Chapter 4.
The sound of artificial laughter on the TV in the kitchen woke Kathy Werther from an uncomfortable sleep. Her pillow had been a pile of mail that she had brought in after work. The exhaustion of the week clubbed her after dinner. After they kids had eaten, Kathy ordered the kids outside so that she could concentrate. A show was on called Family Matters. One awful joke with a laugh-track followed by another. She leaned back into her chair, shoulders slumped. Around her lay the leftovers of Hamburger Helper and Jell-O. Chili-Mac congealed on the plates and floor. Half-conscious in her post-nap stupor, she swung her feet around the chair to stand up, only to feel her pantyhose sog into a substance on the floor. A wetness crept between her toes. Now fully awake and slightly irritated, she shifted her foot. The sight and smell of dog upchuck nearly made her follow the animal's lead.
Full of soda and pop-rocks from the Friday afternoon school party, the girls had spent dinner pushing and prodding their Hamburger Helper and peas. When the din grew obnoxious, Kathy kicked them out of the house to burn off the remaining sugar. Exhausted from her workweek, still wearing her Immaculate State Bank nametag on her blouse, she made the mistake of sitting for a moment at the table and had dozed off.
She threw her pantyhose in the trash, and once skirtless, she searched for the dog to scold and chase outside. She hobbled on one foot with her moistened toes pointed upward at the ceiling. Fifty hours of work and a hundred hours at home - this was her week, repeated a thousand times like the jokes on the TV show, which she turned off as she limped past the power button.
Did she really want one more child?
This notion somehow occurred to her that morning, that perhaps she wanted a fourth child. The idea came to her after folding a load of laundry before waking the kids for school, after doing a quick and poor wash of the dishes that dotted the counter and sink, after emptying the dishwasher, making three breakfasts, chasing Bryce just to put his socks on for the third time, settling two disputes between the girls over what cartoon to watch while they ate, nearly burning her hair in the curling iron, gazing over a cluttered bathroom countertop, observing a toilet in need of a scrub, counting mildew stains on a shower curtain, making the bed, messing her closets while looking for an outfit, seeing no straight lines anywhere in the house – this notion of having another child came after all of that – and also after she was back in the kitchen and stepped on the crunchy floor from dropped cereal and found a desiccated banana that Bryce had stuck in the Tupperware drawer, and while signing two permission slips for school, then realizing the clothes Dawn had picked out revealed too much for a ten year-old, and seeing that Rhea's clothes did not match, and wincing after Bryce poked her in the eye with his pet mop. After all of that, when they finally climbed into the car to leave for school - but not yet - the thought came to her after the girls admitted they forgot to pick up their permission slips in the house, and then Kathy remembered that the girls needed more money for lunch tickets, and she ran inside to get the checkbook and fretted for a two minutes looking into cupboards wondering what was she going to make for dinner that night and only saw the Hamburger Helper box with the white-glove mascot…only then did the notion about having another child occur to her, in a little moment that froze time, warmed her, erased all stress, and then skipped by. When she got back into the car, a glimmer in the chaos happened. Bryce held up his socks, removed for the fourth time, and said to Kathy as she looked at him in the rear view mirror, with a wide grin and cherubic eyes, "I love you, Mommy."
But since the morning her mind had changed again. Three kids were enough. She already had a fourth child in her husband, Josh. Could Josh at least have set the table before he hustled off to the game? His obligations, they were excuses. The façade of his volunteerism was nothing more than an escape from the house.
"Where's that dog?" she said.
In her husband's absence, the dog made a fine scapegoat. Tail down, the dog slinked into the kitchen. But seeing Kathy, the dog caught whiff of the mood and turned his long nose northbound and continued through to the next room, evading the wrath. "Bad dog," she said, picking up a plastic cup from the table, forgetting the mess when she noticed her cracked fingernails. An unpolished plainness. Unacceptable. She needed to make a salon appointment soon.
She gathered more dishes from the table and noticed the microwave clock. The time was 9:20. She set the dishes on the counter and opened the dishwasher. Full and dirty. Hadn't she emptied it that morning? Or was that the day before? No one bothered to start the wash cycle, and of course even if they had, no one would empty it but her, and they, meaning Josh, always picked the wrong cycle and wrong temperature that left spots on the glasses in the top rack. With Bryce's rubber fork, she scraped leftovers from the plates. The garbage bag under the sink was stuffed. Packed to the seams, of course it was. Why wouldn't it be? What's another day of stuffing then, she decided, jabbing napkins and an empty box into the corners of the bag and scraping the leftover noodles and sauce on top. Then something startled her. The time. What time was it? It was 9:20.
