Luna (17 page)

“I won’t marry him,” Phoebe said. “Mom, what if he kept doing that to me? And we were married?” Her voice cracked with fear, or was it disgust? Selena put her hands on Phoebe’s shoulders.

“No,” she said. “You won’t marry him.” Although how she could persuade Kent otherwise she didn’t know. “We’ll go to Rhea.”

“Why?” Phoebe asked, surprised.

“Because,” Selena began, then paused, the idea having simply popped into her head without reflection. “Because … she’s been around a long
time; she’s seen this before, I’m sure. She’ll maybe know how to … help, what we should do.”

After a minute Phoebe said, “You mean … an … abortion?” They looked at each other and Phoebe seemed to turn inward, frowning. Selena didn’t answer her, realizing only now, herself, that this would be one of the things Rhea might say. “All right” Phoebe said, slowly. “But what will Dad say?”

“He doesn’t need to know.”

“But he’d know if I lost it.”

“Women lose babies all the time,” Selena replied. “I lost my first baby. I was six weeks pregnant and I just lost it.” There was a silence.

“I like…. babies,” Phoebe said.

“I do too.”

“If I have it,” she hesitated, “Dad will make me marry Brian. Brian will want me to marry him, if I’m having his baby.” She put her hands over her face, then took them away again. “I don’t suppose he’d let me have it without a husband.” She picked at the worn threads on the couch between them.

“Go phone Brian,” Selena said. “Tell him to come over tonight. By then we’ll all have had time to calm down. Him too.”

“I won’t marry him,” Phoebe repeated, as if she hadn’t heard Selena’s instructions. She scuffed the carpet with her running shoes so that Selena wondered if there was a stain there.

“One way or another we have to talk to him,” Selena said. Phoebe rose and went into the kitchen. Selena could hear her dialling.

Selena stared at the rose-coloured mahogany piano, an old-fashioned, secondhand upright. They had been lucky to find such a good one so cheaply. They had bid on it at an auction sale. It was one of the household goods that belonged to an old piano teacher in Chinook who was going into a nursing home. She hadn’t even been at the sale. Her daughter, who had come home to look after the sale, had said to Selena as her husband, Kent, and Kent’s older brother, Gus, were loading the piano onto the pick-up, Mother loved that piano. I think she loved it more than us kids. She glanced at Selena guiltily, then scurried away, obviously surprised and embarrassed by
what she had said. We’ll take good care of it, Selena had called to her retreating back. And she had, polishing and dusting it even more than it needed.

It must be ten years we’ve had that piano, Selena thought. She could hardly believe it. Ten years. Standing in the kitchen year after year listening to Phoebe striking the keys, timidly at first, then more boldly, playing little tunes, exercises, working her way up to more complicated pieces. Starting, making a mistake, starting again.

What kind of a person is Phoebe? she wondered, staring at the piano. Making a mistake, starting again, speeding up, slowing down. I’ve known her since before she was born. I ought to know, but I don’t. She could hear Phoebe’s light voice in the kitchen, rising, now falling, mingling with the piano notes Selena was hearing in her head.

Phoebe sitting at the piano, playing. Her hair so fine, shiny as silk. Her shoulders softly rounded, the skin delicate and fine-grained, glowing. Her torso tapering inward to her slender girl’s waist, then flaring outward to form the curve of her hips. Phoebe playing the piano. The notes rose, floated over her shoulders, coloured the light of the room. Notes pure and clear, each one beautiful. And Phoebe a part of that beauty.

“Mom?” Selena turned to the doorway and saw Phoebe standing there. She saw the stringiness of her shoulder-length hair, her skin blotchy with emotion, her new chubbiness, the vulgarity of her too-tight jeans, her ragged, faded blue sweater. Phoebe suddenly leaned against the door frame. She slid one hand half-way into her pocket, her toes in their scuffed runners turned clumsily inward. Her expression was despairing.

Who is Phoebe? Selena thought, and stared at her, bewildered.

Phoebe looked back at her. Her blue eyes had lost their colour, only blackness remained, and then, flushing, she lowered them to the threadbare patch in the rug at her feet.

The day grew warmer. Selena debated, then sent Phoebe outside to help Jason dig the potatoes. As soon as she had gone, Selena put her jacket on too, and went to look for Kent.

