I can’t believe it, it’s hard to conceive it,
That you’d turn away romance.
Are you pretending? It looks like the ending—
Unless I could have
Just one more chance to prove, dear.
Russ pulls back, smiling at the irony of the lyrics, given the closeness of this moment.
“Oh, Russ.” I lift my hands to his shoulders, running my fingers through the thick waves above his collar. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful, though? To have one more chance?”
“One more chance for what, dear?” He poses the question as if it were a missing lyric.
“A new, fresh, clean start. Someplace where there’s life.”
“There’s life here.” And he kisses me.
“Not beyond these walls.”
“Once upon a time,” he says in the silence between two numbers, “God gave me a very clear directive to come home, and I realized he hadn’t given me instruction to go away in the first place. I won’t make this kind of decision based on a photograph of a house, especially one that isn’t mine.”
“But it’s—” half mine, I was going to say.
“We will wait. We will wait upon the word of the Lord. And I promise you, I will listen for his answer.”
The onset of spring not only brings the winds howling with new fervor, it also brings the long-awaited School Spring Musicale. As an older student, and a boy to boot, Ronnie has been primarily concerned with building and painting sets for the other students’ numbers—trees and castles, and large cardboard animals for the “Animal Crackers” song, in which Ariel has a solo. We have been listening to her practice nonstop for weeks, each rendition convincing us that she was chosen to sing it as a redheaded Shirley Temple rather than a girl with equal vocal ability. Still, she, along with the others, makes a valiant effort, dancing among the bouncing cardboard zoo. Merrilou helped me cut down one of her old white dresses for the snowflake song, and every student—including the big boys, who stand awkwardly, hats in hand—come onstage for the final song: “Home, Sweet Home.”
We are all seated on metal folding chairs, swept up in the earnest offering of our children, wishing we had more to offer them. Most of us, at least those native to Oklahoma, grew up with lush green grasses, enough wheat to feed three countries, dew-drenched mornings, and miles of earth fed by rain. When I was little, I wore store-bought dresses to school, stockings made of silk. We gorged ourselves on ice cream and beefsteak. Now, we watch our darlings, our little girls in white dresses made of bleached flour sacks. Our boys with dirt caked in their necks and fingers. Not a single child onstage has the fat, pinchable cheeks that children should have. They sing with hungry mouths.
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.
They repeat the short chorus three times before Mrs. Patty motions from her piano bench, inviting all in the audience to rise and sing with the children. Russ and I stand and link arms, but I cannot bring myself to sing. Instead, I listen, because coming through the noise of the piano, and the muddled voices of the children, and the resonant tone of the audience, a single discordant sound enters.
A cough.
This alone is nothing out of the ordinary. The dust has disguised itself as the air we breathe, coating our mouths and throats, so lodged in the dryness that we have no option but to expel it by force. No conversation happens without a clearing of a throat. No silence is ever left unbroken. But this is different. Severe, and familiar.
I stand on my toes, scanning the stage, knowing in the deepest part of me which child I will see in the midst of a spasm, because I’ve been hearing this sound—this cough—for days, at least, and have made it no more than a part of the other noise in my life.
Being the littlest, a tiny kindergartner in a pond of bigger children, my Ariel is right out front, in the center, her small, pale hands cupped to her mouth, trying to stifle her cough so she can return to singing. Even from here I see her face flushed with fever. Has she been sick all day? Did I feel the heat emanating from her as I brushed each perfect curl? Perhaps I attributed her heightened color to her excitement for the program she worked so hard to prepare. From the stage, her voice rings out sweetly, but without the vigor of her home performances. Her dancing has less spring, her eyes a familiar glaze.
Stage fright, nerves, overexcitement—all buried my instinct.
I pull on Russ’s sleeve. “She’s sick. Go get her, now.”
He gives my hand a placating pat. “This is the last song. After it’s over.”
