CHAPTER 16

I SURVIVE THE REST OF THAT NIGHT by caring for my family —whipping up a late supper of eggs and biscuits before all of us collapse into stripped-down beds. I let Russ hold me, my cheek against his chest, rising and falling with his breath, until he falls asleep, and then I slip out and away. If Pa weren’t living in the storeroom, I might sneak out to the alley for a cigarette. A few are still stashed away under the cash register —a trick I learned from my uncle. Back in the good days, when the farmers were bringing in money like laundry in a rainstorm, he used to offer them a cigarette right before they paid for their purchases. A good smoke and conversation, and they might be persuaded to buy something else. Another ax blade, just in case. Or some new seeds for the wife’s garden. He kept the cigarettes in a long, flat box, laid out so the customers would know there was plenty to be had. More to smoke, more to buy.

Of course, by now they’d be stale. Like setting fire to paper and dust. And I’d made my promise.

I survive the next day only because we —meaning nearly everybody in town —gather for the Harris funeral. From the pulpit, Russ speaks of the strength it takes not to question God’s wisdom. His choices. I can feel eyes burning clear through me, turning my flesh to lace. Why did Rosalie drown in dirt while I sit here whole?

And her little boy.

“Always so hard to lose a child,” Russ says. “I’ve buried two of my own. And we look to God for answers, thinking such a thing will bring us peace. But his answer is always the same. . . .”

I don’t hear God’s answer. In truth, my mind drifts in and out through most of the service, and I have to be nudged by Ronnie when it’s time for us to rise and follow the procession to the graveside. Here, God shines down his mercy on that good woman and her little boy, granting us clear skies and a soft breeze.

Back at the Harris home, we feast on each other’s generosity. I pinch and nibble from Russ’s plate, and that only out of politeness to the women who have brought such bounty from their kitchens. Nobody can know how sickened I am to see the mismatched stack of plates at the head of the table, each having been carefully wiped down by a loving sister. I whisper in Ronnie’s ear to take double portions, giving to him what I cannot take. I keep a glass of water in my hand, making way to refill it whenever somebody seems intent on cornering me in conversation.

I endure their pitying looks. Their whispers about how she doesn’t look well at all. Too skinny, they say. And frightened because —poor thing —it could have been her.

More than once, Russ catches my eye from across the room and gives me an encouraging smile over the shoulder of one of his sheep. Any other time, I would have sidled up next to him, laid my hand on his arm, and made an excuse to go home. A headache. Or Ariel’s needing a nap. But this day, standing upright and alert, listening to a dozen distorted conversations, feeling my body turn into a knot within itself —all of it serves as a buffer between my sin of yesterday and the inevitable confession.

For the first time since our marriage, I don’t resent watching Russ minister to his people, healing their hurts while I nurse my own. Let them tell him of their troubles. The bills they can’t pay. The weakness they feel with every passing breath. Their hunger and hopelessness. Let them talk of a better life in California, or Texas. When I see him smile, I know he is listening to a story of the good old days, when the land was green, then gold, then moist and rich and brown. I watch women weep into his sleeve and more than one man poised to do the same. Others point dirty, gnarled fingers in his face. Accusing, almost, because our prayers aren’t enough. Our faith has faltered, somehow. These are the ones who still resent having a piano next to the pulpit.

Most, though —the women —stand calm and peaceful in the shadow of his strength.

They love him, and he loves them. Always before, that love left me off to the side, jealous of the time and attention it took from me. Today, though, it gives me comfort. Aren’t I a member of his flock as well as his wife? Don’t I deserve at least a measure of the grace he seems always ready to give to them?

After a time, my legs ready to give way, I spy poor Ben sitting alone on the threadbare sofa beneath the window. His precious little girl is in the arms of a well-meaning woman who cuddles and coos the poor thing in an effort to put in an early bid for mothering. Ben seems not to see or hear a thing, not of her nor me as I sit beside him, sliding in just ahead of another woman who approaches with a plate of food, probably in an effort to put in an early bid for marriage.

He and I sit for a while. He stares forward, I stare at him, both of us shells of the people we were a few days before.

