
The wedding was arranged for the middle of summer, four months before the baby was due, in a small country town in a large empty state. Now the moment had come and gone. No after-party, just a shot of whiskey for him and nothing for her.
The groom was a gentleman: He gently put the key into the truck’s ignition, gently sighed, gently shifted into drive. His name was Forrest Stimpson and as of this morning Anya was a Stimpson too. She supposed now he would gently drive them to their honeymoon. Everyone said camping was swell, cost-efficient, not to mention it suited Forrest, who worked at an outdoor sporting goods store. One reason Anya had accepted his proposal was because he had a steady job. But money was only as good as the things it bought—a hotel suite, for example.
Behind the truck, a crowd applauded. Anya had a hot throbbing headache. Her friends were lost to her, they would go drinking tonight and hardly notice she was gone. Her father stumbled out of the crowd toward her window. “Let me say goodbye again, Anya, let me say I love you. I want to tell you how proud I am. That’s all.” His face was clammy, his lips wet and shining, his breath stank of the inside of a flask.
She ignored the pitiful old man. Forrest said, “Thanks.”
Then they were off, Anya’s father jogging after them for a moment until he realized he’d spilled margarita on his borrowed shoes. Disgusting, he thought, I’m a disgusting fool. At least his Anya, his baby, had married a decent man. Nobody in the world could say Forrest wasn’t reliable, a good boy, the kind to always show up at work instead of drinking by the train tracks. Anya looked behind one last time and misinterpreted her father’s expression. She believed his anguish matched her own: she’d signed away her freedom and happiness forever.
The newlyweds left town with the radio off, something knocking around in the air conditioner. Forrest attempted a smile. He was a man who believed husbands should smile at wives, and that wives ought to smile back, though that was secondary. He believed in a great many things—the sanctity of marriage, the duty of a man to protect his family, and the wrongness of beliefs that contradicted his own. He believed the lump within Anya was life and life must be protected. It was his responsibility to do so. He believed, like Anya, that the marriage had cost him his happiness, but unlike her, he was resigned to his fate. Even relished it. He had made a mistake and now he would pay.
Meanwhile Anya eyed his clean-shaven jaw. He wasn’t ugly, that wasn’t the problem. He had a slim, angular face, was acceptably tall and strong. In contrast, pregnancy had ruined her body. Even Forrest hadn’t touched her since they’d conceived. What would she do if he tried tonight? She would have to accept it, but she doubted he’d try.
They overcame the mountains and on the descent Forrest shifted into neutral. To save gas, he explained, though Anya hadn’t asked. Vast plains of hay bales went by without protest. Forrest patted her knee. They passed a handful of trailer homes with tires on the roofs and brown bottles on the stoops. They came to a post office and an ice cream shoppe in a single brick building.
“How ’bout it?” Forrest was already slowing down.
“How about what?”
“Ice cream.”
“I’d be afraid I’d find a postage stamp in mine, or worse.”
Forrest had no conception of sarcasm and no use for humor. He said genuinely, “I’ve eaten it bunches of times, hunting seasons when I come through here. Never found a postage stamp.”
She got out of the car. This was her father’s fault. He’d encouraged the marriage, named it the practical decision. Better to marry for security than love, he said, and then after a few drinks, he’d wail out all his regrets, a breaking dam, eventually declaring that if he could go back in time he’d move to the other side of the state, anything to avoid Anya’s mother, because the pain of never knowing her would have been less than the pain of losing her.
Forrest asked for a single scoop of vanilla ice cream. Anya spitefully ordered a chocolate sundae with extra fudge. They sat on a bench outside, the highway sun-baked and shimmering in the tinder-like heat, and Forrest polished off his kiddie cup. Somewhere unseen, lively music whooped and skittered. Anya’s ice cream tasted like glass. She threw it out.
“Hey,” said Forrest.
“Hey, what?”
“I’m just saying there was a lot left. I don’t mind buying you ice cream, provided you eat it.”
“You’re not my boss, Forrest. Do you hear that music?” Not waiting for an answer, she walked behind the shoppe, where the land dipped into a wooded hollow and a small yet dense crowd had gathered around a stage. A band was playing bluegrass. The fiddle player’s dark eyes were magnets on Anya’s. She no longer thought of her parents or her husband or the unfairness of life. She thought instead that maybe kernels of fun could be found now and then. Forrest was thinking something similar. By unspoken agreement they went toward the stage. They stayed for only a few minutes, but that evening, balled up on opposite sides of the tent, they each fell asleep dreaming of music.
They camped for three unremarkable nights and drove back the way they’d come. They rented a basement that cost eight hundred a month, though Forrest could’ve afforded more, at least a place with a washing machine — considering he liked his work uniforms spotless and ironed. On returning home he also wanted a meal hot on the table. Anya fulfilled her duties out of boredom, shopping, chopping, mopping. Still she was confronted with too many hours in a day.
