A Song for Nettie Johnson (26 page)

“Baking soda,” the neighbour said. “Mix it with water.”

Gordon mixed the paste and the two men daubed Anxiety’s face and arms with the white mixture. Hosea tried to hold Anxiety still, but the child was wild, yelling, arms flailing. They restrained her with a sheet and drove her to the hospital.

Why was she remembering this now? She got out of bed, dressed, and walked down the hall to the bathroom.

She stopped at the lounge. A large woman was lying on the sofa, watching “The Young and the Restless.” A rerun. Hosea had seen the segment before. Victor Newman’s blind wife, Hope, was feeding her son, Victor Junior, in the kitchen of her farm home in Kansas. Victor himself had stayed behind in Genoa City. Hosea sat down on one of the overstuffed chairs and watched the show.

When it was over, she turned to the woman and said, “Isn’t it something the way she can manage everything?”

No answer from the sofa.

“I mean being blind, and still looking after the farm, the house, and the baby? She doesn’t even have a hired girl.”

The fat woman kept her eyes on the screen.

“Of course, it’s all made up,” Hosea said.

Back at the room, she discovered the girl sitting on her bed, fumbling with a tape recorder.

The girl looked up and smiled broadly. She had a large mouth. “Bread and sausage. Remember?” She pressed a button on the recorder. “Listen to this.” The tape whirred backward. “It’s Rose. Listen. Her voice. I mean you’ve never heard such a voice. It’s pure Texas. Huge. Her body just rolls when she’s preaching. And that voice. Well you know Texas. Big!”

The rewinding stopped, and Hosea heard a breathy woman’s voice, low and seductive.

“Well, she starts soft,” the girl said. “But wait, you’ll see.”

Hosea lay down on the bed.

“It’s about the children,” the girl explained, “what happened with the children, how they tried to keep the children away. Only he said no, let them come. It’s all about those children....”

Hosea sat up. “Would you mind if we didn’t listen to that right now? I’m kind of tired.” She lay back on the bed.

“No problem,” the girl said and stopped the tape. “Are you hungry? I’m starved. I’ll make sandwiches.”

Hosea stared up at the ceiling. There’d been no phone call. And she hadn’t even started looking for Gordon.

She turned on her side and watched the girl cutting slices of sausage onto a paper towel. She was using a pocket knife.

“You look a little like my daughter,” Hosea said, kindly, her head still on the pillow.

“I do? Poor thing.”

“I haven’t seen her for months – or heard from her.”

“Your daughter? Your own daughter?”

“She ran away with her boyfriend.”

“Oh, no.” The girl stopped cutting, held the knife poised in the air. “So you’re here looking for her.”

“No. I came to Edmonton to look for my husband.”

“Your husband’s gone too? Your daughter
and
your husband?”

“Both of them,” Hosea said.

“Took off together!” the girl said.

“No, Gordon left a couple of years ago.”

“That’s awful!” the girl said. “How can you stand it?”

“We didn’t get along. Our house was chaos. Angry silence, or loud yelling and fighting.”

“Don’t tell me! He beat you.”

“No. It was words mostly. But when I got mad at Gordon, I’d hit the kids.”

“You didn’t!”

“Yes, I did. I hit them.”

“But why? It wasn’t their fault.”

“I just did, that’s all,” Hosea said.

“So what did the kids do then?”

“Hide.”

“Hide!”

“Once I found my daughter hiding in the laundry room. She was five or six, I can’t remember exactly. She’d piled all the sheets and towels and shirts and jeans and underwear – all of it – in a huge stack on the floor and she was lying under the clothes.”

“That is so terrible!” The girl held up both hands, fingers splayed, as if she were about to catch a falling object. “Dirty clothes? Or clean.”

“Both. She dumped them all in a pile on the floor, and she was lying under the pile. And when I found her she was red-faced from crying.”

“Ohh,” the girl moaned, shaking her head.

She looked down at the small rings of sausage spread out on the paper towel and carefully began to place the meat on the bread.

