Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver [117]
“Wow. That’s some pretty strict math.”
“He was like that. German.”
“But you hadn’t replaced yourself.”
“I guess that wasn’t his problem. He had a vasectomy.”
“And that was that. No regrets?”
“I’m not all that maternal.”
He slipped a hand under the small of her back and pushed himself up very far inside her until she began to lose her train of thought. He had a way of reaching against her pelvic bone, creating a kind of pressure in a place no man had found before. Intercourse with Eddie Bondo was a miracle of nature. He held her there, with her back arched, and chuckled softly against her cheek.
“You. You spend more time making sure you don’t hurt a spider or a baby bird than most people do taking care of their kids. You’re maternal.”
He was still listening to her. She couldn’t even remember what she’d said.
“Shhh,” he said suddenly, tightening his grip on her and going perfectly still. “What is that?”
They listened to the soft sliding noise overhead in the roof boards. It was a dry, rough, papery scrape, almost like sandpaper moving through slow circles over a rough board. The sound had become nearly constant these days, in the evenings, when the rain wasn’t drowning it out.
“It’s not a mouse,” Deanna conceded finally.
“I know it’s not a mouse. You always say it’s a mouse, but it’s not. It’s something long and slidey.”
“‘Slidey’?” she asked. “And you make fun of the way I talk?”
“Long and scaly, then.”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s a snake. Probably a big old blacksnake that came in out of the rain one day, hit the mouse jackpot, and decided to stay.”
Eddie Bondo shivered. She felt him going soft inside her, and she laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of snakes? You are!”
He rolled off of her, throwing an arm over his face.
“Why, my lands, Eddie Bon do. A brave guy like you.”
“I’m not scared of them. I just don’t like the idea of one crawling around above me while I sleep.”
“Oh, well, don’t sleep, then. Just lie here listening for it. Tell me if he’s headed down here for the bed. Good night!” She leaned over, feigning to blow out the lamp.
“Don’t do that!” He struck a tone of true panic at the combination of snake and darkness. But then he grabbed her pillow and whacked her with it, to cover his embarrassment. She let the lamp burn and fell back on the bed, delighted with herself.
“Lady,” he said, “you are one mean son of a gun.”
She took the pillow from him and settled it back under her head, relishing the upper hand. All her life in Zebulon County she’d known big, husky men who worked dispassionately with fierce machinery and steers big enough to kill them, but who freely admitted to a terror of snakes of any kind. At nine years of age Deanna Wolfe had made a legend of herself by bringing an eight-foot blacksnake to school.
“It just does not make any sense to despise that snake up there,” she told Eddie. “He’s on our side. I hate mice, is what I hate—getting into my food. Making their nest in the drawer so my socks stink like mouse pee. Running over my feet in the morning and making me throw my coffee against the wall. If you took all the snakes out of this world, people would be screaming bloody murder at the rodent plague. Not just here. In cities, too.”
“Thank you, Miss Science Teacher. Too bad we’re not all as logical as you are. You know what?” He rolled over and whispered in her ear, “You’re scared of thunder.”
“I’m not, either.”
“You are. I’ve seen you jump.”
“That’s a startle response, not fear. Thunder is nothing but two walls of split-apart air coming back together, which could not hurt a fly.”
He lay back against the pillow beside her, grinning fiercely. “Which causes you to jump out of your skin.”
“Mice make me jump, too, but that’s not fear, that’s disgust.”
“OK, then. Snakes aren’t scary, they’re just disgusting.”
“Foolish choices, Eddie. People make them every day, but hating predators on principle