Iona Moon (23 page)

She wanted to tell him about Jay Tyler, how kissing him made her feel full and she had been hungry most of her life, how wrong it was for someone who didn't like you to make you feel that good. She wished Eddie knew about Leon too, about the beautiful little carvings he'd made: roosters and cows and bears, the solid little man with a hat and a shovel that looked just like her father, the little woman with thin arms and sad eyes. He gave them all to Hannah. But Iona threw his knife in Fish Creek, and he never made anything beautiful again. He dug up potatoes and shoveled shit out of the barn. He chopped cornstalks and fixed the fence when the cows broke through.
He could have bought another knife, just as sharp and just as fine
. She needed to say this now, to tell Eddie:
His sorry life isn't my fault
.

She untied the beaded leather wrapped around Eddie's braid and slowly fingered the plait, working it loose until she could pull her hand through his long, coarse hair. She pressed it to her nose. It was still damp and smelled of smoke and oil, a fish just caught, a dog's wet fur: it smelled more like Eddie than Eddie himself. He smelled familiar to her, someone she'd trusted her whole life, but she couldn't tell him how often she'd heard the snap of tiny bones: a chicken's neck, Matt Fry's hands.

She couldn't tell him she remembered Leon's grimy palm over her mouth, his thick thumb.
Mama will hate you if you ever tell
. Long after he climbed down the ladder, she stayed alone in the loft. That's when she found it, her brother's knife in the straw.

She laid her hand on Eddie's neck where his shirt was open, unbuttoned the second button and the third to touch his smooth, hairless chest. “Your heart's beating so fast,” she said.

“Birdheart.”

Iona thought of the newborn chicks, so small, nearly weightless, how their whole bodies throbbed when you cupped them in your hand. “Are you scared?” she said.

“I'm always afraid.”

She pulled his shirt out of his pants to undo the last buttons.

“Please,” he said, “don't.”

She put her head on his chest and heard the dangerous flutter. “There's no reason for you to be afraid,” she said.

“I'm an old man.”

“I'm not a child.”

“I have to tell you something.”

“I know you're married.”

“Not that.”

“It's all right if it's just this one time.” She laid her palm flat on his stomach. “Potatoes stay warm after you dig them out of the ground,” she said, “warm as your belly—for hours, sometimes for days.”

“Please,” he said.

“Tell me,” said Iona, “tell me what I need to know.”

“My leg,” Eddie said.

“Was broken.”

“Yes, broken.”

“A tree fell on you in the woods.”

“Yes.”

“And crushed your leg.”

“Yes.”

“Now you have a limp. You think you're an old man. You don't want me to see your scarred leg.”

“Yes.”

“I dragged a dead cat out of the Snake River. I carried a rat home by its tail. I saw a five-legged calf born. I watched my own mother die, Eddie.” She stroked his chest, her ear pressed close to hear his heart.

“They took my leg,” he said. “Bone broke through my thigh. They set it, but it didn't heal right. The bone got infected, oozed for weeks. So they took it, Iona. They cut off my fucking leg. I've got a stump and a piece of plastic.”

She started to unbuckle his belt, but he put his hand on hers to make her stop. “You have to let me see,” she said.

“No.”

“My brother Leon and I got stuck in a blizzard one time. We had to crawl. The ice froze on my face. I wanted to lie down and die. I saw myself dead, Eddie, and I swore nothing would ever scare me again.” She unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants.

“I'll do it,” he said. He pulled his pants down slowly. He wore white jockey shorts. He was hard. The stump of his right leg fit in the socket of the smooth plastic limb. It was pink and shiny, ridiculous next to his dark skin. “They don't make these for Indians,” he said, rapping the leg with his knuckles.

Iona moved to the end of the bed to untie his shoes and pull his pants over his feet. She took the sock off his left foot. “You have a beautiful foot,” she said. The toes were long and slender. “I want you to take it off.”

“I did.”

“I mean the leg. Will you take it off?”

“Why?”

“I want to sleep with just you.”

He stared at the pink thing, stranger in this bed.

“You don't need legs to make love,” she said.

