Steal the North: A Novel (14 page)

I hope Reuben’s not messing with her in any way. I had to smile the time I saw the two of them together. I’d left a service manual at home on accident. I drove right past the trailer park after I spotted them.
Good for Emmy
, I thought. Kate had told Beth on the phone that Emmy didn’t have many friends.

I open the screen door now for my wife and niece. “Doesn’t she look beautiful, Matt?”

“You both do.” And they do, but Beth more so. Emmy looks uncomfortable in their matching long dresses and with her hair pulled back tightly in a bun.

“Go get in the car, Beth,” I say, kissing her cheek. “Give me a minute with Emmy.”

“Listen, honey,” I say to Emmy once Beth’s in the car. “I know you’re scared.”

“I’m okay.” But she isn’t.

“I’ll be right there beside you, I promise.” She nods. She looks more like Kate than I realized. It’s the dress and her wide-open eyes. It would drain the confidence right out of Kagen to see her. “Thanks for doing this, kid. It means everything to your aunt.”

“Thanks for inviting me.”

“I wish you’d stop being so polite with me. It’s painful.” I take her arm to escort her to the car. “You threw up on me more than once as a baby, you know.”

“That’s embarrassing. And gross.”

“Nah. That’s just family.”

We drive into the scablands mostly in silence. Beth is praying her heart out, I can tell. I say a few prayers as well. The scenery must look strange to Emmy: the fields of boulders, then the towering basalt cliffs that not only shade but dwarf the car. It’s desolate coulee country up here, and it would be even more so if not for Grand Coulee Dam and its chain of holding reservoirs. Emmy’s eyes remain wide whenever I catch them in the rearview mirror, especially after Dry Falls itself comes into view. A basalt cliff of epic proportion, four miles across, it dwarfs not just our car but Steamboat Rock and Grand Coulee Dam. It’s the ledge over which Glacial Lake Missoula spilled with the combined force of all rivers on earth at the end of the last ice age. The catastrophic flood shaped the entire Pacific Northwest. The church of course doesn’t believe in the ice age. God sculpted Dry Falls
as is
. The earth existed without man for only five days. I wish I could think of something comforting to say to Emmy. I don’t think she’s a Christian, which should concern me, but she’s young. If Beth were asleep, I’d tell Emmy this is the way to the reservation where Reuben’s from. We pass the lake where my relatives gather in late April for the statewide opening of trout season. It’s great fun hanging at the campground for the weekend. Lots of fish, food, beer, and campfires. It overwhelms Beth. I go without her—she sends food—but I no longer stay the night. I turn off the highway now onto a gravel road that winds down plateaus of sage to a less popular park and lakeshore.

The white church bus with
CALVARY BAPTIST
painted in red on the side is already in the parking area. When we get out of the car, Beth, a proud aunt, loops arms with Emmy. My family knows nothing about this healing. Despite what my brother thinks, I’m not drinking anyone’s Kool-Aid. I get a little tired of trying to prove this to my family and to me. This ceremony has divided the church. At least two thirds of the congregation think Brother Mathias has devoted too much time to it. The other third thinks Beth is worth it. Actually most of them have seemed disgruntled lately. Like a true shepherd this evening, Mathias has gathered his entire flock around him. The crowd parts as we near. The women smile in varying degrees, and the men dutifully say, “Amen.”

“Sister Bethany.” Mathias rushes to her as if it’s been weeks. He looks so nervous I almost feel sorry for him. He has a feminine air to him that Beth finds endearing and attributes solely to his southern heritage. I’m certain he’ll be dismissed if this healing fails to work. I see the way the more rugged and hairy men size him up. If Beth miscarries, his ministry will be the least of my concerns. “Brother Matthew,” he says. “And let me introduce to the congregation Sister Emmy.” She looks at me for support. I smile. He continues. “An example of purity for all you young ladies.” I move nearer to Emmy and take her arm. “To the water’s edge,” says the effeminate shepherd as he leads his flock.

