Sound Of Gravel, The (12 page)

“When we joined your dad’s church,” Grandpa added, “we had no idea how hard a polygamist’s life would be. I grew up in the LDS Mormon Church, and I always believed in its teachings. When your dad and Ervil showed up in Utah where we were livin’, they asked all the right questions about Church doctrine, and I really believed they were right. And when your dad preached, it felt like anything was possible, like God was speaking right to you.”

“Oh, I never believed in any of it,” Grandma interrupted. “That ol’ Ervil; I never liked the crazy look in his eyes. If you ask me, he was always a big nut. But he knew every scripture in the Bible and the Book of Mormon by heart. He was a big talker and he could argue any point about religion anyone ever asked him. He was like a genius.” Grandma sighed, as if remembering something sad. “And your dad had so many wives and kids competing for his time. But your mom was never the squeaky wheel. She was the easiest baby and the quietest child. She never complained. Never asked for anything. Never. Bless her sweet heart. Everyone around her was always askin’ for stuff, whinin’ and complainin’, but not your mama. She always got lost in the background, and I think sometimes she got overlooked, and somehow, for some reason, she just didn’t think she deserved any better than what those worthless old men gave to her, which wasn’t much.”

“Awe, Tressie. Come on now. That’s Ruthie’s daddy you’re talkin’ about,” Grandpa said, trying to shush Grandma. He always wanted Grandma to be more careful about what she said around my siblings and me, but Grandma was outspoken and opinionated. It was part of what made me interested in what she had to say. Grandma was always talking about how terrible my dad’s church was. We all knew she disagreed with his teachings. Grandma vowed that she never converted to fundamentalist Mormonism, although once Grandpa became a convert, she had acceded to his demand that Mom and her sisters be raised in the Church of the Firstborn.

“Well, it’s the truth, and you know it is.” Grandma looked me straight in the eyes. “We shoulda never let her marry your dad. She was too young. Only seventeen years old. But she wanted to marry the prophet, and we had no idea how much sufferin’ and hardship that was gonna bring her. We didn’t want her to marry Lane either, but she was dead set on it. All her sisters had left and stayed away from the Church. We all tried to talk her out of it. We would have done anything to help her. But after she married Lane, we figured the best thing was to let her get on with her life. So I guess that’s why we stopped visitin’, Ruthie.”

Hearing all this, I couldn’t help but feel sad. Sure our lives in LeBaron had been hard—our house was cold and small and nothing in it ever worked—but we were living for God’s purpose. I didn’t like that my grandparents didn’t believe what my mom did. What if when they died, they didn’t get to go to heaven? I thought about how sad that must make Mom, and I made a silent promise to try to be better for her. She didn’t ask for my dad to be killed, but he had been, and now her family had left the church. I vowed I’d be better about listening to her and doing what she asked, even when that meant cleaning up after and taking care of my siblings, which wasn’t much fun.

Grandma stood up and took the dishes to the sink. “Ready to read, Ruthie?” Grandpa asked. I loved going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house after school because, in addition to my talks with them, Grandpa would read to me. He and I had just started
Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors,
a book I had chosen from the Scholastic Book Club because of its shiny purple cover.

As Grandpa began reading to me about Joseph’s older brothers selling him into slavery, the phone rang in the living room. Grandma answered it.

“Hello.… Oh, hi, Kathy. How’s it goin’?” Grandma smiled and winked at me from behind her bifocals. “Yes, she’s sittin’ right here with Grandpa. You wanna talk to her?” Grandma didn’t hand me the phone. “Well, all right, I’ll tell her.” She hung up. “Ruthie girl, your mama wants ya to go on home now.”

Mom didn’t usually make me go home that early, so I knew something was going on. I got a sick feeling in my stomach, one that stuck with me during the half hour it took me to walk back to the house. Was Meri okay? I wondered. Had Audrey thrown another tantrum? As I rounded the corner onto our street, I told myself that I was probably just imagining things, that there was nothing to worry about.

Then I saw Lane’s white truck parked in the driveway.

13

I had to will my body across the porch, with its flecks of red paint peeling off the cement. I could hear
Scooby-Doo
playing on the TV, and sure enough I found Matt, Luke, and Aaron inside, sprawled out on the living-room floor. I walked right past them, deciding to put my school things in my room. The house smelled like Mom’s sweet spaghetti sauce and chocolate cake. It couldn’t be cake, I thought. Mom never baked unless it was someone’s birthday. As I passed Mom’s room, I could hear giggling from behind her door. How could she be happy to see the man who had beat her? I felt sick.

