Too soon, though, Nurse Betty senses my strength and steps away to test it.
“You’re goin’ to be just fine, girl.” And then her soft shoes take her away.
Left alone in the white enclosure, I strip off my gown and step into my freshly clean undergarments before slipping my dress over my head. Immediately I feel the results of three days’ nutrition. While it still hangs more loosely than when I first purchased it, I can feel the fabric against my back. I don’t need a mirror to know my figure is more prominently and more flatteringly displayed. I do, however, seek out the washbasin at the end of the room to splash cool water—and with it, some color—onto my face and run a comb through my finger-dampened hair. Here, too, I see hints of softness beneath my cheekbones, the planes of my jaw less pronounced. Only my eyes remain the same. Too large, too brown, too many secrets behind them. If they hold my soul, they hold it down in the deepest darkness, no light pouring in or out.
“Are you ready?” Russ is wearing a suit, as if squiring me away on a date, and he hands me a small bouquet of flowers wrapped in brown paper. “I probably should have brought these sooner, but I thought you’d rather have them at home than here.”
“They’re sweet.” I put the bouquet to my nose and inhale. “Thank you. But maybe a bit extravagant?”
“Not too. Now come on. I have the car waiting out front.”
“One more thing.”
I turn and make my way down the aisle between the beds to where Ladonna lies, staring blankly at the ceiling. Knowing Russ would approve, I take the prettiest of the bouquet—a single pink rose—and hold it out to her.
“Maybe,” I say, “the next time your husband comes to visit, you can wear this in your hair. Ask Nurse Betty to help you. It’ll bring a sweet blush to your cheeks.”
She buries her nose in the petals and is smiling when she draws it away. “You goin’ home, then?”
“Yes. And you’re sounding much better. I’m sure you will be soon too.”
“Doc says about a week. That’s how it goes with this. They either decide they can save you or figure out they cain’t. No use keepin’ a body here to die.”
“Here.” I reach into my pocketbook and produce a small card I’ve prepared for this occasion. “My address. In Featherling. Write to me, if you like.”
She takes the card, and judging by the depth of her study, I know she isn’t accustomed to reading or writing much of anything. Still, she looks up, and I see for the first time in our acquaintance a hint of light in her eyes.
“What would I write about?”
“Life. After you get home. And I’ll write back about mine. We both have a lot to live for.”
Russ calls me away, so I offer Ladonna nothing more than a quick squeeze of her hand before joining him. Together we walk to the front lobby desk, where Nurse Betty waits with a cardboard box filled with boxes of Jell-O, cans of Campbell’s soup, and a paper sack filled with apples.
“Doctor’s orders,” she says, though the conspiratorial smiles of the other nurses lead me to believe this is more their doing than his. “No offense, honey, but we don’t want to see you back.”
I interpret the next small gesture as an invitation and throw myself into her arms, surrounding myself with the final white cloud of her strength.
The car is gleaming clean—a condition I haven’t seen in recent memory. Russ puts the box of supplies in the trunk alongside the requisite bottles of water and the coiled-up chain. It is a three-hour drive from Boise City to Featherling, and starting this late in the day is not ideal. For the moment, the sky is clear, and we are well prepared should a storm overtake us on the road home.
“We’ll be fine,” Russ says, obviously sensing my unease. “It won’t be like last time.”
“Last time?”
“When you were caught. Alone. If nothing else, you’ll be with me.”
I let him kiss me before opening my door, and then again after he’s settled in beside me. The car roars to life the minute he hits the starter switch, and we pull away from the hospital with me hanging out the window, waving a final good-bye to Nurse Betty.
“They were truly wonderful to me,” I say, looking forward again.
“Yep.”
For the first time, I notice a tightness in Russ’s jaw, and it takes little for me to discern the cause of it.
“I didn’t see the final bill. Was it a lot?”
He takes one hand off the wheel to pat my leg. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Of course it’s something to worry about. How much was it?”
