by Lynn Cullen
She wheeled the car in a circle, avoiding an empty bushel sent rolling across the yard and the wooden clothesline prop that had been knocked down into the grass. When she nosed the trembling flivver from the high hedge of privets onto the road, the wind seized on the car immediately, shaking it like a dog with a toy.
She nursed the old sedan along in the dark, hoping, all the while, that Nick had gotten the cows in. He’d be good with them, gentle with Boss as he led her in so as not to panic the herd. He was gentle with Ruth herself like that—to keep her from panicking, she thought with a laugh, and then frowned at the truth of it. Nick knew what a prickly pear she was, yet he was kind to her. It was a marvel. She hated to let him go.
But she had to. If John and she had any chance, he could not stay. She wouldn’t wait to find out what John knew about them—she’d go right to John and beg for forgiveness. She’d been stupid and weak and out of her head with anger and fear. She loved John, had loved him since she had first laid eyes on him when June had brought him home. There was such a thing as love at first sight—she’d felt it. He was her sister’s beau and yet Ruth knew that he would be her own husband the moment she saw him, as improbable as that seemed. No one took a man from June, especially not her star-crossed sister with the bad reputation and the even worse moods.
But Ruth had.
The headlights sifted over the weeds slapping around on the roadside and to a structure of logs—the cabin John’s great-grandfather had built. How the house still stood after storms like this one was a mystery to her. What was keeping the logs stacked that some tough pioneer had wrestled there years ago, when much of the mud chinking had fallen away and the roof had bowed? Sheer memory of standing?
A gust swept dirt from the road, spraying it against the windshield in a gritty hiss.
The barn doors were bolted shut when Ruth wheeled into the yard; the chicken coop was sealed tight. She was aiming the car for the machine shed when she saw Nick, standing at the foundation of the house, peering into the parlor window.
That was peculiar. Surely he had the sense to go in during this kind of weather. He’d left his lantern on the back porch. Upstairs, a lamp was burning in the kids’ room. They weren’t in bed?
She parked the car then dashed to the house though it wasn’t raining yet.
Nick snatched up the lantern and blocked the door.
“What’s going on?” she panted.
The lantern light gave his face the look of one of those sad drama masks, all downturned mouth and eyes. “It is probably nothing.”
She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. “What is nothing?”
He shook his head.
“Why are you out here?” She moved to get past him.
“Root, wait.”
“You’re scaring me!”
She brushed by his arm and pushed through the door.
By the light trickling in from the parlor, she could see that the kitchen was empty. Radio music drifted in from the parlor. She strode to it.
When she burst into the room, June lifted her head from John’s shoulder. They were pressed together like lovers.
* * *
June felt John jolt. Ruth stormed into the room.
She hardly had time to lift her head before Ruth demanded, “What are you doing?”
June ironed the guilt from her voice. She had nothing to be guilty about. She was dancing with a lonely man before she went back to her own husband. “Where’s Richard? Is everything all right?”
“Maybe I should be asking you that.”
“It’s all right, Ruth.”
“If you must know the truth,” said John lightly, “she’s doing me the service of propping me up.”
“Is that what you call it?”
John reached out to her. “Ruth, come on. Don’t.”
“Don’t what? I kept the farm going for you. I kept this roof over your head. I kept your kids alive. I did everything—for you.”
“I know you did. We all know you did.”
Ruth turned on June. “You. You can’t stand for me to have anything. Why is that?”
“That’s not true.”
“But you love to give to your poor little sister the charity case, don’t you. I bet that makes you feel big. Miss Generosity. ”
“I wish you wouldn’t do this, Ruth.”
“I’m not pathetic, June. I may not be Betty Crocker, but there are people who respect me. There are people who know I will do whatever it takes. Some people lean on me, hard—your own bigwig husband, even. Do you know that he came to me just now with his tail between his legs? I don’t know why he would expose himself like that.” She hiccupped with a laugh, as if realizing she’d inadvertently said something funny.
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, nothing. Go back to your dancing.”
John steadied himself against the armchair then raised his head. “You don’t have to make trouble like this, Ruth. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“What way?”
“Just let people love you,” he said wearily. “When you’re not pushing us away, you are lovable, you know.”
“Ha. If you actually believed that, you wouldn’t have to say it.”
“Ruth.”
“Well, I have news for you—for all of you. People do love me.” She paused as if searching for examples, and then sputtered, “Our kids do! Our kids are angels. They’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” She gave June a pointed look. “Too bad you can’t have some of your own.” She laughed humorlessly. “Funny, the one thing the girl who has everything wants, she can’t have. It’s a sad state of affairs, isn’t it, when even if you’re perfect, you can’t get what you want.”
“That’s enough,” said John.
“I do feel bad for you, Junie. I take less joy from your situation than you’d think. All this time, you blamed yourself. Turns out that you weren’t the one who was at fault.”
Something inside June went icy. “For what?”
Ruth shrugged. “Ask Richard.”
