So, kid,” said the woman in the pink bathrobe to Lucas that next Monday morning as they sat at her kitchen table, “how’s your summer been?”
She lit her cigarette.
“Kind of different, Mrs. Dylan.”
“You call my husband Neal, so call me Rita.”
She plowed fingers through her mussed hair. Scanned the kitchen. The white stove. The humming refrigerator. The sink with dirty dishes.
“Different. Huh. Looks pretty damn much the same to me.”
The cigarette waved in the air.
“But what do I know? I’m not the smart one.”
Lucas sniffed. “Is coffee supposed to smell like that?”
“Shit!” Rita lunged to the stove. Twisted a white knob. Killed the ring of blue flame beneath a rumbling coffeepot. “God-damn it! Now it’s boiled to…”
She flicked her eyes to the boy at the kitchen table.
Brushed the hair off her face. Swept her scowl into a sweet smile.
“Oh well, coffee is coffee. You want some?”
“I’m not old enough.”
“Who is?” Her smile was a grin Lucas believed. “Any sugar in that bowl?”
Lucas lifted the lid off the table’s brown bowl. “Not much.”
“Behind you on that shelf,” she said as she got a green mug off a hook. “Can you reach the sugar bin? Fill the bowl?”
With his back to her, Lucas fetched that metal cylinder of white crystals.
Turned back to the table.
Across the kitchen, Rita pushed a brown paper sack into a cupboard’s shadows. Turned to face Lucas. Held her green mug steady. Walked to the stove and poured coffee into the mug.
Lucas filled the sugar bowl. Returned the bin to its place.
While he did, she eased back down into the chair at the table, saying: “Thanks. Sit down. She’s doing fine in there.”
Baby Rachel sat on the living room floor stacking wooden alphabet cubes. She’d been in there, doing fine, since Neal had left for his painting job and Rita had shuffled out of the bedroom to find Lucas watching the toddler.
Rita’d kissed her, ambled to the kitchen, told Lucas: “Come talk to me.”
Now she spooned sugar into her green mug. Stirred the mix. Took a sip.
“Nothing like that first cup of coffee,” she told Lucas. Rita sipped from the cup. “I’m not a bad sort, no matter what you’ve heard.”
“I haven’t heard anything.”
“Maybe your family never says nothing in front of the kids. My mom never shut up. Never stopped letting you know who you were and damn sure who you weren’t. She’s still the queen of all that, let me tell you.”
“Ah, OK, but shouldn’t I be taking Rachel to the park like Neal—”
“Forget about Neal. Talk to me. That’s not too much to ask.”
“What should I talk about?”
“Anything but the damn weather: ‘Hey, hot enough for you?’ And don’t tell me what’s in the newspaper or some book and then get all mopey when I don’t give a shit, or what you learned in law school before you quit ’cause it was the right thing to do.”
“My dad wants me to go to law school.”
“Yeah? What do you say?”
Lucas shrugged. “I just got out of fifth grade.”
“You know any lawyers? Want to be like them?”
Falk’s ghost breezed through the kitchen, a glint of gold on its wrist.
Lucas shook his head no.
Rita said: “Parents try to stick you in a picture of who they want you to—”
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Knocks on the front door.
Rita clutched the lapels of her robe. Jerked her head at Lucas. “You get it!”
Lucas stepped past the toddler on the living room floor.
Rita whispered: “If it’s Mormon missionaries, couple o’ young guys in black ties and white shirts, tell ’em nobody’s home!”
Coincidentally, that was also the only lie allowed in Lucas’s own house.
He swung open the front door.
“Oh!” said the woman standing on the stoop. “I didn’t know you were here.”
From the kitchen came: “Who is it?”
“Mrs. Klise,” answered Lucas. Thought: Did you see me standing there at the fairgrounds when you were yelling?
“Ruth Klise?” Rita edged into her living room. “What are you doing here?”
“Why, I was just driving by. Thought I should stop in for a visit.”
Rita clutched her robe shut and fluffed her hair. “Come in! I’ve been, ah, under the weather.”
