Homesick Creek

by Diane Hammond

  “Maybe,” Anita said.

  “Are you going to the funeral?”

  “They aren’t having one. Sheryl said Warren told her once if he died, he didn’t want any service.”

  “He said that?”

  “Two months ago.”

  “Maybe he had a premonition or something,” Bunny said. “You hear about that happening sometimes.”

  “I don’t know, everybody says that kind of stuff. Haven’t you ever told Hack where you want to be buried?” Anita said.

  “Well, sure, but that’s only so he won’t put me next to Daddy. Can you imagine having to spend all eternity next to the bastard?”

  Anita snorted appreciatively. She hadn’t liked Bunny’s father either. He had always stared at her breasts.

  “Not even cemetery services, though?” Bunny said.

  “No, he wanted to be cremated. You know him and Sheryl were separated, right? Well, she said why would he want to be around her, dead, when he didn’t want to be around her when he was alive? So Bob had her send the ashes down here.” Anita nodded in the direction of the living room.

  “You mean that’s him in there?” Bunny said, looking.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Bunny shuddered. “It would give me the willies knowing that Warren Bigelow was sitting on my TV set in a jar.” She went and picked up the green urn and turned it around in her hand, finally turning it completely upside down. “I hope she didn’t pay much for this. I think it came from the Sentry Market. Remember when they were doing those giveaways, a free vase or serving dish or whatever for every place setting you bought? Mom picked up a couple just for the hell of it, she thought they were so pretty. They sure break easy, though; plus you just look at them wrong, and they chip.” Bunny set the jar back down on the television gingerly and nudged it into place with a fingertip. “It was made in India,” she said, returning to the table and dipping into the heaped laundry basket again. “You don’t think of them making something like a jar over there, just those cheap bedspreads you can’t wash with anything else. We had one once that turned Hack’s T-shirts completely pink, and you know Hack isn’t going to wear a pink T-shirt even if no one can see it. I had to buy him all new.”

  Anita nodded, snapping towels straight and folding them. Every one of them had a frayed place in the selvage.

  “Well, I guess you can’t say no to something like that, though, taking someone’s ashes and all,” Bunny ruminated, pulling up a pair of Crystal’s overalls from the clothes basket. “I mean, what if Sheryl would have just put them in the garbage or something?”

  “That’s the thing,” Anita said.

  “So how’s Bob taking it?”

  “Bad.” Anita smoothed the stack of towels that was smooth already. “I went to put out the trash yesterday, and he was just standing there in the rain—no hat, no jacket, nothing, just standing there.”

  Bunny raised her eyebrows. “He drinking again?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  Anita gave her a look.

  “It just sounded like he might have been, doing something like that.”

  “Well, he wasn’t.” Anita folded a small pair of underpants. They were Crystal’s favorites, the ones with a picture of Winnie-the-Pooh on the butt. Anita had bought her a set of them, one pair for every day of the week, a different character on each one.

  “Let me see those,” Bunny said, holding out her hand. Anita passed her a pair. “They’re sure cute,” Bunny said. “Where’d you find them? Fanny’s granddaughter Maisy’s crazy about Winnie-the-Pooh. Fanny said it’s about enough to drive them all around the bend. She’d sure like these, though.”

  “Wal-Mart. They were on sale a couple of weeks ago.”

  “I’ll have to tell her.”

  “Crystal can’t wait for Wednesdays, because she gets to wear Eeyore,” Anita said, taking the underpants back from Bunny and folding them. “She hasn’t figured out that she can wear Wednesdays any damn day she wants to.”

  “Well, because the underpants police might tell on her.”

  “Yeah.” Anita laughed softly. “I told Doreen to keep her mouth shut about it; this way it’s good practice for the days of the week.”

  “Sure.” Bunny brought over the Bailey’s from the counter. “You want some more?”

  Anita held up her hand. “I’ve still got some.”

  Bunny added some to her mug and screwed the cap on loosely, for when they wanted more.