The kids. How long had she slept?
She burst out the screen door onto the upper tier of the east-facing deck, still skirtless and wearing only underwear and the turquoise blouse that still held her bank nametag, and she scanned the yard. She heard nothing. No screams or laughs. No fighting.
"Dawn! Rhea!" she yelled. She listened, expecting the echo of her children. None came. She descended the deck staircase to the patio walkout on the lower level of the house, amid an array of lifeless toys and bikes on the concrete. Barefoot into the grass, she made a sweep around the house.
"Did Josh take them to town?" she said aloud, beginning to question herself and the entire evening.
"Mommy!"
"Bryce? Where are you?" Kathy spun and searched for the voices. "Bryce? Get out here right now!"
She thought she heard Bryce struggling, groaning. Kathy ordered, "I'm going to count to three. You had better get out here. No games. One."
"Mommy!" The little boy ran out from the corn and Dawn's grubby face appeared between the rows as she followed behind her brother.
"What's going on? What are you doing in the cornfield?" In the distance, she noticed a light in the field, the sound of machinery at work. "My God," she said, "Ray is picking the field. What's the matter with you, Dawn? Can't you see the lights over there? How many times did I say to keep out of the corn?" Reaching for her son, Kathy's hand became wet when she touched the seat of his pants. "He's soaking. Why didn't you bring him in sooner? He's probably going to get a rash."
"Mom," said Dawn.
"Mom what? Where's Rhea?" said Kathy, pulling down the boy's pants, already worried about a rash.
"I don't know, Mom."
The week behind her left her bereft of patience, Kathy straightened Bryce and pulled his wet pants up again, so that he would not get cold while she admonished Dawn. She stopped tugging on the boy and said, "Don't dawdle and bargain with me tonight. I am not in the mood. Now either you answer me or you can go to your room."
"I don't know where Rhea is."
"Does it look like I am joking, Dawn?" Stiff-lipped, she glared at her daughter. "Where is Rhea?"
"She's…" Dawn pointed. "We were in the fort. And we got split up. We've been looking for her."
"What fort?" Kathy asked. "If this is another lie? Where is she? Tell me where Rhea is, or you can say goodbye to the Nintendo, and you can forget about trick-or-treating. Do you understand me? This lying business, it has to stop Now the truth – spit it out."
"She's in the field. I couldn't find her. And the farmer is here. We looked all over."
Kathy stared hard at her daughter. The usual hint of fibbing in her oldest daughter's mouth and eyes - it did not manifest. A sinking moment passed and Kathy stood up in shock, while Dawn rubbed her grubby face.
"
Jesus Christ," Kathy said, looking outward, "She is in the field. Get in the house, the two of you. And don't you move. Don't you move from that couch."
"Want juice," Bryce said.
"Dawn," she said, shaking free of her son, and stepping off toward the garage. "Take him inside, now. If you are lying…"
"I'm not."
The lights of the combine swept the field, toward her like spotlights, as the Harvester made its turn on the far side of the field. In the maneuver, the sound of the engine grew louder, fully awakening a mother's horror. Kathy sprinted toward the garage and entered the side door. She started the Cadillac and nearly backed the car out before the door had lifted. The tires threw rocks on the lawn.
She drove down the long private driveway, careening on the corners with both hands on the wheel, her face pinched by anger and worry, her mouth bent, brow knotted, cheekbones rising and falling, jaw clenched and unclenched. She swore and prayed simultaneously. Turning onto the paved road, a tractor approached. She darted in front of it, fishtailing on the pavement, Michelin's grabbing the road at last, and the farmer nearly drove his tractor and wagon into the ditch trying to avoid her.
She raced the length of the 60-acre field to reach the point of entry, a dirt road. A skid mark and smoke followed the car as she braked and turned into the dirt road. And rather than follow the field road, she crossed the field diagonally. Wheels bounced and spun wildly on the choppy rows of cut corn stalks. The floorboards knocked underneath as the car stirred clumps of dirt. She pressed the horn repeatedly.
The combine stopped moving forward.
The farmer stepped out of the cab and threw his hat to the ground. Ray Marak descended the ladder, almost falling, and running once he found his feet. An illness of spirit struck Kathy, twisting her heart and bringing sweat to the surface of her gripped palms, as she approached the combine, no longer honking, only watching from her windshield, in a helpless short eternity.