“Exactly.” He cocks his head at me and says, “Do you cry yourself to sleep at night?”
I don’t answer that, which is my answer. As if I’m going to say that sort of thing out loud.
He says, “We haven’t seen each other much lately.”
I say, “I’m waiting for you to leave me.”
I feel his body sway back. He blinks at me for a minute and then sighs. “So you gonna keep Miguel’s dog or what?”
Ringo, which is what I’ve decided to name her, is standing next to me, eating grass. She’s some sort of wacky-looking mutt, mostly Australian Shepherd, black and white and brown, and her main activity is eating grass and throwing it up.
“Yeah, I’m going to keep her. She doesn’t seem to be the smartest dog in the world, though.”
“I wonder what jerk dropped her off like that.”
“With a note that says, ‘Somebody take care of this dog.’ No sé.”
“You learning Spanish?”
“Pues, sí. From Miguel. That way I can teach it to Amber. Listen: Te amo, mija. And when she’s crying, Ay, qué te pasa, pobrecita? And when the dog’s barking, Ya, cállate perro.”
“Well, what about me?”
“Mi amor.”
He smiles like he really loves me, in a tired sort of way, but he doesn’t say anything back.
I say, “Miguel’s been coming by some, in the mornings. It’s nice to have someone to talk to. It’s like—well, it’s like we became friends suddenly. After Shawny, it seemed like we didn’t want to see each other for a while. But now he comes by and we talk kid things. But that’s not weird for you, right?”
“Not unless it’s weird.”
“It’s not. Anyway, there’s a girl coming later this summer. A friend of his cousin’s. This girl, she’s pregnant. Miguel is going to marry her.” I see Derek’s eyebrows shoot up. “I know, that’s a huge thing, that’s crazy. To marry someone just so they can be legal? I don’t know why, exactly. Or why her. But I thought maybe it was to save her. You know? Like he couldn’t save Shawny, so he’s going to save this other girl. Alejandra, her name is. She’s coming with a whole group. Miguel’s a little worried about it.”
“I would be, too. He’s going to marry her? What if he hates her?”
“It doesn’t matter. I mean, it’s not for love. They’ll figure some arrangement out. Right now, this group is crossing the border. The border’s the hard part.”
“I bet.”
“There’s a coyote to help them cross. That’s why Miguel’s growing pot, to pay for the coyote. And then another coyote for inside the border. Because the buses have been hot lately, that’s what Miguel says. Baxter hired two of Miguel’s cousins to help for the summer. And the others will get hired out somewhere. I don’t know how it works, exactly.”
“Stay out of it.” Derek reaches down to pick out a little weed and tosses it to the side.
“I am. But I am collecting food and clothes and stuff. So if you got anything. Don’t give me that look. It’s just food, clothes. Which I’ll drop off at Miguel’s. Nothing illegal about that.”
“I’ve got some things, I guess, but don’t be stupid, Libby. Don’t get involved, it’s serious stuff, it’s jail time. But more than that—”
“I know, I know. I’m not an idiot—”
“—it’s dangerous. You don’t realize how messed up people can be.”
“Yes I do.”
“No, you really don’t.” He sighs at me like, Drop it. He’s been untangling the hose to make it reach farther so I can get to the bean vines on the far side of the garden. “You know, there’s a guy at the rig who got a girl pregnant. The girl’s only sixteen. No way can she be a good mom. She’s giving it up for adoption. They even met the people, some nice couple living in Colorado Springs who can’t have kids and have been wanting one forever. Isn’t the world messed up, that people who want kids can’t have them and people who don’t do?”
“Yeah, Tess was always saying that too.”
I know what we’re both doing here. With my story about Miguel, I’m saying, See, people do big things for someone else, like get married. Which is crazy, because I don’t think I want to marry Derek, which is probably why he doesn’t want to marry me, but still, here we are. And with his story, he’s saying, See, people do big things for someone else, like give up a baby. And I don’t even know why we’re saying either, because probably we’re just going over the possibilities because we have nothing better to do.
We look at each other and shrug, which isn’t enough, I know, but it’s the best we can do.
