by Mesha Maren
“Hey,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I called you paranoid. I’m glad you care so much about my boys.”
Jodi bent down to Miranda’s neck and smelled the turning-apple scent of her sweat but she could not stop thinking of Rosalba, so close there in the next room, and her connection to Dennis and his judgments. Since Rosalba had arrived, they had not had sex once.
Miranda pulled her nightgown off over her head until the whole glowing paleness of her was naked there in the wet room, the air around her colored by the watery weight of the blue tarp. The rain roared, battering the trees outside and against the white cloth of the windows where dark leaves spattered and stuck. Miranda set a chair in front of the door and bent over it, pulling Jodi close, and though she obliged her, Jodi’s mind stumbled forward out of the moment. Even with Miranda’s perfect skin right there under her hands, she felt herself drawing away, looking back as if remembering this. She had managed, for a little while, to ignore the tenuousness of the land and the boys’ custody but now that she was tangled in with Dennis and all his problems she could feel the instability in the very air around them, the fragility of this life they were trying to build.
She lifted her gaze up to the swaying tarp where water gathered and began to spill, perfectly, as if poured from a pitcher, down onto Ricky’s papers and books.
She left Miranda on the chair and rushed to the corner, pulling the papers up into her arms, Ricky’s folder of clippings, the faded squares so thin and soft: Cardona, Nev.: Ten-year-old Naomi Gibbs, sole survivor of a trailer park fire that killed her entire family . . . Three-month-old baby found alive amid rubble, the sole surviving member of family killed by Tuscaloosa tornado . . . Bismarck, S.D.: Six-year-old brother kills four-year-old sister in shotgun accident . . . Waukeegan, Ill.: Dr. Lemuel Luther killed by 11-year-old son who claims his father “let the ghost in again.”
From among the little clippings a larger square of folded newsprint fell. It drifted down to Jodi’s feet. dulett tragedy under investigation, the headline read, and below it was a schoolbook-style photo of a tiny wide-eyed boy and the caption Patrick Dulett, six, accused by his father of murder.
“What’s that?”
Jodi turned to see Miranda standing behind her, still naked.
“Ricky’s clippings.” She tried to keep her voice steady and emotionless but her heart was beating high in her throat and her hand shook as she folded the paper.
“Oh,” Miranda said. “You don’t think I’m sexy anymore?”
“What?” Jodi felt her mind skid sideways. The newspaper clipping was fairly pulsing in her hand. She stepped toward Miranda, trying to make eye contact. “Jesus, Miranda, look at me. I’m overwhelmed. Okay? We gotta get this roof fixed now and—”
Miranda tucked her tangled hair behind one ear and looked up. “You like the way I painted it?”
Jodi leaned in and kissed her. “Put on some clothes, we gotta make breakfast,” she said, and when Miranda turned away she looked once more at the Dulett tragedy headline and then tucked it into her back pocket.
May 1989
Jodi wakes in the night to the rhythms of Paula’s body convulsing beside her under the thin sheets. Her shoulders shudder but when Jodi bends over her Paula’s face is dry. It is something deeper than weeping.
Jodi presses her palm into the middle of Paula’s back and feels the heat trapped there under the trembling skin. She imagines she can lift away the pain, draw it out like a stain, and the thought of this makes her feel solid and necessary.
“Please, don’t touch me,” Paula says.
Jodi removes her hand.
“We have to go for Ricky.” Paula struggles to stand, the sheet tangling around her legs and the mattress springing up as her weight lifts from it. “We have to go get him. Now.”
Jodi watches Paula gather their things—a red T-shirt, purple panties—and stuff them into their carpetbag. When she turns on the light, a thudding sound begins at the window, a small, steady beating. Jodi slides off the bed and steps closer, squinting into the red eyes of a moth the size of her hand with dusty yellow orbs on each wing. It clings and shakes itself against the metal screen over and over again, desperate to reach the light.
Paula moves quickly down the hall and into the hotel lobby, tossing the keys onto the counter. There is no desk clerk in sight.
