Broken Ground (6 page)

A june bug drones against the window screen, trying to get outside where it belongs. Daddy pencils another word into little squares. He doesn't look up, nor does Mother. Smiley Burnette's accordion swells, so I raise my voice a bit. “I'm leaving in two days. For college.”

Now Mother looks up, her finger set on a recipe to mark her spot, her expression muddled. She blinks in my direction. Daddy checks the worn-down nub of his pencil's lead. “Come again?” he says.

“ ‘Whoopi-ty-aye-yay,' ” Autry yodels. “ ‘I go my way . . . ' ”

I leap from the sofa, turn off the radio, face them again. “I received a full scholarship to attend a four-year college, Union University in Pasadena, California. I accepted the scholarship. I leave for California day after tomorrow.”

The recipe book slips from Mother's lap to the floor; stained, wrinkled index cards unglue themselves and scatter. Daddy is on his feet, towering over me, newspaper rattling in his hands. “You'll do no such thing.”

I lift my chin to meet his eyes, just the shade of mine. “Try to stop me.” I want to shout, but this squeaks its way out.

For a long moment, I think Daddy might do just that—try to stop me. He casts the newspaper to the floor and lifts a hand, stiff and flat, to slap.

“It'll kill me staying here.” I manage to say what I've practiced these last weeks. “If I stay, I may still be breathing, but I'll be dead inside. I have to go.”

He lifts his hand higher, level with my cheek.

Mother steps between us. She thrusts me back, away from him. When he dodges to the right, she shadows him. To the left, she does the same. Mother has never been more agile than at this moment, keeping her husband and her daughter apart. In the face of her resistance, Daddy seems to deflate. His expression shifts from enraged to incredulous to disoriented. His hand lowers to hover awkwardly at his hip. He resorts to words. “Rebellious,” I hear him say. “Ungrateful.” And something about the Fifth Commandment. Something more about sin.

Still, Mother will not step aside. “Go to your room, Ruth.” She's the one who shouts this, in a tone that seems to reflect Daddy's summation of me:
Bad girl
. But I know differently. Mother is trying to protect me, not shame me. I tell myself this as I go to my room, as I lock myself inside.

I SPEND WHAT'S
left of daylight packing and, after a restless night in bed, I'm up with Captain the next morning. Accompanied by his crowing, I start to pack. It doesn't take long. By the time his relentless revelry has dwindled to the occasional boastful squawk, my big, old suitcase is full. It holds everything I now call my own. My few clothes and toiletries. My Bible and my
Brothers Grimm
. The three photographs of Charlie and me: seven and six years old, dragging a wagon; just graduated from high school, brandishing diplomas; on our wedding day, clasping hands. And our wedding gift from Miss Berger—the quilt with its bright rings of fabric. Breathing a prayer—an unformed sentiment somewhere between
thank you
and
help
—I close the suitcase and lock it with a key. I tuck the key into my pocketbook, hide my pocketbook under the bed. Only then do I unlock my door and open it a crack. I hover there, listening, until the sounds of the house establish themselves. Daddy's not here or I'd have heard something from him—brusque word, rough movement, heavy footfall. Mustering courage, I slip down the hallway to the kitchen.

Mother sits at the table, weeping into her hands.

“Please.” I sit beside her. “Forgive me.”

“Why?”
Why should I?
I think that's the implication, but then Mother adds, “For what?”

“For leaving you.”

Mother lowers her hands, revealing her ravaged expression. When she is upset, she tugs at her thinning hair; her interlaced fingers are tangled with dull strands of gray and red, a scant cat's cradle.

“You're not ever coming back, not really.” She plucks at the strands, trying to free her hands of them. “With Charlie, I always thought you might. When your babies came, I let myself think, you'd need my help. Finally, I would be a real help to you. And maybe those babies would see me as something other than who I've let myself become. Maybe they would see me as brave and strong, the grandma who never scolds, who only does right by them. Maybe I would have been a good grandma to your babies, Ruth, as I've never managed to be a good mother to you.”

