I hear Jabil, behind me: “The community won’t go for it.”
Moses mumbles, “You mean Charlie won’t go for it.”
“Of course he won’t. You know he didn’t even want Angel to stay.”
Moses says, “When we were trying to figure out what to do about the gang, you told me we’d find protection in the shadow of God’s wings, and now you’re trying to find that protection in Charlie.” He pauses. “Let me tell you, they’re not the same. You should cut him loose.”
“It’s easy for you to say that,” Jabil snaps. “Just dropping kids off and leaving again.”
“I’m not leaving.”
My head snaps up. I look at Moses.
“I’m not leaving,” he repeats, staring at me.
Clearing his throat, Jabil maneuvers around Moses to offer me his hand. The stone fragments bite into my palm. We only see our true selves once we are sifted. Is my future husband’s true self the one who would abandon orphans, or the one willing to take in my orphaned family? Not wanting to answer this, I drop the stones and allow him to pull me to my feet.
Moses
The sound of Charlie yelling “Timber!” ricochets through the forest. Judging by his enthusiasm, it’s like he’s wanted to be a lumberjack all his life. But the yell and the collapse are nearly overpowered as men sink axes into Douglas fir and Engelmann spruce. Needles rain down as more straight, softwood trunks fall to the blunt force of axes, spraying the ground with the scent of resin. During this chaos, Jabil and I are standing side by side fifty yards away. We’re sizing up a massive pine, soaring into the air. But we have no clue where to begin.
“Well. Let’s get to it,” Jabil says, like the project is up for debate.
I take my gun from the holster and set it on a nearby stump. Jabil and I don’t say anything as he uses an ax to cut a wedge, manipulating the tree trunk in the direction it should fall. Then I pick up the left side of the two-man saw, and he and I start. The blade bites into the trunk, which is about four feet around, but as he continues pulling, I am unable to maintain my grip. Instead of working together, we begin working against each other—the saw’s uneven tempo incapable of cutting the wood in a straight line and getting so out of hand that it’s actually dangerous to hold.
Finally, I glance over at Jabil, keeping the saw braced, so that it doesn’t let go and hurt either of us. “Buddy,” I say, “I don’t know what your problem is, but I can tell you’ve got one.”
Jabil doesn’t respond right away, just keeps chewing the saw into the trunk’s flesh, so I have no choice but to keep working. “I have a problem, all right,” he says, out of breath. “I have a problem with the fact you knew bringing the children here would force me to be the bad guy.”
I retort, “At least now you know how it feels.”
Jabil wipes his forehead. Wood chips stick to his face. “What’re you talking about?”
“When I first came here, you wouldn’t let Leora anywhere near me. You wouldn’t even let her ride along to town that night we went to the museum unless you rode along too.”
“I didn’t know you then.”
“But you still don’t want Leora around me.”
Jabil continues sawing. Bark flies. The yellow wood releases a sweet odor, like vanilla beans curing in a bottle of rum. I slice the saw into the bark, anger fueling my strength so that—despite our size difference—I am cutting into the tree just as hard as he is.
Jabil finally says, “I think you’re only attracted to Leora because she can’t be yours.”
“This is the modern world. We don’t treat women like cattle, something we can own.”
Jabil groans in disgust. “I don’t own her. We’re engaged.”
My grip falters on the saw, the blade wobbling with the release of kinetic pressure. I don’t look at Jabil, but quickly retake my stance, my entire body trembling with a different kind of fatigue. We work in silence, sweat dripping down our noses and chins. The afternoon light angled through the forest changes from gold to bronze to pewter. One by one, the other men stop working, the rhythm of their diligence gradually fading as they leave, going back to their families and homes. Seth and Luke Ebersole are among them, and Luke looks between Jabil and me. But then he leaves as well, and Jabil and I continue.
Our bodies become drenched with sweat, so that even my jeans are heavy with perspiration. And then, finally, we hear a crack. For an instant, Jabil and I just look at each other. Energy renewed, we continue sawing in earnest. Sawdust accumulates, darkness looms, a squirrel attempts to leap from one tree to another and falls, shaking himself off and scampering away. Another tremendous crack. The tree begins to go. I stare up at it. A strange exhaustion has condensed, like marrow, in my bones.
