The Book of Ruth (26 page)

It wasn’t too long after our sickness that I found out. We were going along, having our silent suppers, but it wasn’t like we were at the end of our ropes any more. We were tired and quiet. We were sick to death of winter and our fighting. I was at Trim ’N Tidy one day, watching the stains go by me, the dirt and grease speckling the clothes, and a wave came over me. There wasn’t any way my breakfast was going to remain in my stomach. I started staggering around the back room. Artie came to me, grabbed my elbow, and said, “What’s the matter, sweetie?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and then for no reason I sat down and cried, again, for about the billionth time that year. It seemed to me that I was weeping for the race of man, for everyone who had ever lived through adolescence and marriage and then died. I went into the restroom, just in time, and of course after the vomiting I had to cry some more, leaning over the sink. Artie demanded that I call the doctor at the clinic. He stood next to me while I explained over the phone that I couldn’t hold anything down in my stomach, and he made me ask if it was food poisoning on account of sharing Louise’s old hard-boiled Easter eggs.

The doctor asked me some questions and then he said, “It sounds to me like what you have is a baby, Mrs. Dahl.”

“No,” I said. “No.” I turned away from Artie and whispered into the receiver, “I’ve only been married six months.”

“That’s about how long it takes,” he said.

For some reason it never occurred to me that it was a baby inside making me sick, because all the time I had been trying to keep track of May and Ruby. That was an enormous job. I didn’t think of anything else but our relationships together. Also, expert Ruby said I wouldn’t get pregnant if I washed myself off very carefully.

Artie must have guessed because he slowly backed off from the phone and left me alone.

A few days later I had an appointment at the clinic. Louise had to go to town so she drove me in during lunch. They took blood and wished me luck. I couldn’t wait for the nurses to tell me the news—I suspended myself for three days like I was a hung garment in the closet. I didn’t think of one single thing except the baby inside me. I knew it was there; I knew absolutely that’s why I felt so sad one minute and then the next like I was a rocket going straight up to the sword of Orion, one of my favorite places. I didn’t tell anyone about the possibility. Finally they called me at work and said the test was accurate: I was going to have a baby.

Naturally, I instantly sat down and bawled. I was thinking about the night our baby probably came to life, when we were both loaded up to our eyeballs. I wondered if that meant it was going to be born drunk, if it would come out without the capacity to imagine and remember. It was Artie who came to me again, and I couldn’t help telling him. He seemed to know everything. He said that most new mothers worried that their babies were going to come out mooing like a cow or squawking like a chicken. I suddenly loved him so much, not only because he was short with a little round head and hair so thin it looked like a cloud traveling over his skull, but because he patted my hand and said, “Don’t worry.” He looked me in the eye and said, “No more liquor, no more smokes.” Then he laughed and said, “Why ain’t I in the medical profession?”

I nodded my head and said he could be my doctor any old day.

I swear it had been raining solid through March and now into April. Perhaps it was just my spirit. The fields were so muddy they beckoned me each day to sink in and wait for the day when I could sprout along with the plants, start a whole new life. But the afternoon I found out and Artie said I shouldn’t worry, the sun appeared, there was steam pouring off the fields, and the air was warm. I couldn’t believe my luck.

I came home, went straight into the living room and announced, “Ruby, we are going to celebrate,” and he said, “Great, baby,” without asking what it was for. He didn’t care, as long as he could be giddy and party. I told May matter-of-factly that we were taking the car. I didn’t give her a chance to come out of shock and say, “No you don’t.”

We went to Audrey’s and when we were seated I said, “Ruby, I’m not supposed to drink beer.”

“Really, baby? That don’t sound like too much fun.”

“Guess why,” I said.

He was trying to figure out the menu. He couldn’t think of a reason.

I reached over and held his hand; I said, “You and me, Ruby, we’re going to have a little baby.”

His eyes just about popped out of his sockets while that slow smile spread over his face. He asked me, “What did you say?” and I told him again. I showed him about where it was inside me, way down by my fly.

He got so excited he knocked over his water glass. He whispered, “We’re going to have a jungle baby?” He made his fingers dance all over the place mats to his favorite song that goes Do-do-doot-do-doot.