“Ruthie?” Mom called out. “Is that you, Sis?” I stared at the door. “Come on in here. Your daddy wants to say hi to you.” I wanted to run as far and as fast as I could. Instead, slowly, and full of dread, I pushed the door open. She was lying on her bed with Lane, the two of them entwined on top of her wine-colored comforter. Meri was sleeping soundly at the foot of the bed.

Mom had her hair curled back and was wearing her mascara and pearl-pink lipstick. She rested her head on Lane’s chest, nuzzling his blue-and-gray-plaid cowboy shirt, which barely covered his belly. My eyes fixated on his belt, which I had last seen landing on my mom’s bare stomach with a skin-splitting smack.

“Hey, how ya doin’?” Lane asked casually, smiling so wide his crow’s-feet wrinkled back into the sides of his short, damp hair. It looked as if Mom had just cut his hair and trimmed his sideburns. She and Lane were acting as if nothing were different, as if we had never even left LeBaron.

“Good,” I replied vacantly. “I’m gonna go put my stuff away, ’kay?” Mom nodded. I couldn’t get out of that room quick enough.

My confusion and discomfort were even worse at dinner, which Mom treated like a celebration. A fresh chocolate cake with thick, creamy frosting sat on the kitchen counter next to an empty box of Betty Crocker cake mix. Mom mixed a large pitcher of orange Kool-Aid and dramatically placed it in the center of the table. My brothers and I just looked at each other. We were each given large plates of spaghetti with side salads made of bagged iceberg lettuce with shredded carrots and blue-cheese dressing. I felt as if my mom had gone crazy.

The dressing made the salad smell like mold, and my already queasy stomach was doing backflips. “I’m not hungry,” I said to Mom. “Can I be excused?”

Lane answered for her. “No, you may not. You eat everything on your plate. It’s a sin to waste food, Ruthie.”

I looked over at Mom, who had now finished dishing out everyone’s supper. She smiled as she set the remaining spaghetti in the center of the table by the Kool-Aid, then she sat right next to Lane at the head of the table. He bowed his head to thank the Lord above for the food, this wonderful healthy family, and for blessing him with so many wives and children, amen. I didn’t know what to think. I couldn’t remember the last time we had said grace.

We opened our eyes and picked up our forks. Only Audrey did not participate, bobbing back and forth in her chair and staring at some spot over my shoulder. The Kool-Aid sloshed in our glasses each time her rib cage slammed into the table. Lane stared at the unused fork by her plate as if it were a personal affront.

“That’s how she always is now,” Mom said quietly. It was true. By then, it had become a struggle just to get Audrey to drink a glass of water. Mom had been making regular trips to the hospital to get Audrey fed intravenously.

Lane told Mom that Audrey was just being stubborn. “I’ll handle this,” he said, and directed Mom to switch places with him.

“Sit still and eat your spaghetti, Audrey,” Lane said to her as though she were just a typical unruly child who could be coaxed into right behavior with firm treatment. Audrey stopped rocking for a few seconds, but then resumed banging the table with more force than before. Lane grabbed her arm roughly, as if to force her to stay still. Audrey stared down at his hand. She never liked being touched, much less like that, and she clenched her teeth, spreading her lips wide-open and expelling her familiar moan.

“Hey, now, you knock that off!” Lane shouted. Everyone went still, the tapping of forks against plates coming to a sudden halt. Then, noticing that everyone at the table was watching him, Lane let Audrey’s arm go and switched to a less threatening approach. “Take just one bite of your spaghetti, Audrey. You need to eat at least some of your dinner.” He picked up a piece of garlic bread and held it to her lips. “Come on, take a bite. It’s not gonna hurt ya.”

Audrey pursed her lips and her face remained blank. She didn’t even look at the bread. “Take a bite, Audrey!” Lane said louder. He glanced over at Mom.

She nodded knowingly. “I told you. She won’t eat anything. I don’t know what I’m gonna do with her.” Mom went back to her salad, took a bite, and shook her head.

Next, Lane lifted a forkful of sauce-covered spaghetti to Audrey’s mouth. Nothing. “I said to take a bite!” he yelled into her ear. Audrey began to bob forward and backward again. Lane shot up from his chair, positioned himself behind Audrey, and held her motionless by wrapping one arm around her neck and shoulders so he could use the other to shove a fork between her closed lips.

