Beyond Deserving

by Sandra Scofield

  Suddenly it is there again, rolling at the surface, larger than she thought before, its back a dark green with a bright, silvery side. Again it disappears under the water, and then she sees that it has turned and is heading upstream again.

  “Hot damn!” Fish says quietly. “Hot fucking damn! The current is going to be on our side, honey.” He is now able to gain some line as the fish struggles against the water. Rhea can see it just below the surface. It is coming closer, almost out of the current. It makes a lunge, shaking its head, then pauses and rises slightly under the strain of the line. He speaks almost in a whisper, bending his head a little toward her. “We can land it if it won’t panic,” he says. “If it just won’t move and snap the line.”

  He gestures with his head. “Stand behind me so the fish won’t see you.” As she does, he swings the fish slowly inward toward the bank until the water is so shallow the fish’s back comes out of the water as its belly touches the gravel. The fish seems to explode with panic. She hears a pop as the line parts, and her father steps aside, nearly losing his balance. For an instant the fish is motionless. Without thinking about it, she runs toward it, the water suddenly cold on her feet and legs.

  She is astride the fish in the shallows. It twists and bucks, and she hears her father yelling. She tries to grasp the fish, but it is too slick and large for her hands. Then one hand finds a gill and she gets a hold on the fish, just as her father reaches her. He works a finger into the other gill and together they scramble onto the shore, pulling the fish between them.

  “I didn’t know,” she gasps. “I didn’t know about fish.”

  At the house he says, “You better go in first.” It is almost dark. At the door he gives her the fish. She grasps it at the gills, straining to hold it in front of her. Fish opens the door and lets her in. She hears a dog at the back door, whining and scratching. The cat streaks across the hall floor and into the front room. Then Rhea stumbles into the kitchen. Michael and Ursula and Katie are at the table in the breakfast nook. Gully and Geneva are at the table to the left, in the dining room. She stops in the kitchen and tries to hold the fish higher. Her chin touches the fish’s head, and its tail slaps against her thighs. “Look at my fish!” she says, panting, as she loses her hold and the big fish falls to the floor, revealing her wet and bloody clothes.

  Rhea sees that her mother is glaring at Fish over Rhea’s shoulder. She feels her father come up behind her. He puts his hand on her shoulder. “Do you believe this kid?” he says. It makes her chest ache with joy. Ursula says, “How could you, Fish?”

  Katie says, “You son of a bitch.”

  59

  Geneva says to Gully, “So can we go now?”

  Gully says, “Give me a minute, Ma. They just got here.”

  Fish says, “Salmon in an hour! Gonna cook our fucking fish!” He ignores Katie and goes to the back door, hauling the big fish. His shirt is smeared and wet.

  Juliette comes in and says, “So you finally got here?” She gives Rhea a light pinch on the arm. “Come upstairs with me and I’ll get you cleaned up, Rhea.”

  The dog races in behind Juliette. Fish makes a show of jumping aside for the dog. Rhea says, “Bounder!” and falls to the floor to hug the dog and send him chasing off through the house at top speed. Then she follows Juliette upstairs. The dog reappears in the kitchen and skids to a stop at Gully’s feet. “Good dog,” Gully says. “Good Bounder.”

  Ursula says, “People have been and gone, Fish. We ate. There’s still chicken left, and some stuff in the refrigerator.” Katie thinks Ursula looks and sounds weary.

  Katie says, “I hate you, Fish,” though without vigor.

  Gully says, “Happy birthday, son.”

  Fish takes the salmon to the back yard to clean. Katie follows him. Her head is throbbing. She would like to sock Fish in the throat. She would like to scream and jump around. She brims with anxious energy, and she doesn’t know what to do with it. She has a momentary flash of Fish and her in the back of the truck, arguing and sweating and making love. The image makes her angry at herself. She has been mad at him for hours.

  Michael says, “I’ll need to stoke the coals if you’re going to cook that fish. You want to cut some filets and freeze the rest? Let me know if you want some help.” Katie thinks Michael’s placid neutrality is as aggravating as Fish’s delinquency. Peas in a pod, she thinks. Acting like the fish matters, like the fish can make everything all right.

  “You couldn’t call us?” she asks Fish. Now she has this picture of Fish and Rhea standing hip deep in the river, using a walkie-talkie.

