In An Arid Land (23 page)

Perhaps the worst was over. This she said to herself every day, and every day she considered praying, thinking it might help like premiums paid on a retirement plan, though she had given up religion long ago, back when things were going so well. The past three years had been an unfortunate time for Eveline Hardesty. No other period of her life had been so "strange," at least not since the day she left her mother's house at the age of seventeen to marry Ed and get away from her family.

But Ed was gone now. That had been the first strange thing.

He was between jobs at the time and one morning about nine o'clock she received a call at the office. He was back in bed; he had a horrible case of indigestion and a severe pain in his arm and he thought maybe he'd go to the doctor. Instead, she told him she would meet him at the hospital and then ordered an ambulance. By the time Eveline arrived at the emergency room he was dead.

Next she lost her job. The company, an import-export outfit in which she had invested twenty-two years of her life, folded up one day and laid off all its employees. It was the economy, she knew; most everyone in Houston was having a rough time, but she had never really forgiven the owners for going bust.

Over the years they had sent her to night school, promoted her, heaped responsibility on her and raised her salary until, at the end, she held the title of Office Manager and was making almost twice what Ed made as a salesman when he worked. For a woman without a college degree, she had done remarkably well. Her success had given them a comfortable life with two nice cars and a new five-bedroom house on a street called Primrose Avenue. Those were proud, good times. They all felt safe and the future seemed as clear as the past. She and Ed and Nina took a vacation to Europe and they ate out at some of the best restaurants and they always wore new clothes. After college Nina had been hired by a first-rate accounting firm, and Eveline and Ed were doing so well that they helped her buy her first house, the house Nina and Walter and Toby still lived in, though Nina had not met Walter at that time. Never did a day pass, as she recalled it, without Ed telling her that he loved her, and he often came home with gifts. The diamond on her finger, for instance, which Ed presented to her as the engagement ring he had always intended her to have.

For two years Eveline had been searching for work. There had been some offers but in each case the salary was so low that her self-respect forced her to refuse. Now she wished she had taken one of them to tide her over. A large sum of money had been lost when the Primrose Avenue house finally sold and during it all she had lived on her savings. The account was down to a mere $900. Worse yet were the medical bills. One night in April she woke to an explosion of pain in her stomach. She called Nina who sped her to the hospital where the doctors removed her ruptured appendix. A close call, they said; at her age, fifty, she could have died.

She had to rely on Nina and Walter for virtually everything. They paid most of her bills, they fed her, they sometimes took her along when they went out. They had even bought this little house for her to live in until she could get back on her feet. As a kind of payment, she baby-sat for them each day of the week and often on weekends. Eveline knew the house was an investment for them and they had wrangled a great deal on it because of the suffering market. But still, she wanted to pay her own way. She always had.

The lizard was back on the screen doing push-ups like an athlete and showing off his red, flowery throat. His body was green again. He looked like a Christmas ornament in the dusky evening light. Eveline was waiting for Nina or Walter to come pick up Toby. She had fed him his supper and put him down again and what a good baby!he had gone right off to sleep. Just like his mother, that boy was. Nina had been a sweet child and shy, dependent, having no brothers or sisters, but there was nothing spoiled about her.

"I'm a widow," she said softly, mysteriously. The lizard turned his head and blinked as if wincing at the word.

All of a sudden she saw someone in the yard. It was Walter, still in his suit and tie, his blond hair neatly combed. She liked Walter, who was also an accountant, though he made her nervous with his authoritative ways and too-proper manners, his quiet influence over Nina. He never smiled with his eyes. Walter seemed to be inspecting the tree for something. Eveline called to him through the screen, "Hey, boy, what are you doing?"

He turned, startled, and said, "Oh, hi, Eveline. Didn't mean to startle you. I came in through the gate."

"I know," she said. "How about some coffee?"

At the table in the kitchen Walter sat perfectly straight as if he were attending a formal tea. Eveline, placing a mug in front of him, asked him what he had been up to in the yard. He took a long time to answer, computing the words in his mind.

"We've decided to add on," Walter said. "A den, sort of. It'll give you more space and boost the resale value. Or the rental value. That's way in the future, of course."

"I don't need any more room," said Eveline. "I rattle around in here as it is. And besides you just bought this place."

"We'll have to cut down that tree," he said.

"It's a tallow," she informed him. Eveline looked out the window. In twilight the trunk and limbs, which spread up over the back of the house, looked unreal, as if she were seeing only a memory of the tree. She got up and switched on the back porch lamp. "That would be a shame, Walter. A real shame."

"Got to look to the future," he said and they were silent with each other for a long time until he mentioned that Nina was probably home by then and that he'd better get Toby and go.

Alone, Eveline went out to the back yard. She touched the boards of the ladder, gazed up into the tree's limbs, scanned the dark limbs of all the other trees in the other yards.

"It's not
my
house," she said and went back inside.

On Thanksgiving Day Eveline drove up to her sister's place near Lake Conroe. Angela, twelve years older, had invited her to spend the entire holiday with them. Angela and Floyd's four children were all living elsewhere, so it was just the three of them"you and the ancient ones," as her sister put it. Though they were only sixty-two, the complaints of age had in fact begun to show on Angela and Floyd. Her sister suffered from high blood pressure and Floyd, who had taken early retirement, still griped of feeling useless; he talked of taking a part-time job to pass the time, "but nobody wants an old poot head." Still, in general, life played on them well. Angela had her painting and her church work, and Floyd had turned the house into a real showplace with his beds of pink azaleas. It was the sort of life Eveline had always hoped she and Ed would have when they retired.

