LaRose (12 page)

From the beginning, Peter was crazy about Nola. She was tensile and finely made. Her hair was dirty blond, though she bleached it brighter. It turned brownish in the winter if she let it go, exactly his shade. Her face was cheerleader-cute and dainty, but her eyes were slant and calculating. She was elusive, sliding away into her thoughts. No matter how much energy he expended he couldn’t catch her. He couldn’t even find her when she was right in front of him. Sometimes her merciless dark eyes gave nothing back. Her face shut. She was a blank wall, fresh painted. He groped to find a secret hinge. It sprung sometimes in bed and she was alive to him with radiant warmth, her face rosy and gentle, her eyes merry with affection. That was real, wasn’t it? He couldn’t tell anymore.

How would he give her the news? The plan that he and Landreaux had agreed upon. Sharing the upbringing of LaRose—a casual arrangement month by month that the men would set up, it being too loaded otherwise. He would tell her carefully. He would tell her in the barn. Then Nola could react however. Peter had become adept at maintaining an inner equilibrium during the screaming, shouting, foul shouting, rage, sorrow, misery, fury, whimper-weeping, fear, frothing, foaming, singing, praying, and then the ordinary harrowing peace that followed.

Sometimes now in the ordinary peace they made love. It wasn’t mean like the first time. He was not forgiven, but he was accepted.
As an asshole, maybe, but one who would not hurt her again. Okay, slug me, he had told her every time she was on top. No thanks, she always said, it will make us even. Their love was quiet, maybe tender, maybe odd or maybe fake. She hummed while she sucked his cock. But now she hummed actual tunes. The next day he’d remember the melody as sly and mocking, though he couldn’t name the words. Her glow of sweet responsive warmth sank into him like radiation. Sometimes it strengthened him. Sometimes he felt it poisoning his bones.

After he and Landreaux spoke of raising LaRose together, it was as if she knew. Nola came to Peter deliciously needy. Afterward, she nestled against him, pushing him around to get comfortable. No way he was going to tell her then. Maybe in the morning, he thought. After Maggie went to school.

You dove, he said. He stroked her shoulder all one way, like feathers.

A mean dove. Who will peck out your heart, she said.

That would hurt.

I can’t help myself. Will you stay with me, she said, suddenly, if I go crazy?

There was desolation in her voice, so he tried to joke.

Well, you already are crazy.

He felt tears on his chest. Oh, he’d gone too far.

In a good way. I love your crazy!

How come you’re not crazy?

I am, inside.

No, you’re not. You’re not crazy. How can you not go crazy? We lost him. How can you not go crazy? Don’t you fucking care?

Her voice rose sharper, louder.

You don’t fucking care! You cold bitch, you Nazi. You don’t care!

Hey, he said, holding her. Both of us can’t go crazy. At the same time, anyway. Let’s take turns.

She went silent, then abruptly laughed.

Bitch. Nazi.

She laughed harder. Her laughing slipped a bolt in Peter, and then they were both laughing in a sick way, both unhinged again with the same first anguish, both weeping into each other’s hair, snot dripping in the sheets.

You’re still my dove, he said, later on. I’ll never stop loving you.

But she terrified him, freezing his love, and he could hear the death of certainty in what he said. The worst kind of loneliness gripped him. The kind you feel alongside another person.

Later still, waking in the dark, he put his hand on her skin, sleepily wishing his strange old wish, that he could dissolve into her, be her, that they could be one creature rocking in the dark.

Yes, wearily, as he drifted again toward sleep. All this and he still had to give her the news tomorrow. Not in the house where LaRose could hear, but out in the barn. It might drive her dangerously past crazy, at first, to share LaRose, but it had to be. He couldn’t bear the weird indecency of what he felt they were doing to the child.

Nola was fine when he told her and fine for days after. She’d expected it. She was all right, until she saw the mouse, not that she was afraid of it. But when you saw one, that meant ten thousand had already invaded. It was in the entryway to the garage. She cornered and tried to stomp it, but the mouse popped from under her shoe. That steamed her up. She was not alone at the house that day but Maggie and LaRose were out in the yard. She had just made sure. They were not allowed to leave the yard and knew she would check on them every fifteen minutes. Nola stood in the little mudroom between the house and the garage. She rarely went into the garage—it was Peter’s place, his workshop. She hardly drove anywhere, but when she did he moved the car out for her. Since he’d taken the extra jobs, he did not spend much time out in the garage.

She entered and was hit immediately, loathsomely, with the sour fug of mice. She backed out, stood in the entry gulping fresh air, then swallowed a giant breath, flipped the lights on, and walked back in. There was a swirling sound, a sense of invisible motion. Tiny black
mouseshit seeds covered Peter’s workbench. The bucket of rags. She ran back out to the entryway, breathed, saved another deep breath, and walked in again. Maybe there was grain in the bottom of the bucket. Something had drawn them. Maybe he’d left some of his prep food unsealed. But everything looked fairly neat because he wasn’t a man to make a mess, thank god, even in his own space. She opened the first of the bank of lockers that he used to stash his tall tools—the long-handled clippers, his ax, spades, and the small shovels. What she saw made her forget she was holding her breath.

On the locker’s top shelf, there was a cardboard gilt cake plate, lots of mouseshit, and birthday candles, nibbled. Same thing in the next locker, the next and next, except in one there was her good yellow Tupperware container. She had missed that container. The mice hadn’t gotten to the cake inside, although a few squares that Peter had eaten out of duty were missing. She’d lightly tinted the frosting yellow, like the container, and made some flowers out of purple icing. It wasn’t a complicated cake. It had the children’s names on it. She pulled it out and held it for a while. Then she lifted out a light, dry piece, touched her tongue to it, and took a bite. It tasted of nothing. She stood cradling the yellow container on the curve of her left arm, and ate the rest of the cake, the flowers, the names, even the black-tipped candles that discouraged the mice. She licked her finger and pressed up the crumbs. When the yellow container was entirely clean, she walked back into the kitchen and washed it in hot, soapy water. The sugar would jangle her nerves, she thought, but it didn’t. It slowed her heart. A dopey, fuzzy wash of pleasure covered her and she nearly blanked out before she made it to the couch.

