by Hazel Woods
Next, she went into town to send the telegram to Harold.
Dear Brother. With immense regret I must inform you of our father’s death. I am heartbroken.
She maintained her composure while she threw a handful of New Mexico dirt onto the coffin that held her father’s body, walked down the dusty road back toward town, toward the trunk of her father’s clothes and the untouched chessboard in the living room. But when nothing changed, when the awfulness of his death only seem to amplify instead of recede, she took to bed.
It was Teresa who told her they would eat lunch because it was time. It was Teresa who tied on an apron and cleaned the stack of plates and bowls that littered the sink, bought a slab of bacon from the butcher, and knew that the house needed the smell of garlic and onions browning in oil.
Now, Teresa has left her alone to check on Berto. She glances at the damaged ceiling above her bed and hates it. Pulling Isaac onto her lap, she wonders what animals know about death. She scratches the stiff fur between his eyes and marvels at the strength of his purring. There is a knock at the front door and Isaac leaps from her lap and beneath the chair.
Henry, the foreman, stands outside the screen door, his hat in his hand.
“Ma’am,” he begins, his eyes dodging around Hensley’s. “I’ve got a couple telegrams for you here. They came to the mine.”
Hensley takes the yellow envelopes from his hand. “Thank you,” she says.
“I sure hope that you know how sorry we all are. Especially Amador and me. Really sorry for what happened. Your father was decent to all of us.”
Hensley can only nod.
“What happened—it will be with us the rest of our days. It will haunt us,” he says with conviction.
Hensley bows her head. “Me, too,” she says quietly. With this agreement between them, she watches him walk away from the house, returning the hat to his head.
She goes to the kitchen, places the envelopes on the table, and stands in front of the stove. She holds the wooden spoon in her hand, poking at the beans as they simmer. She watches the golden oil gather on the surface.
Finally, she sits at the table, the telegrams beckoning her. The first is from Harold.
Dear Hennie. Heartbroken here too. Together we will remember him. I am prevented from travel due to the necessity of my presence here. I have spoken to Lowe. Your return to New York will be a great relief to both of us. Your loving brother
His words seem to exist somewhere far away from her. She can hardly absorb them. She moves quickly on to the next.
Dear Hensley. I am sorry for your recent loss. It is my understanding that you will be returning to New York. I would be remiss if I did not extend the offer of a marriage when you do. Whatever our disagreements have been we can surely agree to leave them in the past. Awaiting your reply. Lowell Teagan
Hensley closes her eyes. She is short of breath. Her heart bangs recklessly in her chest. Finally, she stands and walks to the stove. She lifts the pot of beans from the flame momentarily and replaces it with Lowe’s telegram. She watches it ignite. Then she replaces the beans and lets his words wilt in her hand as the flame turns them into graceful black ashes. Finally, just as the heat singes her knuckle, she lets it go—watching it cascade to the floor, weakened without its fuel. Hensley steps on the small remaining flame, buoyed by the sound of its sigh as it is extinguished.
“You are intent on destruction, aren’t you?”
Hensley shrugs her shoulders with disbelief. “I’ve just burned up my one and only proposal, Teresa. My one and only chance to salvage a life of respectability.”
“Pity,” Teresa says, with absolutely none.
Hensley smiles for the first time in days.
“Well, you do wear boots and suspenders most days. What would you know about a woman’s respectability?”
“Precisely. The moment you wear a skirt and blouse is the moment you’ve given the world license to decide for you about things like respectability. In dungarees and a hat, I have it so long as I am standing up straight.”
Here she pulls her skirt tight between her legs, throws her shoulders back, and puffs out her chest.
Hensley mimics her and the two of them walk the floor of the small kitchen, imagining what it might be like to have their own place in the world. They bite through apples like abandoned love affairs, stir the beans with the carelessness of a vote cast for war, swing their arms about with the ease of dismissing unwanted children.
But they soon tire of the charade and Teresa spoons them each a bowl of beans, while Hensley pulls off two chunks of bread, and they walk through the ashes left by Lowell’s telegram, smudging the soot across the floorboards that will have to be cleaned later.
Later that night, unable to sleep, Hensley walks through the house, looking at all the things that are so familiar to her. All the things that used to comfort her. The things that she’s lived among for as long as she can remember. Her father’s desk set: the sterling inkwell shaped like an acorn, his fountain pen and luscious paper, waiting, expectantly; the chunky brass candlesticks that stand guard in the front window, their white candles awaiting a match; the gray linen pillows that adorn the sofa, perfectly finished by her mother with lavender silk stitching; the three porcelain angels that once belonged to her grandmother Wright, each with a slight golden halo hovering above its head.
The night brings with it all the fear that it did when she was a child. Afraid of some unknown danger lurking, waiting for her around nearly every corner, she finds herself imagining that even Lowell’s presence might be better than none. These beautiful things, these pieces of her previous life, cannot console her the way a familiar voice might. They have no warm arms, no temperament, no capacity for tenderness, or even brutality.
Timidly returning to her room, she goes straight to the small wooden box on her vanity that holds Mr. Reid’s letters. They are the closest thing to solace she can find. But in their solace is also the enormous chasm between here and there.
