Country Dark

by Chris Offutt

  “A little sun won’t hurt her,” she said.

  “I know it,” Rhonda said. “I close it of the night so nothing will get her.”

  “Do you have screens?” Marvin said.

  Hattie pursed her lips and gave him a quick head shake of disapproval. Rhonda frowned as if the question made no sense.

  “I seen a old broke-tail cat at the edge of the woods,” she said. “They say a cat will suck the life out of a baby so I keep this room shut.”

  “My opinion,” Hattie said, “the dogs’ll keep it away.”

  “That’s what my husband says. But I laid in here all one night thinking what in case they get to running a rabbit, or chasing after a neighbor dog in heat.”

  The room was warm and stuffy, the floors clean, no scent of mildew or old laundry. Marvin peered into the crib, where a baby lay, eyes wide, staring at the oblong of light streaming between the floral curtains. The file had said the baby was ten months old but it looked small enough to be undernourished, and he wondered how big a man the father was. The baby’s hair was light brown, carefully brushed around her head as if trying to form a halo.

  Hattie waved her hand before the baby’s face, gauging reaction. None came and she moved her hand closer until her fingers were a few inches away. The pupils of the baby’s eyes contracted but didn’t refocus on the motion.

  “Rolled over on her own?” Hattie said.

  Rhonda shook her head. She hated anyone seeing her baby. As long as she kept it in the bedroom and stayed nearby, nobody could ever judge. Deep inside, Rhonda knew something was wrong with Bessie.

  “You care if I touch her?” Hattie said.

  Rhonda shook her head. The fear blared through her body like a mine blast, down the length of her limbs and bounced back into her chest. She knew she wouldn’t sleep that night.

  Marvin watched Hattie gently adjust the baby so her face was aimed their way. She had the chubby cheeks of a breast-fed child. The eyes were pale brown, nearly gold, tinged with green. Her brows were long and pale, arching around the outer edges. He had never seen a prettier set of eyes, but it was like looking at the flat dull expression of a cow. He abhorred his own fascination.

  “She’s a pretty baby,” Hattie said. “You’re taking right good care of her.”

  Rhonda turned her head to the window, her face glistening with tears. She made no sound or motion. Through the window a jaybird’s raucous call marred the air. A chicken pecked the ground and strolled away as if recalling an important task. The woods were thick with shadowed green, and Rhonda wished she were in them, walking animal trails until they faded into the brush and she was lost, could stay lost for good. She wished Tucker was home. She wished these state people would hurry and leave so she could lie down and sleep. Most of all she wished her next baby wouldn’t have anything wrong with it. She heard Hattie ask about the other two kids.

  “Upstairs,” Rhonda said. “Jo’ll show you. I’m going to stay with Bessie. She might need me.”

  Hattie and Marvin followed Jo up a narrow staircase. The first step was low and the rest of the risers were uneven. At the top of the steps Jo made a hard right along a hall that led to a closed door. She opened it and stepped inside a room with three beds.

  Hattie pointed to the beds as she spoke to Marvin in low tones.

  “That’s Ida over there. She’s five. This is Velmey. She’s three and a half.”

  “Are they …” Marvin’s voice trailed off. He was aware of Jo listening, unsure of how to proceed.

  Hattie nodded curtly. The five-year-old was overweight and asleep, her plump hands clean, her sheets fresh. Velmey’s bed was in a corner and she leaned against the wall, propped by pillows on each side holding her in place. She smiled and Marvin realized it was the first smile he’d seen since arriving. Her milk teeth were still coming in, each in its place, none misaligned or crooked. Saliva ran down her chin and Jo wiped it with a scrap of red cotton.

  “She can’t help it,” Jo said.

  “Is there anything you want,” Hattie said. “Anything I can get you.”

  “I wish Daddy was here all the time.”

  “Of course you do. But he has to work. I mean anything you’d like to have for yourself. A dress or new shoes or a barrette. Anything at all, if you had your druthers.”

  “Daddy took me to town and I seen a calendar in a store.”

