Yellowcake

by Ann Cummins

  That was all. He didn't climb the rock to hit Delmar, which was what Delmar expected. But the next day Sam started shaking, and the truck stuttered out of the campground because Sam couldn't keep his foot steady on the gas pedal.

  Delmar is not proud of the little shit he used to be. He can't remember now why he was so mad at his father and wanted to break the bottle. He used to get so mad he thought he would explode. His mother says he's like Sam, but he doesn't see it. He has never, in his whole life, seen his father angry.

  "Wasn't very much, I'll give you that, but I sent money. Every couple of weeks."

  "Time to eat," Delmar says. "You want a Coke?" He gets two from the refrigerator.

  "As much as I could send." Sam stubs his cigarette out, leaving the ashtray on the counter, and sits down to the potatoes. "They look good. You know, I came into some money recently. You need some?" He digs in his pocket and pulls out a folded wad of hundred-dollar bills.

  "Wow."

  "How much you need? Couple hundred? How about five? We'll start you out with five. You need more, there's more where that came from." He peels off five crisp bills and hands them to Delmar.

  "Thanks. Did you rob a bank?"

  "Nope. I inherited it."

  "Wow." Delmar puts the bills in his wallet.

  "Maybe next year I could help you with college. You could quit this job, go to school full-time. Would you like that?"

  "Sure." He piles chili on his potatoes and eats. They came out good. Sam eats his one chunk at a time, spearing, chewing, swallowing.

  "Plus I'm going to start getting my Social Security. That might take a while, I don't know how long. The thing is, I paid in to Social Security for years. I tell you, Del, if you don't collect it's like bankrolling the government. They do take Social Security out of your checks?"

  Delmar nods.

  "Well, they shouldn't. It's a scam. But since they do, make sure you're in a position to collect when the time comes. Do you know where your birth certificate is? Because that's what you need—proof that you were born in order to collect the money they take from your check, over which you've got no say—them taking the money." He spears, chews, swallows. "I'll tell you something I bet you don't know about your birth certificate. Where it says 'Father' on the form? You know what she wrote on yours? She wrote 'Unknown.' That's another thing I had no say over. I bet you didn't know that, did you?" Sam stares at him. His father's blue eyes are icy moons on red rims.

  But Delmar did know that. His mother told him she did it because she wasn't eighteen when he was born and she didn't want his father to get in trouble. Delmar doesn't say that. They've had the conversation before. Sam used to bring this up to his mother in his presence. Delmar knows Sam knows the score. Unless he has forgotten. Heavy drinkers get forgetful. Sam seems a little uptight.

  "I'll tell you something else I bet you didn't know," Sam says. "I offered to make you legitimate. Did you know that? That I asked her to marry me? Did she ever tell you that?"

  "Yeah."

  "She did?"

  "Yeah."

  Sam studies him. "Oh?" Delmar heaps on more green chili, scooping up the last of his potatoes. Sam laughs. He puts his fork down and looks out the window. "Guess she's got you trained to keep her secrets, huh?"

  "She doesn't have me trained. She's not the marrying kind. Anyway, she said she wouldn't marry a drinker."

  "Yeah, well," Sam says. He pushes his plate away, nodding. Sam's lips are scarlet but kind of rubbery, like a wino's. He fills his cheeks with air, blowing it out noisily, gazing at Delmar and shaking his head. He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it. He cranes his neck, staring out. "You got a little roadrunner out there."

  "That's my pet." Delmar gets up and carries the plates to the sink. "He comes around every day. He likes apples. You want to feed him?"

  "I got to get going," Sam says, standing up.

  "Where you going?"

  "I don't know. Colorado maybe. Go up, do some fishing."

  Sam walks to the door and out onto the stoop. Delmar follows. The roadrunner has disappeared. He's hiding in the bushes, Delmar knows, waiting until he thinks he's alone.

  Hands stuffed in his pockets, Sam stares off at nothing, looking sad. Delmar says, "You want to stay here? You can. I got a sleeping bag and a pad."

  Sam smiles. "I'll be back this way. I've got a wedding to go to. Why don't you come fishing with me? The trout ought to be fat up there in the high lakes."

