Chapter Two

two

You could ask anybody in Ambient: Fred Carpenter’s new wife, Bethany, wasn’t the type to bend her own rules. But that Christmas Eve, she allowed the men to bring their whiskey inside the house. Later, she’d say she’d had a feeling all along that something was about to happen, and it drove her to such distraction that when Fred asked her if just this once, for the holidays, they might have a round before supper, she nodded before she realized what he’d asked, what she’d done. The telephone rang, but when she picked up the receiver, a giggling child asked if her refrigerator was running. A lightbulb blew in the foyer and then, only minutes later, in the bathroom off the hall. For no reason whatsoever, a jar of sweet pickles slipped from her hand and shattered on the linoleum floor. More than once, she caught herself checking the sky above the field where, just last August, the legs of two tornadoes had stumbled, knock-kneed, toward the highway.

But on this day, the winter sky was plain and pale as her own face, and at six o’clock sharp, Bethany called everyone to the table: her boys and Fred and Fred’s father, Alfred, whom every body called Pops. Pops was well known around Ambient; since losing his driver’s license for DWI, he’d been driving his tractor to Jeep’s Tavern each weekend, parking it on Main Street, forcing traffic to squeeze by. Now he wore the nice dress shirt Bethany had given him last Christmas, fresh from the box, all the creases intact. His beard—once dark and thick as Fred’s—had grown in pale and patchy since the night he’d accidentally set it on fire, heating up a pan of SpaghettiOs. Still, it brushed the clean surface of his plate as he hitched his chair up to the table. The water in the glasses shivered and danced.

“Already a few sheets to the wind,” Bethany complained, not bothering to lower her voice.

Pops said, “Hell, I only had two.”

Bethany said, “Language.”

The boys nudged each other and grinned.

“Well, heck, then,” Pops mumbled, cracking his knuckles as if he wanted to fight the Christmas ham. But the electric company had cut his lights again, and even Bethany could see he was pleased enough to be sitting under her bright chandelier. Outside the dining room window, not ten yards beyond the edge of the gravel courtyard, the farmhouse he’d occupied for sixty years loomed like a pirate’s ship—all it needed was a skull-and-crossbones to replace the tattered American flag that drooped from a boarded-up window, stripes faded pink. The yard was a carnival of discarded chairs and mattresses, tires, tractor parts, buckets of paint; the porch sagged beneath two mildewed couches where, in summer, Pops and the boys from Jeep’s gathered to talk dirty, to swap outrageous lies. Each year, the whole place leaned a little more to the right, and though Fred had spent the better part of one summer jacking up the central support, the house still looked like it wanted to slide off its foundation and slip away, embarrassed, into the fields.

“Now, Beth,” Fred said from time to time, twisting at his beard until it formed an anxious point. “It seems to me we might have Pops over for a hot meal now and again.” But Bethany refused to pity Pops. She figured he made his bed each time he headed for the liquor store. After all, he had his social security, plus whatever he earned doing odd jobs for Big Roly Schmitt—that is, when he made up his mind to work. She had him to supper on holidays, of course; beyond that, she drew the line. Otherwise, she knew, he’d be crossing the courtyard every night of the week to eat her good food and stink up her nice furniture, to mistreat her house the way he’d done his own and infect her boys with his laziness.

Back when Fred had first proposed, Bethany saw he had some idea about her moving into those cat-piss-smelling rooms, looking after his father, imposing some order on their lives. Even then Fred’s beard was thick enough to hide his mouth, but Bethany saw the smug pride in his eyes, how he expected her to leap for that ring like a cat for a bird. After all, at the time she was a thirty-something waitress, mother to two boys who’d never had a father’s name. But Bethany told Fred, “Listen once. We’re not kids so we can be straight with each other. If you marry me, you are getting two fine sons and a wife who will cook you the best meals you’ve ever eaten, and keep a nice garden, and make sure your clothes are tidy-looking, and don’t forget I’ll be out there earning money too. When the lights go out I’ll never say no, provided you keep yourself clean. So that’s a good deal for you and well worth the cost of a house I’ll be proud to live in.”

She’d surprised him, but Fred was quick on his feet. He said, “There are gals who’d take it as a challenge to fix an old farmhouse into a showplace.”

“I guess you should propose to one of them,” she said.

He set his beer down on the coffee table; she nudged it onto a coaster. It didn’t take much to leave a ring.

“I guess you should take another look in those magazines you’re always reading,” he said. “Half those ladies’ fancy places are old farmhouses somebody smart bought cheap. I’d give you a thousand dollars,” he said, and he paused to let that sink in. “You could spend it however you pleased.”

She took a Better Homes and Gardens from the magazine rack and held it out to him. “Show me,” she said, “where one of these fancy places comes furnished with a half-crazy drunken old man.”

