The Longest Road (11 page)

“Honey, why don't you ever play your harmonica in the house?” Rosalie asked one day. “I heard you when I was feeding the chickens. It sure sounds pretty.”

Laurie colored. “I-I'm just learning the best I can,” she stammered. “And you've got the radio and Victrola with lots better music than I can make.”

“It's not the same.” Rosalie gave a decided shake of her head. “Sure, I'm glad to have the radio and hear Will Rogers and the good singers and have records with Louie Armstrong and Cow Cow Davenport and Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. But it's not the same as having someone real playing.”

“Grandpa—”

“He won't pay you any more mind than he does the radio except when one of his favorite programs is on. Of course if you really don't want to—”

Rosalie sounded so disappointed that Laurie said quickly, “All right, I'll play the tunes I know the best, but remember, you asked for it!”

Rosalie laughed and hugged her, making Laurie ashamed that she'd instinctively wanted to keep Morrigan's songs to herself, a special bond between them. He shared his music. He'd want her to, even though her playing wasn't anything as good as his. So now, in the hottest part of the day after dinner and dishes, she often played for a little while, before they went out to battle weeds.

They could hack out the roots of crabgrass, careless weed, and Johnson grass, but they couldn't make it rain. It was so dry that the plants began to look wilted even in the mornings. Rosalie said that happened when the roots sucked moisture from the plant because there wasn't any left in the soil. All anyone could do was get out the weeds with their roots that went deeper than those of the cotton and bank up earth against the plants to protect any tiny bit of dampness from wind and sun.

The blisters on Laurie's hands had long ago hardened to calluses and the soles of her feet were baked so tough by the scorching sand that she didn't, as she had at first, try to cool them in the shade of plants. Her back and shoulders and wrists still ached, though. She didn't think she'd ever attain the steady methodical way that Rosalie, wearing an old straw hat and one of Grandpa's shirts to cover her arms, swung the hoe and edged up the roots from right beside those of a crop plant.

Still, what tasted better than roasting ears fresh from the stalk, juicy gold kernels dripping with butter? Or the crisp red flesh of a watermelon cooled in the big trough in the well house? Or, starting the season of bounty from field and garden, marble-sized new potatoes and tender peas blending flavors in rich, white cream sauce? Luscious tomatoes, string beans, crunchy radishes, carrots, cucumbers, crook-necked summer squash, and blue-green collards continued to come from the garden long after green onions and lettuce succumbed to the blasting heat, but how tasty that lettuce had been wilted with hot grease and vinegar and served with scrambled eggs!

Laurie had never eaten so well nor been so hungry by mealtimes. When more vegetables were ripe than could be eaten, Laurie helped Rosalie can jar after mason jar to carry to the cellar and store on shelves that ran around all sides, floor to ceiling. The sight of rows of sparkling jars filled Laurie with pride and made the hours of steamy work seem worth it.

Not that she wanted to eat this food. She still prayed silently each night when she knelt with Buddy that Daddy would send for them right away—at least before school started. Lots of kids spent summers with aunts and uncles and grandparents but when school started you should be with your real family in your real home.

One afternoon when Laurie was snapping stems off beans and pulling off the tough strings that ran from end to end before breaking them into several pieces, Rosalie stared at the front of her overalls. It had hung loose nearly three months ago, but from little pinkish-tan nubs on a flat chest, Laurie's breasts had started to round, and the seat of the overalls fit so tight that it pinched when she bent over. She had let out the straps as much as she could but she was just plain outgrowing the garment. At least it wouldn't go to waste. Everett could wear it next summer, if not before.

“Gracious, child!” said Rosalie. “You're bustin' right out of those overalls! Better try on your dresses tonight to see if we can make them do for school. Now, honey, did your Mama tell you about how you'll bleed once a month when you're able to make babies?”

At Laurie's stare of horror, Rosalie somehow managed to give her a comforting hug without touching her with hands and fingers stained from scalding and peeling tomatoes. “Don't look so scared, dear. You can't make babies without a man.” She sobered and seemed to be speaking almost to herself. “Depending on the man and how it happens, that can be the loveliest, sweetest thing in the world, or it can be the ugliest.”