He smiles one of those sad sorts of smiles. “Baby’s sleeping, right?”
I don’t even get a nod in before his hands are holding my waist, and he’s taken the garden hose from my hand and dropped it in the dirt. I hear myself laugh, because he surprised me, and he pulls me down, right there, right in the grass next to the garden, right in sight of the highway, although not quite, maybe, because of the way the bushes are situated, and I laugh again and Derek whispers, “You have a nice laugh.” We fold into each other to keep it there, the burst of surprised joy, before it wisps away.
Kay clears her throat at the same time I feel Derek’s elbow in my side.
“Ouch! Amber, where’s Amber?” At the same time, I’m looking down to check that my clothes are on. Thank god we got dressed before we fell asleep.
“She’s inside, still sleeping,” Kay says. “I just checked on her. You should try to keep her up in the day. She’ll sleep better at night.”
I’m trying to blink my eyes awake. Derek and I are both sitting up now, and Derek seems alert enough but I’m still in a haze. Derek and Kay are ignoring each other, as usual, pretending like the other one isn’t actually there, and they’re trying especially hard at this moment, because the world loves to pretend that sex doesn’t really happen.
“Hello, Derek. Hello, Libby,” Baxter says, tipping his hat at us as he walks over. “Kay and I are stopping by to get some supplies. Building a guzzler. Stores water at ground level for the wildlife. I want to get some interesting work in before we cut hay.” He’s got a straw cowboy hat on, beat-up and stained, and the same light blue western shirt. “Late hay this year. Going to be a lousy crop. Ah, well. Quail, you know, won’t drink at a trough. They need low-lying water. Going to plant some deciduous trees and berry producers, like sandhill plums. Honeysuckle bushes too. Gives the songbirds nesting spots, shelter for the antelope and deer and that sort of thing.”
“Sounds nice,” I say.
“Sounds like a waste of money and time,” Kay says, but she doesn’t mean it. She starts poking around the garden then, bending down to finger the cucumbers and tomatoes, which are just about to take off and do some serious growing.
“Sounds like good hunting,” Derek says.
“Nope, no hunting allowed. Not on this one little spot on earth. Libby you look tired. My mama taught me one thing that has proved to be immensely useful. When you look at someone, try for a second to feel what they’re feeling. Like you, I could tell lately that your eyes sting, you got a queasy feeling in your stomach. Right? From being tired. It won’t kill you, but it isn’t easy.”
Derek reaches around to scratch my back and gives me a wink, which means, I guess, that Baxter is a funny man, full of all kinds of tidbits, including kindness.
Baxter sits down next to us and keeps talking. “I remember Kay after she first had you. She got up at three-thirty in the morning to deliver papers. Her route took more than an hour; she drove forty miles to all ends of this county. She’d get home before you and your dad woke up. That was tired, too.”
I glance at Kay, who’s picking spinach in the shady part of the garden. “Baxter, if she did that all for her own piece of land, it was all for nothing.”
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Either way, you rise to the occasion.”
I try not to scowl at Baxter. People should realize that when a person first wakes up, t
he last thing she needs coming at her is a bunch of chirpy words. I yawn and get up to go get Amber. As I’m leaving, I hear Baxter talking on—about how he’s expecting two nationals, as he calls the illegals, to help with irrigating and fixing fence and haying. When I come back, with an awake and newly diapered Amber, he’s still talking, now about the heat, which has just risen over a hundred, and how he ought to put in a swamp cooler for us, and that maybe it’d help the baby sleep because he heard she’s been up a lot.
I shoot Derek a sympathetic glance, but he looks all right, listening patiently, nodding his head now and then.
I sit down next to him and put Amber in my lap. “Patty-cake, patty-cake, baker’s man,” I whisper, bringing her two tiny feet together. “Bake me a cake as fast as you can.” I bring her toes to her nose, bring her arms to her feet, doing the stretches that the magazines say to do. She flexes all around, but it’s not just her muscles bending so much, it’s more like her whole being hasn’t hardened in any way yet. She doesn’t make any noise, but she spits out white goo every once in a while.
