Torch: A Novel Part 21

"Of course," Bruce said, more adamantly than he felt. And he did love her, though when he thought about his love for her his mind careened from one thing to the other, landing almost always not on Kathy herself but on how unbearable it was to be without her. "I don't love her the same way as I loved your mom, if that's what you're asking. It takes years to build that kind of thing, but yes, I love her. Of course I do." Joshua was looking directly into his eyes and then Claire sat up and looked at him with her wet eyes too, both of them looking out of Teresa's eyes. He looked away from them. "What I want you to know is that this has nothing to do with how I feel about your mom. It has to do with the fact that I can't live alone."

"You don't live alone," Joshua said. "You live with me and part of the time with Claire."

"I know-and that doesn't have to change. But I need a companion. I need company."

"What about us?" Joshua asked. "Where do we get company?"

"You have Lisa. And Claire has David."

"We broke up," Claire said bitterly. "You know we broke up."

"I thought you were just taking some time apart," he said, and saw that this only made her more upset. "Okay, I'm sorry. I mean, you'll have someone someday. Someone special. You will."

Claire huffed in disgust and shook her head.

"But they're not our mom," said Joshua. "We can't just go out and find someone to replace our mom like you."

"I'm not replacing your mom."

"You have a wife," Joshua pressed on. "We will never have a mother. Okay? Never." Tears began to drip from his eyes. They made a trail down his face and fell off his chin.

"Josh," Bruce whispered, but didn't go to him. Mosquitoes landed on Bruce's neck and arms and he slapped at them until Claire reached for the bug spray on the porch ledge and handed it to him without a word.

"You're always welcome here," he said at last. "Both of you. Always."

" 'Welcome?' " parroted Claire, and then let out a small sharp laugh. "Welcome? This is our home, Bruce. Did you think we thought we weren't welcome here?" She paused, and then another thought played across her face. "No. No way. Don't tell me she's moving in."

"Claire."

"Oh my G.o.d."

"Claire."

"Don't say my name," she snapped. "Just don't even f.u.c.king speak to me."

"She has a really small house. It's not even a house-it's a cabin. It's one room. It wouldn't make sense for us to live there," he explained, though Claire would not look at him. "But this won't change things for you. Your room is still your room. And I think you're going to like-"

"When did this start up?" asked Joshua.

"When?" Bruce asked, uncomprehendingly.

"Has this been going on for a while?"

"Not until after your mother died, if that's what you're asking. If you're asking whether I cheated on your mother, the answer is no."

"That's very big of you," Joshua said.

"f.u.c.k off," said Bruce. "I have my life, you know."

"So," Claire said. "Let us get this straight. This means we have to pack our mom's things up, right? Like tomorrow."

Bruce thought about it for a moment. He hadn't considered every detail. "It means-"

"Does it mean that Kathy is moving in tomorrow?" Claire demanded. "Just say yes or no."

"Not tomorrow," he said. "For the weekend we plan ... I'll stay over there. But yes, Kathy will move in. It doesn't mean that all your mom's things ..."

"Thank you," she said, holding her hand up.

"I'm sorry I hurt you. I didn't want to." He paused, looking at them imploringly. "Do you want me to suffer forever? Don't you want me to be happy?"

"We want you to be happy," Joshua said.

"Of course we do," said Claire, softening now. She turned away from him and looked down at her bare feet, her arms wrapped around herself, each hand holding the other shoulder. "There's one thing I ask, and I'm sure Joshua agrees." Her voice was trembling, so she paused. "I want Kathy to stay away from Mom's grave. I just want that to be our private place. There's no reason that Kathy needs to even go back there. She has nothing to do with Mom. It's our sacred ground."

"Okay," he spat. He knew he would have to tell them about the wildflower seeds he and Kathy had planted, but he couldn't do it now.

"Do you promise?" Claire asked.

"Yes," he hollered, suddenly enraged. "Yes! Yes!" he yelled louder. "I f.u.c.king promise."

Neither one of them would look at him.

"Are you happy now?" he shouted so loudly that the horses, grazing near the fence, lifted their heads. "What else do you want? Is Kathy allowed to use the bathroom? Does she have your permission to heat up a pot of water in the kitchen or is that sacred ground too?"

Fresh tears streamed down Claire's face. Joshua became incredibly still and quiet, standing on the opposite end of the porch.

"Huh?" he demanded. "Huh? I asked a question and I'd like an answer. Is there anything else you want?"

They made no response.

"Answer me!" he screamed.

Ever so subtly, Claire shook her head.

"Nope," Joshua said coldly.

"Good."

He walked to his truck and then turned back to them, still seething. "You know what? I'm not your father," he said, hating himself already but unable to stop. "And I don't owe you kids anything. You got that? You understand?"

He got in and started the engine with a roar. His anger was spent the moment the truck began to move, having left him as quickly as it came, but he continued on anyway, letting the truck roll slowly down the driveway. He wasn't going back to Kathy's. He wasn't going to a bar. He wasn't going to town or to the river or to the lake. He didn't know where he was going, but he was going. He watched Claire and Joshua in his rearview mirror as he drove off and he kept watching them for as long as he was able to, until the trees and the high gra.s.s and the glint of the sun and the curve of the land overtook them and they were gone.

