The Year We Left Home (33 page)

She wondered if she should go away, as Matt so obviously wanted her to, or inflict herself on him further. She sat down in the armchair across from him. Damned if she was going to raise one more man who felt free to ignore women.

The program must have just started. A man in a book-lined office, some professor-type expert, Anita guessed, was talking. There were more old-time sepia photographs, crowded city streets, horse-drawn carriages, men in derby hats. Pictures of grimy children, dressed in clothing so peculiar, it was difficult to identify any of it as particular items, shirts, say, or pants. But it was always the faces that stayed with you: young, shy, dead.

After a couple of minutes, she understood enough of the story. Poor, orphaned, and distressed children were rounded up from the miserable New York City streets, packed onto trains, and shipped west to the farm states, where new families could be found for them. There was a general belief in the virtues of rural life and useful labor. Sometimes there were happy endings, families who had lost their own beloved children and welcomed these new ones into their hearts and homes. Other times less good: people looking for field hands or household drudges, children standing on train platforms while their teeth and muscles were appraised. If children weren’t chosen, they got back on the train and went on to the next stop, carrying with them only their cardboard suitcases and a change of clothes.

Anita said, “Do you think any of those trains came through Iowa? I bet they did. I bet some of those orphans wound up right around here. There’s this noncredit course in local history this summer. I was thinking about signing up for it. That would be a way to find out.”

Matt didn’t answer. She couldn’t stop talking. “That is just the saddest thing. Can you imagine, being packed up and shipped off like that and not having any idea where you’d end up?”

Matt reached for his glass of Coke. “Some of them were probably just as happy they got to leave.”

She stared at him but he didn’t say anything else. She said, “What do you have to do for school? Shouldn’t you be taking notes?”

“I just have to watch it.”

“Don’t knock that glass over,” Anita told him, falling back into Mom-speak, good old nagging. It was all she was really allowed to say to him.

She made the rounds of the house downstairs, checking doors and windows. It had become her habit to do so. Those nights when she went to bed before Jeff did, she got up later to make sure he hadn’t left the front door wide open, or the stove burners on. He was capable of doing those things. Rain was beginning to spatter. Lightning flashed its SOS.

Upstairs, television sounds came from the bedroom where Jeff was
watching—baseball? Something with an announcer. Her daughter’s door was closed and she knocked on it. “Marcie?”

“I’m on the phone.”

“I need to talk to you.”

She waited while Marcie wrapped up her end of the conversation. Giggles. Whispers. Probably a boy. “OK,” Marcie called, and Anita entered. Marcie had made her room into something resembling a giant bowl of peach sherbet. Peach curtains and bedspread and lampshades and throw pillows. Peach sherbet garnished with strewn clothing, magazines, papers, plastic bags disgorging recent drugstore purchases.

Anita lifted a peach-colored towel draped on the back of a desk chair. “This is still damp. Hang it up in the bathroom.”

Marcie rolled off the bed, took the towel and pitched it toward the adjoining bathroom. When it landed on the floor, she sighed and got up to retrieve it. Sometimes Anita thought they’d all be just as happy if she let them live like pigs in a sty, wolves in a den. Nobody else cared about how the house looked. Maybe she didn’t really care either.

Anita said, “I have class tomorrow night so Matt’s going to drop me off and pick me up and in between he can take you to Susan’s, and Susan’s father can give you a ride back, OK?”

“I don’t understand why you have to keep taking those dumb classes.”

“Because I wasn’t smart enough to take advantage of all my opportunities when I was younger. I was too busy goofing around and having fun. Like somebody I know.”

Marcie rolled her eyes. She was the prettiest girl in her class and always had been. Queen bee of the hive. There was no mystery whom she took after.

“Mom?”

“What.”

“Are you and Dad getting a divorce?”

Her daughter dropped back down to sit on the edge of her bed. She wouldn’t look up at Anita. It was as if she’d embarrassed herself.
Anita reached behind her and pushed the door shut. “Why would you say that?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not the idea. The idea is we all try really hard and work things out. It just takes a while.”

“It’s OK if you do. But would you tell me about it ahead of time? Because I’d want to know.”

