Originally published in The Iowa Review<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Imogene McGee could barely see ten feet in front of her as she drove over the Clinch into Spilt Holler.\u00a0 Hurricane Dora was seeding trouble all up the Atlantic, from Cuba to their own little nook of Tennessee, but that was nothing compared to the storm she was about to visit on Doo:\u00a0 she was two months along.\u00a0 When his mother, the Memaw, invited her for Sunday refreshments at the house they shared, she knew full well that decisions would be made on both sides.\u00a0 And she’d finally get to meet Doo’s wife and see if the woman was even in the ring for the fight.\u00a0 She pulled up into the muddy yard\u2014they didn’t have a proper driveway\u2014and charged out with her\u00a0 gingham umbrella.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The Memaw arranged the folds of her pink-petaled dress on the piano bench and took a last long drag on her Salem.\u00a0 \u201cI have never performed in another language, so bear with me.\u00a0 Please enjoy this great French classic, \u2018Sur le Pont d\u2019Avignon.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Tessie had been coming over all week to help her grandmother with the words, but it didn\u2019t matter:\u00a0 on the Memaw\u2019s tongue, the pont had become a point, the tous en rond, twos in round.\u00a0 The girl glanced at her French teacher, Miss McGee; she was smiling, leaning forward from her place of honor on the Memaw\u2019s rocking chair, fiddling with the reddish hair that curled from her beret.\u00a0 Tessie was surprised the Memaw had gone to so much trouble just to impress her fifth-grade teacher.<\/p>\n This last six months, Imogene McGee had become one of the butcher shop’s best customers, the Memaw said, and wasn\u2019t that enough for a celebration?\u00a0 Miss McGee had explained to the class how fantastique it had been in Paris to buy fresh meat\u2014oxtails, lamb shanks, sausages of all shapes and sizes\u2014so Tessie told her how people came from all over to her Uncle Doo\u2019s shop behind his house.\u00a0 Miss McGee said, \u201cThat’s some drive,\u201d so Tessie was surprised when Uncle Doo said her teacher had stopped by.\u00a0 Ooh la la!\u00a0 he said.\u00a0 Now she drove the twenty miles in from town at least once a week.<\/p>\n Finally the Memaw stopped playing.\u00a0 Tessie, Doo and Miss McGee clapped loudly, but Aunt Sheba only nodded.\u00a0 Tessie had never seen her aunt up before five, when she came out of her room to fix Doo\u2019s supper.<\/p>\n \u201cI would curtsy,\u201d the Memaw said, \u201cbut my knee won\u2019t let me.\u00a0 Flew down the church steps last winter, Imogene, and can you believe?–my kneecap shattered in a hundred pieces, but not one blessed nick in my pantyhose.\u00a0 Mysterious ways, mysterious ways.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMagnifique, Mrs. Odom.\u00a0 The song was tres magnifique,\u201d said Imogene.<\/p>\n \u201cThis dancing on the bridge at Avignon, I can actually see it when I play:\u00a0 everybody together up there by the railings, looking out over the water, laughing, spinning around.\u00a0 Can you see it, Doo?\u201d the Memaw asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, Mama, a glimpse here and there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cDoo was in Operation Dragoon, they called it, down by Nice.\u00a0 August 15, 1944.\u00a0 Almost twenty years, but my heart pounds just like it was yesterday.\u00a0 Old Adolf said that was the worst day of his life.\u00a0 Now can you beat that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe doesn\u2019t want to hear about that stuff,\u201d Doo said.\u00a0 He\u2019d already told Imogene everything he could remember about his year in France; this was what they shared, two people who had travelled, who loved the finer things and knew where to find them, but didn\u2019t yet know how to get there.\u00a0 Here they were in a county where nobody even drank red wine, much less cooked with it, and she\u2019d come to him that first time asking for lean stew beef to made bouef bourgignon.\u00a0 He couldn’t believe how much she’d\u00a0 picked up in Paris in just a month; you’d think she’d lived there for years.\u00a0 The next time she came he had Edith Piaf playing on the child\u2019s turntable by the sausage grinder, \u201cJe Ne Regrette Rien,\u201d and the time after that when she asked what cuts of beef made good bouillon, he said, \u201cMay I?\u201d and touched the inside fleshy part of her upper arm to show her where the humeral is on the cow, and then he knelt and traced his finger down the back of her stockinged calf to find the aitchbone.\u00a0 \u201cAlso good for cutlets,\u201d he said, and that\u2019s all it took.\u00a0 He\u2019d used that teaching tool too many times on too many women, it was true, but this time he felt a genuine something.\u00a0 And he\u2019d never seen his mother take a shine to anybody like she did to Imogene; any time she saw her Dodge, she found an excuse to sidle down with some fool question.\u00a0 The phone rang, and Doo went to get it in the kitchen.<\/p>\n Imogene considered following him, but the time wasn’t right yet. \u201cHeavenly gateau, Mrs. Odom,\u201d she said, picking at the cake that was dry as July mud.