Future Home of the Living God(40)

“Let him in.”

So Phil eases the door open and Eddy slides into the kitchen. I light a candle and there is Eddy’s fox face. He’s grinning, shy, glad to see me like he’s just paying a normal family visit.

“Hey!” He shakes Phil’s hand and nods, awkward and pleased with himself.

“You hungry?” I ask.

“Does the pope shit in the woods?”

As Phil turns away, I see that Eddy is sizing him up, deciding whether he’s going to be cool with Phil being the father of my baby. He’s watching everything that Phil does, eyes narrow, folding his arms and stroking the side of his face. This seems like an instinctively fatherly thing to do, but even though Eddy hasn’t earned the right, I’m not upset.

I make sure the blinds are all pulled, then sit Eddy down at the kitchen table.

Yesterday, Phil got hold of a case of Cup Noodles, and now I heat up six containers, two for each of us. The gas went out on the gas stove and we don’t know how to get more, but with the electricity still going, our microwave works. Soon we have hot noodles, and we sit around the candle, slowly spooning them into our mouths.

“Salty,” says Eddy. “And good.”

He goes on, “I had to ditch my car. Just one or two cars on the road. Didn’t want to stick out, draw attention to your house, so I left my car at an old buddy’s. Inside of his garage. I walked over here, about six miles.”

“Just to visit?”

“Plus other reasons. Hello from your mom and so on, and Little Mary, too.”

“She probably sent me a double-index-finger greeting, right?”

Eddy opens his eyes, nods a little, like You know her well. But only says, “On the contrary, she’s hoping you’ll clean her room again. Grandma sent this.”

It looks like the red finger-woven sash she had been working on, only I see she’s made it much wider and longer.

“It’s a baby carrier,” says Eddy. “She’s working on your cradle board, too. But this is for starters, I guess. And me, I’m here because I’ve been thinking of a plan to get you out, the way I helped Glen and Sera.”

“I’m assuming that you got them across the border.”

“Yeah, it worked out. I got hold of some buddies I know up there. We take a canoe out on the south side of Rainy, in the dark, not using a light, and we paddle it up across the border. Major workout. It’s pretty hard to patrol that whole area, and we’ve got some slick ways of disappearing behind those islands. Take lots of camping gear and you could last a month, still heading north. Sera and Glen will know where to pick you up. They’re getting to be old hands.”

“So they’re up there, safe, you’re positive.”

“Oh yeah.”

My whole body feels lighter, with relief, and you tumble to one side, jut an elbow out, kick me gently in the ribs. I put my hand over you and smile.

Eddy puts down his first cup with a little sigh, starts spooning up the second. “The water’s open year-round now, still it gets below freezing once in a while. We have to plan this pretty quick. I mean, you’ve got to get up there in the next couple of weeks. You’re due late December, I know that. We’ve got to get you settled in.”

“We should go tonight,” I say.

Eddy strokes his face, thinking again. “Maybe.”

“There’s lots more stuff we need to get together,” says Phil. “What about the cold-weather camping gear? I don’t want to find ourselves out there unprepared. I’ve got a place I can go for subzero sleeping bags.”

“It won’t really be that cold,” says Eddy.

Phil keeps arguing. “But I need more ammo for the guns. We’ve got to have some powdered food for emergencies, and a lot of stuff, my God, a lot of stuff.”

“We’ve got a good tent,” I tell him.

“You can pack that around with leaves, make a warm little house,” says Eddy.

“Hatchet, rope, fishing tackle.” Phil can’t stop.

“Well, you’ve got a good start,” says Eddy, “so get the stuff together by next week. I just came to see you, really, to get you going. I don’t have a date nailed down with my friends and the boat, but now I’ll get hold of them. Then I’ll come back down and get you. But it’s got to happen quick.”

“Now,” I say. “I think it would be better to just go now.”

Desperation chokes me. I want to walk from this house. I want to disappear. The edges of my dream are still with me, the endless running, the chase, the certainty of capture.

“Please, I know we’ll get caught here.”

“Take it easy,” says Phil, stroking my back.

“I won’t take it easy!”

But Phil convinces me that we just aren’t ready, and after a while I know it is no use arguing. They will not take me up north, out of here. Out of here. And I have this dark sense, then, a weight coming down. That feeling should have told me.



Plus this: While we are saying good-bye to Eddy, my computer switches on. All by itself. I haven’t touched it. Nobody has touched it. We whirl to it in surprise. It isn’t plugged in and I have let the battery die.

“Hello dear, this is Mother. How are you tonight? I am worried. We don’t seem to be communicating very well.”