Two Rivers (27 page)

“Look!” I said, thrusting the postcard at her.

She set down her trowel and took the postcard in both hands. “What does it mean?”

“It’s from
Freddy
.”

Betsy’s eyes welled up and she smiled at me. “Canada?”

I nodded, squatted down and hugged her. She smelled like bread and earth.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” I said. “It’s not about Brooder. I’m just worried about you. I don’t want anything to happen to you. To the baby.”

She nodded, as if she’d been scolded. I didn’t like the way that made me feel.

“What are you planting?” I asked.

“Bulbs,” she said. “They won’t come up until spring though. Daffodils,” she said. “Irises.” Her hair was in a braid over her shoulder. There were wisps of hair around her face. I watched the gentle curve of her neck as she contemplated the arrangement of the bulbs.

“I really am sorry,” I said. “I know this is important to you. I’m proud of everything you’re doing.”

“It’s
okay
.” She nodded, turning to me and reaching for my hand.

And for a moment, I thought about telling her that a woman from the University of Southern Maine had called me at work that morning. It had only been a brief interview over the phone, nothing definitive, but she did seem enthusiastic. It was a job in the university’s business office. Starting January 1. A good salary, full benefits, and free tuition for spouses. I thought about telling her that I’d been calling on some rentals on the harbor in Portland, that we might finally get to Maine. But instead I just held onto her, as she stroked my thumb, the one that I’d broken smashing Howie Burke in the face. Instead of telling her, I closed my eyes and thought of daffodils. Irises.

That night Betsy and I made love. Gingerly. I kept thinking about how precarious everything was: our little life, the one we’d made in this house by the river. It was like a miniature world inside a snow globe. Perfect. Delicate. The job in Maine would change everything.

Afterward, when she had fallen asleep, I pressed myself against her, wanting every inch of my body to touch every inch of hers. I laced my arm across her belly and pressed my palm against her skin until the baby acknowledged me with a gentle kick.

I couldn’t sleep, so I untangled myself from Betsy and went to the nursery. We didn’t have a crib yet, not even a dresser; I was waiting for my next paycheck to buy the bigger items we would need for the baby. The only piece of furniture in the room was Betsy’s father’s rocking chair. It was late July, the air muggy and hot. I opened the window as quietly as I could to let some air in. With the window open all of the sounds of summer filled this quiet room: crickets, bullfrogs, the river. Mother Nature’s cacophonous symphony. I peered out into the darkness. There were no street lamps here, only the sliver of moon illuminating the yard, intermittent flashes of fireflies. I sat down in the rocking chair near the window and closed my eyes. Here it was. Everything I’d ever wanted.

O
utside the station, I managed to get on my bicycle only to find that I couldn’t ride it because of my hand. Still pissed by everything Lenny had said, and more pissed that I’d lost my temper over it, I got off the bike and when it fell to the ground I gave it a good kick. It didn’t take much; the front wheel bent, and the fractured spokes punctured the tire. I gave it another kick, and the crossbar crumbled. I gave it one last kick for good measure, and the handlebars twisted from a U into a sort of misshapen W. Winded from the assaults on both my boss and my bicycle, I huffed and puffed to the main road, where I stuck up my one good thumb, hoping to hitch a ride to the hospital.

I must have walked two miles before a car passed. I had made a makeshift sling out of my work shirt, but it kept slipping. The pain in my thumb was excruciating. I was kicking gravel and cussing out loud by the time Rene pulled up next to me in his truck. It was chilly outside, but I had worked up quite a sweat. My hair was stuck to my head, and I could feel perspiration soaking under my arms.

“What happened to
you
?” he asked, pulling up next to me.

I shrugged.

“Who at de other end o’ dat fist?”

“Lenny,” I said.

Rene threw his head back and started laughing. “Glad somebody did it. I’da mind to myself a few times.”

I felt a smile creeping up on me.

“Well, get in da truck, Mr. Rocky Balboa,” he said, reaching to open the door for me.

“You sure you have time?” I asked. The closest hospital was in St. Johnsbury, which was more than a thirty-minute drive from here.

“No problem,” he said. “I’m off Tuesdays.”

Rene was one of the few car knockers who were consistently friendly to me and the other guys who worked inside the station. Most of the yard workers stayed to themselves. He and I worked different shifts, but we ran into each other every now and then. I hadn’t seen him since he’d shown me the way to the wreck.

“You can drop me off here,” I said when we pulled up to the emergency room entrance at the hospital in St. Johnsbury. “I’ll find a ride home.”

