Flight Behavior (10 page)

Crystal announced suddenly, “Here’s what you ought to do, about all these people coming up? You should charge them.”

“See, that’s what I told Bear,” Hester said. “We both think that.”

“What’s stopping you, then?” Valia asked.

Hester raised her eyebrows and pointed her chin at Dellarobia, as if her daughter-in-law were a child, oblivious to the codes of adults.

“Hey, don’t look at me. Your son’s the one that spilled the beans in church, blame him.” Dellarobia got up and dumped an armload of tied bundles into the sink. Brethren, fix your thoughts on what is true. Bobby’s words came to her out of the blue, and she nearly spoke them aloud. Instead she said, “Let’s blame Bobby Ogle, while we’re at it. And Jesus, why not Jesus? Credit where credit is due.”

“Missy, you are asking for it with talk like that.”

“It’s Mrs. And you know what? I
never
said it’s the Lord’s divine hand at work up there. Go ahead and charge people if you want. Why wouldn’t you?”

Hester met her eye, and they held a moment in deadlock. The words
born again
rose to Dellarobia’s mind, and she contemplated a world where Hester no longer scared her. To turn her back on permanent rebuke, and find other motives for living, wouldn’t that be something. Like living as a no-heller, as Bobby was said to be. All recent events considered, Dellarobia didn’t mind this part. She turned away, untying the dishtowel that held Cordie in place and using it to scrub the worst of the applesauce from the creases around her chubby wrists. “Sorry to run,” Dellarobia said, “but we are out of here. I’ve got to meet the school bus in front of my house at twelve-seventeen.”

“You let Preston ride the bus?” Hester challenged.

“Yep. He wants to ride the big-boy bus. So today I let him. I’ve got to get over there so he won’t wander off down the road. I’m taking Roy with me, okay? That will thrill Preston, to see Roy waiting for his bus.”

“Take both the dogs,” Hester said.

“No, the kids get too cranked up with both of them.” She gave the high chair a lick and a promise with the dishcloth and lifted Cordelia out of it by her armpits, inhaling her sweet-sour baby scent like smelling salts, a bracing relief. With Cordie on her hip, Dellarobia whistled softly and called Roy by name as she left the kitchen, telling Charlie to stay down. To her dismay, Crystal rose as if she too had been whistled up, announcing she had to go get her boys too. She followed outside and stood by as Dellarobia opened the back door of her station wagon for Roy, then buckled Cordie into her car seat. Dellarobia could feel the rain in little icy pricks on the gap between her sweatshirt and jeans when she leaned into the car.

“You buckle her in, even just to go to your house?” Crystal asked.

“Ninety percent of accidents happen within one mile of home.” Dellarobia had no idea if this was true, and honestly might not have bothered with the car seat if she hadn’t had the world’s laziest mother in attendance. Someone had to set an example.

“It’s not a mile to your house. It’s like, two hundred feet.”

“What’s up, Crystal? First and third grade don’t let out until afternoon. Don’t tell me Jazon and Mical got demoted back to half-day kindergarten.”

Crystal rearranged her face, going for wide-eyed and perky. “I just thought we could talk for a few minutes.”

“What would you like to talk about?”

“Nothing. Just, stuff.”

Dellarobia got in the car and sat with the door open, hands on the steering wheel, waiting. She knew Crystal wanted something; the girl was permanently set on intake mode. Dellarobia went for preemptive. “I am not babysitting your kids.”

“I’m not asking!”

“Could I get that in writing?”

The rain was starting to pick up, but Crystal remained planted. People always laughed at rain and said, “You won’t melt,” but Crystal’s body mass was probably 35 percent makeup and hair products. She actually might melt. Dellarobia sighed. “Get in.”

Crystal walked around to the passenger’s side, flopped in, and conspicuously clicked her seat belt. “Do you really have to be so . . .”

They completed the ninety-second ride to Dellarobia’s driveway before Crystal had advanced this line of inquiry. Roy’s black-and-white body poured out of the car and swirled in figure eights on the lawn, eager for whatever project he was here to begin.

