A Boy of Good Breeding (8 page)

Since then, Hosea had pedalled furiously every morning on his bicycle to nowhere—as Euphemia had called it—and had hid it in the basement each time Lorna came to visit.

Hosea checked his watch. Damn, he thought. The tape!

“You’re late,” said Lorna.

“I know. I’m sorry,” said Hosea. He couldn’t tell Lorna the real reason he was late, and he hadn’t had time to make one up, so he stood there, thumping his breast with his big green Thinsulate glove (because he couldn’t get a proper pincer grip to tug), and hoping her love for him would sweep this latest infraction right under the rug. It had taken Hosea twenty minutes to set his new Emmylou Harris tape to exactly the right song. Fast forward, oops too far—rewind. Too far, fast forward again. Darn! Too far
again!
He had planned to rush into the house ahead of Lorna and push play on his tape deck so that as she entered the house she would hear Emmylou singing “Two More Bottles of Wine,” at which point Hosea would produce two bottles of wine, red for the heart, one in each hand, and they would sit down and have a drink.

None of this happened. The tape hadn’t played when he’d pushed play because he had, in his haste, unplugged the tape deck to plug in his tri-light desk lamp to create more of a mood. He hadn’t been able to find his corkscrew for the wine and so, while Lorna roamed around the house switching lights on and wondering out loud why it was so dark in there, he had rammed the cork down the neck of one of the bottles with his ballpoint pen and then spilled the wine all over himself when it splurched out around the cork. He used the tea towel hanging on the fridge handle to wipe up the wine and then, pushing the cork way down with his pen, managed to pour two glasses without much spillage.

He brought the wine to Lorna and sat down beside her on the couch. “Oh thanks, Hose,” she said.

“Lorna?” said Hosea. “Are you mad at me?”

Lorna shifted around to look at him. “Why would I be mad at you?”

Hosea jerked his head towards the answering machine. “Well, because of your message. You didn’t call back to finish it. Usually you do.”

Lorna put her wine down and took Hosea’s hand in hers. She slung one of her legs over his and stroked the top of his hand with her thumb. “Hosea,” she said, “you really are something, you know that?”

Hosea used his remaining free hand to flatten her hand over his and stop her from stroking. He longed for his glass of wine, but now his hands were busy. He smiled at Lorna. “You’re something, too,” he said.

“I suppose I am,” said Lorna.

Hosea shifted slightly and smiled again. He stared at their hands, tangled together and resting on Lorna’s thigh. He noticed that the middle knuckles on Lorna’s fingers were wider than the other parts of her fingers, whereas his own
fingers tapered to a point. He wished his fingers were more like Lorna’s.

“Hmmmm,” murmured Lorna.

“Lorna?” said Hosea.

“Yeah?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No, Hosea, I am not mad at you. Look at me here. I’m trying to get closer to you. Jesus, Hose, can’t you figure it out?”

“But what about the message on the—”

“I was in a hurry, okay? I love you, I’m not mad at you. I love you.”

“Well, what were you going to say, I should what, you should what? You know, you were going to say you should do something and I …”

“I was going to say, ‘I should go if I’m gonna make the bus.’ That’s what I should do, go. Okay? Go so I could make the bus to get to
you!
”

Lorna sighed, removed her hands from Hosea’s, and used one of them to reach for her glass of wine.

“Well, now you’re mad then, aren’t you?” asked Hosea.

“Hosea, what the hell is your problem? Why do you have to derail every romantic moment in our lives with your paranoid worrying? Do you do it on purpose? Maybe you don’t love me, maybe you’re mad at
me
and you don’t know how to tell me, and you turn it around to make it look like I’m mad at you and then you won’t feel so bad, and you’ll be the martyr. Great. Now I
am
mad at you.”

“I knew it,” said Hosea. “And I do love you.” He looked at his hands, at his tapered fingers. They were pudgy, he thought. Why? The rest of him wasn’t fat. Could he lose weight in his fingers? They looked childish to him. He slipped them under his thighs for a few seconds, then pulled them up and folded them behind his head. Just a minute ago Lorna had been
stroking one of his hands and he had wanted her to quit. Now he wanted her to continue, more than anything. He reached for his glass of wine.

