CHAPTER 27

BY THE THIRD MR. BROWN SUNDAY, the children are back in school, and Ariel is a permanent fixture in my bed. She sleeps restlessly beside me, and is usually up before the dawn, pestering me to make a double batch of Cream of Wheat for breakfast. Ronnie, on the other hand, is much less eager, and shows up to the table with his hair half-combed and his eyes half-open.

This is one of the mornings when my temperament matches that of my son. I plait Ariel’s hair and tie the braids with wide, wine-colored ribbons, a Christmas gift from Merrilou Brown, but I myself am still not dressed. I convince Ronnie to walk her to school with the promise of mashed potatoes for lunch when he brings her home at noon.

“With gravy?” He presents it as a nonnegotiable, but I’m forced to disappoint.

“Sorry, Son. Don’t have the meat for that.”

He makes a silly show of disappointment, but dutifully takes his sister’s hand and secures her mask before heading out the door.

And then, total, utter quiet. This, I know, is the time Russ would expect me to pray, to listen for God’s voice. His direction. Were Russ here, we would be praying together, sitting at the table, our Bibles open, our hands joined. He would read and I would listen, passive in my understanding. Other than dutifully carrying it to Sunday service, I’ve rarely touched my Bible since coming home from the hospital. The words, it seems, fade in and out of my understanding, like a radio station just off the dial, and I imagine my prayers do much the same. I’ve learned it’s best to keep my head as empty as possible while busying my body with chores —cooking and cleaning —anything to keep me away from the windows. Off the street. Actively imprisoned to avoid temptation.

I pour myself a second cup of coffee, promising to be less indulgent tomorrow, now that Russ is no longer here to share the pot with me, and carry it back to my bedroom —our bedroom —where my Bible waits on the nightstand beside the bed. I thumb the pages listlessly. I open it, run my hand across the words, wishing I could simply absorb the truth within.

The light coming through the window is not sufficient for reading, and though it is half past nine, the room takes on the hue of some predawn hour. I move my Bible to rest on Russ’s pillow and crawl back between the covers.

I awake to a room full of light, a cold cup of coffee, and a clock that reminds me the children will be home within minutes, expecting a meal I haven’t yet prepared. The Bible lies forgotten on Russ’s pillow as I scramble out of bed and run to the front of the house. A peek out the window reveals an empty street underneath what is turning into a clear, crisp day. The children haven’t been released from school yet, so I slice a potato thin and set a pot of water to boiling, hoping to fulfill my promise. I light the second burner for a can of tomato soup. The last of the bread is a hard, dry heel, which I cut into chunks to float in and soak up the soup.

At each stage of the preparation, I go to the window, gauging my time not by the clock but by the sight of Featherling’s few children released for the walk home. The potatoes are fork-tender when they first appear, a dozen or so of varying ages and sizes. Most days, Ronnie likes to stay to have lunch with the farm kids, so I send him with a sack of butter sandwiches and an apple. Other times, when the relief food fills our pantry, I make a big meal and invite the boys into our home for slices of ham and green beans, Jell-O and molasses cookies. I’ve watched three days’ worth of food disappear into their eager, grateful mouths, ignoring their dirt-crusted hands and allowing Ariel to eat in her room so they have one less gaze to avoid.

I see them, joined together in the midst of all the other children whose heads are bent low against the wind. Ronnie walks tall, his cap shoved so low that its bill nearly touches his nose. How he’s managed to keep it all this time I’ll never understand, except it is one of God’s small blessings I take a minute to acknowledge. He holds his sister’s hand, lending his weight to hers, and even from this distance I see that she is in animated conversation, her free hand gesticulating wildly as she grips a soon-to-be tattered school paper.

Then I realize, with familiar frustration, neither wear their masks as I —along with every other mother —insist. Still dressed in my housecoat and with bare feet, I step through the front door and lean over the railing. Wind whips my hair into my eyes, and I feel the tiny pricks of grit against my face as I cup my hand around my mouth and shout, “Ariel! Ronnie! Your masks!”

