Dwelling Places (19 page)

Amos has offered several times to drive her around. So far she hasn't taken him up on it. Some days she thinks that Amos could depend on her too much if she let him. He doesn't like living by himself. Rita doesn't either, but casual visiting over the fence is as much as she wants for now. Another person in her life, even just for regular conversation, feels like a little too much.

The day wears on, and she doesn't hear from Jodie, even after three, when Jodie usually gets home from the school cafeteria. It's not like her to leave a message hanging. Rita walks over to the pharmacy and to the grocery and to the post office. The weather is mild for mid-November, and she tells herself that she needs to walk more anyway. Julia at the pharmacy tries to sell her a little cart, one of those that old people push around town to carry their groceries in. She's just trying to be helpful. “My mother has worn out one already. It's real easy to push, and it holds two full sacks of groceries, plus her purse on the top. I can have Gary pull one down for you—see them there, on top of the shelves at aisle two?”

“Oh, I'm not getting that much today. I'm fine.” Rita hurries to pay and get out of there. She doesn't need an old-lady cart. She'll have her car back in a couple of days. She wishes she'd thought to call Mack at work; he would have dropped by before going home and helped her run her errands. In fact, most days he does drop by, just to say hi. But maybe today he's busy or has his own errands to run. It feels odd and not very good to be out of touch with both Mack and Jodie for most of a day.

She's eating her microwaved dinner in front of the evening news when Jodie calls.

“Hi, Mom, sorry I didn't get back sooner.”

“Everything okay over there?”

“Yeah, but I ran over to Ottumwa after work, just decided at the last minute. It was just a quick trip, but I should have given you a call. Have you had your supper? You want Young Taylor to come get you and you can eat with us?”

“No. I'm having supper. I walked over to the store—weather was nice.”

“You get everything? The store's closed, but we can go over to Oskaloosa if you need to.”

“No. Nothing urgent. Mack there?”

“No. He stopped by on his way to the stone house.”

“He doesn't even eat dinner with you?”

“Most nights, but not tonight.”

Jodie tells her that she'll come by tomorrow right after work, and they can run errands together. When Rita hangs up, she feels awful. The day will be going by like a regular day, and then she'll be forced to think about Mack out in that cabin by himself. And now that she doesn't have a car, she can't follow the urge to just go out there and try to talk sense into him. It's hard to take charge of anything when you're on foot.

Jodie

It takes some doing to go to Ottumwa without another family member. It isn't a particularly long trip, but it generally means shopping, and that is something a person does with someone else, probably family. And most of the time that family is Rita. What could she possibly be doing over there that Rita wouldn't be invited to?

In the end, she simply goes and decides to tell Rita later that it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. She might hint that Christmas shopping was involved and that she was shopping for gifts that needed to be kept secret. But for years now she has taken Rita shopping for most gifts, getting Rita to try on pantsuits or whatever and then buying her the one she wanted. Spur of the moment will have to be explanation enough.

This time of year hardly any cars roam into the parks. Red Haw State Park is about forty-five miles due west of Ottumwa, off the beaten path for anyone down Beulah way. She tries to hold in her mind how the world looks this afternoon as she travels toward what will likely become the place of an astounding sin. She drives with dread and sheer excitement. She has showered and used the blow dryer, has dared to apply the new makeup, and wears the jeans and shirt that help a person imagine that, under certain circumstances, she could look slender.

She hasn't thought of sex much during her nineteen years with Mack. They've gotten along just fine in that area, and even with two kids underfoot and extended family forever at the door, they've managed to have enough of each other. Enough, at least, until Mack changed, until everything got bleak. Since then, Jodie has discovered what a powerful thing it is that she'd taken for granted through the years. Suddenly it isn't there anymore, and they don't know what to do or how to talk about it. A whole part of their life has just dropped out of existence.

Before that point she never thought of herself as interested in sex more than the next person. But with it missing now, she is hungry as
she's never been hungry before. Suddenly the hunger is defining her and presenting to her a whole new image of herself. Now she is a woman unloved, a woman without sex. She doesn't know which is the harder trial, to do without the sex or to see herself as someone without it. This new, unwelcome self-image seems to determine the direction of both her thoughts and her emotions most days.

And now here's Terry, and she can't look at him anymore without seeing all of him. She looks at his face but gathers from the corners of her vision his legs and arms, his chest and groin, his whole male self. She can't avoid this. Terry has become more than Terry a coworker. He is Terry a male, in close proximity to her. The proximity often fills with quick breaths and alarming little throbs. When Terry stands in the same room, Jodie imagines that she can feel him in her own pulse.

By the time she arrives at the park entrance, she is chilled to the bone. Her legs shake. Suddenly, she wants to cry.

What are you doing? What are you doing?

His car is at the far end of the main parking lot. She parks at the opposite end, walks across the pavement to the grass and trees, and wanders in the direction of his car. From the parking lot, the land inclines toward the lake. She sees Terry sitting on a picnic table halfway down the slope.

“Hi.” She does her best not to sound panicked. She is startled by the look on his face, a weird mixture of relief and panic.

“I wasn't sure you'd come,” he says as she gets closer.

“I wasn't sure either.” Her nerves come through with a little burst of laughter.

“I'm so glad you're here.” He reaches out to her then, and she reaches out to him with no effort at all. The feel of his bones and muscles through all their clothing makes her suddenly desire everything in life. It has been years since she has gripped anyone with such intent.

“I'm a little scared,” she murmurs against his jacket. She feels a tear slip out.

He doesn't mind the tears. He comforts her with a kiss. And then another.