She found him in the shop. He didn’t seem to be doing anything in particular, just rearranging the hammers, screwdrivers, and other pieces of
equipment and tools scattered over the worktable. She stood in the doorway with her hands in the pockets of her jacket, studying his back before she spoke.

“Kent?” He looked over his shoulder at her, then resumed whatever he had been doing. She walked in, avoiding Jason’s bike, which was parked in the middle of the shop with a flat tire, a five gallon pail of oil and a tire leaning against it. She stood beside him. He stopped moving things and looked at her.

“We should talk about this.” He turned away from her again.

“Is Brian coming?”

“Seven tonight,” she said. “Phoebe didn’t tell him why.”

“He probably knows why,” Kent said angrily. “Stupid kids.” She leaned toward him, trying to get him to look at her.

“Kent,” she pleaded, “remember us? It was just luck that we got away with it. How can we be hard on her?”

“It wasn’t luck,” he said. “We always took … precautions.” She wanted to tell him that lots of times, everybody knew, precautions didn’t help.

“I feel so sorry for her,” she said. “Her plans wrecked, not knowing what’s going to happen to her.” He threw down the piece of metal he was holding and walked to the wide doorway and stood in it, leaning against the frame, one hand high against it. She watched, then walked the length of the shop to stand beside him.

“What will we do?” she asked him, wanting only that he should help her, help them plan something, anything.

“Brian will marry her,” he said. “I’ll see to that.” She had thought at first that it was anger that clogged his voice, at Phoebe, at Brian, at the mess they had gotten themselves into. She looked at his profile, as he stared toward the front yard where even the lawn grass was turning yellow. She saw then that he didn’t know yet how he felt or what to do. Marry him, that was all he could say. She thought that she should leave him for now, give him a few more hours.

“You’ll tell Brian?” He nodded. “You’ll stand by Phoebe?” not daring to say what she really meant. He turned his head quickly to look at her, a little surprised.

“Of course I will,” he said. “She’s still my daughter. I’ll make him marry her.”

“I mean …” she said, helplessly.

“What?”

“Kent, she said he raped her.” He dropped his arm, then slammed his fist up against the door frame.

“Raped her,” he muttered angrily. “That’s stupid. It’s just her excuse.” Then he walked away, back to his worktable and began shoving boxes of machinery parts, and jars full of screws or nails, from place to place.

She watched him from the doorway, both astonishment and anger working in her. She wanted to follow him, to strike him on the back hard, to make him turn and listen to her. Rape! she wanted to scream at him. Rape! Why won’t you listen? But she kept thinking, he needs time, that’s all, it’s hard for a father, he thought he could keep her safe, and he knows he’s failed.

At seven-fifteen Brian drove into the yard in his new pick-up. He took his time getting out of the truck, shutting the door carefully, then wiping his palms on the seat of his pants. Selena was watching out the living room window and saw all this, saw how slowly he walked to their door, saw it with pleasure. Good, she thought, let him worry.

Kent had just gotten back from driving the boys over to Simca’s and was sitting in the armchair, staring at a newspaper. Now, as Brian knocked, he got up, set the paper down on the piano bench beside him, went into the hall and called up the stairs, “Phoebe,” then turned to open the door.

Phoebe and Selena sat side by side on the sofa and Kent motioned Brian to the chair he had just vacated. He came in himself and stood between them, facing the door, in front of the television set.

Brian glanced at Phoebe, but she kept her head down, refusing to look at him. Brian turned to look at Kent, and Selena took that moment to study Brian’s face. She hadn’t realized what seeing him would do to her. Her heart had begun to pound, it was all she could do to sit still. His bland, handsome face, his heavily muscled arms, his short, crisp hair. Who would know, to look at him? she wondered. Who would ever guess.

Kent did not seem to know how to start. He put his arms behind his back, then brought them around and crossed them over his chest.

“Phoebe here,” he said, finally, loudly, directly to Brian, who flushed at the sound of his voice. “Phoebe’s going to have a baby.” Brian lifted one hand from his lap and grasped the arm of the chair, looking up at Kent. He swallowed.

“Is it yours?” Kent asked. He waited. Brian didn’t say anything, and Kent said, “She says it’s yours.” He said it flatly, in a voice that brooked no disagreement.

