“We’re here. I might as well see.”
“Don’t do me any favors.” Friend. She remembered but didn’t trust him, thought he might do the same thing all over again.
“I want to see.”
“We should leave the car.”
“I don’t mind walking,” Jay said.
The night was cool now and fog filled the valley. Damp air smelled of the fields: fertilizer and black earth.
One of the dogs growled, and Iona whispered, “It’s only me.” Her familiar voice made him whine. “Stupid mutt.” He growled again. She said, “Hush, baby, I didn’t mean you.” The dog whimpered.
She lifted the latch on the barn door and took Jay inside. The smell of dung was dense, sweet, stronger than it was as it blew off the land. The cows stamped in the dark. She led Jay to each stall, to Ruby and Myrtle, to pretty Belle, to Tessa and the new calf. “Born the same day as my niece,” Iona said. “Have you ever watched something being born?”
Jay shook his head.
“I used to milk these cows every morning—before I came to school.”
“Who does it now?”
“Jeweldeen. Leon says he married her because a wife’s cheaper than a milking machine.”
“I heard he had to marry her.”
“It’s a lie,” Iona said. “Machine’s cheaper than a wife.”
“It’s so quiet.”
“Do you want to stay?”
“Where else would we go?”
“Back to town.”
“I’m in no hurry.”
“Can you climb a ladder?”
“What d’you think I am? A cripple?”
They climbed up to the loft and lay side by side in the straw. “I wish we had a blanket,” Iona said.
“Are you cold?”
“Yes.”
“Me too,” Jay murmured.
He rolled toward her and laid his head on her chest. She took his hand in hers and slid it under her shirt so it rested on her belly. “See,” she said, “see how warm it is?” The words rose up in her, her mother’s words to her father when he was still scared of the girl in his bed, her mother’s words to the child as she handed her a potato just dug from the earth. All these months she’d been trying to find Hannah, trying to turn fast enough to catch her. See how warm it is? Hannah was right here all along, inside of her, tender and alive.
Jay’s body curved to hers, his hand on her stomach, one leg over her legs. “I remember this,” he said, “all this time, how you felt.”
They were warm enough and they slept.
Hannah said: All your kindness is never going to change him.
She was right about Matt Fry and had come to warn Iona again.
But it will change me.
Dentists don’t marry the daughters of potato farmers.
He’s not a dentist.
Son of a dentist.
I don’t want to be married.
But you want to be loved.
I just want to love, the way Daddy loved you, with that little doubt.
And you think you love this boy.
I know him.
It’s not the same.
It feels the same to me.
He’ll break your heart.
Tell me about the bear, Mama.
Iona woke before dawn. Her left leg was numb, asleep beneath the weight of Jay’s leg. She saw Eddie, though she didn’t want him to be here, Eddie naked on the narrow bed, dark hair splayed on the blanket, dark chest, his arms the only warmth in the damp cabin of the boat, his fingers in her mouth, salty, feeling inside, the most delicate place, soft, he said, so soft, and he was the one moaning as if touching her there took him outside his own skin, out into the water, terrifying and deep. She smelled his wet hair, and later she saw him from a distance, behind the glass of the station, his blood-red shirt. Cars moved down the street in the rain, and she heard the lonely sound of tires hissing through water, then she was on the boat again, endlessly rocking, feeling that his touch could shatter her, his breath could tear her open, throat to bowel, and the day that had never been light was growing dark around them.
“We have to go,” she said to Jay.
“It’s early.”
“They’ll be up soon.”
“So?”
“I don’t want them to know.”
“Are you ashamed of me?”
He was mocking her. Hannah was right. Jay Tyler would go home, scrape the shit off his shoes; buy a new cane, ebony or oak; he’d cut his hair and remember who he was.
He said, “Can we come again?”
She nodded.
“Promise?” He sat up beside her.
“Sure,” she said. “Why not?”
“What’s the matter?”
He was looking at her as if for the first time, watching her lips, waiting for her eyes to open fully, to take him in, she thought. That’s all: he wants me to look at him. She hit her own thigh with her fist. “My leg’s asleep,” she said.