Sometimes while Anya fulfilled her tasks her father trailed her, in the next aisle at the grocery store, kitty-corner across from the laundromat. He recognized all that had seeped out of his daughter and regretted pushing her into marriage. He’d thought he could guide her past love; now he saw love’s absence stung even more than its presence. He understood he’d been fortunate to have loved with a love too deep to comprehend, a love that was agony even when his wife was alive. He’d deprived his daughter of that. He wouldn’t make the same mistake with his grandchild.
Forrest returned from his days invigorated—he’d done what was expected, he’d done it well. He dove into supper, and as the weeks passed he began to speak his mind, as the head of household should at the dinner table. Still in his work uniform, name tag pinned to his chest, a mouthful of beer swirling through his teeth, he’d say:
“The shipment that come in today, everything was broken right out of the trailer. Can you believe that?” And he’d be proud he wasn’t to blame.
Anya ate what she could, out of respect for the baby, and when she couldn’t stomach another bite Forrest would commandeer the scraps. Then he’d plant a rough chapped kiss on her cheek, grab another beer, and fall asleep on the couch watching baseball. The baby was born. Forrest kept going to work, and Anya saw to her chores, and now must nurse the baby, can’t forget the baby. Many times her father tried to see it. One October evening he appeared on the doorstep after Forrest had gone to sleep. Tonight he’d come prepared to demand his rights, steeling himself for the occasion with several tall boys and half a small bottle of Jager. He knocked until Anya finally answered, then said in the stilted way of those trying to disguise drunkenness:
“I was wondering if you and the little tike would join me for a stroll?”
Anya would have been pleased to offer up the child, but Forrest had forbidden allowing it into her father’s care.
“I deserve to spend time with the kid. My grandkid. Is this the kind of thing you want to teach it? Ungratefulness?”
His watery eyes and tone fell far short of his words. Chuckling, Anya shut the door. Her father appeared a few minutes later at the bar, and after he’d flushed a considerable amount of vitriol from his system, he cried out he loved his family, loved them so much, why couldn’t they love him back? Not long after that he lost his train of thought, and the bar grew syrupy with dull quiet.
Holidays marked the passage of time. At Christmas Anya found herself, along with the other wives, backed into a kitchen belonging to one of Forrest’s coworkers. Several wives looked more rugged than their husbands, fingernails gnawed to squares, jaws bursting with peach fuzz. Some worked in outdoor sporting goods, or as rafting tour guides, or park rangers—one bragged of work as a smokejumper. To Anya, these women embodied poor taste, and they stirred in her only pity, for them, their husbands, and especially for herself, having to mingle with such beasts.
On Memorial Day she and Forrest hosted. By the time the final guest departed they were drunk, exhausted, sick of everything imaginable as well as everything not. The baby was at Forrest’s mother and not on anyone’s mind. Forrest was so drunk he was considering taking Anya to bed. He thought he could do it. Earlier, he and a coworker had reached for the same beverage in the cooler, their hands had met and neither had drawn away, at least not for a moment, enough to leave Forrest with a clenched gut and sweaty armpits.
He said, “You remember the night we made love?”
Anya almost suffocated laughing. Forrest gritted his teeth, not knowing what he’d said funny, afraid he’d somehow exposed himself, a fear never far from mind. She remembered that night well enough. They’d been drunk, Forrest more so, barely able to stand, though between his legs he’d been hard as granite. She’d thought that meant he liked her. They’d fallen into a room together, and within minutes, it was over.
He said, “We ought to again. The way a man and wife should.”
“That’s all you ever think about, what a man and wife should do. Well, I got news for you Forrest. You ain’t no man.”
He lunged toward her, fist raised. Anya looked forward to the blow, leaned into it. But his fist just hung there, eventually sinking back to his pocket. By July there was rarely a word spoken between them. On the third of the month, Forrest joined Anya in the living room and shut off the TV.
She yawned and said, “What’s inspired this fit of passion?”
“The big boss is going to be at the barbecue tomorrow. I’d like you to behave.”
“That’s all I ever do.”
“I want you to dress proper and I want you to make something good to eat. Mac and cheese, baked beans, something like that. I think if I can impress him, he might take me up under his wing. I’ve got plenty of ideas about the business.”
“Good for you, Forrest.”
“Would it kill you to drop the attitude? Christ.”