Brian said, “I …” He cleared his throat, and Selena saw his lip quiver, ever so faintly. “I guess it is,” he said. Phoebe didn’t look up. What if he had denied it? Selena thought.

“If you don’t take precautions,” Kent said, his voice rising again, “this is what happens, for Christ sake.” There was a silence, during which Kent put his arms down and shifted his feet. “What are you going to do about it?” Kent asked him.

Brian shifted his gaze quickly to Phoebe, but she stubbornly kept her head down. He glanced at Selena, then quickly away from her, back to Kent, as if Kent were the only one in the room whose reaction he could depend on. Brian cleared his throat again and said, “I suppose …” a tremor had invaded his voice and he started again. “I suppose … marriage.”

“No,” Selena said, immediately amazed at herself, then closing her mouth firmly. Both men looked at her with surprised expressions.

“Shut up, Selena,” Kent said, in an undertone.

“She says you ra….” Selena began.

“Selena!” Kent said, not even looking at her. “I’ll handle this.”

Yet his expression was more perplexed than angry. He knew what to do about an out-of-wedlock baby, Selena thought, but a rape? This kind of rape. If Phoebe had come home beaten and bruised, he would know how to act. She could see that Phoebe’s insistence baffled him, that he could not understand this. “I want to know … what this is about, Brian,” he said slowly.

Selena could feel Brian’s anxiety reaching her in subtle waves from across the room. If she had ever had the smallest doubt about Phoebe’s
story, it vanished at that moment. She looked up at Kent again, expecting him to pounce on Brian, to shake him and throw him across the room, but Kent ran his hand through his hair, and shifted his feet again.

“She says you … forced yourself on her.” Phoebe drew in a long, quavering breath. Selena quickly put her hand on Phoebe’s arm. Neither of the men looked at Phoebe. “She says she tried to stop you, and you wouldn’t stop.” It was more a question that a statement, delivered without force, and Brian, after a second, gave a small shrug, then allowed his glance to shift to Phoebe, who still had not raised her head. He avoided looking at Selena.

“You know how it is,” he said. “I … she … I didn’t really
force
her.”

“You did,” Phoebe said, her voice quiet, but quivering with outrage. She might not have spoken at all.

“You … get so far,” Brian said. “And … ah, hell. You know what I mean.” Kent seemed to accept this. He studied Brian and Brian met his gaze, the two of them locked in some communication that excluded Phoebe and Selena.

“He raped me, Daddy,” Phoebe said again. Kent broke his gaze with Brian and turned to face Phoebe. It was the first time he had looked directly at her since she had told him that morning. Selena wondered what he was seeing.

Kent drew in a long, audible breath, then expelled it slowly and turned back to Brian.

“She says she doesn’t want to marry you,” he said. Brian swung his head to Phoebe.

“If she’s going to have my baby,” he said, perplexed and surprised.

“There’s abortion,” Selena put in quickly. Both men looked at her as if they thought her remark extraordinary.

“Not my daughter …”

“Not my baby …”

This made Selena laugh. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“Look,” Kent said to all of them. “I’m not about to raise an illegitimate child. It’s too hard on everybody, the child too. But abortion is out.” He turned to Phoebe. “Phoebe, look at me.” Slowly she raised her
head. “You and Brian have to work this out, somehow. You pretty well have to get married. What else can you do?”

“She could have it and give it up,” Brian offered tentatively, looking at Kent again.

This time Selena jumped up.

“Never! You men have no idea what you’re talking about. You have no idea at all! Women who give up their babies never, never get over it. I won’t let that happen to Phoebe!” In the face of her pure rage, Brian shrank back against his chair as he had not done with Kent. Seeing this, Selena felt powerful, she felt glad that she had frightened him. Then Kent was beside her, putting his arm on her shoulder, pushing her down on the sofa.

“Take it easy, Selena,” he said to her, as if she were ill. His words barely registered, she hated Brian with a pure hate, she would never let Phoebe marry him.

“Phoebe,” Kent said, and his voice was gentle. “Don’t you see?” They waited for Phoebe to speak. She looked from her mother to her piano, its polished wood gleaming richly in the evening light. She looked at it sadly. Then she looked at her father, and at Brian, who refused to meet her eyes.

“Yes,” she said finally. “I see.”

