All Over Creation (33 page)

“Yo,
brah,
” Phoenix said, slapping his brother's little palm. Poo bounced up and down in his seat. Ocean danced along beside Cass, tugging at the baby bag.

“There's a man!” she gasped. “A man!”

“Oh?” said Cass.

“In a suit!” Her fine blond hair was blowing wildly, into her mouth, her eyes. The wind was snatching her words.

“A man in a suit?” Cass asked, frowning. “Who is it?”

Phoenix shoved his hands into his pockets. It was a noisy wind, so he spoke loudly. “Some creeped-out buggah. They knew each other. Yummy sent us out to help Geek and Grandma in the greenhouse, but they're in town, and anyway that was just to get rid of us. She wanted to be
alone
with him.”

“Is he from the sheriff's?”

Phoenix shook his head. “He's a newspaper reporter or something. Slick motherfucker.”

They were right by the door. “Shhh,” Ocean said. “Don't call him dirty names. He'll hear you.”

“Oooh, ex
cuse
me!” Phoenix said, lowering his voice, mocking her. He tiptoed up the steps like a cat burglar, holding the door open for Cass. “Shhh,” he said, puffing air into Poo's face as Cass carried him by. Poo blinked his eyes. Ocean punched her older brother's arm, and together they crossed the porch.

And stopped. Because there in the kitchen, on the bare patch of linoleum by the sink, stood Yummy, wrapped in the arms of the man in the suit. Only it wasn't really a suit, just a tweedy-looking jacket and khaki pants. They were standing there frozen, as still as a statue, and for a long moment all Cass could hear was the noise of the wind rattling the shutters and the creaking of the house.

“Oh, no,” Phoenix groaned softly. “Not again.”

Cass's first thought was to turn away. Instead she opened the screen door, and the children slipped in.

“Mommy?” Ocean said.

The two broke apart quickly. Yummy looked dazed, like she had just been woken up.

“Whoops,” she said. “Sorry.”

The pattern of tweed was pressed into her reddened cheek, as though she had been sleeping against this man's shoulder for a long, long time. He seemed familiar, handsome, like men on TV commercials for nice cars or life insurance. He had an easy confidence that was way too big for Momoko's kitchen. They stood next to each other, Yummy and this sure-looking man, bodies inclined, like two trees with shallow roots, tipped by the wind so that their upper branches touched, and this entire scene looked both so familiar and so wrong. And then Cass got it.

“Oh, no,” she breathed as her heart sank like a stone. “Not again.”

“Yummy?”

His intonation was questioning, but my response was as to a command. Wordless, I opened the screen door, and when he stepped across my parents' threshold the foundation of their house seemed to shudder. It was like being on drugs again, and even while a dim part of my mind resisted, my arms betrayed me. If I held on to him tightly, it was just to keep from falling. If God himself had bust through the ceiling, I wouldn't have been surprised.

“Yummy Fuller,” he said, breathing my name into the top of my skull, as though the act of labeling me brought a long-sought relief. He let go and stepped away, and if ever I needed the house to anchor me, it was then. Weak-kneed and shaking, I backed away and leaned against the counter, aligning my feet in my mother's footsteps by the sink, as though they would support me. He looked around, taking in the signs.

“What luck,” he said. “I happened to be in town doing some research for a story. Found myself driving by and thought what the hell, so I turned in. I didn't expect—”

“I don't live here,” I heard myself say. “I'm just here for a visit.”

“Even more of a coincidence, then.”

“I live in Hawaii now.” I could not believe the inanities issuing from my mouth.

“And I live in D.C.” He smiled. “I can't believe this. You look great.”

“What brings you back?” Trying to regain some formality now. I could hear the kids in the living room, or rather I couldn't hear them, so I knew they were listening. “Oh, that's right. You're researching . . .”

“An article,” he said. “For a newspaper.”

“What's D.C.?” It was Ocean, standing resolutely next to the refrigerator.

“Washington, D.C.,” I told her. “You know, our nation's capital. Ocean, this is Elliot. Elliot, my daughter, Ocean.” I raised my voice. “Phoenix, come in here.” I wanted to get this all over with.

My son slunk through the door. “This is Phoenix. He's my oldest.”

Elliot opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Phoenix grunted something on his way through the kitchen. Ocean wanted to hang around, but I shooed her out the door after her brother, to find Geek, to help Momoko, whatever. Smart kids. They knew when they weren't wanted. Ocean was marching and stomping her feet and singing, “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me. . . .” Her voice got farther and farther away. “I'm going to the garden to eat worms, yum, yum, yum. . . .”

When I turned around, Elliot was staring at me.

“Phoenix?” he asked. His voice was thin and hushed now.

“Risen from the ashes.” I couldn't look at him.

He reached out and put his hands on my shoulders. “I'm so sorry,” he said, holding on to me. I let him, for old times' sake. He wasn't stupid. He got it. He knew why I named my firstborn Phoenix, and why I was shaking so hard.

 

 

There are some things you never forget. Some things that transport you like a bad acid trip so that, in a flash, it is 1974, the floor in the backseat of the Volkswagen Beetle is covered with sodden newspapers, and no one is saying much as the little car heads east. Grace Slick croons on the eight-track. The sky looms gray, and the interstate goes on and on. You hold Cass's hand and stare out the window at the ice-covered horizon. Grace sings,
“You are the crown of creation, and you got no place to go. . . .”

Cass leans forward between the seats.

“Uh, Mr. Rhodes . . . can you play something else?”

He ejects the tape. The AM radio comes on. You roll your eyes at Cass, pretending that Elliot is a very square old man.

