Drowning Ruth

  “In the kitchen,” Ruth said. “Where's the tractor?”

  “No good,” Carl said, shaking his head and frowning. He started toward the porch.

  In the distance a dog barked, and Imogene turned her head toward the sound.

  Halfway across the yard, Carl stopped. Something indefinite brushed against the edge of his memory.

  “What's the matter, Dad?”

  Carl didn't answer. He stared at Imogene, her profile and her braids. There was something strange about her—no, it was something strangely familiar. She turned her gaze on him then, across the yard, and his mind caught a notion and held it fast. He'd never have seen it if she'd been closer, if her hair had not been braided, if she hadn't been sitting precisely there, where Mattie had sat the day that picture was taken. He'd never have realized that Imogene was Mattie, a young Mattie, younger than he'd ever known. She was the Mattie in the photograph.

  Without a word, Carl turned and went back to the truck. He got in and backed onto the grass as he turned around. Then he drove back up the road, dust clouding thickly behind him.

  The bell jingled over the bait shop door, and Carl stood for a moment just inside, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness.

  “Carl!” Mary Louise exclaimed, coming out from the back room. “It's good to see you.” She leaned against the counter smiling. And then, when he continued to stand without speaking, she asked, “Did you come in just to say hello?”

  “No.” Carl, recollecting himself, crossed to the buckets and tanks of bait along the wall and peered into them, distractedly.

  “So you've finally taken up fishing?”

  “No,” he said again. But he continued to drift around the room, idly fingering various items, keeping his eyes from Mary Louise. He paused at the counter to her left and began sliding open the tiny drawers in the chest.

  “Can I help you find something?”

  “Yes. No. I'll take this,” he said, lifting from a drawer a hook whose barb had caught in his flesh.

  Mary Louise held out her hand for it. “I hope my daughter's been behaving,” she said in a way that implied no doubt. “I think it's wonderful the way those two are such friends. Just like Mandy and me. I wish we had the time we used to.”

  Carl interrupted before Mary Louise could go on. “It's Imogene I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Mary Louise stiffened and closed her palm around his change. “There isn't anything wrong, is there?”

  “No, no, not that. No, I'm sorry.” Carl held both hands up, shaking his head. “I think …” he began, and then stopped. He started again. “There's something about her. I mean, have other people noticed it? Her hair. Her nose.”

  Carl thought he'd spoken so clearly that, when Mary Louise looked merely puzzled, he felt immediately light, even merry. He smiled. “Oh, I'm crazy. I must be crazy,” he insisted with relief. “How could I have thought such a crazy thing? And then”—he pulled his hand over his face, all the way from his forehead to his chin—“to come right in here and shoot my mouth off. Of course you're her mother. Well,” he shrugged, “I wouldn't blame you one bit if you just threw me out.” He shook his head, astounded at his tactlessness, but more than anything pleased, so very pleased to find that he'd been wrong. “It's just,” he tried to explain, “Amanda has this picture …” He broke off and looked down at the counter, still shaking his head at his mistake, not knowing what to say next until he discovered whether she was angry with him or would laugh or would ask, as so many had lately, what had gotten into him. And really, it was a question that bore thinking about. Look how he'd been living, letting these ideas yank him this way and that.

  Carl was so preoccupied, he hardly noticed that Mary Louise had been standing motionless, her eyes wide and fearful. Finally she seemed almost to fall forward and clutched the counter with both hands to keep herself upright. “You won't tell Imogene. Carl, promise me you won't tell Imogene.”

  Carl's skin began to tingle. He tried to speak but couldn't find his voice. He managed to raise his eyes to hers, to shake his head slightly.

  Mary Louise came around the counter and put her hand on Carl's arm. “You have to understand, Carl. She's ours. She never had anyone else, right from the start. It was a terrible birth, Amanda said, the worst she'd ever seen, in all her years of nursing. You know, the poor thing barely lived an hour afterward.”

  “Who?” Carl managed to ask.