  He takes his knife out and slices down the belly of the fish. It makes her want to throw up. “You couldn’t come to your own party? You couldn’t wait until TOMORROW?” Her voice grates in her ear. Fish doesn’t look up.

  Ursula calls to her from the kitchen door. “You want to make a plate for Rhea, Katie?” Katie sighs and leaves Fish and Michael with the salmon. She can’t think of any more accusations anyway.

  Rhea comes back downstairs in clean shorts and a shirt.

  “Aren’t you hungry, darling?” Ursula says. Katie says sharply, “I’ll find her something.” She wants them all to recognize who’s in charge of this child, whose child she is. Maybe she hasn’t been in charge before, but she’s going to be now. If her mother knew Rhea went off with Fish alone, she would scream until Christmas.

  She finds Rhea a shrunken strip of chicken breast on a plate of meat; Michael has cleared the grill and added coals to it. Rhea takes a pickle and some carrot sticks from another plate in the refrigerator and sits at the table, careful to move her chair quietly. “You want some pop?” Katie asks her. Rhea nods but still doesn’t say anything. Katie gives her a Sprite in a can and she takes a little sip. She eyes her plate as if something might be moving around on it. Katie knows Rhea is avoiding her eyes, and it is wounding and frustrating and unfair. Katie isn’t the one who went off and ruined the day for everyone. Katie isn’t the one out in the yard making a lot of noise and commotion and not even bothering to speak to his parents, who have waited hours and hours to see him.

  Gully pulls up a chair and sits down near Rhea. “Where’s Bounder?” she asks him.

  “I put him in the back yard,” Gully says. He looks at Katie and says, “We’ll take the dog back with us. Rhea likes him so much, I thought she’d want to play with him today.” He’s so tired his face seems to have shrunk, like the chicken on Rhea’s plate. To Rhea he says, “Maybe you can come out and play with Bounder tomorrow.”

  Ursula boils water and rinses the teapot. “I’ll make Geneva a cup of tea,” she says to the wall. “I know she’s feeling wrung out. Ha. Who isn’t?”

  Katie’s observation is that Geneva is close to exploding. She hasn’t moved from her post at the dining room table. Through the double doors Geneva can see Gully at the table with Rhea, and she stares at him as if he were having a tête à tête with another woman.

  Fish bursts through the room and down the stairs, letting the door slam hard behind him. In short order he is back up and out again, carrying his tape player and a handful of tapes. At the back door he turns and says, “Are you all asleep? This is DEAD CITY around here!” He sticks the player under his arm and grabs a beer out of the refrigerator.

  Michael crosses paths with his brother on the deck and comes into the kitchen. “Have we got lemon?” he asks. Ursula says yes, and spoons loose tea into a pot. Michael says, “I can eat again by the time the fish is done. Fresh salmon. What a surprise.” He leaves again.

  Rhea looks at Katie. “I didn’t catch it,” she says. “I was just there.” There is a blast of Janis from the yard.

  “Nobody’s blaming you,” Katie says. “Eat up. I have something for you upstairs.”

  Katie goes to the window to look out on the yard. Ursula switches on the yard lights and returns to the sink to rinse dishes and stack them in the dishwasher.

  “I’m not really hungry,” Rhea says. She is leaning on her ar
ms.

  “Come up,” Katie says. “Come see what I’ve done.”

  “Gully,” Ursula says. “Here’s a cup of tea for Geneva. Why don’t you take it to her? We’ll sit down.”

  When Katie and Rhea come back down with Juliette, Ursula is at the table with Geneva, and Gully has gone outside with his sons and the dog.

  “You better come see, Aunt Ursula!” Rhea says. She is feeling much better.

  The twirler’s outfit is baggy in the seat of the pants, but otherwise it fits nicely. It is pale blue satin, trimmed with white false fur. It has a short pleated skirt, a close bodice with a scoop neck, and cap sleeves. Katie has attached yards of shiny rickrack around the neck and sleeves. It was worth it all for the look of astonishment and delight on Rhea’s face when she saw it. Rhea said, “That’s where you were!”

  Rhea carries her baton into the yard, followed by Juliette. Katie sits at the dining room table, facing out through the nook and the windows, into the yard. She can see the two girls prancing and strutting, Rhea holding the baton up high. The dog is barking and racing about.