“Let’s talk later. After you’ve had a chance to see the kids. I’ll bet they can’t wait to see you.”
I know better than to pursue the conversation. Without ever being unkind or abrupt, Russ has a way of making it very clear when a topic has run its course. His silence is in no way reassuring. If anything, I worry more about what my indiscretion has cost us in measurable financial terms. Everything else—the intimacy, the comfort, the revitalized joy—all of that I can restore with my own efforts. But I have no way of bringing an actual cash flow into the family. And though I’d never say as much to Russ, neither does he. The money we got for the store’s goods was distributed to our suppliers, enabling us to cancel the debts of our customers and to pay the outstanding taxes on the store building itself and our farm. We eked out a budget from what was left over, given that the salary from the church had all but dried up. With this—my illness—surely whatever we had left is gone.
“I’m sorry,” I say, leaning my head against his shoulder. “I’ve cost us so much.”
“God will provide.” He says it with the immediacy that always comes when he speaks through his faith. “Do you believe that?”
“I suppose so.”
I wait for him to chastise me for my doubt, but instead I feel his shoulder quake beneath me in what is either a sigh or a chuckle.
“Oh, darling. He already has.”
CHAPTER 20
THE DRIVE FROM BOISE CITY takes us through what once was lush, thriving farmland. The first time I took this drive with Russ, we’d gone into town to see a Gloria Swanson film. Not that we didn’t have a theater in Featherling. We did—still do—but had we gone there, we couldn’t have held hands in the darkness, or snuck kisses to coincide with those of the lovers on the screen. On the drive home, the car open to the stars and the cool spring air, we took a turn off the main road, found a grove of trees in the middle of an empty field, and gave way to the passions of our youth.
“You remember that night?” Russ has never failed to mention it, all throughout our marriage, anytime we have occasion to pass by the turn. My response is to say we’d just seen Shifting Sands, and from there we launch into a narrative reliving all but the most lurid of details. Once, when Ronnie was about five years old, we had to bring the story to an abrupt end, and he’d bounced on the seat all the way home, demanding to know why he couldn’t go see the trees too. Russ told him that was something he’d do when he was a little older, and I punched his arm—hard—unable to imagine our little boy in such a clutch.
“Of course I remember,” I say. “We’d just seen Shifting Sands, and . . .”
The boastful beauty of the farmland has been turned to desert, nothing but drifts and dunes of soil, punctuated by the occasional half-buried fence post. Our grove—once hidden from the road by other vegetation—now stands stark on the horizon, leafless and barren as November.
“You were so—” It is his line to say I was beautiful, but he stops short. “Alluring, I think is the word. More than beautiful; I knew plenty of beautiful girls in my time. But you—like one of those sirens we learned about in Greek mythology. Even though you were right beside me in the car, I felt like you were leading me away.”
“To your doom?” I make my voice light, but I know—always have known—that I’d never given Russ any reason to feel like he’d taken advantage of my youthful innocence. We’d been innocent together, he perhaps more t
han I, and I’d offered him everything with our first kiss.
“Maybe. My downfall, at the very least. I knew that night I’d marry you.”
“Even if you didn’t have to?”
“I had to. Not because of the baby, but because—sin or not—you made me feel like a man. Like I was fulfilling what God wanted me to be. Like Solomon, or David. But I never wanted any other woman. Not before you, not since. Not ever.”
I close my eyes, reducing my world to the feel of my arm entwined with his and the motion of the car around me. I know I should say something like-minded in return, but every layer of silence entombs my sin all the deeper. Instead, I mutter, “I love you, Russ,” and then something about being eager to see the kids. Then I feign sleep, and within a mile or so, fall true to my slumber.
Though I’ve been gone from Featherling only a matter of days, I feel as if I’m returning to a place already long forgotten. It used to be that the drive home from Boise City meant passing by one farm after another, with bits of conversation about the families who lived on them—their latest tragedies and triumphs. On this day, conversation is rendered unnecessary. Dirt fields, abandoned houses, fences choked with tumbleweeds. In town, too, it seems more storefronts are boarded up, windows dark, shades drawn. Like life itself has been scraped up and taken away.
