Bent Road (8 page)

“Once it boils, you can start dropping dumplings,” Reesa says. “Be sure that dough is plenty thick this time. Add more flour if it calls you to.”

“And use small spoonfuls,” Elaine says. “Jonathon and Dad like the small noodles. Right, Dad?”

Arthur doesn’t answer. He knows better, Celia thinks, tapping her teaspoon on the side of the pot. The drumming fingers stop.

“Next time,” Reesa says, “set the burner on high and we won’t be holding up lunch until that broth boils. Lord a mercy. Father Flannery will be preaching next Sunday’s mass before those noodles are done.”

Celia digs a spoon into the thick batter and flashes a toothy grin at her mother-in-law whose large body spills over the chair. Scooping up a wad of dough the size of a chicken egg, she holds it over the pot, not really intending to drop it in, but wanting to enjoy the feeling of ruining Sunday lunch before dropping in a proper sized dumpling—one the size of a nickel. But as she holds the dough over the simmering broth, she hears a loud pop that startles her and the dumpling wad falls. Hot broth slashes her arms and face. She jumps back.

“Ray’ll have to get that fixed one of these days,” Arthur says at the sound of Ray’s truck backfiring a second time. He stands, glances out the kitchen widow and walks toward the back door.

Jonathon scoots back from the table and pulls out Elaine’s chair for her. “Let’s give it a look,” he says.

As the three of them walk from the kitchen, leaving Celia and Reesa alone, Celia turns her back on the stove, the chicken broth bubbling up behind her, and leans over the sink so she can see out the window. Ray hasn’t moved from behind the steering wheel and the engine is choking and sputtering. In the passenger seat, Ruth sits with her head lowered. Celia crosses her arms and smiles, thinking she’ll have to tease Arthur for all his worrying. All through church, he had fidgeted, shifting in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs as he watched the doors and scanned the pews. Ruth never misses a Sunday. Never, he whispered as the congregation began its first hymn. Perhaps she’s under the weather or Ray overslept. Arthur only nodded and hung his arm over the back of the pew so he could watch the heavy wooden doors at the rear of the church.

“Mind that chicken doesn’t burn,” Reesa says, nodding toward the chicken frying in a cast-iron skillet and then she pushes back from the table, the legs of her chair grinding across the linoleum floor. “I’ll go see to helping Ruth with her dessert. And get those dumplings going. We’ll be all day waiting if you don’t get started.”

When Reesa has left the kitchen and Celia is alone, she looks back outside. Ruth’s head is still lowered as if she’s looking down at folded hands and Ray is beating on the steering wheel, seemingly because the truck’s engine won’t stop running. He is still ranting when Arthur walks up to the truck, followed by Elaine, Jonathon and Reesa. Celia steps back from the sink, pokes at the one giant dumpling that has floated to the top of the broth and, as the rolling bubbles grow into a heavy boil, she thinks she’ll serve this one to Reesa. Reaching for the second burner, where the fried chicken sizzles and pops, Celia smiles as she turns up the heat.

 

D
aniel, startled by a loud pop, ducks and presses against the wall, the wooden slats rough and wet against his back. Inside the small shed, it’s dark and the air smells like Grandma Reesa’s basement—moldy and stale. He tries to breathe through his mouth, thinking the air won’t feel so heavy if he does.

For six weeks, Ian has asked Daniel to look inside the shed at Grandma Reesa’s place. Ian’s oldest brothers thought for sure Julianne Robison was rotting away inside, but Daniel said that was stupid because Grandma Reesa would have smelled her. Ian said to check anyway because his brothers were smart and a fellow could never be sure until he saw it with his own eyes.

Daniel readjusts his feet, careful not to break through one of the floorboards that creak every time he moves. Hearing another pop, he recognizes the sound as Uncle Ray’s truck and, squinting with one eye, he looks through a small hole where part of a plank has rotted away. Dad walks out of the house, smiling, almost laughing. He turns to say something to Jonathon. Elaine laughs, latches onto Jonathon’s side and dips her head into his shoulder. The back door swings open again and Grandma Reesa walks out, rocking from side to side with each step. Daniel thinks of Ian, how he walks with a staggered stride, too, but for a different reason. Tomorrow at school, Daniel will tell Ian that Julianne Robison is definitely not rotting in the shed.

As Grandma Reesa nears the truck where the others are standing and watching Uncle Ray curse the engine that won’t stop rattling, she turns toward the shed and stops, her feet spread wide to support her weight, her hands on her hips. Daniel drops down and presses his head between his knees. He sits motionless, waiting, listening.

Every Sunday after church services, Daniel changes into his work clothes when they get to Grandma Reesa’s so he can cut her lawn. Sometimes, Dad gives him other chores to do, too—clean the gutters, spray down the screens, tighten the banisters—but at least until the first hard frost, he mows every Sunday. And every week, as Dad pulls the reel mower from the garage, he says, “Don’t bother around the shed. That’s for later.” But later has never come. “I could take a weed whip to it,” Daniel said one Sunday, remembering Ian’s brothers and the kitten in the hole. He was glad when Dad shook his head and said, “Not today, son.” Since they moved to Kansas, Dad and Jonathon have used a truck and cables to straighten Grandma’s garage and have hammered in new support beams on the porch. They have replaced her rotted windowpanes and reshingled her chimney but Dad hasn’t lifted a single hammer or nail to fix the sagging shed that is no more than six feet by eight with a flat roof and lone door. Daniel asked Aunt Ruth once why Dad wouldn’t let anyone near the shed. “Mind your father,” she had said. “Some things are meant to rest in peace.”

