On Shifting Sand (39 page)

He breaketh me with breach upon breach,

he runneth upon me like a giant.

I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin,

and defiled my horn in the dust.

My face is foul with weeping,

and on my eyelids is the shadow of death.

JOB 16:14-16

  CHAPTER 24
  

F
ALL COMES, AND THEN WINTER,
bringing no relief from the dust and wind. Still we have no rain, and the respite brought by cooler temperatures serves only to intensify the stinging sensation of dirt against skin. We walk from place to place assuming the posture of some primitive cripple, our backs bent, faces shielded. Our shoulders bear the weight of the earth as it moves against us, one minuscule grain at a time.

In the mornings when I walk Ariel to school, I hold tight to her hand, fearful that God might take her as he did my other children, using the brute force of nature to snatch her up from my side as punishment for my sin. On days when Ronnie walks her home at lunchtime, I insist he do the same, and at 12:04 every day I peer out the window to make sure he obeys. The sight of them together opens up a sadness that gnaws at me from my womb. Ariel, my tiny, knock-kneed girl, her beautiful hair confined to two tight plaits, her pinched little face obscured by the white mask, her eyes turned to the ground for their own protection, missing out on all the
beauty the world might have to offer. Every step a struggle—to keep up with the impatient, strident pace of her brother, to keep upright against the wind. And yet, when she blows inside, I know I’ll see that sweet smile etched in the patch of clean skin the mask has protected, and her eyes will come to dancing life at the sight of Barney, who rises and stretches and arches herself at the sound of our girl’s arrival.

Ronnie worries me less, as he seems to be the only living thing that isn’t shriveling away before my eyes. He’s soon enough overcome his shame at accepting food from the crates delivered to the shop on a semiregular basis, especially when those deliveries begin to include entire hams and slabs of bacon. I cannot keep enough bread and butter in the house to fill him up. He might well be one of the locusts or the rabbits that God added to the plague of drought and dust, eating everything that dares poke its head out of the ground. I cook for the three of us and share a portion with Ariel, doling out the rest to Ronnie in feigned discovery that there is “just a bit left.” Overnight he grows to be as tall as me. In an afternoon, his shirtsleeves strain at his wrists. I blink, and his shoulders expand to such a breadth that I do not recognize him from the back. And I think,
God will snatch him away too.
But while I fight for and cling to my daughter, I would launch my son with every blessing within me. He and I share a silent desire to escape.

It becomes far too easy to live without a husband. We write each other letters, two a week, sometimes reuniting on the weekends before the letters are delivered. Mine consist of little moments throughout the day—silly things Ariel has said, Ronnie’s accomplishments at school, even Barney’s funny moments of destruction make their way onto my pages. Russ tells me what he can about the patients he visits. No details, of course, about their names or conditions, but tales of a woman who came in to have a baby and was surprised with triplets, or a man who was thrown through a second-story window by the sheer force of the static
electricity when he touched his radiator. We sign every letter with love, and I keep them in a box on my dressing table, reading them out loud to my reflection during the long stretches of the day when I think I’ll lose my mind if I don’t hear some other voice above the wind.

He telephones the Browns’ home every Thursday evening, an indulgence the hospital grants in exchange for his working late into that night. I spend those evenings there, where it somehow has become an opportunity for Merrilou to host the children and me for supper. I contribute what I can—pies made from canned peaches or fresh, warm biscuits—but Merrilou makes no comment if I arrive empty-handed.

“God blesses us so that we might bless in return,” she says in response to my profuse thanks.

When the phone rings, she takes the children into the kitchen for additional cookies and milk, or meat scraps for Barney, leaving me alone at the lacquered telephone table for my ten-minute conversation with Russ.

Sometimes it feels a bit like being courted again. He’ll say soft, sweet things that nobody would attribute to a hospital chaplain, and I return in kind, depending on how sure I am that the children are engaged in something entertaining with the Browns. I hear Russ’s voice and think to myself,
One more sleep, then one more sleep, and he’ll be home.

We are together two days each week—in reality, though, little more than twenty-four hours. He’ll be home midmorning Saturday, gone after dinner on Sunday, with some of the time in between spent preparing his sermon and visiting with those few souls still in town and in church.

“It won’t be forever,” he says, holding me in his arms each Saturday night. “I promise you. This drought will end. This Depression will end, and we’ll build our life together. Just as we always have.”

I sleep beside him, believing him, and wake up reassured. But Sunday morning, from behind the pulpit, I hear him say the same things, spoken above and around my head. Words swirling with promises, blown in from a distance, leaving a residue of hope. And then, after dinner, he’s gone.

Christmas looms, a more unwelcome holiday than I can remember. Along with his regular weekly letter, Greg sends a colorful card depicting two children—a brother and sister, roughly the ages of my own—careening on a sled down a field of snow dotted with bright-green firs. Their cheeks are plump and pink, mittened hands raised in glee. Inside, along with the cheerful greeting in manufactured red script, two lines written in his own hand:

Merry Christmas

Wish you were here.

Greg has come home for a Christmas visit on several occasions, when there was a new baby to celebrate or a lost one to mourn, but Pa never was one to make a big fuss over the holiday. Russ embraces it wholeheartedly, of course, secreting gifts throughout the year and clumsily wrapping them in the late hours after the children go to bed.

This year, though, we have nothing. Greg’s card, propped up in the center of our kitchen table, is the only decoration. In the evenings, the children and I listen to Christmas recordings on the radio, but other than that, the same malaise that grips our little apartment seems pervasive throughout the entire town. Even as the days grow closer to the holiday, few of us remark about it when we encounter each other on the streets. The dirt has cocooned us, and most days we walk about surrounded by an ever-shifting wall.

During our Thursday telephone call, Russ delivers the good news that he will be able to stay home for the entire week from Christmas to New Year’s Day.

“That itself is the perfect gift,” I tell him, thinking I will present it to the children in just that way. “I’m afraid I haven’t done anything in the way of decorating, but if you’re going to be here, I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’ll bring a tree,” he says, and I experience an instant lifting of my
spirits at the thought of something green and fresh. “A big one, and we’ll set it up downstairs.”

“Downstairs? In the shop?”

“The idea came to me last night. We can all use some cheering up for the holiday. Christmas is about bringing family together, isn’t it? So I thought we could bring the whole family together for Christmas Eve.”

Already my image of a sweet family celebration slips away. “The
whole
, as in the church?”

“As in the town. Everyone invited.”

“But that’s just—” I calculate—“three days away. How in the world would we organize such a thing?”

“I’ll have to cut this conversation short, because I used part of my long-distance time to telephone the
Weekly
to get them to run an ad in Saturday’s paper. All invited, bring food to share and a gift to exchange. Nothing new, just something you’re willing to give away. They thought it was a fine idea.”

“How good of you to consult them.” I instantly regret the note of sarcasm in my voice.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, to spring it on you like this. There hasn’t been time—”

“It’s all right.” I force a note of brightness into my voice. “It will give me and the kids something to do, getting the place cleaned up and ready.”

“Ask for help,” he cautions. “People will want to be a part of this.”

“Of course they will.” And then our time is up.

Merrilou Brown is at my elbow not long after I hang up, unusually attentive, even for her.

“Doesn’t that sound like a good idea?”

Not for the first time, I suspect she might have listened to our conversation on a second, hidden phone. “You know?”

“Mr. Bradley at the
Weekly
showed me the ad copy earlier today. I wanted to let Pastor Russ share it with you himself.”

I opt to echo her words. “That does sound like a good idea. We need some good cheer.”