Off to the south the carpet of lights of some not-so-distant city shine faintly. They drive past the slick blackness of the night sea, oil derricks, and shrimp boats sheering up into view and then disappearing. Jodi watches Paula with a fresh intensity, aching with the thirst to touch her, to transfer some of the pain.
She passes out eventually and wakes to a sudden spray of car headlights that illuminate Paula’s face. She drifts back into dreams then and when she opens her eyes again the car is not moving. Paula sleeps with her forehead against the steering wheel. They are stopped in an enormous parking lot, the highway overpass pulsing up above, thickening now with traffic as the sun begins to rise.
They eat breakfast at a place called the Yellow Bird Diner and Jodi watches Paula over her plate of scrambled eggs, trying to figure the direction of her thoughts from her face. Paula has not spoken of Ricky since waking and her movements are languid, all the frantic panic of the night before now faded.
Back on the interstate Paula points the car south and Jodi’s words tumble out unbridled.
“Aren’t we going to get Ricky?”
Paula does not unfasten her gaze from the horizon.
Jodi turns to her. A silent distance yawns open between them and it guts her, the fact that she can feel this lonely with Paula there, only a few feet away.
“We’re not ready,” Paula says. “You don’t know him, Jodi, you can’t see how it is.”
She grips the steering wheel and the muscles of her shoulders tense and then release.
August 2007
Jodi was wet with rain before she’d even left the yard but the air outside was good and clean, and walking was all she felt she could do right now, just walk and walk and keep on walking with Ricky’s newspaper clippings in her hand.
She’d kept them in her back pocket while she made the fire and prepared breakfast, questions fuzzing up her brain so she couldn’t quite look at Ricky. She’d excused herself after the meal, and out in the woodshed she’d unfolded the paper.
DULETT TRAGEDY UNDER INVESTIGATION
May 25, 1985
Local 911 operators responded to a call last Saturday evening from Ms. Paula Dulett of North Chaunceloraine, who reported that her infant son was dead and her younger brother in severe condition. Upon arriving at the house, police and paramedics found Ms. Paula Dulett, 21, with her infant son Jamie Vaughn Dulett, her brother Patrick (“Ricky”) Dulett, six, and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Dylan Dulett. The infant was pronounced dead at the scene, and Ricky Dulett, who appeared to be suffering from head trauma, was transported to the Deauvont Regional Children’s Hospital in White Cane.
In her report to the police, Ms. Dulett stated that around 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon she and her mother had left the children, Jamie and Ricky, in the care of Mr. Dulett while they went to the grocery store. Upon returning, Ms. Dulett said that she heard screams coming from the backyard and found Ricky lying on the ground and bleeding from his ears and mouth. Mr. Dulett, who was present with Ricky in the yard, told Ms. Dulett that “the little bastard killed your son and then jumped from a second-story window.” Inside the residence, Ms. Dulett found Jamie Vaughn on the floor beside his overturned bassinet. The infant had no pulse and was not breathing.
Mr. Dulett, in his statement to the police, explained that he had been out in the garden for “a good hour” and when he came inside he found that “Ricky had killed the baby.” When pressed for details Mr. Dulett said that he found the bassinet turned over and Ricky beside Jamie Vaughn, who lay lifeless on the floor. Mr. Dulett stated that when he approached Ricky, the boy ran, and when he chased him upstairs, Ricky jumped from a back bedroom window.
Dylan, Anna, and Paula Dulett were all initially held in police custody but Ms. Paula Dulett has been moved to the state psychiatric hospital and Dylan and Anna have been released on bail.
And folded behind that report there was a second article.
DULETT CASE UPDATE
June 10, 1985
Police investigation into the death of infant Jamie Vaughn Dulett has come to a close. Sheriff James Dulett, at a press conference in Chaunceloraine yesterday, stated that after thorough investigation it became apparent to him and his men that the death of the infant boy was an accident.
The sole apparent witness to the death, Patrick (“Ricky”) Dulett, the six-year-old uncle of the infant, remains in critical condition in the trauma ward of the Deauvont Regional Children’s Hospital. According to Sheriff Dulett, “Whatever the little boy did that caused that baby’s death we may never know but a six-year-old child cannot be held responsible nor legally punished for such an accident.”