  “That poor hired girl.” She spoke as if he knew exactly to whom she referred, as if he were privy to the whole story and they were only reminiscing. “The one who had her. I don't remember whose farm she was on—some place way over by Nashotah, I think. It must have been a long buggy ride, because Ruth was practically frozen when they got here. It must have been awful. The birth, I mean. You should have seen the blood on Amanda's hands. But, you know,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, “she couldn't have kept the baby anyway. No husband.”

  “No husband,” Carl repeated.

  They both stood silent for a moment, and then Mary Louise spoke again. She seemed relieved to have unburdened herself. “I'm surprised Amanda told you about that girl and all. She was so definite about keeping the mother a secret. To save the family's feelings, you know. And that was fine by us. To us, it was a miracle to have that baby. That was all we cared about. And I thank God for it every day.”

  “Was Mattie with her?”

  “What?”

  “Was Mattie with Amanda when she brought you the baby?”

  “No, Carl. That was the night … Amanda had Ruth with her. I told you, that poor little girl was ice cold. We had to heat a bath for her, feed her some broth. By the time Amanda got back to the island … Mattie was gone.”

  “Why wasn't Ruth with her mother?”

  “I don't know. Maybe Mattie didn't feel well? Or maybe Amanda and Ruth had been over in Oconomowoc together that day. That makes sense if she ended up helping with a baby way over in Nashotah. Anyway, Amanda explained, I think, but I don't remember now. It didn't seem important after what happened.”

  Carl felt his legs begin to move him toward the door, but Mary Louise stepped from behind the counter into his way, her face anxious again. “You won't tell Genie. You did promise.”

  “No, I won't. I promise I won't.” He practically pushed her out of the way in his hurry to get out the door.

  He drove while his thoughts flipped and darted, like a fish on a line. That ridiculous story about Mathilda disappearing, falling through the ice. It hadn't been a poor hired girl who died in childbirth without a husband—it had been Mathilda. And Mathilda had had a husband, oh, yes, but he wasn't the father of that child. Carl saw it clearly now. This baby had killed her, this Imogene, the child of this other man. C.J.O.

  He slammed his palms against the steering wheel, once for each initial, letting the truck careen until one tire caught the ditch, and he had to work to keep himself upright and out of a field. Breathing hard, he pressed on the accelerator, forcing the truck up the first steep hill of the Hog's Back. Liar! Amanda was such a liar! Did she take him for a fool? But he had been a fool. Despite his doubts, despite his checking, he'd believed her story. He'd trusted he'd never find the evidence he'd felt compelled to search for.

  Cresting another hill, he covered his face with both hands, trying to hide from the humiliation. For thirteen years he'd worked Mathilda's farm, raised her daughter, lived for her the life she'd chosen, when she deserved none of his love. And Ruth, what did she know? Had she sat on this man's lap, some greasy shirker she'd been told to call “uncle,” while her mother, full and round as a melon, perched on the arm of his chair?

  The truck stopped at the base of Holy Hill. He got out and climbed the stairs to the cathedral. Carl wasn't a religious man. He'd not been in a church since he'd been in France, where he'd wandered inside a few, mainly out of curiosity. Still, the atmosphere affected him. The air, cool and still, seemed to belong to a world separate from his turmoil. It slowed him, and he mov
ed to a pew, where he genuflected, a habit he'd learned as a child, and then sank immediately to his knees. Behind him, an old woman murmured in a steady, soothing drone.

  Carl rested his forehead on his folded hands and felt suddenly tired. The sad fact was, he didn't remember Mathilda vividly enough even to hate her. He thought how young she'd been, how naive and eager to please. She'd been all alone for months, for more than a year. After her parents died, she must have been frightened, not knowing if he'd ever come back. How could he hate her for needing someone to care for her? He knew she would have been sorry for what she'd done. How could he hate her, when she'd been so horribly punished?

  And C.J.O., had he been punished for what he had done to her?

