An Ocean in Iowa Read online

  Claire sat in the middle of the sofa, an arm draped over Maggie’s shoulder and a hand resting on Scotty’s knee. Scotty’s feet dangled off the sofa and he thought, One day my feet will touch.

  The Judge took in a breath and sighed. “I know you all must be worried about your mother.”

  He’d only said the “m” in mother when Maggie started to cry. Claire tried to calm her. The Judge asked Maggie to please stop. “We’re upset,” Claire said, “and don’t expect us to be all smiles.”

  “Of course,” the Judge said.

  Maggie said, “You got to tell us where she went, Daddy.”

  The Judge stopped smiling.

  Scotty calmly asked, “Where’s Mom?”

  The Judge paused.

  “Where’s Mom?” Scotty repeated.

  “I don’t know.”

  And the Judge didn’t know. He only knew she was gone and that earlier, while he was on the toilet reading the paper, he had heard a noise. He flipped on the porch light and Joan turned like a deer frozen in headlights. A small suitcase in hand, she was packing up her car.

  “What the hell…?”

  Joan shrugged as if she might start laughing, and said, “There’s a note on the kitchen table.” Then she climbed in her yellow convertible and drove away.

  The Judge headed to the kitchen. He opened the envelope, which read, “Walter.” He unfolded the paper. Written in Joan’s hand, her cursive that flowed and circled and looped, was one word—“Good-bye.”

  Other sealed envelopes—thicker, more pages—had been left for the children. Holding Claire’s letter up to the light, the Judge saw words, whole sentences even. The children got explanations, but he only got one word.

  He tore open Claire’s letter. Words like “diminished” and “inevitable.” In Maggie’s, Joan advised her not to hurry with boys—that if she chose too quickly, she might regret—and there was nothing worse than regret. In her note to Scotty, she had made a drawing of a boy and his mother holding hands. She wrote that there would be between them, always, a love, and then she kissed the paper, leaving her lipstick lips. Both girls were told to look after Scotty, because to be a boy in a house full of big sisters was no easy thing. Each letter was signed, “Love, Mom.”

  The Judge sat motionless and tried to figure out what to do. Stunned, he hid the notes in the sugar bowl and waited until it was time to wake the children.

  He could think of no nice way to tell them.

  “Why?” Claire kept asking.

  “The pressures. Worry. I don’t know.”

  “Did you do something to her?”

  “No, of course not,” the Judge said.

  “Why did she leave?”

  Scotty sat quietly. He had an idea why.

  “What we have to do is pull ourselves together. If she calls, tell her you miss her, but tell her we’re fine.”

  Claire said, “Are you telling us what to say?”

  “I’m making a suggestion.”

  “I hate it when you tell us what to say!”

  The Judge was flustered.

  “You don’t know why she left!” Claire shouted.

  Maggie held her face in her hands. Her crying sounded like she was laughing.

  And Scotty said, “Where did she go?”

  “She’s going to miss us. You watch, she’ll be back soon. She just needs some time.”

  Maggie stopped crying. “Why, Daddy?”

  Scotty started to slap at his head.

  “Listen, kids—I’m suggesting that we pull ourselves together. Scotty, stop it.”

  Scotty continued his slapping.

  “She’ll miss us because she’ll know we’re having all the… uhm… fun.”

  “Fun!” Claire shouted. Maggie wailed. Scotty slapped his head harder. Claire stormed out of the house, letting the screen door slam. And the Judge thought, Bad word choice, fun.

  “Come back,” the Judge said loudly. “Claire, come back here!”

  Claire continued up the street and Maggie wedged her face between the sofa cushions, muting her sounds. As the Judge sighed, Scotty felt the facts sink in. His mom was gone. And he knew why.

  A GOOD BOY

  (1)

  Even though the Judge had no culinary skills, he took over the cooking. Several days were needed to gather recipes from Marjorie, his secretary, and other workers at the courthouse, so during the first week, he took the children to an assortment of restaurants: Shakey’s Pizza, Sambo’s, and McDonald’s twice. By mid-October, a simple menu could be managed, and while most foods were overcooked, the Judge succeeded in making meals his children would eat.