“No, you do not know it, Hose, I’m not really mad at you. Can’t we just have a normal time together?”

“That’s what I really want, Lorna.”

“Okay, then why don’t you just shut up and relax,” said Lorna.

“Oh. Well,” said Hosea. And quickly put his glass back on the coffee table.

“Oh God, Lorna, I’ve missed you,” said Hosea.

“Yeah?” said Lorna.

“You know, I’ve missed you, too, Hose,” sighed Lorna about thirty minutes later.

Hosea hated lying around and talking after having sex. He preferred to go outside, flushed and happy, and feel the earth and the sky, and himself sandwiched between them, and know that as things go in the universe, he had just been blessed. But he knew from experience this was not Lorna’s first choice. One time he had dragged her outside in the dark, naked and sweaty, and she had started to cough and complain about mosquitoes, and had not said she felt blessed when Hosea had asked her. And so this time he decided he would just get up and get that Emmylou Harris song playing, finally. He brought the tape box back to the floor with him and lay down beside Lorna so that his head was right under the coffee table. Together they listened to the music and looked at the box, at the picture of Emmylou folded up inside it.

“God, does she have long toes, eh?” said Hosea.

“Wow. They’re kinda creepy-looking, don’t you think?” asked Lorna. Hosea didn’t think so. He imagined Emmylou’s toes contained in her painted cowboy boots, slightly splayed, planting her body onstage while she belted out “Born to Run.”
“Yeah they are, aren’t they?” said Hosea.

“Hmmm,” said Lorna. “Is this song about heartbreak?” Lorna put her head on Hosea’s chest. He patted her head and stared up at the underside of the coffee table. Made in Manitoba, it had stamped on it.

H
osea had told on himself. It was eleven-year-old Minty who had spilled the beans to Hosea about where he had come from, but she had made him promise not to tell anyone or she’d be in trouble. “Cross your heart and hope to die?” she’d said to him.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he’d said and moved his tapered little index finger in the shape of an X over the general vicinity of his heart on the outside of his sweater.

“Okay,” said Minty. “Good boy.”

They were sitting together in the back seat of a rusted-out car that somebody had abandoned on the edge of Grandpa Funk’s alfalfa field.

Minty looked out the windows on each side of the car to make sure nobody was watching. Hosea did the same.

“Lookie,” said Minty.

Hosea stared. Minty spread her skinny bare legs, making sure her dress didn’t ride up and thumped on her flat stomach a couple of times with the bottom of her fist like she was checking a soccer ball for air. Hosea’s eyes widened and Minty nodded.

“Yessir,” she said. “But not me. Euphemia. You came right out of her …” Minty thumped her belly again.

“You’re lying,” said Hosea.

And then Minty panicked and saw her chance at redemption at the same time.

“Yeah, I am,” she said. She smiled, relieved.

“Are you?” said Hosea.

“Yeah, I am,” she said.

“Are you sure?” said Hosea.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” said Minty.

“Good,” said Hosea.

They were both relieved. They smiled and giggled and Hosea thumped lightly on his stomach, too, just to try it out.

“Punch me as hard as you can,” said Minty.

“No,” said Hosea.

“C’mon, Hose, just do it. I’ve tightened it up so it won’t hurt.” She put her chin down to her chest and moved her arms behind her back.

“No,” said Hosea. He started kicking the back of the dusty seat in front of him.

“Don’t you want to?” asked Minty.

“I don’t want to,” he said. He was four years old.

The next evening at the supper table Hosea sat on Euphemia’s lap finishing off his potatoes. From time to time he would thump on Euphemia’s stomach and she, irritated and trying to finish her own potatoes, would tell him to stop. Minty noticed this and tried to get Hosea’s attention. Hosea ignored Minty. He was grinning and he continued to thump Euphemia’s stomach. Minty was afraid Hosea was going to say something to get her in trouble, so she suggested that they go outside and play catch.

“Uh-uh,” said Hosea. Finally, Euphemia had had enough.

“Hosea!” she said. “Stop it, you’re hurting me!” By now all the Funks were looking at Hosea and Euphemia, sternly, curiously, amusedly, in a number of ways. There were a lot of them.

