Once Upon a River (36 page)

“I didn’t think you’d do it,” Fishbone said, putting out his little cigar in the truck’s ashtray.

Margo knew there was no sense trying to explain why she’d left, since she wasn’t sure herself. She crossed her arms.

“You need to go see your mother, young lady.”

Margo uncrossed her arms, opened her wallet, and took out the address and the section of map that showed the way to her mother’s house.

• Chapter Twenty •

“Your ma a rich lady?” Fishbone asked as they pulled up in front of the house that matched the address Margo had been carrying around with her for a year and a half. A month ago, she’d finally cashed her mother’s money order.

Fishbone said, “I wouldn’t guess it by you.”

“I wish I had my rifle,” Margo said.

“Not in this neighborhood, young lady. Rich folks get uneasy about poor folks carrying firearms.”

He waited alongside the road in the truck while Margo walked up the shoveled concrete path and rang the doorbell. In the driveway was a shiny white car. When someone opened the front door a few inches, Fishbone pulled away. Margo felt a cold panic rush through her.

“Who is it?” said a woman’s voice, through the opening.

“Is that you, Ma?” Margo took off her stocking cap so that her mother would recognize her.

“Margaret Louise?”

Margo stepped back as her mother closed, unchained, and then opened the door.

“I wrote to you, Margaret,” she said, looking beyond Margo, searching the driveway and the road, “and told you it wasn’t a good idea to come yet.”

“Daddy’s dead,” Margo said. Her own words struck her with the force and urgency of a revelation. She had never mentioned her father in the letters she’d sent to Luanne, nor had Luanne mentioned him in the notes she’d sent in return. Luanne’s face lost all expression, and Margo wished she could take back the words. “I’m sorry, Ma,” she said. “I didn’t mean to say it that way.”

Her mother remained motionless, didn’t even blink. Margo thought she might crack like a dish.

“I’m okay, Mom. Really.” Margo had never called her mother “Mom” before. It had always been “Mama” or “Ma,” but she wanted to sound like a normal kid.

Luanne glanced behind her, into the house, and said with a sigh, “I heard about the accident six months after the fact. I should have come to you, but it seemed too late.”

“It’s okay.” Margo smoothed her own hair, all the way down her braid. She tried to soothe her mother with her voice. “I’m all right.”

“I figured Cal and Joanna would take care of you.” Luanne cleared her throat, and her voice grew in strength. “You practically lived at their house, anyway.”

“Yes,” Margo said. She forced herself to smile.

“Come in,” Luanne said, just when Margo thought she couldn’t hold her face that way any longer. “It’s been a long time without seeing my girl. You took me by surprise.” Luanne began to smile.

Margo would have liked a couple of days to sit quietly, study the new surroundings. Before talking, she would have liked to walk away from the flat-roofed house and then turn around and look at it from a distance, study its big windows, its sand-colored wooden siding, the evergreen bushes trimmed flat along the front of the house, and the two cone-shaped pines nearer the curb, dark against the snow-covered lawn. She would have liked to walk around the house and down to the water, so she could squat and study the surface of the lake for the rest of the day. She would have liked to observe her mother from a distance, to catch glimpses of her through the windows and get used to her movements before facing her this way.

Instead, Margo followed Luanne through a big kitchen with a shining white floor and into a carpeted living room with floor-to-
ceiling windows providing a panoramic view of the lake. In the far corner of the living room was a Christmas tree evenly decorated with silver garlands, red bulbs, white blinking lights, and some painted wooden ornaments. Margo walked to the window. The expanse of the lake, a mile across, according to the map, made her mind go blank. She had a lot of questions to ask her mother, but couldn’t think of any of them.

“I missed you, Mom,” she said, looking out at the lake. “I’m so glad to see you.”

“You know I wanted to see you, Margaret. You know I would have given anything to see you, but it wasn’t the right time.”

“Why not?”

