by Neil Plakcy
Tom winced. These days, everything he saw or heard reflected back on Betsy.
“So what can I do for you today, Mr. Laroquette?”
“We’re putting in a garden. Let’s talk tools.”
Bruce led him to the back of the store, where he helped Tom pick out a rake, some hand tools, a few bags of mulch, and some bedding plants. Tom spent the next few weekends preparing the yard, and then every evening when he came home from work he would find Jenny out there with Andrew and Betsy, playing games, Jenny reading stories, or just the three of them relaxing together under a wooden trellis they were training roses to grow up. Some days he could even forget that Betsy was sick, and imagine that they were still a normal, healthy family with a wonderful future ahead of them.
* * *
By October Betsy’s condition was stable. They were giving her drugs to stop the disease, and though there were a few side effects, she seemed to be holding her own. He’d catch himself thinking how pretty she was, how she’d draw the boys in when she was a teenager. And then he’d remember that she might never be a teenager, that they had to be grateful for every day they had with her. One evening when things were slow he got home by five-thirty, and sat down in the living room with Betsy on his lap. As he read to her from her favorite storybook, he started crying. Betsy looked up at him and said, “Don’t cry, Daddy. Kiss me. I make it better.”
He held her up and kissed her. “Yes, you do,” he said. “You make it all better.”
Jenny came in from the kitchen. She looked drawn and tired, but Tom was sure he did, too. She’d pulled her brown hair back into a ponytail, and tied it with a blue ribbon. She’d done the same thing with Betsy’s hair, even though it was thin and brittle from the treatments.
“The faucet in here is leaking,” Jenny said. “Do you think you could run down to the hardware store and get some new washers before dinner? I’m scared of what our water bill is going to be.”
Tom stood up, still holding Betsy. “Sure. Suppose I take Princess Betsy here with me.”
“She’s got to take her medicine. And you know she gets tired after that.”
“Can I come with you, Daddy?” Andrew asked.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes. You stay here with your mom.” He tried not to notice the hurt look on Andrew’s face as he turned and walked out the door.
Harry Mosca was at the counter at the hardware store, talking to Chuck Ritter, when Tom walked in. Seeing the men from the Outhouse Gang, Tom realized it was almost Halloween.
“Hey, guys,” Tom said. They talked about the weather for a few minutes, and then Tom leaned close to them and whispered, “So, are we doing it again this year?”
“I don’t know,” Harry said. “I’m getting old.”
Chuck and Tom laughed. “You haven’t even cracked fifty yet,” Chuck said. “I’ve got worse problems. My daughter wants to come with us this year.”
“Yours too?” Harry asked. “She must be talking to mine. Karen said that since Terry’s back in California and he can’t go, she should take his place.”
“How’s he doing?” Tom asked.
“He’s good,” Harry said. “He’s taking courses at a community college there and working at a place that rents surfboards, by the beach. Jane wants to go out and visit him at Christmas.”
“I’m glad,” Tom said. “He’s a good kid.”
“So what are we going to do about these girls?” Chuck asked. “My Lisa says we’re male chauvinist pigs, that we should move into the seventies, when men and women are equal.” He shook his head. “This was supposed to be a guys’ night out. The next thing you know, our wives will want to come, too.”
“Not mine,” Tom said. “There was an outhouse on her granddad’s farm and she had to use it once when she was a kid. She’s never gotten over it.”
“That’s what we ought to do for these girls,” Harry said. “Make ’em use an outhouse. Then they’d give it up.”
“I can just imagine Lisa,” Chuck said. “She’d be worried about chipping her fingernail polish. And you know, she won’t ride in the back of the truck any more. Says it ruins her hair.”
“That’s settled, then,” Tom said. “No girls allowed. Has anybody found a good subject yet?”
Chuck shrugged and Harry frowned. “Not so many outhouses around any more,” Harry said. “Maybe we could get Charley to make one up for us.”
