Death Rhythm (11 page)

“Mae,” Camille said, not looking at her husband. She smiled and struggled for a moment to reach out to her daughter before realizing she was confined. “Touch my hand,” she said. Mae walked over cautiously and gently took hold of her mother’s thumb. Camille squinted. “It’s so good to see you,” she said.

“It’s good to see you,” Mae said.

“Have you been a good girl?”

“Yes.”

“Where is Edna?”

“She didn’t want to come.”

“That’s not true,” Father said. “She had school work that needed to be done.”

Mae averted her eyes from her mother.

“Don’t speak so poorly of your sister,” Camille said.  Then she looked at Evelyn. “Come here, Evvy. Let me take a look at you.”

Evelyn walked over and stood next to Mae. “Why are you tied up?” Evelyn asked.

“That’s not a polite question,” Father said.

Their mother winked. “They think I’m dangerous.”

“Are you?” Evelyn asked.

“Of course not.” A smile spread across her face and she looked up at the ceiling. Her eyes closed and tears appeared at the corners and dripped down her cheeks. An awful smell drifted off of her. “Of course not,” she said. “Of course not.” She struggled against the restraints, the smile still there, the smell overpowering. “Of course not.”

“Camille,” Father said.

“Mommy,” Evelyn whined.

Mae stared at the stain spreading against her mother’s crotch, yellow at first, turning dark brown.

“Of course not, of course not, of course not,” Camille sang.

“Mae. Evelyn. Leave the room,” Father said. “Go tell the nurse to come here right away.”

They hesitated, unable to take their eyes off their mother.

“Now!” Father barked.

They turned and fled to the hallway, all the while hearing the singsong voice of their mother, a voice familiar from the many times she used to sing to them, but now tinged with an incomprehensible madness. And as they raced to the nurse’s station, her singsong voice rose an octave and broke into screams.

“Of course not of course not of course not!”

They arrived at the nurse’s station wide-eyed and breathless.

“What is it?” the nurse asked.

“Mommy - “ Mae said, unable to finish.

“What? Is she at it again?”

They watched the nurse get up and saw the syringe she carried, followed her into their mother’s room where the screams had turned to bulging eyes, sweat, and a squeaky panting. They watched as the nurse plunged the needle into their mother’s arm, watched Camille bite down on her lip until blood oozed down her chin. She went limp.

“Best to leave her alone for awhile,” the nurse said to Father.

They drove away in silence, Mae and Evelyn’s foreheads pressed against their respective windows, watching the road blur beneath them. Father wiped at the sweat on his lip with a white monogrammed handkerchief.

“A gift,” he said. “What do you want?” His voice was frantic and cheery. “Tell me what you want.” He sat hunched over the steering wheel like a protective hawk, his eyes darting about at the bugs smashed on the windshield.

The girls remained silent.

“Come on. Mae? Evelyn? What can Daddy buy you? Tell me. A puzzle? New shoes? A book? Anything. Just tell me what you want.”

There was the sudden blare of a car horn. Mae looked up in time to see a blue car stopped at a stop sign coming up fast. Father swerved to the left and stomped on the brakes. The front wheels thudded over the curb, and Mae bounced up in the back seat, hitting her head on the roof of the car. They came to a stop, the front wheels on the sidewalk, the back wheels in the street. Father held onto the steering wheel like it was all he had left in the world.

Evelyn’s eyes widened. They had come to a stop in front of Thompson’s Music store.

“That,” she said, pointing to the display in the window. Marching drums were lined up in a bright, metallic row, a perfect, uniform family. “I want that.”

TWELVE

"I can't apologize enough about my father."

Andy and Natalie walked along the side of the two-lane highway that passed in front of Mae's house, heading away from town. The sky had become overcast, the air crisp and cool. Goldenrod lay wilted and brown in the ditches along the sides of the highway, along with thistle and dandelions, all shriveled in an orgy of chaffed stalk and leaf. Beyond the ditches, rows of lifeless golden cornstalks stretched endlessly for miles.

"You don't have to apologize for him."

"It's supposed to get colder the next couple of days. Maybe even snow," Natalie said. "By the way, how's your hand doing?"