Derek’s watching her and I try to watch him. The look on his face is this: I could decide to love this baby.
I look away fast because that hurts. I know love is sometimes a decision and that Derek’s good enough to try. He’s considering it. But jeez, it seems near impossible to love somebody else’s kid, and you shouldn’t have to talk yourself into it, and you shouldn’t be asked to try.
Baxter says, “Remember, Libby, once we were working cows? And I was looking at a lump on the jaw of a calf, and it was a rattlesnake bite sure enough, but before I said anything you were already handing me a syringe to stab her to get the poison out, and then you handed me another of penicillin and another of glucose. You knew what you were doing.”
“That was years ago, Baxter.”
“But the point is, you ought to be a rancher. No, now don’t snort like that. Actually, I’ve been talking to Kay. How about you quit your job and come work for me?”
I don’t know if he’s joking or what, so I say, “I sort of like the store.”
“She likes the store.” Kay says it snotty-like, from where she’s standing near the beanpoles. “I wonder if she’ll like it in twenty years. You got to think ahead, Libby. You going to support that daughter of yours on five-fifty an hour?”
“Six,” I say.
“Six,” Kay repeats. “Libby, start thinking! Kids think only in the here and now. But they’re supposed to grow out of that Baxter, aren’t they? Libby here missed the boat.”
“I’ll pay you seven,” Baxter says. “Keep books, clean house, feed the horses, general stuff. Flex hours.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t need Baxter’s help. Plus I like the store. That’s where I get to connect with the outside world, meet people—that’s my only chance. I look at Derek but his eyes tell me nothing and he shrugs to confirm that.
Baxter’s saying, “Adeline gone and all, I need the help. Just took me some time to realize that. Plus I’m starting up a few new projects that will keep me extra busy. Like this guzzler.”
Kay says, “Why don’t you fix up your damn corral system first?”
“Upland birds and coyotes need a place to get water.”
“Coyotes,” Kay snorts.
“Anyway, seven an hour. Think about it.”
I nod and look up at the sky. No clouds, nothing. The problem with Baxter’s offer is that it means I’ll be here forever, doing the same thing. I can’t tell him that, though. I can’t say, Look, you have a life that I don’t want.
Kay looks at me and is shaking her head. “Kid,” she says, “you gotta get your act together. You call social services yet?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t have their phone number.”
“Look in the damn phone book! Get off your lazy butt and get it done, Libby. I’m not going to hold your hand. You need to get Amber legal.”
I don’t say a thing, and all I’m thinking is, I gotta get out of here.
Kay hates my silence, it drives her crazy, and she’s about to start in, but before she gets going Baxter clears his throat, and he’s an expert at changing the topic just at the right moment. “You know, when you get older, you want to impart some information before you go. And I’m growing old—”
“You’re not old, Baxter—”
“—and I’m not feeling so good, and that makes me want to talk, and I got something I want to tell you. I’ve been wanting to tell you, and I even asked Kay. Something about your father. I just want to go ahead and say it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Oh good god,” says Kay. “I don’t need to hear this.”
“Your father,” Baxter says again, but he pauses and follows Kay with his eyes. She’s walking off toward the house, grumbling about having to go to the bathroom, there isn’t ever even enough time to go to the bathroom, and why’s she got to work for such a talker, could they please just get to work? When she’s gone, Baxter starts up again. “Your father was a good worker, knew a lot about horses, was a fine roper, and so was your mom. He came out here to work for that company that makes pistons for John Deere tractors, as you probably know, but that place was like a sweatshop and eventually he found me. Like I say, he was a good worker. Sometimes people’s lights burn out, though, and I don’t know how that happens. I myself am burning at one hundred watts, bright as can be. But your father, his light was burnt out. One day, Kay comes to work all beat up.” He clears his throat and pauses for a minute, and Derek and me are staring at him like, Jesus, where’d this come from? Because nobody around here mentions my father much, and there’s no telling when something’s going to finally come spewing out of a person’s mouth.