Ms. Paula Dulett is currently undergoing treatment at the state psychiatric hospital and charges against Dylan and Anna Dulett have been dropped.
Jodi looked up at the trees as she walked, moving her feet in no particular direction, just away—away from the voices jabbering in the cabin, away from Ricky whom she could not face right now.
All around her the limbs of the oaks bucked under the weight of the rain, and the once-gray trunks of locusts glistened with green lichen. She walked and the words shuddered through her: infant son . . . the little bastard killed your son . . . bleeding from his ears and mouth. She felt the words breaking apart and moving inside her like shards of ice. State psychiatric hospital . . . critical condition. They crashed over her head and threatened to drown her with their enormity, this shadow she had seen on both Paula and Ricky but never understood. She wanted to hug Ricky to her but almost equally as much she wanted to never have to see him ever again. She found it impossible to convince herself he could have killed that baby, though it would explain the way that Dylan treated him.
In her hand she could feel the crinkled newsprint and it sickened her, this proof of all that she had not known. She had to recalibrate everything: that memory of little Ricky up in the oak tree and all that Paula had ever said about him. You don’t know him, Jodi, you can’t see how it is. She thought of the mountains back at Jaxton, those green swells that she had never even known existed until her last day. She’d taken that flat sky over the exercise yard to be everything but she’d known so little.
A spike of anger tongued its way up between her ribs and she crumpled the papers. Fuck you, Paula, fuck you. How could someone carve their way into you and yet give you so little? She remembered those first few weeks with Paula, their buzzed days of driving and talking. Talking and talking until their words ran all together, but what had she really known of Paula? Not enough, Frances would have said. Love is a give and take. But who the hell made Frances the authority on love anyway?
Jodi felt Paula’s absence now more strongly than she had in years. I need you here, she thought. I need to ask you things. The more she thought about the articles, the more her mind twisted, and over and over again she came back to the name in the second clipping, Sheriff James Dulett. Brother to Dylan? Uncle? Cousin?
She stopped at the base of a black oak and sat down, her back against the riven bark. She opened her fist and stared at the newsprint squares, damp now. She wanted to bury them here in the leaves but surely Ricky would notice that they were missing, and anyhow, they weren’t really hers to keep or destroy. She folded them over carefully and tucked them into the pocket of her flannel shirt and as she sat there she felt a shiver move through her, a dark rush that was not entirely fear and not entirely sadness.
June 1989
The fields spread out on either side, tangles of vines limp in the clouded moonlight, and among them Jodi sees the globes of ripe melons. She hadn’t noticed them on the drive in and now she wonders how she could have missed them, so full under those green skins.
“Soon,” Paula says, “soon.”
She repeats the word like a magic pass code, a special, perfect phrase. She has been repeating it since they fled, since they left Ricky singing “Far through the Heart” in that grease-splattered kitchen.
Jodi turns in her seat and looks back the way they came. The house is still visible, a tiny patch of light across the field, but it seems different now. It looks warm, the yellow porch lamp fogging out soft into the night. It looks like any house on any road, not like the place that turned Paula so weak and ugly.
“We could have just taken him,” Jodi says.
She wants Paula to argue, wants Paula to spit and swear and have some good reason for the way that she is acting, but all she says is soon, Ricky needs more than they can provide for him right now but they’ll come back soon, and as she talks Jodi sees her again the way she saw her back there, standing on the porch with Dylan’s fingers in her hair. His hands—those same hands that tied Ricky to that chair—moved on Paula’s bare arms and she was gone, her face blank. She hadn’t spoken a word about taking Ricky, hadn’t hardly said anything the whole night, just chased peas around her plate while Ricky’s wrists bled and on the radio Chuck Swindoll preached of heathens and end times.
“We’ll come back,” Paula says again, and then a silence settles in, sucking up all the air.