Maggie and LaRose came inside an hour later, hungry, wondering why she hadn’t checked on them, and found her lying on her back, looking severe, like she was dead. Her mouth was slightly open. Maggie put her fingers near to check for breath.

Maggie made a funny skulking gesture, and LaRose ducked his head and tiptoed away. They removed two spoons from the cutlery drawer. Then Maggie pulled the door of the freezer open and
silently removed a carton of strawberry Blue Bunny. They eased out the door and ran to their hideout in the barn—a warm corner where they could flick on Peter’s space heater. There they ate the ice cream. Afterward, they buried the box, the spoons too, out back in the fresh snow. They were passionate about ice cream.

ROMEO PUYAT ENTERED
the Dead Custer and saw the priest sitting on a barstool. Father Travis was the only priest in reservation history who actively went out and trawled the dive bars. He seemed to enjoy performing as an actual fisher of men. He’d sit next to a gasping walleye and even buy him or her a beer to set the hook. He liked to catch real fish, too. His tactics there were the same. You got to catch them in the weeds, he said.
To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak. I became all things to all men, that I might save all.
If Father Travis had a tattoo it would be the words of the apostle Paul. He had nearly become a drunk to catch the drunks, too, but that was over. He now ran fierce AA meetings in the church basement.

Although Father Travis had never quite submerged into heavy drinking, ten years ago he’d seen where things were going—that lonely beer turning to a six-pack and soon the addition of whiskey shots to render him unconscious. He was surprised at how hard it was to quit, so he had some sympathy, but he hid it and was ruthless with his drunks. Even ruthlessly prayerful. If someone fell off the wagon or got unruly in the Dead Custer, he would take that person outside to pray. Romeo Puyat had prayed twice, hard, face against the wall where Father Travis had slammed him, before they’d become friends. Father Travis had already spotted him and said hello.

There was coffee. Virgil served in the morning, but besides the coffee no hard liquor, only beer. Romeo sourly accepted a sour cup of the weak, lukewarm stuff.

MAKADE MASHKIKI WAABOO
, a scrawled sign on the pump carafe.

Black medicine water, said Romeo. Howah. So you watch the news last night? He and Father Travis were both CNN junkies.
Father Travis was stirring into his own cup a long stream of hazelnut cream powder from a cardboard carton.

What brings you down here? Father Travis took a careful sip as if the coffee were actually hot.

I heard McCain on Leap Day, said Romeo. He told the televangelists to fuck a dead sheep, uh, not in so many words. Then what he said about pandering to the agents of intolerance? Falwell? Robertson? My man, said Romeo, punching air.

Romeo had a caved, tubercular-looking chest, scrawny arms, a vulturine head, and perpetually stoked-up eyes. His hair had started falling out and his ponytail was a limp string. He flipped the string behind him with the flat of his hand, as though it were a lush rope. The day was bright. He had hoped to start the morning with beer to dim the sunshine, but of course he couldn’t do that in front of his sponsor.

I’ve been following that story, said Father Travis.

Waiting for our maverick to make his move.

So what are you up to?

I’m on my way to work, said Romeo.

That’s a new one, said Father Travis.

Romeo glanced over at Virgil, who was wiping down the other end of the bar, not watching. Another customer, on the other side of Father Travis, asked the priest a question. While his back was turned, Romeo rummaged in the Styrofoam cup that customers paid into for the coffee. It was labeled 25 cents. The cup was over halfway full of change, mainly quarters. Romeo took a dollar from his pocket as if to change it. He then transferred all the change in handfuls from the cup into his pocket. He put the dollar in the cup and set it on the counter. Father Travis turned back to Romeo and said, I never see you at Mass.

Exhaustion, said Romeo.

Oh? Where you working now?

Same place. Here and there. Substitute sanitation engineering. Maintenance, you know.

Maintenance could mean anything. He could be maintaining a healthy supply of substance. Father Travis took the long view with Romeo. He was working on him, dropping tiny stones into the pond.

Romeo was wearing a lurid purple mock turtleneck and a black zip hoodie printed with tiny skulls that matched the tiny skulls tattooed around his neck.

Like the work?

There’s a glass bottom to it, said Romeo, shaking his head. I can see the fish down there eating the shit. They’re the bottom-feeders. You know me, right? Romeo smiled. His tiny brown teeth ached but he poured some sugar into the coffee and watched the oily stuff swirl around a red plastic stirring stick.

Yeah, I know you, said Father Travis.

Then you know I don’t travel with the top of the food chain. I don’t eat top shelf. Bottom-feeder, like I said. I can’t talk to the high-class Indians around here. Like Landreaux. He twirls the pipe and all, thinks he’s a medicine man like Randall. That’s how they get the women. With that old Indian medicine. Emmaline’s witched, you know. He gave his usual two-finger salute as he got up to leave, and asked.

Did you hear what Landreaux said about you?

Don’t try that alkie trick on me, said Father Travis, laughing.

If you don’t want to know . . . Romeo playacted hurt. Never mind.

Romeo lunged out the door, pocket sagging from the weight of the change. He crossed the street to Whitey’s Hot Bar, and emptied his pocket of the coffee change. He came out four dollars ahead.

Slice a sausage pizza, donut, Mountain Dew, he said to Snow behind the counter. How’s your dad?