How the Light Gets In

by Jolina Petersheim

  But then, to my surprise, I found that Colombia was beautiful: the mountains’ temperate coolness; the clean lines of uniformed children—the ribbons in the girls’ hair, the stark-white kneesocks beneath their pleated skirts—as they crossed the sunlit courtyard to the classrooms; the sense of well-being I felt as I understood I was making a difference in orphans’ lives.

  I will never forget the day the staff took a trip to Guatavita, and how I suddenly had the impulse to purchase the red silk shawl I’d seen at one of the vendors’ booths. The rest of you were loading up in the bus, but I turned and quickly cut back through the crowd with pesos jangling in the knit bag banging against my hip, and little did I know that you took off after me.

  What a sight we must’ve made, as you wove through the chaos, looking so much like them, while I, obviously, did not. I was purchasing the shawl from the woman with the wrinkled, apple-doll face when I looked up and saw you, standing there with your hands on your knees as you tried to catch your breath. I do apologize for taking off like that, but it was worth it, at least on my end. I have loved that red silk shawl ever since.

  Fondly yours,

  Ruth

  Elam awoke before the sun and walked out of his house into the fields. The smell of peat from the cranberry bog rose around him. He thought about all the leaves that had fallen off the ring of silver birches and sifted down through the bog’s layers of sand. The sedimentary nature reminded him of the funeral last week, and that he only had half his life left to leave his mark before he too fell like a leaf to the ground. But Elam wasn’t melancholy today. In fact, he was far from it. He loved the beginning of harvest season, when his usually predictable—and, if truth be told, rather mundane—existence transformed into an adrenaline-fueled race against the clock.

  The fog rolled in across the land like an opaque carpet. This subtle transition was Elam’s favorite part of morning, when everything was quiet and there was nothing for him to say or do. Elam walked along the edge of the bog, checking on the ripe red fruit hidden like treasure beneath the plants. He knelt and cupped a few in his hand. Moisture from the dew beaded on his maimed finger. Cranberries, such tiny things, had taken up the better part of his thirty-nine years.

  He would need to wait at least another month if he were dry harvesting it all like he had last year—walking the picker through the fields and laboriously gathering the pounds of fruit to sell to local grocery stores and markets. But Driftless Valley Farm’s new contract with Ocean Spray allowed for wet harvesting. The cranberries didn’t have to be perfect because they were going to be turned into juice, jelly, and sauce. In two days, Elam would pump water from the lakes and channels into the fields until the water rose a foot. His father had crafted the bogs to absorb the flood without being ruined, but each harvest Elam marveled that the delicate plants survived.

  Elam and Tim were supposed to meet at the pumphouse at eight. Elam glanced at the flat band of horizon and gauged he had an hour until it was truly light. Elam walked back across the field, his prematurely silver hair brushing his shirt collar. A light shone through the kitchen windows. He moved toward it, his empty coffee mug dangling from his hand. He went up the front steps and saw Ruth sitting at the table, staring out at the predawn dark.

  Elam paused, his right boot on the porch step’s third riser, unsure if he should just stay outside until either Mabel awoke or it was time to meet Tim. But the kerosene light magnified the weary slant of Ruth’s shoulders, as the shadows magnified the shadows beneath her eyes.

  Just as Elam couldn’t stay silent, even though he hated what it took for him to speak, he also could not stand outside while a family member appeared so forlorn.

  Elam’s heart pounded and mouth went dry as he entered his own house. He felt so out of place, having someone else invading his privacy, and yet he told himself Ruth must feel even worse. She didn’t look up. He stood at the entrance, gripping the coffee cup, and suddenly looked down at the floor, remembering how Ruth had cleaned it on her hands and knees after supper last night. Setting the mug on the buffet table, he knelt to untie his boots.

  The sound of the ceramic striking the tin covering the cabinet—where Elam’s dead mother, Marta, had once rolled out her pies—seemed to rouse Ruth.

  “Good morning,” she said. Her voice sounded hoarse.

  Elam nodded. “Good morning.”