Then he told the waitress his wife was PG. He said he was the father and he asked her what we should name it. I laughed at Ruby, asking the dumb waitress what we’re going to name our own baby. When we finished our supper Ruby came over and held my elbow while I stood up. He was already being sweet and careful with me. He kept saying, “Baby, you got a person inside you. I wish I could peek in there and see what it’s up to.”

We walked in the kitchen at home looking so happy, I know we did, and May said, “What’s going on with you two? You got some big secret?”

And Ruby blurted out, “She’s gonna have a baby!” He said so nicely to May, “Hey, Ma, that means you’re a grandmother.”

She sat down. She didn’t know what to make of it. I took out a minuscule T-shirt I’d got at the grocery store and I said, “Look, Ma, look at how small it’s going to be.”

She didn’t say anything for three days. I was so nervous in front of her I didn’t know where to look when she was in the room. I tiptoed and knocked over vases. I couldn’t tell if she was mad or what. On Sunday, after church, she cut the first tulips. We were all sure winter was truly over. She came in the kitchen with tulips and a gift box. She handed the present to me and said, “Don’t just sit there, open it.”

I did without saying a word. It was a yellow fuzzy suit that keeps babies toasty.

“See what I got for my grandson?” she said, wiping her nose. She already had it figured out. It was going to be a boy.

B
Y
the time the month of May came and there were purple and red tulips and yellow daffodils all over the lawn, and the grass was so lush and green I half hoped someone would put me out to pasture, we had a better attitude about living together on the planet. We weren’t burning oil to keep us warm. Everything we needed, it seemed, was right out the back door. May and Ruby and I now had the habit of sitting at supper with the kitchen door open, the smells of the steaming ground coming in, and we talked about what the baby was going to be like. We couldn’t be quiet at the table because we had stories to tell. We were planning together. We were in the future together. We bought wallpaper with clowns on it for the nursery—May bargained with the lady at the hardware store and got it cheap. She repeatedly described how she had had her babies: all of a sudden giving birth was the biggest drama May had ever lived through. She talked about her infants as if they were dear and long dead. She didn’t make the connection that I was what sprang out of her.

She said perhaps the baby would have an enormous intelligent brain like Matt’s, and he would achieve in school—wouldn’t we be surprised? Ruby, sucking up his macaroni from his spoon, said the baby was going to be a baseball star. He’d play on the Cubs team, make them Cubbies win.

I sat back and grinned at them both, the way they were carrying on. I had to ask, “What if it’s a girl?”

Ruby took a bite of the peanut butter sandwich he had on the side, and he said with his mouth full, “A girl can play on the Cubs too.” May snickered and said, “Don’t kid yourself, Buster, they don’t let girls do one thing except wash uniforms and clean out the shower stalls.”

I felt lousy half the time but I tried to shrug it off. I kept telling myself that I was going to get a baby out of the arrangement. I sat by the window pretending I was on an ocean vessel. I imagined I was on a cruise with fancy food prepared by experts. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t eat any of it, even though the waiters offered me shrimp from a silver platter. I was thankful to be on the boat, rocking back and forth, looking out to the sparkly blue water. I tried to think those voyage thoughts when I felt seasick, all day long.

I sat in the window and watched Ruby helping May rake up last year’s leaves. She gave orders and he did just what she said. He had the humiliation buried away. He was practically enthusiastic. I suppose they had a common purpose. He hardly missed any spots that she said to rake clean. He took care of the chickens too, after I told him the feel of the warm eggs made me gag. He said, “Baby, don’t you lift one of them little white fingers of yours, I’m going to take care of the hens.”

Ruby and May weren’t hugging each other after long absences but they seemed to be making a special effort while I was upstairs in the bathroom waiting to heave. He still did the things that irked May—she hated the way he came down the stairs in the morning with nothing on except a towel wrapped around his waist. His eyes weren’t open yet. She looked every which way around him. Possibly Daisy was right: perhaps if May had glanced at near-naked Ruby she would have knocked him down, ripped off his towel, and forced herself. Maybe she was lusty. She didn’t really seem in the market for such things but perhaps when I’m an advanced age I’ll understand. He left eggshells on the counter and the cereal box out; there was usually a puddle of milk by his glass, and a licked jelly spoon in the puddle. He isn’t the tidiest person we ever met. She hated the way he dumped into the chair and turned on the TV. Still, she had something else to occupy her mind now. She didn’t have to concentrate on Ruby’s mess, and since I was home more I could clean up after him, hide the traces. He wasn’t actually what you’d call a slob, that much, he just didn’t notice items if they were out of place.