But then, as we park the car in front of our own emptied store, my little Ariel comes running down the stairs, wild, untamed curls flying.
“You’re home! You’re home! You’re home!” She shouts it first, as if alerting the remnants of the neighborhood, and repeats it with hot tears on my shoulder. Russ’s warnings about being careful, gentle, because Mama had been very, very sick go unheeded. She clings to me, demanding promises that I will never, ever go away from her again, and I make those promises with kisses trailing every inch of her sweet, wet face.
Pa and Ronnie are less enthusiastic in their welcoming. Ronnie stands at the foot of the stairs and offers me a cautious hug. Pa waits at the top and says his first words after I climb up to him.
“Had us all worried sick, you know.”
“I’m sorry.” I wait for him to step aside and allow me entrance to my own home.
One step over the threshold, and I long for the stark, impeccable cleanliness of the hospital. In my absence, a fine layer of dust has been invited to coat every surface, and accumulated dirt cushions my steps. The air is close and hot, smells of grease and unwashed clothes.
“I’m glad you were here to take care of the kids, Pa.” They, at least, appear to be in the same state of being as they were when I left. “I know that couldn’t have been easy for you.”
“They’s good kids,” he says in the tone I’ve learned to classify as praise.
I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to convince Russ that I am resting, even as I surreptitiously swipe a cleaning rag over every piece of furniture within reach. Tomorrow I’ll have Ronnie beat the rugs while I sweep the floors, but I have to resign myself to sleeping in grit-ridden sheets for this first night home.
Merrilou Brown shows up at the door with a covered dish of red beans and rice, a ritual I can only assume has repeated itself throughout the duration of my stay in the hospital. The minute she sets the dish on the table, I take her hands and whisper a fervent thanks.
“It’s nothing.” She twitches her little arms, but I hold on. “It was nice having little ones to cook for again.”
“Not just for the suppers.” I dart my eyes above her head to ensure a moment’s privacy. “Russ told me what you said. About your worries . . .”
“Oh, that.” This time she does break away. “I tried to warn you myself, you know.”
Her chastisement diminishes me. “I know.”
“And I’m afraid your nerves got the better of you.”
“You’re right.”
“But the good Lord has a way of bringing all of our darkness into light, doesn’t he?”
“He does.” My smile is no match for her sincerity, offering neither grace nor gratitude. “And you’re such a dear to bring supper, but I’m sure I’m up to the task after today.”
“It’ll be easier, I’m sure, once the surplus comes in.”
“Surplus?”
“Pastor Russ didn’t tell you? Well—” she gives my arm a quick, birdlike squeeze—“I’ll let him explain. I need to get back to Mr. Brown before he takes it upon himself to scorch the biscuits.”
She yodels a good-bye to Russ and the kids, and I fight back a tinge of jealousy at the warmth with which they—especially Ronnie—see her through the door. After a deep swallow of my pride, I summon everybody to the table, running a damp rag over each plate before setting it on the fresh cloth I spread down before Merrilou’s arrival.
“This glass clean?” Pa asks, inspecting it even as I hand it over. I wonder if he asked himself that same question during his years of living alone, or if he asked it of Merrilou Brown before sitting down to consume her supper, or if it is an inquiry reserved specially for me.
“Just rinsed it out, Pa.” The droplets still cling to the rim.
We gather and hold hands as Russ leads us in a blessing, thanking God for the restoration of health and family, while pleading for a restoration of our land. At his amen, I heap generous amounts of Merrilou’s food onto each plate, allotting a modest spoonful for myself.
“I’m still not quite up to solid food,” I say, answering Russ’s disapproving gaze. “I’ll have a glass of milk with it, though. And how about some canned peaches with cinnamon for dessert?”
Ariel wriggles delightedly in her chair at the idea, and I nibble two beans off my fork.