\u00a0 \u201cDid you or your daughter-in-law make it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI made it all myself, the gateau,\u201d the Memaw said.\u00a0 \u201cI wanted that Julia Children\u2019s recipe-book that just come out, but we couldn\u2019t get over to Bristol to get it.\u00a0 Sheba can only cook meat.\u201d<\/p>\n Sheba\u2019s eyes were half-closed, and Imogene thought she must not have heard.\u00a0 She\u2019d never caught even a glimpse of Sheba Odom in the six months she\u2019d been jigging with her husband in the refrigerator room of his cinderblock shop.\u00a0 It was something else indeed to let go, surrounded by the partial carcasses, red and marbled like ghastly candy canes, hanging from hooks in the ceiling.\u00a0 She wondered if he\u2019d ever taken Sheba in that freezing room, if she\u2019d ever shivered there with pleasure and with cold, trying not to be marked with the slithering tracks of animal blood.\u00a0 She could see why Doo cheated; the woman could barely fit into the vinyl recliner, and was made up like the worst kind of beauty pageant contestant: a black beehive bun teased a good six inches above her bangs, false eyelashes and a shiny turquoise dress splitting the seam on one side.\u00a0 But the eyes, Imogene had to admit, when they were open, were spectacular–a deep near-violet, like the shock of discovering amethysts glowing on a bullfrog.\u00a0 Imogene heard Doo laughing, and he came out of the kitchen and sat back down on the ugly beige sofa that needed a new slipcover.\u00a0 She would start making a list for the redecorating\u2014the worn green plaid carpet had to go\u2014but first things first.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was your daddy in town,\u201d Doo told his niece, \u201cworried about his best girl in this weather.\u00a0 I told him the Clinch River always gets her back up like a woman, and then before you know it, just like a woman, the whole thing blows over.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t get it,\u201d said Tessie.\u00a0 Sometimes her uncle treated her like she was older than ten, which was great, but also confusing.<\/p>\n \u201cNor should you,\u201d he said, winking.\u00a0 \u201cBut you will, like it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe hasn\u2019t come up over the banks since, what? \u201955,\u201d the Memaw said, \u201cand we barely got our toes wet then.\u00a0 Like playing in a baby pool.\u00a0 How swolled up was the river when you\u00a0 come over, Imogene?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was rolling a couple of feet under the bridge, but not enough to make me nervous.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good thing we\u2019ve just got the hard rains from Dora without the hurricane winds.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be like we\u2019re in \u2018The Wizard of Oz,\u2019\u201d Tessie said.\u00a0 \u201cAnd I could be Dorothy!\u201d<\/p>\n Imogene too felt a little prick of excitement, but she knew she was being foolish.\u00a0 \u201cAs your teacher, I have to say that it\u2019s one thing for grownups to have an adventure, but when there are children involved, it\u2019s a whole different story.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAmen to that,\u201d said the Memaw.\u00a0 \u201cBaby Lily should be up from her nap now.\u00a0 Generally, I\u2019m the one who does all her bathing and dressing, but today was too hairy with the cake and the recital, so I let Sheba.\u201d\u00a0 She took up her steel-tipped cane and tapped her way down the hall.<\/p>\n Well.\u00a0 She was about to meet his child.\u00a0 Imogene offered up a little prayer, though since the highly regrettable ending to her relationship with the assistant pastor in Johnson City last year, she had lost much of her faith.\u00a0 As for the girl, Doo had told her she was slow, but Imogene reckoned if she was going to end up with a stepchild, better one too slow than too fast.\u00a0 The Memaw was another story, but if she wanted it to work out\u2014and she did\u2014she\u2019d crack that nut one way or another.\u00a0 She was twenty-eight and there had been enough that hadn\u2019t worked out:\u00a0 she\u2019d had her heart well and truly wrecked by one Hugh Joe Banner, who, like her, had been studying to teach French at Clinchfield Teachers\u2019 College.\u00a0 Two weeks before the wedding, he threw her over for a piece of river trash who hadn\u2019t even graduated high school. \u201cC\u2019est la guerre,\u201d he\u2019d said, and for that stupid clich\u00e9 she\u2019d bloodied his ear with the kitten heel of her satin wedding pump.\u00a0 At least the shoe had gotten some use.\u00a0 After that, there had come Orvil, the assistant pastor, and then an old friend of her uncle\u2019s, but Hugh Joe had been the last man who spoke French ’til she met Doolittle Odom.\u00a0 As far as she could tell, she loved him.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t the split-the-sky-open love she\u2019d felt for Hugh Joe, but damned if she wanted to risk that again, anyway.<\/p>\n Last week, when she\u2019d driven straight from the doctor\u2019s office to tell Doo but didn\u2019t, he\u2019d told her he was buying her a goose.