Going to Bend (13 page)

Rose turned back in the doorway. “She went to see Mrs. Dumphy, sweetie, that’s all I know.”

“Oh.”

“Is there something wrong?”

Ryan shrugged miserably.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Rose came back into the room and sat on the bed.

Ryan shook his head.

Rose put her arm around the boy’s shoulders, his bones insubstantial as a bird’s. “All right, sweetie. Come out when you’re ready and I’ll have your brownie waiting. Don’t be too long, though, because they’re some of Carissa’s best and someone else might not be able to restrain themselves.”

“Okay.”

Impulsively Rose came back into the room and gave Ryan a noisy kiss on the top of his head. “I don’t get to see enough of you anymore. You need to come and visit me more often,” she told him. His head smelled like paints; he had worn home an Indian headdress of construction paper. It had been meticulously painted, the spine of each feather detailed, the feathers themselves intricately rendered and beautiful. Ryan had worn it with great dignity.

Rose closed the door to her bedroom behind her quietly. Ryan was one of the most difficult children she had ever known, but also one of the sweetest. God or whatever had just dealt him a difficult nature and there was not a thing he or anybody else could do about it. Loud noises had always startled him, even when he knew they were coming; the vacuum
cleaner still made him tremble when it was run over a hard floor. As a baby he’d only been at ease in motion, and his happiest times were when Petie pushed him in the Sea View housekeeping cart, wedged tightly between piles of starchy white towels and linens. On her off nights Petie had spent hours in the dingy laundry room of her apartment building dozing in a plastic chair while Ryan rode the dryer in his car seat, soothed by the hum and the heat and vibration. Later there had been the periods when he couldn’t bear any wrinkles in his socks, when the color orange made him cry, when he was afraid of spiders that weren’t there. Then Loose had come along, a tough, roly-poly, manly baby, a bottle-slinger, a nipple-chewer, surefooted and fearless but with none of Ryan’s sensitivity or sweetness. Rose and Ryan and Carissa had become a trio for a while, while Petie regained her footing. Now Rose worried that she was losing touch with him. He seemed skittish to her, and quick to startle, but then he always suffered when things went bad between Petie and Eddie Coolbaugh. At least Eddie was working again.

Rose spaded brownies out of a deep pan, licking her fingers. Carissa in middle school, Loose in first grade: how could it be that these children were growing up when she didn’t feel old herself? She still had her pretty breasts, her sense of peace, her talent for delight. Christie was home safely—riches!—and she had this cookbook, hers and Gordon’s. Blessed man, and so sick. She would see him tomorrow, after she and Petie had made their Souperior’s run. How awful, to be dying. She couldn’t picture a man loving another man, didn’t want to, but whose business was at, anyway? Everyone needed to love something and maybe Gordon, like Ryan, had simply been dealt a bum hand. Maybe he didn’t want to love other men; undoubtedly Ryan didn’t like minding the wrinkles in his socks when everyone else could just put on their shoes and go. You couldn’t blame people for what wasn’t theirs to choose.

So she’d write a good book for him. That might make him happy.

The front door opened and Rose looked up, thinking it was Carissa home from school, but instead it was Petie.

“Is Ryan in here?” She tossed her purse behind the couch and threw
herself full-length onto the slippery old brocade cushions. “I saw Loose outside with Christie.”

“He’s playing in my room. He smells like paint.”

“Not on his clothes.”

“No, just a little in his hair. He made an Indian headdress in school and wore it home. You’ll want to take a look at it—he did a really good job. Is he okay? He’s worried about something, but he didn’t want to talk about it.”

“He scored a 158 on an IQ test.”

“Is that good?” Rose asked.

“It’s off the fucking charts. Mrs. Dumphy’s sitting there saying Ryan could be the next Einstein, and I’m saying they’ve got the wrong kid.”

“Oh, Petie. You know he’s smart.”

“I know he’s odd, is what I know. She said he’s working way below the level she’d expect of a kid with that IQ. She wanted to know if there were any problems at home that might be distracting him.” Petie ran her hands through her hair. “Fuck, I’m not going to go into my personal life with her. I said everything was fine. Which it pretty much is, now. Do you have any beer?”

“Better—wine coolers. Ice, or no?”

“No.”

