Drowning Ruth (38 page)

My water broke around seven. I sterilized the scissors, stifling thoughts of that absurd vacuum box, and laid them out with string on a clean towel. I placed my shoes side by side under the bed in Mathilda's room, the one we'd decided to use. I took off my dress and hung it neatly on the hook behind the door. Mathilda, poor little thing, flew back and forth from kitchen to bedroom,
sometimes carrying a glass of water or a blanket, mainly just to be doing something. But I was calm. I was ready.

A contraction gripped me, and I made a sound that must have frightened Ruth. “Aunt Mandy hurt?”

“Come on, sweetheart,” Mathilda said, holding out her hand to the child. “Let's go in your room now.”

Ruth shook her head.

“Yes, we have to go now. Be good, Ruthie.”

But Ruth lowered herself to a crouch and, before Mathilda could scoop her up, scuttled under the bed, drawing the rag rug in after her as a barricade.

Mathilda reached under and tried to pull her out, but Ruth clamped onto the leg of the bed and howled. I had a better idea. I slipped off the bed and went into the kitchen for a peppermint stick.

“Look, Ruth,” I said, holding the striped stick as close to the floor as I could. “Shush now. Aunt Mandy's got candy.”

But another contraction made me gasp. The peppermint dropped with a crack as I grabbed hold of Mattie. She helped me back on the bed, and we let Ruth be.

Ruth floating face down, her body spread over the waves like a blue terry-cloth bathrobe. Reach, farther, reach, there—the hair, hold on, pull her up, pull her out. Amanda awoke, her fingers clutching the air, gasping as if she'd been the one trying to breathe under water. Ruth isn't drowned, she told herself firmly. Ruth is fine.

She'd fallen asleep fully clothed, and the hem of her dress was still damp where it had draggled in the water when she heaved the
boat out. Her collar had pulled tight around her throat as she slept—perhaps that accounted for her breathlessness—and she loosened the top two buttons.

The day had faded, but it was not yet dusk. Ruth would be home soon, if she was not already.

“Ruth?” Amanda stood at the top of the stairs and called down. There was no answer.

Turning, she faced herself in the landing mirror, her skin red from the sun, her hair snarled and matted, her dress wrinkled. She raised a tentative hand to her cheek. She'd never had what people called a full face, but lately her bones had become more prominent, her cheeks hollow. White wires threaded through her hair.

What kind of a girl gets so dirty? her mother's voice said in her mind, but so clearly that she turned around, half expecting to see her standing there, holding a washcloth and a brick of her homemade lavender soap. But that would have been downstairs near the tub by the stove in the kitchen. Carl had long since put in the bathroom upstairs by walling off a corner of Ruth's room, the room Amanda and Mathilda had once shared.

She took a fresh dress from the closet and hung it on the bathroom door. While she waited for the tub to fill, she brushed her teeth with a little baking soda, scrubbed the sink and the toilet with cleanser. In her hair, she could still catch the odor of the dead fish and weeds she'd encountered that morning. She'd have to wash it, even though it was probably too late in the day for it to dry properly.

Slowly, she lowered herself into the tub. She hadn't realized how cold and tense she'd been, and the warm water soothed her. She lay back in it, letting her feet and hands float. Lazily, she caressed herself, her stomach and her thighs, the bones and the soft dip at the base of her throat, her breasts. Then she slid deeper, tipping her head back to soak her hair. The water rose gently, like a warm hood over the back of her head, and her hair spread around her neck and
over her chest like weeds. The water covered her ears, separating her from the sounds of the air, drawing her down and under.

Amanda sat up suddenly and struggled out of the bath, water streaming from her toes and fingertips onto the mat. Quickly, she dried herself and wrapped her hair in the towel. Then, her skin still damp, she pulled on her clothes. It was really food she needed. How long had it been since she'd eaten? She had to get some supper together. Ruth was always starving after a day wrestling with those typewriters.

The stones in the driveway crunched and pinged as she was peeling the last potato. Amanda slipped to the window and looked out. A man, that Owens boy, Clement and not Clement, was handing Ruth out of the car. Amanda pulled the towel from her hair and tied a scarf around her head. But the car door slammed and then slammed again; the engine noises rose and fell away; and Ruth came into the kitchen alone.

“You were with that Owens boy?” Amanda asked her, as matter-of-factly as she could manage. She lifted the lid from the pot roast, and an exhalation of steam masked her face.

“Arthur? He gave me a ride.”

“But not Imogene?”

“No.”

So now was it Ruth who had to be watched? Amanda frowned, studying the young woman's movements, as Ruth began to set the table. “Did you …” She stopped herself, not sure how to say it, “drink anything?” she finished delicately.

“Of course not.”

Anger, acerbic as bile, rose in Amanda at the thought of the father and son. Why would they not leave her and hers alone? But it was her own fault, she knew. Hiding and pretending, staying and lying, she had, in some sense, kept Clement Owens with her always. One night with him had become a sort of knot around which she'd grown for the last twenty years. Why should she be surprised now if, instead of dissolving, he'd doubled?

But it would be all right, she assured herself. Summer was ending and soon they would go. She only had to wait, holding things in place, a little longer.

Ruth was home safely, and now they would eat a well-balanced meal, Amanda told herself, spooning red cabbage onto Ruth's plate. Everything was all right, then. Everything was as it should be, she thought, surveying the table, except for one detail. “Do you think we should have applesauce, Ruth? There's some in the icebox. Why don't you get it?”

“I don't need applesauce.”

“Well, but I think we should have it. It's just in the icebox, in the little green dish.”

“I really don't want applesauce tonight.”

