Bend

by Nancy Hedin

  Another day, I was startled awake before dawn. Kenny’s booming voice assaulted the air a moment after the screen door slammed behind him. Dad was the only one fully dressed and conscious. Momma was in the bathroom. Kenny had Little Man with him and needed someone to watch him so he could haul the remaining pigs to a slaughterhouse in St. Wendell and get back and clean his empty barns.

  “It’s a good day for reading your Bible,” Kenny said. “Hard to argue with a woman on that, although I wish she’d start picking up again.”

  I poked my head out from my bedroom. “Is Becky going loony again with her God talk? Is she taking her medications? The doctor said—”

  “I heard the doctor the same as you,” Kenny snapped at me.

  “Well?”

  “Just watch Little Man today so I can get those barns cleaned, please.” He let the screen door slam again on his way out, got in his truck, and raced from the yard. It went on like that for another week. Becky didn’t come over, and if she was at home, she didn’t answer the door or phone when I called. Kenny just appeared and dropped off Little Man each morning like we should be waiting to take care of him and had nothing else to do. Then he retrieved him each afternoon. It wasn’t that any of us minded taking care of Little Man. We were in love with him, but it made us wonder what Becky was doing that she’d give up so much time with her son.

  Easter weekend Kenny called in a fit.

  “She doesn’t change her clothes anymore or cook or clean, or any of the other stuff we used to do together that is none of your business, Lorraine. She just reads that Bible and prays.”

  “I’ll talk to her. Put her on the phone.” There was a long silence, but I could hear Kenny still breathing into the phone. “Kenny, put Becky on the phone and I’ll talk to her.”

  “I can’t. She, um . . .”

  “Okay, I’ll come over there and talk to her.”

  “You can’t!” Kenny said. “She’s gone. Shit! Shit! Shit! She took her Bible and she took Little Man.” There was empty air on the phone until Kenny came clean. “She didn’t take her pills.”

  “What do you mean? She didn’t take them with her when she left?”

  “No, goddamn it. She didn’t take them at all. The bottle is here, I counted them, and there’s not but two missing.”

  “Shit.” I couldn’t believe he hadn’t watched her better.

  “I’m scared, Lorraine. We’ve got to find her before she does something.”

  I slammed the phone down. The fool. It was easy to blame him at first. The idiot should have watched Becky closer, but I also felt convicted in my heart. I wanted it both ways. I wanted Becky to be better, but I didn’t want to have to work for that too. I guessed I could have watched Becky more closely and maybe even spied on her medications. Now Becky had run off again, and this time she had Little Man with her.

  I was alone and frantic with worry. Momma and Dad weren’t home. Twitch wasn’t at his office. Charity was under house arrest at her place and hadn’t had phone privileges since Grind found out about we’d been sneaking out to be together. Jolene was at college. Out of ideas and allies, I remembered that Gerry Narrows had helped me before.

  “No, she’s not at my place, but I know where she is,” Gerry said. “I saw her drive that poor excuse for a truck into your west pasture about an hour ago. She had the boy with her. I thought she was probably showing Little Man the sheep and goats. Is everything okay?”

  “I hope so. Talk to you later. Thanks, Gerry.”

  I scribbled a note to Momma and Dad to call Kenny and come to the west pasture. Becky was in trouble.

  The quickest route to the west pasture was through the yard, over the fence, and over a hill through the woods. It was the same route I’d walked with Charity the winter we’d met. The few beef cattle Dad kept had trampled trails through the grasses and brush. Maples, oaks, and quaking aspen crowded the sky with their new spring leaves.

  Once I crested the hill, I heard Becky before I saw her. She was about fifty feet below me where the hill petered out and a fence line separated the woods from the hay fields. I watched and listened. Becky was pacing and praying.

  Becky’s hair looked ratted and unwashed. She wore the same dress she’d worn the last time she’d visited the farm. Before I could yell about Becky’s dumbass decision to not take medications, and her dumber-ass decision to take Little Man without telling anybody where she was going, I saw that Becky held a knife.