  He peeled off his boots, picked up his mug, and padded in socked feet across the kitchen. Marta was probably turning in her grave to see Ruth’s huge white dog snoring beneath her table. But Ruth’s six-year-old, Sofie, wouldn’t enter the house unless the dog entered too and, for hours, had kept her arm wrapped around the dog’s shaggy mane and glared at Elam beneath her bangs, as if challenging him to take away her living, breathing security blanket.

  So he obviously had not suggested the dog should stay in the barn.

  Refilling his coffee, Elam glanced at the stove and saw a plate of fried potatoes and eggs. The brown eggshells were cracked and piled beside the cast-iron skillet. The tin salt and pepper shakers were still out; some of the granules had spilled across the butcher-block countertop.

  Ruth said, “Sorry. I was in the middle of cleaning up, but . . . I got a call.”

  “No problem,” Elam said gently. “I . . . I’m glad you’re making yourself at home.”

  “There’s enough for you, too, if you want it.”

  Elam paused. “What about your girls?”

  She smiled slightly. “They don’t like eggs.”

  He looked back at her. There was nothing on the table except for her phone. Ruth’s head leaned forward, her wavy hair parted over her shoulders, so he could easily see the round nodules of her spine. She was too thin. “Have you eaten?” he asked.

  Ruth shook her head. “You go ahead.”

  It didn’t seem right, though, for Elam to sit across from such a sad person while eating the food she had prepared. He took two plates out of the cupboard and set them on the counter. He used the flipper to scoop the eggs and potatoes and set a portion on each plate. He carried the plates over to the table, and as he did, he debated on where to sit. To sit across from Ruth seemed too intimate. To sit at the far end of the table seemed too withdrawn. Most people wouldn’t think twice about where to sit, but most people were not Elam Albrecht, who overthought everything when it came to social interaction. After a moment, he chose to sit on the opposite side of the table, but one chair over so Ruth wouldn’t have to look at him with those disconcerting eyes. His foot brushed the dog. Moving his chair back, he slid one of the plates over to her.

  Ruth looked up at him, as if surprised. “Thanks,” she said.

  He didn’t say anything, just briefly bowed his head for grace and began shoveling in the food. He’d forgotten his coffee on the countertop but wasn’t about to retrieve it because he didn’t want to repeat the awkward squeezing of his large-boned body between the table and the wall. He’d never sat on this side of the table and so had never noticed there was not much space.

  The dog snored. The faucet dripped. Elam’s heart pounded. He’d sat at this table his entire life but had no idea what to do with his hands. He gripped the fork. “You . . . you . . .”

  Ruth glanced over, and then away in deference when she noticed Elam’s face growing red as he waited for the words to come. It wasn’t a stutter that affected him. Sometimes Elam thought it’d be easier if it were. That way, the person listening would know more words were on the way and could patiently wait while he got them out. But his words seemed to get hung up somewhere between his brain and his mouth. When he was a boy, Miss Romaine—the middle-aged librarian who became his clandestine piano teacher—had said his voice box was merely locked, and music would be the key to get the words out. But Elam hadn’t been out to the cabin for a long time, and he’d nearly forgotten how to speak through those smooth, black-and-white keys.

  “You had a call?” There. He’d said it. Effortless.

  But Ruth’s mouth tightened,
and he feared he’d overstepped his bounds. A few seconds passed. She shook her head and said, “Yes. I had a call. My mother called.” She stared down at the plate of untouched food and exhaled heavily. “She has a buyer for Greystones.”

  Elam finished chewing. He poised his fork over another bite. When Ruth did not continue, he swallowed and asked, “What’s Greystones?”

  “My parents named their house after the city where I grew up, Greystones, because it’s made of gray stone. Real creative, right?” She stabbed her fork in the egg. “My mom didn’t even tell me she was putting it up for sale. I should’ve known, though,” she said. “She was boxing up my father’s things soon after he died.”

  “Where will your mother . . . ?”

  “Live? I’m not sure. She’ll probably buy a small house in town. I know it makes sense. She’s seventy-five, and Greystones takes work. But I always thought I could go home again.”

