Lorna shifted around to look at him. “Why would I be mad at you?”
Hosea jerked his head towards the answering machine. “Well, because of your message. You didn’t call back to finish it. Usually you do.”
Lorna put her wine down and took Hosea’s hand in hers. She slung one of her legs over his and stroked the top of his hand with her thumb. “Hosea,” she said, “you really are something, you know that?”
Hosea used his remaining free hand to flatten her hand over his and stop her from stroking. He longed for his glass of wine, but now his hands were busy. He smiled at Lorna. “You’re something, too,” he said.
“I suppose I am,” said Lorna.
Hosea shifted slightly and smiled again. He stared at their hands, tangled together and resting on Lorna’s thigh. He noticed that the middle knuckles on Lorna’s fingers were wider than the other parts of her fingers, whereas his own fingers tapered to a point. He wished his fingers were more like Lorna’s.
“Hmmmm,” murmured Lorna.
“Lorna?” said Hosea.
“Yeah?”
“Are you mad at me?”
“No, Hosea, I am not mad at you. Look at me here. I’m trying to get closer to you. Jesus, Hose, can’t you figure it out?”
“But what about the message on the—”
“I was in a hurry, okay? I love you, I’m not mad at you. I love you.”
“Well, what were you going to say, I should what, you should what? You know, you were going to say you should do something and I …”
“I was going to say, ‘I should go if I’m gonna make the bus.’ That’s what I should do, go. Okay? Go so I could make the bus to get to you!”
Lorna sighed, removed her hands from Hosea’s, and used one of them to reach for her glass of wine.
“Well, now you’re mad then, aren’t you?” asked Hosea.
“Hosea, what the hell is your problem? Why do you have to derail every romantic moment in our lives with your paranoid worrying? Do you do it on purpose? Maybe you don’t love me, maybe you’re mad at me and you don’t know how to tell me, and you turn it around to make it look like I’m mad at you and then you won’t feel so bad, and you’ll be the martyr. Great. Now I am mad at you.”
“I knew it,” said Hosea. “And I do love you.” He looked at his hands, at his tapered fingers. They were pudgy, he thought. Why? The rest of him wasn’t fat. Could he lose weight in his fingers? They looked childish to him. He slipped them under his thighs for a few seconds, then pulled them up and folded them behind his head. Just a minute ago Lorna had been stroking one of his hands and he had wanted her to quit. Now he wanted her to continue, more than anything. He reached for his glass of wine.
“No, you do not know it, Hose, I’m not really mad at you. Can’t we just have a normal time together?”
“That’s what I really want, Lorna.”
“Okay, then why don’t you just shut up and relax,” said Lorna.
“Oh. Well,” said Hosea. And quickly put his glass back on the coffee table.
“Oh God, Lorna, I’ve missed you,” said Hosea.
“Yeah?” said Lorna.
“You know, I’ve missed you, too, Hose,” sighed Lorna about thirty minutes later.
Hosea hated lying around and talking after having sex. He preferred to go outside, flushed and happy, and feel the earth and the sky, and himself sandwiched between them, and know that as things go in the universe, he had just been blessed. But he knew from experience this was not Lorna’s first choice. One time he had dragged her outside in the dark, naked and sweaty, and she had started to cough and complain about mosquitoes, and had not said she felt blessed when Hosea had asked her. And so this time he decided he would just get up and get that Emmylou Harris song playing, finally. He brought the tape box back to the floor with him and lay down beside Lorna so that his head was right under the coffee table. Together they listened to the music and looked at the box, at the picture of Emmylou folded up inside it.
“God, does she have long toes, eh?” said Hosea.
“Wow. They’re kinda creepy-looking, don’t you think?” asked Lorna. Hosea didn’t think so. He imagined Emmylou’s toes contained in her painted cowboy boots, slightly splayed, planting her body onstage while she belted out “Born to Run.” “Yeah they are, aren’t they?” said Hosea.
“Hmmm,” said Lorna. “Is this song about heartbreak?” Lorna put her head on Hosea’s chest. He patted her head and stared up at the underside of the coffee table. Made in Manitoba, it had stamped on it.
five
Hosea had told on himself. It was eleven-year-old Minty who had spilled the beans to Hosea about where he had come from, but she had made him promise not to tell anyone or she’d be in trouble. “Cross your heart and hope to die?” she’d said to him.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he’d said and moved his tapered little index finger in the shape of an X over the general vicinity of his heart on the outside of his sweater.
“Okay,” said Minty. “Good boy.”
They were sitting together in the back seat of a rusted-out car that somebody had abandoned on the edge of Grandpa Funk’s alfalfa field.
Minty looked out the windows on each side of the car to make sure nobody was watching. Hosea did the same.
“Lookie,” said Minty.
Hosea stared. Minty spread her skinny bare legs, making sure her dress didn’t ride up and thumped on her flat stomach a couple of times with the bottom of her fist like she was checking a soccer ball for air. Hosea’s eyes widened and Minty nodded.
“Yessir,” she said. “But not me. Euphemia. You came right out of her …” Minty thumped her belly again.
“You’re lying,” said Hosea.
And then Minty panicked and saw her chance at redemption at the same time.
“Yeah, I am,” she said. She smiled, relieved.
“Are you?” said Hosea.
“Yeah, I am,” she said.
“Are you sure?” said Hosea.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” said Minty.
“Good,” said Hosea.
They were both relieved. They smiled and giggled and Hosea thumped lightly on his stomach, too, just to try it out.
“Punch me as hard as you can,” said Minty.
“No,” said Hosea.
“C’mon, Hose, just do it. I’ve tightened it up so it won’t hurt.” She put her chin down to her chest and moved her arms behind her back.
“No,” said Hosea. He started kicking the back of the dusty seat in front of him.
“Don’t you want to?” asked Minty.
“I don’t want to,” he said. He was four years old.
The next evening at the supper table Hosea sat on Euphemia’s lap finishing off his potatoes. From time to time he would thump on Euphemia’s stomach and she, irritated and trying to finish her own potatoes, would tell him to stop. Minty noticed this and tried to get Hosea’s attention. Hosea ignored Minty. He was grinning and he continued to thump Euphemia’s stomach. Minty was afraid Hosea was going to say something to get her in trouble, so she suggested that they go outside and play catch.
“Uh-uh,” said Hosea. Finally, Euphemia had had enough.
“Hosea!” she said. “Stop it, you’re hurting me!” By now all the Funks were looking at Hosea and Euphemia, sternly, curiously, amusedly, in a number of ways. There were a lot of them.
“Let me in, let me in,” said Hosea. “I want to get back in!” He laughed and scrunched up his face and put it next to Euphemia’s stomach.
“Minty told me I lived in your stomach, Mom, then I came out, right, Minty? Right, Minty?” Euphemia, horrified, stood up and marched out of the room with Hosea on her hip. But not without first noticing the look on her father’s face and the way his head swivelled ever so slowly to meet her mother’s own incredulous stare.