Read Where the Heart Is Online

Authors: Billie Letts

Where the Heart Is (9 page)

BOOK: Where the Heart Is
5.65Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Forney spun around so suddenly, Novalee jumped back.

“No, Novalee. Don’t come in.”

“Let me help, Forney,” she said as she edged nearer to him. And then she knew what it was, a stench so powerful she tried to hold her breath. The woman had soiled herself.

“Novalee,” Forney said, in a voice he hadn’t practiced, “I’d like you to meet my sister, Mary Elizabeth Hull . . . the librarian.”

Chapter Eight

IN THE WEEKS following her birthday, Novalee felt herself growing heavier and slower each day.

One morning in early May, when Forney offered to drive her home from the library, she was tempted to say okay, to let him find out that

“home” was the Wal-Mart . . . but she didn’t.

And then, that night, just after she had crawled into the sleeping bag, a hard cramp gripped her lower belly. At first, she thought maybe her time had come, but the pain didn’t last and didn’t hurt much more than a bad stomachache. But if she was going into labor, if this was the worst of the pain, she figured it wasn’t going to be as awful as she had feared.

She had heard dozens of horror stories about childbirth when she worked at Red’s. Seemed like every woman who got drunk had a delivery story to tell. They told her about being in labor for four days, begging to die. They talked about pain so dreadful they bit through 8 their tongues or pulled wads of hair right out of their heads. They described the way their flesh was ripped apart when their babies came.

But maybe that was just liquor talk; maybe they told those stories to scare girls like her who had never had babies. Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad.

She had read, in one of the books Forney had told her to read, about a pregnant Chinese woman who worked in a rice paddy until her contractions began, then birthed her child alone, hardly interrupting her labor . . . bending, stooping, wading in water up to her knees. Novalee figured if a woman could manage that, having a baby must not be too terrible.

Besides, she wasn’t totally unprepared. She had been reading about delivery; she knew what she would have to do. And she had gathered the supplies she would need—scissors, rubbing alcohol, cotton pads, receiving blankets. She had packed everything in an overnight bag, the way some women packed to go to the hospital when their time came. But Novalee knew she wouldn’t be going to the hospital.

But the bag was in the storage room and when she thought of going back to get it, just to be on the safe side, she was too tired to get up. She yawned and rolled onto her side. She wasn’t sure she should go to sleep in case she was starting into labor. She was afraid she might sleep right through it, then wake up and find her baby already born, but she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open.

Early that morning she had walked to Sister Husband’s to plant some pyracantha cuttings she had taken from a planter outside City Hall. The week before, she had started a flower bed in the corner of Sister’s yard with cuttings of hydrangea and mock orange; a couple Where the Heart Is

of days later, she had added some morning glory seeds and a few stems of crepe myrtle.

The flower bed would have been shaded by the buckeye tree if it had had any leaves. The last one had fallen off a week after the tree was planted. But Novalee thought it might still make it. She didn’t know why she thought that; it was a little less hardy than a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but she had hope.

Sister Husband hadn’t been home, but Novalee had rested on her porch for a while, then walked to the library where Forney was waiting for her. He had brought her some carrot sticks, two bran muffins and a thermos of cold milk. He had something for her every day, something healthy. Food with bean sprouts, whole wheat and soy. And milk.

Lots of milk. Milk in glasses . . . and cups. Pitchers, pails . . .

She slept then, jerked nearly to consciousness from time to time by the cramps in her stomach which seemed to coalesce with her dreams, dreams of babies lost in dark places . . . babies stuck in deep wells . . . babies calling her name.

Then she was struck by a pain unlike the others. It tore into her pelvis, shot through her hips and into her spine. She held her breath until it eased, then struggled out of the sleeping bag.

Her water broke as soon as she was on her feet. She watched as the warm liquid trickled down her legs and puddled between her feet.

Even though she knew what it was, she still felt a little silly, like a child who had wet herself.

She sponged herself off and changed into a fresh night-shirt, then she cleaned the floor and dried her trail to the bathroom by skating on paper towels.

The second pain, stronger than the last, caused her to suck in her breath and grit her teeth. This was no stomachache. Her baby was coming . . . but she wasn’t ready.

