Chapter Nine

TWITCH DROPPED ME back at my truck. He said he wanted to get the specimen over to his office and make some notes about the night’s events. I drove home by way of Charity’s house. No truck in the yard. No lights in the studio apartment above the garage. Less hope in my heart. When I got home, I found Dad seated at the kitchen table. The dogs, Pants, Sniff, and Satan, slept at his feet, rousing only to see if I was someone they should bark at, lick, or bite. They flopped back onto the floor under the table, groaned, stretched, and went back to sleep. Dad nursed a bottle of beer. He played solitaire with a battered deck of playing cards with pictures of fish on them. I moved one of his black jacks to a red queen before either of us spoke.

He weakly slapped at my hand. “I thought you’d be at Charity’s tonight?”

“You and me both. I stopped there, but…” I shook my head and shrugged. “I think she’s been abducted by aliens, or maybe the Rapture. I can’t find her anywhere. Ricky home? I saw his car.”

“Yep, he went to bed early. He said he needed his beauty rest.” Dad smiled and shook his head. “There’s some big doings at the Tavern this weekend.”

“Momma or Twitch call you? You hear what happened?”

“Yep.” He finished his bottle of beer.

Dad drinking in the house, these are strange times. He usually had his beer by himself in the barn because every time he brought any in the house, Momma hid it. “Where did you find it this time?’

“It was in the clothes hamper. It isn’t cold, but some days require beer even if it’s warm.”

“Addie in my room?”

“Yep.”

“You’re sure quiet. I thought for certain tonight’s fiasco would warrant an animal story to explain the complex mistakes of the human animal.” My dad always had an animal story to explain something or teach some important lesson.

“I don’t know what to think. I just don’t see McGerber as a man who’d molest a child.” Dad gathered his playing cards into a messy pile.

“I wouldn’t put anything past McGerber. He acts so self-righteous in front of people, but I think he’s evil.”

“He’s self-righteous, but he’s also a scared kind of man. He couldn’t take the shame of being caught at something like this and there’s no way he wouldn’t get caught. He wasn’t keeping that girl hidden. It don’t make sense to me.” He shrugged. “Maybe she has a boyfriend.”

I noodled on the thought a full four seconds before dismissing the idea.

Dad slapped the deck of cards on the table and began unlacing his boots. Once he’d pulled them off he massaged his feet through his gray tube socks. My dad didn’t say anything important without thinking about his words. He believed a person should think before they speak and read before they think.

I tried to catch him, make him show his true heart. “What do you think of abortion?” I asked.

“Christ, abortion, that’s a big kettle of fish. Ask me something easier.”

“Nope, this is just the sort of thing a daughter should ask her dad. Babies aren’t just women’s business.”

He sighted me in. “I don’t like the idea of abortion at all. I wish there’d never in this world be another child conceived who’s not wanted.” He removed his socks and put his bare feet on the kitchen linoleum and wiggled his toes and flexed his arches. “Children should be safe and brought into a home that can provide at least a decent effort at parenting.”

“It seems like you were leading up to a big ‘but’ in your wishes, Dad.”

“Well, you asked me if I had an animal story. I guess I do. Every kind of animal has miscarriages, which as you know as a vet, are spontaneous abortions. Nature takes care of some potential problems without ever consulting the church, the government, or social media. And, all kinds of animals—fish, birds, insects, amphibians, and even mammals—kill their young. It’s a sore subject when it comes to the human animal. We wouldn’t have any debate if a baby curled its little fingers around our thumb. If somebody killed that baby we would’ve reached a pretty quick consensus that it was murder, insanity at the least. But when the baby is still growing inside a woman’s body, it gets murky. And if the baby came to be because of rape or incest, then there’re some other questions for some people.” He examined his feet.

“I don’t like the idea of abortion either, I guess,” I said. “I don’t know how I’d feel if it was my body or my daughter’s body. I don’t think I’d like people like McGerber deciding whether I had a baby or not. I definitely hate that there are people who will rape women and children and then call them whores and condemn them for wanting an abortion.”

“I can never honestly say I know what it is like for a woman,” Dad said. “I don’t much fear being raped or ever being pregnant. All I can hang on to is that I think I have love for every child that could be born, and I wouldn’t wish anyone to have to make the decision not to have a baby or not to keep it.” He stood up. “Your momma would tell you if I’d had my way, we’d have had a dozen babies around here.” He grinned. “I like the house filling up. Maybe I should quit the lumber business and open an orphanage or home for young mothers? None of those young lives—mommas or babies—have to go to waste. And if you asked me I’d tell you the greatest skill a man can learn is to tenderly raise a child.”

He walked toward his and Momma’s bedroom but stopped in the doorway. “You know, there’s plenty of men who would spend a lot more time at home if they dared take a true taste of what it’s like to care for a child and have them love them back. I’m sure as hell glad I didn’t miss being a dad—hard job, but the best job I ever had.” He went in the bedroom and closed the door.

Movement from the darkness of the living room startled me. Momma’d been sitting by herself in the dark, probably adding a few of my sins to her notebook. She joined me at the kitchen table.

“It’s legal you know?” Momma said.

“Yeah, I know. I just didn’t imagine you’d be for it.”

“Not being against it being legal isn’t the same as being for it. It just doesn’t make it go away by calling it against the law. I’ve seen some of the pictures and read the stories about the botched abortions and babies put in the trash because a young girl felt abandoned or was let down by all the other people with a horse in the race, like her parents and child’s father and his parents. What if Becky had hidden or ended her pregnancy because she worried nobody would help her? I can’t imagine not having that little one in this world. Promise me, Lorraine, don’t ever hide your being pregnant or kill it. I’m like your dad. I wish there’d never have to be another one, but I think it is important that women make the decision with their doctor and other people who truly love her.”

“Would you have talked to Addie about having an abortion if she didn’t already miscarry?”

“I don’t know. I thought I would. Now, I don’t have to know.”

“Would you’ve done the abortion?”

“Are those my only choices? If it was between that and having a young girl dealing with becoming a mother through rape by an old man…” She stopped talking for a few beats. “I’m glad I don’t have to know what I’d have done. Doctor Jacks, my boss, would never do it. He would blame Addie for getting herself that way.” She scratched something in her notebook, slammed it shut, got up from the table, and poured herself a glass of milk.

I went upstairs to bed.