“Now.” I push him, and as the final notes fade uneasily away, Russ makes his way through the crowd, up the crowded aisle. The moment one of the younger boys presents Mrs. Patty with a small bouquet of roses, the children are dismissed. They file off the sides of the stage, moving as one shuffling creature, but not my Ariel. She stands, still and small, in the middle of the stage, and drops into her father’s arms.
I wipe the tub three times with a Lysol-soaked rag before running a tepid bath, and then I sit beside her as she shakes, and tell her again and again how beautiful she was onstage.
“Like a real snowflake,” I say, gathering her hair up off her neck. “Gave me the shivers.”
“Marion Childers had the prettiest dress.”
“But you had the prettiest voice. And how brave to sing and dance when you weren’t feeling well.”
She coughs in response, wet and familiar.
I pat her dry with a towel and drop a clean flannel gown over her head before carrying her to her room.
“Papa will come in with some water in a minute,” I say, draping a blanket over her shivering body, “and for prayers. We’ll all pray that you feel better tomorrow.”
I kiss her burning brow and cheek and hand her a favorite doll. Barney leaps up and curls herself on the corner of the bed and begins lazily licking her paw. Soon the sound of her purring fills the room.
In the kitchen, Russ has prepared a tray with a glass of water, an aspirin, and a new card of paper dolls he’s been saving as a reward for after the program.
“We have to take her to the hospital,” I whisper. “Tonight.”
“Not tonight. Not in the dark. We’ll see if her fever is worse in the morning.”
Perhaps I should be comforted by his calm, but I find myself furious instead.
“This is not a time to sit around and wait. I think she’s been sick for days, but trying to hide it so we wouldn’t keep her from being in the show.”
“Remember, darling, I spent quite a bit of time at the hospital, and I don’t know that they would do a lot for her there that we can’t do here.”
“But what about the tent? The oxygen? Remember, when I was there, that woman—Ladonna—she was taken for a time to get that treatment.”
“Some it helps,” he says, before taking my hand to finish his sentence, “and some it doesn’t. Ariel’s blessed with a windowless room and a mother who keeps the house as meticulously clean as possible.”
“But she’s still—”
“It might be just a cold. Or a mild flu, or a host of other things. The danger of taking her outside for a three-hour car ride would, I think, do more harm than good.”
Now, at last, his even tone, his weighty assurance, his measured words—all work to soothe my spirit.
“I’ll make some Jell-O. So it will be ready for her in the morning.”
He kisses my brow. “Good girl. And then join us for prayers.”
I set the kettle to boiling on the stove and pour the powdered gelatin into a mixing bowl, praying as I never have before. As I do, Ronnie comes in, having been given permission to stay out later with his friends and stack all the chairs in the gymnasium in return for a school-free afternoon later the next week. Like any other entrance, he heads straight for the kitchen and opens the icebox, retrieving bread and butter and sugar for a late snack.
I say nothing other than the sharpest bits of conversation, handing him a knife, telling him to use a plate. “
Crumbs will bring the mice out. Bad enough we have to live with all this dirt; don’t need mice, too.”
“How else are we going to keep Barney fat?” His cheeks are stuffed with bread and sweet butter, barely enough room to flash his father’s grin at me.
“Do you let Ariel walk to school without her mask?”
“What?” Food muffles the word.
“You heard me. It is your responsibility to walk with her, and your responsibility to make sure that she wears her mask. And she doesn’t, so now she’s sick.”
He works to swallow the enormous bite, and chases it with milk I’ve poured in a glass.
“She does, almost every day, I swear.”
“Don’t swear.”
“I promise.”
“Don’t promise what you know is a lie.”
“Ma!”
That single syllable crushes me. I am the only liar in this house, and here he stands, defending an innocence I have no right to question. Ariel isn’t his responsibility; she is mine, though he good-naturedly accepts every instance where I foist her upon him.
“I’m sorry,” I say, tending to the boiling water in the teapot. “I’m worried, is all.”
“How sick is she?” His worry blends with mine. “Like Paw-Paw?”