The next day she had several cans of Whiteclaw as the beans simmered, enough to put her in an okay mood. Maybe her situation wasn’t so bad as all that. Maybe a husband and child didn’t diminish her charm, maybe they lent her a forbidden intrigue. By the time the beans were done she was buzzing—not exactly happy, but sensing happiness was inevitable. She swirled into the party, belle of the ball, like everything had been arranged for her. The lawn chairs, the charcoal smoke, the smell of spicy mustard, the sparrows on the fence. Even the golden dusky sunlight, the rotations of Earth and Sun, were in her service. Forrest peered at her, curious what could’ve inspired this change, dutifully wondering if she were cheating. Which of these sons of bitches was sleeping with his wife? Within seconds Forrest forgot his sense of ownership and went looking for his boss, who hadn’t arrived yet and reportedly might not show up at all. Before long Forrest stood by the grill, trying to chat with the grillmaster, a coworker of his who answered in monosyllables.
Anya drank, and howled with laughter, and looked down her nose at the older women. Whatever flirtations she provoked from their husbands quickly fizzled—one and all, the men eventually turned away, a bit red in the face, anxious to return to the comfort of their wives. Normalcy made Anya sick, it bored her enough to die. She was ready to go home, to walk if Forrest wasn’t ready. Then a man in crisp jeans and a Stetson hat appeared, as if waiting all this time to fall out of the sky. He had a face Anya had never seen before and that was enough to attract her. He came toward her, stood close to her, didn’t say a word, just sipped his beer with a smirk. His hands were clean and precise, with none of the erosion of a blue collar occupation. He reminded Anya of herself, in possession of something different, something that set them apart, together.
He stuck out a hand. “You must be Forrest’s wife. Wayne Hastings.”
“Oh? You’re the boss?”
“That would be my father, Wayne Hastings, Jr.” He grinned. “I’m Wayne Hastings the third.”
For some reason Anya was quite beside herself, she seemed to have swallowed her tongue. There was no sign of Forrest. She felt up to her neck in water about to boil. Wayne said a few more words, hardly audible over the roar in her ears, and then he dissolved into the shadows. Anya had another beverage, and went to the bathroom to check her face. On her way back she found Forrest in the dark living room, sitting in an armchair and scrolling on his phone. He didn’t look up.
Outside again, she marched up to Wayne Hastings III, who was holding court from an Adirondack chair. She said the first thing to cross her mind.
“Anybody for cornhole?”
A minute later she stood beside him, the son of the boss, heir to great fortunes, and listened to his instructions on how to throw beanbags. Anya fetched him beer after beer, and held his gaze whenever she could, and slid her fingers up his arm once or twice. He began to let loose. Their laughter swelled, louder, sharper, and he didn’t draw away when she grabbed his wrist after a successful toss. They watched the fireworks on their backs in the middle of the yard, even though everyone else had gone. Forrest was inside, in the same chair, asleep.
After the fireworks, Wayne hugged her quickly, as if ashamed, and left. She woke Forrest roughly, hating him for being her husband when really she ought to be married to a worldly man like Wayne.
“Did we leave the baby at my mom or dad’s?” said Forrest.
“I don’t remember. We’ll find out in the morning.”
“Mmm.” They drove home. Forrest flopped into bed and fell asleep. Anya stayed awake until the first gray rays of sun infiltrated the bedroom, and she felt deliciously drunken and warm, and she allowed herself to believe that God had a plan.
The next day Forrest was back at work. Anya collected the baby and tended to its needs. She showered and watched TV. She was still in her towel when the doorbell rang. It was Wayne.
“I came to apologize,” he said, standing just beyond the screen door. “To you and your husband. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable last night. If I did.”
“I can guarantee you, Forrest didn’t even notice.”
“Well. You did.”
“Take me out to lunch then, we’ll call it square.”
“Lunch? It’s three pm.”
“Alright. A drink.”
Forrest came home that afternoon and found the house empty except for the sobbing baby. He called Anya with fire in his voice, saying she weren’t no real mother, no real mother would leave her baby home, hungry and afraid, while she was out drinking, and don’t pretend like she wasn’t, he could hear it in her voice. Jesus, hadn’t she drunk enough yesterday to last at least a couple days?
She said, “You take care of the baby yourself, or take it over to your mom’s. It’s just one night.”
One night, and the next, and the next. Time passes. Anya drove in luxury cars, and rode purebred horses, and went on guided hunts through the Hastings private property. Forrest went to work. The baby stayed at his mother’s. Once or twice Anya’s father spotted Forrest crossing the distance between home and truck, or truck and work, uniform wrinkled. He always looked mad, not in the mood for talking, so Anya’s father kept his distance. Then the old drunk would pat his pockets, and sometimes he’d find liquor, and sometimes he wouldn’t.
Sam Feldman is a graduate of the MFA Fiction Program at Columbia University. His work has appeared in The Catamaran Reader, The Dillydoun Review, The Journal of Wild Culture, and elsewhere. He grew up in Wyoming.
Comments