Bend

by Nancy Hedin

  Momma would let me go now. Momma’s power was lost, or perhaps surrendered as if all the time it had been sustained through secrets, and maybe Becky. Becky was gone, and I could go too.

  A towhead peeked around the doorway at me. Grinning and smeared with cookie crumbs, Little Man came into my room. He walked and wobbled with his hands outstretched to catch the wall or anything he could reach for balance. Then he just fell to his diapered bottom and crawled the rest of the way.

  He grasped my jean legs. I picked him up into my arms and smelled his creamy neck. He clapped his pudgy hands on each side of my cheeks and gave me a slobbery kiss.

  “You’ve been eating peanut butter cookies.”

  Little Man let one hand slide down and looped it around my neck. He put his thumb in his mouth, but not before he pointed out the door. I knew what he wanted. He wanted to catch some squirrels, which was just his way of saying he wanted to be with me. Just that quickly, I knew what I wanted too, and it wasn’t the money meant for Momma. It wasn’t leaving Bend on someone else’s money, sweat, or benevolence. I wanted to make my own way, and I knew I could.

  I put the money back in my pocket and left the duffel.

  A person could register for school and not even be the person who was going to take the classes. A person could do that if they had the money to pay for the school, the student’s personal information, and a good friend, like a librarian. Gerry took Momma’s birth certificate, high school diploma, and the ten thousand dollars, and helped me register Momma in a nursing program at the area vocational technical college. I didn’t tell Momma until it was said and done and Momma had been accepted. I handed Momma a class schedule and a backpack filled with textbooks.

  “Momma, your folks intended for you to have that nest egg. I’m sorry it took so long for you to get it. I hope you will use it now.”

  Momma looked at Dad and back again at me. “No. I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. I’m going to work full-time with Twitch and take out some loans for college.”

  Momma was bug-eyed and dizzy for a moment before taking me into her arms and squeezing the breath out of me. I wouldn’t have moved for anything. Momma suddenly pulled back and a panicked expression cut her face.

  “What about Little Man? Kenny isn’t going to be able to take care of him without help.”

  “I’m going to stay home and take care of Little Man, until I leave for college in January,” I said. “I don’t want to let the drooling critter go just yet. Besides, it’ll take me until then to get these fools trained to watch him when I’m gone.”

  Momma could find a loophole in every plan and wouldn’t let me off the hook too quickly. “What about the money I make at the diner? Our family needs me to work.”

  For once I was prepared for Momma’s arguments. “Dad and Kenny both are taking jobs from Twitch. Dad’s going to run the lumberyard, and he indentured Kenny there too as long as Kenny agrees to get his GED. There’ll be money enough for us to get by.”

  Dad stepped up. He put his arm around Momma’s shoulders.

  “Peggy, honey, you got to just worry about yourself this time. You go to school. I’ll take care of things here.”

  Momma’s head fell onto his shoulder. “I know you’ll fill this yard with junk everyday I’m gone.”

  “Yep, I probably will.”

  “And you’ll probably feed Little Man candy and boxed dinners.”

  “Yep, that sounds like me.”

  “You’ll probably let Lorraine run around with Charity and give Pastor Grind a stroke.”

  “Yep, I think that Charity is a nice girl, and I trust Lorraine. The fact that it chaffs Grind only encourages me.”

  They both laughed and snuggled against each other. As much as I wanted to share the hug, I left them to themselves.

  “Can you keep working with Kenny after all that’s happened?” Momma asked.

  “Hell, not only can I work with him, I told him he should move into the upstairs and help me finish off those rooms for him and Little Man. We’ll get Kenny on the right track,” Dad said.

  “Little Man can keep living with us?” Momma put her hand to her mouth and started crying. “It would be good to have that boy around.”

  I still hadn’t told Charity about my old fears that she was actually my half sister. It all seemed like a lifetime ago in some ways. In other ways, it was still fresh and achy. I waited for a private moment, called Charity, and hoped to collect the rest of my college good luck gift even if I wasn’t going to college quite yet.

  “Hey, Charity. Maybe if you’re free tonight, I could come see you. I don’t think I properly thanked you for that camisole you made for me.”

  There was silence on the line.

  “If you liked the camisole, wait until you read the panties. Be here at 7 p.m.” Charity hung up.

  Charity was right about the panties, of course. I never thought of underwear as a great read, but I learned that when they were worn by someone you loved, and it was the first time you’d ever touched that person without clothes or reservations, then underpants were a fascinating read. Charity’s deserved the Pulitzer Prize.