“Let me in, let me in,” said Hosea. “I want to get back in!” He laughed and scrunched up his face and put it next to Euphemia’s stomach.

“Minty told me I lived in your stomach, Mom, then I came out, right, Minty? Right, Minty?” Euphemia, horrified, stood up and marched out of the room with Hosea on her hip. But not without first noticing the look on her father’s face and the way his head swivelled ever so slowly to meet her mother’s own incredulous stare.

The Funks had, actually, considered the possibility of Euphemia being Hosea’s natural mother before this (five months of sickness, huge coats in the summertime, a man on a horse? The Funks might have been complacent but they weren’t stupid), but hadn’t wanted to make the situation worse. They had decided, without speaking about it or agreeing to it, to leave well enough alone. Euphemia’s honour would remain intact, and so would their reputation as decent people. But now, for some reason, Euphemia’s father broke their unspoken pact and opened a can of worms. Had he kept his mouth shut and his eyes on his plate and allowed Euphemia and Hosea to leave the table without further ado, they would have gone on for another four or ten or fifty years, swallowing their suspicions and not rocking the boat. Maybe Euphemia’s father wanted some drama in his life. Maybe he was tired of shrugging everything off. Maybe he wanted to get angry at something. Who knows? His gaze said it all. His wife knew it. She panicked. The jig was up.

Euphemia flung Hosea onto his bed upstairs and asked him just what the heck he was talking about, wanting to get back in? Just then Minty came flying through the door, white as a sheet, and said, “Phemie, Phemie, I didn’t tell him anything. I was just joking.” Hosea lay on his back in his bed.

“She said I came out of your stomach,” he said, starting to cry.

“But I said I was lying, you little shit. You know I did,” said Minty. Now she began to cry.

“Shut up, Mint, and lock the door,” said Euphemia. She knew her parents and her other brothers and sisters would be upstairs and in the room in no time.

“You promised me, Minty, you fat liar,” said Euphemia. She shoved Minty onto the bed next to Hosea.

“Let us in, Phemie!” Euphemia’s father roared from the hallway. Her mother was begging him to calm down. Euphemia stared at Hosea. He had put his pillow over his head to muffle his sobs. The back of his neck poked out, soft and very narrow. It looks like somebody’s wrist, thought Euphemia. Two brown curls framed the tiny nape of Hosea’s neck. Euphemia kicked Minty’s leg, gently. She didn’t care. Not really. It was probably a good thing. She walked over to the door and let the rest of her family in.

“What’s this all about, Euphemia? What does Minty have to do with this? What the hell is going on?” Euphemia’s father looked from one girl to the other, barely acknowledging the small, heaving lump on the bed.

Euphemia couldn’t believe it. Her parents had accepted, cared for, and even loved Hosea when they believed he wasn’t hers. Now that they knew the truth, or suspected it—she was Hosea’s real mother, he was their flesh and blood, their own real little grandson—they were ready to reject him. And her. And maybe even Minty for keeping the secret. She’d had to tell Minty. She’d had to tell someone. She had been thrilled. And still was.

Euphemia sat down on the bed beside Hosea. She stroked his back. She didn’t try to remove the pillow. She moved her thumb up and down the back of his neck, dipping in and out of its soft hollow and feeling his hairline begin just above it. She put her mouth to his curls and kissed them.

“C’mon, Hosea,” she whispered, “we’re going.”

Euphemia’s parents had tried, in the end, to get them to stay. They had been angry and shocked and hurt and embarrassed, but they weren’t the kind of people to throw their daughter and grandson out on to the street. Why hadn’t she told them the truth? they asked Euphemia, to which she responded with a shrug. Euphemia’s father had told her she was a tramp, but had then apologized. Minty had been grounded for two weeks, which, after a day, was modified to one week, and had told Euphemia a thousand times she was sorry. Euphemia’s mother had asked her who the father was and Euphemia said she had no idea, a man on a horse. “Oh, Phemie, not that old cock and bull story,” her mother would say. “Your mother’s right, Phemie, that dog won’t hunt,” her father would echo, and Euphemia said calmly, “It’s true, that part of it is true.” Euphemia’s father would rise from the table and slam his fist down and curse Euphemia up one side and down the other and would then lie on the couch, spent and despondent.