Chapter 4

When I got back from the camping trip, I had changed much. The outside world didn't know anything about that, of course, and the outside world hadn't changed much at all. And, since the normal world expected me to be the same, it treated me just like it would have if that camping trip had never happened. The work was still there, much of it what I would have had to do had I stayed home, and which nobody else had done while I was gone. There was still no time for dating, though I did get to flirt with some girls at the big 4th of July picnic in town. If it hadn't been for Julie May hanging around me like flies hang around raw meat, I might have gotten Cynthia Johnson off in the dark during the fireworks display and tested out Aunt Wendy's hypothesis that no girl could resist me. I wouldn't have had too much fun, though, because of course I didn't have a condom. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if different nipples would taste different in my mouth, if you know what I mean. And it might have been fun to see how a different female reacted to having her clitty rubbed really well.

Aunt Wendy had gone back home, of course. She hadn't hung around when we got back, saying she had commitments, waving gaily to my mother and saying she'd be in touch. I think it hurt my mom's feelings that she didn't stay to visit. Of course now I know that she was worried that Mom would see something in one of us, or a look one of us gave the other, and put two and two together. At any rate, she'd only come to visit a couple of times since then. Both times I learned about it after she'd gone again, because I was out working while she was there. So after a while, what had happened between us began to take on a dream-like kind of quality in my mind.

Not that I couldn't remember it. Oh no.

With the exception of those chaotic first things that happened, it was all crystal clear in my memory.

Harvest came and went. Because Gertie had a new motor in her Dad decided to drive her that year, to make sure she got broken in correctly, so I ended up on combine all the time again. But that wasn't so bad, because I could cut wheat in my sleep, and I had lots of time to have fantasies about Aunt Wendy. And - I'll admit it - a few other females I knew.

When school started back up I had even less time of my own, but I was used to that. My guidance counselor wanted to know what I'd done about college, and got all upset when I said "Nothing." Apparently you have to apply to colleges way before you're ready to go. I didn't even know what kind of majors there were, much less which one to pick. I was pretty sure I'd grow old driving that stinking Gleaner and die when a length of barbed wire snapped while I was tightening it and flayed me to death or something.

In other words, I had no plans.

Both Cathy and Rebecca turned up pregnant, and there was great celebration about that. My mother complained bitterly that she was much too young to be a grandmother, but I know she was secretly pleased. She started knitting again. She hadn't knitted since Julie May and I got into fifth or sixth grade, when homemade mittens and such weren't cool. So I knew the new babies would have booties and blankets and who knows what else, all made by a very proud grandma.

Christmas was interesting. Christmas was one of the times of the year our family went all out for. I'm not talking about presents. There were a lot of years where the presents were mighty sparse. But there was food and song and merriment out the ass. It was family time. You'd be surprised how on a big farm, even members of a large family don't actually get that much face time with each other. Everybody is off working, and a lot of that work can be done alone.

As I was saying, since Christmas was one of the few down times during the year, we took it to heart and family was the central point of attention. Which was why my mother got into a real tizzy when Aunt Wendy called and said she couldn't make Christmas dinner after all. Apparently she was some reticent about why. I happened to be reading a book, sitting in the big overstuffed arm chair that's by the phone. I'd been yelled at, in fact, for not answering it because I was too engrossed in my reading. So when my mother started shouting at Aunt Wendy about how everybody else would be there and why wouldn't she, I could also hear Aunt Wendy's voice shouting back, though I couldn't understand what she said.

The upshot was that my mother slammed down the phone and stomped back to the kitchen, where the final touches were being put on that dinner that Aunt Wendy had just turned her nose up at.

It wasn't pretty. I knew to keep a low profile, so I just stayed where I was in that chair and continued to read.

But it didn't do me any good, as it turned out.

That's because within another minute my mother was standing beside that chair looking down at me with thunder still on her face.

"Go get your aunt," she said.

"I thought she wasn't coming," I said.

I know. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"She doesn't think she's coming," my mother said tightly. "But she is coming, because you're going to go get her and bring her here."