“Get out of here,” Chuck said. “That’s as wimpy an idea as the one that guy had a few years ago, to make a parade out of us. This is serious. We’ve only got three days.”
“I’ve got some time tomorrow afternoon,” Tom said. “Things are slow and they’re actually giving me my weekends off. I’ll take a cruise around the farms and see if I can find one.”
“All right. I’ll do the same,” Harry said. “Chuck, we’ll make you information central. If we find one, we’ll call you.”
“I just get deeper in shit every year,” Chuck said.
* * *
The next day, after breakfast, Tom said, “I think I’ll take Andy and Betsy out for a drive, if you don’t have any other plans.” He stood up and cracked his back. Jenny sat at the kitchen table organizing Betsy’s pills, while Betsy sat in her high chair and played quietly with some plastic squares.
“I don’t know,” Jenny said. “She’s been pretty quiet today. I think she may have a fever coming on.”
Tom walked over and put his hand on his daughter’s forehead. “She doesn’t feel hot. Is she running a temperature?”
“Not yet. But why take chances?”
“I want to give you a break,” he said. “Spend some time with my kids. They grow up so fast.” As soon as he said it, he was sorry. He saw Jenny’s back stiffen and knew she was thinking the same thing he was.
Then she relaxed her shoulders. She said, “You’re right, they do.” She smiled, and Tom thought it was the first time he’d seen her smile in a long time. “Go on, take them.” She leaned down and kissed the top of Betsy’s head. “I’ll miss you, little girl. But I’ll find something to do when you’re gone.”
* * *
Betsy was strapped into her car seat on the front passenger seat, and Andrew sat in the back, as Tom drove up into the country beyond Charley’s farmhouse. They crossed a small creek, and Tom pulled over. “This looks like a good spot,” he said. “Let’s take your sister and go for a walk, OK, Andy?”
“Sure, Dad.”
The creek looked like it ran between two farms, so there was a good chance there’d be an outhouse somewhere along it. Tom carried Betsy, who was asleep, and Andrew walked along next to him. They picked their way through some light underbrush, trying to stay next to the rushing water, which was clear and bright and gurgled gently as it tripped over flat, smooth stones.
They walked through a thicket of chestnut, oak and poplar trees. “Dad, is Betsy going to die?” Andrew asked.
They’d never told him Betsy was dying, just that she was sick, because they didn’t want to worry him. He already had nightmares about evil creatures under his bed, and they thought knowing death was so close would only make it worse. But they’d never lied to him, either, since he’d never asked the question directly before.
“Yes, Andy, she is. But you know, we’re all going to die, sometime. It’s just that Betsy may go to heaven a little before the rest of us.”
“I think heaven’s a nice place,” Andrew said. “With angels playing harps and lots of nice soft clouds to lie around on.” He was quiet for a minute. “Will the angels give Betsy her medicine when she goes to heaven?”
“She won’t have to take medicine any more in heaven. And she’ll feel good all the time.”
They came around a bend and saw an outhouse standing at the water’s edge. “What’s that?” Andrew asked.
“It’s a very old-fashioned bathroom. It’s what we were looking for.”
“We’re not going to have a bathroom like that at home, are we?” Andrew looked worried.
A blue jay darted through the trees with a bright flash. “Cool,” Andrew said. “Did you see that, Daddy?”
Tom nodded. “He’s here pretty late. I’ll bet all his friends have already gone south for the winter. By the time he gets there, they’ll have a place all ready for him.”
They turned around to walk back to the car. “Is that what it’s going to be like when Betsy goes to heaven?” Andrew asked. “Like she’s going ahead to get things ready for us?”
“Yes, I think that’s just what it’s like.”
“Can you bring Betsy down here, Daddy?” Andrew said. “I want to talk to her.”
Tom kneeled. Betsy had woken up. She had her thumb in her mouth and looked bored with the concept of a walk in the woods. “Remember this, Betsy,” Andrew said, looking at her with all seriousness. “I don’t like Brussels sprouts, OK? No Brussels sprouts in heaven.”
