Veda: A Novel (14 page)

“What letter is that?”

“Kickin us outta the church! That letter!”

He give me a blank stare. “I didn’t get a letter.”

That really pissed me off. They kicked me out, but didn’t do a damn thing to Charlie.

I thought I’d been careful about usin the diaphragm, but two months went by and I didn’t git my period. I prayed for it to start. Then it got to be three months, and I knew I had to tell Charlie.

He broke out in a sweat. Didn’t deny it was his or tell me to git rid of it or nothin like that, but he said it complicated things. Agnes already had a lawyer. She was demandin half his wages and custody of their three boys. He was afraid if she found out I was pregnant, she’d use it to take ever’thin he had.

To keep me from runnin into Agnes or anybody that knew her, Charlie took over payin the bills and doin the shoppin. I didn’t mind. I had plenty to keep me busy, and the farther along I got, the less I wanted to go out anyway. It was his idea, too, that when it was time for the baby to be born, we’d go to the hospital in Medford. That way the birth notice wouldn’t be in the Grants Pass newspaper.

Our baby girl was born in September 1951. She had Charlie’s round face, and she was fat and pink and hungry. When they brought me the birth certificate papers, I looked at the line marked “father’s full name” and panicked. I didn’t know what to do. Charlie was the father, but we weren’t married. How would it look if I wrote Charlie Steele when my name was Veda Landres? So I wrote Edward Landres on that line, even though I believed in my heart he was dead.

We named her Kathy. All the kids were crazy about her, but eight-year-old Ruthie treated her like her very own. Spent hours cooin over her, dressin her, and pushin her up and down the driveway in the old baby buggy we had.

Charlie kept doin most of the errands in town, but when I needed somethin he didn’t like to buy, he took me along. I was in the Kotex aisle in the Piggly Wiggly with Kathy on my hip, when I heard someone say, “Is that Charlie’s baby?” I jumped, startled. It was Agnes.

I made a beeline for the door, with Agnes hot on my heels, yellin at me, callin me a home wrecker. My heart was hammerin like crazy. I pushed through the door and ran for the car.

Charlie found me there. Said he was lookin for me, didn’t know where I’d gone. He wanted to know what was wrong.

“I don’t want to live here anymore,” I bawled.

“Why? What happened?”

“Agnes happened, that’s what happened. Goddamn it, Charlie, I didn’t steal you. I tried to tell you to stay with her. I don’t want to live in this town anymore. I want to move … someplace where I can go to the store without bein called a home wrecker. I’m movin… And if you don’t want to, I’ll go by myself.”

Charlie got a job at the Borden Dairy in Central Point, thirty miles south, and told the kids he was goin to work for Elsie the Cow. It was far enough away for my peace of mind, and not too far from my family. Central Point was nothin more’n a few stores and a tall grain elevator. We got a place close to the railroad tracks where ever’body had big weedy yards and vegetable gardens. There was a cobbled together look about the house, different linoleum in all the rooms, doors and kitchen cabinets that, accordin to Charlie, looked like they been salvaged from a army barracks. Charlie and me took the front bedroom and put the baby’s crib in with us. We give the girls a room and the boys one, and there was one left over. Could of spread the kids out more if we had extra beds, but they was used to sharin.

Charlie filled the extra room with old radios, record players, and a big red toolbox full of timepieces. He’d been in the watch repair business years back and it was my guess he didn’t remember who any of that stuff belonged to, and their rightful owners’d long since give up on gittin em back.

Movin took a big load off my mind. I felt like somethin broke had got put back together and the church had done me a favor by kickin me out. I planned to eat meat, drink coffee, wear lipstick, and smoke cigarettes right out in the open. And if I felt like havin a drink once in a while, I’d do that too.

Charlie got me a dimestore ring, and I started usin his name. He was good to me and good to the kids. He took us places. Over to the coast, stoppin at all kinds of interestin places along the way, like the House of Myrtle, and those roadside museums where they had dried-up snakes and lizards and such. He took us up to Table Rock so the kids could look for arrowheads, and down to Medford to shop at the Big Y store. The boys especially liked goin to the airport, where we stood by the fence and watched the planes take off and land.

After Charlie’s divorce went through, we drove over the state line to Yreka, California. It’d only been four years since Ed disappeared and I didn’t think it was legal for us to git married. But Charlie said if we got married in another state, they wouldn’t have Oregon records so they wouldn’t have no way of knowin.

