Peter Geye: The Lighthouse Road

The looks she cast on that boy. His hunger, his fear and vulnerability, all of it like a badge he wore. And still she looked at him as though he were a cancer. He'd spit her nipple, grab at her breast, wail. And Rebekah with that poisonous and unforgiving stare would scold him. Odd wanted to help, would have done anything, but was always in the way, making Rebekah more agitated.

On the occasions Rebekah could slake the boy's hunger, he'd fall into a heavy infant slumber. Rebekah would call Odd, hand Harry to him, and lie down on the davenport, shielding her eyes from everything with her arm.

"My breasts feel like they're going to catch right on fire," she said one June evening after Harry had eaten and was sleeping in his papa's arms.

"I sure am sorry, Rebekah."

She looked up at him from under her arm. "What are you sorry for?"

" Sorry you're not feeling well. Sorry you're so tired. All that stuff."

"All that stuff. ."

Odd had walked Harry to the window. Together they stood looking at the Norway pines on the side of the house.

"It was so easy for your mother. When you were a baby. To feed you. You latched right on and ate like there was no tomorrow." She might have groaned, Odd couldn't tell. "I can't stop thinking what a twisted-up thing this is."

"Haven't we about covered that?" Odd asked from the window, not even turning to look at her.

"Oh, sure, we've covered it. Or you have. Mister Everything Will Be All Right. Mister We Don't Need No One. You've covered it, all right."

"What the hell do you want me to say, Rebekah? What in fuck's name is going to get the sulk out of you?"

She didn't say anything, only lay there on the davenport with her arm over her eyes. Odd and Harry still stood at the window, Odd whispering to Harry an account of a gray squirrel husking a pinecone on the bough of a tree.

"That first day her milk came in, and you ate and then filled your diaper and slept for six straight hours, she held you the whole time. She always held you. Sang those fool songs." Her words trailed off. Odd turned to look at her.

"I want to understand, Rebekah. I do. But I don't see your unhappiness. It doesn't make sense."

She looked at him for a long time. Eyes as vacant as two stones. She might have been dead for all the life in her.

Odd kept at it. "He's a hundred percent perfect, this one. Sure, he's hard to get fed. I know that. And I know it's you suffering his temper tantrums when he's at the teat. But he's brand-new to this business. Might you give him an inch of rope?"

If it was possible, the look on her face went even more expressionless. Still she would not look away from him.

"Some things just aren't meant to be understood," she said. "Some things are just invisible and out of reach."

Odd crossed the room, offered her Harry. "He ain't out of reach. He's right goddamn here. Take him."

She put her arm back over her eyes. "Your mother," Rebekah began before Odd could say more, "she was real sad after you were born. Melancholy's what Hosea called it. Said she had the sadness disease. But still she wouldn't set you down. She wouldn't stop ogling you. She was more in love with you than she could even imagine."

Odd had cradled Harry back in his arm. Now he sat on the end of the davenport.

Rebekah tucked her feet up beneath her to make room for him. " Hosea had a way to get the sadness out of her," she continued. "Cut it right out of her, that's how he described it." She shook her head under her arm.

"What are you talking about, cut it right out of her?"

"He did an operation. An ovariotomy, he called it. He cut the sadness out of her."

" Maybe there's a way to cut the sadness out of you." He couldn't help feeling hopeful, still clung to some thought they could all three of them be a happy family.

She looked at him under her arm. "Sadness has no hold on me, Odd. It's something else. Besides, when Hosea got the sadness out of her, he got everything else, too. The whole life of her."

Odd sat up. "What do you mean the whole life of her? What are you talking about?"

" After the operation. She got sick."

"You always told me it was a fever she died of."

"She did. A fever he conjured up, I suppose."

Now Odd stood. "What's that mean?"

"Your mother didn't have any sadness in her, Odd. That's what I was telling you. She was the happiest person I ever saw in those days after you were born. She needed that operation like the lake needs more water."

Odd stood there trembling. He'd always been led to believe that his mother had died naturally. A simple fever that had got the best of her. "Are you telling me she got the fever because of Hosea?"

"I don't know why she got the fever, but it came a day after the surgery."

"He killed her?" he whispered. "Is that what you're saying?"

"How could I know?"

Odd looked down at Harry. For a long time he just looked at the boy sleeping in his arm. "How come you never told me before? Why didn't anyone do anything?"

"He was trying to help her."

"He's got every living soul hoodwinked."

"What difference does it make? The how or the why? You're an orphan either way. Nothing was going to change that. Not then, not now."

Odd walked back to the window. The squirrel was still on the bough.

"I believe he thought he was doing the right thing. For what it's worth, I believe that," she said.

"What is that? You and this notion Hosea needs defending? He's lousy. Any way you slice it, he's lousy. And you talking for the hundredth time like he was some upstanding man."

" Where would you be without him?"

Odd spun around. "We're gonna cover that territory again, too? Hell, no." He shook his head slowly. "Hell, no, we ain't. H osea our savior. Y ou must be out of your mind, Rebekah."

"I guess I am," she said. "I guess I am."

A nd maybe she was. How else to account for her?

Sargent had given Odd two weeks off, and when Odd returned to the boatwright's on a Monday morning it was with grave misgivings. The week passed and his misgivings grew, and on Friday evening, after work, after Odd had made supper and given Harry his bath, after Rebekah had fed the boy and put him to sleep in his basinet, she asked Odd to sit down. So he did.

She had that look on her face like the night of his birthday, in his fish house. Like she was about to tell him the end times were nigh. "I'm sorry what I told you about your mother," she said. "I'm trying to —" Her voice emptied out, got lost in one of her sighs.

Most of these conversations during the last week, Odd had just quit. Walked into the bedroom or right out the door. But this night was different. He didn't know why.

Rebekah began again. "I told you about your mother because thinking of her is the only way any of this makes sense to me. The way she felt, that's how I'm supposed to feel. I'm supposed to be as happy as she was. I couldn't get to happiness on a train. Maybe Hosea could make me happy."

"Sure, give him a chance to kill you, too."

She looked up at him. "You could never understand. Not about me, or your mother."

"I don't understand, you're right. Not what you're saying. Not how you're acting. And sure as shit not how Hosea could make you happy. Hosea goddamn killed her. He killed her and then tried to be my old man. I hope he's hung himself up by the neck." There was no rancor in his voice. No exasperation. Not even any curiosity. He was taking his own account was all.

"If you really understand about my mother," Odd continued, "then you'd see what you're doing to Harry. He might as well be an orphan. Half an orphan, leastways. How much you hate him."