13.

ON MONDAY MORNING Joshua found a notebook. Lisa Boudreaux it said in his own handwriting on the back cover, with a fancy heart scrolled around it. A small rush of sorrow and nostalgia and anger surged through him at the sight of it, and he tossed the notebook back to where it had been, amid the scatter of junk behind the seat of his truck, among the half-full cartons of oil and empty cans of c.o.ke and old pens without their caps, and he kept searching for what he was looking for-his proof of insurance. He could picture it in its double-sized white envelope with the little translucent pane in the front. He shoved the seat back into place and turned to Greg Price, who stood leaning against the side of Joshua's truck in his neat beige police officer's uniform. He was the Midden town cop, the only one, and he'd been the cop for almost all of Joshua's life.

"The thing is that I have insurance. I just can't find the papers." He put his hand in the pocket where his cell phone was and said a little prayer that it wouldn't ring. The idea of Vivian even so much as leaving a message while he stood there with Greg Price made his stomach turn.

"You gonna speed through town anymore?" Greg asked him.

"No," Joshua said and then added, "sir."

"You gonna speed once you're outta town on the open road?"

"No sir, I'm not." Greg stood studying him for so long that Joshua looked down. A kaleidoscope of gla.s.s shards was splayed in the dirt, white and orange and clear, someone's headlights or taillights smashed to bits. "It's that I was running late to get to my girlfriend's house," he explained.

"Who's your girlfriend?" Greg asked gruffly, his beefy arms crossed over his barrel of a chest.

"Lisa Boudreaux." He put a hand on the rim of his truck bed, warm already, though it was only ten o'clock in the morning. "Not that that's an excuse."

"No, Mr. Wood, chasing after p.u.s.s.y is not an excuse," Greg said, and smiled, as though everything suddenly amused him and then the smile left his face and he continued to stare at Joshua without saying anything for several moments. "Ain't you buds with R.J. Plebo?"

"Yeah."

"Haven't seen him around in a while."

"He moved up to Flame Lake." He kicked the dirt and an orange shard of gla.s.s moved a few inches. "That's where his dad lives."

"But I seen your truck over at the Plebo place a lot."

Joshua concentrated on keeping his breath even, though he felt suddenly like he was being choked. He didn't have any drugs on him aside from a small bag of marijuana in a tackle box beneath the seat, which was nothing but a lucky stroke.

"We're friends."

"You and Vivian?" Greg winked at him. "You like the older women?"

"No," said Joshua, blus.h.i.+ng. "Me and her and Bender are friends." He looked up at Greg, his face intentionally open and tender, almost directly appealing for sympathy, and continued earnestly, "Sometimes they make me dinner." Everyone in Midden knew that Vivian and Bender were stoners and drunks, but they also knew Joshua didn't have much of a home anymore.

"Bender a good cook?" Greg said, and winked again and then began a laugh that turned into a nasty smoker's cough, so Joshua knew he was off the hook. Greg hardly ever ticketed anyone from Midden anyway, targeting instead the people from the Cities or sometimes Blue River, or, more often than not, the Indians from Flame Lake. "Consider this your warning, my friend," he said, slapping him on the back. "Watch your speed."

"Will do," he called as Greg walked back to his car and got in. The lights were still spinning, their flash muted in the sun.

When he got to Lisa's house she was standing in the doorway, giving him her look.

"Hey, beautiful," he said, and kissed her on the cheek, hoping to avoid a fight. They'd been arguing a lot for the past couple of weeks, ever since they found out that Lisa was pregnant. She'd been moody and nauseated, crying and throwing up a couple of times every day for a week.

He went to the refrigerator and poured himself a gla.s.s of juice, without bothering to explain why he was late. He practically lived here with her now, in Pam's trailer, ever since Kathy had moved in with Bruce and Lisa had graduated and Pam had said her "work was done" and had moved in almost entirely with her boyfriend, John. Occasionally, he slept in the apartment over Len's Lookout, when Lisa thought he was up in Flame Lake visiting R.J. or down visiting Bruce. He'd done neither, though he and R.J. kept meaning to get together. Bruce, he saw only around town, at Jake's Tavern, or at the Tap, and once at Len's Lookout. When they met, they'd sit and talk for a few awkward minutes about what jobs Bruce was working on and what the weather was doing or if Joshua had heard from Claire and what she was up to. Last week he'd seen him at the Coltrap County Fair, walking arm and arm with Kathy. Joshua had ducked back into the crowd before they'd seen him.

