Even though she felt in herself that she was sure because for one thing she had never missed before. Until the last months she’d always been as predictable as clockwork, and because for some time she’d been feeling different, not just the way she felt in the morning when she was still at home and could feel it rising even before she was all the way awake, or when her mother came in and made it worse smoking, standing over her in the bathroom watching her, but other times too when she had a private feeling that she didn’t know how to talk about or to explain to anyone. And there were still other things, when she was feeling tired and about to cry, having to cry for no good reason. Or her breasts feeling too tender, she’d noticed that sometimes at night when she got into bed, and look at her nipples, how they were now, all swollen dark.
But Maggie Jones said, Still you want to be sure.
And so she, Maggie Jones, had brought the kit home from the store one evening. They were out in the kitchen. Maggie Jones said, At least try it. Then we’ll know for sure.
You think I should?
Yes, I think you should.
How do I? she said.
It says here, you hold the absorbent tip in the urine stream. Hold it under you while you go. Then you wait for five minutes and if both lines turn red in the viewing window, then you are. Here. Take it.
You mean now? the girl said.
Why not?
But Mrs. Jones, I don’t know. It seems strange. Deciding about it this way, so definite and you here knowing what I’m doing.
Honey, Maggie Jones said. You’ve got to wake up. It’s time for you to wake up now.
So she took the small flat box with the kit in it and the picture on top of the young honey-haired woman with the look of religious exaltation on her face and the sunshiny garden stretched out behind her, full of what could have been roses though that wasn’t clear, took it into the bathroom and locked the door and opened the kit and did what it said, holding it in place under herself while she spread her knees, dribbling a little on her fingers, but she couldn’t be bothered by that now, and afterward she set it out on the counter and waited thinking: What if I am? But I might not be, how would that feel after these weeks believing I was, that could be worse, the loss of that after already beginning to wonder about it and plan on it a little, thinking ahead. But what if I am? Then she knew it was time enough, more than the five minutes required, and she looked inside the window and both lines were colored, so she was. She stood up and looked in the mirror at her face. I knew I was anyway, she said to herself, I felt sure, so why should this be any different, that already it would show in my face, it wouldn’t, it doesn’t, not even in my eyes.
She unlocked the door and took the kit out to the kitchen and showed it to Maggie Jones who looked inside the little window. Well, honey, yes, she said. Now we know. Are you all right?
I think I am, the girl said.
Good. I’ll make you an appointment.
You have to do that already?
It’s better to go right away. You don’t want to be careless. You should’ve gone before this. Do you have somebody you go to?
No.
When was the last time you saw anyone? For any reason.
I don’t know, the girl said. Six or seven years ago. I was sick then.
Who was it?
It was an old man. I don’t remember his name.
That would be Dr. Martin.
But Mrs. Jones, the girl said. Isn’t there a woman doctor I could go to?
Not here. Not in Holt.
Maybe I could go to another town.
Honey, Maggie Jones said. Victoria. Listen to me. You’re here now. This is where you are.
Ike and Bobby
Midnight. He came back from the bathroom into the glassy room, where his brother slept undisturbed in the single bed against the north wall. Despite windows in three of the walls the room was dark. There was no moon. He looked once toward the west and then stood still, peering out. In the sunken vacant house to the west was a flicker of light. He could see it beyond the back wall of the old man’s house next door. It was indistinct, as if seen through haze or fog, but it was there. A steady faint wavering light. Then he could see somebody was in the room too.
He shoved at Bobby.
What? Bobby turned over. Quit it.
Look at this.
Stop poking.
In that old house, Ike said.
What is it?
Bobby kneeled up in his pajamas and peered out the window. At the dead end of Railroad Street the light flickered and waltzed in the small square of the window in the old house.
What about it?
Somebody’s over there.
Then somebody, whoever it was, passed by the window again, silhouetted against the dim light.
Ike turned away and began to haul on his clothes.
What are you doing?
I’m going over there. He hiked his pants on over his pajamas and bent to pull on his socks.
Can’t you wait? Bobby said. He slid out of bed and dressed rapidly.
They carried their shoes down the hall and stopped at the top landing where they could see into their father’s room, dark at the front of the house; through the open door they could hear him, it was like rattling, then a release then a pause, then like rattling again. They went downstairs one after the other, being quiet, and moved to the porch and sat on the steps to put on their shoes. Outside it was fresh, almost cold. The sky was clear and crowded with stars, the stars looked hard and pure. The last clinging leaves at the tops of the cottonwoods washed and fluttered in the soft nightwind.
They moved away from the house out across the drive onto Railroad Street and under the purple-shining streetlamp purring high on its pole and stayed along the edge of the dirt road, moving out of the pool of light into the increasing dark. The old man’s house next door was silent and pale, like the gray houses of dreams. They went on along the road edge. Then they could see it. Parked at the side of the road one hundred feet ahead in the ragweed was a dark car.
They stopped abruptly. Ike motioned and they ducked into the railroad ditch and walked quiet in the dry weeds. When they came opposite the car they stopped again. They studied it, the faint starlit glint on its round hood and trunk, the silver hubcaps. They couldn’t hear anything, even the wind had stopped. They came up out of the ditch toward the car, feeling exposed now in the open road, but when they rose up and looked past the car windows they found there was nobody and nothing inside, only empty beer cans on the floorboards and a jacket thrown over the backseat. They went on. They rounded to the locust trees in the front yard and stopped, then moved again, stepping into the wild overgrown lot of cheetweed and dead sunflowers, and moved across it and gained the side of the house. They slid along the cold clapboards until they came to the window where the flicker of light spilled out onto the side yard, where it flickered ever more faintly in a kind of illuminated echo on the dirt and the dry weeds.
Then they could hear talking coming from inside. There was no glass in the window since the panes had been smashed in by thrown rocks years ago. But there was still an old lacy yellowed crocheted curtain hanging over the void of the frame, and through the gauze of the curtain when they raised their heads they could see a blond girl lying on the floor on an old mattress. Two candles were set into beer bottles on the floor and in the flickering light they saw that the girl was one of the high school girls they often saw on Main Street, and she was completely naked. An army blanket was spread over the mattress and she was lying on the blanket with her knees raised up and they could see the damp hair glistening between her legs and her soft flattened breasts and her hips and thin arms, and she was the color of cream all over and pink-toned and they looked at her in surprise and something akin to religious astoundment and awe. Lying next to her there was a big hard-muscled red-haired boy who was as naked as she was, only he was wearing a gray tee-shirt that had its sleeves cut off. He was from the high school too. They’d also seen him before. And now he was saying, That’s not it. Because it’s only this once.