“Move!” Jabil commands, but I don’t. The tree continues its descent. I remember the term widow maker from my maternal grandfather’s early logging days, when he was working in Minnesota. I see my brother, dead after the explosion. I see my grandfather, dreamlessly sleeping in the bed he shared with my grandmother for so many years. I imagine my parents being dead as well. I imagine all of us slaving away when the entire “modern world” is teetering on the brink.
This is what roots me here. We are all dying, regardless of our inexhaustible efforts to stay alive. And then I am knocked off my feet with a force that wrenches the breath from my lungs. The black forest spins as the tree crashes, cones and old growth and the loamy smell of the woods whirling around me. But I am still alive. I look over and see Jabil lying on his back beside me, breathing hard, so that I am barely aware that I am breathing as hard as him.
“What were you thinking?” he rails. “Standing there? You could’ve killed yourself!”
I inhale in relief, eyes burning. “I know.”
Jabil gets to his feet and searches beneath the fallen tree for the two-man saw, which he’s too responsible to leave out in the elements, even for one night. “Take care of yourself,” he says, before departing. And I hear something in his voice. Concern, perhaps. Maybe even pity.
I stay on my back there, surrounded by destruction the same as I was surrounded by destruction in the desert, and realize I’ve put too much weight on my relationship with Leora, the same as Jabil has done. In my mind, if nothing else, I’ve begun to own her, believing she holds the power to heal my scars when no one holds that power but God himself. I have to be the one to walk that healing out by trusting there’s a plan for my life, even if Leora’s not in it.
Sitting up, I push off the ground and begin walking back toward the community. The ground wafts with the scent of damp earth before I feel the rain.
Leora
BOTH IN THEIR PAJAMAS, Anna and the orphaned child, Elizabeth, are putting the rag baby to bed on the small porch outside our home. They’ve made a fuss of tucking it in with a tea towel, which they must’ve snatched from my kitchen, and taking turns rocking the rag baby and making shushing sounds: the most noise I’ve heard from them all day. Their age gap and my sister’s silence don’t inhibit their friendship. If anything, these factors have solidified their bond. Elizabeth is also mentally stunted, or at least she’s refused to speak during the eight hours she’s been here.
“Leora?”
I turn at the hesitant greeting and see Jabil standing on the other side of the clothesline. The rope is tugged down by the bulk of the rugs that got waterlogged during the storm. To his left, the blue moon renders the clouds visible; to his right, nothing but darkness and the sound of trees bending in the wind. His hair dampens the shoulders of his shirt. His face is smooth. The sight stirs the imprinted memory of his lips on mine. “Good evening,” I reply.
Encouraged, he walks over and stands next to me, observing the girls too. “The children can stay for a few days,” he says. “I see nothing wrong with that. But our community doesn’t have the resources to sustain those kinds of numbers long-term.” When I don’t respond, he adds, “I know it’s hard, but we’ll have to find another place for them eventually.
”
I glance at his profile. He is pressing a shaving nick on his jaw with his thumb. I say, “Do you forget that, for years, I was practically an orphan? That, like Emmanuel raising his little sister, I was also responsible for raising my family on my own?”
He replies, “I don’t like it any more than you.”
“But you still won’t change it.”
“What do you want from me, Leora? Whatever I do, I feel . . . it’s not enough.”
I look up at the moon’s scarred face, forcing back tears. “I want you to care.”
He reaches for my hand. “I do care.”
“Not just for me, or for our families.” It’s all I can do to keep my hand still. “What did your uncle quote, right after the EMP? ‘If we have of this world’s goods (no matter how much or how little) and see that our brother has a need, but do not share with him what we have freely received—how can we say that we would be ready to give our lives for him if necessary?’”
Jabil looks down. “I don’t know where the balance is.”
I glance over. That spot of blood has dried on his cheek. “That’s just the thing,” I reply, my heart softening to him again. “I don’t think there is one.”
