Luna (16 page)

“Woman has never spoken with words, but now, in her dream, a sound is issuing from her that is different from the buzzing around her shoulders. It is a gentle, broken hum that comes from deep inside her body and that threatens to grow louder as it gathers strength, that promises to burst forth in words or in song.

“If we hold silent, if we retreat within ourselves and listen with reverence, with humility, we begin to hear this voice. It will grow louder, it will fill us, it will give us courage and purpose, it will transform the world.

“Listen!”

Selena found herself sitting at the foot of Phoebe’s bed.

She felt as if she had been asleep. Diane was still sitting across from her and Phoebe, at her desk, sighed and stirred.

“I meant to put some coffee on,” Selena said, and gave a short, puzzled laugh. “I wonder if Rhea wants to go home now.” She rose from the bed, stretching and yawning, straightening her skirt. Diane rose, too, yawning and shaking her head so that her long, dark hair fell back behind her shoulders.

“I think I hear a car,” Phoebe said. She got up, too, and went to the window, apparently forgetting that she couldn’t see the road from that side of the house. The moon shone in on them, bigger than before, but a paler orange. Diane and Selena were at the door before they noticed Rhea, who seemed to have been standing in the hall. They went downstairs together.

The front door opened and Kent came in, followed by Tony, then Mark, then Jason.

“Hi,” Selena said, and Diane, coming behind her, murmured hello.

“Hey!” Kent said, “we could use some coffee.” There wasn’t enough room for all of them in the small hall, so the women waited on the stairs while the men hung up their caps, smoothing their hair with their palms, and went into the living room.

“How did you do?” Selena asked Mark.

“Won one, lost one.” He stood looking up at her with his hands on his hips, as Kent often did. “We came in second.”

“Hey, good for you!” Diane said.

“That’s great,” Selena added, “the last tournament of the year.”

“He got a home run!” Jason said, looking at his brother, his eyes bright even in the dimly-lit hall. “You shoulda been there!” Selena’s heart went out to Jason, so proud of his big brother, and envious of him. She wanted to tell him that he would have his moment too.

“How did your team do?” she asked.

“Oh, we got beat out early,” he said. “I don’t care.”

He turned to go into the living room, but stopped as Mark looked up at his mother on the stairs and said, “Jason’s a good second baseman. He’s one of the best players on his team.” Selena smiled at him. Jason, grinning, pretended to thump his brother on the arm, then went into the living room.

“There’s Coke in the basement,” Selena offered. They kept pop around only on special occasins, holidays, when they had company.

“Hey, Jason,” Mark said into the living room, “want some Coke?”

When the coffee was made and served and everyone was sitting around the living room, stirring and sipping their drinks, Diane asked, “Well? What did Doyle say?” Tony set his coffee mug down carefully on the coaster Selena had set out for him on the coffee table. He drew in a long breath, his eyes finally meeting Diane’s across the room.

“The bank wouldn’t give him the money,” he said. There was a surprised silence.

“What?” Selena said. If they wouldn’t give it to Doyle, who would they give it to? Rhea watched attentively from the rocking chair in the corner, but didn’t speak.

“They’re scared he’ll overextend himself and his whole operation’ll come crashing down,” Kent said. “Leave them holding the bag for a million or so.”

“But …” Diane said. The two boys, sitting side by side on the rug, watched the adults nervously, careful not to move or make a sound. Rhea’s expression hadn’t changed, her eyes moved from Tony to Kent and back again.

“Don’t worry, Di,” Tony said, although there wasn’t much confidence in his voice.

“What will we do?” she interrupted, her voice tense. Without the money from the sale of their farm, they couldn’t pay their debts; no salary was big enough to do that.

“Find another buyer,” Tony said. “What else?” She stared at him, holding her coffee mug in front of her, just where it had been when he first answered her.

“Another buyer?” she said slowly, as if she didn’t quite understand this.

Selena wondered if this meant they would have to come back and live on the farm, but Tony said, before she could ask, if she had been going to, “You won’t have to stay here.”

Tony and Diane seemed oblivious to everyone else in the room. Selena noticed that Phoebe hadn’t come downstairs. As if she had said Phoebe’s name out loud, Diane broke from Tony’s gaze to set her mug down on the arm of the piano they had bought for Phoebe when she started piano lessons. The hours I spent sitting in the truck while she had her lessons, Selena thought irrelevantly, then jumped up, lifted Diane’s mug and slid a coaster under it. Diane paid no attention to her.

“It’ll be okay,” Tony said, and Kent put in, “Land always sells, sooner or later.” Jason used this reassurance to make his escape.

