Our Daily Bread (14 page)

“Are you mad at us? Don't be mad,” said Ivy.

Her words brought him to the world and he saw Bobby had gone and his daughter was shaking. When he took her in his arms she almost vanished. He could put her in his pocket if he wanted. Keep her safe there. The problem was he couldn't feel her, couldn't get a sense of her in his arms. He'd gone numb, an icy radiating freeze from his heart to the end of his fingers. The rain had started again; it streamed against the windows with such force it was impossible to see past it.

Dorothy carlisle was unable to concentrate
on her reading. It was after four, nearly five, and she couldn't wait to close the shop, a feeling to which she was unaccustomed. But today nothing held her interest, not Rilke, not Homer, not Alice Munro, not Graham Greene. Ever since Tom Evans called to say his wife had, as they used to call it, “run off,” Dorothy's mind was unable to settle on much of anything, not even those writers who had been her solace and refuge for decades.

Tom had called her several days after Patty disappeared, by which time it seemed clear even to him his wife would not be back any time soon. He was barely able to speak through his swallowed tears, his voice choked and halting. Practical matters precipitated the call, or so he told her, concerns about what to do with the kids when he had to return to work. Did he want Ivy to come and stay with her for a while, Dorothy had asked, and he went silent as though he had not considered that, and then said no, maybe it was selfish but he needed her with him. He had some time coming, some vacation. He would decide what to do and let her know. If he found a day job with regular hours, maybe she would look out for Ivy in the afternoon? She had said of course, of course. She said how sorry she was, and did he need anything, and surely Patty just wanted a little time alone and would be home soon, and all the other words one spoke in the hollow cave of loss. She had put the phone down softly, as though afraid a harsh gesture would transmit down the telephone line to Tom and crack open the thin, brittle shell of what remained of his reserve.

No one could ever accuse Dorothy Carlisle of being overly sentimental toward children, but there were some things Dorothy knew one simply did not do and deserting your children was very high up on that list. She imagined the Evans household, shut off in its shock and grief. Something like this was almost harder than a death. Death brought round the casseroles and condolences. She remembered when she was a child—a grandparent's death, her older brother lost in the Korean War—remembered the late-night phone call, the telegram, the unexpected knock on the door. The pots of coffee. The hushed voices. The sacred quiet of mourning. In contrast, she remembered, too, the sniggering whispers about a girl who lived down the road and had run off with a jazz clarinettist, only to return in disgrace less than a year later. There had been little kindness and certainly no sanctity over that pain. It was her own fault, people said. Her father should have locked her in her room, or beaten some sense into her. The family paid the steep price of shame and moved on within a few years, to no one knew where.

No one had much sympathy for the cuckold, which was, of course, what Tom was.
And not for the first time.
Dorothy clamped her hand over her mouth, as though afraid she might say the words out loud. Dorothy might be capable of keeping her thoughts to herself, but there were those in town for whom diplomacy was a foreign concept, and everyone knew what Gideonites thought of foreigners.

The next day, Ivy had come by after school, her eyes clouded with anxiety no child should ever have to experience, her shoulders set, and her posture at once defiant and vulnerable. She had come, she said, to tell Mrs. Carlisle she was needed at home, and that she was awfully sorry, but she would not be able to help in the store for a little while. Dorothy gathered the girl into her arms, and Ivy stiffened at first, and then collapsed into tears. She would not talk about it, though, and after a few minutes she pushed herself away from Dorothy, dried her eyes on her sleeve and said she had to get back, that her father needed her.

“I'll drive you,” Dorothy had said.

“No, thank you,” Ivy said with rigid formality. “I would really rather walk.”

With that the little girl had gone and although Dorothy had called the house twice since, there was never any news. Tom answered the phone on the first half-ring, disappointment thick in his voice when he understood it was only Dorothy, and he told her they were coping, and that Ivy said hello, but no more. Dorothy thought she would give it another few days, and then she would go over there. It made her practically break out in hives just thinking about how intrusive this would be, and what an invasion of Tom Evans's privacy, but her worry outweighed her natural reticence to becoming involved in someone else's trouble. Far too late for remaining uninvolved. What she had begun that day, letting Ivy find refuge in her store from the bullying girls, she must see through. One does not, she told herself, see a job only half done.

