Broken Ground

by Karen Halvorsen Schreck

  Guilt hunches my shoulders. Quickly, I ask Thomas what’s next with the garden beds.

  “Not sure.” He frowns, eyeing the project, then downs the rest of his sandwich, leverages himself up, takes his dish to the kitchen, and returns to drag the wagon to the second bed. “Might as well do this one,” he says. He hunkers down on the wagon and sets to work. Finished eating now, I help him. This time I clamp the pieces of wood together while he applies the glue.

  We finish the walls to the second bed in half the time it took us to finish the first. I’m clamping the last piece of wood into place just as a pack of kids storms out of the duplex next door and into the backyard. At their laughter, Thomas looks up. He watches them for a few moments. “Cousins, visiting until New Year’s Day,” he says. “I met them this morning when I borrowed the wagon.”

  “They’ll probably want it back now. I’ll go ahead and return it.”

  “Thank them for me, okay?” He smiles sadly. “They remind me so much of Lupe’s brothers and sisters.”

  I trundle the wagon over to the children, who immediately incorporate it into their play. When I return to Thomas, I find Alice standing beside him, wearing her work apron, as she was the day I arrived.

  “This is wonderful! I was never a gardener back home.” Alice grimaces, laughing. “Heck, I wouldn’t have wanted to get my hands dirty back then. But take away the hardship, and gardening can feel good. That’s one nice thing I learned from all that’s happened. I believe I earned myself a green thumb, too.”

  I smile. “ ‘Homegrown tomatoes. A little taste of heaven.’ That’s what Mother always says.”

  “Mama’s always right.” Alice raps Thomas lightly on his head. “Now. Good news. Hank says you can borrow his truck, long as you fill it with gasoline before you return it. Mind, it’s almost on empty, so it will cost a pretty penny. You should decide if you can afford it before you go.”

  My pocketbook holds a twenty-dollar bill, which I’ve been saving to buy a thank-you gift for Alice and Talmadge. I imagine I’ll have enough left to buy something worthwhile after I replenish the tank. “That’s fine,” I say.

  Alice smiles, holds out a set of keys. “You mind giving me a ride back to the factory before you run your errands?”

  I let Alice lead the way to the truck. Before I follow, I whisper to Thomas that I’ll be right back. We’ll do what we need to do then.

  THOMAS AND I rattle in Hank’s truck to the outskirts of town, then turn down the road that leads to the ditch-bank camp. Black smoke billows before that uneven horizon line of green, obliterating much of the citrus groves beyond. At the sight, Thomas slams his fists against the dashboard. “God, no!” he shouts. “Drive, Ruth! Drive faster!”

  I accelerate until the steering wheel shakes, just shy of uncontrollable in my hands. Soon enough, Thomas’s no reveals itself as the worst kind of yes. The ditch-bank camp is all but burned to the ground. Even inside the truck, the shimmering heat from the fire hits us like a wall.

  The Tulsa race riots, Minah, Susan, and Jubilant, the wolf at the door—the memory of all this flashes through my mind. Thirty-five city blocks were destroyed in Tulsa. This, though a very different situation, seems like more of the same.

  There’s another pickup truck parked near the ditch-bank camp. Two men sit inside, watching the dying fire. Straw cowboy hats shadow their faces, but even with the truck windows rolled up tight against the smoke, I can see that one man’s skin is brown, the other man’s white.

  “Ezra and Ray, here to help,” Thomas says.

  The white man springs out of the truck and runs through the heat and smoke to where we’re parked. Thomas rolls down his window, and instantly, the air in the cab is hazy and gray. I cough, my eyes stinging, as the man peers inside. The man is older than I thought, given the speed at which he ran. He has wire-rimmed glasses, a thick white mustache, and thinning white hair. He is swearing a blue streak. Noticing me, he stops midexpletive. “Sorry,” he says, though he doesn’t sound sorry at all. He sounds livid.

  Thomas introduces the man as Ray. My eyes are streaming now. I swipe at my tears and give a nod of greeting, but he ignores me. “We would have gone on in if there was anything left to save,” he says.