  I stopped in my tracks. The sun glinted off the long blade as Becky gestured with it and talked out loud.

  “I am here, Lord. You have tested me. Here I am.” She paced and chanted, and stooped to pick up a stick, adding it to a pile of wood. “The sacrifice must be blameless.”

  I scanned the area for Little Man. He was on a blanket on the ground, motionless beside the growing stack of wood. I trotted toward them.

  “Becky.”

  “Lord,” Becky said into the sky, “I have brought you a blameless lamb.”

  “Becky!” I edged closer but worried I’d spook her.

  “Lord, I have a sacrifice for you: my son.”

  Shit, goddamn it, holy Christ. She was out of her head again, and this time she was thinking of hurting Little Man.

  “Becky, don’t do this.”

  Becky jerked around and looked at me. “Lorraine, don’t worry, my sister. God is going to bless you too. Our children will be as plentiful as the stars. We will own the cities.”

  With that proclamation, she actually twirled and raised her hands in the air. Her foot grazed Little Man, and he stirred.

  He was alive. Oh God. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.

  “Becky, you stopped your medicine.”

  “I had to Lorraine. I couldn’t hear His voice. God stopped talking to me.”

  She bent down and stroked Little Man’s cheek. He turned on his belly, sucked his thumb, and nuzzled into the blanket, napping.

  There was still twenty feet of ground between Becky and me physically, and miles between us in understanding.

  I said, “God doesn’t want you to sacrifice Little Man.”

  “How do you know what God wants Lorraine? Do you hear his voice? You don’t even believe.” She paced more quickly and took furtive glances at me.

  If it weren’t for the knife she held and her close proximity to Little Man, I would have run, tackled her, and held her down until somebody came to help. I stalled and tried to get closer to her.

  “You’re right, Becky. I didn’t believe, but I do now.” I inched closer. “I believed since that first day I saw you and Little Man together. Remember? You said, ‘Look what love has made.’” Another inch. “I believe because I met Charity, and she is kind and beautiful and loving and she believes in God.”

  “Don’t bring up your debauchery to me, Lorraine.” Becky glared.

  Shit! Why’d I bring up Charity? I stood frozen and floundered for words and wisdom. “What about Momma? I believe in God because Momma does even though her little brother died in a horrible accident and she’s blamed herself all these years. Still she loves us.”

  “I was chosen, not you. God chose me. You all want me to take those pills so I’d be just the same as you. I’m not the same as you. I am blessed. God speaks to me.” Becky put her hands to the side of her head and nearly cut off her right ear.

  “Just calm down. Let’s talk this through.” I came closer while Becky looked off in another direction.

  Becky’s head snapped up like she was being called from the clouds.

  “I am here, Lord. You have tested me, but I have passed,” she said, and without warning, she bent down and lifted a red metal gas can that I hadn’t even seen. The lid was off. She took the can with both her hands while still holding the knife, and she splashed gas on the woodpile.

  “Oh God, Becky, you can’t do this. God doesn’t want you to kill Little Man.”

  “He is blameless before God, a perfect sacrifice.” She looked at Little Man on the bla
nket.

  What could I do, what could I do? She wanted to sacrifice Little Man like he was a dumb sheep. Sheep. Holcum’s sheep! “Becky, use one of the sheep.”

  “What?”

  “There are blameless sheep right here in this pasture. I’ll help you catch one.”

  “I am being tested like Abraham.”

  “Yes, and you passed like Abraham. Just like Abraham.” It was one of the few Old Testament stories I remembered, because it was so creepy.

  “You passed, Becky. Like Abraham you were willing to sacrifice your only son. Becky, remember the rest of the story?”

  “Genesis 22: ‘God called Abraham, and Abraham called back, “Here I am,”’” Becky said.

  “But God stopped Abraham before Abraham sacrificed Isaac. God sent an angel.”

  “You’re no angel of the Lord, Lorraine,” she said.

  “You’re right, Becky. I’m no angel, but I can catch sheep. Remember after the angel told Abraham to stop, he caught a ram in the thicket for Abraham to use as a sacrifice?”

