Riversong (12 page)

Cindi and Lee sat at the table near the kitchen. It was after one a.m. and the restaurant was empty of customers. A few of the band members, plus Tommy and Billy, ate leftover fries and drank beer. Cindi counted her tips, licking her thumb to separate the bills. She looked over at Lee. “How'd you do?”

Lee took the beer soaked bills out of her apron pocket. She flattened and organized them in the same direction before she counted. It was $33. She rubbed her temples. “Was this a busy night?” She thought how naïve she had been just hours before as to the level of transformation needed to make this place profitable and how many nights it would take to save up the kind of money she needed.

“Yeah.” Cindi took off her shoes. “Doesn't seem like much after all that work.” She sighed and put her feet up on the opposite chair. “I know.”

“How do you live on this?”

“I gotta a little coming from one of my ex-husbands.” She fluffed her hair. “It helps. Plus, my kid is grown.”

“There has to be a better way than this,” said Lee.

“Amen, girl.”

I
t was a thump and a metallic bang that awakened her from a deep sleep two nights later. She half opened her eyes, feeling drugged, not sure if she heard the noises in her dreams. The clock read 2:30. There was another crash and this time she knew the sound came from her backyard. Heart pounding, fear the taste of metal in her mouth, she grabbed a flashlight and her cell phone and stumbled to the window. She aimed the light into the yard, expecting to see Von, but the trash cans were on their sides, and out of the end of one was something large and black. The trashcan moved and Lee gasped, fingers sweating on the plastic of the cell phone. The figure had a black coat and enormous paws with long black claws.

It was a bear.

Relief flooded her at first, but then the animal lifted the trash can and slammed it against the ground. She felt the force of him ripple through the air and into the house. He backed out of the can, pawing out the remnants from one of Ellen's pies, lapping at the tin pan with his long pink tongue, and then tossing it on the fence, berry juice dripping down the weather beaten boards. Upright, he smeared his paw on the fence, interrupting the drips into swipes of magenta. He dropped back on all fours and paced the yard, shaking his head, smelling the ground, green eyes glowing in the beam of her flashlight.

He ambled over to the garden shed, got up on his hind legs and looked in the small glass window, human like. He turned, let out a long growl and crept on two legs closer to the house, all rolling muscle. His fierce eyes stared at Lee. She stood mesmerized, a jolt of energy racing through her body, goose bumps on her arms, unable to look away. Even through the closed window the air was heavy between them like before a thunder storm. She imagined she could smell the gamey rank of his oily fur and some kind of telepathic connection to the bear's thoughts. A revelation, an unearthing, hung in the air between them, but just out of her grasp like one of her early childhood memories. She touched her fingertips to the window as if to say,
I can't get it
. Her small movement seemed to break the spell between them and the bear threw back his head and roared, the sound shaking the window. Like from a dream she awakened and filled with terror, the reality that a rickety house was the only thing between her and this beast. Her mind raced with a jumble of thoughts. Should she call 911? What would she say, there's a bear in my yard, and they'd say, good luck lady, we don't do bears, call animal control. Did they even have that here? Could he get in the house? What could she do to scare him away? And then, a coherent thought: call Ellen, she'll know what to do.

Ellen answered on the third ring, sounding groggy and thick with sleep. “Lee, you alright?”

“There's a bear in my backyard.”

“Is it Clive?”

“What?”

“That's what your mother and I called him, Clive.”

“Was he big and black and scary?”

“Sounds like him. I'll be right there.” The line clicked off before she could say,
no don't come, he's right outside the house, there's no way to get in
.

Lee stood, pressing her forehead on the window next to the front door, searching the darkness for Ellen. Clive was still in the fenced back yard. She could hear him pacing and pawing at the garbage cans. Ellen emerged from the night, lantern in hand, in a walk-run down the dirt driveway, her long gray hair in a braid and dressed in a flannel nightgown and work boots. She was carrying a long gun - a shotgun Lee supposed. Lee opened the door a crack and yelled to her. “Hurry, he's in the back yard.”

