Nathaniel (7 page)

Michael took a sip of his Coke and thought about it. He’d known there were rocks beneath the surface—at least, Ryan had told him so, and he hadn’t thought Ryan was lying. And yet, while he’d been swinging on the rope, he hadn’t felt frightened. He’d felt excited, and knowing he was taking a risk was part of the excitement. But he hadn’t really thought about getting hurt. Or had he? He tried to remember, but couldn’t. All he could remember was the thrill of swinging out over the river, then letting go and plunging toward the cold water, not knowing exactly what was under the surface.

Suddenly a vision of his father came into his mind, plunging through the air, then slowing as his chute opened. Always, the chute had opened. But what if it hadn’t?

Was that what his father had loved about skydiving? The risk? Knowing that each time he tried it, the parachute might not open? And yet, even as he’d dived, Michael had known nothing was going to happen to him. He’d
known
it. But how?

He began pulling his clothes back on, and a few minutes later the two boys started back toward their grandparents’ house. It wasn’t until they’d emerged from the woods and started across the pasture, though, that Michael finally spoke.

“I wasn’t going to hurt myself.”

Ryan glanced at him, but kept walking. “How do you know?”

Michael shrugged. “I just know.”

Now Ryan came to a halt and stared at Michael. “What are you, some kind of nut?”

“N-no,” Michael stammered. “But when I dove, I knew I was going to be all right. I just knew it.” Unconsciously, his hand went up and rubbed the back of his neck, and Ryan suddenly grinned.

“If you didn’t get hurt, how come you’re rubbing your neck?”

Michael dropped his hand to his side. “It’s not my neck. I just have a headache, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed, his voice mocking now. “Just a headache. You
did
hit a rock, didn’t you. Lemme see your head.”

Bending, Michael let his cousin examine the back of his head. “Is there a cut?” he asked, his voice half curious, half challenging.

“Unh-unh. Is it sore?”

“Not like I hit it. It’s just a headache.” Suddenly he frowned, wrinkling his nose. There was a strange odor, as if something was burning. “What’s that stink?”

“Stink? What stink?” Ryan sniffed at the air, then shook his head. “I don’t smell anything.”

“It’s like something’s on fire.” He scanned the horizon, sure he would see a plume of smoke nearby, but there was nothing. He turned back to Ryan. “Don’t you smell it?”

Ryan scowled. “I don’t smell anything, ’cause there’s nothing to smell. What are you, some kind of nut?” he said again.

A flash of pain shot through Michael’s head. “Don’t you call me crazy,” he flared.

Ryan’s expression darkened. “I’ll call you whatever I want to! What are you gonna do about it?”

Michael stood still, sudden fury toward his cousin mounting inside him as his head throbbed with pain. “Drop dead,” he heard himself whisper. “Why don’t you just drop dead?”

Ryan’s eyes began to dance, and the beginnings of a grin spread over his face. But then, as Michael glared at him, the grin faded, and the color drained from Ryan’s face as his hands clutched at his stomach. He began backing away from Michael, then turned and began running across the field.

A moment later Michael was alone, and his headache began to ease. As he started walking back toward his grandparents’ house, he tried to figure out what had happened. But no matter how hard he thought about it, it still didn’t make sense. All he’d done had been to tell his cousin to drop dead. Everybody did that, and everybody knew it was only words. And yet, for a few seconds, it had almost looked like Ryan really
was
going to drop dead.

But they were only words, and they weren’t even his words. They’d just sort of tumbled out of his mouth, almost as if someone else had spoken them.

But there was no one else.…

Janet emerged from Dr. Potter’s small consultation room into the parlor that served as reception area during the day and Potter’s living room at night. Amos Hall rose from his position on the Victorian sofa that stood in the bay window, but Anna remained still in her chair, her hands folded in her lap, her posture expressing a calmness that her anxious eyes belied. “Well?” she asked.

Janet’s mouth curved into an uncertain smile. Now or never. She had to tell them, and through a sleepless night she had decided that the examination would provide the perfect moment. “Well, I’m pregnant,” she said.

