Mink River: A Novel (23 page)

I don’t think I should have this baby.

Sara, what are you saying?

I’m saying I shouldn’t have this baby.

It’s
our
child.
Our
baby.

You want me to be like Tosca.

What?

But I’m not Tosca. I’m not a princess.

What?

I’m just me. And I can’t afford another baby. What if you leave? Then what?

Sara, he says, shocked and finally beginning to be angry.

I don’t believe you! I don’t! she says and she runs to the beach.

He stands there gaping for a minute and then picks up the milkshake-sodden towels and wrings them out, the thick cold milk dripping on the hot asphalt, and rolls them tightly, and tucks them under his arm, and carries them to be rinsed in the sea.

9.

The man who beats his son is beating his son. His fist makes a hollow sound on Nicholas’s back. Why don’t you listen to me? he shouts at Nicholas. Why don’t you do what I say? Who do you think you are? Nicholas has his arms folded over his head. I am your father, shouts his father, raining punches on Nicholas. I am not some kid in the street. When I tell you to do something you do it. Nicholas jumps up suddenly and runs to the dining room and gets the table between him and his father. I pay for everything here, shouts his father. You pay for nothing. I bought the food. I pay the rent. I clean the clothes. I cook the food. All you do is eat. All you do is give me lip. Always lip. All day and night I get lip. I won’t take it. I don’t care how strong you are. I don’t care how much you lift weights. You’ll never be stronger than me. I am your father. I made you. Say something! Nicholas says nothing but gauges the distance between the table and the back door and feints to his right which draws a left hook from his father but as his father’s arm is fully extended Nicholas shoves the table at him and sprints for the door so just as the table’s edge hits his father sharply in the groin the screen door bangs and Nicholas is gone. His father furiously hammers his right fist on the table until his knuckles bleed and then he stops, shaking, and gets his cigarettes and sits shaking on the back steps. He tries to light a cigarette but his hands are shaking too much. I hate this, he thinks. I hate this. I love him. I hate me. I love us. I hate this. This has to stop. I’ll hurt him. He’ll hurt me. He has shoulders like an ox. He’s no boy. What’s the matter with me? Why does this happen? Where is he? What am I going to do? He tries to light the cigarette again but his hand shakes so badly that he burns his lower lip.

10.

Worried Man and Cedar roll up the maps of the mountain and put them in tubes and rack the tubes and then walk outside into the crisp noon sunlight and sit at the rickety alder table in front of the Department and split a beer and slowly eat salmonberries.

We have to go, says Worried Man.

I know, says Cedar.

May would want us to go, says Worried Man.

Would she?

She would. She knows us. She knows me. She desires my joy. I desire her joy. That’s the point of being married. To want the other to be joyfully at peace.

She won’t like this. We’re too old.

But she’ll want us to go.

I don’t think so. Not this time.

Then we’ll go ask her, says Worried Man, but just as he says this he freezes, his glass halfway to his lips, and then he sets his glass down so hurriedly that he spills his beer, and he stands up, craning his head this way and that, and then he climbs right up on the rickety table and balances there turning this way and that, eyes closed.

What? Where? says Cedar.

This is bad, says Worried Man. This is raw green fear. This is bad.

Who is it?

I don’t know. A girl. A child. You have to go right now, Cedar. Run. I can’t go fast enough for this one. This one is real bad.

Cedar jumps up, his heart suddenly cold. He’s only seen this look on his friend’s face a few times in all their years together and each time it boded evil.

Bring a stick or something, says Worried Man, his face pale.

Where?

South. Quarter mile maybe. A narrow room? White shingles? I see a girl, I feel the girl. A sink. White siding … a trailer! It’s a trailer! The trailer park! I’ll take the truck. Run! Run! Last trailer! Green door! Run!

And Cedar runs, he’s the fastest sixtysomething man you ever saw, lean and wiry and relentless and angry and frightened, his heart cold his heart hammering with fear and the pace of his sprinting through the woods down the hill from the Department through a fringe of woods; he sees the trailer park below him bucolic the white rectangles of the trailers like cottages their friendly windowboxes abloom with daffodils their little knee-high fences and plastic mailboxes shining in the sun and he races down among them his heart racing and he sees a blue door a red door a brown door a white door where is the green door? where is the green door? there it is! green! green! he hammers on it with all his strength and inside a high screaming stops suddenly and his rage rises in his throat and he can hardly see he is so angry and frightened and he grabs a rake leaning against the side of the trailer and smashes in the window and at the sound of the glass smashing two faces turn to look at him one a man in a big brown coat and the other a girl maybe twelve years old the man has her pinned against the sink and Cedar opens the door and runs in and the man shoves the girl aside and swings at Cedar but Cedar smashes the rake handle against the man’s face just as the truck fishtails to a halt by the door and Worried Man jumps out yelling Cedar! Cedar! and Cedar smashes the man again and again and again with the rake handle as Worried Man runs in yelling Cedar! stop! enough! and the girl at the sink watches horrified her face as white and ancient and remote as the moon.

11.