He loosened the valve above the knee, and it let out a hiss of air. He grabbed the limb with both hands and rocked it until the suction broke with a pop. When he pulled the leg away from the stump, Iona took it, surprised by its weight, the heavy wood inside. She laid it on the floor, gently, as if it were a living thing.

In this light, the stump was purple at the base, cut by a single scar from side to side, rose-colored, raised off the skin, more like a new scar than an old one. She touched the leathery flesh with her fingertips. “Does it hurt?” she said.

“Not so much anymore.”

“But it did?”

“I used to bang my stump on the floor. They put all us cripples together on one ward. So we wouldn't drive the others crazy. Every night you'd hear it, that thumping—some poor bastard with a twitch or a burn. Goddamn nerves don't know the leg is gone. You get a cramp in your missing foot and the only way to make it stop is to hammer the tile with what's left of your leg.”

Iona stood up.

“What are you doing?” Eddie said. He reached for her as if he were afraid she might leave him like this.

She pulled off her jacket and shirt. “Getting undressed fast,” she said. She took off her shoes and jeans, unhooked her bra, peeled off her underpants, left them where they fell. Eddie took off his shorts too. She had seen her brothers standing in a row, peeing in great arcs, the only contest Dale ever won. They jumped naked in the river and pranced naked on the shore. She watched her father piss in the gutter of the barn while they waited for the calf. She'd felt Jay Tyler's hard penis, gripped his balls and made him come. But she was afraid when she saw Eddie; she wanted to hide him, even from herself.

She lay down, pulled a blanket over them. Rain tore against the pane. He held her, and she felt everything at once: muscles of his arms, hands on her back, curve of his chest, warmth of his belly; she felt his penis against her leg, felt the weight of his left leg over hers and the space in the bed where his right leg had been.

The square of sky in the window above them was dark and yellow. She thought of Everett coming to Sharla in a dream after he died, Everett with a hole in his skull. She reached down to touch the stump, to feel the ridge, hard as the knotted scar on Everett's shoulder.

He said, “I can feel it sometimes, the whole leg, not in the bad way, just a kind of warmth, like the blood going all the way to my toes.”

“I feel it too,” she said. “It is warm.”

They clung to each other like children lost in the woods; and when they kissed, mouths open, eyes closed, the last space between them disappeared. Eddie tried to move inside her, slowly, slowly, and she said it didn't hurt, but it did, and she was surprised because she thought she was past all that. He wet his fingers and touched her until she opened and she said
okay, it's okay
, but it still hurt and she said,
I
can't
. His tongue was in her ear, his fingers in her mouth. He tried again, and this time she pushed through the pain. Waves swelled under her buttocks and thighs, lifting her toward him. He was a fish in the tide, pulled into her, washed back. He whispered:
Is it safe?
And she didn't know what he meant, so she said
yes
, breathed the word,
yes
. But it wasn't safe, nothing was safe now. She opened her eyes, but his stayed shut, closed to her. Each time he thrust against her she felt the old hurt, a tearing deep in her chest; she was tossed out to sea, and there was no boat to carry her back. Cold waves broke over her head; black water filled her mouth and lungs till she couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. And though Eddie held her this close, he didn't seem to know how afraid she was, or how alone. She saw her mother's body and her father's hands as he washed her; she saw her mother standing on the back steps at dusk, calling her name. She hid in the barn and didn't answer. She was nine years old. Now she would answer, now she wanted to answer, but Eddie was the one saying
Iona
, and she was digging at the bed, clawing at the blanket as he shuddered inside of her.

14

Iona wondered if making love always forced you to see things you were trying to forget. Afterward Eddie held her for a long time. The pain faded. Her flesh felt tender but not torn. The vision of her mother on the back steps was just a memory like any other, not a voice she still heard, not a hole opening in her chest, not a child whose body was her own. She knew now why she hadn't answered, knew she was ashamed and afraid: she thought Hannah would know what had happened in the barn. But she never guessed, and this was worse. Iona was scolded, in the usual way, neither punished nor protected.

Yes, Eddie cradled her, and all that went away, back where it belonged, until there was no one else in the room, no hands touching her that weren't his. And his hands were gentle. His hands moved from shoulder to buttocks, a smooth line, resting there, lightly, as if she were fragile, almost holy, and he said, “I'm sorry if I hurt you. Next time I won't be in such a hurry.”