A sigh emerged from the older woman, and she slumped in her chair. “So,” she said at last, her eyes shifting away from Janet to glance warily at her husband. “I suppose that’s some kind of blessing, isn’t it?” she said.

“I don’t know,” Janet replied, too involved in her own emotions to notice her mother-in-law’s reaction to the news. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to do some thinking about it.”

“Thinking?” Amos Hall strode across the room and took Janet’s coat from a hook, holding it for her as she slid her arms into its sleeves. “What’s there to think about?”

Janet swallowed, wondering if she should tell them that her first thought on having the pregnancy confirmed was that she should have an abortion as soon as possible. She had known she was pregnant for several weeks and had kept her suspicions to herself, hesitating even to tell Mark. There had been no real notion in her mind then that she would not have the baby—she loved Mark too much to deny him a second child, despite the upheavals it might cause in their lives. After all, Michael was already nearly twelve—almost a teenager—and their small family was settled, comfortable. But now Mark was dead. Everything had changed.

“I’m not at all sure I should have it,” she said in a carefully neutral voice. “I’m not as young as I could be—”

“Not have it?” Anna cried. “Not have Mark’s baby? Oh, Janet, you can’t be serious. Why, that would be—well, to start with, it would be murder!”

“Now, Mama, don’t get yourself worked up,” Amos Hall cautioned his wife, though his eyes never left Janet. “Things have changed. Not everyone thinks the way you and I do anymore.”

“If the baby’s healthy, it has a right to live,” Anna declared, her eyes flashing with anger. Then, softening a little, she turned to Janet. “I’m not an old-fashioned woman, dear, whatever Amos says. I can certainly see that there might be circumstances where it could be better for a baby not to be born.” She eyed Janet’s midsection critically, its slight swelling apparent to her now. “Besides, it’s too late, isn’t it?”

“Almost,” Janet conceded. “But what about my feelings? Don’t my feelings count?” she added, then wished she hadn’t.

“Your feelings?” Anna asked. “What do you mean? Do you mean you don’t
want
the baby?”

Janet shook her head. “That’s not it at all, Anna. It just seems like—” She stopped short, suddenly realizing she didn’t have the slightest idea of how she felt about anything. All she felt was confused. If only she could talk to Mark.… But she couldn’t, not ever again. And, she remembered with a shudder, the Mark she had thought she’d known was a different man from the one she was discovering since she’d arrived in Prairie Bend. She appealed to Amos. “Would you mind if I walked home?” she asked. “I really think I need to walk a bit. I need to get used to things. There’s so much to sort out.”

Amos frowned. “Are you sure? I’m not sure how much exercise—”

Janet put up a protesting hand, and made herself smile with a confidence she wasn’t feeling. “Times have changed, Amos. And I really do need to be by myself, just for a little while.” Without waiting for a response, she opened the door and stepped out of Dr. Potter’s office into the bright noontime sun. She glanced around, orienting herself, and then set out for the center of the village.

Prairie Bend, she realized, was truly no more than a village, and it seemed, as she walked the single block from Potter’s house to the main street, oddly familiar. It wasn’t until she’d walked a bit further, though, that she realized just what it was about the town that she recognized. It was like the country village of her dreams, the picturesque town she’d imagined whenever she’d envisioned the peaceful little farm that would someday be hers.

Prairie Bend was more than a century old, but it appeared that it had reached its full size shortly after it had been founded.

It had been carefully planned in the shape of a half wheel, with four spokelike streets radiating out from the square at the hub, and three more streets, each of them paralleling the curve of the river, sweeping around those spokes. The lots had been carefully laid out, with obvious foresight, but then, apparently, the planned-for population had never materialized, for most of the lots were still empty, though none of them was uncared for, and the wide green lawns, bordered by trees and occasional gardens, created a parklike, spacious feeling.

Nowhere was there a building that looked new, yet nowhere was there a building that was in disrepair. The village was small: a general store, the post office, a drugstore which did double duty as the only café in town, two gas stations—one of which had a garage—a tiny school, and the church. All of it neatly arranged around the little square, all of it shaded by immense old trees, and all of it cradled in the bend of the river.