  Thomas groans. “Nothing? Not even on the far side?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Ray scowls, his mustache bristling. “We could make absolutely sure. We could crawl through there, digging our way. And we could die. What good would that do anyone, really?”

  Thomas doesn’t say anything to this. He’s holding the key to the cedar chest, I realize. Ray turns and heads back to the truck where Ezra sits, and in one swift movement, Thomas pitches the key out the window. It lands in the ditch’s polluted water. The algae and scum are so thick, it doesn’t make a ripple. Thomas looks at me, and his eyes, red and swollen from the smoke, are teary. “You go on, Ruth. I’ll catch a ride with them. The three of us need to talk.”

  And then he’s out the door, running to join his friends.

  They’re still watching the fire as I turn the truck around and head back to San Jose. I roll down the windows, trying to air out the cab. Don’t want to return the truck to Hank smelling like this. I have to do something first. Fill it up. Clean it out. Make something better.

  I drive into the center of town, fill the tank at a gas station, and then park the truck in a nearby vacant lot. There’s a rag shoved under my seat; I use it to wipe away the ashy grime, revealing again the rust-spattered paint. The wind comes in gusts: good. I leave the windows open. There’s also the faint scent of smoke on the air. That might be good, too. Maybe I can fudge the truth a little and say I drove past the fire. Actually, that is the truth, isn’t it? It was a fire unlike any I’ve seen.

  I’ve got hours before seven o’clock, the end of the day shift, when I need to have the truck parked where Hank can find it. I’ll leave the windows open every last one of those hours while I walk the streets of San Jose, looking into the windows of shops that were closed yesterday for the Sabbath. Looking, but still too dazed to see much, although I swear I’m going to find a gift for Alice and Talmadge.

  Finally, something catches my eye—an empty picture frame, beautifully carved with scrolling flourishes and lilies. It’s a frame worthy of Grace’s photograph. It’s the gift I’ve been looking for.

  IN THE FEW remaining days, Thomas and I work on the garden beds. The work helps me stave off the black fog; perhaps, to gauge from the intensity of his focus, it serves a similar purpose for Thomas. We don’t say much. We don’t need to say much. There doesn’t seem to be much to say anymore. Dispirited but for the work before us, we finish the beds, prepare the ground. Dirt gets beneath my nails, covers my hands. It feels good to get my hands dirty. It is good to break up the ground so the ground can become a garden.

  Thomas and I finish the job the day before New Year’s Eve, to the delight of Alice and Talmadge. The next day, New Year’s Eve, my one-year wedding anniversary, I wake to find that Thomas is gone.

  Smiling, Alice hands me a slip of paper. “He left this for you. His address. In case you ever have need, he said.”

  I go to the bedroom and stuff the slip of paper inside my pocketbook. When I return to Alice, I tell her what day this would be for Charlie and me, and she doesn’t mention Thomas again.

  That night I give the picture frame to Alice and Talmadge. Alice weeps, thanking me, and for the first time, Talmadge draws me close in a hug. We have our last dinner together, and I thank them for their hospitality so repeatedly that they finally beg me to stop. Next morning, New Year’s Day, I pack my things and board the bus back to Pasadena.

  On the ride, I write to Mother and Miss Berger. I expand on the good things about this holiday—the kindness of strangers who are strangers no more, the sights of San Jose, the garden beds. I omit the bad things. Mother never wants to know the bad if she can help it. And though Miss Berger would want to know, I choose not to tell
her. I don’t want to write it down. I don’t want to live it all over again—the abandoned camp, the fire, and Thomas’s grief, coupled with mine.

  TEN

  I open the door to my room in Garland Hall to find Helen standing before the big bay window. She whirls around to greet me, a chain of red hearts draped around her neck, a heart pinned in her blond hair. In one hand, she holds a silver foil Cupid, arrow set in bow, ready to fly; in the other hand, she holds a ball of red twine. She casts these things on her bed and makes for me, the chain of hearts dragging on the floor behind her. She throws her arms around me and squeezes the breath from my lungs.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to see anyone, Ruth!” Helen grabs my suitcase only to drop it on the floor, then helps me out of my coat and shoves a bowl of colorful candy hearts into my hands. “Take one. Take as many as you like! Only you have to read the message printed on every one you eat. That’s our new tradition.”

