Clara at the Edge

by Maryl Jo Fox

  “Well trained,” he says, deadpan. “They know their mama.”

  Grasping her knees, she rocks back and forth on the steps. “I have magic skills, my boy. Your mother is not of this world.”

  “So I’ve noticed. Maybe that’s one of our problems. Now me, I’m just an earthly guy. No surprises.” His smile is ironic.

  “I’ve never believed that, Frank.” She smiles indulgently.

  He sprawls on the porch, gnawing on a twig. For once, she’s right. New ideas and rebellions are alive in him these days. Stella is waking him up. He wants to build things, make things with wood, metal, stone, whatever he can get his hands on. Plus there are compromises he won’t make, things he won’t do—for Stella, his mother, or anyone else. He’s done with sleepwalking. He’s been sleepwalking his whole life.

  Clara stares at Scotty’s parched grass. She and Frank have never talked easily together. Yet the dream last night said to stop all her diversions and turn to him. If I’m so good at diversions, why are all the important things so hard?

  “Are you hungry, Frank?”

  “We just ate. Why don’t we go for a walk?”

  Her face brightens. “I’d like that.”

  They drive out to Salmon Falls Creek. The picnic area is deserted and the creek is low, but the sound of any moving water at all soothes them both right now. And she can’t smell any smoke out here. Silently they walk along the creek, parting the tall leathery grasses that feel like sandpaper against their hands as they grip clumps of it.

  “Weren’t you afraid of the guy? He tied you up, threw you onto the chair.”

  “I had no time to be afraid. I was mad. He was messing with my house, disrespecting me.” She’s lying. She won’t admit her fear to Frank. “Look, he’s almost a foot taller than I am. He could have really hurt me, but he didn’t.” She’s silent a minute. “Let me tell you something. Right before he threw gas on me, he got tears in his eyes and put his arms around me. Then I teared up, and he threw gas on me. I pushed him away hard. I think I slapped him. At some point, I slapped him. It was crazy.”

  “You’re imagining things, Mother. A guy like that would never show tears around you.”

  She looks at him. “It happened.”

  Tired of coddling her fantasies, he pulls out a folded paper from his Levi’s. “Just read this. You’ll see what this so-called Dawson Barth is really like. Scotty had an updated FBI check done on him yesterday. Security got his name from a waitress who carded him. Scotty dropped the report over this morning before you were up. Now he feels even worse that he didn’t check when security said Barth was a troublemaker. Scotty could have gotten the authorities on him, and none of this would have happened.”

  She reads the sheet of paper.

  “Dawson Barth, a.k.a. Steve Waddell, Roger Blake, Gus Krebs, Trevor Hanson, 6’2”, 165, DOB 11/16/74. Blue eyes, blond hair usually dyed black, thin nose, sometimes shaved head and eyebrows. Known places of residence: Reno, Dallas, Houston, Albuquerque, San Bernardino, Casper, Bend, Butte, Fargo, Newark, Chattanooga, Orlando, Gulfport. Served time for forcible entry and robbery, San Antonio Correctional facility, 1996–1998. Grand theft auto, assault with a deadly weapon, Rahway State Prison, New Jersey, 1998–1999. Outstanding warrant in 2000 for breaking and entering in Fargo. Father unknown, abandoned by mother at age six in Reno, placed in foster care, multiple states, a runaway before age of consent. GED, 1999, San Bernardino, CA.”

  “Oh, dear,” she finally says. “He really is in trouble.” She walks quickly now, unaware of the creek.

  “Scotty says the cops in Reno have drawn a blank so far. He and the girl have disappeared.”

  She stares at the water. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Well, believe it.” His voice is harsh. “If I’d gotten a gander at this Barth character, I’d have made mincemeat of him.”

  She looks steadily at him, thinking, No, you wouldn’t, dear boy. You’re a defender, not a fighter. I made sure of that. Feeling faint, she crouches on a log as her Brain Rooms again refuse to stay shut. She sees Lillian hiding in the barn, huddled against the mare, the cold North Dakota wind whistling outside, their mother knocked out on the kitchen floor, a bruise on her face, the front door open, her father vomiting in the snow. Clara was hiding behind the barn door clutching a shovel over her head, ready to hit him with it if he came in. He didn’t.

