A Song for Nettie Johnson (24 page)

Hosea was forty.

Anxiety was thirteen.

At the Lacombe turnoff
she started to cry. Tears ran down her face and dripped off her chin onto her lap. Visibility was bad enough as it was, but she couldn’t stop. She took her right hand off the steering wheel and wiped her eyes. She turned on the car radio. Heard only static.

The snow stopped before she reached Leduc, and when she arrived at the southern outskirts of Edmonton a dry wind was blowing. She drove into a Husky station to use the washroom and make a phone call.

In the ladies’ room, a large woman with pale white skin and a black patch over one eye was trying to get her little girl to reach up to the sink to wash. Her small fingers could barely reach the stream of water pouring from the tap. The mother rubbed soap on the child’s hands, lathering her palms, her wrists, and in between each finger. Then she lifted her up closer to the tap so she could rinse.

“You never know, do you,” the woman said to Hosea. “You just never know.” Water splashed over the girl’s skin and into the porcelain bowl. Hosea didn’t answer. She examined her own splotchy face in the mirror above the sink.

“There’s so much stuff out there,” the woman continued. “It’s all over...you can’t get away from it...it gets on your skin and sticks there...then your pores soak it up...all that crud...and what happens next?....gets into the internal organs...and then...the blood!... Have you thought about this? Don’t you wonder about it?”

She turned to the girl, pretty, curly haired, her blue eyes bright and curious. “Are you finished, Junie? Are you nice and clean? Let’s dry your hands now.” She rubbed the girl’s hands with a paper towel, threw the towel into the wastebasket and headed for the exit. She bent forward, pushed the door open with her forehead, and the two disappeared.

Hosea stared after them. What’s going on? Are mothers simply cracking up? She soaked a paper towel in cold water, washed her face and decided that before she did anything else she needed a cup of coffee.

In the Husky Café she chose a booth next to a window. She liked the feeling of privacy a booth gave her, a pleasant sensation of being in her own yard but surrounded by neighbours who went about their business in a quiet yet friendly way. She looked out at the grey coldness. Melting snow and slushy mud had made ragged ditches in the parking lot, and the dry wind had hardened the edges into ridges of stiff dirt. She ordered coffee and a glazed doughnut, then unfolded a paper napkin. She dug in her purse for her ballpoint pen.
Things To Do,
she printed at the top of the napkin.
Call the Letts, call Alfreda.
Often she filled a whole page with her scribbling; today this was all she had to say.

When she’d finished her coffee she went in search of a pay phone.

First she dialled the Letts – they’d want her to stay with them a night or two – but she got their answering machine. Then she called Alfreda, who told her that her mother might be coming to town this week and her cat was shedding besides. Hosea hung up the receiver and slouched against the wall. Of course, she should have called them before she left. She realized that now. Sometimes her brain didn’t click into the specifics of life. She flipped through the Yellow Pages. There must be cheap lodging somewhere.

The YWCA
was situated on the corner of 100 Avenue and 103 Street. Across the street to the north was the Foster & McGarvey Funeral Chapel, and to the east, the Alano Club. A private club for ex-drunks, the Y receptionist told Hosea when she registered for the night, and a cheap place to eat when the Y dining room is closed, “which is right now,” she added.

So it was here at the Alano Club that Hosea found herself sitting alone at a formica-covered table, eating a cheeseburger, drinking cold milk, and thinking of Gordon. She looked around, half expecting he would show up. You never knew. He could have decided he’d had enough and become an ex-drunk instead of a practising one. She’d decided years ago that if you came from Montana and called yourself a writer you were probably a drunk. Not that Gordon was
from
Montana. He’d only lived there a year. He was from Alberta actually. Cardston. Mormon country. But he wasn’t a Mormon either. He was simply a drunk who thought he was a writer.

And where are you now? Gordon with the red beard, wide neck, broad back? Gordon with the smooth skin, the sweet words, the touch? You thought I was pretty and my hair was fine and soft, precious you said, and held the ends of it in your hand and breathed on it, and on my chin. Such a smooth little chip of a thing you said, and my neck curved under your palm and my face was easy on your chest. You funny, funny bird, you said.