Mrs. Klise stepped into the younger woman’s house.
“So I see,” she said. “How are you feeling now?”
“Been worse. You know Lucas? He’s kind of babysitting. For Rachel.”
“Yes, that’s what he’s doing,” said Mrs. Klise. “What a beautiful baby. You don’t know how lucky you are.”
“You never know about luck, right? I never expected you to drop by, but—Coffee! We should sit around the kitchen table and have some fresh coffee!”
Rita rushed into the kitchen, the older woman trailing her.
“I’m sorry I look such a mess,” said Rita, “but you know: the baby. Had to get up early and take care of her. Plus get Neal off to work.”
“He’s painting the Mallettes’ today,” said the woman who’d dropped by.
“Who can keep track of what he does.”
Rita grabbed the coffeepot off the stove. Filled the pot with fresh water. Found the spindle and basket in the sink. Fumbled them into the pot. Coffee grounds rained on the counter when she shook their red can. Rita put the pot on the stove’s burner and turned the knob.
Nothing happened.
“Damn it!” Rita twisted the burner knob off. “The pilot light went out again. Landlord is supposed to fix it, but all he gets around to is his rent check.
“Lucas!” she yelled.
He ran to the kitchen as Rita pushed up the stove’s white top.
Rita told the boy: “Hand me the matches.”
Mrs. Klise said: “Here, dear, let me—”
“No! I can do it. I mean: Lucas is doing just fine.”
Rita held the stove top up with her shoulder. Pushed in and turned the stove’s big knob. Tore a match from the pack Lucas gave her. Lowered its flame toward the pencil-thick, chimney-like pipe centering the guts of the stove top.
Poof! A blue flame shot up from the pipe to meet the match.
Rita turned a burner knob—a ring of blue flame filled the burner. She struck a victory pose with her hands out from her sides.
“Ta-dah! Fresh coffee, coming up!”
“That’s wonderful, dear. Let’s sit down and chat.”
Ruth Klise settled into someone else’s kitchen chair.
Gestured for Rita to sit across from her.
Rita obeyed her guest.
Who smiled. “And I’m sure Lucas is fine to watch the baby.”
“Hell,” said Rita, “sometimes he’s better with her than—Lucas! Be sure Rachel’s OK while Mrs. Klise and I have some coffee. And… chat.”
As Lucas left the two women at the kitchen table, he heard Rita say: “So, Ruth… Hot enough for you?”
Baby Rachel crawled over to Lucas. She grinned. Widened her blue eyes. Went: “Ah gah ga!” and held out a colored block.
Lucas leaned closer to take it…
Smelled what couldn’t be denied.
He walked back to the kitchen just as Rita was telling her visitor: “Sometimes getting up in the morning is about all the getting you can do.”
Coffee percolated in the pot on the stove, a rich, warm scent.
“Um,” said Lucas, “Rachel… Her diaper…”
Rita glared at him. “You know what to do.”
Mrs. Klise frowned. “Never mind, Lucas. You’re just a boy, and this is a woman’s thing. You go on, and, Rita, you just sit right—”
“Don’t leave! Neal—we taught Lucas how.”
“Neal helps with the baby?”
“I do most of it.” Rita’s eyes begged Lucas: “Take care of her? Please?”
This house on Knob Hill was small. The scent of percolating coffee and the women’s voices drifted from the kitchen as Lucas picked up the stinky child.
Ruth Klise’s voice said: “Such a nice place you have here.”
Rita’s voice answered: “Yeah, well, not quite like I imagined it would be way back when. Jesus, look at me: I already got a ‘way back when’!”
“Ooo-cus!” Rachel put her tiny hand on the big boy’s cheek as he carried her upstairs. “Ooo-cus!”
“Yeah, Ooo-cus, that’s right. Hold on.”
Rachel shifted in his arms and a fresh shit smog wafted over him.
“No problem, huh, little girl. We’ll just walk down the hall. No, don’t squirm like—Oh, man! Phew. Here’s where that goes: this is a bathroom.”
