Here to Stay (10 page)

Gene was a bit clumsy anyhow, and didn’t care to go for walks or play running games or throw balls.

She’d said once to Elijah, “You need to deal with Gene more the way you do with the dogs.”

Ever since, Elijah’s attitude toward his younger son had changed dramatically. He did not try to make Gene do things he didn’t want to do. He didn’t try to break him of strange habits. He mutely observed the way Gene simply issued matter-of-fact commands to the people around him.
Mother, I’d like to go to the beach now.
When confronted by Gene’s utter disinterest in being cuddled or held or even kissed good-night, Elijah simply shrugged.

Sissy found nearly all of these habits more than aggravating, but she, too, had learned that Gene could not be won to other viewpoints by persuasion, by begging, by tears, by anything. There had been incidents at school, too, particularly of his running away. Well, he was new to the school environment.

“Yes. You and Ezra, get your life jackets,” she told Gene. She and Elijah agreed completely about rules for the children near the water. They were not to go on the dock alone, were not to swim unaccompanied by an adult (an unnecessary mandate in Gene’s case) and wore life vests when they played by the water. Sissy sometimes let Ezra remove his when she was with him, to improve his swimming.

The phone rang, and Sissy stood and left the sunshine to answer it.

“Hi.” Kennedy.

The unexpected legacy left to Sissy and Elijah had created no bitterness between the sisters, perhaps because Alan Atherton had left his violin to Kennedy, which was what she’d most wanted.

“Hey, there,” Sissy answered, trying to inject some enthusiasm into her voice.

“Mother just left.”

“I’m sorry.” Her mother had cut off all contact with Sissy after the reading of her husband’s will, except to briefly challenge the will in court. There was no one who didn’t interpret his gift to Sissy and Elijah as condemnation of Heloise Atherton’s attitude toward them.

“She wants Ellen started in ballet. My God, she’s two-and-a-half, and it’s all Mom can talk about.”

Sissy smiled to herself. “When are you coming down to stay with us?”

“It will be a little while. Gerry has so many patients right now, most of them determined to have their babies in the dead of night, usually when I could really use him at home.”

The conversation was brief, and afterward, Sissy took the boys swimming. When they were back inside and Gene napping and Ezra busy in his room with Lego, Sissy went out to clean the kennels and the fenced lawn. Elijah would be home soon.

As soon as she had the thought, his car drove down the steep gravel drive, and she abandoned her task and went to meet him.

His smile was exclusively for her, full of the radiant love he felt for her. He clasped her in his arms as they stood on the gravel drive, kissed her hair, said, “You are so beautiful, Sissy.”

She kissed him back, said, “How was work?” And, “I think we need some new floatation in the dock. Shall we work on that this weekend?” They frequently worked together on the property, and this gave Elijah, in particular, a serenity he associated with the perfect meshing of their lives into one life.

As he started to respond, a child’s wail sounded from the dogs’ yard.

It was not an ordinary cry, the kind that she would walk towards calmly. It was a shrieking howl. Sissy, still close to Elijah, broke free and ran around the corner of the house to find Ezra on the grass, holding his arm, sobbing. He looked strange, his color grayish, and she saw in horror the puncture marks.

“Sissy, stay calm,” said Elijah. To Ezra, “Where’s the snake?”

Ezra pointed toward the lawn, and Sissy said, “Who cares about the snake? We have to go to the—”

Elijah ignored her. He picked up a head-sized rock, strode across the lawn and dropped it. “Nothing poisonous. You’ll be okay, buddy,” he told Ezra. “Still, I’ll run him over to the hospital. Best to make sure there’s no bacterial infection.”

Nothing poisonous.

Sissy said, “No, I’ll get Gene. You get in the car.”

Sissy scooped Gene out of bed, and he blinked open and immediately squirmed to be put down. “Hurry with me. We have to go in the car.”

“No,” Gene said.

“Yes,” she said, unwilling to yield on this occasion.

Gene sat down on the floor right where he was. She picked him up, and he began to scream.

He screamed in the car on the way to the hospital, and curled himself in a ball sobbing inconsolably.

On the way to the hospital, Ezra’s arm swelled and his color grew worse. He cried out in pain. Sissy told Elijah, “Get there faster! And, Gene,
stop it!
”

Gene, of course, ignored her completely.

“Just relax,” Elijah said.

But he was breaking the speed limit and then some.

At the hospital, he grabbed Ezra and the dead snake in the bag and ran inside. Sissy dashed around to get Gene out, but he wouldn’t leave the car, so she locked him in with the windows partway down. She ran into the hospital to see Elijah shoving the paper bag at the emergency room doctor, who looked inside, nodded, and shot orders at a nurse.

Sissy grabbed the bag and looked in it. A young snake, its copper-colored head smashed. “You knew,” she said. He’d deliberately subdued her fear—and Ezra’s.

