by Tim Sandlin
“His story isn’t interesting?”
“His story isn’t true. He’s making up every word, and I have to sit there in silence because if I so much as point out a single historical inaccuracy, he starts over at birth.” Lydia twisted the rearview mirror sideways to check her hair for uneven bangs. “And there’s no consistency. Half the time he talks like a South Carolina clay-eating hick, and then he’ll say a word like nonplussed. I’ve never used nonplussed in conversation in my whole life.”
She grabbed Roger’s arm above the elbow. “Pull in the A&W. I feel the need of a root-beer float.”
They went inside, on account of Lydia’s view that drive-up food denigrates society. Roger ate a double cheeseburger while Lydia polished off her float and his french fries.
Their table overlooked a muddy creek where six fuzzy ducklings followed a female mallard in and out of the willows. The babies made interesting patterns of independence and need as they flowed around their mother.
“Do you have any concept of how much I missed the call of a migrating Canada goose while I was locked away?” Lydia asked. “There were days I would have sacrificed my future to see one, even for an instant.”
Roger chewed his cheeseburger and considered telling Lydia the bird she would have gladly sacrificed her future for wasn’t a Canada goose; it was a duck.
“You never appreciate the details of a way of life until you lose it,” she said. “You want that pickle?”
“No.”
When she took the pickle, he noticed the veins on the back of her hand. Instead of blue and thick, the way you would expect, they were red and thin—spidery veins like you see in the cheeks of a drunk.
“Well,” Lydia said. “What do you think?”
Roger said, “I think you’re a crackpot.”
Her color shifted slightly, but otherwise, Lydia gave no response.
Roger went on. “I think you had too much time on your hands in prison, and if I listen to you, I’ll get my hopes up, and I’d rather not get my hopes up for nothing.”
She sucked root beer through a paper straw. The Jackson A&W was possibly the last fast-food restaurant in America giving out paper straws. “So, you do not wish to hear my theory concerning your origins?”
“Yes, I want to hear your theory. I just want you to know I think you’re a crackpot.”
Lydia stared at him a full ten seconds. He stared back. Both Lydia and Roger would have chosen public humiliation over blinking first. Finally, Lydia said, “Fair enough.”
***
“Between hiding with Hank and the time of incarceration, I was unable to see the valley that I love for ten long years. Imagine being banished from home for ten years.”
Roger folded his arms and watched the ducks. He had trouble picturing Lydia as homesick but supposed it was possible. Maybe behind that wall of scorn lived a sentimental sop.
Lydia pulled a pocket mirror from her purse and checked her teeth for residual french fry. “I came up with the idea of reading every book written about Jackson Hole or written by an author who lived in Jackson Hole—every book with any vague yet tenuous connection to Jackson Hole and GroVont. As you must know, I once owned a press here in the valley, specializing in feminist ecological philosophy.”
“Does this have anything to do with my roots?”
“Are you in a rush? Got a busy schedule out there at the Home, servicing the needs of over-ripe little girls?”
Roger glared at her but didn’t speak, so she waited for the testosterone level to settle, then she went on. “I devoured everything, all the way from Owen Wister and his recycled cowboy-as-Ivanhoe stories to that sentimental hogwash my son passes off. There’s a bookstore in Portland with more titles than the Library of Congress. They can send you anything.”
Roger had read Owen Wister, not just The Virginian, but also Lady Baltimore, and he could have argued the cowboy-as-Ivanhoe crack, but he was afraid to go there for fear of knocking Lydia off her train of thought. Lydia’s train of thought didn’t appear capable of dealing with distraction.
“I found several books by a man named Loren Paul who used to live up Ditch Creek.”
“The screenwriter?”
“You’ve heard of him?”
“Sam told me about a novelist up past Antelope Flats who sold out his ideals and moved to Hollywood to spew pabulum for the movies.”
“Sam’s one to talk about pabulum.”
“I’m just repeating what he said.”
“Yeah, well, Bucky on Half Dome is no more serious literature than Dukes of Hazzard.”
Roger instinctively knew the best way to keep Lydia on track was to shut up.
She said, “Loren Paul made his reputation off a piece of horse dung called Yeast Infection, which was nothing but a woman-bashing polemic disguised as satire.”
“I mostly read books by dead guys, so I haven’t gotten around to that one yet.”
“Don’t bother. Loren had an earlier book, after the Westerns and before the commercial crap, called Disappearance. I have one of the few copies still in existence.”
She reached into her saddle purse and withdrew a narrow green hardback. Turning it in her hands, she showed Roger the word Disappearance embossed on the cloth cover. “It’s about his stepson who disappeared at a campground on Jackson Lake.” She passed the book to Roger.
Roger said, “And you think the stepson might be me?”
Lydia shrugged. “The years match up. The description of the boy fits what I imagine you might have looked like at five.”
“Any description fits what I might have looked like at five.” He opened the book and studied the title page. It was signed by the author: To my good pal Marcie VanHorn, in memory of her Cornish game hen. The signature was indecipherable.
