CHAPTER 17

I FELL ASLEEP with an unfinished prayer. My pleading incomplete. I sleep in a knot, wadded up like a mass of feathers wedged between our pillows. My eyes are swollen, my mouth dry, and my spine ready to snap with each attempt to stretch. Still, I awake to a bright, clear morning. To some, such a morning means nothing more than a day without rain, but I choose to see hope in the rays of sunlight.

Ariel bounds in, demanding to know if her papa has come home, then why he hasn’t, and where he is, and why he is there, and when he’ll be back, and if he might be bringing another kitten.

I answer all of her questions, bringing her into the bed with me, stretching her body alongside mine as I run absentminded fingers through her hair. When I’ve satisfied every facet of her curiosity, I nudge her away, telling her to set the butter out to soften, promising a breakfast of flapjacks and jam.

Alone again, I go to the window. I’ve asked for this day, one last day, and here it stretches before me. A deserted street. Boarded-up storefronts. Loose dirt stirring itself along the ground like a crumbly brown mist.

Pa waits in the kitchen, coffee made, when I emerge, dressed, with my hair somewhat combed and my face stinging from a cold-water scrubbing. We say little to each other as I prepare breakfast, each of us preferring to speak with Ariel, who serves as a conduit to pass along requests for syrup and eggs and cream. Ronnie joins us shortly after, his hair wild with sleep, his face crisscrossed with the markings of his sheet.

“Everything ready to go?” I ask, pouring him a glass of milk. His isn’t watered down, as is Ariel’s. “I think your dad was hoping to load up today.”

“All but the big tools,” he says, most of the words swallowed in an enormous yawn. “Unless there’s some huge crate I don’t know about, those’ll have to go separate.”

“Good boy.” I kiss the top of his head, the most he will allow. “You may do as you please this morning, but stay within earshot.”

“Can I go with Dad to Tulsa? Just to help?”

I turn back to the stove and drizzle batter on the griddle. “No. Your father’s not going. Just Mr. Jim and Pa.”

“Then could I go with them? It’s not like I have school or anything.”

“I don’t think it would be a good idea.”

“But why?”

“Because what if’n we don’t come back?” Pa says, and then I hear him slurp his coffee.

“Your paw-paw’s joking.” I shoot my father a withering look over my shoulder. “He’ll be back quicker than you’ll know it.”

“What about Mr. Jim?” Ronnie asks.

Pa’s gray eyes pin me over the rim of his cup. “Likes of him’s best left to the road.”

I turn my attention back to the stove.

“I’m going to miss him,” Ariel says in the absentminded voice that tells me she is swirling a chunk of her scrambled eggs in her pancake syrup. “Mama’s going to miss him too. They were special friends.”

“You go wash up now,” I say without turning around. “You’re sticky nose to toes.”

“But I’m still eating.”

“Then finish up.”

She hums a wandering tune while she eats. I stare at the batter, waiting for the bubbles to break, feeling my father’s disapproval like so much spattering grease. Still midmorning, and already the kitchen shows promise of being unbearably hot. I try to think of what I can serve for a cold lunch —what I can pack away for a journey —but I don’t have to look through my cupboards to know they are nearly bare. There’s not much more than a handful of coins in my grocery jar, but no matter. The shelves of Featherling’s grocer have grown as empty as our own. Sometimes we risk the drive to Boise City, where the stores are bigger and the prices lower. Russ doesn’t like me to go on my own. But the idea of being absent upon his return —their return —is enough to make the risk worthwhile. Besides, I wouldn’t be alone this time. Since Russ has the car, I’ll have to ask for a ride.

I flip Ronnie’s pancakes. “I’m going over to Mrs. Brown’s. To see if she could possibly take me into town. Do you need anything, Pa?”

He leans his head back and narrows one eye, as if watching me through a spyglass. “No need for that today, girl.”

“We don’t have any food here, Pa. I need some groceries.”

“Make do. And sit down and eat somethin’. You’re lookin’ skinny as a rail.”

Ronnie, usually so oblivious to any conversation not about cars or guns, looks to his grandfather, then to me, his expression wary.

