The House of Deep Water

by Jeni McFarland

  Deb. She stepped outside, wearing a pink sundress and old work boots, a pale green cardigan thrown around her shoulders. His heart broke. She looked so skinny; even though she was six months pregnant, she wasn’t showing much in that dress. Her legs were pale, with little goose bumps on them. He wanted to take her into his arms and kiss the warmth back into her. And what if he did it; what if he stepped inside that house with her and never left?

  “My family’s waiting,” she said when he pulled her to him. She seemed a little standoffish. Had she been talking to Paula again?

  “Am I late?” he asked, knowing full well he was.

  “A little,” she said on their way up the front steps. “You didn’t bring a dish?”

  It hadn’t even occurred to him that he should. He kicked himself. He was surprised to realize he didn’t want her family to think badly of him.

  Inside the air was steamy with competing smells: cooked turkey and potatoes and cranberries and green bean casserole with those canned onion rings on top. Beneath that was a lingering scent of dogs and horses, a house that hadn’t been cleaned in a while. When Deb’s father died last March, her mother, Dinah, broke down. Steve had been planning on ending things with Deb then, but he stuck around to help her through her grief. Then she got pregnant again. And decided to keep it.

  Dinah plodded about the kitchen, with Paula orbiting around her.

  “I’ll take a look at that tractor after dinner,” Paula was saying.

  “That thing is on its last legs,” Dinah said. She wasn’t even fifty yet, but she’d aged so much in the past few months she seemed seventy. She started hefting the turkey from the oven, and Steve worried she might throw out her back.

  “Let me,” he said, stepping in. He took the oven mitts from her and pulled the turkey out, its brown breast meat crackling hot, stuffing spilling lewdly from its nethers. He hated stuffing. It was always so mushy. He set the bird on the stove top while Dinah got a platter.

  Paula skirted around him with an armful of water glasses. “We were starting to wonder whether you’d chickened out.” She was a tiny woman, with soft shoulder-length blond hair too girly for the way she dressed—mostly overalls or cargo jeans. When she came back into the kitchen, she helped him move the turkey to the platter.

  “Don’t stand there with your teeth in your mouth,” she said as soon as the bird was in place. “You can help set the table.”

  That was another thing. If he stayed with Deb, he would have to put up with Paula. The woman was always so bossy, and frankly, it was wearing on him. He wondered what Beth was doing today. He imagined her in her dorm room, the window cracked because the heat was always too high in her building. She might be at her computer, typing up a research paper, or maybe she was reading a book in bed. He’d had plans of going to college himself, but he never managed to save enough money. Two years ago he’d gotten close, but that was when Deb got pregnant the first time, and he’d paid to take care of the situation.

  In Beth, Steve placed all of his fantasies of life beyond River Bend. He imagined them at school together, maybe sitting in the same lecture hall or walking together under the fall leaves. Right now, starting a new job, he barely had time to visit her, let alone go to school himself. He figured she was a stronger person than he was. She’d gotten out of River Bend by her sheer force of will.

  He hoped if he held on to her, some of her strength would rub off on him.

  * * *

  • • •

  Dinah made them say grace. The entire time, Deb held his hand under the table. She wouldn’t let go, not even when they started passing dishes. He found it difficult to eat with only one hand. Farther down the table, Deb’s niece Linda eyed him. She seemed to be cataloging his body language. At twelve, the girl was a little strange, but then, in his experience, horse-crazy girls generally were. Linda and her sister, Paige, weren’t actually related to Deb by blood; they were Paula’s girls from her first marriage. Still, they were always around the farm. Jared’s eleven-year-old son, Derek—also a little weird; Steve suspected the boy didn’t bat for the right team—was Deb’s actual relation. The boy watched his stepsister Linda like he was studying how to be a woman himself. Paige was the only normal kid of the lot, a sweet girl of ten, her hair still in pigtails.

