Bloodline

by Jess Lourey

  Yes, I said, finally convinced. Yes, please.

  It wasn’t just the byline. After a childhood of moving from one city to another, the idea of settling down with Deck, of belonging, well, it suddenly sounded all right. We packed up our tiny apartment within days, and here we are, humming along the road to a new life. The skyscrapers and stores of Minneapolis almost immediately gave way to lonely swaths of prairie, only the occasional farm to give scale to the emptiness.

  I’ve never lived outside a city. Driven through the countryside, to be sure, but never with the intention of making it my home.

  The specter of permanence makes the landscape as welcoming as the moon.

  I squash that thought, rubbing one of the wounds so hard the scab cracks, leaking crayon-red blood into my pantyhose.

  I chose this.

  Deck’s tapping his fingers along to “I Can See for Miles.” The radio’s been blotchy the last half an hour, but the music is clear as water now. I wish it weren’t. The Who unsettle me. They’re all sneaky drums and sharp guitar. Particularly this song. It’s too near the bone because I truly can see for miles. There’s not a building in sight, not even a barn, just the forever grass.

  “Nowhere to hide,” I say, stroking Slow Henry, the cat purring in my lap.

  Deck’s fingers freeze. “What?”

  I grin and toss my head, but I’m seeing Frances. My mom. She’s bright-eyed in the memory, years before the cancer fishhooked her. We’re moving, maybe from Seattle to San Francisco? I can’t line them all up. Sometimes we didn’t stay long enough to enroll me in a school.

  “I love this,” Mom’s saying as we pull into New Town, its skyline reminding me of a castle rampart.

  “Seeing a city for the first time?” I ask. My hair’s in pigtails, so I’m younger than thirteen, the age that annoyance gave way to a warm fizzing when a boy strutted by. That buzz ignited a whole parade of changes. Hair brushed a hundred strokes before bed, until it gleamed, until I was as glossy as a horse, and no way was I going to hide that power in little-girl pigtails. Cheeks pinched and lips licked when I might be seen. My own strut, awkward and unnoticed.

  Mom lights a cigarette. The gritty, elegant smell soothes me. Always has.

  “Nah,” she says, taking a deep suck. “Not seeing a city.”

  I’m studying her profile. I scored her nose. The rest of my features—brown eyes, brown hair, sharp cheekbones—must be from my dad, though I don’t remember what he looked like. I don’t even recall his name, though I bet she’d tell me if I asked. But what’d be the point? I’ve been told he was worthless, a petty criminal, and that was enough.

  She blows out the smoke. I lean into it.

  “Being in a big city is what I love. Those long, empty stretches of road between? No good. Nowhere to hide. Small towns are even worse. Might as well tattoo a bull’s-eye on your back. Give me tall buildings and a crowd of strangers any day of the week.”

  Nowhere to hide.

  My mother was given to drama. It grew worse right at the end. I wonder what Deck would have thought of her. We met two weeks after she died. I lean forward to nuzzle my face in Slow Henry’s lush Creamsicle fur. He smells like dust.

  “Are we close?” I ask Deck.

  “Close as a whisper,” he says, tipping his head toward the windshield. His fingers are tapping again.

  I turn down the radio and squint. We passed through the last town ten miles back. It was little more than a cross street with a filling station. Ahead, black sentinel trees have popped up, swallowing the road, a thick forest of pine and oak as out of place as an overnight carnival on this flat plate of earth. There’s a sign, though, a billboard offering big, looping words.

  Slow Henry stretches in my lap, gunning his motor. I pet him absentmindedly, struggling to read the message. It takes several moments of tires thrumming on pavement before we’re close enough.

  LILYDALE

  COME HOME FOREVER

  The promise is surrounded by white flowers.

  Lilies, of course.

  Before I can process the words, we’ve zoomed past the sign and pierced the dark watchman woods, a pop as we push through the skin of my past life, past the trees jutting like swords, and emerge into a new world, bright and solid.

  I’m holding my breath, have been since the sign, a child’s game to survive a tunnel.

  Hold it ’til the end and make a wish!