“Would you like company?” The woman standing in front of her was holding a coffee cup in one hand, a red purse in the other. “Or not?” she added. “It’s up to you. I sometimes like to eat alone, but then again I get really starved for conversation.”

“Please, sit down,” Hosea said.

“Thirty days sober,” the woman said. “Never thought I’d make it this far. But one day comes and then another, and before you know it you’ve got thirty. Unbelievable, isn’t it?”

She set the red purse on the floor under the chair, her cup on the table, and sat across from Hosea. She was a thin woman with pale skin. The heavy makeup she wore did not conceal the tiny bumps covering her face. Even in the small space below her eyebrows, the skin bubbled. But her bright red lips were smooth and her black hair shiny.

“And totally unbelievable that I’m sitting here,” she continued. “I mean, two weeks ago I’dve been off by myself in some corner, hiding behind a newspaper, scared to death someone might talk to me and mad as hell if they didn’t. Crazy huh?”

“Do you come here often?” Hosea asked.

“Pretty well all the time, not having a job right now, which is a bummer. My name’s Lily, by the way. And you are?”

“Hosea.”

“Say that again?”

“Hosea.”

“Some handle, eh? Whose idea was it?”

And Hosea told the story of how her mother, when she was pregnant, was working in a hotel in Banff, cleaning rooms, and how one day she opened up a Gideon bible to whatever page it opened to and there she saw it. Hosea. She never read far enough to know it was a man’s name, much less a prophet’s.

“So where are you from?” Hosea asked.

“Nowhere really. I wander around mostly. Here and there. Used to live in Ryley when I was young. Not far from here.”

“Have a family?”

“Two kids. Social Services took them. That’s why I’m here. I want them back. God I do. But if I don’t sober up...” She folded her hands and let out a long sigh. “How about you? Any kids?”

“Three. They’re with my sister. Well, two of them are. One’s off somewhere. She doesn’t keep in touch.”

“Sounds like me,” the woman said. She looked at the clock on the far wall. “Well, I have to go now or I won’t make my meeting. Thirty days. They give you a red chip when you make thirty.”

She leaned over and picked up her purse from under the chair. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“Sure,” Hosea said. “Maybe.”

The woman rose and walked away.

They’d had
a pleasant supper together, the four of them sitting around the kitchen table eating spaghetti and soft Italian bread. It was summer, and the early evening was warm and rosy. Then purple blue clouds piled up on the western horizon and the rain began. Silver-beaded chains slanted down from the sky, gentle at first, then harsher until the kitchen window was streaming with water, and the yard outside – lilacs, fence, even the small garage – was hidden in the dark rain. But inside it was warm, the light glowed amber from the bamboo-shaded fixture above the table, and there was a softness about the family, a quiet gentleness.

“So what are we all doing tonight?” Hosea asked.

“Me? Nothing,” Bittern said.

“Let’s make popcorn and watch television and pretend it’s Christmas,” Doloros said.

Anxiety was quiet.

“And you?” Hosea asked.

“I don’t know. I guess I’ll do some laundry. I’m way behind.”

“It looks like a good night to curl up with a mystery,” Hosea said.

Bittern and Doloros made popcorn and snuggled in blankets in front of the TV. Hosea, in the big chair by the living-room window, sipped hot tea and looked through magazines, and Anxiety did her wash. Hosea could hear the dryer thumping in the little laundry room at the end of the hall. When the wash was done, Anxiety joined her brother and sister on the floor. She watched television, drank cocoa, joked with Bittern, tousled Doloros’s hair.

And the next morning she was gone. The clean laundry she’d piled at the foot of her bed was gone. Shoes from her closet, new jeans, diary, makeup, the pink and silver comb and mirror she’d gotten from Joe – all were gone. And Anxiety was gone.

