Christopher Ransom: The Birthing House

And it was pretty clear that, since his father's death, money was not the real issue. She needed something to do, he'd rushed her, and now here they were.

'I just want you to be happy,' he said.

'It's eight weeks,' she said. 'And the next training class starts day after tomorrow.'

He wouldn't taste another beer this good until she came home.

Jo did not cry as they said their goodbyes inside the Dane County Airport. Surrender had been reached; neither husband nor wife had the energy to continue the debate. Conrad shuffled aside to make room for three generations huddled around a tall girl in a University of Wisconsin sweatshirt, the whole famdamly seeing off their pride and joy for the summer.

Conrad squeezed Jo's hand. 'I can stay a while.'

'You're sweet,' she said, releasing his grip. 'I trusted you about moving here. Trust me on this one, for a little while?'

Trust was still a loaded word - he could make a list of loaded words now - and he let the comment slide. He kissed her scar for comfort. The thin line ran from the left arch of her top lip to the exact middle-bottom of her nose, one of childhood's accidental fissures he'd always found sexy, the snarl of a femme fatale .

He passed another Perkins and looped around Madison on the Beltline at a steady sixty miles per, stealing glimpses of the Capitol dome at the top of State Street. Then he was winding his way on to Highway 151, which split off Madison and went south to Black Earth and then another fifty miles to Iowa. Suburbs gave way to box stores and furniture outlets.

After that, farmland. The familiar rolling greens. Dense mini-forests gathered around the streams. The silent sweet manure field of nothingness, tranquil as the sea. Just as it had been when he discovered it the first time, it was a lonely patch of country, but soothing, almost hypnotic. Made him glad they'd left California.

Conrad saw the sign for Black Earth, Pop. 2713 , and switched off the cruise control. Riding the business loop, he passed a farm equipment dealership and a graveyard full of enormous granite headstones. Apparently, these small towns liked to keep their dead front and center, on Main Street if possible. Would they live here long enough to raise a family, a family that would bury him in yonder graveyard? How soon would it come? Another thirty years, or forty? Fifty was not out of the question, but even that seemed too short a time. Look at Dad. One day you're working and joking around with the boys with your hand on the box and ZAP - you're fucking fried, end of story. No more time to apologize to your son.

He nosed the Volvo alongside the curb and stared through the windshield, up at his house. Again, that nagging question:

If not for to have children, what are we here for?

He sat in the Volvo and listened to the tick of the engine and creak of the upholstery. The idea that she might not come back pressed down on him like a seatbelt possessed. Perversely, his mind tightened the belt further by reminding him of the last one who'd left him.

Holly.

Why was he thinking about her now? Holly was more than twelve years ago. What could a high school romance hold to his life now? To Jo? To this beautiful new home?

Don't think about Holly. She's old news.

Her tears. She cried for what we did.

'Enough of this shit.' He exited the car, bidding Holly to stay buried.

He was on the porch with one hand on the door when the man started yelling.

'Harrison! Conrad Harrison!'

For a second, Conrad was sure the voice belonged to his father, that the whole thing had been a strange dream and now he really was dead and the old man was coming to lead him away for good. He turned around slowly.

But it was only Leon Laski, the former owner of 818 Heritage Street. They'd not met, mainly because Laski had groused about the closing dates and Roddy had kept them out of it. 'Believe me, it's better this way,' Roddy had said. 'You don't want to meet the S-O-B.'

Too late - here came the S-O-B, barreling up the sidewalk and across Conrad's lawn. In his hands, a heavy wooden soda crate, stiff-armed away from his body as if it were full of dirty diapers.

'Excuse me?'

Laski dropped the crate on the porch. 'This all belongs to you now.'

'Is that right?' Conrad said, a skeptical grandfather.

Laski was shorter than Conrad by six inches, but he was clearly the larger man. He had the hard-packed muscle, ruddy cheeks and battered hands only middle-aged mechanics and sailors seem to acquire. His gray-blond beard and scraggily locks were more frayed rope than actual hair. He wore blue workman's pants and a plain brown shirt with a name patch that read LEON stitched to the tit.

'Wife packed her up on accident . . . crazy bitch.' Laski's accent was aggressively northern Wisconsin.

The dogs went off like fireworks.

'Quiet down,' Conrad yelled at the door, though he was glad he had Alice and Luther if things turned nasty. 'Sorry, dogs aren't used to the place yet. I'm Conrad Harrison.'

'Ya say.' Laski ignored the proffered mitt, removed a moist, splintered toothpick from behind his ear, and began to gnaw at it like a beaver, his tongue darting over his callused thumb and forefinger as if they were next. 'Anycase, don't need more'n I already got to unpack, so dare ya go.'

'Fine. Thanks, I think.' The crate was covered with a sheet of black felt tucked into the sides, obscuring the contents. 'Something for the house?'

'Could say that, ya sure could.'

'Uh-huh. Well, looks like you cleaned out pretty good. I'll call Roddy if I find anything.'

Laski whistled through his toothpick. The end flapped wetly like a ruined party favor. 'Cleaned out all right, all right, but I wouldn't call it pretty anything. You two woulda taken another week getting your shit together, we'd a lost the deal on the new farm. But you go ahead and tell 'at big buck Roddy anything you want. I got what I need. We're clear.'

Conrad managed to smile. 'Anything else I can do for you today, Leon? No? Good.' He grabbed the crate and turned for the door.

Laski spoke in a low, slithering voice. 'You got kids, boy?'

'What was that?'

'I hear dem mutts tearing up your floors in dare, but I don't see no kids. Appears you don't got none yet, but what I mean is, you plan on having any?'

'No, we - why would you ask that?'

'Just curious.' Laski pointed one thick finger at Conrad's front door. 'You have yourself a nice life in 'at old house.'

Before Conrad could reply, Laski wheeled on his dirty boots and knuckled down the walk, flicking his toothpick in a high arc as he disappeared around the corner, his vehicle out of sight or non-existent.

Conrad slipped inside and summoned his courage to open the crate.

6

Alice and Luther pogoed at him as if he'd abandoned them for weeks instead of hours. He set the crate on the coffee table and rolled around with them, letting them slobber on his face. There wasn't a pill on the market that cured mild depression - or just a shitty day - as fast as these two dogs.

Then he quit stalling and went to the crate. The covering was indeed felt, but thick as a shroud. As he lifted one corner he was overcome by an irrational thought: what if it's a trap? Like the kind used to catch badgers or snap my hand off at the wrist? But that was ridiculous. Nothing more than his imagination blowing off steam.

Wedged inside the crate was a large portfolio or scrapbook. It was heavy. Maybe five, six pounds. Why in the hell would Laski think this belonged to him?

Conrad examined the cracked spine and yellowed paper edges. It wasn't a book. It was an album, but photo albums had ten, maybe twenty cardboard pages. This thing had fifty or more, some thin, others not.