Rose leaned toward Rebekah and said, “He leads you to believe that because he wishes to make your life easy.” She winked. “Don’t believe him, make him meat and gravy.”
“Bread and butter’s fine, but this here’s a right feast,” Odd said. “I thank you kindly, Missus Sargent.”
“Harald, pass Odd the creamed corn and hominy bread. Here’s a young man who knows how to please his hostess.”
After the pleasantries at the start of the meal the table settled into a formal silence interrupted only by polite requests for second helpings. By the time they finished with supper, dusk had settled with still more snow. Harald requested coffee to go with the pudding, and Rebekah joined Rose in the kitchen to help prepare it.
In the dining room Sargent took out his pipe and packed it. He poured each of them another glass of apple wine. Odd could see the bare branches of the apple trees through the dinning room windows.
“Rebekah was to see Doctor Crumb?”
“She was.”
“He’s the finest physician in all of Duluth. Educated at the University of Chicago.”
“Seemed a fine fellow.”
“He was a help?”
“Rebekah’s right private about that business.”
Sargent nodded. “Do you mind if I ask you a question, Odd?”
“Shoot.”
“How old are you?”
Odd had to think about it. “Guess I’m twenty-four years old.”
“I had you pegged for older than that.” He paused. “Mind if I ask how old Rebekah is?”
Odd smirked. “Old enough to know better than to get stuck with me.”
Sargent smiled. “I apologize if I seem impertinent. I was just curious.”
“I can’t even begin to imagine what impertinent means, but your curiosity is no harm to me.”
Sargent took a deep breath. They each took a drink from their wineglass. “You’ve been studying the Bible?”
“I’ve read some.”
“Is it helping you toward peace?”
Odd stared long on the empty apple-tree branches.
“Thoughtful,” Sargent said.
“There’s plenty of good stories in that book. But I find my peace on the boatwright floor. Out on the lake hauling nets.” Odd turned back to the window. “In the expectation of my child.”
“Then your heart is full of love. If it is full of love, it is full of peace.”
“All I’m full of right now is apple wine and pork chops. That’s enough for me.”
Sargent let a knowing smile play across his face.
Rose served the coffee and pudding and when dessert was finished they adjourned to the sitting room. Odd could tell from the bleary sheen of her eyes that Rebekah was tipsy. She’d had two full glasses of apple wine. Once that look would have set his heart to thumping, but now it filled him with dread. She’d behaved so far, but he knew how careless she’d become lately, knew she felt there was nothing left to lose. He knew also that there was nothing she loathed so much as pious folks.
“I hope that meal pleased you, Rebekah,” Rose said.
“You are a wonderful cook. A wonderful hostess.”
Sargent said, “Mother takes it to heart if her dinner guests don’t leave with a bellyache.”
Rose put her hand on Sargent’s arm. “Rebekah’s belly is home to a child of God, there’s no ache in the world capable of upsetting her.”
Rebekah flashed a false smile. “No ache in the world,” she sang.
“Rebekah,” Odd said.
Rebekah turned to Sargent’s wife. “My belly aches all the time. I feel awful.”
Odd leaned forward.
Rebekah continued, “My back aches. I can’t sleep. I—”
“You bear those things so your child needn’t,” Rose interrupted. “Put those cares from your mind.”
“Put them from my mind,” Rebekah repeated. She sat back in the overstuffed chair, wrapped her hands around her abdomen.
“Besides the love of God, the love of a child is life’s greatest reward, Rebekah,” Sargent said.
Odd buried his face in his hands.
Rebekah looked up at Sargent. “There’s no reward in this life,” she said. She turned slowly to Rose. “I ought to envy you. I know that. But it’s pity I feel.”
“Rebekah!” Odd shot from his seat on the davenport. “Enough!” He turned to Sargent, turned just as quickly to Rose. “I beg your pardon. I don’t know what’s come over her.”
Rebekah stood unsteadily. “You’re lucky… .”
“Rebekah!” Odd repeated. He took her forcefully by the arm. “Don’t say another word.”
He walked her to the front door and took her coat from the rack. He put it over her shoulders and opened the door and pushed her outside. When he turned around Harald and his wife stood in the foyer, their faces full of sympathy.
Odd looked at the floor. “I wish there was something I could say.”
“Nonsense,” Rose said. “When a woman is with child she says things she doesn’t mean. It can be a very difficult time.”
“Odd,” Sargent said. He moved toward him, put his hands up, and shrugged. “Mother’s right. Rebekah is alone in a strange place. She must be anxious about the child. Go home with her. Read the Bible with her. Stand by her without malice or fear of your own. That is your duty now.”
Odd pulled his coat over his shoulders. “Thank you, Mister Sar
gent. I will take care of her.” To Sargent’s wife he said, “Missus Sargent, I apologize for Rebekah’s foolishness. Don’t matter how out of sorts she is, she oughtn’t behave that way. It’s me she pities, not you. I know that. Me and her own self. I’d explain if I could, but I can’t. Not even one of them Bible writers could explain it.”
Odd walked out with his head slung low. When he got to the end of the Sargents’ walkway he turned to look back at their home. From the warm light of the foyer he saw both of them silhouetted in the window, and he knew that no such scene would ever play in his life.
The wait for the trolley on a Sunday evening was intolerable. Odd and Rebekah stood under a grocer’s awning on Superior Street in an awful silence. Odd’s anger had given way to resignation while Rebekah’s sharpness turned dull. He could no more look in her direction than find words to express his sadness. By the time the streetcar emerged Rebekah was nearly sleeping on her feet. Odd took her by the arm and led her onboard.
They still hadn’t spoken as they entered their brownstone half an hour later. Odd would normally have taken her coat off, hung it up, and asked her if she’d like a drink or for him to draw her a bath. Instead he kicked his boots into the small foyer closet and walked to the sitting room window. He heard Rebekah remove her own boots and walk slowly to the davenport. Odd kept his back to her, kept his eyes fixed on the darkness.
“All those prayers and talk of the Bible,” she said. It was as though she expected Odd’s complicity, as though she hadn’t embarrassed him.
“I guess their decency undid you,” Odd said.
“Decency? Ha!”
“Because they believe in something bigger than themselves you write them off? I suppose all the lies you’ve lived, all the shit you ate, that’s better?”
“Don’t forget, darling, you’re right here with me, living the biggest lie of them all.”
He thought to say, But I want to change. I see our chance. Instead he only set his jaw.
Some time passed before Rebekah said, “I can’t understand how it’s come to this. For all my life I can’t.”
Odd said nothing. Since Christmas he’d said all there was to say. He’d said it all twice.
Some more time passed before she continued, “I thought of getting an abortion. I went all the way to his office before I lost my nerve. Now it’s too late.”
An automobile rounded the corner outside, its headlamps sweeping past their window, filling the room for a moment before leaving it in darkness again. He heard a match strike the box and Rebekah light a cigarette. He heard her exhale.