\u00a0 A goose!\u00a0 He said he would stuff its gullet with corn boiled in lard until it grew the biggest, juiciest liver in the history of the world, and he would make foie gras for her.\u00a0 Foie gras.\u00a0 In Hunnicutt, Tennessee.\u00a0 Now that was love.\u00a0 She\u2019d found her almost bona fide European, or, as her daddy two towns away broke himself up saying, \u201cPeeing Urine.\u201d\u00a0 Peeing urine–that\u2019s what her family thought of her dreams, her City of Light– and not a one of ’em had wanted a French lesson, asking only could she cook a French omelet with fatback.\u00a0 But she and Doo, they’d pop corks and feed each other snails in a bistro one day, moon over paintings older than America, then have their usual on top of the Eiffel Tower, her silk scarf swirling in l’heure bleue.<\/p>\n With her cane in the crook of her elbow, the Memaw rolled Baby Lily into the middle of the room in the red chair that Doo had made out of a regular baby stroller and a wheelbarrow.\u00a0 They\u2019d had her in a wheelchair for a while, but the Memaw couldn\u2019t stand her looking handicapped like that.\u00a0 Tessie stole a glance at her teacher, who was trying on too big a smile.\u00a0 People didn\u2019t know how to act around Baby Lily, and she probably wouldn\u2019t either if she hadn\u2019t grown up with her.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t believe her cousin was fifteen now and wore a bra.<\/p>\n \u201cCome on over and meet Miss Lily,\u201d the Memaw said.\u00a0 She wiped a trail of drool from the girl\u2019s open mouth, and Imogene realized she was expected to kiss her.\u00a0 She managed a swipe on the cheek, and Baby Lily gurgled.\u00a0\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t believe the girl\u2019s size, the shock made worse by the rigid bows of her arms and legs.\u00a0 How Sheba got her into that absurd Peter Pan-collared blouse and poufy pink skirt she\u2019d never know.\u00a0 Her feet dangled over the edge of the terrible chair in lacy bobby socks and black patent Mary Janes.\u00a0 Why did they bother to put shoes on her?\u00a0 Oh, Lord, here she was thinking mean thoughts, but what if her baby turned out like that?\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t cry looking at her, but she couldn\u2019t laugh either.\u00a0 She tried not to stare but also made a point of not looking away.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you think of my little darling, Imogene?\u00a0 I got my two other grandbabies, but Tessie here will testify that Baby Lily is my favorite, since the day she was born and I seen how much she favored after me and Doo.\u00a0 You see it, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI do,\u201d said Imogene.\u00a0 She was thankful that she’d fortified herself with those two Pabst Blue Ribbons before driving over, because the same wide-set blue eyes that she found so beguiling, so soulful, on Doo were indeed the eyes of this child.\u00a0 \u201cShe has the prettiest hair.\u201d Like Doo\u2019s, shaggy hay, but in pigtails looped with tiny velveteen bows.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s my girl,\u201d Doo said.\u00a0 Imogene appeared a little peaked; he probably should\u2019ve given her more of the lowdown on Lily, but he hadn\u2019t been able to make himself.\u00a0 All he\u2019d said was, \u201cA sweet thing, the sweetest thing,\u201d and that was true, though of course he wasn\u2019t the one who changed her diapers.\u00a0 Now he realized he was going to have to say more to try to make it right.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI guess for all the regular stuff you might reckon we\u2019ve been robbed of with Lily, we have been spared the worry of what might happen to her out there in the world, if she\u2019s gonna turn out a good girl or a bad\u2019un.\u201d<\/p>\n The Memaw wiped at her eyes with the back of Baby Lily\u2019s bib.\u00a0 \u201cI have been overseeing here since the accident,\u201d she said.\u00a0 She looked down demurely.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know if you know, but the accident is why Baby is the way she is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMama,\u201d said Doo, but that\u2019s all he said.\u00a0 That\u2019s all he ever said.\u00a0 He stared at his hands, laced on his knee.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all right, Mrs. Odom, you don\u2019t need to tell me anything that might give you pain,\u201d Imogene said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut when you see something like this, a beautiful child brought down senseless, any reasonable human being stops and wonders why\u2014how can the Lord have done something so cruel to a baby with them big eyes the color of the river, and skin porcelain like her Memaw\u2019s–\u00a0 and so when there is an explanation, a most earthly explanation, it\u2019s only right to give it.\u00a0 It\u2019s a humane obligation to give it, to stop the awful wondering.\u00a0 Doo, isn\u2019t that fair?\u00a0 If by sharing the particulars, you might ease any anguish in this world–\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d\u00a0 Sheba didn\u2019t realize she\u2019d spoken aloud until she saw everybody staring, Doo most of all.