The Telling Collection: Women Before Roe

Rhonda

Twylla

I was eight when my sister was fourteen and they didn’t think I knew anything, especially things about girls, but I knew a lot. They weren’t always careful about what they said and did around me, so I kind of always knew what was going on. If they knew just how much I was taking in, they would have skinned me alive. My father would have, anyway.

My sister was a very sweet girl, quiet and pretty and nice to everybody around her. She was especially nice to me and would read to me and take me for long walks in the woods and help me with homework. She had dark hair and a very Irish look, my mother said, and boys were already showing interest in her and she in them. I knew this because I saw things and because she had been spending less time with me.

School had just let out, and most of the family was down at the deep pool in the stream cooling off, when all of a sudden my mother started screaming at Twylla, my sister. No, No! she yelled and swatted at her, as Twylla ducked out of the way to avoid her. Go on, my mother said, and she, Twylla, and the little kids marched on up to the house.

When I walked into the kitchen a little while later, my father was already in from the field. He had off his belt, and he was menacing my sister with it as she cowered in her chair. Out to the woodshed, he ordered. No, not that, Pa, she pleaded. Get out there, he yelled. My sister just sat there covering her head. He kept yelling at her, and when she wouldn’t get up he grabbed her by the hair. I could hear her plead with him all the way down the path. And then the screaming began.

My mother told me to take Phillip and go upstairs, but I didn’t. I thought my sister screamed for a long time. One of the things I heard from the woodshed was, Who was this son-of-a-bitch? When my father came back into the house, my sister didn’t. Later on that night I went out and brought her some milk and a biscuit. She was asleep on the floor. Her blouse was partially open, and I could see red welts all over her chest. Her arms had welts on them, too. I could also see her stomach sticking out above her waistline, and I was pretty sure what that meant. My sister was going to have a baby.

Summer went on, but the mood in our household was grim. We didn’t have our usual strawberry festival with the whole family over and games and fun all day. My mother canned but made only one strawberry-rhubarb pie. My father didn’t talk at all, but he glared a lot at Twylla. My parents argued often at night, but I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying. Twylla was teary-eyed a lot but didn’t say very much to anyone. She still read to me but not as often. And sometimes she just couldn’t finish the story and would say, I have to stop now.

Then one day when we were walking in the woods, we stopped to sit on some rocks, and she looked over at me and smiled.

I guess you know by now, she said, I’m havin’ a baby. I nodded, but just barely. There’s talk of my going to Aunt Jane’s till it comes, but nothin’s settled yet. I thought Pa might kill me, but I guess he won’t, she said. We really don’t have the money for me to go to Aunt Jane’s right now, but I’m startin’ to get so big I gotta go pretty soon. She stopped talking and just stared at the ground. Pa says there’s talk already. She looked away blinking back tears. I thought of my jar way back in the closet with my night crawler money. I knew I’d give it up if I had to. Will you be all right when I go? Twylla asked. Yes, I got out. I won’t be gone that long, she said. We sat there in silence for a time, and then she slipped off the rock and we went on through the trees and the late afternoon shadows.

One of the things we really loved to do in the summer was fish in Riley’s pond out near the end of the far pasture about a half mile from the house. Our family had fished there so much that there was a well-worn path from our backyard to our favorite spot. We didn’t know whether somebody stocked the pond or not, but we pulled some pretty good-sized fish out of it. A lot of our neighbors and local people knew about it and fished there, too. Twylla and I and our younger brother, Philip, used to fish every week, but lately my sister didn’t come with us. Philip and I were all set up fishing there one day when he turned to me with a strange look.

Why is everybody mad at Twylla? he asked. Why is she going to Aunt Jane’s, and how come we can’t go?

Never mind, Philip, I said. Don’t you worry about it.

But is there somethin’ wrong with Twylla? Is she sick?

No, I said. She’s not sick. Don’t worry about anything. Just think about starting school in September and all the fun you’re going to have.

But somethin’s goin’ on, he insisted.

Nothin’s goin’ on, kiddo. Just fish, I told him.

We weren’t alone at the pond. There had been at least a half dozen guys fishing since we arrived. Some had left and others showed up, including Roy Acres and Bradford Gilman. Roy talked to Twylla a lot here at the pond. They were always smiling at each other and laughing. Roy didn’t ask me where she was. In fact he didn’t come over and talk to us at all but just stayed near the roadside entrance to the pond. I wondered if he was the son-of-a-bitch my father wanted to get hold of, though I wasn’t exactly sure why.

