Read The Girl from Charnelle Online
Authors: K. L. Cook
The Girl from Charnelle (17 page)
Mrs. Letig turned back to her and smiled again, wistfully. “I really liked your mother, Laura. Is it okay for me to speak of her?”
“Yes.”
“I know it can be a sensitive subject.” She glanced again at the door and then said, in a conspiratorial whisper, “And your father never talks about her.”
Laura nodded but felt a confused sense of betrayal for doing so.
“Have you ever heard from her?” Mrs. Letig asked.
“No,” Laura said nervously.
Mrs. Letig shook her head. “That's too bad. I guess we'll never know why she left. It's a terrible thing. But I want you to know that she was a⦔ She hesitated. “She
is
a good woman. It's important for you to know that, Laura. She lovedâ¦she
loves
you kids.”
Laura didn't know if she really believed that, but she felt there was something mysterious and goodhearted about Mrs. Letig's intentions. She nodded.
“Well, we never got to have that little talk. We'll have to have it when you feel better. I want you to feel free to talk to me about whatever you want.” She placed her hands on Laura's and leaned toward her earnestly. “Okay?”
Laura was disoriented for a moment, not sure what Mrs. Letig was talking about, but then remembered that before spring break she'd offered to answer Laura's questions, help her out since Gloria and her mother were no longer around.
“Yes, ma'am,” Laura said.
She found it too strange to have her mother returning through the memory of this woman. She tried not to think about her mother much, but in her dreams this week she had come, and even when Laura felt better, when she was more lucid after the fever broke, she had thought of her, remembered when her mother had been there to take care of her when she was sick. And there had been that feeling, during the worst part of the fever, of passing through a membrane to an invisible other world of memory or spirit or something else, a place where her mother seemed to be. Coming out of the fever was sometimes like passing through a dark web to the world of the living. In fact, in her dream, her mother had left those tattered webs behind her. And now there were theseâ¦these what? These
emissaries
from that other world. That's what Aunt Velma called them. These snatches of memory from the mouths of other people. “God's little signals,” Velma had said the Christmas after Uncle Unser killed himself. It made the world seem mysteriously connected, vibrating, and sometimes in weakness, in sickness, was the only time you were vulnerable enough to hear the signals, to dimly recognize the emissaries.
When Mrs. Letig spoke of her, Laura's mother seemed for a second to appear. It was both spooky and reassuring, and Laura found herself wanting
to draw close to this woman. She had the crazy urge to tell Mrs. Letig about Lake Meredith, about John. She wanted to be forgiven. She closed her eyes, and the woman reached over and kissed her forehead, and Laura could smell something so familiar that it comforted her until she suddenly realized
why
it was so familiar. It was the smell of the Letigs' bedroom closet, the hatboxes and dresses and powder and perfume.
This was foolish thinking,
absolutely crazy,
to believe that she could confide in this woman. She bit her lip.
“Hey, there,” John said.
Laura and Mrs. Letig both turned to him in what seemed like a synchronized motion. He was smiling, but there were anxious wrinkles around his eyes and lips. His hair was slicked back, and he wore a nice western shirt and black slacks, as if they had been out somewhere or were going somewhere after this visit, this courtesy. She suddenly resented them, resented them both for being here, for intruding upon her.
“Hello,” Laura said.
“How you feeling?” he asked.
“Okay,” she answered.
“Heard you've been out of it for a while.”
He stayed on the other side of the doorway. Her father stood behind him. John was nervous. This was hard for him. She could see that. But shouldn't it be hard? Her resentment passed. She felt sorry for him. Squirming there. Poor man, caught between his wife and his lover. In her mind, that word, “lover,” seemed foreign and tender and somehow pleasantly deceptive. Did he feel that what happened to herâher sicknessâwas his fault? That he was being punished? Maybe it
was
his fault. Probably not, but she was no longer sure. She'd not felt good before they went to Lake Meredith, but perhaps he'd brought it on or made it worse. Had he been squirming in his own house, guilty, feeling terrible? But she found herself hoping that he'd still want to see her, that he wouldn't be scared off. She wished she could reach out and touch him, but she knew that was impossible.
“Here,” he said and pulled a small box from behind his back and handed it to his wife, who handed it to Laura, and again she had the sensation that Mrs. Letig was an emissary, through whom gifts were being passed. Inside the box was a metal sculpture of flowers with a hummingbird at the center, its bill the only thing connecting the bird to the bouquet. The
flowers were blue, red, and yellow. The bird multicoloredâgreen, orange, yellow, purple.
She didn't know what to say.
