On Shifting Sand (41 page)

“That sounds like Pa,” I say, feeling nothing but pride.

“I knew he was right, and that what we did—what happened—was wrong. But when I knew he was dead, I had to see you one more time.”

“How did you know?”

“Saw the notice in the paper.”

“In Tulsa?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve been all over. Back to the old ways, I guess. Keep thinkin’ I need to leave this godforsaken country, but I keep comin’ back.”

I shiver, wrap my own arms around me, and find myself against him, enveloped in his coat, his scent, his voice speaking against my hair. “You should come with me.”

I look straight up and say, “Jim—” before he brings his mouth down on mine, and I taste the world and tobacco all at once. I unfold my arms, intending to push him away, even making a halfhearted effort to do so, before they move around his narrow waist, climb up his shoulder blades, drawing him closer.

Hours ago I kissed my husband, he and I bound to each other in front of a cloud of witnesses. And now, with Jim, and only the pristine night sky with its thousands of twinkling eyes, I feel no less exposed. With Russ there was the response of the crowd: raucous cheers and appreciative applause. Now, the only sound is the whistle of the wind as it whips around the corners of those buildings strong enough to withstand it, and my breath—
our
breath—in a steamy night exchange.

I try to pull away, saying, “Stop.”

He follows. “Didn’t feel like you wanted me to stop anything.”

“Well, I do. I have a life here. A life I want.”

“Do you? Because seems like you were dying when I came to you.”

“I’m not dying anymore.”

“I can see that.” He touches my face, my neck, runs his hand along the length of me. “You’ve fattened up a bit since I left.”

I make no move against his touch, even knowing that I should, because I know in a way I didn’t know before that this will be the last time I will feel it. I don’t even shirk away at the flicker of pain in response to the tenderness of my flesh. I want to think that, deep down, he is a decent man, that if I tell him I want him to leave me alone forever, he will honor that request—for my sake, if not his own.

But in my own deep down, I know that isn’t true. I’ve spent these last few months longing for him to be alive, and now, knowing that he is, I’ll spend the rest of my life longing for him to return, even if only to have the chance to send him away again. And again. Every rejection a lie. Even now, I’ve stepped out of his embrace only far enough to draw him back. If he asks me to run away, I’ll say no. If he asks me again tomorrow, I’ll refuse, but only to leave him free to ask again. The next day, or week, or month.

I don’t love him, but I love how he desires me. How he seeks me. How flesh and need trump practicality. He is the serpent in my garden, and I crave the burning of that sin—not the mingling of our bodies, but the knowledge of the evil amid the good, and the possibility of surprise. Jim saw that in me long before he met me. He recognized it
through my wedding photograph, my tiny mounded stomach betraying my trustworthiness as a woman. He and I, in our mutual disregard for the man we held in common, are a perfect match of sorts, and like the dirt that blows through Oklahoma, he will return, because everything about me is an invitation. Alone, I could never resist him, but I’m not alone. A thin ribbon of light shines through the edges of the storeroom door, meaning someone has turned on the light, and soon we won’t be alone either.

I barely have time to hiss, “It’s Russ,” before Jim descends the steps and the door is flung open, revealing Russ on the other side, his head cocked at a curious angle.

“Nola?”

The open door blocks his view of Jim, but I dare not flick my eyes in his direction to warn him to stay put.

“I was just on my way up.” I crowd him in the threshold, but he keeps me from passing.

“What were you doing out here?”

“I needed some air. There were so many people—”

“But it’s freezing.”

“I know. That’s why I was coming in.”

Again I attempt to pass, but this time he catches my arm and holds me, his expression growing darker as he leans in close, so close I can feel Jim’s touch rising up out of me to do combat with his breath. I squirm, about to protest, when Russ looks past me, onto the platform, and back.

“I thought you were done with that.”

My eyes follow the track of his gaze, and land on the smoldering cigarette butt on the platform.

“I’m sorry.”

He hooks a finger under my chin and raises my face to look at him. “Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

I nod, putting together the final bits that have been bothering me with disassociated worry since Greg left. The tears that spring up at the thoughts of my children’s suffering, the fatigue that overtakes me every
day, leaving me powerless to maintain my home throughout the week, my willingness to give the lion’s share of our food over to the mouths of my children, without the pangs of hunger that should accompany such a gesture. It’s like it was after Jim left the first time, but instead of wasting away, I’ve been growing. Softer and, as he said tonight, fatter. The pain I felt when he brushed against me had nothing to do with the illicit nature of his touch. It is the painful tenderness every woman feels in this condition. I’ve experienced it before, but only now do I have the strength to speak it.

“Russ,” I say, knowing Jim is on the other side, listening. Wanting him to hear. “I think I might be pregnant.”

Russ responds as I knew he would, swooping me up in his arms and off my feet, spinning me in a slow circle before setting me down with chagrin, worried that he might have hurt me—or the baby—in some way. Next, he bends to kiss me, but I turn my face away. The feel of Jim’s kiss still lingers—as does, I’m sure, the scent and taste of his tobacco. It is the latter I use as an excuse.

“I don’t mind,” Russ says, turning my face toward his, but I squirm away.

“Close the door. And latch it. We’ll go upstairs and I’ll freshen up for you.”

He acts with comical haste, and would have carried me up to the apartment had the staircase not been so narrow.