Rose pressed Petie’s small shoulder as she walked by. There was always something. There always had been. As she poured their coolers into glasses she heard Petie go to the bedroom and look in on Ryan, then after a long minute close the door softly without speaking and come back to the living room.

Rose handed her the glass without the chip in the rim.

“He’s got fabric spread all over the room,” Petie said.

“That’s because he’s in New England or Virginia or somewhere. He’s making up a game about the Pilgrims.”

“Huh.”

“He’s got a great imagination.”

“No kidding. Half the time it seems like he’s on Mars.”

“He’s very talented, Petie, you know that. You should see the head-dress
he brought home from school. The feathers look real, I swear. If you get tired of him, just send him over to me.”

“Don’t say it too loud.”

“I’m serious. I’d take him for a few days anytime, you know that.”

“I know. He’s a good kid, though. Plus I’m tough as an old shoe.” Petie took a long drink of her cooler.

“Was Carissa out there when you came in?” Rose asked.

“Yeah. She and Loose were with Jim. He’s a nice guy. They’re hanging all over him, and he’s just going on with his business. For a man who doesn’t talk, he sure has a way with kids.”

“He’s very patient. I worry about what Carissa will do when he leaves again.”

“Maybe he won’t.”

Rose smiled. Of course he’d leave again. The front door banged and in ambled first Loose, then Carissa.

“Hey,” Petie said.

“Hi,” said Carissa. Her cheeks were pink from the cool fall air, her eyes bright.

Loose said nothing. He dragged one toe behind him across the carpet, leaving a thin trail of mud. Rose frowned at him. “You. Shoes off.”

Loose paused, unfazed, and kicked his shoes halfway across the room. He was a big child, with Eddie’s good-natured, uninquisitive face. Rose shook her finger at him. He had always been a physical child, but Rose had also seen him labor over mechanical projects for hours. He was capable of that kind of concentration.

Loose threw himself onto the sofa next to her.

“Where’s Jim?” she said, pulling him into her side with a strong arm. “You wear him out?”

Loose let Rose pull him in, but only for a minute and then he squirmed out of range. “He said he was going to the Wayside.”

“But he’s coming home for dinner,” Carissa called quickly from the kitchen, where she was scraping brownie crumbs from the bottom of the pan with the spatula.

“Are you cooking again?” Petie called back.

“Yup. Meat loaf.”

Petie let her head fall way back on the sofa. “I wish you’d come over to our house sometime and make us meat loaf. We’re doing boxed macaroni and cheese. God, but I hate to cook at night. I dream about cooking. I’m not kidding. I dream about every little step. Some nights all I do is
peel
the carrots and then
peel
the potatoes and then
cut
the onions up into tiny pieces, perfect pieces all the same size, and then I do the celery and by then it’s three o’clock in the morning and I’m about ready to kill myself. I mean, it’s bad enough to do that stuff day after day, but to have to do it all night, too—”

Rose was laughing, and Petie started laughing, too. Ryan came out to see what was going on, and Petie hoisted herself up, draining the last sip of her wine cooler. “Hey, kiddo,” she said to Ryan. “You were so quiet in there I thought maybe you’d escaped out the window and gone on home.”

Ryan shrugged and wandered towards Rose.

“Did they find someone to give them a turkey?” she asked.

“One. I don’t think it was enough, though.”

“Enough for what?” Petie said.

“To eat.”

“What happened to them, then?” Rose asked. “Did someone tell them about squash, or give them some corn?”

“No.” Ryan put his hands on Rose’s knees, leaned in until he was two inches from her face, and whispered, “They all starved to death.”

Petie shuddered. “God, Ryan.”

“But it’s only make-believe, isn’t it,” Rose whispered back to the boy. “Anything can be done and undone in make-believe.” She held out her wing, and Ryan slipped silently under it.

“Stories like that give me the willies,” Petie said, and shook herself.

“You could stay for dinner,” Carissa said from the kitchen doorway. She had an apron of Rose’s tied carefully over her school clothes.

“Oh, thanks, sweetie,” Petie said. “But Eddie’s probably sitting at home right now wondering where we are. C’mon, boys, before I get too tired to get up. Loose, your shoes. Your shoes. Your
shoes
. You can’t go out in just your socks, dodo-head.”

Petie shooed the boys into their coats and out the front door. “Say hi to Christie for me.”

