Iona Moon (20 page)

“Jesus never came. My father brought a white man from town—doctor, he said. Papa untied Joey's hands and told my sisters to get out. Best thing he ever did. He and the man smelled of sawdust and beer. No decent doctor would come to a shack in Molina in the middle of the night. But the man had a black bag. He gave Mama a shot. His hands shook; I was afraid. He told me and Joey to keep washing her with a cool rag, and we did. The doctor finished off Pearl's whiskey. By morning her fever broke. Joey asked me if I'd let Jesus in my heart, and I told him the truth. He slugged me so hard I couldn't breathe.”

Iona thought of what she and Eddie shared, this knowledge of their mothers' bodies. But Pearl lived and Hannah died, so Eddie couldn't know, not really.

He didn't take her home. He drove out to the edge of the Sound. “My friend has a boat,” he said. “We can go there.” Iona didn't ask why. The clouds were low; it had started to rain. Ghosts of buildings wavered in the fog, and the arms of orange cranes stretched across the water, disconnected from their trunks.

“When our father was gone again, my sisters came to visit. They said there was still time for Mama Pearl to open her heart to Jesus. I kept picturing a little Jesus curled up in her chest like a bloody rabbit. I saw another one crouched in the cage of Joey's ribs. I knew my sisters thought they had a Jesus inside of them, and I wondered:
How many Jesuses are there?
”

Eddie parked at the marina. Hundreds of sailboats rocked on the black waves. The rain was heavier now, and the wind whipped off the water. “Which one is your friend's?” Iona said.

“The last dock,” Eddie told her. But when they climbed aboard, he used his silver toothpick to release the lock of the cabin.

“I thought you said this was your friend's boat.”

“I forgot the key.”

The cabin was narrow, a sink and cupboards on one side, a single bed on the other. Rain streamed across the tiny window; the room was dark, damp as a cave.

“Are you tired?” Eddie said.

“Yes.”

“Me too.” It was almost three.

“It's a small bed,” Iona said.

Eddie nodded. “We'll have to make ourselves small too.”

“What if your
friend
finds us?”

“He never comes on rainy days.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm not sure of anything,” Eddie said, “except I'm tired, and I want you to lie down with me.” He sat on the bed. “Please,” he said. He held out his hand, but Iona stayed where she was, leaning against the sink, just beyond his reach.

“Won't your wife wonder where you are?”

“I'll stop for a few on my way home, come in smelling like whiskey and smoke; I'll tell her Pearl got me into a game. It wouldn't be the first time.”

Still Iona didn't move.

“I'm just asking you to sleep beside me. That's all.”

“I know.”

“And you're tired.”

“Yes,” she said, “I'm tired.”

Eddie grabbed his bad leg with both hands and lifted it onto the bed, pressing himself close to the wall, curving his body so there was a hollow for Iona to fill. “Just for a little while,” he said, and she lay down in the place he'd made.

Eddie slept, but Iona didn't. She watched him, imagined a boy washing his mother.

My pitiful people
. She thought of all her people, how none of them could tell her who she was, so she ran away, like Eddie, but they still touched her eyelids when she slept, whispered in her ear; they still tried to pull her back even though they didn't want her. She saw her father washing his bloody hands. The calf was born, the weasel dead, the pig slaughtered and skinned. She watched her brothers emerge from the forest, rifles on their shoulders. They dragged a buck and left a red trail across the snow. Hannah's brothers leaned against the barn the day she died. Their silver flasks caught the afternoon light as they raised them to their mouths. Their hands and heads were bare. When they came inside, their ears burned crimson. Quinte had just told a joke, and Raymond was laughing. Iona thought of the fields, how white they were that day, how the trees looked black, how everybody that had ever walked into the woods seemed to move through the shadows: boys with BB guns and men with axes, lovers and lost children, weeping women. She thought,
How will I know my mother except by dreaming?
A girl stood on the road, defiant or scared, squinting at the stranger who would be her husband. A woman stood at the window, watching a man dig a small, deep grave.
My pitiful people
. Iona wanted to wake Eddie and tell him not to be so hard on Joey and Mama Pearl. “Everybody's pitiful in his own way,” she whispered.