That white room held a shelf stacked with diapers beside the sink, a toilet, a brown rubber pail for dirty diapers, and a bathtub saddled with a blue mat.
“Hold on, Rachel.” Lucas toed the blue bath mat off the tub to the floor.
“Ay da yah Ooo-cus!” She clapped his face between her tiny hands.
“Big help, keep me from watching what I’m doing.” Lucas knelt on the blue mat. Lowered the squiggly toddler so she lay looking up. “How easy was that.”
“Oony gah.”
Lucas pushed Rachel’s yellow T-shirt above her pink belly. Her bulging cloth diaper knocked him back with its pungent aroma.
He pulled a red washcloth off the tub spigot. Kept his right hand on the kid while he stretched his left to turn on the sink’s HOT faucet.
Voices trickled into the bathroom like the water from that faucet.
“… hard you have to work. You. And Neal.”
“Got that right. Like there’s always somebody keeping score.”
Lucas paid attention to what he had to do: Take two safety pins out from the cloth diaper. Set them on the sink. Take off the diaper.
Holding Rachel’s feet in the air with one hand, Lucas folded the soiled diaper beside the toddler. She cooed at the sight of her toes above her face. He soaked the washcloth until it was warm. Wiped the baby clean.
Rachel kicked her legs and waved her arms and laughed.
“Oh, you think so? Is it so funny? What are we going to do with this?” Lucas lifted the heavy cloth diaper. “It’s not like we can just throw out a dirty diaper.”
“Your Neal is so busy. Working. Like with that new teacher.”
“I hear enough about her. ‘Jordan this’ or ‘Jordan that.’ Least since school’s let out, he don’t keep going on ’bout her. Hell, now he don’t go on ’bout nothing.”
Lucas stepped over the toddler on the blue bath mat. He held the folded cloth diaper above the toilet water. Released one side so that the cloth unfolded its burden into the toilet a blink after Lucas depressed the flush handle.
Whoosh! went the water as the waste flushed away.
Ta-dah!
He held the toilet handle down as he lowered the diaper’s soiled surface to the cleansing rushing water with wonderful results—
—right up until the dangling end of the diaper swirled into a water-soaked corkscrew and got sucked down the toilet drain.
He jerked the diaper. Stuck! And the toilet won’t stop running!
Rachel pushed herself up like she never had before to stand on pudgy bare legs. She wobbled. Swayed. Her arms flapped. The twin lenses of Lucas’s glasses reflected her wide-eyed grin as she heard Mommy’s voice:
“… never got a chance to tell you sorry about your boy. Him and Hal hit high school when I left for the U. Riding back and forth to Missoula, fixed it so Mom paid part of the gas so Neal would… him back from the Marines itchin’ to—And law school! Both starting out, even if he was seven years older. Seven years ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. Not when you’re riding for hours alone together.”
Mommy’s out there! thought Rachel. Go see Mommy!
Rachel’s bare left foot popped up from the bathroom floor. Hung motionless in the air. She stared at its awesome magnificence. So many little piggies! Down went her left foot. Rachel toppled forward. Before she knew what was happening, her right foot threw itself out in front of its partner on the cool bathroom tiles.
And she didn’t fall down! Rachel waved her arms. This is great!
Lucas twisted the diaper around his right wrist so it couldn’t be wrenched from his grasp by the Toilet Monster. Grabbed Rachel’s shirt just as she took the third solo step of her life.
“Yeah, Neal could have gone back, but college people stare at you. Least here, you know the lookers and you can either strut your stuff or wave them off.”
“And here Neal can…?”
“A man does what he’s supposed to. Heard that more than once, let me tell you. Hell, he should be grateful he gets to be a damn grade school teacher.”
Lucas crouched in the bathroom.
One hand fought the Toilet Monster for the diaper.
The other hand held on to the fleeing toddler.
Lucas’s glasses slipped down his nose. No, not that, too! Not now! He wiggled his ears. Tugged on Rachel’s shirt. Down she plopped.
