Three Rivers (10 page)

She pulled clean sheets and a fresh blanket from a plastic bin beside the bed. She supposed Maurice was responsible for the relative tidiness of this room. She stripped off her father's gown and removed his heavy, dank diaper, avoiding his eyes as she ran a damp cloth around his groin and over his shriveled penis. The task filled her with shame. When her father was clean, she pulled the dirty sheets off the corners of the bed and rolled him from side to side. He was thin, but she broke a sweat trying to move him without hurting him. There was so much to deal with: his oxygen tube and his fragile bones and the way he struggled to breathe when she rolled him over.

“Little girl,” he said. “Getting old is a damned awful thing.”

She snapped a fresh sheet over him and pulled the blanket up to his chin. “It beats the alternative, Daddy.” She touched his forehead. It was cool beneath her palm. “It sure as hell beats the alternative.”

Melody knew damn well why her father wouldn't go to the hospital. After Bobby's baptism, that's where they'd ended up. He was right; it was awful. Full of hypocrites and liars and self-righteous bastards. Melody's father was an ornery old man, but he was no fool.

*   *   *

After the baptism, one of the church deacons drove Melody to the hospital. He prayed with her in the car in the hospital parking lot, but Melody knew God was not listening. She didn't need God in that moment, she needed her Daddy, but when she called home from a pay phone in the hospital lobby, he didn't answer. Melody felt completely alone, abandoned by her heavenly father and her earthly father at the same time.

A nurse led her through an endless succession of motion-sensitive doors to a cold, bright room where her mother lay propped like royalty in a bed full of pillows.

“Mama.” Melody took her hand. It was cold and dry as reptile skin. “Are you okay, Mama?”

“I saved him.” Her mother smiled and closed her eyes. “I saved my baby and he's going to be just fine.”

That seemed unlikely. Melody couldn't get the image of Bobby's distorted face out of her head. “Really, Mama? Are you sure?”

“Oh, honey, yes.” She peered at Melody from beneath heavy viper lids. “I cannot do it again.” Her mother's voice sounded gravelly, like when she drank too much whiskey. “I'm too weakened and I will not be able to do it again. Do you understand?”

Melody understood perfectly. Bobby was worth saving, but Melody was on her own. Melody fumed. She thought, I wouldn't save you either, you old witch. I wouldn't pull you out of a lake. What she said was, “I can take care of myself.”

There was a window in the room, and the view was nothing but flat, brown earth stretching on forever. Melody felt smothered by the vast emptiness. “I'm gonna call Daddy. Somebody needs to talk to the doctor, figure out what we should do for Bobby.”

“He'll be fine.” Her mother settled back on the mound of white pillows. “My baby's going to be just fine.”

Melody found the doctor in the hallway. “I did not say he'd be fine.” The gray-haired woman with a face full of soft doughy wrinkles flipped through a pile of papers on a clipboard. “My dear.” The doctor looked at her. “Your brother is lucky to be alive. Electric shock is very serious. His heart is fibrillating. That means it is fluttering rather than beating. A fluttering heart cannot do the job of pumping the blood through the body and to the brain. It's the brain we must be concerned about now.”

Melody's own heart seemed to beat more solidly in her chest when she heard those words. “Can I see him?”

The doctor nodded. “In a moment, dear.” She gestured to a woman standing a few feet away. “This is Mrs. McNeil. She's one of the social workers on our staff.” The woman joined them. She was short and round and gray as the roly-poly bugs Melody and Bobby plucked off overturned stones in the creek bed behind their house. She took Melody's hand and stared at her with an earnestness that left Melody feeling like a lab specimen. “Please call me Margaret. And you are Melody?”

Melody nodded, confused. Why couldn't they just take her to Bobby? What did this woman want from her?

“I have some questions about your mother. Do you mind?”

“Mama? Oh, she's fine,” Melody assured the woman. “She's just a touch dramatic.”

The social worker laughed but didn't seem amused. “I think it's a bit more serious than that, don't you? She seems to think that she saved your brother's life with some kind of chanting spell. She seems to believe that she's some sort of magical being, a witch or something.”

“She's not a witch,” Melody said, though she often thought of her mother as a witch or actually as a bitch, but she was still too young to allow herself that word. “That's ridiculous.”