Janet paused in the square and tried to reconcile what she was seeing with what Mark had told her about Prairie Bend. But slowly, she began to realize that he had never said much about it at all—only that he hoped never to see it again.

But why?

There was nothing threatening about it, nothing out of the ordinary, really, except for its loveliness.

Then what was it that Mark had hated so much?

And why had Prairie Bend never grown?

Why had a place so lovely stayed so small?

She didn’t know, and she probably never would know.

Unless she stayed.

It was the first time she’d let herself fully face the idea that had been niggling at her mind all morning, but now, in the quiet and peace of the spring noontime, she began examining the idea, making a mental ledger of its advantages and disadvantages.

She had family, albeit in-laws, in Prairie Bend; none in New York.

She had little money in either place, and nothing much in the way of professional skills.

She would be able to keep her apartment in New York for the moment, but only for the moment. Eventually, she would have to find a cheaper place to live.

In Prairie Bend, she owned a farm.

Mark had hated Prairie Bend, but had never told her why. Perhaps there had been no reason, or at least no good reason.

She thought about her in-laws. Good people, kind people, who wanted to take care of her. But why? Who was she but the widow of the son who had rejected them? Why should they care about her?

Yet, even as she asked herself the question, she was sure she knew the answer. They cared about her because they were warm and loving people who didn’t hold their son’s actions against her or her child. No—they wanted her, and they wanted Michael. And for a while, at least, she wanted to rest in the refuge of Prairie Bend and the love of Mark’s parents.

As she left the square and passed through the rest of the village, then started out toward the Halls’, she knew her mind was made up.

Forty minutes later she walked into Anna Hall’s kitchen and sat down at the table. Her mother-in-law glanced disapprovingly up from the cake batter she was stirring, then away.

“Did you get your thinking done?” she asked in a voice that implied a sure knowledge of the outcome of that thinking.

“Yes, I did,” Janet said quietly. “I’m going to keep my baby, and I’m going to keep my farm. Michael and I are going to live here.”

Anna Hall put down the spoon, then held her arms out to Janet, who slipped willingly into her embrace.

“If that’s what you want,” Anna whispered. “If you’re sure that’s what you want, then you’re welcome here. More than welcome. But I warn you,” she suddenly added. “Once you become a part of Prairie Bend, you’ll never be able to leave.”

A shiver passed through Janet, but a moment later she had forgotten it.

“We’re not going home at all?” Michael’s voice clearly reflected his bewilderment. “But why?”

He was sitting with his mother in Anna Hall’s rarely used living room, and while Janet perched nervously on the edge of a sofa, Michael himself rocked furiously on a bentwood chair.

“Lots of reasons, darling,” Janet replied, forcing herself to meet Michael’s angry eyes. “For one thing, we have a home here—a place to live that’s all our own. Wouldn’t you rather live in a house than an apartment?”

“I don’t know,” Michael answered, too promptly. “Dad never wanted to live on a farm. I bet if Dad were here, we’d be back home.”

“I know,” Janet sighed. “If your father were here, everything would be the way it always was, but he isn’t here, and everything has changed. I know it’s hard, and it’s going to get harder, honey. Now it’s up to me to figure out what’s best for us, and I think it’s best that we stay here.”

“But
why?”

“For one thing, we don’t have much money, and living in New York is very expensive.”

“Why don’t you get a job?” Michael asked with the serene innocence of his years.

“I might be able to,” Janet agreed. “But it wouldn’t be much of a job. And what would you do? I can’t leave you by yourself every day, and we’d never be able to afford someone to come in.”

“I can take care of myself,” Michael replied. “I’m not a baby anymore.”

Janet smiled at her son. “Of course you aren’t. And if we weren’t living in New York, I wouldn’t worry at all. But in the city I’d worry about you all day, every day. Besides, right now, I don’t think I could get any kind of a job at all.”

Michael stared at her, and suddenly stopped rocking. “Why not?” he asked, the sullenness in his eyes fading slightly.

“Well,” Janet said, “it seems our family is going to get a little larger.”

There was a silence, and then Michael realized what she was saying. “You mean you’re going to have a baby?”