She giggled as Lucas pulled her across the bathroom tiles on her bare butt.
In the kitchen, Rita called out: “How’s it going, Lucas?”
“Moving right along!” yelled Lucas as he pulled Rachel to his sneakers.
She rolled onto her back.
Lifted her feet into the air to ponder those piggies.
The gurgling Toilet Monster shook the ten-year-old boy’s aching arm.
Lucas held on to the straining diaper with his right hand.
His left hand wiggled in his jeans pocket to get his Cub Scout jackknife.
He held the knife handle in his teeth so that free hand could open the blade.
The Toilet Monster swirled the diaper-bound boy back and forth.
Lucas plunged his knife hand into the toilet’s whirlpooling cold water as close to the Toilet Monster’s gurgling maw as he could get. Sawed on the diaper.
Rachel crawled up the side of the toilet to watch Lucas.
The Toilet Monster rock ’n’ rolled the boy sawing the diaper they both held.
Cloth ripped—snapped free!
Lucas stumbled backward.
Rachel’s naked butt plopped down on the tiled floor.
Lucas watched the sawed-off tail end of the diaper twisting in the swirling water at the drain opening—not being sucked down.
The water in the toilet began to rise.
“Uh-oh,” whispered Lucas.
“Ho-ho!” mimicked Rachel.
She grabbed the lip of the toilet bowl, pulled herself up. This is fun!
From the kitchen, Rita said: “Lucas! Aren’t you done yet?”
“Um… Close!” said Lucas.
A chair scraped the kitchen floor as Rita yelled: “Let me come help—”
“No!” snapped Ruth Klise. “I mean, I’m sure he’s doing just fine. Sit down, sit down, that’s right. We’ll finish our coffee. And what we were talking about.”
Water rose to the toilet bowl’s rim an inch from overflow.
The vision of a car radio that wouldn’t turn on grabbed Lucas.
He kicked the toilet.
Water rose to half an inch from the rim.
Rachel slammed both her palms against the toilet.
A great slurping filled the bathroom. The whirlpool in the toilet bowl sucked everything—water, diaper, drool from Rachel—down, gone, vanished.
The toilet filled its tank. Shut off.
Lucas washed his hands as he yelled to the kitchen: “Almost done!”
He dropped the sopping remnant in the brown pail. Grabbed a clean diaper. Laid Rachel on the blue bath mat to slide that unfolded white cloth rectangle under her bare bottom. Reached onto the sink’s ledge for the two safety pins—
Found only one.
Lucas folded two diaper corners around her leg. Tied them in a Cub Scout square knot. Did the same on the other side. Realized the loincloth would slide off the baby the moment she stood up.
Unless…
He safety-pinned the diaper to the front bottom of Rachel’s yellow shirt.
Stood up with Rachel in his arms.
She nuzzled her face into his shirt.
Couldn’t help it, he had to nuzzle her back.
Lucas carried Rachel into the kitchen just as Rita set her green mug on the table across from Ruth Klise’s sword smile.
Rita shook a cigarette from her pack on the table. Struck a match.
“Listen to me carrying on.” Rita exhaled a smoke cloud toward the older woman. “Guess it comes from being cooped up with just a kid and a baby. Or maybe not enough coffee. Something like that. Something like this, you must think I’m real stupid.”
“Why, dear, what makes you—”
“What makes me?” Rita took a drag on her cigarette. “Hell, if I knew what makes me—but I do know better than to just be stupid. You never came here before. You never came to the coffee social Neal’s mom threw after we got married and she still liked me. You was nobody special to my folks, so I never thought about that then. But this is now. In my own damn kitchen. There you sit, and it ain’t about me or just dropping by.”
“There is no call for you to get—”
“You don’t care how I get. You’re here ’cause you don’t like Neal helping poor Hal.”
“My son is dead!”
“And I’m sorry. Everybody is. Ask around the joints. You can always find somebody at the bar saying ‘poor Ruth.’ Life’s shit, and I’m sorry about that, but don’t sit here shitting me.”
