Bent Road - Lori Roy [45]
“See?” Celia says. “He’s walking her back. Looks like her lead is on. Did you put it on without remembering to take it off?”
Evie shakes her head. “I took it off. I’m sure I did,” she says through chattering teeth. “I walked her a little. But I took it off.”
Celia watches Daniel until he and Olivia have disappeared through the gate and into the barn. When she can no longer see them, she steps back and motions for Evie to join her on a nearby wooden bench. Ruth flips a switch that floods the porch with light, then steps inside for a moment and reappears with Celia’s lavender house shoes, one in each hand. She waves the slippers, which makes Evie giggle, tiptoes across the porch and slips the fuzzy shoes on Evie’s bare feet.
“We shouldn’t really walk Olivia,” Celia says, wrapping both arms around Evie. “Left to her own, she could get hung up on that lead.” Evie nods as Celia tightens the pink ribbon tied at the end of her single braid. “Be careful to always lock up the gate and take care to do as you’re told. You know Daddy would be upset about this.”
“Will we tell him?” Evie says, twisting and frowning.
“I don’t see the need. I’m sure Daniel will slip it off and lock things up good and tight.”
Evie smiles, nods, and lowering her head, she says, “I guess it wasn’t Julianne out there, huh?”
Celia lifts Evie’s chin with her index finger. “No, honey. It wasn’t Julianne. Did you really think it was?”
“Just hoped, is all.”
Celia glances at Ruth across the top of Evie’s head. “Yes, I guess we all did. How about we say an extra prayer tonight? Especially for Julianne.”
“Yes,” Evie says. “An extra prayer.”
“Good enough, then.” Celia winks at Ruth and together they help Evie untangle her slippers from the hem of her robe so she can stand.
Evie giggles over the size of Celia’s lavender slippers on her own small feet. “Thanks,” she says once she has straightened out her legs and planted both slippers on the ground.
Celia smiles, gives a few tugs on the belt around Evie’s terry-cloth robe and, hearing footsteps on the stairs and the squeal of the screened door opening, she turns her smile toward Daniel.
“Ruth.”
Ruth stands.
“Ray,” she says.
In the beginning, in the very beginning, Ray felt badly for hitting Ruth. Over many morning cups of coffee, Ruth told Celia about the twenty years she had spent with Ray. When he would wake the day after, sober, he wouldn’t remember the black eye he had given Ruth, the split lip, the bruised cheek. He would look at her, puzzled at first, and then apologize. “It’s hard,” he would say. “So damned hard.” Ruth said she understood. She understood well enough to dab powder on those early bruises, withdraw from cake sales with an upset stomach when her lips were split open and swollen, cancel lunches with her mother and father because of one of her headaches when Ray had blackened her eyes. As the years passed, Ray began to wake, sometimes before he was fully sober, and say, “This is your doing as much as mine.” Finally, just, “This is your doing.”
“Why are you here, Ray?” Celia says, stepping in front of Evie and gently pulling Ruth backward a few steps.
Ray glances outside at the sound of Daniel’s footsteps on the stairs, and then turns back, placing one hand on the doorframe, one foot on the threshold. “Thought it might be around dessert time. Thought about a piece of Ruth’s pie.”
“We’re not having pie tonight.” Celia takes another backward step toward the house, keeping Ruth and Evie behind her. Daniel walks halfway up the outside stairs but says nothing because Celia shakes her head—a tiny movement, but enough.
“A cup of coffee maybe,” Ray says, moving aside, and with the sweep of one hand, he motions for Daniel to pass by.
Slipping between Ray and the doorframe, Daniel stops next to Celia. He takes a half step forward, trembling.
“Too late for coffee,” Daniel says, his voice barely more than a whisper.
“What’s that you say?” Ray fills the doorway but doesn’t cross the threshold.
Under his brown hat, Ray’s hair is clean and the skin on his face is smooth. Standing beneath