Drowning Ruth (27 page)

Carl had liked that picture, though. “That's just like her,” he'd said. “And a good likeness of you, Amanda,” he'd added kindly. He'd had the photo enlarged and gave it to Ruth in a pretty wooden frame for her twelfth birthday, the age Mathilda had been when the picture was taken, as near as Amanda could remember.

“Where's Dad?” Ruth said when they were finally all in the kitchen. Carl was seldom where he was supposed to be lately, and his absences troubled her.

Jealousy pricked Amanda and at the same moment she burned her fingers pulling a freshly sterilized jar from its boiling bath. “If you'd gotten up earlier to help, you would know,” she said crossly. “He went up to Slinger with Rudy to see about a new tractor.”

Carl was irritable too. “Wasted a whole morning,” he complained when he and Rudy were driving home. He hadn't been sleeping at all lately, since closing his eyes only opened the curtain on a scene once dreamed, now unforgettable—Mathilda sinking through a dark abyss, her arms and legs twisting, a loop of hair drifting away from her face to reveal her mouth, either screaming or laughing, it was impossible to tell.

“Well, what can you do?” Rudy agreed that the tractor hadn't been worth the price.

“I just don't like to waste time is all. And we need a tractor.”

But they couldn't afford a tractor, even if the farmer had accepted a reasonable offer. It'd been stupid to use the gas to drive up and see it. Weiss and some of the others had been talking about dumping milk right onto the Watertown Plank Road, not that Carl believed they'd actually do it, but they all might as well—prices were so low, it was costing more just to keep the cows fed than the milk brought in. Amanda had, in fact, suggested he look for some work for the winter, when the farm, as she said, would pretty much run itself. She liked, Carl thought, to point out how little he mattered.

But no—he shook his head, trying to make himself see the situation clearly—that wasn't fair anymore. After all, she was asking for his help. She'd started nursing again, assisting Dr. Karbler with deliveries and helping Hattie Jensen recover from her fall, and even Ruth had set up a stand at the intersection to sell vegetables and pies, minding her “store” after school. He ought to do his part, at least for Ruth's sake. But he couldn't. Not if it meant leaving, even for a few months. Not with Mathilda behind every tree and door teasing him to find her.

He was thinking about the island house. About an hour ago, while frowning at the tractor's gunked-up engine, he'd remembered a space, a little pocket under a loose kitchen floorboard, where a teething ring of Ruth's had once hidden. It was
a place he'd checked, but now he realized that he hadn't examined it carefully, at least he could picture without any effort at all a photograph or a letter slid in there on one edge, so that only if you knew at just what angle to look could you find it. When they got home, he would row out there, look from every angle.

Rudy rested his elbow on the windowframe and gazed at the passing fields. When had Carl gotten like this, so impatient, so easily thrown off course? It was no use talking to him when he was acting like a horse with a burr under its saddle.

The girls were sitting on the porch shucking corn when the men drove up. She was a nice friend for Ruth, that Imogene. Carl worried about Ruth being lonely, the only child on the farm. It would have been nice if he and Mattie had had another. He slammed the door of the truck behind him and went to the pump in the yard to wash up. The cool water made him feel better, and he threw some over his head, raking his fingers through his hair.

“You girls having a good time?” he called across the yard. He went on without giving them a chance to answer, “Aunt Mandy inside?”

“In the kitchen,” Ruth said. “Where's the tractor?”

“No good,” Carl said, shaking his head and frowning. He started toward the porch.

In the distance a dog barked, and Imogene turned her head toward the sound.

Halfway across the yard, Carl stopped. Something indefinite brushed against the edge of his memory.

“What's the matter, Dad?”

Carl didn't answer. He stared at Imogene, her profile and her braids. There was something strange about her—no, it was something strangely familiar. She turned her gaze on him then, across the yard, and his mind caught a notion and held it fast. He'd never have seen it if she'd been closer, if her hair had not been braided, if
she hadn't been sitting precisely there, where Mattie had sat the day that picture was taken. He'd never have realized that Imogene was Mattie, a young Mattie, younger than he'd ever known. She was the Mattie in the photograph.

