Equal Access (18 page)

“Bull hockey!” Ida replied. She was also
wearing denim shorts but her tee shirt was green with white
stripes. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her eyes
were brown. “You still run fast.”

Shad regarded Ida with false seriousness.
“Does your mom know you use that kind of language?”

“Hockey isn’t a swear word,” Ida replied
earnestly.

“Do you know what it means?” Shad asked.

“Poop!” Grady blurted.

Dulsie smiled. “Really? I thought it was a
game you play on ice with sticks and a puck. Or is that hooky?”

“Hooky’s skipping school.” Ida grinned.

“Do either of you ever play hooky?” Shad
maintained his demeanor as he glanced at both kids.

“Ida does!” Grady looked at his sister.

She gazed down on her brother in defiance.
“Bull hockey!”

They finally made it past the kids and into
the house where Mam and Pap were visiting with Erin and Stan in the
living room. Shad and Dulsie took the food to the large dine-in
kitchen that spanned the width of the home before Shad was able to
hug Erin and shake hands with Stan while Dulsie hugged both. Their
visit didn’t last long because both kids burst into the house and
reminded everybody they were supposed to go fishing after Uncle
Shad and Aunt Dulsie arrived.

So Pap loaded fishing poles, tackle boxes and
a small cooler full of dirt and earthworms into the bed of his
pickup. Behind the barn and next to the woods bordering the pasture
was a three-acre fishing pond that Shad had always known as a sure
source to catch bluegill, bass, or catfish every outing. They did
fill a stringer which Mam said they could fry for supper that
night, and then the kids wanted to go out in Pap’s two canoes he
kept in a shed on one side of the pond bank. Shad and Grady went
out in one canoe and Pap took Ida in the other.

Then it was time for lunch, and Jill and
Karl, also bearing food, arrived at the home. In the kitchen
everybody sat at the large oak table which Quaid himself had built
from lumber produced on the very farm he had saved for Grace. It
was just large enough to accommodate all ten of them, although the
kids had to sit in wooden folding chairs. Pap and Mam took opposite
ends of the table, while Shad, Dulsie, Stan and Erin sat on one
side. Grady, Ida, Karl and Jill filled the other side.

About fifteen minutes into the meal and
conversation, Ida asked in a clear voice, “Why is everything around
here so old?”

The adults chuckled and Erin replied, “It’s
an old house.”

At first glance people might think Erin
looked like Jill because they both had dark hair and green eyes. It
was actually Pap’s side of the family whom Erin favored however,
including the Delaney height which made her the tallest woman in
the family. She also had on denim shorts and wore a red button-down
blouse.

“It is like coming to a museum.” Grady looked
around at the yellow pine floors, natural black walnut trim, and
white bead board ceiling. “Even your TV is old.”

“It still works.” Pap smirked.

“Do you even have a computer?” Grady
asked.

“Thanks to your Uncle Shad, I do.”

Shad cast a glance toward his nephew. “It’s a
dinosaur.”

“How come you don’t have email?”

“We got rid of all that internet stuff after
Shad moved out.”

“How come?”

Pap smirked again. “Because Shad moved
out.”

Mam chuckled. “If Grandpa can’t fix it with a
wrench or a welder then he figures it’s not worth having.”

“I think your grandpa’s on to something
there.” Karl leaned forward. “My truck’s not so new, either, but
it’s still got computer chips and high-tech gizmos that keep me
from just fixing it with a wrench. Most of that stuff is probably
surveillance equipment for the government to keep tabs on us.”

Most of the adults smirked because they knew
Karl got a kick out of conspiracy theories. Jill just shook her
head.

“All those computer components are supposed
to be there to make your truck safer to drive.” Stan shrugged. His
hair was not as dark as Erin’s and he had brown eyes. Like
everybody else he was wearing shorts, and the polo shirt he wore
was blue.

“Safer?” Karl jabbed a thumb toward his
daughter. “Shad and Dulsie can’t even buy a used car these days
without it having airbags all over it. But they have to turn around
and get the airbags disabled because those things could kill
Dulsie. No, the government is sticking its nose more and more into
our business.” He suddenly twitched and then looked at Jill beside
him. “Hey, that one hurt.”