She knew he had money for a decent house—a thirty-six-year-old bartender who sleeps in his childhood bed can save a pretty penny—but he said, “I have to do some more thinking on this,” and walked out, taking that ring along with him. Her mother said, “Oh, Bethany, look what you did, those boys will never have a father now.” And Bethany said, “Ma, these boys live in a two-bedroom apartment with carpet on the floors and cereal in the cupboards, which is more than any father ever gave them.” True, she was lonely, but if it came down to a choice between a man who’d have them live dirt cheap and dirty, or her own waxed floors and freshly scrubbed windows, Bethany was proud to choose door number two. Why marry if it didn’t improve your standing, make things a little easier on yourself? Why lose control of the few things you’d finally managed to get a firm grip on?

She would never forget how she and her sister had had to walk on tippy-toe around Pa, how Ma was always saying, Now don’t upset your father, now leave your father be, like he was some wild animal they’d lured in with table scraps. They’d lived in a duplex, rented their side from a man named Mr. Shuckel. When he came to the door to ask about rent, Pa always sent little Rose to say nobody was home, but Mr. Shuckel hollered at her just like she was a grown-up. Now Pa was long gone and Ma had moved in with Rose and her three half-grown kids. She lectured Rose and Bethany both about how her children always had a father, how’d they been a real family, not like you young gals today. Bethany ignored her the same way she ignored the politicians on TV. She’d never voted, hadn’t even bothered to hear George Bush when he stopped to give a stump speech in Cradle Park. What did this politician, or for that matter any other, care what she had to say? She could have told them that a happy family didn’t start with the right church or a fancy school or x many cops on the street. It started with a nice place to live. And when Fred returned three months later, that same ring hooked to a house key, Bethany married him right there in her heart—Father Oberling’s ceremony at Saint Fridolin’s Church had little to do with it. It was a home that cleaved two into one, and it was only their second Christmas together when Shawn Carpenter showed up to spoil it all.

They had just said grace, something they did only on holidays—Bethany saved prayer for special occasions, the same way she saved her good china. “Everything looks great,” Fred said, and he stood up to carve the ham, which was wrapped in a pineapple-and-cherry necklace Bethany had copied from the cover of Good Housekeeping. There were side dishes of scalloped potatoes and carrot salad piled high in a Jell-O ring and squash with marsh-mallow topping. There were baby canned pear halves spread with cream cheese, garnished with a dab of mint jelly. A perfect Christmas dinner, Bethany thought. A perfect family to enjoy it. She silently challenged Ma or the tight-lipped ladies she cleaned house for or even George Bush himself to say it wasn’t so. Then her heart froze at the sound of somebody pulling into the driveway. “Who’s got a big brown station wagon?” she said. It stalled on the ice, slipped back, lurched ahead so that it spun a cookie in the courtyard, crashing into the drift along the snow fence.

“What the hell,” Pops said, standing up to look.

“Language,” Bethany said.

“What the hooey,” he corrected himself.

“It’s two of them,” Bethany said. “They’re headed over to the farmhouse.”

“Maybe it’s Santa and Rudolph,” Pete said sarcastically.

“Ho ho ho,” Pops said.

“Maybe it’s Saddam Hussein,” Robert John said.

“Hush,” Bethany said. “That’s not table talk.” Fred finished off the last of his whiskey; Pops wobbled slightly as he followed him to the door. “Hullo?” Fred called, and Pops hollered, “We’re over here!” Then the cold air sucked all the good food smells out into the night and, in exchange, presented them with Shawn Carpenter.

Bethany knew from the get-go who he was—she’d heard all about his good looks and bad habits from Lorna Pranke, the police chief’s wife, one of the nicer ladies she cleaned house for. Fred himself didn’t talk about Shawn much, just said he had ways of making bad ideas sound sensible. But Lorna had told of how he’d stolen and scammed and disturbed the peace and generally made a nuisance of himself, how for years you couldn’t open the Ambient Weekly without finding his name under “Citations.” The chief lost many a good night’s sleep before Shawn graduated from high school and left town for good. Whenever Bethany asked Fred about the things Lorna told her, he’d neither confirmed nor denied them. “Now, now,” he’d said. “You want to dig for skeletons, you keep to your own closet.”

“Surprise!” Shawn yelped, and he grabbed Fred and thumped him on the back right where it was always sore from standing at the bar. That spot, if you pressed your hand to it, would bring tears to his eyes, and Bethany felt that pain all the way up her own spine. But Fred only moaned and grabbed his brother harder, and the two of them hugged like no two men she’d ever seen, the way women hug, or lovers.

“Shawn-O!” Pops said, and the three of them wrestled around like kids instead of the grown men they were. Bethany and Pete and Robert John just sat there, and what Bethany felt at that moment was jealousy—jealousy and an odd twinge of fear. For this was something else Lorna Pranke had told her: Shawn Car penter drew people to him, made them do whatever he wished. He was like a magnet, like that iron ball inside the world that holds everything together, whether things want to be held or no. He had those good looks you couldn’t look away from; he moved like whole milk poured smooth out of a bottle. Fred, her own husband, loved him so much he was weeping like a child, and yet she’d never known until now. He’d kept it a secret, too painful, too sweet to share even with his own wife.

