Dogwood (6 page)

“I’m glad to hear you say that. I wouldn’t have encouraged you to come with me if I didn’t know it.”

“You would have come by yourself?”

She nodded. “There are some things I have to find out.”

“What?”

Ruthie turned. “You know, I think that
is
the car from the Exxon station.”

“Stop it!” I laughed. “What horse do you have in this race? What do you get out of it?”

“I know some old women who can’t keep their traps shut for
two minutes, but not this old bird. There are some things you’ll just have to guess.” She adjusted her seat belt away from her wrinkled neck and sighed. “At what point did you give up on this guy?”

I reached up and grabbed the handhold above the door. “I guess it was right around the time of the accident.”

“Did you go to his trial?”

“No. Mom and Dad didn’t even let me see the paper. They were really shaken. That someone we knew could do such a thing was a shock.”

“Your parents knew you and Will were friends.”

I chuckled. “He used to come by the house and talk with my dad about cars. He even helped install a back patio once. Oh, Ruthie, you should have seen that boy without a shirt on. Even his abs had abs.”

When we’d had a good laugh, she tilted her head back on the headrest. “So they liked him?”

“They were a bit wary of him. I don’t think they ever considered us a match. There were a lot of other prospects, boys with brighter futures and ambitions. I think they saw his road a little limited.”

“A dirt road that led back into the hills.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, sometimes you can be right about that. Did he ever say what he wanted to do with his life?”

“I remember him talking about a piece of land his father had given him. Back on top of the ridge. He said it would be the perfect place for a house and to raise a family. I thought it was strange at the time that he was talking that way, thinking about a family and a house instead of going out and conquering the world.”

“Some people know what they want early.”

“I guess. But look where it led him. Look where he is now.”

Ruthie pulled off the interstate. “There’s a rest area here. I have to tinkle like a big dog.”

While Ruthie went to the bathroom, I found a phone and called home. I already missed my little family. The morning is always the most difficult, with backpacks and lunches and assignments. It’s so hard for me to throw away any of the papers they’ve worked on, and half the ones I toss I wind up fishing out of the trash and putting in their baby boxes. I want them to remember these happy days trying to learn the alphabet or struggling with spelling.

The phone just rang, and I pictured Richard at the store with Tarin, buying diapers and applesauce.
Such a good man to let me go,
I thought.
But why doesn’t he feel threatened?

Ruthie returned and soon we were heading north again, into the teeth of a budding spring and new life everywhere we looked.

“Busting out all over, isn’t it?” she said.

“It’s beautiful.” The smell of lilacs was overpowering.

We arrived at Clarkston a half hour early and parked near a small roadside picnic table surrounded by maples. It was one of those flat scenes, almost like a picture in some newspaper report about government-subsidized farmland. Through the trees I could make out the hazy silhouette of the prison, surrounded by fences and razor wire. I expected something bigger, I guess. A complex of buildings or guards with dogs, but the structures looked prefabricated, like they’d been thrown together in a few days.

Ruthie walked carefully over the uneven ground carrying a brown paper sack of chicken salad sandwiches and fresh greens. She sat daintily, propped her cane against the end of the table, and opened a plastic container of cucumbers in white vinegar.

I watched her enjoy the food, standing because I was tired of sitting, but she patted the bench and wiped a bit of potato salad from the corner of her mouth. (It was the best potato salad in history—I found out by spreading some on a saltine.) I sat, my back against the rough edge of the tabletop. Limbs hovered over us like arms reaching down.

“I’ve been thinking about that dream of yours,” she said.

I faced her. Thoughts of the prison and my family and how far from home we were and who was waiting on the other side of the fence melted away. “What dream?”

“The one you told me about. With you and the baby and your father.”

It had been nearly a week since I’d had that dream. It only changed in small ways. One night I would notice a picture on a table or the upright piano in the living room. Another night I would catch a shadow of someone slipping out of sight into a back bedroom.

“Do you think you know what it means?” My heart would not have beaten harder had a serial killer escaped through the razor wire and headed straight for us.

Ruthie crossed her legs in that prim way, nearly wrapping the left completely around the right like a wisteria vine. “What is it that bothers you most about the dream?”