  I release the breath through my nose, craning to stare behind us. The trees look different on this side. Tire-swing ready. I face front. We’re at Lilydale’s edge. I’m relieved to see it’s significantly larger than the villages we’ve passed through. Houses, clean and tight, immaculate squares of lawn, shops including a real estate office, a barber, a filling station selling unleaded for thirty-two cents a gallon, a clot of kids biking down side streets, lobbing jokes, women in pretty spring frocks strolling in twos, laughing.

  It’s everything Deck promised and more.

  The rocky knot between my shoulder blades relaxes, finally. I crank down my window and inhale the scent of fresh lilacs.

  Slow Henry swats at a lock of my hair stirred by the breeze, and I smile.

  It’s a fairy tale, a storybook land. Even the sun seems to be shining brighter.

  The prickling worry I’ve nurtured on the drive, the paranoia as the towns grew smaller and the prairie hungrier, it all flows away. Nowhere to hide, my ass. I squeeze Deck’s hand, the other resting on my belly. The baby is barely showing, the tiny swelling easily hidden beneath a loose blouse.

  Deck squeezes back. “What is it, darling?”

  “I believe I may be the luckiest girl in the world,” I say.

  The sun chooses that moment to slide behind the clouds, a gloomy wink, almost as if it hears me.

  CHAPTER 2

  It’s unsettling how much Deck and his father look alike.

  That’s what wallops me when I lay eyes on his parents for the first time.

  Deck resembles a crew-cut Jerry Lewis from Three on a Couch enough to get stopped by girls on the street. His dad is nearly a twin other than the gray stippling his hair and the pooching at his belly. A senior Jerry Lewis standing next to his wife. Her brown-silver hair is enormous, a tortoiseshell comb holding the towering haystack in place, two well-chosen tendrils loose, one on each side, curling in front of her ears. She’s wearing a crisp summer dress, one she’s clearly ironed and starched. Her perfection makes me feel filthy in comparison, even from a distance, even from inside a car.

  They’re waiting—Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Schmidt—outside a pretty little white craftsman with blue shutters when we pull up. Ronald’s arm is tossed around Barbara’s shoulder. She’s holding a covered Corning Ware dish, a flick of desperation in her wide-set eyes. Our new house is on Mill Street, a short residential lane just off Lilydale’s downtown. The entire avenue is lined with oak and maple trees, a slice of apple pie straight out of the ’50s.

  I lick dry lips and smooth my dress, rumpled and covered in cat hair from the drive. Deck I love. Same with the town; I’m going to make myself feel it. Meeting parents, though? Never been my game. I’m having a hard time drawing a full breath.

  “You ready, baby?” Deck asks, cranking the car into park.

  He’s being thoughtful. He’s so eager to go to his parents that he’s trembling. I’m struck anew by how handsome he is, how uncomplicated his love. I like that about him, that he isn’t slick and quick. It’s a breath of fresh air after the fast-talking guys I’ve been with. Plus, he’s the best damn kisser.

  “Ready as rice,” I say, my voice hitching.

  He lands a peck on my cheek. “This is your home now, Joanie. And my parents are your family. You can relax and settle down for the first time in your life.”

  “Deck, I’m fine,” I say. “Go on. I’m just gonna grab Slow Henry.”

  Deck’s out of the car before the sentence leaves my mouth. I pretend to reach down, into the footwell where Slow Henry hopped when the car jerked
to a stop, but I’m watching Barbara openly sob as she sets the hot dish on the sidewalk and clamps her arms around her son. Minneapolis is only two and a half hours away. Why haven’t they visited in the nearly year Deck and I have been together?

  My cheeks flame as I realize Ronald is watching me watch Barbara, expressionless.

  Is the jealousy spelled out on my face? He gets a mother and a father. I duck all the way down, out of sight, making the situation impossibly worse. I should have just waved. All’s fine here! Just a normal person thinking normal thoughts.

  I learned that trick in my fifth high school. Always smile. Agree. Be invisible when you can, friendly when they spot you. But then a spike of self-anger surprises me. I’m not that girl anymore. I’m a grown woman. A reporter. I have a fiancé and a baby on the way.

