Clay withdrew further into his protective shield.
February came, bringing gray days that thwarted even the most blithe spirits. Catherine decided to stay in school until the semester ended in mid-March, but the chore became harder and harder as she grew heavier and more listless.
And in the town house in Golden Valley not even the briefest word was spoken between husband and wife.
Chapter 25
The day they released Herb Anderson from the Hennepin County Workhouse, the Chenook winds were blowing elsewhere in the country, but in Minnesota the cold leaden skies matched Anderson's temperament. Gusty winds lapped at his ankles, whipping their icy tongues along the frozen slush beside the road as he walked. It was hard going without overshoes. Time and again his slick soles skittered on the uneven wayside and he swore under his breath. He hitchhiked his way into Minneapolis, finding the city as dismal as the highway had been, malcontent under the dirty blanket of late-winter ice that bore the remnants of the road crews' seasonal efforts at sanding and salting.
It was late afternoon, everybody scurrying with their chins pulled low into coat collars, scarcely looking up. Herb was forced to take a city bus to the old neighborhood, and even on it, the cold seeped in. He rode with arms crossed tight, staring out the window with unsmiling eyes.
Jesus, a drink sounds good. Kept me dry all these months, thinking they finally got old Herb. Hah, just who in the hell do they think they are, taking away a man's free will? I can dry out any damn time I want to. Didn't I always say I could! Well, I did it, by God, just like I said I could. But what gave them sons-a-bitches the right to force it on me? When I get to Haley's I'll show them sons-a-bitches that Herb Anderson quits drinkin' when Herb Anderson's good and ready, and not one day sooner!
At Haley's Bar the usual old crowd was there, picking up glasses instead of their kids.
“Well, look who's here! Been keepin' a stool warm for ya, Herb.”
All of his cronies moved aside to make room, slapping him on the shoulder, settin' 'em up.
“First one's on me, huh? Hey, Georgie, bring Herb here a taste of what he's been missin'!”
Ah, this is what a man needs, thought Herb. Friends who talk your language.
The feel of the varnished bar was like balm beneath his elbows. The smoky, neon haze around the jukebox burned his unaccustomed eyes wonderfully. The blaring medley of good ole country songs about wronged loves and foiled hearts made the wounds bleed like ulcers, self-opened. Herb raised another shot and downed it, then squeezed the shot glass and reveled in being the center of attention.
And all the while the alcohol did its dirty work; all the outrage that life had handed Herb Anderson came doubling back.
Ada tensed, placed trembling fingers to her lips at the sound of someone fumbling at the door. It was locked, but there came the click of a key. Then the door was flung wide and Herb wavered before her.
“Well, well, well, if it isn't Ada, keeping the home fires burning,” he observed thickly.
“Why, Herb,” she exclaimed in her timid way, “you're out.”
“Goddam right I am, no thanks to you.”
“Why, Herb, you should've told me you were coming home.”
“So you coulda had lover boy here to keep me out?”
“Shut the door, Herb, it's cold.”
He eyed the door sullenly. “You think it's cold in here, you oughta try prison a while.” He swung wide and slapped hard at the door, which cracked against the frame and bounced back open. Ada edged around him and shut it again. He watched her suspiciously, weaving slightly, hanging onto the front edges of his jacket with both hands.
“H-how are you, Herb?”
He continued to glower at her with sallow eyes. “What the hell do you care, Ada? Where was your concern in November? Man expects his wife to stand behind him at a time like that.”
“They told me I didn't need to come, Herb, and Steve was home.”
“So I heard. Bet the bunch of you got together and saw to it I wouldn't even see my own kid, didn't you!”
“He was just here for a little while.”
“Ada, he's my only goddam kid, and I got rights!”
She dropped her eyes and fidgeted with a button on her duster.
“You know what a man thinks about in prison, Ada?”
“It wasn't prison, it was just the workh—”
“It was the same as a prison and you know it!” he roared.