\u00a0 Usually, it worked the opposite:\u00a0 she thought she\u2019d said something, but it turned out she\u2019d never opened her mouth.<\/p>\n The Memaw wagged her finger at her daughter-in-law, and the flesh hanging from her thin upper arm wobbled.\u00a0 \u201cSheba, on that day fourteen years ago, had a hankering for pantyhose, she had to have her some new pantyhose, so she put Baby Lily in the Rambler, and off she flew, over the–\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOver the bridge,\u201d Sheba interrupted her, and the Memaw fell silent.\u00a0 \u201cAnd she wasn\u2019t paying attention like she should\u2019ve been, she was thinking how her legs would look long and smart and gleaming in those new pantyhose when she danced with her husband at the fiddle round up Bart Camp, and then she slammed the rail on the right side, and there you have it.\u00a0 There you have . . . this.\u00a0 C\u2019est la vie.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t know any French,\u201d the Memaw whispered savagely.\u00a0 \u201cStop making things up.\u201d<\/p>\n Sheba was fully awake now.\u00a0 \u201c’C’est la vie,\u2019 say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell.’\u00a0 Chuck Berry\u2019s new single.”<\/p>\n \u201cSo that means \u2018you never can tell\u2019?\u201d Tessie asked.\u00a0 She liked to understand what everything meant.\u00a0 She\u2019d heard the pantyhose story a hundred times; the Memaw brought it up at every family gathering, and even at church.\u00a0 But Baby Lily had been a retard before the accident, and everybody knew it.\u00a0 Almost a year old, and she could barely lift her head, much less crawl.\u00a0 But the Memaw swore that she had never, ever been the least bit slow until that day.\u00a0 Tessie thought it was sad for the Memaw that she had to keep telling it wrong, but she didn\u2019t understand why Aunt Sheba didn\u2019t defend herself.\u00a0 This time she\u2019d even joined in.<\/p>\n \u201cChuck Berry, my fanny!\u00a0 Is it that low hairdresser girl bringing nigra songs into this house?\u201d the Memaw asked Sheba.<\/p>\n \u201cYep.\u00a0 When you bang on the door and we turn it up, that\u2019s Chuck Berry.\u201d\u00a0 Since Sheba\u2019d stopped leaving the house a few years back, Lavelle, her last friend, came once a week to bouffant her hair, and to bring her magazines.\u00a0 Every December for the last five years, Lavelle had taken her to J.P. King\u2019s in Bristol to buy presents and underwear, and on those trips she had felt lost and exotic, like a blind hippopotamus dropped into a Christmas pageant.<\/p>\n \u201cMama, you love Nat King Cole, and he\u2019s black,\u201d Doo reminded her.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a whole different kind of bird, mister, and you know it. What do you think of that Chuck Berry, Imogene?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think Nat King Cole is much smoother.\u00a0 He has a certain je ne sais quoi.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d the Memaw asked.<\/p>\n \u201cIt means\u2026.it means \u2018I don\u2019t know exactly what.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut you\u2019re a French teacher!\u00a0 You got to know what it means,\u201d the Memaw said, her blued pincurls shaking like sprays of tiny carnations.<\/p>\n \u201cMama, it actually means \u2018I don\u2019t know what,\u2019\u201d Doo said.\u00a0 \u201cSome people just have that special something you can\u2019t put your finger on.\u201d\u00a0 Like Imogene sitting there with her perfect posture in her pale lemon shift, her imperfect size nine feet tucked beneath her.<\/p>\n \u201cExactement,\u201d Imogene said.<\/p>\n \u201cJe ne sais quoi.\u201d\u00a0 The Memaw rolled the words on her tongue, and Tessie repeated them.\u00a0 \u201cYes, yes, I can see what you mean.\u00a0 Mr. King Cole does have that special something.\u00a0 And here I was always wondering at myself how I could ever be so taken with a nigra.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, in France they love the Negroes,\u201d Imogene said.\u00a0 \u201cThey just eat \u2018em up, like chocolate.\u00a0 Especially the jazz types.\u201d<\/p>\n The Memaw shook her head in amazement.\u00a0 \u201cYour sweet little brain knows so many things, so many, many things.\u00a0 It seems near impossible you could be that pretty and know so many things, don\u2019t it, Doo?\u00a0 We are all getting an education right here in this very room.\u201d She paused.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAnd you know who else has a big je ne sais quoi?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou?\u201d\u00a0 Tessie asked.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, honey, you flatter me. \u00a0It\u2019s our own Baby Lily, don\u2019t you know?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWatch this,\u201d the Memaw said, and she knelt, with difficulty, beside Baby Lily\u2019s chair.\u00a0 She waved her hand above the child\u2019s head–\u201cLooky up here\u201d–and then blew a smoke ring.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Baby Lily\u2019s eyes followed it for a second as it drifted toward the ceiling.\u00a0 \u201cNow what do you think of that?