“Take a bite!” he screamed again. I couldn’t watch, but when I closed my eyes, all I heard was the sound of metal poking against teeth. Then a chair slid back from the table and I looked up again. I was dumbfounded: Mom was rushing to help Lane, not Audrey.

“Kathy, you take the fork and try to feed her,” he directed, passing Mom the fork. My brothers and I watched as the two of them tried to force spaghetti down Audrey’s throat. Lane grabbed Audrey’s hair and pulled it back. She had to squint from the bright light above the table.

“I don’t know what to do, Lane,” I heard Mom say.

“I’m gonna try and open her mouth. You feed her.” With the violence of a strangler, Lane tried with all his might to pry Audrey’s jaws apart, his big fingers obscuring her face as the muscles in his own tightened. He wrenched my sister from side to side with so much force I thought he’d pull her head off.

Audrey won’t ever open her mouth,
I said to myself.

After a few more seconds, Mom moved the fork away and Lane let Audrey go. Her skin looked flushed, and she had droplets of blood on her lower lip where the fork had punctured it. After a moment of silence, Lane attacked Audrey with a suddenness that took everyone by surprise, Audrey included. He pulled her head back and shoved the fork in front of her eyes. “Take a bite or I’m gonna smack ya with this!” he yelled. “You hear me? You’re not leavin’ this table till you take a bite.”

Audrey recoiled and her mouth came open. Lane stabbed the fork between her lips. Her teeth clamped closed on the metal, she let out a painful moan, and then all at once and without chewing, she swallowed the spaghetti. Mom pulled the fork out, and after that Audrey’s face returned to its customary blank stare. I looked at Matt and searched for some assurance that what we’d witnessed was okay because maybe Audrey wouldn’t remember. He nodded and lowered his eyes to his plate.

“Now, that’s a good girl,” Lane said, his voice slightly shaky. He glared at me and said, “Finish your salad.” I looked at my plate, then quickly shoveled the whole mass of moldy-tasting lettuce down my throat, washing it down with the sticky, sweet Kool-Aid.

Lane stayed with us for three days. The morning before he left, he said that he needed to see me in the backyard. I hesitated but decided I’d better do as I was told, making my way through the kitchen with my head down as he followed behind me. I opened the back door, took one step down, and sat hunched on the top step with my arms folded over my knees. The sun burned through the fog, casting an eerie light on the brittle leaves of the lemon, orange, and avocado trees. Lane walked past me, then returned and sat beside me on the step.

He began by resting his arm on top of my shoulder, but I must have flinched because he quickly took it away. “Listen, your mom and I have been talkin’,” he said in a soft, want-to-be-fatherly voice. “We think it’s best for you to start comin’ home right after school and helpin’ your mom with Meri while your mom takes care of Audrey.”

My heart sank, my chin collapsed into my hands. “My grandpa is reading me a story after school,” I said, attempting to mimic Lane’s genial tone in the hopes that he might reconsider. “Can I wait till he finishes it?”

He chuckled and patted my back, a gesture that made my skin crawl. The forced smile slipped from my face, although his was still intact. “Your mom needs help. Audrey’s a handful, and we don’t exactly know what’s goin’ on with Meri, either. Your grandpa can finish the book another time.”

I remembered my vow to be better to my mom. Maybe I should start coming home after school to help out. Mom always seemed overwhelmed and exhausted. Her face was perpetually pale, her eyes red, and her voice raspy from lack of sleep. But the other part of me refused to obey Lane. He was not my father. He slipped in and out of our lives without warning, bringing disruption and terror with him every time. I looked at him with contempt.

The next thing I knew, he put his arm around my shoulder, pulled me toward him, and tried to shake the expression from my face. “What’s the matter? Come on now. Your mom needs you.” I nodded, which prompted him to pull me closer and kiss me on the cheek. I wiped my face with my sleeve, my brows twisted into a scowl. Lane got up and left me there, chuckling as he walked back into the house.

The next afternoon, I rode the bus home from school with my brothers instead of going to my grandparents’. Lane had already left by then, off to haul a load of railroad ties to Oklahoma. The phone was ringing when I walked in the house, and I continued walking while Mom answered it and explained to Grandpa that I would be coming straight home from now on. Mom then told Grandpa about some of Audrey’s and Meri’s latest episodes. The conversation continued for a few minutes, and as I disappeared into my room, I found myself perplexed by what Mom hadn’t mentioned: Lane’s visit. Of that, of the disturbing scene at dinner, of his arrival or departure, Mom said nothing.