  Delmar says he's got to work, plus he can't cross the state line and break parole.

  Sam nods. "Del, you heard from your mom?"

  "Nope."

  "Where is she?"

  "I heard she's down in Texas. She's teaching in these rodeo camps."

  "When do you think she's coming back?"

  "I don't know. Maybe a couple of weeks."

  "She got a boyfriend?"

  The roadrunner peeks out from under the scrub oak, where he thinks he's invisible. Delmar shrugs. "Grandma might know when she's coming back."

  "Ariana? How is she?"

  "Good."

  "Maybe I'll go see her. I could take her some groceries or something. You think I'd be welcome?"

  "Sure."

  "She always liked me, your grandma. Maybe I won't go fishing yet. Maybe I'll go see Ariana first." He crosses to the electric cart. Delmar follows. They left his truck at the gate.

  "I'm glad you came by, Sam. It was good to see you."

  "Good to see you, too, kid. Del, I'm going to be a better dad. I'm going to find a way to help you through college." His voice rises a little. "If I can get my Social Security check, I'm going to have it sent directly to you. We're not going to have any go-be-tweens. When that happens, you think you can call me Dad?"

  Delmar shrugs.

  "You'll try?"

  "Okay."

  Sam sticks his hand out for Delmar to shake. He shakes it.

  30

  THE COFFEE TABLE is upended on the couch. Ryland's footstool and the piano bench have been moved to the kitchen. The carpet, which Rosy just finished vacuuming, bears the imprint of the vacuum wheels. Now the wheels begin colliding with the bedroom wall behind his head, an angry thump, thump, thump. She seems to be vacuuming the wall, not the floor.

  In her efforts to "whip this house into shape," she has been moving him from room to room like a piece of furniture. He started out in the kitchen, but when the grandkids showed up and they all started cleaning the kitchen floor, she advised a retreat to the bedroom. Now he has been shooed out of the bedroom, and he cannot go into the bathroom, where he would like to take a bath, because Sandi is scouring it with a toothbrush.

  The kids arrived just after eight and will be here all day. Sue and Maggie are down at the church. Or at the reception hall. Or up at Edna Friedan's, seeing about the rehearsal dinner. They keep dashing in and out, Sue and Maggie do.

  Teri is sneezing. She sits in the middle of the living room floor, legs apart, red-faced, watery-eyed, sneezing at regular intervals—two, three, four, five, six sneezes.

  "You better not be getting a cold," Rosy hollers, shutting the vacuum off and bustling into the room. "Are you getting a cold?" Teri sneezes.

  Ryland doesn't think she's getting a cold. She's irritated by the dust Pooh is raising with the feather duster. He is irritated by it, too. Dust swirls in the sunlight in this room, gagging him.

  "Want some juice?" Rosy says to Teri. "You're sure Sam didn't say when he's coming back?"

  "He didn't say." Sam's been gone a week now, and each day he doesn't show up, Rosy gets madder.

  She hustles toward the kitchen and comes back carrying a plastic cup with a duck-billed lid, which she hands to Teri.

  "I think we ought to have him arrested," she says for the millionth time.

  "We're not having him arrested."

  "Ryland, it's extortion plain and simple."

  "We ought to hear his side of the story before we go jumping to conclusions."

&
nbsp; He opens Maggie's Bible. She has asked him to choose a Psalm for the ceremony. Rosy returns to the vacuum and begins attacking the wall. Each point of contact sounds like an explosion. He thumbs through the satiny pages.

  She turns the machine off. "What side? He stole five thousand dollars."

  "Who did?" Sandi calls from the bathroom.

  "Never mind," Rosy calls. She comes back into the living room, stands by Ryland's chair, and says quietly, "I don't want him at the wedding."

  "Rose, wait until we hear from him before you start getting on your high horse."

  "If he's at the wedding, I won't be."

  "Don't give me ultimatums."

  "Ryland, this is our only daughter's wedding. He's already spoiled it. He's got me so mad I can't think straight. I don't need this right now. And Lily. My God. Lily does not need this."

  Sandi comes in, her face screwed in a horrible grimace, as if she has been eating soap. "Are you through in there?" Rosy says.

