Eric and Dana came home again in late March, staying for nearly a week. The break between the winter and spring quarters was his last of college, and was also a chance for father and son to speak honestly, and for two women to do the same. The men’s conversation took place in the barn, both stone sober. The women chatted in the kitchen, both just stoned.
Dana and Jenny talked of many things, but not their shared pasts. Jenny saw it all over Dana, didn’t need to ask questions. Dana did, all about Eric’s family, specifically about Tanner and Chelsea. Dana was eager for those babies, but every time Will, Bethany, and Louise visited, she never asked to hold that infant, one now past colic, having changed her parents’ minds. Another baby, a year or so down the line, would be a lovely idea.
Chelsea had turned their heads; once heartbeats were heard, a firm belly emerging, Will and Bethany were head over heels about furthering their line. Jenny had shared with Chelsea her dream from the night Alvin died, that their unborn baby would be fine. Chelsea fell apart, still staggered by her condition, apparent in her amazed and skittish manner. As Dana was around Louise, Chelsea seemed about motherhood, even with Jenny’s encouraging words.
Chelsea was included in the kitchen klatches once joints had been set aside. After Jenny and Dana were high, Chelsea came through, as if by fate. Not that Jenny or Dana actually smoked in the house; they stood on the back porch, looking toward the barn, where their beloveds spoke in earnest, somber voices. Dana didn’t tell Jenny a thing, but Eric spilled his guts.
What Sam learned filtered into Jenny pieces at a time, as how Chelsea was taking this idea of reproduction, bite-sized morsels that even in their demure standing seemed overwhelming. Chelsea was a mess of hormones, her body reacting not only to a double dose of pregnancy, but the single idea of carrying a baby. Dana thought it incredible that Chelsea had gotten knocked up at all and Chelsea seconded that motion, laughing with her mother and Eric’s girlfriend about how strange life was. Jenny agreed, so very strange.
In the evenings, Sam’s loving voice eased information into her more astute mind. Light and gentle were these words, how Alvin had offered Jenny peace, but the same darkness lay under it all; Dana had been sexually assaulted by her father since she was a little girl.
When that news hit Sam, he had nearly exploded, Eric physically restraining his father. Eric took Sam’s reaction as even more proof never to cross his brother. The way Sam flew from the hay bale was typically David’s way, a father’s stalking about the barn’s interior scaring Eric, then reassuring him. No matter what happened, his dad would never allow Dana to be harmed.
Many conversations were exchanged during Eric’s last break home, a funny term; soon he would live there permanently. Sam and Eric looked at houses, taking Tanner along only once. Jenny told Sam perhaps Tanner needed space, recalling his face when Chelsea first viewed Keith and Sylvia’s home. Jealousy still swirled in that boy; perhaps he would never lose it.
Tanner’s outward face was that of a man pleased for his cousin, what Tanner called Eric more now than before. They were cousins, or actually, Tanner pointed out to Dana, Eric was his uncle. Then Tanner quickly laughed, saying that they were brothers partly by blood, partly by the year they were born, and by the mothers who bore them. Outsiders, Tanner said; Jan and Jenny weren’t native Arkendale women.
Eric kept all he learned in the back of his head, hearing his cousin/nephew/brother edging away. While Dana was itching to leave California, Tanner ached to flee Oregon. Money he had saved provided some flexibility, but with little education, his wasn’t a golden path, not like Will and Chelsea, David, Rachel, and Eric. Even Mitch; he could quit the Marines, plenty of cash for him to do whatever he wanted.
All Eric heard those few days at home was a brooding, focused envy from someone who’d had the same advantages, all of it thrown away due to bitterness and ingratitude. Eric tried to explain to Dana, and when clear-headed, she understood. Her father was rich, and as long as she had been compliant, every whim was attended.
When she was stoned, her comprehension altered; Dana and Tanner spoke a language to which Eric wasn’t privy. Then she was as comfortable as Tanner in deftly demeaning all that Eric held dear, even herself. What bothered Eric most about his lover and brother was how once they were under the influence, what truly mattered became worthless. And that was their very souls.