Hosea turned to face the wall. “Can I listen to your tape now?” she asked.

“You wouldn’t like this tape.”

“Can I anyway?”

“You’d hate it.”

“So?”

“All right, but I warned you. Here, have some bread then.” She came to Hosea’s bed and handed her a sandwich, then returned to her own and clicked on the recorder.

The voice was dark and husky.

What did he do what did he do what did he do? You know what he did. Lifted them up is what he did. Does that mean down? No. Does up mean down? Certainly not. And where did he lift them? In his arms, that’s where. And then what? What did he do then? Says right here what he did. Laid his hands on them. On who? Who did he lay his hands on? The children. Who? Children! Say it louder. children, children. children! That’s right! You got that just right. And then what did he do? Did he beat them up with those hands? No! Slap them down? Nooo! Molest them in dirty ways? no! no! no! So what was it he did? Says the answer right here. Right here it says. Blessed them. What? Blessed. Can’t hear you. What did he do? blessed them. Still can’t hear. blessed! blessed! blessed! That’s exactly what he did. And what does that word mean? Does it mean scoff at them? no. Ignore them? no! Call them names? Worthless? No
Good? Won’t-Amount-to-Anything? Is that the meaning here? of course not! He lifted them up entire and complete. His arms lifted them up, his hands lifted them, his words, his face, his thoughts, his spirit. they all did the lifting! He taught them. Lifted them up. Lifted them. lifted. Oh blessed. Oh oh blessed.

The tape stopped rolling. The girl stuffed the recorder into her pack. Hosea lay on her side clutching the sandwich. She bit hard into the bread, chewed on the crust.

When they finished eating, the girl packed up her stuff. “I won’t be coming back here,” she said. “I’ve got a ride home after the meeting.”

She stood at the door and shook Hosea’s hand. Large pumping movements. Up and down and again and again. And she was gone.

Suddenly the room seemed cold and empty. Hosea decided she had to get out, walk, breathe, get some air. She put on her jacket, picked up her purse, and left.

Outside, the wind had risen. Bits of debris were rolling down the street: twigs, clumps of mouldy leaves, scraps of paper. Charcoal clouds were moving over the funeral chapel. She decided she’d drive around for awhile, go over to Whyte Avenue and check out a couple of spots. Tomorrow she’d call a few places, be more methodical in her search. Then she’d drive back to Rocky Mountain House.

She backed out of the Y parking lot, drove west to 109th, then south on the High Level Bridge to Whyte Avenue.

At the Renford Inn she parked in the ramp, walked down the dusty concrete steps to the street below. She held her collar close against her neck, bent her head against the wind, and scrunched her way to the hotel entrance.

There were no customers in the restaurant. And no waiter. She’d hoped Jeanette would still be there, chattering, pouring coffee, bringing food, as she’d done in the past; but she saw no one. Then she heard a guitar and some drums, loud and pulsating, and she followed the sound down the hall to the tavern door. If Gordon were anywhere in Edmonton, this was the likely place. From the doorway she squinted into the dimness, moved slowly to the bar. The bartender was tall and wide shouldered. She hesitated, then spoke.

“Do you know a Gordon who comes here?” she asked.

“Gordon? Don’t think so. Hey, Buck, you know a Gordon who hangs here?”

“You mean George?” The voice came from the other end of the bar.

The bartender leaned toward Hosea. “Are you thinking of George?”

“No,” Hosea said. “Gordon.”

“Gordon!” shouted the bartender.

“Don’t know Gordon,” the voice said. “But George, he’s here every night, should be showing up any time.”

“Sorry,” the bartender said.

She saw four girls sitting at a table by the window. She walked past them, glanced at their faces. Strangers. She turned quickly and walked out.

In the café she sat down at the far end by the mirrors. A skinny man in white shirt and black pants emerged through swinging doors from the kitchen. He brought a pot of coffee to her table and filled her cup.

