Veda: A Novel (12 page)

Friday came, and I fixed a nice supper at Mama’s. I made biscuits. Ed loved my biscuits. I was all set to tell him how sorry I was, that I’d live anywhere he wanted. It kept gittin later and later, and he didn’t come. I fed the kids and put em to bed on Mama’s davenport. Then I went out to the shed and walked the floor. It was pitch dark, but I looked out the window ever’time I heard a noise. Around midnight I laid down on the bed, but I couldn’t sleep. By mornin I was crazy with worry.

Mama said he was probably too drunk to come home. Bea offered to send her husband Gabe down to 6th Street, where all the taverns were, to look for him, the way he did when Laird went on a bender. I told her no. I knew Ed had to be stranded by the river.

Gabe had worked for the Forest Service and he knew the area, so on Monday him and Laird went to look for Ed. They found his car a ways off the Williams highway near the place where they thought he would have had to cross the river, but the rapids were runnin too fast for em to cross. They got ahold of the state police and were told to give it a few days and see if Ed turned up. Said it was too soon to file a missin person report. “He most likely just run off,” one of the officers told Gabe. “It happens all the time. Guy like that, some other man’s kids.”

The police waited until the water went down, and then did a half-assed search. They found the cabin. His radio equipment was there, and so were his tools. I kept after em, wantin em to do more. “Did you find his boat?” I asked. “You must of found his boat.”

“Look, lady,” the officer said, “there’s pieces of boats strewn all along that river. No tellin who they belong to. Lots of folks out there have boats.”

I wasn’t stupid. I knew if I come from money, had connections, they would of tried harder. Another week went by and Ed didn’t show up. I didn’t understand it. Why were his tools there? He wouldn’t go off and leave his tools. And why would he leave his car? I cried till I couldn’t cry anymore. If it wasn’t for Rosalie, my oldest, I don’t know what I would of done. She was just nine, but there was times when she took over, seen the kids got fed, told em stories, played games. Kept em busy so they wouldn’t ask too many questions.

Ever’body had an opinion. Mama. My sisters. Rheba and Flossie. And of course, Raymond. None of em understood Ed wouldn’t just up and leave. They didn’t know how he felt about me. Mama was convinced he’d turn up drunk and broke. Said she hoped I had sense enough not to take him back.

Rosalie was the only one on my side. She’d put her arms around me and say, “We know he didn’t leave us, don’t we?” It’s what I wanted to believe. What I had to believe. Thinkin otherwise hurt too much. But questions gnawed at my insides. Were my kids too much for him to handle? Did Mama drive him away? Did I? I was ashamed of not ownin up to my worries long before I did, lettin em build up into one big fear. And I shouldn’t of told him about my dream when I did, the way I did. I shouldn’t of told him at all.

I couldn’t stand the thought of stayin where I was and havin to hear my family talk the way they did about Ed. I needed to get away, to stand on my own feet. I’d depended on Mama for years, and I didn’t want to do it anymore. Besides, the memory was too fresh. The bed we made love in. The place he stood makin coffee on our mornins together. The window I looked out of while I waited for him that whole goddamn week.

I hated the idea of goin on relief, but it was better than livin off a poor old woman on a pension. It took guts to walk in that welfare office, to tell em I was a widow with five kids and a baby on the way—the way they looked at me, and how they acted when I said I didn’t have a death certificate. Turned out in order to git money to feed my kids, I had to say Ed walked out on me. I hated doin that, but it was either give up my pride or feed my kids, so I said what I had to say.

When I got the first check, I found us a house. It was a terrible place with broken linoleum and a roof that leaked like a sieve, but it was all I could afford. No indoor plumbin either, just a outhouse that smelled so bad I didn’t blame the kids for not usin it. I bought a chamber pot, and every mornin I went out, holdin my nose, and emptied it into the hole. And I got a big galvanized tub for our baths.

There was a sawmill behind the house with one a them wigwam sawdust burners. At night I could see sparks shoot out and fall like red-hot rain. I was afraid to sleep. Got a couple of hammers and put em in the windowsills. Showed the kids how to break their way out if the house caught on fire.