In the deep middle of the night, Hensley yearns for something more. Some way to bring him closer. From her father’s desk she takes the ink and pen. Cradling the inkwell in one palm, she fixes her eyes on the wall. In its blankness is the abyss that breaks her solace. Its expanse mirrors the distance between their two selves. She stretches out on the bed, feeling the rhythm of her heart’s singular beat—at once miraculous and disappointing. The weight of the inkwell could be his hand in hers.
She imagines lying beside him on some battlefield, the ground beneath them trembling with the impact of nearby shells. It wouldn’t matter—the proximity of death. All that would matter is that they could each finally see and touch the body from which their words emanated. His eyes, lips, hands, neck, elbows, fingers, hair. There would be no end to her desire to hear him speak—the voice in her head becoming his, his words unfurling themselves directly into her ear, the heat of his breath all the warmth she’d ever need. And as the violence nears, as the sky fills with smoke and they have to close their eyes, as he wraps his arms more tightly around her, she would place her hand across her own belly, hoping that however little the child can sense, it senses this. Curled into his side like this, she would let the bullets drag through her flesh, opening up her skin, revealing her insides to the dirt and the sky of a foreign land. Shredding her to minuscule bits that will sink into the mud, fortify the countryside, feed the rats, haunt the future. But each bit will have in it the whisper of his voice, the feel of his hand in hers.
Her skin raw, as though already ripped open to the evening’s breeze, she gazes at the spot on the wall just below the window. The inkwell cajoles her with its fullness. Hensley stands, her bare feet sure beneath her. With his very first letter between her lips, the paper damp and woody in her mouth, she transposes it, nearly entirely from memory, onto the wall. The first black mark sends a thrill from her fingers up her arm and into her throat. Her
skin is consumed with goose bumps. With a deep breath, she continues, vandalizing the plaster with alacrity.
I’ve spent parts of entire days imagining which vowels and consonants might govern the plans for the pieces with which you entice me. How strange that I can almost hear one of your gentle pawn’s voice in my head, unsure of everything but its pale coloring. Your words, however, have created a self that has kept me occupied through the days and nights that masquerade here as dark, endless caves full of horrors.
By the time she places her head back on the pillow, her fingers smeared with black, his words are permanently stretched out before her. She stares at them until exhaustion prevails.
When she awakes the next morning, his words prod her into consciousness. She wants only to begin another letter to him. She wants to exist only within their correspondence.
Teresa, dressed in her brother’s clothes, watches from the doorway as the typewriter keys fly up and strike the ribbon with incredible force.
Hensley looks up at Teresa. Her hair in her brother’s hat, his boots on her feet, she is dressed for work.
True to form, Harold has sent his third morning telegram in as many days, and Teresa hands it over without ceremony:
I must speak to you. This loss is ours to share. Grief spans the distance but my voice cannot. Please travel to El Paso this afternoon to receive my call at 3pm.
In her other hand, Teresa holds a black metal dish and a small trowel. She sets them down on the coffee table.
“These are for you. Berto says there is a place just west of town. Past the dry creek bed. There are three cottonwoods whose branches nearly overlap. Just beneath their canopy, where the dirt feels cool. You might get lucky.”
“I know that place,” Hensley says, then scoffs. “So—what? I’m going to pan for enough gold to buy a ham? Or a bolt of linen?”
“How else? If your inheritance is like mine, you will starve waiting for it.”
“Harold will settle things. I will have something to live on.” As she says it, Hensley realizes the totality of her dependence upon him.
“Until he does you that favor,” she says, pointing at the tools. “Or if you’d rather, I have an extra pair of boots at the house.”
Hensley drops her hands to her sides. “Why did he go down there, Teresa? He should be here.” She stomps her foot for emphasis and looks at the chessboard, still fielding its current game. “Right here. Playing this stupid game.” Through her tears, she mocks him: “Protect the king. Respect the queen. Use the bishop. Know the next three moves. See the future. Understand the end.” Hensley picks up the board and hurls it, with all the pieces, onto the floor. She is pale, stunned by her own anger.
Teresa bends down and picks up a black bishop that has landed near her feet. “My father liked the game, too. Some nights, he played with his boss.” She sets the pawn on the table beside the pan and the shovel. “I bet they would’ve liked each other—our fathers. Played chess all night long. Lamented the destructive capabilities of their own species.”
Hensley wipes her eyes, the scent of ink lingering on her fingers. She nods, smiling. “Perhaps. Wax poetic about the dangers of power and its misuses.”
“Exactly. Are you going to town like that?”
Hensley looks down at her nightclothes. “I suppose not. I better change. I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to use those,” she says, motioning to the tools.
Teresa nods. “Suit yourself,” she says and heads for the back door. Isaac scoots between her feet, eager to follow her out. With her hand on the screen, Teresa—the spitting image of her brother—turns to face Hensley again. She looks handsome and strong. “Nothing ever ends, Hensley. Games were made up so that people could impose a beginning and an end. Feel powerful, in control of time. Life is not a game. Even when it’s over, it is not the end. He will always be with you.”