  “So anyways,” Anita said, “Doreen got mad at me for buying them because she doesn’t have the money to pay me back.”

  “Pay you back for what?” Bunny said, drinking.

  “The underpants. I told her they were a gift, but she got mad anyway.” Anita sighed. “That girl loses her temper at every little thing anymore, especially at Crystal. I feel like I spend half my time just keeping the two of them separated, I swear.”

  “Well, Doreen’s got a lot on her mind,” Bunny said, licking a dribble of Bailey’s from the outside of her mug.

  “Yeah. Did I tell you about Danny’s divorce attorney? The boy is sitting there fat and happy in prison, contributing exactly zip to the family, and Doreen gets a call from his slimeball lawyer saying Doreen will have to turn over half their bank account to him.”

  “Is she going to fight it?”

  “No, spend it. That way there won’t be anything for Danny to get.”

  Bunny clucked sympathetically.

  “They only have two hundred and sixty-six dollars anyway, and that’s with her working two jobs.” Doreen had taken a night shift at the Dairy Queen in Hubbard on top of her hospital job over in Sawyer. “She’s working her ass off to keep her and Crystal going, and he’s sitting there in that penitentiary in Salem getting all his food and clothes for free.”

  “Aw, honey.”

  “You know what she said? She said she should just go out and knock over a bank or something, and she’d be set for life. No kids, no bills, no husband holding his damn hand out.”

  “Well, she does have a point. Not that she should do it, but she’s only nineteen, Nita,” Bunny said, as though Anita didn’t know it. “Is that Tommy Elliott still coming around?”

  “He is, but Doreen won’t have much to do with him. He has that cerebral palsy, and it makes him walk sort of herky-jerky. He’s a nice boy, but she says it embarrasses her to go anywhere with him because people look.”

  “Doesn’t his father own the Office Place?”

  “Yeah. It’s a good business. I pointed that out, but she just said, ‘What, so he’s going to give me and Crystal free pens and pencils for the rest of our lives?’ ”

  “She’s going to have to get a hold of herself, or she’ll be nothing but a smoking ruin by the time she’s twenty-five,” Bunny said.

  “You try telling her that, though. She just slams her bedroom door and won’t come out until morning, not even to tell Crystal night-night. Me and Bob, we’re going to end up raising that child yet, see if we don’t. I told Bob so just last night.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing. He just gave me a funny look.”

  “He’s probably worried about you.”

  “If he was worried about me, he’d stay home sometimes and help around the damned house.”

  “You look better, though, I have to say. Maybe it’s burned itself out.”

  “Maybe so,” Anita said. “I’ve felt better the last couple of days, but I didn’t want to jinx it by saying anything, you know? God be praised.”

  “God be praised,” Bunny echoed, and held up her spiked coffee mug to clink against Anita’s.

  Hack absently blotted water off the table at the Wayside with his Budweiser coaster. Shirl was half done with her beer already. Most women could nurse a beer forever, but not Shirl. She’d called him at work and asked him to meet her here for a beer and some talk. Well, she was talking, all right. “I’m saying keep your dick in your pocket. That’s all I’m saying. What’s betw
een you and Bunny is between you and Bunny. Just keep your damned dick to yourself.”

  “Jesus, Shirl.”

  She looked at him shrewdly. “You think I’m just some old gal, don’t you? Just some big old cow who’s never seen the world—”

  “I don’t think that.”

  “—but I’ve seen a thing or two. I know you, and I know my daughter. If you’re cheating on Bunny, she’ll never be able to forget it, and she’ll never let you forget it either. She’s a tough nut. She hangs on. When she was a little girl, she used to sulk for days if she didn’t get something she had her sights set on. For whatever reason, she has her sights set on you, and she has ever since she first laid eyes on you. You know what she told me that day? She said, ‘I just met my husband.’ That’s just how she put it: ‘I just met my husband.’ She meant she’d seen you. She was crazy about you then, and she’s just as crazy about you now. Maybe more.”

