Rush Home Road

  When Laisa said that, Wallace and Addy knew she meant the coloured folks because Mr. Kenny was known to take whisky every night including Sunday. And nearly all the French folks in the region liked to take bourbon and gin and whatever else they could get their hands on. The truth was, even Addy tried a taste of some burning amber fluid behind the barn with L’il Leam and the rest of the farmhands last summer. Everyone knew it had been brought there by Zach Heron. And Addy knew it was devil’s juice, not the sun, that made her father’s eyes shine after a day out fishing with the big man. If her mother ever found out, she’d have to wring her hands right off.

  The four girls spread out a blanket under the big willow near the church graveyard, distant from the food tables and chittering children and worn-out women in their fresh spring hats. The girls caught a breeze from the east and with it the scent of Dillon’s pig farm. Camille and Josephine made hostile faces at a trio of seagulls looking for charity. The girls knew better than to offer so much as a peach pit to a begging bird because no one needed a whole flock swooping down and spoiling the lawn.

  On the grass nearby, L’il Leam was doing handstands. Birdie knew Leam was showing off for her and made sure he could tell she was impressed. When Leam finally toppled over, it was his friend Jonas Johnson’s turn. Jonas was short like Leam, but pear-shaped and heavy and when he tried to stand on his hands, he fell forward onto his face. Leam didn’t laugh when his friend fell, and that impressed Birdie most of all.

  Addy didn’t mean to stare, but sometimes she felt green about Birdie Brown’s heart-shaped face and lay-back ears and wide almond eyes. She’d catch Chester Monk looking Birdie’s way and imagine he thought of lifting that pretty girl up and pressing his lips on her little round mouth. Addy was comforted to know that Birdie loved L’il Leam. Her friend had long ago confessed she thought a man as big as Chester might well crush a girl to death.

  Addy was lost in Birdie’s profile, and they were under the willow so there was no shadow when Chester Monk appeared. He startled Addy when he leaned against the tree and bit into one of Isobel Heron’s berry tarts. He wasn’t much of a talker and hardly looked Addy’s way in the field, but she knew how he felt like she knew her own name. Addy wondered if Chester’d yet sampled her pie and was sure L’il Leam would’ve pointed it out. She could count on her brother for such things as that.

  Josephine and Camille were lost in their peas and butter, fretting about seconds on the stewed rhubarb before it all went to the Pastor’s cousins. Addy dared to glance up at silent Chester leaning against the tree. She liked the way his Adam’s apple rose and fell when he swallowed. She smiled to herself when his tongue found the berry lost on the ledge of his lip. She let her gaze drop further and noted that his church trousers were much too small this year and stretched tight over the lump between his legs. She was a proper young lady, but Addy felt a surge nonetheless.

  Even though it was Sunday and she knew it was a sin, Addy encouraged her thoughts to roam. She imagined herself pressed against the willow, lips parted and ready to be swallowed up by Chester Monk’s. She imagined his big hands creeping up from her waist, daring to touch her breasts through her new Sunday dress. She imagined leaning against him, feeling his body, his hot breath on her neck. Addy glanced at the sky briefly, hoping God was too busy to see what she was thinking.

  She was still lost in her imaginings when Chester tossed his final bite of berry tart out to the gulls. The trio snapped and flapped around the morsel as all four girls looked up. Chester Monk shrugged like he didn’t know what he’d done wrong and Birdie said he’d be reckoned with if the flock appeared now and they had to move from under the willow. Chester dropped down on the blanket next to Addy and acted like he hadn’t meant for his arm to brush hers. He tilted his head at Birdie Brown. “Your Sunday dress is pretty, Birdie.”

  “Thank you, Chester.”

  He glanced at Addy. “Yours is too, Adelaide. Ain’t from last year.”

  Addy smoothed the folds of her dress. “No, Chester, this here’s from the catalogue bought new for today.”

  Chester Monk nodded and released a willow leaf snared in the hair on his arm. “Good day for the supper, wouldn’t you girls say?”

  The other girls stayed quiet and pretended not to be holding their breath. Addy nodded. “Yes it is. It’s a very good day. Last year we had that storm.”

