Going to Bend (37 page)

Eddie Coolbaugh and Loose came in and disappeared upstairs. After a while Petie went up to check on the boys and Carissa, who’d fallen asleep beside Ryan. When she came out of the boys’ bedroom she saw the light on down the hall, in their bedroom. She looked in and found Eddie sitting on the side of the bed with his shirt unbuttoned and one sock off. He was as still as death, as though he’d been beached there for hours, pinned to the mattress by misery.

“Hey, Petie,” he said softly when she came in, barely glancing at her.

“Hey, Eddie.”

“Boys okay?”

Petie nodded. It was relative.

“I’ve been thinking, Pete, I’ve been thinking real hard. Was it something I did?”

“Don’t.”

“You always seem to know what’s going on with me, but I never know what’s going on with you, so I figure it was something I did.”

“It wasn’t anything you did.”

“Because I could change it, you know, if you told me. You just tell me, and I swear I won’t do it again.”

“It’s not like that,” Petie said.

Eddie looked at her with the terrible, uncomprehending look of an animal being led to slaughter. “You loved me, huh? Didn’t you love me?”

“Yes,” Petie whispered. “I loved you.”

“So where did that go, Pete, huh?”

Petie shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t just stop loving people,” Eddie pleaded. “You love them for keeps.”

Petie smiled the slightest smile. “Eula used to say that.”

“Well, and she
knew
stuff, didn’t she? Didn’t she know we were going to get married before we even told her?”

Petie dropped her head, ducked in shame.

“You loved me, huh?” Eddie pressed.

“Yes, I loved you,” Petie said. “You and Eula saved my life.”

“So isn’t that worth something? Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Petie whispered. “I’m sorry, Eddie. I’m so sorry.”

“Aw, Jesus, Petie.” Eddie started to cry. “Jesus. You tell me how to fix it, and I’ll fix it, okay? You’ve always been smarter than me, you always know what to do. You just tell me and I’ll do it. C’mon, huh?”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t just keep saying that, Petie. Goddamn it.”

Petie put both hands to her mouth, forcing herself to watch Eddie rise, grab his second sock and bolt from the room. A minute later, she heard the protest of his truck door, and then wheels crunching on gravel.

How do you begin to tell someone they’re too thin a meal when they can’t even see that you’ve been starving?

W
HEN PETIE
returned to the kitchen she found Nadine, Marge and Rose deep in conversation.

“I was twenty-six,” Marge was saying, “and we had nothing, not even furniture of our own. Larry’s folks let us borrow some things—Lord, there was an old green davenport that Larry always said reminded him of peas and was just about as comfortable to sit on,” Marge chuckled softly. “Larry, he was working enough for two jobs, DeeDee was a year old, and then out of the blue the army decides to up and send him to Korea. Well,
you can imagine what I had to say about
that
, me with a small baby and Frank on the way. Not that it made a bit of difference what I thought, seeing as how Larry went anyway. I knew a couple of other girls whose husbands were sent overseas, too, but it was still the loneliest time. I’d put DeeDee to bed and turn on the radio real loud so she wouldn’t hear me cry. I swear I cried enough tears to fill a bathtub. It was the first time we were ever apart.”

“It sounds romantic,” Rose said.

“Oh, I don’t know about that, honey. You know, some of the boys who went over with Larry were killed, and that was awful, those poor girls hearing from the army that their lives were busted all to pieces—no more husband, no more dreams. And we were all dreamers—we’d spend whole evenings talking about where we’d go for picnics and what we’d bring with us when our husbands came home, what their favorite foods were, what we’d bring for the kids when some of us didn’t even have kids yet, just planned to. It sounds silly now, I guess. You girls are so much more independent than we were.”

“How long was Larry away?” Rose asked.

“One year and seven months. And those years after he came back to us were the happiest times. He was a good man, my Larry, and he worked real hard to give us a good life, me and the kids.”

“Pogo was never like that,” Rose said. “He was always taking off and leaving us to figure things out for ourselves.”

“All the same, he gave you that beautiful little girl of yours,” Marge said.