Finally he turns toward me. He is a big, dough-faced man, and I can tell his demeanor would not change if we all were to pick up and go away at this very moment. Tentatively, I reach my hand out to touch the sleeve of his too-small jacket. He blinks no fewer than ten times, not saying a word, and I know his mind is as far away from this place as mine is. I am tempted to pull him close and unburden my soul, rehearsing the very confession I have to give my husband. He wouldn’t hear a thing. I go so far as to lean over and, pitching my voice in such a way as to cut through the din, say, “I wish I were half as good a woman as Rosalie.”

“Cain’t never be,” he says, before standing up and leaving me alone.

The day after the funeral, I attack our home with new fervor, dumping buckets of mud-brown wash water into the street and consuming two entire bedsheets as cleaning rags. I take on the bulk of the labor myself, leaving Ariel to play endless games of jump and chase with Barney, and giving Ronnie leave to spend the day playing baseball with his friends after contributing nothing more than a wipe-down of his room. Pa stays downstairs; much as he insists on having a clean house, he’s never been one to watch exactly how it gets that way. And when Russ comes upstairs and volunteers to pitch in, I practically chase him away with my broom.

“Go mind the shop,” I say, shooing him away with comic exaggeration. “For all we know, people are lined up right now ready to pick the shelves clean. Or maybe pay a little on their accounts. Wouldn’t that be nice?” Never mind that he’s been downstairs all morning and I haven’t heard the bell ring once.

I feel his eyes on me with every move, and I keep my line of vision confined to the bucket of fresh water into which I pour half a bottle of Lysol, swirling it in with my bare hand, mindless of the toll it might take on my skin. I plunge in the rag, wring it out, and begin a methodic washing of the kitchen countertop.

“Nola.”

I make a small sound of acknowledgment, avoiding his eyes as I’ve managed to do since coming home. Always there was a reason. I was exhausted, I was mournful, I was busy. I’ve spoken as little as possible, too. Every time I open my mouth, even to ask if he wants a second cup of coffee, I feel a confession ready to spill from my lips. But I haven’t had the words yet to make him understand. And I don’t have things in order, not with the house in this sort of state. The time will come to reveal my failings as a wife —that I’ve given my body over to another. I’ll tell him everything tonight, all those little moments that led up to my betrayal. Maybe even the first moment of betrayal. The first storm. Byron’s riddle. Fifty cents. I’ll tell him right here at our table. Late, with the children in bed and the kitchen cast in shadows. I’ll tell him, and as I speak, he’ll see the kitchen glimmering in candlelight, and he’ll know I love him. Love our family. That there’s nothing that can’t be fixed. Cleaned. Scrubbed.

“Stop. Look at me.”

I stop.

“Look at me.”

I turn.

“There’s something I need to show you,” he says. “Downstairs.”

“I need to finish —”

“Downstairs.” His note of finality compels me to lay the wet rag across the rim of the bucket and wipe my hands on my apron.

I find Ariel, tell her to be a good girl and come find us if she needs to, and follow my husband downstairs. Perhaps follow isn’t the best word. He waits at the door and stands aside as I proceed down into the shop, his purposeful step behind me. To my surprise, Pa sits behind the counter; I can’t remember ever seeing him there before. Lately, if he spends time in the store at all, he spends it whiling away an hour or so with one of the other men —often Mr. Brown —playing checkers and narrating Oklahoma’s slow descent into hell.

Now as Russ passes me up, walking ahead and standing alongside him, they manage to present a united front, without really looking at me at all. For the first time in my memory, the counter isn’t gleaming. Always, since the first day a wall of dust blew through our town, cleaning the counter —wiping away the dirt with an oiled rag —has been the first priority, before spilling a drop of water in our home or sweeping up the floor. It has been a sacred place of transaction, a point of exchange: necessary goods exchanged for hard-earned cash or, later, goodwill promises. Beneath the residue, I know the wood to be like silk. Any other day, Pa and Russ would look at me double-fold, their faces reflected off the glossy surface.

My stomach clenches at the single purpose of their expressions. I try to pass off the threatening nausea to the fact that I’ve yet to eat anything today, that it is the resurgence of hunger, but I can’t deny the fear pricking along its edge.

