Why Sarah Ran Away with the Veterinarian (18 page)

“I think Scarlet would be bored silly. Who knows about Charlotte.”

“Maybe I'll just mix them up,” she said, straining for the upper shelf.

“Let me get them,” I said, pulling her off the chair and cleared the top shelf with one hand. Dust shot out and drifted down on both of us.

“I could have done it myself,” Sarah said, faking a cough. Dust balls settled in the outer curves of her hair. I picked out several clumps. Her hair felt soft.

“Better dust fall, than you, sweetheart,” I said in a Bogart voice that surprised even me. We both laughed and I held her close. The baby moved, our baby.

OUR baby! Who the hell am I kidding? How would I know it's mine? But it might be. Sarah hasn't been in contact with that horse jerk since she's come home to me. Not that I know of. Hasn't called him anyway. I check the phone bill every month. I pick up the mail on the way home to lunch every day too. No suspicious letters. Not that I'm spying on her. He's probably moved on to greener pastures by now—some other man's wife and horse.

I've got to quit thinking like this. Sarah's my wife. She would have gone back if the baby wasn't mine. At least, I think she would.

What's Andrew staring at? He seems quieter than usual. No medi-facts, thank God. I couldn't take any today.

There sits Joe. I don't know why he's here. He's never treated Sarah right. Not that he's been mean or anything, just never acted warm toward her or proud of her like he's been with Donna Jean. Not as long as I've known them. Truth is, at times I've thought he'd rather have me in the family than Sarah.

And Kate. If she had her way, she'd probably be in there with Sarah getting her drunk out of her mind—“to ease the pain.” I bet she'll try to get in touch with that vet just as soon as this is over. That's where Sarah met him in the first place—at Kate's farm. Kate probably set it up.

God! I'm getting paranoid. I've got to calm down. Maybe I'll call Tommy. A good father, unlike Joe. The best. A doffer at the Stevens Mill and proud of it. Says he'll doff to the day he dies.

But Tommy always wanted more for me—“brainwork” he called it. Tommy and I didn't have time for many father-son things but he saw to it I did well in school. That's the only way he'd let me play basketball. And he sent me to college. Almost every day when he got home from work, he'd ask questions that he or another doffer had thought of—Who has the best deal on Chevys in town? How much money does a bank president make? How many types of poisonous snakes are there in the South? I'd have to come up with an answer or he'd say “What am I paying for?” or “You should know, Mr. College.” So if I didn't know the answer, I'd look it up in an encycylopedia or almanac or fact book or call somebody who did know. It was good training. Not for boring people to death, like Andrew, but for business.

Andrew's disappeared. Maybe he's gone home. Not Donna Jean. Still reading a magazine. Quiet for a change. She looks at me, sees me looking at her. “Did Sarah throw up this morning?” she asks, sweetly.

“What?” I say.

“Did she throw up this morning?”

“I don't know,” I say. “Why?”

“I did the morning I delivered,” she says. “Of course, I did most every morning for nine months.” She sounds proud. “The worst,” she says, screwing up her face, “was ice cream.” She turns a page. “Know why?”

I don't ask.

“Know why?” she says again.

“Why is that?” Kate says in monotone.

“Because it feels like cotton balls. Just like a whole box of Johnson & Johnson cotton balls coming up.” She turns another page.

How much longer? Why didn't I look up the average labor time? Even if Sarah's okay, things can go wrong with the baby besides being premature. I keep thinking about what the Frasers said, Clem and his wife.

Met them back in the winter when sales were slow. January's always slow so that didn't bother me, but I thought it would be a good time to pack up Sarah and head for a warmer climate. Guys at the lot said we ought to go to Hawaii or Cancun or Las Vegas. Steve Brock said he and his wife went to Las Vegas and all she wanted to do was hear Wayne Newton, play the slot machines, and make love. Sounded good to me. So I called Sarah that morning from work and told her, “Pick out where ever you want to go. I'll call a travel agent and get us a deal.”

But you know what she said? “The mountains!”

“It'll be cold,” I said.

“North Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia. Doesn't matter,” she said, her voice rising.

“It'll be cold,” I repeated, “maybe icy.”

