Evenfall

by Liz Michalski

  The cemetery holds—or rather, doesn’t hold—its own secrets. Two bodies have escaped its grasp, although not death itself. Frank’s grave is marked with a granite headstone that bears both his and Clara’s names. But Clara isn’t there. She rests in the church’s cemetery, next to a weeping cherry tree. After years of living on the farm, she told Frank she wanted to be buried like civilized people, in a proper town cemetery.

  The other secret lies beneath a simple white stone, gone gray with time and furred with moss. It’s where Abe Wildermuth, Frank’s older brother, should be. But Abe is missing as well, killed at twenty-two when the boat ferrying him to Italy came under attack. There’s nothing beneath his headstone but cool dark earth.

  Gert can no longer recall Abe’s face, but she remembers his hands from school. Broad, strong hands, the hands of a farmer. Not like Frank’s, with his long, slender fingers and narrow wrists. Although after his brother died they became callused enough.

  Rested, she descends to the graveyard. She skirts the edges, considers going in but decides against it. She’ll spend more than enough time there, after all, although if she has her way she’ll be cremated. Might as well save the cost of the coffin, and it’s not likely many people will feel a need to visit when she’s dead. It’s ironic, really: the two people most responsible for her flight from Hartman and this farm are irrevocably lost to it. Yet she’ll be here for all eternity.

  She thinks of the day she left, of the way the air smelled of pine and earth, even though it was high summer. There was a coolness to the air, although perhaps that’s her imagination playing tricks after so many years. She sees the walk to Frank’s house clearly: the way the scrub roses lined the road, scenting the air with clove; the gravel that stuck in her shoe as she turned into the Wildermuth’s lane; the way the house itself reared out of the early morning mist, as sudden and shocking as a gravestone.

  She’d paused to get her breath at the top of the driveway, resting her hand on her belly. Wonder and dismay competed as she realized how clearly the signs were visible. She’d been a fool not to have seen them before, with all her training. She pushed the worry from her mind, concentrated on filling her lungs with air. Standing there, panting a little, she was struck by how quiet the house seemed, the blankness of the windows. It was early yet, and she was counting on being able to catch Frank alone, before his mother saw them. She needed that time to convince him that they had to leave now. If they left earlier than they’d planned, if they didn’t wait for the end of summer, everything could still be all right.

  What she hadn’t considered was that Frank might have news of his own. The door to the house was open, so she’d stuck her head inside and whispered his name. He was sitting at the kitchen table, and she’d known even before she saw the black-bordered telegram between his fingers that something was wrong. It was in the way he stood when he saw her, as if it were an effort, as if at almost eighteen he were an old, old man. The blue eyes she loved were hooded, and when she heard the smothered wails of his mother from up the stairs, there was no need for him to speak. Abe was dead.

  Looking back through the years, Gert has the gift of prescience. She can see the moment that doomed them, pinpoint the exact second that sent them in separate directions. Watching as the scene plays out, she’d like to tell the girl she was that it will be all right, that she will survive this, that it will make her stronger. But in her heart, she’d be lying.

  The girl takes a step forward into the kitchen, then stops. If she touches him now, she will never leave. They will spend their lives together on this farm, weighted down by work and by years, by the stares and whispers of the townspeople, by the reproaches of their families. If she touches him now, he will come with her, leaving behind ruin and wreck, the loss of the farm, the death of his mother, who has already given one son to war and will not survive the absence of the other.

  She cannot stay, and he cannot come with her: it is as simple as that. They look at each other in the still morning air, and she makes her decision. The boy moves to speak, but she holds up her hand. When she has taken a last look, stored up in her mind the blue of his eyes and the long lean length of him, she simply turns and walks away. Out the open door and down the driveway without once looking back, although she can feel him watching long after she must have disappeared from view. All the way to the train station, with just enough money in her purse to purchase a ticket. She’d borrow the money for the rest later. It was early yet; she still had time. She knew a friend of a friend who was an intern and would help her out, for a price. And she was lucky, in a way; she was almost a nurse, so she had connections, access to a safe place and sterile instruments that other girls would not. And in wartime, surely, there were plenty of other girls just like her. She’d been a fool to think she was any different.