Three good-size pancakes are rising on the griddle, and I’ve scraped the mixing bowl clean to make those for the boy who just swallowed the last of the eggs.

“I’ll eat later.”

“Now,” Pa says. “I ain’t seen you take a bite in days.”

“You’re not with me every moment.” I pile the cakes onto a wide spatula, with a thin slice of butter between each one, and carry the stack over to Ronnie.

“I can’t eat all them, Mama.”

“Of course you can, sweetheart. I’ve seen you take down twice that in a sitting.”

“Maybe later, after I finish up downstairs.” He takes two of the cakes and transfers them to his plate. “That one’s yours.”

“Good boy,” Pa says, but Ronnie seems to take no pleasure in his approval.

Rather than prolong the conversation, I pull Ariel’s empty plate over to my place at the table and deposit the remaining pancake amid the swipes of drying syrup. Her fork is too sticky for me to touch; instead, I rip off a quarter-sized bite, dab it in the sweet residue, and put it in my mouth. This is precisely how I’ve eaten nearly every pancake since my children were born —the last of the stack, dabbed about on a dirty plate. Russ used to tease me, calling me Scraps before planting a coffee-laced kiss on my sticky lips. But I defended my practice, saying, “What does it bother you? You don’t have to do the dishes.” Often it was the first quiet moment of the morning, with them already off to school, or play, or out the door with Russ so I could have a few minutes’ peace. I’d make a second pot of coffee, maybe read my Bible a little bit while nibbling the fluffy, sweet cake, none the worse for growing cold.

This morning, though, I might as well be nibbling a scrap of plywood. Even though it still bears the warmth of the griddle, there is nothing pleasurable about that first bite. Or the next. Were it not for my father’s challenging gaze, I would give the remainder over to Ronnie, who has already plundered his serving. A sip of cool coffee does nothing to moisten the barricade it makes in my throat, and I dread the next bite as I attempt to swallow the first.

“These are good, Mama,” Ronnie says, sensing my discomfort. “Filling.”

“Thank you, baby,” I say, grateful for any bit of conversation that will delay the next bite.

“Finish up.”

That Pa echoes the exact words I said to my four-year-old only moments before is not lost on any of us. I tear off half of what remains on my plate and shove it in as one massive bite. Already my stomach seizes in anticipation, and it isn’t half-chewed before I force it down my throat, silently willing it to stay there. Similarly, Ronnie shovels his food in with youthful zeal, and I fancy us in a tacit race to escape.

I win.

After I’ve washed up the dishes and set them to dry, I run a comb through my hair and work a thin layer of Jergens onto my hands and face, along with a touch of lipstick. With a shout to the house that I’ll be back shortly, I go outside, avoiding the shop by going out the front door, down to the street. I pause midway and crane my neck, looking up and down for any sign of Russ and Jim’s arrival. Seeing none, I quicken my step, across the street to the Browns’ place, and knock on the door.

“Well, Denola! What a lovely surprise!” Merrilou swings the door open with enough strength to bring me in with it. The excited, welcoming look on her face, however, disappears almost immediately. “Good heavens, young lady. Are you all right?”

“Of course I am.” I brighten my smile to ward off any more questions.

“You look terrible.”

Merrilou Brown’s blunt honesty has often been a source of amusement in our household. “Don’t ask if you don’t want to know,” Russ always says. She is the first to inform him of a tedious sermon, a misquoted Bible verse, a church need left unattended for too long. Wary as we are of her opinions, they hold no malice, and I feel no insult at her pronouncement.

“I’m fine,” I reassure, lessening the smile for a more serious, convincing expression. “A bit weary is all. Like we all are.”

“Looks like more than weariness.” She steps back, allowing me inside. “Bone thin, them dark circles under your eyes. Sweet Moses, your skin looks like you been dipped in ashes. The rest of us brown as Indians, and you the Indian pale as a ghost. I’m going to make you a sandwich.”

“No, thank you.” I stand inside the door while she closes it behind me. “Just came from breakfast.”

“Little late, isn’t it?”

“These summer days. We tend to linger.”

“Tea, then?”

I accept and follow her into the kitchen, marveling at the cleanliness that permeates the Browns’ home in the same way that dirt does mine. Baseboards, crevices, the carved scrolls of her dining room furniture.