“Why do I feel like a canary walking into a cat convention?”

Russ chuckles at my feeble attempt at a joke, but not Pa. His eyes remain gray and hard as stone. Disapproving, and I know. He knows. Not the details, maybe, but Pa could always read my heart. Could always ferret out my sin. He just never loved me enough to grant it grace, not that I deserve it now.

I have a sliver of a second to prepare myself for the accusations to come. Russ holds his hand out to me as I approach, reassuring me that —for the next few minutes, at least —my place is still beside him.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Russ says before correcting himself. “Rather, ask you.”

I look at him —only him. “Anything, darling.”

“I’ve been in contact with Greg —he’s been working closely with some of the CCC efforts —”

At this my father sniffs his disapproval, and I feel a few drops of sweet relief that I can at least share the burden of his disappointment with my brother.

Russ ignores him. “They’re buying us out. Everything we have, down to the last twopenny nail. We’re boxing it up and taking it to a camp outside of Tulsa. Once it’s been delivered, we’ll get a check.”

Pa sniffs again. “Check ain’t nothin’ but a piece of paper.”

“This one will be from the federal government.”

“Cain’t trust them more’n anybody.”

“How much?” I interject, ignoring everything I’ve ever been taught about financial conversations.

“Enough,” Russ says. “Enough that we can cancel all of our customers’ debts to us, those that are still in town anyway.”

“And then? What’ll the store be?”

“Gone,” Pa says. “Like everything else in this godforsaken place. Just blown away to nothin’.” And that’s when I know his dourness has little to do with me, but more with the wounding of his pride, seeing everything his family had built —his farm, this store, the very life of this country —stripped away for nothing more than a slip of government paper.

Russ clears his throat. “There’d be enough, too, to pay up the taxes on your father’s land. Keep it for another year, at least. It’s not fit to farm just yet, but when the drought ends —”

“Ain’t gonna live to see that day,” Pa says.

“Don’t say such things,” I chastise, then turn to Russ. “If we don’t have the burden of the store, we could all —maybe, if Pa approves —move out to the farm. There’d be so much more room. Ronnie would be a wonderful help, and Ariel —can’t you see her? We’ll put her in charge of the chickens.”

“None of that was good enough for you before,” Pa says, a myriad of meanings behind before. Before I married Russ? Before we had the children? Before the dust came to strip down bare everything I loved and hated? Maybe, even, a hint of before I took action to risk losing all the intangibles that no government check could ever replace.

“Nothing is like it was before, Pa.”

Russ intervenes. “The first step, Nola, is to sign your approval for the sale. This place is yours and Greg’s, after all. He had the document drawn up, signed it, and mailed it here.”

“Well, my goodness . . .” I take the ink pen from Russ and step over to take a good look at the single sheet of paper sitting on the gritty counter. The letterhead looks official and important, but the text is a single paragraph, stating that Greg and I, the undersigned, agree to the proposed transaction of the documented inventory of goods for the proposed price. A wave of dizziness sweeps over me, and I steady myself with a touch to Russ’s arm.

“That’s too much.”

“It’s what he offered. I didn’t suggest any price.”

My eyes roam the meager offerings of our shelves. If we sold everything to our neighbors at triple the price, it wouldn’t come close to what Greg proposed. “It’s a fraud.”

“It’s an investment.”

“It’s leavin’ the two of you with nothin’,” Pa interjected.

“We’ll have everything we need,” Russ counters. “A roof over our heads, land —”

“For the time bein’.”

“That’s all we’re ever guaranteed, isn’t it? God instructs us to ask for our daily bread. ‘Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time for the government to step in and help. You know they’ve been buying up cattle left and right.”

“Dollar a head,” Pa spits. “Nothin’ for nothin’ after they killed ’em off. Babies, too. Buryin’ good beef like trash.”

“Are you sure it’s the best thing to do?” I search my husband’s face for reassurance, trying to ignore the pull to some other loyalty. Not to some passive allegiance to family legacy, but to the grizzled man himself, the keeper of my secret.