"You should take up painting," Angela said, daubing green onto a canvas to make a pine tree. They were in Angela's "art room." It was Saturday afternoon, the third day of her visit.

"I'm not creative like you," Eveline said from the love seat. She was lying down, letting her leftovers digest and planning a nap. Her feet dangled well beyond the armrest. Through the open window came the intermittent growl of Floyd's Weed-Eater. "You got the imagination and a size eight, I got the strong back and a size fourteen. You got Mama's genes and I got Daddy's. It still amazes me sometimes that Ed had anything to do with me."

Angela turned on her barstool so quickly that she almost upset her easel. She made a quiet, sobbing sound and when Eveline looked over she saw that tears were puddling up and dripping from her eyes. Angela was like that; she cried easily. Her face was contorted and sweet and in such anguish that she had the look of a very old child in a grown-up's smock.

"What is it, hun?" Eveline hefted herself off the couch and hugged her sister, bending over. Their eyeglasses clinked.

"I just . . . I hate to hear you talk about yourself like that. You're too honest sometimes."

"Why? There was nothing wrong with Daddy. He was just big and kind of ugly. Mother was the problem. Never lifted a single pretty finger all her life. You're lucky you overcame it."

"You can do anything you want," Angela sniffled. "You're so smart. God provides, and we can help. Move up here with us."

"I don't need your help. I'm doing fine."

"Careful, here comes Floyd."

Eveline had noticed nothing, no indicators that Floyd was in the house, but suddenly there he stood in the hall. Floyd was the same height as Eveline with white hair and a moustache, very distinguished in appearance. Beads of sweat had smeared his dirty face and in his hands was the Weed-Eater. He appeared angry.

"Have you been using this thing?"

Angela shook her head no.

"Yes, you have. It's all fouled up. I can't keep it running." He pulled the crank a few times but the Weed-Eater only sputtered and spit out oil. He glared at Angela. "How many times have I told you: you leave the outside to me and I'll gladly leave the inside to you. Don't mess with what you don't understand." He glared at her again and left in a flourish. Angela whispered, "I just used it to trim up my garden spot out back. Since he retired, he won't trim my garden spot."

Floyd was in a sour humor all night but by Sunday morning he had recovered and he even apologized to Eveline, not to Angela. Eveline never knew how to take Floyd. He made her angry over the way he intimidated Angela, and she knew that he had never approved of Ed's easy attitude toward work and money (Floyd had been a banker, after all). But he'd gone out of his way to be kind to Eveline since Ed's death and he had agreed eagerly to give away the bride in Ed's place when Nina and Walter married.

"A person needs to be occupied," Floyd was saying. "An idle mind will kill you quicker than anything."

Angela had convinced Eveline to go to church with her that morning. While Angela was dressing, Floyd, in his banker's tone of voice, kept asking Eveline questions about her financial position and prospects for employment. Eveline had the feeling she was being interviewed for a loan application, even though Floyd was still in his robe; he didn't go to church anymore.

"Well, there is this one job," she said. "I applied and they called to see if I was still available, but I don't know if they'll call back. It's the same kind of work I did before."

"That's good . . ." Floyd seemed hesitant. "Have you thought about doing temporary work? You know, typing or filing. A widow can't be too choosy. In fact, I know a man"

"No, I really haven't," Eveline interrupted. "Have you?"

Just then Angela bustled in talking about the "glorious morning" and how it was "just perfect for the Lord's work." Floyd rolled his eyes. Angela said, "Come on, girl, our preacher hates for you to be late. Here, I brought your purse."

The church was just a few miles away. It was all brick and looked less like a church than a real estate office with its simple peaked roof, square windows and raised sign out front. What's more, the preacher was young and overdressed and he even concluded his sermon with a real estate metaphor: "Sign on the dotted line, brothers and sisters, close your deal for God. Come on down with your voices." Once the congregation had lifted to its feet and stirred up the hymn, Angela grabbed Eveline by the hand and pulled her into the aisle. "Get your purse," she whispered.

"What are you doing?"

"You'll see," said Angela and then she led Eveline to the front of the church and into the hands of the smiling preacher.

"My little sister would like to place membership."

"No, Angela," Eveline whispered but it was too late.

The preacher put them on the front pew. He gave her a pen and an index card with some questions typed on it. Eveline looked at Angela with exasperation, but Angela's face was so aglow with her good work that all Eveline could do was start writing.

When the hymn ended, the preacher took the card from Eveline and, reading from it, introduced her to the congregation in joyful tones. Then he said, "Let us pray."

Eveline tried to listen, but his lofty words seemed too lofty for the occasion and they embarrassed her, so she shut out his voice and attempted a prayer of her own. It was no good; nothing would form in her mind. And with startling clarity it came to her why. She didn't believe in God anymore. The God of her childhood, Angela's God, wouldn't allow life to turn on you so completely, wouldn't allow you to fall so far. She felt sorry for her sister, placing all her hope in an innocent dream of the future, and she felt sorry for herself too, having lost such hope. As the preacher continued in his soft, gentle voice, tears of self-pity and shame crept into Eveline's eyes. So she opened her purse for a Kleenex. And that's when she found the check, tucked into a side pocket. It was made out to Eveline Hardesty and she had to blink six times before she could believe all those zeroes. A thousand dollars. At the bottom was Floyd's signature and on the MEMO line was written, "Loan." She glanced at Angela, but her sister's eyes were closed in prayer. Eveline snapped shut her purse and wiped her tears with a finger.