This act of pulling out the tins used to feel sacred, or at least special. Today Jodie lines them up on the counter while fighting panic. She has called Rita twice, and no one answered. Unless Rita is hitching rides with Amos or someone else, she’s got to be home. Her refusal to pick up the phone can mean only one thing: she has discovered the note.
Or it could mean that she’s too sick to come to the phone.
The logical thing would be to have Mack run over and check on her. But if the note is the problem, that could bring disaster. Jodie would go over there herself, but she hasn’t the strength to deal with Rita’s wrath, which is the worst kind: courteous and full of a martyr’s sorrow. Jodie will wait another ten minutes. It’s possible that Rita was simply indisposed before, maybe in the shower or just waking up.
She washes the tins and sets them around the warm kitchen to dry. She will fill them with store-bought food and whatever Rita has been creating on her own. The clock indicates that the ten minutes of waiting is almost up. Jodie stares out the window above the sink. The fields are one continuous color, or a clay-induced noncolor. The wind is too cold. The sky rests on her life too heavily. She would give anything for today to be January 2.
To make matters worse, Mack is working harder than ever to entice the Christmas spirit from everyone. He has trekked to the woods and pastures three times already, gathering boughs off pines, cedars, and spruces. He has made wreaths for both doors and strung the rest around doorways and windows. Even Young Taylor is rooting through dilapidated boxes of decorations for the right bell or angel figurine to set in the middle of his dad’s creations. It has been odd to watch the two of them, bent over a crippled wing or missing hook, barely speaking but apparently enjoying the process. This is a nice change. Now that Mack is busy concocting Christmas, he isn’t so frantic to become useful in any other way.
Last night, unexpectedly, they made love.
She isn’t sure which event has caused the most shock to her system, Terry’s note landing at Rita’s, or Mack’s embracing her in the dark of their room. It happened innocently enough. She noticed him ratcheting his arm around as though to undo a kink. She gave him a deep massage in those muscles. He’s always coming in at the end of the day with something aching. Rubbing away his minor pains has been part of Jodie’s routine for years.
So she did what needed doing, and he thanked her and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. She was settled in bed when he got there. She raised her face enough to receive the light good-night kiss, as customary as the massage. Mack kissed her on the cheek, and then took hold of her face and kissed her mouth. Then he lay over her gently, allowing their faces to linger together.
She wanted to stop, feeling, strangely enough, unfaithful. Just two days before she had made love to Terry forty miles away. It had been good, so good that she had found it even easier than before to ignore her guilt. This was costing her husband nothing, after all. He didn’t touch her anymore. He would never know. He wouldn’t be hurt.
But now, the hands that found the nape of her neck, then her breasts, then her tummy—these were her husband’s hands. And possibly because her body had come awake in recent weeks, every touch resonated down to her deepest point of sex. Maybe Mack hadn’t touched her in a long time, but he had touched her for years before that, and she’d forgotten how well he knew her specific geography. As he stroked her inner thighs and filled her mouth with his own taste, she lost all sense. The sound in her ears was of her own heart crashing.
When he moved over her, grasping both of her hands in his, she knew that she would let everything happen. It broke her heart to see the joy in Mack’s face as he entered her and stayed for some time before climaxing. A few moments later he helped her come too; he really hadn’t forgotten a thing.
Then he went to sleep, and she didn’t shut her eyes for the rest of the night.
Tomorrow Marty and David and Sharon arrive from Omaha. All of them will gather in this house and do their best to have a holiday. Jodie and Marty always got along well; it has cost Jodie more than she will think about to have her former sister-in-law and her niece and nephew so far away and out of touch. But to have them here at this particular time…she fears Marty’s intuition. She fears having Rita here, full of knowledge she won’t dare voice but that will color her every comment anyway. Christmas is a disaster waiting to happen, like thunderheads out of which ominous tails are beginning to form, tornadoes ready to hit earth.
Mack’s boots sound on the back steps. He is returning from his walk to the end of the drive to retrieve the newspaper from its box. As he walks in, bringing the smell of cold with him, the phone rings. Jodie grabs it. “Hello?”
“Hello.” Rita’s voice is raspy from her cough.
“Mom, I was just about to call you.”
She hears Rita struggling to clear her throat. “Did you call before?”
Jodie can’t tell anything from the tone of Rita’s voice. She decides to take the cowardly way out and just pretend that everything is normal. There’s a thin chance that Rita was too worn out to look through all the mail. Or if she did run across the note with no name on it, she may have assumed it was Jodie’s and not opened it.
“Yes, I called a couple of times this morning.”
“It’s the cold medicine—really knocks me out.” A silence follows. Jodie pushes forward.
“I’ll be over in a while, to run whatever errands you need.”
“I don’t need anything.” The voice is distant.
“Well, there might be something. I’ll stop by.”
“I have something of yours.”
Mack is sitting at the table, coffee in hand and newspaper spread in front of him. Jodie tries to breathe normally. “I think there was an envelope in my purse that got mixed up with your mail.”
“Yes, I think so.”
Jodie closes her eyes, recognizing the glaze of cold anger in the voice on the phone. “I don’t think my name was on it.”
