Calling Home

by Janna McMahan

  She didn’t feel depressed, more like she was ready to have a go-to-pieces. Maybe she would be like her mother and have to be carted off to Our Lady of Peace over in Danville where they took nervous breakdowns. When Virginia was little she had been embarrassed by her mother’s illness (which stopped when all the children left home). Everyone flocked around her mother, warning the smaller kids to be quiet, while Patsy and Virginia ran the house, took care of the kids, cooked for their father and the field hands. Their father even stopped drinking when Ruby had one of her spells. Clyde would drive over to Danville and come home with a running list and spend the rest of the day fixing drippy faucets and replacing weather stripping. Virginia now respected her mother’s strategy of checking out and checking back in when it suited.

  Virginia had wanted to scream this morning when the kids were banging around upstairs, arguing. Patsy was sopping egg yolks with a biscuit and talking with her mouth full, but Virginia was thinking about slapping Will the day before. Instead of a boy’s smooth skin, her hand touched the prickly stubble of a young man, and that thought made her want to jerk open the junk drawer and root around for her hidden pack.

  Once the kids had gone, Virginia wrapped up the leftover ham and biscuits and washed the dishes and skillet. She swept the floor and fed the dog and put in a load of laundry. She refilled her coffee mug and finally slouched into a chair at the table to pay a few bills while Patsy rattled on.

  “You know how much I appreciate this, “Patsy said. “It’ll be a good chance for me and the kids to have some time together. You know family is so important.”

  “I hope the kids see it that way. They probably think you’re here to spy on them.”

  “What a thing to say.”

  “Because you’re not, you know.”

  “I’m not a busybody. I won’t run another one off for you.”

  “You’re implying that I ran Roger off.”

  “Not really, but he always loved you, so he must have left for some reason.”

  Virginia slammed her mug on the table and a spot of coffee sloshed out. “I know you’ve always wanted to think of Roger a knight in shining armor, but that’s not the way things were.”

  “All I’m saying is you could have done worse.”

  “Comments like that make me want to scream. If we’re going to make this work, your living here with us, then you’re going to have to be a part of this family. This is my family now. Not Roger’s and not yours.”

  Patsy’s eyes darted from Virginia, out the window and back again, as she summoned soap opera tears. “You don’t have to remind me that I don’t have children.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” Virginia slid her car keys across the table. “Take the car. Go to the revival. I’m not working today.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I need to sleep. I’m tired.”

  “I know what’s wrong with you—”

  “No, you don’t. Now, do you want the car or not?”

  Virginia waited on the back porch while her sister lumbered across the yard to the Impala that used to be a dark green. Patsy’s pocketbook dangled from her elbow. Her feet were stuffed into ugly black shoes, her hips heaved under a tent of floral dress. She scooted the seat completely forward so her feet would touch the pedals and then wedged herself behind the wheel. Neither woman waved as the car pulled away.

  Now Virginia stood on the bath mat, careful not to drip on the tile. She leaned over to towel-dry her hair, and when she stood, she got a full-length view of her body in the mirror on the bathroom door. Everything from her neck down quivered. She stopped and then shook again. A slight, crazy giggle escaped her. She walked closer to the glass and pulled her dark hair up to check behind her ears for the gray hairs she knew were sprouting there. She noticed a little line at the edge of her left eye. Her twenty-year reunion was coming up. She’d have to cover that gray. Maybe everything wasn’t as firm as it used to be, but she was still well proportioned. Her clothes fit fine. Nobody could tell there was a little jiggle underneath. At least her green eyes would never age. Her eyes had always been her standout feature. She’d been the FFA sweetheart in high school and voted “Most Attractive” in her class two years in a row. There had been opportunities to cheat on Roger. Times when all she’d have had to do was give Ed Feathers at Houchens Grocery the right smile. And of course there were those men, like Emmett Hord, who tried to act like she didn’t exist, but she knew they were still drawn to her. The last time she stopped to pay her insurance bill, Emmett’s wife was playing receptionist. When he came around the corner and saw Virginia he was stunned for a second, a little tongue-tied. He shoved paper at his wife and hurried back down the hall. Virginia still had power over men, even if she could stand to fix up some.

  She pulled on an old pajama bottom of Roger’s and a shirt, grabbed the wedding ring quilt off the bed, and on her way through the kitchen found her pack of cigarettes in the junk drawer. On the back porch, she took up in the rocking chair again, distracted by clouds battling with sunlight. In the distance, sunbeams crawled across a field before being eaten again by shadows. Sunshine during rain meant rain tomorrow. Some people said it meant the devil was beating his wife. At least that’s one thing Roger never did. He never raised his hand to Virginia or the kids. He even left the spanking to her.

  Will spoke the truth when he said Roger would never come back while Patsy was here, but at the moment there wasn’t another option. Life was one big compromise. Even with three other people in the house, Virginia felt all alone. Like now, if Roger were here he might have some idea what to do with Shannon. She’d had the sex talk with her, but it hadn’t done any good. She kept saying, “I know, Momma. I know.” What her daughter didn’t know about men could fill Green River Lake.