  And it was during those first days that the Judge took his children to the movies. In the two weeks after Joan left, they would see nine: first, Dick Van Dyke in Some Kind of a Nut at the Ingersoll Theater, then Julie Andrews in Those Were the Happy Times at the Plaza. That Saturday he dropped them off at the special kiddie matinee at the Wakonda, where for seventy-five cents, they saw The Three Stooges in Orbit and Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion. Claire and Maggie disliked the kiddie matinee, but Claire understood that the Judge had work to do. Doctor Dolittle was revived at the Varsity and the Plaza brought back Darby O’Gill and the Little People, which Scotty especially liked. Claire begged to see Change of Habit at the Pioneer drive-in, arguing “They say it’s the first good movie Elvis has made.” But the Judge didn’t think a drive-in a good idea. It was getting cold at night.

  At the Galaxy they saw One Hundred and One Dalmatians. The best movie ever, Scotty announced. Until the next day when he saw The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, which then became the best movie ever. Maggie said they all can’t be the best, and Claire stepped on Maggie’s foot to silence her. And then they waited for the Judge to drive up in the Dodge.

  But Scotty knew the two he liked best, better than any other movies ever made—The Battle of Britain and Tora! Tora! Tora!—which they saw on successive Saturdays at the River Hill Theater, Des Moines’s finest movie house. These were great movies, bloody and loud.

  However, the experience of watching these two war movies left the girl Oceans embittered.

  “Surely we could see something other than war movies.”

  “Surely there is something other…”

  Then the frequency of moviegoing slowed. Scotty believed it was because of his sisters’ complaints, but the truth was the Judge had taken them to every movie in the Des Moines area that was suitable for family viewing.

  At home, much television was watched. The Judge made nightly bowls of popcorn, and during commercial breaks he would play the piano. Scotty requested a bouncy song called “Alley Cat,” which the Judge played with enthusiasm. Once was fine, but after six or seven times, Maggie complained, “Daddy, learn another song.”

  The Judge believed that if he could keep the family occupied, Joan would come to her senses and return. If she drove by at night and looked in the window, she would see that the Ocean house was the place to be.

  ***

  One night while supper was cooking, the Judge entered the living room and said he had an idea for an activity. He held a book in one hand, a pen in the other. “Who wants to go first?”

  Claire did, then Maggie.

  “Both of you have grown,” the Judge said.

  They looked at their new heights. Claire said she hadn’t needed the measurement to confirm what she’d already felt—she was taller. Maggie wasn’t interested in growing taller—she dreamt of growing in other directions.

  “Scotty?” the Judge called out.

  “No thank you,” he yelled back.

  “Scotty, it’s a family activity. I insist.”

  As Scotty stood with his back to the kitchen closet door, the Judge placed a book, one from Claire’s Nancy Drew collection, on top of Scotty’s head. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” the Judge asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Scotty said, kicking off his shoes. As the Judge took a pen from his pocket, Scotty stretched as high as he could.


  “Scotty’s trying to cheat,” said Maggie, who had been standing unnoticed by the refrigerator.

  “No,” Scotty barked.

  “Is to. Tried to wear his shoes. Now he’s standing on his toes. Scotty is a cheater!”

  The Judge smiled. “There is nothing wrong, Maggie, with wanting to grow.”

  ***

  (Within weeks Maggie would begin stuffing concentrated amounts of Kleenex into a borrowed bra. Her father’s words, having echoed in her head, would give her the needed permission.

  In late February, while wandering around Kmart, Scotty would notice a tuft of tissue sticking out from Maggie’s blouse. He’d approach her, pull on it while many people, mostly boys, watched. He’d hold the confiscated goods for all to see. Maggie would know then the feeling Scotty was having now. And she’d flinch when her own words returned to haunt: “Maggie is a cheater. Maggie is a cheater.”