  Chester Monk nodded and was silent again. Addy stole a glimpse of his face and thought how one day they would lie naked and unashamed in their marriage bed and she would confess her wicked thoughts about him on this Strawberry Sunday. She wanted to ask him if he’d sampled her pie and was thinking how to phrase it right, when Chester took a deep breath and said, “Would you care to go for a stroll, Camille?”

  The girls’ jaws came unhinged all at once. Camille knew about Addy’s plans for Chester but she nodded just the same, letting him take her hand and heft her to her feet.

  As they walked out from under the willow, Camille looped her arm through Chester’s and flashed her collection of long white teeth. She didn’t look away, even when it was clear that Chester had his sights fixed on her father, Teddy, in the distance, with his black calf boot set up on the runner of his shiny new automobile.

  Birdie grasped Addy’s arm. Addy didn’t cry but neither did she smile bravely. Josephine shook her head from side to side and said, “My sister’s been thieving my possessions all my life and my Daddy never did believe me and now look she’s thieving Addy Shadd’s man.” She crammed a boiled egg in her mouth and secretly wondered why Chester chose her twin and not her.

  “Never mind about Chester,” Birdie whispered softly. “There’s better and more deserving boys in Rusholme. He’d never be sincere to just one girl and he’s much too big anyway. Much too big.”

  Addy felt stung. “I never saw him look sideways at Camille before. Never.”

  Birdie cupped her hands and whispered into Addy’s ear, “We could follow them and see what.”

  Josephine squinted at both girls. When neither looked her way, she shrugged and headed off to the lake. Addy wanted to go home. Birdie said she’d go too and they could both have a good cry. Though Addy did want Birdie’s company, she thought it’d be a good deed to tell her to stay.

  Laisa didn’t like the look of Addy and felt her forehead and cheeks with the back of her hand. It could be fever, but it could just be excitement and if she wanted to go home and lay herself down that was fine with Laisa if it was fine with Wallace. If she could locate her father, that is.

  “We’ll be singing hymns around the fire come evening if you feel well enough to come back,” Laisa told her.

  Addy found her father out near the cornfield with Big Zach Heron and a couple of other men. They were snickering over some bawdy joke of Mr. Heron’s, Addy knew, because she’d heard a few of the same jokes and the same snickers around the farm. Wallace didn’t feel her forehead and cheeks. His eyes were a certain brand of shiny, and he hadn’t heard Addy or just wasn’t listening because he said, “Sure. Go on and have yourself a good time, Daughter.”

  Home was less than a mile from the church. Addy walked slowly, her head hung low, hoping she’d been noticed and pitied. But all of Rusholme was at the supper and she passed no one on the road. She was damp and dusty by the time she got home, so she peeled off her pretty Sunday dress and draped it over the chair behind the head of her bed.

  Addy pulled her cotton nightdress over her naked body and lay flat on the narrow bed. She folded her arms over her chest and pictured herself stone dead and how it would be when they found her in the morning. She thought how Chester’d feel sorry he missed the chance to sample her soft lips. How her Mama’d think she was so very beautiful and did not in fact resemble Wallace one bit. And how her Daddy’d feel guilty he never paid her much mind, and now it was too late. Then Addy realized her thoughts were sins and she’d already committed a lifetime’s worth today. She watched the sheer white curtain wave back and forth at her window.

/>   It didn’t matter what picture she conjured up, it’d fog over and whip itself back into Chester Monk. She could see Chester under the shade of that willow by the graveyard, doing all the things to Camille Bishop that Addy wished he’d do to her. That made her want to cry and touch between her legs all at once and she knew truly she was going to Hell.

  Chester Monk had no honest affection for Camille Bishop, and Addy knew that in her heart. But Camille’s father was wealthy and powerful and she could understand why a young man might care to be in his favour. It occurred to Addy that maybe the stroll was nothing more than a way to get Teddy Bishop’s attention. The thought of that made Addy hopeful and she resolved to give Chester a second chance when she saw him in the field the next day.

