Loving Chloe Read online

  “Louise?”

  “Our roving aide. Soon as things get settled, she’ll give you one afternoon a week. That’s all anybody gets. She’s a volunteer.”

  Mr. Walker and his merry band of educational recidivists were probably yukking it up but good, Hank thought, as he discovered that the school library consisted of a converted closet holding possibly fifty ancient books. Many were missing pages and a goodly portion of those lining the tiny bookshelf were Flagstaff Public library rejects, too shopworn to engender a love of reading or tell a complete story. “This is the library?”

  Audrey nodded. “Ganado could use a miracle where the books are concerned. Most of us trade back and forth, pool our lesson plans for copying.”

  “Can you ask around if anybody has a book on whales?”

  “Sure. Well, I’ve got to get back to my classroom.”

  “Thanks.”

  After Audrey left, Hank stared at the ratty collection. How many times had he blown out an impatient sigh at the rotting community-college classroom carpet? Taken for granted such classrooms would be there for him to enter the next day and the next, or that his mail slot in the administration building would once a month deliver his paycheck? Made cracks about the college’s obsolete library, all three thickly stocked floors? Room nine was perhaps twenty by twenty-five feet, a collection of recycled, out-of-date desks, the kind with heavy lids that needed to be opened and shut carefully, so they didn’t crush a child’s finger. That was okay; secondhand he could work with. True, his paycheck was much smaller than before, and still a month off, but until it arrived they’d survive. Even with these undeniable shortcomings, every face in room nine was filled with promise, and every one deserved a chance. He shut the door on the pathetic books and looked away. Showing his students the Pacific Ocean was six hundred miles beyond his grasp, today anyway.

  On his way across the campus, he stared down at the ground. The red dirt appeared rocky and untenable, good for nothing. He stooped to pick up a piece of native sandstone and brushed the dirt from its surface. Flat chunks of it lay everywhere. He felt the slight weight of the rock settle in his palm. Flicking a thumbnail against the surface, he saw the mark he’d made remain behind. He could volunteer for playground duty. Or hide out alone in his classroom watching mud puppies traverse the secondhand aquarium instead of living out their intended lives as five-for-a-dollar bait fish in some redneck’s Styrofoam cooler. There was no law against solitude. Audrey Chee offered friendship, and allies were important, but the idea that Ken Walker lay in wait for his students the following school year was a bitter pill he could not bring himself to swallow.

  He wanted to do something about those books, but the truth was, the plumbing bill had gone several hundred dollars higher than he’d expected, and with the payments on the still-unrented condo, by the time the baby arrived, they could be scraping soup bones. The hospital bill had to be paid, and things might get even tighter if the transmission on the Honda didn’t magically heal itself. Maybe he could spare a few dollars from his paycheck once a month. It wasn’t that he minded perusing the secondhand bookshops, but used books weren’t much of an improvement over the so-called library. He pocketed the stone and made his way back to room nine.

  The children had sneaked in and sat in their chairs, quietly waiting for him. He supposed he should have reminded them to follow his orders to line up outside and wait until he arrived. But the afternoon sun shone in the windows and one of the kids—he knew better than to ask who—had set one of the free lunch apples on his desk.

  “This looks like a very tasty apple,” Hank said, picking it up and polishing it on his shirt. “How do you say apple in Navajo?”

  “Bilasáana!” they hollered.

  He repeated the word and they giggled at his accent. “What a treat for me to enjoy tonight, with my supper. Thanks to whoever was thinking of me. Now, it’s a long ways until supper, and I believe we’ve got an aquarium to get going. But first I could use some help with naming these fish. Whoever would like to help me record the nominations for names, please raise your hand.”

  “Me!”

  “No, me!”

  “Don’t be thinking no stupid at’ééké girl names,” Chuey called out.

  Hank called on Malinda Pasqual and Arthur Yazzie. After Dog Johnson helped him sink the pondweed’s adventitious root bundle into the gravel, every child would have had a turn today at something. He slid his hand into his pants pocket and fingered the sandstone’s jagged edge. It was just an ordinary chunk of Arizona rock, one among thousands. Only the scratch from his thumbnail personalized it. He might carry it with him every day.