Afraid to look through the rotted plank again, Daniel hugs his knees to his chest and wraps himself into a tight ball. Large cobwebs hanging from the corners of the shed sparkle in the slivers of light that shine through the loosely woven wooden roof. Daniel muffles a cough by pressing his mouth to his forearm. Sitting in the dark and wondering if Grandma Reesa saw him, Daniel remembers the crazy men from Clark City and scans the empty shed for a set of eyes that might be watching him. It’s definitely time to get out.

Lifting up on his knees so he can peek through the hole again, Daniel sees that Dad has stopped a few feet in front of Uncle Ray’s truck. He isn’t laughing anymore. He is staring straight ahead at Aunt Ruth, who has stepped out of the truck and is standing near the front bumper, her arms hanging at her sides. The hem of her blue calico dress flutters in the breeze. Dad stands with a straight back, his feet planted wide. His hat sits low on his forehead. After Dad is done staring at Aunt Ruth, he turns toward Uncle Ray.

E
vie climbs onto the bed when she hears a loud pop outside. Holding up the hem of the blue silky dress that slips off her shoulders and bags at the neckline, she tiptoes across the white bedspread so she doesn’t make the springs squeak. Daniel will be angry if he knows she’s tried on the dresses. He’ll probably tell Mama, and Daddy will take a switch to her hind end. That’s what Grandma Reesa did when Daddy was a boy. On their second visit to Grandma Reesa’s house, Daddy had taken Evie out back and showed her a weeping willow tree. It had long, lazy branches that hung to the ground. “That old tree sure gave up her share of switches,” Daddy had said, rubbing his hind end and laughing.

Evie stops in the middle of the bed, one foot in front of the other, her hands spread wide for balance. Hearing no one in the hallway outside the bedroom, she takes another step toward the window. Another loud pop comes from down below, but this time she smiles because she knows it’s only Uncle Ray’s truck backfiring. The handkerchief hem of the dress brushes against her toes. She wiggles them, gathers up the skirt again and leans against the headboard where she can see outside.

After Daddy and the others have walked out the door toward Uncle Ray’s truck, Evie goes back to imagining that she is Aunt Eve. She pushes away from the window, presses her shoulders back and lifts her chin so that she’ll feel taller—as tall as Aunt Eve. No one ever told Aunt Eve she was too small to be a third grader or called her names. Aunt Eve always had friends to sit with in the cafeteria and never sat alone on the steps outside her classroom, watching the swings hang empty or beating the dust from Miss Olson’s erasers. No one ever told Aunt Eve that she was going to disappear like Julianne Robison. Aunt Eve is beautiful and perfect and has the finest dresses. She was never, ever the smallest.

Wrapping her arms around her waist, Evie hugs the soft dress and smells Aunt Eve’s perfume—sweet and light, like the bouquets of wildflowers that Aunt Ruth brings every Saturday morning. Evie closes her eyes and slowly twirls around, the bedsprings squeaking under foot. She spreads her arms wide, spinning faster and faster, lifting her knees to her chest so she won’t trip on the hem and finally dropping down onto the center of the mattress with a loud crash.

She sits in the middle of the bed, not moving, not breathing, wondering if she has made the bed collapse. The headboard is still standing. She leans over the side. The bed is still standing, too. Then she hears the sound again. It’s coming from outside. She crawls back to the window and lifts up high enough to see out. Daddy, now standing at the front of Uncle Ray’s truck with Jonathon right behind him, is waving one hand toward Aunt Ruth and pointing at Uncle Ray with the other. As Jonathon reaches out for Daddy, Daddy bangs his fist on the truck’s hood. The same crash that Evie heard. Daddy shakes off Jonathon and holds up one hand to stop Grandma Reesa, who has started walking toward him. Uncle Ray has backed up to the rear of his truck and is motioning at Daddy with both hands the same way he did when Olivia spooked as she walked out of the trailer. He’s trying to calm Daddy, to make him settle down so he doesn’t rear up. In four long steps, Daddy is standing face to face with Uncle Ray.

Shifting in her chair to hear more clearly through the open kitchen window, Celia smiles as Ray’s truck finally quiets down. Next, one of the truck’s doors opens, followed by heavy boots landing on the gravel drive. Another door opens.

“Help your Aunt Ruth.” It’s Reesa, probably calling out to Elaine. “She’ll have a handful.”

At the sound of her mother-in-law’s voice, Celia presses her hands flat on the vinyl tablecloth, bracing herself, the smell of burnt chicken beginning to tug at her. Next to the chicken, which sizzles and pops, though quieter now because its juices have burned off, broth hisses as it splashes over the sides of Reesa’s iron pot onto the hot stovetop and disappears in a puff of steam. Celia presses her feet on the white linoleum and repositions herself on the vinyl seat cover, rooting her body so she won’t be tempted to stand. The God damned chicken can burn for all she cares.

Sundays were pleasant in Detroit. It was the day she wore white gloves and her favorite cocoa velour pillbox hat with the grosgrain ribbon trim. The children wore their finest clothes to church and never worried about dust ruining the shine on their patent leather shoes. Arthur always wore a tie. Sundays in Detroit were properly creased and always well kept until the riots started and everything began to smell like burnt rubber and the Negro boys started calling Elaine. Now Sundays are dusty, filthy, wrinkled and spent watching Arthur pat his belly as Reesa fries up a chicken. Celia shivers thinking of Reesa’s offer that next week she’ll teach Celia how to pick a good fryer from the brood and wring its neck with a few flicks of the wrist.

“Look up at me, Ruth,” Arthur says from outside the window.

Something about Arthur’s voice makes Celia stand. She slides her chair back and leans over the sink where she can see out the kitchen window. Ray and Ruth have both stepped out of the truck. Ray is standing on the far side, where only the top of his hat is visible, and Ruth is standing on the near side, her back to Celia, her arms dangling, her head lowered.