“Somethin’ burnin’?” Henry asked as he walked in.
“Tortillas,” she mumbled. “Twins wanted them.”
The twins sat stone still at the table, staring down at the sugar scattered over the table.
Henry hummed a little and walked over to the stove. He picked up one of the still-warm tortillas, swiped it through the open tin of lard, and sprinkled it with a spoonful of sugar from the sugar bowl. He crossed to the kitchen table and kicked a chair out, dropping himself into it as he folded the tortilla into his mouth. “Umm,” he said, winking at the twins.
They smiled back, relieved, and began chewing again. Edgar jumped down from Beto’s lap and twined around Henry’s ankles.
Henry put his feet up on the chair beside him. Naomi felt his eyes follow her as she tossed out the burned tortilla and washed the pan.
“Something’s different here,” he said slowly. When she glanced back, he was smiling. “Hey, ho!” he said. He wasn’t angry, not yet. “That dress—”
“I’ll go change,” Naomi said quickly, already crossing to the hallway.
“Why? Don’t she look pretty?” Henry said to the twins. His eyes were a million miles away.
HENRY Henry hadn’t had much luck with Estella at first, but once she saw how he could dance, she couldn’t keep away. He kept pace with her better even than the best Mexican dancers.
He could still remember the first night she danced only with him.
It was December, and there’d been a huge Christmas tree in the middle of the dance hall, bright with white bulbs and an illuminated star on top. When they spun past the tree, flecks of light caught on the shimmering red of her dress. Her hand was hot in his. He felt her breasts against his chest when he pulled her close, missed them when she moved away.
Other dancers watched their every move, murmuring appreciation, whispering envy.
“Where’d you learn to dance our dances?” she asked, breathless.
“How’d you learn to dance my dance?” he shot back, twirling her under his arm. He brought her waist close and pressed against her. Her hips were firm and inviting under his hands. She did not pull away from him, and as he tipped her back and back and back, he watched the hollow above her collarbone and the lovely slope down to the neckline of her dress. Her chest rose and fell under the bright red fabric.
And those lips.
God, how he had wanted her.
NAOMI Naomi shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She studied the floor, waiting to see what Henry would say.
“Leave it on,” he said finally. “I didn’t know you kept it.”
“Abuelita saved it for me. From before ... before Houston.” She was careful. Once he had married her, Henry hadn’t allowed Estella to dance, and his jealousy dictated what clothes she wore.
“I heard music...” Henry said slowly, yawning.
“Beto fixed the radio,” Naomi said, omitting Wash’s involvement.
“I’ll be damned, Robbie,” Henry said. He slapped the table and punched Beto on the shoulder. There was a certain looseness to his movements. And the cursing. Naomi began to tally the signs.
“Time for bed,” Naomi said to the twins. They were about to protest, but she shot them a warning look. “Now. I’ll be by to tuck you in.”
“Let me do it,” Henry said, grinning a little too widely.
◊ ◊ ◊
Naomi had swept up the sugar and cleaned the counters by the time Henry came out of the twins’ room a few minutes later. “They’re good kids,” he said. “So damn smart, though. Sometimes it makes me feel dumb. You ever feel that way?”
Naomi laid her dish towel on the counter. “All the time,” she said.
He pitched himself back into a chair at the table. “Ugly day. I ought to wash, but I think I’ll eat first.”
Naomi hadn’t expected that. “Do you want...?” she trailed off. He’d already seen what was on the stove. Tortillas, beans, and rice cooked with tomatoes. She glanced at the fridge. She had some leftover ham and a bit of broccoli. There were biscuits in the bread box.
