Chapter 16
“Well,” Morgan quipped, “now that you three got me all tied up good and tight in this straight jacket, how do I look?” He stretched out his arms and turned around in a circle so we could see him from all sides.
“Oh, Morgan,” I sighed. “You look fine. Just fine. You look like a valedictorian in that suit. So grown up.” He did, too. The thick wool of the jacket made his shoulders seem broader and more substantial and gave his lanky frame an aura of maturity that he didn’t possess when dressed in dungarees. He seemed so much older than eighteen. For a moment I wanted to tell him to take off the jacket and put his childhood back on. It was too soon for him to be so old, but the pride and expectation on his face were contagious. His future couldn’t be postponed.
“Is Paul coming?” Morgan asked. “I haven’t seen him for ages. Did you and he have a fight or something? You’d better patch it up quick if you did. I want my fishing buddy sitting with the family at graduation.” He twisted around to look at me quizzically. Ruby clucked and told him to quit moving while she was trying to mark the hem of his pants.
I answered without looking at him, concentrating hard to see that the suit lay smooth across his shoulders. “We didn’t have a fight. We’re just busy, that’s all. He’s got a whole congregation that wants him at their dinner table. It wasn’t fair of us to keep monopolizing the pastor’s time that way.” I pushed in pins to ease the seam I was going to take in. “Of course he’ll come to the graduation; he’s got to give the prayer. I imagine he’ll be sitting up on the stage, not in the bleachers with the rest of the audience.” I stuck a last pin into the puckering seam and stood back to examine my work.
“Those sleeves need to be let out,” Mama noted practically. “His wrists are showing at least three inches.”
“Oh, we can fix that,” said Ruby. “It’s not his fault he’s so tall.”
“Still,” Mama said begrudgingly to Morgan, “you do look nice. Real nice. Just make sure you’ve got your speech memorized, in case you lose your place. I hate it when people get up on a stage and read to me. It’s like they’re afraid to look me in the eye. Grandpa always says you can never trust anybody who doesn’t look you in the eye.”
“Don’t worry, Mamaw. I’ll look at you. I know the whole thing by heart. Listen. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he boomed, planting his feet apart and hooking his thumbs under his lapels in a mocking, elocutionary stance, ‘It is said that great floods flow from simple sources, and as I look upon my fellow graduates of the class of 1940, as I gaze into your blank and vacuous faces, I see some of the simplest sources imaginable—’”
“Morgan!” Ruby clapped her hand over her mouth in horror. “You’re not going to say that, are you?”
“Oh, Aunt Ruby! You’re too easy,” he said, laughing. “Of course I won’t say that.”
“That’s a relief, anyway,” said Ruby with a sigh. “But, what are you going to talk about?”
“Don’t worry.” Morgan winked knowingly and tapped his head with his forefinger. “I’ve got it all up here, and if you to want hear it, you’ll just have to show up at graduation in a week’s time, park yourself on the bleachers, listen, and be amazed, just like all the rest of the paying customers. Won’t she, Mama?”
“That’s right.” I smiled. “And I, for one, can wait. I don’t mind being surprised.” Maybe we’ll all be surprised, I thought. I hadn’t been able to stop myself from dropping a graduation invitation in the mail addressed to Slim, care of Reilly, McCormick and Martin, Attorneys. He’d never answered before, but maybe, just this one time.
“In the meantime, Morgan, we’ve got to have you looking your best,” I said, picking up my pincushion again. “Hand me the scissors, would you please, Mama? Let’s see what we can do about these sleeves.”
That night, after everyone else had gone to bed, there was a tentative knock on my door. It was Morgan.
“That was good timing,” I said. “I just finished hemming the lining on those jacket cuffs. Why don’t you try it on and see if the length is better.”
“No, Mama,” he said distractedly. “I mean, I will later. Can I ask you something?” I laid the jacket over the arm of the chair and gave him my full attention. He took a deep breath and plunged in. “I know how excited you are about me going to college in the fall.”
“What do you mean me? You’re the first college man in the family.” I knew I was beaming. “Your grandmother’s so proud she’s about ready to bust, and folks in town are starting to walk to the other side of the street when they see Ruby coming because they’re afraid she’ll corner them again while she tells them all your marks since grade school. We’re all just as proud as can be, Morgan. Me especially.” I reached over, took his hand, and squeezed it.
Morgan chuckled halfheartedly and started to pick at his fingernails, the way he did when he was nervous. “Well, I’m glad you’re all proud, but I’ve been thinking, Mama. Maybe it would be better if I didn’t go to college. There’s an awful lot of work around the farm, more than you can do by yourself.”
“Now, Morgan, that’s all settled,” I reminded him. “I told you before, I talked with Luther Krebs. He lost his place for taxes and is willing to work for a share of the harvest. He’s all set to move into the old implement shed in September, do all your old chores, and the planting as well. And I’ve got Ruby, too. She’s stronger than most men. We’ll manage. You’ll see.”