“I don't care,” she said and hung up.

By the time I got home for lunch she had our suitcases packed. “Let's go now, Jack,” she said, throwing her arms around me. “We don't need reservations, let's just go.” So we did.

We wound through the Georgia Mountains, past Dillard and Clayton and into North Carolina. Sarah wanted to stop at every store we came to. We'd go in, stay an average of twenty-seven minutes, then walk away empty-handed.

After the fifth store I got tired of going in so I bought a newspaper and waited in the car. “What are you looking for?” I asked her as she slid back in.

“A country store,” she said.

“What are all these?”

“Stores,” she said, looking at the road map, “but not country stores.”

“Point us toward the next decent-sized town,” I said, hoping for a restaurant and motel, maybe one with ESPN if I got lucky. I wanted to catch the North Carolina/Notre Dame game. I was depending on Sarah to read the road map. A mistake. I should know anybody who can translate the hell out of a hundred-year-old poem can't come down enough to read simple road numbers. Anyway, Sarah got us on this little winding back road that seemed to go on forever without getting anywhere.

Finally, I pulled over. “Give me the map, Sarah,” I said, trying to sound patient. She flipped it at me, then shouted, “Look, Jack! up there around the curve. A little store.” And before I could say “what?” she was out of the car and halfway to this boxy little weathered building.

It had a faded sign that read “Fraser's Store” nailed to a post on the porch. Sarah skipped up the steps without looking back. No one else was around. “Door's open!” she shouted. And in she went, me right behind her. No one inside either as far as I could tell. “Look, Jack,” she said, pointing to the shelves.

“What?” I asked. Nothing remarkable. Just rows of Quaker Oats, baking soda, flour, salt—stuff like that. On the counter was a line of gallon jars. The first one had huge brownish-green pickles, that would put Joe's white cucumber to shame. The next one had eggs, boiled and shelled. The others had peppermint sticks, butterscotch drops, soft chewy-looking stuff, and red balls the size of fiberglass marbles.

“I'll bet those are fireballs,” Sarah said, pointing to the last jar.

“You'd be right,” a voice drifted through the air.

Sarah and I both jumped. In the back, next to a wood stove, sat an old man in overalls. His chair was reared back against the wall and his feet propped on the end of the counter.

“Clem Fraser,” he said. “Pleased to meet ya.” I nodded and stuck out my hand. Sarah didn't say anything.

“What ya need?” he asked, moving his feet and letting his chair settle on all four legs. “If ya need it, we got it. If ya just want it, we might not.”

“May I look for a while,” Sarah asked, already scanning the other wall.

“Course you can,” he said. He reached behind his shoulder and banged on a door I hadn't noticed before. “Annie, come out here. We got some folks.”

The door opened and out came a woman, I swear, who was the perfect bookend for old Clem. Her hair was grayish-brown and pulled back and pinned up. She wore a blue dress, shirtwaist, I think you call it. It was faded. “Well how do?” she said, looking from Sarah to me and back to Sarah, smiling all the time. Her voice was motherly. “What can I get for ya?”

“Fireballs,” Sarah said.

“Fireballs?” the woman asked, eyeing Sarah up and down.

“Yes,” said Sarah, poking her hands in her jeans, “a pound, please.”

The woman shook her head. “I'll get em for ya, honey, but ya shouldn't be eating em in your condition.” Sarah and I looked at each other. She had her shirttail out but she wasn't really showing. As a matter of fact, her own family didn't know she was pregnant.

“You with a child, ain't ya?” the woman asked, scooping out a load of red balls.

“Yes,” Sarah said, “I am. But the fireballs aren't for me. They're for my aunt.” The woman looked relieved.

“She must have one hell of a tough mouth,” old Clem spoke up from the back.

“She does,” I said.

The woman slipped the fireballs into a small brown bag. “You know you gotta be mighty careful what you do when you're aiming to have a baby.” She looked Sarah straight in the eye. “You don't have no dog do ya?”

Sarah nodded, her green eyes wide.

“You not mean to him, are ya?”

“Oh, no,” Sarah said. She looked to me for support.

“Not at all,” I said.

