On Shifting Sand (5 page)

“Ah. Like the poet?”

I suppose it is rude of me to register my surprise, but he hardly looks like a man to be familiar with such things. He, at least, is gracious enough to overlook my shocked reaction, and continues his conversation with Ronnie.

“Your mother must be a romantic,” he says, taking in Russ’s discomfort. “Have you studied him?”

“No,” Ronnie says, his expression begging us to bring the conversation back to war.

Jim shifts in his seat, reaches into his pocket, and produces a coin that glints silver in the lamplight. A liberty half-dollar, and he sets it in the middle of the table. “This is the prize to whichever of you can solve Byron’s riddle.”

Immediately Ronnie is intrigued. I don’t know that he’s seen that much money in one place since Christmas.

“Are you ready?”

I tuck Ariel closer to me, anticipating, and look to see Russ nodding his assent.

Jim sits back. “‘The beginning of eternity, the end of time and space. The beginning of every end, and the end of every place.’”

Ronnie seems startled when the lines come to an end, and makes Jim repeat them three times over. Russ looks to the ceiling, mouthing them to himself, while Ronnie spouts off a litany of desperate answers.

“Midnight? The chimes on a clock? A map?”

Jim answers each one with patience and encouragement, but gives no hints. He tilts his head back to look at me. “You know, don’t you?”

I do, but I won’t say. “It would be wrong of me to take your money, Lord Byron, you being our guest and all.”

“But isn’t that the most ancient exchange of hospitality? The trade of stories and entertainment for a meal and a roof? With that out there—” he gestures behind him with his thumb—“I’m mighty grateful to have both.”

“Is it history?” Ronnie sounds hopeful.

“No,” I answer, and then repeat the riddle myself, giving emphasis to lead him to the answer.

“You’re making it too easy,” Jim chides.

I look at the puzzled faces of my son and husband, stirring Ariel with my laughter. “Obviously not.”

Russ moves his finger, writing abstract patterns as is his way when he wants to figure something out, and after a time, the patterns aren’t so abstract anymore, and he knows.

“The letter
e
,” he says, more to himself than to us.

“You got it, buddy.” Jim attempts to slide the coin across the table, but Russ stops it halfway.

“I won’t take your money.”

“You won it fair and square.”

“Wouldn’t be right.”

Once again Ronnie looks from one to the other, this time seeing a new incarnation of pride. Risking Ariel’s wakefulness, I lean forward, cover the coin with my hand, and draw it toward me. After all, I knew the answer all along.

“I’ll buy us something special for supper next time. We all win.”

It seems an amenable solution for the moment, and before Russ can protest, I ball my fist to hold it tight and stand, my legs creaking and unsure beneath my daughter’s weight.

“Do you want me to take her?” Russ half stands in offering.

“No. I need to stash this someplace safe anyway so our son doesn’t
squander it on matinees and Cracker Jack.” I look to him. “Why don’t you get out the checkers? See if our visiting Lord Byron is as clever with that game?”

I walk with Ariel back to her room, immediately feeling the difference in the air. This room has no window and never suffers the full blows of the storms like the rest of the house. Truth be told, if not for our guest, our whole family might be huddled back in here, as we have been in times past, taking turns napping on her narrow bed. I pull down the top cover, knowing it could not have completely escaped the dust. Nothing ever does. But the sheets beneath it are cool and relatively clean, and I turn over the pillow before resting her head upon it.

From out in the kitchen, I hear the first sounds of boasting. Ronnie, of course, and I worry that he might be crossing some invisible line, being too familiar with this stranger, offering the type of affectionate familiarity that should be reserved for his family. For his father.

Because Ariel is asleep, I kneel by her bedside to say her prayers.

“Lord—” And I stop.

“Lord Byron.”

My words come back to me, clearer than any radio broadcast. More than hear them, I feel them, how they fluttered in my throat, edged with flirtation. And
“next time.”
Presuming such a time would come. My hands clasp around the coin from his pocket, taken from his warmth to mine.

“Mama?” Ariel stirs. “Is the storm still blowing?”

I kiss the top of her head, the tendrils of her hair still damp from being held so close against me.

“It is, sweet girl.”

And then I pray that it will pass.

  CHAPTER 3
  

I
N THE MORNING,
he is gone.
Morning
meaning, of course, when the storm has passed. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, when darkness tacks itself onto darkness. We forget to wind our watches and can’t even see the clock faces for the film of dust that covers them. So, in those early moments of peace, when the air is still and the sun shines high, we push our doors against the drifts and take to the streets, confirming with our neighbors.

Do you have the time?

Ten fifteen.

And is it Sunday?

Yes.

In this we are like old Ebenezer Scrooge, startled and pleased to find ourselves alive to see another day, with little time lost to the void.

I do not know what has happened to our guest, only that, after an indeterminate amount of sleep, I was awakened by the smell of coffee
and the sound of silence. I crept about the house, feeling the familiar grit beneath my bare feet, and found Ariel playing quietly with her paper dolls, Ronnie sound asleep on the sofa, and Russ at the kitchen table, staring past his open Bible.

All of us.

“Did he leave?” My mouth feels like I slept with a towel wrapped around my tongue.

Russ looks at me, blinking, as if he doesn’t quite understand.

“Your friend. Jim. Is he gone?”

“Yes.” He returns to his reading with no further explanation.