  Then she sees her mother dithering about, straightening a placemat as her father falls into a rage and strikes her again and again, her eyes flinching. It was a terrible thing for a child to see—his advancing fist, her mother’s drowsy smile as if luring him on.

  Clara had resolved early on never to be undefended or weak, never without a profession, never to marry a mean man or let any son of hers be mean and domineering. And Frank and Darrell were none of those things. At least she’d done those things right. She was always on watch when her father was around. She never knew when he might come from behind and haul her off somewhere. The threat hung in the air like a distant wildfire.

  Lillian as a child escaped into fantasy. All she needed was a big tablet with blank pages. She drew houses with dozens of rooms and secret passageways, whole villages connected by underground tunnels for escape. There was always a way out of a bad situation for Lillian.

  As for Clara, thinking about the past like this as she sits by the creek just makes her Samantha Room door fly open. Her mutinous brain flashes a screen of Samantha lying sprawled beside the tractor trailer, her young face startled, pale, unmoving, dead. As she crouches screaming next to her daughter, someone else—someone unbearable—stands beside her and says, “Hush. Hush now, Clara.”

  She cannot allow this visitation. Will not.

  Pressing her hands against her temples, the screen miraculously fades to black. She looks at her cloudy reflection in the creek water. Her head aches. All these years, she’s made a fortress of herself. Kept everyone away. Buried her deepest secrets about Samantha’s death—in order to live, not die, in order not to lose her mind. She is the calm statue, the ice queen—tottering, if you look closely enough. For it is her fault Samantha died. Don’t tell me it wasn’t!

  Abruptly, she brings herself back to the treasure she still has, the stalwart son who has put up with her all these years. He’s peering into the grasses. She calls out. “What’s going on?”

  “Lizards. Whole family of lizards—little ones, big ones. Come see!” He looks delighted.

  Her deathly anguish fades to something bearable. She takes a deep breath, walks over to her son, absorbs his calm movements, his confident stance, the jittery lizards darting and stopping, darting and stopping like a silent movie. She murmurs, “Do you know how good you are, Frank, how fine it is you haven’t disowned me after all these years?” He looks at her. This time, neither looks away. Till the day she dies, she will remember his surprised look, shot through with affection, the sun behind him lighting his sandy hair. Oh, she loves this man.

  She throws a pebble into the stream.

  Then he does.

  They laugh and make a contest of who can throw pebbles farther. Finally, the sun is really too hot. It’s time to find shelter in a dear person’s empty beige house with a dusty beige interior, no personal touches of any kind to identify the owner.

  Drawing her arm through his in a rare gesture as they walk, she feels the strong pulse that will outlast hers. She’s sorry for all the years they couldn’t talk, their years apart. Still mystified as to why she couldn’t be a better mother, she has an idea the reason might be her will to survive horrors. She can only focus on one important thing at a time: one death, one child, one father, one mother, one student—and now, one fire.

  I’m a little retarded, she thinks helplessly. She looks at him. We’re still not talking about the past.

  But for her, starved as she is for companionship, just to be together with her son like this is wordless talking of a high order. To share the sun, the grasses, the lizards with him, to see the manner of e
ach other’s walk, the tilt of the head, the shape of the hand. It’s all a prelude to talking. They will both talk when they are ready, she is sure of it.

  He helps her hoist up into the cab. He looks peaceful, his tanned face gleaming in the sun. Smiling, she looks at him, her heart full of so much love—and sorrow for all the wasted years.

  He says, “It was good to come here, spend some time together, Mother.”

  “Yes, it was.” For some reason, she laughs in pure exultation. He laughs too, for just a moment.

  They drive in silence back to Scotty’s house. He touches her hand. She feels the sting of happiness. It makes her cry.

  Stella sits waiting on the back porch. She stands and waves, looking radiantly alive in a yellow sundress, her healthy frame seeming to vibrate. Frank lifts her into the air. They laugh.

  “Take good care of him, Stella, do you hear?”