  Steve did the math and realized Paula would have had Linda when she was sixteen—three years younger than Deb. She was doing just fine. Jared would have had Derek at seventeen. It gave Steve hope. And for a moment, Steve really could picture it: him and Deb with their own farm, a big pretty house. Maybe they would raise goats. They’d have a few babies, and sell cheese, and sit by the fireplace in the evenings.

  Sometimes he envied Jared: While Paula was bossy, she wasn’t the kind of woman who needed constant affection for reassurance. Steve watched them together, and he thought, If that’s marriage, I could do it. Their relationship was so different from anything he’d ever witnessed. His parents were certainly no role models; his dad’s anger would rear up and spring on whomever was closest, Steve or his mother, it didn’t seem to matter which. His mom ran around on his dad. But Jared and Paula were solid. They were a riot at the bar, hustling out-of-towners at pool, buying all the locals a round when they won big. He wanted what they had, but when he imagined getting married, he usually imagined marrying Beth. He knew his parents would forbid it, or at least his dad would. His dad didn’t approve of him dating a colored.

  “Which dish did you bring?” Paula asked. Steve felt himself go red. She’d seen him walk in empty-handed. He’d never been invited to anyone’s house for dinner before, at least not as an adult; he hadn’t realized he was supposed to bring something.

  Under the table, Deb gave his hand a squeeze, but she didn’t argue with her sister-in-law. He wished she would. Not that he needed her to defend him, but it would have been nice.

  “What’d you bring?” Steve demanded.

  Paula nodded to the table. “The sweet potatoes. And the rolls,” she said. “And beer.”

  “It’s fine,” Jared said, putting a hand on Paula’s shoulder. “There’s plenty of food.”

  Jared was a man of few words, and that he would use some of them to defend Steve was touching. What a stand-up guy.

  “Is it fine, though?” Paula said. She turned to Steve. “Because it’d be nice to know that you’re going to provide for Deb, in her condition.”

  Dinah watched with interest, her hands folded in her lap. Paige’s head ping-ponged between her mother and Steve. The way Paige watched him now, pushing her food around her plate and not eating, so interested in the conversation and yet so quiet, made him feel a little queasy. He was wrong. The girl was just as weird as her sister and stepbrother.

  “Of course I’m going to provide,” Steve said. He took a drink of his beer to try to cool the heat in his face.

  “Really?” Paula said. “You got a job yet?”

  “Steve works at the tool and die now,” Deb said.

  “That’s a start,” Paula said. “How is it? You like it enough to not mess this one up?”

  Sometimes when people came at him like this, Steve felt the impulse to strike them. He wouldn’t do it, though. He wouldn’t go there. Instead, he stared at his plate, at the food that he didn’t help make, at the beer he didn’t buy.

  “He starts on Monday,” Deb said.

  “Ah,” Paula said. “Well, here’s hoping you can at least stick it out a few months.” She raised her beer bottle.

  “That’s enough,” Dinah said. “I’m sure Steve’s doing his best.”

  His best. He wasn’t doing his best, and he knew it. But they didn’t know it. They seemed to think this life was all he was capable of.

  How could he have admired Jared and Paula? The woman was mouthy and moody and manly. Her kids were weird, the way they watched him. It occurred to him for the first time that Linda, who kept sneaking looks
at him while she pretended to study her plate, had a little crush on him. If only her mother felt the same way, he could use it to his advantage. He wanted so badly to shut Paula up.

  And before he could stop himself, he heard himself say, “I actually came today to ask Dinah’s blessing.” Shit. Now, why did he have to go and do that?

  Silence at the table. Nobody ate. Nobody drank. Even Paige stopped pushing her food around. Deb squeezed Steve’s hand so tight. He looked over, and there were tears in her eyes. He hoped to God they were happy tears.

  “My blessing,” Dinah said at last. “For what?”

  “I want to marry Deb,” Steve said. Shit, shit.