“I’m going to bed, Mom,” he said, through a yawn. He rose from the rug, set his Coke glass on the tray on the coffee table, and left the room, turning at the door to say, “Good night.” Mark got up too, then, and after mumbling good-night to everybody, went upstairs behind him.

“Who’s driving me home?” Rhea demanded from her rocking chair. Kent rose at once, hastily putting down his half-full coffee mug. Selena had to smile to herself. Kent didn’t move that fast for anybody.

Even as Selena was going to the door with her, saying good night standing, shivering in the chilly fall night, noisy with crickets, she was thinking with awe of that look of certainty in Rhea’s eyes. Where does it come from, Selena wondered. Does she know things the rest of us don’t know?

Tony and Diane’s car was churning dust down the lane. It billowed up behind them, blotting out Tammy’s frantic good-bye waves through the
back window. It was as though they were being swallowed by the dust. Selena dropped her arm slowly—farewell, she thought, farewell, what a good-sounding word.

She turned to Kent. His eyes had shifted from the dust cloud to the stubble field in front and to the east of the house where their small crop sat in bales. Kent had decided that it wasn’t worthwhile to hire somebody to combine it. There was barely any grain in the heads, so he had baled it for feed.

“Time I got those bales picked, I guess,” he said, sighing, looking toward the shed beside the barn where they kept their few pieces of machinery. He turned to Mark, who stood a little apart from his parents, still watching Tony and Diane’s car turn onto the grid. His longing to go too spread through the quiet air to Selena, she felt it in her gut and was surprised by this news. Surely Mark would never leave?

Jason bent down beside Kent, picked up a stone and threw it hard down the road. It skipped, throwing out puffs of dust. Phoebe said in an annoyed voice, “Jason,” although it hadn’t come anywhere near her. In reply, Jason threw another stone, harder this time.

“It’s time you learned to pick bales, Mark,” Kent said.

“You mean drive the bale wagon?” Mark asked. He couldn’t keep the eagerness out of his voice. His father nodded, grinning.

“Okay,” Mark said, casual now, as if it were nothing to him. He started toward the shed. Jason threw another stone. This one struck the dirt suspiciously close to Mark.

“Jason!” Kent said. “I want you to dig the potatoes today. All of them.”

“Yeah,” Jason said, a hint of surliness in his voice.

They could hear the faint hum of Tony’s car, a long way off, vibrating on the still air. Phoebe stood with them, watching Jason till he disappeared around the house on his way go the potato patch on the far side of the trees. A horse whinnied in the pasture nearby and they could hear the dull hammering of its hooves as it broke into a gallop.

“I got his feet to attend to, too,” Kent remarked, trying to catch sight of the horse pastured beyond the barn.

“Could I talk to you?” Phoebe asked, not indicating which one of them she was speaking to. Something in her voice made Selena swing her
head quickly to look at her. Kent, too, seemed to sense something out of the ordinary. Phoebe glanced rapidly from one to the other, then abruptly dropped her eyes. Her cheeks and forehead flushed. Is she sick? Selena wondered, then: she isn’t going to university.

“Come into the house,” Kent said, with an easiness in his voice that Selena recognized as false. He looked past them to the bales out near the road, and far across the yard to the fields of grass lifting into the distant yellow hills. But then he opened the door and led the way down the hall and into the kitchen. He sat down quietly at the table and assumed a listening posture, his arms resting on the table, but instead of looking at Phoebe, he fixed his eyes on the square in the screen door that looked out over the backyard to where a huge flock of birds perched in the trees, on the power line and the clothesline.

Selena went around behind Phoebe, who had stopped in the middle of the room. As she passed, she touched Phoebe’s upper arms encouragingly, then sat down gingerly, opposite Kent, facing Phoebe.

Phoebe backed away, her hands behind her, until she was touching the sink. She brought her hands around in front of her and as she pressed her palms together, Selena saw that she was trembling and the colour had left her face, revealing the pale transparency of her skin.

Something terrible was about to happen. The knowledge swept through Selena and she found herself gripping the edge of the table with both hands.

“I’m pregnant,” Phoebe said quietly, as if she were asking a question. She dropped her arms, then immediately clasped her hands together again, so tightly that the blood drained from them, and Selena could see the sharp blue bones of her knuckles.

Selena glanced rapidly at Kent, but he was staring at Phoebe. Suddenly he hit the tabletop with his open hand.

