The Girl Who Slept with God: A Novel (27 page)

Jory pinched Rhea’s arm and then burrowed into her, tickling her in the ribs, as Rhea shrieked and swatted furiously at her.

“Hey,” Rhea’s sister yelled. “I’m trying to drive here, you morons. Cut it out or you’re both walking home.”

“Hitching home, you mean,” said Rhea, smiling at Jory and smoothing down her hair while she gazed happily at herself in the rearview mirror.

The front door of the diamond-windowed house was locked. Even so, Jory turned its handle several more times, wishfully. She could see that the living room was dark, although upstairs the light behind the diamond-shaped window still shone faintly on.

Jory peered back at Mrs. Kleinfelter’s house and then, with a sigh, crossed the frosty grass between the two houses. At the front door, she knocked softly and tried to decide whom it was worse to awaken, Mrs. Kleinfelter or Grace. When no one answered, she knocked again, this time a little more loudly.

“You’re lucky I didn’t call the police.” Mrs. Kleinfelter rummaged around in her pony express bag. “That car woke me up out of a dead sleep. I couldn’t imagine who or what could be making that kind of racket at this hour. Here,” she said. She handed Jory a slightly crumpled piece of Doublemint gum. “You’re much too young to be drinking.”

Jory took the gum. “I didn’t know I really was,” she said. “Until it was too late.”

“Your sister’s going to be very disappointed.” Mrs. Kleinfelter sighed and folded a piece of the gum into her own mouth. “And it probably won’t be the last time.”

The two of them sat in Mrs. Kleinfelter’s unlit living room. With a clank and a hum, the old house’s furnace gave a false start, releasing a brief aromatic elixir of dust and heat. Mrs. Kleinfelter pulled at the neckline of the men’s striped pajamas she was wearing. “Well, this is certainly livelier than my usual nighttime activities. Maybe it’s almost as good as getting out.”

Jory stared at Mrs. Kleinfelter through the darkness. “I don’t want you to move away,” she said.

“Maybe you can go in very quietly.” Mrs. Kleinfelter dug her hand back into her leather bag and then took out a small set of keys. “Maybe Grace is already asleep in bed.”

“Maybe,” Jory said doubtfully. She stood up and buttoned her coat.

“Here,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter. She handed Jory the key ring. “I’ll need them back tomorrow, though.”

Jory walked toward the front door and opened it. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

“Go on now,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter, shooing Jory with her hand. “You’re letting in all kinds of cold air.”

Jory shut the door behind her and made her way across the grass and up the front steps of Henry’s house. She glanced back at Mrs. Kleinfelter, who now stood in the kitchen window giving her a reassuring wave. Jory put the key in the door and turned the handle. The front door opened with barely a squeak.

It was dark in the living room, and Jory stood there for a moment trying to see what was what. She began tiptoeing across the floor in the direction of the stairway.

“Jory?” Grace sat up on the couch. A blanket fell away from her and onto the floor. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know,” Jory tried to whisper. “Go back to sleep.”

“What? Why are you getting home so late?”

“It’s not so late,” said Jory, still whispering. “You just think it is because you’ve been sleeping.”

“You smell like smoke.” Grace stood up shakily and picked up the blanket and pulled it around her. “Why didn’t you call me and tell me you weren’t coming home?”

“Because I was coming home. Come on,” Jory said. “Let’s go to bed.”

“You can’t stay out this late,” said Grace. She began shuffling toward the stairs with the blanket wrapped around her. “I mean it,” she said.

“I know,” Jory said. “I won’t—I won’t. Ever again.” Jory climbed the stairs and then suddenly tripped on the next-to-last step and fell sideways onto the hardwood landing. “Oh,” she said, feeling her forehead and the side of her cheek. “Oww.” She rolled over onto her side. “I just swallowed my gum,” she said, and began to laugh. She lay on her back and laughed some more.

Grace stood over her in her blanket. “Good grief, Jory.” She bent down and tried to help Jory up off the floor. Suddenly her expression changed. She sat back on her heels, her tone now one of complete amazement.
“Have you been
drinking
?” She still hung on to Jory’s arm, but her expression was horrified.

Jory shrugged her sister’s hand off her arm and stood up on her own. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been drinking alcohol,” said Grace, standing too. She peered closely at Jory. “Did that friend of yours give you something to drink?”

“I don’t know.” Jory shrugged. “Some pop, maybe.” Jory tried to move toward her bedroom, but Grace reached out again and was now holding her by the sleeve.

“Jory. You smell like liquor.”

“What? How would you know?” Jory tried to direct a suspicious look at her sister.

“There were plenty of drunk men in Mexico, all right?” Grace dropped her sister’s sleeve. “Alcoholism runs in our family. And all it takes is one drink.”

“Holy cow.” Jory made a face of long-suffering indignation. “You sound just like Mom.”

“Grandpa Feiten had his first beer when he was only nine.”

“Good for him,” said Jory. “I’m going to bed.”

“It’s just that I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.” The tone in Grace’s voice was one of sincere sadness.

“I know, I know,” said Jory, trying hard not to feel utterly guilty.