Jodi reaches under the seat and pulls out her purse with the pistol in it. The gun glints in the dashboard light and she runs her finger along the barrel, thinking of Ricky with his bird in the oak tree. She always comes back to me.
“What are you doing with that?” Paula says.
Jodi smiles. All evening, through dinner and the rest of it, she’d kept thinking of the warmth of the pistol in her hand and the way it had focused those men in Tampico and made her strength visible to them. She ought to have had it there with them in Anna and Dylan’s house, she thought, but Paula had forbidden it. Now, though, she realizes that she ought to have just told Ricky to go out and wait in the car and dared Dylan to do anything.
They drive through the night and Jodi sleeps eventually. She dreams of melons and babies and the pure trust in Ricky’s eyes. She dreams and wakes with Paula’s hand up her skirt and in the haze of the dashboard lights Paula’s face is distant again, vacant.
August 2007
Out in the pasture the creek had sprung its banks and blended in with another stream. Jodi stood, brushed the oak leaves from her pants, and walked along beside the water, off toward the Phillips family cemetery and then on past the edge of Effie’s land and down the mountain to where the trees changed, wax-green rhododendrons clogging the undergrowth. Over the rhythm of the rain there came a louder sound, a grinding of motors and chank of clattering chains, and then there, at the edge of a steep bank, the forest stopped and trees were tipped over sideways to make room for a tire-scarred road.
Jodi followed the mud lane toward the sound of drill blasts and coming out from around a curve she was met by the tall outline of the fracking tower. The structure was set on a flattened patch of land, a raw, muddy mess surrounded by seven trailers. Fire whipped out from the metal bars like a flag, oily smoke pillowing around the frame.
She left the road and climbed up the bank, ducked behind a laurel bush and peered down at the scraped ground and the line of trucks moving from the well to the road. This quick, she thought, feeling the drill rhythm in the earth beneath her feet. It could all change this quick. First Jessup’s orchard, then what next? She should call the lawyer to see if he had talked to that antifracking group about buying Effie’s land. Anything was better than her woods being scalped and singed like this.
“That flare’s illegal.”
Jodi flinched and turned to see a man, right there, not more than ten feet behind her. He had thin white hair and stood with his hands shoved into the pockets of his camouflage coat, lips clenched around a hand-rolled smoke.
“They ought to be fined over five hundred thousand dollars. Been fla
ring that thing for more than eighty-six days.”
Jodi looked back toward the spout of flame.
“You’re staying over at Ephigenia Phillips’s place,” the man said. His voice was gravelly and when he pulled his hand out of his pocket to relight his cigarette Jodi noticed he was missing his right pinky and ring finger.
She glanced at his face and tried to discern threat or question. In the brush behind him a blue-gray dog hunkered, eyes steady on Jodi.
“You kin?” the man asked.
Jodi nodded.
“Need to get you a roof over that back room. A piece of plywood, at least. You got kids staying there.”
Jodi looked up at his face again. “You’ve been watching us?”
The old man squinted and spat. “Been watching the land,” he said. “Been watching it lay fallow for near about twenty years now.”
He turned then and when his coat swung open Jodi saw the butt of a handgun tucked up inside. She felt her blood pulsing in her veins and she steadied herself against a tree as he walked away.
When he was gone she followed his footprints to a well-worn path that snaked along back up the mountain. She searched for a shack or trailer the old man might be living in but saw nothing but a deer stand tacked up in a black walnut tree.
By the time she got home the rain had stopped and a mist rose from the yard where Donnie stood, naked from the waist down, aiming his stream of pee at the grass near Kaleb’s feet. Kaleb sat on the bottom porch step with his face in his hands. When Donnie saw Jodi, he let go of his penis and a trail of piss dribbled down past his knee.
“We found a dog,” he said.
“What’s that?” Jodi came toward him, scanning the yard and porch for Ricky.
“And we named her Butter!” Donnie smiled and grabbed his penis again, gripping the foreskin between his thumb and finger and stretching it delicately.
“But Mama won’t let us bring her home.” Kaleb lifted his head and Jodi saw that his face was smeared with tears.