She wanted to tell him it was all right, it didn't hurt that much, it hardly hurt at all now, and if he just kept holding her, if he touched her forehead and knees, bones of her chest and veins of her hands, as reverently as he touched her behind, she might be healed. But she couldn't say it. She couldn't say anything. All the words had been pushed deep inside of her, jumbled and pressed together until nothing she could say seemed important enough and nothing quite made sense. She tried to stay with Eddie but felt herself flowing away from him, her body cool and thin as water.

At work that night, Eddie came for coffee twice but didn't stay to talk. The first time he said: “Rain's stopped,” and the second time he told her: “Might be hot tomorrow.” That was all. But she knew it meant they wouldn't go to the boat. He was waiting by the car at seven. The clouds broke in the east, and she squinted at the sun, angrily, as if it had betrayed them. “I'll drive you home,” Eddie said.

Iona thought they could have breakfast together. Even if they couldn't risk going on the boat, they could drive to the marina and park by the water, close their eyes and touch each other's faces. “I can walk,” she said.

“I want to drive you.”

She shrugged and followed him to the car, despising his limp for the way it revealed his weakness. She sat as far from him as she could, leaning against the door. A block from the house a small girl charged in front of the car and Eddie slammed the brakes. She turned, two feet from the grille. She was seven or eight, with delicate bones and wispy blond hair. Her lips parted, her eyes opened wide, her whole body said:
You almost killed me
. She looked toward the sidewalk where the boy who'd been chasing her stood frozen, just as she was. She glanced back at Eddie, wondering which one to blame.

The boy flew down the alley, and she raced after him. Iona hoped she'd catch him, hoped she'd throw her arms around his legs and pull him down on the gravel. He'd have to go home with torn jeans and bloody elbows. He'd have to tell his mother exactly what had happened.

The engine had died when Eddie hit the brakes. It choked and sputtered as he turned the key and pumped the gas. The car jerked forward, and Iona said, “You don't owe me anything.”

He pulled up across the street from the rooming house, shifted to park but kept the motor running. “I caught hell when I got home,” he said. “She said she could smell what I'd been doing. She thinks I have to pay for it on account of my leg. She thinks she's the only one generous enough to do it with a mutilated man for free. ‘I bet you found some Indian whore to do it cheap,' she said, ‘one of those thirteen-year-old bimbos who does six boys a night and douches with 7-Up in between. I know you, Eddie,' she says, ‘you sorry bastard. Did Mama Pearl let you use her bed? That old witch never did like me.' She said next time I was late she was going to drive up to the reservation and drag me out of any hole I'd found. She said I better watch myself and sleep with my leg because she might steal it anytime, and then where would I be.”

“Do you love her, Eddie?”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“You're just a coward.”

“A chicken,” he whispered, “a man with a bird's heart.”

Iona stared at the stain on the ceiling. The blind was down, but light blistered around the edges and the room was still too bright. She wondered how Sharla Wilder got herself to sleep day after day. Did she close her eyes and imagine Everett Fry—did he come to her every time—did he lie down beside her and touch her eyelids, stroke her belly, kiss her breasts? Did he say
I'm sorry
a hundred times?
I'm sorry I was in such a hurry. I'm sorry I have to go
.

At last the Scavenger Lady left Iona the gift she wanted, a jackknife with two blades, one short, one long, Leon's knife returned from the river, rusty and stiff, but a knife all the same, something she could use. She stuffed it deep in the front pocket of her jeans, carried it everywhere, gave it a name:
my sweet
, and paid the two dollars gladly.

Eddie kept to himself for twelve days, brought his thermos of coffee to the gas station and stayed away from the store. Sometimes Iona went back to her room and ate half a loaf of bread. Being full made her groggy, and she could fall asleep. She figured this was how Sharla managed it. She thought of Sharla sitting in her kitchen, eating stacks of pancakes or slices of toast. She saw her in her bed, popping crackers into her mouth, eating herself to sleep one morning after another. No wonder Sharla grew plump and then fat, swollen up with all the babies she'd never have. But nothing made Iona fat. She was skinny as ever. She didn't like to look at herself. Even when she combed her hair she didn't use a mirror.