  Hel Fire, feisty as ever. Dutifully, I choose a lavender-tinted heart. “Be Mine.”

  Helen laughs. “But I am! You should know that by now.” And then: “In all seriousness, I missed you terribly. It was lovely with Mama and Papa. But I’m a different person now, I realized that. I know we were ships in the night the last half of fall semester. You were so busy with your work. I was so busy having fun. But I want to change that, Ruth. I want us to see more of each other this spring. I want to do more work and have a little less fun, and I hope you’ll have more fun and do a little less work. What do you say?”

  “Sounds wise.”

  “Well, I’ve never been called that before!” Flushed with happiness and conviction, Helen plucks a pink heart from the bowl. “Always and Forever,” she reads. Solemnly, she taps the little heart against mine in a kind of toast, then pops the candy in her mouth. “Now you, Ruth.”

  I eat the candy heart. It tastes like sugared chalk, but I don’t say so to Helen. Her words have worked some good in me. I’m glad to be back at college, back here with her. I’m glad—and relieved—to start in again on my chance at another life.

  Before I unpack, I offer to help Helen decorate our room.

  “It can be such a dull time of year, January into February,” she explains when I ask if we aren’t jumping the gun a little on Valentine’s Day. “It’s much prettier here than in Oklahoma in the winter, of course. But these are the days when I strive to live up to my New Year’s resolutions and inevitably fail. A bit of color and a few decorations lift my spirits, times like this. They probably do the same for most everyone.” Helen catches her breath, and her green eyes widen. “Unless— Oh, Ruth, I didn’t think! With Charlie and everything, maybe all this lovey-dovey stuff isn’t a good idea?”

  I look quickly away from her, trying to hide my expression. I focus on tacking a cupid to the wall. “It’s Saint Valentine’s Day, after all. Valentine didn’t live his life and lose it for romance. From what I’ve read, he ministered to persecuted Christians.” I manage to flash her a wry smile. “Until he got himself decapitated, that is.”

  Helen wrinkles her nose in disgust. “I didn’t know that part of the story. I didn’t want to know that part! You can be such a know-it-all sometimes, Ruth!”

  She’s not angry at me, not really. And by the time another hour has passed, our entire room looks like one big Valentine. She’s nothing but happy then.

  In the weeks that follow, Helen and I eat dinner together in the dining hall two nights a week. We go for weekend walks. Rising in the morning, we tell each other the plan for our respective days; readying ourselves for bed, we summarize the reality. In short, we become the best of friends. This is college as it should be, I tell myself. This is the best life can be without Charlie.

  All the while, I am who I’ve always been: studious to an extreme—though thanks to Helen, a slightly lesser extreme than last semester. I remain devoted to my job as Professor Tobias’s assistant. “He’s a taskmaster,” Helen complains. She can’t seem to understand how much I need and want each task. It’s still true: As much as I’m learning in my classes, I believe I’m learning far more from the assistantship. “Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll get my master’s in education,” I tell Helen. “If I do, I bet it will be a breeze, given all the information I’m gaining now.”

  It is Valentine’s Day. We are sitting at a large, noisy table in the dining hall. Outside, the sun, a fiery red ball, is slowly disappearing behind a line of palm trees.

  Suddenly, Helen’s fork clatters against the table, and she glares at me, her hands clasped in furious appeal.

  “What is it?” I balance my fork on the edge of my plate.

  “I can’t bear it anymore. I was talking with some seniors the other day, Ruth. And I— Well, I’ve been waiting for a time to tell you. They won’t tell you. Nobody will, because you keep your distance with everyone but me.”

  “Helen.” I push my plate away. “Tell me.”

  Helen looks miserable now, her fury having dissolved into distress. “When I mentioned you were Tobias’s assistant, Ruth, they had some pretty strong things to say. That man has a reputation. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.” I clear my throat, trying to steady my voice. “He does have a reputation. He’s renowned in academic circles.”

  “Oh, he’s renowned, all right.” Helen laughs without humor. “He’s renowned for having his way with this girl and that.”

