A Bend in the Willow

Prologue

Willowood, Kentucky—1954

I was seven years old the first time I wished him dead. I remember everything about that cloudless February day. The sky had a dazzling light to it, the kind that bounced off snowdrifts and caught the sparkle in the spider web frost on the school bus windows. It was the kind of light that made dreams seem possible. Even for me. The bus smelled like tangerines, wet wool, and half-eaten peanut butter sandwiches left in lunchboxes.

I scooted closer to the window so Nancy couldn’t see me slip my hand inside my book bag to finger the pink envelope where Wayne Stafford had printed my full name with a heart drawn around it. Robin Lee Carter. As soon as I finished my chores I planned to paint a snowman card with a heart, instead of a carrot, for a nose.

Nancy poked me in the shoulder. You got a secret in there?

I shook my head. Nancy Preston and I swore we’d never keep secrets from each other. But this was a new feeling and I didn’t have the words to explain it yet, even to my best friend.

When the doors swung open on Bear Hollow Road, a string of yelping kids hopped from the bottom step and raced toward the sleds they’d left at the crest of the hill. I caught up with Wayne and touched his sleeve. May I ride your sled? I was careful to use the proper verb.

Wayne grinned, but before he could say yes, Peggy Thompson, in her red coat with black fur cuffs, stuck her prissy face close to my ear and whispered, loud enough for him to hear, Robin Lee is nothing but dirty junkyard trash.

Wayne’s gaze settled on his galoshes before he turned and ran toward the hill.

I stood up real straight, lifted my chin like Momma always said, and pretended it didn’t matter. Although my clothes weren’t as new and fancy as Peggy’s, they were always clean and well-mended.

I wanted to brag about the card Wayne had given me, but instead I held my nose and glared at Peggy. You have cooties and your breath smells like dog poop.

She gasped, stuffed her hands into a fur muff that hung from a braided cord around her neck, and marched away, her finger curls bobbing with each step.

Nancy slapped her palm over her mouth to hold in the giggles, but she couldn’t hide the sparkle in her blue eyes. Her mom worked on Tuesdays and Thursdays and paid my momma to babysit after school. I loved those two days better than any other. Even my daddy seemed happier. But today was Wednesday. I waved to Nancy, then ran toward my house, anxious to get the laundry hung so I could paint the snowman card.

Halfway up the drive, I spotted Daddy’s pickup truck parked at a funny slant, its front tires in the flowerbed Momma had covered with pine needles for the winter. Right away, I figured he’d been drinking. My heart thumped, but not in the good way it had when I found Wayne’s valentine. Daddy’s drinking moods were dangerous, like someone sprayed poison into the air. I knew my life was different, and sometimes knowing that was like skin pinched inside the teeth of a zipper.

I ran toward the salvage yard and looked through the window into my father’s empty office. I had to do something to stop him. I stepped inside and turned on the light, a bare bulb that dangled from the ceiling by a thick yellow wire. I picked up the telephone and dialed the number Momma kept beside the kitchen phone. I’d memorized it, just in case. When the nice lady at the Veterans Administration Hospital answered, I said, He’s drinking again. You have to come get him before something bad happens.

In the background, I heard other phones ringing. She told me to hold on. And when she came back, I gave her my father’s name and our address.

Are you mad at your daddy, honey?

Yes, I said, but that was only part of it. I loved my father. I hated my father. I felt sorry for him. I was afraid of him when he drank. And yes, sometimes I was madder than a hornet.

Did he punish you for something?

Not yet, I answered.

The woman let out a burst of air like she’d been holding her breath. What did you do?

Nothing.

She laughed. Kids. You’re all the same. Have your mother call us if there is a real problem. Now be a good girl and let me get back to my work.

Please, I said. Momma won’t call you until after—

But it was too late, the VA lady had already hung up.

My stomach tightened with each step closer to my house.When I got level with his truck, I climbed on the running board and peeked inside. An empty bourbon bottle wedged in the seat crack confirmed my fear. Confirmed was one of the words on my vocabulary list. Momma said using words in a sentence proved I understood them. But I couldn’t understand Daddy’s reasons for getting drunk. Sometimes a shadow of something scary passed over his face and I thought he might tell us what he’d seen behind his dark eyes, but he never did. Momma said he had something called Battle Fatigue and needed to rest.

