Nobody's Child (8 page)

She hesitated, her fingers caressing the stiff cotton of his official shirt.

“You got back late last night,” he continued. His voice went high on the word
late.

Laura Ann released her grip about his chest, pushing up in the seat to look him in the eye. “How did you know?”

He shrugged, avoiding her eye.

“Granny Apple called me,” he offered at last. “She was fretting too. She called you several times, then heard you went to see a doctor.”

Laura Ann stiffened, then responded. “I was. At a doctor in Morgantown.”

“Are you okay?” he asked, moving his head to catch her gaze again. He took her hand and squeezed it.

“Yes. But I have to go back in three weeks.” She paused, hoping he wouldn't ask more.

“What's the problem?” Ian asked, folding both her hands in his. “I want to be there for you, and to pray for you.”

She shrugged. “It's not important.”

“It is to me,” he insisted. “More than you realize.”

“This is embarrassing, Ian. Private. I'd rather not talk about it.” She moved away from him and stood up, pushing the porch swing hard as she left it. Wiping at a tear in her eye, she faced away from him and stood at a porch post, staring into the night. Rising fog blanketed much of the low farmland near the Middle Island Creek, muffling sounds from the forest. The distinctive call of a night-feeding whip-poor-will echoed up from the creek bottom. Laura Ann counted each accented syllable of the call.

Whip-poor-will.

Ian moved from the swing to the far side of the steps, gazing out into the night. She hoped he'd stay there, and not move closer for a while.

“I've been practicing a long time for what I'd planned to say tonight,” he said, clinging to a post, eyes focused somewhere in the distant dark. “But …”

Laura Ann's heart leapt with his first words, then died in the silence that followed.

“You went to Morgantown in the middle of that insane snowstorm back in February. Remember? You told me then too that it was female stuff. I prayed all day, Laura Ann. Prayed for whatever it was that you felt you couldn't share with me, in hopes you'd be healed or cared for.”

Ian never moved from his post. “We've walked through some hard times since Christmas, but we've been together every day, even if I had to work late. There was no doubt in my mind that we're right for each other—no doubt until today.”

Until today?

Laura Ann's heart raced, every fiber straining for her to lift a hand, move a foot, or say something to stop his next words before he could utter them. She turned to face Ian. She moved too late.

“When I realized you were on the ground — “ His voice
cracked and he turned away, drawing in another deep breath. “When I saw you there, I thought I'd lost you. I drove like a madman across the field to get to you.” He wiped at his own eyes and walked away to the end of the porch.

Laura Ann followed, holding her distance. Wars raged inside her to run and wrap her arms about him.

Ian turned back to face her, welling tears reflecting in the dim light from the living room window. “I didn't plan to confront you with this, but the stranger you act, the more distant you become. This secret of yours—what you call ‘female stuff' — is coming between us.”

He drew in a deep breath and stepped toward her, raising a hand in her direction. “I love you, Laura Ann.” He stood there, waiting for her response, then continued. “But I hate secrets.” He coughed, and then added, “I have my reasons.”

“Think, then speak,” Daddy used to say. She measured her next words, desperate to scream them.

“I'm sorry, Ian—but it's my business.”

“It's
our
business, Laura Ann. Whatever this is about. I've been here every day helping you to keep the farm afloat.” He paused. “I thought we were a team.”

“We are. We were —,” she said, choking on the last word.

“Were?” he blurted out. His footsteps were the only sound in the silence that followed. He approached and put a hand on her shoulder, tugging at her to turn.

Laura Ann backed away, bumping into the porch rail. She could run no further, withering in the face of the first anger she'd seen from him in months.

“The farm —,” she began.

Ian cut her off. “No! I've heard all about your dreams, and know just what problems we're facing.
We
are facing.”

“I'd do anything — “

“Old news, Laura Ann. Tell me something I don't know.
You're going to the doctor, or at least you say you are. I want to know what ails you — and that's where I can't tolerate secrecy.” He lowered his eyes a moment, and then looked back up. “I'm sorry. I just want to help.”

Ian backed away from her, gritting teeth that clamped down on words she was sure he'd swallowed. “I've hidden nothing from you, Laura Ann. And I don't ever intend to.” He gulped and looked away.

Whip-poor-will.
The bird cried out, the echo of its song muffled in the fog. No bird called back. Solitary. Isolated. Alone.

She gripped the porch rail behind her, backed into a corner she could not escape. “I'm not exactly sick, Ian.”

“Then?”

“A gynecologist in Morgantown has me on some strong medications to regulate my cycle.”

