Authors: Marie Bostwick
River's Edge (25 page)
Junior dropped my hand and stood up abruptly. His chair made a scraping sound across the wooden floor planks, and his napkin dropped from his lap.
“Mama!” he began, his voice suddenly sharp and impatient. Then he stopped himself from going on, and his face crumpled into a grimace, as if the effort of forcing himself to hold back the words caused him physical pain. He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. In a quieter, almost apologetic tone, he said, “I'm just not hungry tonight, Mama. I'm going out for a while.” Before Mama could respond, he took five long strides toward the door, grabbed his coat off the hook, and was gone.
We sat in silence, listening to the sound of the slamming sedan door, the angry clatter of flinging gravel from under spinning tires, and the roar of the motor that faded as the miles separating Junior from the farm steadily increased.
Chuck, who was normally the least talkative and least sentimental member of the family, sadly voiced what we were all thinking. “He's going to leave too, isn't he?” He looked to Mama for an answer. She said nothing, but the way she pressed her lips together and the renewed look of fatigue on her face signaled her concurrence.
“I wish Papa were here,” Chuck said. “Seems like we're coming apart at the seams since he left.”
“That's not so,” Mama answered quickly. Her tone was hard. “We're a family, and we always will be, even if we can't all be together. Even if ...” She wouldn't let herself finish the rest of the sentence, wouldn't let herself voice the possibility that before the war ended some of the empty chairs around the table might never be filled again.
Sitting up taller in her chair, she started piling mashed potatoes onto her plate. The serving spoon clanked against its edge with metallic resolve, and then she started heaping some onto Chuck's plate as well, even though he hadn't asked for any. “We're not coming apartâwe've just got to figure out how to come together better than we are now. We're not going to be helpless, Chuck. I won't allow it. Do you understand me? I simply won't allow it.”
She tilted her chin in the direction of Chuck's plate, now piled high with potatoes, silently indicating that he should start eating, which he did. She held out her hand to each of us in turn, taking our plates, filling them until they could hold no more, and then watching eagle-eyed to make sure we ate. She was a mother bear preparing for the ravages of a long winter, urging her cubs to build up their strength and reserves for whatever might lie ahead, filled with a furious, instinctive determination to ensure the survival of her line.
“None of us are going to be helpless.”
Â
Junior stayed out all night and returned the next day, tired, hungover, and enlisted. After he'd torn out of the driveway, flinging gravel and promises off his tires, he'd found some friends and a case of beerâhis firstâand consumed enough alcohol to induce a plausible amnesia. Then he and the last of Brightfield's unenlisted barreled into the recruiting office high on liquor and valor. The recruiting officer put the pen in Junior's hand, showed him where to sign, and that was that.
I wasn't surprised, but that didn't stop me from being angry. Now that I look back on it, it seems so silly, so pointless the way I punished him for reneging on a promise I knew he couldn't keep, but punish him I did. We only had ten days until he was scheduled to report for duty, days we could have spent walking by the river, savoring the minutes, laughing and crying and making plans together, but as it was, we barely spoke to one another. Such a waste.
Mama was supposed to take Junior to the depot where he would catch the bus to boot camp on Saturday, but early that morning she said she had a headache and asked if I wouldn't mind driving him. At the time I took her excuse at face value. She didn't look well at all. Her eyes were red and swollen, but if I'd stopped to think about it, I would have realized this was caused by tears. It must have been agony for her to let him go, and harder still to give up that last hour with him, but she yielded her time to me so Junior and I wouldn't part in anger. It was an act of stunning selflessness.
The twins insisted on carrying Junior's bags downstairs for him. If it hadn't been for the scarred brown suitcase sitting next to the back door, it would have been easy to believe that it was just another Saturday at the Mullers'. Everything seemed so normal, the clock tick-ticked just as cheerfully as it always did, the scent of bacon lingered comfortingly in the air, and the sun glinted off the row of newly washed glasses sitting in the drainer. As I looked around the room, it all seemed so solid and unchangeable.
Cookie's eyes were a bit shiny, but she kept her emotions in check. The younger boys took turns manfully exchanging handshakes with Junior as he doled out last-minute reminders along with playful chucks on the chin before picking up his suitcase and heading out the door. Curt started to follow him, but Mama put a hand gently on his shoulder. “You go run up and get your bed made, Curt. I want to talk with Junior alone for a moment.”
Curt hesitated and frowned at her, but Junior stepped in with, “Go on now, Squirt. Do as Mama says. I'll write as soon as I get to the camp, and you can be the one to read the letter to the family. I'll write every week,” he promised.
Curt dragged his feet unwillingly up the stairs, and Junior gave him an encouraging grin when he turned his head for a last look at his big brother.
Mama and Junior walked out onto the porch. I brushed quickly past them so they could have some privacy, mumbling an excuse about needing to warm up the car, though the air was springlike and temperate.
I climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine. The car was parked a fair distance from the house, but I could still see what was happening on the porch. Junior's back was turned to me. Over his shoulder, I could see Mama speaking to him earnestly but with a calm expression, as if they were discussing a list of things that needed doing around the house or what he could pick up at the store for her rather than saying good-bye for who knew how long. They stood a good two paces apart from each other, and in spite of the warm weather Mama kept her arms wrapped around herself. For a moment I wondered if she was afraid that touching him might cause her to lose her composure, but then the smile left her face for just a moment, and she said something, nodding and serious, before taking one step toward him and wrapping him in her arms, reaching her hand up to stroke his hair. When she stepped back, she lay her hand on his cheek, letting it linger for just a moment before lifting it off again, quickly, gracefully, the way a butterfly lights on a blossom to bestow a fluttering blessing before rising, hovering, and moving on. Mama smiled, but even from so far away, I could see a shiny film of tears in her eyes. She tilted her chin in the direction of the car, signaling that I was waiting.