\u00a0 Even something like a smoke ring, she\u2019s on it right away, som\u2019at that disappears into thin air, she nails it.\u00a0 Hmm, Imogene?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy, yes,\u201d Imogene said.\u00a0\u00a0 She listened to the rain thrumming on the roof, slapping puddles in the yard.\u00a0 \u201cThat Dora\u2019s turning out to be some mischief-maker.\u201d<\/p>\n The Memaw waved her hand.\u00a0 \u201cOh, Dora, Flora, Snorra.\u00a0 I\u2019m sick of hearing about her already.\u00a0 This ain\u2019t no Florida.\u00a0 But even if it was, we leave ourselves in God\u2019s hands.\u00a0 Which here church do you go to, Imogene?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFirst Baptist,\u201d Imogene said, though she\u2019d only been once since she came to town, to see if there were any decent men.\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 All bald heads and horn rims and wrinkled shirts, nothing like Doo\u2019s lean muscles moving beneath his bloody apron.\u00a0 Hunnicutt only had five thousand people, but they were divided among its fourteen churches, all Protestant, some so small they could fit only a handful of pews, or in the case of Mount Olive Evangelical Freemasons, a dozen folding chairs and a picnic table.\u00a0 She should know; she\u2019d been to all of them.<\/p>\n The Memaw stroked her chin, where to her horror she grazed a coarse hair.\u00a0 All those manifold preparations, and she\u2019d forgot to pluck!\u00a0 She kept her hand cupped to her chin, declining to say, for once, exactly what she thought of Baptists.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t surprised, though; she prided herself on being able to read people\u2019s practice with a quick study.\u00a0 The human heart revealed itself to her immediately.\u00a0 This girl had a liberal streak about three feet too wide, but that could be worked on, if all the rest of her fit through the door.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re Church of God of Prophecy ourselves, but I\u2019m sure Doo told you that already.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, of course,\u201d Imogene said.\u00a0 Damn, they were Pentecostal; at the least, she should\u2019ve hedged her bets with Freewill Baptist.\u00a0 Thank God she hadn\u2019t picked Methodist or Presbyterian.<\/p>\n \u201cSheba stopped worshiping way back, as you might imagine.\u00a0 But me and Doo load Baby up and take her every Sunday of the world so she can hear the sermon.\u00a0 Just being in the presence of Christ, she might be alit with a miracle one day, you never know.\u201d<\/p>\n Doo got up.\u00a0 \u201cChecking the radio,\u201d he said, and walked into the kitchen.<\/p>\n Sheba watched Imogene smile and bobble.\u00a0 She knew what she was thinking, and trying not to think: vegetable, vegetable, vegetable, the same word that had clanged in her brain when Dr. Pinkerton had told her that her baby girl would probably never walk or talk or crawl, because the IUD that Sheba had had him put in, unbeknownst to her husband, not only hadn\u2019t worked, but had stayed with Lily in the womb.\u00a0 She had been born with the inch-long copper T clenched in her fist.\u00a0 You\u2019re lucky she even made it with that thing in there with her, the doctor said. Today when she dressed Lily, she saw that the girl\u2019s nipples had grown big as silver dollars.\u00a0 What did she need nipples for?<\/p>\n After everything, she couldn\u2019t begrudge Doo his females, but this was the first one the Memaw had taken an interest in.\u00a0 He seemed opened up lately; she could feel him staring at her late at night across the divide that separated their twin beds, and last week he\u2019d complimented her pan gravy. Doo always said he could cut a pork chop better than any man, and she could cook it better than any woman.\u00a0 Meat had been the thing they had in common.\u00a0 She hadn\u2019t set foot in the shop for years, but she lay in bed and pictured him there, the way he threw his whole weight into separating a hog\u2019s ribs, the unfiltered Camel clamped between his teeth.\u00a0 The girl was pretty enough in a skinny, nervous kind of way, like a greyhound, but she had the thin, stretched skin of a natural redhead that was going to start showing age by thirty.\u00a0 Wonder did she take it from behind like he needed sometimes.<\/p>\n The last time Sheba\u2019d ever had her husband inside her, she\u2019d been on top.\u00a0 He\u2019d grabbed for the chain with the copper T swinging between her heavy breasts, still full of milk for Lily, who wouldn\u2019t nurse.\u00a0 She\u2019d stopped moving, stopped riding him, sat motionless with her hand clasped around his.\u00a0 \u201cI can\u2019t do this when you make me think of that,\u201d he\u2019d said to her in the dark. \u201cTake it off.\u00a0 Get rid of it.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cNo,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cCan\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0 She knew everybody thought he had his women because she got fat, or that she got fat because he had his women, but the truth, like most truths in a marriage, was more complicated.\u00a0 In her mind, he\u2019d never really played her false.