  She leans her head back against the leather seat of the train and tries not to think. The sky is a brilliant blue, so blue she wants to cry. The seat is hot, and she shifts a bit, trying to get comfortable, trying not to think about how good creek water would feel, lapping against her bare skin like silk. She closes her eyes and sees the little silver fish that dart just under the water’s surface, quickening in a stream of bubbles. She opens her eyes, breathes deeply, keeps her mind clear and still. A fire, she tells the nursing director when she arrives at the school without her clothes and trunk. There’s nothing left. It all burned to the ground.

  THE mist is almost gone, and sunlight glints off something tucked in the far corner of the meadow. Gert wanders toward it, taking her time. She spies a black feather lying in the grass ahead, and bends to pick it up. Brown tints its edges, the color of dried earth or blood. She turns it slowly in her hand, letting it brush against her fingertips. In the end, no matter how many years she’s spent on this land, she’s still a stranger. For a million dollars, she couldn’t name the bird that left this feather behind.

  She drops the feather and watches as Buddy bounds after it, batting it with his paws. Only when he loses interest does she turn to the structure in the corner of the meadow. Someone’s made a little paddock, almost hidden by the swell of land in front. Chicken wire is strung tight between cedar posts, and a small run-in shed sits in the far corner. Gert lays her hand atop the nearest post and gently rocks it. The workmanship is solid—the post doesn’t move—but for the life of her she can’t figure out what will go in here. The space is too small for cows or horses. Pigs, maybe. Or sheep.

  Whatever the beast may be, Gert has a good guess as to who built its home. She’s seen that little red pickup truck going back and forth all week. Her niece is surprisingly citified for a girl who once squashed June bugs between her fingers, but Cort is a McCallister down to the dirt on his boots.

  Gert’s never warmed to Cort’s father, Jim. A nosy boy grown into a meddlesome man, in her opinion, always looking like he knew more than was good for him. He was one of the boys Clara hired to modernize the cottage, and Gert can still remember how he’d looked at her when he’d finished insulating the walls. “That’s as warm as you can get, alone,” he’d said, and smiled right at her as if he knew her thoughts.

  But she has to admit that he’s held on to his land when others would have given up. More than once she’s seen him nod off during church service, his body taking what rest it could find. His features have faded over the years, become weathered like the land he works. It’s a fate Gert’s glad to have escaped, despite the cost.

  Andie may be dating a farmer, but from what Gert knows of her niece, she’s no farmer’s wife. It’s a summer romance, no more. Just the same, Gert decides, she’ll speak her mind about the paddock. No matter how firmly they’re pounded into the ground, those posts won’t last past September. Gert’s sure of it.

  Frank

  IT’S late, past midnight, and the house is quiet. Andie’s asleep upstairs, worn out from another day of packing and sorting, as well as other activities. The boy’s gone home at last, and it’s a relief to be out of the attic for a b
it, where I’ve been confining myself for decency’s sake. The hallway is lined with boxes, stacked two and three atop each other. If I concentrate I can sense the contents of each. Clara’ favorite yellow sundress, the cloth carrying the faintest fragrance of peaches, too subtle for the living to detect. A stack of Andie’s report cards. A pale blue bit of cloth, its ends raggedy and worn. I drift along.

  In the kitchen, the cool light of the open refrigerator gives Nina’s eyes an unearthly glow. She whines and noses at a foil-wrapped package of chicken.

  “I don’t think so,” I say. “How about a nice piece of beef jerky instead?”

  The dog grasps the foil in her mouth and trots off into the dark.

  “You realize there could be bones?” I call after her. The only answer is a crunching sound from beneath the kitchen table.

  I let the refrigerator door swing shut. Nina’s gnawing away, and when I look under the table, she thumps her tail. It’s a comforting noise. Maybe Andie won’t miss the chicken.