In their defense, none of the other kids seem to be wearing them either, and with the almost-clearness in the air, my admonition could be seen as a good-natured joke. In response, Ariel clamps her school paper across her mouth and nose, and Ronnie does the same with his cap, covering his face entirely, and casts his little sister’s arm in the role of a blind man’s cane, tapping out a pattern of steps.

I laugh and turn to go inside, catching a glimpse of something familiar as I do. I should ignore it, go straight back to the kitchen to prepare lunch for my children, but even from across the street, in broad daylight, he —Jim —compels me. The distance does nothing to lessen my feeling of vulnerability. I clutch my robe, shift my feet against the grit, and take hold of my wayward hair, forcing it behind my ear. I hear Ronnie yell something about mashed potatoes, and I holler a response, all the while praying that Jim will step back, far enough to disappear from the street’s point of view. If Ronnie sees him, we’ll have a fourth at lunch, for he shares his father’s warm, innocent, inviting spirit.

Locking my eyes with his, I give a shake of my head. No. Any neighbor peering out a window might have missed the communication, but I know he sees me in a more concentrated form than does any other person, and I trust my full message to come clear. Nowhere near my family.

The day goes on as expected: Ariel’s down for a nap after her brother returns to school for his afternoon classes. I use that hour of solitude to clean the house in a way I haven’t since before Christmas, wiping away days’ worth of accumulated dust, enough to turn my wash water into brownish slush.

Fruitless, endless, mindless labor. Wiping the insides of the windows with vinegar and water, knowing the other sides will retain their hardened film of dirt. Running a damp mop head over the floors, knowing the first body through the front door will not only leave tracks of soil, but particles will shake loose from their clothing, leaving a dusting like dry, tainted snow. We’ve all but given up on trying to protect our dishes, though Pa’s lingering spirit prompts me to take extra care with our drinking glasses.

At some point, minutes before Ariel awakes, I consider sitting down, propping up my feet, maybe reading one of Ronnie’s Life magazines. But if I allow my body even a moment’s respite, I know exactly what I will do. The window again, face pressed against the newly clean glass. Looking, watching, assuring myself he wasn’t a vision.

That night, I wash and set my hair. I’ve become quite adept since Rosalie’s passing, though it’s something I usually reserve for later in the week. For Russ. I don’t allow myself to acknowledge my motivation for doing so this evening. I twist and pin, refusing to look at myself in the process. Rising early in the morning, I coax it into shining waves and powder my face. My hand shakes as I apply a touch of lipstick, and later, too, when I add warm milk to the morning cereal, hoping to distract the children with this extra step of maternal care.

Ronnie offers to walk Ariel to school, and I shoo him out to meet his friends for a round of catch before their first class. After buttoning Ariel into her coat, I button myself into mine and tie a bright silk scarf over my hair —an item I received from the Christmas party gift exchange.

“You look beautiful, Mama,” Ariel says, beckoning me to bow low so she can touch the fabric.

I give her chin a soft pinch. “So do you.”

“Do I have to wear my mask?”

“Tell you what. Wear your mittens, and while we’re walking outside, bring your hand up over your mouth. Like this.” I demonstrate, inhaling the scene of my hand cream. Ariel follows my example, prompting a “Good girl!” from me, and we proceed outside.

Ariel chatters, her words muffled by her mitten, and I chime in with appropriate sounds at the slightest break in the stream. All the while, I keep my head in a constant arcing motion, looking between buildings, behind deadened trees, amid the silent parked cars.

“Mama? Are you listening?”

“Of course I am, dear. But tell me that last part again. What did Barney do?”

“She poked her head up through the hole in the blanket and it looked like she was in the ocean!”

I laugh because she does, agreeing that it must have been a silly sight indeed. By then we are at the corner where she’ll have to cross the street to go to school, and Merrilou Brown dutifully waits.

“Why, Denola!” she exclaims, holding up her hand to stop the single farm truck lumbering toward the intersection. “Don’t you look spiffy today?”

She says it without a hint of suspicion, and I resist the urge to be defensive.

“I was feeling a little under the weather last week. I suppose I wanted to embrace my return to health.”