  “A calendar,” Marvin said. “So you know what day it is and how long till your daddy comes home?”

  “No,” Jo said. “I know the days and I can count. I learned all that at school.”

  “Then why do you want a calendar?” he said.

  “It had a picture on it of a pond. I like me a pond.”

  Marvin glanced about the room. There was nothing on the walls except scuff marks and water stains. The only window had three planks nailed across the bottom panes. He assumed it prevented the children from falling out.

  “Is there anything you need to tell me?” Hattie said.

  Jo frowned and shrugged.

  “If it’s something you don’t want Dr. Miller to know about, he can leave.”

  Jo shook her head, staring at the floor, moving one foot back and forth. Her daddy had sanded the edges of the peeled-up paint. She liked how soft it felt under her feet.

  “There is something, isn’t there,” Hattie said.

  Jo nodded, still staring at the floor.

  “What is it, child? Is it about your sisters?”

  “It’s about Mommy.”

  Hattie squatted and leaned close.

  “You can tell me,” she said.

  “Mommy sings a song a lot. To the baby. ‘Amazing Grace.’”

  “It’s a church song.”

  “I know that,” Jo said. She lifted her face to Hattie, the dark eyes trusting and fretful. “But I don’t know what grace is. It’s bothersome to me, the not knowing.”

  Hattie rocked back on her heels, unable to answer. She’d never thought about it.

  “We need to talk with your mom a little more,” she said. “Maybe you can tell your sisters about the calendar.”

  “But what’s grace?”

  “You,” Hattie said. “The way you take care of these babies. And you’re amazing.”

  Jo nodded, her expression brighter. Hattie and Marvin left the room, closing the door behind them. They heard a bolt lock slide into place, heard Jo’s excited murmuring to her sisters.

  Marvin lowered his voice as they stood in the narrow hall.

  “We have got to do something,” he said.

  “Not much we can do,” Hattie said. “Give them clothes and blankets.”

  “That room is like a jail cell.”

  “It’s to protect the kids.”

  “It’s unsanitary.”

  “The kids are clean,” Hattie said. “The house is clean.”

  “That little girl in there is taking care of them.”

  “No law against that. I took care of my brothers and sisters when I was little. Didn’t hurt me.”

  “It’s not the same,” Marvin said. “And you know it.”

  “What I know is they got it rough, rougher than they deserve. My job is to check on the well-being of the children. I believe they are cared for and not lacking. The father works. The mother is down. Anybody would be. But this family is trying.”

  “This family is a retard factory is what it is. And this home is unsuitable. I won’t stand for it.”

  He descended the steps. Years ago, Hattie deduced that she couldn’t help everyone or allow her compassion to generate too much closeness with clients. The solution was to pick a few particular cases and carefully monitor them. She’d chosen Jo for special attention and now she had to protect the child from the very system intended to assist her.

  Hattie went downstairs, hoping to talk sense into Marvin before he insulted Rhonda. If he did, Rhonda would never allow Hattie back in the house. Rhonda held her baby, standing beside Big Billy’s crib. The tan planes of her face were
drawn tight with tension as if her skin was a web constricting her head. A thick vein pulsed visibly in her neck.

  “The state will take good care of your children,” Marvin said.

  “No,” Rhonda said.

  “It’ll be much easier for you and your family.”

  “No.”

  “You can visit them any time you like.”

  “No, no, no.”

  “I understand you don’t want to hear this, but it really is best.”

  “No.”

  “You need to cease relations with your husband.”

  “You mean leave him?” Rhonda’s voice was rising. “Leave my husband?”

  Hattie moved slowly forward, arms spread, palms open and aimed upward—posing no threat. Such a posture had proven effective in worse situations.

  “Rhonda,” she said. “You’re a good mother. Your kids belong with you.”

  “He said to leave.”

  “No,” Marvin said. “What I’m saying is that you and your husband need to stop having babies.”

  Rhonda’s face twitched in numerous places. Her eyes widened, then shut.

