Heat and Light (6 page)

“I worry about her,” says Shelby. “She's going to end up like my mother.” Shelby's mother works, for the moment, as a paid companion to a mean paraplegic. She lives in the man's house, feeds and dresses and takes him to the toilet, tasks complicated by the fact that both are blind drunk most of the day.

Rich stands behind Shelby's chair, rubs deeply at her shoulders. She gives a little sigh of pleasure.

“Oh, that feels good. I'm taking Olivia off dairy products. I think she's allergic, like me. It says right here—”

“Do we have to talk about this now?”

She turns to face him, frowning unattractively. When they first met, her heart-shaped face had a solemn quality, sweetly symmetrical, the delicate profile of a cameo brooch. Over the years she's acquired a collection of grimaces, lopsided frowns, and puckers. The expressions are unsightly but eloquent, a timid girl's silent language. His wife's dominant emotions—irritation, resignation, an outsize disappointment—are written clearly on her face.

“Oh, excuse me. Your daughter has been miserable all night. I thought you might be interested. And you know I don't feel well.”

He takes a deep breath. “Shelby, there's nothing wrong with her. She's been drinking milk her whole life. All kids do.”

“But it says here—”

Rich throws up his hands. “You know what? I give up. You're turning her into an invalid. She's
seven years old.
”

He takes his beer out the back door and stands a long moment on the deck, staring up at the sky.
You know I don't feel well.
He knows, he knows: the migraines and allergies, the menstrual cramps. For
five days each month Shelby lives on the couch, clutching Olivia in her arms like a doll.
My little girl is sensitive,
he's heard Shelby tell her mother.
If I'm sick, she feels what I feel.

The night is silent, the moon glowing almost imperceptibly through the fog. Gingerly he stretches his lower back. He can still smell prison on himself. Usually a shower gets rid of it, but not always. The smell is trapped in his nasal passages. After ten years the place has seeped into him, his skin and hair, his blood and bone.

He breathes deeply. He built the deck himself last summer, a sturdy platform of engineered wood—the flimsy house's one attractive feature, better than it deserves. Looking out over his grandfather's land, sixty acres of fields and rolling pasture, he feels instantly cleaner. The best hours of his boyhood were spent here, fishing the creek, riding the back of Pap's snowmobile. When Pap died and the farm was divided among the four grandchildren, only Rich loved the place enough to keep it. He imagined living in the old farmhouse with his new wife and future children—four or even five, though Shelby would take some convincing. As a family they'd get the business up and running—dairy cows, like Pap had raised.

You have an exit strategy, a plan for the future. This is what you tell yourself.

He borrowed enough to buy out his sisters, who'd moved away and had families to raise and needed the money more than the land. His brother, too, was eager to sell. The smartest Devlin by far, Darren had landed a scholarship to Johns Hopkins, half tuition, though he wasn't smart enough to figure out how to pay the other half.

Buy him out, for heaven's sake!
Rich's mother urged. Darren, the baby, had always been her favorite.
He needs the money for school.

He needs the money for
something. Rich didn't actually know—he only suspected—that Darren had expensive habits. (How quickly and dangerously he could burn through sixty thousand dollars. The high times so much money could buy.) But in the end Rich gave in; Darren got his money and flunked out of Hopkins and didn't call
home for two years. By then their mother was dead, and it was Dick who paid for Darren's rehab—not once but twice—at the clinic where Darren still works.

It would have been better for everyone—for Darren especially—if he'd simply
given
Rich the land.

An exit strategy, a plan for the future. Not now, but soon.

He is patient by nature, which is both a strength and a weakness. As a boy he studied the Sears catalog in the weeks before Christmas, making extensive lists of the toys he coveted: the Evel Knievel action figure with its collection of motorcycles, precise replicas of the bikes Evel rode in real life. Now, in the same spirit, he trawls online message boards. All his research points to the Honiger 4000, a state-of-the-art milking system—to his adult self, the equivalent of Evel Knievel's chopper. Lesser systems would kill you with repair costs and lost milking days, but the Honiger is a miracle of Swiss engineering, reliable as the sun. A brand-new system, installed, runs a hundred thousand; but with a little research, used components can be had. At this very moment, a dairy farmer in Somerset County is about to retire. He's looking to sell his Honiger, only eight years old. Rich can swing a wrench as well as the next guy, and his dad knows a plumber who'll work for cheap. Not including animals, he could be up and running for fifty grand. For a guy at his pay grade, it's still a lot of cake; but all that can change in an instant. Can and will, once his wells go in.

