she lay in bed that night, awaiting sleep, her mind a whirling disarray of anxious thoughts, she heard the clicking of his jaw from the darkness. She could hear the creaking of floorboards as he paced back and forth in front of the children’s bedroom doors. She could make out his shadow in the hallway outside her own door. He shook his head in disappointment. Rosey Posey. It was time to be resolved in her actions and to move forward.

  Lucky for Rose, they couldn’t watch her all the time. Nana Marie always said good night early before she retired to her room at the back of the house, and Arthur could be counted upon to fall into a sound sleep when his belly was full from a Saturday roast dinner. Arthur didn’t stir when the hinges squeaked on the old bedroom door. No one awoke when the treads on the staircase groaned under her bare feet. Rose went up and down the stairs five times that night. Except for the eldest boy, the most willful of the bunch, who tried to pull his hand from hers at the edge of the pond, who almost got away from her, each one of the children had gone with her without a struggle, one by one, still wearing their white nightshirts. Brother Ambrose watched from the far shore, arms outstretched in voiceless prayer.

  Nana Marie found Rose in the kitchen in the morning, the hem of her nightgown still wet, muddy footprints on the faded linoleum. She sat at the kitchen table, a serene expression on her face. There had been leeches in the stagnant shallows at the edge of the pond, leeches that clung to Rose’s bare legs, grown fat and black as they’d suckled against her skin. Rose had picked at some of them, and they had detached easily, satiated. There were trails of blood dripping down Rose’s shins from where they had latched onto her. The other leeches left in place clung like dark scars to the fair skin of her shins.

  “Rose! My God! What have you been up to?”