  “My opinion,” Hattie said, “there’s another way of going about this business.”

  “No, there’s not,” Marvin said. “I’m getting a court order to take these kids.”

  “No,” Rhonda said. “Please.”

  “Until then,” he said, “don’t you get pregnant again.”

  “How?”

  “Dr. Miller,” Hattie said. “I believe Rhonda and me need to talk alone. Woman to woman.”

  Marvin had no desire to discuss the particulars of Rhonda’s intimate life. He’d made his decision. He stepped outside, waited briefly on the porch, then walked to the car. A breeze rustled the high boughs of the nearest trees. The wind ceased and the air was silent. He heard his own breath, felt his heart beating, imagined that he could hear the blood rushing through his veins.

  He calmed himself and slowly swiveled on his heels. The trees seemed to separate themselves from their collective growth and he could see the slick bark of a sycamore, the concave strips of birch, an oak surrounded by open ground, and the liquidy stands of pine. Near a hand-dug drain ditch grew a low redbud flanked by dogwood. The shaded loam of the hills held lady’s slipper, jack-in-the-pulpit, and trillium—delicate and rare. At one time he’d considered studying botany instead of psychology. He could be working in a greenhouse or as a florist. He’d be carefully digging up wildflowers for transplant into richer soil, better for thriving. Maybe it would be the same for these children.

  Hattie came outside, her face stark and blunt. She got into the car and started the engine, dreading the long drive back to the office. She rode the brake off the hill. Rocks bounced against the floorboards and she steered carefully to straddle the deep gully left by rain in the middle of the road. She felt like crying, like quitting her job, like chewing out her boss. Instead, she focused on the task at hand, driving the rough blacktop that was brittle at the edge. She reminded herself of past successes—the boy who’d gotten his high school equivalency diploma, the teenage girl who’d fled her abusive father, the child who brushed his teeth for the first time at age nine. These small triumphs couldn’t offset the rage she felt toward Marvin.

  After the state people left, Rhonda swaddled the baby in her crib, and checked on Big Billy who acknowledged her by grasping once with his hand. She climbed the steps to the second floor. Her chest felt like a shaken snow globe. She lay on Jo’s bed and clutched her tightly, listening to all the children breathe together, the slow inhalations producing a hum that lulled her into calmness.

  She’d lied to Hattie and feared being caught. Her husband didn’t work in a steel mill. He drove loads of moonshine to Ohio for a man named Beanpole. Tucker was due home today. She began to pray for his safety. The prayers couldn’t quell the swirling miasma of her thoughts. Two miscarriages, then water-brained Billy produced cracks in her heart like an old plate banged too often on the table. Jo’s birth renewed her faith. Each ensuing pregnancy had been nine months of fervent hope ending in dismay.

  Doctors in Lexington had found nothing wrong with her. After Ida and Velmey, her husband reluctantly succumbed to the long drive for an afternoon of testing. He was healthy, too. It wasn’t his different-colored eyes or either one’s family. They ate as well as anyone on the hill. She’d not undergone any odd illness while big with child. The doctors said it was bad luck.

  More than anything she wanted to give Tucker a boy. He deserved a normal son. She’d done everything the doctors said. She rested daily and listened to the old women who’d raised ten kids in the Depression, losing three on average. They said God always had a plan. Rhonda couldn’t see what this plan was other than a punishment. She loved the babies with every cell of her being but it always felt one-sided. They were too bad off to love her back.

  The state man’s threat to steal her family enlivened her as if doused by ice water. The leaden fatigue of her despair evaporated. Something inside her unlocked. She could feel it in her hips and bowels and chest as if a switch had been thrown at a powerhouse and she knew her next child would be a boy, healthy as a dog.

  Chapter Six

  Later that afternoon the sound of a car engine woke Jo from a nap. She hurried downstairs, out the door, and ran to her father. Tucker squatted, knowing she’d leap. He caught her easily, standing and spinning in a circle, holding her tight. Jo’s legs swung nearly straight, her dress billowing, hair flying. She arched her back and tipped her head, smiling and laughing. Tucker set her on the trunk of the car.