“Charlie will leave,” he says. “Taking the trapping gear. The ammunition. And not only that, but all of his survival knowledge too.”
“Let him,” I declare, and squeeze his fingers. “We’ll get through it, whatever comes.”
Moses
Leora pulls open the door at my knock and places a finger to her lips. I peer around her, into the cabin, and can see the flames flickering across the face of Elizabeth, lying on the bed nearest the fire. “She sleeping?” I whisper.
Leora nods and steps outside, pulling the door closed. She’s wearing the same shawl she was wearing the morning we went to the fire tower. But there’s no use in bringing anything like that up now. “She just went down,” she says. “It took a while for her to get settled.”
“Yeah.” I swallow. “She was like that at the airport.”
“How are the boys doing in the loft?”
“Good. But it took them a while to get settled too.”
Leora pauses, watching me. “How about you? You doing okay?”
“Not really.” I take a breath. “We need to talk.”
She looks away from me. “We do.”
Together, we walk the path that winds around the cabins. Someone planted daffodils that sprout helter-skelter along the border, but the path itself is trafficked too heavily to let anything grow there, even weeds. We pass through the hidden door out into the garden. The earlier storm rinsed the sky clear, so that the Milky Way is scattered across the darkness like a glittering cloud. We don’t talk, just as we didn’t talk when we went to the tower. The only sound is the crunch of twigs snapping underfoot and the birds settling in their nighttime roosts.
Not able to stand it any longer, I ask, “What was the name of the man you killed?”
Leora glances over, as if surprised. “Alex Ramirez.” She pauses. “Why?”
I dread being the bearer of bad news. “The ARC is still looking for him.”
She says, “I feared as much.”
“What are you going to do?”
“There’s really nothing I can do, is there?” she asks. “It’s not like I can run.”
“No, I guess not.” After a while, I say, “I heard about you and Jabil.”
She nods. “Sorry I didn’t get the chance to tell you myself.”
“It’s okay. You don’t owe me anything.” I hesitate. “Do you love him?”
“Yes,” she says. “But nothing is the same as it was, even love.”
It hurts me to hear her resignation. I want to reach out and take her solemn face in my hands. But I can’t. A force field encloses her, formed by the knowledge that she’s made her choice, and I’m not it. “When’s the date?” I ask, trying not to sound like the question guts me.
“We haven’t set one,” she says. “It’s not like I have a dress to make or a menu to plan.”
“No,” I reply. “I guess not.”
She turns away from me, back toward the compound, and cups her elbows with her hands. “I waited and waited for you,” she murmurs. “Why didn’t you come?”
“But I did come.” I move around to face her again and see that she is fighting tears. “I came back to you, but I knew you didn’t need me. So . . . I left.”
She begins to openly weep. “How are you allowed to tell me what I need?”
I can’t keep myself from comforting her. Leora’s body resists a moment before collapsing against mine. I pull back and look down at her, clearing the tears from her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I have no right to tell you what you need. But you are making the right choice, Leora. Choosing Jabil. I wanted you to choose him. That’s why I stayed away.”
Leora raises her head. “You manipulated me.”
“That’s not true,” I insist. “Don’t you know that I wanted to be with you as much as I wanted you to choose him? That I am blind with jealousy because you’ve actually fulfilled my wishes? But I know this is right. You and Jabil can take care of the community, together. You can live here, together. He needs you and you need him.”
“And what about you?” she says, her voice raw. “Don’t you need anybody?”
Jaw tight, I look away, trying to appear like I’m an island unto myself when all I can picture is my grandfather lying there, marooned in an empty bed, reaching for the portraits of his wife, his family. “I need to know you’re going to be all right,” I say. “If I know that—” I swallow again—“I’ll be fine.”
Leora straightens her shoulders before drying her face with the backs of her hands. “Good,” she says. “Because I am.”
We look at each other and then, by some unspoken agreement, begin walking back to the compound in the same shrouded stillness as when we walked out. My arm brushes against the skin of Leora’s arm, the heat between us a force field as tangible as the one surrounding her. It takes willpower to honor her promise to Jabil and not reach for her hand, the dampness there, from her tears, contradicting her words—just as the dampness in my eyes contradicts mine.