“You’re supposed to keep snakebite victims calm,” he said.

E
LIJAH STOOD
outside Ezra’s hospital room, gazing stupidly at the chart hanging beside the door.

Sissy would not leave Ezra’s side, which required their hiring frequent babysitters to stay with Gene, who refused to go to the hospital and screamed the entire time if he was forced to do so. Elijah couldn’t think about that now, only about Ezra.

He’s going to live. He’s going to live.
Yet Elijah kept praying, and he gazed sightlessly at the chart.

Our Father, who art in Heaven…

NAME: Ezra James Workman. BIRTHDATE: 3/11/1970

Hallowed be Thy name
…

His eyes read the orders. Ezra had received blood. AB+.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
…

Elijah blinked. Sissy’s was…He’d thought it was A+. Obviously he must be wrong. It must be AB+. No…
That wouldn’t make the difference. He was O+. He remembered high school biology, pricking his own finger, identifying his own blood type under a magnifying glass. And he remembered that his offspring, because he was O+, would never have AB type blood.

Could the chart be wrong?

He’d seen Ezra receiving blood, and Ezra had suffered no ill effects.

Elijah stared at the chart, wondering if he was reading the nurse’s writing incorrectly. No. Very clear. AB+.

This can’t be true.

Maybe
his
blood type…After all, he was the one who’d typed it in biology, and he’d never received a blood transfusion.

But you’ve given blood, Elijah.

It couldn’t be right, couldn’t be right that Ezra’s blood type was AB+. Because if it was true…

The empty blood bag might still be in the trash can in the room.

And Elijah could walk into the room and see.

But he didn’t need to.

Because he suddenly knew that he was not Ezra Workman’s biological father.

And he had a very good idea who was.

I asked, “Why did you fight her when you knew she’d just get hurt?”

He said, “I didn’t think about her hurting. I just thought about the money, and how bad
I
was. You know. Ego.”

—
On the Side of the Dogs,
Elijah Workman, 2008

The same afternoon, 1978

W
HEN
E
LIJAH STARTED
his car outside the hospital, the radio came on, a top-forty DJ taunting him with golden oldies. The Everly Brothers and the song he’d once thought the most beautiful love song in the world, beautiful because she loved it.

He started to switch it off but stopped himself. Then came the pain behind his eyes, and he did wrench at the knob, turning off the music as he put his head in his arms on the steering wheel.
God
…She’d lied.

For years.

He turned the radio back on, changed the station to the public radio station and tried to listen to the news while he drove home.

The babysitter met him in the driveway, looking worried. At first Elijah thought she wanted to know about Ezra, but that wasn’t it.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do with him. He’s in the kennel.”

Gene.

Fourteen-year-old Candy was the daughter of one of Kennedy’s high school friends. She was a responsible brunette with glasses, who always came equipped with homework, but she made sure she played with the boys—well, with Ezra. Gene wouldn’t have much to do with her.

Elijah approached the kennel run in question, occupied by Martha and two of her offspring, both less than six months old. He couldn’t see Gene, which made him suppose the boy had actually gone into the dogs’ shelter. “What happened?” he asked Candy.

“He wanted to go to the beach, and I just checked his life vest to see if it was tight enough, and he ran away. Then he found a scorpion and didn’t want to go to the beach anymore. I told him he couldn’t play with the scorpion, and I took it away from him, and he went into the kennels. The dog growled at me and wouldn’t let me in.”

Elijah opened the kennel door, and Martha trotted happily toward him.

Elijah petted her once and walked down to the doghouse at the end. One of the puppies poked his head out, then emerged to greet Elijah.

Gene was curled up in the doghouse with his favorite blanket and a flashlight, reading a children’s book about spiders that he had read many times before and knew by heart. He could also tell Elijah how many letters
were in the entire book, including and excluding title and copyright pages.

Elijah said, “Hello.”

Gene turned off his flashlight, picked up his book and blanket, and came out of the doghouse. Without saying a word, he walked out of the kennel, shutting the door behind him, and went back to the house.

June 5, 1978

E
ZRA CAME HOME
from the hospital Sunday afternoon. Elijah and Sissy had been coming and going from the hospital, had hardly slept in the same bed since Ezra’s snakebite. Elijah took over much of the kennel work because Sissy hated to leave Ezra’s side, but on Sunday afternoon she joined him as she cleaned up the yard.

Julia approached Sissy repeatedly with her ball, wanting it thrown. Watching Sissy with the beautiful bitch, Elijah’s chest grew tight. He had not told Sissy of his discovery at the hospital. Instead, he brooded over the knowledge, asking himself questions to which he might never know the answers. Did Sissy know that Ezra was not Elijah’s biological son? Was Ezra Clark’s son—or, appallingly, someone else’s yet? Elijah thought he must be Clark’s. If he confronted Sissy now, would she be truthful with him?