“I’ll wait right here for ya; dey got a cafeteria where I can get something to eat. I done spent lots of time at dis hospital,” he said. I seemed to remember someone telling me once that he’d lost a child a few years back, a toddler who had run out into the road.

The emergency room was empty except for a woman who kept running to the restroom, where I could hear her vomiting. Her husband was with her, and during one of her trips he said, explained, as if he had to, “Food poisoning. She just
had
to order the clams.”

I was frustrated that it was taking so long, when there didn’t appear to be anyone there besides the bad seafood victim and me. Finally, the woman was called in and a few minutes later the nurse beckoned me in as well.

Three nurses, one doctor, and an X-ray later, I went back out into the waiting room with a brand new plaster cast and a prescription for some painkillers. I had hoped Rene decided to head back to Two Rivers without me, but he was still there, fast asleep in an orange plastic chair.

“Hey,” I said, gently prodding his arm with my good hand.

Rene’s eyes shot open, wide and startled. “It broke?”

I nodded and held out my hand for him to see. I could feel my heart beating in my hand, the rhythmic pain strangely soothing. An odd music.

“Thanks,” I said, as he pulled up next to my apartment building. “I owe you one.”

I got out, careful not to bump my bum hand on anything. After I shut the door and was walking to the sidewalk, Rene rolled down the passenger side window and leaned out. “Hey, before I forget agin…I mean to ask you something.”

“What’s that?” I asked, turning to the car.

“The day of da wreck, dat girl, dat colored girl. Did she find you?”

“What do you mean, did she
find
me?” I asked. The pulsing in my hand intensified. I held my arm tightly into my waist.

“Strangest ting,” he said. “She com’d up to me, soakin’ wet, asking if I know somebody named Montgomery. Dat worked for da railroad. Course, I know she means you. She ask if I know where you live. She had a piece of paper, wid your name on it.” Rene paused, adjusting his visor to block out the sun. “She said she needed to go to your house, that she come looking for you.”

My arm throbbed. My head. My chest.

“And I told her,
You don need to go to his house. He right over dere underneath dat big tree.
”

I
t began to rain in August and did not stop until September. The river swelled with the initial deluge and then spilled over, flooding the entire village. Depot Street became an extension of the river; the culverts were so blocked with leaves and debris, the rain had nowhere to go but through town. Our little backyard became a sort of marshy bog. If you tried to walk across the grass, you’d sink in to your ankles. The hole in our roof turned into a dozen holes. We had little tin pots placed all over the house to catch the steady drips. Walking through any room in our house required a series of quick steps and dodges. There was almost no place to go to stay dry. Betsy was still afraid of storms, and it was a month of storms. She spent a lot of time sitting in the car in the driveway, waiting out the lightning, convinced our little house would get struck one of these days. That it was only a matter of time, and she didn’t want to be inside when it hit.

The county fair was postponed for the first time in Two Rivers’s history, and the whole town was in an uproar. The fair was a tradition, the official end to the summer. Without the fair, summer might go on endlessly. And so might the rain, it seemed.

Because the fair had been postponed, all of Betsy’s plans for the protest were put on hold. Brooder still came by in the afternoons, but the rain forced them inside. Most days I’d come home after work and find them sitting at the kitchen table, stuffing envelopes or making fliers. “Hey, Montgomery,” Brooder would say. He’d taken to saluting me, a gesture I found both silly and disconcerting. I answered with a nod. Betsy always had something warm on the stove top: lentil soup, minestrone, beef stew. She made decadent desserts: cheesecake, chocolate mousse cake, bread pudding. The three of us ate together most nights and then Brooder would head back home.

Betsy was so big now she couldn’t see her feet anymore. The baby pushed and rolled, making waves underneath her skin. I watched her, fascinated. Spoke to the baby by pressing my lips to her belly button. Betsy had a blouse she loved to wear then. It was purple, thin cotton with embroidery and tiny little mirrors sewn into the fabric. When I lay my head on her stomach to listen for the baby, I could see our whole world reflected in them.

“What is she telling you today?” Betsy asked. She was convinced that the baby was a girl.

“That it’s going to stop raining soon.”

A drop of water plunked into the pot at the foot of our bed.

“That she won’t come out until it stops,” I said.

“Smart girl. I wouldn’t either.” Betsy smiled.

But August came and went, and still, it rained. Children returned to school in a daily parade of shiny yellow slickers and rubber boots past our house to the bus stop. I walked to work each day (leaving Betsy the car in case of lightning), my hood pulled tightly over my head. I’d given up on my umbrella after only a couple of weeks. It was a short walk to the station, which was always warm and dry inside.