  I traced over the words with my fingers.

  “Hold still. This is small print. How am I supposed to read what you’ve written here if you keep wiggling like that?”

  “I’ve never known you to be such a slow reader.” Charity squirmed as I read.

  Love, caress, rosebud lips, tongue, lick.

  “What’s here below this seam? I just can’t quite read it.”

  Charity lifted her knees and dropped her legs apart. I nibbled Charity’s thighs as I moved closer to read: Only you know me.

  I looked up into Charity’s face, smiled, and climbed Charity’s body until I covered the length of her. Our legs braided together and Charity’s epic poem rested warm and damp against my upper thigh. I kissed her. “I have wanted to make love to you since the first time I saw you. But I don’t really know what to do exactly.”

  Charity took my face in her hands. “Making love starts with good kissing, and you are a fabulous kisser, Lorraine Tyler. From kissing it’s just improvisation, and the moves come pretty natural.” She kissed me again. “The most difficult part—tell me if you find this isn’t true—the hard part is that so much of your body wants to be touched all at once. You’re going to wish for more hands and mouths and time. Remember, we have time and every inch of you will get attention.”

  She kept her word. Several times.

  Dad, Kenny, Little Man, Charity, and I saw Momma off to school on her first day. I wished Becky could have been there to see it and do something with Momma’s hair. Momma wore her blue dress, but instead of her Bible she toted a backpack of nursing books.

  Dad had packed Momma a lunch. I’d seen him put love notes in with the sandwich, pudding pack, and fruit cocktail.

  Momma got in the station wagon. Through her open window she handed me her notebook.

  “Open it,” she said.

  It was empty. All the pages were blank. I handed it back to her. She scribbled something on a page, folded the paper, and handed it to me.

  “If you get to the library later,” she said, “look this up.”

  Momma put on her seat belt and started the car. Everyone stepped back, but Momma backed the car up and only grazed the clothesline pole. She pulled forward and started down the drive. She cried. Dad cried, and before I knew it, I was crying too.

  It looked like a parade. Momma drove slowly down the driveway and the rest of us walked along beside the car, waving and wishing her good luck. She’d be home later in the afternoon, but this day had been a long time in coming. We marked it.

  Possibly Momma couldn’t take the sentiment any longer. She put her foot down and sped up onto the blacktop.

  Dad, Kenny, Little Man, Charity, and I stood and waved until the car disappeared over the rise. We turned and started back to the house. Dad asked to see the paper Momma had given me.

  It read
: bonobos.

  “What does it mean, Dad? Do you know?”

  “I think you might want to look it up for yourself,” he said. “But I think it means that your momma is trying to understand you better.”

  Each of us needed to prepare for our first day of something totally new. Momma had left for school. Thanks to Gerry, Charity had a commission painting a mural for the library until she left for art school in St. Paul the following year. Dad and Kenny started at the lumberyard. As for me, I worked with Twitch and lugged Little Man along every step of the way.

  I thought about what somebody would see if they drove down the road just then. Two queer girls holding each other’s hand, my free hand gripping Little Man’s sticky hand, and Kenny Hollister on the other side of Little Man. Dad walked on ahead of us. I hoped anybody who saw and knew us and our story would know we were a family.

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for reading Nancy J. Hedin’s Bend!

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  I have wanted to be a writer since I was a child. My love of writing and books was fostered by my maternal grandmother, Amanda Tall. She was a teacher and she proofread articles and wrote the society column for her local newspaper. Incidentally, she also sold Avon, so when she called to get the news—who was home from college for the weekend, who had been confirmed and such, she also let her neighbors know that lipstick was on sale. She was a multitalented multitasker who instilled in me the value of reading, writing, and having a spiritual life. She had a robust spiritual life despite the fact she cheated at cards and scared the local police.

  I stand on Grandma’s shoulders and on the shoulders of my parents, Edwin and RoJean Hedin. They worked the hardest types of jobs to give me a bigger dream, a brighter future, and a better life than they had themselves. They both knew how to tell a story. I was lucky as the youngest of five children. There was more money, a bigger house, and a freer world as I was growing up. This circumstance of birth order meant that my siblings said I was a spoiled brat. They were right. I stand on the shoulders of Kathy, Lin, Michael, and David because they cared for me into adulthood even though as the baby of the family I had more opportunities than they did. Thank you, Mom, Dad, Kathy, Lin, Michael, and David.