  Elam looked across at her. Sometimes he dreamed about leaving his “family home.” There were benefits to familiarity, he knew, and yet he often found he was discontent with having neither experienced life nor taken risks, as his cousin had done. He didn’t want to die in the same place he was born. “Could you and your girls move in with her?”

  Ruth laughed. There was no humor in it. “My mom’s not the grandma type. My girls are too much for her. We lived with her for six months before coming here. It did not go well.”

  “But you still want to move back?”

  Ruth stared at her freckled hands. She twirled the loose wedding band on her finger, and the emerald reflected square prisms on the wall. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, honestly. My home is no longer in Ireland, and my home’s never been here.”

  She appeared so fragile, sitting there at his table with the first light—streaming through the yellowed curtain—patterning her face. Looking at her, Elam hated that she and her children should go through the grief he knew too well. Last Christmas, he’d sat at this same kitchen table while eating his staple supper of steak and eggs, and stared at the family picture Chandler had inserted into his annual support letter. He’d envied his first cousin for having a beautiful wife and daughters while he had almost no one. Now Chandler was dead; his wife and daughters were abandoned and nearly destitute, if it was true what Mabel had confided to him.

  Elam didn’t consider himself fluent in many ways, especially when it came to conveying matters of the heart, but he wished he could say more. He yearned for the ability to say more, such as that Chandler had loved Ruth deeply. But she must know that Elam and Chandler hadn’t spoken very often in these ensuing years, and he didn’t want to give her platitudes when she must’ve been receiving them in abundance from well-meaning people who didn’t know how to handle grief. But he knew how to handle grief. Grief was best borne in silence.

  Elam got up, worked his body around the table, chairs, and wall, and fetched a mug from the cupboard. The coffeepot was still warm. He brought a mug over to Ruth and went to the kerosene-powered fridge to retrieve a small container of French vanilla half-and-half. He sniffed it to make sure it was okay. His sister, Laurie, had purchased the creamer for him some time back. Horrified by the “masculine state” of his pantry and fridge, she had hired a driver to take her to town to supply him with what she considered necessities of life. Personally, he never cared for doctored coffee. He set the cream beside Ruth and then fetched the small pottery container of sugar with a wooden spoon. He worried he was turning into Laurie: trying to assuage life’s woes with hot drinks and food. But then Ruth looked up—tears polishing her eyes—and smiled. “Thank you, Elam,” she said. “You’re kind.”

  JUNE 22, 2012

  Dear Ruth,

  I am sorry for my slow reply. Children’s Haven did another outreach on the mountain, where we discovered three more abandoned infants just as dehydrated and malnourished as Sofie was. Though their lungs were not as badly affected by the wood smoke and poor ventilation, I have literally been working around the clock to ensure that they are thriving. They are, I am relieved to say, and so here I sit in my scrubs, drinking quintessential Colombian coffee and writing to you. (Would my using ‘quintessential’ impress your professor parents? You should let them know, just in case.)

  I can’t help but smile while remembering that day in Guatavita. Janice had told me there were rumors of guerrilla activity, and I could so clearly picture you being snatched up for your pale skin and red hair. I am sure you would’ve been fine, in any case, and I am glad you purchased the shawl. I saw you wear it to graduation, and it was worth the risk.

  As for living with parents: I haven’t lived with mine since I too left for college when I was eighteen years old. After ten years, I can’t imagine returning home. My parents, Chandler Senior and Mabel, are New Order Mennonite. I am not sure how familiar you are with the Anabaptist denomination, since there aren’t as many communities in Ireland like there are in the States, but my parents are not the Old Order, horse-and-buggy type. They are car drivers, with electricity in their house, but my mom still wears a cape dress and prayer covering. I am the only one in my family who does not adhere to the Mennonite faith, but I do respect it.

  My dad and I are especially close. He’s been a doctor with Physicians International all my life, and he’s the reason I decided to come here after medical school. I hope one day we can serve side by side. But that’s down the road. For now, I can hear the teachers calling the children into the courtyard. Janice recently shared another rumor with me—which is only slightly less hazardous than guerrilla activity—and that is that we’re having marshmallow and cabbage salad again with lunch. I noticed that every time this was served, you would look down at the end of the table until I had to come take your plate and eat what you couldn’t. I am sure Chef José appreciated your thoughtfulness.