“Who’s that?” Robert John said. A fat little boy was standing on the threshold, letting out the heat. His weight made it hard to guess his age. His nose was running. There was a flu going around, and Bethany hoped he didn’t have it.

“Don’t let the cows out, Gabriel,” Shawn said, and the boy quickly shut the door. Bethany was the afternoon crossing guard at Solomon Public Elementary, and she could already see he was the sort of kid the others wouldn’t want to sit with. She could tell anybody might copy off his homework or pick on him at recess. “Whew,” Shawn said, swinging an arm around the boy’s shoulder. “Some Taj Mahal your grandpa’s got—huh, kiddo?”

“Pops still lives at the farmhouse,” Fred said, and he pulled Bethany forward by the hand. “I built this place for Bethany when we married.”

“Married? You?” Shawn said. “Freddie, you old dog!”

“Yes, sir,” Fred said proudly. “These are my new sons, Pete and Robert John.”

Shawn ignored the boys. “Bethany,” he said, as though her name tasted creamy in his mouth. “A pleasure to meet a woman who could make an honest man of my brother.” His incisors were so sharp and white she wanted to touch one with her finger, the way you’d test a good kitchen knife. It was clear he wanted something from her, though what that was she couldn’t say. She remembered Pete’s father, and Robert John’s father, how their smiles had wrapped around her, held her close; Shawn’s smile was trying to do the same. He said, “You got room at your table for a couple of weary travelers, Bethany?” beaming like he’d done her a favor. But a pretty smile didn’t work on Bethany the way it used to. She’d set the table for five; there wasn’t room for two more people. Anyone could see the whole arrangement would be ruined.

“Well,” Bethany said. She saw the boy looking hungrily at the ham, at the hot, fresh dinner rolls. His hair was tangled as a windblown field.

“If there’s not enough to eat,” Shawn said quickly, “we’re happy with a sandwich. We don’t want to put anybody out.”

Which was a lie. You didn’t show up uninvited for Christmas supper to beg a sandwich. “You’re welcome to what we have,” she said. “It’s just that I’m wondering where to seat you.”

“Oh, we can sit on the floor,” Shawn said, as if a decent person would allow something like that. So Bethany ran to the kitchen to find more plates, while Fred dragged the twin wing-backs in from the living room. The boy sank into one, still wearing his coat, and took the plate Fred filled for him. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he put the plate on his lap, folded his hands, and lowered his head.

“Gabriel’s on a religious kick,” Shawn explained. “Teacher at his last school brainwashed him. So much for separation of church and state.”

“A little religion never hurt anyone,” Bethany said firmly. “I’ll be taking my boys to Mass tonight, and we always go on Easter.”

“This isn’t just Christmas and Easter,” Shawn said. “This is morning, noon, and night.” He laughed, but the child’s face was radiant with concentration. Pete and Robert John stared. The room ticked with silence. Finally, the boy blinked, opened his eyes.

“Did you remember to pray for your old man?” Shawn teased, and with those words, Gabriel began to eat, steadily and noisily, like an animal at a trough. Robert John let loose with a soft pig snort; Bethany cut him a warning look. “How old are you, Gabriel?” she said to be polite, but Gabriel didn’t answer, didn’t even look up.

“He’s a big fifth grader this year,” Shawn said, and he smiled again, that slick, wanting smile. “How old are these handsome boys?”

Pete said, low as he could, “I’m at Solomon High,” and Bethany could tell he wanted to put as much distance between himself and Gabriel as possible.

Robert John said reluctantly, “I’m in fifth.”

“Hear that, Gabey?” Shawn said. “You’re the same age! You’ll probably see each other at school.”

Bethany put down her fork uneasily. “So you intend to stay in Ambient?”

“Thinking in that direction,” Shawn said. “Of course, we need to find a place to stay.”

“I got plenty of room at the farmhouse,” Pops said. There was mashed potato in his beard. Bethany signaled Fred, who leaned over and tenderly wiped it away with his napkin.

“The thing is,” Fred said to Shawn, “Pops is having another dispute with Wisconsin Electric.”

Gabriel’s fork moved from his plate to his mouth, from his mouth to his plate.

Shawn said, “Then maybe Gabriel could stay here for a bit, let his cousins show him the ropes.”

At last, Gabriel’s fork fell still. Pete and Robert John looked at each other as if the only rope they planned to show Gabriel was a noose. And it was all Bethany could do to conceal her rage. She cleaned fourteen houses each week, plus her own. Weekday afternoons, she met the buses at Solomon Public. She had no time for the child of a man too lazy to look after his own.

“You need to understand something,” she said. “We keep our households separate. I’ve got all I can handle with my own two boys.”

“Now, Bethany,” Fred said. “It’s just a night or two.”