  Carl closed his eyes. There in the dank church, he felt the cold ground that had chilled him through his woolen jacket, saw the pitiless silver bayonets, and heard Pete McKinley's frantic screams cut off by the sound of steel thrust through cloth and flesh, like a knife pushed into a pumpkin, and the gurgle of blood in the windpipe. Through all of this, Carl had lain still, craven as a possum, but his cowardice hadn't saved him. They weren't fooled. They turned toward him, first one, then another, at last the third. They began to make their way across the foxhole. He saw the snaggled yellow teeth of the one who was nearest, the one who was raising his bayonet, ready to drive it home. And then the shell began to whine. He watched the fear bloom in their faces, as it must have done in McKinley's a few moments before. And then the red.

  Carl's head jerked. He had fallen asleep on his knees. Get up, get up, get going, he thought, but he wasn't sure where he ought to go. Slowly, he slid back onto the pew. The muttering woman had gone. He studied the wall lined with crutches left behind by those whom Christ had healed. He stood and rubbed his knees. At the door he lit a candle for Mathilda, feeling guilty, knowing he should have been doing this all along. He should never have left her alone.

  It was dark by the time Carl's truck rolled into the drive. Imogene had gone home and supper was long since over. He made some vague excuse about having helped Joe with his corn.

  “Next time you ought to let me know, Carl. We waited dinner for you and then supper, nearly an hour.”

  “It won't happen again,” he said.

  The night air was pleasant, still warm enough to sit outside, and Amanda had settled herself on the dark porch in one of the rockers with a bowl of late beans to snap. She could hear Carl behind her in the front room, opening drawers. He would leave them open, too—she would have to remember to close them on her way to bed.

  “Looking for something, Carl?”

  But he'd gone into the kitchen and didn't answer.

  Carl sat at the kitchen table, going through the scrapbook Amanda had shown him when he first returned from France. He examined the pictures of Mathilda minutely. He wished he had a photograph of that girl, Imogene, although he'd recognized her relation to Mathilda more by general impression than by an actual matching of features. It was hard to tell exactly how they were similar when you looked closely at Mattie. Still, he was certain that the noses were the same shape and the width of the forehead, the set of the mouth. Yes, he was sure of that.

  But if having that baby had killed Mathilda, how had she ended up in the lake? Who'd said that she drowned? Amanda. Who had lied.

  Carl closed his eyes, trying to clear the confusion. Could Amanda … ? But to imagine her pulling Mathilda's dead body onto the ice, cutting a hole to push her through, revolted him. Maybe she did fall in and drown. Who said the baby's mother had died in childbirth? Amanda. Who had lied.

  It was hard to think. Mathilda was dead. She was Imogene's mother. She had been in the lake. He pressed his palm on the table top as he articulated each fact he felt sure of.

  Yes, she'd definitely been in the lake. Someone had found her there. Carl paged back through the yellowed articles Amanda had pasted into the book. The paste released its hold as he touched them and the one he was searching for fell like a leaf into his lap.

  DECEMBER 6, 1919—MISSING WOMAN FOUND DROWNED

  The body of Mrs. Carl Neumann was found yesterday evening trapped in the ice on Nagawaukee Lake by Mr. C. J. Owens of 24 Prospect Avenue, Milwaukee, and his son, Arthur, 5.

  Mrs. Neumann had been missing since the night of November 27.

  Carl started back from the table, his breathing quick, his fingers trembling. He was out of the kitchen and through the front room before he could think, before he could stop himself.

  She sat in the dark, her rocker creaking, her fingers steadily snapping the beans.

  “Amanda,” he said. He was surprised to hear how calm his voice sounded.

  She looked up at him, and though he couldn't make out her features, the expectant tilt of her head was just like Mathilda's. Seeing that steeled him. The sisters were in on this together. He demanded an answer as if he were asking his straying wife herself. “Tell me who Imogene's father is.”

  “Why, George Lindgren. You know that.”

  “No. And Mary Louise is not her mother. I know about the baby, Amanda. Tell me who the father is.”

  “How … ?” she began.

  “Who is he?” He said it gently but firmly, as if speaking to a child.

  Amanda stopped rocking. The crickets and the cicadas were deafening, their insistent chirping pounded like her own pulse. She'd dreaded this moment for so long that she'd almost felt safe, almost felt sure it would never come. She looked at Carl standing in the doorway; the light was behind his head, so his face was only a blank shadow. She knew that face so well now.