“How do you manage it?” I speak to the top of her head.

“Manage what, dear?”

“Keeping your house so clean. There’s not a speck of dust anywhere.”

“Well, not much to that. You can’t let it get the best of you. Keep out what you can, and clean up what you can’t.”

She makes it sound so easy, multiplying my frustration. I have a dozen arguments to throw her way: she doesn’t have little ones underfoot; she doesn’t have a warehouse of a shop to clean. With just herself and Mr. Brown, they could seal off entire rooms. Who knows what drifts I might find if I sneak down the hall and open one of the doors?

Once in the kitchen, Merrilou opens the icebox, revealing something akin to a feast upon its shelves. From it she takes a pitcher, while instructing me to get two glasses from the cabinet above the sink.

“You won’t need the step stool like I do,” she says, closing the icebox with a bump from her hip. She pours the tea and places a plate of small, crispy cookies between us, calling them “just right for nibbling.”

“Delicious.” I follow her instructions with tiny, crumbly bites.

“Now.” She taps a cookie on the table. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

I laugh nervously. “We’re neighbors, aren’t we?”

“We are, but I don’t know that you’ve ever been one to drop in.”

She has me there, and I swallow another tiny bite, stalling while I wait for the right words to express my mission. “I’m . . . I mean, we’re running low on a few groceries —”

“I knew it!” She pops up from the table. “You’re too thin. I’ve been saying as much to Mr. Brown for weeks now, that I worried you might not have enough food. These days, money being what it is —”

“No!” I catch her hand, a tiny, twig-like thing. “That’s not it at all. We have plenty, or the means to have plenty. I simply haven’t been able to stock up on a few things, with our grocer so limited, and then the storm and the funeral. And today, Russ has the car out at Pa’s place . . .”

“What’s he doing out there?”

Maybe it is the magnification from the thick lenses of her glasses, but all of Merrilou’s questions seem to come with two meanings: one for her curiosity, and one for my confession. I give her a brief summary of Russ’s plan for the store, and she listens with sage silence, nodding and making little affirming noises throughout.

“So, he —Jim, Mr. Brace —is doing a tremendous favor for us, taking this haul into Tulsa. He and Pa. And I thought the least I could do is pack him a few meals, but I’m not finding enough in my kitchen to make a decent meal for anybody.” I attempt a weak smile; she returns one equally unconvincing. “So I thought maybe you could . . . I haven’t had a chance to go into town, and I’ll —we’ll —gladly replenish . . .”

I can’t speak anymore, not with the wave of shame engulfing me, because I’m no longer asking for a ride into town. Even before I walked through her door, I knew I didn’t have enough money to justify a two-hour drive. She, the angel, doesn’t make me ask.

“Nola.” Her voice is soft, sweet. Like talking to a mother, and in that moment I wish I had such memories of my own. “Of course, sweet girl, what we have is yours. Take whatever you need, but I know you’re not telling me the truth.”

“I am —”

“I can see in your face, there’s something hiding there. And if we’re going to survive these troubled times, we’re going to have to take care of each other. Woman to woman.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. And I’ve learned a few things over the years. There is no need too big nor any hurt too deep to take to the Lord. But you have to go to him. Not because he doesn’t know. Trust me.” She waggles a tiny finger under my nose and smiles in a way I’m sure she means to be reassuring. “He knows everything. He can count every crumb in your bread box. He’s tasted every bite you’ve taken. He follows you every minute of the day. He knows your hunger.”

“We’re not —”

A wave of her hand dismisses my protest. “I’m not talking about Pastor Russ and the kids. I’m talking about you. Looks to me like you’ve got something so swallowed up it’s eating you from the inside.”

Her words cut to the quick of me, wrapping themselves around the last exposed nerve, sending a pain sharp enough to make my ears ring.

“Really, there’s nothing . . .” I stand and clutch at the table to steady myself within the spinning room. “Nothing . . .”

“Oh my.” She’s at my side. “Sit down. Let me get you some water.”

“No, thank you, Merrilou. I need to get back.”

“I’ll make up a basket and bring it over.”