“No, but it was inside.”
God, just destroy me now. “I’ll come over and get it.” Her own voice is flat to her ears. She hopes she doesn’t sound afraid.
“I’d rather you send Mack today.”
Jodie struggles to put an answer together, one that will prevent all the wrong things from happening. Rita continues.
“I’ll hold the note for you.”
“I’ll get it later then.”
“I don’t want to upset Mack.”
She is saying that she won’t tell him, and Jodie almost says, “Thank you,” but instead replies, “He’ll be over in a bit.”
The phone goes dead at the other end. Mack looks at her as she hangs up.
“That Mom?”
“Yeah.”
“She all right?”
“Sure.”
“I’d better not dilly-dally over the paper then. Don’t want to keep her plans hanging in the balance.” He smiles and turns a page. Jodie turns away and finds some items to put into the sink. She looks at the Christmas tins and wants to scream. Merry Christmas to each of us. To husband and to lover, to children who instinctively worry about what they don’t yet know, to mother-in-law who might just die rather than deal with this new catastrophe. To Jodie Barnes, adulteress and humbug, who hates Christmas but somehow loves two men.
Rita
At least her pneumonia has eased up. Marty, David, and Sharon are out at the farm, and tomorrow is Christmas Day. Rita has a pie in the oven and chicken and noodles on the stove. The celebration begins this evening, and she’s got fudge cooling. She roams from one room to another, checking the grocery sacks that have Christmas gifts in them, making sure the nametags are on each one. There are a lot of small gifts, items she’s picked up at sales throughout the year. No big gifts for anyone, but no one expects that. All the grandkids are old enough now to appreciate some money in a card. Of course, she’s found them other things besides. It’s just not Christmas without presents to unwrap, even if all that’s insid
e is a new pair of socks.
As if she could really celebrate anyway. In the kitchen drawer where she keeps her bills, underneath her checkbook, is Jodie’s note. Jodie has not been out to get it, and Rita has been too busy cooking and wrapping to have someone drive her out to the farm. She can’t take the note with her, knowing that Mack is there. The whole mess is just so awkward and painful. She’s managed not to speak with Jodie since the other morning when they first discussed it on the phone.
She has read it twice. Once, when she didn’t know what it was. After the meaning sank in, she read it another time, carefully. Truth be told, she took it out a day later and read it again. Written on school stationery, it was more romantic than sexual, but a person could not mistake its meaning. Every morning since, Rita has awakened feeling sick to her stomach. She has watched Mack and Jodie fuss and fight over the years, but she always trusted that they’d make up and keep going. Both of them were steady people, at least until Mack’s illness got the best of him. But even then, he stayed committed to his family. Rita’s not convinced he would have gone into the hospital at all if it hadn’t been for that. He really did not care about his own life back then. Watching him stumble through his days had been like observing an infant born without an immune system. You didn’t know when, but you were sure that sooner or later some malady would overcome the child and there would be no fighting it.
But Mack rallied because he had a wife and children. That was born into him. And Jodie just got stronger and kept them all afloat. It doesn’t make sense that, after all they’ve weathered, she would get weak now.
This is what Rita tells herself, because it is the logical argument. But underneath that is another logic altogether. A woman gets tired, sometimes so tired that her very character crumbles under the weight. Rita has seen this happen; she remembers her own fatigue during the years when both sons were newly married and siring children and her responsibilities had grown to embrace not one but three families at the very time when she and Taylor could barely hold on to their own farm. She tries not to remember those unbearable afternoons when the quiet of her kitchen would surround her while the worries multiplied in her head. She tries to push that knowledge away now, but instead she sits on the sofa, surrounded by Christmas goodies and gifts, and remembers the women of her town.
She has known a few who carried their unhappiness like a tradition they couldn’t part with. Rita decided long ago that such women would be unhappy no matter what the situation or who they were married to. But others were given burdens they could not bear: husbands who drank or beat them or simply dismissed them and defiled the marriage bed again and again. Rita figures that this is true in any place, but in Beulah the secrets have never stayed secrets. How often she had wished (though she could never bring herself to pray it) that the husband of her good friend Teresa would meet his end early. It was clear to everyone that Ted Hallowell was simply mean. When he finally did die, they all traipsed by his casket to be respectful of the dead and especially of Teresa. But the relief in her living room after the service was palpable. Teresa burst out of prison that day and hasn’t stopped to catch her breath since.
Sarah James lived with her husband for forty years and had two lovers at different times. John never knew of it. And even the most righteous churchgoers stopped short of all-out condemnation. Sarah had married young because she was of age and John was there. The families had been friends and neighbors for two generations. And Sarah’s father had two younger daughters to marry off as well; he would not have a grown daughter at home when she could be setting up her own household. Possibly this was why the blame people held for her did not run completely deep and true. Rather than feel sorry for herself and turn into a lump by middle age, Sarah made a life she could endure, even enjoy.
None of that matters now. Jodie is family, and she has injured the family, and Rita is so angry at her that she is afraid to be in the same room with her. And Jodie is her daughter; in every way she has loved and cared for Rita as much as a daughter would have. She is the mother of Young Taylor and Kenzie. She has become blood kin, and the thought of losing her sends streaks of panic through Rita’s soul. She does not know what to do with all of this commotion inside her.