I feel out of sorts. Probably just my blood sugar. It’s been awhile since I’ve fasted. But if my teenage niece can do it, so can I. I promised Emmy I wouldn’t, but I have to let go of her so she can wade into the water with Beth and Mathias. I wait on the shore with the rest of the congregation. The wind picks up, as it always does in the coulees as sunset nears. Did the preacher think of that? But at least this evening it’s a warm wind. I have to strain to hear Mathias, who talks slowly in his southern accent. Giving examples and reciting verses, he claims Jesus was partial to suffering women. If only Jesus were half as partial to my wife as Mathias is. He quotes the very words hanging in our kitchen on a note card: “For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail.”
It’s all I can do, suddenly, to keep myself from passing out. Maybe I did sip the Kool-Aid. I fall back some in the crowd.

The minister talks next about virtue, and I see Emmy place her hands on Beth’s belly. They cup her womb. It’s a moving sight. But then Mathias puts one of his hands over Emmy’s hands and his other hand on Beth’s shoulder. He seems anything but feminine now. The crowd, becoming spirited, inches nearer the water and breaks out in “Amen” and “Praise Jesus.” I try to take a step forward as well to yank that man’s hand off my wife—and my niece, for that matter—but my foot catches on a reed. Someone grabs my elbow firmly to prevent me from falling into the water, which would’ve been humiliating. I turn around. It’s the kid Reuben. Where the hell did he come from? No one else seems to notice him, even though he’s the only one not in dress clothes. He says something to me, but not in English. I turn back to my wife. The minister finishes up.
“
Thy faith hath made thee whole.”

The women quickly spread out a picnic. Most of the younger boys go off to fish. There’s less than an hour left of daylight, and the wind intensifies. But everyone’s spirits are high. Even the staunchest opposers pat me on the back. I thank them all for giving up their evening. Beth and Emmy have walked off together for a short stroll. I imagine Beth is thanking Emmy and professing her devotion. Trying to, anyway, over the flap of their matching wet dresses.

I’ll be damned if Reuben is nowhere to be found.

If Emmy didn’t see him, and I’m thinking I’m the only one who did, then I’m not saying a word. He must love Emmy to have shown up here like that. The thought gives me serious pause.

“Brother Matthew.” It’s the preacher. I’ve been trying to avoid his now beaming face.

I scan the park once more for Reuben, and then, feeling stupid doing so, I scan the cliffs.

“Brother Mathias.” I shake his hand. I want to disrespectfully call him bro, or worse, but I won’t wreck this day for Beth. “Thank you for this, sir,” I say. “I know there’s been resistance.”

“All worth it if Jesus turns your and Bethany’s house into a home.”

I try to swallow my pride. It’s not going down. “And when will the parsonage be a home?” I used to tease Mathias about finding a wife—back when he first moved here and Beth and I, being close to his age, considered him our friend as well as our preacher. We used to have him for dinner. But then I began noticing his eyes lingering a little too long on Bethany’s face, which in some ways
isn’t
better than his eyes lingering on her body.

“The Lord will send me a Rachel of my own, all in good time,” he says. “For now the Lord has taken the reproach from your Rachel.”

“Reproach?”

“Shame,” he explains. “The shame of being a childless woman of God.”

I want to punch his jaw, what little he has. “Beth has nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I have told her as much,” he says.
“‘
For he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from
sin
.’”

Here comes Beth now, still arm in arm with Emmy. I want to take my family home, not pretend to fellowship with these people on a patch of grass in the scablands. After Beth falls asleep tonight, I too will cup her belly in my hands, as I have so often before, willing the life inside it to stay put, to not be so eager to slip from his mother’s womb or to move on to the next world without giving us a chance to know him first. “Linger awhile, kid,” I’ll whisper. “But if you must go, don’t take your mother with you.”