For the time being, he said nothing, not knowing what to say. If Ezra was Clark’s son, shouldn’t Clark have the right to know him? It was unreasonable to feel as though Sissy had been unfaithful to him, and Elijah didn’t feel that. But dishonest?

She had to know that Ezra wasn’t his son.

He supposed it was something stubborn in him that resisted telling her. Because he was angry.
Why
hadn’t she told him? It seemed devious, and he couldn’t see the reason behind the lie. Had she been afraid he’d leave her? Or wouldn’t love Ezra?

He’d believed she was a virgin. Or had he? He’d never asked. Was that because he hadn’t wanted to know about any other relationships she’d had?
Maybe so, Elijah.
Maybe so.

Sissy said, “I want to go to the German Shepherd Nationals this year, Elijah.”

He shrugged. “We’ll have to save for that.” Before they’d begun to do it together, he’d had no idea how expensive showing dogs could be.

“Well, it’s a business expense,” Sissy said. “We have to make a place for it, and that’s that.”

Elijah just nodded.

Sissy watched him covertly. She’d become an expert on Elijah over the years of her marriage. When angry or bothered about something, he became aloof. And ever since Ezra’s snakebite, he’d been remote as the arctic. He hadn’t even turned to her to make love in the few hours they’d found each other together in bed. “Are you all right, Elijah?”

Elijah blinked, seeming to come out of a trance. “Yes,” he said, unsure why he avoided the real issue, just knowing he couldn’t voice the truth, couldn’t speak it. “Sure.”

That evening, when the children were asleep, the air cool in the house because of the air conditioner’s intermittent hum, they lay in bed together. Dogs in crates around the edges of the bedroom, and Whiteout, Teddy and Belle finding their own spots.

Elijah didn’t turn to her, so Sissy reached for him, touched his shoulder, sensed the strong, hot beat of his heart.

Then he rolled toward her, and she saw the whites of his eyes in the dark. She touched his face, kissed him, and he kissed her back, his mouth opening slowly, licking her lips, then the inside of her mouth. He seemed almost tentative, as though this was the first time they’d ever done this. But he soon embraced her, drew her closer.

Sissy felt a desperation to be one with him and was glad for his hands caressing her in their worshipful way, stirring a vibration of light through her. She cried out softly, pulling him closer.

Afterward, when they separated, he held her gently. Her cheek lay against his heart, her favorite pose with him. He stroked her hair, and she believed for the moment that they were close. His remoteness was just a mood and would pass as it always did.

June 8, 1979

K
ENNEDY
W
ORKMAN ARRIVED
in the world with the caul over her head at 3:00 p.m. after Sissy’s longest and worst labor—twenty-nine hours. She had accepted nothing for pain, however. Now, two days after the birth, she and Kennedy were home.

Something had happened to Sissy in the past year. At first, Elijah sensed a despair in her, the reasons for which he hadn’t been able to pinpoint. Then she seemed to fold in on herself, living her life as though it didn’t include Elijah, Ezra or Gene. Especially Gene. According to his new teacher’s mixed reports, he seemed very bright, es
pecially at math, memorizing flash cards after one look, but he was “uncooperative” and “careless of the feelings of others.” Sissy told Elijah, “You deal with it. You’re the behavior expert.”

Because he’d published a book on canine behavior.

One day she’d announced, “I’m writing another play. They’re going to put it on at Sarah Lawrence.”

The play had turned out to be about a couple gradually growing apart while the wife came to care more for her dogs than for her family because her husband did not care for her.

Elijah had gotten the picture. He’d said, “Sissy, I
do
love you. God, you’re my wife.”

She had said, “You think people love each other just because they’re married? Look at my parents.”

One of whom was now dead and who had left property to someone other than his wife.

But Elijah remembered when the Athertons had seemed to love each other. Had they grown apart because of their different feelings about his marrying Sissy? Well, that wasn’t his responsibility.

Yet he’d never liked Sissy’s estrangement from her mother.

Two days after Kennedy’s birth, Elijah sat in the shade on the deck, holding his newborn daughter while Sissy slept. He had the week off from work so as to spend time with his family.

He and Sissy had both changed since they were married, and lately he’d begun to wonder if Sissy still loved him. Several times in the past months, she’d remarked, “You’re very traditional,” and he’d begun to see that she viewed this as a limitation.

He sometimes suspected that she actively disliked Gene. Maybe because he hated being cuddled, hugged or kissed, maybe because his teacher had started talking about “child psychologists.”

Ezra came out and sat beside Elijah. Elijah had been surprised to find his feelings for Ezra were completely unchanged since he’d learned the boy wasn’t his biological child. He was too used to thinking of Ezra as his son, to feeling pride in him, to having a relationship with him. Now Ezra said, “Dad, could we have an exterminator?”