But if she’d learned anything over the years, she’d learned how to stand up for herself. One night would stretch out into a week, and then a month, and once Gabriel got the run of her house, Pops and Shawn would soon follow. And it wouldn’t take long for squalor to take root, settle in to stay. A few stray cups could collect overnight into a dried-on sinkful. Some newspapers left on the couch might slide across the floor, pile up beside the armchair, snag the dust bunnies that had materialized the moment you looked away. And when you turned back to deal with them, you’d forget the laundry you’d meant to start, so the beds wouldn’t get made for a night that stretched into a week because Mrs. So-and-so called and she needed her house cleaned special for a party, or because you caught cold or your back went out, or because it was already time to take out the garbage and vacuum the living room carpet and rinse the teapot with vinegar. Suddenly the house would seem smaller and voices would seem louder and supper, again, would be Van Camp’s pork ’n’ beans. She could see the clutter building up already in the twin crystal balls of the boy’s thick glasses.

She said, “I’m sorry, but it’s more than I can do.”

“Now, Beth.”

“I won’t be sending him my boys to care for.”

“It’s OK,” Shawn said, but that smile was finally wavering. “I don’t want Bethany to put herself out on our account.”

“I assure you that I won’t,” she said. “That’s what I’m telling you.”

“Of course I’m happy at the farmhouse,” Shawn said. “And Gabriel will be too. I just thought he’d like to spend a little time with boys his age.”

“I want to stay with you,” Gabriel said to his father. It was the first time he’d spoken.

“For Pete’s sake, kiddo,” Shawn said, too heartily. “I bet you could survive a night or two without me. How old are you now anyway, twelve? Thirteen?”

“I’m ten,” Gabriel said, and he broke into silent, shaking sobs.

“Old enough for a super-big slice of pie,” Bethany said to quiet him, to quiet them all. But tears kept bubbling up in the corners of his eyes, and the sleeve of his coat was shiny from wiping his nose, even though, twice, she offered him the Kleenex box. He ate three huge pieces of pie, bite after bite, wedge after wedge, in the same helpless way she remembered Ma eating cookies right from the bag. By that time Pa’s late nights had stretched into lost days, and she weighed over two hundred pounds. Even today she was a big lady, and she’d be living with Bethany instead of Rose if Bethany hadn’t hardened her heart. There’d be a yellow stain on the ceiling above the chair where she smoked her cigarettes, butts toppling out of whichever clean plate she chose for an ashtray, burn holes scattered across the upholstery like flecks of dirt. And then Fred would start lighting up his after-dinner cigar in the house instead of going next door, and maybe he’d have one after work, seeing it was so convenient for him to do so. That was how easily it started. You had to be on your guard. As soon as somebody balled up a handkerchief, left it lying on the end table, there’d suddenly be a couple of pennies, a pen, a scrap of paper beside it.

“Rosie,” Bethany had told her sister, “you’ve got yourself and those kids to think of. Don’t let Ma go bullying you if you don’t want her living with you.”

“I just think you ought to take a turn for a while,” Rose said. “Just give me a break from her, that’s all.”

But that kind of thinking was the beginning of the end. It was the beginning of Ma and those dresses she couldn’t be bothered to wash, and that stinking little dog she’d adopted last year and doted on more than she ever did on Bethany. It was the beginning of forgetting where you drew the line. For by the time you were in a particular situation, that line got hard to see because there were people stepping all over it, waving their arms, hollering and crying and making demands. The thing was to keep yourself clear of those troubles. The thing was to understand your limits, to put your foot down with a boom. Bethany had known before she’d married Fred that he had his family’s taste for booze. But she also knew he had a kind heart and a yearning for better things, and she’d designed the house to feed those inclinations.

After supper, Fred led everybody into the living room to play cards around the coffee table as Bethany put the leftovers away, did the dishes and wiped down the cupboards and washed the floor. By then it was nearly eleven, time to leave for Midnight Mass—if you didn’t get there early, you’d end up standing at the back. Bethany had taken the boys each year since they were old enough to sit up in a pew. Religion, like a spoonful of cod-liver oil, was an easy ounce of prevention, even though some might protest its bitter taste. She stuck her head in the living room. The Christmas tree cast a warm light over the crèche in the big bay window, and Bethany admired the faces of the shepherds, the wise men, the little drummer boy. Even the animals’ dull expressions were made human in the presence of the Baby Jesus. Mouths parted expectantly. Eyes solemn with hope. She’d draped the top of the crèche with red ribbon that matched the ribbons on the gifts beneath the tree, and these matched the tiny red bows she had glued to each of the golden ornaments. The angel she’d seated at the tree’s tippy top, a white bulb illuminating her dress, looked down upon everything with pleasure—except for the bottle of Wild Turkey, the men hunched over their cards. Pete and Robert John sat beside them; Gabriel dozed on the love seat, his mouth open on one of her nice throw pillows, his coat tugged carelessly over him.