He rubbed her calf and then her knee, worked his way up slowly to the thigh. She felt his hand deep in her chest, at the base of her neck, in a sore spot on her palm. He seemed to reach everywhere by touching her legs, and she was afraid because it felt good, because he didn’t know that she could feel his fingertips behind her eyes. She thought of Eddie, how his leg returned to him. She believed this must be the greatest mercy, to restore another’s body, to give back what had been lost. She bathed Hannah, making her whole each time. She remembered the dog on the road, its eyes wide with pity, the gratefulness of a dying god.
“Iona?”
The sound of her name jolted her.
“Better?”
She nodded.
“Happens to me all the time.”
“I suppose.”
“I rub my own legs.”
She nodded again.
“Is your leg all right? Can you climb down?”
“I should ask you.”
“My legs are fine,” he said, “nearly healed.”
“Then you go first.”
He did seem better, but she didn’t know why. Nothing had changed in the night. Still, they darted across the muddy yard, and he seemed to move as easily as she did. The sky had cleared; a ghost moon drifted above the pines, almost full. The dogs barked. Already there was one light shining in an upstairs window, Jeweldeen nursing the baby before she shambled outside to milk the cows.
In the car, they both watched the road, as if they thought it might slide out from under them, crumbling from both sides, a narrow strip eroding behind them as they sped toward the safe paved streets of White Falls. He sat inches from his door, leaning toward her, till the pressure of the air between them felt like waves moving over her body, too light to bear.
She wished that he had not touched her that way, back in the loft. She couldn’t guess that he was as scared as she was, startled by his own body. He saw himself swept down the river alone, and he believed this was his own fault because he had left Muriel to struggle without him, abandoned by her capricious God, sacrificed by her furious father. The child was with her always, their child, a body she carried everywhere now, their silent, unforgiving son. Somewhere a blond boy romped in the yard, rocketed down a slide, pulled an imaginary gun from his pocket, his own pointed finger, to shoot his mother dead. This mother fell down laughing, but Muriel, the real mother who would never see her son again, fell down without a sound except the thudding of her own heart.
He thought of Delores. They strapped her to the table, shoved the hard rubber bit into her mouth. This won’t hurt at all. But the blue light lifted her off the table, shot through her bones till she stiffened, arms rigid, legs locked. You would have been fine if you hadn’t locked your legs. He slammed into the doe and his own bones snapped. Delores lay limp on the table. Jay lay limp in his bed night after night. One more time, Mrs. Tyler. And they did do it—one more time. That’s when I died, Jay. He knew now what they’d asked of her, knew how he would have wept and pleaded
if someone had asked him to hit the doe, one more time.
He wanted to tell Iona that he couldn’t touch himself, that he hadn’t since the accident. He saw himself climbing the ladder of the three-meter board, he remembered his own taut body, rippled muscles of his stomach, a hundred sit-ups every morning, a hundred more every night. He was beautiful and had pictures to prove it, Jay Tyler leaping into the air, Jay Tyler spinning toward the water. He took this act of faith for granted until he knew its absence. He was a priest who’d lost his god, who woke at dawn to his own doubt, who discovered at dusk he’d stopped believing. He wished he could describe the hollows of his body to Iona Moon; he wished she knew about the empty space between his legs, the weightlessness of his belly, the hole in his chest where his devoted heart had been.
The sun rose over the violet mountains in the east, streaking the sky pink and orange. Down the road, the fine leafless limbs of a weeping willow waved like a girl’s golden hair underwater. Iona’s sister said: It hasn’t been easy for me either.
All you had to do was watch.
Yes, she said. Just imagine if your eyes were always open but you had no hands.
Iona’s eyes filled. She didn’t slow down as she crossed the bridge. The lights on Main flashed yellow. She thought Jay had forgotten everything already, the bare skin of her stomach, the warm place under his hand, her promise, that he had forgotten his own words: I remember this, all this time, how you felt, everything. She turned east to take him to the bar, where his Chrysler would be parked in the lot, its windows beaded with dew.
“Shit,” he said.