“There used to be a Jeanette who worked here,” Hosea said. “Curly hair? Friendly? Is she still around?”

“Works mornings,” he said, “but she’s off this week.”

“Oh,” she said.

She picked up a wrinkled
Edmonton Journal
from the chair next to her and spread it out on the table. On the front page was a picture of the fallen airplane in Cheyenne, Wyoming, covered with a tarp. A rough mound on the concrete.

She lifted the coffee cup, held it in both hands, and drank.

That night
she dreamed of dolphins. She was floating in blue water watching dozens of baby dolphins sleeping under the waves, lying on their backs and snoring. Their mother was scolding them, telling them to turn over. “Dolphins always lie on their stomachs,” she said. “Why?” they asked, in their high clicking voices. “So they won’t snore,” their mother said.

In the morning
it was raining. Hosea decided to stay at the Y for breakfast. It was 10 o’clock. She’d slept later than she’d planned.

She chose a table by one of the tall windows at the far end of the coffee shop and sat down on the plastic chair beside it. She laid her arm on the tabletop, rested her hand beside a yellow daffodil in a white vase. She watched thin streams of water run crookedly down the windowpane. Heard the traffic on the pavement outside. Saw the rain splash down on roofs of speeding cars, spray up in curves from under their black tires. Across the street the funeral home wavered, grey and distant in the slanting rain.

She looked around at the nearly empty restaurant. Saw the fat girl sitting by the far wall, and two old women, one in a white sweater, one in pink, at the next table. She saw the clock on the wall above the urn, muffins in a plastic case on the counter.

Then she saw a movement in the doorway, a dark shape hovering. She leaned toward the shape and felt her heart begin to pound. And she saw her. Anxiety. Large and wet, long hair dripping water, grey coat soaked in rain. Big bellied. Huge.

Hosea sucked in her breath and stared. Anxiety didn’t move, didn’t speak. She just stood there. Unsmiling.

Hosea half rose from her chair, but her legs felt weak and she sat down again. She lifted her hand, beckoned her daughter with a limp wave. And Anxiety lumbered toward her mother. Hosea’s breath was somewhere just below her lungs, and her heart was racing. She saw her daughter moving toward her. (That huge coat. That wetness. God.) And then she was standing by the table, solemn and dripping.

“Hi, Mom,” she said.

“Oh,” Hosea said. “Oh my, it’s you.”

“It’s me all right.” She gave a short laugh, nervous, more like a snort.

“It really is,” Hosea said.

“Are you surprised?”

“Well, yes,” Hosea said. “Yes. Of course, I’m surprised.”

Water dripped from the hem of her daughter’s coat, forming small puddles on the floor by her feet. Her face was rosy pink from the cold. Her body seemed to spread out, filling the aisle.

“Sit down,” Hosea said. “Why don’t you sit? You may as well sit down.” She heard her own voice rising, getting shrill.

And Anxiety sat crooked in the chair, her belly facing out toward the restaurant, her feet sprawled in the aisle.

Hosea tried not to look at the bulging stomach. But there it was. Sticking out. Bold and rude. Even so, she could not bring herself to acknowledge it. Instead she asked, “How did you know I was here?”

“Judith. I called her yesterday. Again.”

“From Revelstoke.”

“Oh, no, I’ve been in town for awhile. A week now.” She seemed impatient that Hosea didn’t know this.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

“Yes, I can see that,” Hosea said.

“It shows, doesn’t it,” Anxiety said.

And then, because Hosea really didn’t know what to say next, she said, “So when did all this happen?”

“I was pregnant when I left home, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Hosea was silent. No, that’s not what I’m asking, she thought. Where have you been? is what I’m asking. Why no word? I’m asking. Did you lose your memory?
I ask. Forget the street you lived on? Forget your brother’s
name? Your sister’s face?

But out loud she said, “Is Joe with you?”

“Yes and no,” Anxiety said. “He’s in Kuwait.”

She unbuttoned her coat, and Hosea saw her neck, a blotchy pink.