The woman paused like she was considering whether or not to go on. “I know this girl, she weren't right to begin with, married Arthel Perkins, kin to Clem.” She tipped her head in his direction. He nodded. “But not close. The whole time she was pregnant, she kicked Arthel's hound.” She paused again. “When that girl had the baby, it come out hairy as a collie dog.”

“Hairier,” Clem said, “one ugly baby.” He rocked back in his chair. “Talk was, Arthel might not be the father.” He lowered his voice and directed his speech toward me, “Maybe some beast done got to her.” He let his chair slam down.

“Arthel moved 'em away,” the woman said, “for the shame of it all.” She looked at Sarah. “So don't go kickin that dog of yourn no matter if he earns it or not.”

“I won't,” Sarah said. She looked pale.

“Course, there's some things go wrong can't nobody help,” the woman went on. “You know what I'm speaking about, Clem.” Clem nodded.

“She's talking about our own firstborn,” he said. “Born with a veil over his head.”

“A sign of God,” the woman said, her voice cracking.

“If the devil don't get there first,” Clem said. He stared at the back of his hands. “That devil sucked the breath right out of our baby boy. When I pulled the veil off his face, he was pretty as an angel. But he weren't breathing.” Clem looked at the pine floor and paused. “But we done the right thing. Took the veil and sewed it up in a little quilt Annie made.”

“It was red and white and had rams' heads on it,” the woman said, looking beyond Sarah and me. “I made it for the baby. If he'd lived, he'd been a seer.”

“We took it and our boy and buried 'em both up the hill aways. See?” Clem said, pointing toward the window, “right up there where the clouds come down at night.”

I looked at Sarah. She was three shades paler, and her eyes were half-closed. The woman saw her too. “Dear Lord, Clem, we done scared this girl to death.” They insisted she lie down on a little bed in the back room till she felt better. The woman went with her.

“Didn't mean to upset ya wife none,” Clem said. “Annie'll talk to her, make her feel better. She's got powers. She's midwifed up and down these parts for some thirty odd years. Seen every kind of curse and other affliction that can come down on a little baby. She's sure seen a lot of misery. She's seen a heap of fine babies too. She'll make your missus better.”

We stayed about an hour longer, the woman talking to Sarah, and Clem telling me mountain stuff. I'd have almost enjoyed the heat from the stove and hearing the old man talk if I hadn't been thinking about Sarah in there sick and about all those afflicted babies. When Sarah felt better, we drove on to Hendersonville and stayed the night. I left the phone book open to the number of a nearby hospital, just in case, and forgot all about the basketball game. Still it was a good trip and Sarah seemed refreshed back at home. We laughed a little about the fireballs but neither one of us mentioned the baby afflictions.

It's in my mind now though, right up front. Wonder what kind of “other afflictions” Clem was talking about? Hole in the heart, shriveled arms, blindness—Jesus! There's so much that can go wrong.

Who are all these people? It's too crowded in here! What in the hell are they shouting about? My baby? Somebody's baby?

I don't give a damn whether Sarah wants me with her or not. If it's my baby I've got a right to be there and if I'm the one who's there, by God, it'll be my baby!

SARAH

Sometimes you can't tell Jack anything. He had it all figured out to the month, to the day, probably even to the hour. I kept saying “earlier than you think.” I didn't say how much earlier but I tried to prepare him.

That was after I made it to the sixth month. I began letting myself hope and from then on I didn't care if the whole world knew I was pregnant. Except Michael. I should have tried to find him, tell him about the baby. It would have been the right thing to do. But why start doing the right thing now? It's my baby regardless who the father is or who thinks he's the father.

Here it comes. Not too bad. I can stand it … try to relax … relax … relax … Over. I take a long breath and let it slip out slowly. Wonder if the baby feels contractions, his tight dark world shrinking around him.

I once read something about children whose skin can't tolerate light. Zero derma pigmentosa, I think. Mr. Medi-fact Andrew would know. They can't play outdoors in the sunshine. They live in constant dark, and they die early. I thought about my other babies like that. Jack said not to consider them babies the first few months just in case something happened. Something always did, but I still thought of them as my children, children of a dark playground.