He gave a short, cynical laugh. “Is there really such a thing? A perfect marriage?” Then, abruptly, he got up and left.
I watched him go and thought about his missing wife. His wife might be gone, but her absence loomed large.
One evening, as we cleared the dinner dishes, I said, “Robert, I was just thinking…”
“Uh oh,” he winced. “I’m starting to brace myself when you start a sentence with those words.”
I ignored that remark. “I’d like to learn how to drive a car.”
“Not a bad idea.”
This conversation was going better than I had expected. “When could we start?”
“Wait. You mean, my car? My Hudson?” His eyes were wide with alarm.
“Well, yes, of course.”
“But I love that car.”
“I’m not going to hurt it,” I said with disgust. “I just want to learn to drive it. Think about it. I could run errands for your aunt or for you. It would be a very good skill for me to have.”
Robert put his hand to his forehead to think for a moment. “Well, then, Aunt Martha, I think you should teach her.”
That was a twist. Miss Gordon able to drive a car? A buggy and horses—now that I could picture.
“Your thoughts are written on your face, Louisa. I’ll have you know I am an excellent driver. I taught my own brother, Robert’s father, how to drive. You don’t know everything, I hope you know,” she said.
I coughed to cover a smirk. “I would never doubt you, Miss Gordon. So would you be willing to teach me?”
“Perhaps, someday.”
“Perhaps someday soon?” I asked.
She frowned. “I can see I’ll get no peace about the matter. Saturday then.”
Saturday couldn’t come soon enough. That afternoon, Miss Gordon found me out in the backyard, throwing a ball with William and Dog. She shook the car keys at me and said, “Let’s be off.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I dropped the ball, grinned at William, and headed to Robert’s car.
“In the driver’s seat. Be quick about it!” she said bossily.
I sat behind the wheel as she explained the meaning of the instruments on the dashboard. Every single one. She spoke authoritatively and with great detail. I knew enough not to ask questions, but I missed half of her lecture due to the excitement I felt at becoming a driver. That, and I was distracted by the sight of Robert watching us from the parlor window, looking as if he was about to be ill.
Miss Gordon described the odometer, the speedometer, the heater, the windshield wipers, and finally, the pedals on the floor. I had been so accustomed to staccato orders from her that I had no idea she could talk for so long.
“Now, the one on the right is the gas pedal, you gently push it in to go faster. The one in the middle is the brake pedal, and the one on the left is the clutch. You press it in, all of the way to the floor, and release it slowly as you shift gears.” She pointed to the gearshift, described the purpose of each gear, the point at which I should shift gears, and how to downshift.
I tried to listen to her, but I couldn’t wait until I could turn the engine on—the first time in my entire life that I had turned a key to a motor. Finally, the moment had come. She had exhausted herself of all automotive information. She braced herself and said, “proceed.”
I turned the key and nothing happened.
“Press the gas pedal. The engine needs fuel.”
So I turned the key again, and the engine roared to life. What a thrill! And we hadn’t even left the driveway.
“Okay, now we are going to drive down the street in first gear.”
I concentrated on shifting the pedals slowly and carefully but forgot to look at the street as the car lurched forward. A boy on a bicycle swerved wildly around us to avoid getting hit, and Rosita ran to get Esmeralda from the front yard and take her inside. Nonetheless, I had the car moving forward.
“Other side of the road, Louisa! Quick!” I swerved the car over to the right just as a car came around the corner. Down the street I drove, in first gear, as the engine started to sound like it was whining.
“Now listen to that sound. That high pitch means the engine is working too hard and needs to be brought into second gear. Shift again.”
I did what she asked, but the engine made a hideous grinding sound. I hoped we were out of Robert’s range of hearing.
“Make it smoother! You’re grinding gears. It should be a smooth movement between pedals, like dancing.”
Dancing? I could not imagine Martha Gordon dancing. I shot a look over at her, and again she read my mind.
“I’m not a Baptist, Louisa. Presbyterians do dance. Watch out!”
I looked back at the road and realized I had drifted the car toward the middle. I overcorrected, and we both leaned heavily to the right. “I’m going to get better at this,” I promised. “Don’t you worry.”
Her forehead was starting to show beads of perspiration. “Let’s head out of town before you kill someone.”
The next hour flew quickly. I thought it was a wonderful first attempt. As we pulled back up to the house, a bit jerkily, I asked Miss Gordon if we could plan for another lesson next Saturday. She groaned and said, “Lord knows I’m not a miracle worker.” She got out of the car and went straight up to bed. We didn’t see her again until the next morning.
Robert walked around his car, giving it a thorough inspection to check carefully for any dents or scrapes. But he had a look of happy amusement in his eyes, I noted, irked, as we ate a meal of cold leftovers for dinner.
* * * *
The next morning, I wasn’t sure if Miss Gordon had fully recovered from giving me a driving lesson, but she was up early, coffee was brewing, and breakfast was underway.
“Feel better?” I asked.
She only raised an eyebrow at me and continued to set the table.