The last hope collapsed under her: she was the girl spinning on thin ice, plunging into dark water. He would say nothing kind when they parted, though it would cost so little now.
“You’ve got a pig on your tail,” he told her.
She looked in the rearview mirror. Sure enough, she saw the light spinning. She pumped the brakes and pulled over before the siren whined. “Just a piglet,” she said, watching the mirror, “your old pal Willy.”
She rolled down her window and waited.
“Iona,” Willy stammered. “I didn’t recognize the car.” He took out his pad to write the ticket. “Do you know how fast you were going?”
She shook her head. “Tell me,” she muttered.
“Forty-three. Limit’s twenty-five.”
Jay leaned over. “Hey, buddy,” he said.
Willy stopped writing. “Jesus—Jay. I didn’t see it was you.”
“Do you have to write that? I mean, I guess you do—it’s your job and all, but it’s my fault, you see.”
“She’s driving.” Willy pointed his pen at Iona.
“I told her to step on it. I gotta piss.”
“What am I gonna do with this?” Willy waved the pad with the half-written ticket.
“Tear it up?”
“They’re numbered.” Willy tapped the corner with one finger. “We keep track of the numbers.”
“Let him finish,” Iona said. “It’s no big deal.”
“A warning. I’m just going to write out a warning.”
Jay grinned. “Thanks, buddy.”
“It’s not a favor. It’s fair—first offense, you know.”
He tore the ticket off the pad, and Jay said, “We were thinking of stopping at the Park Inn for breakfast.”
“We were?” Iona said.
“Yeah, well I was gonna ask you.”
“Don’t forget to take that piss,” said Willy.
“You hungry?” Jay said to Willy.
“I’m on duty.”
“Pretty quiet out here.”
Willy nodded. “I’ll follow you.”
So they turned without getting Jay’s car, headed west with Willy Hamilton right behind them.
They sat in the corner, Jay and Iona on one side, Willy on the other. They ordered pancakes and sausage, scrambled eggs and coffee. “Lots of coffee,” Jay said to the waitress. Iona thought of Eddie and hoped he’d eat a big breakfast this morning when he got off work, that he wouldn’t go home hungry, that he and Alice wouldn’t fight.
“Horton’s giving me shit,” Willy said, spearing a sausage and waving it on his fork. “I haven’t been writing enough tickets. That’s how I got graveyard.” He cleared his throat to make his voice low. ‘“Not that we have a quota, son.’” He popped the whole sausage in his mouth and chewed hard. “Jesus.” He swallowed enough so that he could talk. “I’d be better off working here—fry cook—or bagging groceries at Pick-n-Pay.”
“Nothing to stop you,” said Jay.
Willy slurped his coffee. “Except Horton Hamilton.”
“He doesn’t own your ass.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“What d’you mean?”
“You don’t have to work.”
Jay put his hand on Iona’s leg under the table, squeezed it just above the knee. “I don’t know what to do,” he said.
“Finish school,” Willy said, “go to college like you always planned.”
They were all thinking the same thing: a man with broken legs better learn to use his brain.
“I’ve got a year and a half. I can’t face it.”
“Yeah,” said Iona, “and what about facing the rest of your life?” She sounded just like Sharla, but she thought she meant it. “It sucks. But you do it. One day after another. And it ends. Sooner or later it ends, and you’ve got their precious piece of paper.” She saw the picture in her locker; she heard Mr. Fetterhoff’s jokes. She remembered smoking herself dizzy in the bathroom and wondered if it would end soon enough.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Willy said. “You go back to school, I’ll look for another job.”
Jay reached across the table and nearly knocked over the syrup. “Shake, asshole.” They were both laughing. Iona laughed too, and Jay kissed her on the cheek, right there in front of Willy, right there in the Park Inn where anyone could see. He whispered in her ear, the same two words he’d whispered that first night in the back of Willy’s Chevy. Thank you. But this time he meant something entirely different, and she felt they had almost drowned but now they were swimming to shore, rising out of the water in each other’s arms, breathing into each other, suddenly and completely alive.