I closed my eyes for a moment. There was no sense in being aloof. By this point I was convinced she could see into my thoughts whether I wanted her to or not. “It’s my indifference. That I don’t really care for the child. I love my children. That’s what bothers me most. I’m not really ready to have another, but if that’s what God—”

Ruthie held up a hand. “Don’t jump the gun on me. And remember, I’m not saying this is the best interpretation or the right one. But I’m convinced God sometimes wants to communicate outside the usual box.”

“Tell me.”

“Have you ever thought that maybe this baby might be something else entirely? something other than a child?”

I hadn’t. It seemed so simple and clear that this was about a real child. “I’m listening” was all I could say.

She folded her hands, as if she were about to pray. “What if this child represents something else about your life? Would you be open to that?”

“Yes, but what?”

“Think about it. You bring a child to your father. He nurtures it, cuddles it, holds it, and you walk away.”

“Ruthie, would you just—?”

“What if this man who is supposed to be your father is not really your father?”

“My husband? Richard? Could that be it? That I don’t really care as much for my children as I thought? I don’t understand. . . .” A new thought crept in. “What if it’s Richard? What if it means he’s only interested in new things? I’ve grown up and the baby . . . You don’t think he’s having an affair, do you?”

She howled. When she was done, she wadded up her trash and stuffed it back inside the paper sack. Then she stood, using her cane, and walked to the waste can.

“That’s it? You’re not going to tell me?”

Ruthie pointed a crooked finger at me. “I want you to use that head of yours. Think about it. The baby is not a baby, and your father is someone else.”

“But if you—”

“You can’t rush these things, Karin. You’ve had this dream for a long time, and the ground has been stirred up even longer. When you’re ready to hear it, when your head and your heart come together, you’ll know.”

“That’s not fair. If you know something, why won’t you tell me?”

“I know enough to know this is not the right time. I’ll let you noodle on it a little more. Besides, there’s a fellow in that building over there, and I don’t want to keep him waiting.”

I couldn’t help staring at the building and wondering. “I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”

She patted my shoulder as she passed on her way to the car. “You’ll be fine, girl. We’ve come this far. Let’s see what the old boy has to say.”

What’s the hardest thing about losing your sisters? my counselor said. He had come out with me to walk the hills where I felt a lot more comfortable. I don’t much like rooms inside anymore.

I guess it’s the silence, I said after a while. Not hearing all the squeals and the fighting over who owns which doll and stuff like that. Comparing Christmas presents. None of my mama’s high-heeled shoes striking the hardwood floor when they get into her closet and dress up. And not hearing Mama laugh while she’s standing at the door looking right at them and then hollering at them to get out of there.

I don’t know what it is about walking that kind of loosens up the tongue, but it does. We hiked up a ridge overlooking the town, and I got a feeling in the pit of my stomach that things were going to change. That everything was going to be all right with some time and distance. Then I saw the road and what my mother had done.

He must have seen something come over me because he asked what was wrong. He said the word
troubling
—which has to be a counselor word. I would have said
bothered
or
who put the burr under your saddle
or something like that.

I pointed to the curvy black snake that slithers through our town—the main road leading in and out. In a clear spot where no trees blocked our view was a kind of a shrine to my sisters. Friends of the family and people who knew about the accident had started it. Little kids brought stuffed animals and flowers and made signs saying We Miss You. Every few weeks the highway department came and took it all down, but Mama would be right back there the next day. On Valentine’s Day, there were red hearts and roses. At Christmas she wrapped up fake presents and tied them to the guardrail. Their birthdays were the worst. She’d put the number they’d be that year on a poster and draw a cake.

Some people probably thought Mama was losing her mind, but I kind of think she was trying to keep it. Others probably thought she wanted everybody to remember her babies and how old they’d be. To keep it before them and remind them that it could be their babies under the earth. But I don’t think so. I think
she
wanted to remember. I think she was worried she was going to get busy and look up one day and catch herself not thinking about them for once.

One day I heard Mama talking with a lady who came over just to sit on the couch and drink coffee. Mama wasn’t bawling or nothing. She was talking like she’d talk about what kind of meat she was going to cook for dinner or who was getting married or getting a divorce.

