Our Daily Bread (2 page)

Ten-year-old Toots shuffled in wearing a too-big duffle coat, her sullen, sharp-featured little face hidden behind a curtain of greasy hair, her skinny legs bare and scratched above the rubber boots.

“Put some pants on, will ya,” she said, not moving too far from the door.

“Just washing mine out, don't worry.” From where he sat on the couch Albert leaned over and pulled a pair of sweat pants from a small pile of clothes on the floor. As he was putting them on he said, “Dan's got hold of Frank.”

“Yeah, I know. I won the mailbox race today. Felicity said I could run for Brenda, too.”

The mailbox race—first kid to the mailbox and back won a day without having to be “nice.” Kids learned to run awful fast. Albert could have won a fucking gold medal for sprinting.

“You run fast,” said Albert. He sat back down on the fold-out bed and took a long draw from the bottle.

“Harold says you got any booze?”

“That what you're here for?”

“Harold said I had to come ask you.”

“They drinking down there?”

“You're drinking, too.”

“So?”

“I'm just saying.” Toots folded her arms with her hands up the sleeves of her coat, scratching her elbows. “What you got to eat?” she said.

He took another swig from the Jack and guilt wriggled into his bloodstream with the booze. He was the oldest of his generation. He should have stolen cans of beans or something—soup or crackers. The younger kids looked to him: Little Joe, Toots, Frank, Griff, Brenda, Cathy and Kenny. What was less clear was the nature of that responsibility, up here where the view was like heaven and the living was like hell.

He looked at the calendar on the wall, the one with the picture of the earth taken from space. Six days to go until the first of the month and the welfare cheques. They'd be down to ketchup soup at the house.

“I got a couple jars of peanut butter.”

“Where?” Toots said, scanning his shelves. “You got any bread?”

Albert got up and went to a wooden box by the back window. He pulled out two jars of extra crunchy peanut butter and turned to the little girl. “No bread, sorry.”

She grabbed the jars and stuffed them under her coat.

“You got no manners? You don't say ‘thank you'?”

“Yeah, right. Thanks.” She glared at him from beneath her dirty hair. “What about the bottle for The Others?” She used the kids' name for the adults.

He regarded her, skinny and defiant, practically feral, and so smart. What would she be like, if she'd been raised in some other place? It was a question he asked too often, this great
what if?
And it was always prodded along by the desire to get the hell out—the great lurching, gut-squalling impulse to grab a couple of kids and run for the city. But a
couple?
Toots and . . . who? How the fuck could you take a couple and leave the rest? How did you choose? He had no money, no schooling and no skills. How would they live in the world beyond? Besides, Erskines don't leave. They were probably all fucking damned anyway. Erskines, for better or worse, stuck together. They'd drilled the code into his head since before he could remember. Nobody talks. Nobody leaves. Seems it didn't matter how big Albert got, how grown he was, Harold would always be bigger, and meaner.

“Where are the kids?”

“Gone to the woods. Kenny and Frank are inside.”

“Kenny, too, huh? You going to the woods?”

“Can I stay here?

“I'm drinking, too, aren't I?”

“You're not much good then, are ya?” She looked at him for the first time and her eyes were razors. “Not when you're drinking.”

“Smart kid.” He raised the bottle, turned away from her eyes. “Tell Harold to go fuck himself.”

“You tell him,” she said. “I'm going into the woods.”

And she was gone then, like some scrawny forest sprite. She was fast, that one.

“Shit,” he said to the pictures on the walls. Albert considered ignoring the demand, but they might come up and take what they wanted. They'd clean him out if they found his stash, and God only knows what Ray and Lloyd were saying. He took a couple of bottles out of the trunk.

Albert stood in the middle of his cabin. He sure as shit didn't want to go up to the house, but what choice did he have? He ground his teeth and his knuckles whitened around the bottle necks. Wasn't there anybody on his side? Surrounded as he was by kin—practically drowning in them—there wasn't a single person Albert could call “friend.”

When tom evans finally pulled into his driveway
, the clouds had cleared and high noon did the yard no favours. There hadn't been much snow this year, and what came went again in odd thaws. The patchy grass looked as though it had mange and the big maple had lost two limbs in thunderstorms the previous summer, leaving jagged, angry-looking amputations. He'd probably have to cut it down next year. Shame. It had been there since he was seven. He remembered planting the sapling with his father, the way the earth had smelled that day, rich and loamy and entirely unlike the slightly rotting mixture of leaves and dog shit the yard gave off this morning. He remembered the way his father's biceps had bulged as he wrestled the root ball into the ground. If the old maple finally gave up the ghost, maybe Tom could plant something with Bobby, make it a new memory. The house looked a bit the worse for wear as well; could use a new coat of paint. His father would have been horrified. Robert Evans had built this house for his bride, with no help from anyone, neither plumber nor electrician nor roofer, which was the way he was. It was a sturdy, no-nonsense house, with a small attic and a wide porch, which was also the way Robert Evans was. No storm could damage a house like that, or so it had seemed to Tom growing up. The screen on the living room window was torn. Well, he thought as he jogged up the steps, this weekend for sure.