Laundry’s ready, Robin Lee.

At the sound of Momma’s voice, I leaped off the running board. The skirt of my dress billowed like a green parachute. I ran across the backyard, watching my brother’s perfectly good, outgrown saddle shoes break holes in the snow with each of my steps. The wind picked up, rustling the sheets and towels Momma had hung earlier. The whole backyard filled with flapping colors as bright as a new box of Crayolas.

My hair blew across my face and I looped it behind my ears. Momma said I could let it grow, as long as I kept it neat. Inside my head, I kept hearing Peggy call me junkyard trash. I didn’t know what it meant, but it must have been something real bad if Wayne wouldn’t even look at me.

I stopped at the foot of the concrete steps leading up to our kitchen and listened. Relieved no angry sounds came from inside, I picked up the wicker basket Momma had left for me. A steamy mist rose from the warm laundry. I smelled the lemon peels she tied up in cheesecloth and added to the rinse water.

When I passed by the mimosa tree, the branches were covered with lines of snow. But that didn’t keep me from thinking about the spring Daddy had planted it—of damp, turned earth, the color of his eyes. Once so soft, Momma claimed, that a woman could tumble into them and disappear.

As I hung the Logans’ laundry on a rope stretched between willow trees, I kept wishing I could have known that man. Sometimes, deep inside a pocket in my chest, I hurt for everything Momma had lost.

A thick crust of snow crunched beneath my feet and I rolled my toes against the cold. I shifted the wooden apple crate I used for a stool, pinned a row of socks, then pulled the box further down the line.

The diapers I’d fastened only minutes before had stopped steaming and were frozen, stiff as kites flapping in the wind. I heard the swooshing of the sleds on the hillside, the laughing, high-pitched voices of the other kids, but somehow it didn’t matter so much now. I picked up the empty basket, crossed the yard and climbed the steps, careful not to let the storm door slam behind me.

In the bright yellow kitchen, Momma bent over the washtub, her hands moving in and out of the soapy water. Her hair was damp and clung to the sides of her face and forehead in darkened waves. She hummed and had that concentrating look that told me she was doing more than just washing dirt out. Something passed from her hands to the clothes, and that’s why her customers loved the way their laundry felt and smelled when Lora Carter delivered it. Momma said you should always be proud of what you do, as long as it’s honest work.

I looked around the room. None of the chairs were overturned. No broken dishes littered the linoleum floor. Everything was in its place. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe it was an old bourbon bottle in his truck. Has he been—?

Momma turned and put a quieting finger to her lips. I wasn’t supposed to talk about his drinking. The small gold-colored cross Momma always wore caught the slanted light from the window and winked. She smiled. Though Momma never complained about her work, I understood how much she wanted a different life for me. That’s why she took a dollar a day from Daddy’s cash register and saved what she could from the babysitting, laundry, and sewing she took in.

We hid the money in a coffee can behind a row of mason jars in the root cellar—somewhere my daddy never entered, because ever since the war he’d been afraid of loud noises and dark places. Momma had painted the can a pale shade of green with some brown-centered yellow daisies tied in a blue bow. Underneath the flowers she added the words Robin Lee’s Dream in a real pretty cursive. Momma was a good painter. Three times a year she and I gathered up the small bills and loose coins and exchanged them at the bank for a crisp hundred-dollar bill. This college plan was a secret between Momma and me.

I dropped the empty laundry basket onto the floor beside the washtub. The kitchen smelled like detergent, lemons, and freshly baked cornbread. My stomach growled. I dearly loved cornbread.

Kyle, my ten-year-old brother, sat at the blue Formica table, which was speckled with white-and-gold flecks. Momma was real proud of that table, with its shiny chrome legs and silver edges with ridges where crumbs and grease collected. Each week, she cleaned the ridges with a toothpick. She believed cleanliness really was up there next to Godliness.

Kyle wore a black mask over his eyes and the once-white cowboy hat he’d found in the backseat of a wrecked Cadillac. He pushed his homework aside and looked at me through the holes in the mask. You wanna be Tonto? I’ll let you inside my fort.