Tom laughed. He stood up again and took Andrew’s hand. “I’m sure she’ll remember that,” he said. “I know I will.”
Harry: 1972
They’d been planning it for months. Harry and Jane Mosca were going to take their first real vacation, ever, a month-long trip to Europe. A bunch of the guys from Harry’s army unit were having a twenty-fifth reunion in France, and Harry and Jane had made up their minds to go.
After all, Karen had graduated from high school in May. She had a summer job, and she was old enough to leave alone in the house. They’d already decided she’d be going to the community college in the fall, and that money was put away. It was time for Harry and Jane to have a fling before it was too late.
Jane had become an Avon Lady the year before, walking around the neighborhood ringing doorbells, going over the catalog with the women over a cup of coffee or tea, and usually walking away with an order for colognes in commemorative dispensers or maybe a bottle of Skin So Soft, which was very good as an insect repellent.
She was full of information like that, and always knew the latest Stewart’s Crossing gossip. She’d been telling all her customers about her forthcoming trip, and that afternoon in late June she brought home a pile of brochures and postcards she’d collected from the women along her route.
“Honestly, if I have to drink another cup of tea today, I think I’ll burst,” she said, sitting down in a plush armchair in the living room. Harry, who worked the early shift, was already home, sitting in his recliner by the fireplace.
“Good day today?” Harry asked, over the top of his magazine.
“The perfume in the kitten bottle is a big seller.” Jane pulled off her right shoe and massaged her instep. “Everybody seems to want one.” She looked around “Is Karen home yet?” Karen had graduated from Pennsbury High the week before, and started work as a waitress in a diner out along the highway. She was usually home in time for dinner.
“Probably ran off with one of those truckers,” Harry said. “You know how they are. A different woman in every diner.”
“Harry Mosca. That’s your daughter you’re talking about.”
Harry lowered the magazine a bit and gave Jane a look. Both her parents thought Karen wore too much makeup, that her skirts were too short and too tight, but they had given up arguing with her. She just said they were old fashioned. “Come on, Mom, it’s 1972,” was her favorite line. “Wake up and smell the incense.”
When Karen wasn’t home by suppertime, Harry called the diner. “I see,” he said into the phone. “Well, thank you.”
He turned to Jane after he hung up. “She never came to work this morning.”
“Oh, Harry, what if she’s been kidnapped?”
“Let’s check her room,” Harry said. Jane followed him upstairs. Karen’s room looked typically unkempt, clothes and papers strewn everywhere. But a couple of her posters of the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead were missing, and when they looked closely they found most of the clothes she regularly wore were gone, too.
“She’s run away.” Jane sat down on the bed, right in the middle of a nest of wrinkled t-shirts. “I don’t believe it.”
“Do you think she’s gone to Terry?” He was twenty years old, living on the beach in California. They knew that sometimes Karen called him late at night and they talked. Harry called him, and learned that Terry hadn’t heard from her.
They spent the rest of the evening calling her friends, but no one knew anything. There was no answer at the place where her boyfriend lived. Randy was a mechanic at the garage in Stewart’s Crossing who was almost four years older than she was.
They called the police, and were told they couldn’t file a report until Karen had been missing for twenty-four hours. “She’s a child,” Harry insisted. “What if someone kidnapped her?” Jane put her hand on his arm then, and he said, “All right. We’ll get back to you.”
Around midnight, they decided to go to bed, but neither of them could sleep. Harry sat back against the pillows in the dim twilight and stared straight ahead, at the big oak tree whose branches brushed the second-floor window.
How had things gone so wrong? he wondered. He and Jane had been good, God-fearing parents. They took their children to church every Sunday, tried to teach them right from wrong. Now Terry was a beach bum in California, living in God knows what kind of place, and Karen had run away from home.
Why? He thought he understood what was wrong with Terry, that being in Vietnam had hurt him, knocked him off the path his parents had set him on. But Karen? The worst thing that had happened to her was having braces the year she was fourteen.