Morgan kept his head ducked down and didn’t say anything, just tapped the toe of his foot in rhythm with his own thoughts.
“What is it?” I asked. His sudden change of heart was genuinely confusing. “Are you scared to go away? Morgan, you’re as smart as anybody else. You’ll do fine,” I reassured him.
“It’s not that.” He raised his head and looked at me seriously. “I’m just worried about you. I really think I should stay here.”
“And do what?” I asked, truly perplexed. For as long as I could remember Morgan had talked about going to exotic places and seeing new things. He cut photographs of islands and rickshas and deserts out of magazines and pinned them up on his wall next to his autographed picture of Slim. He’d tacked up a map of the world next to the pictures and, with bright red Xs, marked all the places he’d visit someday. His walls were fairly papered with all those daring dreams, and now he didn’t even want to go as far as Oklahoma City? It didn’t make any sense. His concern for me was genuine, I was certain. Ever since he’d been a little boy he’d tried to take care of me, sensing in his too-grown-up way that no one else was going to do it, but there was something more to this than simple feelings of obligation.
“Morgan, of course I want you to take over the farm someday, but you need to see some of the world first. Then, after you’ve got your agriculture degree, you’ll be able to run this place better than ever. You’re a young man! Go see the world!” I urged. “You’d be bored to death spending your days with three old women.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” he promised brightly, his scheme finally suddenly spilling out in a fervent, convincing-sounding flow of words. “See, I was thinking I could take care of the farm and start my own business on the side. I could take the money for college and buy a little plane, get my license, and in a few months I could start a business crop dusting.”
“Crop dusting?” I asked doubtfully.
“It’s the latest thing!” he enthused. “You can fly over a field and fertilize or drop chemicals to kill pests quick as a wink. I’ve already picked up so much from Whitey Henderson over at the airfield, I can practically fly a plane already. I could have my pilot’s license in just a few weeks.”
“That idiot Whitey Henderson hasn’t let you go up in that rattletrap plane of his, has he?” I growled. Whitey, who was in charge of the tiny airfield in Liberal, owned a World War I surplus trainer so old and rusted it looked like it was held together with baling wire. Ever since he’d learned to drive, Morgan had spent most of his free afternoons at the airstrip, watching the few planes that landed in Liberal and running errands for Whitey. “You listen to me, Morgan. I will not have you flying in that death trap,” I scolded, shaking my finger at him for emphasis. “I told Whitey that.”
“I know, Mama. I know,” Morgan huffed impatiently, like a dog pulling against his lead. “Whitey’s so scared of you, he won’t let me near his plane. He’s just been showing me stuff you learn in ground school—navigating and how the engine works. Things like that. I could pass the ground-school exam today. I’ve read every book about aviation I can get my hands on. I know that’s what I want to do with my life. I just need a plane. There’s a fellow in Tulsa Whitey knows who’s got a used Stearman trainer he’s willing to sell real cheap—a little over a thousand dollars—and it’s in good shape. The college money would cover it plus some extra for flight school. I could have my pilot’s license in six months and start earning money right away instead of waiting four whole years.”
Four years. I had forgotten how eternal four years can seem when you’re eighteen and so impatient for life to begin that time drags you down like a pocketful of stones. I looked at my son’s handsome, unlined face, so fervent and anxious to find his purpose.
“Morgan, I know you want to fly. It’s something that goes deep in you, but four years go so much faster than you can imagine right now. Flying will be there always. You can go back to it, but a college education will stay with you for life, and now is the time to do it, while you’re young and energetic, free of responsibilities. When you’ve finished you’ll know so much about agriculture you’ll make this farm as fine a place as any in the county. Then you can get any plane you want and fly in your free time.”
Morgan shook his head and frowned as if I were speaking a language whose words made no sense to him. “No, Mama. That’s not for me. You said yourself, flying goes deep in me. I haven’t even piloted on my own yet, but I know it’s part of me, like an extra heart beating inside me, a rhythm that’s different from what everybody else is walking to. I don’t want to farm, Mama. I want to fly. I want to get myself up off the ground and never come back down.” He took my hands in his own and peered into my eyes, begging me to understand.
“Look at me, Mama. Look hard. Can you really imagine me spending the rest of my life being a farmer? Because I just can’t see it. Can you?”
He was right. Everyone I knew was either a farmer or a merchant, and so I’d thought that’s what Morgan would be, too. Actually, I hadn’t thought, not at all. Just going to college seemed so fine and elevated to me, I hadn’t ever thought what it would lead to, whether or not it would make him happy. No, I couldn’t see him as a farmer. But a crop duster? That didn’t seem right, either. It didn’t seem big enough somehow.