I started havin that dream again. The one I had over and over after Ed disappeared. I was standin at the edge of a ragin river, trees and boats was goin past, swirlin around, crashin into boulders and breakin up. I could see Ed in the water, goin under, poppin back up, strugglin, flailin with his arms like he was askin for help, but I couldn’t hear him callin or nothin. And he didn’t sweep past me, downstream, like the other things did. Just stayed in one place where I could see him, fightin the water. I was holdin a baby and I couldn’t put her down, so I was runnin back and forth on the riverbank, yellin at him to hold on, to not give up. I’d wake up hollerin, and Charlie’d put his arms around me, ask me what was wrong. I made up things. I didn’t want him to know how much Ed was still on my mind.

.

30

B
EFORE, WHEN RAYMOND
came to see the kids, he slept at Mama’s. But since we weren’t in Grants Pass anymore, he needed a place to stay. He wrote to ask if I could put him up. It’d been a year and a half since his last visit, so I didn’t want to tell him no, but I was nervous about the whole idea. Charlie said it was okay with him, but besides the awkwardness of Raymond sleepin in the same house with me and Charlie, I knew there’d be all sorts of things Raymond wouldn’t approve of. It was mid-August and it was hot. I’d been lettin the kids run around in shorts and bathin suits. He wouldn’t like that. I’d have to make the girls wear dresses.

“Mom, he’s here,” Bobby hollered. Raymond stepped up on the porch. He was covered with dust and pantin like he just finished a footrace. He set down his raggedy valise and ruffled Bobby’s hair. “Bubby,” he said, “Da-dee missed you so much.” Bobby ducked. He didn’t like anybody messin with his hair and he didn’t like bein called Bubby anymore either.

Rosalie stiffened when Raymond put his arms around her, and even Ruthie, who was always crazy about her daddy, screwed up her face and acted like she didn’t want to be kissed. It was little Sam who put his arms out and waited for a hug. Raymond ignored him.

You sonofabitch,
I thought
, I’m not goin to let you git away with that.
I shoved Sam in his direction. Raymond looked at him and patted him on the head like he was a neighbor’s dog.

“Bobby, take your daddy’s bag to your bedroom,” I snapped. “You and Sam and Eddie can sleep on the floor in the front room.” Rosalie followed me to the kitchen. I filled the skirt of my dress with potatoes, dumped em in the sink and started peelin, skins flyin ever whichaway. “He’s got no call to act like that,” I fumed, slammin the pot on the stove. “He knows good and well Sam’s his.” I started slicin a cucumber and cut myself. Blood spurted into the sink and I wrapped my hand in a dishtowel. “Sam looks just like him.”

When the potatoes were cooked, I mashed em. I got a jar of string beans from the back porch. Then I sliced some tomatoes and some more cucumbers. “With some bread and butter, that should be plenty,” I said. I wasn’t goin to put meat on the table and listen to one of Raymond’s lectures.

“Why do you always do that, Mom?” Rosalie asked. “We eat meat when he’s not here, why are you acting like we don’t?”

“I don’t know. Just common courtesy I guess.”

“Well, I don’t think—”

“Rosalie,” I said, too annoyed to argue, “go in the other room and visit with your daddy. That’s why he’s here, to see you kids.”

“But he talks to us like we’re babies.”

“Go on out there.”

“And he has hal-i-tosis. Bad.”

“Rosalie!”

“Mom, he does. Bad. Can we at least put the bottle of Listerine where he’ll see it?”

I gave her a look and she left. I knew she was right about not doin things different just ’cause Raymond was here. It wasn’t honest, and I didn’t have a good excuse for why I did it.

When Charlie got home, he kissed me on the cheek and went to say hello to Raymond. Charlie’d known him for a long time and always kind of took pity on him. If either of em felt uncomfortable, it was Raymond, not Charlie.

When I had ever’thin ready, I dried my hands, got a Band-Aid for my cut, and peeked into the front room. Sam was holdin his toy airplane over his head makin motor noises. Janie and Eddie were runnin around behind him, and Tippy, the kids’ little terrier, was humpin Raymond’s leg. Raymond looked like he’d found himself in the middle of a manure pile and couldn’t figure a way to git out of it.