“Jory?”

“I said, I know!”

Grace stood on the hallway floor clutching the blanket around her and looking silently at Jory.

Jory turned and walked toward her bedroom. “You’re not my parent, though. And I don’t have to do what you say.” Jory felt as if she had just stuck her tongue out at her sister. She opened her bedroom door and went inside. She shut her door and leaned against it. She couldn’t hear any sounds from the hall. Grace was apparently still standing unmoving in the hallway.

Jory took a step and fell straight onto her bed. She rolled over onto her back and yanked and pulled the bottom quilt up around her until it
covered her up to the eyes. She didn’t care that she was still wearing her clothes. She didn’t even care that she was still wearing her shoes.

Her bedroom door opened and Grace stood just inside it, her messy hair and capelike blanket making her look somewhat spectral and strange.

“You look like Mrs. Rochester,” said Jory, lowering her quilt somewhat. “All you need is a lit candle.”

“Oh, Miss Eyre, you’ve spilled your tea!” Grace curtseyed and pretend batted her eyelashes.

“That wasn’t Mrs. Rochester,” said Jory.

“I know, but it’s the only line I remember.” Grace and her blanket walked over and sat down on the edge of Jory’s bed. “I know that you think I’m a real drag,” she said.

“A
drag
?” Jory said, moving over farther in bed to make room. “Since when do you use that word?”

“I don’t,” said Grace, smiling sadly, “but I know that’s what you think of me. I know you think I’m an old fussbudget or something. A complete stick-in-the-mud.”

“A tosspot and a flibbertigibbet,” said Jory, beginning to laugh.

“A grumpity-frumper.”

“A strumpet and a strutfurrow.”

Grace let herself fall backward onto Jory’s pillow and their two heads now leaned against the bars of the iron bedframe. Neither one of them said anything more. Jory listened to her sister’s breathing slow and then she pulled the quilt back up to her chin and turned on her side. Presently, she felt Grace burrow beneath the blankets too, and then she heard nothing more.

Grace and Jory sat at the kitchen table eating oatmeal. Morning sunlight poured in warmly from the warped glass of the kitchen window. After a moment, Grace picked up her empty bowl and carried it to the sink. Then she turned around and faced Jory. She took a breath and seemed to be waiting for something, a something that involved a slight, inward-turning smile. “Jory,” she said.

Jory glanced up sleepily.

“I felt the baby move this morning.”

Jory put her spoon down.

“I was lying in bed—you were still asleep—and then, out of nowhere, I felt this squiggle-like thing, like a little worm wriggling inside me.”

“A little
worm
?” Jory tried not to shriek.

Grace laughed. “I can’t describe it. It was like a twitch, or a flutter, sort of. But not.” She shook her head. “I know it was the baby. Moving.”

Jory sat perfectly still in her chair. “You have to tell me when it does it again.”

“Okay.” Grace smiled shyly. “It’s four months old now. I’m four months pregnant.”

“When do you go see the doctor again?”

“I don’t know. I think Dad said something about Dr. Henry coming out here maybe.”

“He won’t even let you go to the doctor’s office?”

Grace turned away from Jory and put her bowl in the sink.

“What about when you go into labor? Is he going to let you go to the hospital then?”

Grace faced Jory again. “I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it.”

“And after the baby’s born.” Jory held her toast in midair as if to emphasize her point. “You think Dad’s going to let you walk around town then? With a stroller and stuff?”

Grace picked up a dishtowel and refolded it, but then she merely stood, holding the folded towel against her chest.

“You really think he’s going to let us come back home, then? And we’ll all live just like before, as if nothing’s happened? And meanwhile, where did this baby supposedly come from?” Jory was now on some kind of terrible roll. “Seriously. Did you see Mom on my birthday? She won’t even look at us.”

For a fleeting moment Grace’s mouth seemed to crumple. “I just have to have faith. That’s what I’m supposed to do.
Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.
”

“Just how long are you supposed to wait exactly?” Jory felt a small bitter thrill of power surge through her, exacerbated by the onset of a headache that had been lurking behind her eyes all morning. “And for what? A sign in the heavens? An eclipse or meteor or something?”

“Stop it, Jory!” Grace threw the folded dishtowel at her sister, but it merely fell, impotent and soft as a large feather, onto the linoleum floor. The expression on her face revealed something close to fury. “Don’t you dare make jokes about this!” Grace’s mouth grew thin and ugly. “You don’t know the first thing about me and you never have.”

Jory was shocked into silence, and Grace seemed too stunned to say or do anything further.

The morning sunlight continued to stream in through the window next to the table; So Handsome lay directly in a patch of it, avidly and silently licking his upstretched back leg. Several silent minutes went by as Jory determinedly stirred her oatmeal around in its bowl, mentally apologizing and then retracting her apology. Grace stood with her back to Jory. She too made no move toward modifying or denying any part of what she had just said.

The back screen door opened and creaked shut and then Grip strode into the kitchen carrying several books in his arms. “Hey, hey,” he said, patting Jory on the head. “Am I too late for church?”