Farthest House

by Margaret Lukas

  “You don’t have a rubber? You’re good then?” He mumbled the question into her neck, kissing and breathing, hugging and rocking against her. His bare thighs on hers.

  A plane roared so low overhead the car’s windows rattled.

  Yes, she was good in the sense that she wanted him to love her. She didn’t really want to have sex, but she did want to feel desired. And despite the planes, the world outside the car seemed far away, along with her worries about tomorrow and Papa. There was only Derrick pressing his lips on hers, the weight of his body on hers. Her mind flitted over the idea that she might get pregnant, but she let it go. Tomorrow was a million miles away. It would never come, and not having a rubber wasn’t slowing Derrick down. If he wasn’t concerned, she wouldn’t be the one to ruin everything. Besides, everyone knew you couldn’t get pregnant the first time.

  As I left them alone, I considered how I never conceived, never gave Thomas children of our own. After a year of marriage, I gathered the courage to see a doctor. He examined me, and then we sat opposite each other, his wide desk between us.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “You’ll never have a child.” His face was tight with questions. Or knowing. Had he seen other cases? “You’re full of scars. Pelvic adhesions and bands of scar tissue.” My eyes were filling with tears, and he slowed down. “Bad infections in children, before the cervix is fully mature….”

  His office filled with the scents of lavender, Damask, and Mme. Francoise’s baths. I knew then why I was barren. I rose and left the office before he finished explaining. On the list of things Le Bête took from me, I could add my children.

  In the dark that night, I whispered to Thomas, “There won’t be any children.” I turned to the wall. The bed moved as he rolled after me and pulled me into his big arms. “Then I get to keep you all to myself.”

  We never spoke of children again. A few months later, I received word of Luessy.

  18

  Immediately after that encounter, certainly I can’t call it lovemaking, they left the thundering overhead planes bounding to places unknown. Within minutes Derrick had her home again, his car idling in front of her house. “Wish I didn’t have to go,” he said, “but I’ve got curfew.”

  Her jeans felt tight, and the seams twisted and uncomfortable, wrong on her body. Her underwear was soiled. The Beatles sang on the radio, but she heard only the idling engine and Derrick’s readiness to leave.

  “You okay?” he asked, and before she could answer, he looked purposefully again at his watch.

  She shifted in the seat, pulled her long hair over one shoulder and twisted it around and around. They just had sex. She wanted to talk about it, to find her place in its meaning. He’d fumbled and hurried through as though a classroom bell might ring at any moment signaling their time was up. Now, she wanted the rest, the non-rushing part where he made her feel loved, not gutted.

  When he opened his door to step out and come around, she opened her own door and stepped out before he reached her. She’d act on her own, not have him standing there with her door open, all but saying, “go.”

  He planted a kiss on her lips and grinned. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.” He started back around the car, “I’m sure I can get away.”

  She wanted to stop him and say that it had been her first time, but she was afraid he’d shrug, “You’re kidding, right?”

  His car moved down the street and turned at the corner and vanished. Only then did she look at the listing porch and the house without Friar. Derrick’s car had been stuffy hot, and lying under him, her head wedged against the door while his was in the cleaner air, she smelled the seat and a saturation of odors rising from impossible crevices: dust, sweat, splashes of beer, stale French fries. Derrick hadn’t taken his jeans all the way off, had only slid them down over his hips. If a policeman, or night watchman, had come to the window and tapped on the glass, Derrick could have covered himself in an instant. Their different states of undress seemed a metaphor for the evening, a feeling that she’d been the only one who’d really taken risks.

  The lights in the front room and kitchen and even the television were still on. Snoring rumbled and caught and rumbled again from Papa’s room. She locked the front door, turned off the lights and television, and in the dark walked through the kitchen to stare out into the backyard. The mound beneath the tree chilled her. She and Friar were both buried.

