Bent Road (27 page)

Tilting her head, Evie says, “Then maybe it’s time you go back home with him.”

Ruth smiles with closed lips. Her chin quivers. “Yes,” she says. “I think it’s time.”

When day breaks on Saturday morning, the snow continues, but because the wind that blew all through the night has stopped, it falls straight down, in thick, heavy clumps. Outside the kitchen window, where the maple tree sparkles with an icy skin, two sets of tire tracks cut through four inches of snow that blanket the drive—one set going, partially filled in now with fresh snow, and one set coming, deep ruts that still show the indentation of the chains on Jonathon’s truck. Knowing the back door will swing open at any moment, followed by a blast of cold air, Celia slides her eggs off the hot burner and makes herself touch Ruth’s sleeve. Something to comfort her. The only thing Celia can manage. Ruth sets aside the potato she is grating for hash browns and wipes her hands on her apron.

Arthur walks into the kitchen first. Jonathon follows, shaking out his blue stocking cap and brushing the snow from his coat. Arthur takes off his hat and sets it on top of the refrigerator. His dark hair is wet and matted on the ends, his nose and cheeks are red and his shoulders are dusted with snow.

“Smoke coming from his chimney.” Jonathon slaps his hat against his thigh. “Someone must have driven him home from the hospital.”

“I spoke to Floyd,” Arthur says to Ruth. “He says they’re done over at your place. Done all they could. Didn’t find anything.”

“Been so long,” Jonathon says. “Since it happened, I mean. They didn’t really expect to.”

Ruth nods, and turning her back on them, she continues shredding her potato into a hot skillet, the paper-thin slivers sizzling and popping in melted butter.

After everyone has finished breakfast, Arthur asks Jonathon and Elaine to drive over to Reesa’s and bring her back to the house before the storm strands her alone and he tells Daniel to get busy shoveling the snow off the roof.

“The flat roof over the porch,” Arthur says. “That’ll be the trouble spot. The rest should be fine. Just fine.”

Daniel nods. “Yes, sir,” he says, holding his fork in his left hand and his knife in his right. Like Arthur, like a Midwesterner. All night, Daniel stayed awake with Jonathon and Arthur, boarding up the broken window, listening for Ray, and from the three cups that Celia found on the kitchen table this morning, he even drank coffee with them.

Once Jonathon and Elaine have left for Reesa’s, Arthur heads outside to bring more firewood up to the house and Ruth excuses herself to do some sewing, all of them leaving Celia alone in the kitchen. Even Evie shuffles back to her room, her head and shoulders slumped as if she’s thinking about Olivia. Outside, there is a thud as Daniel drops the ladder against the house. His footsteps cross overhead. Warming her coffee with a refill, Celia pulls out a chair, sits and cradles her mug. After a few deep breaths, she stares across the room at Elaine’s closed bedroom door, the one where Ruth and the baby were supposed to stay once the little one came along, except now Celia doesn’t want them here anymore. After the snow stops and the storm has passed, Ruth can go home with Reesa. She can live there, anywhere, as long as it’s away from Celia’s family. She doesn’t want Ruth and her baby in her home for one more day.

 

I
n Elaine’s room, Ruth pulls her suitcase from under the bed. The last time she touched it, she had just moved in with Arthur and Celia. She had been remembering the devil’s claw growing outside Mother’s house, the smell of it, the feel of the sharp pods. She had known she was pregnant, known it for sure, but didn’t know how to be happy about it. Now, even though Ruth has lived in Arthur’s house for nearly five months, even though she thought she had found a way to be happy, the moment she lays back the top of the blue suitcase, she smells home. She smells Ray. There was always something musty about him and that house. No matter that she scrubbed with bleach and washed with lye soap. No matter that she always hung out the clothes and towels to dry so they wouldn’t mold. The house still smelled old and damp. Now she breathes in the smell, soaks it up, so she’ll be ready.