He entered the house and stepped over a mound of shoes and boots inside the front door. In the living room, unfolded laundry overflowed a tattered wicker basket on the couch. Rascal, the black and white mongrel, rose up from his bed atop a scatter of loose CDs and their plastic cases. The dog stretched, extending his claws into the discs. The resultant scrape set Tom's teeth on edge. A cartoon of the roadrunner and the coyote flickered on the television, but the sound was turned down. He walked toward the sound of running water and clattering plates coming from the kitchen.

Patty stood at the sink rinsing off dishes. She had her jacket on, the blue and white striped smock Wilton's Groceries made all their cashiers wear hanging below it. Tom picked up a piece of toast that had fallen to the floor in the morning's mayhem. He bent down to kiss the back of his wife's neck. She smelled of patchouli and lemony soap. A reddish-gold curl escaped from where she had gathered it, messily, enticingly, atop her head. He aimed for a tiny brown mole.

She shrieked and jumped back, a wooden spoon in her hand, ready to clout him. “Shit, Tom. You scared me!”

His lips were frozen in mid-pucker. Her face was a mix of rage and shock that seemed excessive. “Sorry. I thought you heard me,” he said. Tom Evans had a voice so deep Patty said it was a well in need of an echo. It fit his size, for he was all shoulders and arms, kept strong from the flats of bread he slung around as if they were no heavier than paper and meringue. Patty was forever telling him to be careful of things he might break without realizing it. When Ivy and Bobby were small and he'd held their wrists and swung them round in circles, she said, “You'll dislocate their shoulders. You'll bash their brains out against a wall.” But the children just laughed and laughed and asked for more. When Ivy was nothing more than a diaper with a big pair of brown eyes he'd bounced her on his palm, like a quarter he was flipping, and even though Patty had said nothing, he caught her looking at him now and then, her pale brows drawn in disapprovingly. Whether from a fear he'd drop the baby or from a dislike of roughhousing in general, he never could decide. Of course, at ten and fifteen respectively, Ivy and Bobby were too big for that now. But even when they were babies, Tom had never understood why Patty didn't know how careful he was with them. He would never do anything to put his children in harm's way. They were everything to him. They were the miracles of his life, as was Patty. The miracles that changed everything, forever.

Now, she stared at him with that look of irritation he was, sadly, becoming accustomed to. She wiped her bangs off her forehead with the hand still holding the wooden spoon. A dribble of water fell from the cuff of the pink rubber gloves she wore, staining the front of her suede jacket. She looked down at it and then up at him. “You're late.”

“Yeah, The Indian Head said I got the order wrong and Dave wanted to have an argument.”

“I thought the motel cancelled delivery.”

“They started up again.” He leaned in to kiss her, but it was a clumsy move and he mostly kissed her nose. “Maybe things are going better over there.”

“Who eats at a motel?”

“I don't know. People who stay there.”

She turned back to the sink. “Who stays at a cheap motel in a pissy little town like this in March?”

“I don't know. It's on the highway. Truckers. Salesmen, I guess.” Tom was unsure why they were having this conversation. He put his arms around her, kissed that place on her neck. “Kids all right this morning?”

“As all right as they ever are. Sniping at each other. Bickering. Bobby hardly speaks. I don't know any of his friends. There's something wrong with that boy.”

“He's fifteen, that's what's wrong with him.” Tom chuckled. Bobby was a little surly, but what teenage boy wasn't?

“I don't see what's funny about it. And Ivy's so prissy.” Patty frowned. “They're so different.”

“Why don't you leave that? I'll do it.”

Patty peeled off the gloves and draped them over the faucet. She turned in his arms and kissed him. She tasted pleasantly of coffee and toast. “I hate you working these hours. We're all out of kilter. We never do anything together.”

“What can I do? Work's work.”

“You leave in the middle of the night. It always feels like you're sneaking out. And I hate waking up to an empty bed. You know that. I get lonely.”

“It's work, Patty.”

“So you said. Isn't there anything else?”

“We've been through this. When the warm weather comes I can try and get logging work, or maybe landscaping, but if I do we lose the benefits I get with Pollack's.”

“Logging's no good. You'd be off in a camp. Why do you say logging?”

“I'm just laying out the options. There's Kroeler's, they might be hiring, I heard.”

“A paint factory? All those chemicals? Oh, that's a
fine
idea. I don't want you logging, Tom. It's too dangerous. Look at Greg Keane.” Greg Keane's right arm was crushed and had to be amputated after a steel bind-wire snapped on one of the trucks and he got caught when the load shifted.