Without a word, Carl turned and went back to the truck. He got in and backed onto the grass as he turned around. Then he drove back up the road, dust clouding thickly behind him.

The bell jingled over the bait shop door, and Carl stood for a moment just inside, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness.

“Carl!” Mary Louise exclaimed, coming out from the back room. “It's good to see you.” She leaned against the counter smiling. And then, when he continued to stand without speaking, she asked, “Did you come in just to say hello?”

“No.” Carl, recollecting himself, crossed to the buckets and tanks of bait along the wall and peered into them, distractedly.

“So you've finally taken up fishing?”

“No,” he said again. But he continued to drift around the room, idly fingering various items, keeping his eyes from Mary Louise. He paused at the counter to her left and began sliding open the tiny drawers in the chest.

“Can I help you find something?”

“Yes. No. I'll take this,” he said, lifting from a drawer a hook whose barb had caught in his flesh.

Mary Louise held out her hand for it. “I hope my daughter's been behaving,” she said in a way that implied no doubt. “I think it's wonderful the way those two are such friends. Just like Mandy and me. I wish we had the time we used to.”

Carl interrupted before Mary Louise could go on. “It's Imogene I wanted to talk to you about.”

Mary Louise stiffened and closed her palm around his change. “There isn't anything wrong, is there?”

“No, no, not that. No, I'm sorry.” Carl held both hands up, shaking his head. “I think …” he began, and then stopped. He
started again. “There's something about her. I mean, have other people noticed it? Her hair. Her nose.”

Carl thought he'd spoken so clearly that, when Mary Louise looked merely puzzled, he felt immediately light, even merry. He smiled. “Oh, I'm crazy. I must be crazy,” he insisted with relief. “How could I have thought such a crazy thing? And then”—he pulled his hand over his face, all the way from his forehead to his chin—“to come right in here and shoot my mouth off. Of course you're her mother. Well,” he shrugged, “I wouldn't blame you one bit if you just threw me out.” He shook his head, astounded at his tactlessness, but more than anything pleased, so very pleased to find that he'd been wrong. “It's just,” he tried to explain, “Amanda has this picture …” He broke off and looked down at the counter, still shaking his head at his mistake, not knowing what to say next until he discovered whether she was angry with him or would laugh or would ask, as so many had lately, what had gotten into him. And really, it was a question that bore thinking about. Look how he'd been living, letting these ideas yank him this way and that.

Carl was so preoccupied, he hardly noticed that Mary Louise had been standing motionless, her eyes wide and fearful. Finally she seemed almost to fall forward and clutched the counter with both hands to keep herself upright. “You won't tell Imogene. Carl, promise me you won't tell Imogene.”

Carl's skin began to tingle. He tried to speak but couldn't find his voice. He managed to raise his eyes to hers, to shake his head slightly.

Mary Louise came around the counter and put her hand on Carl's arm. “You have to understand, Carl. She's ours. She never had anyone else, right from the start. It was a terrible birth, Amanda said, the worst she'd ever seen, in all her years of nursing. You know, the poor thing barely lived an hour afterward.”

“Who?” Carl managed to ask.

“That poor hired girl.” She spoke as if he knew exactly to whom she referred, as if he were privy to the whole story and they were only reminiscing. “The one who had her. I don't remember whose farm she was on—some place way over by Nashotah, I think. It must have been a long buggy ride, because Ruth was practically frozen when they got here. It must have been awful. The birth, I mean. You should have seen the blood on Amanda's hands. But, you know,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, “she couldn't have kept the baby anyway. No husband.”

“No husband,” Carl repeated.

They both stood silent for a moment, and then Mary Louise spoke again. She seemed relieved to have unburdened herself. “I'm surprised Amanda told you about that girl and all. She was so definite about keeping the mother a secret. To save the family's feelings, you know. And that was fine by us. To us, it was a miracle to have that baby. That was all we cared about. And I thank God for it every day.”