Not that Tanner was on anything, but it was the company he kept, no one missing the tenor of that entourage. Not of Jackson Hooper’s ilk, seeking to blackmail the family; these people were only interested in turning another their way, how Mitch saw things in his neck of the woods. Insurgents attempted to sway hearts and minds, willing a nation to rise up against western invaders. Not because of money, but power, beliefs; the more psyches conquered, the better. As Mitch watched comrades fall, Tanner seemed incapable of maintaining his footing, and Dana was much the same.
Mitch could do nothing more than follow orders, go about his business. The business of war was clear; find the enemy, then rout them.
He had signed up for the Marines aware of the goal; to serve, protect, and at times fight. He had been in plenty of scrapes, first with his cousin; David had belted him to the ground, also knocking some sense as stars twirled. Max and Liz’s second child had been somewhat of a bully, even toward his own kin. David had been bookish, like his father, but not until he was fourteen did a more active streak emerge. One afternoon, at Uncle Tommie’s, David had taken enough.
It was a fight over comic books, David a collector, Mitch a pilferer. Some of David’s Batman comics were missing; he tracked them down to an abandoned horse stall, the very same where Jenny had comforted Liz many years previous. It was a great place for hide and seek, or just to conceal, what Mitch assumed, leaving David’s books in the feed trough.
Scientific thought processes led David to eliminate all possibilities. In locating his treasure, he said nothing, waiting for the culprit to out himself. He’d had an idea it was Mitch, always bugging David that he was reading too much, was weird for liking Batman. It took a few days for Mitch to realize the comics had been reclaimed, and like a bully was wont, he made a fuss, demanding to know who had taken them.
The disparity between a boy of twelve and a teen two years older was seen that day, or maybe it was the difference between a Smith and a Cassel, or more rightly, Sam’s kids and the rest. Sam Cassel’s children were initially considered a little more on the ball; Sam was the college graduate, administrator of the trust. As years passed, that notion faded; while Eric graduated from Stanford, he went back to run the farm. David might have a masters, but Emily would earn her PhD, and one day Travis would too. Daniel and Brian Smith became vets, the wealth of intelligence spread equally among the cousins. But in the early years, Sam and Jenny’s kids were oldest, also the smartest, Will’s golden arm some Midas touch. Mitch had picked a fight with the most studious of that family, assuming it was a no-brainer.
When David didn’t back down, a scuffle erupted, and all those present circled the physically matched duo, David not to his full height, Mitch big for his age. David had always seemed weedy, or maybe it was just his quiet ways. An outsider when it came to sports, he didn’t like farm chores, preferred reading or playing on the computer, Jenny and Sam the first in the family to own one. Or he was in the loft, lost in Batman; David loved his crime-fighting devices, also appreciated his dark side. He wasn’t a goody-goody like Superman, more of a troubled soul taking on another persona to do his part. It was indicative of David’s nature, some inward release when compared to his relatively dull life in the middle of the Willamette Valley, stuck on a farm he didn’t appreciate until he was older. David had inherited his mother’s wanderlust, then would assume her stay-at-home ways. He was a mix of his parents, which on the day in question assisted in a lesson being learned, one Mitch and those in attendance would never forget.
Violence wasn’t advocated by any of the aunts and uncles, Alana’s first husband clear in all minds. Tim
McGillis’ actions had been vile, but Tommie, Jacob, and Sam accepted that boys needed to be boys. When Mitch and David got into it, no one interfered. Max realized his son needed to be taught a lesson and Sam wondered if David was up to the task. Nobody was sure of the outcome, only that one of them was going to end up on the ground.
They circled each other, Mitch nicking the right side of David’s face, drawing blood. Then name calling began; David used better words, only because he had them. Mitch got nasty, calling David queer, which brought ooh’s and ahh’s. Max winced, but Sam watched, curious as to how his son would respond.
“So what if I was?” David smeared a trickle of blood onto his jeans. “You got something against my Uncle Robert?”