“Accidents happen everywhere, Patty. You grew up on a farm. You know that.” Forklifts, highway accidents, machinery—an endless possibility of industrial accidents. He often wondered how the world looked to white-collar workers, who had board room barracudas to fear, rather than tractors and folding cultivators and chainsaws.

Patty pulled away and shuffled through a pile of unopened bills on the counter. “That fucking commune could hardly be called a farm. Where are my keys?”

“On the hook by the door.”

“I'm going to be late.”

He walked her to the door and grabbed her elbow as she stepped out, pulling her back to him. “Don't worry so much, babe. We're doing fine.”

“Are we?” Her face searched his. “At least you like your job. I hate mine.”

“Since when? I thought you wanted to work.”

“I wanted to get out of this house. But Wilton's? Jesus, what a bore.”

“Well, I don't know . . . quit then.” He ran his hands through his hair. “We got by before you worked. We'll get by again.”

“Getting by. What a life.”

“I'm doing the best I can.”

She put her small hand up to the side of his face. “You need a shave,” she said, and kissed him good-bye.

He stood on the porch, with his hands deep in his pants pockets, watching her drive off. The old Chevy, bought second-hand six years ago, rattled and shook, then settled. Patty waved and he waved back. He kept his eyes on the car as it moved down the street. In all the years since he'd first seen her, there was this one constant thing: he loved her so much it scared him, for the world was harsh and jagged. Rascal came out onto the porch and stood there wagging his long tail. The dog whined and cocked his head. Barked sharply, inquiringly. Tom bent down and scratched his ear. The dog leaned into his leg and whined again.

“They forgot to feed you, huh? Well, I can fix that, I guess.” He went back into the house and closed the door behind him. On the silent television, the roadrunner had just tricked the coyote into stepping off a high mesa and his legs spun frantically for a few seconds before he looked balefully at the viewer and then plunged to his death, which was never quite a death after all.

The church of christ returning
was a cavernous room and, even festooned with white banners adorned with gold crosses, it still looked like the warehouse it used to be. Two, perhaps three hundred, shiny-faced, well-groomed worshippers filled row upon row of white folding chairs set up on the concrete floor. Outside, the day was raw and sleety, grey as dirty wool. The air inside was slightly too warm, and heavily scented with a mixture of flowery-sweet perfume, hairspray and coffee-breath. A large podium accommodated Reverend Ken Hickland and his wife, Stella, as well as the visiting pastor Bobby Dash, Reverend Dash's wife, Carolyn, and an enthusiastic, if not entirely tuneful, choir. Dorothy Carlisle looked around at the people holding hands, swaying, their eyes closed. She wondered if there was a required uniform women were supposed to wear at The Church of Christ Returning these days. Certainly, she seemed to be the only woman not wearing a pastel pantsuit over a frilly blouse. Well, to be fair there were several frilly blouse-skirt combinations and a couple of frilly dresses. Still, it seemed an inordinate amount of frill, and a quite unnecessary quantity of pastel, particularly for this time of year. Dorothy herself was dressed in black pants, a copper blouse and a taupe wrap, which she felt was the appropriate attire not only for March, but for a woman of sixty-two. Certainly far more appropriate than the garden-party attire of Mabel McQuaid, to her left, who was in fact slightly older than Dorothy, although she wouldn't admit it. Mabel squeezed her hand, as if aware of Dorothy's unchristian thoughts.

Reverend Hickland's voice boomed over the PA system. “When I see these terrorists, I know Satan is at work. He has made himself manifest in the false prophets of the world. But I tell you, Satan is in a mess. He's frightened, frightened because so many Muslims are turning to Jesus.” Reverend Hickland wore his trademark white suit and shoes and belt. He stomped his foot and looked heavenward. “Yes, praise the Lord!”

“Praise the Lord,” came the congregation's respondent cry.

“Oh, yes! Satan is stirring up the Muslims, but we are winning. How do I know we're winning? I know because that's what the back of the Book says!”

“Praise the Lord!”

The band and the choir kicked up a notch, the drum beat steady and penetrating, and the voices rhythmic. Dorothy gently released her hand from Mabel's fleshy, overly-firm grip. “Arthritis,” she said, rubbing her fingers, when Mabel looked questioningly at her. Although mortifying to admit, possibly simple curiosity had made Dorothy agree to attend this morning's service at the all new and improved Church of Christ Returning. What did people see in all this emotion and hysteria?

Dorothy Carlisle had a deep faith that an ineffable God existed, but believed there was no need for so much, well, thrashing about. All this praising, weeping and squeezing of hands was not only a little embarrassing, but felt inauthentic. As though these people, swaying now, some of them rocking back and forth, tears on their cheeks, hands reaching heavenward, were looking not for the solace of Christ, but for some sort of slightly questionable ecstatic experience. The expression on some of her neighbours' faces was vaguely sexual.