“Pete, Robert John,” she said. “Time to get ready for church.”

The men had cigars tucked in their shirt pockets; Bethany saw Pete had one too. And perhaps it was that cigar which made him decide to feel his oats a little. “Oh, Ma,” he said. “I’m too old for that sort of thing.”

“Me too,” Robert John said.

“Then I guess you’re too old for what Santa brought you,” Bethany said.

Pete sighed theatrically; Robert John popped to his feet. In the fall, Fred had taken the boys out to look at snowmobiles, and they suspected, rightly, there was something waiting for them in the milk house under a tarp. But then Fred said, “Aw, Beth, don’t you think Pete’s old enough to make up his own mind?”

And before Bethany could reply, Pete said, “Dad’s right. I’m not a kid anymore.”

Dad. She’d been after the boys to call Fred that since they were married, but this was the first time either one had done so. Fred beamed, knuckled Pete’s shoulder; Pops cackled vengefully. What could she do? She said, “Whatever your father thinks is best,” hoping he would say, “Go along with your ma,” or maybe even, “Let’s all go to Mass together this year,” which, of course, he didn’t. Robert John sat back down and announced he wasn’t a kid either, but she had him by the ear so fast he yipped like the pup he still was. “We leave in five minutes,” she told him, anger masking her hurt. “March.” She turned to follow, saw Gabriel clumsily working his arms into his coat. He said, “May I go to church too?”

“Now, son,” Shawn said, “we don’t want to impose.” He was looking at Bethany when he spoke, but the easy, oily smile was gone. Maybe she’d been too hard on him. Clearly, he cared about the boy. And she knew firsthand how difficult it was to raise a child alone.

“Beth?” Fred said. “Honey?”

But the truth was that she didn’t want to take Gabriel to church, to have him sit beside her with his uncombed hair and unwashed smell, that jacket sleeve stiff from wiping at his nose. She wanted her own sons sitting right beside her, where everyone in that congregation could see what big, fine boys they were, how she was raising them right, how she was keeping herself up, how Fred Carpenter was one lucky man. “You sure you can be good for one whole hour?” Bethany said. “Because if you fidget, I’ll send you out to the car.”

“Gabriel’s always good,” Shawn said, and the boy smiled at him gratefully. Robert John sulked back into the room, his feet crammed into unlaced boots. His coat was unzipped. His clip-on tie was crooked. He shot Pete a clean, cold look of hate.

Pete said, “Hey, this’ll cheer you up! Gabriel’s coming with you.”

Robert John mumbled, “Will he fit in a pew?”

Fred said sharply, “That’s enough of that.”

“Take your cousin out to the car,” Bethany told Robert John, and as soon as the younger boys had left the room, she plucked the cigar from Pete’s shirt pocket. “If you’re going to be treated like a man,” she said curtly, “you’d better start learning to act like one. I expect you to set an example for both your brother and your cousin.” She flipped the cigar at Fred and walked out to the foyer. To her surprise, he followed; he even helped her on with her coat. “Aw, don’t be mad,” he said. “He’d just sleep through the service anyway.” He was cuddling up behind her, his beard tickly against her neck. “Dad,” he said, and he leaned his chin on her shoulder. “Did you hear him say it, Bethie?” His hands locked over her stomach like the buckle of a belt. And Bethany forgave him, leaned back against him—just for a mo ment—before unbuckling his hands, kissing each rough palm, and hurrying after the boys.

Robert John had claimed the front seat; Gabriel sat in back. The angel in the big bay window winked and blinked as they drove away, dwindling down to the small, still light of a distant star. Bethany thought of Pete, alone with the men, their whiskey, their ways. The fact was that both her boys were growing up. She hoped Fred’s example would keep them from being like their fathers and her own, the walk-away types, the sort of men she didn’t even pretend to understand. As she turned north, following County C along the river, she wondered how it could be that Pa wasn’t even the least bit curious to see how she and Rose turned out. Ma, for all her dislike of them, wouldn’t have left them any more than she would have left behind an arm or a leg. Maybe, Bethany thought, that was why she’d treated them so mean. Because she couldn’t leave. Because they’d been a part of her once and her body still remembered them, claimed them, the way Bethany’s body claimed her boys somewhere just below the breastbone.

“Is that the river where the angel lives?” Gabriel asked in his clear, child’s voice.

“Angel?” Bethany said. It had started to snow, a light sparkling haze that shattered the moonlight into millions of pieces and skipped them across the narrow strip of water still untouched by ice.

“My dad said there was an angel,” Gabriel said, and his voice was less hopeful now.

“That’s just an old wives’ tale,” Bethany said.

“No it’s not,” Robert John said. “This kid at school? Davey Otto? Some other kids dared him to jump off the Killsnake Dam and he did it? And he—”

“Nearly drowned,” Bethany said.

“His mom says the angel saved his life.”

“I don’t ever want to hear about you playing at the dam.”