Rachel, walking home from work at the old shingle factory near the old sawmill, worries about missing her period. Sara the wife of Michael the cop feels a flutter in her belly when she kneels to plant the pole beans. Rachel tries to stay calm and count the days before during and after. Sara throws up behind the little row of white cedar saplings. Rachel walks faster and faster. Sara gets a shovel and buries her vomit and scatters leaves and sticks over it for good measure. Rachel walks in her house and says
Mom? Mom?
and hearing no reply goes straight to her mom’s bedroom and gets her mom’s desk calendar the one with all the holy days marked in blue and counts the days since. Sara kneels again and plants the beans in five long rows. Rachel hears her mother coming up from the basement and hurriedly puts the calendar back and goes to the closet and pretends to be rooting around for shoes. Sara thinks a row for each of us if I keep this child. Rachel grabs two shoes and runs down the stairs and runs into the bathroom and throws up in the sink. Sara feels the flutter again but it feels like bubbles this time. Rachel flushes the toilet to cover the sound of her gagging. Sara’s daughters pat down the soil over the beans with their fingers small and gentle and active and dirty and lively as earthworms. Rachel’s mother passes the bathroom door on her way upstairs with an armful of laundry up to her eyeballs and she hears the plumbing humming and she says, Rachel? Sara’s daughters throw dirt clods at each other. Out in a minute Mum, says Rachel rinsing out the towel with which she cleaned the sink. Sara’s daughters wander off behind the house and Sara on her hands and knees in the dirt watches them go. Rachel washes her face and pinches her cheeks to get her color back. Sara presses her hand against her belly. Rachel slips out the back door and runs down the street and just as Sara stands up in her garden she sees Rachel flash past as leggy and free as a young deer and Rachel sees Sara as strong and wise as the sea. Rachel’s mother comes back down the stairs and says, Rachel? and then notices two mismatched shoes under the sink in the bathroom and a moist towel folded on the edge of the tub.

12.

After Michael the cop comes for the man in the big brown coat and Worried Man and Cedar drive the girl who is indeed twelve years old to the doctor’s for an examination and a night’s sleep in the doctor’s custody it is dusk and they are famished and drained and they head home to Maple Head who is stirring a stunning stew and there are two loaves of fresh bread on the windowsill and she says grinning to Cedar, where are my fresh salmonberries old man?

But when the two men sit exhausted at the table and explain their afternoon she stops grinning and the meal is quiet.

Near the end of the meal Worried Man begins to say something and completely loses track of his thought and he sits there startled and blank. Maple Head leads him over to the couch and says, you are exhausted love, you lie down for a few minutes, just close your eyes, there you go, just let go, we’ll knock off the dishes, just rest a minute, there you go, and he drifts off in seconds, her hands cupping his face.

When she turns back to the kitchen table she sees Cedar with his head in his hands.

That bad? she says quietly.

This one got me, May, says Cedar, looking up. That girl’s face.

You did the right thing.

I couldn’t stop hitting the guy, May. I really hurt him.

She sits down and cups his hands in her hands.

I’m worried, May. I’m getting too angry. I can’t let go of things. If I feel they are wrong I can’t let go of them. Billy was right about that time we went to talk to Grace. I embarrassed her. I said things I should never have said. I’m not her father or brother or lover. I am no one to her. I’m no one. I have no right. You have to love someone before you can say something searing. Isn’t that right? You have to love people to hurt them. Isn’t that right? I’m getting too angry. I’m doing too much work. We’re starting to do more things maybe than we should. Billy tried to talk to me about it but I wouldn’t listen. I don’t know when to stop.

She says nothing but holds his hands and stares in his eyes.

I’m no cop, he says. I’m no judge. I’m the public works guy. Sewers and water mains. Highway maintenance and storm drains. That’s what we are supposed to do, not fix people’s lives. Billy’s right. I got some kind of god complex or something.

Cedar, says Maple Head.

What am I doing, May?

Cedar. You did the right thing. You saved that girl.

Billy saved that girl, May. He smelled her pain from half a mile away. He knew. All I did was run. All I did was break the guy’s face with a rake. That wasn’t hard. That was easy. That was too easy. It’s easy to hurt someone. I’m good at that. I was real good at that once, remember?

Who was the man? she says, changing the subject.

Her
father
. The guy is her
father
, May. Michael told us the story. The kid is always calling in sick to school. She goes to school two towns over. No one knows them here. The mother left and the girl stayed with the father. There’s no other family. There’s no neighbors down there in Trailer Town. That kid was skinny, too, May. Too skinny. She looks like a ghost. She’s just a kid.

How long will she be at the doctor’s?

Michael didn’t know. Could be a while. The father’s at the county jail and he’s not coming back for a while. Could be a long while. If ever.

I’ll go visit her. I was going to tuck Daniel in anyway. Want to come?

I’m beat, May. I’ll bump off the dishes and keep an eye on your man there.

She stands up to go.

You’re doing the right thing, Cedar, she says quietly.

I always thought I was, May. I really did. All I wanted was to take care of things. To make them right. To make them okay. To protect people. To be there when it counted. To
be
there. Billy and me. We were a team. He smelled trouble and I solved trouble. But even Billy looks at me funny now. He thinks I’m trying too hard. But I can’t let go. I can’t stop. But I’m getting too angry. But who will take care of things if I don’t do it?

People are stronger than you think, Cedar. People can take care of themselves more than you think.

Could that kid take care of her trouble, May?

Maple Head gets her coat.

What am I going to do, May?

You’re going to help Billy to bed when he wakes up.

Who will take care of kids like that, May?

You can’t take care of everyone, she says, pausing at the door.

Then who will, May?

13.

The girl twelve years old is sitting with the doctor. Her name is Kristi. He has examined her thoroughly and she is mortified. He is silent. She gets dressed. He fills out pages and pages of forms and reports and assessments. She sits primly. His pen scritches and scratches. She ties her sneakers again and again.

Are you hungry, Kristi? he asks.

I could eat.

Would you like a pear?

I could eat.

He cuts two pears into cubes and they eat.

What is going to happen to me? she says.

Well, you get to live here for a while.

With you?

I live downstairs. You’ll be in a room on this floor. Your own room. With a lock on the door.