  The white curtain in the window began to flutter and flap. The breeze became wind and the birds warbled warnings to their kin. Addy hoped they’d have a mean June storm and vengeance would rain down but hard on Camille Bishop’s head. She turned her long face into the soft pillow and forced herself to cry a little longer before she fell into a deep sleep.

  Some time later Addy woke groggy and confused with the feeling that someone had shaken her. It was dark in the room and must not have rained after all because there was no sense of it in the air. She could hear the voices of those gathered around the church fire rising splendidly into the night, swept up by the breeze and into her bedroom window. There was some foul yeasty smell that snuck in behind the singing, but Addy didn’t think much of it, except to notice. She listened to the hymn for a time, then joined in because she knew the words and enjoyed the vibration of song in her throat.

  A voice came from the chair behind her bed. “Pretty,” it said, and scared the devil out of her.

  Addy had but a second to turn and recognize Zach Heron rising up from the chair like a giant and no time to scream before he pounced on her and crushed her body with the enormous weight of his own. The giant held one huge salty hand over her mouth and nose. With the other hand he lifted her nightdress and wrenched her legs apart. He hissed and grunted and stabbed at her thighs. Addy thought, as she struggled for air, that he meant to kill her at one end or the other. He found her spot and jammed himself inside it. The pain was white and scalding. Her teeth tried to clamp down on his palm but she bit her own tongue and tasted blood. He dug her deep, breathing his whisky breath into her ear, humming, “Honey, Honey, Honey, Honey, Honey, Honey, Honey.” He shivered and shuddered and stopped.

  Addy was taken by surprise when it was finished, much as when it began. The huge man removed his hand from her bloody mouth, pulled himself to standing, hitched up his trousers, and stumbled from the room and the house, whistling some friendly tune, like it was just another day.

  The faithful in the churchyard took up another hymn and their voices rose in harmony to praise the Lord, who Addy knew had already turned away.

  It was a struggle to get her breath back at all and she could coax only a shallow in and out from her lungs that whole long night. She lay stiff and shivering, her hands crossed over her breasts, having resumed the death pose unaware. She heard the church singing stop and knew they’d be dousing the fire with buckets of water from the lake. She thought of the steam smoke gilding the moon.

  Addy didn’t stir when she heard her family return. When the door to her bedroom creaked open and her mother whispered, “Are you awake, Daughter? Are you all right?” Addy heard a tiny voice rush up from her throat to answer, “Yes, Mama. G’night.”

  The blood had soaked clean through the thin cotton mattress and left a pea size spot on the floor beneath the bed. Wallace was confounded at having to replace the thing and said Addy could use the money she’d earned from Kenny’s or sleep on the stain, he didn’t care which. Laisa didn’t tell her husband the linen was ruined too. She hid the sheet in her scrap chest and would find a good use for it someday.

  Laisa bled heavy like that when she was young too. You couldn’t blame a woman if her cycle came early, especially when the woman was only fifteen years old and it happened in her sleep. Besides, Addy looked so sickly when Laisa went to rouse her for work Monday morning she felt nothing but tenderness and was hardly annoyed about the bed. It put her in mind of when L’il Leam nearly passed and made her wring her hands.

  Addy didn’t go to work at the Kenny farm that morning and never would again. She bled spots for three days and stayed in the house or yard after that. She only said a few words to her mother and L’il Leam and found a way not to speak to her father at all. She didn’t believe Wallace had known or allowed what happened, but she felt betrayed by him all the same.

  Though she knew the doctor’d say melancholy and prescribe castor oil and sunshine, Laisa thought they should have him come around anyway. Wallace thought it was a poor idea to indulge any female too much, and he’d already noticed a weakness for emotion in his daughter’s character and didn’t like it. Wallace said though it was true a woman’s balance went off every month, it always came back and Addy’s would too.

  Laisa didn’t think so. It seemed to her that Addy was so mad or sad she’d like to wring her own neck. She wasn’t eating but a little bread each meal and could have been taken for consumptive. Laisa doubted by the look of her eyes that Addy was sleeping much either. If she’d known about Addy’s affection for Chester Monk, Laisa might have suspected it was love sickness. But she would never believe, even if she was told it outright, the true thing that had crushed her daughter.

