Amy Greene - Bloodroot

“I’m all right,” I said.

He looked past me into the front room. “Shoo, it’s kindly hot out here. Looks like we’re having Indian summer. Can I trouble you for a drink of water?”

He followed me to the kitchen and sat at the table as I filled a glass from the tap. I remembered my naked breasts under the thin nightgown fabric and stood at the sink with my arms crossed while he drank the water in long gulps, Adam’s apple bobbing. Then he put down his glass hard and I jumped. He laughed at me. “What’s got you so wound up?”

I glanced toward the kitchen doorway, willing the baby rabbit to stay asleep.

“I bet you thought I was John, coming in for dinner,” he said.

“No,” I said. “Sometimes he eats in town.”

Hollis grinned. “If I had you waiting on me, I’d come home to eat.”

I dropped my eyes, face burning.

Then he said in his awkward way, “Most people thinks me and John favors.”

I decided to ignore him, hoping the less attention I gave him the sooner he would go away. I went to the table and took his glass, not touching where his mouth had been.

“Do you think me and John looks alike?” he asked.

I turned my back to him and rinsed the glass in the sink. “No.”

He fell silent, seeming to think it over. “All right,” he said after a long pause, “I didn’t mean to bother you. I just thought I’d see if you needed anything.”

I turned around and looked at him, waiting for him to leave.

“Hope I didn’t bother you,” he said.

“No,” I said. “It was nice of you to stop.”

I thought he would go but he only sat there staring at me, smiling in a way that made my guts draw into a knot, eyes moving over my face, my hair, my breasts, so intent that I almost felt his touch. After a moment he said, “You don’t like me much, do you?”

I froze, caught off guard. Before I could think, I blurted out, “No.”

His smile died. My hand rose to my throat. For a second I wasn’t sure if I had spoken out loud. “You got a smart mouth, girl,” he murmured, the shock plain on his face. I thought to apologize, but nothing came out. Hollis’s neck and ears turned red. “My brother’s run through a lot of women in his day,” he said. “Don’t think you’re any different than the rest of them.” Then he got up from his chair and stalked to the front door, slamming it behind him. I went to the window to make sure he got into his truck and left. I stood for a long time gnawing my fingernails, knowing I had made a mistake.

I would like to pretend that year never happened and enjoy the life I have now with my twins. Sometimes when I sit on the back steps the girl climbs onto my knees, long legs hanging down and bare toes poking at my calves. I bounce her as we watch the boy playing in the yard, peeling bark from a stick in ash-colored strips. He doesn’t come to me the way she does. I can’t remember the last time I held him. In cold months he follows me to the woodpile and takes the heaviest log he can carry, brings it behind me into the kitchen to put in the wood box beside the back door. He lights a fire and stands back as he tosses in kindling, embers shooting out and disappearing like the ghosts of fireflies. Summer nights I put the oil lamp on the table and we eat as moths bat at the blackened glass chimney. In the mornings they come to the kitchen and stand at the stove waiting for a biscuit. I blow on them before setting them down on their small palms.

I wish this was the only life I ever had, light coming in and ceilings high enough to breathe and windows and doors thrown always open. If a lizard skitters in, blue-tailed and fast, I watch him dart up the wall or into a baseboard crack. If the rain blows in, I don’t mop it up. I stand in the door hoping the smell will soak into the boards of the house to keep for days when the sun is shining. Even when it’s cold I leave the house open, letting snow flurries collect on the rugs. The twins are like me, used to all kinds of weather. They’re not sensitive to heat or cold, so I’m not careful with them. I know how it feels to be kept inside and how it will winnow away at your mind until you feel like nothing. Even with the baby rabbit to care for, being pent up in that house by the tracks finally became too much to bear. One gray morning at the beginning of October, rain beating and wind blowing and leaves plastered everywhere, my restlessness came to a head.

It was cold enough to need a fire and I went out to the woodpile, careful to avoid looking at the door in the house’s foundation. I stamped my shoes bringing in the wood and left them on the kitchen mat. John was watching football in the front room. He didn’t look at me as I got a fire going in the stove. I went to sit beside him, drawing a quilt around my shoulders and pressing my chilled body against him where he leaned on the couch arm. I needed his nearness to keep me sane. I needed back the loving John I had married. He stiffened, fingers curled around the glass he drank from, not moving to touch me. I kissed his neck, his jaw, his cheek. My heart sank when he wrenched his face away.

“Let’s go for a ride,” I said.

“Weather’s too bad,” he muttered.

“No it’s not.” I bit down hard on my lip. “You just don’t want to.”

“What if I don’t?” He turned on me, eyes bloodshot.

I rose from the couch and began to pace the floor. “I have to get out of here,” I told him. It was more a plea than a statement. “At least for a while. Give me the keys.”

“Where you going? Back to Granny?”

“I don’t know,” I said, voice cracking. “But I hate it here.”

John put down his drink. He sat forward on the couch. I knew I should hush before it was too late. “What do you mean? There ain’t nothing wrong with this place.”

“It’s too dark in here,” I said, unable to help myself.

“We’ll fix it up, then. I’ll hang you some wallpaper.”

“No,” I said. “Nothing can fix it.”

His jaw tightened. “You better watch yourself, Myra.”

I wanted to stop but I couldn’t. “I want to see Granny,” I said, close to tears.

He slammed his glass on the coffee table. “Quit being a suck baby.”

Something snapped in me then. I snatched his ashtray from the table in a plume of soot, white butts fluttering down like confetti, and threw it against the wall. It bounced off and skidded across the linoleum. We stared at it together, a silence descending over the room. Then John blinked up at me in disbelief, mouth hanging open. I thought it was going to happen at last. He was going to hit me. But just as he got up from the couch, the baby rabbit’s high squeal shattered the stillness. John’s face went pale. He jumped up, knocking over his glass. “What in the hell?” he said, looking toward the sound with big eyes. For a long moment I stood rooted in place. Then I took off running for the end of the hall. John caught up to me at the closet, the rabbit’s pitiful cries trapped inside. I plastered myself against the door but he shoved me out of the way so hard I stumbled and fell. He tore open the closet and followed the sound to the water heater. He knelt and pulled the shoebox out of the shadows. I begged him to give it to me but he didn’t answer. I watched his back as he stared into the box. After what felt like a lifetime, he stood slowly and turned to me. “Have you lost your mind?” he asked softly.

I thought of lying but there was no reason to. “I found it under the house.”

He studied me, face blank and unreadable. “No telling what all diseases you’ve brought in here,” he said at last. “That thing might have rabies.”

“It’s just a rabbit.”

“Looks like a rat to me.”

“It’s not a rat,” I whispered. I tried to get past him but he blocked my way.