Ellen began to run towards the door. Lee opened it wider, pulled her by the arm into the house, slammed the door shut and bolted the lock. “You must be insane running around outside with a bear on the loose.”

“I've had the pleasure of his acquaintance five years in a row now.” She held the shotgun with ease, like an umbrella. “He always appears this time of year.” Ellen started up the stairs to the bedrooms. “He's hungry after the long winter.”

Lee followed her. “What are you going to do?”

“Get rid of him.” They reached the second floor and Ellen marched to the window. “This is the best place to get a shot at him if he's in the yard.”

“I don't think we should hurt him,” Lee said. “Isn't that illegal or something?”

Ellen opened the window and put the barrel of her shotgun through the opening. “Don't worry, I won't kill him.” She lifted the gun to her shoulder. “Too messy. We'll just scare him off.”

Ellen pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening. The air filled with the smell Lee remembered from firecrackers at Fourth of July. Lee moved closer to the window and Clive gazed up at her, his head tilted like he was confused. She had the distinct, crazy feeling once again that she could almost hear his thoughts but they were a jumble of confusion, disappointment, anger, instead of information. He snapped his jaws and lunged toward the house, disappearing from view under the awning of the kitchen's door. They heard him pushing the door, the wood creaking with his weight. Ellen fired another shot out the window. Lee collapsed to the floor, hugging her knees, afraid to look. Ellen fired again and then they heard a scrambling noise at the side of the house.

Ellen backed a few feet from the wall. “He's climbing up the side of the house.”

Lee hugged her knees tighter and squeezed her eyes shut. “What?”

Ellen's voice was raised an octave, yelling like an excited child. “He's using the awning for leverage!” Lee opened one eye to see Ellen creeping towards the window and peering up. She heard claws on the side of the house, and it sounded as if he were making deep holes into the wood siding.

“What's happening now?”

“He's reached the top. Good Lord, he's on the roof.” There was the sound above their heads of wood splintering and falling in the attic space between the roof and the ceiling. Outside the window several shingles floated to the ground. Lee expected to see him break through and land on the floor in front of them. She jumped up and grabbed Ellen's arm. They looked in each other's eyes and fear passed between them. “What does he want?” said Ellen.

For a moment there was silence and then more back-and-forth movements as he walked the roof-line. “Clive, what do you want?” Ellen raised the shotgun and the barrel followed the sounds, her blue eyes intense. “I'm ready if he falls through.”

Lee backed towards the window, and for several minutes they heard him pace until finally his footsteps descended the slope of the roof and then there were several loud thumps. They ran to the window just as Clive reached the ground. Ellen raised her gun and aimed it at his head. “The mess be damned, I'm gonna shoot the son of a bitch.”

Lee, standing behind Ellen now, saw beyond the fence a dark shadow, and grabbed the flashlight from the window sill. She aimed the light towards the movement. “Oh my God,” Lee said. She saw two bear cubs. “Don't shoot.” She gripped Ellen's shoulder. “Clive has cubs.”

Ellen lowered the gun. “Clive's a girl?” She leaned closer to the window. “Clive's a girl. Well, I'll be.”

Clive scurried over the fence and growled direction to her babies. They ran to her and she nuzzled them for a moment before looking back at the house. Lee touched the window with the palm of her hand and felt something enter her, not words exactly but a feeling. It came from Clive through the air, a small zap like electricity inside her mid-section where she imagined her uterus dwelt and then the thought: I want this baby. Clive shifted her gaze away from the house to her cubs and led them towards the thick trees at the edge of the woods. Lee watched from the window until they disappeared into the night. She sat on the edge of the bed. Had Clive come to tell her to keep the child? Ellen had asked what Clive wanted. Could it be that Clive wanted her to have the baby?