  She wiped at her tears, left the window, and walked to the doorway of Papa’s room. The same streetlight, giving his room dim illumination each night, outlined his form on the bed. She once ended nightmares and did away with monsters by running down the hall into his room. On those nights, he lifted the blanket, she snuggled into the warmth and security, he kissed her cheek, and he snored again—the best lullaby in the world.

  She tiptoed into his room. “Papa, are you awake?”

  He hadn’t removed his shoes, and the sole of each one had a quarter-sized hole. The two openings stared at her like a pair of animal eyes. She imagined how he’d staggered, Yes, Sister Dominic Agnes, he staggered down the hall and fell onto his bed. “Papa?”

  He didn’t move.

  A little louder. “Papa?”

  He still didn’t move, and she took the last step to the side of his bed. He smelled of stale wine, cigarettes, and old clothes. His whiskers were a salt and pepper stubble. She didn’t want to confess what she’d done with Derrick, she’d never tell him that, but she wanted to hear his voice, to have proof she wasn’t alone. “Papa? You want to talk?” She put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry for what I said. I don’t blame you for Friar.”

  He groaned, but his eyes remained closed.

  She stood a long moment, sucking and biting her bottom lip. “I need you to wake up.” She shook him, and his shoulder felt thin and lifeless. Still he didn’t move. Her anger rose. She whispered, “You’re leaving me. Just like Jeannie and Mémé did. Just like Friar.” She slapped his shoulder. “Papa! Wake up! You stupid drunk!”

  Over the next few days, especially in the mornings before leaving for school and before Julian started drinking, she stayed close to him. As he made coffee, she stood at his shoulder, and as he smoked his first morning cigarette, she kept her chair close to his. She thought if she stayed near enough he’d notice she was different, and he’d know how to fix it. For certain, he’d see the fear in her eyes, and he’d know what she knew: If she didn’t keep having sex with Derrick, he’d dump her. She couldn’t go back to her life with mired ducks, and she couldn’t let Mary win and have Derrick back.

  Julian did notice her, but he believed she only missed Friar, and the way he’d disappointed her by not taking the dog to a vet, weighed on him. Though he thought his non-action was justified, she respected him less, and knowing that, hurt. He was proud of her. She’d become a beautiful woman: tall and sleek. Many days, wandering through the empty house, he looked in at her canvases or sketch book, and what he saw could make him weep with pride and shame. His emotions closed his throat against saying he loved her and made him pour more wine into his glass.

  When Willow and Derrick next crawled into the back seat, she knew she should ask him to wear a condom, but she couldn’t find the courage. Rubber was such a gross word and subject. She just didn’t know him that well, and their relationship felt too fragile for such clinical talk. She could talk about math, science, art, but not say the word rubber. She was also tired of worrying about the future. Derrick was all she had, the only thing that mattered, and they’d already done it once, all of which was a kind of box fitted over her. When he started unbuckling his belt, she wiggled her pants over her hips. This time, too, Derrick fumbled with her breasts only through her bra, not reaching behind to open hooks and eyes, and she wondered if he avoided getting his hands near her shoulder. Embarrassed, she quit wearing a bra. They’d come from the Goodwill two years earlier, were old, gray, and still fit only because the elastic was stretched out. She didn’t want him seeing them anyway. Without a bra
, button by button, as nonchalantly as possible, she could open her own blouse, and Derrick would fondle her breasts, and she’d fight back tears of shame over her beggarly act. Who was that needy? How was it different from offering Mary her back?

  After the first few times, with the fall days growing colder and shorter, her hopelessness grew. She’d lost so much already, why protest now? Lying beneath him in the backseat of his car, the radio low, she never resisted him, and she never joined him. While he pumped and grunted, she let her mind ride around and around the circle of whatever song played in the background. The lyrics taking her all the distance of a carousel horse.

  19

  “Willow?” The old school nurse leaned close to the door of the bathroom stall. “Is that you in there? You’ve been sick every morning this week.”

  Kneeling on the floor, Willow puked again, more of the same green crap. She spit four, five times, trying to suck traces of bile from her teeth and tongue and rid the bitter taste from her mouth.