Ada began to turn away, but he caught one thin arm and swung her around to face him. “Why the hell'd you do it to me? Why!” The blast of his breath made Ada turn her face sharply away but he caught a fistful of her duster and lifted her to her toes, an inch from his mouth. “Who was he? I deserve to know after all these years.”
“Please, Herb.” She plucked at his knotted fist but he only clenched the cotton all the tighter.
“Who! I sat in that stinkin' hole and made up my mind I'd get it out of you once and for all.”
“It don't matter. I stayed with you, didn't I?”
“You stayed because I'd've found you and your lover boy and killed you both, and you knew it!” He suddenly thrust her away and she fell sprawling upon the sofa behind her. “Just like I'd like to kill that slut of a daughter you spawned while I was off fighting the goddam Vietcong! How could you do a thing like that? How! Everybody looks at you and me together and I can read their minds. Poor little Ada, living with that no-'count bum, Herb! You had 'em all fooled, all these years with your little mouse-in-the-corner act. But not me, not me! I never forgot, not for one minute, what you done to me while I was good enough to go out and fight your war for you. Every time I look at that blond hair and that bastard face of hers I remember, and I swore long ago I'd get even with the pair of you one day. And finally I get my chance when the little slut gets herself knocked up by that rich son-of-a-bitch, and I figger for once in his life Old Herb is gonna get paid back for what he put up with all those years. And do you know how sweet it was to think it was comin' straight from the hand of one who owed it to me—that whorin' no-good who's just like her mother?” Herb was weaving, his eyes bright with rage. “You owed it to me, Ada! You both owed it to me! But what did you do? You saw to it that I ended up empty-handed again, didn't you!”
“I never—”
“Shut up!” he barked, pointing a finger straight at her nose, “Shut up!” He towered over her, leaning dangerously near. “You had this comin' for nineteen years, Ada. Nineteen years I looked at your bastard and seen my own flesh and blood turned against me by the two of you till he finally run away from home. Then when he comes back the first time, you side with them and let them railroad me into prison. And just to twist the knife in the wound, you marry her off to my meal ticket. Goddamit, Ada, I had to read about the wedding in a newspaper. You kept me away on purpose, and I never even got to see Steve!”
“I didn't have nothing to do with—”
But Ada's cowering body was jerked to its feet.
“Don't lie to me, slut! I took nineteen years of your lies, and what does it get me but prison!”
He reeled back and swung the first blow to the side of Ada's head, sending it twirling while she fought to cover her face.
“You was on their side all the time, always siding against me!”
The next blow fell on her jaw and dropped Ada to the floor.
“That was my ship comin' in and you knew it!”
A savage kick raised Ada and dropped her back onto the floor.
Incensed now beyond reason, Herb Anderson's injustices fed upon themselves. The hate that had been too shallowly submerged for so long erupted in a wild red rage that found vent upon the hapless Ada. The alcohol lent its beastly hand in raising the man's temper and fists until the deed he'd begun lay senseless and broken on the floor before him. He stared at the huddled heap, wiped a trickle of sputum from the side of his mouth, then tasted her blood on his knuckles and ran from the house, then from the neighborhood, and the next
day from the town, then the state.
Catherine was typing when the phone rang downstairs. A moment later she heard Clay's footsteps pelting up the stairs, then his voice behind her.
“Catherine?”
He watched as she raised an elbow and kneaded the back of her neck.
“Cat?” he said gently.
The word—that above all others—made her suddenly swing around to find apprehension written on Clay's face.
“What is it?”
“That was Mrs. Sullivan, your mother's neighbor.”
“Mother?” She half-rose from her chair. “What's wrong?”
Clay saw the lines of fright that suddenly pinched up her face. Instinctively he moved to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Your mother is in the hospital. They want us to come right away.”
“But what's wrong?”
“Come on, we'll talk about it on the way.”
“Clay, tell me!”
“Catherine, don't panic, okay?” He took her hand and led her hurriedly through the house. “It's not good for you in your condition. Here, put your coat on and I'll back the car out.”