  The rooms seems to dim. I press my napkin to my lips, then fold it and carefully—too carefully, I realize as I’m doing it—tuck it under my plate. “He’s been a gentleman to me. He cares about his students, yes. But he’s never crossed the line. Not with anyone I know. Not with me. I’m not going to give up this opportunity because of a few rumors. My friendship with you, my studies, and this assistantship . . . Believe me when I tell you these are what keep me going. Please don’t . . . complicate things.”

  We stare at each other across the table until we become aware that the people on either side of us—couples; it is Valentine’s Day, after all—are listening in. Helen stares at one couple, and I do the same to the other. Only when they resume their conversations do we finish ours, speaking in quieter voices.

  “I’ll do anything for you. You know that.” Helen picks up her fork again, pokes at her food.

  “Thank you. And I’ll do anything for you.”

  “Except quit your assistantship,” Helen says.

  “Except that.”

  That night I try to grade Professor Tobias’s quizzes in the library. I try to write my own paper, “The Montessori System: A Recent Alternative to the Traditional Student/Teacher Relationship.” But after my conversation with Helen, I find myself distracted, discontent. I find myself thinking of Thomas, the quiet, easy way we worked together on the garden beds—a hard task that could be accomplished. We accomplished it. We finished something together, and we could stand back and look at it, wood frames, readied earth, and know we’d done well. I miss Thomas, I realize to my surprise. My other friend. Thomas. This thought makes me restless. I leave my desk and roam the library stacks—which is typically a familiar, comforting activity that reminds me of Miss Berger. But though the act feels familiar, tonight there’s no comfort in it. Now I’m searching through recent newspapers and magazines, I’m looking for something, I just can’t think what. And then I realize: I’m looking for any reference to repatriation. But once again there is nothing mentioned in the press.

  On the other side of the periodicals department, a man is at work: the library janitor, methodically sweeping the floor. In the past, I’ve heard him speaking Spanish with a coworker. He appears to be from Mexico originally. But for the two of us, this part of the library is empty. Why not ask him what he knows?

  I am making my way over to him when a reference librarian blocks my path.

  “The library has been closed for half an hour.” She smiles sympathetically. “It’s far past time for you to go.” When I press for a
few more minutes, her smile fades. “Now,” she says. “Rules are rules.”

  I RETURN TO Garland Hall to find two pieces of mail in my mailbox. One is a brightly colored valentine from Helen. It shows two little girls, one with blond hair, one with brown. Both ride prancing ponies. Scrolling words ring the picture, the familiar nursery rhyme:

  The rose is red, the violet’s blue,

  The honey’s sweet, and so are you.

  And in Helen’s hasty scrawl: Love you, Roomie.

  The other letter is enclosed in a small, thin envelope. I recognize the handwriting: Mother’s stiff, careful script, each letter pinched and constrained. Right there in the little mailroom, with other girls chattering, laughing, sharing Valentine’s greetings and grumblings, I tear open the envelope. Here is Mother’s handwriting again, only this time smeared with her efforts. And here is a ten-dollar bill. Tears sting my eyes. It’s the most money Mother has ever given me—a real sacrifice on her part. I can’t imagine how she got it past Daddy.

  Ruth,

  Captain died. Daddy was stricken until he brought home another rooster and named him General. What will be next? President?

  I laugh right out loud; it is rare when Mother jokes. A good sign, I hope.

  Other girls glance my way, surprised at my outburst. It’s as rare that I laugh as that Mother jokes, apparently. I smile, embarrassed, and head to the lobby for more privacy. But the lobby, too, is packed to the gills with Garland Hall residents—young women talking and studying together, or gathered around the piano, listening as a conservatory student improvises wildly on “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” A few others work on a large puzzle spread across the coffee table, which shows a nighttime view of the Hollywoodland sign rolling unevenly below the crest of an arid hilltop. The puzzle’s full moon punches a white hole in the dark sky above. Only a small portion of sky and land is yet to be completed; as I watch, a girl cries out and snaps a puzzle piece into place to the exuberant cheers of her friends. I look toward the stairs. Since Helen isn’t down here, she’ll be up in our room, unless she’s sneaked out again. After our dinner conversation, I won’t take the risk of going up. I doubt she’s put aside her worries about my assistantship, and I’m not ready for another discussion. Not yet.