Iona Moon (36 page)

In this moment, he was the one Iona pitied. But he was not the one she loved.

Iona knew that seeing her father holding the baby should make her happy, but it didn't. She felt a space opening inside her, a hole dug at the shore, filling with muddy water.

Leon took the baby from Frank. He was tender now but still scared, and Iona felt sorry for him, remembering how he stood at the window, chewing tobacco, unable to touch Hannah, unable to look at her with open eyes. Louise was more than a month old, but her own father still touched her as if he expected her to break or scream. Often Louise did yell when Leon picked her up. How could she trust him, this clumsy man who was afraid of her?

“That's how you were with me,” Frank said to Iona one evening in late March. “You wouldn't have anyone but your mama. When your grandma had her stroke, Hannah left you here with me for five days, and I swear you howled the whole time.”

“I remember that,” Leon said. “She wouldn't let any of us near her.” He seemed satisfied by this, putting blame where it belonged, showing Iona it was her fault, after all.

Leon held Louise and rocked lightly in his chair. The baby stopped crying and laid her head on his shoulder.

“Good thing your mama came home when she did,” Frank said. “Another week and you might have starved.”

Iona felt a pressure behind her eyes that made her head pound, a place that still hurt, where a white scar and a memory of snow converged. She wished she were Louise, that Leon and her father would hold her this way, that she would be free to love them.

Her headache started at the old wound and spread: her brothers said they were just running, and she said they were trying to ditch her, and it didn't matter either way because her head got split open all the same. Ice glazed the rocks. Her brothers ran, far beyond her reach already. Frank called from the woods, angry—that's when it happened, when she looked back and kept running. She saw herself falling, as if she were a hawk and the shadow of a hawk at the same time, in the air and on the ground. She heard herself yell. Then something struck the back of her skull, and she must have blacked out because time folded in on her, and the next thing she remembered was looking up to see her father and her three sorry brothers standing in a circle around her. Her father said:
Wiggle your toes for me, Iona
. He smiled. He was very proud of her for doing this one, small thing.
That's my good girl
.

She saw that despite the pain—or perhaps because of it—this was a good memory, because her father held her and talked to her as sweetly as he talked to the cows when they were almost ready and he knew their sorrow.

Now Iona watched Leon stroke the soft down of Louise's tiny head. Later, after supper, after the dishes were washed and the baby was in her crib, Frank sat on the porch alone, smoking his pipe. Iona stopped on her way to the car.

“Leaving so early?”

“School tomorrow.”

“I always forget.”

Iona nodded. He had other things on his mind.

“How's it going?” he said. “School, I mean.”

“Fine.” She wanted to tell him how much she hated it, how the girls stopped talking whenever she came into the bathroom, how Mr. Fetterhoff still made jokes under his breath, private jokes that only she understood, how she and Muriel Arnoux brushed against each other in the cafeteria and looked away, pretending they had nothing in common. She wanted to tell him that even the younger boys asked her if maybe she wanted to go to the river. “Smoke some cigarettes,” they said, “drink some wine—you know.” She wished she could say that she'd found a picture taped inside her locker, a photograph from a magazine, a dark-haired girl naked on a bed, playing with herself, one hand on her crotch, one hand in her mouth. Someone had scrawled
Iona Moon
across the girl's belly. She tore it down, crumpled it in a wad, stuffed it in her pocket. Who knew her combination? She heard laughter behind her but didn't turn, didn't let them see what they'd done: her red face burning, her tears of rage.

“Aren't you cold?” she said to Frank.

“I suppose I am.”

“You should go inside.”

“Smoke bothers Jeweldeen.”

“She's not—”

“No,” Frank said, “it's too soon.”

“I'll see you next week.” She longed to kiss his forehead but she put her hand on his shoulder instead.
Nite, Daddy
. He seemed to slump beneath her touch, weaker, more frail than she remembered, and she was worried for him, living in this house with three strong men. She wondered if Leon might turn on him one day, pay him back for all his childhood pain. She saw her father just as he was, no longer the colossus, no longer the bear in the fairy tale, forever terrifying and tempting, turning to a man in the dark, waking as a bear every morning.