Mitch’s face fell as if he had killed someone, but David made an adjustment, a rather juvenile charge the underlying cause. When Mitch tried to backpedal, calling David a mama’s boy with all that reading, David exploded. “You goddamned bastard!” One right hook to Mitch’s face spun that young man around, then to the dirt. Cousins hollered, but Max didn’t move. Mitch had got what he deserved.
David’s fury abated as Mitch was helped up by Travis and Eric. Daniel and Brian stood behind David, but Tanner had steered clear, perhaps not wishing to claim a side. Yet there wasn’t any side to be called. David wiped a small line of blood from Mitch’s lip where he hit the ground. “Don’t ever steal my comics again,” David said in a shaky but certain voice. “And don’t you ever say anything about my mom or Uncle Robert!”
“I won’t David. I’m sorry David. Oh man, I’m so sorry!”
They stood nearly eye to eye, both trembling, but it was more evident on Mitch. Yet Sam saw his son’s still-clenched fist. Then David shook out his fingers, extending his hand, waiting for Mitch to reciprocate. It happened within seconds, for by-gones were by-gones, just like Alvin had forgiven Robert. While Mitch never again messed with any of his cousins, he didn’t change all his ways, getting into fights during high school, but only with those who earned it. He graduated in 2001. Three months later, 9/11 changed his course.
David was in his third year at Berkeley when Mitch signed up with the Marines, making Max beam with pride. White curls sprang from Liz’s scalp overnight, but Mitch wouldn’t be deterred. Neither would David; both men chased their dreams, but David’s path brought him closer to home.
As spring invaded Arkendale, warm, familial air swirled around Sam and Jenny’s place, Louise quite the creeper. Chelsea grew larger, then revealed she was carrying one boy and one girl. That seemed to ease her, also the constant movement of that duo, now felt by all. In April, she was five months along, looking more like seven, her belly wide and full. A pool was being taken for the birth date, weights, and lengths. The only thing Chelsea wouldn’t let her cousins bet on was the length of her labor. That seemed cruel.
Besides, she pointed out, but not when Bethany was around, Jenny had short labors with all her kids. If God was so good to let her get pregnant in the first place, Chelsea didn’t think he would compound that with a seventy-two-hour labor.
That’s what she said aloud. To her parents and husband, Chelsea was more pragmatic. The babies, A and B she called them, were head down at this point, but so active, who knew? She might undergo a caesarean, she might have them tomorrow and live at a neonatal facility for the next several months. She might… Then Jenny would remind her daughter of what she had told her on Christmas Eve; the babies would be fine.
“Mom, you don’t know that,” Chelsea said, sitting at the kitchen table. It was only the four of them, or the six of them, Sam teased. Rachel was at Tommie and Rae’s, helping with sewing, aware her sister and brother-in-law needed nights like this, time for only couples.
“Chelse, for God’s sake, stop fretting about it! How in the world can you even enjoy being pregnant if all you’re doing is thinking the worst?”
Jenny stood, stretching limbs that appreciated the warmer weather. Her arms especially, which didn’t so much ache, but were eager for new babies, also for Eric and Dana’s return. From all she knew of that girl, Jenny wanted to wrap her close to somehow offer the same healing Alvin had provided. Eric was good for Dana, but too young to do much more than love her pain away.
Then she considered what else Dana used to limit the agony, but Jenny couldn’t say boo about that. All she could do was give it time, what Tommie had told Alvin about her, what she now said to Alvin’s daughter. Every day with those babies in utero was a good day, as Chelsea had already felt a few scattered contractions.
“I’m just trying to be realistic,” Chelsea said softly.
Jenny walked to her daughter. “Honey, believe me, I know that feeling, like it’s too good to be true, like all this is gonna blow up in your face. But what if you go thirty-five or thirty-six weeks, what if A and B are six pounds each, in perfect health, not a single thing wrong with them. Then all this time you’ve been worrying was for nothing. And even if…”
Grasping her daughter’s teary face in her hand, Jenny used gentle fingers to wipe her cheeks. “Even if something happens, look at your pop. Think about Alvin, or Janessa. Honey, it’s not the end of the world.”