One evening when Henry had come home from two weeks in the oil field, her mother had made beautiful enchiladas rojas for him, each corn tortilla lovingly rolled around the stewed chicken and onions and tomatoes and then spread with the sauce she made herself. Henry must have been angry about something else, no doubt, but he’d swept the food onto the floor, yelled that it was sombrero slop. He had ordered Naomi to stay at the table, too, but forbade her to touch the food her mother had served. He sat there with his arms crossed until Estella made him boiled carrots and fried potatoes with bacon. Only then did he let her clear away the shattered dishes. Estella had cut herself on a plate and hidden the bleeding finger in a dishrag.
“I—I wasn’t sure if...” Naomi tried again.
Henry raised an eyebrow. “Havin’ trouble following you, darlin’,” he drawled. He was drunker than she’d realized.
She gestured at the stovetop.
Henry shrugged. “As long as it’s not still moving.”
“Oh.” She crossed to the cupboard and pulled out a plate. The frilly hem of the dress scratched her calves. It felt wrong to be wearing the dress, wrong for him to see her in it.
“What’s worrying you?” Henry asked. He had his chin propped up on one fist.
Naomi mumbled her words as she served his plate. “Once, in Houston, you said ... you...” That was as close as she could get to talking about before. Her mother. What happened in the house they’d all lived in.
“Come on, now.” Henry’s voice was so liquor-blurred it was almost gentle. “All that was a long, long time ago. I’ve changed, see?”
“Mmm,” she said. She did not look at him when she handed him his plate.
“Would you sit with me?”
Naomi lowered herself into a chair. She held her shoulders back to keep the dress’s neckline from dipping.
Henry shoved a fork into the beans, raised it almost to his mouth, then set it down without taking the bite. Naomi winced and waited.
Nothing else happened.
“Sometimes I get the itch to go away. Start again fresh somewhere else, different place, different work. Not that I know anything else. I just like thinking that we could go away, if we wanted.”
We, he had said. Did he mean the twins? Take the twins from her? She wouldn’t let that happen, but she didn’t want to go anywhere. Naomi held her terror in, balling it up inside a fist in her lap. When they’d first gotten here, all she had wanted was to go home to San Antonio. Now she had a home. Not here, not in Henry’s house, but in the woods with Wash, with the twins. It had never occurred to her that Henry might want to move—or that he could make them.
“The twins are so happy here,” she said.
Henry took a bite, chewed. “I saw a man on fire today,” he said. He spoke low, but Naomi heard the catch in his voice. “Fire is the worst thing about the oil field; a well fire’s just hell. This fella, he ran out of the flames toward us. Didn’t have the sense to drop and roll even when we were shouting for him to. Must have been scared. His eyes were a spot of white in the flames. He was covered in oil. Burned like a torch. By the time we got to him, he was black from the burning.”
Naomi shuddered.
Henry went on. “Every time I see something like that ... a man falls from a rig, there’s a well fire, guy drowns in a tank, I imagine it’s me.” He looked up at her. “But it’s never me. I’m just there, close by. It’s a risky business, but ... seems like I seen a lot of that.”
Naomi opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She closed it again.
“You think a person can be bad luck?” he asked.
“I—I—” Naomi scrambled for something safe. “I thought finding religion meant a body quit worrying about luck.”
Henry sighed and twisted his napkin. “Pastor Tom’s told me as much, but he doesn’t know ... he doesn’t know everything.”
Naomi swallowed. So many things Pasto
r Tom would never know.
She was casting about for something to say when Henry excused himself to use the bathroom.
HENRY Destruction dogged Henry. He was the only one in his immediate family to survive a tornado on the Kansas plains. Ever since, the sound of a train up close filled him with dread and called back the day of the tornado. Afterwards he’d been sent to live with relatives in Topeka. That ended with a fire in the barn that spread to the house. He spent a year with foster parents in Archer City, but when three-quarters of the family’s cattle died off, they sent him back to the boys’ home.
The oil field was his escape. It was a transitory life, so nobody knew him. The commonness of his name was a consolation, too; there were three Henry Smiths in any given oil field of reasonable size. He took solace in the fact that others, if they ever heard of the wretched accidents, might well assume that it was some other Henry Smith standing by when disaster struck.
