Bent Road Read Free Page B

shouts through the truck’s open cab. Seeing Elaine, he studies her for a moment, tips his hat and stands. “Get those kids out here. Good God damn, I brought this thing for them.”
    “Ray brought the children a cow,” Ruth says. “You go on and see it. I’ll check on lunch and send the children out.”
    Celia steps aside to let Ruth pass. Across the drive, Reesa and Arthur follow Ray toward the trailer. Celia watches Ray, fearing that he’ll take another look at Elaine, but he doesn’t. As the three pass a small shed, which sets across the drive, Arthur stops and studies it, perhaps considering how to best fix the sagging roof or straighten the crooked walls. Reesa stops alongside him, stepping into his shadow. A thick patch of cordgrass grows around the small building and nearly swallows it up. The two of them stand silently for a moment, and then Reesa pats him on the back and, with both hands, gently pulls him away and they continue toward the trailer.
    Celia knew there would be secrets between Arthur and his mother, a history that they share and that Celia has had no part in. Surely, Reesa knows what kept Arthur away all these years, and as they pass by, neither of them looking at Celia, it is clear that the past is already flaring up.

    W hen everyone is clustered around the new cow and Ray gives a loud shout of laughter, Ruth walks toward the back door. She smells them before she sees them—a patch of devil’s claw growing between the garage and the back porch. The pink flowers, thriving in dry sandy soil, give off a nasty smell that is strong this year, stronger every year since Father died. He was dead and buried before Mother called to tell Arthur. “No need to trouble him so far away,” she had said. “It’s his own father,” Ruth said. “Let him make peace with his own father.”
    Mother had turned away, the black cotton dress she wore to the church service only lightly creased. “A funeral is no place for making peace,” she had said. “That time is dead and buried for both of them.”
    The flowers, whose feathery centers are sprinkled with red and purple freckles, have grown thicker this year and richer in color. The plant’s broad, heart-shaped leaves give off the bitter smell and pods hang like okra from the hairy stems. Eventually, the woody husks will split open and curl like claws that will grab onto passing animals who will spread the seeds.
    As a new bride, Ruth had picked the plump green pods, sliced them and sautéed them in buttery onions and garlic. They’ll bring a strong woman twins, her mother’s mother once said. Ruth cooked up these pods because, had Eve lived, she would have done the same. In the weeks and months following Eve’s death, everything Ruth did was because Eve would have done the same. Ruth began to visit Ray every week since Eve no longer could. When his laundry piled up in the hamper, she washed it and hung it to dry on the line. She swept his floors, scrubbed his bathroom tile and left casseroles in his icebox. Because Ray was a young man who needed a wife and because it was the thing Eve would have done, Ruth married him and began to wish for a baby. But soon enough her marriage aged a few years, and Ray realized that Ruth would never be the woman he had intended to marry. She would never be Eve. So she stopped cooking the pods and never looked back when she passed a patch of devil’s claw.
    Inside the kitchen, Ruth puts the pie into the refrigerator and lifts the lid on the cast-iron skillet where several pieces of Mother’s fried chicken sizzle and pop. A rich, salty smell fills the house. She turns down the flame, checks the timer on the sweet bread and slides a pot of chicken broth onto the stove. In the open window, the curtains hang motionless. Outside, everyone is still gathered around the cow that Ray bought cheap at the sale barn because no one wants an apple-assed cow. Patting the animal on its hind end and saying something that Ruth can’t