“What was Mrs. Brown saying about a surplus?” My question is directed to Russ, but it’s Pa who responds first with a disapproving snort and a muttered expletive directed at the government.
Russ ignores the emergent tirade. “Greg wrote to us about it a few months ago, remember?”
I shake my head. So much of what happened since that afternoon remains lost to a blur of survival and shame.
“The Agricultural Adjustment Administration—”
“Them ones what went and ruined good crops, took and slaughtered all for nothin’. Takin’ a man’s work and makin’ it straight into trash.”
Russ waits politely for Pa to finish before continuing. “Yes, there were some misguided decisions at the forefront. But now they’re bringing food to many of the towns hit hard.”
“Puttin’ good people on the dole, without them even wantin’ the charity.”
“Nobody has to take anything they don’t want,” Russ says, his patience now coming with noticeably more effort. “But I’m offering up the shop as a distribution center.” He turns to me. “I hope you don’t mind, Nola.”
None of his words make any sense, nor do Pa’s, and I feel myself on the verge of retreating into the familiar detached fuzziness of hunger and denial. “Why should I mind?” I fight my way back, hoping my questions will bring the missing clarity.
Pa undermines my effort. “Might be you’d mind turnin’ what used to be a thrivin’, self-made business into a breadline.”
“It’s not a breadline,” Russ says, speaking with the sharpness that only my father can provoke. He brings his voice to a place of gentle reason before continuing on. “I don’t know what they’ll have. It differs, I think, depending on what’s available and the greatness of need. I got a letter last week, asking if they could distribute from the church, but I know there’s a few who wouldn’t be comfortable going there, so I offered the shop. Put it to some good use.”
Pa keeps himself to mere noise, shoveling in a forkful of rice, his disapproval undaunted.
“I think it’s a fine idea,” I say, separating my own grains of rice on my plate. “And, Pa, you can stay upstairs if you’ve a mind to.” Then, to Russ, “What do we need to do?”
Before Russ can answer, Pa makes a show of cleaning the last of his plate and dropping his fork on the table. The suddenness of his acti
on startles Ariel, who’s been following the conversation with her eyes held wide, but Ronnie seems not to notice anything at all.
“Been doin’ more’n any man should of dishes these last days.”
With that, he leaves, and nobody says a word until the sound of his footsteps down the stairs disappears. When it does, I lock eyes with Russ.
“When did you know about this?”
He shifts uncomfortably in his chair and looks to Ronnie for confirmation. “A few weeks ago?”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
Again, Ariel’s eyes are wide, in recognition of underlying conflict.
“You seemed so frail. I didn’t want to burden you.”
“When were you planning to tell me?”
“It’s not a secret, Nola.” He speaks with an infuriating mix of soothing compassion and subtle accusation, and I flinch at the thought of living with that tone for the rest of my life.
“Of course. It’ll be good to help our neighbors. We haven’t been able to be generous in such a long time.”
“It’s for our benefit too, darling.”
“No.” It is nearly the first Ronnie has spoken since his lukewarm welcome. “We ain’t going to take charity. Bad enough people’ve been bringing food over every day since you went.”
Ronnie stands as if to follow Pa’s example, but a sharp word from Russ brings him back to his seat.
“Son, I understand your bitterness. This has all been hard on us. But they’ll be setting up sometime this week, and you’re going to need to help your mother. And I’ll be expecting you to do so with an attitude of respect and obedience. Is that understood?”
“Yessir.” Ronnie stares deep into his plate.
“I’ll help too, Papa,” Ariel says, laying a small hand on Russ’s sleeve.
“That’s a good girl,” Russ says, and I might join him in his proud, parental smile, if one lingering question weren’t niggling at the corner of my mind.
“Why am I going to need all this help, Russ? Where will you be?”
“I’d rather we talk about it later.” He speaks with our understood emphasis when something needs to be discussed outside the earshot of the children.
On Shifting Sand Page 22