CHAPTER 12

IT IS MORE THAN A WEEK before my father returns to the land of the living. In those days between, he was a lost-looking shadow of the man I knew, spending long hours in the rocker in the front room. Familiar, I suppose, because he has a chair like it back in his own home. We keep the radio on almost continuously, as it seems to soothe him. He joins us at the table for meals, eating a little more each day. And he drinks water, glass after glass, as he claws his way out of his own drought. This, more than anything, brings him back to us.

As Pa recovers upstairs, I make a home for him downstairs. I briefly consider getting him a small radio of his own, but I don’t want him to feel like he’s been imprisoned in some basement room. As he floats closer and closer to the surface of himself, he emerges a softer man than I’ve ever known. I credit my Ariel with much of this reincarnation. She is constantly at his side, bringing him sips of water in her tiny teacups, singing him songs she’s learned in Sunday school, and whispering in his ear how happy she is to see her paw-paw every day.

In the early days, he was confused, calling her Denola more often than not, but with a gentleness I’d never heard directed toward me. “Denola, darlin’ . . . ,” at which my sweet girl would correct him, calling him “silly Paw-Paw,” and I would hush her, just so I could hear him say my name that way again.

Summer has descended, hot and dry. So much so there is no need to bring it up in conversation. We walk with our eyes averted, mostly in defense against the glaring sun, but also because it hurts to witness the despair in the faces of friends and neighbors. No need to ask, “How are you doing today?” because we know. We are hungry. We are thirsty. Every surface of our homes is lined with dust. The dirt wedges itself in our collars, forcing us to walk about the streets with dirty necks. We feel the grit against our gums and swallow mud with water.

On bad days —which are more common than not —children romp through the street with dampened handkerchiefs tied around their noses and mouths, looking like filthy little bandits in their games of tag and chase.

Five more families leave our fold, meaning one entire side of our church could be empty if we didn’t choose to scatter ourselves about. The board on the wall to the left of the pulpit shows a decreasing number week after week, both in number of attendees and offering collected. Often the latter is half the former, and a mere percentage of Russ’s former salary. I look at that display, white numbers on black cards, dutifully slid into place by a faithful deacon, and wonder how we are going to feed our family for the week.

Still, every Sunday morning, Russ looks out among us, now greeting each family —each member of each family —by name.

“So glad you’re here, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson.”

“Good morning, Ralphie! I see you’ve brought your parents with you this morning.”

“Wonderful to see you, Mrs. Whitford. Is Mr. Whitford feeling any better this morning?”

I bother him about it at first, saying it robs him of the time he could spend delivering his sermon, but he counters that people want to feel welcomed. Needed. Loved. Nobody seems to mind that we release late —there is no place else to go. Nothing else to do. Moreover, the first Sunday after the personalized greetings, the offering went up $1.37 from the previous week.

We continue to gather after the storms too. No matter the time or duration, even though that means assembling for six days in a row at one point. At those times, Russ doesn’t preach, really. We sing, though the onslaught of dust keeps our piano from being in perfect tune. Sometimes one of our few remaining choir members, Kay Lindstrom, stands alone and sings with a clear soprano voice that shines through, beautiful and sweet and clean.

One evening, after a storm that blew particularly thick and black, we gather —all of us dusty and worn, greeting one another with this strange sense of shame that plagues us. As is his habit, Russ greets each family at the door with a prayer of thanks for their deliverance. We look around, counting. I have Ariel and Ronnie by my side, and Pa, too, by this time, though only because Ariel insisted. As I hoped, his dependence upon us has brought forth a gentler man, as if he’s forgotten a measure of his former anger.

A murmur comes up around us.

“The Harris family? Have you seen them? Aren’t you neighbors?”

“Must be running late,” I say, reassuring Merrilou Brown, who seems particularly concerned. “Rosalie has that baby, sometimes makes it tougher to get out of the house.”

Cutting through the chatter, Kay walks silently to the front of the church, sending Russ back to sit with me, and she sings.

“Come, thou fount of every blessing,

tune my heart to sing thy grace;

streams of mercy, never ceasing,

call for songs of loudest praise.”

It is a hymn that has become our favorite of late, Rosalie’s especially, and the melody takes on a certain haunting quality that brings new urgency to my prayers.

On the third verse, Ben Harris walks in. Without Rosalie, without his son, both of whom, he says, were out looking for the family dog that had jumped their fence before the storm hit.

We all leap to our feet in one accord, poised to go find them, but he holds up his hand. They’ve been found already. By him, their mouths and lungs filled with dust. Drowned in it. And he’s brought them home, carrying each the mere fifty yards from their back door.

The news strikes me dry. I tell myself to weep; my eyes sting with salt and grit, but there’s nothing left to pour down my face. I’ve been slowly evaporating for weeks now, since Jim siphoned the first bit of my essence through his kiss. I picture my very blood as something grainy, pouring through my veins like sand in an elongated hourglass. And this moment stretches long enough for a lifetime.