  Virginia had hoped that her daughter would develop slowly, be a late bloomer. Instead, Shannon’s body had filled out early and boys quickly took notice. Shannon had been promoted a grade in elementary school, a move that had helped make her academically on par with the other children but that had put her at a social disadvantage. A year younger than her classmates, Shannon would be the last to drive and the last to date. This understandably frustrated her, but there was nothing for Virginia to do but enforce rules to protect her. As she had expected, high school saw her daughter’s innocent, naïve ways rapidly vanish.

  Virginia had tried to keep Shannon focused on school and activities so she could go on to college and have some choices in life. She didn’t want her daughter to be smothered early by a husband and children and household responsibilities. The girl was smart and she worked hard. She deserved a chance at something different—college and an interesting job if that was what she wanted. Things were finally changing for women. Girls of Shannon’s generation had options.

  But the day the Rucker boy showed up on her porch marked the turning point. Virginia knew if she put her foot down against this boy, Shannon would run after him all the harder. Shannon saw him as freedom, as independence. She didn’t realize she was playing with fire, gambling with the rest of her life. Virginia had known this situation was inevitable. Now she was left to monitor them and make things move as slowly as possible. He seemed like a decent kid. The Ruckers were a good family as far as Virginia knew. Surely no worse than the Lemmons.

  Virginia froze with the cigarette at her lips. She heard crunching gravel, and then Roger’s car came around the corner of the house. He got out of the low-slung machine and tromped through the unruly grass to his shed. From the porch, Virginia could see Roger open the padlock and yank the ceiling bulb’s chain, throwing stark, quivering shadows onto the plank floor. The quilt trailed behind Virginia as she sneaked across the yard.

  “Roger.”

  He jumped. “Good God. I didn’t think you was here. I’m just getting some supplies and stuff I need.”

  She stepped inside, shaking her wet hair. “You can’t come around here taking things.”

  “I’m going to set up
a new place. Maybe business’ll be better in town.”

  “In town where?”

  He threw wire and brushes and small bottles of paint in boxes and yanked tools off the shed walls. “You know where,” he said.

  “No. Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Shit, Virginia. Go on back in the house. We don’t need to have some big discussion now.”

  “I want to know. Where’s your new place going to be?”

  “Back of the beauty shop.”

  Virginia’s laugh startled even her, it was so loud and full.

  “That’s rich,” she said. “What you going to do, hang your mounts on the walls in her beauty shop? I bet customers’ll love looking at dead deer and coons while they get their hair styled. Dead animal smell ought to mix real good with permanents.”

  “I’ll be in the back. There’s lots of space.”

  “That what you’re looking for, Roger? More space?”

  “You’re so clever. I’m not going to get into it with you.” He packed a box with tacks and glue and crammed a Styrofoam form in the shape of a leaping squirrel in last. The lifeless glass eyes of the animals along the walls touched her skin. There were fish, mouths open wide to scoop up a lure, but they seemed to be laughing at her. Virginia caught a glimpse of herself in the remaining silver spots of an old mirror. Half-moons under her eyes made her face seem bruised. She had dropped a dress size in the last couple of months, but Roger didn’t notice.

  She said, “The kids miss you.”

  “I miss them.”

  “You don’t call them. Why don’t you come take Will hunting?”

  “He ain’t talking to me.”

  “Can you blame him?”

  “That’s what you’re all about, Virginia—blame. I only want to get my stuff and get out.”

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Run away. You’re getting pretty good at that. You thought you’d slink in here and take things without ever having to face up to any of the rest of us. Do you have any idea what’s going on with your family now? Do you?”

  “Apparently I don’t know much of anything,” he said. “That’s why I left. I never could do nothing to suit you.”

  “Shannon’s seeing some boy from over in Mannsville and you know we told her she couldn’t date until she was sixteen.”

  “It was you decided she couldn’t date until she was sixteen. Not me. It was always you making the decisions, so don’t ask me for help. Lots of girls date at fifteen.”

  “Fourteen. She’s still fourteen, Roger. That’s pitiful. You don’t even know how old your own daughter is.”

  “So sue me.” Roger grabbed the boxes and headed to the car.

  “I might sue you!” Virginia screamed. “I’ll sue you for divorce and I’ll sue you for child support and alimony and for being the world’s number one asshole!” Roger threw the boxes in the trunk and slammed the lid. By the time he slid into the bucket seat, she was there.

  “Let go of the door,” he said.

  “Roger, do you know how embarrassing it is to have your husband run off with a whore?”

  “She ain’t a whore.”

  “Oh, yeah. Did you ever ask her what she did in Louisville?”

  “I don’t care what she did before.”

  “Where you think she got that name? Bootsie? That’s her stripper name, I bet.”

  “At least she ain’t on my case every hour of every day. I’m tired of you always telling me what to do. Like you own me or something.”

  “You’re tired? You’re tired? You ran off and left me with everything to do—the house, the kids, the bills.”

  “Virginia, get away from the car.”

  “I should have known something was up when you bought this car. Should I tell the kids you spent all our savings on this flashy piece of junk?”

  “You tell the kids whatever you like. You’re going to anyway. Now let go.”