“What?” I press my fingers to my temple, trying to make sense of what she is saying. At once the unfamiliar kitchen begins to blur, and for the life of me I can’t remember why I’ve come here. The room grows smaller as Merrilou Brown’s words loom large —nonsensical jabber and platitudes. All I can think to say is, “Thank you. Thank you,” over and over as I stumble back through her house, now choked by its pristine perfection.

Outside, while she continues to shout for my attention, I gulp in the hot, thick air, taking comfort in the feel of the airborne grains on my skin.

“Nola?”

I hear his voice through the heat and have to hold my hand up to block the brightness of the sun to see him. Russ stands in front of the shop, closing the car door behind him. Pa’s truck is nowhere to be seen, making me think that somehow the plan has fallen through. For an instant, I think maybe we can hold on to everything exactly as we have. If nothing else, he is holding his arms out to me, welcoming, inviting, and a cool rush of strength sweeps through me.

He doesn’t know. He can’t, because no amount of godly grace would account for the quickened pace that brings him to meet me halfway across the street, take my hands, and guide me gently home.

“I missed you,” I say in answer to his question about the fervency of my embrace once we were safely inside the store. I’d launched myself into his arms before the bell above the door stopped ringing.

“I can see that.” A good-natured chuckle accompanies his comment. “I missed you too.”

“Don’t go away again?”

“Well, I don’t know. If I get this kind of reception . . .”

He brings me close and nuzzles my neck. My mind fills with questions. What do you know? What did he say? And the blessed answer. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Here he is, my daily bread, and I thank God for the nourishment of this moment.

“Jim should be here in a minute,” he says, pulling away with obvious reluctance. “Truck pulling a trailer moves a little slower, but I spotted him behind me as I was getting into town.”

“It’s all set, then?”

“All set.” He looks around the store, inviting me to do the same. It’s a ghost town, boxes stacked to varying height and depth, with nothing but empty floor space in between. “Hardly seems like a life’s endeavor, does it?”

“It was never what I wanted, being a shopkeeper’s wife.”

“Or a farmer’s wife.” He grins. “Or, truth be told, a preacher’s wife.”

I face him full-on. “I wanted to be your wife, whatever that meant. And I still do. You have to believe that. No matter what we lose.”

Before he can answer, the bell over the door rings, and I turn to see Jim, hat in hand.

“Mrs. Merrill,” he says, cool as cream, looking right at me as if the last time we saw each other wasn’t in dark, desperate embrace.

“Hello, Jim.” I trust myself with nothing beyond that greeting, and even wish I could swallow those words back. Were they too soft? Too intimate? Had I ever called him Jim in Russ’s presence before? The last time I spoke to him, I had my lips against his skin, my fingers entwined in his hair, and I force myself to keep my hand pulled away from my mouth in an effort to keep that memory in place.

“Back door’s locked,” he says, as if apologizing for coming through the front. “So this is all of it?” He keeps his gestures close and tight.

“This is it,” Russ says, heaving a sigh that sinks his shoulders. “I’ll go upstairs and get Ronnie to come help us load.”

“I’ll go,” I say. “He might be out with friends. You two can start organizing a bit.”

Jim catches my eye, perplexing me with the sheer blankness of his stare. His look goes straight through me, piercing, like a spear through my core, pinning me in place. I imagine bits of my flesh peeling off and landing on the floor as I step away.

Upstairs, Pa is at the window. He turns when I arrive. “He’s here?”

“They are.”

“Got the truck runnin’.”

“Apparently.”

“Saw it turn the corner and go around the back.”

“Yes. I’m up here for Ronnie. It’s time to start loading. Perhaps you’d like to help?”

“Reckon I could.” Beneath the gruffness of his reply, I sense he is pleased to be useful.

“Where’s Ariel?”

“Taggin’ along after her brother. Tol’ him to check back in an hour.” He glances at the clock. “Might be quicker to wait than to wander off tryin’ to find him.”

“I’m sure he’s just a block over. Playing ball. Probably saw the car coming into town. I can just —”

“You can wait. Like I said. He’ll be back directly.”

Pa disappears through the kitchen door, and I listen to his slow, shuffling step down the stairs.

I exhale.