We had fished for a couple of hours. Philip was starting to get tired, I could tell. Then I had an idea. I could sell night crawlers here at the pond for the rest of the summer and get Twylla the money she needed for the bus trip to Aunt Jane’s. We had caught a bass, a couple of sun fish, and some bullheads, enough to add to supper that night, so I decided to pack it in. I was really excited at the thought of helping my sister, and I knew how to get those worms instantly.

How much is the bus to Aunt Jane’s? I asked Twylla. Almost forty dollars, she answered. My heart sank. I had never seen that much money or known any other kid with that much money. I doubted that I could get more than twenty cents for a can of crawlers. But I was determined to get the job done and got out the Clorox, my special ingredient. I mixed about a tablespoon of Clorox with a bucket of water and hauled it to the chicken yard. I let it flow out over the ground, and sure enough within a minute or so my worms started to appear. As I was collecting them, I thought about how I would have to go to the fishing hole a lot or at least run down there a couple of times a day if I hoped to make that kind of money.

By now Twylla wasn’t allowed to go anywhere but the backyard, and we were all under orders to warn her if we saw somebody coming or if a car approached. She was visibly pregnant, and even the little kids kind of knew what was going on. One day while she was reading to me under the maples, I asked her what she was going to name the baby.

I’m not gonna name the baby, she said. There isn’t gonna be a baby. Somebody else is gonna get it, and they’re gonna name it.

Who? I asked, Aunt Jane and Uncle Matt?

No, Adam, people we don’t know, she told me. Then she got up and went into the house.

The crawler money wasn’t building that fast. It had rained a lot through the end of July. I’d had almost four dollars to begin with, and now I had less than eight. Twylla was getting bigger and summer was passing. I wondered whether she was going to have the baby in time to go back to school in the fall. I didn’t dare ask her or anybody else. We were supposed to do our chores and keep quiet about what was going on, and for the most part we did. Philip sometimes questioned me about details, but I gave him the same kind of answers Twylla gave me.

On a perfect summer day in mid-August, while I was searching for the very best ears of corn for my father to sell at the farmers market that afternoon, I heard a tremendous scream come from the house. I saw my mother run in from the clothesline. I froze. What was happening? Was Twylla hurt? Was she having the baby? Should I go and try to help? I ran like the wind to the house, and as I reached the porch steps my mother slammed the door. I sat down on the porch. I couldn’t move. My sister, my sister, I cried to myself. This was women’s business, I knew, but there must be something I could do to help. I heard upstairs windows slam shut. Time went on. Sometimes I thought I heard noises, but I couldn’t make them out. I heard Joshua and Jeri playing in the front room. Then I remembered the corn. My father and Philip would be coming in for lunch soon. I needed to have a full sack of corn ready by then.

I didn’t really want to pick corn. I just wanted to stay close to the house and Twylla. I thought about going into the house the back way or through the cellar to find out what was going on and help if I could, even if my mother didn’t want me there. I was so worried about my sister, but I went back out to the cornfield anyway. I picked that corn so fast I knew I must have missed some borers. I pulled my wagon with the full sack up to the house and parked it by the front porch. The tractor was making its way across the field. I didn’t even know what to say to my father. I didn’t know how to tell him there was something awful happening inside.

Before they could see me, I climbed down into the cellar. I would be out of the way, and I could listen and maybe learn something about Twylla. I sat on a bench near a cabinet in case I needed to hide. I hoped they wouldn’t miss me. My father and Philip came into the house, their footsteps moving from room to room. Finally I heard my father call out to my mother. I’m up here, she called down to him quietly. My father started upstairs, but my mother met him halfway. She talked to him in a voice I couldn’t hear. Then came a loud, Damn, and a pounding on the wall. My mother went back upstairs. My father went into the front room, and I heard him tell Josh and Jeri that he would make them lunch. I sat on the bench listening to the noise of the dishes being set out and the cupboards being opened and closed and my father’s footsteps making their way around the kitchen. I wondered whether there was a baby upstairs, though I hadn’t heard one.

My father called the kids to the table, and the chairs scraped against the floor. No one called me to lunch, and I was glad. Then I heard my mother’s footsteps coming down from upstairs in a hurry. She banged into the cellar door. I jumped into the cabinet and pulled the door closed as far as