Wildwood (4 page)

Authors: Drusilla Campbell

BOOK: Wildwood

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Thursday

H
annah Tarwater woke at dawn when a mockingbird trilled its lyric from the top of the eucalyptus tree outside her bedroom window. Through the half-open shutters she glimpsed another cloudless October sky and sighed. Last year the Santa Clara Valley had less than fifteen inches of rain, the year before just barely twenty. There hadn’t been a drop since early March, not even a sprinkle. She thought of Africa, of Oklahoma, of California lifted by the wind and deposited around the world, grit from her own garden drifting down over Mexico.

She reached behind her to the combination radio/ tape recorder and pressed the rewind button. When the whirring stopped, she pressed play and after a moment the sound of distant thunder and rain falling on leaves filled the shadowed bedroom. She closed her eyes and dozed a little.

Dan stirred and reached for her. Pulling her back against his chest, he nuzzled the nape of her neck and growled.

From down the hall an alarm’s nervy scream was followed by a feeble ding-a-ling as the clock hit the floor.

“Eddie’s awake,” Hannah said.

They listened for the ritual noise of their teenage son’s rising: the bedroom door flung wide, the bathroom door assaulted, the clang of the toilet seat hitting the tank, the torrent of pee. Flush. Clatter.

Dan tightened his embrace, cupping Hannah’s breast in his large warm palm. He kissed the nape of her neck.

She asked, “How’s your schedule look?”

“Routine. Big bellies and bawling babies.”

“Heaven, right?”

“Wrong.” He hugged her so tight she gasped. “This is heaven.” His hand slipped down the curve of her hip and between her thighs.

She elbowed him gently. “What’s going on down there?”

They heard another door open, footsteps, several sharp raps on the bathroom door, and listened to their seventeen-year-old daughter, Ingrid, announce to her younger brother that he would vacate the bathroom instantly if he knew what was fucking good for him.

Dan groaned and rolled onto his back. “That girl’s a Marine.”

“Hard to believe she was once a sweet-tempered baby. She was so quiet in the mornings, I sometimes forgot we had her. Remember how happy she was to lie in bed and play with her toes?” Hannah felt Dan’s body tense but she couldn’t stop herself. It was like picking at a wound, taking perverse pleasure in the pain. “And the way she used to talk to herself, making all those little nonsense noises with little question marks at the end? Remember, Dan?”

“Don’t start this, Hannah.”

“I’m just remembering.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You loved her.”

“I still love her.” In the shadowed room his eyes were cobalt blue. “I love Eddie too.”

“You loved being a Daddy.”

“And I still do.”

“I don’t mean teenagers. I mean babies and little ones.”

Dan groaned again and closed his eyes, cutting the line between them, disconnecting the fuse. Depression dived into bed beside Hannah, ignored Dan and tucked around her in the bedclothes, nuzzled up. Tears sprang to her eyes and she was suddenly furious.

There had been a time when she could wangle anything she wanted out of Dan. When he was a homely, shy and bony boy in medical school Hannah knew he couldn’t believe his luck that she loved him. Back then all he wanted to do was make her happy and keep her that way. Now, she asked herself, did he care? Did he give a good goddamn how she felt since time and good bone structure had turned him into a middle-aged hunk? His shyness had become a soft-spoken charm both men and women found attractive; and no one called him bony anymore. God forbid saying he was homely. The cowlicky brown hair, his hawkish nose and square jaw, these made a strong Yankee face, friends told her.
You’re so lucky, Hannah. You got one of the good ones.
They didn’t know how mulish he could be. Pigheaded and half-blind.

“It’s not like we’re too old, Dan. I know that’s what you think but it isn’t true. Fifty isn’t the same as it was for our parents. Besides, when I talked to the child advocate she said the court would waive the age requirement under the circumstances.”

“Jesus Christ, Hannah, you’ve been talking to the advocate?” Dan pushed back the bedcovers, swung his legs onto the floor and sat up. “How many times do I have to say it? I don’t want another baby.”

“But if you’d only come over to Resurrection House and take a look.” She knelt on the bed behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest, resting her cheek on his shoulder. Angry still but trying not to be, trying not to let it show. “If you’d just hold her . . .”

“I don’t want to hold her. Or see her. I don’t even want to hear her name.”

Angel
.

Dan shrugged free of her, rested his elbows on his knees and held his head in his hands. “You’re driving me crazy with this, Hannah. I can’t take much more.”

Hannah put a plate of cinnamon toast before Eddie, neat little triangles overlapping like shingles. “You can’t go to school without breakfast. How do you expect to play football if you don’t eat?”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to play football.”

Ingrid stood by the back door and applied mascara while she waited for her ride. She was a strong athletic girl with her mother’s wild blonde hair and her father’s deep blue eyes spaced far apart. Healthy skin and perfect teeth, the smile that gleamed: she could have been an ad for the American Dream, Hannah thought. Ingrid would have been identified as American on any street in any foreign port.

Ingrid said, “Maybe he wants to be a computer nerd ’til the day he dies.”

“Shut up, Gridlock.”

“Of course he wants to play football.”

“Ma—”

“Eddie, trust me on this one, okay? Finish your oatmeal and eat your toast. Your body needs fuel. Even to move a joystick. Can I drive my car without gas?”

He stared at the toast as if it were contagious.

Tires crunched on the driveway. Ingrid grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. “I’m outa here.”

Hannah watched her long-legged daughter swing up into the open Jeep’s passenger seat and kiss the driver. Mix Hannah Whittaker with Dan Tarwater and you got this lithe and confident, smart-mouthed, sexual creature. Children were the strongest argument she knew of for the existence of God.