He patted her fingers without looking up. His skin was rough, his touch heavy. She would recognize those hands anywhere, at the edge of any sleep. “I keep thinking I'll see her,” he said at last. Iona knew that his grief for Hannah went far beyond her death, that he mourned the girl she'd been before the first child died, the girl who'd loved him for a single year. “Every time I come in the house,” he said, “I look for her.”

Iona stroked the back of his head. “Me too,” she said. “Me too, Daddy.”

24

Willy saw Delores pinned to a wall, struggling with a man in a loose black coat. She dug at his shoulders, kicked at his shins. Willy shouted, but his voice was garbled, a record at the wrong speed. She moaned. He remembered that sound, remembered looking at her just this way. When she felt him watching, she opened her eyes. Slapped the man. Pushed him away. A show for Willy's sake. Now she was tall, bigger than the man; he shrank under her gaze. The little man turned, and Willy saw it was himself, a boy wearing a foolish mask.

He really did see her once, the last day of March. He was at Pick-n-Pay with Flo, rolling the cart down the aisle as he looked at the shelves. That's how they collided, his cart bashing into hers, so his first words were:
I'm sorry
. Everyone was very polite. Flo asked about Jay, and Delores said, “He's fine—much better”; and Flo said, “That's good,” and they all smiled as if they believed it.

Willy envied the women, the way Flo and Delores touched each other's arms, so casually, the way they spoke in fragments of sentences and understood though they had never been friends. Women had a language he didn't know, and he felt as clumsy as his father, as dense as Roy Wilkerson.

At first he was ashamed, imagining how his mother might see Delores, supposing pity or soft judgment, thinking Flo would notice the slight tremor of her hands. He wanted one of them to forgive him. But Flo Hamilton didn't look at Delores Tyler that way. She had washed the bodies of old women and shaved the cheeks of handsome boys; she had tied ribbons in the golden hair of little girls. She looked at the body and beyond it. Life was a mystery to her; death was certain.

What were they saying? Something about June. The month, or a woman they knew? It didn't matter. It was nothing that concerned him. He saw how unnecessary he was, how easily ignored, by his mother, his lover, how it had always been this way with women: his sisters tormented him, then ran away, slammed their door while he stood in the dark, forever on the other side. He knew, suddenly, that this was his father's sorrow too, that Flo depended on him but did not need him.

He longed to touch Delores, remembering her skin, all of it, neck and arm, surprising and soft, her belly under the satin camisole. In that room in South Bend, he was changed,
beautiful boy
, and she was everything he wanted. For an hour he was completely satisfied. He couldn't recall another time in his life when he had known exactly what he wanted, couldn't remember satiating any hunger. His life was a string of small denials, a succession of little
no'
s, an endless catalogue of moments when he'd said
stop
before he was full.

The women's talk had shifted to weather—blustery today; and fruit—overpriced; and husbands—who expected certain things on the table in certain quantities but who were tight with money. Willy had imagined seeing Delores a different way—drunk, dancing at the White Bull or careening through Woodvale Park. And in those scenes he always knew just what to do.

But sober under the harsh lights of the store, she was graceful and needed nothing from him. She was a grown woman, mother of a crippled boy, wife of a cold man—long-suffering woman—lovely, sad, wearing blue shoes to match her blue jacket, all her golden hair pinned perfectly in place.

He knew she might be drunk tonight, in disarray, one shoe lost under the bed, stockings torn. She might sit alone in the kitchen; she might pass out on the couch. But that was a private matter.

Here, at midday, she was expert and efficient. She could touch his arm as they parted, lightly, with her fingers, lift them, quickly. She could say: “Don't be a stranger, Willy,” and seem to look at him—but not look, could turn, wheel her cart away, not teetering on her high heels, not hurrying, but moving swiftly away from him while he stood, staring stupidly at the seams of her stockings, so his mother had to say: “Willy?”

He was sure Flo guessed everything. But of course she didn't, and that was worse, because even he could see how unbelievable it was to imagine that a woman like Delores Tyler would desire anything from a boy like him.