“I’ve already run you a warm bath,” he says, ushering me through the kitchen and down the hall as if I’m visiting royalty instead of his undeserving wife.

“That sounds perfect.”
Like an escape.

“Darling?” We stand in the darkened hallway, our sleeping children mere steps away. “Aren’t you happy? I know you’ve had your reservations, but can’t you see what a blessing this is?”

“I’m not sure there’s a blessing at all,” I say, already wishing I could gather my words up and swallow them whole. “I’m only two weeks late. I’ll have to go in to see a doctor to know for sure.”

“You can come in with me after New Year’s. We’ll bring the kids, make a day of it. How does that sound?”

“It sounds fine.” And it does. No more, no less. “I just . . . I should have found a better time to tell you. When I wasn’t so exhausted.”

“What better gift?” He places his hand on my stomach, nearly spanning it from side to side. “This is my gift. Wrapped in the most beautiful packaging I could imagine.”

I cover his hand briefly with mine, then sneak away into the bathroom, where, indeed, the tub is filled with steaming-hot water, my soap and washcloth draped over the edge, waiting. Once submerged, I lather the cloth and wash myself slowly, thoroughly, saying,
“It’s over . . . it’s over . . . ,”
ridding myself of any memory of his touch. In a final, desperate act, I dig a fingernail along the thin edge of the soap, peeling off a long strip, which I place along the length of my tongue. Forcing myself not to gag at the taste, I press it against the roof of my mouth. As the soap dissolves against it, I run my tongue along my gums—top and bottom—forcing it against the back of my lips. I scoop up a handful of warm water, slurp it, and swish it around, filling every crevice of my mouth with cleansing foam before I spit it, straight into the tub. This I repeat five, six, seven times, until the water no longer foams as it dribbles from my chin.

Not wanting to bother with a shampoo, I run my fingers, slick with soapy residue, through the now-limp curls. A dash of perfume, and any lingering scent of Jim’s cigarette will be gone.

It seems strange how my efforts to rid myself of the man only reinforce my preoccupation. Jim’s return takes his blood off my hands, but so does it breathe life back into my sin. His scent dissipates, but I need only conjure his face to bring it wafting back to life. His touch disappears, but his voice lingers at what feels like the deepest, darkest corner of my ear. In a way he’s kept that kind of hold on me since the moment he first walked into my kitchen, but this is more than desire. Simply knowing Jim is alive frees me from a longing to see him as such, if for no other reason than to assuage my guilt for his demise.

Before, I carried a girlish fear that he would overlook me, forget me, cease in his pursuit. Between that afternoon and now, my flesh has withered—near to the point of death—and then been restored. Now, though I only voiced it as a distraction in the moment, there seems a possibility of new life growing within. I’ve been cleansed and forgiven, washed clean and made whole—by God, if not by Russ. So, too, has that fear been transformed.

I get out of the tub, dry off, put on a fresh, clean flannel gown, and patter across the hall to join Russ in our bed. Only a few short steps, and my bare feet are crusted with dust. I use a washcloth brought specifically for this purpose to wipe them clean before sliding them between the sheets. Still, grains cling between my toes, and I mutter a mild curse at having forgotten my slippers.

“My goodness,” Russ says, collecting me into an embrace. “Go out to smoke one cigarette and come back cursing like a sailor.”

“I guess I’m not used to having anyone around who can hear me.”

“God can always hear you.” He says it with a cuddle, so I know it isn’t a reprimand, but still I apologize again.

“Are the children asleep?” I ask as a means of turning the conversation.

“They are.”

“I’m afraid it won’t be as exciting a Christmas morning as we’ve had in the past.”

“We’ve never had much.”

“No,” I say, though I think he spoke with an air of contentment while I feel more resigned. “But we’ve had more.”

“And many have less.”

I say nothing, knowing I will never have a heart more pure than this man’s.

“But we have a new baby.” He speaks this promise into the darkness, and I nod my head against his chest in agreement. Russ continues to talk. Before this baby arrives, we might have rain, and hope, and new life all around us, not just in this little place. I don’t bother to argue that I don’t want a home in this little place anymore, that I’ve been counting
the days until he agrees to leave. It is enough in this moment to be cocooned with my husband, warm and safe, children sleeping in their rooms, in my body, or with the Lord. I close my eyes tighter against the darkness, trying to ignore the icy-cold fear at the core of me.

Somewhere, out in the wind, on the other side of the door, there is a wolf of a man who could take this all away. What a fool I’ve been to worry so long that he was left for dead. For the sake of my family, it is time to worry because he is alive.

  CHAPTER 26
  

M
Y PREGNANCY—IF, IN FACT,
there ever was one—does not last to meet the New Year. Two days after Christmas, I wake in the middle of the night, doubled over in pain, and by midafternoon the spots of blood have become a heavy flow.

“I shouldn’t have told you,” I say to Russ when he brings in a tray with a pot of weak tea and thin-sliced toast. “I knew it was too early to know for sure.”

He puts on a face that I know is meant to be comforting—a flat smile, stretching his lips straight, and eyes that don’t quite meet mine. “You were right to tell me. Otherwise you might be suffering this alone.”

“Why alone? You’re here.”

“But I wouldn’t have known.”

“You wouldn’t have known?” I shift against the remnant of the soft, dull ache that anchors my belly to my spine. He was right beside me throughout the night as I wept and bled.