“You
are
a good mother.” I long to weep with her, but as ever, my eyes are dry. “You were so very good yesterday with Daddy—brave and strong.”

“Once maybe. Once maybe I was.”

“No! Not just once. More times than I can count.”

She ignores this. “Mine has been half a whole lifetime of weakness. But for your babies, the other half, maybe I would have been different.”

I close my eyes, but still I see them, the babies, tottering—
first steps!
—through the bellflowers with Charlie and me close behind and Mother watching from the back door, a radiant smile on her face. She looks younger than I've ever seen her, and Charlie and I are as we were before the blowout, almost kids ourselves, and our children, a boy and a girl and, yes, a baby in my arms, are the perfect combination of us two. They have Charlie's blue eyes, and my hair when it turns honey-colored in the summer sun, and his long limbs, and my smooth, clear skin. Maybe the little boy has freckles, because I love Charlie's freckles, tracing them with a fingertip until there's the reward of a smile. Little feet pound unsteadily against the earth; the flower stalks stir; the baby is a solid weight in my arms; the baby smells of milk and Ivory soap; the baby looks up at me with blue eyes so big I could fall right down into them. I could drown in those eyes.

I gasp like I'm coming up for air, and Mother's face swims before me. Abruptly, she stands and goes to the kitchen clock that long ago stopped keeping time. She takes the clock from the wall and fiddles with it until off pops the back. From the belly of the clock, she removes a slip of paper. She sets the slip of paper down on the table before me.

“What is it?”

“Look.”

I look. “A check?” I look again. “A check.”

Mother gives a sharp nod. Her expression has hardened to grim.

“Two thousand dollars,” I say slowly. “A check from the oil company, payable to me.” I look up at her again. “Mama?”

“Charlie must have been thinking
what if
. A good man watches out for the what-if.”

“Life insurance?”

Mother nods, sinking back down in her chair. “Your daddy considered it his, as we've been putting a roof over your head, and it appeared we would be doing so for some time. But that's not the case after all. Your daddy still wants the check, I imagine—he had some kind of plan for it, you can bet on that—but I don't want it. It's not right to want it. Not anymore. Never was, really. Take it, Ruth.”

“But—”

“Take it with you to California. And take this, too.” She pulls a scrap of paper from the pocket of her apron. She's written a name there, Alice Everly, and beneath that a California address and a phone number. “That friend I told you about who went west with her family? It took a little doing, but I tracked her down. I spoke to her on the phone, Ruth. I told her you were coming, and she said to call as soon as you arrive. You won't be alone out there, not if she can help it.” Mother presses the paper into my hands. “Do that for me, Ruth, promise? Call Alice Everly. Go see her when you're able. I want you to have some folks out there, our kind of people, who can help when need be.”

“I'll call her for you if for no other reason. I promise.”

Mother's expression softens with relief. Her eyes go misty again; she looks quickly down at the clock and gets busy fiddling with the back. When the back clicks into place, she seems like she doesn't know what to do next. She's exhausted, I realize. She probably hasn't slept a wink. So I take the clock from her, hang it on its nail on the wall, tilt it this way and that.

“Even now?”

She nods.

I wrap my arms around her. “You sure?”

“Sure as I've ever been,” she says.

EARLY THE NEXT
morning, the sun a cusp of orange on the horizon, Miss Berger's elegant if aged gray Zephyr ferries me down drowsy, dirt roads, and then onto busier, paved streets. Instead of her typical T-shirt, khaki skirt, and bandana, Miss Berger wears a neat bottle-green suit jacket and skirt and a matching hat. She's taking herself out to lunch, she informs me during our drive. She doesn't get into Oklahoma City nearly often enough; she's going to see a bit of what there is to see. In particular, she'll visit the library. They have entire shelves devoted to new books, and she wants to browse them.

Miss Berger parks the car near the city's brand-new depot, and we make our way inside. Upon hearing my destination and departure time, a porter whisks my suitcase away, leaving me to carry only a picnic basket of food packed by Mother and my pocketbook, which holds the oil company's check, the scrap of paper with Alice Everly's information, and all the money I managed to save from my summer at the library—just enough for a train ticket to Los Angeles.