Nick edged into the room. Seeing June’s stricken face, he laid his hand on Ruth’s shoulder. “Root, what are you doing?”
She looked up at him, then pulled back into herself.
“She has been so tired,” Nick told them.
Ruth sagged against him. “Get me out of here.”
“Where, Root? You are home.”
Her voice had fallen to a whisper. “Just get me out.”
“But, Root, a storm is coming.”
John pushed off from the chair as if to go to her. “Ruth.”
“No!” She clutched Nick’s arm. “Please.” Her voice was small. “Help me.”
He bowed to June in apology. “I must help her. She is a good woman. She is only tired.”
He led her away, as does a father guiding a child.
“I’ll go get her.” John took a step, then buckled against the chair. “I guess I’m losing steam.”
June blinked at him through the silent screaming in her head. She was not to blame. Ask Richard.
FORTY
Indiana-Michigan line, 1934
June could remember it like yesterday: she had just received a doll for her seventh birthday. It had a beautiful porcelain face and dainty dimpled porcelain arms and legs sewn to its stuffed cloth body; its white eyelet dress was as fine as a rich lady’s. Best of all, and when June tipped it forward and back, its eyes opened and closed. She was doing just that, enjoying how it seemed to wake up and see her, when Ruth began to beat her own cloth doll (handed down to Ruth moments earlier), whacking it against the floorboards.
“They won’t open! It won’t open its eyes!”
Such a fierce little beast her sister was, June had thought, wild as a tiny kitten kicking and biting your hand in deadly play. It didn’t know that you could kill it with a blow.
Now June stood at the window and listened to the wind battering the farmhouse. She heard snatches of Nick’s voice as he led
Ruth through the kitchen, and the muffled thumping of the kids upstairs. When the back door slammed, John pushed himself from the chair against which he’d been leaning then lumbered over to June. She felt his calming presence by her side. After a moment he gathered her to him, as would a friend who was helping a friend. They began rocking unselfconsciously to the music on the radio, like little children trying to comfort themselves.
After a while, she shook her head in wonder. “It’s not me.”
He kept rocking her as if they had all the time in the world.
“He let me take all those tests. Do you know the humiliation I felt? But that was nothing compared to the loss.” She shuddered with a sigh. “I grieved each time I was told I was barren. I had to change my whole world order, rethink who I was, how I was going to spend the rest of my life. I had to think of myself as a lesser person—”
“But you weren’t.”
“Oh, I know that now. But that was how it felt.” The wind moaned outside the windows. “Why would he tell Ruth that he was the cause? Why didn’t he just tell me? Big-mouth Ruth, of all people.”
“Maybe that was the only way he knew how to tell you.”
She pulled back to look at him.
“He must have wanted you to know, June, but had been afraid of losing you.” He smiled ruefully. “Fear rarely brings out the best in people.”
She drew in a long breath. “I think this might have done it. I think he’s actually ruined us.”
“Only if you want that.”
He wiped under her eye, where tears would have been, then spoke as would a father to a beloved child. “Why are we so quick to probe the wound of what we don’t have, when we should be marveling at what we’ve been given?”
She searched his face and, when she did not find refuge there for her anger, laid her head back against his chest. They resumed their wordless shuffle, dancing on as the wind scratched at the house.
Time had passed, June didn’t know how much, when John faltered, stepping on her shoe. His voice rumbled in her ear against his chest. “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head, loath to put any distance between them, as if she’d glimpsed the future and letting him go would hasten it.
His words reverberated in her ear. “I guess I’m— I suppose I’m tired.”
She pulled back and looked hard into his face. Exhaustion tinged his features with lilac.
She squeezed the alarm from her voice. “You’ve pushed it too hard. You can’t expect to build Rome in a single day.”
He smiled wearily. “How about a simple temple?”
“Not even a hut. Time for bed, young man.”
Rubbing his back companionably, she walked him to the bedroom.
“Don’t let me sleep too long,” he said as she tucked him in.
“I won’t.”
“I’m serious. I’ve got to make up for lost time.”
She kissed his forehead as if he were a boy. “All right.”
He pulled her down to him. “I hate this bed. I’m so lonely, June. Don’t let me be alone.”
“I won’t.” She unwrapped his arms from her then slid in next to him.
He opened his eyes. “Thank you.”
“I love you, John. I want you to know that.”
A stinging filled her eyes, fueling the lump in her throat. A tear burned its way down her cheek, then plunked onto the pillow. So this was how it felt: it relieved even as it hurt.
“I’ve always loved you,” she said.
“You don’t know,” he said, his voice slowing, “how happy that makes me.”
Her bleary gaze fell upon the photograph by his bedside. Tinted by Mother, it was of Ruth, raw-boned and young in a yellow cotton dress and with a pink rose in her hair, a fierce smile on her awkwardly pretty face. She was trying so hard to look bold that instead she looked vulnerable. From the earliest age, June sensed that for all of her bluster, Ruth was the more fragile of the two of them. Yet in spite of it, she was the fighter, the rock. She was all of eighteen in the picture, June guessed. The year that she claimed John.