Finally, in late September, the rain began to lessen. It didn’t cease exactly, but the storms became less frequent, less severe. Signs went up announcing that the county fair would, indeed, be held. Come hell or high water. And all of Two Rivers rejoiced, Betsy most of all.

The fairgrounds were flooded, but the midway moved in anyway, erecting roller coasters, haunted houses, a Tilt-a-Whirl. This deviation, this marvelous delay, seemed to have the entire town buzzing with anticipation. And on opening day, the sun miraculously appeared.

I got the call from the University of Southern Maine offering me the job in Portland just as I was leaving work early to meet Betsy to help out with the protest.

“We’d love to have you,” the woman said. “Please let us know as soon as possible.”

I clutched the phone feeling like I might burst. “Thank you, thank you,” I said. “I just need to talk to my wife.”

I raced home, the sun warm on my face for the first time in over a month, rehearsing exactly how I would tell Betsy. I could barely wait to see the expression on her face, but I wanted to do it right. I wanted it to be special. I’d have to wait until after the protest. I didn’t want anything to spoil this moment, to steal this wonderful thunder.

Since high school, Ray and Rosemary, Betsy and I would go to the fair on opening day. We’d wander around the midway, Ray and I slamming hammers, shooting clowns full of water, and tossing baseballs onto the tops of milk bottles in an attempt to win stuffed poodles or bears for the girls. Chivalry and bravado at its finest. We’d ride the Himalaya and the Cobra, leaving Rosemary (who got motion sickness even on the carousel) to watch from behind the chain-link fence. Later we’d get French fries doused in malt vinegar, fried dough dripping in maple syrup, and go to the grandstand to watch the Demolition Derby.

The protest was supposed to start at dusk. Betsy had planned on a candlelight vigil. Her friend Sara was going to read the names of all of the soldiers from Vermont who had died in the war, and Brooder was going to play guitar and sing some of his songs. We decided to go early, hang out for a while before the protest. Brooder came with us, and we met Ray and Rosemary at the 4-H exhibits. In the children’s petting barn, Brooder teased a turkey with a long piece of straw, and Betsy and I watched a mother sow and her baby curled into each other in the corner of their pen. Smiling. Betsy squeezed my hand, ran her hand across her stomach. I thought about Old Man Keller’s pig, about Brooder’s shotgun. It still raised the hair on the back of my neck. Rosemary had pushed J.P.’s stroller close to a pen with a few goats and a lamb inside. A goat stuck his nose through the fence to see J.P., who squealed, startling the pigs from their slumber. We bought homemade maple ice cream, which we ate as we watched the cows line up for the cavalcade. Brooder popped the last of his cone in his mouth and said, “Let’s hit the rides!”

Everyone in town knew what happened to Brooder, but it didn’t stop the stares. While half of his face was completely normal, the other half was distorted. Like looking into a fun house mirror. People gawked.

“That was so rude,” Betsy whispered after one woman gasped and pointed at Brooder as if he were one of the freaks escaped from the sideshows.

Brooder, who was fully aware of the extra attention he was getting, did not let it go unchecked. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked the lady loudly.

“I don’t know what you…” the woman stuttered.

“This weather we’re having, beautiful, isn’t it?” He laughed loudly.

The woman scurried away.

Instead of winning stuffed animals or goldfish for our girls, Ray spent almost ten dollars playing Skee-Ball before he won a stuffed giraffe, which he gave to J.P. And the pink teddy bear I won fishing plastic rings out of a pool was just the right size for a baby. We played Bingo at the Bingo tent, watched J.P. ride around and around in a miniature fire engine, and got corn on the cob and hot dogs smothered in mustard and sauerkraut at the Grange booth. By the time we finished eating, it was beginning to get dark. The sky was starting to feel heavy again. Swollen.

“We’re gonna take J.P. home,” Rosemary said. He had fallen asleep in the stroller. His mouth was ringed in pink—though it was impossible to tell whether it was from the cotton candy he’d had or the cherry snowcone he’d nursed until it melted. “Good luck with the protest. Stay out of trouble,” Rosemary said, shaking her finger and smiling at Brooder.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

After they left, Brooder smacked my arm. “How about a few spins on the Himalaya?”

“Don’t we need to get over to the recruiting tent?” I asked Betsy.

“Go!” Betsy said. “You guys can meet me there in a minute. I have to find Sara anyway; she’s got the candles and paper plates.”

“I’ll come with you,” I said to Betsy.

“Pussy,” Brooder said.

“Jesus,” I said.

Brooder crossed his arms.