\u00a0 He\u2019d kept the secret–against all odds, and even from the Memaw–of why his daughter was the way she was, and that was worth more than anything he\u2019d ever given Sheba, and much more than he\u2019d taken away.<\/p>\n Doo came back in and lit a cigarette, squinting his eyes against the smoke.\u00a0 \u201cRadio says wind\u2019s coming up in Scott County, and we\u2019ll be getting some.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen harder rain, though, many a day.\u201d<\/p>\n Imogene turned and looked out the strip of window not covered by the cheap cotton curtains.\u00a0 Last week Doo had led her down to the copse of red oak by the river bottom and bent her over.\u00a0 She\u2019d braced herself against a tree, the April wind lashing her bare buttocks, and studied the one-story white clapboard house in which her future waited.\u00a0 She hadn\u2019t realized until then how small it was in the shadow of the mountain, and that there was nothing visible for miles but land and sky.<\/p>\n Heat, not cold, seemed to swell from the window, and Imogene felt the cake about to come up.\u00a0 She managed \u201cExcuse me,\u201d and forced herself to walk, not run, into the narrow hall.\u00a0 She slipped into the bathroom and turned on the faucet to cover the sound of her retching.\u00a0\u00a0 She didn\u2019t know if it was the baby or the nerves or the goddamn cake, dry as dust, stuck in her craw.\u00a0\u00a0 She washed her hands and threw water on her face, thinking of all the times she\u2019d torn off strips of brown butcher paper to wipe between her legs in the freezing cement room not a hundred yards from here.\u00a0 When she walked back into the parlor, the Memaw was sitting on the edge of the piano bench, tinkling at the keys.\u00a0 She looked Imogene up and down slowly.<\/p>\n \u201cI got to play Imogene my last song,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t keep her here all night when it might get bad,\u201d Doo said.\u00a0 Imogene wasn\u2019t looking too fresh.\u00a0 \u201cShe\u2019s got to get back into town, and so does Tessie.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not even dark yet.\u00a0 The rain\u2019s just made it look late.\u201d\u00a0 The Memaw turned down her mouth, and swung her cane back and forth.\u00a0 \u201cGive an old lady five minutes.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been practicing all week.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that right, Tessie?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, ma\u2019am,\u201d said Tessie, but she was confused.\u00a0 The only other song the Memaw had tried was \u201cFrere Jacques,\u201d and she\u2019d said she\u2019d never play that, it was too stupid–what kind of monkey\u2019s uncle would write a song about two boys sleeping?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d love to hear it, Mrs. Odom,\u201c Imogene said.\u00a0 She nodded at Doo.\u00a0 It would be okay.<\/p>\n \u201cAll right, Mama, but remember, it\u2019s not \u2018The Lawrence Welk Show,\u2019\u201d Doo said.<\/p>\n The Memaw arranged herself with a great flourish.\u00a0 \u201cThis one I think everybody knows, so join in.\u201d\u00a0 She started on \u201cFrere Jacques,\u201d but nobody sang along.\u00a0 \u201cCome on now,\u201d the Memaw said.\u00a0 Dormez vous, dormez vous?\u00a0 Morning bells are ringing, morning bells are–\u201d<\/p>\n They all heard it at the same time, a low, sorrowful roar.\u00a0 The Memaw stopped playing, her hands suspended over the keys, her mouth open.\u00a0 Tessie ran to the window, and Doo to the door.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is it?\u201d Imogene asked, afraid to look.\u00a0 Doo came back in and closed the door, and Imogene ran to him, stopped just short of touching him. \u201cYou said it wouldn\u2019t flood.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe river didn\u2019t flood,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThe creek\u2019s broke.\u00a0 It\u2019s come down the mountain and it\u2019s filling up the road.\u00a0 It\u2019s gonna join the river any minute.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow could something happen that fast?\u201d Tessie asked.<\/p>\n \u201cFlashflood,\u201d said the Memaw.\u00a0 \u201cGo try the phone, try your Daddy.\u201d\u00a0 Tessie ran into the kitchen.<\/p>\n \u201cThe creek never come down before,\u201d Sheba said.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s an original thing.\u201d<\/p>\n The girl stood in the doorway.\u00a0 \u201cThe phone\u2019s not working,\u201d she said, and started to cry.<\/p>\n \u201cCome here, honey.\u201d\u00a0 The Memaw took Tessie in her arms.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s gonna be okay. We got two cars.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d said Doo.\u00a0 \u201cThe bridge\u2019ll be out before we can get to it.\u00a0 And the engines would stall, anyway.\u00a0 I figure we\u2019ve got a couple of hours before we\u2019ll have to get on the roof.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t stay here!\u201d the Memaw was yelling, and that scared Tessie more. \u201cWhat are you gonna do?\u00a0 Drag Baby up there, and me with my bum leg clambering around, while we\u2019re waiting for who to come with what out here in the middle of nowhere?