I swear, sometimes I forget and start worrying about how we’ll send them to college, she said. And then it’ll hit me fresh. It’s all I can do not to bust out crying when I see a school bus. All the kids in their classes are growing up and having parties, and it’s like my kids are stuck in time, their faces never changing. She was holding Karla’s picture in her lap, rubbing her face with a thumb.

Maybe you should move away from here, the other woman said. I can’t remember her name. Put some distance between you and the memories.

Sometimes I think that’s a good idea. I really do. But then I think that there’s not a place on earth where I could get away from the memories. There’s no island far enough away that I could forget my kids and what happened.

Maybe it would help your marriage.

There’re some things that can’t be helped. They just are. You either live with them or you don’t. Simple as that.

There’s nothing simple about it.

You got that right. You certainly got that right.

Slowly, over time, I told my story to Ruthie. I did not reveal the conglomeration of boys I had known too well but the one boy, who seemed so right and so wrong. Ruthie said the tongue held the power of life and death, and it felt like if I didn’t tell all, I would die.

“Tell it, then,” Ruthie said.

It was a scene that came back all too often—a scene I would rather forget, but it does show Will. In my mind were images and bits of conversation from the high school homecoming dance. Junior year. I wore a billowy, pink dress with lace above my cleavage. Not that there was much but just above what there was. My mother had helped pick it out, thrilled I was going with Eddie Buret, the son of the police chief and a respected family in our community.

Eddie stood next to me in front of our fireplace, both sets of parents clicking cameras, lights flashing.

Eddie’s mother smiled and shook her head. “She looks so much like you, Cecilia.”

“Do something funny,” Eddie’s dad said.

“Kiss her,” my father said.

Everyone laughed when Eddie did. Everyone but me. On the outside I smiled, but on the inside something died. I did not want to ride in the same car with him, let alone kiss him. I cursed myself for agreeing to go, but I was a good girl and didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

Things didn’t get better at the dance. Eddie kept getting too close, dancing faster and with more intensity, sweating, looking at me knowingly, like we both wanted the same thing. I was glad when he asked if I wanted to go for a walk. Our gymnasium was an oven of hormones. I wanted to go home, but I settled for a stroll.

Eddie went to get us drinks and Will appeared.

“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” I said.

“Student Council has to set up and take down,” he said, smiling. “Thought I might as well have some punch.”

He had let his hair grow longer. He wore an old black-as-night suit that could have been his father’s or brother’s. Shoes a little big, probably his father’s. His tie was out of style by at least ten years, and he wore a little too much cologne.

“You want to dance?” he said.

“I just want to go home.” I glanced around for Eddie. “I’m with this creep who thinks—”

“Ready, Karin?” Eddie said, coming up behind Will and bumping his shoulder. “Sorry about that. Clumsy me. Didn’t realize you’d been let off the farm. Git all yore chores dun in time fer the big dayunce?” He snickered.

Will smiled, as if the words were toothpicks thrown by a two-year-old.

Then Eddie squinted and turned up his nose. “Do you guys smell something?” He looked down. “Hey, Will, you better check your shoes and make sure you didn’t step in some cow pies on the way over.”

By now others had gathered. A few girls who worshiped Eddie stared at me like I was the luckiest person on the planet.

“Come on, Karin. Let’s get out of here,” Eddie said. “The smell’s getting to me.”

Water rippled in the river by the baseball field, and the moon was a crescent shadow above. We walked in the muted light along the line of parked cars, Eddie waving at some football buddies who catcalled and whistled.

“Go get her, Eddie!”

“You kids be careful now.”

“Be good or be good at it.”

Eddie put his arm around me and guided me toward the covered bridge, a historic structure the town had placed on postcards for visitors, as if anyone in their right mind would sightsee here. Eddie was oblivious to my feelings, perhaps thinking geography could change the unease I felt inside.

He held my hand and pulled me onto the walkway attached to the bridge, overlooking the water. The handrail was rickety and looked as if any pressure would splinter it. This was a favorite spot of couples sneaking away for privacy during school hours, and I was surprised we were the only ones here.

Eddie spun me around and held me an arm’s length away, gazing at me as if I were a steak smothered in barbecue sauce. “Karin, you’re the most beautiful thing in the gym tonight. Do you know that?”