  Birdie and Josephine came around at first but Addy would pretend she was asleep or pick up some neglected sewing and beg her Mama to send them away. Camille stayed away altogether, feeling responsible for Addy’s grief. She wanted Josephine to tell Addy that Chester Monk only took her for a stroll to ask was it true her father was looking for a few men to expand his business? And was it true he’d pay twice what Mr. Kenny would? And if so, could she walk him on over there to her Daddy’s shiny new auto and introduce him as a friend?

  Addy was rocking quietly in a chair set back from the window, feeling hot and parched and suddenly hungry, hungrier than she’d felt in some time. The hunger alone lifted her spirits, and she wondered if she might come back to herself after all. She wondered if she might eat a biscuit, or a chicken leg, or one of the blood ripe tomatoes L’il Leam brought home from the farm, and feel altogether different.

  And for the hundredth time since Strawberry Sunday, Addy thought of Chester Monk. She thought of him in the field, having stripped the shirt from his strong brown back, bending over the tomato plants, working in a steady rhythm to fill the bushel baskets. She imagined him rising to full height, maybe he’d grown even taller over the summer, stretching out and biting into a tomato like it was an apple. She thought how he’d wipe the juice off his chin with the back of his hand, if he cared about it at all. The idea of Chester Monk made her smile, surprised she remembered how.

  Addy rocked and rocked and soon a pleasant hum rose up to tease her tongue. Though she could never forgive him his trespass, maybe she could take the memory of Mr. Heron and what he’d done to her in those few wrong moments, put them in a boat, and sail that boat out to the middle of the lake. Maybe she could imagine it all happened to someone else, and maybe it did, because she was nowhere near the same girl now. Maybe to help her put it out of her mind, she’d ask L’il Leam if Chester was well and how he was finding the fields this summer. Was the corn high? Was the lake warm? Did it look like the pumpkins would be early or late?

  When finally Addy did ask her brother about Chester Monk, she was unprepared for his response. “Chester’s gone, Addy. He’s over in Sandwich bootlegging for Teddy Bishop.” Leam had added darkly, “I wouldn’t count on him coming back.”

  Her legs had seized upon hearing the news. Her tongue too. She stood, numb and dumb, watching her brother watch her. Was it possible she’d been wrong about Chester? Could it be he hadn’t loved her after all? If she could be wrong about something she felt so certain about, how could she ever trust her judgment
again?

  When it was clear to Leam that Addy had no reply to the subject of Chester Monk, he hefted a bushel basket of tomatoes up to the table and suggested she clean a few for supper. Addy was glad of the chore until the tomatoes reminded her of the season, and she was overcome by the sudden and terrifying awareness that it had been six weeks since strawberries and more than that since she last bled from her cycle.

  AT FIRST SHE THOUGHT to starve herself and maybe it wouldn’t sprout. But by the time the apples bent their branches, and the north wind claimed the night, there was a gentle swell to her stomach and her nipples were big as saucers. Addy knew there’d be a child before the trilliums poked up in the ditch, and it horrified her that, being Mr. Heron’s child, it might grow gigantic in her womb.

  Once Addy started eating she could not stop. Though her daughter’s spirit was still dull, Laisa was relieved to see Addy finish a third corncob and reach for a fourth on one ordinary Tuesday. And she was reassured when her daughter’s interest in baking was revived. Addy even let Birdie Brown come around for a visit to show her the new books they’d been learning from in school. Addy politely inquired about the Bishop twins and Birdie thought it an honour to have such a pure saint as a best friend.

  Wallace had never concerned himself much about Addy, and though he didn’t notice she hadn’t said a word directly to him since June, he did notice he was coming home to warm apple or pumpkin pie each night, and quietly thought his daughter a finer baker than his wife.

  It was L’il Leam who changed the course of all their lives. L’il Leam had suspected that Addy’s hunger for corn-cobs and pumpkin pies was more than just good appetite. And though it was not proper for a brother to do, he’d studied her changing body mindfully. He was distracted from his schoolbooks in the morning as he envisioned the complicated web of events, and his rage simmered afternoons at the farm. By evening he was puzzled all over again, sure he could not be right in his thinking.