Maybe that was the problem, I didn’t know how to think big and I hadn’t taught Morgan how to, either. Some of us are so timid and uncertain when we’re young that even the crumbs from the table can seem like a banquet. That’s the way I was. Morgan didn’t know yet about how dreams that seemed so rich and unattainable today could shrink and leave him hungry once he actually held them in his grasp. Some late night, years from now, he would furrow his brow and puzzle: why wasn’t he happier? Then he’d chide himself for ingratitude.
No, I vowed, it wouldn’t be that way for Morgan. Not if I could help it. I needed money. I could write Slim’s lawyers and get it that way, but that was a last resort. It had been hard for me to accept Slim paying off the farm mortgage. I just couldn’t bring myself to write and beg for more money, not even for Morgan, unless there was no other way on earth. But there is a way, a voice that wasn’t mine spoke in my mind. You know there is.
All at once I knew what to do. For the first time in a long time, I felt Papa was very near to me, giving his blessing to a plan that would have seemed inconceivable only a few minutes before.
“All right,” I said, nodding decisively.
“All right what?” Morgan asked softly, searching my face for a clue to my thoughts, barely daring to hope that “all right” might mean yes.
“You can have your plane, and you can learn to fly.”
“Yeow!!” Morgan yelped in exultation and lunged forward to scoop me up in his arms.
“But!” I shouted over the noise, making him halt in mid-whoop, “You are still going to college.” Morgan’s face fell, but I continued before he could begin arguing. “You don’t have to study agriculture. You can study something that will help you with your flying. I don’t know what that would be, but at such a big school there’s bound to be something. We’ll buy the plane. You can keep it near school and take lessons on the weekends. I’m sure we can work it out.”
Morgan started to interrupt, but I stopped his protestations with a firm shake of my head. “Morgan, right now crop dusting sounds like a fine profession, but as you get older you’ll want something more exciting. Something where you’ll be breaking new ground every day. I don’t know what that is, but you’ll figure it out. I’d bet the farm on it.”
“Mama! Didn’t you hear what I said?” he nearly wailed in despair. “The plane costs over a thousand dollars; there won’t be enough for it and college.”
“Yes there will, if you’re really serious about not wanting to farm. Are you absolutely sure?” I asked. He solemnly nodded his resolve. I took a deep breath and went on. “In that case we won’t be needing nearly so much land. We’ll sell that quarter I bought for you when you were little and one more next to it. That ought bring in enough to buy the plane with a little left over.”
For a moment, Morgan was dumbstruck. “Sell off part of the farm? Papaw’s land? We can’t do that. You’ve said yourself, a hundred times, that you’d die before you’d sell one acre of Papaw’s land.”
“Well, that was before. I didn’t have a good enough reason then.” Morgan began to protest again, but I quieted him before he could go on.
“Sweetheart, listen. Years ago when I saved up to buy you that land, it was for a reason. I wanted you to have a future. Back then I figured that meant farmland. Nothing else ever crossed my mind, but now I can see so much more ahead of you. I bought the land for you. Your grandpa and I kept the farm together for you. All we ever wanted was for you to be happy and live a life that would make us all proud, so if selling off a couple of pieces of property can make that happen, so be it.”
“But, you’d have fewer crops then, less money, and me not bringing in anything ...” he sputtered. “Mama, I want to help you, not be a burden to you.”
“I know you do, and it makes me proud to hear you say it. When the time comes, I’ll let you, but for now I’m just fine. Morgan, I know I seem ancient to you, but I’m not even forty. My fingers are still pretty fast with a quilting needle, and I like doing it. Now that money’s loosening up, I can go back to making the pretty quilts, the watercolor ones like I used to, and there will be people to buy them.”
Morgan looked at me curiously. “I’ve seen you cutting up all those little squares out of my old clothes, just like you used to, but is that what you are going to sell? Quilts made up of our worn-out shirts and pants?
“No,” I said, laughing. “Those little squares are for a special one, for a friend. But starting on that one quilt has kind of primed the pump, if you know what I mean.” I locked eyes with him so he’d know I was serious as I spun out my plan, trying to convince him that I was sincere in my desire to get back to work that meant something. As I talked I realized it was true. I couldn’t wait to start creating again.
“I’ve got a dozen designs floating around in my brain, Morgan. I want to stitch them together with my own hands and wrap them around a complete stranger who thinks I must have read their thoughts and patched them whole. I can’t wait to start, so you needn’t sit there with that guilty look on your face. I’ve always managed. I don’t see how not having a little bit of ground that barely produced anything in the past ten years is going to propel me into the poorhouse.”
“Still,” he said dubiously, “Papaw’s land. I just wouldn’t feel right about it.” Morgan’s face looked so solemn and culpable that I couldn’t help but laugh.