My brother had dark hair and eyes with lashes Momma said should belong to a girl. His skin was tan, even in winter. He didn’t have freckles across his nose like I did. I thought he looked like a book hero, and most of the girls in our school had crushes on him. He didn’t like girls much, except for me when his friends weren’t around.

I grinned and bowed from the waist, pretending to be honored.

In the woods behind our house, Kyle and his best friend Buddy had built a fort with old car doors. Kyle painted a No Girl’s Aloud sign on one of them. I never let on he’d misspelled allowed and put his apostrophe in the wrong place.

Two more loads, Kemosabe, I said. You could help.

He shook his head and grinned. Squaw’s work.

I didn’t mind his not helping me. Kyle had a much more dangerous chore working with Daddy—changing oil and sorting car parts in the salvage yard. Besides, I had a valentine card to make. I adjusted my chair beside the washtub so I could watch the hallway entrance to the kitchen, then picked up a book I’d checked out of the bookmobile. It had a picture of a rearing black stallion on the cover. My thawing hands tingled as I opened it. Black Beauty.

In all the world, I believed there was no place quite so magical as that moving library, all its inside walls lined with stories. I was the best reader in my second-grade class. Dog-poop-breath Peggy had to keep her pointing finger under each word as she struggled to pronounce it. Maybe that was why she hated me so much.

Momma looked up from filling the laundry basket, studied my face for a couple seconds and cocked her head.

Will you help me paint a snowman card? I asked.

Right after supper, she said, her gaze still locked on my face. What’s wrong?

She always knew when something bothered me so there was no use pretending. I told her about Peggy and Wayne.

Momma opened her arms. How much do I love you?

I stepped into them. More than the stars love the sky. More than the night loves a full moon.

Momma hugged me hard, then lifted my chin with a fingertip that felt warm against my skin. Peggy is jealous because you won the spelling bee. And maybe because Wayne likes you.

I won because I studied hard. And I take a bath every night. Why does that make me dirty junkyard trash?

Before Momma could respond, Clifford Carter stumbled into the kitchen. Whenever I saw him drunk, I tried to think of him as Clifford Carter and not my daddy. He stopped beside the table and everything in the room got still.

Momma returned to the laundry, but her long-fingered hands moved more slowly in and out of the suds as she kneaded a dishtowel against the metal washboard.

Kyle’s thick yellow pencil suspended an inch above the sheet of lined paper with his multiplication tables printed in neat columns.

My hands shook a little as I opened my book and pretended to read.

No one spoke.

No one dared look at him until he ripped the cowboy hat from Kyle’s head, taking the mask with it. Where are your manners, boy?

Kyle rubbed the side of his face where the rubber band that held his mask in place had stung him as it snapped.

I carefully set my book on the floor, scared to take my gaze away from Clifford Carter now.

His eyes were red and sticky-looking in the corners. Not soft. He pulled a small glass from the cabinet, slammed it onto the table beside Kyle’s homework. He yanked a pint bottle of bourbon from the pocket of his coveralls and filled the glass until it spilled over the rim. He drank it all at once, then fitted the glass into the wet circle it had left on the table and poured another. He glared at me.

Everything I feared was in his eyes. His rage was held there, tied back with a single thread—one I knew I’d broken with my question about dirty junkyard trash. I clamped my eyes shut, flattened my hands against my thighs and waited for the blow. But it didn’t come.

Outside a car backfired as loud as a bomb exploding.

I opened my eyes.

My baby brother, Mikey, started to cry real hard.

A little vein on the side of Clifford Carter’s head twitched. His fingers wrapped around the small glass. He got bug-eyed and started to shake. An instant later, the glass fell and shattered on the floor.

Momma dried her hands on her apron.

He lunged for me.

She leaped forward and tried to stop him.

He moved her aside, real gentle-like. Even when he had one of his spells, he would never hurt Momma.

Mikey’s screams grew louder.

Don’t you dare lay a finger on either of them, she said to Clifford Carter, then hurried down the hallway and up the stairs to the baby’s room.

I got up to run, but my legs wouldn’t move.

He grabbed the collar of my jacket and lifted me into the air.

I tucked my chin into my chest to keep the zippered-up jacket from choking me.

He charged out the back door and down the steps, with me dangling like a puppet from his right hand. Above me, daggers of ice hung from the rain gutters.