“John made it,” Mrs. Letig said.
“The boys helped me. They said you liked hummingbirds.”
Her father looked surprised. “I didn't know you did that sort of thing, Letig.”
“Every once in a while,” he said.
“Not in a long while,” Mrs. Letig said. “Not since I was pregnant with Jack.”
“It's good,” her father said. “Isn't it, Laura?”
“Thank you,” she said. “It's beautiful.” He nodded. They stared at each other for a couple of seconds, and then he looked down shyly. “Where are Jack and Willie?” she asked.
“They wanted to come, but we left them with our neighbors,” Mrs. Letig said. “We figured there's only so much company you could take. Besides, we're heading over to the Brewers for some pinochle.”
“Tell them I said thanks.”
Mrs. Letig patted the blanket covering Laura's legs. “You're special to us, honey.”
She looked up at John. His face seemed to redden before her eyes. “Get better,” he said.
“I will. It's really beautiful.”
“Oh, now look what we've done,” Mrs. Letig said. “We've gone and made you weepy.” She pulled out a tissue from her purse and reached over and wiped the tears from beneath Laura's eyes. “You're just tired. You get some rest.”
Laura nodded.
“Good-bye, honey.” Mrs. Letig rose and straightened her dress, then reached for her husband's hand. “Come on, John,” she said. “We should go.”
He quickly glanced at Laura. She couldn't quite interpret his expression. Regret? Embarrassment? Guilt? Love? She didn't know. Just an inexplicable flicker across his face. They said good-bye again, but their voices seemed far away now. Laura could only see the Letigs' hands together, his wife leading him, like a child, away from her room.
Careful
Nature's Way
T
heir family had two dogs back then, mongrel collie mixesâFay Wray, the older female, and Greta, the only pup from Fay's last litter that they hadn't been able to give away. She had some breed mixed in that made her jumpy and snappy around anybody but the family. Laura's father had named her after Greta Garbo, who he thought was the best-looking woman he'd ever seen until he met Laura's mother. He'd always wink and smile when he said that. Mrs. Tate wouldn't look at him. She'd just knead the bread dough or fold the laundry or read Rich and Gene a story, but Laura could see her lips turn upward in the slightest smile and a pink flush spread over her neck
.
In heat, Fay would attract all the neighboring hounds and mutts and alley rovers, who would howl and paw and try to jump the rusting metal fence to get into the backyard, and sometimes they would succeed. Laura and her brothers would watch in fascination as the dogs nipped and bit at each other, the males with their extended pink penises, like flayed lizards, obscene, raw, vulnerable. If a dog got into the pen, Mr. or Mrs. Tate would be out with a broomstick or a
rake, beating the dog or shooing it away until it jumped back over the fence, sometimes with its tail between its legs, sometimes snarling at the thwarted opportunity. If Laura's parents were not there, then Manny or, before she eloped, Gloria would fight off the dogs. But on occasion they would all just watch the males tie up with Fay, panting, their tongues lolling wetly from the sides of their mouths, the other males barking and whining and pacing back and forth in the alley next to the fence, Greta either hiding in her shed or barking madly at the coupled animals
.
Laura and her brothers and sometimes the gang of freckled fools Manny ran around with would watch the dogs' ritual, laughing at first, the boys wise-cracking
âGet 'er, stud! Stick it in 'er!â
but then they would quiet down and stare with a charged stillness as the dogs labored with a persistence that seemed both grotesque and fascinating. They weren't dumb. They knew that litters resulted from these incidents and that they themselves were the result of their parents' similar activities, but it was not pleasant for them to make the connection in their heads. Laura had never been able to adequately imagine her mother and father tied up, tongues dripping, grunting mindlessly like this. To think too much about it, which she sometimes did seeing the dogs, always made her feel nauseous and sad and strangely frightened
.
When Greta first came into heat, two weeks before Easter, rather than wait for the males to jump over the fence, she dug a hole underneath and was gone. The whole family searched down alleys and gravel roads, at the pound, in the fields and parks, on the two highways leading out of Charnelle. They were sure she was lost forever, maybe dead, or had run off with a pack of coyotes. Gene and Rich cried
.
“There's nothing we can do,” Mrs. Tate said, looking out the window, her arms folded across her chest. It was dark outside, so the light reflected off the window like a mirror. From the big chair, Laura could see her mother's face clearly in the glass
.
Mr. Tate knelt down beside the couch, where the boys were sitting. “Maybe she'll come back.”
Laura's mother turned toward them. “Maybe she won't,” she said flatly
.
He gave her a sharp look. “We don't know,” he said
.