He had spent the night before in the apartment, so Lisa and her mother could have a rare night alone. It was different than it had been all through the spring, when he'd thought of the apartment as his own secret world. Now it was packed with boxes full of his mother's things and small pieces of furniture she'd refinished and paintings she'd made over the years. He and Claire had hauled it all there on one long Sunday back in June, before Kathy moved in. Most of the boxes weren't even taped shut, as they'd had none on hand and were too frantic to drive to town to get some. Claire did most of the packing, jamming together unlikely combinations of things into boxes: a pair of scissors, a camera, a half-used bottle of Vick's Vapor Rub, and a collection of Johnny Cash CDs might be in one box; a salad spinner, their mother's ancient reading gla.s.ses, an unopened jumbo packet of sugar-free gum, and a lampshade in another. Claire refused to throw anything out. If he questioned why they needed to take a half-used bottle of Vick's Vapor Rub, she explained that it was because their mother's fingers had jabbed into it; the gum was possibly the last pack of gum their mother had purchased. Sometimes, in the mornings when it was light enough to see, he'd open one of these boxes and peer inside. The sight of his mother's things alternately comforted and slaughtered him, depending on the day, depending on what his eyes landed on, and what image then leapt into his mind. Once, he came across her moccasins and immediately held one up to his nose and the familiar stink of his mother's feet-a smell he had not until that instant known he knew-shot into him like a bullet that left him gasping and stunned.

"Did you have fun with your mom last night?" he asked Lisa, after he finished his juice.

She nodded and took his empty gla.s.s from the table and went to the sink and emphatically washed it.

"I was going to do that," he said.

"We should get going," she said, turning to him.

Today was Lisa's first appointment about the baby. He'd told Vivian and Bender that he needed the day off but hadn't told them why. For now, Lisa's pregnancy was a secret, and they had decided to keep it that way as long as they could. They were driving all the way to Brainerd instead of going to the clinic in Midden or Blue River to avoid seeing anyone they knew.

"Did you have breakfast? I can make you some toast," he offered, but she shook her head. Sometimes it made her sick just when he mentioned certain foods, but until he named them, he never knew which ones they would be.

"I'll bring my stuff so I can study," he said, reaching for one of the GED books that sat in the middle of the table. He'd been neglecting them for months. "I figure then I got something to do in the waiting room."

She made a disgusted sound.

"What?"

"You can go in with me, you know."

"To the doctor?"

She nodded like he was an idiot.

"Okay," he said. "I didn't know. How would I know?"

He stood and put his arms around her. He could smell the lemon drop she was sucking on to keep from throwing up and the gel she put in her hair.

"Let's go," she said, and took her purse from the table, walking to his truck without turning to see if he was following her.

By the time they got to Brainerd, Lisa was in a better mood.

"Do you think it's a boy or a girl?" she asked, sitting next to him in the waiting room of the clinic, a magazine called Baby in her hands.

"I don't know."

"It's already been decided," she said, her voice mystical. "That's what I just read. That everything having to do with its genetics is already set in stone the minute the sperm met the egg."

They were fairly sure when that minute was, when the sperm met the egg, about six weeks before, in the little lake behind Lisa's house that didn't have a name as far as they knew. It had been a hot summer, and dry, so most days after Lisa came home from her job at the Red Owl-she'd gone up to full-time after graduation-and Joshua was done delivering drugs for Vivian and Bender, they followed a trail that wound its way behind the dump and over the railroad tracks to the lake. They never saw anyone else there, despite the trail and the occasional signs that other people had been there-aluminum cans in the fire ring, a candy wrapper that blew and caught in the gra.s.s-so they thought of it as their secret, private lake. They'd peel off their clothes and dive in and splash each other and then lie peacefully floating on their backs in silence together, staring at the sky. Once, a bear crashed out of the woods and approached the sh.o.r.e. Lisa screamed and Joshua smacked the surface of the water and the bear looked up at them and ran, most likely on his way to the dump. Sometimes Lisa wrapped her legs and arms around him while he stood on the slimy bottom, bobbing to keep both of them up, and they made love, though they tried to keep themselves from it because they didn't have any condoms out there with them. Usually he pulled out. Except for the one afternoon when he didn't. Afterward, they'd returned to the hot trailer and ate the salami and cheese and crackers and cold pasta salad that Lisa had brought home from work, and talked about the fact that there was no way she could have gotten pregnant from one mistake.

"Plus," said Joshua, "wouldn't the fact that we were in a lake make it less likely? I mean, wouldn't the water in the lake ... dilute it?"

"Maybe," Lisa said dubiously. Her eyes were red from having cried.

And then they waited, forgetting about the whole thing, forgetting it for one week and then two and three and almost four before Lisa took a test in their bathroom and they couldn't forget it anymore.

"Mrs. Boudreaux," a woman called from a doorway.

Lisa closed her magazine and looked at Joshua, fear flas.h.i.+ng across her face, and together they rose and walked toward the woman, following her down a hallway into a room that was so narrow it was like another hallway.

"Please take a seat." She gestured toward two plastic chairs that faced each other and then when they sat, she pulled up a chair next to them. "I'm Karen. I'm a nurse here. I need to get some basic information from you first." She opened the folder and began to read the long questionnaire that Lisa had filled out in the waiting room. "So, you're pregnant," she said, still looking at the papers in the folder, and then she looked up at them and smiled tentatively. "And is this good news?"