Hosea stood up,
tugged at her coat, twisted her arms into the sleeves, and moved toward the door. When she passed by the grill, she saw on the television screen above it a small crowd gathered around the airplane that had crashed in Wyoming. The plane had landed in someone’s front yard, on their driveway. Landed nose down and gouged out chunks of concrete.

Her room at the Y
was on the sixth floor. In it were four narrow beds, each with a thin metal rod as headboard. The headboards were flush against the wall, and the beds five or six feet apart. At the foot of each was a small metal closet. The bathroom was down the hall.

When Hosea registered, she’d paid the six-dollar fee for the dormitory room and chosen the bed farthest from the door. She’d shoved her case into the closet and laid a towel over the metal rod to reserve her space. She’d found the room empty and thought herself lucky to have the space to herself.

But now, returning from the Alano Club, she saw that the bed nearest the door had also been claimed. A canvas backpack was lying on the green blanket, and a pair of white panties hung over the metal headboard; but whoever was her roommate was nowhere to be seen.

On the way to the bathroom Hosea passed by the lounge. She saw in a glance the large television screen, the worn sofa, the small table strewn with pop cans and magazines, and three girls slouched in overstuffed chairs, watching the screen. Only the television made any noise. She noticed that the girls were young and they all looked gloomy. One of the three was probably her roommate.

Back in her own room, the bed felt good. The mattress was thin but firm, the sheets clean, the blanket warm. She’d raised the shade on the small window between her bed and the one next to it, and a pale glow from a streetlight entered the room in a shaft of light that was comforting to her. She lay on her back and closed her eyes. Then she remembered. She hadn’t called the children; she’d promised to, but forgot.

And she saw them sitting together at the kitchen table in Rocky Mountain House – Bittern and Doloros side by side, Carly opposite them, Judith and Ralph at each end. Ralph with his shaggy hair and thin lips, his funny nose and sharp chin, making comic faces and strange animal sounds. Bittern whooping with laughter, Doloros smiling, Carly feigning dismay.

She saw the woman with the bumpy skin sitting at the table in the Alano Club. “I want them back,” Lily had said. “God, I do.” Where were those children now? Hosea wondered.

She saw the seven-year-old girl in California tugging at her mother’s arm. “Please, Mama, please? I want to fly. Get me an airplane and let me fly.” And her mother says, “Yes, yes. We’ll call your father.” And the father says, “If that’s what you want, why not? We’ll set a world record.” And Hosea saw them – the father, the flying instructor, the girl – in the snowy sky above Wyoming, excited and proud, speeding through morning. But suddenly the girl is shouting, “It’s wrong, something’s all wrong!” And the instructor is pushing her out of the way, grabbing the controls. Only it’s too late. The nose of the plane jerks downward. Down down through whirling snow.
Mama Mama Mama...please,
Mama.
And the father, what was he doing? Did he suddenly repent up there in the swirling madness?
My God, save her...I was wrong...have mercy.
And right then did the plane’s nose smash into the concrete, hurling chunks of cement, bits of gravel, sharp flints of stone into the air above?

Hosea turned onto her side. She should try to get some sleep. In the morning she would start looking for Gordon.

A key turned in the lock, and the door opened and quietly closed, and she heard light footsteps on the linoleum floor. She lay still, listened in silence to the movements: the tearing of the velcro fastening on the backpack, crumpling plastic, the tugging and rustling of undressing and dressing. Then a deep sigh. And it was quiet.

Hosea waited several seconds before she opened her eyes. When she did she saw in the dim light a girl’s form crouched on the floor beside the bed, her back to Hosea, her arms splayed out on the blanket. She was sighing, whispering very softly. Hosea strained to hear. “Heavenly Father, Holy God, Almighty Lord.” The girl’s head was moving in small semicircles from side to side. She was praying. Kneeling by the bed and praying. Right there below the white panties hanging on the railing. Hosea closed her eyes. She was ashamed to be watching. But then she opened them again. And she saw the girl get up from the floor, saw her silhouette in the dim light, her thin body bending over the bed then disappearing under the covers. The girl was slender, like Anxiety, but taller.