Emmy

Aunt Beth knocked on the bedroom door. She’d knocked earlier, but I hadn’t replied then either. Since waking, I’d been going over the events of the previous evening. The drive through eerie coulees and the way the silence had fitted the landscape and my mood. The minister who seemed to be in love with my aunt, and I didn’t want him to be, even if it distracted him from my guilty face. The lake water that was so cold I thought it must’ve come from Reuben’s Columbia. Mostly I kept recalling how when I’d placed my hands on Aunt Beth’s belly, I felt not only a lump—a baby, a real baby, my cousin—but a surge. If I’d only imagined the surge, then why did my hands still feel so warm this morning, glowing almost, like the night-light? Was it all the hand massages Beth had given me in preparation for the healing? And how was I to explain the sensation to Mom, who might scoff, or to Aunt Beth, who might be afraid? I needed to tell Reuben. He was supposed to be my best friend, but he’d taken off suddenly in his truck a week ago and not returned.

I missed him, far more than I’d ever missed Connor. Missing Reuben was to become such a large part of my life in the years following that summer. Even if I could have known then, I’m certain I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

“Come in,” I said when Aunt Beth knocked again twenty minutes later.

“You all right, honey?” She poked her head into the room. “I’ve been so worried.”

I wasn’t all right. I was overstimulated. My whole childhood I’d searched that shop below our apartment for things to make me feel even a tenth of the way I felt in that lake with my hands on Aunt Beth’s belly or with Reuben’s mouth close to my ear. What he’d whispered, right before he took off, wasn’t naughty, as Connor’s first note to me had been, but it was intensely personal. A month ago I could’ve passed Beth Miller or Reuben Tonasket on the street or down a store aisle or heard their names on the news and felt no connection. Actually I wasn’t sure I believed that. I was no longer sure what I believed. I was seriously considering becoming a Christian if it would help my aunt not miscarry. If only I’d taken the leap and asked Christ into my heart
before
the healing, but I’d been too scared, too unsure I wanted a god living inside me. Mom thought my presence alone would prevent Aunt Beth from having another miscarriage. All morning I’d been trying to convince myself she was right.

“I feel a little strange,” I admitted to Beth.

She hurried to the bedside and handed me the glass of water she was holding. I drank it all. Tap water tasted good in Washington. Reuben had made fun of me for being amazed by the fact. Beth checked my forehead for fever. I was glad she didn’t take one of my overly warm hands in hers. Smiling, she said something about how God’s love, when manifested to the extent it was last night, could feel overwhelming. Actually it was
her
love that overwhelmed me. I’d never felt more loved than in the last month.

Not one day growing up did I doubt that Mom loved me. She told me she did often. But her expectations for me were always so high. My fear of disappointing her was constant. I still get a stomachache thinking about how many different musical instruments she rented for me in elementary school, how many art supplies and kits (which weren’t cheap) she bought for me over the years and with which I mostly made crafts. Luckily I had just enough skill in sketching to get accepted into Valley Art Academy. My scholarship reflected my top grades and Mom’s lower-income and single-parent status,
not
my creative talent. Most of the kids at my school were sure of their artistic abilities, even their genius. Some were also sure already of their places in the world. I stammered. Not that I would’ve done better at a public high school, but maybe.

Aunt Beth thought I was great at everything I did. If I were to fall down in front of her, she’d compliment my landing. Uncle Matt too. He didn’t get frustrated at my ineptitude during driving lessons. Maybe I was good with plants, as my aunt said. She gave me a lot of freedom in her garden: to try out different herbs as companion plants, to overharvest the leaves and stems, to underwater or to overwater. I kept expecting Mom to say over the phone, “Well, you can’t exactly put
herbs
down on your Berkeley application.” But she hadn’t yet. Neither had she asked me outright if I’d been studying for my SATs. Or for that matter, if I’d started looking for my dad, which I hadn’t. For now, my aunt and uncle were enough family.

“I made you a big breakfast,” Aunt Beth said. “I’ve been keeping it warm in the oven. You’ll feel better after you replenish yourself.”

And I did. She herself had never looked better. Though Mom and Beth had similar features, they had completely different types of beauty. Neither was gorgeous like models, though Mom at times could look stunning. Her strength and the independence in her eyes made her beautiful. Spencer thought so, I knew, even if those two attributes were the very things that made loving her a challenge. Aunt Beth was pretty in a softer, more feminine, and, at times, airy or dreamy way. Uncle Matt seemed in awe of her, although occasionally it seemed he wanted to shake her awake.