“When I met Roger, I told him I didn’t have any children. Now, if I change my story, he’ll think I’m a liar. Roger’s my new husband.” Her voice cracked. “He’s a lot of fun, a great guy, just a little opinionated.”

The lake was the color of a heron’s blue-gray wing. There was an island way out there in the middle of the water. Margo wished she were rowing her mother out to it in a boat.

“Oh, Margaret. I really am glad to see you.” Luanne walked over and wrapped her arms around Margo, hugged her long and hard. Margo remembered the way her ma had wrapped the jungle towel around her on the dock, but in her mother’s embrace, Margo now stiffened. She searched for the smell of cocoa butter beneath the scent of her mother’s herbal perfume. When Luanne pulled away, tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I didn’t want to leave you, Margaret Louise. Sit down with me.”

Margo followed her mother to the couch, took off her jacket, and folded it over her knees.

“I haven’t cried in a while,” Luanne said, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “Roger’s away until Friday. He’s working in New Jersey, just coming home on the weekends. That means I can run around as much as I like, so long as I keep a low profile.”

“You have a nice Christmas tree,” Margo said. She wondered if Smoke would like a tree in his house.

“It’s a fake one. Remember how your daddy always cut a tree that was too big for the living room so it was bent over? What did you used to put on the top of it, that cross of sticks wrapped with yarn?”

“A God’s eye,” Margo said. Joanna had told her that a homemade God’s eye allowed God to watch over the family. Luanne’s tree had a silver-and-glass star on the top with a light inside. Margo leaned back on the couch and was amazed at how soft it was, how the cushions embraced and supported her. She wanted to pet the velvety fabric like a dog’s fur. A tear dripped from her cheek onto the fabric of the couch before she even realized she was crying. She wiped her face. Luanne pushed a box of tissues toward her.

“What do you think of the lake?” Luanne asked.

“It’s big,” Margo said. “It’s nice.”

“I knew you’d love it. Can you believe this house?” Luanne gestured around the big room, at the tall windows, white-painted walls hung with black-and-white photographs of what at first appeared to be beach landscapes, but were actually close-ups of women’s bodies. The big fireplace with the marble mantel was swept clean, as though it had never contained a fire, and sitting on the mantel were a few abstract sculptures in sandy colors. The thick off-white carpeting had not a stain on it. Luanne nodded toward the lake. “See how beautiful the view is? Roger fusses about goose poop on the lawn, but it doesn’t bother me. He runs out and chases them away when they show up.”

“I’m pregnant,” Margo blurted out. That word felt ugly and dishonest in her mouth.

“What? No. Oh, no. Sweetie. How far along are you?”

“Three months.”

“You’re not even showing. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. I know I didn’t take care of you when I should have, but I will now. Are you feeling sick in the mornings?”

“Not anymore.”

“Whose is it?” Luanne asked. “Is the guy in the picture?”

“He’s gone.”

“I guess we women have to take care of ourselves.” Luanne studied Margo beside her. “God, you’re beautiful, Margaret. I was so depressed back in Murrayville, I don’t think I even looked at you the last few years I was there.”

“Joanna always said being beautiful was a curse.”

“She would say that,” Luanne said. “Being beautiful should be fun.”

“I’m hungry, Ma,” Margo said.

“Of course you’re hungry. You’re eighteen. And you’re pregnant. I was pregnant when I was eighteen.” Luanne stood and Margo followed her into the kitchen.

“I haven’t eaten yet today.”

“Roger eats at work, and I try not to keep much food in the house when he’s gone, so I’m not tempted by it. Here’s something.” She pulled a metal can of cheese spread out of the refrigerator and put out some crackers. When Margo picked up the can and looked at it, Luanne took it from her, removed the lid, and sprayed orange cheese onto one of the crackers. Margo carried the plate and the can into the living room, and they sat on the luxurious couch. Margo ate one cheese cracker after another, enjoying the surging water sound of the spray. She offered the plate to her ma. Luanne shook her head.