Simply, encouraging Laurie to ask about anything that puzzled or troubled her, Rosalie said the monthly flow of blood carried off the egg that didn't have a baby starting in it. “When a man wants a woman, his thing gets hard so it can push up inside her and leave his sperm—kind of seeds—where it can find her egg. This don't always mean a baby'll grow, but there's a chance. A man can put on a rubber—sort of a close-fitting bag—to hold his sperm, but rubbers can leak or break so it's not as safe as some boys will try to tell you. Nothing really is, so don't let a boy do anything to you, no matter how he begs and promises, till you're sure he's the one you're going to marry. Best thing's to wait till you're married. Otherwise, he might change his mind—decide you're not fit for him to marry, even when he's the one who made you not fit.”

“That's not fair!”

“'Course it's not,” said Rosalie practically. “No more than what's just fun for the man may start a baby in a woman. But since that's the way it is, a girl needs to be mighty careful. And don't think that because a man's old enough to be your daddy that he don't mean anything by pettin' and huggin' you.”

Grandpa's old enough to be your father, Laurie thought. As if she guessed what Laurie was thinking, Rosalie blushed to the edges of her dark hair. She slipped the skin off another tomato and straightened her shoulders.

“I know you've wondered why I married your grandpa and why I think so much of him.” She continued her work with her back to Laurie. “This isn't nice, honey, but I reckon you need to know the kind of stuff that can happen. My real daddy died before I can remember. The man I called daddy was my stepfather, no blood relation. By the time I was Belle's age, he—he was doin' things. He said he'd kill me if I told Mama. When I was fourteen, I told him I'd kill him if he didn't stop.” She gave a harsh little laugh. “I guess he believed me. I was so ashamed and felt so dirty inside, so different from the other girls. I quit school when I finished eighth grade and got out of that house, but I couldn't get what happened out of me. I tried, though. I sure tried, but what I tried and the ones I tried with made it worse. I wasn't fifteen years old but I was spendin' every cent I earned waitin' tables on rotgut whiskey so I could forget what a mess I'd made of my life.”

She turned to look at Laurie. “Harry came in one day—just sat and watched me while he ate and drank three or four cups of coffee. When the noon rush thinned out, he asked me if I wouldn't like to go home with him. That's what he said—
home
.” She drew a quivering breath and her smile was blinding as she glanced toward Laurie. “It was like he was my real daddy mixed in with a man who could make me feel clean and new and pretty again, get rid of all the ugliness. I don't know how he saw what I needed but it was the luckiest thing ever happened to me that he did and that somehow I knew I should go with him. Hadn't been for him, I'd be dead by now or a worn-out whore.”

Rosalie set another jar in the big kettle and started to fill another. “So don't you feel sorry for some guy who tells you how bad he hurts when he can't finish his lovemakin' or says you don't love him if you won't go all the way. If he loved
you
, seein' how much you've got to lose, he wouldn't try to talk you into it.”

Struck by the wisdom of this, Laurie nodded. Rosalie reached for another tomato. “In three-four years when Ev'rett starts gettin' ideas, I'm goin' to set him down and give him a good talking to. I'm tellin' him not to go with any girl he doesn't care enough about to marry, because if he ever gets one in the family way, he's goin' to do just that, no matter what kind of reputation she's got. That's what I'm tellin' all my boys.” She grinned. “Of course, Harry'll explain to 'em about rubbers and all those bad diseases they can catch, so with any luck, they won't get a girl in trouble.”

About a week later, while the family was picking plums along the North Fork of the Red River, twinges began in Laurie's stomach that increased to real pains. She'd been eating the ripest, juiciest red fruit. Maybe she'd been such a hog that she'd gorged herself into a stomachache.

It was steamy hot among the sandy dunes of the river bottom, with cottonwoods and reeds and willows cutting off any stray breeze. She kept picking into the milk bucket she shared with Belle and Rosalie, but her head throbbed and the pains got so bad that she was afraid she might have appendicitis. Appendixes were sneaky, mysterious things that could swell up and burst and kill you, the way Mama's Aunt Ida's had done.