With his other hand, he jerked the metal lid from the garbage can and dropped me inside. I’ll show you trash. He slammed the lid, twisted it into place.

The can smelled like rotting cabbage and sour buttermilk. I heard him grunting, then the sound of the cinder block we used to keep raccoons out of the trash crashing onto the lid. I pressed my fingers over my ears until the ringing metal stopped. The darkness was sudden and complete, but I knew screaming or knocking over the can would only make him punish me more.

Momma believed prayer changed things, so I prayed until the stench gagged me.

Peggy’s words echoed inside my head. Junkyard trash. Dirty junkyard trash.

I clamped my hand over my mouth and nose, breathed in the faint smell of laundry soap that clung to my fingers. I kept telling myself the tiny white maggots I’d seen lining the can’s bottom were God’s creatures, too.

From inside the house, I heard the crash of a body thumping against the wall, followed by Kyle’s scream. Then the high wail of my infant brother and Momma’s thin comforting voice.

I balled my fists, raised them to the sides of my head, and clamped my eyes shut. Inside the darkness, I imagined myself polished and brave, a perfect girl, overflowing with stories about a happy family, like Nancy. After school, I’d push the door open and find my new father smiling. He wore his blue sheriff uniform with the gold patch on the sleeve. Jewels of sunlight sparkled everywhere as he lifted me onto his shoes and danced me around the kitchen.

And in my dream, I raced head-on into a future life where no one would ever call me junkyard trash again. I’d live in a big brick house surrounded by flowers, with bookshelves lining every wall. I’d take art lessons and paint the best greeting cards in the world.

As the remains of last night’s dinner brushed against the bare skin above my anklets, my lip trembled. I steadied it with the back of my hand.

Above the baby’s cries, the storm door slammed, followed by the sound of Momma’s voice, both sad and angry. How dare you? These are our children you’re terrorizing. They’re not your enemies. Don’t even think about coming back until you’re sober.

I waited as the truck’s engine cranked and ground, finally turning over into motion. Waited for his pickup to bounce and sputter past the junkyard and down our rutted drive. With my eyes clamped shut, I imagined the trail of black smoke rising in the thin air behind him. I threw myself against the walls of the garbage can, trying to tip it over. I dove again and again. The can wobbled, but remained upright.

Finally, someone nudged the cinder block aside and loosened the metal lid.

When Kyle lifted me into the light, I blinked against the brightness. His hand felt as soft as snowflakes in my hair. Don’t worry, Tonto, he whispered. Lone Ranger always gets the bad guy.

A moment later, the baby had stopped crying and Momma stood beside us with a warm cloth. She washed my face, hands, arms and legs. I’m so sorry, honey.

I wish he’d died in that war, Momma.

Her smile that day was the saddest thing I’d ever seen. He did, honey, she whispered. He did.

Chapter One

Tucson, Arizona—1985

Catherine Henry told her husband, Ben, many stories about her past, and to her ever-deepening shame, not one of them was true. Though she longed to tell him who she really was, where she’d come from and what she’d done to escape, with each passing year the truth grew more difficult to tell. And that made her a liar, something she’d never intended to become.

Anxious to finish their son’s party preparations, she bent over the kitchen counter, putting the final touches on a sheet cake of a glitzy cowboy on a rearing horse. To the beat of Tina Turner belting out What’s Love Got To Do With It?, Catherine set tiny balls of silver candy in the frosting bridle and reins, the pointed tips of chocolate spurs on tapered boot heels. When the garage door rumbled open, she readjusted the music’s volume, then checked her progress against the sketch she’d drawn on a piece of drafting paper.

Ben breezed in, his cowboy boots clicking against the Saltillo tile floor. He wore a gray three-piece pinstriped suit with a cream-colored Stetson that made him look as distinguished as a Texas senator.

Pumpkin, their twelve-year-old cat the color of orange marmalade, ran into the kitchen and circled Ben’s legs. He reached down to rub the cat’s ears, then pulled a treat from his pocket and tossed it onto the floor. Pumpkin chased after the dime-sized nugget, batting it around with his front paws for a few seconds before devouring it.

Ben hung his hat on one of the horseshoe hooks beside the door. He eyed the cake, then dropped his briefcase on the barstool. Does our son have any idea how awesome his mother is? He stood behind her, parted her hair, and kissed the nape of her neck. And while you designed this masterpiece, guess what I got invited to do.