  Hack took a steadying breath. “Look, Shirl, I’ve always been straight with you. You and Bunny can believe me or not. This is the last time I’m going to say it to you, and I’ve already said it for the last time to Bunny: Rae Macy is an employee. That’s all. I know where my goddamn dick belongs. But let me ask you something. How come no matter what I do, you and Bunny think it has to do with sex? Hell, I put on a new pair of briefs that Bunny bought me in the first place, and she starts sulking. Why does it always have to do with sex?”

  “Because you’re a man, son,” Shirl said dryly, narrowing her small eyes in amusement. “Sex is your brass ring, your first-place ribbon, the hot fudge on your sundae. I know you, mister. I always have.”

  “Shit, Bunny gets all bent out of shape if I go to Portland to see Vinny, for chrissakes.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s been a hard thing between you, all these years. Bunny’s cried many a bitter tear about you and that child. She’s a jealous woman, and it’s a hard thing to be jealous of your own daughter.”

  “There’s never been any funny stuff between me and Vinny, Shirl, and you know it.”

  “Course I know it, baby,” Shirl soothed. “Did I ever say there had? But you have a powerful feeling for that girl, and Bunny’s always been one to keep good things for herself.”

  “Yeah.” Hack shook his head.

  “How come you’ve never had kids of your own?”

  Hack shrugged.

  “Well, you’ve been a real good father to that child, better than that worthless piece-of-shit JoJo would’ve ever been. Man couldn’t spend a month under one roof without turning mean—meanest boy I ever knew. We were glad when he took off. Good riddance, I told Bunny. Vinny, she didn’t get anything of his bad nature, and I thank the Lord for that. That little girl always had the sweetest temper, sweeter than Bunny even, and Bunny was a sweet one when she was little.” Shirl cracked a wicked smile. “Course, she’s toughened up some over the years.”

  “Some,” Hack said, grinning.

  “Hell, I don’t know, she always did feel she was getting a smaller piece of the pie than everybody else. I don’t know why; never did. Maybe if she’d gotten more attention from her daddy, or maybe that’s just bullshit, all that crap about how important it is to be the apple of your daddy’s eye or whatever. I never have been able to make up my mind about it. When I was little, we were lucky if our daddy remembered our names, he was gone that much.

  “My daddy never did forgive my mother for having us eight girls and just one boy.” Shirl chuckled. “We lived way upriver in the woods, but every Sunday we kids came down here to church by boat. My mother didn’t get to set foot inside that church for seven years straight one time, she was so tied down with the babies. There was no such thing as a crying room in those days; kids were expected to behave or stay home. Course, I was the youngest, and by the time I was old enough to remember, my mother was sitting right up there in the front pew regularly, belting out ‘Rock of Ages.’ The woman had feeling, but she could not carry a tune.”

  “You want another beer?” Hack said.

  “Talked me into it,” said Shirl, holding out her glass.

  Hack supposed it was his lot in life to be surrounded by strong women. There was Shirl, of course, and Cherise, but there’d also been Minna Tallhorse, who was stronger than anyone he’d ever met, male or female.

  The key to Minna’s strength, Hack thought, lay in her ability to hunker down and take it when anyone else would have run screaming from the room. She was there the day Cherise came back, fifteen months after disappearing without a word. Hack had walked into the apartment to find Cherise drunk, the Katydid crying, and Minna Tallhorse towering over the living room like an avenging angel. Hack had already half prepared himself, having seen parked in front of the apartment the kind of flashy piece-of-shit car Cherise liked to drive, in this case a Camaro the color of freshly spilled blood.

  When he came into the living room, Cherise was bearing down on the Katydid. One of Katy’s eyes was swelling shut.

  He didn’t remember lunging for Cherise, but he must have. What he did remember was Minna Tallhorse clapping restraining hands on both of them and holding them apart until they’d calmed down. She pushed Cherise into a chair across the room and motioned for Hack to sit next to the Katydid on the sofa.

  “Well, then,” Minna Tallhorse said, “you must be the mother.”