“Roy, down,” Dellarobia said, and he lay flat on the watery lawn before she even had both syllables out. The grass was still faintly green, not yet winter-killed, as they’d had no snow or even a hard frost. Cordie didn’t have a proper winter coat, just doubled-up sweatshirts. It wasn’t negligence—the kids truly had not needed bundling up yet, the weather had failed to nudge them to Target or the Second Time Around shop for that purpose. The idea of December seemed impossible. A few times when people had asked if she was ready for Christmas, she’d actually drawn a blank: ready for what? And of course felt idiotic afterward. People automatically estimate a mom’s IQ at around her children’s ages, maybe dividing by the number of kids, rounding up to the nearest pajama size. But the weird weather must have bewildered everyone to some extent. On stepping outdoors she sometimes had to struggle a few seconds trying to place the month of the year, and Cub had said the same. It felt like no season at all. The season of burst and leaky clouds.

Dellarobia set her mind to the worries at hand: Preston’s first time on the bus. The driver wouldn’t know his stop unless she stood out here by the road. It might even come early. The rain was getting serious, but she couldn’t risk going in the house for an umbrella. A five-year-old was too young for the bus. What had she been thinking? Sending him off among strangers was chilling enough, without some distracted bus driver in the mix. She planted herself at the end of the drive between their mailbox and a big old maple, and sent Crystal after the umbrella.

Crystal went in the house and took her sweet time about it. Dellarobia unzipped her hoodie and draped it over Cordie, who was getting soaked. The cattle in the waterlogged pasture across the road raised their heads in brief attention, welcoming her to the sad-sack club. Her phone buzzed, and she fished it from her shoulder bag left-handed with Cordie on her other hip. A text from Dovey:
MOSES WAS A BASKET CASE
. Dovey swore these adages were genuine, sighted during church drive-bys, usually on her way to work, and maybe that was true. The commercial-type marquees seemed to draw churches into the same competitive cleverness that ruled all advertising. But she suspected a Dovey original here. With her one free thumb she texted back:
U R
2.

At length Crystal arrived with the umbrella and they huddled under its greenly lit shelter. It was close quarters in there, given the dimensions of Crystal’s hair. Roy sat obediently at Dellarobia’s knee but sidled close against her leg as the dampness grew. Cordie, from her hipbone perch, waved at the passing cars and rhythmically kicked her muddy shoes against Dellarobia’s thigh. Every pair of jeans she owned was stained with footprints. If she was already a doormat, were her kids then doomed?

A red Chevy pickup slowed almost to a stop, at such close range they could hear the slapping windshield wipers and see the guy inside, checking them out on the drive-by. For heaven’s sakes, mothers of children, waiting for a school bus.

“That was Ace Sayers,” Crystal said, when the truck had passed. “Somebody told me he had a colonstopy.”

“Thank you for sharing.”

“So,” Crystal said. “I was going to ask you something.”

“Imagine my surprise.”

“Dell, I swear. Just because everybody at church thinks you’re a saint? I’m sorry. But I don’t see why I have to kiss your butt.”

“Alrighty then, don’t. Don’t call me Dell, though. I got burned on that one when I started going out with Cub.”

“How come?”

She sang it: “
The farmer in the dell!
”

“Oh, right. Ick.”

“
Ick
is one way to put it. And not Dellie, either. That would be one of those places where they hand you a sandwich.”

Crystal gave her a worried glance. “What is this, the sign-up sheet for hanging out with you?”

“Yes.”

They stood in silence while two more vehicles passed, both driven by elderly women, thankfully. Dellarobia wished she were not defensive about her name. In high school when the popular girls all won pert little tags like “Liz” or “Suze,” she’d hoped for something snappier too, but that never worked out. Dellarobia she was to be, like the wreath in the magazine. Not a biblical heroine, just a steady buildup of odds and ends.

“Since you brought it up, is that what they’re saying at church?” she asked Crystal. “That I’m a saint?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

She knew Crystal would try to be coy for about ten seconds, then dish the dirt. Three, two, one . . .

“Yeah, some of them are saying that. A whole slew of them, actually. Not the Worshams. The Bannings, the Weavers, and the Worshams? They don’t believe it.”

“Glad you took a poll.”

“No, you know. People just talk. Some of them resents it, you know? That you’re in Pastor Ogle’s good graces without . . .”

“Without?”

“I guess, not being all that churchy.”

“The wild girl that got kicked out of Wednesday discussion group, you mean.”

“You did?” Crystal appeared amazed. Her entry into the fold was relatively recent.

“It was a long time ago. I thought ‘discuss’ meant open your mouth, my mistake. And it was Hester that kicked me out, just so you know. Not Pastor Bobby.”

“Did you used to wear some kind of fox thing to church? Tammy said it was like this little shawl that went around your neck and had the head biting the tail.”

“A fox stole. Dovey found it somewhere. I can’t believe people are still holding that against me. Wouldn’t there be, like, a statute of limitations on wardrobe offenses?”