“I talked to Aunt Joanna a few months ago,” Margo said. “She thought maybe I could stay with her at the house and finish school.”

“Poor Joanna. What a life she’s got. Do you want to finish school?”

Margo shook her head.

“I didn’t, either. You know I was only seventeen when I married your father.”

“Joanna had another baby. Another boy.”

“Christ. She’s got to be forty. How’d Cal talk her into that? Six kids. Six boys.” She laughed.

Margo startled at the sound of the name
Cal
spoken so casually. Brian had said it with such venom, Joanna with such reverence. This way of saying his name made more sense with the weakened version of Cal she had seen. “It’s a Down’s baby,” Margo said.

“Down’s baby?”

“They had to get rid of all the dogs, even Moe, because they made the baby cry. Billy said the baby’s a retard.”

“Oh,
Down’s syndrome
. Like a Mongoloid. Joanna has her work cut out for her. Good thing she’s such a hard worker.”

“If I stayed, I could have helped with the baby.”

“Good thing you got out of there. She’d have worked you to death, sweetie.”

“I don’t mind working hard.”

“What about fun? What about pleasure? I think those things are the purpose of life. Women like Joanna find that view distasteful.”

Margo shrugged.

“But I do work hard, in a way. Nowadays I have to work hard to look young. Even a fifty-year-old man like Roger, who can’t tolerate children, expects me to look like a teenager.” Luanne laughed. She took hold of Margo’s hand and held it for a moment. “I forgot how quiet and serious you are. You look so pretty that people probably don’t mind you don’t have anything to say.”

Margo watched gulls skim the water outside and land near shore. She wondered if they could stay on the lake all winter.

Annie Oakley’s mother had not wanted her to come home at first; she had wanted to send her daughter back to the wolves. Annie won her way into her mother’s home through the hard work of hunting and trapping, by being able to support the whole family, including her mother’s new husband. There was no wood to chop here, though, no food to kill and gut, nothing obviously in need of repair. Margo was missing the weight of her gun, and had to lift the tension out of her shoulders. She said, “I can help you do anything you need done around here.”

“I just can’t believe you’re here. Right here with me. Like a ghost. Like somebody from a past life.” The television was on. It had been on when Margo entered, and it seemed to grow louder as the minutes passed. “You can stay here . . .” Luanne said. “I guess until about six o’clock Friday when Roger gets home. I’ll make you an appointment with the doctor.”

Margo hadn’t realized she was holding her breath. “I went to the clinic today, but I left.”

“Why’d you leave?”

Margo shrugged.

“So tell me. Where are you living now?” Luanne asked. “Your letter said you were only twenty-some miles away.”

“On the river.” Margo gathered herself. “I trap muskrats like Grandpa taught me, and I sell their skins. And I fish. And there’s this big black dog I love named Nightmare. He looks like the Murrays’ dog Moe.”

“You skin animals?” Luanne slowly asked and then laughed. “Your dad asked me to cook him a rabbit once. This was when you were little. So I boiled it with the hair on and the guts inside. I knew I was supposed to skin it and gut it for him, but I figured if I cooked it whole, he’d never ask me to do it again. I smiled when I served it to him.” Luanne left the room and returned with two cups of black coffee.

Margo tried to take a sip, but it was too hot. “Dad always said you couldn’t boil water.”

When her mother sat down again, she asked, “Okay, you live on the river. What else?”

“This guy, Fishbone, taught me to skin a muskrat in two minutes.” She held up two fingers and repeated with emphasis, “Two minutes. It was incredible.”

“It’s almost Christmas,” Luanne said. “I want to buy you a present. What would you like?”

Margo shrugged.

“Seriously. You must need something.”

“Socks,” she said. “Ammo.”

“Maybe some nice underwear. That makes anybody feel better.” Luanne’s smile was the one in all those photos. Only it no longer looked fake—it was her real smile. Luanne sipped from her coffee. “Too bad it’s not summer. You could swim in the pool. Come look at it with me.”