I didn’t much care if I lived or died. I didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, and I knew I wasn’t doin the baby I was carryin any good. It was Ed’s baby and I wanted it, but I was just so sad. I kept thinkin how happy he was when Janie was born, and how he would never git to see this baby. It made me think about the girls whose husbands got killed in the war. How it was for them. But at least they had pictures of em in uniform to remember em by. I didn’t even have that.

Eddie was born just thirteen months after Janie. He wasn’t pretty like my other babies. His head was shaped like a eggplant and I was told it was ’cause he had rickets. I blamed myself for not eatin right, not takin care of myself. It was probably a miracle he got born at all.

I didn’t have enough milk to nurse him, so I had to buy formula. Even then he didn’t gain weight the way he should of. He was always catchin cold, too, and so was Janie. They both got bad earaches. I set up nights with em. Rockin. A baby in each arm. If they fell asleep, I dozed off too. Sometimes I’d come back out of a dog-tired half-sleep and see Ed standin there, smilin, holdin a cup of coffee. But it wasn’t ever real. He was gone, and I had these two babies that’d never git to know their daddy.

The police said they searched the river. Said if Ed drowned his body would of turned up. I tried to imagine what could of happened to him. Maybe he fell off a cliff. Maybe a animal got him. Or maybe somebody shot him and hid the body. If he had run off, like they said, where would he go? Why would he leave his car? And why would he go off without takin his tools?

Months passed. Eddie gained weight. His head lost its odd shape and sprouted soft yellow fuzz. He was adorable and sweet, and he had Ed’s blue eyes. But he still got sick a lot. I tried to keep the house warm, but it was drafty and the electric bill took a big bite out of my welfare check.

The week before Christmas we got our first snowstorm, and I was glad ’cause it give the older kids somethin to be excited about. I bundled em up and watched from the window while they squealed and laughed, and Rosalie showed em how to make snow angels.

The next mornin Rosalie shook me awake. “Mama, come look! Look what the angels brought.” On our porch was a big box of groceries. Bread and oatmeal, eggs, canned soup, peaches, Crisco, flour, a sack of oranges, and a dozen cans of Carnation milk. With two babies on bottles, that milk was a lifesaver. There was even a bag of hard candy, the kind with colored stripes, and a Christmas present for each of the kids. I didn’t know if it come from one of the churches or some county agency, but if Rosalie wanted to believe it was from the angels, I wasn’t goin to tell her any different.

That box of groceries made me think my long string of rotten luck was over, but then Ruthie woke in the middle of the night screamin with a stomach ache. I called my sister Bea, who worked in Dr. Prescott’s office. She brought Mama to stay with the other kids, and took Ruthie and me to the emergency room. They said Ruthie had a blockage in her bowel and needed a operation. She was only five years old. I was beside myself, and I didn’t know how to git ahold of Raymond. Didn’t know if he even had a phone. All I could do was pray.

Dr. Prescott came through the big double doors and pulled off his mask. “She came through just fine. She’ll be good as new in no time.”

I walked to Ruthie’s hospital room on rubbery legs, set down beside the bed, and had a long talk with God. I thanked Him for lookin after my little girl and bringin her through the operation. Then I asked Him real nice if He could please, please, just lay off me for a while.

.

26

I
WAS ALONE FOR MORE
than a year with no word about Ed. I missed him, thought about him all the time, and wished he could see his babies. Janie turned two and was startin to talk. Eddie’s first birthday was comin up. He was already pullin himself up to things, tryin to walk.

The only friend I had was Lila. She dropped by once in a while, but never stayed long. It was probably a good thing, since she had a mouth like a sailor. She teased me about bein a goody-two-shoes and tried to git me over my Sabbath School upbringin by teachin me to smoke and swear.

“Ya gotta yell at the world when it’s pissing you off,” she said. “You need to learn to say shit.”

“I can’t,” I told her.

“Yes you can. Come on. Do it. Say SHIT. It won’t hurt you.”

“No.”

“Come on, it feels good. Comm-mahhn, say it.”

She got me to laughin, and I said “SHIT” real soft.

“No. Loud! Say it loud. Scream it. Scream SHIT!”

So I did. She was right. It felt good. Damn good. She was after me, too, to git out and meet people. “You’re not doing yourself or those kids any good moping around the way you do. You need to get out and talk to grownups. Christ, I’ll bet you ain’t had a conversation in months that wasn’t about pee-pee or poo-poo.”