  But that day was months away.)

  ***

  So it was with great regret that Scotty Ocean stood his actual height. He listened to the sound of the Judge drawing the line above his head. The line was drawn in red ink.

  Scotty stepped away and looked up. His new mark was two inches lower than his previous measurement, the one Joan had just taken.

  “Well I’ll be,” the Judge said with suspicion. “Somebody’s getting smaller.”

  ***

  At dinner, the Judge couldn’t ignore Scotty, who sat with his head down. Yes, Scotty had been deceptive—and yes, he’d tried to distort his true height, and that wasn’t to be encouraged. But enough was enough, and the Judge spoke: “My dear and very special children…”

  The girls looked at the Judge. Maggie thought it queer that their dad spoke like a Bible.

  He continued, “Do you know the effect of gravity?”

  Scotty sat looking at his plate, searching for his reflection like the woman on the TV commercial.

  Claire smiled a look of recognition: “We did a whole section on it.”

  “Tell us about gravity.”

  Claire said the word, spelled it, said it again.

  “Correct,” said the Judge.

  “It’s a pull. When you drop something, it falls down instead of up. It gravitates.”

  Maggie interjected, “Gravity keeps you from floating off into space.”

  Suddenly, Scotty rose up, floating above the table. He lay pressed to the ceiling. The others stared up at him, their mouths still slowly chewing. He crawled across the ceiling. He pushed open the front door with his forehead, sailed outside, got caught for a moment in the big sycamore tree, freed himself, and floated off as his family shouted, “Come back, come back!” The farther away he got, the smaller he grew. Scotty was gone.

  He returned to the table as his father said, “Claire, that is correct. So Scotty, girls—gravity takes its effect on every one of us. How is this illustrated? The average man or woman is half an inch, sometimes a whole inch, shorter at the end of the day than he is at the beginning. And all because of…”

  The Judge paused, and like the conductor of an orchestra, gestured for everyone to speak in unison.

  “Gravity,” they said.

  “So,” Maggie added, “you’re saying Scotty came up short—”

  “Yes, that’s what he’s saying,” Claire said.

  “I asked Dad.”

  The Judge put a hand in the air. Whenever he raised his hand, the children were to stop talking, even if they were in mid-sentence. But Maggie kept on with her comments, ranting about how Scotty had no right to cheat. The Judge snapped two fingers of his raised hand. Maggie continued talking. Without warning, he took his water glass, and with a swift, precise move, emptied it on Maggie, drenching her.

  She stopped. Her bottom lip curled out, and she covered where her breasts would one day be. “Scotty was the cheater, Daddy. Not—” She stopped when she saw the Judge’s hand in the air.

  “In answer to your question,” the Judge said, “I believe it is possible, due to gravity, for Scotty to come up shorter. We must consider the pull of the earth.”

  ***

  The Ocean girls had been excused. Maggie, all wet, left the table in tears; Claire followed to make it better.

  The Judge and Scotty sat alone.

  “There’s a lot of good meat left on these bones.”

  Scotty watched his father pick at the food.

  “A lot of good meat.”

  Scotty had lost his appetite.

  “You do the dishes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Punished, good.

  He took hours washing and drying each dish by hand. He put away the silverware and left the dishes on the counter for morning, when someone taller, the Judge most likely, would put them away.

  The girls were asleep by the time Scotty finished, and in the living room, the Judge had nodded off while watching the late news. Scotty turned off the television, woke the Judge, and turned off the lights. He followed his dad up the stairs.

  And as he climbed, Scotty contemplated his lifetime full of mistakes. If only I had done more of this, less of that, he thought.

  And he made a mental list, indelibly scrawling it onto his heart. If only he hadn’t used the kissing machine on her all those times. If only he hadn’t done the seven dance, or licked the mailbox, then maybe she’d have stayed.

  If only I wasn’t such a cheater, he thought as he climbed into bed, the bed that was still hers.

  (2)

  Where was Joan?