  "The floor is wet. Ugh. I hate cleaning bathrooms."

  "How long's it going to be wet?" Ryland says.

  "I don't know," she wails, as if his question makes everything worse.

  "Don't talk to your grandfather in that tone, Sandra," Rosy says icily.

  "I—don't—know," the child says in a sugary voice that makes him want to smack her.

  "Well, let's inspect." She glares at Ryland as she and Sandi go off. "Oh, honey. You did such a good job."

  "Don't walk on it," Sandi shrieks.

  "It certainly is wet. Honey, get some paper towels and dry it. Your grandpa wants to take a bath."

  Today is Tuesday. Thursday begins it, people arriving from out of town. Eddy will make airport runs, chauffeuring guests to the Holiday Inn. The rehearsal. The rehearsal dinner. Saturday the wedding. Sunday it's over. Sunday is the day Ryland wants.

  Where is Sam? And what in the world is he up to? If he needed money, why didn't he take it when Ryland offered?

  Rosy pulls the vacuum back into the living room, dragging the cord behind. "Bathroom's yours," she says. Ryland stands up and pulls his oxygen cart into the hall. As he passes her, she whispers, "I still think we ought to call the police."

  "We're not calling the police."

  "Somebody ought to do something about getting my sister's money back."

  "I'll get it."

  "If he shows up here."

  "He'll show."

  He stands in the bathroom doorway, looking at Sandi on her hands and knees, a wad of paper towels in both hands. She swashes the floor in wide, exuberant strokes.

  "I think that's good enough," he says. She looks over her shoulder at him, squinting and scowling, then pushes herself up, brushing past him and yelling to Rosy that Grandpa says it's good enough.

  He walks in, closes the door, and locks it. The room smells like a mixture of ammonia and rotten flowers. On the back of the toilet is a new dish of dried flower petals. He turns the hot water on in the tub full blast until it drowns out all of the sounds on the other side of the door.

  Perhaps he slept. The open Bible balances face-down on the edge of the tub, where he laid it when he closed his eyes. The water was steaming then. Now, just tepid, it is the temperature, perhaps, of saliva, which he was reading about in the Bible—the inconsequential spit of a lackadaisical believer. Lukewarm. He toes the hot-water knob, but the water that gushes out is cold. He must have run the hot-water tank dry. He toes the knob back off. His feet have wrinkled, his fingers too. He should get out, but that seems like such an effort, and the voices on the other side of the door have multiplied. Maggie and Sue are back. He hears Maggie say they might as well open the presents. Rosy tells Maggie they really should wait for George. He can hear exaggerated gaiety, a tone that tells him that behind it all, she is seething. Maggie says George doesn't care.

  He picks up the Bible. His glasses are speckled with water drops.

  "Let me open one," a voice squeals.

  "Everybody gets to open one," Maggie says.

  "It's like Christmas, isn't it, Ter," Sue says.

  "Ooh, look at this. Ooh la la."

  "Don't get it dirty. Pooh, look at your hands. Go wash them."

  "Grandpa's in the bathroom."

  "Still? Ryland? You okay?"

  "Okay," he says.

  "Ryland?"

  "Okay," he shouts.

  "Just checking, just checking."

  He closes the Bible and puts it on the side of the tub, pushes his glasses up on top of his head, and closes his eyes.

  He wakes to a pounding. "If you don't answer, we're taking the knob off," Rosy yells.

  "Dad!" Eddy.

  He tries to answer, but his teeth are chattering. He can't stop them. His hips have locked up or something. He can't move.

  "Get a screwdriver."

  "Dad!"

  He tries to speak, and he tries to push himself up. The Bible is in the water. His arms have turned to fins. He watches the doorknob shiver. He listens to the grinding of screws. They are taking the doorknob off.

  "My God, my God." Now Rosy is on her knees beside him, plunging her hands in the tub. "Call an ambulance."

  No, he tries to say, but his teeth are chattering, and he can't speak.

  She releases the plug, and the water begins to drain. She rubs his upper arms vigorously.

  "Eddy, we've got to get him out of here."