Why, she wondered, had she waited until the last minute? Where had the time gone? Two months had passed since Willy Jack had dumped her—and she had done nothing. She hadn’t looked for a place to live, hadn’t figured out how to make a living. She hadn’t even picked out a name for her baby.

Then she remembered a list of names she had started on the day she and Willy Jack left Tellico Plains. She pulled the spiral notebook out of her beach bag and flipped to the back. The list was still there—

one page for girls, one for boys. Felicia, Brook, Ashley. Novalee made a face as she read them. Rafe, Thorne, Hutch, Sloan. Names she had taken from soap operas. Blain, Asa, Dimitri. Moses Whitecotton had told her to find a strong name, but the names on her list weren’t strong. They just sounded silly.

The third pain, deep and hard, left her feeling queasy. She closed her eyes for a few minutes until the nausea passed, but a heavy, dull ache in her lower back would not go away. Finally, she decided to get up and move around, to see if that would bring her any relief.

It took her awhile to get to her feet, but when she did, it was worth it. Her back didn’t hurt as much. And anything, she figured, was better than doing nothing . . . just waiting. As she huffed up the aisle, she searched for names she might use for the baby. Coleman. Prescott.

Dixie. Hanes. She grinned then at the thought of naming her baby after underwear.

She was near the front of the store when the next pain knocked her to the floor. She reached out, grabbing for support, and took a rack of cassettes with her. As they clattered across the tile, Novalee said,

“Shhhh,” embarrassed at the racket she was causing.

She didn’t know how long she was out, and she didn’t know if everything she saw was real or not. She thought she saw a mouse dart across the aisle, very near her feet. And she thought she saw a Where the Heart Is

brown stocking cap bobbing around outside the plate glass window at the front of the store. Then Momma Nell and the umpire named Fred waved at her from the television, but the screen was so thick and smoky she had to squint to get a clear picture.

She drifted in and out . . . let sleep take her between the pain that fit her like a brace . . . pain that ran from beneath her ribs, to her pelvis, around her back . . . pain that pulled her to the edge of . . . the edge of the highway as the Plymouth raced past, Willy Jack hunched over the steering wheel . . . the picture faded . . .

Then she saw Forney Hull’s face, but it was blurry and dark. She adjusted the contrast and focus, pulling in a better picture as he waved, both arms high over his head. She waved back though her hands were asleep, too heavy to raise more than a few inches.

Forney’s mouth was working, but she couldn’t hear him. Then she laughed, realizing the volume was turned down. She could hear someone moaning, but that was coming from another channel.

Interference. When she turned the sound up, Forney’s voice came out too fast and he sounded like Willy Jack.

“I found us a place, Novalee.”

Willy Jack’s voice was out of sync with Forney’s lips . . . the sound coming out of his mouth just a few seconds too late.

“I found us a place.”

There was so much static she could barely hear him.

“Willy Jack? I thought you went to California.”

“. . . a house with a balcony . . .”

The picture began to roll, faster and faster, until she fiddled with the vertical button.

“. . . a balcony where we can sit with the baby.”

“I’m having the baby tonight, Willy Jack.”

“We can sit with the baby . . .”

“I read this book, Willy Jack, this book by a woman named Pearl Buck who works in a Wal-Mart store.”

“. . . sit with the baby and . . .”

“And in the third chapter . . . or maybe the sixth . . . you dumped this Chinese woman out in a rice paddy just before she had her baby . . .”

“. . . sit with the baby and . . .”

“Do you remember that little fuzzy dog? The one I called Frosted Mocha ’cause she was the color of my lipstick. Do you remember her?”

“. . . we can sit with the baby and . . .”

“You took her to the rice paddy and you dumped her out. Frosted Mocha. You stopped the car and dumped her out on the road. You said she was not gonna have her litter in the floor of your car . . .”

“We can sit with the baby and watch the sun go down.”

“Dumped me out and you said . . .”

“Novalee, I found us a place.”

“. . . having a baby in the floor . . .”

“. . . found us a place.”

Suddenly, her voice pulled itself away from her. “Having my baby on the floor of a Wal-Mart store.” The sounds seemed not to come from her mouth, but from a hole in the air above her head. “Damn you.” The words, a fierce wind whipping behind them, were pushed up and out, filling the space around her. “Damn you, Willy Jack!

DAMN YOU TO HELL!”