  I prowl from room to room, but there is nothing else to see, so I leave Nina to her spoils and head back upstairs, stopping to check on Andie along the way. She sleeps deeply, the way she did as a child, curled into a ball beneath the covers. She stirs, and I think of quiet things, of midnight in the woods when the air is still, and she settles. I listen to her breathing and I remember the first night she spent with us, a tiny wide-eyed toddler afraid of the dark. I spent that night dozing in the armchair next to her bed, scarcely able to sleep myself. To have a child in this house, even if just for the summer, was a gift, a dream we’d all but abandoned. Every time I looked at her that night such a fierce joy rose up I wanted to shout. If it were up to me, I’d have kept her here forever, not just summers but all year long. It took everything I had to shake Richard Murphy’s hand and not grab him by the throat when he came to pick up his daughter each September. A whisper of rage fills me even now, remembering, and Andie frowns.

  “Sleep, doodlebug,” I whisper. “Sleep.” And then I leave her be.

  The attic is silent, cast in dark and shadow, but I’ve lost the need for light. I feel for the ring’s energy, like a miser surveying his treasure. It throbs when I probe it, the molecules dancing in a mad rhythm of their own, the rhythm of love, of lust and desire, of loss and despair. Could Gert feel it, if I placed this ring upon her finger? Would she understand what’s been written on my heart every day since she left me? The ring’s energy is intoxicating. It fills me, makes me grow larger, so that my shadow almost spreads upon the wall. If she were here right now, I could force her to see, make her realize what she should have realized all those years ago.

  There’s a soft whine behind me. The dog has come upstairs. When it sees me, it drops to its belly, cowering, and now I’m certain I see it, the faintest outline of my shape against the wall. I let go, separate from the ring’s energy. It’s an effort, and when I’m through I feel drained, not recharged as I expected.

  “It’s all right,” I say to the dog. “It’s just me.” Although what that means, who I am, I cannot begin to guess. The dog doesn’t seem to care, though. She scrambles to her feet, plows past me on her way to the far side of the attic. My niece has been painting here, the last few mornings, and there’s likely a few crumbs left from her breakfast.

  The easel is centered just in front of the porthole window, an empty coffee cup left at its base. The dog pokes her muzzle deep into its depths, comes out disappointed. She grumbles and settles at my feet.

  The easel holds a small canvas. The colors are blues and grays, the shades of morning in the meadow. I’ve stood next to Andie and watched as she captured the mist rising off the land, the dew-slicked grass, the weak early sunlight filtering through the green of the woods, and I’ve whispered to her of the unseen, just beyond her vision: the hidden nest of the bluejays; the quivering rabbit, safe in the tall grass; the dragonflies warming themselves for flight. These things, too, are there, concealed for the viewer to find.

  And what of the figure at the picture’s center? The mist swirls about her legs, cloaking and revealing her all at once. Her body is twisted, and it’s unclear which way she will turn, toward the observer or away and deeper into the mist. Her face is hidden. My niece has a fine eye and a steady hand, but she cannot see what is not there, and I cannot show her.

  The first time I saw Gert again, her eyes were as flat and still as the creek on a summer day. How much of that is my fault I do not know, but if I torture myself with the memories of her leaving, it’s the memories of her return I find hardest to bear.

  It was summertime and the peaches were late that year. Clara was canning in the kitchen, and the house smelled of summer, hot and sweet and sticky. I’d carried the bushel baskets down for her from the orchard, and was sitting at the kitchen table watching her work. She had quick hands, and was able to slice and peel a whole bushel in almost no time at all. When she was upset or nervous, she kept busy, and it had been an upsetting few weeks.

  I remember her back was to me, and while I couldn’t see her hands, I could hear the faint thud of the knife as it sliced through the peaches and hit the cutting board. I was wondering whether I had time to mow the lawn and shower before I headed in to work, or if I should leave it till tomorrow. I hated it when the lawn was untidy, and I figured if I hurried, I could just make it. I stood, drained the glass of lemonade she’d made for me, and turned toward the door when she spoke.