“They’re just fields, Morgan, not holy ground!” He was unconvinced by my levity. Talking about selling off part of the farm was serious business to him, and he was right, I thought. It was more serious than he could imagine. “Morgan,” I said in what I hoped was an authoritative tone, “I know that right now you think there will always be time to backtrack and fix up the mistakes you made, or explore the paths you missed, but you’re wrong. I want everything for you, the things I never had and the things I never had the courage to imagine having. That’s what I want, and that’s what your Papaw would want.”
A shy little smile started at the corner of Morgan’s mouth and spread across his face. “Do you really think so?”
“I know it as sure as anything,” I said with finality and joy as I watched the relief flood my son’s face and felt myself swept up into his grateful embrace.
And, I thought to myself, if your father were here, he’d want it too. Thinking of Slim chilled me for a moment. It ought to be Slim having this conversation with Morgan, not me. Just this once, he ought to be here for his son. Why wasn’t he?
That simple, silent question opened the door to a bigger one. Paul had been right; I should have asked it years before.
All the next week, whenever I could spare a moment, I sat in my room sewing the tiny squares I’d cut and collected from our cast-off clothes: mine, Morgan’s, Mama’s, Ruby’s, and even some of Papa’s old shirts I’d found wrapped in paper and stored in a chest. Years had passed since Papa worn them, but they still seemed to carry the faintest scent of him. I stitched them together with the rest, laying them out, rearranging the colors and patterns, sewing them and ripping them apart and sewing them together again, trying to piece all those separate scraps together into a whole cloth that would explain everything. A still life that was life, or at least a frozen moment of it. As I stitched and snipped and thought, Paul’s voice played louder in my mind, until I wasn’t afraid to hear it or think about what he’d said anymore.
Why isn’t he here? It was the first question. Once I allowed myself that one, the others weren’t far behind.
Watching Morgan’s valedictory speech was the proudest moment of my life. I sat wedged between Mama and Ruby. We applauded until our hands stung. We clapped when Morgan received his diploma, when he won the science award for designing a new windmill so light that it spun circles on just a breath of air, and again when he was announced as the “Graduate Most Likely To” and walked across the stage one more time to accept the $75 Grange scholarship.
It was one of the best days of my life. Even so, I kept finding myself glancing at the door of the musty gymnasium, waiting for Slim to walk through. Late, or in disguise, or without saying a word, I didn’t care. I just wanted him to come for a moment, to see his son and what he had become and how what we had started together in ignorance and love had become, finally, a happy ending to share. But the door stayed closed.
After the ceremony Paul came over to shake Morgan’s hand and congratulate all of us. Morgan asked him to join us for ice cream. Paul threw me a quick, questioning glance before saying he had an appointment. I didn’t urge him to change it. We went for pie and ice cream at the café without him, and I told Morgan that my tears were only from happiness and pride. He believed me. It was so easy to make him believe the lie. Easier than it would have been to explain I was crying over closed doors.
The acreage sold quickly, and the plane was purchased and delivered to Liberal. Morgan began taking short flights under Whitey Henderson’s direction. He wanted to take me up, too, but it was a two-seater. I’d have to wait until Morgan earned his license and could take up passengers alone.
“As soon as I can solo, Mama, I’m going to swoop down from the sky, land in one of the fields, and take you for a ride. I don’t care if it’s day or night or in the middle of exams. You’re going to be my very first passenger,” he declared emphatically
“I’d be honored, Morgan, but if it is during your examinations, maybe you’d just better stay grounded until you finish. I’ll be waiting right here when you’re done.”
The weeks flew—flashed in front of my eyes like the blinding blast of a summer storm, a series of still photo-poems I collected in my mind: “This was the last time he ate my fried chicken, the last time he cranked the Ford, fed the stock, slept in his bed.” Then it was time to go. September came, and Morgan and Whitey stuffed the plane to bursting with Morgan’s clothes and books. They flew off at dawn, a red streak of metal across the morning sky as I waved good-bye ... just like I’d waved good-bye to his father.
But this good-bye was different in that I understood exactly why I was staying behind, why the one I loved was going. Ever since Paul had dared me to ask the question, reasons for those partings, or at least the finality and persisting silence of them, had become less and less clear in my mind. I guess that’s how everything starts. It’s the unanswered questions that push us out the door and into the world.
Morgan didn’t know what he could be, what lay round the bend or inside a cloud, and so he was off into the world to find out. I didn’t know why, after so many years of silent compliance, I should still be waiting for the sound of an engine in the dusk, still waiting for him to walk into a room, shake Morgan’s hand, and say, “We’ve met before, but it’s time we got to know each other.”
I packed a bag, went to the train station, and bought a ticket to Des Moines, Iowa, where Slim was scheduled to speak. I wanted some answers. I wanted to stop waiting for the footsteps that never came.