The Funhouse

she could only be sure that her first, monstrous baby had been the product of Conrad's rotten, degenerate spermatozoa, if she could just be certain that her own chromosomes were not corrupted, she would be able to lay her fear to rest forever. But of course there was no way she could determine the truth of the matter.
        Sometimes she thought that life was too difficult and much too cruel to be worth the effort of living it.
        That was why, now, standing in the kitchen on the night of the day that she had learned of Amy's pregnancy, Ellen tossed down the last of the drink that she had mixed only minutes ago, and she quickly poured another. She had two crutches: liquor and religion. She could not have withstood the past twenty-five years without both of those supports.
        Initially, the first year after she left Conrad, religion alone was sufficient to her needs. She had gotten a job as a waitress, had become self-supporting after a rocky start, and had spent most of her spare time in church. She had found that prayer soothed her nerves as well as her spirit, that confession was good for the soul, and that a meager Communion wafer taken on the tongue during Mass was far more nourishing than any six-course meal.
        At the end of that first year on her own, more than two years after she had run from home to join the carnival and to be with Conrad, she felt fairly good about herself. She still suffered from bad dreams most nights. She was still wrestling with her conscience, trying to make up her mind whether she had sinned terribly or had merely done God's work when she had killed Victor. But at least, as a hard-working waitress, she had gained a measure of self-respect and independence for the first time in her life. Indeed, she had felt sufficiently self-confident to return home for a visit, intending to patch up her differences with her parents as best she could.
        That was when she discovered they had died in her absence. Joseph Giavenetto, her father, was felled by a massive stroke just one month after Ellen ran away from home. Gina, her mother, died less than six months later. It happened that way sometimes-wife and husband taking leave of life within a short time of each other, as if unable to tolerate the separation.
        Although Ellen had not been close to her parents, and although Gina's excessive strictness and religiosity had created a great deal of tension and bitterness between mother and daughter, Ellen had been devastated by the news of their deaths. She was filled with a cold, empty, unfinished feeling. She blamed herself for what had happened to them. Running away as she had done, leaving nothing more than a terse, unpleasant note for her mother, not even saying goodbye to her father-with those actions she might have precipitated her father's stroke. Perhaps she was too hard on herself, but she wasn't able to shrug off the yoke of guilt.
        Thereafter, her religion was not able to provide her with sufficient comfort, and she augmented the mercy of Jesus with the mercy of the bottle. She drank too much-more this year than last, not so much this year as next year. Only her family was aware of her habit. The churchwomen with whom she worked in charitable causes four days each week would be shocked to discover that the quiet, earnest, industrious, devout Ellen Harper was a different person at night, in her own home, after sunset, behind closed doors, the saint became a lush.
        She despised herself for her sinfully excessive fondness for vodka. But without booze she couldn't sleep, it blocked out the nightmares, and it gave her a few hours of blessed relief from the worries and fears that had been eating her alive for twenty-five years.
        She put the bottle of vodka and the quart of orange juice on the kitchen table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. Now, when her drink ran low, she wouldn't have to get up to freshen it, she would only have to bestir herself when her ice had melted.
        For a while she sat in silence, drinking, but then, as she stared at the chair opposite her own, she had a memory-flash of Amy sitting there this morning, looking up, saying, “ I've had some morning sickness, I missed my period, I'm really pregnant, I know I am…” Ellen remembered, far too vividly, how she had struck the girl, how she had shaken her senseless, how she had cursed her.
        If she closed her eyes she could see herself pulling Amy onto the