by Lois Richer
“Why?”
“My stitches weren’t exactly even, Grady! I think she pulled them out every night after I left and redid them so I’d start the next day after school. We’d talk the whole time and she’d always have tea in real china cups and biscuits with crab apple jelly. Then on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, we’d spread the quilt out over the edge of the bales.”
“You have wonderful memories, Maggie. Just as your daughters will have.”
“If we stay.” She murmured the words softly, but they came out stark and bare.
“What else do you remember?” he asked, ignoring her remark.
“The food, of course. After church we’d have a little snack and then we girls would help Mom for a while. Once things were ready in the kitchen, we could go outside and play until we heard the magic word.”
“Which was?” he asked, following her prompt.
“Dinner. And what a dinner. We’d all hold hands and say what we were thankful for and then my dad would say grace. Then he’d carve the turkey that we raised on our very own land. There were potatoes and yams, carrots, corn, pickled beets, salad, sliced tomatoes, gravy, fresh rolls and pumpkin pie. All from our own farm.”
“And pickles?” Grady teased.
“Lots of pickles,” Maggie affirmed. “Mom and Dad and our grandparents would go sit in the living room and my sisters and I would do the dishes. Then out came the crokinole board and we’d play Dad and the grandpas while the ladies knitted or crocheted.” Maggie patted her stomach. “I’d usually sneak out to feed the horses a carrot treat and work off some of the calories, but I remember lying in my bed and listening to the house settling down, snug and warm and safe.”
“Is that why you married Roger? For the security?”
Maggie laughed derisively. “No! Who thinks about that at eighteen? I married Roger because I was a starry-eyed teenager who thought her life would be like a fairy tale.” She sat up, letting his arm fall behind her as she searched the gloom for the girls. They were cuddled together with the dog and Maggie had a hunch they were sleeping.
“Come on, Grady. We’ve been out here way too long.” A rumble of thunder sounded in the west and Maggie cast a worried glance at the sky. To her amazement it was black, the stars obliterated. The wind was rising, too.
“We’ll have to run for it,” Grady called as they each grabbed a girl and helped her stand. “I think it’s going to pour.”
“Come on, kids.” Maggie urged them up the steep incline, trying to ignore the dizziness that swam behind her eyes. Lightning split the sky in a terrific crack, lighting up the yard and the house. “Inside, quick.” She hastened them through the door and dropped the blanket on a nearby chair. “You guys run up and get ready for bed. You should have been there half an hour ago at least.”
“Are we going to be okay?” Keeley startled as another crack burst across the heavens. Her whitened face peered at the door as Grady stomped in, setting down the basket before shaking his wet head.
“We’re going to be just fine, Keeley,” he answered. “It’s just an electrical storm. Today was hot. The thunder and lightning are because a cool air mass has moved in.” Keeley glanced out the window at the sheets of rain pouring down. “Go ahead, honey,” he urged. “I’ll come up with your mother and tuck you in after a bit. Okay?”
“Yes, okay,” she whispered, moving toward the stairs.
“Oh, and Keeley?”
“Yes?” She turned quickly, her eyes huge in her small pinched face.
“Unplug the computer, would you? Electrical outages are hard on them.” Keeley nodded and continued up the stairs.
Maggie sank into a nearby chair with relief, closing her eyes to stop the room from whirling around her.
“Maggie?” She opened her eyes to find Grady’s warm brown gaze fixed on her intently. “Are you okay?” His hand brushed gently over her head.
“I’m fine,” she murmured. “Just a little tired. I should have slowed down a bit, I guess.”
“No, I shouldn’t have taken you down there. I knew you weren’t feeling up to par.” As the rain poured down, Grady moved over to partially close the living room windows. He stood there staring out at the darkened landscape for a few minutes and Maggie felt prickles of awareness creep up her spine.