I start toward the ticket booth, but Miss Berger steps in front of me. With a flourish, she produces from her jacket's pocket the very ticket I intend to buy. “For you,” she says.

I shake my head, stunned.

Miss Berger shrugs. “No refunds allowed.”

“But I can't accept it! After all you've already done—”

“Well, I've got no use for it. You know how I feel about clutter, Ruth. Guess I'll just have to dispose of it.” She manages to make a little tear in the ticket before I snatch it from her hands.

“Thank you.” That's all I can come up with. When I try to express my gratitude more eloquently, Miss Berger fairly shudders with impatience and, without further ado, draws me into the waiting area. It's a grand place. She launches into a description of the architectural elements—which she read up on last night, apparently—the art deco details and terrazzo floors, the metal and glass chandeliers with their chevron designs, the bright and colorful ceilings painted with American Indian motifs.

Only a few minutes until my departure now. There's so much I want to ask Miss Berger, so much I want to know—about American Indian motifs, sure, but also about her life, her work, how she came to help the people she helps and why. Never mind escaping Alba. At this very moment, I don't want to say goodbye.

“Do you see that long narrow rectangle spanning the far wall?” Miss Berger points; I see it. “For the Choctaw people, that rectangle symbolizes the road of life that one travels in his span on earth.” She flicks me a glance. “Or her span on earth, as the case may—”

“Please,” I blurt, clutching her arm.

Her eyebrows arch in surprise. “Yes?”

What to say with so much vying for my attention.
Choctaw
. The word lodges in my mind like a pebble in a shoe. “How did you know Mayor Botts is part Choctaw?”

This is not what I wanted to ask at all. But Miss Berger, patient with most any question, cocks her head, considering. “I could see it in him, and he confirmed it,” she finally says. “I know quite a bit about the tribe, actually. My mother was Choctaw through and through. She grew up on a reservation and met my father, who was French Canadian, and then they came and settled in Alba, where there was land to be had . . . but not a lot of acceptance.”

Here
is something I want to hear. “I didn't know.” I'm still holding on to her arm. I don't want to release it. Not yet. And she doesn't draw away from me. She looks at the far wall, the rectangle there. But her unfocused gaze suggests she sees something entirely different.

“My parents died in a car accident when I was sixteen. Since then, I've spent a lot of time trying to learn things they might have told me. It's been a bit of a compulsion, in fact. I probably know more about my heritage now than I would have if they'd lived.”

I swallow hard. “What did you do when they died? Besides
learn
things, I mean. What did you
do
?”

Miss Berger sighs, her gaze still distant. “I tried to raise myself as I believe they would have if they'd lived. I never forgot them, but I got on with my life. I didn't go to college, as I'd hoped to do, but I worked my way into the position I hold now.” She winces as if something pains her, and I loosen my grip on her arm. For a long moment, she is quiet; she feels she's said enough, I'm afraid. But then she takes a deep breath.

“I think about my mother every time I enter the library.” She turns to me, present and attentive again. “The building was constructed before the Land Run as a mission school for Choctaw children, back before people became concerned about the ‘Indian Problem.' Soon after the Run, the number of white children in the area surpassed the number of Choctaw—or so it was said—and the school's mission changed accordingly. The Choctaw children were removed from the school, some of the older ones forcibly, and sent to the reservation, all but uninhabitable territory, not so far from the Thorne place. I take it as no coincidence that the Klan holds their meetings at the reservation's doorstep. I also take it more than a little personally.”

“I didn't know.” I feel like a fool, repeating myself.

Miss Berger smiles at me, and her smile is kind. “But that's why you're going to college, yes? To learn things. To know more. To understand.” Only now does she withdraw her arm. She tugs at the cuff of her jacket, trying to smooth the wrinkles I've made in the sleeve. “Let's find your platform, shall we?” Her voice is bright and energetic. “Don't want to waste that ticket.”