Hensley crosses the floor, her sheer nightgown clinging to her changing body. She wraps her arms around Teresa’s neck but doesn’t say a word.
How she’d like to believe her! What she’d trade to possess this certainty!
Teresa holds her as tightly as she can manage, stroking her uncombed hair.
“I wish . . .” Her chest heaves with regret. She buries herself further into Teresa.
Their embrace—if seen from the street—resembles the desperation of the final good-bye in an illicit love affair. But it is not. Nobody passes by, nobody misunderstands their love for something sordid.
Soon Hensley is dressed and ready for the Ready Pay truck that picks her up just outside the house.
• • •
Harold has arranged for the El Paso Mutual Telephone Company to host his call to Hensley this afternoon. The office is cooled by a large fan in the corner that pushes Hensley’s hair up and away from her face with its power. She holds the line while the call is originated in New York.
“Hensley? Can you hear me?” Her brother’s voice is suddenly in her ear, sounding just as it always has.
“Yes, I’m here.” Hensley pictures her brother, his nearly always chapped lips speaking to her from the Naval Yard office in Brooklyn, his pants perfectly creased, his shoes polished, his brown hair clipped close to his scalp.
“Oh, Hen,” he says, sighing heavily, his voice momentarily thin. “How are you managing?”
Hensley looks at the dirt underneath her fingernails, a geographic hazard. She wills herself to speak without crying. “I am just in a daze, really. Trying to understand . . .” This is as much as she can say before her voice withers beneath the weight of her thoughts.
“You are very brave. And I will be always grateful to you for handling all the arrangements. I’m sure it was just what he would’ve wanted.”
Hensley pictures the brown hillside where her father is buried. “He would’ve wanted you here, Harold.” The line crackles with static as though she has spoken too loudly.
“This is not an ordinary time, Hennie. I would have been there if it had been at all possible. Can you forgive me?”
Hensley nods. “Of course I will. This is just the worst thing, Harry. The worst . . .”
“I know. He was just so stubborn. If only he’d stayed here. If only . . .”
“For God’s sake, it’s not his fault, Harold. He’s the one who’s died. Don’t blame him for that, too.” Hensley wipes at her eyes with a handkerchief.
“But now what, Hensley? Have you answered Lowell’s telegram?”
“What did that cost you?”
“Not as much as this telephone call.”
Hensley glances out the window at the traffic in front of the train station. A man in dungarees and a big straw hat lugs two suitcases behind him. Three women share a parasol as they stand in the sun, waiting. Two horse-drawn carriages are loaded with crates that have bright red stripes across their middles and the word dynamite written in block letters inside the stripe.
“Well, then, get to the point. Let’s be efficient and not waste time on the trivialities of our emotions.”
“Don’t overreact, Hensley. I only wanted to hear your voice. To make sure you are safe.”
“I am, yes. Safely devastated.”
“And we do need to determine how and when you will return. Have you a schedule in mind?”
The authority in his voice irks her. “Who says I am? I have no plans to do so.”
“Don’t be unreasonable. If you’re angry at me, or Lowell, don’t let it foul up your life.”
“I didn’t think we had time to discuss our emotions.”
“I know you’re susceptible to all those romantic notions, Hensley. But regardless of what I’ve said about Lowell in the past, he is willing to be honorable now. Let go of your girlish ideas. Every life is full of mistakes. There is nothing unusual about that. Forgive him for the past. Begin again.” His voice is earnest and pleading.
/> “I appreciate your advice, Harry. But I have no immediate plans to return to New York.” She closes her eyes and pictures the wall in her bedroom back in Hillsboro, the words being the very closest thing she can imagine to a home right now. “Girlish ideas are more tenacious than you’d imagine.”
“So I’ve heard. But, Hennie, I know that’s not you. We were both raised to think. That’s his legacy. Use your mind to solve this problem. I know you’ll come to the same conclusion as I have.”
“But it’s not your problem to solve, so your thinking is different from mine.”
There is a silence in which Hensley thinks he may have been disconnected.
But then his voice returns. “How is your health, Hen? Are you eating?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I’ve a dear friend. She’s taken care of me through it all.”
“What a relief. I hadn’t thought there’d be anybody there but miners and Mexicans.”
Hensley smiles slightly as she fingers the telephone cord. “El burro sabe más que tú,” she says, using the only saying Teresa has taught her.
“What’s that?” he says. “I think our connection is going bad.”
“I’m here, Harry. I appreciate the phone call. And the telegrams. I know that you want what’s best.”
“Okay. Good. So you’ll think about it? You will let me know?”
Hensley nods, but then realizes he cannot see her. “Yes, I will,” she says, wondering if Mr. Reid has yet received the letter about her father.
“Good. We’ve only each other now, Hen.”
Hensley feels her throat tighten with emotion. “Yes,” she manages to say. “I know.”
“Much love to you,” he says before the line goes quiet and then turns to a flat buzzing signal.
Nearly a week after his injury, Foulsom thought Charles had a decent chance of surviving the train ride, so they loaded him with some other gravely injured soldiers onto a Red Cross train to Rouen, where an ambulance from Base Hospital #12 met them.