  “I hear.”

  chapter 16

  At first, Edie encouraged Dawson—she grew up without a mother too. But it’s nuts to look for his mother now when the cops are on them. He won’t listen. He’ll risk cops; he’ll risk anything. He’s wild to find her for the last time maybe ever because he’s leaving the country. He’s sick of always wondering, never knowing if she’s even alive. He and Edie have had huge fights about it ever since they left Clara’s burning house.

  They changed cars in Wells, Winnemucca, Lovelock, and Elko, stealing Cheetos, beef jerky, and Hershey’s almond bars from gas station mini-marts. They just snagged a Chevy in Reno after some old guy limped into a liquor store without locking his car. Aimlessly driving, they turn off onto a side street.

  He doesn’t remember exactly where his Aunt Sylvia lived, just the general area. It was a small house set back from the street in a lot of trees. Pine trees. You could hardly see the house. That’s all he remembers. Syl is the only one who might know where his mother is. The houses are scattered now, rundown; nothing looks familiar. Hungry and tired, they share a package of Cheetos and a Mountain Dew, smacking their lips, salty with the cheesy coating that permeates the little turdlike pellets.

  The shopping bag with Clara’s wedding pearls and opal ring and Frank’s coin collection rests between Edie’s knees on the floor of the passenger side, where she’s meticulously licking her salty fingers. The old woman’s a whack job, she tells herself. She’ll never miss the stuff, and neither will her son. She and Dawson are going to Mexico to just disappear—end of story. He has this dream of living in some out-of-the-way fishing village, living on fish, bananas, and tequila, spending the rest of his life with Edie, maybe working in a restaurant where he’ll get free meals and bring food home to her. She wants to bring in some money too, keep on drawing. She can make her own charcoal, her own paints from plants and alcohol. She can sew old clothes into arty numbers for herself, mend Dawson’s clothes, sell her drawings to tourists. They can stretch out Clara’s bounty a long time. And then something will come along. They’ll think of something.

  They hatched this idea in between fights on the drive from Jackpot. This fantasy helped them make up. Now that their future is perfectly imagined—the glistening fish, the fruit-heavy banana trees, the tequila carefully rationed—Edie takes Dawson’s free hand to her lips and kisses it. She puts his arm around her neck; he fondles her breast. He gets an erection, and she reaches over to touch him.

  Suddenly he slows the car, looking intently at a dingy little house, set way back from the road, surrounded by spindly pines looking slack in a season of drought. His erection wilted, he brings the car to a halt. “I think this is it.” His voice is tense. She watches him. “I remember something about a yellow front door with a big cast iron knocker.” He squints, staring. The door is faded—dirty yellow or beige, hard to see from this distance. Where a knocker might be is a blank space of bare wood. He looks at Edie. “You game?”

  “Yup.” She looks around for a cop car, but the street is empty and her heart is loud. Trying for bravado, she rummages in her chartreuse purse, streaks a fresh coat of purple lipstick on her pale lips, pinches her bleached short hair to stand up in peaks again, looks in the rearview mirror. She straightens her wrinkled black halter and pulls up Dawson’s gray boxers to cover the diamond-studded bar anchored to her belly button.

  His mouth has gone way dry. He’s licking his already chapped lips. “Desperado,” an old tattoo on his forearm, pulsates as he clenches his fists and opens the car door.

  They walk down the long dirt entrance road lined with frail pines, tightly grasping hands all the way, like children lost in the woods. His hands are icy. Wanting to ease the moment, Edie picks up a fist-sized stone and bangs it on a pine tree. Dum de da dum dah. The hollow sound startles her. She giggles nervously. If he’d even smile, she’d get some riff going, contort herself into silly poses, use the dead trees for drums.

  But no. He flares at her darkly, “Don’t mess around, Edie.” He keeps looking straight ahead, never taking his eyes off the house, as if his steady gaze will prevent it from disappearing. Sullenly she returns to his side, feeling unappreciated.

  He stops. “We shoulda brought her something. The coins. We shoulda brought one of those cardboard things full of dimes or something. Let’s go back to the car.”

  She folds her arms over her chest. “Your mom wouldn’t want something like that. She’d want the pearls or the ring.”

  He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple painfully prominent. “I’m not giving that stuff up.”

  “Well, it’s too late to go back to the car. We’re almost there.” Her tone is peremptory. Someone has to take charge. Before her very eyes he’s folding. His mouth is slack, his pupils dilated. She stands up straighter, pulls her shoulders back.