  “How’s my sugar-pie honey-child?” Tucker said.

  “Happy now, Daddy,” she said.

  “I believe you growed while I was gone.”

  She stiffened her back and lifted her chin.

  “Yes, I surely do,” he said. “Maybe two, three inches. Why, you’re bigger than me.”

  “I’m setting on the car, Daddy.”

  He gave her a paper sack of lemon drops, her favorite penny candy.

  “These are grow-pills,” he said, “take one at a time.”

  She tore open the folded bag and slid a yellow pellet in her mouth. Tucker searched his pockets in an elaborate fashion and pulled forth a red velvet ribbon, one side darker than the other.

  “You take and put that in your hair,” he said.

  “Thank you, Daddy.”

  “Now tell me who’s been up here today.”

  “That state lady and a man with her. How’d you know?”

  “Seen the tracks, Jo. Look there.”

  Jo followed his pointing finger to the narrow furrows of tread in the dry dirt driveway. Her daddy could see everything and anything. He could name a bird by its egg, a tree by its leaf, and knew the star pictures in the sky. The lemon drop was half dissolved, and she wondered if it would still make her grow. More than anything she wanted to have babies of her own.

  Tucker gathered two bags of groceries from the backseat. He encircled his daughter with his other arm and carried her across the yard, tired from sixteen hours of driving. He was thirsty and his shoulders were sore. He placed the bags on the kitchen table, let Jo slide down his body to the floor, and winked at his wife, who stood smiling shyly. He leaned into Big Billy’s crib and slid his hands gently beneath his enlarged head. Big Billy cooed from his father’s touch. Tucker lifted his son’s head, rotated it in the air, and settled it on the mattress. Big Billy now faced the opposite way, though his body had barely moved. The side of his head was damp with sweat, the hair matted to the sections of his skull. Tucker blotted the perspiration with a handkerchief and finger-combed his son’s hair.

  In his own bedroom he stroked Bessie’s tiny arm and kissed her, then went upstairs to kiss Ida and Velmey. The road tension began to fade from his limbs. He went outside to smoke a Lucky and wait for the evening birds. Rhonda joined him, a couple not yet thirty with five children, sitting in rockers on the porch like they were already old folks. She never ask
ed about his moonshine runs. She didn’t want to know the perils he faced to provide for the family.

  Neither minded the silence, both happy to be near each other. Jo came outside and climbed onto Tucker’s lap. After a while Rhonda asked her to go check on the babies. Jo kissed her father and left.

  “State came,” Rhonda said.

  He nodded and continued to rock.

  “It was two this time. The man …”

  She let her voice trail away, not wanting to hurt him with the information that had left her breathless.

  “They was two?” Tucker said.

  “The regular lady and a man. Some kind of doctor.”

  He nodded and blew a smoke ring that dissipated in the easy breeze.

  “They say anything?”

  “Said for me not to have no more kids. Said he was going to take the babies.”

  “What?” Tucker stopped rocking. “What did he say?”

  “We ain’t supposed to have no more kids. He’s aiming to take the babies.”

  “And do what with them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How long ago did they leave here?”

  “About a hour, maybe a little more.”

  “Goddamn,” he said. “Goddamn sons-of-bitches.”

  “I don’t like that talk, even if it is over the babies.”

  “I know it, Rhonda. I’m sorry.”

  He snapped the cigarette into the yard and walked to his car. His sudden anger found focus as he drove off the hill. Tucker seldom took chances but today he was breaking the most important rule—using the run-car for a personal matter on main roads. His old truck would never catch up with the state people. The run-car was rear-ended like a hearse, could haul concrete block up a creek bed. He pushed the engine hard, circumventing Morehead as best he could. He drove on dirt roads, and had to catch a piece of highway on the way out of town. It was a gamble he didn’t like to take, but the alternatives were fire roads or logging trails and they’d add more time than he could spare.