Otto was the last out the door that night. He’d wanted to make his presence felt. He’d roll up his sleeves. He’d helped with the dishes. He’d even taken Granny Olga for a little turn in the kitchen.
“The key is to let the cat out the bag and be done with it,” I overheard Otto saying to Father as Father turned down the lights and showed the old man out.
It was late by the time Mother appeared in the doorway to my little room. I’d taken my time getting ready. I didn’t want to appear as though I was waiting. We’d gotten along well enough on our own.
There was something deflated about Mother that evening. The way she leaned against the doorframe for a moment peering in at me, I could tell she wanted to feel something. I wanted to feel it too.
“Come in the bathroom for a minute,” she said. “I want to show you what I found.”
The tile under my feet was firm and reassuring. The night cast around what little courage it could. I could tell from Mother’s stance that this was a speaking opportunity. She wanted to impart something that only she could demonstrate.
“Is it yours?” she said leaning over the plastic wastebasket next to the toilet.
The basket was thick with paper. On top of the mountain of white there was a sanitary napkin. K’s I supposed.
“No,” I said. “I haven’t gotten it yet.” There was a pause then as we both stared down at the thin strip of blood barely visible in the light. I thought of the underwear I’d buried between the rocks in the stone wall under the trees of knowledge.
I looked at Mother’s face over the toilet in the dim light searching for some signal of recognition. All I saw was a tiny barefoot woman with a far off scare in her eye. Her chest was thin and hollow. For some reason I felt like crying. I had disappointed her, not because of what I had done but because I was still a child hanging on her belt who hadn’t grown up and out yet.
“Good girl,” Mother said again. “That’s all right then.”
A rush of shaking and tears started quietly and then lit into me all at once. I couldn’t get the air in. This was all the reason Mother needed. She took me into her arms.
“It’ll come,” she said pulling me close to her.
“Anyways,” she said, “Any half decent woman would know enough to bury it a little under the paper.”
When I was sure the house was good and quiet, I made my way downstairs. Granny Olga was sleeping in the room next to the laundry in the basement. Her door was open a crack. Her snoring was regular. The hall smelled of Vicks and patchouli.
The door to the crawlspace was the only one that didn’t squeak. I closed it quietly behind me, putting a shoe between the door and the frame so I could get in again if I needed.
Outside it was cool. I sat on the rock under the apple tree. The damp had set in. I felt smaller than I expected. It was a relief. The road was there if I needed somewhere to run.
When I got cold enough, I wandered over to Father’s Bronco. The front seat was a banquette. I lay down on it. With the windshield above me, I still had the stars. The sun would be in my eyes before the next day had broken. I’d be up by the time Callie appeared on Otto’s lawn, before they knew I’d gone missing.
For now, it was enough to sleep out.
17
I was awoken by the sun. My body must have moved some in sleep. The back of Father’s T-shirt, my usual sleeping gown, had climbed my torso in the night. It clung in a ball to the sweat at the small of my back. I looked down. My hip bones jutted out from the velour of the Bronco. I gripped the two bones where they rose up from my body as though they alone might direct the vehicle. There was a flatness to the stretch of stomach between them. I admired its shape. That small placid sea.
There was a certainty to the way the door of the Bronco closed behind me. The lock clicked into place and I started for the Bottom Feeder. As I walked up the stone path toward the porch I had the sensation of the road spiraling toward me as if I’d once again been dropped into a world that had receded from my grasp. Even the grass looked sharp and crisp and tangible. The gnarled stems of the apple trees whose heads had once appeared rabid with blossom now leaned out of the lawn no larger than two small shrubs. There was a tightness in my chest as I strode toward the Bottom Feeder that morning. It migrated down to my stomach and the small of my back which felt connected as if by a some small piece of string where Otto Hauser had held it.
Granny Olga was in the kitchen. Despite the bed of wildflowers whose current drifted in through the windows, the house smelled of cabbage and onion.
“Morning, Gran,” I said.
“Morning, child,” she said. “You’re up awful early.”
“I forgot to pull the shades,” I said.
“I told your mother she should install those curtains,” she said.
“The shades work alright,” I said. “As long as I don’t forget to pull them. If I do, the day breaks and I’m in a pool of sweat with the sun raging in on me.”
“I advised her when they bought this place,” she said. “I just can’t see living in a house where you sleep with the birds in the attic or hole up in the basement next to the rodents. Nothing but a recipe for fleas and mold. That’s just my advice.”
“Birds don’t have fleas, Gran,” I said.
“Never mind about that,” she said. “Sit down and have a juice. As long as you’re up you may as well help me set my hair.”
Despite the fact that her girth never shrank, Granny Olga was always preparing for famine. Mornings were the time when she did all her cooking. It wasn’t healthy to slave over a stove in the day. That was her advice. After cooking, she set her hair and had a sponge bath. She slept on her back on the top sheet to preserve her rollers. She’d slept twice each day before anyone else had risen. For all intents and purposes, she lived two lives for every one.
That morning, I’d stolen in on her mid-prep. The gullet of some long-necked bird was boiling next to a stick of celery on the stove. The haluski was just out of the oven. Granny Olga was nursing her tea and a piece of dried toast, which she gummed slowly having not yet applied herself to her dentures. There was a pot of fresh coffee for Mother.
The canister of curlers sat at the far end of the table near the window where she’d have light.
Mother came down in her skimpies.
“Lord child,” Granny Olga said glimpsing Mother’s form as she swung into the room, “It’s not a crime to preserve the mystery some.”
“It’s too hot to be modest,” Mother said.
“Its too hot to be most things,” Granny Olga said. She laughed then. Her words were more compliment than chiding. She was still impressed with Mother’s figure.
Mother poured herself a coffee and picked at the row of sticky buns set out on the counter.
“I can see you’ve settled in,” Mother said, surveying the spread.
“As long as I’m here, I reckon I’ll cook,” Granny Olga said.
“Well fine,” Mother said, sipping her coffee.
“It took me half an hour to find a spatula,” Granny chided.
“If it weren’t for the heat, I’d have half a mind to reorganize this kitchen.”
“I like my organization just fine,” Mother said.
“Everything at arms length,” Granny Olga said. “I’m just saying it would be easier is all.”
“My arms are longer than yours,” Mother joked sidling up to her mother’s lap and sitting in it for a second. Granny Olga ran Mother’s slip through her fingers.
“Put some underwear on, child,” she said. “I can feel your nakedness under there.”
“Why bother,” Mother said. “It already stinks in here to high heaven.”
They laughed then. As she got up, Granny Olga spanked Mother playfully on the bottom.