  “I don’t know what I thought happened,” Katie says wearily to no one in particular. “It was like he’d gone off with her. Like to Canada or Mexico. Like he robbed her from us. And they were having a good time, that’s all. Rhea is full of it. She had a great day. I’ve made a scene about nothing.”

  Ursula says, “Fish was thoughtless and stupid to go off without a word, but maybe it would be better to shut up about it for now. We don’t want Rhea feeling guilty. Kids pick up on these things.”

  “Doesn’t she seem like a really happy child?” Katie asks.

  Ursula says, “I thought that right away.”

  Geneva says, “In all of Evelyn’s nineteen years, I cannot remember a single time Gully went anywhere with her alone.”

  The other two women stare at Geneva.

  “The boys had dogs. The boys had birds. But let Evelyn try to pet one, and it bit or scratched or pecked or barked. One year they had a pigeon and it dropped doo-doo in her hair.”

  Katie and Ursula look at one another.

  “He stays up late like this, he’ll have an angina attack driving home.”

  “Michael can take you,” Ursula says quickly.

  “He won’t be able to sleep, and he’ll roam around the house and I won’t be able to sleep either,” Geneva keens.

  “You could sleep in the spare room upstairs if you want. You could go up there now,” Ursula says. Her eyes are drooping and dark, her hair sticks out in tufts, her kelly green tee shirt has several stained spots on it. Katie thinks it was worse for Ursula than for anyone today. She expected the most.

  She stands by the window and looks out on the yard. The girls are chasing the dog, catching him and sitting on the grass, letting him run back and forth over their legs and around them. Rhea lies flat on her back and the dog jumps across her belly, but lands halfway on her chest. Fish is playing a Grateful Dead tape. “Ripple in still waters. When there is no pebble tossed, no wind to blow …” Why, this should be a good time we’re having, she thinks. “Where’s Carter?” she asks without turning around. They wouldn’t get him down.

  “He’s working tonight. Two more weeks till he quits and gets his place ready. They’re going to call it ‘Annabella’s Pizzaria.’” Ursula drums her fingers lightly on the table.

  “He’s a funny kid.”

  “Don’t I know it?” Ursula sighs.

  Fish comes in fast and takes a six-pack out of the refrigerator. “Fish is almost done!” he yells as he exits. Geneva slumps with her midriff against the table. “His last dog died ten years ago. Why does he get one now?”

  Ursula stands up. “I’ll get Gully, Geneva. Michael can drive you both home and he and Fish can bring your truck out tomorrow.”

  Geneva lays her head on the table.

  Katie follows Ursula into the yard. Fish has changed the tape to the Rolling Stones. The girls are back to their baton twirling act, with Rhea leading Juliette as they march from one end of the yard to the other and back. “Watch, Katie!” Rhea calls. She twirls in place, and her pleated skirt flies out around her. When she stops, she does a bump with her butt.

  Fish has a beer in his left hand and a long fork in the right. He is poking at the fish on the grill. Smoke is billowing.

  Ursula says, “Michael, Geneva’s tired and wants to go home. Maybe you should drive them.”

  Gully says, “I can drive when I want to, I want to try the fish first.”

  Michael says, “I’ll talk to her in a minute, Ursula.” He pops the tab on a can of beer and sips it. Fish takes a long noisy drink from his, and burps loudly.

  “If you’re going to get drunk, you can go to hell,” Katie says.

  Michael says, “It’s our birthday. Both of you could stand to lighten up.”

  “What have I done?” Ursula protests. “Cook and talk? Serve and clean?”

  “I wasn’t talking to you, Michael,” Katie says.

  “I’m drinking beer too,” Michael replies.

  “Never mind, Michael,” Ursula says. “Your mother is tired.”

  “Everybody’s TIRED,” Fish says. He jumps up on the lawn chair near the grill and swings the fork around. “They’re all WORN OUT. Somebody didn’t DO RIGHT and it’s got them all DOWN. Katie’s afraid Fish won’t stay SOBER. Katie’s afraid Fish will FUCK UP and DESERVE DIVORCE. Fish might lose his keys, drive the wrong car, break a plate, piss in his pants. HAVE A WRECK! FUCK A HIPPIE! FISH MIGHT GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE AND INTO HIS OWN MOTHERFUCKING HOUSE. FISH MIGHT SHOOT THE ASSHOLES WHO ARE STILL IN IT.” He burps again.