Two summers ago, he'd driven home from work on a Monday morning, dead tired after an all-night lockdown, to find a strange pickup parked in his driveway. His first thought would later shame him: his wife, alone all night, had been entertaining a visitor, another man in his bed. Flooded with adrenaline, he circled the truck. The out-of-state plate seemed, at the time, exotic. He'd known Texans in the navy. Never once had he encountered one in Bakerton.

He rushed into the house and found Shelby in her bathrobe, drinking orange juice with two strange men. She didn't look guilty
or even nervous; she seemed excited, as though she'd been given a surprise gift. The guy put Rich at ease right away—the folksy drawl, maybe, or the way he was dressed: khaki pants, a denim shirt rolled to the elbows. He looked like a guy who worked with his hands.

He signed the contract immediately, stunned at his good fortune. Suddenly all things seemed possible. He called Saxon Savings and refinanced his mortgage. The reward was immediate, a year and a half of lower payments. By the time the balloon payments kicked in, his wells would be producing, and he'd have cash to spare.

He hadn't counted on the waiting. In that time he'd learned a few things. The gas company's offer, which had seemed simple and generous, was neither. He'd been a fool to fall for their opening gambit—twenty-five bucks an acre, plus 12.5 percent of the profits, the minimum allowed by law.
You played me,
he imagined telling Bobby Frame, the slick salesman who'd taken advantage of his ignorance. But Bobby Frame was long gone.

Then, four months ago, Rich's balloon payments kicked in, and his monthly tab nearly doubled. With no other options, he borrowed ten grand from his dad—who, after years of paying suppliers with his own Black Lung checks, finally had a little cash to spare.

I'm good for it,
Rich promised.
I signed a gas lease.
It was all he could think to say. He was nearly mute with shame.

Now he takes the Post-it note from his pocket.
Beth at Saxon Savings. Call her back asap.
His current payment is three weeks late. His dad's check will take two more days to clear.

Tonight he will dream of digging.

As a boy he'd been haunted by the story of the Number Twelve collapse, eight miners crushed after a freak methane explosion. For an entire summer, in dreams, Richie Devlin led the search team digging through the rubble, uncovering bodies piece by piece—a severed foot, a terrible grasping hand. Now, once again, he dreams of digging. His dream self digs a hole and fills it with cash, bundles of fifties and hundreds going right into the ground.

The kitchen door opens behind him. Shelby stands in the doorway in the quilted bathrobe he hates. “I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed.”

Surprise, surprise.

“I'm taking Braden with me on Sunday,” he tells her. “Dad wants to go fishing.”

She looks pained. “What about church?”

After ten years of marriage, there are no new conversations. Rich could have had this one with himself.

“It's just one Sunday. Anyways, I already told Brady he could come.”

She hugs the robe around her. “Great. Thanks for that. He's already decided that church is for girls.”

“I wonder where he got that idea.”

Her face twists into a look he's seen before, one that particularly dismays him: left eye squeezed shut, mouth tucked to the left, as though she's suffered a debilitating stroke.

“Sorry. It just seems weird to me. A lady preacher. I didn't grow up that way.”

Shelby says, “Nobody did.”

“Look, Dad wants to go fishing with his grandson. What was I supposed to say? He's not getting any younger.” Rich stares up at the sky. It occurs to him that Shelby, raised without one, doesn't understand the point of a father. “Who knows how many fishing trips he's got left?”

This ends the discussion, as he knew it would. The door clicks shut behind her.