But Henry knew.
NAOMI Naomi glanced back at the clock on the wall. Half past ten. Henry’s plate was only half-eaten. She hoped he didn’t expect her to sit with him much longer. She thought about going to bed before he came out of the bathroom. One night without cleaning her teeth wouldn’t be the end of the world. But with the dress and the radio, she didn’t want to risk angering him. Not tonight.
While she washed the other dishes in the sink, she looked out the window. There was nothing to see but wintery darkness. The lights were off at Muff and Bud’s, and low clouds covered the strip of sky between the houses.
She stared at her own reflection, at the ridiculous pile of hair on top of her head. With a little sense she could have avoided this whole evening, kept their life in Henry’s house as predictable and safe as her simple braid. She yanked the pins out of her hair as fast as she could and was pulling the last ones out when she heard the bathroom door open.
She slipped the pins into the pocket of her apron and started to smooth her hair so she could put it back into a braid.
She wasn’t quick enough. Henry was back in the kitchen, and so she released her hair and shoved her hands back into the dishwater. She did not turn to look at him but waited for the sound of him sitting back down to his dinner.
A moment later he was behind her. Naomi’s whole body stiffened. A rough hand gathered her hair and pushed it to one side. His face nuzzled her neck. He smelled of grease and dirt, liquor and cigarettes. She caught a whiff of cheap perfume. She tried to wriggle free, but his arms circled her waist and tightened like an iron band around her rib cage.
“Stell, baby,” he whispered. “Let’s dance.” A thumb slid up the side of her breast.
“Stop it!” Naomi hissed. She was afraid to raise her voice for fear of waking the twins.
“Christ, I’ve missed this,” Henry murmured. “It’s been so long.” He slotted one of his legs between hers and pressed himself in closer. She closed her eyes tight and thought of her tree, thought of Wash, thought of the river. She prayed that when she opened her eyes, she would be there.
It didn’t work.
“Stell—”
“I’m Naomi!” she said, wrenching herself around to face him. She was still locked in his arms, and now his face was inches from hers. She felt the hardness of him against her hip, and the sour-sweet smell of whiskey filled her nostrils as he breathed onto her face.
“Stop it!” she said, leaning back as far as she could. She felt her hair fall into the dishwater, but she did not care, only wanted to be away from him.
“Come on, now,” he said, pressing his hips against her.
She worked an elbow up and jabbed it into his chest.
Henry laughed. “Oh, honey, go on and be mad, that makes you look even more like your ma. She liked to pretend to fight, too.”
“So you know who I am, then. Behave yourself for heaven’s sake!”
“You like playin’ mama, don’t you? I can help you play all night if you want.” He grinned at her as if none of her resistance had registered. “God, I’d like to give it to you just like this—” He lowered his hands to her bottom and rubbed himself against her.
“That’s enough, Henry!” Naomi gave him a shove, but he didn’t budge.
His smile widened. “Say it again.”
“What?” she snapped.
“Call me Henry.”
“Let me go!”
“All right, just say it again and I’ll let you go.”
“Henry,” she spat.
He closed his eyes and released her. She moved away from him fast, shuddering, but he seemed not to notice or maybe was too drunk to notice.
“Don’t do that again,” she whispered. “Promise you won’t.”
“All right,” he said, “okay.” But already his chin had slipped toward his neck, and she was not sure how aware he was of anything.
“Baby,” he murmured, sliding down to the floor. “I’ve missed you.” He rested his head against the kitchen cabinet.
Naomi refused to feel sorry for him. She backed out of the room and rushed into the bedroom she shared with the twins.
NAOMI Naomi lay tense and wakeful beside a sleeping Cari. If she turned her head to the left, she could still smell Henry’s sweat on her shoulder. She wanted to wash but didn’t dare go to the bathroom for fear he’d follow her in.
