Bent Road (30 page)

“I always leave two,” she says, stepping back to Arthur’s side. “One for both of us, since you weren’t always here. But you are now.”

Arthur nods. “I couldn’t come before,” he says. “Before now.”

“My stones were always missing,” Ruth says. She feels Arthur watching her, but she keeps her eyes on Eve’s headstone. “My two stones, every time I came to visit, they were gone. Strange. Don’t you think?”

Again, Arthur nods.

“Ray was here that night, the night Julianne disappeared. He was here and he took my stones. All these years, I imagine. Why do you suppose he would do such a thing?”

“I hope to never know the answer to that,” Arthur says and slips around Ruth to block the wind, taking her arm so that she won’t fall.

But Ruth doesn’t move to leave.

“He loved her,” she says. “He would have been such a different man with her.”

Arthur wraps an arm around Ruth. “Doesn’t much matter what might have been.”

“While she was here, while Eve was with us, she was happy because Ray loved her.” Ruth takes Arthur’s other hand, presses it between both of hers. “He would have been a different man.”

“But he’s not, Ruth.” In the dry, cold air, Arthur’s voice is as deep and raspy as Father’s ever was. “He’s not a different man. I’m sorry for it, but he’s not.”

Ruth lifts her chin, turns her face into the wind and nods that she is ready to go. Together, she and Arthur step out of the snow onto the cleared space around Julianne’s small grave. With all the other mourners gone, the tiny casket sits alone, waiting to be covered over by cold, frozen dirt. Two Negro men stand nearby, one of them stubbing out a cigarette in the snow, the other leaning on a shovel. Beside them lays a mound of dirt covered by a blue tarp. Ruth hadn’t seen the open grave before because of the crowd of people, and seeing it now brings tears to the corners of her eyes.

“Come, Ruth,” Celia says, stepping forward. “Let’s get you home.”

Standing near the gate, Jonathon holds Evie, who seems to be crying into his chest, and Daniel and Elaine stand next to him. At the head of the small grave, Reesa talks quietly with Father Flannery. As Arthur, Celia and Ruth walk past on their way toward the gate, Father Flannery steps forward.

“Ruth. Celia. Arthur,” he says, bowing his head to greet them. “I was just mentioning to Reesa that we miss you fine folks at church.”

“Been to church every Sunday, Father,” Arthur says. “Haven’t missed a one.”

“I told Father Flannery that maybe we’re getting tired of that drive to Hays. Don’t you think, Arthur? Maybe we’ll see him at St. Anthony’s this Sunday.”

Arthur continues on, holding Ruth’s hand and reaching for Celia’s. “St. Bart’s is suiting me just fine. Nice to see you, Father. If you’ll excuse us.”

Reesa shakes her head.

“The gates to hell are wide,” Father Flannery says. “Much wider than those to heaven.”

Arthur stops.

Father Flannery looks back toward Eve’s grave. The wind has started to fill in the footsteps Ruth and Arthur left in the snow.

Arthur drops Ruth’s hand, steps up to Father Flannery, and in an instant, Ruth knows. She realizes that all along, all these many years, Arthur has known the truth. He’s known the truth about what killed Eve.

“Is there something you want to say to this family?” Arthur says to Father Flannery.

“My concern is for the child, Arthur. For the child and Ruth. I don’t want to see things come to the same end.”

“Arthur, he doesn’t understand,” Celia says, reaching for his arm. “Let’s go.”

“I understand that he’s telling me Eve is in hell.”

“Arthur Scott,” Reesa says. “He’s saying no such thing.”

But he is. Ruth knows he is. Father Flannery thinks Eve is in hell because of what Ruth always feared Eve did to herself. Ruth presses both hands over her belly, protecting her sweet baby girl, sweet baby Elisabeth.

“That child died with a mortal sin on her soul. Would you have that for Ruth?”

Feeling as if Father Flannery can see inside her, Ruth takes two steps away. There was a moment, no longer than a blink, when she wondered if not having a baby would be best. This is what Father Flannery sees. Even now, all these months later, he can see inside and know that she once had the thought. She had considered it, for only a moment, in the very beginning, as it must have been for Eve.

“Eve died because of you and my father,” Arthur says, jarring Ruth back to the present. “She died for fear of you and that church. For fear of her own father.”