S
helby brushes Olivia's hair, counting the strokes. The house is quiet around them, no cartoons playing, no video games or Braden noises. Her son is the sort of boy who produces a near-constant stream of sound, like the world's most irritating radio station: machine-gun blasts, guttural and plosive; ringing cartoon farts; monkey shrieks. She thinks of a hip-hop group, popular when she was a teenager, whose front man was called the Human Beat Box. Using nothing but his mouth, the Box produced pulsing bass lines and rhythmic drumming. The Box, if he'd been more ambitious, could have put entire orchestras out of work. Now, raising a son, Shelby understands that the Human Beat Box was nothing special. He simply did what boys do.

Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. A mother is judged by her child's appearance. This is a known fact.

Usually Olivia complains about the brushing. Today she barely notices, absorbed in recounting a dream that becomes, in the telling, no longer a dream but a thing that actually happened. Its convoluted plot involves witches, several girls from her first-grade class, the neighbor's dog, and its new puppies. At the center of the story is Olivia herself, transformed for dream purposes into Ariel, the Little Mermaid.

“And then the witch—” says Olivia.

“And then the black puppy—”

“And then I—”

Her small clear voice vibrates with certainty. It's horrible and somehow marvelous, the conviction with which a seven-year-old can lie. Does Olivia even know she's lying? Shelby thinks she does. She remembers the feeling from her own childhood, the exhilaration of fibbing outrageously and getting away with it.
No kidding,
her mother would say, and that would be the end of it. Roxanne put no particular stock in truthfulness.

“Twenty-nine,” says Shelby. “Thirty.” Walking into church with her two well-groomed children is the high point of her week. The rest of the week is notably lacking in high points. Years ago, when she worked at Saxon Manor, there was the elaborate daily ritual of choosing her outfit, heating the curling iron, applying makeup. Her day at Saxon Manor went downhill from there.

Thirty-one, thirty-two. A fact known by people everywhere, with the exception of her own mother. Shelby and her sister had run wild in the neighborhood, feral girls, unbrushed and unbraided. Once, a neighbor lady came out of her house with a damp washrag to wipe Shelby's dirty face.

“Forty-nine, fifty!” she says aloud, ending with a flourish. A hundred strokes was expected, a hundred was the standard. But on Olivia's baby hair, fine as cobwebs, a hundred strokes would seem like a punishment. Fifty is more than enough.

She parts Olivia's hair and begins braiding.

“Not too tight,” Olivia says.

In a small wavering voice she sings a wisp of a song she learned in Sunday school:
Who built the park? Noah! Noah!
She has a habit of mishearing song lyrics, which worried Shelby at first. But Dr. Stusick has tested her hearing and swears that Olivia's ears are fine.

“Something smells,” Olivia says.

Shelby sniffs. “Daddy left the coffeemaker plugged in.” Most Sundays, Rich is gone before sunrise. In early winter he goes hunting, doe, buck, rabbit. Later, it's the snowmobile. The rest of the year he drives north to Yellow Creek, to catch-and-release whatever
is in season: rainbows in springtime, walleyes in summer, steelies in fall.

Her supervisor at Saxon Manor, a man named Larry Stransky, had complimented her appearance. A small thing, but it had brightened her day.

Olivia is getting squirrelly, squirming in her chair. “Why does Braden get to go fishing?”

“You can go next time, when you're feeling better. Today we have church.”

Church is for girls.
Rich, predictably, had found Braden's comment amusing. The memory washes over Shelby like nausea.

“Ow.”

“Sorry, baby.”

“Your hands are shaking.”

Shelby rubs them together, as if to warm them. The tremor comes and goes without warning. No one but Olivia has ever noticed. She is a sensitive child, uncannily attuned to her mother's symptoms—a quality notably lacking in her father and brother and even their family doctor. Olivia, one day, will make a wonderful doctor. Of this her mother is sure.

After her marriage, Larry Stransky took a disliking to her.

Shelby ties off the braids with blue ribbons. “All done. Now can you stay put for two minutes while Mommy gets dressed? And no more juice, sweetie. We don't want you spilling on yourself.”

He got that idea from you,
she could have said, but didn't.
If you ever came with us, even on Christmas. Ever, even once.