“Brian!” he said. His voice was flat and hard, the name a truncated sound. Again inadvertently, Selena found herself wondering what he would say if it turned out to be somebody else. She shuddered, then opened her mouth to say something although she had no idea what. “Is it?” Kent insisted, his voice too loud in the small room. There was a massive swooping of wings, a great
wind of sound, and all the birds outside on the lines and in the trees lifted off and whirled away. Phoebe shrank up against the cupboards.

“Yes,” she said. She could hardly be heard. Kent let out a violent rush of breath, at the same time turning his head toward Selena, his expression at once angry and bewildered. Selena was afraid to speak until she could see him settle on one emotion. Finally he turned to her, she could see he was actually trying not to smile—but it would not be a happy smile, it would be a sour, ugly smile—“I suppose that money we borrowed is going to pay for a wedding now.”

Selena tried to speak, but couldn’t. Her own emotions, struggling with each other, rose and filled her chest and throat, blocking out words. Images filled her mind, the wrong things, stupid things—the new sweater she had just finished knitting for Phoebe to wear at university, the basket of tomatoes in the cool cellar, the kitchen floor that needed washing. The one image she did not want to see, Phoebe and Brian together, loomed behind all of them, a dark, unspecific cloud, like a thunderstorm blowing in from the mountains, far, far to the west.

“Does Brian know?” Kent asked, in that same harsh, too-loud voice, as if his vocal cords had inexplicably tightened. Phoebe shook her head, no. “Jesus!” Kent began, but she interrupted him.

“I … I … don’t want to marry him,” Phoebe said. Her eyes had filled with tears, tears began to run down her cheeks. She stared at the floor, sniffling, and let the tears fall without trying to wipe them away. Selena and Kent stared at her in astonishment.

“But,” Selena began.

“Of course you’ll marry him,” Kent said, not shouting now, his tone reasonable. “You’re going to have his baby.” Then, “Jesus!” again. Phoebe began to sob, the sound surprisingly quiet in the shabby, familiar kitchen. Selena found herself searching in her pockets for a tissue, not taking her eyes off her daughter, not able to move from where she sat.

“He … raped … me!” Phoebe gasped, the phrase broken by her sobs. She lifted her head to say this, her voice was loud, her eyes burning now. She pulled in a hard, wheezing breath, it sounded as if she were choking. At that, Selena found her legs and jumped up, hurrying to
Phoebe, putting her arms around her, pulling her against her breast. Phoebe began to sob in earnest against her mother’s shoulder, as if she were only now fully realizing what had happened to her, when? months before.

Kent was standing now, too, Selena heard the thump of his boots and his chair scrape the vinyl floor.

“Raped you!” he was shouting again. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Just then Selena caught sight of Jason’s face at the back door. He stood there for a second, looking in, not opening the door, then went quickly away. Selena lifted Phoebe’s head gently and wiped at her reddened, wet eyes with the tissue.

“Phoebe,” she murmured, “Phoebe.”

“He raped you.” Kent repeated. He was striding the length of the kitchen, his boots making a hollow, hard sound on the creaky old floor. “He’s your boyfriend for Christ’s sake! How could he rape you?” Phoebe pulled away from Selena, and bent toward her father where he had stopped with his back to the kitchen door. His face was in shadow, Selena couldn’t make it out.

“I didn’t want to!” Phoebe shouted at her father, then began to cry again. “You told me not to!” She turned to her mother. “Mom?” she asked, in an unnatural, high tone.

“How the hell could he rape you?” Kent asked, as if she hadn’t spoken. Selena, pushing Phoebe’s damp hair away from her swollen, tear-stained face, heard what Kent said. She heard it with her ears, but she pushed it away, he couldn’t have meant it.

“It’ll be all right,” she crooned to Phoebe, gathering her in her arms again. “It’ll be okay.” Although she couldn’t see how it could be, ever again.

She turned to Kent, who was still standing there, his back to the door, the pale autumn sun shining in behind him, keeping his face in shadow. Selena peered into the darkness that was his face, trying to find his eyes. It felt as if he was looking out at her, or perhaps at Phoebe. There was a silence, lasting perhaps a full minute, while birds chirped outside, and far
away a hawk screeched. So many hawks, Selena thought, this time of year, fall, the young ones learning to hunt.

“Well, you’ll marry him, that’s all,” Kent said. He turned away and put his hand on the door. “The sooner the better, before the whole countryside knows about it.” He pushed open the door. “Get Brian over here,” he said, over his shoulder. Phoebe pulled away from Selena.

“Don’t you care that he raped me?” she screamed. She went toward her father, her nose running, tears pouring down her face again, her body bent at the waist, and Selena was struck by the awkwardness and yet beauty of the movement. “He raped me!” Phoebe screamed again.