  4

  After awhile, all it took was one almost-accidental flick of her finger and the envelope opened, revealing two familiar monogrammed folded sheets of stationery:

  September 18

  Dearest Henry,

  Summer weather persists. Your father only needs a light sweater in the early hours when he begins his morning round of golf. My lab counts are due back sometime today. I expect they’ll be just fine. Siobhan O’Keefe, bless her soul, passed away this week. I ran into her daughter Jaime when I went out to retrieve the mail this afternoon, hoping there’d be a letter from you. What a lovely girl, Henry. Divorced, a darling little boy named Trevor. She urged me not to mourn, said that Siobhan wouldn’t have wanted any crying. The poor dear went in her sleep, which is, I suppose, the most blessed way, particularly for such an active person. Jaime’s thinking about adopting a dog from the shelter for her father. There are documented studies concerning pets helping seniors live longer and more productive lives. These same studies also indicate that the responsibility of caring for a pet helps one avoid depression. Last month’s Modern Maturity, from which you might recall I used to frequently clip articles I thought you’d find of interest, had quite a spread on it. The August issue, with the handsome couple hiking in the redwoods on the front cover, just in case you want to read it yourself. Oh—have they built a library in Cameron yet, or is the community still serviced by that bookmobile with the secondhand novels?

  Henry, sweetheart, your father and I are trying our best to understand. It’s not easy to believe this sudden change in your behavior is at your instigation alone. Everyone here at World of Freedom agrees, forty-three is entirely too young for a midlife crisis. Here you were doing so well at the college. I know your position being eliminated was a setback, but there are five other community colleges in the county. Surely one of them would have jumped at the chance to employ someone with your level of experience. When I think of your lovely condominium filled with renters it just makes me want to cry. The beautiful curtains we picked out together, the Berber carpet you took such good care of. It’s this girl at the heart of things, isn’t it?

  Dear, I’ve tried to see things from your perspective. A man your age has certain needs. You get lonely. But the world is full of deserving women, lovely, cultured single ladies who would be honored to take your name and make a home for you. You need a companion to attend cultural functions with you and who will afterwards be able to engage in lively discussion. Must it be this particular girl? A criminal record, barely educated, limited social skills—you hardly know her, let alone from what kind of stock she came. Considering her childhood circumstances, what is the likelihood of ever finding out?

  Now she’s pregnant. Has a physician verified this? You say you love her and intend to raise this baby. Loyalty is a noble trait and one of your best features, but try to remember, Henry, it cannot serve as a Band-Aid for life’s insurmountable dilemmas. Sometimes even well-meaning individuals resort to chicanery when faced with situations beyond their grasp.

  How I wish you could make me understand what is so terribly vital to your independence about cohabiting without benefit of clergy, living below one’s means in the middle of an Indian reservation when there is a perfectly good life waiting for you right here in California.

  Dr. just phoned with my test results. He says my p
latelets could be a “little more encouraging,” and he wants me to come back on Monday to repeat the CBC. Probably just a mix-up in the laboratory. With the kind of turnover in office help these days, these things happen. Your father has a tournament Monday, so he really needs the car. I can get a ride on the O.C.T.D. senior bus. It drops off just one block up a very short hill from the medical center. Mrs. O’Keefe and I used to ride there together. “Safety in numbers,” she always used to say. I guess I’ll have to get used to going by myself now. If I can’t get seat on the bus I can always telephone for a taxi.

  You are in my prayers, dearest.

  Love, Mother

  “You and all those fortunate few deserving of Iris Oliver’s prayers.” Chloe sighed, tucking the sheets of scented stationery back into the envelope she had so carefully pried open. She inhaled deeply, craving a cigarette she wasn’t allowed to have. “She might be making that up about the blood tests, Hannah,” she said aloud to her dog, who had ridden along in the truck for company while Chloe retrieved their mail. “Iris Oliver, master guilt queen of southern California, with special privileges in northern Arizona as well. And it is her queenly duty to pry this low-class barnacle and developing issue loose of her precious son even if she has to resort to medical blackmail, girl.” She bit her lip and studied the horizon, where a band of gray-blue sky hinted that summer’s days were numbered. “Then again, she could be out of remission,” she said, knowing if that were true, it would destroy Hank. There was no rule that said Iris had to like her, but Chloe had kind of hoped that by now they might be flirting with acceptance.