“That's all?” he asked, a nervous laugh mixed in the question. He laid his hands on her shoulders, long gentle fingers clutching her with a familiar vigor. “Nothing else?”

She shook her head, tears flowing unchecked. Ian gripped her with the warm strength she'd yearned to feel. No money was worth losing him, not even the thousands she'd been promised if she'd return to the Morgantown clinic one last time. She buried her head in his shoulder, hiding her face as he wrapped his arms about her.

“No. That's all,” she said, her voice cracking in a desperate mix of secrets, tears — and lies.

J
UNE 21

“You need me, girl. With my help you can pay for this place.”

“I'll manage — without you.” Laura Ann watched Uncle Jack's every move where he stood at the edge of the drive, mindful of Granny Apple's warnings about him.

“You won't survive.” Uncle Jack flipped a cigarette butt into the middle of her garden. “How much you got, anyway? A few thousand dollars? Paying the bank at twenty-three hundred a month? You're gonna crash. That is, if the bank doesn't call your note first.”

“My bank account is none of your business. If my father were here,” she continued, “he'd thrash you for talking to me this way.”

“Is that so? Well, he's dead and gone, isn't he? But no matter.” Her uncle kicked at the swinging gate on the picket that surrounded her herb garden, slamming it back hard. The entire fence shuddered under his ire.

“Let's hope the bank doesn't come calling with an audit of your worthless mortgage,” he threatened, walking toward his blue pickup. “My offer might not be there when you come looking for help.”

“Be assured, you're the last person I'd ask,” she said, working to control the quivering in her voice.

“Stubborn girl. Like your old man.”

“Thank you,” she said, her grip tightened on the hoe handle at her side. “I'll take that as a compliment.”

“Stupid too.”

Uncle Jack lingered at the driver's door, as if his words might have stirred some special desire in Laura Ann to relent to his wishes. He watched her, a deep frown creasing his face. In her twenty years, she'd only seen him smile once. Every visit to the farm ended like this. On the best of days a honk summoned Auntie Rose to the car. Explosive visits — and there were many — always ended with Daddy standing in the drive, holding his ground as Uncle Jack slunk away. Her uncle's swearing would start soon.

“Better get that tobacco in the ground this month” — his hand gripped the lip of the door, white knuckles showing on thick fingers — “or it's over.”

“It
is
over, Uncle Jack. There won't be any planting, and I won't sell the allotment. Not to anybody.” She jammed her hoe handle into the dirt, an exclamation point on her determination. No matter what, Uncle Jack would never grow that noxious weed on this land.

“You're a fool. When the bank takes this place, I'll be standing on the curb laughing.”

“I have no doubt of that.”

Uncle Jack cocked his head to the side, and then shrugged. “Call me when you change your mind.” He opened the door and started to slide into the seat, stopping to throw one more insult her way through the gap between the door and the frame.

“About time for another of those big deposits, isn't it?” He turned and spit, then looked back at her before he slid into the seat. “Tell your sugar daddy I'm watching him.”

Uncle Jack slammed the door. He spun the big Ford's wheels in reverse, and rocks shot out when he kicked the truck into drive, some of them peppering the fence in front of her.

A middle-finger salute made his parting message quite clear.

Laura Ann's knees buckled and she sank to the ground in her herb garden, legs folded. She lowered the hoe with shaking hands, setting its sharp blade in the pea gravel of the garden path. Daddy's white picket fence surrounded a twenty-foot square plot, each pointed slat cut in the woodshop last year during his final summer.

Laura Ann leaned into the wooden form of a small raised garden bed, nine squares like a giant tic-tac-toe filled with spices for her kitchen. Anise sprung up behind her, serrated leaves and flat clusters of white flowers shooting up for salad garnish and the licorice-like flavoring in her Christmas cake. Narrow leathery shoots of rosemary fought for control of the soil in the same bed. Their fragrance filled the air, mixing with the scent of fresh earth where she'd been pulling weeds before Uncle Jack's uncivil visit.

My “sugar daddy”?

If Uncle Jack really knew what price she'd paid to make it this far, he'd crush her in the town's rumor mill. She leaned over, her head resting on the low wooden form. How much longer until she ran out of options? Barely hanging on, she determined to make this work — if at all possible — without the Morgantown doctor's money.

She reached into the herb bed absentmindedly, plucking at a few weeds she'd missed around the base of the rosemary. Moist black soil, her special mix of composted manure, leaf mulch, and river-bottom sand, released with a slight tug. She tossed each
weed in the rock path, pretending each successive plant was a month.