“Pops saw it once. By the highway bridge,” Robert John said. “He says it jumped out of the water like a fish!”

“Have you ever seen it?” Gabriel said.

Robert John twisted in his seat to stare at him. “Maybe,” he said mysteriously.

They were coming into Ambient. All the houses were outlined with lights, and some were capped by glowing reindeer, sleighs and snowmen, Santa Clauses wired to the chimneys. That afternoon, there’d been a living crèche in front of the railroad museum, and all the props were still in place: the manger with its cradle, the shepherds’ staffs, the post where the Farbs’ pet pony had been tied. Downtown, every other parking meter boasted a red-ribboned wreath, and the tall pine tree in front of the courthouse was decorated so beautifully, its star shining so brightly, that a stranger might barely have noticed the empty storefronts: the boarded-over windows of the Sew Pretty House of Fabric, the close-out sale banner at Fohr’s Family Furniture, the old brick bank where first a bridal shop and then a shoe store had started up and failed. The pharmacy was gone, and so was the five-and-dime. But there were a couple of new gift shops that catered to the millpond people—weekenders and summer vacationers who thought nothing of buying a perfectly fine little bungalow overlooking the Killsnake Dam, then ripping it down and putting a great big house up in its place. Cheddarheads sold cow T-shirts and German dolls and cheese; The River Stop sold cards and books, expensive kitchenware. And some of the old businesses were doing just fine—Roland Schmitt’s real estate company, Kimmeldorf’s Family Café, the bowling alley around the corner and, of course, Jeep’s Tavern. The sad thing was, if you wanted a can of paint or a new blouse, a slice of liverwurst or a refill on your prescription, you had to drive to Solomon, which, just a few years earlier, had been no more than a couple-three hundred houses upwind from the fertilizer plant, a dance bar called the Hodag and, down the road a mile or so, the Badger State Mall.

Sometimes Bethany couldn’t believe how fast everything had changed, even since she and Fred were married. But she had no problem with the newcomers, the way some people did. You couldn’t blame others for moving in from the cities. Who wouldn’t want to live somewhere like Ambient? At the town square, Cradle Park was as lovely as any picture postcard she had ever seen, especially now that the Onion River had finally begun to freeze over, the ice beneath the bridge glistening like spilled cream. You could forget all about how crowded it was in summer, how the trash cans spilled over, drawing flies, how several women had had their purses snatched in broad daylight last July. There was talk of the city buying land on the outskirts of town for a larger park, setting up a boat ramp, dumping sand for a beach. Bethany didn’t care what they did, as long as it didn’t raise her taxes.

Saint Fridolin’s parking lot was full, so she parked illegally—on Christmas Eve you could. Inside, she took off her gloves and swatted the snow from the boys’ hair and shoulders; she straightened Robert John’s tie, mopped Gabriel’s nose with her handkerchief. Joe Kimmeldorf, wearing an usher’s red carnation, was handing out thin white candles. He gave one to Bethany—ignoring the boys’ longing looks—then led her to a side pew at the back of the church, as she’d known he would. But the moment he was gone, she got up and dragged them toward the front. What was the point in coming to church if all you could see was a wall of backsides?

“Ma,” Robert John whispered, his head hung low with embarrassment, for the choir had begun to sing and people were turning their heads to stare. Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht. In the pews, men let their knees fall open and women set their purses beside them, daring her to crowd in. From the corner of her eye, Bethany saw Joe Kimmeldorf coming back down the aisle. Then she heard someone whisper her name—Ruthie Mader, her neighbor to the west. “Over here,” Ruthie said, and she motioned for her daughter, Cherish, to scoot over. Cherish Mader was a high school senior and more beautiful than any fashion model. Everybody said she took after her grandmother Gwendolyn, who’d run off to New York in the 1940s and come home with a wicked tongue and a toddling baby—Ruth. But Cherish wasn’t wild like her grandmother had been. You never saw Cherish Mader stray very far from her mother’s side.

“Thanks,” Bethany said, pulling the boys in after her. She ignored the pop-eyed looks of parishioners crushed in the middle of the pew. Wasn’t that what being a Christian was supposed to mean—doing unto others, even if that meant inconveniencing yourself just a little? Ruthie Mader was a Christian in the best sense of that word. Only days after Bethany’s marriage, she’d stopped by with a plate of brownies and an invitation to join the Circle of Faith, the prayer group she’d started after her husband’s death. “It’s a social club, mostly,” Ruthie said. “A way to get to know other women.” Lorna Pranke was a member, and she had only good things to say about it. Of course, Bethany had no time for that sort of thing. Still, it had been nice to be asked, and she thought of Ruthie every time she passed the small white cross on County O that marked the spot where Tom Mader had been killed by a hit-and-run driver. Seven years had passed, but Ruthie had never remarried. She still wore her wedding ring. Sunday afternoons, you’d see her with Cherish in the cemetery, pulling the weeds from around his grave.

