Firebird (The Flint Hills Novels) (29 page)

"You sure you don't want me to bring the television down from my bedroom? I don't need it."

"No. I won't watch it at night."

"You used to. You used to be glued to the screen in the evening."

"I know." She laid the book down and fingered the cover. "Maybe because I watched so much television in the hospital when I couldn't move very much. There was nothing else to do. After a while it just all seemed so... so pointless. Then my nurse, Jan, started bringing me books to read."

"I could have brought you some."

She turned the book over in her lap. "Kafka's really fascinating," she said, and Ethan detected a note of eagerness in her voice. "Once I got into it, it was hard to put down. I'm sure you've read it."

"Yes. A long time ago."

Ethan sensed she wanted to talk about the book but didn't know how.

"Are you sleeping okay down here?" he asked finally.

"Yes, fine," she replied, and she thanked him with a smile and went back to her book, shutting him out of her world.

There it was. She had dismissed him from her thoughts and, without saying as much, from her room. He left, mumbling a quiet "Good night."

* * *

Then one afternoon he came home and found her in the kitchen with the music turned up full volume. The water was running as she washed lettuce in the sink, so she didn't hear him come in. When he spoke she whirled around, letting out a squeal that cut through to his heart. It reminded him of her laughter when they had first met, that joyful, playful time when they had done such outrageous things, like making love in the bed of his truck in the middle of the afternoon in the parking lot behind the South Forty, things that had so appealed to Ethan's withered soul.

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to surprise you like that."

He noticed right off how flustered she was.

"I thought I'd do something different tonight," she said as she rushed to turn off the music. "I bought salmon steaks and I thought we could grill them. I know you're not crazy about fish, but I found a recipe for marinade I thought you might like."

"What's that music you're listening to?"

"Oh, just something I found the other day." She plunged her hands into the sink of icy water and drew out some large leaves of romaine. "We always eat iceberg. I thought we'd try this for a change."

Ethan shrugged. "Whatever you want."

As he walked out he noticed the CD case on the kitchen counter. He picked it up. It was Annette's recording of Sibelius' violin concerto, and there, on the front, was a picture of Annette and David Zeldin.

"Where'd you get this?" he asked, and the icy shrillness of his voice made her heart stop. She looked up to see him holding the case, his eyes full of mistrust.

"Where'd you get this?" he asked again. His tone was harsh.

"I bought it..."

"You
bought
it? Why?"

"Ethan, you don't need to talk to me like th—"

"Why are you listening to her music? Why'd you buy this?"
He was waving the case at her now, and she was afraid he might throw it at her.

"I bought it for Eliana!" she cried, and the tears welled up in her eyes. "We were looking at music and she saw it, and she wanted it so I bought it for her!" She slapped down the lettuce and turned on him. "You said you were going to have her things shipped here, and you haven't done it. She doesn't have anything from her home in Paris. Damn it, Ethan, she's grieving for her mother!"

"You think I don't see through you?"

"What the hell do you mean by that? Tell me!"

"You think if she gets attached to you, that it'll save our marriage."

"That way of thinking says more about you than it does about me. It says you don't have the faintest idea who I am."

"I think I've got a pretty good handle on it."

"You don't understand jack shit."

"The longer she stays, the harder it will be on her. And I don't want her to suffer any more. She's going to live with her cousins."

"This is your solution?"

"They've got kids of their own, and I told them I'd help out financially, whatever they needed. They're coming to get her at the end of July."

She felt as though he had knocked the wind out of her.

"Why did you do that?" she cried. "Without talking to her about it?"

"I'm doing what's best."

"She doesn't even know them!"

"They're blood kin."

"So is her grandfather. It's not always a recommendation."

"I wouldn't let anybody have her unless I knew for sure they'd take good care of her. I made a promise..."

"A promise? To whom?"

He recovered quickly, and answered, "To myself."

She pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down. Her chest felt tight, as though stones were pressing down on her.

"Please. Don't do this."

"I don't know why you're so invested in her happiness. She's not your child, and you weren't exactly her mother's best friend."

She took a moment to answer. "I know, but I don't want her to go."

"If you think it's going to make a difference, between us..."

"That's not it."

He didn't believe her for a second. "I'm still pursuing the annulment. Regardless of what happens with Eliana."

"I know you are. I know..." She broke into tears then, and Ethan left the room.

* * *

Katie Anne was awakened in the middle of the night by a cry.

"Maman!"

The sound carried clearly through the silent house, straight to her ears. She fumbled for the light next to her bed.

"Maman!"
came the child's cry again. A primordial response surged from deep within her. She sprang up and her arm swept the lamp to the floor. Groggy and groping through the darkness for the door, she hobbled toward the cries.

"I'm coming!" The stairs seemed to take forever. "I'm coming! I'm coming, precious!" She muttered it over and over, like a litany to fight off the demons that might take her. "I'm coming!"

She found Eliana sitting up in bed, wide-eyed and sobbing.