Selena opened the creaking gate with the paint peeling off it that led into Rhea’s garden. Phoebe followed her. Except for the late-blooming zinnias and the last of the petunias and marigolds, the garden was stripped of blossoms, and as they passed, the hollyhock stocks along the sagging fence rustled and whispered to them.

As if she had been waiting for their arrival, Rhea stood at the kitchen door. When she saw them she didn’t smile, but pushed the screen door open and stood back to let them come inside. She said, “Well, hello there. Sit down,” and gestured toward the round oak table in the centre of the room.

Clear fall light spilled in the window over the sink and lit up the room,
shrinking and fading any shadows. A small wild rose (at this time of the year?) bloomed in a vase in the centre of the table. They sat down, Rhea went to the electric stove, turned the burner on under the kettle, then sat down at the table, her back to the window, facing Selena with Phoebe on her left. She looked from one to the other, her palms flat on the table, while the kettle began to sizzle on the burner.

“Well,” she said again, and the kettle popped. Outside the screen door a breeze swept through the dead, drying plants, rattling them, then subsided into a whisper. “Well,” Rhea said again, in a different tone.

Selena said, “We’ve got a problem, Rhea. We came to talk to you about it.”

“A problem,” Rhea said, looking long and hard at Phoebe. She rose to turn off the burner and move the kettle. “I think in that case we need more than tea.”

Watching her, her body taut with misery, Selena saw how Rhea, already an old woman, was growing truly old. Her lined and brown skin seemed to have faded over the past few weeks, and as she turned into the light, Selena saw a papery delicacy to it that had not been there before. There was a new absence in her eyes, too, a shutting off of depth, that had washed the colour from them.

They could hear Rhea moving around in the living room, opening a drawer, glass clinking against glass, and then she was back, a small Chinese brass tray in her hands, a decanter filled with a dark purple liquid and three small glasses on it. She set the tray in the centre of the table, took the stopper out of the decanter and filled each of the glasses while Selena and Phoebe watched.

“It’s my chokecherry wine,” she said, handing them each a glassful. She sat down in her place, taking the last one for herself. “Drink,” she said, coaxing.

“It’s sweet,” Phoebe said, surprised.

“It’s not really wine,” Rhea said.

“It has a lovely flavour,” Selena said.

“The chokecherries were good that year,” Rhea said. “At least at the spot I know.” She drained her glass, then reached for the decanter and filled it again.

“Now,” she said. “What’s this problem?”

Phoebe looked pleadingly at her mother. Selena slid her hands off the table onto her lap.

“It’s Phoebe,” she said, feeling tears welling up, fighting them down. She always felt so vulnerable in Rhea’s presence. In this house, all her defenses vanished. “Phoebe is going to have a baby.”

“I thought as much,” Rhea said. “It’s in her face.” Surprised, Selena turned to stare at her daughter. While the two women studied her, Phoebe looked mutely from one to the other.

“The flesh,” Rhea said. “The colouring.” How could she not have seen it? Selena wondered. It was obvious now, that faintly fleshy look, the new volatility of her colouring.

Abruptly Selena put her hand over her eyes, then put it down again.

“It’s worse than that,” she said. “It’s a real mess. I don’t know what to do.”

“What does she mean?” Rhea asked Phoebe. Colour rose into Phoebe’s face, flushing her pale skin, mottling her rounded cheeks.

“I was raped.” Rhea drew back, reached for her glass and Selena was startled to see that her hand trembled. She said nothing. Phoebe continued, gathering strength, “Brian raped me. But somehow or other, it’s like it’s my fault.” She toyed with her glass, turning it so that the liquid rose and fell on the sides of the glass, the light catching it, turning it violet, then black. Selena reached out and put her hand over Phoebe’s to stop that nervous turning.

Rhea said, “Some men are like that. Remember Mrs. Lucy Varga?” abruptly, to Selena. “She killed herself, finally.”

“What …” Selena began, then stopped. She remembered the incident vaguely. Years ago, the wife of a homesteader drowned in a boating accident out by herself early one morning. She wanted to ask, how do you know all this?

“It’s like this,” Phoebe said, unexpectedly. “He didn’t beat me, he didn’t threaten me, not with a knife or a gun, or anything. And we were necking.” She sighed softly. “And he was my boyfriend.” She paused and Rhea could be seen to wait patiently till Phoebe was ready to continue. Selena, seeing this, held her tongue. Phoebe raised her head and looked
intently at Rhea. “So, it turns out not to be rape if all I can say is that I didn’t want to. I mean, he forced me …” this was a cry, “but Brian says that’s not rape, and Dad says so too.”