\u00a0 Think, Doo–how would anybody out town even know?\u00a0 We got that little flatbottom fishing boat.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s meant to hold four.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe got two children, and us four.\u00a0 I, for one, am not waiting here for the mountain to fall on me.\u00a0 We only got to follow the river a mile or two to where it bends up to high ground at Miller\u2019s Holler.\u00a0 Shame on you, son!\u00a0 You pray for courage, Doolittle Odom, and you fix us in that boat.\u00a0 God gave us a boat.\u201d<\/p>\n Doo stood in the middle of the room, his eyes almost closed.\u00a0 Imogene thought he really might be praying.\u00a0 She should too.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t want to die in this house.<\/p>\n The Memaw banged down hard on the piano keys with both fists, and Baby Lily squealed and flapped her hands.\u00a0 \u201cWhat are you waiting for\u2014Jehovah to cast down a ladder?\u201d<\/p>\n Doo looked at her.\u00a0 \u201cNo,\u201d he said, and then finally:\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll get the boat.\u00a0 It\u2019s still warm out, but the rain\u2019ll get cold, so wrap everybody good.\u201d\u00a0 He turned at the door.\u00a0 \u201cGet up, Sheba,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n With a grunt, Sheba pushed herself out of the chair, and smiled at all of them.<\/p>\n The Memaw shook her head.\u00a0 \u201cShe smiles.\u201d<\/p>\n Imogene tried to step out into the yard after Doo, but he pushed her back.\u00a0 He saw the deep half-moons of sweat staining her yellow dress, and wanted nothing more than to stop the whole world then and there, tell the flood and God and family all to go to hell, just so he could hold her down and lick the salt from her armpits.\u00a0 .<\/p>\n Imogene thought she’d vomit again if she stayed in that house one more minute, so she\u00a0 waited on the edge of the porch.\u00a0 She looked out astonished at the way the world had changed in an instant, and caught them unawares:\u00a0 the sky was both light and dark as the rain poured from it in seemingly solid sheets, and jagged streaks of sunlight shone on the glossy, rolling surface of what had been the road, thirty yards from the house.\u00a0 The patch between here and the shop made her think of the beach when high tide came in.\u00a0 She watched Doo trying to run through the water as it sucked at his calves, and it hit her with a sharp pain that there was no room in their garage for her car, her spiffy year-old little Dodge hardtop, not a mark on it.\u00a0 Who knows how tomorrow might find it.\u00a0 She\u2019d rather think about the car than the baby; she couldn\u2019t start on that.\u00a0 But worst of all, she might never see Paris.\u00a0 All the lies she’d told had runged the ladder she’d intended to climb, and here it was splintering before her eyes in God’s punishing deluge.<\/p>\n Doo wrangled the boat sideways out of the shop, and then lifted it over his head, trying to balance himself in the middle.\u00a0 He buckled under the weight, and she wondered why he didn\u2019t just float it across the yard.\u00a0 Here he came, the aluminum prow pointed straight at her, and she stepped out to help him, whether he wanted it or not.\u00a0 The brute force of the surge almost knocked her off her feet, but she was surprised that it wasn\u2019t really that cold, it was closer to room temperature.\u00a0 She reached under the hull with both hands, and together they lifted it off his shoulders.<\/p>\n The Memaw and Sheba stood at the door, Baby Lily still in her chair, wrapped in blankets.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess there\u2019s no point in bringing cigarettes, is there?\u201d Sheba said.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s load this thing,\u201d said the Memaw.\u00a0 Imogene braced the boat against the porch as Doo helped his mother in, then Sheba beside her on the back seat.\u00a0 The boat swayed with Sheba\u2019s weight.\u00a0 Doo struggled to get Lily into his mother\u2019s arms, but she jerked and writhed, her limbs rigid.\u00a0 They wouldn\u2019t be able to hold her, but he managed to wedge her safely into the space between the seats. \u201cTessie, you squeeze between Baby\u2019s legs.\u00a0 I got the meat van tarp to put over you.\u201d<\/p>\n Tessie wasn\u2019t that frightened any more, but she hated getting sopped.\u00a0 Miss McGee\u00a0 looked pitiful, shivering with her dress stuck to her, wet hair corkscrewing crazily from under her beret.\u00a0 Tessie gave her the flannel blanket, amazed that she was in a position to comfort her teacher. \u201cUncle Doo’s really good in a boat,\u201d she said into her ear.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve been fishing with him up Bart Camp a hundred times.\u201d\u00a0 Miss McGee patted Tessie on the arm.<\/p>\n \u201cImogene, front,\u201d Doo said.\u00a0 \u201cThe outboard\u2019s just for trolling fish, so we\u2019re taking the oars.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to have to lean over you to row.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can row.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t know the river.