Maybe we were all feeling extra-generous and trying to shape up a little since in the future we were going to have to be examples. It could have been my hormones crisscrossing through my body in massive doses, but I felt a lot sorrier for people than usual. One day in the early summer, I walked into the Footes’ house, and I could tell instantly that one of the Foote children had done something seriously wrong. Dee Dee had her head set tight into her neck and her shoulders came up to her ears. She was furiously balling up cookie dough and splatting it on her trays. She had three earthenware bowls filled with dough; she had all the greased trays lined up in a row. I wasn’t about to tangle with her so I walked past her into the living room. Daisy was home from Peoria for a week, sewing padding into the top of her swimming suit.

I raised my eyebrows to ask her what was going on.

“You don’t want to know,” she said, glad for the opportunity to tell me. “Randall’s got a girlfriend.” She looked straight at me. “She lives over on the Kates’ old place.”

Naturally I was surprised. Furthermore, I didn’t know there was anyone eligible living there. I started to ask who but Daisy said, “Baaaaaaaaa.”

I stood staring while Daisy stuck her tongue into her cheek to keep from laughing. It didn’t take me long to understand. Ruby had told me the plots of the movies he and Randall loved to drool over. I nodded my head and went out the front door.

I walked for a long time before I saw him. He was in the cemetery, sitting on a large rectangular gravestone. His knees came up to his chin.

“Move over,” I said. He did. “Just a little more.”

He moved around the corner and we sat back touching back.

“I never thought anyone was going to like me,” I said. “I know I ain’t pretty.” I felt his back sink into mine a little. “But I got taken by surprise, and I bet some time you might be surprised too.”

When he started to cry I got up and went around to his side. I kneeled down and kissed him on his fat wet lips. I moved his hair out of his eyes as tenderly as I could and felt along his bristly cheek. Then I kissed him again. He kept his eyes closed. “You sure are a handsome fat man,” I said.

“Naw,” he said, looking sideways and wiping the tears from his cheeks. “One more,” I said, kissing him again. “Now. Go home to your mother. She’s got some cookies for you.”

I got up and walked away, and when I turned around I saw him lumbering in the other direction. He moved slowly because if he walked quickly his thighs rubbing together probably would have started a fire. He took up so much space cars passing him swerved way over to the other side of the road. For the first time, watching him lug his body home, I felt how lonesome he would always be.

Dee Dee and Randall came every day that summer because May and Dee Dee were making a quilt for the baby. Randall was hanging around a lot more than usual, watching the ladies sew. I could tell that May was looking out for him too. She made sure his plate was always full and she patted him on the back. He had his stool drawn up to the table, and with his change purse in his clutches he pored over his
Mad
magazines. They all sat in the dining room with the fan blowing on them, Dee Dee’s behind lapping over the edge of her stool, and she and May talked about babies for hours. They talked without listening to each other, about how it was when they raised theirs up. Even then I knew they had amnesia: they were talking with fondness in their voices. They recalled how a baby’s neck smells, and how it gurgles. They laughed at the way toddlers can wreck a house if you let them. I lay on the sofa feeling the glow of pride creep all the way up to my forehead. I was doing something they were awfully excited about and they didn’t try to hide it Dee Dee missed the world of infants because her daughter Lou had given up Midnight Star Sandra Dee when she realized having a baby wasn’t a picnic, even if she was the only mother in the sophomore class She went South gave it up for adoption and moved into a house with a lot of girls. She sent word that she was working long night shifts waitressing but Daisy had a theory about the true nature of her long nights. Dee Dee blew her nose and frowned every time she thought about Lou. Her breasts heaved so that the dress zipper down her front undid itself an inch or two.