Robert was sitting at the table with coffee in his hand, reading through his sermon notes. He glanced up at me. “Louisa, tomorrow afternoon I want to take you and William back to the copper pit. I have to run an errand out that way and thought it would be fun to see it again.”
Fun? I winced. For me, the copper pit and fun just didn’t belong in the same sentence.
So on Monday, Robert drove us back to that gaping hole in the earth. He wanted to show us the process of how they extracted the ore when the workers were there.
Like the first time, I feigned interest. “Robert, why do you like copper mining so much?”
“I don’t know,” he said, rubbing his chin. “I find it fascinating. I worked at the mines when I was a teenager to save up for college. I even studied metallurgical engineering in college. I wanted to run a mine someday, but my father wouldn’t hear of it. He was determined I would carry on the ministry.”
I wasn’t going to let this rare moment of openness pass without getting a few questions in. “Is that how your family ended up in Copper Springs?”
“My grandparents emigrated from Scotland back in 1872. My grandfather had worked in coal mines in Scotland and was able to get a job here in Arizona. My father and Aunt Martha were raised right here in Copper Springs. And then my father went to seminary, built the First Presbyterian Church and the parsonage, too. Later, I picked up where he left off.”
“You didn’t feel a call to the ministry?”
He gave a short laugh. “No, not really. Only my father’s call.”
I tilted my head and looked at him. “Are you sorry?”
He gazed at the pit as he answered. “Sometimes. Sometimes I am. I’m not sure I’m as good a minister as I might have been at running a mine.”
“But, Robert, you’re a wonderful minister,” I said, meaning it. Robert’s sermons might be lackluster, but he was a true shepherd to his flock.
In a charming way, his cheeks flushed as he kicked a stone on the ground.
Just then, a group of B-25 bombers flew overhead. Because of Arizona’s perpetually sunny weather, the
military had built airstrips in the desert to test planes. Robert picked up William to point out the planes, and the three of us watched them circle the sky, mesmerized.
We stopped again at the Prospector’s Diner in Bisbee. Just as we were heading to the door, I spied the rude waitress inside. “Wait.” I put a hand on Robert’s arm as he held the door. “Before we go in, tell me what you want to order.”
“Why?”
“Please? Just tell me now, and let me do the ordering.” I already knew what William would order. Robert cocked his head slightly, bemused, but went along with my request.
Inside, the rude waitress asked if we wanted to sit at a booth or a counter. “The gallery,” I said imperiously. She led us to a booth, and we slid into it.
“Dollface, whatcha gonna have?” she asked, chomping on her gum.
“A pair of drawers. Blond with sand for him. Draw one in the dark for me. For the boy, paint a Bow Wow red and add bullets. A Jack Benny for the gentleman, a splash of red noise for me. Oh, and add dog biscuits.”
The rude waitress looked at me without expression for one long moment. Then recognition slowly flickered in her eyes. Without even flinching, she turned back to holler a word-for-word repeat to the cook, Vern, of what I’d ordered.
“Please tell me that you didn’t memorize diner lingo just in case we came back here,” Robert said, shaking his head in disbelief after the waitress left.
“Perhaps. Perhaps I did just that,” I said airily.
“How in the world did you learn it?”
“I read an article about it in a magazine at the library.”
“Happy, now?” he asked, arching an eyebrow, a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
“Yes, actually, I am,” I said smugly.
Not much later, the waitress brought back our orders and placed just what I had ordered in front of us.
“Thanks, Soup Jockey,” I said, grinning.
William started in on his hot dog, slathered in ketchup, with a side of baked beans. Robert looked down at his grilled cheese and bacon sandwich. And I crumbled crackers on top of my tomato soup.
The waitress returned to refill our coffee mugs. Before leaving our booth, she looked right at me and said, “Dollface, if you’re ever looking for work, come on back and tell Vern that Wilma sent cha.”
“Ah, vindication,” I said as she left to wait on another table.
Robert just shook his head, grinning. “Louisa, God broke the mold when He made you.”
“Pardon? How so?” I stopped stirring my coffee and looked up at him.
“You’re just one of a kind.” He reached over to help William pour even more ketchup on his hot dog.
I frowned at him.
“I meant it as a compliment. Do you remember the first time I took you and William to the copper pit and you called the tailings of the copper process ‘redemptive’?”
“Yes. I also recall that you looked at me as if you thought I was peculiar.”
“It was a peculiar comment, but I did find it intriguing. I’ve thought about it since.”
“Now you’re teasing me.”
“I mean it. Not many could find something theological about copper waste.”
“I just think it’s interesting that in God’s economy, nothing is wasted. Sometimes, I think my life is like copper tailings. I hope it is, anyway.”
Robert seemed pensive after that. We finished our meal and as we walked back out to the car, I asked what I’d been wishing for all afternoon. “Let me drive on the way home?”
He looked apprehensive but held the keys out to me. “But I just love this car,” he said.
“Oh, Robert, you of all people know you shouldn’t love inanimate objects. For heaven’s sake, you’re a minister,” I scolded, as I pried the keys out of his tightly gripped hand. With a twinge of horror, I realized I just sounded exactly like Miss Gordon.