  I take a breath. Lift Slow Henry, who doesn’t let anyone but me hold him. Wish I had a drink, just a nip to grind down the edges. It’s not only parents. Meeting new people period has always been difficult. I’m afraid they’ll see right through me, recognize that hiding beneath the prim clothes and proper makeup is a feral girl wearing hand-me-downs, never staying put long enough to make friends, certain everyone knows some trick of getting along that she doesn’t. Rooming with Libby and Ursula in college was the first time in my life I had girlfriends.

  Then along came Deck, sweeping me off my feet and, ten months later, out of Minneapolis.

  I step out of the car tentatively.

  This is not a speed that Ronald acknowledges.

  “Our new daughter!” he booms, charging toward me with arms outstretched. It’s a relief that his voice at least is very different from Deck’s. Deck has an ordinary voice, slightly nasal. When Ronald speaks, it sounds like footsteps in gravel. Right before he embraces me, his glance lingers on the faded bruises at my neck and face long enough that I wonder if I’ve forgotten to apply foundation to them. Deck and I agreed that we’d never tell anyone but Ursula about the mugging.

  It’s one of the gifts of, once again, moving away from almost everyone I know.

  Before I grow too self-conscious, I’m girded by Ronald’s chain-link arms, his menthol scent reminding me of my mom. I’m surprised by the push of tears, which I blink back. The pregnancy is making me moody.

  Ronald allows room in the hug for Slow Henry, who I’m cradling.

  I’m not used to being held like this and don’t know how long to stay put. My ear is pressed to Ronald’s chest, so I count his heartbeats. They’re strong and steady. I reach fourteen before he releases me and steps back, grinning widely, and indicates his wife.

  “This is Barbara.”

  I smile at the woman clinging to Deck like she’s afraid he’ll otherwise float away, a precious peach balloon released by mistake and forever.

  “So nice to meet you,” I say, pointing at the dish on the ground. “Can I help you with that?”

  How they knew exactly when we’d arrive is beyond me. I stifle a funeral giggle at the image of them standing in this spot for hours, Ronald glancing at his silver wristwatch, Barbara gripping her hot dish and wearing that desperate expression.

  “Thank you, but I have it,” Barbara says, lips curving shyly. She lets go of Deck—I startle when he stays put, solid, not a balloon after all—to grab the Corning Ware before disappearing inside the house.

  The craftsman was Barbara and Ronald’s home for decades. They grew up in Lilydale, bought it when they married, raised Deck here, and then relocated to a small rambler half a block up a few years ago, trying with no luck to rent the craftsman.

  When Deck told them we’d be moving to Lilydale, they offered us their first house.

  I asked Deck why they’d gone through the trouble of moving to find themselves living on the end of the same street. He said they’d been hoping for years he’d return to Lilydale and had saved his childhood home for him.

  Well, they’ve gotten their wish.

  I turn to Ronald. “Thank you for letting us stay here.”

  “Stay here? It’s your home!” he exclaims.

  I suspect he exclaims many things. He’s one of those men. My journalism professor was like that. Owned every room he walked into. All the girls wanted him. He selected a sophomore from Illinois. I would watch her approach him after class, whisper and flirt, a mix of jealousy and awe crackling under my skin. Imagine, being that comfortable with yourself, that sure of the love you’re due.

  I excuse myself to check out the new house.

  Deck’s old house.

  “Dad and I’ll be inside in a minute,” Deck calls to me as I walk away. “I need to dig out my briefcase. Show yourself around.”

  His briefcase is behind the driver’s seat. I tucked it there myself and then pointed it out before we left Minneapolis. He must be giving me a chance to settle in before our “helpers” arrive. He warned me before we pulled out of the Cities that there’d be a large welcoming party soon after we showed up.

  “Your high school friends?” I’d asked.

  His eyes slid sideways. Of course not. They’d be off at war.

  Deck has managed to avoid the draft so far, but if we’d stayed in Minneapolis, it would have been only a matter of time. It’s a mercy that the move happened so quickly.

  Almost before I had regrets.