I go to the cupboard, take out a cup, and rinse it under the tap. After three big gulps of water, I fill it with the fresh, hot coffee. He’s taken the sheet off the table, so when I prop my elbows on it, I know the dirt I feel comes from my own skin.

“Where did he go?”

Russ mumbles something and makes a mark in his Bible.

“Does he have a place to stay? Or is he—?”

“Nola.” He sounds frustrated. Indulgent, but frustrated.

“I’m sorry.” I sip my coffee. It is strong and good, and I tell him so. Quietly, though, so as not to distract him again. I am about to ask if he plans to hold a church service, but his intent study answers my question. The regular service time has well passed, but when the storms became a commonality in our lives, Russ—leader at once of both the church and the community—made a singular declaration. Three hours past the storm, no matter the day of the week, no matter if it’s the dead of night, we gather. To count our people, to lift our praises, and to pray for God’s continued mercy in the days to come.

Ariel climbs into my lap and nuzzles my neck. It takes all my strength not to push her grimy face away. She tells me she’s hungry, and thirsty, and asks when she’ll be old enough to drink coffee, and if we have any Ovaltine, and can she take a bath before church, and can she bring her paper dolls if she keeps them hidden in the pages of her
Children’s Book of Virtue and Verse
?

And is Paw-Paw coming over for dinner?

I answer what I can, giving assurances about the paper dolls and promises for Ovaltine, but maybe not right now. She’d have a shower, not a bath, because there wasn’t time to clean the tub. And as for Paw-Paw, well, that would depend on whether or not he came to church.

Russ seems not at all disturbed by our conversation, but I can tell he listens. He has a smile that lifts nothing more than the corner of his top lip. I call it his secret smile, both for when he’s trying to keep one, and when he thinks no one is watching. He’s ignored me long enough.

“What are you smiling at, Russ Merrill?”

“Just listening to my girls.” His eyes never leave the Scriptures. Upon closer inspection I notice he has already cleaned up, dirt free but not shaven.

“Might should stay home,” I say, “in case Pa does come over. Clean up a bit, try to cook up something, since you got the gas turned back on.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

It’s not a command. Russ knows I’ll obey as much as my conscience ever allows without his needing to be forceful, but his statement doesn’t leave much room for argument. Still it leaves a little.

“I know. But if Pa—”

“Your pa’s lived through the same storm we have. He won’t mind a bit of dust in the corners. I like you to be there with me, Nola. It helps.”

He reaches across the table and lays a hand against Ariel’s hair, then my cheek. His touch is cool and clean, and I turn my face to kiss the center of his palm. The request is a memorial to our earliest days when, he says, the sight of me in the back pew with my father gave him the courage to get through his first-ever sermon. How I’d calmed his nerves, inspired him to impress the congregation so they’d want to bring him back and he could see me every week. I’ve watched him grow in confidence and authority behind the pulpit over the years, but still, he insists, my presence brings him peace.

“Do what you can here, then,” I say, “while I get your girls pretty.”

He promises, and I make his first task that of slicing a few potatoes and putting them on to boil after finding a snack for our daughter.

In the bathroom, I strip to my skin while the water turns warm. A glimpse in the mirror reveals a perfect line where my collar kept the dirt at bay. Standing in the tub, I pull the curtain around the basin and lift the lever to bring warm water showering from the spigot above. More dust washes from me, and I imagine my hair harboring traces of Oklahoma farmland mixed with long-overdue rain. After all the precautions—all the rags stuffed around windows and doors, in every nook and crack imaginable—still, brown rivulets pour off my body, wash down the drain, and swirl away.

Quickly, knowing well the preciousness of water, I rinse myself clean and step into a pair of slippers to protect my feet from the unswept floor. Dressed in something suitable for Sunday, I take my daughter through the same cleansing, plaiting her wet hair into a single red rope. I leave Ronnie to the last possible second, having learned that, at this age, it is more pleasant to have him well rested than well scrubbed. He sates his hunger with a few slices of buttered bread and a cup of cooled coffee with milk—an indulgence we allow as of late—and with all the trappings of any other family heading off for Sunday worship, we walk out of our apartment door and down the steps to where our fellow townspeople emerge, none the worse for wear.

It wasn’t the worst storm we’ve ever had. The sidewalk’s still discernible from the street, and the hedges Merrilou Brown planted along her front fence still stand. That alone gives me the hope of seeing all our people accounted for—those who attend the Featherling Christian Church, that is.

I have my daughter by the hand, my husband at my side, and our son trailing half a step behind. Just like earlier in the morning, in our small home, all gathered and accounted for. All that matters, and still . . .

I lift a hand in greeting to my friend Rosalie, who carries her baby girl in her arms, and the remaining fat around her belly. Her husband, Ben, leads on, their son in between. Rosalie and I call out a friendly greeting to each other, along with a promise to get together in the coming days.

My eyes scan the streets as I tell myself I’m only looking out of a sense of charitable goodwill. A concern borne from the ancient laws of hospitality. I nod my head in greeting to one neighbor after another, craning my neck to look behind and beyond their weary faces.

Ariel sees a friend and, with my permission, runs off in squealing delight.

“I see you all made it through safe and sound?” Merrilou Brown’s small presence sidles up beside me, forcing me to slow my pace to match hers. In no time, Russ and Ronnie have left me behind.