“Let’s hope not.” The gelatin dissolves bright red in the bowl, and I look to the clock. Two minutes to stir.
“Do you want me to do that?” He comes up from the table before I can answer. “So you can go sit with her?”
I transfer the spoon to his hand, ignoring the dirt collected in his knuckles. “Another minute, and then two cups of cold water. All right?”
“Ma, I’ve seen you make this a hundred times.”
Although I’ve been freed from my duty, I stay and wrap my arms around him, impeding his ability to stir. For a moment, I need his strength, the vibrancy of his youth, and a measure of affection he so rarely affords.
“I love you, Ronnie.”
“I love you too, Ma.”
“You’re the best son a mother could ask for. You’re going to be big and strong, just like your father.”
“But I ain’t going to be a preacher like him.”
The moment is too sweet to correct his grammar. “What are you going to be?”
He shrugs against me. “I don’t know yet, but anything that will get me away from here.”
I release him, and he continues stirring. “You know, I said the same thing to my father, starting when I was about your age.”
“Yeah? Well, don’t take offense, Ma, but I think I mean it more than you ever did.”
I feel his words follow me to Ariel’s room, where her father kneels beside the bed. She sits up, her nightgown puddled around her waist, and leans forward as Russ applies Vicks VapoRub along the length of her back. Settling her half-upright on a pillow, he does the same to her chest, filling the room with the distinctive odor. He then lays a clean white cloth against her skin and helps her push her skinny arms through the sleeves of her nightgown, leaving it unbuttoned to the waist.
“Breathe deep,” he says. “As deep as you can, even if it hurts.”
She tries, and does well, both of them pleased at her shuddering determination.
“Now, drink this.” He holds a glass to her lips, and she grimaces.
“It’s warm.”
“It has to be, so it’s the same temperature as your insides.” He lays a cool cloth against her brow. “Now, let’s say our prayers.”
She coughs in response, and I move to sit beside him. Faithful Barney doesn’t move, and soon the shadow of her brother fills the room.
“We’re all here,” I say.
Russ takes my hand. “Gathered in agreement.”
I reach back and feel Ronnie’s crusty, dry grip—the hand of a man—in mine, and we join our voices in reciting the Lord’s Prayer. This is not something new to our family, but it is the first time I’ve ever spoken these words having been delivered from evil. Or at least I thought I had. Now it seems evil has taken up residence in the tiny lungs of my daughter, punishing me for the shame I’ve brought into this home.
After our chorusing amen, Russ prays for a healing in little Ariel’s body. A full and complete restoration of her lungs, and an end to the infection that causes the fever to rage. I join him, silently, and stay by his side long after Ronnie takes himself to his own bed.
Russ shuts off the lamp and we sit in the darkness, the only sound that of Ariel’s breathing, which soon levels into sleep.
“Go to bed, Nola.” He shifts himself into a more comfortable position.
“Come with me.”
“One of us needs to stay with her.”
“Just for a minute.” I stand and take his hand, pulling it to reinforce my intention.
He follows me to where the only light comes from the lamp softly glowing in the front room. I lead him to our threadbare sofa, the very one that was cast off to us when we first moved into this apartment before Ronnie was born. Sitting, I draw him beside me, and he fidgets like a boy, ready to leave.
“Listen.” I calm him with my voice. “I have lost too much to this place. We have two babies buried in the churchyard. My father and my friend died, drowning in dirt. The farm is gone, the church is dying off, my baby is sick, and our oldest is going to shake us off his shoes first chance he gets. And I—”
“You what? There’s something that hasn’t been right, Nola. Not since before you got sick.”
“I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t feel safe.”
“Darling, you know you’re safe with me.”
“Please, please. We can’t give her much, I know. But shouldn’t we at least be able to give her the best air to breathe?”
He rakes his hands through his hair. “And what would I do there, Nola?”
“What you do here. Help people. Preach. Be a father. God’s call on your life doesn’t have to end here. But think about the patients you saw at the hospital. The ones who got better. What did the doctors tell them to do?”