  Amanda leaned forward in her chair. He, who had also lost Mat-tie, would help her. He, who had suffered, would forgive her. She would tell him, and he would know what she had to do, how she could make it better.

  “Is he the one?” Carl reached forward then, the yellow newspaper clipping in his hand. He pointed to the name. He would not be too afraid this time.

  It was so easy. All she had to do was nod. When she looked up, the doorway was empty, as if he'd never been there at all.

  Ruth

  I was just at the part where Maggie Tulliver, carried away by the flood, was trying to steer her boat into the current of the Floss, when he spoke to me from the doorway of my room.

  “Ruthie.”

  “Hmmm?” I could hardly bear to tear myself from the page, so perilous was Maggie's situation, but I glanced at him and took the strand of hair I'd been chewing out of my mouth.

  He came in, the tails of his green and black checked shirt hanging loose, as if he'd already begun to get ready for bed. He sat on the ladder-back chair where I hung my skirt and blouse at night. I kept the book open, propped on my knees, my finger on the line. I leaned back against the pillows, waiting to hear what he wanted, but he just looked at me, not saying anything. Then he got up again and went to the window. I stole a look back at Maggie. Would she be able to rescue Tom?

  “Ruth,” he said, turning back to me, “how well do you remember your mother?”

  “I don't know. I remember her, I guess.”

  “You remember living on the island with your mother and Aunt Mandy?”

  “A little.” I was still thinking about Maggie. My neck ached with the tension of the flood—I had to get back to it.

  “Why did your mother go on the ice, Ruth? Do you remember that?”

  I did remember that. I remembered the ice, so shiny, so black, like running on the sky. “Ruth, come back!” my mother called. “Mandy, bring her back!” She howled like the wind. I stopped, but I didn't go back. And then she was around me, her heart in my ear. She was around me so tight I could hardly breathe. And then we drowned.

  “No,” I said to my father. “I don't remember. I don't remember anything.”

  Chapter Twelve

  At 6:30 A.M. on September 10, 1931, Clement Owens was checking the hybrid alfalfa plants that had germinated at the lake but were now maturing in his little greenhouse in the city. Too bad he'd had to transplant them, but it
was well into September, time the family moved back to town. Anyway, here he could continue his work after the frost.

  “Mrs. Owens says to say your breakfast is ready.” Mimi, a new girl Theresa had hired as general help, stood outside the greenhouse.

  “Look at this, Mimi. Five new leaves since Tuesday. Seven, if you count these buds. I think I should count the buds, don't you?”

  Mimi hung back. “I don't know, sir.” Mr. Owens's projects had always made her uncomfortable, and she'd been particularly wary since the distillery in the cellar blew up in August.

  “All right. Tell Mrs. Owens I'll be right in, would you?”

  She nodded and hurried back to the safety of the house.

  On the roof of the carriage house, Carl lay on his stomach, sighting down his rifle. His lips twitched in a sort of giddy giggle. Looking through the glass at this man in his bathrobe, it was hard not to think of fish in a barrel. Although he'd actually never shot a fish. Such a slippery target. Would it be easy? A small stone was boring into his chest, and Carl shifted his weight. There was something to remember about glass houses. Throw stones at people in glass houses?

  All it would take would be one shot to the brain, and then Carl would be off, down the tree into his truck and back home. Where everything would be different. So different once he'd shot Mathilda's … this man in the blue and gold paisley bathrobe.

  Of course, he ought to make sure—shout out the name, make him look up, maybe tell him why he deserved to die and watch the fear spread over his face. No sense shooting the wrong man.

  But this had to be C.J.O. Who else would move with such assurance in a bathrobe, as if he owned the place? Owens bent over a plant and seemed to stroke its leaves. Carl thought of those fingers on her skin. What had she said to him? What had she done? Had she worn that light pink nightgown with the tiny silk bows? Had she been shy when he untied them one by one? Had she smiled at him that way? He shifted again uncomfortably. Had she held her hands over her breasts, so that the nipples peeked between her fingers? Or had she been different with him, a woman Carl hadn't even known?