Dorothy consulted the wall clock. Another half hour and she would leave. A grand total of six people, three sets of couples, had been in the shop that afternoon. It had been a virtual stampede by normal standards. Tourists who were, now the weather had finally turned warm again, beginning their annual spring migration through the small towns in the area. They swung through twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall when they were referred to as “leaf peepers.” Odious, most of them, sure they were being ripped off, trailing dripping ice cream cones and slurping coffee from plastic travel cups that appeared designed for enormous infants, only too happy to say in loud voices that they knew their antiques and would not be fooled by cheap imitation. It was enough to make one shut the doors until the season was over. Today, however, Dorothy hadn't minded the diversion and was happy enough to sell a lovely satinwood tea caddy for not much more than she'd paid for it, although she did refuse to sell the small bentwood chair, stamped Thonet of Vienna, because it was the chair she thought of as Ivy's.

Just as she gave up all notion of being drawn into Willa Cather's portrait of Nebraska pioneers, the door opened, and against all hope her heart leapt with the possibility it might be Ivy.

“You'll go blind reading in that light,” said Mabel McQuaid.

“Hello, Mabel. I was just closing up, actually.”

“That little Ivy Evans isn't here, is she? No? Good. I'm sure you've heard.”

“I suppose I have.” Dorothy closed
My Antonia
with a sharp
whack!

“How's the little girl doing?” Mabel settled, without invitation, in an upholstered armchair with caryatid arm supports. With her crinkled décolletage plumping out from the neckline of her slightly too tight floral dress, and with that smear of pink lipstick on her teeth, Dorothy thought she looked like the Queen of Tarts.

“Mabel, I'm simply not going to gossip about this. Imagine what that family's going through and have a little pity.”

“I admire the noble sentiment, Dot, really, but how on earth is Tom going to keep living here when his wife's run off? And you and I both know it's not the first time she's done this. I wouldn't be surprised if neither of those kids is his. What's wrong with that man? They need the church in their lives, they do.”

Dorothy was, for once, utterly dumbfounded. Cramped between Mabel McQuaid's suggestion that Ivy and Bobby were not Tom's, and the information that, indeed, Patty Evans was with another man, Dorothy's verbal ability simply shut down. She didn't know which issue to address first and as her mind zigzagged between the possible options, Mabel McQuaid would not stop talking. She sat with her ankles crossed and her hands folded in her lap, and looked as though a crowbar wouldn't budge her.

“I mean, I actually wonder if Tom's not involved somehow. He can't possibly be that blind. Maybe they have some sort of arrangement, if you know what I mean. I wouldn't be surprised. It's the influence of Hollywood, for one thing. Everyone's been talking about it for months. It's one of the Corkums. The one that delivers oil. And other things, apparently.” She snorted. “Oh, no, of course
you
haven't heard. Don't give me that look, you know what I mean. That's what happens when you make it so clear you don't want to hear any of the news around town. You're unprepared, aren't you, for when the inevitable happens? I dare say if you hadn't chased me out of here a while ago you might not be standing there like you are now with your mouth hanging open. She's been seen with him in practically every motel within fifty miles. You know, I always thought his people were all right, churchgoing, not the type for this sort of thing. He has a sister who's a geriatric aid and his mother was a terrific cleaning lady. She must be just mortified. Larry! That's it. His name's Larry. I used to let him cut my lawn in summer when he was a boy. Stocky, handsome in his own way. I'm almost sure it was him.”

“You leave me speechless, Mabel.” At some point Dorothy had risen and now stood with both hands pressed firmly on her desk, as though she was afraid if she didn't it might rise up of its own accord and hurl itself at the woman across from her. She looked down at her hands and saw her forearms were trembling.

Mabel leaned forward and said, in a slightly quieter voice, as though afraid of being overheard, “You don't suppose she's pregnant, do you?”

“Pregnant!”

“Well, you're the one who's made such a little pet out of the other one.”

“The other
what?
”

“Don't get me wrong, I think you're a saint. I said as much to Reverend Hickland just the other day. You don't see the least bit of bad in anybody, do you?”

“I wouldn't say that, Mabel. I wouldn't say that at all. You'd be amazed at what I see.”

