On Shifting Sand (26 page)

I’ve thrown all this away.

And then, at the moment when the night begins its transition to morning, still dark enough for sleep but hospitable to wakefulness, I pray. On my knees, right there in the valley that has witnessed so much love and laughter, my forehead wedged between the iron bars of the headboard. Instead of being clasped together, my hands clutch at the feathers of our pillows, so tight that I feel individual quills bending within my grip.

“Dear God,” I whisper, my words and my tears falling into the space between our bed and the wall, “take this from me. Take
him
from me—out of my thoughts. And forgive me. For letting him be . . . For letting him have . . .” Even to my Creator, my Savior, I cannot articulate my sin. To think of it is to relive it. My very whisper brings it to life, dancing through my veins.

“Give me this night,” I plead. “This last night, for him to know me and love me as his wife. Bring him home tomorrow.” Then again, we’ve already slipped into the new day. “Today. Let me see him, welcome him, one more time. Spare him this pain, holy Father. Let me bear it all for a little while longer. Until—”

He will be gone.

“I won’t see him again. I won’t look at him again. Only forgive what I’ve done. Forgive what I
wanted
. And protect me—protect Russ . . .”

Now, a prisoner of my prayer, my hands clutch at the iron bars, shaking so that they rattle against the wall.

“Give me time. Give
us
time. I will confess to him as I am confessing to you. I’ll confess to my father on earth as I am confessing to you. Only give me time, so that I can know . . .”

That’s he’s safely away? Far enough that I won’t follow. Far enough that I won’t be tempted again. For that, I will trust my father.

  CHAPTER 17
  

I
FELL ASLEEP
with an unfinished prayer. My pleading incomplete. I sleep in a knot, wadded up like a mass of feathers wedged between our pillows. My eyes are swollen, my mouth dry, and my spine ready to snap with each attempt to stretch. Still, I awake to a bright, clear morning. To some, such a morning means nothing more than a day without rain, but I choose to see hope in the rays of sunlight.

Ariel bounds in, demanding to know if her papa has come home, then why he hasn’t, and where he is, and why he is there, and when he’ll be back, and if he might be bringing another kitten.

I answer all of her questions, bringing her into the bed with me, stretching her body alongside mine as I run absentminded fingers through her hair. When I’ve satisfied every facet of her curiosity, I nudge her away, telling her to set the butter out to soften, promising a breakfast of flapjacks and jam.

Alone again, I go to the window. I’ve asked for this day, one last day,
and here it stretches before me. A deserted street. Boarded-up storefronts. Loose dirt stirring itself along the ground like a crumbly brown mist.

Pa waits in the kitchen, coffee made, when I emerge, dressed, with my hair somewhat combed and my face stinging from a cold-water scrubbing. We say little to each other as I prepare breakfast, each of us preferring to speak with Ariel, who serves as a conduit to pass along requests for syrup and eggs and cream. Ronnie joins us shortly after, his hair wild with sleep, his face crisscrossed with the markings of his sheet.

“Everything ready to go?” I ask, pouring him a glass of milk. His isn’t watered down, as is Ariel’s. “I think your dad was hoping to load up today.”

“All but the big tools,” he says, most of the words swallowed in an enormous yawn. “Unless there’s some huge crate I don’t know about, those’ll have to go separate.”

“Good boy.” I kiss the top of his head, the most he will allow. “You may do as you please this morning, but stay within earshot.”

“Can I go with Dad to Tulsa? Just to help?”

I turn back to the stove and drizzle batter on the griddle. “No. Your father’s not going. Just Mr. Jim and Pa.”

“Then could I go with them? It’s not like I have school or anything.”

“I don’t think it would be a good idea.”

“But why?”

“Because what if’n we don’t come back?” Pa says, and then I hear him slurp his coffee.

“Your paw-paw’s joking.” I shoot my father a withering look over my shoulder. “He’ll be back quicker than you’ll know it.”

“What about Mr. Jim?” Ronnie asks.

Pa’s gray eyes pin me over the rim of his cup. “Likes of him’s best left to the road.”

I turn my attention back to the stove.

“I’m going to miss him,” Ariel says in the absentminded voice that tells me she is swirling a chunk of her scrambled eggs in her pancake syrup. “Mama’s going to miss him too. They were special friends.”

“You go wash up now,” I say without turning around. “You’re sticky nose to toes.”

“But I’m still eating.”

“Then finish up.”

She hums a wandering tune while she eats. I stare at the batter, waiting for the bubbles to break, feeling my father’s disapproval like so much spattering grease. Still midmorning, and already the kitchen shows promise of being unbearably hot. I try to think of what I can serve for a cold lunch—what I can pack away for a journey—but I don’t have to look through my cupboards to know they are nearly bare. There’s not much more than a handful of coins in my grocery jar, but no matter. The shelves of Featherling’s grocer have grown as empty as our own. Sometimes we risk the drive to Boise City, where the stores are bigger and the prices lower. Russ doesn’t like me to go on my own. But the idea of being absent upon his return—
their
return—is enough to make the risk worthwhile. Besides, I wouldn’t be alone this time. Since Russ has the car, I’ll have to ask for a ride.

I flip Ronnie’s pancakes. “I’m going over to Mrs. Brown’s. To see if she could possibly take me into town. Do you need anything, Pa?”

He leans his head back and narrows one eye, as if watching me through a spyglass. “No need for that today, girl.”

“We don’t have any food here, Pa. I need some groceries.”