  “And is that what you want, Deb?” Dinah said. She stared at Deb like she was trying to read her daughter’s mind, and Deb responded by going scarlet.

  After a time, Deb looked up at Steve. The tears rushed down her cheeks. “Of course,” Deb said.

  “Then you don’t need my blessing,” Dinah said.

  * * *

  • • •

  After dinner, after Steve hugged Dinah goodbye and kissed Deb good night, when he pulled into his driveway, he felt bereft. In just a few hours’ time, he’d begun to feel like he was a part of the Williams family. Nobody had really welcomed him, but Dinah hadn’t protested his intention to marry Deb, and wasn’t that a start? Now, walking into his house, the place seemed so small and cramped, cold and dingy. Tonight hadn’t gone at all as planned, and maybe that was okay. He could begin to see himself settling down with her someday. He could see the farm, the goats. Maybe they’d have four children, three boys and a girl, to share the chores.

  He would have to think hard on how to proceed, but his reverie was cut short when he turned on his computer and signed into ICQ. There was Beth, asking how it went, whether he’d done it. He was in the process of writing a response—something delicate, to let her know there’d been a snag, but nothing he couldn’t work out—when another message came in, this one from Sandra.

  Sandra. His own secret refuge. Sandra, with her long legs and floral-patterned bodysuits. Sandra and her weed. Her brother grew it out back in the cornfield. She was only sixteen, but she seemed so much older. She was always teaching Steve things, like how to smoke from a bong, how to shoplift without getting caught. How to screw. Like, really screw.

  She would have to be dealt with, too, just like Deb. But not tonight. Tonight, he was lonely, and Sandra was angry at her family after her Thanksgiving. She wanted to talk to someone. She needed comforting.

  Steve remembered Deb as he’d pulled away from the farm, her white legs in the moonlight. Her long red hair. Her sweetness when they kissed good night. Ah, but Sandra. He typed his reply: On my way.

  Elizabeth DeWitt

  19

  On more than one occasion, my roommate wakes me up in the middle of the night to ask if I’m okay.

  “Whatthefuck does it look like?” I say. “I was sleeping fine.”

  “No, you weren’t. You were screaming.”

  TAKING STOCK

  Paula can’t get her husband’s attention. Since she got back into town more than two months ago, she’s been leaving him messages, which he ignores, and stopping by his house, though he’s never there. Today, she called Linda, who hasn’t heard from her dad in days. He’s been making himself awful scarce; she has no choice but to ambush him at their hardware store.

  “You’re a hard man to pin down,” she tells him at the counter of Williams Hardware. They both still have the name in common, and joint ownership.

  “I could say the same of you.”

  “You look good,” she says. He stands behind the register, pulling on his beard while going through the inventory sheet. On a Friday afternoon in the middle of November, business is slow. No major home renovations are under way in River Bend; the only customers are those buying leaf rakes or turkey fryers. Store traffic is plodding, predictable, just the way Jared Williams likes it.

  “I heard you were in town,” he says. “I figured you’d up and left again.”

  A lie, of course, since she’s left him messages daily.

  “I suppose you know about Linda by now,” she says.

  “That she’s pregnant? ’Course I know.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  He eyes her suspiciously. He has every right.

  “I’m going to level with you, Paula.” He sets down his inventory sheet but stays behind the counter. The register, the glass display of pocketknives, the lighters and waterproof wallets, are all effective barriers. “I know you’re getting remarried. I know you’re here for a divorce.”

  “Christ,” she says. “This town.”

  “What’s the town got to do with anything?”

  “I’m not even sure I’m getting married, but River Bend has it as gospel.”

  He nods at her left hand, resting on the counter, and the diamond that blazes on her finger. “So you’re not here for a divorce?”

  She takes stock of the store, the aisles of goods. Back when they ran this place together, she’d never been able to find anything. She couldn’t get the hang of Jared’s sense of organization. The cast-iron skillets are in an aisle with faucets and cabinet knobs and coffeepots. Now, why wouldn’t they be shelved with the camping gear?