  I could tell my words were conflicting with the voices in Becky’s head. Becky furrowed her brow and grabbed her head again. Then she turned toward Little Man and leaned over.

  I lunged forward and pushed Becky down. The fall jarred the knife from her hand. She crawled on the ground to retrieve it. I swept Little Man up, and flat out ran. Becky yelled for me to stop and bring her lamb back to her.

  Little Man’s head bobbed against my shoulder as I carried him through the pasture and up the hill. He awakened and smiled at me like it was the most normal thing in the world for me to be running through the woods with him. I guessed it was.

  I stopped at the top of the hill. Becky hadn’t followed me. She watched me and lifted her hand—the one with the knife—and gave a wave.

  I looked toward the farm and saw Momma, Dad, and Kenny in the yard. I yelled to them and motioned for them to come. I put Little Man on his wobbly feet next to a tree facing away from Becky, and in view of his dad and grandparents.

  “Little Man, you wait right here. Daddy, Grandma, and Grandpa are coming.” The little bugger lowered to his knees and crawled toward his grandparents and dad.

  In the time it’d taken for me to position Little Man, Becky had started the wood altar on fire. The fire whooshed, lapping at the gasoline and dry wood. I called to Becky, but she looked up to the sky like it was God who was screaming her name and telling her what to do.

  Becky spoke into the air, “I know he’d be better. I have sinned. I’m not perfect. I’m not enough, but take me, take me!” She held the gas can above her head. She dumped the gasoline that was left over her head and onto her clothes.

  I ran to her. I wasn’t fast enough.

  Becky plunged the knife into her belly and dropped into the flames.

  I’d failed. A second whoosh pierced the air, followed by yelling. Dad and Kenny had reached the top of the hill. Like me, they were running full out toward the fire as Becky’s strangled screams shrilled from the fire and smoke below.

  I tried to save Becky. Dad, Kenny, and I all tried to save her, pull her from the flames. Fire licked at my hands, and I heard the crackle of hair singeing as I grabbed Becky. I gripped her ankles. The skin felt like warm dough.

  Kenny reached into the flames to help me. We dragged Becky out and away from the fire. Dad snuffed out Becky’s burning clothes with the same blanket that Little Man had napped on. When he pulled it away, patches of Becky’s scorched skin and clothes clung to the cloth. She was charred and bleeding. She was no longer my sister, Kenny’s wife, or Dad’s daughter.

  She was dead.

  I hoped she was with God.

  Dad pulled Becky farther from the fire.

  Kenny clung to her and cried, “No, no, no!”

  I looked at Dad. He said stuff but I couldn’t register his words, only the sound of the fire, crackling and creeping over the dried ground. The smoke and stench of burned gas and wood and flesh clogged my nose. My eyes burned no matter how many tears flooded them.

  Time stood still and sped by. It felt like everything happened in an instant, and it also felt endless. When Sheriff Scrogrum showed up, he yammered something about the pasture on fire and that he’d radioed for a fire truck.

  Dad put his hand on Kenny’s shoulder and put out his arms. Kenny let Dad gather Becky up into his arms and carry her toward the sheriff’s cruiser at the edge of the field next to Kenny’s truck.

  “I don’t want her momma seeing her like this. She’s got Little Man, and she’s coming here with the car. We got to get Becky out of here,” Dad said. The blanket trailed behind them like the bloodied train of a bridal dress.

  “Put her in the car, Joseph. I’ll direct the fire fighters when they come,” the sheriff said. “We’ll save your land.”

  “Let it burn!” Dad yelled over his shoulder.

  A quarter of the west pasture was ablaze by the time the volunteer firefighters arrived. They didn’t let the rest of it burn, of course. Putting out that fire was the only thing they could do for our family. Sheriff Scrogrum shushed them with just a look when they started asking questions about Becky.

  Dad placed Becky’s body in the back of the sheriff’s cruiser and drove her away. I was left behind to face Momma. She drove up in the station wagon and took the spot Dad had just vacated. I was relieved and saddened to my core to see Little Man was with Momma. She left Little Man in his car seat. I could see his head bobbing up from the backseat.

