Page 12 of Counting Backwards

With those words, my lingering anger began to melt away. Vance had gone charging ahead, intent as usual on fixing any situation that caused me distress. That kind of care from him was a hallmark of our relationship. Really, it was part of what had made me fall in love with him in the first place. Even the night we met, when Vance had shown up to a New Year’s party full of NYU law students, he’d made it a priority to look out for me. It had been a crazy night, and somewhere amid all the lemon drop shots and Lady Gaga anthems blaring through my friend Carly’s apartment, I’d managed to lose a shoe. There was no way I’d have been able to get a cab home on New Year’s, and I couldn’t walk all the way from Gramercy Park to my building downtown with only one shoe. After making a few jokes about Cinderella, Vance had turnedthat apartment upside down, insisting that I continue enjoying the party while he searched. He hadn’t given up until forty-five minutes later when he pulled the shoe out of the freezer, of all places. I’d already been admiring his soulful eyes and athletic build, but when he closed that freezer door and emitted a triumphant battle cry, I was done for.

Two months later, when things began to feel serious between us, he confessed that he’d had tickets to a late-night Maroon 5 concert on New Year’s but had sent his friends along without him. He’d smiled sheepishly, telling me the concert hadn’t been nearly as important as helping me find my shoe, or getting my phone number. I’d been so lost back then, still trying to find where I belonged in a world without my parents. When Vance appeared with his vitality and confidence, and his constant ability to take charge, I felt like I was being wrapped in a warm blanket, provided a force field of protection that I’d been searching for all along.

And now, all these years later, he was still going out of his way to take care of me. As I absorbed his words about the new doctor, my imagination took me on a journey of what would follow this conversation. We would find an expert, the very best one, and we’d figure it all out. It would all be fine. Science was amazing, and surely a slew of cutting-edge options were waiting for us out there. It might be a difficult road, but we would have our own child by the end of it.

“Whoever gets to the restaurant first should order the sashimi combo, right?” I asked.

“That’s what I was thinking,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. We were going to be fine. Everything would be fine. Totally fine. I just knew it.

6

Carrie

June 1923

Everything started to change a few weeks shy of my seventeenth birthday. Three years had passed since I’d learned about Ma being sent to that Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded in Lynchburg, and I’d still not managed to do a thing about it. Nor had I found out what had happened to Doris and Roy. Instead, I’d spent endless days hauling feed, cleaning troughs, and collecting eggs from angry hens. That all was on top of the laundering, sweeping, and pressing that had been my job since the day I’d first arrived at the Dobbs home. It didn’t leave much time spare for plotting how to reunite my family. And I got distracted from thinking about my family sometimes, so fixed was I instead on my longing to return to school.

Some days I worked extra hard, thinking that if I pleased Mrs. Alice, she’d relent and send me back to the classroom. Other days I’d foul up on purpose, hoping to show I weren’t so useful to have around all the time anyhow. But my mistakes never led Mrs. Alice to suggest more school. Instead, she’d just set me to doing over whatever I’d ruined, and I’d be cross with myself for making the extra work. Mrs. Alice said that sometimes it seemed like I was oftwo fully separate minds, doing my very best or doing my awful worst depending on the day. I reckon she was right. But that was how the time kept unfolding for me, one day after the other, so much the same as each of the days before it.

Loretta Dobbs had married a young man the year before, a homely, churchgoing fellow who came from a family just two roads over. He and Loretta moved farther down south, where the husband was taking a job at his cousin’s construction company. I liked to think on her new life and imagine something similar for myself, a love story and an escape. With only one more year remaining until I turned eighteen, I’d talk out my dreams with Billy, guessing on where I’d go after I was legally an adult. Maybe I’d work as a telephone operator and get my own little apartment to rent. Or I might be able to find a position at the glove factory down on Hendricks Street, on account of my experience with so much mending at the Dobbses’. I didn’t know what other employ there could be for someone like me, a quiet, hefty girl who’d never gone past the sixth grade. If I managed to get the right job and save some earnings, maybe I could use the money to get my ma free. That was what I hoped. I’d tell them I could look after her just fine all by my lonesome.

That’s what I was thinking about that June day as I walked into the dusty shed out behind the house and hoisted a bag of feed onto my shoulder. When I came back outside to bring the feed to the coop, I noticed Mr. John walking up the road with another fellow. Mr. John had lots of friends around town, and it wasn’t unusual for him to bring someone by the house, so I didn’t pay them much mind.