“Grady? What’s wrong?” She got up and walked over to see the yard for herself. The dusk-to-dawn yard light gave only a faint glow through the torrents of rain the wind was dashing into the ground. She knew exactly what he was thinking. “All that heat caused enough stress on the crop but this wind has to be murder.” She moved toward the screen door and stood staring out. “I don’t know how much of it will stay standing in this.”
“It’ll be fine once it dries out,” Grady murmured, but Maggie could feel the tension in his fingers when they wrapped around her shoulders and drew her against him. “We’ll manage, Maggie. God’s on our side.” He hugged her. “Cooling off pretty fast, isn’t it?”
They stood there, watching the rivulets form in the yard as the water took the path of least resistance to the ditches. Lightning crackled through the sky, momentarily illuminating the veranda and the rockers sitting there. Maggie would have liked to sit out in the air and watch, but now the girls had arrived and stood gaping at the sight, their mouths open in round O’s of wonder. The rain slowed suddenly, rendering the night quiet.
“Is it over?” Katy asked, peering toward the barn. “Do you think my animals are all right?”
“They’re fine, sweetie,” Grady murmured, tucking her against his side. “It’s just a little rain—” He stopped suddenly, and tipped his head to one side to listen.
And then it came, loud and almost deafening in its intensity as it hit the buildings with devastating accuracy.
Hail!
“No!” Maggie stared at the huge golf-ball-sized ice particles that drove themselves into the lawn. In a matter of moments the entire green expanse was covered in white balls. And it kept falling.
“It’s like a snowstorm,” Keeley breathed, staring at the whiteness that surrounded them. “You can’t even see across the yard.”
It was over in a matter of minutes. And before it had stopped completely, Maggie had tossed on her jacket and raced out the door. Her head ached with a viciousness that stung but she ignored it. The damage. She had to assess the damage.
She switched on all the outside lights she could find and then stood and stared at the mess. Her car was covered in pitted circles where the hail had dented the metal. The garden lay in ruins, sweet peas with flowers still clinging to their vines, now dashed into the black mud.
“Good thing I’d taken everything I wanted,” she muttered, thinking of the pumpkins now hidden inside a corner of the barn. The barn! She hurried over, swinging open the door to study the damage.
“It’s okay,” Grady murmured from behind her. “That new roof can handle a little thing like a hailstorm. It’s a good thing it’s been replaced.” And, in fact, the animals seemed perfectly comfortable nestled into the fragrant hay.
But now his words prodded her and all at once the full impact of a hailstorm penetrated Maggie’s brain. “The crops,” she gasped, staring at him. “What about the wheat?”
“Hail is usually localized to a specific area, Maggie. I don’t think we’ve lost much.” He grabbed her arm as a wave of dizzying relief washed over her. “Come on, you’re going inside. We can’t tell anything tonight anyway. Morning is soon enough.”
Maggie let him lead her back to the house and drank the hot, sweet tea he brewed. She obediently swallowed two of the aspirin he handed her and kissed the girls good-night.
She was sitting in the living-room, when Grady came to speak with her. His eyes were shrewd and assessing.
“You overdid it, didn’t you?” he muttered. “Maggie, you’ve got to slow down and start trusting God and His promises. You can’t be everywhere and do everything. Whatever happens, we’ll be fine. I have enough money for all of us to live on
and I’m healthy enough. I can work.”
“You’re recuperating from a heart attack,” she scoffed miserably.
“Which was caused by stress and tension, not hard work. You’re going to be in the same boat if you don’t let go and let God—” He brushed the strands out of her eyes.
“Let God what?” she queried grumpily, knowing he was right.
“Let God be God.” Grady grinned. “Remember the verse from last Sunday? ‘The Lord is near to all who call on Him.’” He winked. “That’s what we should be doing instead of worrying. Don’t you think God knows how much you need that crop?”
“Yes, I guess so.” Maggie chewed on the tip of one fingernail. “But I guess I’m afraid He’ll take away what I want the most.”