“Make do. And sit down and eat somethin’. You’re lookin’ skinny as a rail.”

Ronnie, usually so oblivious to any conversation not about cars or guns, looks to his grandfather, then to me, his expression wary.

Three good-size pancakes are rising on the griddle, and I’ve scraped the mixing bowl clean to make those for the boy who just swallowed the last of the eggs.

“I’ll eat later.”

“Now,” Pa says. “I ain’t seen you take a bite in days.”

“You’re not with me every moment.” I pile the cakes onto a wide
spatula, with a thin slice of butter between each one, and carry the stack over to Ronnie.

“I can’t eat all them, Mama.”

“Of course you can, sweetheart. I’ve seen you take down twice that in a sitting.”

“Maybe later, after I finish up downstairs.” He takes two of the cakes and transfers them to his plate. “That one’s yours.”

“Good boy,” Pa says, but Ronnie seems to take no pleasure in his approval.

Rather than prolong the conversation, I pull Ariel’s empty plate over to my place at the table and deposit the remaining pancake amid the swipes of drying syrup. Her fork is too sticky for me to touch; instead, I rip off a quarter-sized bite, dab it in the sweet residue, and put it in my mouth. This is precisely how I’ve eaten nearly every pancake since my children were born—the last of the stack, dabbed about on a dirty plate. Russ used to tease me, calling me Scraps before planting a coffee-laced kiss on my sticky lips. But I defended my practice, saying, “What does it bother you? You don’t have to do the dishes.” Often it was the first quiet moment of the morning, with them already off to school, or play, or out the door with Russ so I could have a few minutes’ peace. I’d make a second pot of coffee, maybe read my Bible a little bit while nibbling the fluffy, sweet cake, none the worse for growing cold.

This morning, though, I might as well be nibbling a scrap of plywood. Even though it still bears the warmth of the griddle, there is nothing pleasurable about that first bite. Or the next. Were it not for my father’s challenging gaze, I would give the remainder over to Ronnie, who has already plundered his serving. A sip of cool coffee does nothing to moisten the barricade it makes in my throat, and I dread the next bite as I attempt to swallow the first.

“These are good, Mama,” Ronnie says, sensing my discomfort. “Filling.”

“Thank you, baby,” I say, grateful for any bit of conversation that will delay the next bite.

“Finish up.”

That Pa echoes the exact words I said to my four-year-old only moments before is not lost on any of us. I tear off half of what remains on my plate and shove it in as one massive bite. Already my stomach seizes in anticipation, and it isn’t half-chewed before I force it down my throat, silently willing it to stay there. Similarly, Ronnie shovels his food in with youthful zeal, and I fancy us in a tacit race to escape.

I win.

After I’ve washed up the dishes and set them to dry, I run a comb through my hair and work a thin layer of Jergens onto my hands and face, along with a touch of lipstick. With a shout to the house that I’ll be back shortly, I go outside, avoiding the shop by going out the front door, down to the street. I pause midway and crane my neck, looking up and down for any sign of Russ and Jim’s arrival. Seeing none, I quicken my step, across the street to the Browns’ place, and knock on the door.

“Well, Denola! What a lovely surprise!” Merrilou swings the door open with enough strength to bring me in with it. The excited, welcoming look on her face, however, disappears almost immediately. “Good heavens, young lady. Are you all right?”

“Of course I am.” I brighten my smile to ward off any more questions.

“You look terrible.”

Merrilou Brown’s blunt honesty has often been a source of amusement in our household.
“Don’t ask if you don’t want to know,”
Russ always says. She is the first to inform him of a tedious sermon, a misquoted Bible verse, a church need left unattended for too long. Wary as we are of her opinions, they hold no malice, and I feel no insult at her pronouncement.

“I’m fine,” I reassure, lessening the smile for a more serious, convincing expression. “A bit weary is all. Like we all are.”

“Looks like more than weariness.” She steps back, allowing me inside. “Bone thin, them dark circles under your eyes. Sweet Moses, your skin looks like you been dipped in ashes. The rest of us brown as Indians, and you the Indian pale as a ghost. I’m going to make you a sandwich.”

“No, thank you.” I stand inside the door while she closes it behind me. “Just came from breakfast.”

“Little late, isn’t it?”

“These summer days. We tend to linger.”

“Tea, then?”

I accept and follow her into the kitchen, marveling at the cleanliness that permeates the Browns’ home in the same way that dirt does mine. Baseboards, crevices, the carved scrolls of her dining room furniture.

“How do you manage it?” I speak to the top of her head.

“Manage what, dear?”

“Keeping your house so clean. There’s not a speck of dust anywhere.”

“Well, not much to that. You can’t let it get the best of you. Keep out what you can, and clean up what you can’t.”

She makes it sound so easy, multiplying my frustration. I have a dozen arguments to throw her way: she doesn’t have little ones underfoot; she doesn’t have a warehouse of a shop to clean. With just herself and Mr. Brown, they could seal off entire rooms. Who knows what drifts I might find if I sneak down the hall and open one of the doors?

Once in the kitchen, Merrilou opens the icebox, revealing something akin to a feast upon its shelves. From it she takes a pitcher, while instructing me to get two glasses from the cabinet above the sink.

“You won’t need the step stool like I do,” she says, closing the icebox with a bump from her hip. She pours the tea and places a plate of small, crispy cookies between us, calling them “just right for nibbling.”

“Delicious.” I follow her instructions with tiny, crumbly bites.

“Now.” She taps a cookie on the table. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”