He wanted to run after her, wanted her to drop her groceries in the parking lot so that they could kneel together and pick them up. He wanted to ask her if he could come by sometime, but he couldn't bear the answer, couldn't stand it if they only talked in the bright living room, sipping tea or vodka. And he couldn't stand it if they drove away, if they climbed the stairs to another room where he could stroke her soft belly and hear his own name whispered while the candle guttered and burned out.

He would have been surprised to know how close his thoughts were to hers, how proud she was of her self-control, how grateful for Willy's silence. Driving home, she gripped the steering wheel and leaned forward to see more clearly. She knew she could have swayed the moment, touched his arm a second longer, held it more tightly, looked in his eyes when she spoke. She could have lingered in the store and struggled with her bags until he had to help.

But for once, just for once, she spared herself all that, the questions and the longing, his hands in the dark, hers in the light.

Much later that night, Willy dragged Main in the cruiser. He hoped he'd see the Chrysler and he hoped he wouldn't. He wished the kid in the white Bel Air would jump a red light so he could write a ticket, wished he'd catch three teenage girls drinking beer in the alley behind the Mercantile. He wished one thing would happen. Then he'd get a coffee to go and sit on some side street with his lights off.

He saw the Bel Air pick up speed as it rounded the loop behind the courthouse. He pressed closer. He finally had one. Thirty miles per hour, then thirty-two. The greasy-headed boy had hit forty by the time he ran his first red light, and Willy's siren started wailing.

The kid ran a second light and kept accelerating. Willy stayed on his tail, edging past fifty, wondering if this was worth it, wondering if he was the one making trouble by starting the chase.

By the time they jumped the city limits, the boy in the Bel Air was doing sixty-three and showed no sign of slowing down. He was steady, a good driver. Focused, that's what he was. He wasn't thinking about deer leaping onto the highway; he wasn't distracted by the lights of oncoming cars. He and the car were one machine, one animal; he watched the strip of road, nothing else.

Already Willy was losing his nerve. Every time they rounded a curve he expected the kid to tap his brakes. He saw himself slamming into the rear end of the Bel Air, imagined both cars spinning, plunging toward the river. But that boy had skill, new tires and no need to slow down. Willy was losing him. Twice he thought he saw dark shapes moving across the road; twice he lifted his foot off the gas and felt the cruiser drift to the right.

He couldn't do it. He saw that now. Tomorrow he could track down the license number, go to the kid's house. But he knew he wouldn't do that either, knew he couldn't tell his father:
I
gave up
. He let himself fall behind—three car lengths then five. Did the boy know what was happening? The taillights of the Bel Air burned in the distance. Willy followed those lights for another mile, until they disappeared over the crest of a hill.

He pulled to the shoulder. Gravel spit under his tires. He tried to clutch the wheel tighter to stop shaking. Even his fingers were weak. Loss of courage or will—was he a coward or a lazy sonuvabitch? He turned and headed back to town, never pushing past thirty. He imagined sleeping on the job, like Fred Pierce. How long till it came to that?

He saw the lights of White Falls glittering along the black river. Nothing would happen now. But he remembered Delores and Flo in the grocery store, how little they needed him. He realized why Horton did it, this job—saw that it gave his life order and sense, one clear purpose. He could come home and tell Flo:
I found Matt Fry
. And for a night or a week she would see that he was necessary, to her, to this whole town.

This was all Willy wanted: to be necessary, in his mother's eyes and in his own. He wanted to make up for his failures, for deserting Iona that night last June, for leaving Matt Fry on the tracks and driving his friends home, for sitting in the car while Delores walked to her door.

He stopped at the Park Inn for coffee and drank it at the counter. It was well past midnight, already April.
Fool's Day
, he thought,
five hours till dawn
. He heard laughter behind him. Someone knew. He spun on his stool, a half turn, and saw two girls in the back booth eating giant cinnamon rolls. Just drunk—they weren't laughing at him. Sharla Wilder and Iona Moon. Why tonight, he thought, why her? He threw a dollar on the counter. As he left, he caught his reflection in the glass door, a boy drowning in his father's uniform.