Ron Rash - Chemistry and Other Stories

“I GET SCARED for you, for us,” Jamie said that night as they lay in bed. “Sometimes I wish we’d never had the chance to buy this place.”

“You don’t mean that,” Matt said. “This place is the best thing that might ever happen to us. How many chances do young folks get to own a house on a lake? If we hadn’t seen Old Man Watson’s sign before the real-estate agents did, they’d have razed the house and sold the lot alone to some Floridian at twice what we paid.”

“I know that,” Jamie said, “but I can’t help being scared for you. It’s just like things have been too easy for us. Look at Charlton. Him and Linda have been married ten years and they’re still in a trailer. Linda says good luck follows us around like a dog that needs petting all the time. She thinks you and me getting this house is just one more piece of luck.”

“Well, the next time she says that you tell her anybody with no better sense than to have three kids the first five years she’s married can’t expect to have much money left for a down payment on a house, especially with a skidder to pay off as well.”

Matt turned his head toward her. She could feel the stir of his breath.

“Linda’s just jealous,” he said, “that and she’s still pissed off Charlton’s paying me percentage. Linda best be worrying about her own self. She’s got troubles enough at home without stirring up troubles for other people.”

“You mean Charlton’s drinking?”

“Yeah. Every morning this week he’s reeked of alcohol, and it ain’t his aftershave. The money they waste on whiskey and her on makeup and fancy hairdos could help make a down payment, not to mention that Bronco when they already had a perfectly good car. Damn, Jamie, they got three vehicles and only two people to drive them.”

Matt placed his hand on the back of Jamie’s head, letting his fingers run through her cropped hair, hair shorter than his. His voice softened.

“You make your own luck,” Matt said. “Some will say we’re lucky when you’re working in a dentist’s office and I’m a shift supervisor in a plant, like we hadn’t been planning that very life since we were juniors in high school. They’ll forget they stayed at home nights and watched TV instead of taking classes at Tech. They’ll forget how we worked near full-time jobs in high school and saved that money when they wasted theirs on new trucks and fancy clothes.”

“I know that,” Jamie said. “But I get so tired of people acting resentful because we’re doing well. It even happens at the café. Why can’t they all be like Charlton, just happy for us?”

“Because it reminds them they’re too lazy and undisciplined to do it themselves,” Matt said. “People like that will pull you down with them if you give them the chance, but we’re not going to let them do that to us.”

Matt moved his hand slowly down her spine, letting it rest in the small of the back.

“It’s time to sleep, baby,” he said.

Soon Matt’s breathing became slow and regular. He shifted in the bed and his hand slipped free from her back. First, get the house fixed up, she told herself as she let her weariness and the sound of tree frogs and crickets carry her toward sleep.

TWO MORE WEEKS passed, and it was almost time for Jamie to turn the calendar nailed by the kitchen door. She knew soon the leaves would start to turn. Frost would whiten the grass and she and Matt would sleep under piles of quilts Grandma Alexander had sewn. They’d sleep under a roof that no longer leaked. After Charlton picked up Matt, Jamie caulked the back room, the room that would someday be a nursery. As she filled in cracks she envisioned the lake house when it was completely renovated — the walls bright with fresh paint, all the leaks plugged, a porcelain tub and toilet, master bedroom built onto the back. Jamie imagined summer nights when children slept as she and Matt walked hand in hand down to the pier, undressing each other to share again the unburdening of water.

Everything but the back room’s ceiling had been caulked when she stopped at one-thirty to eat lunch and change into her waitress’s uniform. She was closing the front door when she heard a vehicle bumping down through the woods to the house. In a few moments she saw her father’s truck, behind the windshield his distraught face. At that moment something gave inside her, as if her bones had succumbed to the weight of the flesh they carried. The sky and woods and lake seemed suddenly farther away, as if a space had been cleared that held only her. She closed her hand around the key in her palm and held it so tight her knuckles whitened. Her father kicked the cab door open with his boot.

“It’s bad,” he said, “real bad.” He didn’t cut off the engine or get out from behind the wheel. “Linda and Matt and your momma are already at the hospital.”

She didn’t understand, not at first. She tried to picture a situation where her mother and Linda and Matt could have been hurt together — a car wreck, or fire — something she could frame and make sense of.

“Momma and Linda are hurt too?” Jamie finally asked.

“No,” her father said, “just Charlton.” His voice cracked. “They’re going to have to take your brother’s leg off, baby.”

Jamie understood then, and at that moment she felt many things, including relief that it wasn’t Matt.

WHEN THEY ENTERED the waiting room, her mother and Linda sat on a long green couch. Matt sat opposite them in a blue plastic chair. Dried blood stained his work shirt and jeans. He stood up, his face pale and haggard as he embraced her. Jamie smelled the blood as she rested her head against his chest.

“We were cleaning limbs,” Matt said, “and the saw jumped back and dug into his leg till it got to bone. I made a tourniquet with my belt, but he still like to have bled to death.” Matt paused. “Charlton shouldn’t have been running that saw. He’d been drinking.”

Matt held her close a few more moments, then stepped back. He nodded toward the corner where Linda and her mother sat.

“You better say something to your momma and Linda,” he said and released her arms. Jamie let go too. It was only then that she realized the key was still in her closed right hand. She slipped it into her uniform pocket.

Her mother stood when Jamie approached, but Linda stayed on the couch, her head bowed.

“Pray hard, girl,” her mother said as she embraced Jamie. “Your brother is going to need every prayer he can get.”

“You seen him yet, Momma?” she asked. Jamie smelled the Camay soap her mother used every night. She breathed deep, let the smell of the soap replace the smell of blood.

“No, he’s still in surgery, will be for at least another hour.”

Her mother released her and stepped back.

“I can’t stand myself just sitting here,” she said and nodded at Jamie’s father standing beside the door marked SURGERY. “Come on, Luther. I’m going to get us all some doughnuts and coffee and I need you to help carry it.” She turned to Jamie. “You stay here and look after Linda.”

Jamie sat in the place her mother had left. Linda’s head remained bowed, but her eyes were open. Jamie looked up at the wall clock. Two-twenty-three. The red minute hand went around seven more times before Jamie spoke.

“It’s going to be all right, Linda,” she said. It was the only thing she could think to say.

Linda lifted her head, looked right at Jamie. “You sound pretty sure of that. Maybe if it was your husband getting his leg took off you’d think different.”

Linda wasn’t thirty yet, but Jamie saw something she recognized in every older woman in her family. It was how they looked out at the world, their eyes resigned to bad times and trouble. I don’t ever remember being young, Grandma Alexander had once told her. All I remember is something always needing to be done, whether it was hoeing a field or the washing or feeding hungry children or cows or chickens.