All Over Creation (65 page)

She slipped back the covers and fumbled for her clothes. Will rolled over and flicked on the bedside light.

“Thanks,” she said. She stepped into a pair of sweatpants.

“Who was that?”

“Phoenix.” She pulled on one of Will's sweatshirts. Wearing his clothes made her feel strong. “Poo is throwing up. Phoenix thinks he ate something. I'm going over.”

“Where's Yummy?”

Cass grimaced. “Don't ask.” She sat on the edge of the bed and tied her sneakers.

“You want me to come?”

“I'll take the cell phone. I'll call if I need you.”

He nodded. “She doesn't deserve to have those kids. She's an unfit mother.” Somehow he managed to sound both angry and wistful.

Cass leaned over and gave him a kiss on the forehead, and then she ran out the door.

The Pontiac was parked in the lot of the Falls Motel. She spotted it on the way to the hospital, but she didn't stop. At the emergency room there was a slight delay in admitting Poo because she wasn't his mother. Finally the doctor pumped him out, extracting a frothy soup of curdled earth and grass, chunks of ham and pineapple and stomach acids. A kind of thin adobe gruel. Termites could build nests with it.

“He eats dirt,” Cass explained weakly.

“Geophagy,” said the doctor. “I see.”

“What's that?”

“What you said. Eating earth. There's nothing wrong with it. It's basically what you get when you take an antacid formula.”

“Antacid?”

“Sure. Kaolin. Or calcium carbonate. Accounts for that chalky taste. We've been practicing geophagy for as long as we've been human. It's the earth that isn't what it used to be. Dirt isn't clean these days. Where did he eat this, do you know?”

Cass shook her head. “Could be anywhere. No, wait. There was grass? Then it was probably up at the cemetery. He was playing on a grave.”

The doctor raised his eyebrows. “That's not good.”

“We buried his grandpa,” Cass explained, but the look on his face stopped her short. “Oh, no! You mean, because there's
dead
people in it?”

The doctor gave a grim little smile. “Decomposing bodies are the least of the problem. I'm talking about the lawn.”

“But it's a nice lawn.”

“And it takes a lot of nice lawn chemicals to keep it that way. Don't get me wrong, it's not a problem unless you ingest it. Or feed it to a baby.”

Poo was sleeping, spread-eagled on his back, draped in a white sheet. His dark cheeks were tear streaked and smeared with dirt.

“Is he going to be okay?” Cass asked.

“He's going to be fine. I'm going to let you take him home, but I want you to keep a close eye on him.” He paused. “Oh, right,” he said. “You're not the mother.”

 

 

“What kind of a mother
are
you?” Cass said. She wasn't yelling. Phoenix and Ocean were in bed, and Poo was asleep in the living room, so she was being careful not to raise her voice. In fact, she was whispering. But the effect was the same as if she'd been yelling at the top of her lungs. She watched Yummy flinch.

“I just went out for cigarettes . . .”

“That's a lie!” Cass said. “I saw the Pontiac in the motel parking lot.”

“I didn't mean to go there. It just sort of happened. I didn't stay long.”

“I know. I called the motel from the hospital. They wouldn't let me admit Poo because I wasn't his mother. I talked to that creep, and he said you'd gone. At least if you'd still been there, you could have come.”

Yummy shrugged. “Damned if I do and damned if I don't.” She stood up and went to the fridge. “I need a beer. Want one?”

“You do not!” Cass said, surprised at her own vehemence. “It's morning. You don't need a beer at this hour. You drink way too much and . . . well, I think you've just got to stop.”

Yummy stopped. Her hand was on the refrigerator door. “Excuse me? I don't think you have any right to tell me what I should or shouldn't do.”

“I have every right. As a human being concerned for the welfare of your children, but even more as your friend.”

Yummy didn't say anything. Cass waited, but Yummy just stood there watching, and her eyes were so expressionless they made Cass shiver. Her stomach felt suddenly hollow, as if it had been pumped out, too.

“Fine,” she said. “Maybe we're not friends. I always thought we were, but maybe we're not. That's beside the point. What's important is your kids, and I just think you're being a really lousy mother to them right now. The way you've been carrying on, it's like you forget they even exist. You don't know how lucky you are, and I just can't stand to watch you treat such a blessing with such . . . such carelessness.”

She tried to continue, but her voice was choking, so she stopped.

Yummy left the refrigerator door closed and came back to the table. “Oh, please,” she said. “Don't start crying, okay? I'm sorry.”

“I'm not crying,” Cass said stiffly. “I'm angry.”

“Oh. Well, good.”

“I mean, how could you go running off like that? Tonight! Of all nights!”

“I know. I know. And you know what? You're right.”

“Of course I'm right.”

“I've been out of control lately. I'm not usually like this. Something about coming back here, just being in this house . . .”

“I know,” Cass said. “You've told me many times.”

“The minute I got back here, it all just came flooding back, all the acting out and the anger at Lloyd. . . .”

And hearing this set Cass off again. “For God's sake, Yummy, just drop it, will you? Lloyd's dead. It's over. You can't blame everything on him. Not anymore.”

It came out harsher than she meant it to.

Yummy sat back in her chair as though she'd been shoved. “Wow.” She closed her eyes and didn't speak for a long time.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean . . .”

“No. You're right.” She covered her face with her hands, and her body started to shake. “It's really over, isn't it?”

She was laughing, Cass thought, or maybe she was crying. It was hard to tell, and it didn't much matter. Cass looked at her, disgusted. “You're still drunk,” she said. She picked up her jacket and stood to go.