  “I must ask,” the nurse’s voice lowered to a whisper, though they were alone in the bathroom, “could you be pregnant?”

  Hearts and initials scratched into the paint, covered the metal panels of the stall, and Willow sank back against the words, “True Love.” The nurse didn’t know, but Willow had been sick through the last two weeks of October, through Halloween and All Saints Day.

  She could see only the nurse’s white hose and shoes. The heels were worn down, but the leather, with layers of chalky polish, was titanium white. She could have reached and untied the laces. She dropped her head onto her drawn-up knees. “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

  The nurse sighed. “Honey, you can refuse to believe whatever you want, but it’s not the mind that gets pregnant.”

  Willow rode the bus to the free clinic alone. Receiving a confirmation, she knew she had to tell Derrick. He didn’t avoid her at school—not exactly. Walking into geometry class, he always said, “Hi,” but with alphabetical seating assignments, Crat sat up front, Starmore in the back. They shared no other classes and sat tables apart at lunch. He was always beside Mary Wolfe, though he wasn’t shy about smiling at Willow when passed in the halls. Something Mary noticed.

  Willow spent that weekend at the library, telling Julian she had a massive research project. There she walked the aisles or cried in the bathroom. She made a phone call.

  Derrick came for her again on Monday. She waited until after he’d lain on her. A few blocks from her house, she asked him to pull over. She didn’t want Papa accidentally coming to the window and seeing them fighting.

  Her stricken face made Derrick comply. “What’s up?” he asked. When she hesitated, trying to find the words to begin, he glanced at his watch, “It’s getting late.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  He stammered. Was she sure? What free clinic? The questions went on until he slammed the steering wheel with the heels of his hands. “Fuck, no!”

  Moths fluttered around the streetlight. The black dart of a bat flashed and vanished.

  “Nothing?” Derrick shouted at her. “You weren’t using a goddamned thing?”

  “You weren’t either.”

  “I asked about a rubber.” His hands gripped the steering wheel. “I thought you were on the pill. Everyone takes the fucking pill. Or uses one of those…UD…I…things. What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

  She glanced at him. His face was the color of the ghostly moths. She looked away.

  “You weren’t using anything? How fucking stupid are you?”

  There was nothing more to say. He knew now, and they weren’t going to have a little chat about baby names. He wasn’t going to smile and say, “Wow, I’m going to be a father,” and she was fucking stupid. She stepped out of the car and away, meeting his cold stare, and then turning and starting down the walk. She’d gone only a few feet when his car tires squealed off. The noise pleased her, that cry ripping through the unfeeling night and taking him away.

  He’d thought she was using something, taking care of herself. The ugly truth rocked her, felt like a soggy rag in the pit of her stomach. Why hadn’t she been taking care of herself? How could she ace school and be so stupid when it came to sex? How could she spout all her liberated ideas about Eve and Pandora and not champion herself? Had she secretly wanted to ruin her life? To follow Papa’s lead? Would that bring them closer in some sick way?

  Her stomach rolled, the rag was coming up, gagging her. She rushed off the sidewalk and onto a browning, leaf-strewn lawn and ran for the deeper darkness between two houses. She puked and finished and half rolled, half collapsed away from the mess. Lying on her side, she hugged herself. She had no reason to go home. No one waited up for her. By this time, Papa had passed out with no awareness that she was even gone.

  The low moon was an orange globe. Voices trailed from the house to her left, people leading regular lives. Sometime later, a cat sniffed at her, then streaked away when she reached out to pet it. Since having her pregnancy confirmed, she’d been promising herself everything was Derrick’s fault. Blaming him fashioned a tiny room where she curled and kept herself out of the worst wind. Those walls were blowing in.

  She’d stood in a phone booth, its glass so dirty she could hardly see out, and tried to make her voice sound casual. “Tory, hello. It’s Willow.” Would she need to say, your niece?