In the kitchen she shuts off the coffeemaker. The coffee is thick as motor oil, but she pours a cup anyway. At least it will keep her awake in church. Like the burnt coffee, her exhaustion is Rich's fault. She lay awake for hours until he came to bed. She couldn't relax with him prowling around the house.

She couldn't fall asleep because she worried that he would wake her.

Except for the odd wedding or funeral, he never sets foot in a church of any kind. The world, Shelby knows, is filled with such people, for whom a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is inadequate enticement. Rich would rather sit around waiting for a fish he isn't even going to eat.

When he came to bed she held very still, breathing slow and regular. Any deviation in her breathing would be noticed. But he had left her alone.

It wasn't always like this. In the beginning she felt lit up by the knowledge that he wanted her, shocked to life by the force of his want. But there was a difference between wanting and expecting. When he climbs on top of her she feels the terrible weight of obligation. Letting him touch her solves nothing. Letting him touch her is throwing dimes and nickels at a debt so large it can never be repaid.

Now and then he invites her to stop by the bar while he is working, as though bartending were a movie or a sports match, some kind of performance she might want to watch.

For a couple their age, three times a week is a normal amount of lovemaking. She read this in a magazine.

With Larry Stransky she did nothing. He did it all himself. Long ago, before her marriage, her only action was to meet him in his car at the dinner break.
Let me look at you,
he said while he finished himself off. Ten minutes later she was back in the building.

He did it all himself.

THEY GET INTO THE VAN,
Olivia in the backseat. On the front seat is an arrangement of yellow carnations, an all-purpose flower.

Living Waters is in the center of town, in an old storefront.
That's not a church,
Rich likes to say, and it's true that the building looks deserted, its plate glass windows covered in butcher paper. The sign out front was dismantled long ago, but the ghost of the words is still visible, the old-fashioned cursive:
Friedman's Furniture.

Heads turn as they enter the church. In her white dress Olivia is an angel, which is all that matters. Shelby had no time to fix her own hair or put in contact lenses, but she is just the mother. No one is looking at her.

A mother is judged by her child's appearance. This is an established fact.

The church is as full as it ever gets, though Pastor Jess, eternally hopeful, sets out a dozen extra chairs. Shelby leaves her jacket and purse on her usual chair in the front row. She likes a clear view of the pastor—beautifully dressed, always, in an elegant pants suit. That surprised her at first, Shelby who'd always worn dresses to church. Now she sees the wisdom of it. A pastor shouldn't have to worry about a run in her stockings, or her slip showing. She should move in her clothing as easily as men do, freeing her mind for higher things.

She leads Olivia downstairs for the Children's Service, songs, and a Bible reading and a discussion of the day's lesson. Later they'd have milk and cookies while the adults enjoyed their coffee upstairs. A half-dozen little ones are already there, sitting cross-legged on colorful squares of carpet. The walls are decorated with their drawings, recognizable as Bible scenes because all the men have beards.

Upstairs she takes her seat and gratefully closes her eyes. For years her own prayer had been an afterthought; she spent the hour dispensing toys and whispered scoldings, sitting between Braden and Olivia to keep them from acting up. Now, each Sunday, she feels her soul opening—moved in new ways, touched in places she has never been touched. It's a thing no male minister would ever think of, that a person might actually pay attention to the service if her children were safely occupied elsewhere. If she were, for one blessed hour a week, left in peace.

Even Pastor Wes—rest his soul—had never thought of such a thing.

When Braden was born with the hole in his heart, it was Pastor
Wes who sat at the hospital with Shelby. Who, during the surgery, held her hand in the waiting room, their heads bowed in prayer. It was the most significant event of her adult life, and yet no one remembered it. Not Rich, who pretended it had never happened; and certainly not Braden, transformed overnight from a sickly baby to a hyperactive toddler, full of mischief. Only Pastor Wes had been a true witness to her suffering, the waiting and wondering, the episodes of panic and dread. Certain that her baby was dying, she never guessed (nobody did) that in a few years Pastor Wes would be dead himself, of some young man's cancer no one knew he had.