“You won't make me believe it. You are an angel to take an interest in that little girl. Look at the strikes she's got against her. A mother like that, a father—well, he calls himself that—who can't control his own wife. From the first day Patty Evans showed up you could see she'd break Tom's heart. He was such a good boy. Can you imagine what his mother would have thought of that Patty being in her house? It makes you wonder, of course, what will become of the little one. Or Bobby, for that matter. Timing's all wrong for him too, of course. Which makes Tom Evans either a saint, like you, or else he's the biggest fool in the world. I'm beginning to lean the other way, to be truthful. I mean, you fool me once, shame on you, but you fool me twice, shame on me, and now this. Oh, Dorothy, I'm sorry. You can't tell me you didn't consider it? Not even Bobby? But you must have noticed when she first arrived. You can count . . .”

“I never noticed anything like what you're implying, Mabel. It wasn't any of my business then and it isn't now. And it's not your business, either. Have some pity, for heaven's sake! Have some empathy!”

“Look at you. You look sick to your stomach. I shouldn't go on, I guess. I didn't mean any harm, honestly. I know you're close to the family these days.”

“I am feeling sick.” Dorothy moved out from behind the safety of the desk and flapped her hands at Mabel McQuaid, who stood, with a look on her face that indicated she was afraid Dorothy Carlisle might vomit on her. “Awfully, terribly sick. And I'm going home. Right now. Sorry, Mabel, but you'll have to leave.”

In the Evanses' house that evening, Ivy stood on a stool at the sink and washed the dishes. Outside, the oak tree's long-fingered, wind-rattled shadows scrambled across the backyard and made her nervous. Her father was in the living room, sunk in his chair, smelling of beer, staring at but not watching the television. Ivy knew he wasn't watching because it was a television show on which people were forced to eat disgusting things like worms and cockroaches, and if he had been paying attention, he would have changed the channel for sure.

Ivy was careful to rinse the dishes in hot water, getting all the soap off, before stacking them on the drain board. She changed the washing water often, for she hated the feel of wet bits of food on her hands and as soon as something floated to the surface she emptied the water and began again. Something moved in the yard and she nearly dropped a glass. It took a moment for her to realize what she was looking at. It was only the fox, the beautiful red fox with the black legs. Ivy opened her mouth to call her dad, but then she thought better of it, knowing he wouldn't come. She watched the animal pad along the hedge-line, hunting for the baby rabbits who lived there, probably, or mice. She hated to think of her catching anything, for she loved the little wild rabbits, although she knew a fox had to eat, too, and may have babies of her own to feed.

Just a fox. Just the wind in the trees. Nothing to be afraid of.

But that, of course, wasn't true at all. Fear was a fact of life. It had been this way even before her mother left, although fear had been mostly relegated to night, then. That dark time when bad things came out. She had to observe certain rituals in order to control the bad things. Lights must be flicked on quickly; steps run up before shadows formed into things more solid than just a place where light wasn't. When her dad put in the new light switch, it had helped some. She hadn't checked her hair so often to see if it had turned white. But of course she hadn't told her father about the other things that scared her. Things about her parents' fights, the words that flew around the house like plates. She never told him about the bullying. No one followed her anymore, not since Albert Erskine threatened Gelsey and Cathy that day, but in school they whispered things as they passed her in the cafeteria, or in the hall, or from behind her in class.
Good never comes from bad, my mother says. Birds of a feather. Born in the blood. We don't want you here.
The broken-glass words were in her head all the time.
Your mother doesn't love you! You're so ugly she left you!

A tumbler slipped from her fingers, splashed into the sink and hot water spattered her face and neck. She wiped it away and did not cry. It was important that she not cry in front of her father. When the fighting between her parents had been bad, she thought of the movie in which the little sorcerer's apprentice had let certain spells get out of control. Before he knew it a tide of water rose, threatening to drown them all. The normal things of the house—the brooms, the teapots, the pots and pans—became possessed by magic gone terribly wrong. You had to be so careful with spells. You had to know all the right words, and she'd never known them. So she had kept quiet. She didn't know how to name her fears, didn't know what the words might be for the vaporous wisps of worry that slid around the doorjambs and riffled the curtains. She wasn't even sure she wanted to know their names, for naming things gave them power.