I put dinner on the table, and once we all got set down, I asked Raymond to say grace. The kids looked at me like I was off my rocker. We hadn’t done grace in a long time.

Raymond bowed his head. “Heavenly Father,” he said, “bless this food Veda has prepared to nourish our bodies. Thank you for the opportunity to be here with my children. I ask that you take them in your capable hands and watch over every aspect of their upbringing…”

He took a breath and went on real slow, draggin out his sentences, takin long pauses waitin for the next thought to come to him. I wished I had asked Charlie to do it instead. Raymond stopped to clear his throat.

“…Lord, I thank you for the health of my children … bestow them with your precious love … ground their lives in your suffering…”

I opened my eyes and looked around the table. The bigger kids were starin at their dad, Eddie’s eyes drooped, and Janie was suckin on the fingers of one hand and twirlin a piece of hair with the other one. I closed my eyes again.
Lord, please let him finish.

“…Loving Father, in this house where people are estranged from You, enlighten Veda. Show her the sin she is committing by turning these children against the church…”

Bam! Charlie’s hand hit the table. “Amen, for Christ’s sake. That’s enough.”

The baby started to cry.

“Let’s eat,” I whispered. “Food’s gittin cold.”

We passed the dishes and filled our plates. Raymond leaned over his and started shovelin his food. Rosalie imitated him, turnin her spoon upside down, a habit of his I always hated.

“Stop it right now,” I said. Ever’body looked at me, and then got real quiet.

After dinner Raymond brought out a game he called
Bible Authors
. He’d made up cards with quotes, and the kids were supposed to guess what book of the Bible they came from. The kids didn’t know the answers, and Raymond didn’t hide his disappointment. When Bobby brought out Chinese Checkers, Raymond went to bed.

I could never make sense of my feelins about Raymond. I wondered what I had seen in him. If he really was, once, all that handsome. He seemed so pathetic now. His slumped shoulders, his dour expression, his seedy clothes. But I did feel somethin. Was it guilt? Pity? I couldn’t explain it, but bein around him tied my stomach in knots. The next day, before he left, he told me, “I’ve come to visit because I want my children to see what kind of a man their father is.” I think they did. And I don’t think it was what he had in mind.

.

31

T
HE SUMMER STAYED HOT.
Once Raymond was gone, I let the kids run around in bathin suits, go to Saturday matinee movies, and yell and act silly all they wanted to. When school started in September they made friends, and soon we had half a dozen neighbor kids hangin around our house. I loved their energy. I loved the noise.

Rosalie took up with a set of twins from down the street, Marlene and Darlene. I enjoyed foolin around with the three of them. Teachin em songs from the ’30s and ’40s. Showin em how to jitterbug, Charleston, and cha-cha-cha. We had a good time until the twins started usin bad words around me, and tellin fibs. I scolded em, and they got mouthy.

Things disappeared. My nice cameo pin and a hand mirror Rosalie kept on her dresser. I had my suspicions, but I didn’t say anythin. Then Rosalie’s favorite sweater turned up missin. It was a present from her Aunt Bea, and I was upset with her for losin it. We searched the whole house and she looked in the lost and found at school. We’d pretty much give up on it, when we run into the twins one day and Marlene was wearin the sweater.

“Where’d you git this?” I asked, pickin at one of the sleeves.

She shrugged her shoulders and tried to go around me.

“I’m askin you where you got it.”

“I bought it,” she said, “in Medford.”

“I don’t think so.” I pinched the sleeve where I’d fixed a snag in it. “I know good and well it’s Rosalie’s. Now tell me why you have it.”

“Rosalie gave it to me.” Marlene glanced at her sister. “Didn’t she, Darlene?”

I looked at Rosalie. “Did you?”

“No, Mom, why would I? It’s the one Aunt Bea bought for me.”

Marlene called Rosalie a name and said she was a liar. She used the f-word, and I lost my temper and slapped her. Told her to bring the sweater back or I’d tell her parents. She brought it back all right. Threw it up on the porch, dirty, and with lipstick smeared on the collar.

A few days later the girls showed up with their dad, who was hoppin mad. He come up to Charlie and started callin him a pervert, sayin he was goin to beat the shit out of him.

“Hey, hold on there,” Charlie said, standin up from the lawn chair he was settin on. When the guy seen how big Charlie was, he sort of backed off a bit, but he kept yellin.

“My girls said you been exposing your…”