Miriam Toews - A Boy of Good Breeding

“Okay, then why don’t you just shut up and relax,” said Lorna.

“Oh. Well,” said Hosea. And quickly put his glass back on the coffee table.

“Oh God, Lorna, I’ve missed you,” said Hosea.

“Yeah?” said Lorna.

“You know, I’ve missed you, too, Hose,” sighed Lorna about thirty minutes later.

Hosea hated lying around and talking after having sex. He preferred to go outside, flushed and happy, and feel the earth and the sky, and himself sandwiched between them, and know that as things go in the universe, he had just been blessed. But he knew from experience this was not Lorna’s first choice. One time he had dragged her outside in the dark, naked and sweaty, and she had started to cough and complain about mosquitoes, and had not said she felt blessed when Hosea had asked her. And so this time he decided he would just get up and get that Emmylou Harris song playing, finally. He brought the tape box back to the floor with him and lay down beside Lorna so that his head was right under the coffee table. Together they listened to the music and looked at the box, at the picture of Emmylou folded up inside it.

“God, does she have long toes, eh?” said Hosea.

“Wow. They’re kinda creepy-looking, don’t you think?” asked Lorna. Hosea didn’t think so. He imagined Emmylou’s toes contained in her painted cowboy boots, slightly splayed, planting her body onstage while she belted out “Born to Run.” “Yeah they are, aren’t they?” said Hosea.

“Hmmm,” said Lorna. “Is this song about heartbreak?” Lorna put her head on Hosea’s chest. He patted her head and stared up at the underside of the coffee table. Made in Manitoba, it had stamped on it.

Hosea had told on himself. It was eleven-year-old Minty who had spilled the beans to Hosea about where he had come from, but she had made him promise not to tell anyone or she’d be in trouble. “Cross your heart and hope to die?” she’d said to him.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he’d said and moved his tapered little index finger in the shape of an X over the general vicinity of his heart on the outside of his sweater.

“Okay,” said Minty. “Good boy.”

They were sitting together in the back seat of a rusted-out car that somebody had abandoned on the edge of Grandpa Funk’s alfalfa field.

Minty looked out the windows on each side of the car to make sure nobody was watching. Hosea did the same.

“Lookie,” said Minty.

Hosea stared. Minty spread her skinny bare legs, making sure her dress didn’t ride up and thumped on her flat stomach a couple of times with the bottom of her fist like she was checking a soccer ball for air. Hosea’s eyes widened and Minty nodded.

“Yessir,” she said. “But not me. Euphemia. You came right out of her …” Minty thumped her belly again.

“You’re lying,” said Hosea.

And then Minty panicked and saw her chance at redemption at the same time.

“Yeah, I am,” she said. She smiled, relieved.

“Are you?” said Hosea.

“Yeah, I am,” she said.

“Are you sure?” said Hosea.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” said Minty.

“Good,” said Hosea.

They were both relieved. They smiled and giggled and Hosea thumped lightly on his stomach, too, just to try it out.

“Punch me as hard as you can,” said Minty.

“No,” said Hosea.

“C’mon, Hose, just do it. I’ve tightened it up so it won’t hurt.” She put her chin down to her chest and moved her arms behind her back.

“No,” said Hosea. He started kicking the back of the dusty seat in front of him.

“Don’t you want to?” asked Minty.

“I don’t want to,” he said. He was four years old.

The next evening at the supper table Hosea sat on Euphemia’s lap finishing off his potatoes. From time to time he would thump on Euphemia’s stomach and she, irritated and trying to finish her own potatoes, would tell him to stop. Minty noticed this and tried to get Hosea’s attention. Hosea ignored Minty. He was grinning and he continued to thump Euphemia’s stomach. Minty was afraid Hosea was going to say something to get her in trouble, so she suggested that they go outside and play catch.

“Uh-uh,” said Hosea. Finally, Euphemia had had enough.

“Hosea!” she said. “Stop it, you’re hurting me!” By now all the Funks were looking at Hosea and Euphemia, sternly, curiously, amusedly, in a number of ways. There were a lot of them.

“Let me in, let me in,” said Hosea. “I want to get back in!” He laughed and scrunched up his face and put it next to Euphemia’s stomach.

“Minty told me I lived in your stomach, Mom, then I came out, right, Minty? Right, Minty?” Euphemia, horrified, stood up and marched out of the room with Hosea on her hip. But not without first noticing the look on her father’s face and the way his head swivelled ever so slowly to meet her mother’s own incredulous stare.

The Funks had, actually, considered the possibility of Euphemia being Hosea’s natural mother before this (five months of sickness, huge coats in the summertime, a man on a horse? The Funks might have been complacent but they weren’t stupid), but hadn’t wanted to make the situation worse. They had decided, without speaking about it or agreeing to it, to leave well enough alone. Euphemia’s honour would remain intact, and so would their reputation as decent people. But now, for some reason, Euphemia’s father broke their unspoken pact and opened a can of worms. Had he kept his mouth shut and his eyes on his plate and allowed Euphemia and Hosea to leave the table without further ado, they would have gone on for another four or ten or fifty years, swallowing their suspicions and not rocking the boat. Maybe Euphemia’s father wanted some drama in his life. Maybe he was tired of shrugging everything off. Maybe he wanted to get angry at something. Who knows? His gaze said it all. His wife knew it. She panicked. The jig was up.

Euphemia flung Hosea onto his bed upstairs and asked him just what the heck he was talking about, wanting to get back in? Just then Minty came flying through the door, white as a sheet, and said, “Phemie, Phemie, I didn’t tell him anything. I was just joking.” Hosea lay on his back in his bed.

“She said I came out of your stomach,” he said, starting to cry.

“But I said I was lying, you little shit. You know I did,” said Minty. Now she began to cry.

“Shut up, Mint, and lock the door,” said Euphemia. She knew her parents and her other brothers and sisters would be upstairs and in the room in no time.

“You promised me, Minty, you fat liar,” said Euphemia. She shoved Minty onto the bed next to Hosea.

“Let us in, Phemie!” Euphemia’s father roared from the hallway. Her mother was begging him to calm down. Euphemia stared at Hosea. He had put his pillow over his head to muffle his sobs. The back of his neck poked out, soft and very narrow. It looks like somebody’s wrist, thought Euphemia. Two brown curls framed the tiny nape of Hosea’s neck. Euphemia kicked Minty’s leg, gently. She didn’t care. Not really. It was probably a good thing. She walked over to the door and let the rest of her family in.

“What’s this all about, Euphemia? What does Minty have to do with this? What the hell is going on?” Euphemia’s father looked from one girl to the other, barely acknowledging the small, heaving lump on the bed.

Euphemia couldn’t believe it. Her parents had accepted, cared for, and even loved Hosea when they believed he wasn’t hers. Now that they knew the truth, or suspected it — she was Hosea’s real mother, he was their flesh and blood, their own real little grandson — they were ready to reject him. And her. And maybe even Minty for keeping the secret. She’d had to tell Minty. She’d had to tell someone. She had been thrilled. And still was.