Round Rock - Michelle Huneven [123]
Oh honey, you can’t let every little thing bother you, Mom says. You’ve just got to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
Mom, I say, I look down and can’t even see my feet. And even if I did, it’s been weeks since I could tie my shoes.
Wouldn’t it be easier not to be reminded of Red everywhere you look? she says. You should be in a place where time can work its cure.
But I don’t want to be cured, Red. I want to have this baby in your house. I want her to have a sense of you. I want her to feel the way this bungalow feels, see the endless rows of trees, smell the groves, inhale the cool morning fog. After she hears the voices of your friends, once she gets your world in her blood, then, if need be, we can leave.
“BILLIE hasn’t answered my letter,” she told Lewis. “It’s been over a week.”
“Sounds like let-it-go time, Lib.”
“If only I could. I try and I try, but she made it possible for me to live in this valley after Stockton left. I’m not sure I know how to live here without Red and Billie.”
“You’re not going anyplace tonight, or tomorrow either,” Lewis said. “Come on. I’ll sit with you until you fall asleep.”
“You better lay in supplies, then. You might be here a lot longer than you think.”
“I think I know just the sleeping aid you need.” Lewis went over to his house, brought back the last chapter of his dissertation. “It’s just the first draft,” he said, and began reading aloud to her. Libby tried her damnedest to stay awake. She failed.
Dearest Red, You’re dead, baby. I know that. I don’t expect you to walk in the door. I don’t expect mail from you. With Billie, there’s always a chance that the phone will ring and it will be her, that the next car pulling up to the house will be that ridiculous white truck.
Hazy hot day, Red. A day to sweat.
Joe came by with a U-Haul to take some furniture for the apartment he and Little Bill have rented in Palo Alto. We had a long talk about names for the baby. He votes with you for Susanna or Elisabeth. Little Bill, he says, wants me to name her after you, more or less: Rosie. I love Little Bill, but …
I wish you could see the cats tease Gustave. He’s tied up under the oak tree. The cats know exactly how far his rope goes. They prowl the perimeter, tails in the air. God help them if he ever gets loose.
Oh Red. I can feel you fading.
THE BOARD met in Libby’s bedroom to discuss restaffing: if David became the director, as everyone hoped, the farm would need a new house manager. Since Libby didn’t know how much she’d want to do once the baby came, at least a part-time secretary was necessary. And the Blue House needed a new full-time cook right away.
“Or part-time,” said Lewis. “A lunch cook. That way I can help out with more secretarial and just do dinners.”
“Yeah,” Libby said, “but you’re leaving in a week.”
“Says who?”
“You have to go teach, Lewis.”
“Not this semester.”
Libby appealed to the men and women clustered in chairs around her bed. “He’s going to go teach.”
“Too late,” said Lewis. “I already put them off. The old family-emergency excuse.”
Libby waved her hands at him. “Lewis, please …”
“I can stick around until January.”
“What was the point, Dr. Fletcher, of finishing your dissertation if you’re not going to teach?”
“I want to see what this baby looks like.”
“Please, everybody,” Libby said, “tell him to take that job.”
Lewis held up a hand to halt any protests. “Besides, somebody has to take Gustave to obedience school.”
HE STAYED because he could. He stayed because he hadn’t when Libby’s trailer burned. He stayed because he was frankly worried about Round Rock and because one-year appointments in freshman English composition weren’t so goddamn precious. He stayed because it seemed like something he could do to honor Red. He stayed to demonstrate to Libby—and to himself—that he actually had changed, mended his ways.
Lewis hoped, too, that he could relieve Libby’s anxiety about being alone, all of which she channeled into her breach with Billie Fitzgerald. Recently, she was trying not to talk so much about Billie