Rain pounded the deck and beat on the glass. The boat rocked on the water, and they rocked too. They were very small, just like Eddie said.

12

Willy Hamilton hadn't placed any higher than third all summer. His dives were sloppy, his knees weak. Every time Coach Brubaker yelled at him to lock his legs, he thought of Jay slamming his brakes on the River Road.

So far the only good thing that had happened since school let out was the that Iona Moon had left town. Word had gotten around that she'd pulled a train for Darryl and Kevin and Luke, in that order. Willy was glad she wasn't here to dispute it. He knew the truth, but he kept his mouth shut.
You're an asshole, Willy
. That's what she thought.

Still, he couldn't get free of her. Horton had to haul Leon Moon in for drunk and disorderly one night in July. Now Iona's brother was married to Jeweldeen Wilder. Poor bastard. Jack Wilder didn't exactly hold a shotgun to Leon's head, but everyone knew their first baby wasn't going to take nine months. Having a sister like Iona was bad enough, but being forced to marry her best friend was worse.

Willy was glad he didn't have to worry about that. No girl was ever going to trick him, telling him not to worry, saying:
I'm safe
, then coming to him a few weeks later to say she was sorry, she'd made a mistake, a slight miscalculation that would cost him his life. Flo had told him to watch out for that.
Girls do it all the time
, she'd said,
when they see a nice boy like you
.

Horton said:
The only way to stay out of trouble is to keep your pants zipped
. They talked this way back in the days when he'd parked by the river with Belinda Beller. He wanted to tell them:
Above the neck or below the knee
. She kept him in line. He wondered what he'd do with a girl who didn't say
no
. Resisting Iona Moon didn't prove anything. He never did like her, and still, he'd had to think of old Mrs. Griswold when he felt himself getting hard.

Sometimes he was even afraid of his sisters. When they tripped him in the living room and wrestled him to the rug, he felt the surge of blood and prayed they wouldn't notice. What a hoot they'd have, shrieking and pointing. It wouldn't last long, he could be sure of that. But he didn't know what he'd do if some pretty woman touched his face or leaned close enough for him to smell her hair. What if he started kissing her neck and she let him work his way down to the bones of her shoulders? Whose hand would stop him if she said “Touch me”?

Willy lay on his bed, rolled to his stomach and buried his face in the pillow. He hoped the lack of air would make the feeling go away. Just thinking about it scared him. His sisters giggled. What were they doing? He remembered Mariette telling Lorena that Dr. Tyler had cornered her by the filing cabinets after everyone else had gone home. Maybe she had something more to tell; maybe she was showing Lorena exactly how he touched her—here, and here. He wanted to charge down the hall, burst into their room, catch them tossing and laughing, make them stop.

Jay Tyler sat on the edge of his bed and listened to his parents arguing in the kitchen below him. He didn't need to hear the words. Supper wasn't ready. Again. There wasn't even enough food in the house for Jay's father to make himself a sandwich.
What is it you do all day, Delores?
Jay used to wonder that himself. Now he knew. His days were exactly the same. The most important thing was to stay in bed as long as possible. So much less of the day to fill if you didn't wake till noon. You could spend another hour in the bathroom, standing in the shower, getting dressed. Not that Jay cared how he looked. His hair had grown long, but he shaved every day. Shaving was good. It took time to do it right. He never nicked himself even though the cool razor on his neck gave him ideas. The secret was not to be distracted by your own face. He watched his hand, the blade, his chin, his cheek—but never looked into his own eyes.

At certain hours of the day his mother still cared about her looks. She took her sweet time in the bathroom too, applying lipstick and mascara, a pale foundation so close to the color of her own skin no one noticed the mask. She blended the foundation down her neck. Most women neglected this final step. When they tilted their heads back it looked as if their faces could be peeled off at night.

Usually Delores Tyler went out in the afternoon. She played bridge with her lady friends or met one of the girls for a late lunch.
Girls
—that's what they all called one another.