“Don’t you care about what your husband is doing? All that he’s doing?”
“I never know what my husband’s doing. Ain’t that a kick in the head? But he’s my damn husband. Mine! So you screw with him, you screw with me, and that’s why you’re here.”
“All I want is justice!”
“ ‘Just-who? Just me, or just you?”
“You’ve got to help me stop your husband—”
“I’m not so good at the got-tos. Sure as shit ain’t gonna work them just for you.”
“You’re sitting here, half-dressed, middle of the morning. With that boy who’s helping them, too. His sister who wouldn’t do her duty, and you’re not—”
“Nobody’s sitting here anymore.” The kitchen chair scraped as Rita stood.
Ruth Klise rose to her feet. Glared at the younger woman.
Got hit with an exhale of Rita’s cigarette smoke.
Stormed to the living room, past where Lucas held Rachel.
The door slammed shut behind Ruth’s exit and made Rachel cry.
“Shh.” Rita stroked the cheek of the child Lucas held. Rachel reached for Mommy. Rita didn’t take her. “ ’S OK, better ’n OK. Mommy made that sneaky lady go away, yes she did. Daddy will be so proud of me. So happy for somethin’ I done.
“You know what?” Rita leaned back as Lucas bounced her child in his arms. Rachel stopped crying. “It’s Mommy’s turn to get cleaned up. Let’s have a party!
“Lucas,” she said: “How ’bout you two go run a bathtub for me.”
Lucas carried Rachel into the bathroom. Filled the tub. Carried the baby girl back to the living room.
Green-mugged Rita stood at the front window. Stared out at the street.
Lucas heard her whisper: “All that big out there.”
She saw two children watching her.
“Go ahead ’n’ set her on the floor. She gets heavy. Still feels like if I sneeze, she’ll break. And she cries. Jangles my nerves. But no crying today for us!”
Rita drank from the green mug.
Switched on the radio in the brown wooden floor cabinet.
Vernon’s radio station filled the house with Marty Robbins singing “El Paso,” about a man whose love for a woman got him gunned down.
“Do us a favor, Lucas? Get rid of that cowboy crap. Find the Great Falls station all the high school kids listen to.”
The upstairs bathroom door shut behind her.
Rachel crawled to the blocks on the living room floor.
Lucas remembered the numbers he’d heard Chris Harvie tell Laura. His tuning fingers summoned the sound of a steady beat and wisking cymbals.
From beyond the closed bathroom door came a splash as Rita yelled: “That’s perfect! Turn it up! Do-doh dote-doh shark hey, has dum teeth, yeah!”
Rachel waved her arms as Mommy sang.
Lucas rubbed Rachel’s head while Bobby Darin, who, like most male singers in 1959, tried to sell himself to Laura’s generation as their Chairman of the Board like the star of their parents’ generation, a suit and tie Jersey guy named Frank Sinatra. On the radio that morning, Bobby Darin finger-snapped “Mack the Knife” about someone sneaking around the corner to do something rash.
Through the bathroom door, Rita yelled: “Feels like we’re in a movie and they’re singing that song in the background. You ever feel like you’re in a movie?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“And wherever you are after that, if you hear that song, you’re right back in the old then ’n’ there.”
The radio sang about the crazy magic of Kansas City.
“This is better,” said Rita as she bustled through the living room, a white blouse tucked in the waist of lime pants. Strode into the kitchen. Reappeared, steaming mug in her hand. She leaned on the kitchen doorway. Her auburn hair was brushed. Her cheeks were pink. The green mug rose to her lips slick with a sly crimson smile. “You want a party, you dress up.”
Rachel leaned forward to put her hands on the carpet, her bare feet flat on the floor. Stood straight—fell back on her rump, a puzzled look on her face. Worked before! Rachel fingered the safety pin fastening her shirt to the diaper.
“Hey, there’s my precious, precious baby!”
Rita set her mug on the radio as the man inside that brown box read news about steel mills on strike back east in Ohio. She scooped Rachel off the floor. The child laughed as Mommy swooped her round and round.