Her body goes its own way, as if it is a self-contained entity, defined by its own desire. With Terry, back in his car, parked in a little nook away from the lot and main walkways, her body takes the predictable course, and she sits back and watches herself undress and embrace and be embraced and do all the deeply personal things that have remained for most of her life in a particular house with one other person. She watches her body find its way with someone else. She doesn't quite know what to think of it.

She thought that this act would bring intense emotion—relief or happiness or guilt. She has dreaded the moment when all of these feelings would collide inside her.

But after they have made love, she leans against the backseat of Terry's car and watches him put on his shirt, and the action looks entirely ordinary. She studies his face, gazes with detachment at the lips that kissed her with such power, at the body, now clothed, that pressed urgently. Although Jodie's head still buzzes, the memories are already dissipating into the chilly air.

She sees him looking at her.

“I know,” he says quietly, “that there are all sorts of reasons I should regret what just happened, but I honestly can't bring myself to regret it at all.”

She doesn't reply. She notices just then that Terry uses a lot of words to say not very much. Already a hazy discomfort has begun to slip in. She guesses that this is an early symptom of regret.

“You okay?” For the first time he looks worried.

“Sure. Just don't know what to say.”

He grins but takes a shaky breath. Jodie realizes then the danger of what they have just done. The lovemaking itself is the least of it. Her real concern is what the lovemaking has started between them. In that moment, when Terry breathes in and out, Jodie understands that she can't just stop at this. She can never hear him breathe again or watch him walk across a room again. She will have to be held by him again. Something bigger than her will determines this. She wonders if it has hit Terry yet, or if, in the way stereotypical of males, he is even
now wracking his brain for a way out, to let her down without seeming heartless.

But what kind of a letdown could it be? What could be damaged in her life or her marriage that isn't already near death? Mack is the one who went to the hospital. He is the official victim. And there can't be a victim without an offender. Of course that would be her. All of them have considered, silently, that if she had been a better wife, her husband would not have wanted to die. Such a thing is common knowledge. Wives are for supporting and loving and helping. Never mind if they don't get any of that themselves.

With these few thoughts, she attempts self-justification, some cushioning by way of memories of all the love she has lost. But over these thoughts rests a mist of discontent. Even this longed-for, forbidden act has turned out to be one more motion she has forced herself through, yet another strategy for saving herself. Just Jodie taking charge of Jodie's life and dragging it across another bumpy threshold into nothing.

“So what happens now?” Terry's voice is deep, covered in late sun sparkles through the back glass of the car. They parked at the end of a little road that peters out near the water.

“What do you want to happen?” she asks. She pauses and studies him. His face appears so much younger than Mack's.

He shrugs, his eyebrows arching. “I want to see you again.”

She nods but slides her look away from him. “Me too.”

“It's hard to plan very far ahead…” He stares into trees bereft of their leaves.

“That's for sure. I can't plan anything right now.”

“I'm with you there.”

She touches his face, then withdraws her hand when she realizes that it is the very same way she has touched Mack's face hundreds of times. “I guess that for now I just want to try out how it might be.”

Terry appears profoundly relieved. “That's the way I look at it. This isn't some fling for me—I don't want you to think that. I think it could really turn into something. But it's complicated.”

They plan their next meeting. There is a tiny motel in a neighboring town. As far as they know, nobody in Beulah has relatives there. And no one would drive through there for any other reason; there is no industry or shop that a farmer couldn't find closer to home. Terry's last class of the day is a study hall, and he can get out early, claiming a need for personal time to go to the doctor or something. Jodie is finished in the cafeteria by two-thirty. There is some dead time between then and when she tries to corral the kids for dinner. She'll leave them a note, claiming that she's running errands and they can throw something in the microwave. With Mack not in the house, it should be easy enough to get away, taking a back road or two rather than going directly to the main highway within ten miles of town.

She stops at a fabric store at the mall in Ottumwa. Rita knows that she shops there a couple times a year, because they have good sales and a wide selection. As she throws the bag into the front seat of the truck and turns the key, she sees Terry beside her clear as day. She even hears him breathing. Moments from the past hour flicker through her memory. But nothing inside her jars or even sways. What she expected to be relief is only a form of sadness. A thought floats up:
Well, you did what you set out to do.
She doesn't really feel guilt either, but a deep disappointment in herself, for committing an act so unoriginal and yet quite apt to damage them all.

Kenzie

She is nervous almost from the start of the Tuesday night youth group Bible study. Everyone is way too chatty. Here they are, trying to understand God's mysteries and determine what Jesus would do in real-life situations, and Carol is whispering gossip to Jenna, and Bobby keeps trying to hit the wastebasket with tiny pieces of chalk from the blackboard tray. Pastor Williamson, as always, is patient. He and Trent are doing most of the talking; Trent usually takes the Scripture seriously, but that's because he's a geek and doesn't really have friends. He likes to talk to Pastor Williamson as though they are
friends, and Pastor Williamson lets him do that because he's a compassionate guy, but even he doesn't seem inclined to like Trent very much. This evening they are discussing First Thessalonians, chapter five, about being alert now that it is the last days.

“If we stay sharp, we can see the signs. That's what Paul is saying.” Trent acts as though he has just delivered wisdom never heard before.

“That's right. And if we're out partying all the time, using drugs and getting drunk and hanging out with people who aren't awake, our chances of seeing the truth are not that great.” Pastor Williamson has mentioned drugs and alcohol more lately. Kenzie thinks this is because a couple of families in the church have heard about kids at the high school partaking at a recent party. They called the pastor, and the pastor of course handed responsibility to the man in charge of the youth. Kenzie is certain that Pastor Williamson has been instructed to step up preaching against substance abuse. So he inserts it now, in a place where it sort of belongs, but Kenzie has little patience for it today.