Katie Anne sat down on the bed and gathered the child in her arms. "It's just a nightmare. It's okay, I'm here."

She could feel the child's sobs as her little chest rose and fell with each breath. She held her as tightly as she could, and slowly, with the child in her arms, Katie Anne's own heart began to calm.

"It's okay. It's okay," she repeated, over and over. She wondered what had made her panic like this, run from her room in the middle of the night to rescue a child from her nightmare.

What child is this,
she thought,
that moves me with her sorrow? That heals me with her love?

"It's over now," she whispered, stroking Eliana's hair and rocking the little girl in her arms, back and forth, back and forth. "It's over, it's gone."

As she spoke, Eliana slipped her arms around Katie Anne's waist and nestled her head into her breasts. Katie Anne kissed the child's head, brushing her lips over the soft hair. "It's okay, precious," she whispered. She felt as if she could hold her like this forever.

She looked up to see Ethan standing in the doorway in his robe. "She okay?"

"Yeah. She just had a bad dream. You go on back to bed. I'll take care of her."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure. Go to bed."

For a long time she sat there, holding the little girl. She tried to remember some nursery rhymes, but all she could recall were the lyrics from country-and-western songs, so she hummed an old Janie Fricke tune, and rocked the little girl in her arms. After the child had gone back to sleep, Katie Anne lay down on the bed next to her. She was struck by the softness of Eliana's skin, and she reached out and stroked her cheek. Then she leaned close and inhaled the child's sweet smell. She knew the smell of spring on the prairie, the smell of blood on a newborn calf; she knew the smell of certain diseases too, and infections. And she knew the smell of fire. But this was new. She lay there for a long time and finally fell asleep. She awoke several hours later and got up and groped her way back downstairs to her own room.

In the morning, she awoke to find Eliana standing beside her bed.

"Did you come into my room last night?"

"Yes. You were having a nightmare."

The girl nodded.

"I have them too," Katie Anne said.

"You do?"

"Yeah." She rolled over and tossed back the sheets. "Hop in."

Eliana climbed onto the bed and lay down next to her.

"I dreamed I was looking for my mother and I couldn't find her," said the child. "It was sad. That's all I remember. Being very sad."

They lay there next to each other. Katie Anne noticed how lovely the little girl's hands were.

"The worst ones are when I find her and I'm happy. Then when I wake up it's worse."

Katie Anne took the child's hand.

"Do I look too scary to you?"

"Not anymore. I'm sort of getting used to you."

"If you ever wake up and get scared again, and if I don't hear you, you come crawl into bed with me."

"You sure you won't mind?"

"Not at all."

Chapter 30

Ethan couldn't help but notice that Katie Anne was becoming more and more reclusive, and it worried him. He urged her to invite her friends to the house, and Patti and Whitey still dropped by from time to time, but she never accepted their invitations to join them at the South Forty or even meet for a coffee in town, and she rarely called them. She was too self-conscious about her appearance, and Eliana was the only one she felt comfortable with. She took the little girl with her to visit her parents, and when she ventured to Cottonwood Falls or Strong City for groceries or on other errands, Eliana always went along. The little girl was the focus of her attention. They formed an island in a sea of curious faces; they turned their eyes toward each other, seeing only each other, shutting out the cruelly inquisitive world around them. Between the two of them they chose rice over pasta, pork chops over steak, the Looney Tunes sleeping bag over the Mickey Mouse.

Ethan was finding it difficult to make inroads into the child's heart, and he wasn't sure he wanted to, because he knew it would just mean another loss for both of them. He went often to visit her mother's grave, but always alone. He went very early, drove up just at the break of dawn, thinking it wouldn't be so hard on him then, when the light was just coming up fresh and clean in a new sky. One time he dropped by in the evening, and as he was squatting beside her grave with a fresh bouquet of white roses in his hand, he heard a car drive up and a door slam. He heard footsteps behind him, and he looked around to see Nell standing there holding Eliana by the hand. Ethan stood and tipped his hat, and then turned back to the grave. A moment later, he heard a light step and then she was beside him, slipping her small hand into his. It was warm and very soft, and he stood there with the little girl at his side, reassuring her mother he'd do his best, that he'd not break this promise, that he'd rather die than see her suffer any more. Eliana held his hand for a long time, and then she went back to Nell and they drove away. Ethan stayed until it was pitch black night, and then he sat with his back against her tombstone, looking at the stars and loving her.

One hot Friday morning in early July, Katie Anne heard Ethan's truck drive up only an hour after he'd left for work. She went out on the front porch to meet him.

"What brings you home? Something wrong?"

"Where's Eliana?" he asked as he came up the walk.

"She's playing in her room. Why? What's wrong?"

He stepped onto the porch and removed his hat; sweat was trickling down his temples.

"Come inside," she urged. "It's too hot out here."

"No. I don't want to talk where she might hear me. It's about her grandfather. He was wandering down a road in the dead of night and a car hit him. Driver said he came around a bend and there Charlie was. Right in the middle of the road. Charlie didn't even turn around. Killed him."