So she gets up from the couch and checks on the pies, stirs the pot of noodles. As the homemade strips of egg dough swirl in the fresh chicken broth, Rita makes a decision. She will put off dealing with this crisis over the next two days. Marty and the kids are here, the first gathering of this sort in nearly three years. Mack is doing better, and Rita is still trying to stay out of the hospital. That’s a full enough plate. She will be civil to Jodie, and this adultery topic will not come up until after the holiday.
She goes to the kitchen table and writes this new request on her list of prayers: “Help Jodie and me to get through the holiday without any upset.”
In a few hours, Mack comes to pick her up in the truck. He has loaded a heavy cooler into the truck bed, and in this he carefully places the pot of noodles and the pie. The sacks of presents and an additional sack of holiday cookies and candies get shoved up against the back of the truck cab, where they won’t slide around. His grasp feels strong as he helps Rita step up into the cab.
“How’s everything going out there?” she asks. Her son looks happy.
“Fine. They got here about an hour ago. Sharon is so tall I hardly recognized her.”
“It’ll be so good to see the kids.” Rita nears tearfulness but sucks back the lump that’s rising. “How does Marty look?”
“Good. She looks real good. She brought a friend.”
Rita looks at him, and he clarifies. “A guy she’s been dating for a few months. Name’s Joe. Seems like a nice guy.”
Rita stares at the snowy tracks ahead of them. She’s not prepared for this. Her first response is protest. This is a family event, after all.
As if he senses her conflict, Mack adds, “And the kids seem to like him a lot.”
“Really? That’s good.”
“Yeah. I think you’ll like him. I get a good sense off him.”
Rita takes in as full a breath as she can. More adjustments. More changes slapping up against them all.
They walk into a kitchen full of people; Jodie is handing dishes to any pair of hands available, and Marty emerges from the dining room. She comes across the kitchen immediately and throws her arms around Rita.
“Rita, you look so good!” The words come out close to Rita’s ear. Unlike Jodie, Marty never got into the habit of calling Rita “Mom.” But the affection in her voice now is unmistakable. Finally, the grasp loosens, and Rita stands back to look at her former daughter-in-law. Her hair is a different shade, lighter, and she’s put on a bit of weight, which is good, because she was always so thin. She’s wearing a bright holiday sweater and makeup. Just then she is pushed aside, and “little” Sharon comes forward. She is now taller than Rita, and her resemblance to Alex makes Rita draw in a sharp breath.
“Hi, Grandma! Merry Christmas!”
“Hi, Grandma!” David is standing beside his sister. He is two years older and two inches taller, long and lean like Rita’s own sons but bearing the eyes and smile of his mother. Rita hugs and kisses each child in turn, aware that she’s teary-eyed but not worrying about that. The room is so bright that she can hardly bear it—all her family in one place and each person smiling. Young Taylor is dressed normally for once. He comes up and kisses Rita’s cheek, then takes her coat. Kenzie comes by quickly for a hug before returning to help Jodie.
Jodie calls out, “Merry Christmas, Mom,” and glances across the room. Rita makes a point to smile at her and return the greeting.
“Rita, I want you to meet Joe Bernard,” Marty says. A tall man with thinning blond hair and a friendly face comes forward and grasps Rita’s hand.
“Pleasure to meet you.”
Marty continues. “He teaches computer science at the community college where I’ve taken classes.”
So. She met him at
school. Well, that’s not a bad place to meet people. Better than a bar. And he does have a wonderful face—handsome enough but full of other things too. Rita feels better right away. She had feared that she would be angry at seeing another man where her own son used to be. But at this moment it is clear that her son Alex is now part of family history. And this man has stepped in to carry on life. In fact, Rita’s usual holiday blues don’t feel present at all today. Two miles down the road, her husband and son lie under headstones in the rough winter ground. She can hold that thought without feeling its full force for once. It is Christmas, and her remaining children and grandchildren are here, in this house. She is glad that it’s time to eat, because she feels the need to sit down. So much is hitting her senses, inside and out. She dares to identify the beating in her heart as joy.
As they pass dishes and fill the room with conversation, Rita doesn’t say much. She watches each person and does her best to soak it all in. Mack was right: David and Joe trade jokes as if they have been friends for years. They gang up on Sharon, who is quite capable of defending herself. It causes Rita pain to see how healthy Marty is now; she had to get away from Alex and his alcoholism to find life. Years ago, Rita admitted to herself that Alex was tearing his family apart. But it is hard to see the truth of that confirmed in how well his wife and children are doing now, having put distance and death between him and them.
Jodie appears to have made the same resolution as Rita. She acts as if nothing horrendous has happened and talks with Rita the same as always. She and Mack relate easily today, maybe because the holiday and the houseguests have absorbed their attention. But Rita imagines that Mack looks across the table at his wife with true affection. She imagines that Jodie pats his back as she walks by on her way to the kitchen.
Vinita Hampton Wright Page 26