Once, when Ronnie was a very little boy, he dropped a small sack of marbles on the floor, and they scattered and rolled in all directions, and the more we tried to gather them together, the more they clacked against one another, setting off in slow, straight trajectories behind furniture, under rugs, ricocheting off walls. I’d pick one up only to have it slip through my fingers while picking up another. I knocked them away with a touch of my foot, losing some forever.

That’s how I feel now. Over the course of such a short time, my life has been ripped open, everything I know and love dumped out. My affections and secrets dispersed and strewn about, every word poised to set off some dangerous reaction.

“Give me this day, Lord.” I repeat the prayer, though it gives no comfort. This day —this afternoon, maybe, should the weather hold —and I’ll chase down all those dangers. Gather them up before they roll away. Uncover what’s hidden. Everything neat and tidy again. Cinched up, safe.

It never occurred to me that he’d follow me upstairs. That he’d watch and calculate, knowing I’d be alone. So when he walks into the kitchen, just as he did that first night, and stops himself in the doorway, waiting to be beckoned, I feel the same flash of excitement, only now it is heightened by both fear and familiarity.

“You shouldn’t be up here,” I say, backing away though he is nowhere close.

“Apparently I shouldn’t be anywhere.”

“I mean it.” The words eke their way out of my pinched throat. “Go back downstairs.”

“I have to talk to you.”

“Please.” He is three steps in, and I find myself pleading to my own weakness. “Go.”

He holds his hand up in a gesture of peace. “I will. I promise. Just let me say that I’m sorry.”

“Stop.”

He moves closer.

“And I know there’s nothing I can do to ever make it right. But I promise you, I’ll never say a word to Russ.”

I fold my arms tight across my chest. “Why should I believe you?”

“Up to now, which of us is the liar?”

He touches my face and a shock runs through me —sharp, electric, and painful enough to make me yelp as if he slapped me. In reaction, I bring my hand to his cheek, my palm stinging with the contact, and for a moment it seems we might both catch fire on the spot.

“Go.” The syllable takes the last of my strength.

“Storm’s kickin’ up,” he says. “Won’t be safe enough to leave until tomorrow.”

The air crackles between us, the phenomenon stronger now with the earth so parched dry. I don’t dare move, knowing the next step, the next touch of anything —furniture or flesh —will crisp my nerves. The best thing to do is to stay still, to settle into the moment until the surrounding energy acclimates. Jim knows this too, because he turns into a portrait before me, and I stare into him, study him, unabashed and bold, as I would study any other work of art. The defined curl of the hair on his brow, the shadow of stubble on his chin, the pox scar at the top of his cheekbone. He studies me, too, our bodies moving together in breath the way they have before. I don’t need to touch him. I remember. I relive.

“Looks like I got here in the nick of time.” Merrilou Brown’s voice somehow cuts through the pounding sound of my own blood in my ears.

I glance around Jim’s shoulder to see her standing at my table, holding a wicker basket twice the width of her shoulders.

“In time?” I slide out from Jim’s gaze, telling him the glasses are in the cupboard to the left of the sink.

“Looks like we’re in for a whopper. And you might want to know that your kids made it in safe and sound downstairs.” She sets the hamper on the table. “Brought over enough dinner for all of us, if you don’t mind me and the mister joining you.”

“N-not at all. Of course, we’d love it.”

“Good.” She sends Jim, who calmly sips what will be the last of the good water for a while, a wink that only I can interpret as disapproving. And yet protective, like she is prepared to launch herself into battle for my honor. She knows too. Just like Pa. But I feel no shame, only gratitude. “And,” she continues, taking out a stack of sandwich-shaped wax-paper bundles, “you’ll be glad to know, there’ll be enough left over to pack this one a meal for the road.”

They are gone in the predawn hours of the next day. Russ and I stand on the balcony overhanging the street and wave, his arm wrapped lightly around my waist.

“I’m still worried about Pa,” I say, never losing my hopeful smile.

Russ plants a reassuring kiss on my temple. “I’d say there’s nothing better for him. He’s almost back to his old self. Maybe stronger. And this will give us time to make some improvements in his room.”