Celia is looking between Ruth and Arthur. As certain as Ruth is that Arthur knows, she is equally certain that Celia does not.

Father Flannery takes a step toward Arthur. “The gate is wide,” he says, and after tipping his head at Reesa, he walks away.

 

F
ather Flannery walks down the narrow path, through the small gate and out onto the street in front of the church. When he has disappeared into his car, Celia turns to Arthur. He stands with his head down, shaking it back and forth, back and forth.

“I don’t understand,” Celia says. “Arthur. Ruth. I don’t understand.”

Ruth steps up to Arthur and takes his hand in both of hers. “You’ve always known?”

Arthur nods.

“Did she tell you who it was?”

This time, Arthur shakes his head no.

“I hoped she wouldn’t do it,” Ruth says. “I begged her not to. She was so young. So young and afraid.”

“Ruth, what are you saying?” Celia says, trying to see Arthur’s face because then maybe she’ll understand.

Still holding Arthur’s hand and ignoring Celia’s question, Ruth says, “I’m so sorry, Arthur. It was my books. She must have read them. I think she used wedge root. I begged her. Really I did. I told her to tell Mother and Father. To tell them the truth. I told her we would all love her baby, no matter what.”

Celia reaches for Arthur but he pulls away.

“She was pregnant,” Celia whispers.

Beyond Julianne’s grave, Elaine and Jonathon walk toward the car parked in front of St. Anthony’s, Evie wrapped in Jonathon’s arms. Daniel stands alone near the gate.

“And she tried not to be,” Celia says. “But she was so young. Who? Was it Ray’s?”

Ruth shakes her head. “No. She swore it wasn’t. Ray loved her. Loved her so much. He wanted to marry her.” She crosses her hands and lowers her head like she has done so many times before. “We never knew who. She’d never tell. Never really admitted to being pregnant. But I knew she was. I just knew it. Someone hurt her very badly. She was different after it happened. Never the same.” Ruth is quiet for a moment and, as if she realizes something, she lifts her eyes. “Did Father know the truth?” she asks Reesa.

Reesa does not answer. Instead, she raises her chin ever so slightly, just enough that the wind catches the wisps of silver hair sticking out from under her hat.

Ruth leans forward. “Did he know?” she shouts.

Arthur, still facing Eve’s grave, says loud enough for everyone to hear, “He’s the one who told her to do it.”

Ruth’s shoulders collapse.

“And you, too,” Arthur says, turning to face Reesa. “You told her, too, didn’t you?”

Reesa stands motionless, her chin in the air, gray wisps of hair blowing across her forehead.

“She was too afraid to do it alone,” Arthur says. “So I helped her. I gathered up the wedge root. I boiled it in one of Mother’s pans. I did it.”

 

D
aniel stumbles backward when Aunt Ruth screams at Grandma Reesa. Up until that moment, he had been planning what to tell Dad, how to tell him about Ian’s nose and how Daniel almost broke it. But now, something else seems more important, and Aunt Ruth is shouting about Aunt Eve and how it wasn’t Dad’s fault that she died. She wasn’t murdered and bloodied up by Jack Mayer. Something else killed her. Something that Daniel thinks a man should know, but he isn’t a man yet. He takes a few steps backward until he feels snow underfoot, turns to follow Elaine and Jonathon, and there, in the shadow of a large pine tree growing near the fence line, stands Uncle Ray.

He must have been there all along, standing behind everyone who came to say good-bye to Julianne Robinson, because his collar is up and his hands are buried in his pockets making him look like he’s been cold for a very long time. He probably hid back there because more than ever folks are talking about him being one of the rabble-rousers in town and how they think he must have taken Julianne Robison for sure. But he isn’t causing any trouble now, only watching Mama and Dad and Aunt Ruth talk, but also he looks like he’s not really seeing them. A blue bruise lies over one of his eyes and his bottom lip is still swollen from the beating Dad gave him. As Daniel takes a step to follow Jonathon and Elaine, his boot snaps the icy crust on the cleared path and Uncle Ray turns. Seeing Daniel seems to wake him. Daniel stops. He should call out, warn them, because none of them notices that Uncle Ray is coming at them from behind the pine.

Standing by the mound of dirt that will bury Julianne, the two Negro men see Uncle Ray. One of them is leaning on a shovel and he pulls it out of the snow like he’s ready to hit Uncle Ray with it if he needs to. The other man throws back his shoulders but doesn’t have anything to hit with. Dad sees the men bracing themselves. He sees Uncle Ray.