He stares at the floor. “Get away. If they could.”
“We can.”
Russ lifts his head and looks at me, the light glowing on his face. “Not until she’s better.”
Early the next morning I go to the Browns’ to call in a telegram to Greg.
ARIEL VERY SICK. DUST IN LUNGS.
Within an hour, Clarence Wallis knocks on our front door with his reply.
4 FIRST CLASS TICKETS PAID FOR ON RESERVE AT B.C. STATION
I carry the slip of paper as if it is as precious as the hundreds of dollars Greg no doubt paid for the tickets, but the grim look on Russ’s face calls for me to fold it carefully and drop it in my apron pocket.
“Is our girl ready for breakfast?” I keep my voice cheerful, for though Ariel can’t see us, she will certainly worry if my tone matches her father’s expression.
“Maybe in a bit.” Russ chooses to be quiet rather than force an optimistic tone. “Take her into the bathroom, run the water as hot as it’ll get. Let her breathe in the steam and encourage her to cough. The more she can cough up and out, the better.”
“All right.”
“And seal up the door, to trap it in. I’m afraid it won’t be pleasant for you.”
I lift my face in a haughty pose. “It’s supposed to do wonders for the skin. I saw that in a movie once.”
Worried that the precious telegram in my pocket might wilt and fade in the steam, I go to the kitchen and slip it next to Greg’s photograph. Then, in the bathroom, I tell Ariel we are going on a tropical adventure, and while the water fills, I plait her hair into two tight braids. I’ve brought in the stool from my dressing table, and set her on it like a Polynesian queen while I stop up the doorway with wet, rolled towels, just as we’ve learned to do to keep out the dirt.
The room fills with moist, warm fog, and I encourage Ariel to lean over the tub so she can inhale the steam closest to the source. I rub her back the way I’ve seen Russ do�
��long, deep strokes—and give praise for her lung-clearing coughs. I can feel each little vertebra bumping beneath my palm. We didn’t take such measures with Pa, not that he would have allowed such a thing, so when she asks if she has the same sickness he had, I lie.
“Of course not. You’re a little girl. He was an old man. God wouldn’t give two different people the same thing.”
Russ would have been angry at the last bit, filling the child’s head with something made of fancy rather than faith. But we are alone in a cloud too dense to even see the door, and it sounds as good as any truth I can muster.
When the hot water runs out and the steam drops to nothing but a thin film of water, I get Ariel back in her bed and bring a tray with a big bowl of bright-red Jell-O and a cup of broth from a can of soup Russ heated up during our steam.
“This is what your mama had when she was in the hospital,” I say, trying to sound sunny. “And look, I got all better.” Another lie, but she valiantly sips the warm broth—the price to pay for the tastier dessert. If we stay, she might grow up to be like me, her whole life played out in this barren place, her tiny body wasting away for lack of life.
Her two little hands grasp the cup, and she hands it to me, still half-full. “I don’t want any more.”
“You need to finish.”
“But I don’t like it.”
I start to say what my father would have said, what Russ would have said, that sometimes in life we have to do things we don’t like to do. I think about what I would do in her place, how I would sip the broth, hold it in my mouth, and let it seep into my napkin as I dabbed my lips. But here is my little girl, honest in her heart’s desire, so I smile, take the cup from her, and declare she drank enough. She is only able to take a few bites of Jell-O before appearing too weak to even lift her arm, and only two more before turning her head away when I try to feed her. The fever remains, but I don’t think it is my imagination that it seems lower than the night before, and after encouraging her to take a few sips of water, I leave her in a sound sleep.
In the kitchen, the smell of coffee welcomes me, even though Russ doesn’t, as he sits at the table, head resting on his folded arms. Neither of us slept much or well the night before, and I hoped to encourage him to go to bed while Ariel sleeps. I touch his shoulder, and without lifting his head, his hand covers mine. I kneel beside him, ignoring the grit against my knees.
On Shifting Sand Page 32