\u201d\u00a0 The cross currents of the Clinch and the low rushing wall that had been Burns Creek formed a T, and the greatest danger lay in the spot where they met.\u00a0 Doo planned to steer their entry about halfway down the base of the T\u2014the creek\u2014hoping to hit the river smoothly enough to ride it up to the holler.\u00a0 He started the motor, which he knew wouldn\u2019t last long, and guided the boat down the yard as far as he could, and then jumped in.\u00a0 They watched clods of dirt and mountain mud swirl through the torrent.\u00a0 Tree limbs, and then a whole tree, a sapling birch, floated by.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s the bridge?\u201d Tessie shouted, but no one answered.\u00a0 They shrunk beneath the stinking meat tarp, inhaling the metallic tang of blood.\u00a0 The branches of the red oaks on the bank appeared to be waving: \u00a0hello, goodbye.\u00a0 Hello.\u00a0 Goodbye.<\/p>\n For maybe fifteen minutes–who can tell time in moments like these?–Doo rowed them toward safety, but when they struck the roiling crossbar of the T, the boat pitched, and sank so low with its extra weight that small waves lapped over the sides.\u00a0 Doo and Imogene gathered the ends of the tarp to scoop water from the bottom of the boat, but between the lashing downpour and the flood water they were taking on, they were losing.<\/p>\n Sheba and the Memaw cradled Baby Lily between them, half on the floor, half on the seat.\u00a0 The Memaw pushed the soaked blankets away from the girl\u2019s face.\u00a0 She bucked, and Tessie caught her legs.\u00a0 Sheba cupped her hands around Baby Lily\u2019s nose and mouth to help her breathe.<\/p>\n The old woman watched her daughter-in-law.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ll sink us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Sheba stared into the Memaw’s eyes, and a moment of complete understanding, their first, passed between them.\u00a0 It was probably true.\u00a0 It was true.\u00a0 Maybe it had always been true.\u00a0 Her fingers left her daughter\u2019s face, and she rose slowly, carefully, her long blue-black hair unrolling over her shoulders.\u00a0 Her violet eyes were clear and calm, and Doo, looking up at her, thought only, how beautiful.\u00a0 And then she went over.<\/p>\n Water rushed in. The boat tilted crazily in her wake, then righted.\u00a0 They were screaming, clawing at each other, trying to hold onto the children.\u00a0 Doo steadied himself, his hands on the edge of the hull.\u00a0 The Memaw shook her head\u2014No!–and reached for her son, but without a word, he dove in after his wife.<\/p>\n \u201cDoo!\u201d\u00a0 the Memaw screamed.\u00a0 \u201cDoo!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKeep her down!\u201d Imogene shouted to Tessie, and the girl covered her grandmother and Baby Lily with her body.\u00a0 Imogene clutched the oar Doo had thrown into her lap.\u00a0 He hadn\u2019t even looked at her.\u00a0 She started to row.<\/p>\n Tessie punched her shoulder and pointed–was that Sheba or a birds nest?–but the\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 eddy twirled them in the opposite direction.\u00a0 Twenty yards downstream, they saw Doo reach Sheba, his arms thrashing, but she floated away from him, folding herself into the current, the shiny turquoise of her dress gleaming against the black water.<\/p>\n \u201cGoddamn you, Doo,\u201d the Memaw cried, rocking back and forth.\u00a0 \u201cLord Jesus, have mercy!\u201d<\/p>\n Tessie crouched at the stern, scanning the river in the last light, but when the boat rounded the next bend, she couldn\u2019t see Doo or Sheba.\u00a0 Maybe it was too dark.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe they\u2019d find them up ahead, on the high ground at Miller\u2019s Holler.\u00a0 Imogene lay down the oars and hoisted Baby Lily into the front seat, pressing the child against her shoulder.\u00a0 Baby Lily waved her fists at the sky and laughed without stopping.<\/p>\n The Awful Wondering Originally published in The Iowa Review Imogene McGee could barely see ten feet in front of her as she drove over the Clinch into Spilt Holler.\u00a0 Hurricane Dora was seeding trouble all up the Atlantic, from Cuba to their own little nook of Tennessee, but that was nothing compared to the storm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2391,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1520"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2391"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1522,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1520\/revisions\/1522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Kimberly Elkins’s debut novel, What is Visible<\/em> (Grand Central), was picked as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, won the 2014 Langum Prize for Historical Fiction, and was chosen for several Best of 2014 lists. Kimberly’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in\u00a0The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, The Chicago Tribune, Glamour, Slice, The Los Angeles Review of Books<\/i>, and\u00a0Best New American Voices<\/i>, among others. She was a Finalist for the National Magazine Award, and has also won a New York Moth Slam.\u00a0www.kimberlyelkins.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"