  "I don't think we should move him, Mom."

  "My God, he's blue," Maggie says, and he feels such shame at his daughter seeing him naked.

  He stares into Rosy's eyes. She seems to understand, because she says, "Maggie, keep everybody out of here. Eddy and I can handle this. But get a blanket."

  She pushes his oxygen tube up against his nose. "We've got to get you out of there," she whispers. She slips her hands under his armpits and tries to lift him. He can hear her breath in his ear. He knows her cheek is against his, but he can't feel it.

  "Mom, I really don't think we should move him. He may have fallen. Injured his spine or something."

  "Ryland, wiggle your toes." She stares at his feet, bending down closer to them. He thinks he's wiggling them. Can't tell.

  Now she grips him by the shoulders, bringing her face inches from his, her pupils pinpoints. "Did—you—fall?" She shakes him.

  It seems ridiculous. He fell asleep, he got cold.

  She puts her hand over her mouth, her eyes suddenly watery. She blinks rapidly. Her nostrils flare.

  The water has drained out. Rosy is tucking the down comforter from his bed around him in the tub. She begins rubbing him through the comforter, his arms, his torso, his legs. "Got to get you warm," she says. Her tongue's sticking out between her lips, a habit of hers. When Rosy works, the tongue comes out. This makes him want to laugh, and he does, his teeth knocking together.

  She sits back on her heels. The tongue goes in. Her chin is trembling, her lips, too, and it looks like she's going to cry. He tries to remember the last time he saw her cry—not since the kids were little, not since then. "Look at you, you're all pruned up." She takes his hand, rubbing his fingers. Their eyes lock, her eyes filmy, blinking, blinking, and her lips tremble.

  She puts his hand back under the comforter and goes to rubbing his ankles and calves. "Here," she says. "We can do this. You getting warmer? I don't think you injured your spine."

  "Nope," he manages to say. A thousand pins have started pricking his feet.

  Eddy peers over her shoulder. "You okay, Pop?"

  "Tell them..."

  "Tell who what?" Rosy says.

  "No ambulance." But already he hears the siren. Shame washes over him again.

  A doctor he doesn't know is talking to Rosy and Eddy and someone else outside the blue curtain. He's lying on a gurney. The blue curtain separates him from a couple of other gurneys in the crowded emergency room. The doctor is telling them that the EKG showed no sign of heart attack, and the MRI no sign of stroke. He thinks Ryland got a touch of hypothermia.

>   They have been waiting for Dr. Callahan. The doctor on duty had told them that Dr. Callahan wouldn't officially be back from vacation until tomorrow, but Rosy has his home number, and she insisted on calling, and now Ryland recognizes the doctor's voice. The emergency room doctor tells Callahan that he sees no sign of stroke, and Rosy says, "Don't you want to monitor him overnight?"

  The curtain parts and Dr. Callahan comes in. He's wearing a white polo shirt and khaki pants. He has a good tan.

  "How you doing, Ryland?"

  "I'm fine."

  "Gave everybody a scare, my man." The doctor leans over Ryland, pulling his eyelid up, his lower lid down, and shining a penlight in his eye. Ryland can smell garlic on his breath.

  "Guess I interrupted your dinner?"

  "That's okay."

  He uses a stethoscope to listen to Ryland's heart.

  "Got a headache, Ry?"

  "No."

  "Noticed any pain in your arms?"

  "No."

  "Neck?"

  "No."

  "Is this wedding a pain in the neck?"

  Ryland smiles; the doctor smiles.

  "Did you take pills, Ryland?" He stares him in the eye. Ryland stares back. Says nothing. "I know this is a stressful time, but you don't want to overdo the sedatives." Ryland holds his gaze.

  "Well. I think you're fine. I think you just got cold."

  "Man freezes to death in his own bathtub. Pathetic," Ryland says.

  "In ninety-degree weather." The doctor smiles and slips outside the curtain. Ryland listens to him tell Rosy to take Ryland home but to remember that he's not at the top of his game, and anything she can do to reduce stress she ought to do. He says that if Ryland seems confused or if at any time he has trouble speaking or understanding speech, or if he loses his balance, to call immediately.