  “What a surprise,” Tory said. “How are you? How is Julian? I worry so about both of you.”

  For a brief moment, Willow wondered why Tory worried about them, but why wouldn’t she? “We’re fine,” she started, but the lie opened the door on her emotions. She was weeping, the sobs coming from her stomach, deep as had all her puking. “I’m pregnant.”

  She imagined the two words traveling through the wire, flying over the city, over the fields and pastures, down into Farthest House, Tory standing in the kitchen, and the words hitting her. In the silence, she imagined Tory’s words coming back, crossing the miles. “That’s all right,” Tory said. “It’s already done then?” Her comments clipped, a bit floundering as she tried to factor in this new situation and decide how best to handle it. “So there’s no use fretting about what’s done. I know it seems impossible now, but these things happen. Girls get through them.”

  Willow was nodding, sniffling. She’d not meant to break apart.

  “Are you going to keep the child?”

  “Yes. And I want to give my baby a family. More than anything.”

  “Do you need to come here?”

  That option had never crossed Willow’s mind. Tory wasn’t Mémé, but still she represented Willow’s best years, when Papa was healthy and she’d spent her weeks with him and her weekends at Farthest House. “Could I?”

  “Of course.”

  “Papa would kill me.”

  “Has he been giving you the cards and letters I’ve sent over the years?”

  “Uh…” she caught herself, only just managing not to cry out, No.

  Then Tory was talking again. “You know I have room for you. You can stay during your pregnancy. After, we’ll figure out what’s best.”

  Willow’s minutes were running out, and she had no more change to feed the meter. She also found it hard to say more. At that point, she hadn’t told Derrick or Papa, and she didn’t want to imply Papa was certain to throw her out. Nor did she want to hint she might actually accept Tory’s offer. “I have to go,” she said, “but how’s Jonah?”

  “Older, more foolish than ever,” Tory answered. “Promise to think about my offer.”

  In the grass between two houses of strangers, Willow stood and looked up and down the street for Derrick. Was he coming back for her? She walked toward home. The night was chilly, but still she didn’t hurry. However dishonest Papa had been in hiding Tory’s attempts to keep in contact, and however mad he’d be when he heard she was pregnant, she wouldn’t leave him and run to Tory. The fact that she could, however, that Farthest House was an option, eased a bit of
her fears. She wouldn’t be returning to Mémé, but she’d be returning to the house she loved with its big rooms and big gardens where Jonah trimmed roses.

  She’d just hold on. Mémé had said, “Care only to work,” and now especially, she needed to sink down into her art, feel her way into it. Let art carry her through again. Life was easy there, not fighting any battles, where she could wink and nod and have her powers manifest on the canvas. When she did that, somehow, even if only briefly, some of what she found there followed her out like paint on her shoes.

  She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her jacket. Things would be all right. Derrick was just pissed, and who could blame him? She’d known she was pregnant before the nurse called her out. She’d had days of crying and pacing. Derrick just needed more time.

  The following Friday, as Willow walked home from school, Derrick’s car pulled up alongside her. In the daylight, a hundred eyes were able to see them. At McDonald’s, he ordered cheeseburgers, fries, and Cokes. They sat in a booth, the food untouched on the tray between them.

  “I told my folks,” he said.

  She waited. At least he wasn’t screaming, and he didn’t intend to start, or he wouldn’t have brought her to a public place.

  “Mom went through the roof. Six hours later, she was still screaming how I was killing her. ‘You love Mary Wolfe!’” he mimicked her higher voice. “Dad called me a ‘jack-off,’ said I’d always thought with my little head.”

  Willow stared at the straw jutting from the center of her flimsy lid.

  “Mom bawled all night. First thing in the morning, before early Mass, she went to see Father Steinhouse. She came home telling me I was from a ‘good Catholic family.’ She wants us to marry.”

  “Marry?” Willow reached for the drink. Her mind scrambled over the word. Marry? Should she scream for joy, or should she run? “What’d your dad say?”