“Okay, but there’s other ones, like Sister Cox? She’s all, love your neighbor and everything. I think they do believe something happened up on that mountain. Like, you know, a miracle. That’s why they’re all wanting to come up and see.”

“Well, it’s something to see. You’d be amazed.”

Dellarobia had not been back up the mountain since the day with her in-laws. Hester had taken full charge of the traffic of visitors, which seemed unfair. Suddenly the butterflies belonged to Mountain Fellowship. The church and Hester had their own pet miracle. Not that tour guiding was a career option for Dellarobia, they wouldn’t let her show up wearing a toddler as a pendant and a kindergartner for a shin guard. But still, when the groups passed behind her house to get to the High Road, Dellarobia snapped down the blinds, feeling something had been stolen from her, and flaunted.

“Listen,” Crystal said. “What I was going to ask you? It’s no big thing. I wrote this letter, and I wondered if you would look at it? You’re good at spelling and stuff.”

From the base of the big maple a squirrel darted out to the shoulder of the road, hesitated, then dashed across in little hops. Roy watched with keen attention, heaving a sigh of self-disciplined anguish.

“A letter, to?”

“To Dear Abby.”

Dellarobia hooted, startling both Cordie and the dog. “You want me to proofread your letter to Dear Abby. What’s it about?”

“That thing with Brenda. She’s the one that thinks I—”

“I know, Brenda with the broken fingers and the whole family that wants to break your face.”

“Okay, here’s the thing, nobody’s heard my side. I found out Brenda’s mother was writing to Dear Abby asking her, you know, to settle it once and for all? But she’s just going to play up Brenda’s side, right? You know she will. I have to write one too.”

“Where in the heck does Dear Abby come into this? I mean, jeez, Crystal, some old lady that lives a million miles from here. Who cares what she thinks?”

Crystal gave her a have-your-head-examined look. “Everybody cares what Dear Abby thinks. How do you think she gets in the paper every day?”

Dear Abby had a smart mouth and a kind heart, that’s why people read her; the combination was rare. And rarer still, perfect grammar. Dellarobia used to read Abby faithfully, along with the police blotter and national news roundup, until Cub insisted they couldn’t afford to renew their subscription to the
Cleary Courier
. She and Cub fought about it. Why pay for the news when you can see it on TV? was his argument. He would never stop channel-surfing long enough for her to get the end of the story, that was hers.

“You know what, Crystal? You go ahead and write your letter, but I think I’ll just steer clear. I mean, holy cow, Brenda’s mom. You do not want to meet that lady in a dark alley.”

“I’m scared for my life, I kid you not,” Crystal agreed. “And just so you know, before you look at my letter? I changed some things.”

“Changed some of the facts, you’re saying.”

“No, just small things. Like I didn’t mention the drinking, because that’s nobody’s business now. Clean and sober means starting over. And plus, I said, ‘My husband and I,’ instead of I’m a single mother.”

Dellarobia wondered if this bus would arrive before Christmas. Cordie was writhing like an inchworm, wanting down, but they were too close to the road. And the rain was running in sheets across the asphalt. The ditch had become a creek, leaf-filled and rising. Her tennis shoes were goners. “Let me get this straight. You’re fibbing to Dear Abby to get her on your side. And this will help your situation how?”

“Listen, you have no idea how people are. You’re married.”

“I thought I was suddenly the talk of the town.”

“But
married
, okay? I just don’t think Abby would give me a fair hearing if she knew my kids were illegitimate. I also told her I’ve accepted Christ as my personal savior.”

“I don’t think Abby cares that much. To tell you the truth, I think I saw somewhere she’s Jewish.”

“You are shitting me!”

At last the bus crested the hill, moving toward them like a golden cruise ship in its broad, square majesty. Dellarobia wanted to jump and wave for joy, rescued from her desert island. The usual parade of impatient drivers followed behind the bus, no doubt cursing their luck at getting trapped in slow-motion hell, stopping every hundred feet or so, with no hope of passing on this curvy road. Dellarobia thought of all the swear words she’d hurled from that position herself, and now as a newly minted mother-of-bus-rider she apologized from her heart to bus drivers everywhere. She wasn’t sure if she’d need to flag it down, and was relieved when the amber lights began blinking from side to side. The stop sign swung out like a proud red wing. She waved to the driver, hoping to gain points with this woman who’d been charged with Preston’s safety. But she was tugging at the bus window, one of those sliding affairs. It finally came down with a snap.