  The folks who make jokes about in-laws have never met mine. Jack and Mary Roeder are the real-life people about whom the Hallmark Hall of Fame stories are written. They model hospitality, generosity, Godliness, and good humor. They have raised their children to be kind, thoughtful, and hardworking citizens. I couldn’t be more fortunate than to have married into the Roeder family and found another place to call home.

  Thank you, Kent Haruf. I never met you, but your novels make me feel like writing stories is a sacred profession. Heartfelt gratitude to novelist Alison McGhee, who was my second reader for my thesis. It was truly an honor to have you read my work, because your work has entertained and inspired me for years. Likewise, thank you to novelist, Ellen Hart, for her encouragement to a fledgling writer and the example she set with her great writing and work ethic. Thank you to Pam Carter Joern for her novels and encouraging me to pursue an MFA at Hamline University.

  The Hamline MFA program taught me to write better and faster, and gave me a community of writers and teachers who graciously spurred each other on to make our best work and live a creative life. My most intimate community of students included: Wendy, Julie, Ryan, Steve, and Gretchen. I offer special thanks to Barrie Jean Borich, who was my first instructor at Hamline. She inspired hard work, wide reading, and deeper thinking than I had ever been challenged to do previously. A good grade from her meant something. My thanks to Mary Rockcastle for seeing potential in my work and admitting me to the program even though I did not have a bachelor’s degree from a qualifying university. Thanks to Deborah Keenan, who could teach anyone to love poetry and believe they might be able to change the world by writing it. Thanks to Mary Logue for showing me that an understanding and a way of organizing plot was a quick path to a first draft. Thank you to Sheila O’Connor for her work trying to get thick-headed writers like me to see the nuances of point of view. I still slip, but I am learning more with each thing I write and read.

  Thanks to Patricia Weaver Francisco for guiding me through my thesis and the development of a writing process. Your creative process class should be a requirement for all creative writing students and even people who might wander in off the street. It is a valuable self-inventory and opportunity for the most conscious type of work production.

  I could not have written my novels and completed the MFA program while also working full-time without the support of my colleagues at Ramsey County Mental Health Crisis Program. My team, in its many incarnations, has been the best team I could have asked for. They had my back when my head was being pulled in so many directions. Thank you Brian, Marcie, Madonna, Judy F., Sharon, Colonel Johnson, Amy, Rick, Jamie, Adrienne K., Nick, Merry, Willie, Mary Jo, Adrienne P., Maria, Karen, Barbara, Dave, Karalee, Susan, Judy L., Sally S., Sally V., Tera, Chuck, Colleen, and dearest Mona, who hired me and mentored me although I never wore a dress to work again after that interview.

  The day my agent, Ella Marie Shupe, emailed me to say she wanted to represent my work was one of the most exciting days of my life. Then, when I actually talked to her on the phone and saw that she got my work, knew my work, and wanted to champion my work, I felt sorry for any writer who didn’t have her as an agent. Ella Marie and Sharon Belcastro of the Belcastro Agency have given me great guidance in my writing and have worked so very hard to find a place for my work. They both helped me keep writing—I completed two more novels while working with them—and they kept me believing that it was possible to find a publisher for my books.

  Thank you to Riptide Publishing for publishing my book. I am particularly in debt to Sarah Lyons, Rachel Haimowitz, May Peterson, Alex Whitehall, and Amelia Vaughn, who shepherded my book into its final form. L.C. Chase and Natasha Snow made some sketchy ideas into a stunning cover. Riptide’s gifted staff has treated me with great kindness, support, and professionalism. They have made this book better. Thank you.

  Finally, the thrill of all this still takes a far off second place to the blessing of my wife and best friend, Tracy Roeder, and our daughters, Sophia and Emma. There is no greater accomplishment in my heart than the gift of being a family. It is that steadiness and continuous love that allows me to create and tell stories. Thank you, all.

  Nancy Hedin completed her MFA at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her work has been published in Sleet Magazine, The Minnesota Women’s Press, The Lake Country Journal, The Phoenix, The Midway/Como Monitor, and Rock, Paper, Scissors. She has been a pastor, a bartender, and a stand-up comic, and currently works as a crisis social worker. She lives in St. Paul, with her wife and daughters.

  Website: nancyhedin.com

  Twitter: @njhedin1

  Facebook: facebook.com/nancyhedinWRITES

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