“Fine,”
I said. “We’ll ride the Himalaya.”

Brooder and I walked silently across the midway, which was littered with a day’s worth of carnival debris, past the carousel and Ferris wheel, past the carnies trying to convince us to put our money down on the impossible carnival games. I noticed that Brooder walked faster now, like someone was following him. Even with my long strides, it was hard to keep up. At the Himalaya, Brooder said, “Let’s rock ’n roll!” Music was thumping, the air vibrating with it. We had to wait for the ride to stop and everybody who was already on it to get off. When it was our turn, the guy running the ride opened up the entrance gate to let us in. He was tall, broad, and his skin was the blue black of a night sky. I felt my back tense despite myself.

Brooder ran up the metal ramp to the first cart, which was painted to look like a sleigh. He leapt in, pulling me in after him, and lowered the bar across our laps. After everyone else had boarded the ride, the carny locked up the gate and went into the glass booth where the controls were. I watched him. And I thought about my mother. I couldn’t help it. I wondered what she must have thought as they attacked her. I wondered if she felt angry. If she fought back. I thought about his hands, and I thought about the hands of the men who killed my mother.

The music was loud, rolling under our seats. Brooder pulled off his baseball cap, swung it up over his head and hooted. Inside the glass booth, the carny leaned into a microphone and said in a slow, low voice, “Hold on, folks, y’all are in for the ride of your life.”

As we got off the ride, I cracked my neck to first one side, then the next, waiting for my equilibrium to return before I followed Brooder back down the metal ramp to the exit. The carny was waiting at the exit gate for us.

“Y’all have a good night,” he said, opening up the metal gate. I made myself look at him and nodded. His eyes were large, soft. He had a dimple in his cheek—he was probably my age, younger, but he had a face like a kid.

“Yeah, you too,” I said.

I looked around, the lights leaving trails when I turned my head. I looked back at the ride, watched the Himalaya guy usher in the next group of riders. I watched him run a white handkerchief across his forehead, stuff it in his back pocket.

“We should get back to Betsy,” I said.

“It bother you?” Brooder asked. For a minute I thought he meant the carny. But how could he know that I felt wound up like a spring?

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Me and Betsy. Hanging out, this protest shit? ’Cause you know, I’d never…” he said.

“Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s cool. It’s fine. You guys are
friends
. I respect that.” I wanted to get out of this conversation quickly. I looked toward the recruiting tent. I could see a bunch of hippie kids hanging around. A few old guys watching from the beer tent.

Betsy was handing out candles. “How was it?” she asked.

“Fucking fast!” Brooder hooted.

“Shhh,” Betsy said, and Brooder looked at her meekly. “Sara’s got your guitar,” she said.

Brooder shoved his hands in his pockets and walked over to Sara, who had his guitar case slung over her shoulder.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.” She smiled, her face glowing in the neon lights coming from the grandstand. I hadn’t seen her this happy in a long time. She kissed me quickly and then handed me a candle. “I gotta go speak,” she said. “I’ll meet you right back here after.”

“We are here tonight because our government believes that it is okay to send off children to war.
Boys
off to war. Most of them are not even twenty years old.
I
am here tonight, because I do not believe in the murder of children.” Betsy stood on the milk crate podium, her hair loose around her shoulders. She cradled her belly with her hand and held the bullhorn in the other. In that moment, even with the distant sounds of the rides and the girlie shows, with the cheering of the crowd, with the revving engines and smashing cars in the Demolition Derby, I could only hear Betsy, her voice strong and clear, unwavering as she continued. “Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, ‘The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.’”

My heart swelled.

When the cheering subsided, Sara took the bullhorn from Betsy and helped her down off the milk crate. Brooder started to strum softly on the guitar, and Sara read the list of names. Afterward, for a moment, there was a sort of quiet.

When Brooder began to sing the songs he had written, I knew right away that the songs weren’t just for peace. They were for Betsy. Every single one was a love song. They were beautiful. It
was
poetry. As Betsy made her way back to me, I wanted to hold her. To rock her in my arms. To feel our baby beneath her skin. I loved her more than anything in that moment. More than life. It seemed to me for the first time that someone understood how I felt about Betsy. Brooder smiled at me and kept singing.

“I love you,” I said to Betsy, but before she had time to answer, a voice hollered out from the beer tent, “hey, man, what happened to your face?” Brooder stopped singing, peered out into the crowd.

After a minute, he started strumming again. Picking up where he’d left off.

“I said, what happened to your face, hippie freak?” The voice was louder this time. I scanned the crowd, but couldn’t see where it had come from.

Brooder set the guitar down, stood up.