“You know how to stop those,” Jill replied
nonchalantly.

“Kinda like the joke about what’s the
difference between a politician and God.” Dulsie had come by her
Weisenheimer nickname honestly. “God doesn’t think he’s a
politician.”

“I thought that was a lawyer and God,” Shad
muttered.

“You know what they say about the End Times.”
Karl wagged a finger at everybody else at the table. “Religion will
be replaced by a man-made institution. And the government will
impose more laws because people won’t restrain themselves anymore.”
His attention suddenly snapped to Jill. “Would you cut that
out?”

“Don’t give me any ideas,” Jill murmured.

“You know.” Karl pointed a finger directly at
her. “That’s exactly the kind of suppression of freedom I was just
talking about.”

That sly smile of hers curved Jill’s mouth.
“And the pot called the kettle black.”

“Are you insinuating something?”

“Whatever would give you that idea?”

“I can’t ever get a straight answer outta
her.” Karl switched to jiggling his thumb at Jill while he
addressed the others at the table. “It’s like living with a secret
agent. I’ll ask her ‘What’s for lunch?’ And then she comes back
with something like ‘The monkey is in your pants.’”

Shad almost choked on the salad he was
unfortunate enough to be swallowing right when he felt the impulse
to chuckle. He coughed and sputtered a bit, then reached for his
glass of tea to help finish washing the lettuce down.

Karl’s thumb redirected toward Shad as his
attention returned to Jill. “See what you made me almost do to poor
Shad?”

Jill completely ignored the question and
asked Stan to pass her the rolls. Shad, naturally sitting as far
away from her as possible, noticed the butter dish had remained at
his end of the table, and he suddenly remembered what he had been
assigned to do. Shad picked up the butter dish and held it in front
of Dulsie.

“Jill, you want some butter with that?” His
voice was still a little raspy.

Hopefully Shad was only imagining that
complete silence reigned at the table. Two seconds, three
seconds....

“Mom.” Dulsie spoke up. “Shad asked if you
wanted any butter with your roll.”

Jill glanced toward Dulsie and demurely
replied, “No thank you.”

Shad set the butter dish down, and then he
felt Dulsie’s leg rub against his calf.

The opportunity arose again the next
afternoon following First Day meeting. The families had lunch
together before Erin’s group would head home, and Shad started
passing out drinks of tea or juice. He asked Jill if she wanted
anything. And again Jill didn’t respond.

Dulsie was just as quick to challenge her
mother’s selective hearing. “Mom,” she said in a clear voice, “Shad
asked if you wanted something to drink.”

Jill glanced casually toward her daughter and
nonchalantly responded, “No thank you.”

Shad wondered how long Jill would give up
food and drink just to keep ignoring him. Maybe trying to reconnect
with Jill wouldn’t be so unsettling after all. Dulsie had his back,
and Shad had to admit he was starting to find Jill’s response – or
lack thereof – a bit humorous.

Then the time came for Erin’s family to
leave, and they all exchanged hugs with her group. Ida was the last
of the family to give a hug to Shad. He had stooped to be more
accessible to the kids’ levels, and when Ida wrapped her arms
around his neck she playfully jumped toward Shad, knocking him a
little off balance and causing his own arms to tighten around
her.

“Easy,” Shad gasped.

To his dismay, the primal urging flooded
through him.

The waters of the Osage River were not
consistently clear. Only ten miles or so downstream of the Delaney
farm it entered the Missouri River which had long ago earned the
nickname “Big Muddy.” Upstream the flow of the Osage was impounded
twice to create Truman Reservoir and the Lake of the Ozarks.
Therefore the river was rather rich in nutrients, which encouraged
the growth of algae that often cast a greenish murk to the water
that would limit visibility below its surface. It was clean enough
to swim in, however, and even though any rain had stayed to the
north and west for several days, feeding the river’s tributaries,
the water was reasonably clear as the level lingered at the lower
stages and the current was gentle.