Andy looked down at it, surprised for a moment at the bandage still wrapped around the cut. He hadn't paid any attention to it, had almost forgotten it. "It stopped bleeding, I'm sure," he said, and unwrapped it, making sure this was true. The beginnings of a long, dull scab bordering the pink line of the gash was beginning to form. He stuffed the bandage in his jacket, and noticed a slight throb beneath the scab.

"He's had two strokes." Natalie's breath came out in a chilled mist. “When he had his first one, I was at school, working on a nursing degree. Jesus, it must have been sixteen years ago. It scared me so much, I rushed back here to Ellingston to see him, to make sure he was doing okay. I only had a month of school left, but I couldn't go back. I couldn't leave him alone like that.

"Well, that lasted for six years, then I was anxious to get out again. I wanted to go back to school. Get my nursing degree. I decided I'd have to pretty much start over, having been gone so long. So I did. I started from scratch. It wasn't as hard the second time around, but I still had to put in some long days and nights. I drank a lot of coffee.” She chuckled.

"So anyway, four years ago, after I got my degree, I worked at the hospital in Faribault for awhile. I liked the people there, most of them, anyway, and it wasn't so far away that I couldn't see my father every now and then." Natalie slowed. A large flock of Canadian geese flew overhead. She stopped and turned to Andy.

"He had a stroke about two months ago. The second one. Luckily, I was here visiting. It almost killed him - it would've if I hadn't been there. He'd be dead right now."

Andy tried not to shiver, but it was hard. The air worked through his lungs, refreshing them, but did nothing to warm the rest of him. He kept his hands in his pockets, pressed close to his sides.

Natalie turned in a semi-circle, surveying the fields. "I've decided to stay with Dad for awhile, for as long as he needs me. I just can't leave him alone any more. If I was away, on my own, I'd always be wondering how he was doing. And if anything happened to him while I was away, I'd feel guilty. I owe him so much.

"He raised me by himself. Raised me while filled with so much grief over Mom. He fed me, clothed me. Gave me so much. All the while his wife dead, buried. So I feel like I owe him."

They left the side of the highway for a gravel road that wound through the cornfields. They saw a cloud of dust rising in the distance, and a pick-up truck soon came around the bend in front of them. The driver honked and waved as it rumbled toward the highway. Andy and Natalie waved back, choking on the flying dust it kicked up.

"That last stroke put him in his wheelchair," Natalie said. "Affected his mind, too. He'll talk about things that happened when he was a little kid, like they just happened yesterday. He remembers all of his schoolmates' names. His grammar school teachers. The room numbers. But if you ask him about something that happened last week, or last month, or even a few minutes ago, he won't have the slightest idea of what you're talking about. He doesn't know what day it is, what year it is. Sometimes he doesn't even know who I am. He'll ask me what I'm doing in his house. And I'll tell him, 'It's me, Dad - Nat, you're daughter', and after a while, something will click and he'll remember. But then it starts all over again." Natalie slowed her pace. "Jesus, it's frustrating."

A raven flew by - big, black and noisy. Its squawking thundered in Andy's ears. He winced. Natalie glanced at the bird, then looked back at the gravel at their feet as they walked.

"And what hurts more," Natalie continued, "is that sometimes he'll think I'm his wife. His wife! Can you believe it? Mom's been dead for thirty-seven years. The hardest thing isn't that he can't remember me - it's that he's so lonely, that he aches so much for Mom. I feel terrible. I hear him cry himself to sleep at night. It's one of the most desperate, hollow sounds you can imagine. Sometimes, when I hear it, I check on him to make sure he's not choking on his saliva. That's what it sounds like, you know? Like he’s dying."

The raven shrunk to a small dot in the sky, and its cries, also sounding like death, soon faded.

The sun set somewhere beyond the overcast sky. Andy's hands remained buried deep in his pockets. He tried to ignore the throbbing of his wound.

Earlier, they sat beneath the shade of a pine tree and made small talk until their butts felt frozen to the cold ground. They stood, shook out the pins and needles, the pine needles, and resumed their walk.

They walked for miles, through fields, through small patches of forest, along dry creek beds. Now, even the soft light of dusk abandoned them.

“It's nice to have someone listen," Natalie said.

"I don't mind.” Andy found her voice pleasant. Soothing. It reminded him of the gentle vibrations inside a moving car. Hypnotic.

