Mrs. Kimble (3 page)

“Children,” she whispered. No one seemed to hear her. She crossed the store in three large steps and grabbed Jody by the hand.
Somewhere in the process she lost her footing and slid facedown on the floor, bringing her daughter with her. Jody let out a wail.

“Mummy!” she cried. “You hurted me!”

T
HE JAR
seemed to float in the air forever. Now, Charlie thought, and it obeyed, landing with a satisfying crash. The pickles looked soft and alive on the cement floor. For a moment he expected them to skitter away, like wild things that had been kept as pets.

He let out a cry as his mother lurched across the room and grabbed Jody by the hand. He was glad it wasn’t him. She scared him when she grabbed, her fingernails leaving crescent-shaped marks on his skin. Once, when he was little, he ran into the street in front of a pickup truck. His mother spotted the truck and grabbed hold of his shirt just in time.
Look both ways,
she’d scolded him afterward. It seemed to Charlie that she was always clawing at him with that same urgency.

He backed away as she tripped on the rubber floor mat and fell, her dress flipping up to show the veiny backs of her thighs. For a moment he thought of bending over to smooth down her skirt. Instead he stood there wiping his hands on his pants.

She seemed dazed by the fall. She lay there without moving until the old man came and helped her up.

“You all right, Miz Kimble?” he asked.

She got to her feet. Tears ran down her cheeks. There was a blue ink spot near her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she said faintly. “I’ll pay, of course.” She rummaged in her pocketbook and handed the old man her change purse. “Take whatever you need.”

The old man counted out bills and change and handed back the purse. “Can you make it home all right? You want me to drive you?”

Charlie imagined the old man’s car. He would let Charlie sit up front and pick a station on the radio. Yes, he thought, watching his mother. Just say yes. But she was halfway to the door, dragging Jody by the hand.

“We’ll manage,” she said. She did not look back. Her handcart sat at the front of the store like an abandoned animal.

“Mama,” Charlie called. He grabbed the handle of the cart. “You forgot.”

His mother stumbled back into the store and took the cart from him. “We’ll manage,” she said again.

The street was busy at that hour. A line of cars idled at the red light. His mother walked unevenly, leaning on the cart. Jody toddled behind her, tugging at the hem of her dress. They crossed the street with painful slowness. Charlie held his breath as a car squealed to a stop just short of them, a big yellow car like his father’s. The horn blared. Across the street an old woman came out of her house and stared.

“Land sakes,” said his mother, blinking as if someone had woken her from a nap. “I’m so warm.” Then she did a remarkable thing. She sat down right in the middle of the sidewalk. “Just for a minute,” she said.

Charlie wanted to cry. His mother had broken the car. They’d gone to the store without buying one single thing to eat. Now she sat in the middle of the sidewalk, as if she planned to stay there awhile.

“Mama,” he said. “I want to go home.”

T
HE NEXT THING
she remembered they were walking along the road. Charlie led the way, her little man; the baby trailed behind,
holding the hem of Birdie’s dress. The sun hung low in the sky, a perfect circle of orange pink. The daylight surprised her. It should have been much, much later. She was very tired.

She leaned heavily on her handcart, filled with packages she couldn’t identify. She didn’t remember leaving the store. She did recall rummaging through her purse and handing Beckwith her wallet, not caring how much money he took.

“Children, let’s stop and rest awhile.” She reached down to steady herself and sat heavily on the curb.

“We’re almost home,” said Charlie.

“I know, button. Your mama is just so tired.” She closed her eyes and clamped her lips together. Stop, she thought, but it was no use: her stomach wanted to jump out of her mouth and into the street. She felt a small sticky hand on the back of her neck.

“Poor Mummy,” said Jody, patting her hair. The sour smell of pickles filled the steamy air. Another wave rolled over Birdie, a potent mixture of nausea and shame. She leaned over and vomited quietly into the street.

T
he next morning his mother was awake when he came into the kitchen. She stood at the sink staring out the window.

“Good morning, button,” she said.

Charlie could smell the stove working. His stomach cramped inside him.

“I’m making tea,” she said. “Would you like some?”

Tea, he thought. He studied his mother’s face, still smudged with blue. He had never drunk tea in his life. He thought she should have noticed.

“No, thank you,” he said.

“I’m feeling better this morning.” Her fingers raked at her hair, flat on one side of her head, soft and puffy on the other.

“That’s good.” Charlie looked around the kitchen for other signs of breakfast making. There was only a china cup with a string hanging over the side.

“Can I go outside?” he asked.

He cut through the hedge to the Raskins’ yard, still wet with
morning dew. There was no light in the Hogans’ kitchen. Charlie went around back, but something was wrong.

Queenie was not in her pen.