  Hannah cocked her head as if studying her mistress’s mood. Her wet brown eyes looked deep into Chloe’s. She took hold of the dog’s muzzle and gave it a good-natured shake. “We’ll have to make a special dinner for Hank tonight, won’t we?” she said. “And sprinkle it liberally with mother-guilt antivenin. Sounds like fried chicken to me. Deep-fried greasy served alongside hot biscuits with honey. What do you think, Bones Jones? Should we make chicken?”

  The white shepherd woofed her huge bark, then laid her head down on her paws. Chloe licked her fingertip and ran it across the inside flap of the envelope, where traces of the original glue remained. She held it fast for a few moments, then checked the seal. Satisfied, she wedged the letter in the middle of their bills and advertising flyers, giving them all a little crumple for good measure. Hank’s habit was to slit envelopes on the side—he had a major fear of paper cuts—though if it were up to her, she’d get out of the truck right then, rip it to pieces, and scatter them to the wind, let the prairie dogs use it for bedding.

  Iris’s letters came weekly, little pinpricks of guilt, yanks on one very old umbilical. Hank was a good man. At least his mother had the guts to admit that. He was honest and loyal, hardworking as they came, handsome, too. Much handsomer after four months in Cameron, Arizona, than his old, soft California self. Chloe had been here with him a month and seven days, a world record considering her past relationships. Since Fats’s death, she’d sworn off men, and then this professor had come along, lent her his shirt, which Hannah had logically shredded, and all that had led to the baby she carried. Some mornings she woke up to the dry northern Arizona air amazed at the facts.

  But Iris’s gut punches chewed on the edges of their happiness. Well-meaning individuals. Jesus H! Like she’d spent the last five months hawking her body on streetcorners and the baby was a sloppy tip, courtesy of a stranger. Some grandmother Iris was going to make. Forget the free baby-sitting. As for marriage, why anybody who disapproved that much of his girlfriend wanted her son married to her was truly confounding. Saying “I will” in front of a judge was none of that old busybody’s beeswax. They’d get around to that part just as soon as the idea didn’t make Chloe fall over in a dead faint. A husband who couldn’t be bothered to drive his wife to the oncologist because it might affect his handicap—now there was a convincing argument for wedlock.

  Chloe felt her heart tighten down a notch, the organ hold captive a thousand words she wanted to use to defend herself. But up against Iris, fighting wouldn’t do any good. What she really needed was to stop at the market, buy that chicken. Grab a box of Bisquick and try to find some vegetable she could stomach that would also please Hank who, these days, seemed to be an expert on the nutritional aspects of plant matter as pertaining to health of knocked-up cowgirls.

  After she collected Hank, Chloe’d get dinner started, cover the chicken in foil, let everything simmer. Then she imagined taking Hank by the hand, leading Iris’s bad boy to their bed, where she would—there was no other way to put this—do her unladylike best to fuck his lights out. That was the kind of letter her Hank deserved, not just on a Friday night after teaching third grade all week and voluntarily staying late three nights to help the slow students, but always, every single day of his life, for putting up with such a stinky mother.

  She fired up the Chevy Apache and signaled for a left onto Highway 89, toward Tuba City.

  Dear Mrs. Oliver, she mentally composed, a letter she would never mail, let alone set to paper:

  Women like me have known all our lives we could try from now until Judgment Day and never fit in with people like you. Hank and me have made a life here in your mother’s old cabin. Probably not much of one in your eyes: We shop secondhand stores, eat off unmatched dishes, refinish furniture, drive down to the Big Tree swap meet in Flagstaff every Sunday. Pretty low-class stuff. A half-grown colt munches alfalfa in the corral your son built by hand, like some equine ark, maybe believing if he did it right, it’d call out to me all the way in California and I’d come to him. We’re sending down roots, Iris, strong arms into the red rock and the dirt roads that run up to the cabin’s front door.