“Oh, Maggie!” Grady enfolded her in his arms. “You break my heart. Don’t you know that God never takes away without giving something so much better than we can even ask for.”
“In my head I know,” she whispered, holding him tightly. “But in my heart, I’m so afraid!”
“Because you’re tired and in pain and just plain worn-out. Go up to bed, Margaret Mary.” He kissed her softly and walked to the door. “Everything will look so much brighter in the morning. Good night, sweetheart.”
“Good night.” Maggie waited until he pulled the door closed behind him, before she went to bed and let the doubts and fears crawl through her mind once more. As she drifted off, Maggie tried to pray. Strangely, nothing would come.
By the time Maggie awoke in the morning, the girls were up, dressed and ready for the bus. Grady had fed them, they told her.
After Maggie showered, carefully keeping her head free of the water, she peeked out the window to see her yard in ruins. Her gladiolus were no more. The huge castor beans she’d planted were in tatters, bent over double. Tree branches and twigs lay scattered across the yard and a window was broken in the girls’ playhouse.
She tied on her shoes and walked slowly downstairs, holding her shoulders stiffly erect. “What’s the damage?” she asked once she’d reached the kitchen.
Grady’s dark head jerked upward and he stared at her. She could tell from the drawn whiteness of his face that it was bad enough though his voice tried to deny it. “I’m not totally sure yet.”
“It’s pretty bad though, isn’t it? I could tell from the size of those hailstones. I suppose Fraser can’t start until tomorrow, when it’s a bit drier.” There was no response to this remark and from the corner of her eye, Maggie saw Grady’s hand shake as he set down his coffee mug. “Grady? Tell me.”
“Fraser’s not coming.”
“Not coming? Well, that’s silly. You said he’d be over today. Surely he can wait one day. Can’t he?” The last came out as a breathy whisper when she glimpsed the agony in Grady’s eyes. “Can’t he?” she repeated, begging for assurance.
Grady shook his head slowly. “It’s gone, Maggie. It’s all gone. The hail moved in a straight path across our land. It flattened everything. There’s nothing to combine.”
He didn’t have to tell her. Maggie knew firsthand the damage hailstones of that size would cause. Still it didn’t sink in. “But you said…you said we’d be okay. That it would be localized.” She stared at him uncomprehendingly. “What about the Waltons? The Jeffers?”
“Waltons didn’t get any hail,” Grady murmured. “Jeffers lost part of a quarter of wheat that touched on to yours.”
“So I’m the only one who got it all,” Maggie demanded, fury strengthening her voice. “Good old Maggie takes the hit again! I have to see this for myself.” She yanked on her jacket and stomped toward the door.
“Maggie, what’s the point?” Grady’s voice was full of tender concern and his hand brushed across her arm but she swiped it away.
“I want to see it,” she grated, teeth clenched. “I want to see for myself how badly my crops are damaged.” She stomped down the steps and toward her old truck. Grady’s fingers closed around her arm.
“Fine. But we’d better go in my truck. That road is awful.”
Maggie climbed into his truck, ignoring Grady’s helping hand. She sat straight and tall as he drove out, but her eyes were taking in every inch of the desolation.
“You were right,” she whispered, shocked at the lush landscape now flattened. “I can’t see a blade of anything still standing.”
Grady said nothing. His lips were clenched tightly closed as he drove past acre after acre of ruined crop. He glanced at her once or twice to make sure she was okay, but not a word cut the silence in the cab. When he stopped at the last field, the prime wheat field that had been so thick and heavy, Maggie climbed out and walked over to the edge, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m wiped out,” she murmured, picking up a few broken golden heads and letting the big ripe kernels fall through her fingers. “There’s nothing left.”
His arms came around her then as he turned her and let her cry all over his shirt. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. We can start again. You’ll have the insurance money. That’ll cover things for a while.”