  “Roger. Roger. You can’t do this to me. Wait.”

  “Virginia, damn!” He stepped out of the car. “Stop.” He grabbed her shoulders hard and raised her up on her toes. “Calm down.”

  She stiffened in his grasp. Her eyes were wild and black. “Let go of me!”

  “Virginia. For Christ’s sake.”

  She raked at his face, but he held her wrists. She struggled, twisting and jerking away from him. He held her to his chest until her rage was exhausted. She wilted into him. Roger spoke down into her hair. “Honey, we’re over. We made a decent run of things, but we’re both unhappy. You know that.”

  “No,” she moaned. “You love me, you know you do.”

  The rain picked up. Roger gently pushed her away, but she stumbled backward over a rock. He slid in the car and cracked the driver’s window. “Go back in the house, Virginia. You’re going to get sick.”

  She gritted her teeth and leaned close to his window. “You know what I don’t miss about you, Roger? I don’t miss those damn hollow-eyed animals in the freezer. You’ll probably make it at taxidermy because you’re good at sucking the life right out of something and making it seem like nothing ever happened at all.”

  “You know what I don’t miss? This.”

  A fist-sized rock bounced off the hood. Another slammed into the passenger door. The car caught road and growled away. Virginia hurled a last rock, tripped with the effort, fell to the ground. The wedding ring quilt lay drenched and dirty next to her. She gathered it into her lap, brushed gently at the stains, but all she did was smear mud across the pale patches of material. Virginia put her face into the wet blanket and cried.

  5

  Roger could see Virginia in his rearview mirror. She was down in the driveway, sobbing her heart out. Roger felt awful, but a guy could only take so much. He had paid his dues. He’d paid and paid and paid for better than seventeen years, but sometimes a fellow had to have a change. There should be a law that if a couple manages to stay married for fifteen or twenty years, that they shake hands, go their separate ways, and call it a success. Anybody who spends that long working at it and not cheating shouldn’t get kicked when they decide they need something different out of life. Hell, they ought to get a medal or something.

  He slowed down when he ran out of asphalt. The county never bothered to surface roads out this far, and washouts scraped the bottom of the Trans Am if he didn’t keep the wheels on high spots.

  Virginia would get used to the situation. She was just slow to change. Virginia had been on that same sewing machine at Union Underwear for years—had sewed the same seam a million times. Roger admired that steady part of her sometimes, wished he had more of it himself, but he got bored. He’d started out weaving skeins of cotton in the knitting department and had jumped to nearly every job in the plant by the time he finally up and quit. Loomis, the floor boss, let Roger try most anything in the basement where the men worked. At one job, all he did was walk around tables longer than a house, unrolling material. He put down six dozen layers of cotton, one on top of the other, and then the cutters came along with big saws and sliced out the underwear or the tee-shirts. Roger never asked to try cutting, since those guys always seemed to be missing a finger or two. What he did like was outlining garment patterns using templates and carbon sticks. Roger was good at art back in high school. He had loved making birdhouses and leather key rings in shop. Everybody always said he was good with his hands.

  The windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the rain, and Roger pulled into the weeds on the road shoulder. He watched Buckhorn Creek push and curl against its banks. His last job at the factory had been in the dye unit. Roger quit that job because at the end of the day they opened a pipe and released huge vats of dye into this very creek. The water ran the color of the day—red, blue, or bright green. Today the water had a yellow tint—goldenrod day.

  Roger didn’t get the chance to tell Virginia himself the day he finally quit. She found out before she left the building, beat him home, and when he walked in she was banging around the kitchen. “You’re going
back in there and tell Loomis that you made a mistake.” Wham went the oven door. “Tell him you had temporary insanity or something.” Clang went the skillet. “Crazy. You’re crazy.” She peeled potatoes so fiercely that Roger was afraid she would shave one of her fingers down to the bone.

  Roger had been doing small mounting jobs. If it could run, swim, or fly, he could mount it. Things had gotten to the point where he thought he could make money. Once word got out that he could mount, folks started bringing things to shoots—small birds or animals, always whole and frozen stiff. Guys would come carrying a cooler to the shooting shed and the others would gather around to see what was inside. Roger was always glad to see a towel wrapped around a frozen trophy fish. That meant the man knew how to preserve the mount. After everybody admired it, the fish would get tucked back into the cooler and Roger took it home. He especially liked the detail work in fish, and when he brought it back to the shoot, everybody would gather around again and tell him how he had a flair for making everything look lifelike. The better he got, the more he thought about opening a taxidermy shop. Roger knew sportsmen who would spend big to have their bucks mounted, plus it made a good excuse to be gone all the time. Virginia complained about the two or three nights each week he went to shoot trap, but Roger thought if business was involved that she would understand. It hadn’t worked out that way. Virginia stopped giving him spending money from her check, and soon Roger’s secret roll of twenties he kept for betting grew thin. Most nights he’d be a good shot and leave with more money than he came with, but one week he’d had to sell his favorite shotgun. That was a bitch, having to sell the Pirazzi; but he put two thousand dollars in his pocket.