It wasn’t exactly true. I had Rosalie. She was ten and I talked to her. But sometimes I worried I was tellin her too much, makin her grow up too fast. Lila was right. I did need to git out, but even thinkin about it took too much effort.

“Look at yourself,” Lila said. “You could pack everything you own in the bags under your eyes. Your hair is greasy and you look like you’ve been sleepin in your clothes. You’re not too damn good to come out and have a beer with me.” She said she'd bring her teenage girl to set with my kids.

I liked Lila a lot, but I didn’t want to go out with her. I knew what kind of places she went to.

“We can’t go in bars,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Don’t you need to go with a man?”

“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I’m fixing you up. The guy I’m seein has a friend. Good lookin guy. Classy dresser. A laugh a minute this one. You’ll get a kick out of him.”

I took a bath and washed my hair. Then I drug out a dress I hadn’t wore since Ed left. When Lila got there, she put lipstick on me and fiddled with my hair. It’d been so long since I fixed myself up, I was surprised how good I looked. We made a odd pair, though, me and her. She was short. I was tall. Her hair was brassy blond and puffed up high. Mine was dark brown and straight. And while she liked squeezin herself into tight sweaters, I dressed like a minister’s wife.

The “laugh a minute” was a travelin salesman named Frank that sold ladies’ dresses. He drove a big black car with a clothes rack in the back seat, wore expensive lookin suits, and wing tip shoes. He drank scotch, talked fast, and told off-color jokes.

“I told you you’d have a good time, didn’t I?” Lila said when her and her friend drove me home. “Frank liked you, wants to see you again. Did he tell you that?”

I hadn’t had all that good a time. I felt out a place, didn’t git the jokes, or have anythin funny of my own to say. I set there with a fake smile, wishin I was home with my babies. But I agreed to go out with him again ’cause Lila expected me to, and it felt good to git dressed up.

The next time, Frank came to my place to pick me up. The kids, the littlest ones, climbed all over him. He entertained em for a whole hour, showin em magic tricks like pullin nickels out of their ears, before Lila came to take em to her house.

He give me a couple a nice dresses from his car. Had me put one of em on and told me I looked like a million bucks. He’d brought booze with him and asked if I had some glasses. So we started drinkin. He turned on the radio and wanted to dance. I was feelin pretty loose. Missin Ed and likin the way it felt to be in a man’s arms again. I let him kiss me.

We had some more to drink. The room spun. His tongue was in my mouth, his hands up under my brassiere. He carried me to the bed and undressed me. I tried to push him off, then gave up and let it happen. He was gone when I woke up. I thought he’d call, but he didn’t. I felt sick and ashamed. Empty in a way I never felt empty before.

“What did you think?” Lila said when I told her, “that he’d marry you just because you slept with him?”

“Course not,” I said, “but I feel rotten.”

“You used a diaphragm didn’t you?”

“I don’t have one. Why would I?”

“Oh my God, honey, it’s to keep you from havin more kids. The last thing you need is another kid.”

“Well, it’s not goin to happen again.”

“Of course it will,” she said. “You’re a looker. You need to get a diaphragm.”

“I can’t,” I told her. “I wouldn’t know how. I’d be too embarrassed to ask.”

“Believe me, embarrassed is better than pregnant. I’ll go with you. It’ll be fine.”

Nothin embarrassed Lila. To her, talkin about sex was no different than talkin about cleanin house or cookin supper. She slept with lots of men and she only had two kids. She said I had to wise up and learn how to protect myself. She drove me down to Medford so I could go to a doctor I never been to before. “Don’t tell him you don’t have a husband,” she said when I got out of the car.

The doctor wanted to know if I had discussed it with my husband. Said preventin pregnancy wasn’t my decision alone. I told him we had six kids and couldn’t afford another baby.

“Still,” he said, “I need to hear it from your husband. His wishes have to be considered.”

My face felt hot. “I know,” I said. “We talked about it. Neither one of us wants another baby.”

He dropped his head and looked at me through the top of his bifocals. Then he opened the door a crack. “Nurse,” he said, “put her in a room and have her get undressed.”

Maybe it was my guilty conscience, but the doctor, his nurse, even the lady at the front desk, seemed to know I was lyin about my husband.

At the car, I waved the prescription in Lila’s face. “He made me feel like a criminal.”