I tried to smile, tried to push my feelings down, but they kept coming up, like the gorge in my stomach. I rubbed my arms. “Can we go back? It’s getting chilly.”

“I can warm you up. Come here.” He drew me to himself and kissed me for the second time that night. This was not the polite kiss at my house in front of our families; it was the kiss of an untamed tongue on an altar I had never knelt at before. His hands moved over me, and he shoved me against the bridge, his tongue inside my mouth.

I struggled to breathe. I tried to push him off, but his two-a-day
practices over the summer and weight training in the fall had made his arms rock hard. “Stop!” I managed to mumble as he reached for the bottom of my dress.

A pair of headlights turned away from the road, and I realized why it was so quiet. Eddie had orchestrated the whole thing. His friends were keeping watch, turning people away so we could be alone.

I felt like a cornered animal, like a snake in one of the minnow traps we’d set in the creek. Bobby Ray and I would put pieces of bread inside, submerge the trap in a slow-moving part of the water, and come back a day later to pull up the fluttering, flicking minnows. But several times we found a snake inside the trap. It had eaten all the minnows and suffocated by its inability to escape.

“I’ll tell your parents,” I said, struggling.

“Hey, your dad
wanted
me to kiss you. I’m just obeying my authorities.” He leaned in again, pressing me hard against the wooden slats, wedging a leg between both of mine.

A shard of wood pierced my dress and the skin underneath. I focused on that pain, shutting out the rest. Why had I gone with Eddie? I didn’t even like him.

I tried to bring my knee up in a last, desperate attempt to get a point across. He locked his legs, and I wondered if this was a move his coach taught in the locker room.

“Feisty,” he said, a guttural, earthy sound to his voice. “I didn’t know you liked to play rough.”

I struggled, telling him that God was watching us and trying to remember some verse to say that would get him to stop. Before I could, a shadow passed and Eddie fell back against the bridge. I caught my balance and turned away before hearing a sickening, bone-crunching sound. Then came a thump on the rickety boards.

I ran, hobbling on the asphalt with one shoe, one broken heel trailing.

When I reached his friends, they looked surprised. “Where’s Eddie? What did you do?”

I kept running toward the gym and looked back to see guys on the bridge, gathered around a body. They helped Eddie up, like they were carrying him off the field after a broken play.

I opened the door and noticed a silhouetted figure on the hill overlooking the bridge. Clouds swept over him as he turned and walked into the night.

“Did you tell your parents?” Ruthie asked when I finished the story.

“I didn’t tell anybody. I got a ride home from a girlfriend. Told her I didn’t feel well.”

“You had to see Eddie the next week.”

I nodded. “He acted like nothing happened, although he had a hard time explaining the missing tooth and the bruises to his coach.”

“Did you ever figure out who it was? Did Eddie figure it out?”

I turned from her, a wave of memories washing over me.

Ruthie put a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know what happened, Karin. I don’t know the things you’ve seen, the roads you’ve stumbled down, but I do know God has brought you here and he’s given you a desire. The old adage is to write what you know, and what you know seems pretty painful. Well, if that’s what you’ve been given . . .”

“The memories take me places I don’t think I can go. Things Richard doesn’t even know. I could never tell.”

“You have to face them at some point. Otherwise you’ll be running the rest of your life. Is that what you want to do?”

“What if he finds out?”

“The preacher?”

“Yes. And what if—what if
he
comes back? Will. If I write the
things I know, it might bring him back, and if that happens . . . Oh, Ruthie, I don’t think I can look at him.”

My body shook. We’d hit something subterranean with only one memory, and if this happened with each new chapter, I was going to die paragraph by paragraph.

“You need to stop worrying about everyone else and how they’re going to react. You have to get that demon off your shoulder that’s telling you what’s safe and okay. Just open a vein. Let it spill out and we’ll be the judge of it.”

I remembered the quote by Nietzsche that I’d found in my closet, the one about looking into the abyss. I did not count on my memories being the monsters. I did not want them looking back at me.

I spent that night sobbing into my pillow, trying to muffle the anguish, unattended by my husband. Could he begin to understand? Would he have it within him to walk through this valley? Some people weep for things they don’t understand. I weep for things I do and wish I didn’t.