Ron Rash - Chemistry and Other Stories

The elevator door opened and Jamie’s parents stepped out, their hands filled with paper bags.

“You think this couldn’t have happened to Matt,” Linda said, raising her voice enough that Jamie’s parents came no closer. “You think it happened because Charlton had been drinking.”

“I don’t think any such thing,” Jamie said.

Linda looked at her in-laws.

“I got three young ones to feed and buy school clothes for, and a disability check ain’t going to be enough to do that.”

“We’ll do everything we can to help you,” Jamie’s father said and offered Linda a cup of coffee. “Here. This will give you some strength.”

“I don’t need strength,” Linda said, her voice wild and angry. “I need the money Charlton overpaid Matt. Money that should be ours. Money we need worse than they do.”

Linda looked at her father-in-law.

“You know Charlton paid hourly wages to everybody else who worked for him.”

“I earned every cent he paid me,” Matt said. He had left his seat and stepped closer, standing next to Jamie now. “I been there every day and I’ve cut plenty of days dawn to dark. It’s bad what’s happened to Charlton, and I’m sorry it happened. But me and Jamie don’t owe you anything.” Jamie placed her hand on Matt’s arm, but he jerked it away. “I ain’t listening to this anymore.”

“You owe us everything,” Linda shouted as Matt walked toward the elevator. “If Charlton hadn’t taken you on you’d never have been able to make a down payment on that lake house.” Linda looked at Jamie’s parents now, tears streaming down her face. “A lake house, and the five of us in a beat-up double-wide.”

The surgery room door opened, and a nurse glared at them all briefly before the door closed again.

Jamie’s mother sat down on the couch and pressed Linda’s head to her bosom. “We’re all going to do everything possible to get you all through this, and that includes Matt and Jamie,” she said.

Linda sobbed now, her face smeared with mascara. Minutes passed before she raised her head. She tried to smile as she brushed tears from her cheeks and slowly lifted herself from the couch. Jamie’s father gripped Linda’s upper arm when her knees buckled.

“I know I look a sight,” Linda said. “I best go to the bathroom and tidy up so Charlton won’t see me like this.” She looked at Jamie. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Jamie’s father walked Linda to the restroom and waited by the door.

“Come here, girl,” her mother said to Jamie.

Jamie didn’t move. She was afraid, almost as afraid as when she’d seen her father’s face through the windshield.

“I need to call the restaurant, let them know what’s going on.”

“That can wait a few minutes,” her mother said. “We need to talk, and right now.”

Jamie remained where she was.

“I know you’re put out with Linda,” her mother said, “and I don’t blame you. Grieving don’t give her no excuse to talk that way to you and Matt.” She paused, waited for Jamie to meet her eyes. “But you know you got to help them.”

Jamie turned and stared at the wall clock. She thought how only two hours earlier she had been caulking the back room of the lake house.

“Me and your daddy will do what we can, but that won’t be near enough. Your daddy says even if the skidder’s sold, it’ll bring no more than two thousand dollars. We’re not talking about just Linda here. We’re talking about your niece and nephews.”

“Why are you saying this to me, Momma?” Jamie asked. “Matt’s going to have to find another job now, and there’s no way he’ll make the kind of money Charlton paid him. We need all the money we got just to make the payments on the lake house, much less fix it up. We’ll have tuition to pay as well come spring.”

The elevator door opened. Jamie hoped it was Matt, but a chaplain got off and walked past them toward the intensive care unit.

“You’ve been blessed, Jamie,” her mother said. “Linda’s right. Charlton never let anyone but Matt work percentage. You could give Charlton the difference between what Matt got paid and the six dollars an hour anybody else would have got.”

“But we’d have to sell the lake house,” Jamie said. “How can you ask me and Matt to do that?”

“The same way I’d have asked your brother to quit high school. Only I never had to ask. He knew what had to be done and did it without me saying a word to him. Seventeen years old and he knew what had to be done.” Her mother laid her hand on Jamie’s. “That lake house, you had no right to expect such a place so young. You know it was a miracle you got it in the first place. You can’t expect miracles in this life, girl.”

The bathroom door opened and Linda came out. She and Jamie’s father walked toward them.

“Maybe not, Momma,” Jamie said, her voice low but sharp, “but when they come a person’s got a right to take them.”

“You got to do what’s best for the whole family,” her mother said, speaking quietly as well. “You got to accept that life is full of disappointments. That’s something you learn as you grow older.”

THERE HAD BEEN complications during the surgery, and Jamie was unable to see Charlton until after seven-thirty. His eyes opened when she placed her hand on his, but he was too drugged to say anything coherent. Jamie wondered if he even understood what had happened to him. She hoped that for a little while longer he didn’t.

When Jamie and Matt got back to the lake house it was dark, and by then things had been decided, but not before harsh words had been exchanged.

“Come on,” Matt said, reaching for her hand after they got out of the Escort. “Let’s go down to the lake, baby. I need one good thing to happen in my life today.”

“Not tonight,” Jamie said. “I’m going on in.”

She changed into her nightgown. Matt came in soon afterward naked and dripping, work clothes and boots cradled in his arms. Jamie stepped out of the bathroom, a toothbrush in her hand.

“Put those clothes out on the porch,” she said. “I don’t want to smell that blood anymore.”

Jamie was in bed when he came back, and soon Matt cut out the light and joined her. For a minute the only sounds were the crickets and tree frogs. The mattress’s worn-out springs creaked as Matt turned to face her.

“I’ll go see Harold Wilkinson in the morning,” he said. “He knows I did good work for Charlton. I figure I can get eight dollars an hour to work on his crew, especially since I know how to run a skidder.”

He reached out and laid his arm on Jamie’s shoulder.

“Come here,” he said, pulling her closer.

She smelled the thick, fishy odor of the lake, felt the lake’s coldness on his skin.

“They’ll be needing help a long time,” Matt said. “In two, three years at most we’ll have jobs that pay three times what we’re making now. Keeping this house is going to save us a lot of money, money we can help them with later.”

Matt paused.

“You listening to me?”

“Yes,” Jamie said.

“Linda’s parents can help too. I didn’t hear your momma say a word about them helping out.” Matt kissed her softly on the cheek. “They’ll be all right. We’ll all be all right. Go to sleep, babe. You got another long day coming.”

But she did not fall asleep, not for a while, and she woke at first light. She left the bed and went to the bathroom. Jamie turned on the faucet and soaked a washcloth, wrung it out and pressed it to her face. She set it on the basin and looked at the mirror. A crack jagged across the glass like a lightning bolt, a crack caulk couldn’t fill. Something else to be replaced.