“Ray,” Dad says, which stops Uncle Ray. “Not today, Ray. This isn’t the place.”

“You knew all this, Ruth?” Uncle Ray says, ignoring Dad and looking straight at Aunt Ruth across Julianne’s grave. “My Eve was pregnant?”

Aunt Ruth doesn’t answer but instead wraps her arms around her baby.

“She did it to herself?” Uncle Ray asks.

“I said, not now, Ray,” Dad says, louder still.

Again, Uncle Ray ignores Dad.

“That was a child bled out on the floor of that shed?”

No one answers. Mama turns away. Aunt Ruth looks down at her stomach. Grandma Reesa tips her face to the sky like heaven is up there and she can almost see it.

This time, Uncle Ray shouts as loudly as he can.

“That was a child?” His voice booms across Julianne’s grave.

Mama presses a hand over her mouth, which means she is about to cry. Grandma Reesa turns to leave, and Dad starts toward Uncle Ray but Aunt Ruth grabs his coat sleeve, stopping him.

“Yes, Ray,” Aunt Ruth says quietly, but the wind is to her back and it carries her voice for her. “That was a child, he or she—a baby.”

Uncle Ray steps back when Aunt Ruth says it, almost like she slapped him, slapped him hard right across the face. Then he looks up at Dad. He looks directly at Dad and points at him. “And you did it,” he says. “You killed my Eve.”

The two of them stare at each other, waiting for something.

“Yes,” Dad says. “I did it.”

Uncle Ray’s hat is cocked high on his forehead, showing off his tired eyes and gray skin. His face is thin and his cheekbones, like his hat, are cocked a little too high. His coat hangs on his shoulders and his pants bag around his boots as if he must have shrunk since he bought them. Dad once said too much drinking will wear heavy on a man. It looks like it has weighed Uncle Ray down about as far as he can go. After staring at Dad for a few more minutes, long enough that the Negro man with the shovel takes a few steps toward him, Uncle Ray walks away, down the cleared path, toward the station wagon where Elaine sits inside with Evie and Jonathon. He walks past the car without saying anything to Jonathon, who has stepped out probably because he heard all the shouting. He walks away, until he disappears down Bent Road without ever looking back.

Celia takes Reesa’s coat from the hook near the back door, hands it to Jonathon and steps aside as Reesa walks by. She fills the small hallway leading from the kitchen to the back porch, fills it with her size and with a sweet yeasty smell from the cinnamon rolls she mixed up that morning, intending to take them to the Robisons after the funeral. Now someone else will have to bake and deliver them to Mary Robison. Reesa says nothing as she sets her suitcase at Jonathon’s feet and extends one arm so he can help her on with her coat.

“I’m sure the road home will be fine, Mrs. Scott,” Jonathon says to Reesa. “Plows have had plenty of time to do their work.”

Reesa makes a grunting sound and, after buttoning her top two buttons, she walks out onto the porch, leaving her suitcase for Jonathon to carry.

“She made her bed,” Celia says to Jonathon. “Now she’s got to sleep in it and try to make it again in the morning.”

Jonathon shakes his head, signaling that he doesn’t understand.

“Just a saying my mother liked to use.” Celia swallows, something she does when she feels guilt. “And we have to think of them now, Ruth and the baby. They’re most important.”

Jonathon nods.

“You’ll see to it that the house is warm before you leave her?”

He nods again. “Sure thing.”

“Thank you, Jonathon,” Celia says, reaching up to hug him. “And I know Arthur thanks you, too.”

Overhead, footsteps pound across the roof. Arthur and Daniel climbed up there almost the instant they got home from the funeral to shovel more snow.

“He always goes to work when he’s feeling bad. We’ll have the cleanest roof in the county before this all settles.” Celia hands Jonathon his coat. “You drive careful and come back for dinner.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll see Mrs. Scott home safe. Safe and sound.”

 

H
earing the screened door open, Daniel stops shoveling and looks over the edge of the house. Behind him, Dad continues to scrape his shovel across the black roof.

“Grandma’s leaving,” Daniel says, slapping his leather gloves together. He looks over the edge again, the wind sweeping up and catching him in the face. He squints into the white sunlight bouncing off the snow below. “Jonathon’s taking her.”