I was hurrying through my tasks so I could have time left over to walk up the road to the Wilkenses’ farm, where they had a litter of kittens. The white-haired wife, Claudia, said I could come feed the little tabbies using milk from a dropper. In the years I’d beenliving over on Grove Street, that Claudia Wilkens had always been extra kind toward me. Each time she visited with Mrs. Alice, she’d slip me one of her fresh-baked biscuits or offer to comb my hair. Maybe because her own children were grown, she was lonely. Or maybe she just liked having another somebody to watch over. I could understand something like that because that’s how I felt about them kittens. It filled me up, looking after little ones like that, much the same as when I’d looked after Doris and Roy.

I was making my next trip out of the shed, the slop bucket full and heavy in my hand, when Mr. John was upon me.

“Carrie,” he said. His tone was always the same, deep and strong. Looking back now, I think Mr. John had the kind of voice that belonged on a radio program. His hardy timbre made it so a person would barely notice how his hair had thinned or how liver spots now dotted his face. “This here’s Clarence Garland, my nephew, here to work with you.” He pointed with a thumb to the young man beside him. When I turned my eyes to greet the newcomer, I near up and lost the use of my tongue. I’d never seen such a looker as him in real life. He was more like the fellows on the giant placards outside the playhouse in town, like that Rudolph Valentino. He was tall, like me, and I was near eye to eye with him. I guessed he was about five years older than me, his dark hair slicked back with some kind of pomade, and his eyes so light they looked almost unnatural.

We already had two farm boys hired up for the year, so I couldn’t figure why we’d need yet another, even with all the produce and eggs selling faster than they used to.

“Mrs. Alice and I are heading down to visit Loretta in Durham for a time,” Mr. John said, “and Clarence here is going to be looking after the farm while we’re gone. He’ll stay in the apartment with the other boys,” he explained, talking about the spare room over the barn. “You just follow what he says.” Mr. John turned back toClarence then. “She’s a sturdy thing. Good worker. Won’t give you no trouble.”

I felt my face redden from Mr. John’s words. He’d said such things about me plenty in the past, but this was the first time I ever minded it, standing as I was in front of that young man. It was like I suddenly noticed then how my gray dress hung loose and shapeless on me, like a burlap sack, and how my boots were caked in manure and mud. And yet, when Mr. John stood there describing me no different than he would a tractor, Clarence seemed somehow not to notice the unfavorableness of it all.

He smiled back at me, showing me straight white teeth. “Good to meet you, Miss Carrie,” he said, like he really meant it.

I wondered where he came from, how long he’d stay, how long Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs would be down there visiting with Loretta, but I couldn’t hardly find my words to ask about any of it just then. The pail full of old scraps was still hanging from my hand, weighing me down. I just nodded and went back to work.

Two days later, Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs finally left to stay with Loretta. I kept about my chores anyhow, having long since settled into my routine, taking care of the house in the morning and then heading out to clean the coop and collect fertilizer in the afternoons. I saw Clarence coming and going throughout the day, stopping to check in with Ralph and Tony, the other farmhands. It wasn’t until the sun began sinking lower in the sky that first day we were on our own that he approached me.

“Carrie,” he said, smiling like he was real glad to see me. “You planning to take supper all alone tonight?”

I didn’t tell him I always took my supper alone.

“Why?” I asked.

“I thought maybe you and I could take ourselves on a walk into town. You could show me around. Maybe we stop at a soda fountain?” He smiled at me, and something in his expression made methink he was feeling shy to even ask. But then I thought he probably just felt sorry for me, a girl with nobody to look after her and such. I didn’t have any money to spend on a soda pop anyhow, and I didn’t want to say so.

“The day’s been long and hot,” I said. “I’m fixing to stay in.” I didn’t need someone’s pity, not even if that someone was so fine to look at.

Clarence’s shoulders dropped a little at my words, and his lips tightened in on themselves like he was truly disappointed. Before I even thought about it, I surprised myself by saying more. “There’s extra hash and boiled peas.” I pointed back toward the house.

“That sounds like just about the best offer I’ve had in a real long time.” He smiled at me so wide that I couldn’t help but smile back.

“Come on then,” I said. I was suddenly brimming with a brand-new kind of giddiness.

I set us a place on the back porch where the air was cooler, on account of the sugar maples flanking the house on both sides. I turned two chairs, facing them out to the yard so we could gaze out into the evening. The train tracks were just beyond the yard, and I knew a train would be passing by soon, something for us to watch while we waited for the lightning bugs to arrive. Once we were settled, both of us with full bowls balanced in our laps, the smell of warm dirt still lingering in the air, Clarence set to asking me questions. He inquired about one thing after another, like he needed to know everything there was to know about Carrie Buck. Somehow, we talked for three hours, until the moon was sharp and bright.