“Exactly. We
don't
know. She was difficult and a misfit, and she didn't want to be here. It's just as well that she's gone.”
“We're responsible for her,” he said
.
“No, we're not.”
“She ours. She belongs to us.”
“She doesn't belong to anyone, Zeeke.”
There was a pocket of painful silence. He rose from the couch and squared his shoulders. “She ours,” he said again
.
Laura's mother looked at him for a moment, then turned back to the window and stared into the dark yard. She didn't say anything else
.
Â
A few days after Easter, as Laura was going out to feed Fay, she found Greta whimpering by the fence, her fur matted, filthy, cockleburred. Deep, coagulated wounds were gouged in her nose and back right foot. The end of her tail and chunks from her left ear were missing. Laura, her brothers, and her mother fed and bathed the dog, tried to nurse her wounds. She bared her teeth and snapped, put marks in Manny's boots. Mrs. Tate poured some sweet rum inside a butter cake and fed it to Greta to calm her down. Then Manny stroked her coat gently as Mrs. Tate muzzled her with a leather belt so that they could finish tending to her wounds. The dog shook at first, as with a palsy, then relinquished her fear and let herself be cared for
.
When Mr. Tate returned home, he removed the muzzle and sat outside with Greta for a full two hours, stroking her, feeling for broken bones, inspecting the wounds and bandages, redoing most of it, soothing the dog with his voice. He palmed her belly, and she snapped again, but he stayed calm, told her that everything was okay, not to worry. He fed her crumbled strips of jerky from his hand, held water up to her mouth, stroked her until she fell asleep. When he came inside, he scrubbed his hands with the gritty rectangle of soap he sandpapered himself with after work. Then he ran his fingers through his pomaded hair and announced, “I think that dog's pregnant.”
“Zeeke, she's too young,” Mrs. Tate said
.
“I guess not.”
“We can't let her. She's not ready.”
“We ain't got a choice.”
“We do, too.”
He shook his head
.
Mrs. Tate stared down at the knotholes on the floor for the longest time, as if they held secrets that the family was waiting for her to decode. Then she shook her head and stared at her husband. “This is gonna turn out bad, Zeeke. I'm telling you.”
“It might calm her down,” he said
.
She said, “Mark my words.”
Â
Weeks passed. Greta's wounds healed until she was well enough to eat by herself and to get on her feet. There was something darkly troubling about the dog, and Laura found herself studying Greta, afraid both of and for her. Her teeth yellowed. She bared them constantly. Her eyes were bloodshot. Fay tried to help Greta, mothering her, licking her wounds, nuzzling her when she was ill, but once Greta grew stronger, she attacked the older dog, biting at her neck, drawing blood, sending Fay whimpering off. Mr. Tate put up a new pen to isolate Greta, who lay in her shed, panting, shifting her head suspiciously from side to side, awaiting intruders. Except for Mr. Tate, she wouldn't let anyone approach her, not even to give her food or water. During the day, she'd gnaw at the hair on her stomach, welting herself. During the warmer afternoons, when she was able, she'd pace frantically in her pen, burning the grass, her belly with its load and the dark, thick, extended teats swaying below her
.
At first, Mrs. Tate wouldn't have anything to do with the dog, wouldn't even acknowledge her, was short-tempered with the kids, and silent and sullen when Mr. Tate was home. But as Greta began to heal from her wounds and progressed in her pregnancy, Laura's mother began watching the dog from the kitchen window. When she was outside, while doing the laundry or preparing the garden, she'd eye Greta curiously as the dog lay huddled in her shed, half in light, half in shadow, panting, watching the woman in return
.
On a Friday morning in early May, a month before they thought Greta was due, Laura was sick and home from school. She sat at the kitchen table, sipping hot cider, nibbling on buttered toast, watching Rich play as Mrs. Tate did chores in the backyard, hanging up the laundry on the lines, sweeping dried mud from the porch, wiping off the dust from the canned tomatoes and peaches that were in the storm cellar, hoeing the weeds in the garden, which had been recently seeded. It was an exceptionally warm day. The kitchen window was open for the fresh air. Laura heard her mother whistling songs, Bob Wills and Hank Williams tunes that were always playing on the radio. Fay was loose, nosing her way along the edges of the alley fence, sniffing and pissing where the strays had entered her territory. At first Greta stayed in her shed, as usual, though her eyes were open. She seldom slept. After a time, she stood and cautiously inched out of the shed toward her water and food bowls, all the while watching
Mrs. Tate and Fay. Greta drank from her bowl, then looked up and barked
.