Everything in the room was sad. The ribbon board with its photographs of laughing girls, documented friendships. The troll figure dressed up in school colors, the beaded bracelets and fashion magazines, scattered CDs and the rest of the music paraphernalia, inside-out sweaters that should have been folded and put away. Her daughter’s accumulated life, both careless and careful. All of it at the mercy of her loutish and squabbling parents.

“Honey, nobody’s planning on any divorce.”
Nobody can afford one.
“We just have to hang in there while things get better. They will. You just need a little patience.”

She watched her daughter not believe a word of it. Well, why should she?

“Mom? Could I stay at Susan’s tomorrow night?”

Anita said she’d think about it. She might as well load both her children onto the next orphan train.

All she’d ever wanted was a family of her own. It hadn’t seemed like a greedy or an outrageous thing to want.

She crossed the hallway to her own bedroom. Jeff was propped up in bed, watching his ball game. One pillow lay across his stomach, his arms resting on it. He looked up at her, his usual furtive expression. Ever since the DUI, he alternated between guilt and belligerence. “Is it raining yet?”

“Just started.” Another boom of thunder. The lights flickered.

“Crap. It’s only the fifth inning.”

Anita went into the bathroom to change clothes. Back when they were first married, she’d tried to be interested in who was playing whom, or why it was important. She didn’t care. She’d never cared.

The window frame ticked as the house made its minute adjustments to the rising wind. It was a well-insulated house and could stand up to any weather short of a tornado. Anita took off her jewelry, placed it in the china saucer she kept by the sink, washed her face, brushed her teeth, and changed into the sweatpants and T-shirt she kept hanging on the back of the door. It had been a long time since she’d worn anything to bed that might suggest sex. Jeff only wanted it when he was drinking, which was exactly when she wanted nothing to do with him. She didn’t expect any of that to change just because he’d managed to go a couple of weeks without getting liquored up.

She came out with her armload of clothes and went to her closet to sort them out and hang them up. The closet had a mirrored door and she saw Jeff looking at her. He could look all he wanted, as long as he didn’t get any big ideas.

Anita got into her side of bed, switched on her light, and picked up one of the magazines she kept on her nightstand. She’d got tired of the women’s magazines, their worrying tone, like there was always something you were supposed to be doing: starting an exercise routine or a craft project or trying Mexican seasoning in your next meat loaf or learning about some new dread disease. She’d come to like
Better Homes and Gardens
and
Architectural Digest
because you knew you’d never live anywhere like that and could just relax about it.

The baseball game droned. The thunder boomed, right overhead now, then the loudest part of the storm passed over and the rain came on harder. Anita reached up and turned her light off. She rolled herself up in the covers with her back to Jeff. He turned his light off also and lowered the volume on the television to a buzz. It was a routine neither of them had to think about.

Anita wasn’t yet asleep. The rain sound was carrying her away. Jeff’s leg moved against hers. Then the nudging pressure of his hip and shoulder. The television was off and the room was dark. Had he done it on purpose?

He knew she was awake. They knew each other’s breathing, their dream speech, their restless turnings. Anita kept still. His hand cupped
her shoulder. He said, “I don’t know if I can do anything. Without the drinking.”

Anita rolled over enough to cover his hand with hers. She left it there a moment, then withdrew it, and after a time Jeff also turned away back to his side of the bed.

The telephone went off like a bomb. Anita’s first, swimming-to-the-surface thought: the kids. But both of them were home. Or her parents. Or Jeff’s. The phone shrilled again. She reached it on its third ring. “Hello?”

“Anita?” A woman.

Next to her, Jeff fought with his pillow. “
Whas
?”

“Go back to sleep.” She lifted the phone from its cradle, took it into the bathroom and shut the door. “Rhonda? What’s the matter?”

Rhonda laughed. It came out skittery. “Son-of-a-bitch bastard.”

“Tell me what happened. Are you all right?”

“Could I get a ride?”

“Where are you?”

“Out in the rain like a damn wet cat.”

“Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”

Rhonda gave her directions to a 7-Eleven on the far side of downtown. The store was closed but she was using the pay phone. Anita said, “Are you all right there? Should I call the police?”