“No, wait,” Yummy said. She looked up, and Cass saw there were tears in her eyes. “I'm not drunk. I'm serious.” She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “It's so hard to remember that I loved him. I'm so used to calling it something else, you know?”

She got up and went to the sink to fill the coffeepot. Cass watched her spoon coffee into the filter and realized she had stopped being angry. Now she just felt drained and a little bit lonely, too. “Do you know what you're going to do next?” she asked.

Yummy turned and leaned against the counter, aligning her feet over the two worn spots on the floor in front of the sink. She hugged herself. “Getting the hell out of here for starters. I'm taking the kids back to Pahoa.”

Cass felt her heart sink. “What about your mom?” She could just picture the next few years, hauling casseroles up and down the road.

“I was thinking of trying to bring her back, too. You think she'd be up for it?”

“She can't stay here on her own.”

Yummy nodded. “She can have a garden. Things grow like stink in Hawaii. I thought if she likes it there, we'll forfeit the life-estate clause, and you and Will can move into this house. I certainly don't want it, and you own it, so you might as well live in it.”

They would finally have enough room, Cass thought, but she felt oddly disappointed. She'd always wanted to live in the Fullers' place, ever since she was a little girl. Of course, she'd wanted to live here with the Fullers. She'd wanted the house and the family, too.

“That's good, right?” Yummy said. “You guys want to move in?” She brought the coffeepot over to the table. She poured two cups and sat down across from Cass and shared the cream and sugar.

Cass stirred her coffee and felt the loneliness grow. “I'm going to miss you,” she said suddenly. “I said it was beside the point, but it's not. I thought we were friends.”

Yummy looked surprised. “Of course we're friends,” she said. “We've always been friends. We grew up together.”

But it wasn't the same thing, Cass was thinking. It was just what happened with country kids. People's houses were so far apart you didn't really choose your friends, you just ended up living next to a person. When they moved, you grew apart.

“Cass?” Yummy said. “You okay? You're real quiet.”

“I'm fine,” Cass said. “Really. Just fine.”

Yummy reached out across the table and took hold of her hand. “Thanks,” she said. “For everything. For giving a shit.”

Cass nodded. “Well,” she said, “I guess that's what friends are for.”

It had been a long night. It was still dark outside, but from the kitchen window she could just make out the horizon line, where the sky met the potato fields and was starting to brighten. Now that the vines had wilted and died, the fields looked like the aftermath of a battle, but underneath the earth the tubers were hardening off and soon would be ready for harvest. Will would be up and outside already. It was a busy time of year, but after this it would be winter and things would settle down. She brought her coffee cup to the sink, said good-bye to Yummy, and pulled on her jacket to go.

Outside, the smell of burning hung in the chill air, but it was not autumnal. It wasn't leaves. It was the acrid stench of scorched rubber and battery acid and diesel oil. It was french-fried potatoes. She looked down from the porch into the yard at the skeleton of the Spudnik, crouching in the dim light.

She crossed the porch and picked her way through the muddy yard, looking toward the wreckage. A few birds, muted and irresolute, chirped in the overcast morning, but their cries were swallowed by the silence that the explosion had left in its wake. Cass shivered and turned away, but as she headed down the drive toward her car, she heard a noise. She stopped, then heard it again, a low groan that sent shivers across her skin. She approached the wreck and stood at the edge, straining to see into the twisted shadows. A large black scar marked the ground, and the torqued metal seemed to remember the force of the explosion that had melted it down. The ground was littered with bits of shattered glass and bubbled plastic. Cass stared into the darkness. How could a person just vanish like that? An entire girl, plump with milk, brimming with life. Where does she go? Does she just get reabsorbed into the air?

She heard a rustle, the sound of a boot scraping, then a sigh. Her heart leaped, fully expecting in that moment to see Charmey reappear, soot smudged and disheveled, poking her head out from behind a pile of rubble.
Ooh la la!
And if not Charmey herself, then at least her ghost or spirit, some residue or trace of her to ease the transition that the living hadn't yet had time to make.

But it wasn't Charmey. It was Frankie, hunkered down on the ground, rocking on his heels and waiting.

“Hi,” Cass said. Her breath came out like smoke in the chilly morning air.

“Hi.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged. “I just thought . . .”

She waited for him to continue.

“I don't know,” he said. “Maybe she was still here? Maybe she'd come back? It's stupid.”

“I was thinking that, too.”

“Yeah?” He looked up quickly, then dropped his head and let it hang. “Well, she isn't here,” he informed her. “So I guess she's pretty much split for good.”

He hugged his knees and nodded to himself. The sky was growing brighter now, and Cass could hear the low drone of a harvester starting up in a distant field. She squatted beside him and put a hand on his back. She could feel his ribs under the T-shirt.

She started to talk. She told him about the weeks leading up to Tibet's birth, and all about the birth itself, and how difficult it was and painful, and how brave Charmey had been. “She didn't think she was going to make it. All she wanted was to see the baby just once.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “It was always about the baby.”

“No. When things were really bad, you're the one she called for. She squeezed my hand so hard I thought the bones would break. She said, ‘Tell Frankie I love him.' ”

“Yeah?” He looked up.

“She was in more pain than I've ever seen a person bear, but she made me promise to tell you. I didn't before, because she made it through just fine. But I'm telling you now.”

He dropped his head again and butted up against her chest, and it was like holding a calf or a goat kid, the way he bleated and breathed so rapidly. And just as she would calm a scared animal, she rubbed his back in long, even strokes and restrained him gently while he cried.