She turned and smiled. Texas Two Step at the governor’s mansion?

He laughed, looking her straight in the eyes like he always did when they talked. Give a presentation on admissions and diversity to the American Association of Medical Colleges. It will get my name out there, put me in a better position to become a dean.

She raised her eyebrows, impressed. You go, cowboy. But you do know your butt looks much sexier in jeans. Are wives invited?

Absolutely. Next spring. Cherry blossoms on Pennsylvania Avenue. He pulled her against him. The top of her head fit perfectly under his chin. She nuzzled her face in his shoulder and breathed in the familiar scent of Irish Spring soap. That a man like Ben could love her never ceased to fill her with amazement and a silent anxiety he might discover who she really was, and disappear.

He gave her a quick squeeze, stepped away and glanced around the kitchen. So where is the birthday boy?

The Sundance Kid is in his bedroom, repenting.

Did he rob a 7-Eleven?

Close, she replied. He pulled a heist at K-mart this afternoon. Slipped a sheriff’s badge into his jeans just as slick as a pro. Of course, he had no idea how it got in his pocket. She shrugged, turned her hands palm-side up. Magic, I guess.

Ben’s dark eyes narrowed. Did you march his little bandit ass back inside and make him tell the truth?

No, I slapped him on the back and told him what a fine thief he’d grow up to be.

When he looked at her doubtfully, she smiled. Of course I made him put it back.

Did he ‘fess up’?

She shook her head. I didn’t want to cause a scene, embarrass him in front of strangers.

Ben pinned her gaze and held it. Embarrassment is an appropriate response.

Maybe nobody ever humiliated you, but—

He stiffened, then stared at her like he was trying to understand what lay behind her words. I would never humiliate our son. But you know how I feel about lying.

She knocked over the jar of candy beads, spilling a handful onto the countertop. People lie. Even good people sometimes. She tried to keep her voice calm, busied herself picking up the spilled beads that had rolled into the grout between the Mexican tiles on their countertop. She worried about a lot of things when it came to Ben. Could he read her mind? Did he know, like those trained investigators, that people avert their gaze when not telling the truth?

When she finished picking up the beads, she stood back for a wider view of the cake and shook her head. The hat’s crooked.

Ben tipped a pretend cowboy hat. We rodeo boys like our Stetsons that way, darlin’. Gives us a haphazard, devil-may-care look.

He folded his arms across his chest. His hands were large and calloused from shoveling out stalls and training maneuvers with their horses, but his nails were clean and neatly-trimmed. More than any other part of his body, she loved his hands, the way he held them in unguarded moments. The way they exposed his gentleness and the vulnerability he so often tried to hide.

Without warning, she saw him holding Michael after his first bath. The baby had curled into Ben’s shoulder like a puppy. His big hand splayed across Michael’s back, fingers supporting his wobbly head. Moments later, Michael had drawn up his legs and fallen asleep, naked in his father’s hands.

She tucked her left elbow against her hipbone for support. The monsoon rains had lingered longer than usual, and the humidity caused her arm to throb where she’d broken it as a teenager. A constant reminder of the night she most wanted to forget.

The break had never been set. But if she told Ben, it would raise too many other questions she could never answer. Whenever he asked about her past, something cold moved across her, as if the dead had found new ways of talking.

Were your parents abusive? Did they ever humiliate you? His voice sounded tired of asking.

She swallowed, briefly considered telling him the truth this time. Her eyes pooled. Then she told him the same thing she always did. Please don’t ask me about them. They’re dead. And it’s too painful to remember. She stepped over to the sink. Through the long window, a cloud crept across the sky, momentarily darkening the kitchen, before the sun reappeared and bleached the broad desert landscape behind their house. The air grew hot with the questions Ben didn’t ask. They were as suffocating as they would have been had he actually asked them.

When she heard the click of their son’s bedroom door open and close, she tiptoed down the bookshelf-lined hallway, stopping to gaze at a recent photograph of Michael. In the picture, his grin was broad and the bright desert sun shone in his eyes. With the sometimes-magical way of photography, the light cast a blue sheen that doused the boy’s dark hair, giving him a surreal, almost angelic appearance. The photo