The three couples had planned on an afternoon
of swimming at the river after Erin’s family left, so Shad brought
a pair of blue swim trunks for him to wear at the Osage. As he
basically swam diagonal laps to the middle of the river and back,
Shad simmered mentally on the episode he’d experienced with Ida.
For him, swimming or hiking were both executed automatically, and
his mind could usually focus more effectively during these
activities.

Pap had seen to it all his kids became
efficient swimmers, and Shad, who seemed to lack refined athletic
ability even though his physique might suggest otherwise, had
exceeded expectations. Wally had taken him to the pool when Shad
was little and even enrolled him in some lessons. Then for four
years Shad did no swimming at all until he was brought to the
Delaneys. Under Pap’s tutelage and a few sessions with a private
tutor, Shad became as proficient as Pap, who had long held the
record on being the strongest swimmer in the family. Shad knew he
excelled at this one skill because he enjoyed swimming so much and
had therefore worked on it, much as he was more of a fisherman than
a hunter. When Shad went fishing he focused on trying to catch
fish, but whenever he would go hunting Shad was more content just
to be out in the solitude of the wilderness and didn’t care if he
bagged any game or not.

While Shad swam, instinctively working with
the currents of the river, he pondered a reality that had surfaced
in his conscious after the experience with Ida. His demon gave no
quarter to family members. Not only was Ida his niece, she was
Erin’s daughter. Erin, who could have simply alerted Social
Services to Shad’s situation, had instead turned him on a path that
not only saved him but saved God only knew how many others. Shad’s
gratitude to Erin only deepened his shame about Ida, and the
veracity of his shame made him contemplate a possibility so
horrendous he couldn’t bear to examine it in detail.

Shad and Dulsie planned on having a family
someday. They could have a daughter.

Even though Shad was determined to never
exploit a child’s vulnerability, the mere idea he could feel that
impulse toward his own daughter sickened him. Yet Shad had learned
today his perfectly natural revulsion had no suppressive power over
the unnatural force that lurked inside him. Even if the disorder
went back into latency, Shad had no guarantee if or when it could
surface again. All he knew for sure was that he didn’t want to live
with the specter of harboring something so vile toward his own
children.

Shad now hoped that Brody did injure him
enough to eliminate any chance of paternity, but he also couldn’t
take chances on hope. Shad was going to have to say something to
Dulsie, and he’d better say it quickly since they’d already ended
their efforts to avoid just such an event. But the truth was too
terrible to share, so how was he going to explain his sudden change
of heart?

It was true everybody knew he was a proponent
of adoption, so to some extent it would make sense if Shad said he
wanted to adopt. But how would he explain a preference for children
over six years old or only males? Besides, he knew Dulsie looked
forward to the experience of childbearing. And she was quite keen
on bearing
his
children, despite the matter that Shad had
little knowledge of what exactly might be lurking in his genes.

Maybe now would be a good time to assign more
importance to that hitherto mild reservation. Link that to the
desire to adopt ... yeah, he could give reasonable arguments why
they would be better off not beginning with an infant ... and Shad
believed he might be able to convince Dulsie she didn’t need to
experience pregnancy.

His flash of relief was quickly dimmed by a
subtle but sudden new dread.

He was plotting subterfuge against his own
wife. One of the basic cornerstones of Friends belief Shad had
taken to heart first was the exhortation to adhere to a single
standard of truth. One must speak plainly and honestly. Yet here he
was, contemplating the fabrication of an alternative “truth,” and
Shad intended to use it as a means to persuade Dulsie to deviate
from their original plan.

But he couldn’t tell her the real truth. It
was too personal to both of them. Dulsie’s image of him would be
shattered and she would be thrown into a nightmarish angst about
what
she had married. No, Shad would cause less harm to her
by crushing some of her dreams in order to urge Dulsie to replace
them with new dreams.

This wasn’t fair.

Shad felt distinctly trapped in a situation
that seemed to condemn him to hurt Dulsie no matter what he did.
All Shad had control over was to what degree he would hurt her. It
would appear that Jill, as always, had been right.

My God, My God, why have you abandoned me; why so far
from delivering me and from my anguished groaning?