He trailed off.
'It's what, Earl?'
'There's a lot of hurting in that place. It's haunted. You see a pretty little farm and I see the place where my brother died. He hung himself in 1940.1 hardly knew the boy. I sure didn't do him no good. His big old brother didn't do a pie's worth of good for him. like everybody else, I let him down. Nobody did him no good. Nobody stood up for him. In the basement of that house my old man used to beat me and so I suppose he beat Bobby Lee too.'
'It wouldn't have to be like that. We'd paint it white, I'd get the garden up and running, you could lease out die fields like your daddy did, it could be a good house, a happy house. It could be a house full of children.'
Earl finished his hot dog.
'I don't know. I just ain't sure I could face that place. Let me think her over.'
'Earl, I know you have a melancholy in you over your childhood. But you have to think of your child's childhood. Do you want him born into a Quonset hut on a military base? Or on a big, beautiful farm on the most beautiful land in the state?'
'That is not an easy question,' he said.
'No, it is not.'
'I'd sell the goddamned place if I could. But land is so cheap now, and it's so far out, I'd never find a buyer. When's that goddamned postwar boom going to hit Polk County? Anyhow, I'll think some.'
'You'll think hard on it?'
'Yes ma'am.'
'All right, Earl. I know you'll work it out. I know you'll do the right thing. You always do.'
For the next few days, Earl was perfect. There was never a harder-working, more cheerful man, a better husband. He repainted the inside of the Quonset hut apartment a bright yellow, a day's worth of back breaking labor, but worth it, for the lighter color cheered the place up. He loaded the old sofa up on the roof of his government Dodge and took it to a dump, then went over to the Sears, Roebuck in Fort Smith and bought a new sofa for her, a pretty thing in green stripes. That made the rooms even brighter.
He redug the garden, weeded it, trimmed the hedges. He took her out to dinner, twice. They went for walks. He listened to the baby move and the two of them tried to think up names for it. She wrote long lists and he laughed at Adrian and Phillip, he thought Thomas and Andrew were okay, he liked Timothy and Jeffrey. The problem was, except for Adrian, each of the names had a boy somewhere attached to it, a Marine who'd died or been maimed and was carried out by stretcher bearers screaming for his mama.
But Earl tried not to let any of that show on his face. He tried so hard to be the kind of man he thought she deserved, the kind of man he thought he wasn't. He never told her about the way his father would sneak up on him and whisper something fierce and hurtful in his ear, then steal away, to leave nothing but sunlight and trees blowing in the breeze.
Finally, he drove her to the doctor's office and sat out front during the exam and then the doctor brought him in and spoke to him while she dressed. Earl had seen lots of docs, and this one was no different from any in an aid station, a field hospital or a hospital ship: a grave official type man, with a blur of mustache and eyes that were somehow lighdess.
'Mr. Swagger, first of all, the baby and your wife are both doing fine. The health of both seems well within the parameters of what we'd qualify as a normal, healthy term. The baby should be right on time. I'd say first week in October.'
'Yes sir, great. That's great news.'
'Now I did want to say something to you. There's no cause to be alarmed just yet, but I have noted that die baby is situated a certain way in your wife's uterus. Not abnormal by any means, but at the same time not exactly where we'd expect it to be.'
'Yes sir,' said Earl gravely. 'Does Junie know this?'
'No, she doesn't. I'd prefer her not to know. It would cause anxiety, quite possibly undue. It may not be anything to get alarmed at.'
'But it means something. What does it mean, sir?'
'There can be complications. Usually of no consequence. But what happens sometimes in this case is that the child arrives in the wrong presentation. That is, instead of breeching face up, it breeches face down. Then it gets tricky. I want you prepared.'
Earl nodded.
'It says in the paperwork you're a state employee. An engineer, a crew foreman?'
'No sir. I work as an investigator for a prosecuting attorney in another county.'
'I see. Law enforcement. Is it demanding?'
'Sometimes.'
'You were in the war, weren't you?'
'Yes sir. The Pacific.'
'Well, then, you've seen some emergency medical situations I'd guess.'
'A few, yes sir. I was wounded a few times.'
'Good. Then you know what can happen.'
'Are you telling me there's a chance my wife could die?'
'A very small one.'
'Jesus,' he said. 'For a damned baby.'
'The baby is very important to her, as it would be to any woman. That's part of being a woman, and that's part of what's so wonderful about women. And that's part of the reason I'd prefer her not to know. Sometimes we men have to make the serious decisions.'
'Yes sir.'
'So what I am saying is that if the complications are grave, I may have to make a choice. I may only be able to save one, the child or the mother. I am assuming the mother would be your choice.'
'Ain't no two ways about it. We didn't plan this kid, I ain't settled in this job yet, the timing was all off. And I don't feel much for it. Don't know why, I just don't.'
'Many men who came back from a hard war feel the same way. I've heard those words a hundred times. I think it'll change when you hold your child, but to many men who've been in combat, the idea of bringing a new child into a somewhat profane world seems poindess.'
Earl thought: You just said a mouthful, Doc.
'Anyhow, here's what's most important. You must be around when the child is bom. I don't know what sort of arrangement you and your wife have, with your work so far away, but you absolutely have to be here in case a decision is needed. Do you understand?'
'Sir, I've made my decision.'
'Yes, but if the baby comes late at night or when I'm not on call, I might not be here. Any of a dozen things could happen. It's quite common for the delivery to be assisted by the staff resident. That would be a younger doctor, possibly not willing to make the decision that you just made. He might not have the sand to intervene and you could lose them both. So you need to be here. You may have to fight for your wife's life. You may even have to fight your wife for it.'
Earl nodded.
'But I can see something on your face,' the doctor said.
'Yes sir. The job Fm in, sometimes it gets very complicated and I can't get back. I just don't want to let nobody down.'
'Well, Mr. Swagger, you'll just have to decide what's more important to you. You don't want someone else making that decision, do you? No, Mr. Swagger, please, please, try and be here.'
'Yes sir,' said Earl, feebly, knowing it might not happen that way. 'I'll do my best.'
Chapter 27
Pap Grumley danced a dance of grief and shame. It was a strange mountain dance that somehow connected
