Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay Page A

chicken and dumplings,” he said.
    â€œI know that,” Ellen said. She did not look at him as she set the plate down hard. “We weren’t expecting you.”
    â€œWe love chicken and dumplings,” Amy said. Herbert nodded, his cheeks bulging.
    â€œI thought you didn’t like them,” James said.
    â€œJust because you don’t like something doesn’t mean we have to feel the same way,” Ellen said, and the children lifted their pointed chins, a gesture of Ellen’s he vaguely recognized. After supper, she played with them in the living room, hauling them up by the feet into handstands, then letting go. Their spindly bodies collapsed, knitted together, jumped up for more. Me next! Me next! they squealed. Each time a child crashed to the floor, James imagined a splintered bone. Their faces turned red; their hair swung in their eyes. Their shirts fell down to expose soft, puckered bellies.
    â€œCareful!” he shouted, as Amy tipped over backward. “No more of this roughhousing!”
    Ellen crouched, put her head to the floor, and pushed her body upward, uncoiling into a perfect, pointy-toed handstand. Her hips tilted slightly, keeping balance. Her breasts and belly flattened into one sleek line. James stared at her, shocked, for he realized she was angry. That night, when he got into bed, she rolled as far away from him as she could. “I will not live with a stranger,” she said so quietly he almost couldn’t hear.
    This time, when he came home, he told her, I’ll put them to bed tonight. But he stood in the doorway. He did not know what to say. He did not kiss them good night. He did not want to touch them.
    Hasenfuss. Mama’s boy .
    All set? she asked, when he came into the bedroom.
    Yes.
    How did it go?
    I sang a lullaby.
    Did you kiss them good night?
    When he didn’t answer, she got out of bed, pulling both quilts along with her. “Ellie?” he said, but she disappeared down the hall toward the children’s room. For a while, he lay shivering beneath the sheet, wondering what he should do. Then he got up to find a spare blanket. He looked in the chest of drawers and in the closet. He even bent to look under the bed. Finally, he called to Ellen through the wall, softly, not wanting to wake the children or his parents, but she didn’t answer. So he put on his robe and lay back down, remembering how they had huddled together for warmth, the old Chevy swallowed in white, and how nothing wrong happened between them, although after that, it was obvious, they had to get married. What else could they do?
    The TV flickers in the misty darkness. James’s head sinks to his chin.
    You’re their father, she said.
    Why would he dream of bees?
    They love you, she said.
    He cannot remember the end of the song. Mitch would know, but Mitch is dead. He is buried in Saint Michael’s Cemetery, asleep in the ground like the twin brothers that died. He had a mind like a steel trap, but James cannot remember anything. He swallows, licks his lips. Without their faces before him, he cannot even remember what the children look like. Eyes, fingers. Sunken cheeks. Jack-o’-lantern smiles.
    What kind of man cannot remember his own children?
    The commercial ends; the lovers reappear. The woman twirls before the man, an angel in a long pale gown.
    Â 
    In the morning, he pretends to sleep as Ellen moves around the room, dressing for work in the semi-darkness. She steps into one of her teacher dresses, brown or blue—he cannot tell—that buttons up the front. A wide plastic belt cinches her waist. Her lips are outlined in lipstick; her short hair is curled tight, sprayed close to her head. He can see everything without opening his eyes. When her lips touch his cheek, he has felt it coming and does not wince, does not react to her sigh.
    He would stay in this bed all day if he could stand it, his head half buried in his stiff, musty pillow,