And then Forney Hull, his face pressed to the “television screen,”

shielding his eyes from the glare, pounded on the glass.

“You break that television and I’ll have to pay for it.”

But Forney Hull didn’t listen. He struck the glass again and again, first with his fists, then with a length of pipe, each blow heavier, Where the Heart Is

harder than the last . . . faster and faster, and then it exploded, shattered and flew in all directions, sounding like notes played on a badly tuned piano. Then Forney crawled in, crawled through the broken window and into the Wal-Mart store.

“Novalee!”

“You shouldn’t have done that. They’ll make me pay and color TVs don’t come cheap.”

Forney folded himself to the floor beside her and cradled her head in his lap.

“Big-screen TVs aren’t—”

Suddenly, Novalee’s body curled, found the curve of Forney’s arm to fit into as she stiffened . . . hardened into a knot of gristle to meet the pain. She clenched her teeth to hold in the scream that came from deep inside, from the place where she felt herself splitting open.

She held against it, rigid—unyielding, and when it passed, she collapsed, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“Big screen.” Her voice sounded thin, uneven. “That’ll cost more than you think, Willy Jack.”

“No. I’m not. I’m not Willy Jack.”

“Good,” she said. She peered into Forney’s face, narrowing her eyes as if she were trying to bring him into focus. “Willy Jack’s gone.”

“I guess so.”

“I’m having a baby, Forney.”

“I know.”

“Can you help me?”

“Novalee, I don’t know how.”

“Yes, you do. You read the books.”

“Not all of them.”

“Nearly.”

“Then I didn’t read the right ones.”

“Are there wrong ones, Forney? Are there any wrong books?”

“Well, I don’t know. I suppose—”

But Novalee couldn’t hear him then. She braced her arms across her abdomen as if she could protect herself from what she felt coming, but it came anyway.

Her pain carried its own heat now . . . muscle, bone, flesh burned into a single thing low in her belly, against her spine. It flared deep inside, white heat . . . combustible . . . then rising, seared her lungs, scorched her throat. When it left, it left her dry, brittle as old paper.

“Get me a drink of water, Forney.”

“Is it okay to do that? Are you supposed to do that?”

“Yes, I think so. Go check the manual.”

“What manual?”

She let her head fall against his chest. Her hair was wet, her face bathed in sweat.

“The buckeye lost all it leaves, Forney.”

“What manual?” He wiped her face with the back of his hand.

“What manual should I look in?”

“The Complete Guide to Fruit Trees.”

“Novalee, I’m going to call an ambulance. You need to be in the hospital.”

“In a bed with white sheets.”

“Yes, a hospital. You need a doctor.”

“Forney!” Her voice sounded urgent. “Get a knife.”

“What?”

“A knife.”

“What for?”

“Don’t you remember? Rose of Sharon!”

“But I don’t . . .”

“They put a knife under Rose of Sharon . . . when she was in labor.

A knife . . . to cut the pain.”

“Novalee, I don’t think that’s—”

The pain tore through her so quickly she had no time to set her body against it.

“Novalee?”

She heard an animal keening—its high-pitched cry made her throat ache.

“Novalee!”

The pain twisted inside her, pulling at her center, taking her to the edge of what she could stand.

“Oh, my God!” Forney said.

And at the edge, she gave herself to it, held nothing back.

“What am I supposed to do, Novalee?”

“Forney . . .”

Pain took her then, knotted itself around her with such force, such power that it choked off her breath.

“What should I do?”

It began to move then, the pain inside her, drawing something from her as it pushed itself deeper and deeper.

“It’s coming, Novalee.”

Then she felt some part of herself tearing away as it pushed lower.

“I see it. I can see it now.”

There was life to the pain then as it twisted and stretched, straining against her, using her resistance to find its way.

“Yes!”

And then it was free.

“I’ve got it,” Forney said. “I’ve got it.” And he laughed, a kid with the Cracker Jack prize. “Look, Novalee. Open your eyes.”

BOOK: Where the Heart Is
5.65Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

THE TEXAS WILDCATTER'S BABY by CATHY GILLEN THACKER,
Stillwell: A Haunting on Long Island by Cash, Michael Phillip
Running in Fear Escaped by Trinity Blacio
A Duke Deceived by Cheryl Bolen