While she was out, Jay sat in his father's chair and watched television the way his father did, just the picture, no sound. All afternoon women clung to men and wept. Doctors pursued nurses, made silent agreements, and met later in unoccupied hospital rooms. They pulled the curtain around the bed, and Jay saw the shadows of their bodies rising and falling beyond the white veil. Women spit words at other women, hands on hips, lips quivering. Women slapped men, and men grabbed women by the shoulders, shaking them until they fell to their knees and hid their faces in their hands. Hour after hour, men and women embraced. But there were no children in this world, no consequences of desire, no screaming infants, no demanding toddlers, no troublesome teenage sons.

Today, Delores hadn't come home till four. Jay heard her car in the drive and hobbled upstairs. It was too late for her to plan dinner and go to the store, too late to chop vegetables or trim a roast. But it was early for a drink, not yet five and still so light. Winter was more merciful. You could start at four-fifteen and use the dark as an excuse. She padded from room to room and finally put on a record. Jay imagined her dancing, arms hugging herself, a man's high voice, crooning in her ear, soft as smoke. At four-twenty she gave up and went to the kitchen. Jay listened for the crack of ice, the splash of vodka. He preferred whiskey and kept it stashed under his bed.

What is it you do all day, Delores?

I get dressed and put on my face. I play bridge and eat lunch. Sometimes I think of jumping in the river, and sometimes I just go for a drive
.

Jay's father did a hundred things in a single day, saw twelve patients or more, examined x-rays, peered at the ghost teeth gleaming in his lightbox. He knew most everyone in town by their fillings and the condition of their gums. He could name the dead, pointing to bridges and bits of gold. Once bones were found in the woods, and Horton Hamilton brought the jaw to him. Dr. Andrew Johnson Tyler injected Novocain into the mouths of terrified children, then drilled holes while his assistant suctioned up powder. Jay thought he should admire his father's clever hands, but he didn't. He was afraid of them in a way. They always smelled of lava soap. He felt his father's thick fingers in his own mouth.
Do it without the Novocain
, he pleaded. He hated the feeling as it wore off, his face dead and itchy at the same time. But his father said that was stupid. He used too much. One side of Jay's face went numb, as if he were paralyzed. He closed his eyes and tasted his father's soapy finger. How many times did it happen? Only once, or more than a dozen?
Please
, he thought,
it hurts
. He couldn't speak. His mouth was stretched wide. The clamp bit into his cheek.
It's for your own good
, his father said.

Andrew and Delores were silent now. This night would be salvaged. Delores found chicken pot pies stashed in the back of the freezer. Andrew ate his in the living room, watching his voiceless television, and Delores ate hers at the kitchen table. She left the third one on a tray outside of Jay's door. He had enough whiskey to wash down perfect cubes of carrot and potato, doughy crust and viscous gravy.

He flushed what he didn't eat. He heard the growl of the garbage disposal and knew his mother hadn't finished hers either. They didn't like this kind of food. They liked cupcakes that dissolved in the mouth whether you chewed or not. They liked sugar cookies dunked in milk, bread with jam, pints of ice cream you didn't have to share. Andrew said their gums would rot if not their teeth. Sometimes, late at night, Jay heard his mother's steps in the hallway, faint as a whisper, and he'd open the door to find one of these gifts. Tonight she brought lemon cake long after Jay's father was in bed. Jay opened his door and watched her float away, her pale, filmy nightgown shimmering like the wings of an insect. She paused at the bathroom door and turned on the light. Jay saw her silhouette through her thin clothes, her loose breasts and full hips, the soft, scarred belly, the round beautiful belly that was firm and flat before that butcher in Boise cut him out. Jay had never seen the scar, but he thought about it night after night as he took her sweet offerings to his bed and ate alone, slowly, in the dark.

Willy thought about Jay every day. He couldn't climb the rungs of the high dive without seeing Jay's tanned legs, lean muscles, long back. Willy's dives were arms and air, feet and springboard, head and water—fragments. But Jay's dives were precise pictures in the mind, whole and perfect every time.

Even on his good days Willy knew he had more luck than talent, skill without vision. He was strong for his size but showed no grace. He feared surrendering to the logic of the body, the inevitable spin and fall; he dreaded the moment of entry: the water would not open for him as it did for Jay. He saw the surface of the pool, hard as ice—he had to break it every time. Jay Tyler leaped like a man with faith. In the long seconds between approach and entry, Jay Tyler was reborn, transformed into the ideal image of himself.