He remembered those nights, just sitting out there, in his truck, radio on low, drinking quarts of Bud, watching the house. He could tell by the lights what they were doing. Dinner, television on, television off, bedroom lights on, lights out. He ought to just go in there and catch them by surprise. In the act. Boy, that would bust Leon up, wouldn’t it? He wouldn’t, though. He knew he wouldn’t. Leon was a lot bigger and stronger, and probably sober, and he’d probably get the crap beat out of him. So he just sat there, fondling his cock, thinking about Leon gettin’ into that old retard, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. It made him crazy.
And Leon was always there. He went to the store in the mornings. Other than that, he never left the house. Moved right in, old Leon, moved right in with the old woman.
That’s why he hit the house on the hill. He’d counted on that wad of bills from the retard to help fix his truck, but on accounta Leon, it never came through. Leon. That prick. He’ll get his, that’s a fact.
He dragged on his cigarette until the smoke was hot, then flicked the butt into the corner. He’ll get his, and so will she. The familiar fantasy came up to him, the curly-gray-haired retard with her face in his crotch and his gun at her head. Oh, Jesus. He turned over and shoved his hand down the front of his jeans.
CHAPTER 12
Harry met Fern and the baby at the train when they returned from Chicago. They kissed briefly, then loaded the suitcase into the buckboard. People stopped on the street as they passed, waving, calling to her. Hiram McRae and his son Dave came out of the store to welcome them home. Fern smiled lovingly at all of them. Even though her trip to Chicago would forever remain an intense memory of magic and misery, she had missed Morgan during her absence.
She had stayed in Martha’s room and prayed the whole day while Martha was in surgery. When she knew the operation had been a success, she walked off nervous energy in the halls of the hospital, meeting people, talking to them, laying on her hands. Many were helped, but Fern learned a disturbing thing while she was there. It was like her fondest fantasy come true, of healing all those within a hospital, but it couldn’t be. There were those who would not be healed. She had denied it at first, fought it, wrestled with the bodies and illnesses of some of those people. But it was true, and she began to discern those people as she passed them, barely stopping to speak.
She worked, of course, on Martha, and the healing was rapid. Dr. Goldman insisted they stay the full three weeks, though, not understanding the assistance the baby was being given. He was worried about the grafts taking, and while Fern assured him she was fine, they stayed. And Fern worked with those who would have her.
And now they were home again.
As soon as they had driven through the small town, Harry asked about the baby.
“How did it go?”
“It went well. Doctor Goldman was very nice.”
“How much do we owe him?”
“He gave us a special price, Harry. We only owe him fifty dollars. I told him we’d pay him five dollars a month until it was all paid.”
“Is she normal?”
“Of course she’s normal. You’ll see when we get home.” Fern was anxious to end this journey. Get settled again.
At home, she put the baby in her crib, then unpacked her suitcase. Harry sat in a kitchen chair, patiently waiting to see what difference his investment had made in his daughter.
Eventually, Fern brought the baby to him. She lifted back the blanket and carefully removed the gauze patch.
“Doctor Goldman said to keep this on for another week or two. At least until there’s no chance for infection.” She lifted the baby up. Martha looked directly at Harry.
Revulsion welled inside him. Her eye sockets down to her cheeks were still discolored with the bruises of surgery. The stitches had been recently removed, leaving little red dots on either side of a black and red line all the way around the nose. But the nose. The nose itself was as large as Harry’s, looking like a beak. It took up most of her face, dwarfing the tiny features of a baby face, and making her appear cross-eyed. It extended from high between her eyes to her lip, and from cheek to cheek. The effect would have been humorous if it weren’t so tragic. He wanted to snatch it as he would a Halloween mask and rip it from her face.
Fern saw Harry turn pale. She’d had time to get used to the look of her daughter—this was infinitely preferable to the hole in the face—but then Harry hadn’t seen much of that either. She hurried to reassure him.
“They took skin from her hip, Harry, to make this. Look at how perfectly the nostrils are formed. They had to make it big, because it won’t grow like the rest of her will. She’ll grow into it, and those scars will fade away to nothing, and Harry,” she pleaded, “some day she’ll look normal.”
Harry look at his wife’s twisted face. She wanted so much for him to accept this baby as his own, to love her as a father should, but in his shock at seeing what the quack had done to that baby face, he misconstrued her pleading with him, thinking she was trying to convince herself as much as him.
“She ain’t never gonna look normal, Fern. She ain’t never gonna be normal. She’s a horror!” He shouted this right into the baby’s face, and she blinked and began to wail. “Shut it up,” he said as he stalked out the door.
Fern’s life dissolved in front of her eyes. She unbuttoned her dress and brought the babe to her breast, rocking back and forth in the straight chair. She couldn’t think. Fragments of crazy thoughts kept shooting through her mind. Take the baby and leave. Go visit Addie. Go home to her parents. Send the baby away. Renounce God. Give up healing, give up her life, give up Harry. Kill herself.
The shock of Harry’s reaction burned in the back of her throat, but her eyes were dry. She looked down at the little face sucking at her breast, and she loved this child. She loved this little girl with everything in her body and soul, and she loved Harry too.
She raised her eyes to the ceiling and prayed.
Martha grew as a normal child, but by the time she was three years old, it was plain that her nose would never look normal. As she grew, the scars widened, her growing cheeks spreading them apart. The uneven stitching on the left side caused uneven tension, and the nose began to draw to one side, the nostril collapsing in upon itself. And it began to hurt.
After numerous consultations, Doc Pearson finally removed the metal brace from inside the nose, figuring he couldn’t do any more harm, and the brace might be the cause of the pain the little girl felt at night. When the metal form was gone, the pain stopped, but the nose began to harden into a twisted shape.
The nose was not the only twisted thing in the Mannes household. Harry had become adamant about the child. She was not to speak to him for any reason whatsoever. She was to be in her room and silent whenever they had visitors. She was never to go to town, nor to school, nor to be anywhere where she might embarrass him. Fern tried, on many occasions, to argue with him, but there was no softness upon which she could make an impression. Harry had indeed retreated.
Fern hoped for another child, a Harry Junior, a boy Harry could wrestle with, but it was not to be. Their marital bed was a cold one, unresponsive, barren. Fern would rub his back, stroke his arms, his chest, but he would turn on his side, or his stomach, and make himself unavailable to her. She was shut out as totally and completely as their child.
One night, she even posed the question. The moon shone through the window of their bedroom. Fern turned on her side to face Harry. He began to turn away from her, when she caught his arm and turned him back. “Harry, let’s have another baby.”