“I'd like to hear about how things are at your home. Are you happy? Is there anything you'd like to talk about?”

Melody yanked her hand from the woman's grip, balled it into a hard fist that she held stiffly at her side. She imagined sending the fist into the woman's fat face. “Things at my home are none of your business.” She wanted to squash the woman beneath her shoes the way she had squashed the roly-poly bugs. “I'd like to see my brother now. Can someone please take me to see Bobby?”

The doctor nodded. The social worker reached out and touched Melody's arm. “I just want you to know that I'm here. Nothing you could tell me would shock me. If you want to talk about anything at all, you call me.” She pressed a small card into Melody's hand. Melody crumpled the card and let it fall to the ground between them. She smirked at the round woman, aware that she was acting like a brat. She didn't care.

“Take me to Bobby.” The doctor and the social worker exchanged a look. These women thought they were better than her, better than her mother. Maybe they were, but Melody wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of acknowledging their superiority. She lifted her chin and raised her voice. “Take me to see my brother this instant.”

Melody's father was in Bobby's room. She buried her face in his chest like a child. Her anger at the women and her mother melted. He hadn't abandoned her, after all. God might be a mirage, but her father was real.

He rubbed her back. Her father smelled of tobacco, stale alcohol, and leather. “I tried to call you.” Melody sniffed, but did not cry. She wouldn't give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

“What in the hell happened?”

The doctor spoke up, explained again about Bobby's fluttering heart.

“Mr. Mahaffey,” the doctor said. “May I have a word with you about your wife?”

“My wife?” Daddy planted a kiss on the crown of Melody's head and pushed her down into a chair at Bobby's bedside. “I'll handle this.” Melody knew then that she didn't need God and she sure as hell didn't need her mother. Daddy would take care of everything.

The doctor explained about the chanting and the delusions. She recommended a mental health evaluation. She spoke in the soft, caring tones of a grandmother, but her soothing bedside manner did not impress Melody's father one bit.

“You think my wife is crazy, is that it?”

“We don't like to use the word ‘crazy,' Mr. Mahaffey.”

“You don't? What word do you use? I just want to make sure I'm using the right goddamned terminology when talking about my wife.
My
wife.”

“Mr. Mahaffey, I just think that this kind of unusual behavior warrants some attention. We can help her.”

“Are you a religious woman?”

“I'm a scientist, but I'm not without faith.”

“Do you pray?”

The doctor nodded. “I do. I do pray. When they brought your son in this morning, I said a prayer for him.”

“Then maybe you should be evaluated by your mental health professionals. Talking to some invisible man in the sky? That's not crazy?”

“But, Mr. Mahaffey—” The doctor's voice rose.

Daddy cut her off. “How the hell is your prayer any different from my wife saying a few words over her own son? Because the words are different? Because she has the guts to say 'em out loud instead of being ashamed and whispering them in her head? What makes you so almighty goddamned superior?”

The doctor's chin wobbled. She hugged the clipboard to her chest. “I didn't intend to offend you, Mr. Mahaffey. I was trying to help.”

“You want to help?” His voice boomed off the cold tile. “You work on getting my boy out of this hospital and back home. I'll worry about my wife.”

Two weeks later, Bobby was released from the hospital. His fluttering heart had stabilized and begun to beat in a normal, healthy rhythm. The only visible damage was a purple burn on his right hand and forearm. His face was beautiful as ever, and his body, grown thinner, worked as it was supposed to work. Bobby could walk and eat and talk and live, but something was missing. Bobby was changed. When he talked, his words twisted and fell flat. His eyes, still beautiful, had lost their shine. Bobby, Melody knew, had left something vital behind in the cool, blue baptismal waters.

The scientific explanation was this: anoxia-based brain damage. Bobby's brain was starved for oxygen for several long minutes, and some of his brain cells did not survive. The lack of these cells left him confused, impatient, and irritable. He struggled with simple concepts, confused common words. It became clear in the months and years following the baptism that Melody's brother was never going to fully recover. Melody's mother would not discuss Bobby's shortcomings, preferred to pretend that her favorite child was just fine. If Bobby, clumsy and slow, broke a plate or a mug, Mama blamed Melody for not watching him more closely or helping him or just doing the chores herself. Melody's father was on her side, though. He wouldn't stand up to her mother. No one would do that. But he treated Melody more gently, as if she, too, were damaged by the events of that terrible day.