The choir finished “Stille Nacht,” launched into “Die Kinderlein Kommen,” and Bethany settled back to enjoy the sound of the choir, the stained-glass colors, the various perfumes that rose from the coats of the women around her. Ruthie wasn’t the type to hold it against someone if she didn’t join prayer circles or go to church each week. Others were more particular. No doubt Father Oberling would remark on what he called “Christmas Christians,” trying to make people like Bethany feel bad because they didn’t come more often—it had been the same at her old church in Dodgeville, where she’d lived before she and Fred were married. But over the years, Bethany had trained herself to ignore that part and concentrate on what was good. And what was good was when the priest first came in at the back of the church with his candle and everybody rose. And he touched his flame to someone’s candle, and that person lit someone else’s, on and on, until the light spread over everyone like sunrise. What was good was the story of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men bearing gifts, the story of Baby Jesus in the manger with the cows and donkeys and sheep. Not my will but Thine be done, Mary had said, and of her own free will. Now she was forever blessed.

Bethany glanced at the boys and saw that Robert John was sleeping, his head rising and falling with each deep breath. But Gabriel was wide awake, hands folded high on his chest like a child in a First Communion picture. Candlelight danced off his thick glasses. His mouth was open, a perfect plump O.

“Who’s Robert John’s little friend?” Ruthie whispered, and Bethany said, “Fred’s brother Shawn’s boy.”

“Devout little one,” Ruthie said, nudging Cherish, and when it was time for the Sign of Peace, they both leaned across Bethany to offer Gabriel their hands. Gabriel smiled, bewildered but pleased, and Bethany seized his hand too. For suddenly she loved him, loved even his handsome, wayward father, loved everyone in the church and the whole wide world beyond. She approached the altar for Communion with such joy she couldn’t help smiling at Father Oberling, who did not smile back but glanced at her uncertainly, as if trying to recall just who she was. But it didn’t matter. She loved him too. And she left the church feeling as if God was guiding her home, the same way that she guided Robert John and Gabriel, an arm around each of their shoulders.

Yes, God was her chauffeur. It must have been so, for the car started without complaint, and she weaved her way out of the parking lot and through the downtown just ahead of the crowd. In the country, beyond the lights of Ambient, He stretched out His mighty hand, and she found that she could love even the cold, black waters of the Onion River, the silent fields with their chilly fringe of weeds, the quiet blossom of light that marked each distant house. Nowadays, there were people who said the star shining over Bethlehem was nothing but a comet, but who was to say it couldn’t have meant something else as well? Perhaps it became whatever you believed. Perhaps you controlled the thing that it was, the way you controlled your own destiny. She recalled the first time she came to Ambient for the summer festival, how Fred had followed her all around Cradle Park on that hot Fourth of July. If she bought a diet Coke, he bought a diet Coke; if she rode the Hammer, he rode the Hammer. Later, he introduced himself and bought her and the boys each a fish fry, which they ate standing up in the polka tent, next to the gazebo. The accordion players cheered as the dancers skipped and spun so close that Bethany caught her breath. “They look like they’re going to crash into each other,” she said.

“Don’t you polka?” Fred said, and when she shook her head, he said, “I’ll show you, it’s easy,” and it was, especially when she closed her eyes and stiffened her spine and let him swing her around and around.

She recalled the times he drove all the way to Dodgeville to court her, and how she’d always sent him home at sundown, no matter how tired he claimed to be. She recalled the time she thought he’d left for good, taking his ring, and his return three months later on a Sunday morning in fall. “Let’s go for a drive,” he’d said, “all four of us, Beth, what do you say?” It didn’t take long before she saw they were headed for Ambient. Halfway there, Robert John had to relieve himself. There was nothing but fields for miles, and Bethany told him, “You’re just going to have to hold it.” But Fred pulled over to the side of the road and said, “Looks like a good spot to me.”

It was a sunflower field. By that time in the season they’d all turned brown, their faces shriveled up. They looked like the walking dead, all facing the same direction, and you could see how there might be some privacy a few rows in, but not much. Not to mention it was trespassing.

“Here?” Robert John protested, and Bethany was pleased. After all, he hadn’t been raised to go beside the road like a dog. But both he and Pete followed Fred out of the car and into that raggedy field. She had time to think while she was looking in the other direction, and her thought was that Fred had made up his mind to break things off, and he wanted one last spat to make it permanent. Right there, she decided he would not get it. No matter what, she’d turn her smooth cheek, and later on its memory would light up his nights like a moon, like a sweet ripe peach. So when he and the boys got back into the car, she just looked out the window, admiring the scenery. The boys seemed awfully fidgety, and when she turned around she caught them grinning. Fred was grinning too, though he was trying to hide it. She was mad as a yellow jacket, them laughing at her just because they’d flashed their peckers in the weak autumn sunshine.

“What is it?” she said, keeping her voice steady.

“Nice day, ain’t it?” Fred said.