Today there was faint color in Beth’s cheeks, which made her seem almost feverish with life. The ceremony had been carefully scheduled to take place during Beth’s twelfth week of pregnancy. She’d never before carried a baby into the second trimester. “Every day from here on out is like a miracle,” she’d said to me yesterday evening, right after the healing, as we’d walked arm in arm through the small park with looming cliffs.

“What do you want to do today?” Beth asked now.

I suggested we work in the garden for a few hours. I wanted to be outside working in case Reuben came back. Was he coming back? I didn’t want to miss seeing him, even if only once more for a few minutes, even if only across the yards.

After Reuben first left, Teresa had to haul her kids somewhere to be watched. I wanted to offer to babysit, free of charge, but I didn’t know if Teresa would get offended or what Aunt Beth would think. She was a bit envious of Teresa’s four kids, which made me sad. The last two days a very old Indian woman had been at Teresa’s. She was too old to be Reuben’s mom or even his grandma. One afternoon Teresa caught me sitting on the bench staring at her house and listening to her tinkling chimes. She’d come outside to rotate the sprinkler. She didn’t talk to me. I didn’t think she liked me. But she shrugged her shoulders and raised her open hands to let me know she didn’t know where her little brother was either.

Aunt Beth and I had been outside working for about two hours when Grace, with Emilio on her hip, brought the kids outside to run through the sprinkler. For some reason Grace didn’t wave back at me. Had Reuben told her not to? Kevin, in his favorite oversize rodeo shirt, and Audrey, in a swimsuit, came running toward me until Grace called them back. Emilio didn’t listen when Grace finally put him down. He beelined it for me. He called me Em. Reuben had tried to get him to call me Auntie Em, like in
The Wizard of Oz
. I gave Emilio a hug and let him smell different plants before sending him back, though I didn’t want to. “You made some friends, I see,” Aunt Beth said, beaming at me. I wondered if she’d beam if Reuben had stepped over to say hello. “You know, we should do a vacation Bible school here in the park for the kids.” I had no idea what that was, but I didn’t like the sound of it.

“Actually,” I said, “I was thinking I’d go to church on Sunday.”

“Oh, Emmy.” She put down the egg carton in which she’d been preparing clippings. Her eyes got teary. “I’ve been praying.” She paused. “But Kate said you couldn’t.”

“I can go to church, just not to yours,” I clarified. “Other than for the healing.” I didn’t really blame Mom for not wanting me in Aunt Beth’s church. In fact, how could Beth still go there week after week, year after year, after they’d called her sister a whore? Maybe she
was
a bit brainwashed. Mom thought all Christians were. It made me feel like a bitch to pass even the slightest judgment on Beth.

“That’s fair. But we do have Brother Mathias now, not the old minister.” She smiled. “He’s kind and forgiving.” As was Aunt Beth. Too forgiving. That’s why she continued to attend that church. “Still, that was gracious of Kate.”

“You guys can drop me off at a different church on the way to yours.” Did you have to be praying in a church to become a Christian? It might make the experience feel more authentic. I needed to become a Christian without Beth’s knowing because she thought I was already a believer, or she wanted to.

“We’ll figure it out, sweetie.” She was still smiling. “But I don’t think your uncle will let you go alone. Oh, I’m overjoyed.” She hugged me. “I’m also dusty and beat. Let’s go inside.”

I was dusty too. The dust worsened as the summer progressed, and the air was getting even drier. The dust felt coarser here than in Sacramento, like sand, and because of the wind, it covered everything, including the furniture, as Mom said. It hadn’t once sprinkled. There’d been dark clouds one afternoon, but Reuben—where was he?—said that around here in the summertime, dark clouds usually brought only the smell of rain. As Aunt Beth and I climbed the front steps, I looked behind me once more to the place where Reuben parked his truck. Beth thought I was looking back at the bench. “I sometimes pretend Kate sits there,” she said. “Do you think your mom will ever return home for a visit?”