Ellen sat next to her on the bed. “We're safe now.” She patted Lee's leg. “I thought Clive was going to fall right through that old roof.” She chortled and shook her head back and forth.

Lee giggled and her shoulders began to shake, tears sliding down her face.

Ellen began to laugh too and the more they tried to stop, the harder they laughed. Ellen hobbled to the window and rested her hand on the sill, doubled over, breathless. “Stop. My stomach hurts.”

Lee sobered. She folded her hands in her lap. “I'm pregnant.”

Ellen's face shifted like someone slapped her. A split second later she went still. “I see.”

Lee brushed her hair from her eyes. “Did you know a fetus has fingernails at ten weeks?”

Ellen looked as if she wanted to say something but walked back to the bed and sat next to her, the bed squeaking with her weight.

“Do you think God could talk through an animal?” said Lee.

They stared at each other and an understanding passed between them, an agreement that such a thing could exist, a mysterious act of God or nature or the universe. “Stranger things have happened.” Ellen patted Lee's hand. “Oddly enough, your mother never let me shoot at Clive.”

“Why?”

“She never said.”

“Ellen.”

“Yeah?”

“I'm afraid to turn into my mother.”

“I know.” She shook her head and patted Lee's leg. “But having a baby doesn't turn you into your mother.”

“Dan never wanted children. Thought it was too much to leave to chance – all the things that could go wrong in terms of the massive gene pool, mutations you didn't expect, characteristics that we wouldn't know how to handle. It sounds ridiculous as I say it, but I agreed with him, because of my mother. I didn't think it was a good idea to have a child that turned out like her.”

“What about one that would turn out like you?”

Lee smiled and rolled her eyes. “I'm not so great, trust me.” She looked at her lap. “Dan told me once that a child was the end of your life. From the moment of their birth it would be nothing but sacrifice. The part of you that mattered, that had dreams and ambition died because you poured it into the child. He thought that's what happened to his father, that his children ruined his life. My mother made sure I knew that her life ended with my birth. She made that perfectly clear time and time again.”

“Nonsense. The drink ruined her life. Had nothing to do with you. Your grandmother would've been so proud of you. Heck, I'm proud to be your friend, watching how you're rebuilding your life.” Ellen jumped from the bed and plumped a pillow. “Listen, each generation has the chance to put right the mistakes of the one came before. It's a choice, y'know. To let go of the past and move on. Nothing but a choice.” Ellen stood and pulled at the covers of the bed. “C'mon, scoot in there. If you're going to have a baby you've got to take better care of yourself.” She tucked the covers around Lee's small frame. “Sun's almost up. Clive won't be back. She did what she came for.”

Lee searched Ellen's face. “You think I can do it?”

“Oh, for Pete's sake, of course you can. Smart girl like you can do anything you put your mind to.”

“Ellen, do you remember when you took me to the bus station?”

“Sure. Why do you ask?”

“Because I always wondered how you knew I needed to hear from you that day that is was okay to let go, to leave her here so I could have my own life.”

“When I was a young woman I was in love with a man my father disapproved of. My biggest regret in life was that I didn't defy his wishes and marry this man. He was my one true love and I let him go because I didn't want to disappoint my father. Instead I married the man my father wanted me to - a man that slapped me around when he drank and had trouble keeping a job. All my dreams, all my desires disappeared as fast as tissue paper in a fire. That day I picked you up I saw the same look in your eyes and I didn't want you to hold yourself back because of your mother. I didn't want you to waste your life.”

Lee was crying and wiped the tears from her face with her fingers. “I never thanked you properly. I hope someday to replay the gift you gave me that day. That's what it was, the gift of freedom.” Fresh tears rolled down her face. “But I squandered that freedom by choosing the wrong man, the wrong path.”

“Ridiculous. You did what you thought was right at the time. You've had a blow, no question, but we're gonna get you back on top once more. Tomorrow is a new day, a chance to start over again. You hear me now?”