Elijah knew why. The scorpions. For some reason, there were more of them than usual this year, and he’d found two in the house, one blending in perfectly with the light-colored carpet. They weren’t dangerous unless someone was allergic to them, but their sting would be very painful. Ezra, who’d been bitten by a copperhead, had developed a bit of a phobia about them.

Elijah considered the question. “They’re coming in from outside, Ezra. Even if we tented the house and fumigated, more would come in. We have to just keep looking out for them, and eventually they will go away.”

Ezra peered down at Kennedy’s small face. “Can I hold her?”

“Sure.” Elijah moved to the outdoor loveseat, and Ezra sat beside him. Elijah positioned the infant in Ezra’s lap and watched his son touch the baby’s small hand. It was ironic, Elijah sometimes thought, how much he loved this child, occasionally more than Gene, who was his own blood. But there was something special about Ezra, a curiosity that reminded Elijah of Alan Atherton—and, strangely, of himself.

Ezra said, “Michael told me a water skier fell down
in a school of water moccasins that were mating. He got bitten all over and died.”

Michael was Ezra’s best friend from school. His parents were people Sissy had always known from her country club connections.

This story was familiar to Elijah. He’d never heard it substantiated. “The odds of that happening are slim. It’s probably more likely you’ll be struck by lightning, and that’s not very likely.”

Ezra said, “Were you and Mother trying for a girl?”

This was bizarre. “What gave you that idea?”

“Michael’s mom said you probably were.”

“Well, we weren’t,” Elijah said. “But I’m very happy with Kennedy. It will be fun to have a girl around.”

“If you say so,” Ezra replied without enthusiasm. But he smiled at Kennedy. “She’s very cute, though.”

Elijah stared down at Kennedy’s face and wondered what she would be like. Like Sissy as an adolescent? Elijah felt his hair stand up at the thought. An indefinite sixth sense warned him of more changes to come in the world around him, changes he’d find hard to understand.

Gene came outside. Like Ezra, he had been with a babysitter during the birth. Sissy had wanted them to see their sibling born. Elijah had thought it inappropriate. She’d said he was old-fashioned. But it was impossible anyhow, in Gene’s case, once Gene had learned the baby would be born at the hospital.

Now Gene looked at Kennedy dispassionately. He was carrying one of his favorite things, the telephone book. He sat by himself on a chair and began to read.

Unhappily, Elijah pondered the concerns of Gene’s teacher. He thought he knew what was wrong, knew
because he’d gone to the library to try to find more information, then had talked to a friend whose child was extremely gifted.

But Gene wasn’t just gifted.
Did he get it from me?
Elijah wondered. One of his brothers had been a bit like Gene; now he was a car mechanic living in California. No marriage, no girlfriend, not brilliant at getting along with others. But it wasn’t supposed to be genetic, was it?

Hoping for a different sort of answer than what he expected, he asked, “Would you like to hold your sister, Gene?”

Gene never looked up from the phone book. “No.”

H
OURS LATER
, Sissy lay in the bedroom with Kennedy at her breast. Already there was confusion over which Kennedy they were talking about when they spoke of the baby or of Sissy’s sister. So Kennedy was becoming Eddy, which Sissy rather liked.

Sissy heard Elijah in the next room cooking dinner and telling Ezra to let his mother sleep. He was a good husband, and he loved her. He’d changed his job and returned to Echo Springs because of her wishes. He preferred being in the field as an investigator to working as director of the local Humane Society, but he had accepted the latter position. What was more, he was constantly drawing fire because he, with Sissy, bred dogs.

The phone rang, and Sissy wondered if it would be Kennedy, calling to tell her their mother’s reaction to the birth. Sissy had refused to let Elijah call Heloise after Eddy’s birth. After all, her mother had shown no interest in her pregnancy. It was as though Heloise had only one daughter.

Sissy reached for the phone, watching Eddy’s tiny face. The newborn squinted, and Sissy feared she’d wake up, but she didn’t.

“Hello?”

“Is Sissy there?” A man.

“This is Sissy.”

Elijah opened the bedroom door and looked in. Sissy smiled to let him know everything was okay.

He crossed the room and kissed her smooth forehead, stroking her hair back from her face.

“Sissy, it’s Clark.”

Sissy’s heart stopped. These had been glowing days. She had a new daughter, and she was in love with her beautiful, magical child, the girl born with a caul over her head. Yet here was an intruder.

“Yes.”

Elijah stood looking down at her, his expression inquisitive.

“Berkeley’s birthday is coming up, and she wants a shepherd. To show. We looked at your mom’s dogs, but Berkeley really likes your bitch who took Winner’s Bitch two weeks ago.”