Veda: A Novel (11 page)

It was later, after Sam was born and I was divorced, that I started goin out with Ed. I was workin at the box factory then, and me and the kids had moved into the little shed behind Mama’s house, so there was no way to keep her from knowin. She had a conniption fit. Said his kind was no good and if I run around with him I’d end up on skid row with him and Laird and the rest of the drunks.

Ed was tall and blond, with blue eyes and a nice smile. His hair was thin on top, but I thought that added to his good looks. He’d come to pick me up wearin dress pants and cowboy boots, smellin of aftershave. I was a thirty-year-old in what felt like a forty-year-old body, but Ed made me feel young and pretty. And he made me laugh. Lord, it felt good to laugh.

I got myself a couple of new dresses, and when other men looked at me and whistled, Ed didn’t mind. Said bein seen with a pretty woman improved his image. He took me places I never been before. Movies, pool halls, and beer joints. I told him I was scared somebody’d recognize me, but he just laughed. Said the folks I was worried about runnin into didn’t have no more business bein there than I did.

If there was a jukebox, he’d want me to dance with him. I told him I was raised in a church that taught against dancin and I didn’t know how. The only dancin I ever done was with Rheba and Flossie when we were girls, and that was a lot different than dancin with a man.

But the music got to me. Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter. I fell as hard for the music as I did for Ed, or at least it was all part of the same thing. That music, bein in Ed’s arms, leanin against him, smellin his smell, made me feel things I never felt before. Mama was right about dancin. It could lead to all kinds of trouble.

I loved bein with Ed. The way he kissed me, pressed his body up against me, made me want him like I never wanted anythin. I worried about what Mama would say if I slept with Ed, but I was more worried about God. I had the sin of divorce on my slate already and I didn’t want to make it worse.

“Why don’t you marry me?” Ed asked after we’d gone out for a while. “Let me take care of you and your kids. Your divorce is final. There’s no reason not to.”

It was less than a year since my divorce and I knew Mama would be against it, but it was a way out of a terrible situation. It’d be good for Mama, too, in the long run. The little bit of money I made at my job didn’t come close to coverin the cost of supportin us. And she was gittin too old to keep runnin after my kids.

Besides, I was fallin in love with the guy. He’d never been married and he liked the idea of a readymade family. My girls were seven and three, Bubby was almost six, and Sam, my baby, was a year old and just startin to walk. They were all crazy about Ed. When he come to see us, his pockets bulged with lollipops and bubble gum. He took the kids out for ice cream cones, gave em horsey-back rides, and carried the littlest ones around on his shoulders. What could be wrong with marryin a man like that?

.

24

E
D PINNED PINK ROSES
on the linen suit I bought with my paycheck. Laird and my friend Lila went with us to be witnesses, and we had a simple weddin in front of a judge. Afterwards, the four of us went out and celebrated.

When we come back to the house and showed Mama my ring, she laid into us like a riled-up rooster. Said it was a sneaky thing to do. I knew she’d be mad. And I didn’t blame her. After all, she’d been the one stickin up for me when people talked, defendin my decision to divorce Raymond, takin care of the kids while I worked, and I’d gone off and got married without even tellin her I was goin to. But I wasn’t sure what upset her most, us gittin married or me havin liquor on my breath.

Those first weeks, though, I tried to put her anger out of my mind. I was in love. Even my kids took a backseat to Ed and the way my body responded to his touch. I never knew sex could be so wonderful. And there was the time after we made love, when we laid in bed and talked. I’d tell him about my family, and he’d say he couldn’t remember his. His dad brought him to Oregon when he was eleven or twelve, then took off and left him with a middle-aged couple named Forester out at Rogue River. They raised him. He didn’t recall his mother at all.

He liked to talk about the cabin he was buildin. Said he would take me to see it, but first he wanted to add on another room, put in plumbin, paint it. We agreed I should stay put till it was ready, then he wanted me and the kids to go live there with him. I never got it straight where the cabin was exactly, except it was across the Applegate River. There weren’t any roads, he said, so he kept a rowboat out there that he used to git back and forth.