Her voice was tender, also honest. Compared to the older generation, the cousins were so blessed, Tanner and Janessa the only ones with obvious troubles, and Janessa was all a point of view. Jenny had loved a man with dimmed capabilities, knew the goodness within his heart. It sat in front of her in their competent, pregnant daughter. Who were they to measure the worth of any human life?
Sam and Andy were silent, but Chelsea wept. “Baby, if something goes wrong, yes, we’ll all wish it hadn’t. But honey, let me tell you this. I never thought I had any value until I moved here. Then I met a man, two men. The first taught me I was worth more than I ever thought. The second…” Jenny glanced at her husband. “The second made me see that what might look like the worst isn’t really that at all, just a different path. Baby, here you have two miracles. Now I know you’re sick to death of hearing that, but they are, just like Alvin was for me, like Sam still is. A miracle that I found this place, that your grandmother brought me here. A miracle like Andy stopping you for those tail lights, just like the fact that we’re all together in this room. Chelse, you may never have another baby again. But honey, you might. Maybe one day I’ll wake up, never feel another ache. Maybe Jesus Christ’s gonna walk in on us and that’ll be the end of it. But if you sit worrying your pretty blonde head about all the things that could go wrong, you’re gonna miss all the things that’ve gone right. If I didn’t learn anything else in my life, two men taught me that, three if you wanna count your Uncle Tommie.”
As Andy cleared his throat, Sam stood, taking his wife into his arms. That happened for two reasons, one that Jenny had started to cry. And that Chelsea had too.
There were so many things Jenny could have said, but she had pulled out the big guns: Alvin and Janessa, Sam and Andy; what could Chelsea say to that much proof? Very little, and Jenny hoped it would be enough to calm her daughter, and discourage her from ever bringing it up again.
Jenny still didn’t want any of her children to know of her past, not even Eric with Dana in the picture. She and Sam would just appear especially well informed if their son ever asked. Jenny doubted Eric would.
Not because he wouldn’t be curious, but he was young. If they could convince Dana to see a therapist, maybe by the time Eric was old enough to wonder, Dana would be all right. That was Jenny’s hope.
As for her daughter, Jenny just wanted Chelsea to enjoy being pregnant. She might never get this chance again, but at that moment, the babies were healthy. Will’s accident hadn’t crippled him. David wasn’t dead from a volcano exploding. Rachel seemed content assisting those in dire straits. And Eric was coming home to his father’s waiting arms.
The rest of the family seemed fine, even Tanner, who hadn’t dipped his toes into dangerous waters. Mitch sent emails when he could, no one aware he was in the thick of battle. The things they di
dn’t know magnified those in the forefront, and Jenny preferred to dwell on the lovely aspects of her life. For all the miserable moments of the past, better to consider the present joys.
That night Chelsea fell asleep in her husband’s arms. While Andy caressed their babies, Chelsea had wept, trying to accept her mother’s admonitions. She wouldn’t say Jenny didn’t know what she was talking about, for Chelsea knew better. Her mother had endured much in the past, her current ailments included too.
What Andy knew rankled in his brain, after he relaxed. He thought with a clearer head after sex, and it wasn’t muddied even with his children so close. Fatherhood had been a shock, but now Andy couldn’t imagine it only the two of them. Last year would be some anomaly in his relationship with Chelsea Schumacher, for now she was his wife and the mother of his son and daughter. Their names would be withheld until the birth and Jenny had been right. Whether it was that night, God forbid, or hopefully in three months, it was going to be okay.
Considering what Sam had lived with since the age of twenty-one, then Andy closed his eyes. He would never tell Chelsea that Sam’s first wife had been killed by her father, a man Andy correctly assumed had more than a paternal interest in his daughter. Andy set that aside, the same way Sam distanced himself from Dana. Those men ignored what was out of their realms, focusing on the good that sat in their reach. Andy fell asleep that night in a similar position to his father-in-law, both embracing their women, accepting their hands with others were tied.
Chapter 14