Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(10)

For the first three months of his life, Ethan Allen screamed longer and harder than did Susanna. It seemed he was always hungry or wet or at times crying for no apparent reason. Benjamin, despite his rough hands and lack of tolerance was the one who heated the bottles of formula and changed diapers. Once the baby had been fed and dried, Benjamin would drop him into his crib and hurry off to a bunch of soy beans that needed planting. “We’re never going to New York if you don’t get your ass out of bed and see to this baby,” he’d tell Susanna; then he’d beat it out the door before she let go of a string of profanities.

The first time she held the baby was one morning in late September. An early frost had covered the ground and Benjamin fearing the worst, rushed off without feeding the boy. Ethan Allen howled like a tomcat for three hours, until Susanna finally went to him. “You gonna keep squalling forever?” she said, lifting the baby into her arms. The crying stopped immediately. “Ornery little cuss. Hell bent on getting your way, ain’t you?” She grinned, “Just like your mama.” After that Susanna found she could tolerate the baby and at times even love him. “You got eyes like Mama,” she’d coo, then drop him into the crib and head off to the beauty parlor in town.

Benjamin had hoped having a baby would settle Susanna down, make her forget the nonsense about a singing career. Of course, it didn’t. “When are we gonna take that trip to New York?” she’d ask, “I’ve heard tell Radio City Music Hall is hiring some new Rockettes.” Once a thought like that got into her head, she’d work on her singing for days on end. Ethan Allen would be wanting his oatmeal, but she’d be dancing atop the coffee table in her panties and a lace brassiere.

“You gonna feed this kid?” Benjamin would ask, but she’d keep right on singing into the bowl of a wooden spoon and gyrating like there was an eggbeater caught inside of her. “Some kind of mother you are!” he’d growl, and turn off in disgust. Still, when the darkness of night rolled around he’d feel the same old fire of wanting in his belly. “Come over here,” he’d say, “Make Daddy happy.”

The first year, Benjamin held off going to New York by claiming she’d have to get back in shape if she was to attract a talent scout. “Those Rockettes don’t have an ounce of fat on them,” he told her. That whole summer Susanna ate nothing but spinach and lettuce. She’d spy a Hershey bar and a line of drool would drizzle down onto her chin; but she stuck to the spinach and lettuce. She grew to be so thin that her eyes sunk back into her face until they appeared to be sitting on a ledge of cheekbone; her arms became smaller around than those of Ethan Allen. Finally, when Susanna was too weak for lovemaking, Benjamin said he thought she’d taken the dieting a bit too far and suggested they postpone the trip till she got some meat back on her bones. The second year he insisted the boy was still too young to travel. The third year there was a problem with the crops; the fourth he had something else worrying his mind. Year after year he found an excuse to cancel the trip to New York, which was, of course, the reason for most of their arguments.

“I’m suffocating out here,” she’d wail, “I want more than just you and this kid.”

Benjamin would answer, “You got a fine house, a kid, and a man who loves you! What more does a woman need?” Before the evening was out she’d be hurling cook pots at him or screaming profanities that caught hold of the wind and traveled far beyond the neighboring farms—sometimes in another town that was miles down the road, men would swear the voice had been that of their wife who was washing dishes in the next room.

Ethan Allen grew up with such sounds taking root in the canals of his ears. Before his first birthday, he’d become so accustomed to the arguments that in the midst of a free-for-all, he could nap peacefully. He’d sit there in the floor and not twitch a muscle, when a piece of crockery sailed by and splattered against the wall. The first word the boy ever spoke was damn and the second was hungry. While he was still small enough to be suckling milk from a bottle, he’d toddle along behind Susanna saying, “Damn kid hungry, Mama.”

“See what you’ve done,” Benjamin would moan, “the kid thinks that’s his name.”

“Oh, and I suppose you’re not to fault!” she’d answer.

By the time the boy was three, he’d learned to fix his own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He’d also learned that when the breadbox was empty, he could drag a stepstool across the kitchen, scramble up onto the counter and reach into the cupboard for a box of dry cereal. “That’s my little man,” Susanna would say, and plant a kiss on his forehead as she headed off to town. At an age when most children are cautioned against playing with matches, Ethan Allen would light the stove and fry up an egg.

Susanna considered the boy’s ability to fend for himself an admirable trait. “You ought to be more like Ethan Allen,” she’d tell Benjamin, “you don’t see him counting on me for every little thing!”

“A woman’s supposed to do for her husband,” Benjamin would answer in return, which inevitably led to the screaming of insults back and forth. They’d fight about almost anything they found at hand—things as inconsequential as a missing button or unmade bed. The arguments most always ended with Benjamin leading her off to the bedroom and closing the door behind him. “Slip into that lacy brassiere,” he’d say and she’d do it. Once she could feel the heat of his breath curling into her ear, feel the hunger of his hands groping her body, Susanna would elicit yet another promise of a trip to New York.