Four years was almost half my life. I couldn’t conceive of four years.
She flipped warm water into my face. “Wake up. You know who the rat was? Soapley.”
“What rat?”
“The rat who’s been on the phone to your grandfather once a week since the day you and Lydia hit town. Caspar wrote him a check after you ran off. Soapley apologized to Lydia and she whapped him with a wienie stick.”
“Lydia whapped him?”
“Said Otis is an ugly dog and she’d shoot his other hind leg off if she caught him peeing on her property.”
I wish I’d seen that. I splashed Maurey back in the breasts area. “Why did Caspar wait so long to fetch us home?”
“The plant won a big order from American Express. He couldn’t leave till they shipped.”
Water games escalated. Maurey slapped the surface and got me good. I kicked with my legs, churning up a king-hell froth. She was too big to churn so she tried to kick me in the balls, but I twisted and took it in the thigh.
We were kids again in no time.
When Maurey stood, her belly glistened like a huge wet cue ball. Tiny drops of water winked from her regrown crotch hair. “I better go see if Hank talked sense into Dad.”
“Hank’s not one to talk sense into anybody, but I’ve only seen him with Lydia and she doesn’t let him talk much.”
“He’s taking the she’s-an-immoral-slut-fuckup-but-after-all-she’s-your-daughter approach. I doubt it’ll work. I talked on the phone to Dad when he put Mom in the hospital and he didn’t like me any more than ever.”
“Maybe Hank can shame Buddy into caring for you.”
“I bet Dad forgot it’s my birthday.” Maurey bent down with difficulty and reached into the warm spring. I couldn’t see her face when she spoke. “You coming up to the house or you going to hide out all night?”
“Think Buddy will hit me?”
Her hand came up with a fistful of mud which she glopped onto my chin. “Sam, you’re too little to hit.”
As we sat on the moss, dressing, a bug nothing more than a red dot moved up Maurey’s belly to a lump under her ribs.
“What’s that?” I touched the lump.
Maurey hooked hair behind one ear and looked down at the spot. “A knee, I think. Maybe his head. He moves around and I can never tell where what is. Feel this.”
Her lower abdomen was hard as marble, couldn’t have been comfortable for her or the baby. I knocked on it like she was wood and I needed good luck. “Think he’s trying to crawl out when he moves?”
“More like rolling over to find a new position. Or dreaming.” Maurey pulled her pants over the big belly and stood up to fiddle with the bra. I tried to picture what a womb-baby dreams of—baseball glory, blue skies, food? Unless you believe in reincarnation or preexistence or some other odd religion, a baby’s dream would have to be pretty abstract.
“You think he knows he’s coming out?”
“Of course, silly. He’s not about to spend his whole life floating in fluid.”
“But does he know that?”
She spoke through her shirt as it came over her head. “My baby knows everything.”
When Maurey stood up, she put her hand on top of my head. “Hot water makes me dizzy these days. It never did that before I brought you here.”
“You weren’t pregnant before you brought me here.”
Real friendlylike, she popped the top of my head with her palm. “Next time I get the urge to learn new skills, I’m picking a kid with a brain.”
I leaned over to tie my right shoe. Hank taught me to always tie the right shoe before I put on the left sock. Has something to do with luck. “Let’s talk about that, Maurey. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I think after the baby is born we ought to start practice again.”
Maurey laughed at my preposterousness, then she stepped onto the log. I was holding my left sock to my nose to see if it stunk, when a sound made me look up. Maurey’s arm jerked, she leaned right, then fell forward across the log and dropped from sight. The sound when she hit was awful—part splash, part crack, a gasp.
I tore down the bank, fell myself, and landed on my hands and knees in the creek. When I scrambled across to her, she lay crumpled on her back in shallow running water with her left leg at an impossible angle, cussing like king-hell shit.
Mostly it revolved around Jesus and fuck. “Christ, it hurts. How did that happen? I can’t fall.”
“Don’t move.”
“Something’s broke, Sam. Fuck.” Her face twisted up with her eyes closed and her teeth showing. I lifted her head and back out of the creek, but when I touched her leg, Maurey screamed. “God-fuck, what are you doing?”
“I need to see this.” I turned her sideways so her body was leaning on the steep bank, but her lower legs were still in the water, which was probably for the best. My own feet, especially the bare one, stung for maybe ten seconds before going numb.
When I pulled her pants leg up, she screamed again, only not so loud. There was blood, not a gross amount, but enough. When I bent to check the inside of her leg, a white shin splinter poked through the skin. Reminded me of Otis.
“Your leg’s broke, Maurey.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” She suddenly went white as the bone and gasped. Her eyes concentrated hard on something I couldn’t see, then the spasm passed and she was back.
“Something’s bad in my guts,” Maurey said.
“Around the baby?”
“God, I hope this isn’t a miscarriage. I read about miscarriages.” She yanked her pants down from the back. Between her legs was running with water and a trickle of blood.
“Is that creek water?”
She touched the rivulet. “It’s coming from me. God, I hurt.” She bit her lower lip and the tears came. “Crap. I’m going to die before I have the baby.”
“Which hurts most, your leg or your belly?”
My stupid question brought her around. “Jesus, Sam, I can’t pick between pains.”
I took off my shirt and wrapped it around the blood flow from her leg, but when I touched near the bone, she clenched up. Then she breathed real hard and held her belly. After a few seconds, she gradually calmed down.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I’m either losing the baby or having it. I wish I knew the difference. Nobody ever told me shit. Mama’s in the nuthouse when I need her, Daddy hates me. My hair’s all wet.”
That last one scared me. “I’m going after Buddy.”
Maurey grabbed my arm hard. “Don’t leave me here, Sam. I don’t feel good.”
“I have to find help, we don’t know what to do.”
The tears streamed without a crying sound. “But Dad doesn’t like me.”
“Maurey, I have to get help. There’s no choice.”
She pushed me away. “Go ahead and leave when I need you. I’ll lay here and die alone.”
“You won’t die. I promise.”
“You promised you wouldn’t squirt. You promised you wouldn’t fall in love. You promised you wouldn’t go back to North Carolina. When was the last time you kept a promise?”
“I promise you won’t die.” After that she stopped talking. I waded into the creek and found a rock to prop her right leg on, but I figured the left one should stay in the water. She probably couldn’t feel it by now anyway. Then I checked the flow in her crotch. The water coming from her was bad, but the blood scared me. I couldn’t tell if the flow was slowing down or getting worse.
“You comfortable enough?”