My dad came in from outside with a load of firewood in his arms. He's got husband radar. He stomped the snow off his feet and said "What's wrong?"

Mom turned to him and, in best melodramatic form, wailed.

"Wendy said she's too busy to come to Christmas dinner! She's up to something, Bill. Haven't I told you something is going on with her? She hasn't shown neither hide nor hair around here in I don't know how long and every time I invite her over she comes up with some cockamamie reason why she can't. Well I think she's taken up with a man and he's some kind of weirdo or foreign or something. She's hiding something and my little sister is not going to get away with whatever she's trying to get away with! I'm sending Bobby to go get her and bring her back by force if he has to!"

"Now hang on, honey," said my father, still holding two armfuls of firewood.

"I will not hang on!" she yelled. "I wouldn't even know my own sister was alive if I hadn't just talked to her on the phone!" She turned back to me. "Now you go on and get her, Bobby. If you have to put her over your shoulder and bring her that way then fine!" She frowned. "And whatever man is with her is to come too. I don't care who he is. He's invited to Christmas dinner too."

I sat there. I looked at Dad.

"Don't you look at your father like that, young man!" she snapped. "I told you to go get your aunt. Now move!"

I jumped up, and glanced at Dad who tossed his head toward the door. He looked pretty grim. I decided getting out of the house might be a good idea just about then. My dad could deal with my mom. Besides ... I liked driving in the snow. It was exciting.

I knew where Aunt Wendy's house was, of course. She'd bought it right after she got back from Kuwait. It had belonged to old man Toliver, whose father had started the first hardware store in town, way back when they were still fighting Indians, if you believed what he claimed. He was over a hundred when he died, and he left this big old house to his grandson or somebody, who promptly put it on the market. It was on almost an acre of land, about a block north of the city park, which used to be the town square. I'd never been inside the house, and I was curious about what it would look like as I pulled into the driveway that went beside the north wall. I could see a carriage house another hundred or so feet down the driveway. There were bushes all over the place, but they were bare in the winter.

Her car was parked further up the driveway, and I could see footprints in the snow leading from it to the back of the house, so I went there and found a rear door that it appeared she used routinely, instead of going in the front. There was a three step stoop with a handrail that had been cleared of snow. I went up and knocked.

The back door had a square light in the upper half, covered by curtains on the inside. They pulled apart and there she was, peering out at me through frosty glass.

I grinned.

I know that sounds simple, but it was a very complicated grin. That's because part of it was from sudden, almost insane joy at seeing her face again. All manner of things rushed back into my mind as I saw her lips and nose and eyes. But I was also scared. Well, maybe not scared, exactly, but nervous, because I knew there was tension between her and Mom, and because I knew she might resist coming back with me, so part of that grin was just tension, and me trying to set the right mood.

Like an idiot I held up my gloved right hand and moved it back and forth rapidly from side to side. "Hi!" I said in what I hoped was an irresistibly cheery voice.

"What are you doing here?" she yelled through the glass.

"Can I come in?"

"No, Bobby. Go away."

The first thing I thought about was what Mom had said about Aunt Wendy taking up with a man. I knew what that meant, and it went far beyond Aunt Wendy simply going on dates, even a lot of dates, with a single man. When it came out of my mother's mouth in that tone of voice, it meant that she suspected Wendy was living in sin. And Aunt Wendy would be just as embarrassed about me finding out about that as she would if her sister did. I turned to look back at her car. There was only one size of footprints between it and where I was standing, not counting the ones I'd just made. And there was no other car, unless it was in the carriage house, which wasn't likely, since it had snow drifted up all along the bottom of the door and there were no tracks leading to it. I turned back to my aunt.

"Mom sent me to get you," I said.

I had no idea a woman could cuss like that. She was ranting so much that I just reached out and tried the knob. It was unlocked, so I just opened the door. When I tried to push it open it bumped into her and she squawked.

"Bobby no!" she yelled. "You can't come in here -"

I started to say "It's cold outside. Can't you cuss with me being here in the warm?" I had it in mind to be my irresistible self and overcome her resistance.

But I didn't say that. Instead I said "It's... Wow!"