The only true witness to her suffering. And Pastor Wes is gone, gone.

The opening hymn is an old one Shelby remembers. It isn't one she particularly cares for, and yet she finds herself moved by the words as she sings them.

    
Even though it be a cross that raiseth me,

    
still all my song shall be

    
nearer, my God, to Thee

When Pastor Jess rises to give the lesson, Shelby leans forward in her seat. The pastor speaks to the congregation one person at a time, her eyes moving from face to face as though she notices everything about you: whether you're peaceful or troubled; if you got a good night's sleep or sat up half the night with a sick child; if your husband made love to you or fell asleep on the couch. Whichever happens to be true, she looks at you with compassion and deep understanding, as though your worst transgressions are already forgiven; as though grace is something you actually deserve.

The service ended, she helps Lois Fetterson at the refreshments table. The social runs from ten to eleven—for Shelby, an anxious hour. She helps herself to coffee but skips the doughnuts. Chewing in public unnerves her.

“Doesn't Olivia look sweet?” Lois says with her mouth full. “Where's your boy this morning?”

“Rich took him fishing.” Shelby's tone discourages further questions. Lois Fetterson is a notorious gossip. Shelby's life is in no way gossip-worthy, and yet she feels a strong urge to conceal facts from Lois, for the simple pleasure of denying her.

“Wally saw Rich last night at the Commercial. He's a good son, helping Dick like that.”

Shelby ignores the comment. It's just like Lois to remind her that her husband is a bartender. Never mind the fact, well known in town, that Wally Fetterson spends every evening in one beer garden or another. Rich, at least, was helping his father. Lois's husband has no excuse.

This Sunday, as on all others, a small crowd surrounds Pastor Jess. Shelby approaches, carrying the yellow carnations. “For Pastor Wes. I thought we could go together.”

Pastor Jess looks confused. “Oh, the
cemetery,
” she says at last. “For Memorial Day.”

Shelby stands there awkwardly, holding the flower arrangement, which she left in the minivan during the service. It looks a little wilted from the heat.

“That's kind of you, Shelby, but I can't leave just yet. You go on without me. I hate to keep you waiting.”

Shelby says, “I don't mind.”

TO EXPLAIN PASTOR WES
you have to start at the beginning. In the beginning Shelby's mother worked at the Moose. In Bakerton a moose is not an animal but a tavern, smoke-filled, where men shoot pool or play cards in the back room or stare at the television above the bar.

For most of Shelby's childhood they lived in the upstairs apartment, Roxanne's answer to babysitting: Shelby and Crystal could, in theory, come find her in case of emergency. Of course, they never
did. Because what, for Roxanne, would constitute an emergency? About nightmares and scraped knees, she was unfailingly casual. In case of fire or a masked intruder, Shelby would have called the police.

Roxanne was not a motherly name. Even as a child Shelby knew this, in the same way she knew that bartending was not a normal job for a woman.

The hidden life of the bar, its daily rhythms. In the morning trucks idled out front, painted with familiar logos: Pabst Blue Ribbon, Iron City, Stroh's. With the front door propped open, the Moose exhaled its sour beer breath, sharpened by the pine-scented cleaner Roxanne used to mop the floor.

In the afternoon the jukebox played sad men, George Jones and Merle Haggard clearly audible in the upstairs apartment, the slow thump of the bass like a heartbeat in the floor. The bar's TV tuned, always, to some sports match. In a faraway stadium a crowd cheered. An announcer explained the action in a scolding tone, insisting that you care.

When dark fell the music changed, guitars screeching and wailing. Between songs Shelby heard snatches of conversation, pool balls colliding with a dry crack. A comforting noise as she lay waiting for sleep next to her sister, on the foldout couch in the living room.

Their mother came home long after midnight, tiptoeing around furniture. She was so quiet that Shelby might have stayed asleep, if not for the smell—cigarette smoke, the deep fryer—Roxanne wore like perfume. It was a more concentrated version of the odor already lingering in the apartment, a smell that rose up through the floorboards.