“Was Mattie with her?”

“What?”

“Was Mattie with Amanda when she brought you the baby?”

“No, Carl. That was the night … Amanda had Ruth with her. I told you, that poor little girl was ice cold. We had to heat a bath for her, feed her some broth. By the time Amanda got back to the island … Mattie was gone.”

“Why wasn't Ruth with her mother?”

“I don't know. Maybe Mattie didn't feel well? Or maybe Amanda and Ruth had been over in Oconomowoc together that day. That makes sense if she ended up helping with a baby way over in Nashotah. Anyway, Amanda explained, I think, but I don't remember now. It didn't seem important after what happened.”

Carl felt his legs begin to move him toward the door, but Mary Louise stepped from behind the counter into his way, her face anxious again. “You won't tell Genie. You did promise.”

“No, I won't. I promise I won't.” He practically pushed her out of the way in his hurry to get out the door.

He drove while his thoughts flipped and darted, like a fish on a line. That ridiculous story about Mathilda disappearing, falling through the ice. It hadn't been a poor hired girl who died in childbirth without a husband—it had been Mathilda. And Mathilda had had a husband, oh, yes, but he wasn't the father of that child. Carl saw it clearly now. This baby had killed her, this Imogene, the child of this other man. C.J.O.

He slammed his palms against the steering wheel, once for each initial, letting the truck careen until one tire caught the ditch, and he had to work to keep himself upright and out of a field. Breathing hard, he pressed on the accelerator, forcing the truck up the first steep hill of the Hog's Back. Liar! Amanda was such a liar! Did she take him for a fool? But he had been a fool. Despite his doubts, despite his checking, he'd believed her story. He'd trusted he'd never find the evidence he'd felt compelled to search for.

Cresting another hill, he covered his face with both hands, trying to hide from the humiliation. For thirteen years he'd worked Mathilda's farm, raised her daughter, lived for her the life she'd chosen, when she deserved none of his love. And Ruth, what did she know? Had she sat on this man's lap, some greasy shirker she'd been told to call “uncle,” while her mother, full and round as a melon, perched on the arm of his chair?

The truck stopped at the base of Holy Hill. He got out and climbed the stairs to the cathedral. Carl wasn't a religious man. He'd not been in a church since he'd been in France, where he'd wandered inside a few, mainly out of curiosity. Still, the atmosphere affected him. The air, cool and still, seemed to belong to a world separate from his turmoil. It slowed him, and he moved to a pew, where he genuflected, a habit he'd learned as a child, and then sank immediately to his knees. Behind him, an old woman murmured in a steady, soothing drone.

Carl rested his forehead on his folded hands and felt suddenly tired. The sad fact was, he didn't remember Mathilda vividly enough even to hate her. He thought how young she'd been, how naive and eager to please. She'd been all alone for months, for more than a year. After her parents died, she must have been frightened, not knowing if he'd ever come back. How could he hate her for needing someone to care for her? He knew she would have been sorry for what she'd done. How could he hate her, when she'd been so horribly punished?

And C.J.O., had he been punished for what he had done to her?

Carl closed his eyes. There in the dank church, he felt the cold ground that had chilled him through his woolen jacket, saw the pitiless silver bayonets, and heard Pete McKinley's frantic screams cut off by the sound of steel thrust through cloth and flesh, like a knife pushed into a pumpkin, and the gurgle of blood in the windpipe. Through all of this, Carl had lain still, craven as a possum, but his cowardice hadn't saved him. They weren't fooled. They turned toward him, first one, then another, at last the third. They began to make their way across the foxhole. He saw the snaggled yellow teeth of the one who was nearest, the one who was raising his bayonet, ready to drive it home. And then the shell began to whine. He watched the fear bloom in their faces, as it must have done in McKinley's a few moments before. And then the red.