“Okay.” Rose made a sign to Petie:
Chin up
. “See you in the morning. Curried lemon rice.”

“Sounds disgusting. Whose is it?”

“Nadine’s.”

“Figures.”

“It might be all right.”

“C’mon, Mom,” Loose said, butting his knee into the back of Petie’s knee.

“Okay, okay.” Petie put her hand on Ryan’s back and in another minute, in a haze of exhaust fumes, they disappeared down the road towards home.

F
OR DINNER
along with meat loaf Carissa made green beans, scalloped potatoes, and a Jell-O mold for dessert. She set the table with gay cloth napkins she’d made herself; put out a leaf and twig centerpiece that, when her back was turned, Rose tried to prevent from leaking tiny ants all over the tablecloth. She put out a cold beer for Christie and a glass of Diet Pepsi for Rose and milk for herself and then she sat down to wait.

“Honey, he may not come home in time,” Rose said gently after a little while. “It’s such a beautiful dinner, it deserves to be eaten when it’s at its best. Let’s go ahead and start.”

“I could call him,” Carissa said.

“You could fix him up a nice plate and he can microwave it when he comes home.”

“Why can’t I call him?”

Gently Rose said, “Carissa, men like Christie, they’re used to living their own way. If you press them, if you hem them in, they just fly away.”

Carissa’s face drooped with disappointment, then brightened. “But if he just forgot, it’d be okay to call.”

Rose sighed and stood. Why should Carissa understand, at thirteen, what it had taken her years of Pogo to learn? “Sweetie, it’ll embarrass him if you call him there. He knows what time dinner is. Let’s fix him a plate. You can use Great-grandma’s flowered one with the gold edge. It’ll look real nice.”

Carissa finally gave in, and Rose reached down her great-grandmother’s flowered plate, the one they normally used only for Thanksgiving and Christmas, the only piece of a fifty-piece set to arrive intact over the Oregon Trail.

“Do you think he doesn’t like me anymore?” Carissa asked as they finally sat down to their own tepid plates. “He asks me to do things with him, but then it’s like he’s angry with me.”

“Angry?” Rose had never seen Christie angry with anyone.

“Well, not angry exactly. But, you know, distant.”

“Oh.” Rose was relieved. “That’s just his way, sweetie. He doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just a trick he’s learned, so he can be alone on a boat even when there are people next to him twenty-four hours a day.”

Carissa looked doubtful.

“Your father was the same way. He couldn’t stand having people get too near him.”

“But he wasn’t a fisherman.”

“No, he wasn’t a fisherman.”

Carissa frowned and then shrugged. She had always liked hearing about Pogo, good or bad, but lately she’d lost interest. Pogo was an old picture in an album. Jim, though, Jim was real.

“Well, anyway,” Carissa remembered, lighting up, “he told me this afternoon he’d let me come out on the
Blue Devil
the next time there’s a weekend charter that isn’t filled.” The
Blue Devil
was the sportfishing boat Jim was skippering for a few days so Mikey Farley could take his wife Mavis to Arizona for a while to get some relief from her arthritis.

“You could come with us,” Carissa said, and started to clear the table. It was a safe offer: Rose got profoundly seasick.

“No thanks, sweetie. But it was nice of you to ask.”

“Sure.”

Rose poked Carissa suddenly in the ribs at the kitchen sink. “Do you think he’s cute?”

“
Mom
. He’s old.”

Rose laughed. “Well, I do. I think he looks nice.”

Carissa finished the dishes and then her homework, and by the time Christie came in she was fast asleep. He was not drunk; he was not a drinker. In the whole of the evening he had probably had only one or two beers. Stepping quietly in his worn boots, he hung his battered jacket in the closet and put his cap on a little table near the door, next to Carissa’s schoolbooks. He had picked up some weight since his return, and some of the weather lines in his face had smoothed out. But there was still something elemental there, something primitive and solitary, something irreconcilable with houses and kitchens and home-cooked meals.

“She thought you’d be coming home,” Rose said carefully from the kitchen, heating the plate.

“I thought I might.”

“She wanted to call you.”

Christie nodded and accepted the food Rose handed him. “She could’ve called me.”

“I didn’t think you’d want her to.”

“No, she could’ve.”

“She said she thought she made you angry sometimes.”

“Angry?” Christie looked up from the slow, careful work he was making of his dinner. “She said I was angry?”