She gestures for Ariel to walk —walk! —across the street as I wave good-bye.

“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better. Feel free to pop by for coffee later this morning. I have a sour cream cake in the oven now.”

“Thank you, but I have some catching up to do on my housework.”

“Not enough hours in the day for that, are there?”

“There certainly aren’t.”

“Come on over if you find the time.”

I smile my assurance and turn for home, this time going against the wind, making it impossible to keep up any kind of surveillance. Head bent, I watch my feet, glancing up only occasionally to register my progress. When I reach the shop, there he is, standing flat against the wall behind the stairs leading up to the apartment.

“Nola —”

“No.” I don’t even pause. I march right past, and up the stairs, and through my front door, closing it behind me and collapsing against it. My fingers shake as I unbutton my coat, and I have to slide the scarf off my head to untie its knot before draping it and the coat over the arm of the sofa. In the kitchen, I pour myself a cup of coffee, take one sip, and set it down to cool, drumming my fingers on the counter, the sound echoing in the empty apartment.

Maybe I should have accepted Merrilou’s offer of coffee and cake. That would occupy an hour, at least. I picture her tiny body fighting the wind, being blown through her front door, the perfectly clean house infused with the rich smell of the cake.

I wish Russ could be here in this moment. Maybe we might have gone together to spend a moment with the Browns. Or maybe I would have been inspired to bake my own cake from what few ingredients I have on hand —something for the two of us to share at the empty table in the morning light as we spend an hour in devotion. So simple. So small.

I tell myself I’ve changed my mind. That I would, after all, like to sit with the Browns and chat about what changes this new year might hold. If I were being honest with myself, I would take my coat and scarf, for though the walk to their front door is a short one, the wind still blows bitter cold, and both are waiting on the arm of the sofa. But there’s no honesty, even in my thoughts. I’m telling myself a lie, as I lied to Russ, my children, and my Lord. I walk down the dark inner stairs to the empty shop, itself cavernous and nearly black, as Russ boarded up the windows the day after Christmas. I’ve maneuvered in this place often enough, though in total absence of light, sneaking out of bed for stolen cigarettes.

Through the storeroom and to the door, my hand finding the latch near the top and sliding it across. Cake and coffee with the neighbors —it’s where I will go if I open the door to find the loading platform empty, the alley deserted, Jim nowhere in sight.

The door is open only for a fraction of a second before he is inside, giving me no time to protest even if I want to. A mere mention of daylight, and then it is dark. Pure dark, like night, and we welcome it like lovers, wordless at first, and mostly silent, save for ragged breath and staccato whispers.

“You let me in.”

“I shouldn’t have.”

“But you did.”

In response, I press myself closer to him and reach above for the latch, sliding it into place lest someone has witnessed his intrusion and would come to my rescue.

Nothing that follows matches the recklessness of that first morning. Every moment of the days that follow is cool, calculated. I walk Ariel to school, chat with Merrilou Brown, and rush home to find him waiting in the shop, where I’ve left the storeroom door open. On the second day, I lead him upstairs, and here we linger, too terrified to touch, though I make a careful study of his arm, cupping my hand over the scars at its abrupt end. Asking him to tell me, again, of the battle, the explosion that took it. The details of the pain. It pleases me, somehow, to know that he’s suffered, assures me that I don’t care too much for him. He answers, relaying the details with an air somewhere between heroism and humility, as if it were the course of any ordinary day.

Once, while the dust outside rages in a nearly solid wall of wind, I ask him if he thinks he’d be the same person if he hadn’t been so wounded.

“We are what we are, sweet Nola,” he says. “Ain’t nothin’ but death can change us.”

At the morning’s end I sweep him away, back into the alley, and I commence cleaning, mopping every step he took, stripping the bed, washing the coffee cup he pressed against his lips. I scrub my skin of his touch, so each day Ronnie and Ariel come home to a pink-skinned mother and a gleaming house, no matter what threatens on the other side.

Where Jim goes —where he stays, where he sleeps —once he leaves me, I don’t know. I don’t ask, for fear he’ll take it as some veiled invitation to lurk in the shadows of our home day and night.