Ed worked for the Forest Service, doin radio repair and watchin for fires. Durin the week he either stayed at the lookout station or at his cabin, and on the weekends, he come back to Grants Pass. He always took the kids and me to do somethin fun, but at night I’d have them sleep over at Mama’s.

I quit my job at the box factory and took over the day-to-day care of my kids. Ed was givin me money to buy groceries and pay Mama some rent. That didn’t soften her up though. Her mind was made up about Ed and nothin short of him walkin on water was goin to change that.

It never took long for Raymond to git wind of what was goin on in my life, and this time was no different. He wrote to tell me, in no uncertain terms, that by bein “an adulteress” and marryin a second time, I had committed a double offense against God. But what seemed to worry him most was the fact that he was still obligated to send child support. “This new husband of yours,” he wrote, “is fully capable of providing for you. And I have it on good authority that he has been using the money I send for my children on tobacco and gambling.” In the first place, Raymond almost never sent any money, and whoever told him Ed was usin it for tobacco and gamblin didn’t know what they were talkin about.

When I got pregnant, Mama started sayin things like I would of been better off alone with four kids than have five and a drunkard husband. She couldn’t see one whit of difference between someone like Ed, who drank a beer once in a while, and a alcoholic like Laird.

Ever’thin Ed did caused Mama to pick on him more. At Christmastime he took the three oldest kids to town to see Santa Claus, and Rosalie talked him into takin em to a movie. She knew enough not to tell her grandma, but Bubby spilled the beans.

“Shame on you,” Mama scolded. “You had no call to take them children into a show house. There’s no tellin what kind of things was put in their heads.”

“Carrie, it was
The Adventures of Rusty
, for God’s sake. About a boy and a dog. Where’s the harm? They had a good time.”

“Just because they had a good time doesn’t make it right,” Mama said.

The bigger my belly got, the more she grumbled, “Why don’t he git you a house? You need your own house. You don’t have enough room for four younguns as it is, let alone five.”

“He will,” I reminded her. “He’s fixin up his cabin. You know that.”

“Are you even sure it exists? Has he ever taken you out there?”

“No, but he will,” I said. “He’ll take me when it’s ready. When it’s nice.”

“It’s a hare-brained idea, that’s what it is.” Mama banged a pot down on the stove. “Movin you across a river with a bunch of little children. Plum foolishness, that’s what, just plum foolishness.”

In spite of Mama’s constant naggin about the “sorry mess” I’d got myself into, I was happy. I had my kids, and I had Ed and the weekends to look forward to. Every Friday I made up the bed with clean sheets, took a bath and put on talcum powder. Then I’d git the kids bedded down at Mama’s, or at Bea’s, and go back to our little love nest, as Ed called it, and wait for him.

He’d come in and scoop me up, and we’d make love. Then he’d throw back the blankets and put his ear on my swollen belly. “Hey baby, can you give your daddy a kick?” When the baby moved, Ed traced the ripples with his fingers. He’d pull me up against him, cup his big hands over my belly, and I’d remember how squeamish Raymond was. How he hadn’t wanted to touch me at all.

Ed was so proud when Janie was born. When we took her home, he carried her around in the crook of his arm and talked to her like he expected her to answer him back. She didn’t look like my other babies. They all had round faces and dark hair. Janie was long-boned and bald, like her daddy, and he thought the world of her. That was in May. Ed was impatient to finish the cabin and git us moved away from Mama, but to be truthful, I’d got used to the way things were. And hearin Mama go on all week about the foolishness of movin across the river had started to wear on me. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was afraid she was right.

Ed took a extra day off over the Fourth of July holiday, and we went downtown to see the parade. It was the first one my kids had been to, and I never seen em more excited. Marchin bands, decorated floats, motorcycles, and fancy cars. The girls strutted like the majorettes, and Bubby run in circles makin motorcycle noises. Then the town mascots, the Cavemen, come along—terrible lookin characters with big teeth and horns, wearin animal skins, and carryin clubs—and started grabbin pretty girls and little kids and puttin em in cages. It was all in fun, but when they got ahold of Bubby, he screamed, and it took me a while to calm him down. But it was a fun day, and bein together like that made me feel like we were a real family.