Others, too, are similarly afflicted. Ben Harris, the man who has been alongside all of us in times of worship and praise and pain, stands in the doorway of our church, hat in hand, hair caked with Oklahoma soil, telling us of the discovery of his wife and child buried alive in the open air, and not a single tear is shed. Not on his part nor ours. We shuffle, we cough, until finally Merrilou Brown rises from her pew and goes to him. She, not much bigger than the boy he lost, opens her arms, and Ben Harris —a looming bear of a man —collapses within them, heaving great, dry sobs.

Pa catches my eye above Ariel’s curls and motions for us to leave.

“We can’t,” I whisper, though I don’t know if I’ll be able to stand the display. “Russ is the pastor.”

“Well, the kids don’t need to see this.” Pa stands and scoops Ariel up with him. I look to Russ for his blessing, which he gives, silently, and usher Ronnie out of the pew.

Others are leaving too, offering raspy condolences as they pass by. I stop long enough to put one hand on Merrilou Brown’s shoulder, the other on Ben’s, and whisper a brief “May Jesus grant you peace” before joining my father and my children on the church house steps.

Once we are back home, I tell Ronnie to help his sister strip down the beds and put on fresh sheets. Even ours and Pa’s downstairs. These days the clean linens are wrapped tight in oilcloth in a trunk wedged into the bathroom closet. Sometimes, I think, I can put up with all matter of dirt and dust as long as I have the promise of a clean bed at night. It soothes my conscience, almost, to think I can give Russ at least that much.

And there’ll have to be some supper too. Our regular mealtimes have been disrupted by both the unpredictability of the storms and the constant struggle to find food for the table. The local grocer has become more of a general store, with sparse dry goods and erratic stock. Rice, canned fruit, crackers, coffee. Flour and sugar, too, but all at a price that would have been unimaginably high only a few years ago. We still have a bakery, and can depend on good, fresh bread every day, but no longer are there tall cakes with swirled icing in the front window to tempt the passerby.

With the children occupied, I set about putting a meal together, the first step being to run a sink of soapy water to wash whatever dishes we’ll use. To my utter surprise, Pa comes to stand beside me, and as I pass the first clean plate out of the rinse water, he takes it from me to dry.

“Well, thank you,” I say, not wanting to ruin the miracle of this moment with unnecessary commentary. I’ve watched him grow in appreciation for running water, but this is the first I’ve seen him use it for any practical chore.

“Did you know that woman? The one that died.”

I run my dishrag along another plate, wanting to keep my friendship to myself for a little longer, but unable to resist a civil moment with my father. “We were friends, yes. She was a bit younger than me. Used to set my hair.” I have no idea what Pa could gain from these details, but they mean everything to me. She was still in high school when Russ and I married, and grew into her own not knowing enough to shun me. “She always brought a macaroni salad to potluck suppers. Some of the women teased her about it once, and hurt her feelings, I guess. Maybe that’s all she knew to make.”

“And the boy?”

“Nice boy. In between Ariel and Ronnie. Eight, maybe? And there’s a baby girl, too.”

Pa stacks the clean plates carefully. “I like macaroni salad.”

“I’ll make it for you sometime.”

We continue until there are four clean plates, four clean glasses, and two pots ready for the stove. I open the cabinet to find two cans of lima beans, and I have some bacon in the icebox. With that, and some rice, I figure I can stretch the meal with just one can of beans. Save the other for a meal later in the week —long enough away so the kids won’t complain. Already I set my mind to not be hungry.

“They the first ones, then?”

“First ones, what?” I take the cloth off of the table and wipe the wood surface beneath.

“First killed by it.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” But I do know, and they aren’t. Maybe the first in our little town, first from our church family, but I’d read reports in the newspapers from all over. People lost, buried, electrocuted, burned to ashes in their own homes. “Now you can see, can’t you, Pa? Why we didn’t want you left alone out at your place. We need to stick together. Families, I mean. We need to keep track of one another, or it’s too easy to get . . . lost.”

“I reckon.” He picks up a glass and holds it up to the window. “This glass clean?”

I sigh but decide not to remind him that he himself has cleaned it. “Yes, Pa.”

He fills it with water from the tap, dumps the water out, refills it, then goes to sit at the table. “That man still at my house?”

I measure rice and water. A few pinches of salt, and light the burner. “I suppose so. Don’t know for sure.”

“Don’t think he’s out there robbin’ me blind, do ya?”

“I’m sure he’s not, Pa. He’s more of a drifter than a thief. I think he’ll keep a good eye on the place until we decide what to do.” I am talking fast, bustling between the stove and the sink and the icebox —a well-practiced habit, creating the illusion that our meal is somehow time-consuming and complicated. Most days I was just trying to make the meal itself seem more. But this evening, my shuffling serves as a shield, protecting me from the questions and thoughts I’ve done such a good job of hiding these past weeks.

“What’s to decide?”

I glance over my shoulder as I dice the bacon. “Oh, now, Pa. You know. It’s only a matter of time before —”

“Shoulda left me out there.” He takes a long swallow of his water and sets the glass down with a shaking hand. “Man oughta die on his land. With his land.”