“Yes, it certainly is,” she said, and the boys snorted and choked, kicking the back of the seat, but she just closed her eyes and kept them closed, as if she were resting, as if she hadn’t a care in the world, until they finally turned onto the J road, crossing the railroad tracks with a jaw-popping bump. Bethany pretended to study the billboards all along the highway: SCHMITT REAL ESTATE; KIMMELDORF’S FAMILY CAFÉ; SOLOMON INDUSTRIAL PARK; RIVEREDGE MALL; and the newest one: MCDONALD’S, 2 MILES AHEAD!

“Home sweet home,” Fred said as they turned into the driveway, spraying gravel and dust. They passed rusted-out cars and farm equipment, an old washing machine and hand wringer, a tireless bicycle, a low pyramid of busted TVs, the gangly remains of a patio umbrella—every kind of waste you’d care to think of. The boys were cutting up again, and as she turned to give them a look, she saw the spanking new ranch house across the courtyard from the farmhouse. Fred angled toward it and parked by the corncrib, where a neat concrete sidewalk led right up to the front door. Everything was mud all around it, but leveled. A tiny staked tree shivered in the middle of where the yard would go. “Open the glove compartment,” Fred told her, and there was both a key and a wedding band on a yellow smiley-face key ring that said Property of Bethany Carpenter.

“Surprise, Ma, it’s ours,” the boys screamed, both at once. “Can we go in?”

“It’s a double-wide,” Fred said. “Two bedrooms, one and a half baths. I ordered it stone empty so you can fix it up however you want.”

She let the boys run ahead. The house was the same cheery yellow as the key ring, and she knew it would be beautiful even before she went inside. Ever since she was a bitty girl, she’d wanted a house of her own, where no Mr. Shuckel could come in and say, Do this, Don’t you dare do that, Get out. In high school, when they got evicted, they’d moved to another duplex, south of town. Ma cut hair in the kitchen, and you’d find clumps of it everywhere—blond and red and black—hair you knew was not your own, and when you’d sweat, you could smell the stink of perm solution oozing out of your pores. Bethany shared a bedroom with Rose, and while Rose let every piece of clothing lay where it fell, Bethany kept her side shiny as a licked-out pot. She filled up a scrapbook with decorating ideas; she had it to this day. Ma made fun of it every chance she got. “Miss Fancy,” she called Bethany. “Miss La-di-da.”

Now, as Bethany turned off the J road and started up the drive, she recalled how she’d clung to those keys and wept, and she gave thanks to God for His goodness. Home sweet home. She parked in her usual spot by the corncrib, listened to the boys’ quiet breathing, for Gabriel, too, had fallen asleep, slumped across the backseat. The Christmas tree lights winked and blinked in the front window, but the house lights were out, which surprised her. Fred and Pete must have gone to bed, left Pops and Shawn to stumble back to the farmhouse, following the round yellow stepping-stones cast by the old man’s flashlight. Robert John stirred, sensing the sudden stillness. Gabriel sat up. Yet Bethany waited, steeped in warm feeling, reluctant to disturb the mood.

“We’re home,” she finally said. “Let’s get you both to bed.”

“Where am I going to sleep?” Gabriel said.

“With your father,” Bethany said, eyeing the dark farmhouse. “I’ll walk you over. He’s probably waiting up.” But she couldn’t see the slightest glow of a candle or kerosene lantern, and then Robert John said, “How come his car is gone?”

Bethany stared at the empty line of sky above the snow fence. She got out of the car. Gabriel came around to stand beside her, and she felt her peace of mind torn away like a beautiful scarf caught in a cold snap of wind. It wasn’t so much a feeling of shock as it was the feeling that she’d been deceived. That she should have known better. That all the beautiful candlelight services in the world were of no use whatsoever when it came to the practical logic of living. This, then, was what Shawn Carpenter had wanted from her. She did not have to go over to the farmhouse to understand that he was truly gone.

The boy was clinging to the fabric of her coat. He had wrapped his arms tightly around her hips. Robert John said, “Is he going to live with us now?” and for the first time, Bethany thought of Mary in a whole new way. Not my will but Thine be done, she’d said to God, but what else could she have said? The Almighty staring down upon her. The favor on His mind already taking shape.

“I suppose he is, for a while,” Bethany said.

Robert John groaned. Gabriel said nothing at first, but as she led him into her house, he asked her, “My dad’s coming back, isn’t he?”

“Of course,” she said automatically, shooting Robert John a look in case he planned to contradict. “He loves you very much. Now let’s get you to bed. Things are bound to look brighter in the morning.”

But she was startled by a memory she’d all but forgotten: her own father digging through the freezer for a Popsicle. It was July, and there was only one left—grape, the best kind—and he split it with her carefully. As their tongues tasted that simple sweetness, he winked at her and smiled. She was twelve or thirteen, and she thought to herself, So he loves me. He probably did.

But the next day, he was gone.