  How could I possibly tell Momma that Becky was dead? I understood all the stammering and prevaricating adults used when they tried to say bad news.

  “Oh, Momma. She’s dead. Becky’s dead.”

  Momma looked back and forth between me and the fire and chaos.

  “Dad took her in the sheriff’s car, but she’s dead, Momma. Becky’s dead.”

  “No, you’re wrong. That just can’t be.”

  I couldn’t say it again. I shook my head and regarded Momma.

  Momma spun on her heels and headed back to the car. I ran after her and got in the backseat with Little Man. I held his clean hand in my soot-covered, burned hands. At first, Momma drove like she was trying to catch up with Dad, and then she just pulled the car to the shoulder, put her head against the steering wheel, and sobbed.

  If anyone had asked me, I would have said that grief was a marathon, but funerals were a sprint. Becky died one day, and Momma, Dad, and Kenny met with a funeral director the following day. Our community, friends, and gawkers came to the reviewal and visitation at the funeral home the day after that. The funeral director used the word “reviewal,” but there was no open casket, not that those of us who’d seen her burned up could ever forget what she looked like. Her graduation picture was propped on the closed casket, mocking us with how beautiful she’d been before.

  Twitch told me that the coroner said Becky had been dead from the stab wound before she ever hit the flames. I knew differently, but I appreciated Twitch’s attempt to ease my pain and imagination. To return the favor, I never told him how Dad, Kenny, and I had heard Becky’s screams from the flames.

  I marched along like a good soldier, helped Momma pick music and flowers, and recruited pallbearers and goulash makers. Jolene came home from college and accompanied Charity to my house each day. They made me and my folks eat and decide things. I was grateful that Pastor Grind allowed his daughters to be in the company of the queer Tyler girl.

  Momma selected a picture and verse to put on Becky’s funeral program. Becky’s short life had left white space, a brief list of who had preceded her in death, and a longer list of who had survived.

  The funeral was the day after the reviewal. The church choir sang, and a group of high school girls played their flutes. Pastor Grind presided over the funeral. He was quiet and kind in the way he spoke about Becky and her brief life. He pulled out familiar scriptures and songs. Pastor Grind stumbled to explain what not a one of us believed could be explained. Momma clutched a
hymnal. I hoped she’d throw it at his head if he dared quote anything about Abraham or sacrifice. I crushed into the same pew as Momma, Dad, Twitch, Kenny, Little Man, Jolene, and Charity. It was only their shoulders on either side of me that kept me upright. Becky was buried near the edge of the farm at Bear Head Cemetery.

  After the internment, Twitch asked me to ride back to the church with him. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I figured it meant we’d have to talk about something besides animals and what ails them. We had worked side by side for weeks since I learned he was my biological father, but neither of us had said anything about it to the other.

  “I don’t mind missing the goulash and Jell-O if you don’t,” he said.

  “No, I don’t mind.” We stood on the artificial turf that skirted the area a few yards back from Becky’s grave. The grave-digging crew milled about nearby—just a hole to fill in and then the crew could get back to the living. I resented them. Why were they so eager to cover Becky up? I hated them for their job, but couldn’t have dropped a teaspoon of dirt into that hole myself.

  “So, now you know about me and your momma.”

  “Have you always known?”

  “Yeah. Your momma told your dad the truth right away. God, how I wanted to tell you.”

  “Is that why you’ve been taking me places and teaching me about animals?”

  “No. Your dad and I were and are best friends. I would’ve been around getting to know you anyway. Of course, I was interested because you girls were my blood, but I didn’t have any illusions about taking over raising you. Joseph and Peggy are your parents.”

  He put his hand on my back and steered me toward his Jeep.

  “I kept asking you to go places and teaching you about animals because I liked you. I love you, Lorraine. I loved Becky too, but she was a bit harder to get close to.”

  “Becky could be kind of prickly sometimes.”

  “You got to understand that I wanted to help you girls more. I got a few dollars, but your folks were set on providing for you girls themselves. I don’t know if Becky dying will jerk them out of that rut or not.”