From the beginning I knew the time would come —Thursday night —when I would have to hear my husband’s voice pressed to my ear in the Browns’ telephone nook. I suffer through a meal of fried pork chops and gravy, slicing tiny, dry bites and moving my fork from the meat to the potatoes and back again.

Merrilou chatters on about how much everybody misses having Russ in the pulpit, casting sweet, apologetic glances toward her husband. “I must say, I’m sure you’ll be happier than any of us to have him back of a Sunday.”

I swallow a bit of gristle whole and wash it down with water. “I will.”

“The way Mr. Brown and I putter around each other all day, I can’t imagine what it would be like not to have him underfoot.”

“Russ was rarely underfoot. Even before, there was always someone out there to draw him away from home.” I didn’t intend for my words to come across quite so bitter, but Merrilou’s recoil begs an apology. “I’m sorry. Yes, of course, it’s difficult having him so far away.”

“Almost like you’re a widow.”

Now it is my turn to take offense. “No, because I know he’s coming home. Week from Sunday he’ll be here.” I look at Mr. Brown and point my fork in mock accusation. “And you, sir, best be ready to step away from the pulpit.”

“Gladly,” he says. “It is a grave responsibility, spiritual leadership. Hard enough within the home, but for the house of God —it’s why we all admire Pastor Russ so much. He bears it with grace.”

“He deserves better.” Merrilou’s comment draws my attention.

“Better than what?”

“Better than us.”

The rest of the conversation centers around Ariel and her school musical and Ronnie’s aspirations to play baseball when he gets to high school, leaving me to retreat into supportive silence while Merrilou asks all the right questions and responds with appropriate enthusiasm to the answers. As we clear the plates, the phone jangles right at the designated time, and Mr. Brown suggests —as he does every week —that I answer it, “just in case it’s for you.”

Merrilou’s words ring in my ears as I approach, and his voice —handsome itself —calls me “darling” and turns my knees to water. I fall into the slat-backed chair, throat closed, unable to utter a word in my defense.

“Nola?” Crackling silence. “Nola, sweetheart, can you hear me?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I was lost for a moment.”

“Well, don’t go too far. We haven’t got a lot of time together here.”

“I know.” But then I can’t think of a single other thing to say. I catch a glimpse of Ariel out of the corner of my eye and, with my hand over the mouthpiece, summon her over. Just as Russ embarks on a story about some heroic patient or another, I exclaim, “Oh! Here’s Ariel. She wants so badly to tell you about her musical at school.”

Without waiting for any acknowledgment or reply, I move the telephone stick to the edge of the table and give Ariel both the earpiece and the encouragement to talk, to relate every detail about the props, and Mrs. Patty’s piano playing, and what a horrible singer Bobby Fisher is, and how she will need a new white dress for the snowflake song, and new black shoes if she can, but Mrs. Patty said if everybody can’t have shiny shoes, they can wear socks instead, but then they won’t be able to make the clackity-clackity noise when they dance.

I watch the sand fall through the glass as she speaks, matching the pace of her words. Now, when I gently take the phone away after she says, “I love you too, Papa,” I have some conversation to cling to.

“She seems excited,” Russ says, chuckling.

“She is, indeed. Hard to believe the show is still six weeks away.” I pause long enough for a new thought to come to life. “It’s on a Wednesday. Will you be able to be here?”

Silence, and then a sigh. “I can’t promise you that.”

“This is your daughter.”

“Nola, please. Don’t make me feel worse than I already do.”

I huddle myself deeper into the alcove, bringing my lips to nearly touch the receiver. “I’m afraid, Russ.”

“Darling, you know you’re not alone.”

“I’m afraid we might start to forget you. What if I —what if we —start to fill in your place?” I want him to be so afraid of the same thing that he will disappear from the other end of the line only to appear in our home by day’s end and save me from the sin I might commit in the morning. Instead, he speaks so softly I have to bury the earpiece in my hair and shut out the noise from the other side.

“I am trusting you, my wife, to make sure that doesn’t happen.”