“Ultimately, it’s your decision, darling.”

“We’ll still own the building?”

“Yes, the ownership is shared by you and Greg equally.”

“And what about you?”

He looks at me in that way that makes everything else fade into blackness —past and present —holding me in the moment. “I’ll have you, my love. And our children. And our church, and whatever else the Lord chooses to bring our way.”

“An’ my land,” Pa says.

“No, Lee. That’s yours. I’d never take that away from you.”

I focus again on the price, my mind reeling with the possibilities. Our debts paid. Our neighbors’ debts paid. My father’s debts paid. And then, maybe, a little left over. More food for the table, new pants for Ronnie, who seems determined to keep growing, some little luxury for Ariel . . . and then his name pinches at the corner of my musings.

Jim.

“What did you say?” I ask, unclear how his name came into the conversation.

“We’ll fetch him back into town to help pack up. Your pa says we can use his truck to haul the inventory to Tulsa.”

“Hafta clean out one of the trailers first,” Pa said. “Don’t want all these nice things smellin’ like what come out of the business side of all that cattle they destroyed.”

“So, my love,” Russ speaks right past him, “how do you feel about a drive out into the country today?”

There, again, the knot in my stomach as I feel my father waiting for an answer. “Why would we have to go out there?”

“Well, we wouldn’t, if your Pa had a telephone. And these days I don’t know we can count on any of his neighbors still being around to take a message.”

“I —I can’t.”

“We could have a picnic on the way. It’s a beautiful afternoon.”

“Now it is.” I drop the pen onto Greg’s letter and wrap my arms in defense against his cajoling touch. “It was a beautiful afternoon the other day, too, when I went out there. And then —”

“Just what are you afraid of, girl?” Pa’s question holds no compassion.

“It’s all right,” Russ says softly. “You stay here. Lee and I can go.”

“I ain’t goin’ out there. Not for nothin’.”

“You’ll have to sometime, Pa.” I wish I could tell him of all that Jim has accomplished in his time —the cleaning, the restoration. But I don’t dare open my mouth to speak his name.

“Not until it’s mine outright. Not until I can work it.”

“I’ll go alone.” Russ, ever the peacemaker, could not have come up with a solution to make me less at ease. I trust my silence, given my desire to somehow survive my betrayal. But Jim has no such stake.

“Don’t.” I speak too quickly, too vehemently, to avoid Pa’s suspicion. “What if you get caught —?”

“Caught with what?” Pa interrupts.

“Sweetheart . . .” Ignoring my barriers, Russ folds me in his embrace, kisses the top of my head, and lets me go. “I’ll be fine. I know what to do if the dust kicks up. Just like you do. I don’t think I’ve told you yet how very proud I am of you. For being so smart and brave.”

I hold my breath, willing my heart to turn to stone while every other part of me threatens to crumble away. I have to tell him, and would this very moment, if I could take even a step away from my father’s prying eyes. But I love Russ far too much to drag him into Pa’s court of humiliation again.

“I’m not any of those things.” Finally, as a consolation for the disloyalty of my flesh, I commit myself to being faithful to his wishes. I pick up the pen again and, above the space where some secretary typed my name, my shaking hand signs.

Russ drapes an arm over my shoulder. “That’s done, then. You’ll see, it’s best.”

“I hope so.”

He gives me a squeeze meant to be reassuring. “I’m going to go change into some work clothes. Jim and I’ll get that trailer cleaned out, but if it gets too late, I’ll stay the night and we’ll come back in the morning. Maybe you can round up Ronnie and a couple of his friends, get them to work packing everything up. Might have a few bits we can pay them for their labor.”

“I’ll make you a lunch.”

One quick kiss to my cheek, and he is gone, taking the letter with him, promising to post it on his way out of town. In his absence, a silence falls, thick enough to hold the dust motes in their suspended dance, until my father speaks.

“You never could lie.”

“Pa, please —”

“What I mean to say —you was always one to tell ’em, just never too good at it. Not enough to git past me.”