  I step inside the house. Slow Henry jumps out of my arms with a squawk and sets off to explore. The interior smells musty, like there was water in the basement at one time. The windows are closed. When I lean in to open the nearest, I discover it’s painted shut. Deck’ll have to fix that. I glide from the front den to the kitchen and am childishly excited to spot a newish refrigerator and a dishwasher, in matching avocado! I’ve never lived in a house in my life, always apartments.

  “Isn’t the kitchen lovely?” Barbara asks. She’s sliding the dish she’s brought into the oven. “We purchased the new appliances when we moved out. They’ve been waiting for Deck ever since. Please, make yourself at home.”

  I smile and continue my tour. Opening doors, I discover a pantry, a dirt basement that I have no intention of ever visiting (show me someone who’s not afraid of dirt basements, and I’ll show you a person not right in the head), and a connection to the dining room. I step into the pantry, running my fingers along the shelves. They hold a generous stock of staples. Flour, sugar, canned carrots and peas. Tucked in the back I discover a half-full bottle of crème de menthe, absinthe-green and sticky.

  I can hear Barbara puttering in the kitchen, running water. I unscrew the cap, inhale the syrupy toothpaste smell, and take a swig. The warmth melts into my blood.

  Thank you, sweet liquor.

  I have no intention of following in my mom’s footsteps (she’d enjoyed a shot of brandy every night before bed when pregnant with me—good for my development and her rest, she’d said), but boy, do I need the courage right now. I take another long pull, swishing it around my teeth, then screw the cap back on, return the bottle to the shelf, and glide into the dining room.

  My mood picks up even more when I spot the photos of Deck nailed to the wall, starting with him at age five or six and ending with his high school graduation. I straighten the frame holding an image of him wearing his mortarboard, grinning, and feel my heart swell. Opposite the photos is a lovely built-in sideboard and cabinets, one of them stacked with china. I walk over and rest my cheek against the leaded glass of the cabinet nearest me, soothed by its coolness.

  This is my new home.

  Minneapolis is my history, Lilydale my present and future.

  I am happy, safe.

  A shuffling behind me tells me someone has entered the room. I peel away from the cabinet to spot Deck crouched by the dining room table, his back to me. He’s setting down our knickknack box.

  Staring at his back, I’m overwhelmed by a love so strong I nearly weep with it.

  Ten months ago, Deck introduced himself at the 620 Club, a bar I frequented every Friday night after work with some of the women in the typing pool. It�
��s located near the Minneapolis Star’s Downtown East offices, and it’s always packed with newspaper people, local sports stars, and businessmen, all vying for a spot at the men’s-only Round Table. That’s where all the real Minneapolis action happens. Deck stood out in that crowd, buttoned up with a buzz cut, not my type at all. In fact, when I first spotted him, I thought Ken Doll and kept looking.

  But he made his way over, laid down a line so corny I couldn’t help but laugh (If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put U and I together), and bought me a brandy Alexander. He was so adoring, hanging on my every word, that I agreed to meet him for coffee the next morning. We’ve been together ever since. Life’s a gas, right?

  “Darling, I love it here,” I say to him, my voice low and husky as I kneel behind him and snake my hands around his waist. “And I’m looking forward to loving you here.”

  When he doesn’t respond, I rub his chest, then move one hand suggestively lower. It’s terribly naughty—his mom is in the other room—but the liquor has me feeling loose, and wasn’t Deck the one who told me to relax?

  He places his hands over mine, firmly, stands, and turns.

  It’s not Deck I’m caressing.

  It’s Ronald.

  CHAPTER 3

  Shame explodes across my skin.

  Ronald is saying all the things people are supposed to say in this situation (no harm, could have happened to anyone, I’m so glad—Barbara and I are so glad—that you love it here), but I can only gargle in response. I back away, hands held in front, palms out, until I hit the wall and spin, see the stairs (escape), and run up them, breath ragged. I duck inside the first room I hit and slide to the floor.

  Great job, Joan. For your encore, maybe you could walk in on Barbara on the toilet.

  My cheeks are hot, probably scarlet. I glance around. Might as well get used to this room, as I’m never leaving it. Looks like the master bedroom. It’s fully wallpapered, the pattern red-and-gold flowers, so loud it hurts my ears. A fresh breeze spooks the curtain, itself a clashing floral pattern.