Frightened as she was, Laurie didn't want to complain or ask if they could go home. That would call Grandpa's attention to her, something she preferred not to do because he'd probably say she was sickly like her mother. Grandpa must have been nice to the scared, despairing Rosalie of twelve years ago, and still was in his gruff way, but it seemed like he'd used up all his kindness on her.

At last four buckets were filled. Under the shade of a big cottonwood, where a plum-stained Babe napped on a tattered quilt, they spread an old tarp and poured out a mountain of fruit.

“Ripest go in these two buckets.” Rosalie set one at either end of the tarp. “Fairly ripe in this one, and greenish in the other. Wormy ones—” She chuckled. “Eat 'em or throw 'em away, whichever you've a mind to.” Her gaze swept over the children, then fixed on Laurie. “What's the matter, dear? You're lookin' puny.”

“I—” Grandpa's green eyes swung to Laurie and she blurted, “I must have eaten too many plums.”

Rosalie touched her forehead. “You're clammy-cool, honey. Could be on your way to sunstroke. Drink some water, not too much, and lay down there on the quilt.”

Laurie sipped lukewarm water from a jar. She felt so dizzy and weak that she would have shared the quilt with Babe even though the little girl's diaper needed changing, except that Grandpa said, “Rachel was like that. Wilted in heat like a chopped-off weed. That's one reason, on top of the dust, that Ed had to quit farmin'. Rachel couldn't stand up to the work.”

“Ed!” chided Rosalie. “You go along, honey, and rest. Anybody can get too much heat on a day like this.”

“I'm all right.” Laurie gritted her teeth and began sorting plums. She worked till the last fruit was in a bucket and then ran off to vomit in the cover of some willows. During the dusty, bumpy ride to the farm in the back of the truck, she struggled not to get sick again.

Rosalie marched her inside, made her lie down on the sofa, washed her face and arms and neck, and had Buddy fetch her a drink. “Better now?”

“I think so,” Laurie whispered. “But—it—it feels like great big thumbs are digging at my insides—kind of twisting. Rosalie, do you think my appendix is getting ready to bust?”

A sudden gleam brightened Rosalie's eyes. Glancing around to make sure no one was in earshot, she said, “I'll bet you're about to have your period, honey. Has there been any blood on your bloomers today?”

Laurie felt herself going crimson. “I don't know.”

“Well, you look next time you go to the toilet. Lots of times it starts with a lot of cramping and precious little blood but it usually doesn't hurt much after the first day or so. I never had any trouble at all after Ev'rett came though I cramped something fierce till I left home and what was happenin' there.” Smoothing Laurie's hair, she smiled. “I know you feel plenty warm but a hot-water bottle's what you need right now, and some ginger tea.”

Whether it was the bottle, tea, or hope that the pains were natural, Laurie soon felt well enough to help fix supper. That evening her bloomers were streaked with blood. When she got Rosalie aside and told her, Rosalie looked both relieved and sorry. After she showed Laurie where she kept her blue box of Kotex and gave her an elastic belt with hooks, Rosalie kissed her and held her close.

“You can make a baby now, honey, and that's about the most important thing in the world, but don't you get in a hurry. Let your heart and mind catch up with your body.”

Another world had ended.

6

Why didn't Daddy send for them? For weeks there hadn't been a card. They didn't even know where he was. Laurie's anxiety was heightened when Will Rogers and Wiley Post crashed their plane in Alaska on August 15. If an important, famous, good man like Will could die so suddenly, so senselessly, anybody could.

When school started and Daddy hadn't written, Laurie despaired of joining him before next summer—and by then she was afraid they could never be a family again. Buddy ran wild with his cousins when they weren't chopping weeds. He wouldn't say his night prayers anymore or listen to her read from the New Testament on Sunday because the other boys teased him, and he wouldn't brush his teeth, even when Laurie reminded him how important Mama said that was. If they stayed another year—well, Buddy would belong more to Grandpa than to Daddy, to Grandpa who hadn't liked Mama and who never missed a chance, in spite of Rosalie's shushing, to make some slighting remark about her poor health, what he called her “per'nicketiness,” or her religion.