The last of her savings — and a pittance from the clinic in Morgantown — got her through April. Twelve fat calves went to auction in May. June depended on her selling fifty stools to a buyer in New Martinsville. July and August? Sell more of Daddy's prized Angus at auction, if her stools didn't carry the day. September? Depend on harvest time, and perhaps find an extra source of income. If everything failed, break her secret promise, and return to the money tree that waited in Morgantown. A bright pink clinic, cold stirrups, and a sheet draped over splayed legs.

Her mind played games, imagining a worm in the dirt clod she'd pulled to be the doctor who probed her like a vet pulling a calf at birth. No concern for her as a person, simply another girl lying naked beneath a gown, ready to be harvested.

A harvest that kept her farm alive.

Laura Ann wondered about Auntie Rose, strangely silent in the months since Daddy died. Uncle Jack would make sure she stayed away, locking her up with a key, a tongue lashing — and a fist if necessary — to keep her from her childhood home. Laura Ann plucked another weed, wondering how hard it would be to jerk Auntie Rose from the clutches of her oppressor. Like Uncle Jack holding Auntie Rose hostage in town, she knotted the weeds tight in one hand. She pushed up from her place on the ground and wheeled a full barrow of weeds to the compost pile.

A June sun bore down with the full fury of today's summer solstice. Grasshoppers jumped from her path when she crossed the lawn, its withered blades burned a crunchy brown after weeks of drought. She tarried at the old compost pile. Salty rivulets worked their way down the middle of her back, under Daddy's old church shirt, tied in a knot across her belly.

She shaded her eyes against the glare. Ian's pickup appeared
at the top of the ridge, billowing dust. She'd never seen him drive this fast. What new trouble raced her way?

Moments later, Ian's tires crunched on her drive. “Are you okay?” he asked when he leapt from the truck.

She nodded, wiping soiled fingers on her jeans, then took his hand when he ran up.

“I saw Jack when I drove in. He nearly ran me off the road.” He gasped for breath. “I almost went after him, but needed to check on you first.”

“I'm fine.” Laura Ann squeezed his hand and placed her other hand on his arm. “He's trying every angle. Uncle Jack came out to squeeze me into selling — or leasing — the tobacco allotment.”

“And?” Ian asked, wiping the sweat of his own brow with the back of his arm.

“Told him ‘no.' He didn't take the news too well,” she said with a grin.

Not looking her way, Ian picked up the hoe at her side. “Rumor mill's going full tilt.”

“Whatever the story, Ian, I'm sure it has no basis.”

“I hope so.” He blushed. “I mean, I'm sure there's no basis.”

She furrowed her brow, watching his eyes.

Embarrassed? Or nervous?

“What are you trying to say?” she asked.

“Word is …” Ian coughed and started again, looking away when he spoke. “Folks are talking, Laura Ann. They say that you're accepting paying visitors at the farm.” He bit his lip. “Male visitors.”

She nodded toward the porch. “Do you see a red light?” She hoped for a laugh, but he frowned.

“What?” she asked. “You believe that stuff?”

“This affects me too, Laura Ann.”

“Oh, really?” She crossed her arms. “And how's that?”

He paused, watching her for a long time, his eyes misting as he fought for the right words. “I'm the man they're talking about. The paying kind.”

Laura Ann's hands went to her mouth. “How can people say that?” she asked. “Everyone knows we're friends.”

“Just friends?” he asked, a faint smile wrinkling his cheeks.

“More than friends,” she replied. “Much more.”

“I'm getting lots of questions — at the office, and around town,” he said, looking down again. “You know. Innuendo. ‘The look.' Some snickers at Auggie's.” He shook his head. “Not a good thing for a law enforcement officer.”

She walked up to him, coaxing his right hand from his pocket. When she took it in her own, she felt a bandage and looked down. Flesh-colored tape covered three scraped knuckles. She pulled the hand to her lips and kissed his wound. “What happened?”

Ian raised an eyebrow and shrugged, looking at the taped hand. “I won a reprimand and a three-day vacation.” He moved his hand to her shoulder to pull her closer.

“Truth is, I slugged our office manager.” His face reddened, his pulse quickening in the throbbing beat of his neck. “Randy started spouting off about me ‘shacking up at the McGehee place.' So I broke his nose.” He smiled, ponds visible in his eyes. “Got a stiff reprimand and three days of administrative leave for my trouble.” He took a deep breath and continued. “For what it's worth, my boss said he didn't blame me. Told me to chill out and go chop some wood.”