  So she must have just come in a minute before Hack.

  “Yeah,” Cherise said. “And who the fuck must you be?”

  “She’s our friend,” said Katy.

  “Well, I’m back now,” Cherise said. “You don’t need a friend.”

  “My name is Minna Tallhorse. I’m a social worker. Your children have been under my supervision for the last eleven months.”

  “Yeah?” Cherise said, faltering but still shifty-eyed, looking for the angles. “Well, they’re real good kids.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Minna said.

  “So you can go.”

  “What—and miss the fun?”

  Cherise subsided.

  “How come she hit you?” Hack asked Katy.

  “I told her I wished she hadn’t come back.”

  Cherise dug in her bag for a cigarette and lighter, making a production out of ignoring Minna Tallhorse. She picked a fleck of tobacco off her tongue and flicked it onto the floor, then walked across the room and fingered the cheap cotton throws Minna had bought for them to put over the battered sofa.

  “Nice touches,” Cherise said.

  “What are you even doing here? This isn’t your apartment anymore,” Hack said. He could feel Minna’s eyes burning behind him like coals.

  “Is that right?” Cherise said.

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Take a look at the name on the lease, kiddo. You know, you’ve sure turned out mouthy. She let you get away with that?” Cherise jerked her chin in Minna’s direction. “Or maybe she’s the one who taught you.”

  Behind him Hack could feel the Katydid’s fingers latch on to his belt, ready to restrain him.

  “She’s helped us,” Hack said.

  “And I’m real glad. Now say thank you so she can leave.”

  “Isn’t it fun to think it might be that simple?” Minna took a step forward. “The way I see it, you have a couple of chances to do something right. You can simply walk back out the door, which is the easiest thing. Or you can petition the state— through me, of course—to return the children to your care. Let’s see, you’ll need four consecutive pay stubs to verify your current ongoing employment, plus, of course, you’ll have to prove that the state of Nevada’s definitions of desertion and neglect don’t apply in your case. Not to mention you’ll have to convince me that you haven’t been drinking, which I’ll be legally obligated to include in my brief to the court, never mind the fact of your having struck your daughter. But if you feel full of vigor, by all means try it. You might even get a judgment from the courts before Hack turns eighteen, and if they turn down your request for custody, which of course they will, her
e’s the beauty part: You’ll have refined your communications skills, which may help you get increasingly responsible jobs in, say, the food service or hospitality industry. It’s entirely up to you, of course, but in either case you should probably be thinking of which motel you plan to stay in tonight.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Cherise said. “My name’s on the fucking lease for this dump. I have the right.”

  “Well, no,” Minna said. “Actually, you’ve pretty much done yourself in in the rights department.”

  Cherise looked at them all, dropped her burning cigarette onto the floor, slowly ground it into the linoleum, and stalked out of the apartment with her middle finger raised. A minute later they heard the Camaro roar off, its tires spinning in the gravel.

  “Well,” said Minna, “that was bracing.”

  “You were great,” Hack said.

  “Was it true, what you said to her?” Katy asked.

  “Which part?” said Minna.

  “All of it. It sounded true,” said Katy.

  “Yes,” Minna said, starting to smile. “It did, didn’t it?”

  Hack watched Shirl tuck into her fresh beer.

  All these years, and suddenly the past was leaching out of him like poison.

  “What are you thinking about, baby?” Shirl said, watching him. “You’re sure working something over.”

  “Nah. Just enjoying your company.”

  “Well, there’s a pile of shit,” said Shirl.

  A week later Minna Tallhorse brought them gifts, small boxes wrapped in red—a powerful color, she told them, a lucky color. She’d been wrong about that, but of course they hadn’t known it then. They’d opened the boxes with excitement, presents being a rarity. Hack pulled out a sterling silver dog tag on a chain, and the Katydid had a bracelet. Both were engraved with Minna’s name and phone numbers.

  They were odd gifts, if handsome.

  “In case,” she said, as though that explained anything.

  “In case what?” said the Katydid.