From the radio came a song with the haunting plea of one man asking—
No, thought Lucas, ‘commanding’ us to come with him to the sea of love.
Rita whirled with her child and sang with the radio: “… want to tell you, just how much da-dah da…”
“This is dancing, baby girl! Have to know how to dance. Smell Mommy’s perfume? Always helps. Da-da da.’ Can’t say nothing yet, can you? ’S OK. Just let his words bounce off your lips so he’s just dying to kiss ’em. Mommy will teach you an’—
“Ooops! Gotta be careful an’ not fall. And be careful to not be too careful. They always go for it. Can get ’em even when they think they wanna walk away. Little drinky never hurts neither.
“Damn, baby girl, you’re getting heavy! Here, you like it when Lucas holds you. You go for those older guys with glasses. Your daddy, I knew he was smart even without ’em.”
The child in Lucas’s arms reached for her mother as that woman retrieved the coffee mug from on top of the radio, drained it, said: “Dancing is thirsty work.”
She left Rachel bouncing on Lucas’s lap and headed into the kitchen.
The radio played.
“Mrs.—I mean Rita, I can take Rachel outside in the front yard.”
“It’s hot out there,” said Rita over the sound of a spoon clinking her mug.
Rita stood in the doorway to the kitchen. Smiled as she gestured with her green mug. “Besides, look at me. I just got all dressed up. Don’t I look nice?”
“Well sure, but she’s a kid and you don’t have to, I could—”
“No.” Rita sipped her mug. “First thing when Neal comes home, he checks on the baby. I could wrap my bathrobe belt around my neck and be hanging from the ceiling and he’d check on Rachel. So when he walks through the front door, she’s gotta be here so he can see she’s OK. Then he’s going to see me all dolled-up and I’ll tell him about Ruth Klise. How I did good. You can tell him, too!”
“I guess so.”
“You guess right. And today, we did everything right, you and me.”
Lucas sat absolutely still and said nothing about the Toilet Monster.
“Gonna be perfect.” Rita took a long drink from the green mug. “Just like it should be. Then’ll be a good idea for you to get Rachel out. Be out of the house while Neal and I are here, my husband and me, you know what I mean? The town wading pool. You take her there an’ I’ll take care of business here.”
Baby Rachel put her hands on the floor, pushed herself up—
—the jerk of her clothes toppled Rachel back down to her rump.
“Do me a favor?” said the baby’s mother. “Check in the bathroom, make sure I didn’t make a mess.”
“What?”
“Diapers, maybe. Make sure I didn’t knock them over.”
Lucas found the bathroom looking no worse than when he’d left it.
Found his boss stirring sugar from the bowl on the table into her mug when he came back into the kitchen.
“One last cup,” she said. “Top it all off.”
She left the brown paper sack on the table. Drifted toward the living room.
Rachel sat on the living room floor, her face scrunched in frustration.
Her mother leaned on the brown box as again it played Bobby Darin singing, only this time the crooner wondered, “Dream lover, where are you?”
“Yeah,” said Rita. “Where the hell.”
She took a drink from the green mug. Peered out the living room window.
“Just got to sit here and wait,” she told the street outside. “He’ll come. It’ll happen. Just got to wait. He’ll remember how it was and we’ll go back to that.”
Rachel cried. Whimpered. Like a freight train coming, her whimper built to a whine, to a full-throttled, window-rattling, hurricane tears, exploding bomb of crying.
Lucas sank to the floor. “Rache! What’s the matter? It’s OK.”
Rita dropped her gaze from the window. Shut her eyes. Cupped her brow with her hand that wasn’t holding the green mug. Shrank as small as she could.
She leaned on the brown radio as the baby screamed and Lucas did nothing to stop it. Rita kept her hand over her face. Blindly groped the mug to her lips. Drained it without spilling a drop, and if she could do that, why couldn’t he make the baby stop, just stop, crying?
“Come on, Rach-e,” said Lucas as he lifted the crying girl off the floor.
The noon whistle blew over the town of Vernon.