He should have run away then. But Queenie’s bowl was full of fresh kibble. He thought of the black puppy, its moist tongue tickling his hand. He was stuffing a handful of kibble in his pocket when he heard the jangle of a chain.

“What are you doing?” said a woman’s voice.

Charlie looked up. It was Mrs. Hogan, her head wrapped in an orange scarf. She held a coffee cup in one hand, Queenie’s chain in the other.

“That’s dog food,” she said.

Charlie said nothing.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

His face burned. Tears pressed behind his eyes. He dropped the kibble back into Queenie’s bowl. Then he ran.

He ran until his side hurt, through the Arnetts’ yard, into the woods, along the path. He crossed the stream, his feet missing half the rocks. He ran downstream to the marshy ground, his sneakers oozing cold water. The old house rose up in the distance, hiding badly behind the trees.

Charlie stopped, breathing loud. Blood in his mouth: he had bitten his tongue. “Here, boys,” he called softly. The black puppy came from under the porch and ran to him, ears flapping.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His nose ran. He hadn’t cried in a long time, not since he was little.

The puppy licked his empty hands.

T
HE KITCHEN
was dim in the morning, shaded by a small magnolia tree out back, the only thing anyone had bothered to plant on the barren little lot. Birdie poured her tea and went out to the yard for the newspaper. She hadn’t read it in weeks. Each day she stacked it in the aluminum can they kept under the carport.

She winced as she sat at the table. A bruise bloomed on her right kneecap where she’d landed on the cement floor. She’d been embarrassed before. If she let herself, she could still burn over the awkwardness of adolescence, her first menstruation, the mortifications of childbirth. She could conjure up the bright hospital room, the breathstopping pain, strangers looking between her legs with clinical disinterest, the fat nurse who’d shaved her and given her an enema. In twenty-six years she’d accumulated a whole basketful of shame, a repository of palpitating memories she could dip into at any moment, each with the power to turn her hot and cold and sick with self-loathing.

Her eyes drifted over the front page. Her husband used to read the paper from front to back: national, local, obituaries, sports. He seemed to find pleasure in all the things happening in the world that had nothing to do with them, events so remote they seemed imaginary: wars in China, spaceships flying to the moon. Birdie pretended to be interested. In truth she found them—and at such times, him—dull and perplexing. She remembered the four bottles of wine in her handcart, still where she’d left it on the back porch. No, she thought. Not today.

She brought the basket down from on top of the refrigerator. She’d been tossing the mail there all summer. In it were at least a dozen bills: phone, gas, electric; one from the pediatrician who’d looked at Charlie’s ears last winter. Birdie ripped open the
envelopes with a rising sense of panic. She had a hundred dollars in the bank, another sixty in the house. He’d promised to send more, but hadn’t yet. She sat staring at the pile of bills. Then she heard a knock at the door.

Him, she thought. But he had a set of keys; why would he knock?

She slipped into the living room and looked around. The floor covered with toys, a sofa cushion losing its stuffing. Sober for the first time in days, she noticed the defaced photographs hanging on the wall. Good Lord, she thought. Lord almighty.

She tiptoed into the children’s room. Jody was asleep in her crib, her breathing soft and regular. Birdie peered through the Donald Duck curtains she’d ordered, long ago, from the Sears catalog. A strange woman stood at the door. She knocked again.

Jody sat up in her crib, her eyes wide and startled. “Whodat?”

“Ssshhh!” Birdie whispered, holding her finger to her lips.

Jody giggled with delight. “Ssshhh!” she repeated.

Birdie closed her eyes. Damnation, she thought. The woman had surely heard.

“Hello?” the woman called. “Anybody home?”

Birdie tucked the baby under her blanket. “You go back to sleep,” she whispered. She shut the bedroom door behind her, smoothed her hair, and opened the front door.

The woman looked older than Birdie, with a double chin and a broad bosom. “Mrs. Kimble,” she said. “I’m from the county department of family services.”

Birdie’s heart slowed, fluttered, sped up again. “The county,” she said faintly.

“May I come in?” The woman wore a pants suit and a bright scarf at her neck. Through her white blouse Birdie could see the
thick straps of her brassiere. She felt her own disadvantage: breasts hanging soft under her stained housedress, her breath stale, her armpits slightly oniony. She stepped aside and let the woman in.

T
HE COUNTY WOMAN
took milk in her tea, a bad sign of things to come.

“I’m afraid I’m fresh out,” said Birdie.

The woman peered over Birdie’s shoulder into the empty refrigerator.

“It’s my market day,” said Birdie. “I’m out of everything.” The four bottles of wine were on the back porch, safe in her handcart. The one thing she’d done right, thank you Lord. She closed the refrigerator door and carried the tea to the table.