She nearly tore his jacket sleeve off stopping him. “Don't coddle me, Clay. Tell me what's wrong.”
He covered her hand, squeezed it so hard that he curled it up. “Cat, your father is out of the workhouse. He got drunk and went home that way.”
“Oh, no,” she wailed from behind her fingertips.
Fear trickled through Clay, but not for her mother, for her.
“Come on, we'd better hurry, Cat,” he said gently.
For the first time ever Catherine was grateful for Clay's penchant for speed. He drove the Corvette with the grim determination of an Indy-500 racer, taking curves and lane-changes in robotlike fashion, taking his sight from the road only long enough to assure himself Catherine was still all right. She sat huddled and shivering, reaching out to clasp the dashboard occasionally, eyes riveted straight ahead. Once they arrived at the hospital, she was out of the car like a shot, and Clay had to jog to catch up with her. When they reached the emergency ward, Catherine broke away from Clay, surging toward the broad-beamed woman who immediately rose from a chair and came forward with outstretched hands.
“Cathy, I'm so sorry.”
“How is she, Mrs. Sullivan?”
The woman's eyes immediately sought Clay's. He nodded.
“The doctors are still with her. I don't know yet. Oh, girl, what that man done to her . . .” And Mrs. Sullivan dissolved into tears. Clay's first thought was for Catherine, and he urged her into a chair while Mrs. Sullivan whimpered into a limp handkerchief. He stood before the pair, clutching Catherine's icy hand in his.
“She—she made it to the phone to call me,” choked Mrs. Sullivan. “I don't know how, though.”
Clay felt utterly helpless. He could do nothing but take the chair next to Catherine's and hold her hand while she stared with glazed eyes at the other pieces of cold, uncomfortable furniture across the room. Finally a nurse approached, saying the doctor would talk to them now. Clay restrained Catherine, pulling on her hand.
“Maybe I should go.”
“No!” she insisted, yanking her hand out of his. “She's my mother. I'll go.”
“Not alone then.”
The doctor introduced himself, shook their hands and glanced at Catherine's roundness.
“Mrs. Forrester, your mother is in no danger of dying, do you understand?”
“Yes.” But Catherine's eyes were locked on the door behind which her mother lay.
“She has been badly beaten and has a very bruised face. She's been sedated so there's really no point in your seeing her. Perhaps tomorrow would be just as well.”
“She insists,” Clay said.
The doctor took a deep breath and sighed.
“Very well, but before you go in I must warn you that she is not a pretty sight. I want you to be prepared for that. In your condition, shock won't help you at all. Don't be frightened by the amount of equipment—it looks far more complicated than it is. Your mother has suffered a fractured nasal septum, which is why her nose appears to be pushed to one side. She also has two fractured ribs. They compromised the breathing so a tracheotomy had to be performed, and she has a tube projecting from her throat. The respirator machine looks alarming, but is only helping her breathe temporarily. She'll soon be doing it on her own again. She has a nasal-gastric tube, a prophylaxis, to empty the stomach and prevent vomiting, and of course we are giving her some IV's, a little plasma.
“Now, do you still think you want to go inside?” He found himself wishing the girl would spare herself the sight. But she nodded, so the doctor was given one of the unpalatable tasks that sometimes made him ask himself why he'd chosen this profession.
The woman on the bed did not even remotely resemble Ada. Her nose was flattened. Her forehead was grotesque with bulging, strawberrylike welts. The cracked lips were puffed beyond recognition and showed telltale marks of blood. Tubes seemed to be stitched into her everywhere, leading to inverted bottles above the bed, a plastic sack hanging beside the mattress, and the respirator which created the only sound in the room with its bellowslike mechanism breathing steadily. A blood-pressure cuff circled her arm, its cords connected to a computer which gave a constant digital printout of vital signs. In contrast to her puffed face, the rest of Ada looked shrunken and dissipated. Her hands lay limp and blue; the little finger of the left was in a splint.