*   *   *

She was damaged. So was he. Melody would not force her father to go to a hospital now. She would do what it took to keep her dying father at home. She'd change his diapers and wipe the drool off his chin. She'd deal with being spit on when he grew sick of his nutrition drinks. She'd let him curse and fuss and whimper, and moon after Melody's mother, who'd left him there to die. She'd shop and clean and cook. On that spooky ride to the train station, George Walter told her everything was a choice, that no one had to do anything in this world. Fine. She
chose
to care for her father. She
chose
to be nice to Maurice. She
chose
to deal with Bobby. She
chose
to do all of it, but then she would do one more thing. The very minute her mother returned, Melody planned to stage a good old-fashioned come-to-Jesus soul-cleansing confrontation. It was, she thought, the only choice.

 

Chapter Eleven

Obi left his mother's house with a box packed full of sweet preserves, homemade bread, herbal tea, peanut butter, and a plastic container full of spice cookies. Obi and Liam each wore a braided necklace woven with herbs that smelled of clove and sage and sulfur. It was not necessarily a pleasant scent, but neither did it stink. Pisa said they would get used to it soon and smell nothing at all. The necklaces were supposed to provide protection. Obi retrieved the old Winchester from behind the seat of his truck anyway. He appreciated his mother's gifts, but he didn't intend to rely on her. He'd managed to pack their tent and most of their supplies in the car. They left behind some clothing. It would be too hot for long sleeves or coats for quite a while. He struggled to adjust to the car, to its unfamiliar musty scent, to the brakes that responded with the slightest tap of his foot. He felt cramped and low to the ground and he longed for his truck. His cheek, sliced open by the same knife that slid into the boy's throat, throbbed underneath the poultice his mother had applied. The map she'd drawn for him lay unfolded on one knee. It was simple and would take no more than two hours, even staying to the farm roads and off the main highway.

“Daddy,” Liam said.

“What is it?”

“Are we in trouble?”

Obi didn't like to lie to Liam, but he said, “No, we're not in trouble at all.”

“Did you hurt that man?”

“No.” Obi's stomach ached. “Of course not.”

“Don't feel bad,” Liam told him. “Grandma will take care of us.”

It was the worst thing Liam could say. That his own son should look to someone else to keep him safe made Obi feel small and useless.

During the dark time after Eileen left, Obi tried to do the right thing. He bathed Liam for the first time and shopped for diapers and clothes. He read to him at night and told him stories about his ancestors. He came to understand how hard it was to take care of another human being, but also how important. Liam began to respond to Obi in new ways. He smiled when Obi came into a room. He laughed at Obi's stories, and Obi understood Liam might not speak much, but he understood plenty. It was hard to work all day and come home and do all the housework at night, but it was better than fighting with Eileen.

When Eileen first disappeared, Obi called in sick for a few days and realized he would have to make some arrangement for Liam while he worked. There were hundreds of day care centers to choose from, and Obi found one he could afford. Soon after entering day care, Liam began to walk. Then he began to talk. He never babbled or chattered like some of the other children, but he said just enough to get what he needed. Obi discovered that Liam was right on track with the other children when it came to potty training. Eileen had been pushing him to learn too much too soon.

Liam learned to tell Obi when he was hungry or thirsty or hot or cold. Soon he asked to “go potty.” He imitated the other children and he went from being a baby to being a human being in a matter of months. How surprised, how happy Eileen would be if she could see Liam walking and talking and out of his diaper, but Eileen did not return, and the woman who came from the government seemed to care more about the state of the house and what was or wasn't in the refrigerator than she did about Liam's progress. She left warnings and written instructions about nutritious food programs, court dates where he needed to appear, proper clothing for a boy Liam's age. Obi tried to explain that he couldn't do it all. He couldn't work and shop and clean and go to court all at the same time. “You have to find a way,” the woman told him. “Or we'll find someone who does have the resources to care for your son.” Obi knew a threat when he heard one. They began living along the river shortly after Liam's third birthday.