CHAPTER 30

WE MAY NOT BE THE ONLY OKIES on the train, but we are certainly the only ones in first class, and the experience is instantly humbling. Among my fellow Featherlings, my vanity was given free rein. My husband is tall and handsome, as is my son, and little Ariel unmatched in her exquisiteness. Amid the other passengers, though, we are decidedly rumpled and dirt-worn. Looking through their eyes, we are scrawny, filthy, ready to fill the car with the odor of crude ham sandwiches and government-supplied sardines. Our people are the fleas jumping off the carcass of Oklahoma, and for the first leg of our journey, nobody seems inclined to do anything other than flick us away.

To my great joy, though, it doesn’t last. By the end of the first leg, Russ encounters another minister, and the two are thick as thieves comparing passages of Scripture and sermon styles. Ariel finds another little girl with a cardboard box full of paper dolls, and they are immediately fast friends. Ronnie embarks on an elaborate baseball card trade with a few uniformed soldiers on leave.

As for myself, I sit by the window, content, alone, my head against the glass, and watch creation unfold. Thirty-six hours on the train, and every one of them dominated by a single thought: I am free. I suffer every stop —even those that last a mere ten minutes —with impatience. Russ takes the kids out to the station to buy a snack or a magazine, or simply to have a gulp of clean, cold air. I never dare follow, though. Instead, I stay on the train, my foot tapping to re-create the clackety-clack that separates me from the ruination left behind.

Greg is there to meet us at Pennsylvania Station —a fact that is initially confusing to the children, that a train station in Maryland could have the name of a different state. I don’t think I ever truly believed that our two lives would join together again until the moment I see him. We run to each other as if one of us were returning from war. Russ lingers, shakes his hand, as does Ronnie, and Ariel shyly offers her cheek for a kiss.

The mass of humanity milling around that train station is the largest gathering of people I’ve ever seen in one place, making me feel even smaller than I did in the middle of an Oklahoma dust storm. Greg leads the way, but I realize that, from the back at least, he looks like almost every other man in the station: dark coat, hat pulled low, and impossibly clean black leather shoes. I instruct Ariel to take his hand, as she has the greatest potential of becoming lost, and I simply follow her.

Though we’ve packed conservatively, our trunks are too numerous for Greg’s vehicle, so he arranges with the porter for delivery. The first thing I notice when we step out of the station and into the semidarkness of the early evening is the icy chill in the air, like a cold slap in the face, but not necessarily unpleasant or unwelcome. I inhale, imagining a million tiny, sweet crystals coating my throat, my lungs, grabbing on to the last remnants of dust, and melting them away.

“Hey, Sis?” Greg tugs at my sleeve. “Do you want to stand here and breathe all night? Or do you want to go home?”

“That’s a tough choice,” I say, and look to Russ. “What do you think?”

He, too, has been looking beyond the cloisters of brick buildings and into the sparkling night sky. At my question, though, it is clear that he sees nothing but me.

“Let’s go home.”

Home turns out to be a neighborhood christened Arcadia, one after another of the most beautiful houses I have ever seen. Each one alone looks like the product of a dream —porches and shrubs, painted shutters and balconies, stretches of lawn that Greg assures me will be vibrant green come summer, but that now lie faded and dormant, waiting to spring to life. Windows glow with amber light; women lean in doorways calling their children home, as it is by now nearly dark.

“I’ve never seen so many houses this close together,” Russ says with a hint of trepidation.

“Might take some getting used to,” Greg says, confidently navigating the street. “But I think you’ll find that we’re as capable of being neighborly as the folks back home.”

Ariel, Ronnie, and I sit in the backseat, with Ariel in my lap so as not to miss anything.

“Any of the kids play baseball here?” Ronnie asks.

“Usually a pickup game in the park, a couple of blocks away,” Greg says. “After school and Saturdays. And of course, the high school has a team. You’ll be in high school next year, won’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

I notice Ronnie clenching his jaw, looking more like his ornery grandfather than ever, and I wish I could pull him to me and assure him that everything will be fine. Despite his adolescent bluster about wanting to leave Oklahoma, he is the only one of us to leave behind true friends. Russ and I had our church family, but nobody whose affections will be greatly missed, and Ariel seems to make best friends wherever she goes. Only Ronnie has been ripped away midlife, and in this he suffers the most.

“And if you’re interested, I have four tickets to a Senators and Red Sox game this summer. Maybe we can look into season tickets?”

I take a mental accounting of all our resources, and even without knowing the price, know we don’t have the money for such a luxury. As I hold my breath for Russ’s refusal, he surprises me by turning around in his seat with a broad grin.

“Four tickets, eh? Looks like you might have to stay home on your own that day, Nola, while Greg and me and the kids eat some peanuts and Cracker Jack.”

“I shall try to survive,” I say.

And then, Greg stops the car.

The house, same as the photograph I’ve been studying for a month, but now with warmth beckoning through the windows.

“Be it ever so humble . . . ,” he jokes, but I cannot bring myself to laugh.

“Oh, Mama,” Ariel breathes, for the first time without the rattle in her chest that was so worrisome.

Russ gets out of the car and opens my door, first taking Ariel from my lap, then reaching in for my hand.

“Are you all right?” I say, whispering, in hopes that my brother will be left unaware of Russ’s misgivings.

“I just want to see you happy.”

“I am.” Taking his hand, I scoot to the edge of the car seat and am about to step onto the sidewalk when I know I don’t want to begin this life with a lie. With my feet planted firmly on the ground, I hold on to my husband and amend my words. “I will be.”