The summer passed with Ed comin to be with us on weekends and workin on the cabin durin the week. One morning in late November we were in Mama’s kitchen and Ed was sayin how close the cabin was to bein done. “I got the plumbing hooked up, and there’s just a few more things I have to do before we can move in,” he said. “The painting isn’t done, but you can help me with that.”

“Sure,” I said, “I know how to paint.”

Mama stopped what she was doin at the sink and turned around real slow. “I’ve been listenin to you talk about that cabin for months now,” she said, “and I’ve said this before. I think you are out of your mind. Takin five children back and forth in a boat. Little children. They could drown crossin that river. And what if one of em gits sick when you’re not around? Or breaks a leg? Or gits snakebit? How would Veda git em to a doctor?”

Ed slammed out the door and I followed him. “Jesus Christ,” he said, “doesn’t she ever quit?” He didn’t stay that night. Said there was some things he had to do. He wanted to git us moved as soon as possible so he wouldn’t have to put up with my mama anymore. I was on his side, more or less. He had his reasons for gittin us away from her, but the closer he got to finishin the cabin, the more I worried. Mama had a point. If one of the kids got hurt I’d really be in a fix.

.

25

January 7, 1948 (Wed.) [Max. 51°, Min. 43°.] Another extremely wet night with rainfall since Monday totaling a little over 4 inches. This is the most rain the Willamette Valley has had in 2 years, leaving me without employment for several weeks.

T
HE NEXT LETTER I GOT
from Raymond was all about the rain where he was and how it was keepin him from gittin any work, which of course meant no child support this month either. He whined about how tough it was findin jobs and how he was not able to even keep a roof over his head. I didn’t feel sorry for him. He didn’t have to stick with farm labor. He didn’t have to work outdoors. Besides, it was rainin in Grants Pass, too, and it wasn’t easy for me with the kids inside all day. They were restless. Quarrelsome. That made Mama extra cranky, and on top of ever’thin else I was havin mornin sickness again.

I wasn’t sleepin well either. Havin bad dreams. There was one where me and the kids were in a boat in the middle of a river. I was in labor and tryin to git to the hospital. Baby Janie was on my lap and I was tryin to hold onto her and row at the same time. The boat was fillin up with water and I was hollerin at the kids, tellin em to take tin cans and bail. They were all cryin and bailin, but the water kept comin up. Got clear past my ankles. I was rowin and rowin … and I woke up in a cold sweat.

Ed came on Friday, and like usual, the kids slept at Mama’s. When we went to git em Saturday mornin, Mama was standin by the door with her coat on, waitin for her ride to church. She started in on Ed. “Listen here,” she said. “You need to quit doing whatever it is you do, and stay here. Be a full-time husband. Get Veda a house.”

“I’m working on it,” Ed said. “The cabin’s almost ready. We’ll move soon and be out of your hair.”

“Phooey. That cabin. It’s all I hear from you. Is that your idea of a decent place to live? It’s no place to take children and you know it.”

“It’s not your business.” Ed said. “It’s between me and Veda. Keep your nose out of it.”

“Those are my grandchildren,” she said, “and I have every right in the world—”

“Goddammit, Carrie, you’ve been on my back ever since—”

“Stop it,” I yelled. “Stop fightin.”

Mama’s ride pulled up in the driveway and she slammed out the door. I watched her git in the car, then, before I knew I was goin to, I blurted out about my dream. “It must mean somethin,” I said. “Maybe it means we shouldn’t move out there.”

Ed looked at me. “Jesus, Veda,” he said, “I wish you’d told me how you felt before I put all that time and money into the place.” He jerked the door open and started to leave.

“Where are you goin?”

“You don’t want to live there, fine. I’ll go get my tools and board the damn place up. We’ll git a house in town, if that’s what you want. But it won’t be close to your mother.”

He walked to his car with me callin after him. “Ed?

… Ed?”

He drove off, and I started to cry. I didn’t blame him for bein mad. I should of said somethin sooner. It wasn’t fair, springin it on him the way I did.

On Wednesday the headline in the
Courier
said the Applegate River had overflowed its banks. Two people drowned, the article said, and one man was rescued from a cabin out by Murphy. I chewed my fingernails down to the quick, picturin Ed stranded and not able to git across the river. Mama said I was borrowin trouble, that I should wait till he was late comin back before I got all lathered up.