  That became a frequent question in the minds of many people. Periodically there would be a sighting—she’d be seen idling in her yellow convertible at a stoplight; Liz Conway saw her getting cigarettes out of a machine at Harold Drake’s gas station. Once she was seen pushing an empty grocery cart down an aisle at the Safeway, laughing, no bra on, her breasts jiggling up and down, her laugh forced and unfortunate.

  Rhonda Fowler called Brenda Burkhett and said, “You’ll never believe who I just saw at Safeway…”

  The Oceans went to church. They were Joan-less. The Judge told the children to say to anyone who asked that their mother wasn’t feeling well. The Judge seemed stiffer, and the girls looked older suddenly, and Scotty didn’t fidget. His behavior seemed impeccable. Someone mentioned that Joan had closed her gallery. Someone else heard she was staying on the other side of town.

  (3)

  After school when she knew the Judge wouldn’t be home, Joan made a secret call to her kids.

  “Let me talk to Scotty. Is Scotty on the phone? Scotty, are you there?”

  “He’s on,” Maggie said.

  “Scotty? Hello, little love.”

  “He’s on. Talk!”

  “Are you sure he’s on?”

  “I hear him breathing.”

  A faint “Hi.”

  “Was that you?”

  A faint “Yes.”

  “Can you talk a little louder? For your mom? How are you?”

  A faint “Good.”

  “You have to speak up. I’m calling from a pay phone. You know how pay phones are.”

  “Scotty, talk to Mom. You’ve been wanting to. He’s always practicing what he wants to tell you. I have to listen to him all the way to school. He talks a mile a minute. And now you call and he says nothing. Come on, Scotty!”

  “Honey, what are you doing?”

  A faint “TV.”

  “What’re you watching?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I miss you so much.” Joan dropped another coin in the phone. “You know that, don’t you? Scotty?”

  “I think he put down the phone, Mom, because I don’t hear him breathing.”

  ***

  Scotty watched as Claire and Maggie, after hanging up the phone, began a frantic search. Claire checked the Judge’s room, opening his sock drawer, his underwear drawer—Maggie checked the living room bookcase and sorted through the stack of papers in the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?” Scotty asked.

>   “If you had stayed on the phone,” Claire said, “you’d know exactly what we’re looking for.”

  The more they searched, the angrier they became. So when the Judge entered the house, Claire and Maggie stood waiting, fuming.

  “Where are they?” Claire asked.

  The Judge looked puzzled.

  “Mom said she wrote us letters.”

  “Where are they!” Maggie shouted.

  “Oh,” the Judge said.

  “I can’t believe it!”

  “You keeping them from us, Dad?” Maggie said.

  “I forgot,” the Judge said. “Honest.” He went to the sugar bowl and lifted the lid. “Here, kids.”

  He handed them their letters.

  “You read them?” Claire said, referring to the torn envelopes. “I can’t believe you read them!”

  Claire and Maggie, letters in hand, stomped up the stairs.

  “I’m sorry,” the Judge said.

  Scotty stood holding his letter. “It’s okay, Dad.”

  “She might not be your wife,” Claire shouted. “But she’s still our mother!”

  ***

  Later the Judge climbed the stairs. “Claire, Maggie,” the Judge called from the hallway. “I’m sorry.”

  (4)

  Whenever the family watched TV, Scotty crouched on the carpet, on his knees, ready to sprint. If the phone rang, Scotty was off and running. Living in a world dominated by his ten-and twelve-year-old sisters, he needed a head start. After all, it might be his mother calling, and if he was first, he’d have her all to himself, if only for a moment, and he could say what he wished he’d said when she called that one time—he’d say what he rehearsed, the magic words that would make her come back: “I’ll be good.”

  ***

  Claire tried to answer Scotty’s question. “They always say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you.’ What else? Good boys are polite and clean and do what is required.”

  “Okay,” Scotty said.

  “But most important, good boys help with chores.”

  “Okay.”

  “Does that answer it?”