Neal Dylan stepped through the front door of his rented house.
Saw his Rachel crying in the arms of spectacled Lucas.
Saw his red-lipsticked wife in lime green pants perched on the brown radio.
She jerked her face from behind her right hand. Flinched at the sight of him. Thrust a green coffee mug behind her. Set it down on nothing.
The mug crashed on the living room floor. Shattered.
The explosion startled Rita. She slid off the radio. Her lime hips plopped on the floor. Her right palm slammed down on a jagged piece of broken mug.
Rita howled.
Stared at the red stream in her palm.
Neal ran to help his wounded wife wobble to her feet as Lucas set their wailing baby on the floor and raced to help her parents.
“Honey!” said Rita. “Welcome home!”
“Lucas!” yelled Neal. “Take care of Rachel!”
“Guess what I did!” crowed Rita.
“Take this!” Neal tied a clean handkerchief around her gouged hand.
“Doesn’t really go with my outfit.” Rita smiled so he’d know she was joking.
Neal sniffed her words so loudly Lucas heard him above Rachel’s wails.
Turned to Lucas. “There’s a baby bottle of milk in the fridge!”
“Should I heat it in a pan of water? Or wait! I could pour the coffee that might still be hot over it.”
Rita said: “None for me, thanks. I’ve had plenty of coffee.”
Her husband led her toward the couch. Didn’t resist when she held on to him so he had to sit beside her.
“Lucas, just give her a bottle. It’s OK, Rita. You’re going to be fine.”
“Fine, hell. Did great. You should have seen me. Ask Lucas.”
“First—”
“First lemme tell how I showed that Ruth Klise when she came over.”
“Ruth Klise came here? Came to… She told you… What did she tell you?”
“Wasn’ what she told me, was what I told her. Oww! Your handkerchief, why you wrap it so tight? Just a cut, won’t stop us from doing anythin’ you—”
“Ruth Klise!” said Neal as Lucas guided a cold baby bottle toward the crying Rachel’s bright red face. “Tell me!”
“Supposed to say ‘pleazze.’ ” Neal’s wife pressed her forefinger to his lips. “She would’ve if I asked. She wanted t’ worm secrets out of me.”
“Out of you? Secrets … ‘out’ of you?”
“ ’S all about what you’re doing with Hal. Wouldn’ tell her a damn thing. She sat at our kitchen table. Smiled at me like I was still a dumb kid.”
Rachel grabbed the baby bottle of milk. Sucked like this was the world’s last best bottle. Shuddered in Lucas’s arms.
“Is that true, Lucas?” Neal caught the nod from the boy standing in the kitchen doorway holding his daughter. “What the hell is she… She must be crazy!”
Neal checked the crusting handkerchief on his wife’s hand. “That’s drying. Lucas: go put Rachel in her crib. She probably needs a nap.”
“What about me?” said Rita from the couch. “Or do you wanna talk ’bout what else you’re doing that Ruth Klise wanted to tell me about?”
“Lucas,” said Neal in a cold voice. “Get Rachel into her crib now!”
Lucas made himself go deaf as he hurried to the bedroom, laid Rachel on her back in the crib. Made himself go back downstairs.
Rita stood in the living room, her eyes blazing toward her husband.
As the radio played.
For the rest of his life, whenever Lucas heard the song about Stagger Lee shooting Billy, Lucas tumbled back into the then and there of that clapboard house.
“So you got no words?” Rita shouted to her husband. “All them first damn talky months, now nothin’ you got to say. Doesn’t matter you got nothing to say. I know what’s what. I know what’s mine. So you can play Mister Big Shot Hero. You can… But don’t you forget. Don’t you forget. I got what I got and that’s you.”
“Lucas,” whispered Neal, his eyes never leaving his wife. “Go home. I’ll call you about tomorrow, about… Go!”
Lucas blasted out of that house to his waiting bike.
Let the screen door slam behind him.
Didn’t look back as the radio told how Stagger Lee’s bullet tore through Billy to break the bartender’s glass.