“I don’t have to get past you, Pa.” A new weariness takes hold. Part of me wants to call his bluff and ask —point-blank —exactly what he knows, or thinks he knows. To justify his smugness, even if it means confirming his suspicions. But not yet. I’m not strong enough now, not in any way. I’ve nourished myself with nothing but secrets for days, and one thought to the next falls away, leaving me unable to construct any path of logic. There seems only one route. I tell Pa, I die. I tell Russ, I die. And holding it in is killing me moment by moment.

“I knew he’d be trouble,” Pa says. “Knowed it the first I laid eyes on him. Tell me he ain’t.”

I say nothing, don’t even look at him, as I trail my finger listlessly in the dust on the counter.

“Well, I tell you what.” He traps my hand under his. “That no-good squatter is gonna have me to ’company him to Tulsa.”

The murderous glint in his eyes disturbs me. “That’s not a good idea, Pa. Your health —”

“You rather your husband go with him?”

“He —Jim —can go alone.”

“With everythin’ you own? Just what has he done to make you so trustin’?”

No wonder he is so adept at making toys to train a cat to hunt. He dangles the truth right in front of me, and I want to strike it down, with confession or denial —anything to bring it tight into my grip.

“Come out and say it,” I say, but he refuses to accept my challenge. Only tilts his head back, pushing me away with his gaze, making me feel small. Bringing me back to a time when I was a little girl, naive enough to believe that he loved me, despite the fact that I’d never seen anything to prove it. So while his eyes remain like flint, I soften mine to shale, but keep my voice to drill to what’s left of his heart.

“Pa?”

He grunts.

“I’ve never asked you for anything in my life.” He starts to protest, but I step closer, feeling stronger. “Never. I learned early on if I needed something I got it for myself.”

“True enough.”

I refuse to crumble under his insult. “But I’m asking you for something now. Go ahead. I want you to go with Jim to Tulsa —”

“Already said I would —”

“And I want you to make sure he doesn’t come back.”

Later, in the night, even knowing I have my children and father a shout away, I imagine myself completely abandoned. Alone in our bed, alone in the dark, alone in the world. Destined for many such nights, should Jim take it upon himself to confess the betrayal of Russ’s friendship and hospitality.

I curl and uncurl myself repeatedly, finding one cool spot after another. I lay flat on my back, hands folded over my breast, corpselike in my stillness. Restless, I inch over, my movement a snail’s pace that takes the better part of an hour, according to the clock face in the moonlight, until I find my way to Russ’s side of the bed. My head on his pillow. I imagine the shadow of his body, a deserted silhouette. With final abandon, I drop into the furrow left in the middle of our mattress, where we meet together on extremely cold nights, or any night, really, when our bodies cannot bear the distance even in sleep.

I’ve thrown all this away.

And then, at the moment when the night begins its transition to morning, still dark enough for sleep but hospitable to wakefulness, I pray. On my knees, right there in the valley that has witnessed so much love and laughter, my forehead wedged between the iron bars of the headboard. Instead of being clasped together, my hands clutch at the feathers of our pillows, so tight that I feel individual quills bending within my grip.

“Dear God,” I whisper, my words and my tears falling into the space between our bed and the wall, “take this from me. Take him from me —out of my thoughts. And forgive me. For letting him be . . . For letting him have . . .” Even to my Creator, my Savior, I cannot articulate my sin. To think of it is to relive it. My very whisper brings it to life, dancing through my veins.

“Give me this night,” I plead. “This last night, for him to know me and love me as his wife. Bring him home tomorrow.” Then again, we’ve already slipped into the new day. “Today. Let me see him, welcome him, one more time. Spare him this pain, holy Father. Let me bear it all for a little while longer. Until —”

He will be gone.

“I won’t see him again. I won’t look at him again. Only forgive what I’ve done. Forgive what I wanted. And protect me —protect Russ . . .”

Now, a prisoner of my prayer, my hands clutch at the iron bars, shaking so that they rattle against the wall.

“Give me time. Give us time. I will confess to him as I am confessing to you. I’ll confess to my father on earth as I am confessing to you. Only give me time, so that I can know . . .”

That’s he’s safely away? Far enough that I won’t follow. Far enough that I won’t be tempted again. For that, I will trust my father.