  Your friend,

  Chandler

  Ruth needed to run. She’d been forced to give up running when the girls were little and it became too dangerous to be on the streets of Bogotá on her own. She remembered, though, the Saturday morning runs she used to take with her father: her rhythmic breaths mimicking the sea’s inhalations; the mounting pain followed by the euphoria of pushing past her breaking point, tapping into that unseen strength, when her aching lungs and joints gave way to some primal force whose sole purpose was to send her body hurtling forward as fast as it could go.

  Lately, she experienced that same primal urge to flee when she was standing still.

  Ruth looked over at Sofie, asleep in the twin bed. Sweat curled her black hair, and she’d kicked the covers off, even though the drafty farmhouse had to be sixty degrees upstairs. Vi was asleep in the crib Elam had set up for them. Children could sleep anywhere.

  Ruth wished she could be as oblivious of her surroundings.

  She swung her feet over the side of the bed and almost stepped on Zeus, the clumsy Great Pyrenees who’d nonsensically claimed Ruth as master in the wake of her father’s death. Moving around him, she went to her suitcase. Mabel had said she should make herself at home, but keeping her clothes in a suitcase was as normal to Ruth as keeping them in a drawer. She pulled on a fleece and a pair of nylon shorts over the Cuddl Duds she’d worn to bed. She found her tennis shoes and laced them up. Her hair still in a topknot, she walked down the hall toward Mabel’s room. She knocked lightly and heard a muffled grunt. She paused, unsure if this was an invitation or a subtle hint to go away. Ruth was about to turn when the door opened. Mabel stood behind it. Her thick black hair—not a strand of silver visible—hung down over her nightgown, but the middle part was firmly fixed from so many years of being trained into a bun.

  Mabel modestly bunched her nightgown around her throat, though it was as revealing as a potato sack. “Everything all right?” she asked. Dreams had thickened her tongue.

  “Oh, yeah,” Ruth said. “Sorry. Thought you’d be up.”

  Mabel waved a hand. “No trouble. I’ve just been having a hard time getting to sleep.”
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br />   “I’ve been having a hard time too.” Ruth paused. “Would you mind if I went for a quick run? The girls should stay sleeping for another hour.”

  “Sure, I don’t mind at all.” But then Mabel’s dark eyes—so much like Chandler’s—scanned Ruth’s ensemble. “Is this what you wear?”

  Ruth looked down at her leggings. “It’s not appropriate?”

  Mabel thought. “Jah,” she said, finally. “But what do you want to run for?”

  Ruth’s mouth tipped. “Stress relief.”

  “It’s stressful for you to be here?”

  Ruth looked down. “I’d be stressed anywhere.”

  “I’m glad, though, that you’re not alone.”

  Ruth looked up, and their tired eyes held. Each woman glimpsed the woman who’d been linked to her by law and love, and yet for as little as they knew about the other, they might as well be strangers. “I’m glad too,” Ruth said. She didn’t bother explaining that she still felt alone, even while she was here.

  CHAPTER 2

  RUTH PRESSED HER HANDS FLAT TO THE GROUND—the grass spiky and glittering with frost—and sensed this new world revolving around her. She pulled her right foot up toward her spine and leaned forward, stretching out her quad. She repeated this with the left. She stretched out her arms, rolled her neck as tension fled her body. The windmill creaked. Morning birds called to each other in the woods. It was easier to breathe, and to think, out here.

  It seemed she hadn’t breathed deeply since her father died.

  Ruth knew she should walk, to ease her unpracticed muscles into a run, but her spirit demanded more exertion. She started off at a jog. The cool September wind, rushing past her ears, held the first scent of fall and of something more, earthen and damp. The moon was high and round, even as the eastern sky peeled back the edge of dawn. A cat slunk out of the barn. Ruth squinted and saw a newborn kitten dangling from its mouth. The mother cat’s coat was lusterless, her sides concave from malnutrition. And yet she was using energy she couldn’t spare to move her offspring to a safer place. To protect them. Ruth understood how she felt.