Mrs. Tate turned to her quickly from the clothesline and arched her eyebrow. “What is it, girl?”
The dog barked again. Fay ambled over to the edge of Greta's pen and cautiously sniffed
.
“You don't like my whistling?”
Both dogs looked at her, then cocked their heads quizzically. Greta barked again, followed by Fay. Laura's mother laughed and walked over to the pen with a sheet and some clothespins in her hands. Inside the house, Laura smiled, sipped her cider
.
“You out of water?” Mrs. Tate said. She went over to the hose in the garden, which was dripping in the dirt, and pulled it to the bowl and let it fill up. Greta looked at the hose and at the woman and back at the hose in something like a gesture of gratitude. Mrs. Tate tossed the sheet into the laundry basket and sat on the flat stump across from Greta. The clothespins, like two tiny wooden beaks, dangled from her mouth. She watched the dog drink. Greta ignored her, though Fay kept nuzzling under her apron, and Mrs. Tate scratched the older dog's head
.
She took some jerky from her apron pocket and let Fay eat it from her palm. Greta looked up, put her face through the chain link of the pen, and sniffed
.
“You want some of this, girl?”
Greta stuck her nose farther through the chain link. Mrs. Tate shooed the older dog away, stood up, and slowly approached the pen. Greta withdrew her snout and began retreating, her head low, her ears back
.
“It's okay. Calm down now, girl.”
Mrs. Tate dangled the jerky and bent toward the bowl. Greta growled low and deep without opening her mouth. Mrs. Tate took one of the clothespins wedged in her mouth, fingered the wood, and opened and closed it methodically. The dog's lips quivered. She growled again, her yellow teeth showing this time
.
Fay barked
.
“Hush up, you!” Mrs. Tate turned back to the younger dog and spoke to her soothingly, a whispery litany on the theme of “I'm not gonna hurt you.” She crouched close to the fence and slowly inched the jerky through the holes, encouraging, “Come on, girl. Come here and get it. It's good.”
Suddenly Greta charged the fence and leapt, not at the jerky strip but at Mrs. Tate's face, mouth open, her teeth possessing a malevolent propulsion of their own. Laura's mother sprawled back. The fence rattled. Greta yelped and
then, miraculously, stuck there on the fence, her back paws dangling above her water bowl. The wires were stuck between her teeth, and the whole fence bowed with the weight of the wailing dog. Fay commenced a full-scale bark at her daughter. Greta's bloodshot eyes rolled in her head. She seemed to be searching for some way out, expecting something terrible to happen
.
Jumping up from the table, Laura knocked off her cider cup. It smashed on the hardwood floor, green ceramic shards splashing. She felt spikes in her feet, but she hopped to the door and out onto the porch, where she saw her mother back-sprawled on the ground, Greta still hanging on the fence
.
“Are you okay?” Laura shouted. Fay barked crazily. Greta's wails were high-pitched and hurt Laura's ears
.
“Shut up, Fay!” Mrs. Tate shouted. “Shut up!”
“Momma!” Laura called
.
“Fay, shut up! Now!”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don't know. Fay, hush!”
Her mother rose and inspected the caught dog. She grabbed the fence above Greta's face and shook it to free her, but the shaking only served to flop the dog's body in a way that left her shoulder now flush against the fence and her head twisted sideways. Greta whimpered, exhausted
.
Laura swiped at her feet. There was blood, nothing serious
.
“Laura, go fetch me your father's toolbox. Hurry now.”
Rich had followed Laura. She picked him up and put him in his crib. She grabbed the toolbox from the closet and ran out to the backyard. The steel wire had somehow slipped between the dog's back molars and was caught between her teeth and gums. How the wire got there without breaking the teeth was amazing, like the time Laura had seen a magician pull a cloth from a fully set table without displacing the settings
.
Her mother took the long flathead screwdriver and wedged it into Greta's mouth, between the tooth and the fence. “Hand me those pliers, Laura. Now hold on to this screwdriver while I work the wire out.”
It must have taken only a few minutes to dislodge the dog, but it seemed interminable, with Greta whimpering shrilly, her bloody fangs poking through the fence, Fay jumping around, barking, Rich inside screaming. Mrs. Tate was able to wriggle the wire free from one side. Greta let out a muted wail and
hung there by the two molars on the left side of her face. The leverage was against them. Finally Mrs. Tate jerked the wire through the other teeth. They broke, tiny enamel missiles flying past Laura's face. The dog fell to the ground, lay in shock for several minutes, and then passed out. Mrs. Tate sat down on the stump across from the pen and stared at the dog, then sent Laura inside to check on Rich
.