That's because when Aunt Wendy stepped back, she looked like she'd swallowed a basketball.

She was wearing sweat pants, socks and that same Mickey Mouse Club T shirt she'd put on right after I spunked her tank top, that first time she sucked me off. On either side of Mickey's grinning face was a bump that I knew was a distended nipple.

She was pregnant.

Oh man, was she pregnant.

Obviously, my mother was right. She had taken up with a man and was living in sin. I looked at her left hand, just in case, but I knew I wouldn't see anything there. There was no way in the world Aunt Wendy would have gotten married and kept that a secret, or not invited my mother to the wedding. She was crying now, blubbering with shame.

"Hey, it's okay," I said.

I wanted to hug her, but she had her hands up, palms facing me. It was obvious she didn't want me to touch her. I tried to think of something to say, but all I could do was stare at that bulging T shirt. Her hair was hanging down straight, and she didn't have any makeup on, but I'd seen her like that before, and those memories were some of my favorite ones. I thought she was beautiful. And, oddly, I thought she was even more beautiful like this. I say oddly because while I'd seen the occasional pregnant woman, I hadn't paid any real attention to her. I'd never really looked at a pregnant woman. That swelling seemed to flow from the breasts. Hers had gotten larger. I'd have bet money on it. I remembered those breasts with crystal clarity too. Before she'd been hour-glass shaped, and her abdomen had been so flat it was almost concave. I remembered tracing her ribs with my finger while we lay naked. Now everything was reversed. It was like most of her curves had shifted to make that bulge.

Her hands dropped as she slumped.

"Oh Bobby," she sobbed.

I hugged her then. She stiffened as I gathered her into my arms, but then relaxed almost immediately. She shook and I ran my hands up and down her back and kissed her hair and muttered over and over that it was all right. It wasn't, of course. That was obvious. But it was all I could think of to say. It felt crazy weird to feel that bulge pressing against my belt buckle and I tried not to hug her too tight so that the buckle wouldn't hurt anything. I was afraid she was going to cry for hours and I was starting to get worried. I tried to think of something to say, but all I could think of was "How did this happen?" which was a patently stupid question. Finally I opted for something off the subject.

"You got anything to drink? I'm dying of thirst."

I know, I know. It was lame and stupid. But it worked.

She started to sound like an eight cylinder motor running on maybe five cylinders, and the sobs got interrupted by snorts. She shook like it was thirty below zero and there were some honking noises mixed in there too. Her face came up and her eyes were all shiny. There was snot running out of her nose from one of those snorts. It dripped onto her lip as I watched and she felt it. A look of horror came over her face and she wiped at her nose and mouth with the back of one hand. More noises, amongst them something that sounded a little bit like "Ewwww" except there were words mixed with it that weren't for use in polite company.

"Boy, you cuss better than anybody I ever heard," I said. I was still off balance.

She pushed me - thankfully with the non-snotty hand - and ran for the sink. I looked around and realized I was at the back of a big kitchen. It had a tiled floor, in a checkboard pattern of black and white, with tiles that were about a foot square. She was obviously in the middle of renovating things. There was a brand new stainless steel refrigerator, but the stove looked ancient. A dishwasher that matched the fridge was tucked into a hole under the counter and I could see the raw edges of wood where some drawers had been cut out to make room for it. The table was a sheet of thick glass supported by a fancy black wrought iron frame that curled somehow into four legs. It was beautiful. Somebody with a really poor sense of humor had painted all the cabinets one time, a kind of pea green that was faded and dreary.

My eyes fell to her rear end, which was prominently displayed as she bent over a stainless steel sink that went with the fridge and dishwasher, and washed her face. I remembered that ass too. Pain made me realize that I had a bar of iron in my jeans.

She reached for a towel, rubbed her face much longer than necessary, and turned around to lean against the edge of the sink. She had recovered enough that she wasn't crying any more. She put a hand on the counter on either side of her and looked at me. Then her eyes darted away and I could tell it took some effort to bring them back to me.

"You weren't supposed to see this," she said.

I looked around. "It will look nice when it's finished," I said.