“I’m sorry to come by unannounced,” said the woman. “I tried to call, but the phone company said you were disconnected.” She eyed the stack of bills on the table.

Birdie flushed. It was the redhead’s curse, the transparent skin that hid nothing, not pleasure, inebriation, or shame. “That’s nonsense,” she said. “I called my sister this morning and it worked fine.” In fact she had no sister, hadn’t picked up the phone in weeks, couldn’t remember the last time it had rung.

The woman frowned. “That’s odd.” She had a large nose, a faint mustache as fine as dust.

Birdie smiled. “People make mistakes.”

“I suppose so, yes.” The county woman stirred delicately at her tea. “Mrs. Kimble, I have to be honest with you. We’ve gotten calls from some of your neighbors. Folks are concerned about your children.”

Birdie put down her cup. A splash of tea landed in her lap.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “The children are fine.”

The woman smiled. “I’m sure they are. They almost always are. But two different people have called, so of course we have to check.”

“Of course.” Birdie wondered who would dare. Miss Semple, the nosy old maid across the street. Or Beckwith’s fat wife—he might have told her what had happened at the store.

The county woman leaned forward in her chair. “Your husband works at one of the colleges, is that right?”

“Yes,” said Birdie. “He’s the assistant chaplain at Pennington.”

“May I speak to him?”

“He isn’t at home.”

“He isn’t?” The woman raised her eyebrows. “I figured he would be. The summer and all.”

Birdie went to the sink. She wet a tea towel and rubbed the spot on her dress. She breathed deeply at the open window. The woman’s perfume was making her queasy, sweet and fruity like summer garbage.

“He isn’t at home,” said Birdie. “He’s in Missouri visiting his parents. His father is very ill.” She flapped the hem of her dress to dry it. “He won’t be back for another week.”

“That’s too bad,” said the woman. “Too bad you couldn’t have gone with him.”

Birdie listened to the dripping faucet, the clock ticking loudly on the wall. The county woman pushed her cup and saucer away. “If you don’t mind,” she said, “I’d like to see the children.”

Birdie imagined twisting the woman’s bulbous nose until it came off in her hand. “Charlie is outside playing.”

The woman looked at the clock. “It’s lunchtime.”

“We already ate. Josephine is taking her nap.”

“I’ll be very quiet.” The woman stood and smoothed her jacket where it creased across her lap. Her belly was large and low. A mother’s apron, Birdie thought, a phrase she remembered from long ago. She rose from her chair. Her bruised knee pulsed like a second heart. She led the way through the living room, stepping carefully around the train set, the wooden blocks. Jody was asleep in her crib. Her long eyelashes lay like butterflies on her cheeks; her small hand jammed in her mouth.

“There’s my angel,” Birdie murmured.

“How old is she?”

“Three and change. Four in November.”

The woman’s eyes darted around the room, resting on the diaper pail beside the crib. “She always wear a diaper? Or just when she sleeps?”

Birdie flushed. She’d started toilet training long ago, before her husband left. Now it seemed easier just to keep the baby in diapers.

“Oh no,” she said. “Just when she sleeps.”

She led the woman to the front door. Her face felt hot. There would be no more tea, no more discussion of lunches and diapers. The county woman trailed behind her. Birdie imagined her gawking at the photos on the wall. Well, let her, she thought. Let her look.

“I’m sorry you missed Charlie,” said Birdie.

“I can wait.”

“He usually plays in the woods all day. You know boys.” She opened the front door.

“All right then.” The woman hesitated in the doorway. “You might want to call the phone company. Get that business straightened out.”

“I will,” said Birdie.

Firmly she closed the door.

C
HARLIE TOOK
the long way home, avoiding the Hogans’ yard. He crossed the street and followed the sidewalk up the hill to his house. The lady was standing on his front step when he came up the street. She shaded her eyes and smiled down at him.

“Are you Charlie?” she asked.

He said nothing. His feet felt raw. A blister had opened on his big toe.

“It’s all right. I was just visiting with your mother.” She sat down on the step and smoothed her white pants over her knees. “Are you coming home for lunch?”

His stomach hurt at the word. “Yes’m.”

“What do you usually have for lunch?”

He couldn’t think. All day long he dreamed of food, but now he couldn’t think of a single thing. He looked at the lady’s shoes.

“Pancakes,” he said at last. “My daddy is making us pancakes.”

The lady smiled. She wasn’t pretty like his mother but he liked how she was: large and soft, like a comfortable chair.

“You wait right here.” She crossed the street to a big green car and came back with a paper sack. “Here,” she said.

Charlie looked inside. There was a meat sandwich, a slice of cake wrapped in plastic. He saw that the lady was giving him her lunch.

“You be a good boy,” she said. “You mind your mother.”