  Chloe’d never told him so, but early on, when she first met Hank and found out his parents were alive, she’d had this guarded dream she and Iris might one day become friends. Not mother-daughter close, but kick-off-your-boots friendly. How great that would have been—two women who loved the same man, sitting and talking. Under that beautiful silver hair and the fancy outfits, Chloe sensed Iris’s tough core. The woman had lost her daughter. Loss was loss, and Chloe knew how it was to live your life constantly making room for sorrow. In addition to Hank, they had that in common. They should have gotten along. But Iris’s letters made it clear that had never been her fantasy. Well, she could light candles, engineer dates for Hank with cultured divorcées, write letters that made her son go so quiet the silence raised Hannah’s hackles, and none of it would make any difference. Hate never worked. Despite having lost a daughter and developed cancer in her lifetime, Iris still hadn’t figured that one out.

  Once, when Chloe was eight years old, one of her foster fathers had come into her bedroom at night. He’s going to tuck the blanket in, she thought. He likes me. Wonder if this might be the family that decides to adopt me for good. In the semi-dark, she turned her face eagerly to his and learned just what hate could make a person capable of. Since that night she’d spent far too many of the last twenty-six years glimpsing that same vacant look in far too many faces. Maybe some people couldn’t help it. They’d been hurt so bad what they really needed was to be shown there was another way to get rid of the pain besides sticking their fingers inside little girls or judging grown-up sons by the women they fell in love with. Something large stood in the way of clear vision. All Chloe knew was that every time shadowy memories like that one crept up on her, she had to turn to face them blazing all the light she could muster. Good existed in everyone, even Iris Oliver, and Chloe tried to remain convinced there were reasonable explanations for the bad. She didn’t hold stock in vengeful gods, no matter how many stories Hank could tell about people who did. She’d been hurt and lonesome a lot of her life, starting from her own mother giving her away when she was just a baby on down to what happened last spring with the cops coming onto Hugh Nichols’s land and arresting her, but she didn’t really hate anybody. Hate kept you separate from people. Separate wa
s a terrible way to live your life, even if it sometimes looked easier on the surface.

  Here in Arizona all she needed to do was glance up at the San Francisco peaks to the south to understand how small she really was in the grand scheme of things. Those stone giants stood, good-hearted and patient. The volcanic activity was peaceful today, but three thousand square miles of cinder cones and lava flows underfoot were a reminder that maybe they weren’t finished. The Indians understood that; to them land was sacred. The Hopi believed the kachinas made the mountains their wintertime home, and that deep within the range lay the source of all rain clouds. According to the Navajo, Hank had told her, the peaks were one of the prime directions. Chloe thought maybe she could get behind religion that included mountains. Let Iris say whatever she damn well pleased. The baby spoke for them all. We’re Hank’s future, Iris. Me and this baby. We’re making a home here. Try to live with it. However you can manage it, make your peace.

  KTNN-AM 660 out of Window Rock, the Voice of the Navajo Nation, was playing doo-wop when Chloe drove into Ganado Elementary School’s parking lot. It was a Friday afternoon; most of the students had already gone home, anxious for a weekend of playing. Only three teenage boys remained, shooting hoops on the playground, whooping congratulations at each other whenever one managed to throw the ball into the raggedy net. Chloe let Hannah out of the truck and brushed white dog hairs from the seat. The letters tumbled to the middle of the seat, Iris’s stink bomb among them, just waiting to punch a hole in Hank’s mood. Summer sure as hell does persist, Chloe thought, looping a halter and lead rope over her shoulder as she turned her face to feel the last of the day’s sun warm her face. She laid her hand across her widening belly and tried to feel the baby under all those layers. He moved all the time now, as if her hands traveling over her skin represented sound; he was all ears to what she might be saying. She was getting used to the crawly feeling of him moving inside her, but not the idea of him someday coming out of her body for good. Being pregnant wasn’t all that bad. She got tired easily but her breasts, damn, were beautiful. Everywhere she went men smiled at her. Maybe she’d stay pregnant forever.