Leora
I stand behind Jabil on the platform and can see the entire community fanned around the focal point of us. Moses and Josh are here, as are the Lost Children. From Emmanuel, their leader, to Marco, the toddler, each appears dirty and forlorn, though we’ve taken such care to bathe them and dress them in clean clothes; so it’s almost as if the mien of poverty and deprivation has superimposed itself on the genetic material spiraling through their veins.
“As you are aware,” Jabil begins, “the community has recently expanded. After giving this prayerful consideration, we’ve agreed to let the children stay.”
Charlie erupts, right on cue. “Who agreed? You? Leora? And what’re we going to feed them this winter? Have you thought of that?”
Moses steps out of the crowd. “Actually, Josh and I—” he nods at the white-haired man, who’s said almost nothing since his arrival—“we’ve offered to bring in food and supplies to compensate for the addition.”
Charlie says, “And where’re you going to get these so-called supplies?”
Josh informs him, “We’re part of a bartering route that branches across the state.”
Charlie rolls his eyes. “That sounds about as worthwhile as a Costco membership.”
Jabil’s attention moves back to Charlie. “At your suggestion, we offered no asylum to an orphan who then left the community; I will not make that same mistake twice.”
“The only reason you won’t make that mistake twice,” Charlie sneers, “is because you know Leora wouldn’t have you if you did.”
Anxiety uncurls in my gut. Jabil says, “Leora’s got nothing to do with this, and you would be wise to hold your tongue.”
Charlie pauses, watching us, as if sizing up our weakest areas so he can calculate his best method of attack. “U
nlike the majority of you people, I don’t got my head in the trees, and I know that part of your reason for keeping these kids is because you know it’ll force me out.”
Somehow I experience sympathy for a man whom, most of the time, I’d rather not have around. “Charlie.” I step forward. “Please listen. Nobody’s forcing you—”
“Hogwash. Then my leaving’s a fringe benefit. Whatever. But I think it’s kinda ironic that you’re forcing me out for not wanting to share food with every stranger that straggles in, when you yourself did far worse by your high-and-mighty standards by killing a man.” Pointing a finger right at me, he says, “She shot and killed Alex Ramirez, the gang leader’s son.”
Jabil snaps, “Stop talking nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense!” Charlie cries. “Go ahead. Ask her yourself.” Heat rushes to my face, proof manifest. Jabil slowly turns. My insides flinching with shame, I hold his gaze steady. Charlie continues, “I overheard her talking to Luke after he came in.”
My gaze tears away and shifts to my vadder. He looks physically ill, the black strands of his hair stark against his white face. This might be the first time we’ve truly looked at each other in weeks. “She didn’t do it,” he says. Even as the sentence leaves his mouth, I’m shaking my head, refusing to allow him to exonerate me. But he continues, sinking deeper with the weight of every word. “Leora was there, but I . . . I killed him—Alex Ramirez—to protect her.”
The community’s voices interweave before descending over everything like a blanket. Meanwhile, my vadder and I continue looking at each other, and I realize he’s giving me a gift, compensation for his absence during every critical part of my life. But I refuse it. This is neither just nor fair. Our relationship has barely mended, and I’m not sure debt is where I want to begin.
Jabil mumbles, “I don’t know what to do.”
I can’t tell to whom he is speaking. I look over and see that he is staring out at the crowd, trying to come to grips with what just happened, and I understand he is caught between a rock and a hard place, a catch-22—any medium, really, that prevents you from being able to move. Should Jabil override the laws constructed in haste by his uncle, the honorable Bishop Lowell, who is even more honorable since he is dead? Yes, my Mennonite vadder apparently murdered a man, but at least he killed to defend his daughter, who will also be Jabil’s future wife. What am I thinking? I know the truth. I won’t allow my father to take the blame. “I did it, Jabil,” I admit, so that—this time—my confession only reaches his ear. “Not him.”
The Divide Page 17