Nadine said, “My parents used to fight all the time.
You drink too much, you don’t help out, you flirted with that girl, you won’t amount to anything if you can’t keep a job
. For thirty-five years they were locked in mortal combat because neither one of them was willing to be the one who walked out. Funny thing was, my mother died first, and my father fell apart. He died within the year.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Marge asked her.

“No,” Nadine said, coloring. “I’m pretty set in my ways.”

“Oh, honey,” Marge said, and reached across the table to pat
Nadine’s hand sympathetically. “There’s a man out there who will worship the ground you walk on, who will look at you and see God because no one else could have made you so perfect. That’s what Larry used to tell me, that he looked at me and saw the Lord. If you haven’t met that man yet, honey, you just wait for him because he’s out there.”

“What an extraordinary thought,” Nadine said.

“Is it?” Marge said.

“Yes,” said Petie and Rose in unison.

Marge reached into her purse and retrieved a postcard. She held it out to Petie. “Here, hon, before I forget, this came in the mail for Larry. It’s from Bachelor Butte Resort, that place over in Bend. You get two nights there for free just for listening to their sales presentation. I thought you and the boys could use it.”

Petie and Rose both smiled. “Thanks,” Petie said, accepting the card. “Every household on the coast must have gotten one of these. The Schiffens got one, and Rose has one that was sent to Jim Christie.”

“Well, you use it or not,” Marge said. “It sure wasn’t doing any good sitting in my mailbox.”

Nadine yawned and stood. “I’m sorry to be the poop of the party, but it’s been a long day and I’ve still got packing to do. Petie, thank you for having me over.” She slipped into her slicker. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Marge. If you’re ever in L.A. please look me up. Petie and Rose will know how to reach me. Rose, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Oh, yes.”

When the sound of Nadine’s car faded away, Marge said to Petie, “What a nice girl. Honey, you never told me she was nice. Shame on you.”

Petie shrugged. “She’s more Rose’s friend than mine.”

“Well, she’s nice anyway.”

Rose yawned and stretched. “Time for me to go, too, and get Carissa to bed.” She went upstairs, roused Carissa and left after a quick hug for Marge.

“Well, honey,” Marge said after they’d gone, “that was a real pleasant evening. It made being home easier.”

“I’m glad,” Petie said. “There haven’t been many pleasant evenings here lately.”

“You want to talk about it, honey? I’ve been thinking maybe something was wrong, but I didn’t want to press.”

“I don’t know. I lie in bed at night and I can’t sleep for all the noise going on inside my head. There’s someone, not Eddie, that I love. There are pictures I want to paint instead of working. I’d like just once to experience joy.”

“Honey, there comes a time when staying with a bad life means you’re throwing away the chance to make a good one, and God takes great offense at that. He made us in His image, with choices and powers, and if you throw that away and make less of yourself than you could have, you’re diminishing what He made with His own hands, and that’s a wrong thing, honey. It’s plain wrong.”

Petie’s voice sank until it was barely audible. “Is it wrong to be unhappy?”

Marge leaned forward and squeezed Petie’s hand. “Honey, is it wrong to be a broken vase when it’s not your fault you fell off the table? You can’t always keep things from breaking, hon, but it’s not the breaking that God faults us for. It’s throwing away the pieces that hurts Him, honey, when He’s made perfectly good glue if you’d only take the trouble to use it. Now, you’re never going to look brand new again and you can’t do anything about that. But you’ll hold flowers all the same, even if you’re a little stove in on one side. Do you see? The important thing is, you can still be the receptacle for beauty, honey; you can still hold His pretty colors just like you were intended to. Your little Ryan knows that; all children know that. It’s only us grown-ups that forget.”

Petie sat perfectly still as tears rolled down her cheeks.

Marge went on. “I’ve heard the stories. You had a bad man for a father, honey, and the Lord took your mama home way too soon. But God gave you a stout heart and a strong mind to make up for it. No one’s faulting you for needing time to fix things, honey, as long as you do fix them in the end. It’s when you leave yourself broke that you commit a sin. It’s not a sin to be unhappy, honey, but it is a sin to
stay
unhappy.

“Now, with me, the Lord took Larry and left me behind with a strong heart and a terrible sorrow. He doesn’t fault me for crying, just as long as I do my best to go on. Do you see, honey? He knows I’m a flighty old lady who makes a mess of half the things I try. But I try all the same, honey, I try every day and every hour, and the sadder I feel, the more determined I am to go on. And maybe that’s what it all comes down to, honey. Maybe in the end, life is all about going on.”