I don’t know why the thought hasn’t occurred to me before, but suddenly I recall my father sitting —like he is now —at his own table, covered in dirt, dust drifted through open windows. He hadn’t been caught unaware. Not at all. He’d been burying himself, one breath at a time.

“You shouldn’t say such things.” I make no interruption in my task.

“Don’t get me wrong, girl. I’m grateful for what you done, bringin’ me here, takin’ me in. But I don’t belong in town. Never have. That was for my brother, and yours, I guess. I need to go back, pay for what I done.”

I am about to open up the drawer to paw through, looking for the key to open the can of beans, but I stop. Instead, I take Pa’s glass, refill it, and join him at the table.

“We talked about this, Pa. A few times. There’s no going back. No money to be made there now, not until this dryness breaks. And then it might take years.”

“My house still standin’?”

“Far as I know.”

“I know you been out there.”

“Just the once.” I wish I had kept to my supper preparations, because my father’s eyes bore into me —suspicious, steely gray drill bits.

“And not since?”

“No.” I speak too quickly, too loudly, to ease my father’s mind.

“You sure about that?”

“Pa, I’ve been here every day; you know that. Taking care of you, and the house, and the kids.”

“You been known to sneak off before, if I remember.”

“Oh, you remember. I was a kid, Pa.”

“Seems you thought you was woman enough.”

“Well, now I’ve had enough of this.” I back my chair away from the table and return to my stove top, lighting a second burner and slamming a pan on top of it, throwing in handfuls of the diced bacon.

“We need to be mindful of what our sin brings back to haunt us, Denola Grace.”

Pa only uses my full name in times of extreme anger, or extreme tenderness, and as far as I know, this moment calls for neither. Now his words come as a distinct, unprecedented omen, and they compel me to turn and face him.

“What are you talking about, Pa?”

“We sinned against this land, all of us. Just like your brother says. All that —what do they call it —the science? Mowin’ down the grasses. Harvestin’ too much. We got greedy, and God has humbled us. It’s his judgment.”

“I don’t think —”

“Just you listen.”

He stands and comes closer, lowering his voice at the sound of Ronnie and Ariel clomping up the stairs. They burst in holding the kitten, with Ariel asking if she can give her a bath in the sink since she is so dusty. I tell her no, that kittens have a way of cleaning themselves, but when Ronnie promises he’ll help his sister be gentle, I send them off to try. I hoped the interruption would derail my father’s thoughts, but no. He only leans closer, so close I can smell the dust that still clings to his breath. That’s when I realize Pa hasn’t lost a mite of his anger. It’s been shifted, is all. Gathered and honed and sharpened to slice me with new precision.

“Your head ain’t here, girl. You never been a-one to own up to your sin. So pretty and proud marryin’ that man, all that shame you was carryin’. And you been takin’ everything. Pilin’ it up. That store, most of all. Our family store, down to nothin’.”

“Haven’t you noticed, Pa? The whole country’s down to nothing.”

“The judgment, I say. For our sin. But yours’ll hit closer, girl. I knew when you started runnin’ around with that boy, what you wanted was to run away. Didn’t want none of this.”

“Why would I? I was smart, Pa. I am smart, and I could’ve done anything I wanted. Greg said so. Said there were lots of girls at college, but you wouldn’t have any of it. Had to beg you to let me finish high school.”

“You almost ruined that yourself with that baby.”

“Don’t,” I warn.

“You thought that preacher boy would take you away, didn’t you? Run off with you somewheres to spare his name? And when he didn’t . . .” He contorts his bone-thin frame, forcing me to look at him. “You got that cagey look. Like you do right now, and since I come here. Like you want to get away.”

“It’s because I want to get away from you.”

“Git on then.” A drop of spittle flies from his mouth, and I regret every drink I ever gave him.

It is a short, silent dinner. The few grains of rice I manage to swallow stick like glue in my throat. Later, in bed, I ask Russ how much he heard.

“Just that you want to get away.”

I prop up on my elbow and study his profile in shadow. “It’s not true, you know. At least not away from you.”

“Well, there’s some comfort, at least.”

“It was a mistake. Bringing him here. I thought it would be fine. That he’d changed, gone softer. But now it’s almost worse, because he’ll be sweet enough one moment, and a snake the next, and there’s no knowing which is going to come out.”

“What choice did we have?” He shifts too, and we are parallel. “And when you look at what happened today. Dear, sweet Rosalie, and the boy. I’m so sorry about your friend.” He reaches out and grasps my arm. “But don’t you see? That could have happened to him.”

“I think that might be what he wanted all along.”

“Well then —” he gives me a familiar, perfunctory kiss —“all the more reason to make this his home now.”

He lies back, preparing to sleep, but I stay awake long into the night. Thinking about Rosalie. Not reliving memories of our friendship or mourning on behalf of her husband and little girl. I don’t even think about the boy, whose name and age escapes me. When I think about Rosalie, all I can picture is a woman leaving. Away from her house, only for a moment, and never making it back again.