The kitchen was silent, the three women each deep in her own thoughts. Selena thought of how she had slept with Kent a long time ago. He had pressured her into it, it was true. But she had loved him, she had been afraid he would find another girlfriend if she didn’t. Knowing what she knew now, it made her laugh to think of the silly things girls believed about boys’ need for sex. She wondered if what had happened to her with Kent hadn’t been a kind of rape, too. But that’s ridiculous, she told herself. If that’s true, then there’s hardly anything that isn’t rape. Look at all the times I’ve had sex with Kent when I didn’t really feel like it. When I was dead tired or just not feeling sexy. Practically half the time, I think, and I just hid the fact that I didn’t feel like it, even though sometimes I hated every second of it. I hated him for doing that to me. And other times, she thought, she had been the one to arouse Kent, when he had shown no interest. But look how careful I always have to be about it, she reminded herself, so he won’t think I’m doing it on purpose. That always embarrassed and angered him, and in the end, had the opposite effect to the one she wanted.

Rhea sighed heavily. She looked so tired that Selena faltered.

“I shouldn’t have brought her here. You’ve seen enough trouble in your day.” Rhea’s eyes seemed to bore into Selena’s now, the colour returning to them, and Selena was aware of what a big woman Rhea was, nobody’s idea of an old lady.

“And now I’m going to have this baby,” Phoebe said.

“What does Kent say?” Rhea asked Selena.

“He says they have to get married,” Selena said, “but I’ll never allow that. And Phoebe won’t, anyway.”

“How do you plan to stop it?” Rhea asked. Before Selena could say anything, she went on. “In the end,” she said sadly, “men don’t know what to do with women. Not our men out here, anyway. All they know how to do is get women to work for them, and have their babies.” Her words settled heavily in Selena’s breast. She almost spoke out loud, don’t say this, I don’t want to hear this, I don’t want Phoebe to hear this.

“There isn’t a lot you can do,” Rhea said, reflecting. “Have the baby without getting married. Have the baby and give it up. Have an abortion.”

Selena remembered when one of Ruth’s daughters had had an illegitimate baby, six or seven years before. None of them had seen the girl pregnant. She was living in Calgary, all they knew were the rumours that floated around the community. One afternoon Ruth had come to Selena in tears. I have to talk to somebody, she’d said, before I go crazy. I know I can trust you, Selena, not to tell anybody. You can’t sneeze around here without everybody phoning to offer you a remedy. Jeannie isn’t a bad girl, she’s just kind of stupid—about men, you know. She wanted to have an abortion, but Buck raised hell, wouldn’t let her. Some young social worker talked her into having it and giving it up for adoption. So she did that, a couple of months ago it was, and yesterday her roommate phoned us—and—she’d cut her wrists.”

“I won’t let her give the baby up,” Selena said. She felt dizzy, and had to take a couple of slow, deep breaths.

“I won’t marry him,” Phoebe said.

Rhea looked at Phoebe, her eyes sharp again, glittering.

“That leaves one option,” Rhea said, and waited. No one said anything. “All right,” she said. “If that’s what you want, I can manage it.” Phoebe blinked several times. “Is that what you want?” Rhea asked. Phoebe shook her head, no, then shrugged, then lifted one hand to put it over her face. “Honestly,” Rhea said, “you’d think the blessed world had come to an end.”

“If he hadn’t raped her,” Selena said, “it would be different.”

“I’ll kill myself before I’ll marry him,” Phoebe said.

“Kent is making us go to Ross and Queenie’s tonight, to tell them, make plans for the wedding, I suppose.” Selena felt like crying again, but held back. Phoebe moved restlessly in her chair, and a flock of birds swept by the door with a rushing of wings. There were so many of them that they blocked the light for an instant and cast a dark, moving shadow across the room and the three women sitting in a silent circle.

Abruptly, in that shadow, Rhea raised her magnificent white head, and seemed to grow larger in front of them. Her eyes glittered, the room
seemed to Selena to whirl inexplicably with the racing shadows and the sound of the wind. Rhea rose then, and put her hand on Phoebe’s head, then simply stood there like that, beside Phoebe, looking out the window, her big hand resting heavily on Phoebe’s head.