“I love you,” Petie said quietly. “I’ve never told you that before.”

“I know you do, honey. You have a gift for loving and you always have, even when it scares the bejeebers out of you.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Doesn’t matter, honey. Everyone else did.”

P
ETIE CREPT
into the kitchen at five-thirty in the morning and dug in her utensil drawer for a set of measuring spoons. They were the ones Eula had given her all those years ago as a wedding present, the present she cherished more than any other gift she and Eddie were given. The house was quiet except for the creak of the trees outside when a gust of wind tangled with them.

She quickly put on a slicker, grabbed her car keys from the counter and drove ten blocks, turned out her headlights half a block away from the old coastal pine and opened her car door with a minimum of squeak. Peering into the darkness, she slipped across the ratty lawn, stepping into the occasional spongy molehill. Beneath the tree she pulled the spoons from one pocket, her broken spade from the other, and crouched under the dripping branches. Her hands shook as she dug the hole and packed the spoons in tight. When she was done, wet through, she crouched there for several minutes, tears mingling with the rain. Her sinuses were nothing but soggy sponges these days, full of snot and tears.

She broke open a clod of dirt and rolled the smaller bits between her fingers, thinking of Eula Coolbaugh, the first woman—the first person—who had loved her without limits. Paula Tyler must have loved her, too, but Petie couldn’t summon any memories of it. Paula, in her memory, was a broken woman, a wisp of smoke, hardly ever there at all. Eula, on the other hand, had been substantial, living her life in the wide-open
places where Paula had been afraid to go. She had provided for Petie, fought for her, worried over her, urged her to sound her thoughts as loud and clear as trumpets. Eddie Coolbaugh had never had much of Eula in him, but Petie guessed there had been enough to cling to. Now, under the dripping tree, taking in the smell of the loamy earth in great gulps, she could hear Eula’s voice, clear and strong:
I’m proud of you, hon. It’s long past time to say goodbye, you know it is. Don’t you waste what I’ve given you, all that talk and strength. I love you. Go on, now. Go
.

Petie pressed her palms flat over the grave for several minutes, willing herself to say this worst of goodbyes. In the week since Marge had come home, everything Petie had said was, in some way, a goodbye. In every good-night kiss to Loose there was a farewell; in every cup of coffee she set in front of Eddie Coolbaugh there was a leave-taking. It was even harder than Petie had thought it would be.

She drove home and slipped into the house as quietly as she could, given the desperate state of the old floorboards. Apparently no one heard her, not even when she turned on the shower and gave herself up to the luxury of heat and steam until the hot water ran out.

S
CHOOL WAS
out for spring vacation, so Petie let the boys sleep. After her shower she filled the car with boxes—clothes, art supplies, a few favorite toys. Just after sunup she drove to the Sea View Motel. Marge must have heard the car because she had the door open before Petie even reached the top of the stairs to her apartment.

“Oh, let me help with those things, honey!” She took a small duffel bag and a box out of Petie’s hands and brought them into her bedroom. Petie set down several other boxes and a backpack, and called, “I’m going back down. Don’t come—I’ve only got one more load. I’ll be right back.”

“All right, honey.” Marge appeared in the doorway.

“Do you want me to bring your suitcase down?”

“Why, I guess so. I’ve been all packed for two days.”

“You’re still sure you don’t want to stay?” Petie said.

“I’m sure, honey. I proved to myself that I could do it, but my heart isn’t here anymore. I’m an old woman who wants to spend the rest of her life with family, not with strangers staying for one night.”

“All right,” Petie said. “You know you can change your mind anytime.”

“I know, honey. No, I’ll be glad to think of you and Ryan living here now. I know Larry would like that, too. There’s lots of love in these walls, honey, all around you like a hug.”

Petie descended and brought up her last load. “How are the boys?” Marge said while she put boxes in the bedroom.

“I don’t know. They seem okay, mostly. I thought they’d be upset at being separated, but all I’m hearing is griping about why Ryan gets to move to a new house and Loose doesn’t.” Petie sighed.