Evergreen by Rebecca Rasmussen Page B

dress and her underclothes into the fire and watched them turn to ash. Her neck throbbed.
    “You have to let this go,” Lulu said.
    Together, they walked to the cabin, where Reddy had been waiting for them, pacing. He took both women in his arms, and though he probably wanted a drink, his breath smelled of buttery piecrust, which he’d pinched into a metal plate, filled with beaten eggs, and cooked over their woodstove.
    “I thought something happened,” he said.
    Lulu looked at Eveline as if she were asking for her permission, which Eveline granted with a slight nod of her head. “It did.”
    Lulu handed Hux to Reddy. “Put him in with Gunther tonight.”
    “Of course,” Reddy said, kissing Hux’s forehead.
    Lulu led Eveline to their bedroom. She tucked her into their bed, pulling the green cotton sheet to her chin. This was the first night Eveline would spend without Hux.
    “Gunther will take care of him,” Lulu said. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
    “He said I’ll forget all about him,” Eveline said, the sheet over her mouth.
    “That’s goddamn rich,” Lulu said, stomping her foot on the wood floor.
    “Maybe if I hadn’t been so friendly—”
    Lulu swatted Eveline’s cheek, but gently. “Don’t ever say that again, you understand? This isn’t your fault. Some people aren’t good at the root.”
    “I feel so tired,” Eveline said.
    “It’s all right to close your eyes,” Lulu said, backing up.
    “Will you leave the door open a little?”
    “Of course.”
    Eveline looked around Lulu and Reddy’s bedroom. On the nightstand was a photograph of Gunther when he was a baby, the last still days of his life. Beside the photograph were a half-drunk cup of tea and a scrap of paper, which said, Reddy’s snoring again. I can’t sleep . Being in that room made Eveline feel safe; the shadows beyond the window were comforting on this side of the river. Before she turned out the oil lamp, Eveline looked around once more. For a moment she forgot why she was here, until she heard the murmurs of her friends talking in the kitchen. After a while, Reddy sat down in the chair Lulu had positioned beside the bedroom door. Eveline watched him threading his fingers and unthreading them, picking up his rifle as if something could be done about the situation and then setting it down again when he realized it couldn’t. She watched Lulu eat the entire egg pie as if long ago she’d learned how to stand what couldn’t be changed.
    Eveline woke to the sound of birds chirping beyond the window in Lulu and Reddy’s bedroom and the sound of butter sizzling in a cast-iron skillet in the kitchen.
    “Sit,” Lulu said when Eveline came out of the bedroom in Reddy’s trousers, which were nearly a foot too long for her.
    Eveline lifted Hux out of the high chair he was sitting in; he was holding his body up as if overnight he’d grown stronger. She kissed him, wondering what kind of mother she could be after last night. Gunther was pushing eggs around his plate, complaining they were too runny. There’s a chicken in my eggs , he said. And then, Hux tried to kiss me with his mouth in the night . Eveline looked around the cabin, knowing Lulu and Reddy would let her stay there forever. There were oxeye daisies in a mug on the table that weren’t there the night before.
    “If I don’t go back now,” Eveline said, “I’ll never go back.”
    “I’ll take you,” Lulu and Reddy said at the same time.
    “No,” Eveline said gently. “Hux and I have to go alone.”
    Eveline kept waiting for the moment she would fall apart and wanted to be at home when it happened, to have the brown log walls around her, to see strength in their ugliness, that which even a flood couldn’t take down.
    Lulu and Reddy let her go.
    Thank you , Eveline thought, but didn’t say because it wasn’t enough. What bothered her, what would always bother her, was that she hadn’t done more, said more, that day by the river when