“June.” John’s voice was thick now. “You’ll be here when I wake?”
He was beautiful when he rested, his face unclenching, the calm creature within the man unmasked. How dear he looked, patient and serene, his goodness purified by unfathomable suffering. She touched her lips to his cheek—he squeezed her in automatic response. Of course Ruth had fallen in love with him. He was so much like their dad.
“And Ruth will be here, too.”
“I know,” he murmured. His lips could barely move, his energy winding down. “I can always . . . count on Ruth.”
Later, the wind was snatching at the house as she rose from John’s side. She drifted out into the parlor, where the music was still playing, and then she slumped upon her sister’s chair.
FORTY-ONE
Indiana-Michigan line, 1934
What had she done?
The wind thrashed Ruth’s hair and clothes as she threw open the door to the machine shed then stalked to the car, chased by the memory of her behavior. She groaned as she saw herself pulling at Nick’s shirt, scrabbling for his pants, grabbing for his face, as the animals sheltering in the barn with them had stirred nervously.
Nick had fended her off. She had fallen back on his cot, the cot in the same corner in which John had curled the day their lives had stopped, and then Nick had stood over her. Even in the lantern light, in the pale blue glow that had robbed his eyes of their color, she had seen it all over his face as he looked upon her: sheer and utter pity.
She couldn’t stay there. She couldn’t stay anywhere on that farm, no matter if a tornado was hitting and smashing the place to pieces. She was going back to the Squibbs’ to get Richard, the damn fool, her fellow fool.
She regretted it the instant she steered the T past the convulsing hedges and into the open. She should not have left the kids. Dirt, plucked from the road, browned the headlights and pinged against the fenders. A limb skidded across the hood. When something thudded behind the car, an animal sixth sense kicked in. It detected an unnameable vibration, far-off but nearing, like that of a distant stampede or the slithering of thousands of heavy-bodied snakes. Yet rain was not falling. Lightning did not strike. Save for her puny car lights, nothing dented a darkness so thick that it lived and breathed.
She railed into it like a child kicking the shins of a giant. “John! Damn you! You wake up and go for my sister the minute I turn my back. Couldn’t you have waited an hour?”
As if in answer, a blast radiated up from the floorboards, bouncing the T on its springs.
“Great! Great! Well, I guess I deserve it.”
She clung to the shaking wheel. A glance in the rearview mirror showed her hair reaching for the ceiling of the car, where it dragged along the upholstery like the trolley pole of an electric bus.
She shrieked then clubbed at her hair, and then she noticed a high-pitched hiss. She held her breath. Was the air leaking from a tire?
Her eye caught movement near her head: dust was seeping between the window frame and the glass. She shot glances around the compartment: it was sifting through the seam of the windshield onto the dash. She moved her foot. Little piles were heaping at her feet.
Just then, in the mealy glow of headlights waxing and waning through the dust, a wan blade caught a flash of white. A signpost. The crossroad. She could turn around.
Home!
She groaned with yearning even as, quietly, the failing beam was snuffed.
An acrid powder parched her nose. She sneezed, then sneezed. Her throat was closing up.
Unseen things banged against the idling car. In her mind’s eye, she saw the newspaper photo of the black wall of dust boiling over the little town. She pictured cattle falling to their knees, their breath pinched off, people flailing, deer leaping, as the dust rained down.
Over this nightmare, another vision formed. She saw a pioneer axing a tree, then struggling to rai
se rough logs: John’s family homestead. If only she could get there.
She nudged the T through the whirling darkness. Six more inches, ten. Keep going, keep going.
THUD.
Her nerves shot through her skin.
Every pore jangling, she gave the T gas. The wheels just spun. She threw the gear stick into reverse.
The tires screamed powerlessly—and she along with them. She rammed her shoulder to the door and shoved, bellowing in fury, until, like a cork from a jug, out she spilled.
Grit swarmed her instantly, needling her skin, stinging her eyes, invading her lungs. She snatched up the skirt of her dress, held it over her head, then staggered against the wind until it knocked her to her knees.
She crawled, hacking, as her mind floated from her suffocating body. Why, your life really does flash before you when you are dying! she marveled calmly, while, as if it were a movie, she watched Mother jump up, slender and beautiful, holding the finger that the toddler Ruth had just broken.
Now here was Dad, pinching together his lightly furred thumb and index finger to form a ring so that clever little Ruth could show that she could slip her hand right through it.
Oh, now there was John. So strong, lean, and young, smiling down on her from the tractor.
And there was she herself, poor her, bearing down under the gripping pain of her first childbirth. Nothing had prepared her for that agony. But nothing had prepared her for the miracle of that first gaze between a mother and the stranger coming from her own flesh.
An arm hooked her waist. She was being jerked into the present, forced unwillingly from her life-show, dragged back to join the living. A man choked and hacked in her ear as the wind pummeled them. She was still reuniting with her body, trying to make sense, striking out when the blow—