California was Mom’s home. My whole life I’d heard her sing the praises of California. But until now I’d had nothing to compare it with. “I’ll make her visit here with me next summer. I promise.”

“I imagine your mom can’t say
no
to you.”

Oh, Mom had no problem saying no to me.

In the evenings Aunt Beth and I, and sometimes Uncle Matt, had been going through a box of family photos and mementos. I started to realize that Mom had brought more with her across the California border than I thought. We found a tiny calico dress that Aunt Beth had sewn for me as a newborn. Other than being a different color, it looked identical to my favorite baby doll dress, which Mom used to tell me to be extra careful with when I was little. There was a crocheted bookmark that matched one that Mom used faithfully and claimed to have found in a secondhand book.

By far my favorite snapshots were of Mom and Beth as little girls. They were poor, I could tell from the scarcity of the toys and furniture, but there was something between those two, some childhood bond I couldn’t imagine and would never experience. To have slept beside someone all those years. What comfort. And what pain for Beth when Mom left. Of course Beth had Matt by then. And Mom had me.
And now I have Beth, Mom
.

At Aunt Beth’s request, I’d brought with me copies of school photos and snapshots from my childhood. I had plenty of leftover school pictures, even though Mom purchased the smallest available package (not to be mean, but to spare me the embarrassment of surplus). Mom had arranged my pictures in a special album for Beth, and I often found my aunt sitting on the couch in the morning, looking through them after seeing Matt off to work.

The night after the healing, I finally found the photo I’d been hoping for. It was stuck to the back of another. Mom and Jamie. My dad looked out of the photograph at me for the first time. The goose bumps all over my body confirmed the boy was Jamie. Aunt Beth was at the stove preparing us tea. I ran the photo to my bedroom and hid it under my pillow. I wanted to study that photo later by myself. From the beginning, I’d suspected that Aunt Beth, but especially Uncle Matt, would tell me anything I wanted to know about my dad but that I had to broach the subject. I had yet to broach with Aunt Beth the subject of Mom’s leaving. I had to find the missing link. But I didn’t want to risk making Aunt Beth sad by asking her to relive what must’ve been one of the most sorrowful times in her life.

I excused myself early for bed. Beth asked if I felt well enough for her to go into the church tomorrow morning. Yes. I wanted as many hours as possible alone with that photo.

Jamie was more handsome than I expected, despite the stupid cowboy hat. No wonder Mom hated cowboy hats. The photo wasn’t from camp, because my parents stood beside a pickup truck that must’ve been Jamie’s. Was the girl in the photo really my mom? Were her dress pockets full of rocks? Actually her dress was horrible and hid her shape. But her hair was gorgeous, pulled seductively off to one side. Why weren’t my parents smiling or touching? Even friends embraced for photographs. Maybe it was from the day Mom met his family. She didn’t look sad in the photo, but almost. There was a softness about her that was completely gone now. The look on Jamie’s face was of someone who knew things would work out, at least for him, because they always had. Unlike the image I had in my head of my parents meeting by a lake at camp, this real image didn’t make me feel warm. Still, I pressed the photo to my chest.

I grabbed Mom’s Bible from the desk. I’d been reading it and even memorizing verses, instead of SAT vocabulary, in preparation for the healing. I planned to keep the photo in the Bible. The page I randomly opened to had Mom’s handwriting, only bubblier, all over in the margins. We had lots of books at home with her notes in the margins. I read her writing on the Bible page:
Jamie doesn’t love me. He did love me. I know he did. He did!
(underlined three times).
He has forsaken me. I must go on without him, but how when I have his baby in me? His baby!!
(underlined four times).
Jamie doesn’t want his baby. He doesn’t love me anymore. I’ll write it here over and over.
And she did, page after page.
Jamie doesn’t love me. He doesn’t love me. He never loved me!
I got a pen.
I LOVE YOU, MOM,
I wrote over her handwriting.
THE BABY LOVES YOU!!!
The boy in the photo, my smug dad—who’d probably never looked for me—he could go fuck himself.