  “That, too,” she says. “After all this time, you had to know it was coming.”

  She’s never sure how to read him. His face is always hard to gauge through his beard, but he also has a way of holding himself very still, perfectly erect, and he refuses to slump even now. He keeps the emotion out of his voice when he speaks.

  “I’ll buy you out of your half of the store,” he says.

  “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk about.” She runs her hand along the counter. The knives in the display case look chintzy. They aren’t the fine blades you’d find on display in a store in Moab, knives made to appeal to hipster vacationers—overpriced, with handles of bone or wood or marble. These knives are cheap, and they look cheap. Their handles are made of plastic, their blades so thick, it would be hard to get an edge and nearly impossible to keep it.

  “I’d like to give my half of the store to Linda,” Paula says.

  “What?”

  “She could use a little extra income.”

  “What about Paige?” he says, his fingers in his beard.

  “What about her?”

  “You don’t think she could use the extra income?”

  “Linda’s going to be a mother.”

  “Paige already is a mother.”

  Paula rolls her eyes. Knowing Paige, she’s more of a burden on her wife than she is a real partner, but who can tell?

  “And Ma says things are shaky in that girl’s marriage. A little extra money couldn’t hurt.”

  “Fine, then. I’ll split my half between the two of them.”

  “What makes you think there’s enough income for three people?”

  Everything in the store looks cheap now. The cast-iron skillets are rough, the Coleman lanterns rusty, the ice scrapers have blades that would snap at the first real cold, the screws and bolts and lug nuts all in their bins seem likely to strip. Even the display of tools—basic household sets of screwdrivers, hammers, wrenches, drills—look cheap.

  “You said you were going to buy me out.”

  “I can’t afford to lose half of what this store makes.”

  “Why not? You live with your mom.”

  “Yes,” he says, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “And you saddled me with our daughter, plus your daughters.”

  “You want me to take Skyla back with me?”

  “That a threat?”

  “She’s not real keen on this town.”

  “You’re not getting my daughter.” His arms go rigid, and he grips the counter as if for suppo
rt. It’s satisfying, his shift in posture.

  “What can we do to help Linda, then?”

  “Linda’s a big girl.”

  Paula crosses her arms like a man would, both hands tucked into the armpits. “You really think she’d have been better off with me around?”

  “Girls need their mother.”

  “You can’t say we were happy.”

  “Who is?” He replaces his glasses, and his eyes look small.

  “We fought all the time.”

  “Don’t pretend you left for them.”

  “I want to help.”

  “Yeah, get it done quick so you can take off again? Is that about the size of it?”

  “Two months is hardly quick,” Paula says.

  “Two months out of the years you lost with your daughters,” he says.

  “Fuck you,” Paula says.

  The store grows emptier the longer they argue. Men in River Bend don’t want to have anything to do with other people’s affairs. If they had been arguing in the flower shop, there would have been women crowding near. It’s true, though; part of Paula can’t wait to leave. Her job has called to say they’ve hired her replacement. Jorge has been asking when she’ll be home. He even “offered” to come to Michigan to “help out.” Maybe it is time Paula left. She could send Linda money to help with the baby.

  “You don’t need to worry,” Jared says. “I’ll take care of things.”

  And because Paula is out of arguments, and because she never could sustain a fight with her husband, she leaves the store.

  * * *

  • • •

  She shows up at his house that evening. Of course he isn’t home, but her idea is to wait him out. The man has to sleep sometime.

  “He doesn’t always come home,” Dinah says.

  “What do you mean?” Paula says. It doesn’t seem likely that Jared has taken up with another woman. He was never what Paula would call amorous, even when they were first married. On the outside, he projects the River Bend masculine ideal—the beard, the sloppy clothes, the handiness, the hunter’s prowess—but Paula has always secretly wondered whether he couldn’t be diagnosed with low testosterone.