“Home by six,” Hannah called. “Aunt Liz’ll be here.”

Ingrid jabbed her thumb in the air as the Jeep roared out the driveway.

Back in the kitchen, Eddie stood in front of the open refrigerator eating leftover pepperoni pizza and feeding the crusts to Cherokee, the family’s Irish setter.

Hannah reached around him for the milk and poured a glass. “At least drink this. And sit down. People who eat standing up get high cholesterol.”

He took the milk from her, slammed the refrigerator shut with a backward kick and slumped in his chair. In shorts, his bare legs seemed to stretch halfway across the kitchen and the dark hair on them looked coarse as string.

Hannah leaned against the sink and watched him drink. The milky mustache on his upper lip made an unattractive contrast to the one starting to grow there naturally.

“Did you wash your hair this morning?”

“You always ask me that.”

“It doesn’t look like it.”

“I got oily hair, Ma. I can’t help it.” He muttered
shit
under his breath and she pretended not to hear.

Pick your battles, she thought. Living with teenagers taught a mother to think strategically. Or it should. Lately she couldn’t keep from picking at Eddie. Everything about him got under her skin and bit hard.

She squirted scouring glug into the sink and took a brush to the persistent coffee stains. Pregnant with Eddie, the smell of the stuff and its bilious blue-green color was all she needed to make her throw up. Now she enjoyed using it, took satisfaction from watching it foam up and the porcelain sparkle.

I am really pathetic.

She laughed aloud.

“Can you drive me to the card show tomorrow?”

“You’ve got school.”

“If I wait until Saturday all the good deals’ll be gone.”

“You’re not missing school for a sport card show.” Sometimes she scrubbed so hard the muscles across her shoulder tightened up like rubber bands on braces. “You’ve already got thousands of cards.”

“They’re an investment, Ma.”

“That’s what you tell me.” She rinsed the sink, turned and looked at her son.

He had pimples across his forehead like a relief map of the Sierras. Like his oily hair and incipient mustache and the dark hair on his legs, she disliked this sign of hormone activity. For some reason they put her against him. “Anyway, I’m always at Resurrection House on Fridays.” She held out his napkin.

He ignored it and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “All you ever think of is that place.”

“They count on me three days a week, Eddie. I may be a volunteer, but it’s still a job.” She waved the napkin in front of his face.

He grabbed it and shoved it in a sterling silver ring with his initials on it. “Big deal,” he said.

“It
is
a big deal. If it weren’t for me and a few other women, the babies at Resurrection House would never get held or talked to or rocked. . . . When Angel came out of the hospital the drugs her mother used had practically destroyed her nervous system. I had to make her a special—”

“Yeah, I know.” Eddie headed for the door. “You told me about a million times.”

“Do you have your homework?”

“Gee, no, Ma.” He grinned and crossed his eyes. “I forgot.” His braces gleamed in the sunny kitchen.

For an instant Hannah saw in her tall awkward son a baby boy with a wicked grin, and her heart stopped. She reached out to touch him, but he ducked away just in time.

The phone rang as she was pouring soap in the dishwasher. She picked it up and held the receiver under her chin while she wiped the counters and straightened the bowl of flowers on the butcher block.

“I heard Paco’s Jeep.” Jeanne Tate lived and worked on the next property up Casabella Road: Hilltop School. She called Hannah almost every morning from her office.

“His name’s Frank.” Ingrid’s beloved had been ordinary Frank Pinelli until last year when he began calling himself Paco. Hannah knew the affectation irritated her illogically. She shouldn’t care what the kid called himself so long as he behaved around Ingrid. Maybe that was the problem. She knew he wasn’t behaving himself and neither was her daughter and she didn’t want to think about it.

“What time’s the flight?” Jeanne asked.

“Around noon. I have to check.”

“Well, it should be interesting.”

“It should be.” Hannah imitated her friend’s dry tone.

“Almost five years. I checked my old calendar.”

“We’ve seen her plenty in between.”

“I think it’s a little peculiar. She stays away—makes a point of staying away . . . Now all of a sudden and with no warning, she announces she’s coming home. Don’t pretend you’re not curious.”

“Who’s pretending?” Hannah knew perhaps too much about Jeanne’s life, but about Liz’s she didn’t know enough. She hadn’t even met the Frenchman she lived with. Gerard. Older and the son of a famous psychiatrist. Maybe he didn’t really exist. Liz had made him up. She had always hidden herself inside books and imagination. She knew how to lie. They all did.

Jeanne said, “I have to hang up in a minute. Parent interview. New kid all the way from Wisconsin.”

“How’s Teddy?” Teddy Tate, Doctor of Education, and Jeanne’s husband. Together they owned and ran Hilltop School.

“He has a headache. He’s lying in bed right now with an ice pack on his forehead.”

Hannah couldn’t manage to feel sorry for Teddy.

“It’s the dry weather. He’s had them on and off for weeks. Today’s the first time he’s stayed down. He’s being stoical mostly. Up and around, doing his projects, chasing his tail.”

“Better his own, than someone else’s.” It was a mean thing to say. “Sorry, Jeanne. Tell me about the Wisconsin kid.”

“Busy now.”

“Jeanne, I said I was sorry.”

“I know you’re sorry.”
Implication: sorry comes easy for you, Hannah Tarwater.
“Are we still on for Saturday night?”

“Did you hear me? I said I was sorry. You know the way I talk, I say—”

“And I assume we’re both welcome?”

“Jesus H. Christ.”

“Just checking, Hannah. Just checking.”

The phone line clicked dead.

Hannah stared at the receiver in her hand.