Joyce Oates: The Gravedigger’s Daughter

Rebecca wanted to press her hands over her ears. No, no!

“Will you call me someday, dear? In Port Oriskany? Or-come to see me? Tell me we are forgiven. And accept from me what Dr. Hendricks has left you, that is your legacy.”

But Rebecca was now climbing the embankment to the road. A narrow, steep dirt path she knew well. Though she favored her ankle, she wasn’t going to fall. Behind her Byron Hendricks remained, looking after her. He would be gripping his ridiculous panama hat in both hands, in a suppliant pose. Yet Rebecca had sensed the man’s will, she shuddered to think of it. She’d had to pass so close to him, he might have reached out and grabbed her. The way he’d crept up behind her, only the dried leaves had warned her, she would remember for a long time.

In his will.

Legacy.

It was a lie, had to be. A trick. She did not believe a word of it. Almost, Rebecca wished that Hendricks had tried to touch her. She would have liked to stab him with the piece of steel, or to try.

“Mom- my !”

The child rushed at her as soon as she entered the Meltzers’ kitchen, hugging her legs. His small careening body was electric with energy, excitement. His eyes were a feral animal’s eyes, gleaming and fiery. Rebecca stooped to hug him, laughing. Yet she was trembling, too. His cry tore at her heart, she felt such guilt at being away from him. “Niley, you didn’t think Mommy wasn’t coming back, did you? I always do.”

His relief at her arrival was absurd, hurtful. He wanted to punish her, she thought. And for Tignor’s absence, he wanted to punish her. It was often like this. Damn she felt the injustice, she should be doubly punished by both the child and his father!

“Niley? You do know Mommy has to work, don’t you?”

Niley shook his head stubbornly, no.

Rebecca kissed him. His fevered face.

Now she must endure being told by Edna Meltzer that Niley had been fretting through the day, demanding to listen to the radio and moving restlessly from window to window as soon as the sun passed behind the treeline, waiting for Mommy.

“He don’t like the daylight shortening, he can tell it’s getting on night faster. This winter, I don’t know how he’ll be.” Mrs. Meltzer was frowning, fussing. Between her and Rebecca there was an air of muted tension, like a telephone dial humming. “Oh, that child would hang out on the road if I didn’t watch him every minute,” she laughed. “He’d trot along the canal to meet you like a lovesick little puppy if I let him.”

Lovesick little puppy! Rebecca hated such flowery speech.

She hid her face against the child’s warm neck and held him tight. Her heart beat in the aftermath of relief, that nothing had happened to her on the towpath, and no one would ever know.

She asked if Niley had been a good boy, or a naughty boy. She told him that if he’d been naughty the Great Spider would get him. He shrieked with laughter as she tickled his sides to weaken his grip on her legs.

Edna Meltzer observed, “You’re in a good mood tonight, Rebecca.”

Mrs. Meltzer was a stout, solid woman with billowing breasts and a sugary pudding face. Her manner was benign, maternal; yet always subtly accusing.

Shouldn’t I be in a good mood? I’m alive.

“I’m out of that hellhole till tomorrow. That’s why.”

Rebecca smelled frankly of female sweat, her skin felt clammy-pale, feverish. Her eyes were bloodshot. She shied from Mrs. Meltzer observing her so closely. The older woman was wondering maybe if Rebecca had been drinking. A quick drink with co-workers in town instead of coming directly home? For she seemed excited, distracted. Her laughter was rather wild.

“Huh! What happened, hon, did you fall?”

Before Rebecca could draw away, Edna Meltzer took her right hand, and lifted it to the light. The fleshy edge of her hand had been chafed raw in the dirt, blood oozed out now in slow drops glistening like gems. There were thinner cuts on her fingers, that had barely bled, caused by the sharp piece of steel she’d been gripping in her pocket.

Rebecca drew her hand from the older woman’s grasp. She murmured it was nothing, she didn’t know what it was, no she had not fallen. She would have wiped her hand on her coverall except Edna Meltzer stopped her. “Better wash this, hon. You don’t want to catch what’s it- tet’nis .”

Niley clamored to know what tet’nis was. Edna Meltzer told him it was something very bad that happened to you if you cut yourself out in the wild and didn’t wash it very clean with good strong soap.

Rebecca washed her hands at the kitchen sink as Mrs. Meltzer insisted. She was flushed with annoyance for she hated to be told what to do. And in Niley’s presence! Washing her damn hands like a child with a bar of grainy gray soap, 20 Mule Team was the brand name, a laborer’s soap useful for removing dirt embedded in the skin, the nastiest dirt and grime. Edna Meltzer was married to Howie Meltzer, who owned the Esso station.

Rebecca’s father had used such harsh soap to clean himself of grave-dirt. Except of course you can never clean yourself entirely of grave-dirt.

Excitedly Niley was crying, “Tet’nis! Tet’nis!” and crowded beside Rebecca, wanting to wash his hands, too. He was of an age when new words thrilled him as if they were gaily feathered birds flying about his head.

The windowpane above the sink had darkened. In it Rebecca could see Mrs. Meltzer observing her. Tignor disliked the Meltzers for no reason except they were friendly with his wife, in his absence. Rebecca was herself undecided whether she was very fond of Edna Meltzer, a woman of the age Rebecca’s mother would have been if she hadn’t died young, or whether in fact she resented her. Always so righteous, so maternal! Always telling Rebecca the young, inexperienced mother what to do.

Mrs. Meltzer had had five children. Out of that compact fleshy body, five babies. The thought made Rebecca feel faint. All the Meltzers’ children were now grown and gone. Rebecca wondered how Edna Meltzer could bear it: having babies, loving them with such tenderness and ferocity, enduring so much on their behalf, and then losing them to time. It was like gazing into the sun, your eyes are blinded, so Rebecca could not comprehend a time when Niley would be grown and gone from her. Her little boy who so adored her and clung to her.

“Mom- my ! Love you !”

“Mommy loves you too, honey. Not so loud, now!”

“He’s been like that all day, Rebecca. Wouldn’t settle down for a nap. Wouldn’t hardly eat. We were outside in the garden, and what’d he want but the radio on the porch railing, turned up high so he could hear it.” Mrs. Meltzer shook her head, laughing.

The child believed that certain radio broadcasters might be his father, their voices sounded like Tignor’s voice. Rebecca had tried to explain to him that this was not so, but Niley had his own ideas.

“I’m sorry,” Rebecca said, embarrassed. She was confused, and could not think what to say.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Mrs. Meltzer said quickly. “You know what children are like, these things they ”believe in,“ they don’t really. Just like us.”

Preparing to take Niley home, Rebecca heard herself ask casually if Mrs. Meltzer had ever heard of a person named Hazel Jones.

“Somebody lives around here? That’s who she is?”

“She lives in Chautauqua Falls, I think.”

But was that right? The man in the panama hat had possibly said that Hazel Jones had once lived in Chautauqua Falls, as a girl.

“Why’re you asking? Who is she?”

“Oh, someone asked if that was my name.”