Read Online Machine Dreams by Jayne Anne Phillips - Free Book Online

have gotten them out. The water was deep. I dove down and saw the Pierce, big and black, still sinking way below me. It looked huge in the water, a big block, and the headlights were still on. Then I saw Reb swimming up like in slow motion, drifting up through the water, and he had Marthella by the arm. She looked like a rag doll in the gray water, not moving or helping him. I thought she was dead. I swam toward them and surfaced right after. They were gasping and coughing water. I held them both up and then we swam back, Reb and me holding Marthella. We got to the rocks—that rock ledge under the drop-off.
Mitch, get her out of here for me. Take her to my father.
We were all shivering and spitting water. I took her, pulled her up over the rocks, and Reb lay down where he was, didn’t move, didn’t watch us go.
    I took her to Doc Jonas. He and Caroline were standing at the back door, looking at us through the screen. Doc was behind Caroline and he had his hands on her shoulders. Caroline came forward and let us in. All three of them went up the stairs.
    I went to Reb’s room and put on some of his clothes and went home; I didn’t see Marthella after that. She was gone in about two weeks, to a beautician school that boarded girls. Maybe it didn’t turn out so badly for her—she probably ended up better than she would have otherwise. I did see her a few times years later, after the war. She was dressed too stylish for around here and had her hair cut short, managed a milliner’s shop in Toledo. She liked Ohio and she liked the work. She only came back to visit her mother and didn’t ask about Reb, though I guess she knew he was a doctor long since, living in the old Jonas house with his own family. Old Doc had retired and gone to Florida soon after Reb’s mother passed away.
I couldn’t marry her and I couldn’t let my father touch her. She’d gone to his office and told him that afternoonin front of Caroline; it was all arranged, Marthella said. I just wanted her to disappear, all of it, disappear with her face the way it was when we got out of the Pierce and walked into the ocean. She had never seen ocean.
    Fourteen years between high school and the war. Time passed like lightning.
    Why didn’t I ever get married? Having too much fun, I guess, wasn’t ready to settle. And it was the ’30s too. A peculiar time. You worked for nothing. Everyone did.
    I went to college a year and dropped out, then worked in construction with Clayton. He got me on at Huttonsville. Maximum-security prison there used to work chain gangs and they needed foremen. I worked crews awhile. Those were rough men, but I never had trouble, never held a gun on them. Worked all but a few without leg irons and never had a man run. Prison labor was an accepted thing in this state for many years. But I did better working on my own—lived in Morgantown, Winfield, working for various companies. Clayton and I didn’t start the cement plant until after the war. Earlier I traveled a lot and stayed in boarding houses, moving with the work crews on the road jobs. Between times, I stayed at Bess and Clayton’s in Bellington, in my old room. It was good to have a man there: Bess was busy at the hospital and Clayton was gone a lot; I helped with the kids in his absence.
    Every spring we went out to the cemetery at Coalton. Even after the land was sold and deeded to the mining companies, Bess insisted on taking the kids every year.
Our people are there and as long as I’m breathing those graves will be tended. It’s anyone’s duty. One day we’ll be lying there ourselves, miles from anything.
Clayton was away, working at Huttonsville most likely. Bess had Katie Sue and Chuck ready. We were in a hurry, wanted to get there before the heat of the day came up, and Katie cut a fit. She got sick in cars when she was little and dreaded riding any distance. Seven or eight and high-strung as an old lady. She hid in the house and wouldn’t answer us. I got damn