  Gully says, “Son, I know just how you feel, I’ve been there too.”

  “High and Dry” comes on the tape player. Fish bellows the song out along with the tape. He swings the fork, kicks one leg out and back, sways precariously. “You left me with no warning …” The girls are giggling and racing with Bounder now. They rush by and away again. Gully says to his son, his voice crackling, “You don’t think that fish is done?” Fish is screaming the song. “High and dry, well I couldn’t get a word in …”

  “I better go,” Gully says. “I don’t feel so good.” He reaches out toward Michael.

  Rhea and Juliette are shrieking, running after the dog.

  Fish screeches, “What a way to go …” He swings his head and shoulders around. The chair tips and then topples. Fish falls as the chair hits the barbecue grill and sends it onto its side, fish and coals flying. Everyone jumps back. Michael misses Gully’s hand. Fish sprawls on the far side of the chair. As Gully steps backwards, Bounder bounds behind him, and Gully stumbles and falls with a thud. He moans once and lies still.

  Katie grabs the tape player and throws it all the way across the yard against the garage.

  Rhea cries, “Grandpa,” and Juliette, “What happened?!”

  Fish says, “Now what have I done? Shit, what have I done?”

  Michael and Ursula are on the ground by Gully. Gully says, “I think it’s broke.”

  Rhea begins to cry loudly. “It’s my fault,” she wails. “I made Bounder do it.” Juliette puts her arms around her and starts to cry too.

  Katie starts hitting Fish on the chest and head and arms. She doesn’t say anything; she grunts and hits and starts to weep. Fish stands with his arms hanging at his side limply.

  Ursula says, “Thank God nobody’s burned.”

  Geneva appears and says, “I hope everybody’s happy.”

  60

  Ursula sits with Katie at the dining room table under the soft glow of the hanging lamp. The rest of the house is dark, except for a night light on the stairs and in the upstairs hall. Ursula managed to find some gin stashed in the cabinet above the refrigerator, along with an inch of cheap cognac and half a dozen miniature wine bottles from airplane rides. They have killed the gin, drinking it with Sprite, and Ursula feels not so much high as slightly numb. She probably would feel the same if she drank water, she’s so tire
d.

  Michael calls a little before midnight and says it’s going to be a while. Gully’s heart is acting up, it’s his angina. They still haven’t set his arm. “Mom’s asleep on a couch,” he tells Ursula. “She’s half-dead, I wish I could check her in too.”

  “And you?” Ursula asks. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure I’m okay,” Michael says. “Why wouldn’t I be? Is Fish there?”

  “No, he left right after you did, in his truck. We haven’t seen him.”

  “Maybe he went to a bar. Or driving around.”

  “Katie says maybe he went to Mexico.”

  “Too hot this time of year. Listen, I’ve got to go. Don’t wait up.”

  “We’ll see.” She hangs up and recounts the conversation for Katie.

  Katie says she doesn’t know if she can stay awake much longer.

  “You don’t need to. Go up to the spare bed. Rhea’s with Juliette.”

  “I was hoping Fish would come back. I was hoping he wouldn’t go out and get drunk, or drunker, and do something stupid.”

  “It’s up to him, I guess,” Ursula says. She wishes she had more gin, or liked cognac.

  The phone rings again. “Just a minute, just a minute,” she says. She puts her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s the renters. They say Fish is sitting in his truck in the driveway. What do they think we can do about that?”

  “Give me the phone,” Katie says. “Who is this?” Now she pulls the phone away from her face to tell Ursula, “Sky the dipshit. Okay, Sky, he’s had a very hard night, and he is very pissed at you. You go out there and tell him Katie says come home, it’s cool here. You don’t make it worse, you hear? And in the morning start packing your shit.” She bangs the phone down.

  Ursula feels guilty, though she has nothing to do with it. “Michael was absolutely scrupulous about references, deposits, all of it. But all the people who wanted to live in your house were a little—alternative. Know what I mean?” Katie knows. “Michael did go file for an eviction notice, you know. They’re wrong, but they’re there. It could take a while.”