 

D
aniel pushes his shovel across the flat roof, clearing the last patch of snow. Standing straight, he plants his shovel like a pitchfork in a drift that has collected where the angled roof meets the flat. Up the road, Jonathon’s truck creeps into sight. As he starts down the hill, his back end fishtails, leaving crooked tracks in the fresh snow, but then it falls back into a straight line. Watching the truck, Daniel arches his back and groans the way Dad would have. He thinks about Ian and all of his aches and pains. Mrs. Bucher says they’re worse in this cold weather. Ian won’t be hunting pheasant today. He won’t be a pusher or a blocker, and he damn sure won’t be hunting Jack Mayer.

As Jonathon’s truck slows at the bottom of the hill and turns into the drive, Daniel looks back toward Uncle Ray’s house. White smoke drifts up through the falling snow. Yep, Uncle Ray made it home, made it home in good enough shape to keep a fire going all morning long. Daniel stretches again, pulling his wool cap down over his ears, and leans on the shovel. The snow is falling straight down, harder since Daniel climbed onto the roof. A new layer of white has filled in where he already shoveled.

Walking to the edge of the roof, Daniel stands over the header board where he is sure not to fall through and squats to wait for Jonathon’s truck to pull up. The chains on his tires make a crunching noise as he drives around the house. The truck stops and both doors fly open. Elaine steps out of the passenger’s side, and Jonathon, the driver’s side. Both hold out a hand, but Grandma Reesa takes Elaine’s. Jonathon doesn’t move, instead standing near the truck until Grandma Reesa has started up the stairs, leaning on Elaine with one hand and the handrail with the other. When she is at the last step, Jonathon slams his door, walks around the truck and, when he passes under the spot where Daniel squats, he calls up to him.

“I’ll be needing a hand later today if you got one.”

“Sure,” Daniel calls down. He coughs and spits in a pile of snow on the ground below. “What do you need?”

“Ran into Norbert Brewster this morning,” Jonathon says, removing his hat and shaking off the snow. “Said I’d better get what I want out of their old place quick. Said the roof is caving in on a good day. Won’t hold up to this snow. Thought about driving out there. It’s a decent road on toward Clark City. Things’ll ice over tonight and we won’t be going anywhere for a day or two.” Jonathon glances back at his truck. “Says he’s got some good hardware out there. And some cabinets might be worth saving. Could use an extra set of hands ripping it all out. Won’t be any good if the weather gets to it.”

“Sure, I’ll go.” Daniel drops the shovel into a mound of snow below. No sense staying at home. Once he goes back inside, even before he can hang up his gloves and hat to dry, Mama will be asking him how he’s feeling. She’ll press her hand to his forehead like his not having any friends is a sign of the flu and then she’ll cock her head and say once again how lucky they are that Uncle Ray didn’t get his hands on Evie. She’ll whisper that part so Evie doesn’t hear.

“Hustle on in and put on dry clothes,” Jonathon says, offering Daniel a hand as he steps off the ladder. “We’ll head out when you’re done.”

Route 60, leading Daniel and Jonathon fifteen miles southwest, was plowed sometime during the night, but as the snow continues to fall, a fresh layer, blowing like thick fog, covers the narrow road. Still, the chains on Jonathon’s tires rattle over the hard, frozen ground. Outside, snowflakes fall in a heavy white curtain, larger and fluffier then they were at home. Squinting into the white haze, Daniel tries to follow one flake all the way to the ground.

“Here we go,” Jonathon says, slowly rolling the steering wheel, his leather gloves stiff as he passes one hand over the other.

He pulls off the main road where a rusted mailbox hangs from a wooden post. The fresh, unplowed snow quiets the chains.

“Haven’t seen this old place in years.”

Daniel leans forward, both hands resting on the dashboard. The small two-story farmhouse has a flat roof and a wrap-around porch. Other than a single barren tree standing in front and to the side of the house, the landscape is empty. Flat, snow-covered fields stretch as far as the horizon in every direction. The snow makes everything crisp and new, tidy. It’s as if Norbert Brewster and his wife never left the house, or perhaps it’s as if they never lived there at all.

“Doesn’t anyone live here?” Daniel asks.

“Not since Norbert lost his wife and moved to town. Couple years back, at least.” Jonathon throws the car into park and leans over the steering wheel. “Let’s have a quick look around. Doesn’t seem to be much worth saving,” he says and looks up at the thick white layer of snow on the flat roof. Grabbing his toolbox from the center seat, he climbs out of the truck.

