She had four younger siblings, three brothers and one sister, and it took every bit of will to keep them in order and keep them from hurting each other or getting hurt, period. So, when her father announced that Heidi was going to marry Harvey Summers of the Summers family from up the road, Heidi said something like, “Why?” This really irritated her father.
“Because I can’t afford to feed you anymore,” her father growled. “Last I checked, you were nineteen years old! It’s time for you to get out of the house and have a family of your own.”
Harvey was much older than Heidi. At thirty-two, he was six-foot-three with hands the size of dinner plates and bad breath. The bad breath thing wasn’t something Heidi learned about till the day she walked down the aisle, a bouquet from the fields clutched in her hands. Her little sister Carrie had picked them for her. Heidi stood without smiling and performed all the duties of a marriage ceremony until the Kimpel family invited her family over to their yard for a barbecue celebration. Everything smelled like burnt meat and bad whiskey. Before her father, Harvey, and the other men from the Summers family got too drunk to deal with, Heidi moved her two suitcases from her family’s house to Harvey’s house, and that was that. She was married.
Like most other guys in their town, Harvey worked at the coal mine, which meant long hours, exhaustion, and hunger that demanded enormous lunches that Heidi had to pack herself. When Harvey left in the morning, Heidi always breathed a sigh of relief, then set to work on her chores: scrubbing, prepping more ingredients for future meals, and sweeping every surface she could find.
She was practiced at this. Every room she ever entered looked pristine.
Often by midafternoon, she could sneak down to her parents’ place to help with chores and check in on her siblings. During the summertime, they were all out of school, and the two older boys were working with their father, getting a head start on a lifetime of arduous labor that surely awaited them after high school (if they were able to finish high school, that is). The youngest son was doing odd chores around the house, the more “masculine” chores like tending to the yard and fixing up the house, while Carrie was busy baking and cleaning. Their mother had recently had a string of health problems that kept her in bed. They weren’t entirely sure what was wrong, and the doctorwasn’t currently in town to check in on things. Frequently, their mother said, “Everything is fine, really,” with a voice like a string. But Heidi did everything she could to pick up the slack, so much so that she was often exhausted by the end of the day and fell asleep before Harvey did.
It was around mid-summer that Harvey started to pester Heidi about having a kid. They’d been married for three months, and it mystified him that she wasn’t pregnant yet. After all, most of his friends at work already had children or were pregnant. They told him that there must be something wrong with Heidi. But Harvey said they needed to try harder.
Although she didn’t say so, Heidi felt that having a baby would equate to more chores, more things to worry about. She did her best to get away from him when she could.
She never asked herself if this was how she wanted to spend the rest of her life, because she didn’t know lives that were any other way. She’d never left the Tennessee mountains in her life.
In July, devastating news came. Carrie told Heidi she wasn’t going back to high school. She was sixteen, three years younger than Heidi, but Heidi had already put onto Carrie’s shoulders all of her own hopes and dreams. She needed Carrie to graduate from high school. She needed Carrie to go to college and pursue a career in whatever Carrie dreamed, if only so that what Heidi had done in her life (care for her siblings) would matter.
Carrie needed to make something of herself.
“You dropped out, remember?” Carrie said, drying a plate with a towel. “And you’re doing all right.”
Heidi gaped at her sister. “Doing all right?” She hissed. “What makes you think I’m doing all right?”
“You have a house,” Carrie said. “You have a husband. You’ll have babies soon.”
Heidi puffed out her chest. “You think that means everything’s good?”
Carrie set down the plate and put her hands on her hips. Finally, she said, “Listen, it’s not that simple. You should know that. Daddy told me I have to drop out. Mama’s getting sicker, and someone has to be here to take care of things.”
Heidi hissed with anger. When she’d been sixteen herself, it had been her father who’d told her to drop out, after all. It had been her father who’d made her marry Harvey Summers. Was she going to let her father ruin her little sister’s life, too?
“I’ll talk to him,” Heidi said.
Carrie scrunched up her face with fear. “Don’t do that, Heidi. You know what he’s like.”
Heidi, of course, knew what he was like. But she thought she could reason with him anyway.
Years later, she was never able to understand why she’d taken that chance.
She waited until her father returned home, long after she was meant to return to her own place and prepare for Harvey. Her father came in, smiling drunkenly, as though they’d all stopped at the bar on their way home. But when he saw Heidi, he barked, “I hope you don’t think I’m paying for your dinner, too. I thought we arranged things so you’re not here anymore.”
Heidi stood at the dinner table, helping Carrie to put out the plates and napkins.
“Daddy, I need to talk to you,” Heidi said. “In private, please.”
Her father glowered at her. “This is about as private as we’re going to get.”
Heidi glanced at Carrie, then folded her hands over her stomach and said, “I think Carrie should stay in school. She’s a smart girl, and she has a bright future ahead of her.”
Slowly, her father’s face transformed into an expression of marked cruelty. He cackled. “You think she has a bright future?Brighter than my life, you mean? Brighter than what I’ve built for her?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Heidi lied, but of course, that was what she meant. Her father knew enough to call her out on that.
Her father continued to cackle. Carrie went to the other side of the room, as though to take refuge. A few seconds later, all the brothers burst in, scrambling for their dinner, and the conversation was dropped. Heidi decided to let herself out, resolving to pester her father about it tomorrow, and the day after that, till he gave in. She would not let Carrie’s life fall apart as hers had. She would do anything to save her.
But when Heidireturned to her parents’ place the next day, she was struck dumb with the discovery of her sister’s bruised face. Carrie was black and blue, her eyes rimmed red, and she limped around the kitchen, sweeping and avoiding Heidi’s gaze. Heidi freaked out. “Carrie? Carrie, let me see!” But Carrie turned away.