“But I think we should have it. Otherwise, we don't have any fruit, and fruit is very important. Let's have it on the table, at least, in case we change our minds.”

“I want Imogene to be happy,” Ruth said, getting up from the table. “I really do.”

No, she shouldn't talk about Imogene, not tonight, not when everything had to be kept just so. “We all want Imogene to be happy, of course. Ruth, on the top shelf, behind the milk. You know, I wonder if it'll be too cold. Do you think it is? It shouldn't be so cold that it chills the meat. Maybe we ought to heat it for a minute, so it isn't ice cold.”

“But we were going to have our apartment!”

“Apartment? What apartment?” Amanda pushed her chair back slightly. She felt suddenly at a disadvantage with her legs trapped under the table.

“There is no apartment. Not anymore. Genie's going to marry Arthur Owens. He hasn't asked her yet, but he will.”

With this jumble of strange syllables, a thickness filled Amanda's ears, followed by a ringing. She drew back from the table, shaking her head. “No,” she said firmly, almost brightly. “No, that's impossible.”

“Aunt Mandy, what's the matter? Are you sick? Is something wrong?”

Amanda stood up so abruptly that her chair toppled over behind her. “ We have to stop them.”

“What are you talking about? What's the matter with you?” Ruth had come around the table, and she pressed a palm to her aunt's clammy forehead. “Maybe you should lie down. Do you want to lie down?” she asked, steering Amanda toward the front room. She tried to sound solicitous, but she was afraid. Was this why Amanda had had to go to St. Michael's? “Should I call Dr. Karbler?”

“No! No one else, Ruth. No one else. Only you.”

They were standing beside the old davenport now, but when Ruth tried to lower her aunt onto it, Amanda clung and pulled her down too. “Promise you'll help me, Ruth,” she whispered. “Promise.”

“Of course I'll help you. What is it?”

Amanda continued to whisper, as if in that way the words would not actually be spoken, but somehow pass from her to Ruth in a current of understanding. “Imogene is Clement Owens's daughter.”

She's crazy, Ruth thought, involuntarily pulling back from Amanda, as a mixture of fear and disgust, bordering on nausea, rose in her throat. “Stop it,” she said. “What's wrong with you? Stop acting like this.” She felt an urge to slap her aunt, but Amanda began to cry then, and Ruth rubbed her shoulder instead. “Now, Aunt Mandy, you know that's silly. I don't know who told you that, but you can't credit crazy stories. Mr. Owens and Mrs. Lindgren don't even know each other. And Mrs. Lindgren would never!” A thought occurred to Ruth. “I bet I know who started this. How dare they? That nasty Zita and Kitty. They'll be sorry.”

But Amanda had stopped crying. With fingers like claws, she gripped Ruth's shoulders and shook her. “
Yo u
stop it, Ruth! Look
at me! Listen to me! This is no one's story but mine. No one knows it but me. Only me. I know he's Imogene's father because I am her mother. She's my baby.”

Ruth jerked out of Amanda's grip and turned her face away, covering her ears with her hands. “Stop it! How can you say such a thing?”

If Amanda had suddenly insisted that after all the sky was green and the grass was red, Ruth could not have been more confused, more betrayed. Now, as she turned to stare at Amanda, it was her voice that was reduced to a whisper. “But you said the baby wasn't real.”

Mama's feet go back and forth, back and forth. Aunt Mandy makes the scary sounds. “Shh, shh,” I say, but nobody hears me. I put my head on the now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep and watch the candy stick. Aunt Mandy's shoes are watching me. I better be good now, good and quiet. “Shh, shh,” I say, but nobody listens to me. Kick, Mama's shoe on the candy stick. It rolls to me and I pick it up, pick the fur off with my fingers. It's still good, I tell myself. That's what Aunt Mandy would say to me. We don't mind a little dirt.

Aunt Mandy makes the scary sounds. “It's all right,” Mama says. “Everything'll be all right.” But I knew that wasn't true.

I shush and suck, shush and suck. I am good, but still the scary sounds. I wish they'd stop. “Stop,” I say, but I only whisper. “I'll be quiet. I'll be good.”

My candy's so sharp, it bites my tongue. The blood tastes sweet, so I swallow it down. “Now I lay me down to sleep,” I say, but I stay awake.

Mama's on the bed now too. I want to go on the bed, but I'm scared. The noises, stop the noises! And then the noises stop. “Oh, Mandy,” Mama says, “a little girl.” But the little girl is under the bed. A baby is crying, so I try crying, but it isn't me.

“You have to tell her, Aunt Mandy.”

They'd pushed the congealed pot roast and red cabbage, food that looked like a mass of bruises on the plates, into the slop bucket for the dogs and the pigs, and were seated at the kitchen table. Amanda had poured cups of coffee, as if they were settling down to discuss an ordinary problem.

“No.” Amanda shook her head. She was stirring sugar into her coffee. “No, we have to think, Ruth. Think.” Her spoon went back and forth, clinking on the edges of the cup. “Imogene can never know.”

“Think about what? How to dress for the wedding? I'm going to tell her if you won't.”

Amanda tried speaking calmly, patiently. She kept her eyes on Ruth's face. Ruth was being unreasonable; she had to be made to see. “You don't want to do that. Think of Mary Louise. Itd kill her, Imogene finding out that way. Imogene finding out at all.” She raised her cup to her lips with nearly steady hands and sipped. She felt she'd made a good point, a strong point, one on which she could stand firm. “No, it wouldn't be fair to Mary Louise. After all, she's been a very good mother. You have to agree with me there, don't you, Ruth?”

When Ruth said nothing, Amanda repeated her question. “You agree that Mary Louise has been an excellent mother, don't you?”