He still looked worried. “Please remember that they don’t make Hudsons any more.”
“Why not?” I jumped in to the driver’s seat before he could object.
He helped William climb in the back. Then he slid into the passenger seat next to me. “Because of the war. Every resource has been diverted to support the war effort. They’re not making any new cars.” He turned back at William, pointed to me, made a steering motion with his hands, and then grimaced. “Hold on tight, William. Louisa is behind the wheel.”
William laughed out loud.
I scowled at him. “That is not a message of confidence building. And stop looking so worried. You’re making me nervous, too.”
After I had trouble shifting the car from first to second gear, he only let me drive the highway section in fourth gear. He even made me put it in neutral rather than downshift as I pulled over on the highway to switch seats. And he held on to the door handle the entire time, as if gripping it for dear life.
After we switched places, he said, “Not too bad, Louisa, but remind me to get my gears checked out this week in case you stripped them.”
That evening, Miss Gordon had one of her headaches and retired to her room early, so I tucked William in to bed and went downstairs to clean up the dinner dishes in the kitchen. I turned on the radio to hear the latest news at the top of the hour.
I was happily humming to myself as I rinsed the last dish, until I heard the a reporter say, with enthusiasm, “Today, November 18, 1943, the British Royal Air Force conducted a successful air raid over the city of Berlin.”
Suddenly, in my mind, sprang up images of that beautiful city being bombed, a city I had grown up in and knew intimately. I thought of the house in which I had been raised, the school I attended, the practice room in University where I had played the piano hour after hour. I thought of my friends and neighbors—Deidre, my best friend from school, the Bonhoeffers. Then I thought of my parents’ bodies, buried next to each other in the cemetery near our Lutheran church.
The images actually caused a physical reaction and made me feel as if I might faint. I grasped the sides of the counter for support.
Robert had been reading in the parlor and heard the news report on the radio. He came in to the kitchen, clicked off the radio, and held me close to him, wordlessly.
Chapter Seven
As the months passed, I felt more comfortable living in the Gordon household, except for one topic that was verboten. Off-limits. A topic I had bumped into a couple of times and had stepped quickly back as if I touched a hot stove.
William’s mother.
I knew she had been raised in Copper Springs, but no one ever mentioned her name. I couldn’t find out who her parents might have been; I didn’t even know her maiden name. If Mrs. Drummond had lived longer, I think she would have told me the full story about the mystifying Mrs. Gordon. Robert and his aunt certainly had no plans to inform me. Even Rosita, who kept nothing to herself, was close-mouthed. I tried to hint to her once about William’s mother, but she only shook her head and said, “oh, such a pity.”
What? What was such a pity? What had happened to this woman?
One afternoon, I crawled up in the tree house to find William. Miss Gordon wanted him to come inside to clean up for dinner. “I hope you appreciate this, William, because I’m afraid of heights.” I swung my legs over the ladder and sat down beside him.
William had a box of his mother’s belongings from the tool shed. He was looking through the box and held up a wedding picture of his parents. They looked young and happy and hopeful. Even Robert’s eyes looked different. Now, his eyes carried a trace of pain.
“Dad? Box?” I asked, trying to keep my words as simple as possible, patting on the box so he would know to what I was referring.
He nodded.
Robert impressed me. I knew it was not easy for him to share this box with William.
Then came a shock. William said, in sounds that I was starting to comprehend but doubted anyone else could have, “go. Man.”
‘Go. Man.’ What could that mean?
I aske
d William to repeat himself. Patiently, he did. Again and again.
‘Go. Man.’ Could that mean what it sounded like? Was it possible that she had left with another man? I hoped it wasn’t true. What kind of a woman could abandon her husband and child? William deserved better. And Robert? He was so proud; I knew he would never want anyone to pity him, but I felt so sorry for him. It was a horrifying thought—a minister whose wife ran away.
Later that evening, Robert asked me to play a game of chess. “Tonight, Louisa, I think I am going to beat you.” Indeed, it was taking me longer to checkmate him. I was reluctant to break the lighthearted mood he was in, but it was seldom that we had time alone together without Miss Gordon, who was now at choir practice, hovering nearby.
“William told me two words about his mother today.” I waited to see his reaction. “I didn’t ask him; he just volunteered it,” I rushed to add. I expected to see the familiar stiffening of his back to let me know I had crossed an invisible line.
Tonight, though, he surprised me, looking at me with keen interest. “What did he say?”
I told him the two words William had said to me.
He leaned back in the davenport and crossed his arms against his chest. “I wasn’t sure how much William remembered about her. He was such a little guy when she left.” He was quiet for a long moment.
There was so much I wanted to ask him, but I knew I had to go slow. He would shut down if I asked too many questions. I watched him select his words with care. Then he took a deep breath and looked up at me.
“Her name was Ruth. She grew up in Copper Springs, as did I. But she had big dreams and wanted a more exciting life than being the wife of a country parson. I believed my life belonged here. I still do. I knew she was unhappy; I thought after William was born she would feel more settled, but motherhood made her feel even more trapped. Especially with William’s handicap.”
The Copper Series Page 10