Maggie tore herself out of his embrace, white-hot anger rising up inside. “Don’t you get it,” she yelled. “There was no insurance. I couldn’t afford it. I had to cut corners to make ends meet and that’s one corner I decided was too expensive.” She sniffed. “Just another in a long line of errors I’ve made.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he murmured, trying to console her. “We’ll make this place a partnership and I’ll buy you out in a fifty-fifty split. We can plant again, Maggie. We’re together in this.”
“No, Grady.” She said the words firmly, the decision already made. “I’m finished here. I’ve scraped and begged and borrowed for the last time. If you want to buy the place, fine. I’ll sell it for whatever I can get. And then I’m leaving.” She turned to stare at the mess that was her life.
“For where?” Grady was angry, too. She could hear it in the way he held his voice under control. “Are you going to run away when the going gets tough, Maggie? Refuse to find a solution to our problems? Are you going to dump me and ignore what you feel for me because it isn’t convenient right now? Or were you lying when you said you loved me? Maybe you were just using me to help you out here?”
She swung around, furious that he would ask such a question. “I do love you,” she said, her face heated with the emotions that whirled inside. “But I told you from the first that I had reservations about marrying you. I’ve tried, Grady. I’ve tried really hard. But God doesn’t want me to be here. This is not where I belong.”
“This is exactly where you and the girls belong. With me. Here, together, working side by side. So we don’t have a crop this year. So what? We won’t starve. I can give you designer clothes and a trip to Disneyland with the girls. We can redo the house and still have lots of money left over.”
“It’s not about the money.”
“Sure it is. Poor little Maggie is destitute. She wants ‘things’ and can’t get them. I’ve got money, Maggie. I can solve that problem without even feeling it. So why not marry me?”
“I don’t want to marry someone for their money,” she spat out, angry at his tone. “I’ve already had someone offer to buy me, and I turned him down! I want to go into a relationship knowing that I can hold my own. As an equal partner. Not like some kind of poor relation!” She stomped over to the truck and climbed in, slamming the door with a lot more force than necessary.
“But you would be my partner,” Grady murmured placatingly as he got into the truck. “You own the farm. I would simply supply the capital to run it. When we earn some profits, we’d split them.”
“I love that ‘when’ you threw in there,” she scoffed. “Get this through your head, Grady. This place is a great big sinkhole when it comes to money. The more you put in, the more it demands. I just don’t want to fight it anymore.”
“But what about us?” The words were softly spoken as Grady shifted into gear and started across to the road. “Wha
t about me, Maggie?”
“I don’t know.” The tears started again and she let them fall. “I feel like I’m being torn apart, but in my heart I know that I have to leave here. This isn’t where I should be anymore. Couldn’t you come to Calgary, live there again?”
“And do what? I’ve sold everything, Maggie. I got out of my businesses because I wanted to farm. I feel like I’ve returned home when I come back here and look around. I don’t want to run anymore.”
“So I have to give up all my dreams because you’ve finally found this place? That doesn’t seem fair,” she complained.
“Maggie, I love you. If I really thought you would be happy living in Calgary or Timbuktu for that matter, I’d move there in a flash.” He pulled into the yard and parked in front of the house. “But I think God brought us together here, for a reason. God promised to be with us all the time, not just during the good times. And I don’t think He wants us to run away from our problems. He wants us to depend on Him.”
“But that’s just the problem!” Maggie stomped up the porch stairs and let the screen door slam behind her, knowing Grady was not far behind. “I’ve been depending so much, I haven’t been facing the reality He’s presented me with. Now it’s time to deal with that reality, Grady. Head-on.” She grabbed the telephone and dialed a number.
“Hi, this is Maggie McCarthy. I’d like an appraisal on my farm as soon as you can do it. No, just the land, buildings and machinery. There is no crop. Tomorrow would be fine. Thank you.”
“Maggie, please don’t rush into anything. Let’s sit down and discuss this.” He waited until she sank into a chair, his craggy face intent as he studied her. “I love you, Maggie. I love the girls. Please, let’s make this our home and raise our family here.”