The icy stairs creak when they walk up them to the porch. Standing at the front door, Daniel shoves his hands in his coat pockets while Jonathon fumbles with the key that Norbert Brewster gave him. The emptiness of the snow-covered fields surrounding the house makes Daniel think of Clark City. Jack Mayer would have come across this house first when he escaped, even before the Scott house, but if he did stop here, looking for food or anything else, he wouldn’t have found it.

“Got it,” Jonathon says. He steps inside, stomping his boots on the threshold even though no one lives here anymore, and Daniel follows closely behind, stomping his boots, too. Their heavy footsteps echo in the empty house and something scurries.

Jonathon winks at Daniel. “Rats, I suppose.” He takes a few steps into the entryway, and stops. “Well, that’s a shame,” he says.

Daniel looks off to the right where Jonathon is looking. A snowdrift, littered with leaves and dirt, has spilled through a broken picture window into what was once the dining room.

“Might have pulled up those oak floors,” Jonathon says, setting his toolbox on the third step of the stairway leading to the second floor. He opens it and hands Daniel a screwdriver. “Take a look around up there,” he says, nodding up the stairs. “If you find a decent door, take it down. Give a shout if you need a hand. I’m going to see about the kitchen cabinets.”

Daniel steps into the wide entry that leads into the dining room. A gust of wind catches him in the face. He shivers. Most of the glass in the picture window is gone. Only a few pieces hang from the top of the frame. They are called shards. Daniel knows because that’s what Dad called them after Uncle Ray broke their window. Dad knocked those shards loose with a hammer and boarded up the window with scraps of plywood from the basement.

“Looks to have been broken a long time,” Daniel says, watching Jonathon rummage for another screwdriver. Maybe he isn’t so bad. It’s not his fault he’s always the extra set of hands.

“No telling,” Jonathon says and walks toward the back of the house. “Holler if you find anything worth keeping.”

 

E
vie sits on the edge of Aunt Ruth’s bed, swinging her feet so the bedsprings creak and watching Aunt Ruth try to thread a needle. She is still sleeping in Evie’s room, but once Elaine gets married to Jonathon, Aunt Ruth and her baby will live in Elaine’s old room.

“You know your mother doesn’t like you doing that,” Aunt Ruth says.

Evie glances at Aunt Ruth, offers no response and the bed continues to squeak.

Aunt Ruth misses the needle’s eye with her thread for a second time and smiles. “Light’s not so good today,” she says. “Would you like to try?”

“Daddy says Olivia won’t die all the way until spring.”

Aunt Ruth lowers the needle and thread. “What do you suppose he means by that?”

“He said things don’t all the way die when it’s so cold outside. He said she’ll finishing dying in spring. He said she’ll sink into the ground and come back as a tree or something.”

Aunt Ruth rests both hands in her lap. “I guess I understand that.”

Evie nods. “Yeah, me, too.” She stops swinging her feet. “Was it cold outside when Aunt Eve died?”

Aunt Ruth wraps her thread around the small bolt and lays it and the needle on her bedside table. “It was warm,” she says. “A beautiful time of year.”

“Is she all the way dead now?”

“Yes, she is.”

Evie leans back on both arms and begins to swing her legs again so that her feet bounce off the box frame. “I saw Uncle Ray at church,” she says. “He was visiting a grave.” She stops swinging. “Is Aunt Eve’s grave there? Was he visiting Aunt Eve?”

Aunt Ruth flips on the lamp near her bed, opens the small drawer in her nightstand and lifts out two round stones.

“Perhaps,” she says, holding the stones in the palm of her hand. “I suspect he was.”

D
aniel stops at the top of the stairs where a long hallway leads to the far end of the house. While the downstairs felt like a barn because of the wind blowing through the broken window and the leaves and dirt scattered about the wooden floors, the upstairs feels like a home, like he might find Mrs. Brewster living right behind one of the five doors that line the hallway. He takes a step toward the first room, slowly, carefully, leading with his toe and only rolling back onto his heel when the wooden floor doesn’t bow underfoot.