Sometime during the night, she heard Henry stumble from the kitchen into the hall. She got up and sat with her back against the bedroom door, Abuelito’s old rusted letter opener clenched in her hand. A threat was better than nothing.
After a while, she heard Henry snoring. She crept to the bathroom, locked the door, and undressed. She scrubbed everywhere he had touched her. She wet her comb and pulled it through her hair again and again before braiding it tightly.
She could only think: not again. Not again. She was not her mother. She was not the child she had been when Henry had first tried to use her in that way. She was herself and grown, and yet this was no protection. It meant only that the hurt he intended for her would be different from the other hurts. Her stomach churned. No matter what Henry said tomorrow, there was no making it right.
She went out onto the porch. Despite the cold, there was a familiar heat in her armpits and between her thighs. Maybe fear and desire ran along the same tracks in her body, but she refused to confuse Wash’s giving with Henry’s taking. She pressed her face into her knees. She wanted to run to the river to be inside the tree. To be where Wash had been. To return to the safety of their belonging to each other. But she could not leave the twins alone with Henry.
She worked her fingers against her temples. She ought to be figuring on a way for the three of them to get away. She went back into the house and checked the sock where she hid the money she saved from what Henry gave her. She’d spent too much at Christmas, she knew, especially now that he did not let her buy the groceries. She had eleven dollars left, not enough for train tickets to San Antonio. Anyway, leaving New London would mean leaving Wash. The thought of that punched through her every idea of happiness. She could not think of it being otherwise.
Around five it occurred to her to do something, so she sewed. She sat at the kitchen table and stitched her hurt into tiny perfect seams that bound a bit of lace edging to the smock and bloomers for Muff’s coming baby. The blue cloth Muff had chosen was so pale it looked white.
From the edge of the camp, a rooster gave a few halfhearted crows. Naomi checked the clock. It was half past six, but the winter morning was still dark.
Naomi started a moment later when there was a knock at the back door. She opened it a crack to see Pastor Tom standing on the porch, his Bible pressed against the front of his coat.
“Hello, Naomi. Sorry for the early visit. I need to see Henry,” he said. His expression was grave, and it seemed to her that he was searching her face for information.
She wondered what he saw, what secrets he was able to peel away from her. She imagined the wood planks of the kitchen floor splitting open so she could escape that
stare.
“He’s asleep, Pastor.” She still held her sewing and fingered the seams she’d just sewn.
At least Henry was no longer on the kitchen floor. That would be harder to explain. But she wasn’t going to explain anything to Pastor Tom or anyone. To talk about the night before was impossible.
“It’s important,” Pastor Tom said.
“It’s just ... I’d have to wake him...” Naomi shrugged, hoping Pastor Tom would let it alone.
Pastor Tom tugged at his beard and shook his head. “I’ll wake him. If I may come in.”
She stepped back to let him pass. “Coffee?”
“Please,” he answered. He handed her his hat and coat. “From what I heard from Bud, Henry’s going to need it.”
A few minutes later, Pastor Tom marched a groggy, squinting Henry out onto the porch. Snatches of the sermon drifted in to her.
“You’re part of my flock, Henry. You think word doesn’t get around? That bar is a den of drinkers and fornicators!”
“It was only a little dancing, Pastor—”
“Dancing! An invitation to the devil. The Lord sees all, brother. He sees all.”
“There was a well fire yesterday. Did you know that? A man roasted to death. Another one burned bad. Hell with the lid off, that’s what it was. I had to get that out of my head.”
“Prayer, Henry, prayer! Have you forgotten the power housed in the dwelling place of the Lord? Have you forgotten the darkness the Lord brought you out of? Have some faith, man. You’re not the first one to see hurt and loss.”
“Sure, but—”
“That dead man is a reminder! We cannot delay in putting things right with our Savior. We have to choose a path of righteousness. Do you hear, Henry? You’re a new man in the Lord!”
Out of Darkness (Fiction - Young Adult) Page 17