Clay found himself swallowing repeatedly at the pitiful sight before him. He clutched Catherine's hand and felt the tremor there. She gave no other sign of the struggle within, but he was smitten with pity for her, knowing how she held her emotions in check. He thought of his own feelings, should this be Angela, and rubbed the inside of Catherine's elbow and pulled her arm hard against him. After only a brief moment, the doctor ushered them silently out. Catherine walked like a zombie all the way to the car.
When Clay opened the car door, he had to gently urge Catherine to bend, to sit, to turn her legs inside. He wished the doctor could have prescribed a tranquilizer for her, but it would be dangerous in so advanced a pregnancy. Starting the car, Clay felt a double fear now, for both Catherine and the baby. She sat woodenly while he fastened the top button of her coat, tugged at the collar and urged, “You've got to keep warm, Cat.” But she only stared straight ahead, dry-eyed, unmoving. There were no trite phrases Clay could bring himself to utter. Don't worry or She'll be all right were more . . . or less . . . than he wanted to say to the tormented woman beside him. All he could do was find her hand in the dark and lace his fingers through hers as he drove, hoping that the meager offering might help somehow. But her lifeless fingers lay inert within his hold all the way home.
He suffered an agony of helplessness, driving through the night with his thumb brushing against the back of her hand in silent communication to which she did not respond. Their hands lay upon her narrow lap, the back of Clay's resting lightly against her now fully round stomach. He thought of the pain children bear at their parents' expense and hoped his child need never suffer what Catherine now suffered.
At home he helped her with her coat, then watched as she listlessly mounted the steps.
“Catherine, what can I do? Can I fix you something?”
She had stopped, as if she didn't know where she was. He came behind her, his hands in his pockets, wishing she would say, “Make me some cocoa, rub my back, put on some music, hold me . . .” But she shut him out instead, insulated within her carefully guarded solitariness.
“No, there's nothing. I'm very tired, Clay. I just want to go to bed.” She walked upstairs with rigid back, directly to the bedroom, and closed the door upon the comfort he sought to offer.
He stood in the middle of the living room looking at nothing for a long time. He shut his eyes. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down convulsively. He pictured Ada, then Catherine's face as she'd looked at her mother's still figure. He sat down on the edge of the dave
nport with his face in his hands. He did not know how much time had passed before he sighed, rose, and made a phone call to his father. He made up his bed on the davenport and wearily took off his trousers and shirt, but when the light was out he went instead to stand before the sliding glass door, staring out at the ebony night.
He needed the woman upstairs as badly right now as she needed him.
A faint, muffled sound intruded itself into the bruised night, bringing him to turn from the window. He strained to listen and it came again, high, distant, like the wind behind walls—hurt wind, wailing wind—and he knew what it was before he felt his way up the stairs in the dark. He paused at her bedroom door and listened. He laid his palm against the wood, then his forehead too. When he could stand it no longer, he found the doorknob and soundlessly turned it. In the dimness, he made out the blur of the pale blue bedspread, padded silently across to lean and explore it with his hands. He felt her curled beneath the covers, clutching them over her head. He ran his hands along the snail-shaped form, the pity in his heart a choking thing while her high keening came muffled from the womb she had crawled back into. He pulled gently at the covers but she only clung to them the tighter.
“Catherine,” he began, but found his throat clotted with emotion.
She gripped the guardian covers fiercely until at last he ebbed them from her fingers to reveal her curled with her head covered with both arms, her elbows tucked between her knees. Gently he lifted the blankets and lay down behind her, then covered them both up again. He tried to pull her into his arms but she only huddled tighter, wailing in that solitary, high syllable that made Clay's eyes sting.
His voice quavered as he whispered, “Cat, oh, Cat, let me help you.”
He found her fists clenched in her hair and eased them away, running a palm along her arm, then pressing his chest upon her curved back until he could bear it no longer. Bracing himself on an elbow, he leaned over the curled ball of her, brushing back her hair, assuring her throatily, “I'm here, Cat, I'm here. Don't go through this all alone.”