  They reach the door, dusty with peeling yellow paint, no doorbell, no knocker. He raps loudly with his fist, pushes his dark hair behind his ears. Lifts his chin, trying to look like a big shot. His aquiline nose and long, curly eyelashes would make him look refined if it weren’t for his unkempt hair and pasty face scarred with acne. They wait, holding hands. Long moments pass. No sound, no movement from within. He knocks again.

  Boots clomp on a bare floor, chain lock and dead bolt unlock. The door opens and a pinched white face peers out to reveal an underfed woman in her sixties, maybe six feet tall, a little shorter than Dawson. Her thin gray hair is balding on top; she’s wearing sagging corduroy pants, an oversized men’s work shirt, dusty work boots.

  “What do you want?” She’s irritable.

  “Sylvia? Aunt Syl? It’s me, Dawson. Nancy’s son. Do you know where she is?” His voice is low, almost a whisper. He recognized her at once, even though the shock of her aging—sagging skin, sparse hair, plain boniness—makes his heart contract with dread. He lets go of Edie’s hand and looks Aunt Syl in the eye. His mother might be dead. Or living in Canada or South America with another man. Or back with his unknown father, reunited and happy. He just wants the truth. His hands are sweaty.

  After a quick look of recognition, Sylvia studies the cement porch. “What do you want with your mother after all these years? Hasn’t she given you enough grief?” She tugs at her shirt. “You wouldn’t want to see her, Dawson, even if I did know where she was.”

  He regards her with steely eyes. “You do know where she is, don’t you?” Quickly he steps inside, catching her off-guard. “Let me see her.” Edie scrunches herself tightly behind him before Syl can slam the door. A smell of sour milk, rancid cheese, and dirty clothes fills the room.

  Sylvia is angry now. “Same old Dawson, barge right in. Nancy always told me how stubborn you were, how you never did what she said. This is not a wise move, Dawson.” With her arms folded across her chest, Syl’s eyes travel quickly over Edie’s pale frame. “And who is this person?”

  “The most wonderful girl in the world, that’s who it is. Her name is Edie. Edie Porter.” He puts his arm around Edie, who shrinks next to him. “I want to see my mother, Aunt Syl. Where is she?” He’s moving into the dusty, litt
ered room, filled with faded furniture, stacks of the Enquirer and Star. The smell of animal droppings overlays the other rancid odors.

  Aunt Syl has changed. Her house was always clean. She never used to be grouchy. One Christmas, she gave Dawson a whole box of Hershey’s chocolate bars with almonds. He never had such a wonderful present. He rationed himself to one Hershey bar a day. At age six, that’s about all he could handle. He would close his eyes as the creamy chocolate melted in his mouth. It tasted like heaven. One morning, he darted over to his dresser to pick which candy bar to have after lunch. The box was empty! The whole last layer of chocolate bars in their rich brown wrappings with the gray block letters had vanished. He always thought his mother took them but never found out for sure. That was when she was getting all the phone calls that made her cry and throw dishes around, right before she dumped him off at Safeway.

  He wonders why Syl is so cranky now. She’s like a different person. It’s been over twenty years since he saw Aunt Sylvia. She stands there frowning, her arms crossed over her rib cage. Suddenly, her arms drop to her side. “Oh, come along then. She always thought you might track her down.” Her voice sounds tired. She leads them down a long, dark hall that smells of filthy laundry and rotten cheese. The smell is familiar to him. His throat gorges; he suppresses a wave of nausea. He grips Edie’s hand.

  “Wait here,” says Syl as they approach a closed door at the end of the hall. She goes inside. They hear Syl whispering urgently, hear a loud “Ahhhh!” in response, as if the responder had been stuck with an arrow. After a short while, the door opens and Aunt Syl beckons them in. Dawson can’t remember how he got inside the room.

  In a king-size bed lies a woman fat enough to have two or three other people zipped inside her. The pale, swollen woman, her skin bloodless as bleached jelly, draws a food-stained blanket up to her neck, then throws it to her waist, as if she’s having a hot flash. She breathes heavily under a no-color nightgown, apparently frightened to death of what she sees.