Lydia said, “There are odd details, names, and places that come across as more than random coincidence, to me, anyway.”
Roger turned to the copyright page. “Callahan, this is fiction.”
“So?”
“Fiction means not true.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Look it up.”
“This is a personal story. Read it and tell me you don’t believe this man lost his stepson.”
“It might be based on a true event, but fiction means the names are changed. The descriptions and locations. All those odd details you think are coincidence connecting the story to me would be changed.”
Lydia stared at him across her purse. This wasn’t what she’d expected. She’d expected wonder and curiosity, perhaps awe at her detective skills. Instead he was smack in denial.
She said, “When you first came to Maurey’s ranch, you were quite a mystery. Practically intriguing. You don’t remember, but you and I spent time together. You were a spooky little boy.”
“And that makes you think this kid is me?”
“Read the damn book, Roger.”
Roger turned over another page, to the first chapter. “What’s the kid’s name?”
“Fred.’
He read the first sentence. Sometimes I have these gaps which are amazingly like being dead except that they don’t last, and I have an awful feeling that being dead lasts.
Lydia said, “Fred. But his mother called him Buggie.”
Roger said, “Fred or Buggie, I don’t know which is worse.”
***
Roger and Lydia found Shannon rocking in a wicker glider on the front porch of Lydia’s house. She was barefoot, wearing a sleeveless blouse and cutoffs, eating a candy bar while she read a magazine. She looked up from the magazine with a vague smile on her face and sent them a four-fingered wave.
“Look at her,” Lydia said. “All the oomph of an old biddy.”
Roger parked the BMW beside his truck. “She looks pretty nice to me.”
“At y
our age, a fence post with knockers and a knothole would look pretty nice.”
Roger helped Lydia load up her equipment. “You want me to carry that stuff in for you?”
“I’ve got it.”
“Wouldn’t be any trouble.”
“I said I’ve got it.” She started toward the house. “Don’t forget your book. I’ll call next time I need you.”
Roger said, “You’re welcome,” but he said it so quietly he was fairly certain she didn’t hear. She gave no sign of hearing him.
As Lydia crossed the yard toward Shannon, she admired the balance of new purchases on and around her front porch. Since she’d come home, she had installed the glider, three hanging plant baskets, and a hummingbird feeder. Last time she lived in this house, she’d taken it as a temporary arrangement—for twenty years. This time she planned to stay.
Lydia hit the steps, talking. “That boy has all the subtlety of an elk in rut.”
Shannon glanced up to see Roger pulling a three-point U-turn before heading back up the mountain. He double-clutched the gear changes, which made the truck cough.
“Roger?”
“You know they have a word for girls your age who seduce boys his age.”
“What is it?”
Lydia paused, momentarily thrown off her roll. “I forget. But I wish you wouldn’t flaunt yourself before him. After all, he is related to you in some bizarre, labyrinthine fashion.”
“He’s a half brother, sort of. I don’t think Maurey ever legally adopted him because he got too old before the birth-certificate thing could be worked out. And I wasn’t flaunting. I was sitting here alone, reading and eating a candy bar.” As if to prove her statement, Shannon licked chocolate off her fingers.
“Let’s see what you’re reading.” Lydia took the magazine from Shannon and flopped it closed, losing Shannon’s place. The magazine was Cosmopolitan. The cover showed an anorexic junkie with lip implants and huge, artificial breasts. The word sex appeared on the cover three times, orgasm twice, and love once. Love was used in the banner head: “Tom Hanks Knows What Love Is.”
“I’ll tell you what love is,” Lydia said. “Love is systematically lowering your standards until you find someone who has systematically lowered their standards down to you.”
Shannon tucked her bare feet up under her thighs. “Is that what you did with Hank?”
Lydia sniffed. “Hank and I were the exceptions. Neither one of us had to lower our standards an inch.”
“Why is it you always get to be the exception? All these natural laws you come up with apply to everyone but you.”
“I’m different. You could be different too, if you didn’t pig out on candy bars in the middle of the day. I haven’t had a bite since breakfast, but you don’t see me bombarding my blood sugar level with chocolate goo.”
Shannon turned sideways with her back against the swing’s arm. She watched Lydia fuss with a flower basket. Lydia was humming quietly, and it sounded to Shannon like the theme from Green Acres.
Shannon said, “Grandma, do you think I could stay here awhile?”
“You’ve been staying over a week.”
“I mean live here—with you.”
Lydia bit her lower lip, then said, “How long are we discussing?”
“I don’t know. Until I get back on my feet.”
“I wasn’t aware that you are off your feet.”
Shannon straightened her legs in the swing. Several of her toes showed a chipped light blue polish. “When I think about going back to Carolina, my mind shuts down. I have no life there, no job. Nothing I want to see or do.”
“If you have no life, it’s because you define yourself by men, and when you don’t have one, you are an empty pot.”
“I’ve lived without men before.”
“How long?”
Shannon tried to remember. It had been a long time ago.
Lydia said, “What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without a man on your mind?”
“I went four months without sex once.”