Kent hesitated, letting the door go, looking down at her, not speaking. Selena said, “Kent, wait, don’t go.” He looked at her, made a disgusted sound, then stepped out into the cool morning sunshine, letting the door slap shut behind him. For a second he blotted out the light, then he was gone, striding toward the barn, his bootheels striking up dirt.

Phoebe turned to her mother. Her eyes did not seem to be focusing, at least whatever she was seeing, it wasn’t Selena, and her hands were fluttering in front of her. Selena had seen that once before, when a neighbour woman was told that her husband was dead, caught in a power take-off. Whole one minute, torn to bloody shreds the next. Selena had been a child at the time, watching her mother try to comfort the woman. And now she was the mother. She grasped Phoebe by the shoulders and shook her.

“Phoebe,” she said, putting her face close to her daughter’s, “Phoebe.” Phoebe lifted her face to her mother’s and her eyes seemed to focus again.

“He raped me,” she said softly. He did.”

They were sitting side by the side on the living room couch.

“I can’t marry him,” Phoebe said. “I couldn’t …”

“It’s all right,” Selena said. “I understand,” then found herself standing, walking around the room, touching things, and noticed her hands were shaking. “A nice boy.” She spat the words out. “A decent boy.” She felt she might be sick. She crossed the room and sat down again beside Phoebe, taking her hands in her own. “What happened?
You’d better tell me what happened.” Although, God knew, she didn’t want to hear.

Phoebe turned her face away from her mother so that she was speaking to the wall. She swallowed and when she began to speak, her voice was quiet and uninflected, as though someone else were speaking, or she was telling her mother someone else’s story.

“We were in the truck, necking. Dad’s right about that part. We were necking. But he kept on kissing me. He put his hands between … my legs. I tried to pull his hands away, but I couldn’t. It was like … something took over in him, and it didn’t have anything to do with me. Like he didn’t even know who I was anymore.” She paused, lifting her hands as if she were about to wipe her eyes or rearrange her hair, then setting them down quietly in her lap without touching anything. “I began to get frightened. I knew what he wanted. I might even have been able to … let him, if he hadn’t turned … like that. If he’d … remembered … it was
me.”
She paused, breathing quickly, but still not moving.

“Did he hurt you? Did he hit you? Or …”

Phoebe shook her head, no.

“I knew I couldn’t stop him, though. And I kept thinking, you can’t do this! Nobody can do this!” She was shaking, and when Selena put her arms out to hold her, she was amazed to find that Phoebe was shaking with rage—not sorrow, not fear. But then the trembling subsided, she sighed, like a child, and went on.

“I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t stand the thought of anybody finding me like that. Helpless. Under him.” All the times she must have gone over it in her mind, Selena thought. “And besides, I couldn’t have called out even if I had wanted to. He put his arm here.” Phoebe put her fingers against her throat.

There was no other sound in the house. Only the faint roar of the tractor pulling the bale wagon in the nearby field marred the silence.

“He had no right,” Phoebe said. “Nobody has the right to do that to anybody else. To turn them into … an animal.” Her voice had lost its composure. She turned to her mother. “Is that how it is, Mom? It can’t be like that. It can’t.”

“No,” Selena said. “No. That’s not how it is.”

“I didn’t think it could be. I thought, the world would die if that’s how it is.” She was silent now, thinking. “You should have told me, Mom,” she said, softly, not reproachfully.

“I thought I did,” Selena said, helplessly. “I said, wait till you’re married. I meant, then you’ll know it’s right.” She could hear the uncertainty in her voice. What else could I have told her? she wondered, searching her mind, trying to think what she had missed, hadn’t understood herself, perhaps. But no, she did understand, only she had thought that Phoebe was still a child, that she was protected, that nothing would ever happen to her. I could kill him, she thought.

“Brian doesn’t know about the baby?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t tell him.”

“What do you think he’ll say?”

“He’ll want to get married, I guess.”

“Have you talked about getting married?”

“No.”

“You should have told us when it happened.”

“I couldn’t. I was ashamed. I … couldn’t understand … what had happened. I couldn’t believe that was the way the world is, and I had to … think about it.” She was silent, her mouth working as she tried not to cry.

“I never dreamt I’d wind up pregnant. I never even thought about it.” She gave a little laugh that was cut off by a sob. Selena was torn between her own sorrow, anger at Brian, and bewilderment at what Phoebe was saying, such peculiar, unnatural things to think, they baffled her.