He's a very bad driver. You snicker every time the car lurches forward or comes to a less than graceful stop, and soon Cass is giggling, too. He tells you both to shut up, which of course makes you laugh harder. He's looking for an address that he wrote on the back of a Mr. Donuts napkin. You don't stop snickering until he pulls up on a side street that parallels the railroad tracks. The buildings are decrepit. Suddenly it's not so funny. The three of you just sit there in the little Beetle, staring at the dingy doorway.

Cass knows you are scared. She squeezes your hand and whispers, “You don't have to—”

But you shake your head. Elliot turns around and looks at you over the back of the seat. “Ready?” he asks. You look away and blink.

“Wait,” Cass says, and for the first time ever, she's stronger than you, stronger even than Elliot, and she glares at him. “Just give her a minute, will you?” Then she says, “You just take your time,” and pats your arm, like she's learned how to comfort a person from the ladies at church. The patting annoys you, and you shake her off.

“God! What's the big fucking deal. Come on!” You shove the seat back forward into Elliot's face and kick open the door.

“Atta girl,” says Elliot. You give him the finger.

The wooden door leading into the building slumps and hangs ajar, scraping against the broken concrete of the stoop. The hallway stairs are dark with ancient varnish, and the walls are the color of mold on curdled cream. The banister is sticky with grime. You climb the stairs single file—first Elliot, then you, then Cassie behind. Elliot wears his hiking boots open at the top, with the laces wrapped around the ankles, making his jeans bunch up at the cuffs. The sight is comforting somehow, like you're following him up a mountain trail. The treads of the old wooden stairs sink against the risers, under his weight. You feel their sogginess under your feet, too, and if you close your eyes and ignore the stench of stale sweat and cabbage, it might just as well be soft earth, or moss, or even a forest floor.

But of course it isn't. You reach a door. Elliot knocks. Someone opens it a crack and you can see the sliver of a face behind the security chain, a wary eye, a nose. Elliot says something ludicrous and prearranged, and the door closes, then opens again, wider this time. The three of you push in like stooges.

The room is brown, furnished with a dingy sofa and a couple of beat-up metal folding chairs. The dirt-streaked windows face a railway spur, leading to the switching yards. You can hear the trains heave along the rails, feel their locomotion through the floorboards, vibrating against the soles of your feet, up your knees to your tummy. A tired-looking woman with wire-rimmed glasses looks at you and then at Cass. She has lank blond hair, held back with a rubber band.

“Which one?” she asks. You feel Cass shrink, and you step forward bravely.

“Me.”

The woman eyes you, then speaks to Elliot. “It's legal now, you know. You can take her to a clinic.”

Elliot shakes his head. “Not here. Not without her parents' knowing.”

“Take her out of state, then.”

Elliot hesitates. “She's a minor.”

The woman looks at him like she wants to spit in his face, but then she drops it and sighs. “I swore I'd never do another one of these,” she says. She turns to you. “Ready?”

She tells you to use the bathroom, and when you come out, she is wearing stained green scrubs over her T-shirt. Elliot and Cass are seated on the sagging couch, side by side. They watch you follow the green scrubs into a small adjoining bedroom. At the last minute you turn and give them a silly little wave. They wave back, and the way Elliot looks at you, the way he hesitates, then leans forward as though to stand, makes you think for a moment that he's going to put a stop to all this, and your heart gives a leap, but he doesn't. The woman closes the door.

An ancient gynecological examining table stands at the far end, its stirrups pointing toward the railway yard and the grimy amber daylight that filters in through the window. There's a lit candle and a stick of incense in a flowerpot on the windowsill. The woman tells you to get undressed from the waist down, so you peel off your jeans and hop up on the table. Feet in the stirrups. You wonder if you should have taken off your socks. The woman makes you lift your bottom so she can slip a plastic tarp beneath. She covers your knees with a sheet, but the plastic makes you shiver.

“Cold?” she asks.

“Yeah.” Your teeth are chattering.

She pulls a small electric heater closer to the table, then throws an army-surplus blanket over the sheet. “Better?”

You nod. The woman looks kind, and you relax a little. She takes your hand. “You sure you want to do this? He didn't pressure you?”

You shake your head.

“Then tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me it's your choice. Tell me you don't want this baby.”

“I don't want this baby?” you say, but it comes out sounding like a question.

“Do you really want this abortion?”

“Yeah.” You shrug. “Sure.”

“Say it.”

You roll your eyes. “I really, really, really want this abortion.”

She looks at you hard, then pats your arm. “All right. Hang on tight. Here we go.” And she walks toward your feet and ducks behind the blanket.

You can see the window beyond the horizon of coarse, olive-drab wool that stretches between your knees, which are spread wide open to the world. Off in the marshaling yard you can hear the trains being built, their brakes grinding and squealing, metal against metal. Instead of dissonance, however, this creates a harmonic accident—eerie overtones, not of this earth. You want it to go on and on, infinitely resonating, but it terminates in the heavy clank of two-ton cars coupling.

You cringe at the insertion of cold metal.

The pain is like no other.

After it's over, you lie there on the table while the woman cleans up. The door opens, and Cassie comes in. She chokes at the sight of the blood, but she recovers. She rubs your clammy forehead, pulls your long hair up off your neck, and blows gently against your skin, and this time her comforting works because you start to cry. She kisses your brow.

“You okay?” she whispers, and you nod.

“Let's get milk shakes,” you whisper back, because you know she likes milk shakes, and she hugs you and helps you get dressed. The lady gives you a big sanitary pad, which you shove between your legs. You pull up your jeans. Then Elliot comes in, and he wants to carry you out in his arms.