"We should head back," Natalie said. "We'll cut through the fields. It'll be faster."

They turned right, stepping off of the road and down an embankment. Moisture soaked through Andy's tennis shoes. They stepped up onto the hard black dirt of a cornfield. Crystals of newly formed frost sparkled under the moonlight. Brittle cornstalks crushed beneath their shoes.

"How did your mother die?" Andy asked.

Natalie didn't answer for a while, and Andy wondered if she had heard his question. But soon, she spoke.

"She died shortly after giving birth to me. A heart attack."

Andy studied his breath rising into the air. "I'm sorry," he said.

Natalie kept walking; eyes trained forward, arms swinging mechanically, feet picking up the pace. She headed for a nearby patch of darkness. As they got closer, Andy saw the concrete and metal gateway to the cemetery. A gravel road wound out from the gate and ran along the forest, back to the main road.

"You know - I never knew my mom. Never had the chance to meet her," Natalie said quietly. "I regret it, but what I regret more is that I often think my father blames me for her death. He's never said that, but somewhere deep inside of him, I think he feels that I'm the one who killed her. I'm the one who caused all his suffering and loneliness." Natalie's voice grew thick, its resonance clouding over.

They walked among the headstones. Natalie seemed to know just where they lay in the darkness, so Andy grabbed her hand, waiting for her to steer him around them, wanting her to squeeze his hand in response.

Natalie looked back at Andy, a tear running down her cheek. "I know I didn't kill my mother. I know it. But I have to keep telling myself that. I have to tell myself that in order to survive, to live with myself. It's hard to handle when your father, your own father, looks at you, glares at you with accusing eyes. I know he doesn't mean it, but - “ She squeezed Andy's hand and stopped walking. They were almost through the graveyard.

“We both know who killed my mother,”
she said.

Andy started to say something, but Natalie stepped closer and put her arms around him, pulling her body to his. Her face moved to his neck, and he felt tears fall against his throat. She gave a gentle squeeze, hugging him close. She gently raised her head, so carefully, so slowly, up to Andy's ear.

“Andy,” she said.

He hardly made out what she whispered to him, but his ears caught the words, snatched them from the gentle night breeze.

"Make love to me."

THIRTEEN

Mae tore open a packet of onion soup mix and poured the dry, salty mixture onto a lean, raw slab of roast beef. She poured water over this, threw in some peeled potatoes, peeled carrots, then placed the lid on top. She opened the oven. A wave of preheated air rushed to her face as she slid the roast pan inside. She closed the door.

Yes, Natalie's arrival would explain things, Mae thought. Particularly with Hector. When was the last time she heard him yelling at her? Heard him yell clear across the grassy field between their houses? That poor bastard. When was the last time he yelled? A few months ago, she thought. Yelled bloody murder at her for days, sitting out on his front lawn in his green, rusting lawn chair. Mae watched him through the binoculars. He looked right back at her.

It was hard to tell what he yelled, sometimes. Downright impossible for the most part. But the last time, Mae heard him plain as day.

"YOU GODDAM KILLER! YOU GODDAM KILLER!"

He stood there, his eyes slicing right through the lenses of the field glasses, making Mae wince. Later, when she went into town the next week, she heard at the bank that he'd had a stroke. Hector'd had a stroke. Six days earlier. "Oh my God," Mae said, taking her deposit receipt, walking out of the bank, her hand to her mouth.

Maybe he'd had his stroke then. Right then. From yelling at her. Mae felt sick at the thought. If only she would've known, she could've done something.

She found out later at the grocery store that he was confined to a wheelchair, probably for the rest of his life. Which won't be long, Mae thought, if he keeps up that yelling.

But it hadn’t always been that way.

When she was ten, he’d pay her and Edna to clean up his yard, clear away the fallen apples, rake the leaves, shovel the snow from the front steps and long gravel driveway. He’d sit on his back step, a much younger man, and smoke hand-rolled cigarettes, drink iced tea. Sometimes his wife Emma would poke her head out and see him sitting there, watching the girls do the work he was supposed to do. She’d disappear inside, then come out a short while later with iced tea for the girls, too. They’d take a break and listen to Hector’s stories about the war. Edna once told Mae he was just making them up, but Mae didn’t care. They were fascinating to listen to.