The Balfour ranch was a long way from theirs, up in the high, wooded country near Fort Walsh. The countryside was growing even emptier, if that was possible, as they drove, the sky still gloomy with banked-up grey clouds that contained no rain. All along the way they had passed short, thin crops, still standing in the fields, too poor to combine or even to cut and bale for the cattle. Even the grasshoppers were beginning to thin out with the approach of winter.

“Winter seems to be coming earlier this year,” Selena said, more to herself than to Kent.

“Who’ll go under this fall, I wonder,” Kent said, looking at the uncut crop they were passing. People going broke right and left, losing their farms, disappearing into the cities. Look at Louise and Barclay, Selena thought, or for that matter, Diane and Tony, surely they were casualties of the same disaster. Gone from the community where they’d been born and lived all their lives. Gone to who knew what fate, trying to eke out an existence in a strange environment.

Balfours, for instance, had been ranching in this district as long as there had been ranchers. That made them aristocrats in the ranching community. If Phoebe married Brian she and Kent would be connected to them. She could imagine driving out to the Balfour ranch on a warm Sunday afternoon, staying for supper.

They drove down the winding, narrow trail that led through spruce trees, past the original log house and the decaying log barn. Several horses in the corral next to the new barn lifted their heads, pricked up their ears and whinnied at the approaching car. A couple of dogs leaped from the long grass along the corral and came running at them, barking. As Kent stopped the car, Ross came out of the house and stood in the doorway, and as they were getting out of the car, Queenie came out and stood on the steps too.

“Well, hello strangers!” she called. “What brings you here?”

And Ross said, grinning, “You folks lost?” When Kent did not smile and Selena merely opened the back door so Phoebe could get out, as if she weren’t able to open it herself, the smiles on Queenie’s and Ross’s faces wavered. Selena noticed then that Brian’s truck wasn’t in the yard.

“Nice evening,” Kent said, as they walked to the door.

“Not bad,” Ross said. “Be a lot better if it’d rain.”

“Hello, Phoebe,” Queenie said, putting one hand on her shoulder as she entered. “It’s nice to see you. Where are those big boys of yours?” to Selena, then, “Oh, this is roping club night, isn’t it.”

“That’s right,” Selena said. “They wouldn’t miss that.”

Ross led them into the living room, where they seated themselves. It was obvious that Brian hadn’t told his parents.

“What brings you all this way over here?” Ross asked in his usual friendly way. He probably thought they were out looking for a horse to buy or maybe checking for stray cattle.

Ross was a tall man, stooping a little with age, his hair greying. He seemed puzzled as Kent, instead of answering him as easily as the question was asked, raised his hand to smooth his hair down for the second time.

Selena and Queenie looked at each other, then Queenie’s glance shifted to Phoebe, who sat between her mother and father on the leather couch. Selena noticed that Phoebe was wearing the same white cotton dress with the pink belt that she had worn to the dance that night in July. Phoebe met Queenie’s gaze briefly, then dropped her eyes and Selena realized that, in that instant, Queenie knew.

“I, ah, we got a problem here,” Kent said, finally. Ross, who had been sitting in a rocking chair, tipping it slowly back and forth, stopped rocking and leaned forward.

“A problem?” he asked. Selena wondered again where Brian was.

“I sure do hate to be the one to break the news,” Kent said, “but … Brian’s not around, is he?” Phoebe kept her head lowered, as if she were studying the pattern of the brown and orange rug. Ross had turned to Queenie.

“Well, Mother, where is the boy tonight?” The light from the lamps on the wagonwheel light fixture hanging from the centre of the ceiling flashed on his glasses.

“He went to town right after supper,” Queenie said. She dropped her head and her fingers fussed with her slacks. Both she and Ross looked at Phoebe.

Selena said, as gently as she could, “Phoebe’s going to have a baby.” For once Kent didn’t interrupt or correct her. Maybe he was glad to have it said.

Ross pushed himself forward in his chair, as though to rise, and stared at Kent. Queenie watched Ross, her whole posture wary.

“That goddamn Brian.” He turned to Queenie, who looked a little frightened. “And he beats it to town. He knew you were coming?”