Ian chuckled, then continued. “So — I've got three days off, gorgeous. You need any help?”

“Hanging out together, stacking hay and irrigating a parched
corn field. My goodness, folks in town are gonna talk,” Ian said with a laugh from his seat at her kitchen table. Sweat soaked his shirt with long white stains under his arms and down the center of his chest. A sunburn reddened his cheeks with a look of embarrassment. “You're a taskmaster, McGehee. It's eight o'clock, for crying out loud. Was this your idea of a date?”

Laura Ann laughed, tossing a freshly peeled carrot his direction. “Think fast, Game Warden.” Ian caught the flying orange stick in midair and crunched loudly into the treat.

“Not a date,” she said. “But how about a rain check?”

“Deal!” Ian walked up to her at the sink, wrapping his arms around her waist where she stood paring vegetables. He pulled her close, lowering his head over her shoulder.

His warmth fit into the small of her back, his chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm, pushing the wet fabric of her shirt against her skin. Ian's head tucked into the small of her neck, the stubble of a day-old beard scratching against her. She pulled her hands up to meet him, and leaned her head into his.

“I have a request for you,” he whispered. “An invitation.”

“Really?” she asked, twisting in his arms. Her face came close to his, brushing against the sandpaper of his chin.

“A romantic evening in Parkersburg. A splurge.”

“No, Ian,” she said, shaking her head. “Save the money. Please.”

Ian pulled her tighter, squeezing strong arms about her in a mock punishment. “No can do. Got big plans.”

“Where?” she asked, pretending to fight his grip and squirm toward the sink. He held her firm.

“The Blennerhassett,” he replied, drawing out each syllable.

“That beautiful old place down by the court house?” she asked. “No. Too expensive.” She prayed he'd resist. Daddy let her wander into the hotel years ago when he was filing some papers at the Wood County Courthouse. The memory never faded,
the elegance of the hotel's reception area unlike anything she'd seen in her life, even more sophisticated than the Wells Inn in Sistersville. Walnut wainscot. Deep leather chairs. And amazing food, according to local lore. Her mouth watered.

“Not gonna hear it, McGehee. This will be a special night.” He cleared his throat, looked away, then back at her. “Very special.”

Laura Ann relaxed in his arms, lowering her hands to rest on his shoulders. “Very?”

He nodded. “Our six-month anniversary.”

“Anniversary?” she asked, tracing the line of his ear with a finger.

“Since that first kiss. So … I have reservations. A week from Friday.”

“I can't stop you, then?” she asked with a grin, tapping his head with a freshly pared carrot.

He grinned, red wrinkles creasing his face. “Not a chance.”

“Then it's a date. I accept.”

On tiptoe, Laura Ann felt for a zippered container on the top shelf of her towel closet, then pulled it free. Seated on the toilet lid in her bathroom, she opened a padded pink makeup kit and, one by one, laid the contents in the freestanding porcelain sink to her left. Her hands shook as she touched each piece in the kit, a sorcerer's bag of genetic paraphernalia that transformed her body into money—four times — at a price.

Images of Daddy filled her mind when she reached into the tiny case. She saw him in her daydream, standing here at the sink morning after morning, the door always left ajar when he shaved. Many days she would watch him from the kitchen while she cooked and he scraped a stubbly black forest off his face.

Daddy's memory morphed into mental images of Ian, his tall frame hovering over this same sink hours ago, washing his face like Daddy used to do before dinner. She'd watched him from the kitchen too. Were Ian watching her now, he'd cry to see what she'd hidden from him in this package. Her little box of magic that helped service a debt she had no reliable means to repay. Daddy would cry for her sacrifice too, burdened that his self-inflicted disease led her to this place of desperation.

She removed two foil packs with rows of pink, yellow, and green pills, each medication labeled by the day, a different color for each week. She held two new packs, each waiting to smooth her way for three weeks into the first phase of her next body preparation process. She laid aside a small foil-topped bottle labeled “Pergonal,” and its twin demon — a hypodermic syringe. She spread out the demon's claws, three dozen sharp silver needles, recoiling at the sight of the razor-sharp points. Packed at the bottom of her pink Pandora's box she retrieved a small spiral-bound notepad, filled with handwritten notes that recorded her days of oral supplements and self-administered injections. From the cover of the zippered pink box she pulled out a business card for Dr. Alexandros Katinakis. The doctor's picture in the upper left corner of the card made her cringe. The caress of his fingers in her hidden places would long remain a disturbing memory.