Although, to hear her complain, you’d think Harry and Jane kept her chained to her room. All they did was try and enforce some discipline, early curfews on school nights, grounding her when she came home from a party once reeking of alcohol, telling her to wash some of that makeup off her face or people would mistake her for a tramp.
The oak branch scraped back and forth against the window in the light summer breeze. Through the open window Harry could smell the freshness of the dew. He turned to his side and tried to doze.
At four-fifteen, the phone rang, and Harry sat bolt upright. He fumbled for his glasses and then the phone receiver as Jane sat anxiously next to him.
“Hey, Daddy, this is your little girl.” Karen’s voice was slurred.
“Karen? Where are you, sweetheart? Your mother and I have been worried silly. We’re so glad you called.”
“I didn’t even want to call, but Randy made me.”
“Is Randy with you?” Harry asked. “You tell him to bring you right home.”
“We don’t have to do nothing you say. No more.”
“Now, listen here, young lady. I’m still your father and as long as you live under my roof you’ll obey my rules.”
“No more, Daddio. I’m not living under your roof any more. I’m in Maryland, see, with Randy, and we just got married.”
“Married?” Harry looked at Jane, whose eyes and mouth were wide open.
“That’s it. I’m Mrs. Randall Jarvis now.”
“But,” Harry said. There were so many arguments rolling around in his head he found it hard to focus on one.
“Listen, Daddio, we gotta go. We got a lot of ground to cover before morning.”
“Where are you going?” Harry asked. “Aren’t you coming back home?”
“I’ll see you when I see you. Bye.” There was a pause, like Karen had started to hang up the receiver, and then she was back. “Hey, Dad, tell Mom I took some makeup from her Avon stuff.” Then the line went dead.
Harry sat there with the receiver in his hand. The dial tone sounded loud and menacing.
“Well?” Jane asked. “What is it? Where is she?”
Harry hung up the phone. “She said to tell you she took some of your Avon makeup.” He slumped back against the pillows.
* * *
The house was so quiet, without the phone ringing, the TV blaring or kids chattering. Sometimes Harry had to l
ook up and see their familiar old furniture, just to reassure himself he was in the right house.
Jane wanted to cancel the trip to Europe. “What if Karen needs us?” The trip was a week away, and they’d gotten one more call from Karen, from some place in Illinois. She and Randy were traveling around the country, she’d said. They didn’t have a fixed itinerary or even a destination.
“She knows how to reach Terry,” Harry said. “He’ll look after her. And we’ll give him our itinerary, so he can reach us if there’s an emergency.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to enjoy myself.” Jane tapped her cigarette nervously into a glass ashtray from the Holiday Inn, a souvenir of their last vacation. She had stopped smoking almost two years before, when Terry came back from Vietnam and she’d started to read all those terrible reports about lung cancer. But she had started again.
“We have to face the facts, Jane.” Harry paced back and forth in front of the fireplace. “It’s just you and me now. We’ve tried to do right by the kids, and see how they’ve thrown it back in our faces. We have to look after ourselves now.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely.” Harry stopped pacing and walked over to the sofa. He sat down next to Jane and put his arm around her shoulders. “I want to rediscover that wonderful gal I married.”
Jane blushed. “Harry.”
* * *
Harry stood in the bathroom of the small hotel in Deauville combing his hair in the mirror and singing, “Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlez-vous.” Jane appeared in the mirror behind him and he turned around, still humming.
“You’re in a good mood,” she said. They had been out late the night before with a half-dozen of the men and their wives, and she still looked tired and bleary-eyed.
There were nearly forty men, along with some first wives, some second wives, some children, and some assorted friends. “That Eddie Clark is some guy,” Harry said. “Isn’t he? He was always the life of the party.”
“And how lucky for him to have some nice children. A son and a daughter, both doctors.”
“Now, I told the truth about Terry and Karen.”