I should say something about Jim, inquire whether Russ is going to miss his friend, maybe, or express some gratitude that Pa has a traveling companion for at least half of the journey. But I say nothing.

As soon as the truck and trailer turn the corner and disappear from view, Russ tugs at me to go back inside.

The children are asleep, and it’s easy to pretend that we have the small apartment to ourselves. Last night’s storm wasn’t nearly as volatile as we had anticipated, and working together, Russ and I have the kitchen pretty much clean before the coffee is ready.

“We could go back to bed,” he suggests with a hopeful grin.

“No,” I say, reaching for a cup. “We can have a nice breakfast while it’s still cool outside. Grits and eggs?”

He agrees, and while he is washing up, I go through the motions of preparing breakfast by rote, my mind full of the moments to come. I’ve made a promise to God, and to myself, that I will unburden myself of this secret. And now, with the threat of Pa’s judgment removed, I can go to my husband, claiming God’s forgiveness of my sin, and imploring Russ to grant the same.

I stir the grits and flip the eggs, thinking, As soon as the food is cooked. Then, when we are seated, I know I have to wait until after the blessing. Under his watchful, concerned eye, I eat half my portion, needing every bite for strength. He looks at me with such love, such contentment, reaching the small distance across the table to touch my arm as he speaks —thankful, he says, for this moment.

“I can’t imagine living the way Jim does,” he says. “Drifting, unanchored.”

I respond with an inarticulate sound and clear the plates. Refill the coffee. Buy a few more precious minutes. While I do, Russ takes our well-worn Bible and opens it to the place where the ribbon marks our last reading.

“Psalm 32,” he says as I settle back down in my seat. “Shall I read? Or you?”

I slide the Bible toward myself, volunteering. My own words remain stuffed down, drowning in grits and coffee. I think, maybe, speaking God’s Word will dislodge them, clothe them with strength I could never summon on my own. The moment my eyes scan the first words of the chapter, I feel hope.

“‘Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.’” I look up to see Russ in earnest agreement. “‘Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.’”

Here I stop, forced to question my spirit. My guile. I’ve held nothing back in my confession to God. Jesus knows my duplicity, by my heart and by my words. And while I am fully prepared to confess the act of adultery to Russ, I freeze at the thought of telling him the depth of my depravity, how I’ve schemed and manipulated both truth and circumstance.

Still the psalm prods. “‘When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.’”

Selah.

“Maybe your pa’s right,” Russ says, “about the land paying for the sin of our greed.”

“Maybe,” I agree, thankful for the diversion from the words that seem so clearly meant for me. Russ waits patiently. Tears gather at the base of my throat, impeding my voice as I attempt to read the next verse, but I push past them. “‘I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.’”

“Darling.” Russ pulls me over and brings me to sit on his lap, because I’ve lost the battle. Tears flow, and as he wipes them away, he says, “Your pa’s not right about everything.”

“Can it be that simple?” My eyes rake again over the verse, now clouded by tears. “To confess my sin and be forgiven?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s simple, but it’s true. Think of the sins David committed. Adultery. Murder. And yet . . .”

“He was king.”

“The lineage of Christ himself.”

There is comfort in recalling my prayer of repentance last night and in the image this morning of watching the object of my sin being taken away. Somehow I know that, were I to come clean with Russ this very moment, he would ask, “Have you confessed your sin before the Lord?” Indeed, having listened in on so many pastoral conversations, I know he has posed this same question to others seeking reconciliation.

And my answer would be yes. God has forgiven my iniquity. I know I must also confess to my husband, but to do so now would destroy my assurance of grace. As fine a man as he is, Russ is a man —Christlike in every way, but not Christ himself. Capable of forgiveness, yes, but not cleansing. With the Lord’s forgiveness, I am clean —a state so rare these days, I long to enjoy it just a little longer.

“Shall I finish?” Russ pulls the Bible closer and uses his finger to find the place. “‘For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.’” He jiggles his leg beneath me. “That doesn’t sound too bad, does it? A flood of great waters?”

I rest my head on his shoulder and feel the vibration of Scripture. “‘Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.’”

For these next few days, I will hide myself in Russ. Forgiven, I will lose myself in him, his every word, spoken with love, a song of deliverance.