Junior stepped across the expanse of space that lay between them and scooped Mama up in his arms, lifting her so that her feet dangled helplessly a good foot above the painted porch planks. She wrapped her arms around his neck and shut her eyes tight, and they were locked in an embrace that seemed like it would last for always. Before I could take a breath or wipe my own eyes, I heard the heavy thunk of the suitcase landing on the backseat and the solid slam of the back passenger door. Junior slid onto the bench seat of the sedan, his jaw tight with resolve and regret.
“Let's go,” he said hoarsely.
Driving away, I could see Mama in my rearview mirror, smiling and standing tall, with one arm wrapped around the front of her waist and the other raised high over her head in a sweeping wave of farewell. She kept waving bravely as we made our way down the long drive, but as I moved the steering wheel slightly to the left to guide the car around the bend in the road, I glanced in the mirror one last time and saw her hand drop weakly to her side and her face crumple like discarded wrapping paper.
Junior and I drove in silence through the center of Brightfield. It would have been faster to take the state route, but I went through town because I thought Junior might want to have one more look. As we drove down Main Street and past the green, his eyes scanned each building and tree as if trying to memorize a poem. In Brightfield, where everyone knew everybody else's business, the people who were walking on the sidewalks and the merchants who were lounging in front of their stores gave Junior big smiles, thumbs-up, and waves of farewell as we drove past. One or two called their good wishes to him, and Mr. Flanders, who was standing in front of his store washing his latest sale ad off the glass in preparation for painting a new one, turned, stood at attention, and threw Junior a stiff-armed salute. Junior nodded in acknowledgment. He rolled up the car window as we turned onto the state road and picked up speed.
“It's cold in here,” he commented. I glanced at him for a moment; his eyes were on the road ahead. Suddenly I realized what a great fool I was, but now, having been stupidly silent for so long, there seemed to be no dignified way to open my mouth and say how wrong I'd been. I turned my eyes back to the front as we drove south toward the bus stop.
We passed fields already clothed in linen tents, hiding tobacco seedlings under their shade, groves of birches budding out in full green that only days before had stood naked and bleached like valleys of dry bones waiting for a word to bring them back to life. Now and then, as we ascended and descended the hills, between the green world and the expanses of heaven, we could catch a glimpse of the silver ribbon of river that divided and connected the world above from the one below, fed by the sky, and feeding the earth in turn, and making sense of everything.
I didn't know how to say I was sorry, but something in the green gift of the land and the certainty of the passing of spring told me I didn't have to. There would never be another day exactly like this, and if I wasted it, there would be no second chance. All I had to do was open the door by saying something, anything. A word would be enough.
“What did Mama say to you?” I asked.
“She said she expected to hear only good news. She said she was proud of me. She lied,” he said flatly.
I was a bit taken aback and looked over to see if he was teasing, but there wasn't a trace of irony on his face. I was genuinely confused by his reaction. “What are you talking about?” I asked.
“It's not what she says that's a lie,” he answered. “It's what she doesn't sayâwhat our whole family doesn't say. No matter what is happening, we smile, we put a good face on things, we don't talk about things that are too dangerous or too emotional or too anything. Avoid extremes. That should be the Muller family motto. We're such cowards,” he puffed derisively.
I had heard enough. “Junior, sometimes you're really an idiot, do you know that? Mama didn't lie, and she's not a coward. Don't you dare say that about her! She's probably the bravest woman I know. What did you want her to do? Cry and howl and beg you not to go? I'm sure that's what she felt like doing, but she didn't, because she didn't want you to feel bad about leaving.”
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Well, I do feel bad.”
“She
is
proud of you. We all are.” He rolled his eyes. I took a deep breath. “I am proud of you, too.”
is
proud of you. We all are.” He rolled his eyes. I took a deep breath. “I am proud of you, too.”
His eyes darted towards mine, and the barest trace of a smile twitched on the edge of his lips. “You've got a funny way of showing it, not speaking to me for days on end.” His words were scolding, but his tone told me I was already forgiven.
“I know,” I confessed. “But I was so mad at you. It wasn't that I thought my not speaking to you would make you stay. I guess I just wanted you to feel bad, or at least guilty.”
“It worked,” he said with a half-smile.
“Sorry.” I was.
“Naw,” Junior said, waving off my apology. “I knew what you were doing and why you were doing it. I like your honesty, Elise. It sounds kind of strange, I know, but I like the fact that you were so clear about how angry you were. In some ways I'm angry with myself, but having you give me the cold shoulder kind of freed me up from thinking about what I was doing. Does that make any sense?”
I thought about it for a moment. “No,” I answered plainly. I looked at him, and we both burst out into loud, sincere laughter.
“Boy, we are a mess,” Junior said, grinning, and I nodded in agreement.
“Stubborn. Both of us. Why did I go and waste these last ten days? So stupid,” I berated myself. “What did I think I'd gain? I always knew you were goingâApril, May, June. What was the difference? It wasn't like you had picked June as the magical date, anyway.” I shrugged.
Junior let out a short, irritated laugh. “No. It was Papa who did that, and then he pushed me into a promise I never wanted to make. Now I'm the one that feels like a heel. All that rattletrap about someone needing to stay behind to protect the family.” He laughed again, but his voice dripped bitterness. “The thing is, he was right. Somebody should stay here and take care of the family. He's the one who should be doing it instead of running off and jousting with windmills at his age. So how come I'm the one that feels like a deserter?” He slumped back against the seat and turned his head to look out the window, not really expecting an answer to his question.
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