  “I talked with Gert today,” she said. Her hands didn’t stop moving, but I found I was having trouble standing. It was warm, too warm in the kitchen. I sat down again, carefully, and waited. Gert had been gone years by then. In the beginning, I’d dreamed of her walking away, growing smaller and smaller as I watched from the door, as helpless to move in sleep as I’d been in life. The last time I’d had the dream, I’d woken and found Clara next to me, and reminded myself it had all happened a long time ago. Resting in the dark, waiting for my pulse to return to normal, I couldn’t even picture her face. Now, after Clara said her name, it was as if she were standing in the kitchen, so close I could reach out and touch her. I could see her long braid, the brown and the gold strands mixed together, and a finger of excitement touched my heart.

  But Clara was still talking, her hands still slicing the peaches, the rhythm of the knife never slowing. The simple silver band she wore on her left hand flashed in the light. “We need her here, Frank,” she said. “It’s time. That baby won’t make it without her.”

  I tried to speak, but my mouth was too dry, and the glass was empty. I worked my tongue around until the words could come out. “What’d she say?” I asked, listening carefully to the sound of my voice. If it was different, Clara didn’t seem to notice. She didn’t answer my question. Instead she spoke of the trail she’d followed, the hospitals she’d called, that led, finally, to Gert.

  “What’d she say?” I asked again. And at last Clara put the flashing knife down. She turned to me, wiping her hands on the cloth she kept tucked in her apron pocket. The fine strands of hair by her temple were beginning to curl in the heat. “She said she’d come,” Clara said simply. “Of course, she’ll come.”

  “Of course,” I echoed, and Clara glanced at my face.

  “Lord, you look all worn out,” she said, and fetched me another glass of lemonade. “Here. Take this and go on up to bed for a bit. I told you it was too hot to be working outside at noon, and it’s no cooler in here. I’ll get you up in plenty of time for your shift.”

  At the doorway I stopped. Clara had gone back to her slicing, but when I called her name she put her knife down again. “Did she say when she was coming?”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Clara looked at me in surprise. “That’s the best part. She’ll be here on the Monday afternoon train.”

  Three days away.

  I lay down on the bed in our room, but couldn’t sleep. Instead, I found myself on the staircase to the attic, a place I’d rarely visited in the past few years. It was hot, almost stiflin
g, up there, and the air was fragrant with the odor of peaches cooking. I walked to the loose board, bent to lift it, and found what I was looking for—a cloth bundle, monogrammed with the letter W, and the hard nub of the silver ring within. I brought the bundle to the window and stood looking out, although I couldn’t have told you what I saw.

  In the days after Abe died, I’d stopped going to church. I’d stopped doing a lot of things: going to school, going out. I’d heard that “that Murphy girl” had simply left town one day, walked all the way to the train station with just the clothes on her back, abandoned her family and returned to school. I’d written her letters, one every day for weeks, but they all came back unopened, so I stopped doing that, too. I worked the farm but didn’t have my brother’s skill, his talent for coaxing life out of nothing. When it became clear that my efforts weren’t enough, not even with Abe’s death benefits, I got a job in town. My mother had already spoken to the draft board, pulled on her connections, and I’d been deferred, the farm being the reason. I’d thought about running away and joining to spite her, but I didn’t have the energy for it, or for anything else. The fact that I was walking around at eighteen with four good limbs and fine hearing got me some looks in town, so I quit spending time there as well.

  It went on like that for the better part of a year: the farm by day, the plant at night, sleeping in snatches between. Until one day my mother, faced with a second corpse on her hands, dragged me to church and plunked herself down in the pew behind the Murphys, or what was left of them. The old man had passed away a few months ago, I’d heard, and Clara and her mother were still in black. The two of them had nursed him till the end, and being Jack Murphy, he hadn’t gone easily.

  I sat through the service, staring at Clara’s hair and trying to remember if the lighter parts in Gert’s were the same shade of gold. I was still staring when my mother nudged me in the ribs. The service had ended. People were starting to leave, and my mother fell into step with the Murphys on the way out. She took up with Mrs. Murphy, which left me with Clara.