“That’s because you were in love with a married geek who was too racked with guilt to screw you but not racked enough to avoid leading you on.”
Shannon thought about that one—Wyatt. He’d taken an amazing amount of energy. They’d shared more tears than any of the guys she actually slept with.
She said, “Don’t you want me to live here?”
Lydia considered the question honestly, and honestly, it was nice to have Shannon around. Not that she would admit it. “That’s up to you,” she said. “Why would you choose me over your mother and father?”
“I think you’d be a better influence.”
Lydia’s mood shot skyward. She was a sucker for compliments.
“I could stay at Mom’s, only she makes everybody get up at five to work outdoors. I don’t mind hard work, but before dawn…” Shannon shuddered. “And Dad’s, with pregnant girls everywhere you look, it’s like this never-ending reminder that I’m not making something of my life.”
“Having babies is not ‘making something of your life.’”
“Those girls don’t raise their babies, but still—”
“Any fool female can procreate. Cows have babies every spring, but cows can’t publish a book or plant a garden or sit in a porch swing and admire the sunset. That’s making something of your life. Having babies is like going to the bathroom. Sure, it’s natural, but it’s not worth bragging about.”
Shannon felt better than she had since Tanner told her her pussy smelled. “You know why living with you would be so healthy, Grandma? Because you are so incredibly wrong that you clarify what is right. Being around you sweeps away the confusion.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Lydia turned to go into the house. “And stay as long as you like. You can live vicariously through me.”
***
Supper was spinach manicotti and sourdough bread with hand-cranked huckleberry ice cream for dessert. Angel Byron stayed in her cabin, claiming nausea, but the other three girls at the dinner table were the whiniest group Roger had ever been trapped in a room with.
“Too hot.”
“Too dry.”
“Dirty.”
“Hicksville.”
They are okay taken one at a time, but pregnant girls were never meant to bunch up. Roger escaped by offering to run a dish of ice cream down to Angel. She answered her door wearing a maraschino cherry red fleece bathrobe, and when Roger offered the ice cream she said she couldn’t eat a bite. She took the dish from him anyway and invited him inside, where she proceeded to wolf the ice cream so quickly Roger got a headache just watching her. Angel had eggshell white skin and black eyes. Her hair was cut shorter than Roger’s, which as a general rule, he didn’t care for, but on Angel it worked.
She said, “Don’t tell anyone you saw me eat this.”
“Okay.”
“I have a reputation.”
When Angel handed the dish back to Roger, she touched his wrist and said, “If I came to your cabin, would you send me away?”
“No.”
“Would you ever come to me first?”
“I brought you ice cream.”
“You know what I mean. Would you come to my cabin if I didn’t come to yours?”
“No.”
“That’s fair. I like it when I understand the rules.”
***
Back in his cabin, Roger poured himself a juice glass of brandy and put Chet Baker’s Young Chet on the CD player. He pulled his boots off on the bootjack and dug under the bed behind his photo album for a pair of woolly slippers Gilia had given him for Christmas. They were red with monkey-head toes. He kept them hidden whenever he had company, but they were the ideal slippers for an evening of brandy, jazz, and a book.
The book was the part
of the equation he had been avoiding. Disappearance sat on the end table stump, next to his rocking chair, which was in front of the unlit woodstove. Roger propped his slippered feet on the oven door and rocked and sipped brandy. He wasn’t ready to touch the book quite yet. First, he had to formulate hopes. It seemed important to know what he was looking for before going off in search of it. The book had to be about terrible things—child abuse and kidnapping and violent behavior—or else no one would have published it. They don’t print novels about happy people.
Roger finished off his brandy and set the glass on the stump. He picked up the book and gently turned it in his hands. There was fear the book would change his life, and equal fear it wouldn’t. The temptation was to read the ending first, but he knew the boy disappeared and wasn’t found or Lydia would not have seen him in the story.
Eden Rae O’Connor opened the door and came in. She was wearing a long, oversize T-shirt with a panda bear on the front and, from what Roger could see, nothing else. She was crying. Tears tracked makeup down her cheeks and quivered on the end of her chin. The top of her shirt was wet from tears. Her hands cupped her huge belly, as if to keep that one part of her together while the rest fell apart.
“Did you scrog with Angel Byron?” she asked.
“I took her ice cream.”
“You better be nice to me. I’m more pregnant than she is. You can go at it like rabbits after I’m gone, but right now I can’t share.”
Roger set Disappearance back on the stump. “Come in and let me rub your shoulders. I’ll make you feel better.”
Eden walked into the cabin. She said, “I’m under a lot of stress.”
***
“I came to an important realization last night,” I said. “Guess what it is?”
My mother looked up from the sugar swirling in her iced tea. One of her favorite pastimes was to dump two heaping spoonfuls of sugar into a glass of iced tea, then stir like hell and watch as the crystals went from real to imagined.
She said, “You realized that questions like ‘Guess what I’m thinking?’ make your friends and loved ones gag.”
“I realized that no matter how long I live, I shall never sleep with Linda Ronstadt.”