Angel grew wings and jumped over the moon. Angel flew back to earth. Iona saw she had eight teats and her udder was full, so she sat down and started milking. She filled one pail and then another; still the milk came, sweet and warm, and Iona said: See, Mama, everything’s all right.
Later, Willy and Jay and Iona stood on the bridge, dropping stones in the water, watching the dark river swirl beneath them. Iona felt sorry for Willy. She saw that even he had his grief—everyone did. She knew he blamed himself for what had happened by the tracks. She wanted to say: Listen, Willy, it’s not your fault. I could have stayed at the river with Jeweldeen. If you are to blame, we all are: you, me—your three friends. And Jay’s to blame for not being there. And Horton for sending Matt off to Cross City. And Everett is to blame for sticking the damn gun in his mouth and giving his brother an excuse, an example to follow. And Matt himself is to blame—because no matter how sorrowful your life is, there are always choices. We must all be forgiven.
She looked down at the water and saw three fragile shadows, broken by waves on the Snake River. Jay imagined himself flying off the bridge and Iona pictured herself running barefoot down the tracks, pursued by drunken boys or chased by dogs. Willy saw his own blue lights flashing on the dark road of the life he still might choose. Wind gusted at their backs, and the scud of clouds rolled into the valley. The only thing that kept them from their solitary flights was the fact that at this moment they leaned together, close enough to put out their hands and break the fall.
At dusk, Iona and Jay drove out the River Road, parked in their old place. Iona thought Jay would be surprised if he knew she was almost a virgin, that Eddie was the only one, that she felt like a virgin now: she was that scared. She wanted to tell hi
m that making love meant carving a hole in your own belly, so the other person can crawl inside. It meant feeling the bones of your face dissolve, turning to air between two bodies, becoming one breath, your lover’s only word.
Hannah said: Why do you want to lie down with him?
Because I have a body. Hands and spine, blood and skin. Have you forgotten?
The night was cold, but they rolled down the windows to feel the wind move over them, to hear the river in the dark, the relentless rush of water, washing everything away, wearing down riverbank and stone, but pushing everything toward them too, the silt of memory, forever shifting.
Iona said: There was a bear who loved a girl. He carried her away in the woods and held her while she slept.
Jay said: He kept her warm.
One night she woke and saw he was a man.
Beautiful.
She kissed his mouth.
He woke.
And wept.
She loved him.
He needed her to love him by day, to love his furred face and bear smell.
He reeled through the trees, blind with tears.
The first shot struck his heart, the second his head.
Were the hunters surprised to find a man—did his bright blood in the snow make them kneel with shame?
They buried him beneath the snow in the silent forest, and more snow fell, covering their bloody tracks.
But the girl found him, dug her way down to lie beside him. She whispered: It is the wounded heart that makes us human in the end, my love.
Then she slept, and the snow fell on her cheeks and on her breasts, and the snow fell in her lover’s hair.
Jay and Iona touched carefully, finger by finger, word by word. Rain tapped the roof of the car, then hammered till it seemed to rain into their ears and through their ribs, till it poured through open windows, rained into their eyes, rained and rained into their bodies. Their lives rushed to the banks of the river. A white dog swam against the current. His head went down, came up again, then under for the last time. Matt Fry drove the Buick into the roiling water, and could have drowned right then, but chose to live instead. Jay pinned Muriel to the seat. Iona held Jay to her chest. Willy leaned toward the door, trying to escape. A bottle broke against a car. A boy shouted. Darryl McQueen said: I’m out, baby. Darryl McQueen lay down in the grass beside her and they passed a cigarette between them. Iona squeezed a burning butt between her arms, not once but many times. Jay touched the knots of those scars with his fingertips now, asking what they were and why. And when she said she wanted to feel something, just to see if she still could, he understood and pulled her close, rocked her in his arms and said: “Me too, Iona, me too.” A woman jumped in the river and her red coat billowed out around her. Sometimes the Snake gave you a second chance whether you thought you wanted it or not. Jay imagined his own leap, the arc and spin of a perfect dive, knowing that when you finally decide, you either kill yourself, or you fly.
Iona Moon Page 29