“She looked real bad,” Baxter says. “She was pregnant—not real big yet, but showing and all. In those days, she did a lot in the house too, though I realize now she hated it. Kay wasn’t meant for indoor work. No one with any sense is. Anyway, I didn’t say anything, but I asked Adeline to speak to her, which she would have done anyway. Adeline told her, I guess, that if Kay wanted help getting away, that we’d be there. And I guess Adeline said, ‘Hon, don’t let him hurt your babies. He’s not hurting Libby, is he?’
“Well, Kay never answered that question. And she never asked for help. But maybe having that baby made her strong. One day Kay marches over here and says, ‘He’s left. You can ask me to leave too and I’ll understand. But I’m as good a ranch hand as him, probably better. I’ll get Libby in day care, and this kid too, when it comes. I’d like to stay here. It’s our best shot.’ And I said, ‘Well, we’ll give it go.’ And that was that.”
He pauses to look at me in the eye, which I take as an opportunity to look down at the grass, which I start pulling.
“So, one day I was driving the tractor down to bale some hay and I saw a truck pull in your driveway. It was your father, all right. So I headed on over here. He was crying, standing there all by himself. Crying like a baby. He said he missed you and all. He said, ‘I miss Libby running up and hugging my legs and putting her little feet on my boots and asking for a dance.’”
“I remember that, I do!” I say it before I can stop it; it just comes floating out of me.
Baxter pauses a moment and says, “He said to me, ‘You think I’m any good for them, Baxter?’ and I said, ‘Nope,’ and he said, ‘I don’t think I am either. Don’t tell them I stopped by, how about?’
“So I didn’t. I sometimes wondered if I did the right thing, promising that. But then I remember his eyes. Eyes will tell you everything about a person. I’m sorry that you grew up without a father, though. I’m getting old. I wanted to tell you that story before it was too late.”
“Jeez, Baxter. Plus you’re not old—”
“I am. I am. Right now I’m still at one hundred watts. But one of these days I’ll be down to sixty, and then forty. Then out.”
I bite my lip and finally get something out. �
��Not for a long time, Baxter,” I say. “I hope not. You’re too ornery to die.” That’s not exactly what I meant to say, because really, the truth is, it seems like getting to the end of life isn’t so easy—to know you’re just going to disappear—and how do we get through our regular lives, anyway, when the truth is that we’re wondering about love, and death, and things that are on the verge of smashing us to pieces?
“Well, I haven’t treated my time on earth shabbily, I can say that for myself. That makes it better. Now, there’s one more thing,” he says. “Kay. She had some tough years. Boyfriends and boyfriends and more boyfriends, and I don’t suppose all of them were kind.” His voice is soft and low. “Maybe she didn’t do right by you all the time. Maybe I didn’t, either, by not paying attention. But people change, I believe they really do. Look deep inside your mom and you’ll see a lot of courage, a lot of care. She is bitter, though, your mom. People can get behind pain like they’re leaning into a wind and it supports them after a bit and that’s what happened to Kay. She’s probably just needed someone to prop her up while she got out from under the wind, the pain. Now that you’re a mom, I think you ought to try to re-see Kay. Just try.”
I glance at Derek and then back at the grass, and then at Baxter and back down.
“Now, if you can suffer but not be bitter it’ll change you into a real human. A soft human. And now I’m done. That’s enough of this. But I been feeling lately like if maybe I just said a few things I’d feel a whole lot better. Now, let me hold that baby.” Baxter takes her from me and starts talking to her. “Hey, baby. Jeez, you’re as light as a kite. I don’t know much about babies. But you’re looking good, you sweet thing. Now, tell me what you think about this. I’m thinking of putting up a sign, out by the highway, in the middle of nowhere. It’ll read, If You Lived Here You’d Be Home by Now. Do you think that’s funny?”
Derek and I laugh a little, but Amber starts crying. Baxter looks worried and hands her back to me.
Kay comes back out of the house and for a minute there’s all of us talking past and through what Baxter has just said, and I wish it could always be like this, like a regular family having a conversation, only this is a weird family because nobody is exactly with anybody in the usual sense.
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