“I flushed his car keys down the toilet. He’s not coming after me.”

Anita said she’d get there as soon as she could. She got off the phone and went back into the bedroom. The clock on the bureau said it was one thirty. She slid her hands through the bureau drawers, found her jeans and shoes in the closet. When she’d finished dressing, she shook Jeff by the shoulder hard enough to wake him.

“I have to go out. I’ll be back in a little.”

He groaned, staring up at her in the dark. She said, “I have to go help somebody, it’s an emergency. It’s OK, go back to sleep.”

Downstairs she found her coat and purse, then went to the linen closet and took a couple of towels. She left a light on in the kitchen and went out to the garage to start the van.

The rain had settled into a steady drizzle. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been out this late. She was wide-awake, all nerves. The strangeness of it all fueled her. Her neighborhood was laid out in curved boulevards, each house lit by an electric carriage lantern in the front yard. It wasn’t hard to believe she was the only person awake for a mile in any direction.

The streets shone with rain. A traffic light reflected blurred red on the pavement. She headed south through the silent downtown, then east, away from campus. She had some idea of where Rhonda lived, a neighborhood of little cottages set close together, dog pens in the backyards, cars parked with their tires up on the curbs, a district of Dollar Stores, muffler shops, a place that sold day-old baked goods, a VFW. The rain made everything look broken, dissolving.

She couldn’t find the 7-Eleven at first. The sign was off and only the security lighting was on inside. Anita slowed, unsure, and that’s when Rhonda ran from around the corner of the building and pulled at the passenger door.

Anita pushed the unlock button and Rhonda climbed inside. “Take off, hurry up.” She was wheezing. Her hair dripped water. “What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?”

Anita hit the gas and the van bucked forward. “What happened, talk to me.”

“Goddamn his stupid drunk ass.”

“Bill P.? I thought he left town.”

“No, no, Bill H.! The one who hadn’t had a drink in eighteen months, or so he said.” Water pooled in the seat around her. Anita handed her a towel. “Stood up in meetings and testified up and down, how he was blood-bought and sold out to his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who kept him on the sober path. I’m thinking Jesus got a raw deal.”

Anita was driving around and round the block in widening circles. She didn’t know where Rhonda wanted to go. “What happened?” she said again. She figured she might have to keep saying it for a while. The rain had picked up again. Veils of it blew across the road.

Rhonda scrubbed her face with the towel. Her long hair had gone
limp and draggled and she tried to set it right with her hands. She opened her handbag, looking for a comb. “I came home from the meeting. He was out in the garage. What did I say about them liking the garage? First I set eyes on him I knew, but I didn’t want to know it. That little alarm buzzes in you. The way he says hello, all loose and breezy. I went back into the kitchen, I started in on the dishes. He comes up behind me while I’m standing at the sink and starts fooling with me. You know how they grab all over you when they’re drunk?”

Anita knew. Rhonda said, “I pushed him off me and said, ‘You’ve been drinking,’ and he acted like that was funny. A funny drunk.”

“I’m sorry. Why did he start? After all this time?”

“Because it’s Tuesday. Because he couldn’t find his blue socks. It’s alcohol, it don’t need a reason.” Rhonda hugged herself and Anita passed her the second towel. Rhonda wrapped it around herself. “We had us an argument then. It got kind of lively. I threw some stuff from the refrigerator at him.”

“Stuff?”

“Frozen corn. Frozen peas. Frozen spaghetti sauce. That was in some Tupperware.”

Without looking at each other they started giggling. Indelicate snorting laughter. It bent them double. They laughed until their ribs ached.

“Oh Lord.”

“Too much.”

Anita pulled up to an intersection with a stop sign and idled there. Moisture was condensing on the inside of the windshield; she rubbed it away. Main Street stretched in front of them: the coin shop, gift and china shop, H&R Block, a photography studio. Jeff’s bank, a brick-and-glass cube whose architecture, he had told her, was meant to express both financial solidity and customer service. Fog was moving in, blurring the streetlights into hazy moons. “So,” Anita said, as a way of asking, Now what.