The Church of Christ Returning, whether in this new building, or in the old clapboard in town, had always been at the centre of Gideon, the heart of its beliefs and behaviour. Members of other faiths would surely be locked out of heaven due to their lack of a true, intimate, personal relationship with Jesus—a Jesus who apparently had gone before them to build a house of very limited capacity, since there was much talk of the chosen few. A Jesus who, although he had been known to spend much quality time with prostitutes and lepers, would now, at the dawn of the millennium, damn all but the most rigidly perfect to the flames of eternal hell. A Jesus who, according to Reverend Hickland, manifested his love through the bestowing of material goods
.

Dorothy supposed Mabel had wanted to show off this big new church building, all modern and vast enough for what Mabel was convinced was an oncoming tidal wave of conversions. Mabel had a bumper sticker on her car that read,
When the Rapture comes, this car will be empty.
It had taken some willpower on Dorothy's part not to stick a note on Mabel's windshield saying,
If you're not using it, do you mind if I have it?

Pastor Dash was speaking now. “When I started going to Africa over thirty years ago, I saw people living in desperation, in mud huts in abject poverty, and I told them they were not the Third World. No sir. They were the seeds of Abraham! Seeds of the Lord! Jesus is exploding all over the world! Praise the Lord!”

“Praise the Lord!”

“And now these people are driving cars, living in good houses, going to school. That's what Jesus promises—it's there in Ephesians, verse 3 .
. . hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places . . .
‘hath' people, that's the way of saying he already has. It's a done deal. We are empowered with all there is in heaven, already. It's waiting for us.”

“Praise Him! Praise the Lord.”

“And look now at Genesis 1.” The Reverend had the book open in his hand and stalked from one end of the stage to the other. “God tells us man is made in His image, and He says ‘let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky.' He says man has dominion over all the earth, and he tells man to subdue it, rule over it, over all the things on the earth, over every seed. It's all there for us, my brothers, my sisters. Praise the Lord.”

“Praise the Lord!”

“We are the blessed. It wasn't given to the sinners! It was given to those who are in His image! A great fire will come to wipe out the sinners. It says so, my friends. It says so. Where does it say so? Tell me where!”

“In the back of the Book!” the room answered as one.

“Shout out for the Lord. Shout it out!” Reverend Hickland jumped up and down, yelling at the top of his lungs now. “Shout it out! I tell you! Shout it out!”

And much to Dorothy's alarm, the congregation did.

The next day was again miserable as a cold wet stray. Dorothy Carlisle knew there wouldn't be a single customer popping into Farmhouse Antiques and, in that regard, it was a day similar to many others. The lack of commerce did not bother Dorothy in the least. Commerce was not the point. Having a shop gave her a purpose, a place to go, and a framework for her days. She owned the old farmhouse at the corner of Quaker and Main outright, and had done so for years. Oh, there were a few sales—bridal gifts, or tokens for aunts, or the odd chair or tea table; and sometimes antiquing tourists wandered through. She even had a couple of contacts from the city who visited her once every six months or so to see if she had anything interesting they might pick up for themselves and sell at engorged prices to the urban rich. Once a year she took a drive for a few days, poking around attics and barns for interesting bits and bobs, but other than that, and regular dusting, very little upkeep was required.

It was just gone noon and although she would have to think about lunch soon, Dorothy poured herself a cup of coffee. It was decaffeinated coffee with a hint of cinnamon, which she thickened with half-and-half and sweetened with two teaspoons of sugar. On the side of the mug was a line drawing of Virginia Woolf and a quote:
You cannot gain peace by avoiding life.
Dorothy stood for a moment, holding the mug with both hands, inhaling the fragrance, which was at once both comforting and stimulating. She made a point of paying attention to such small details of life. Noticing, being grateful for, acknowledging beauty, these things gave meaning to life, did they not? She agreed with Virginia's quote. An elegant life was lived by immersion in the quotidian, by honouring creation with awareness.

As she crossed the creaky wooden floor to her desk, she flipped the door sign. Farmhouse Antiques was officially open. One of the great benefits of being your own boss was that you got to keep your own hours. Dorothy adjusted the position of a cobalt blue glass bottle, placing it closer to the sweet little milk-glass vase on the Shaker ministry table. They set each other off so nicely, they were a pleasure just to look at. She particularly loved the lines of Shaker furniture. So simple. So uncluttered by unnecessary ornamentation—a thing reduced to its essence.

Dorothy settled into her old Boston rocker, dialled the radio to the public classical station, and opened
Silas
Marner
to chapter sixteen, in which Aaron will offer to dig a garden for Eppie. She sipped her coffee and turned in happy anticipation to the page. However, the door rattled and she looked up, frowning. It was Mabel. Mabel owned Mabel's Gifts, around the corner on Main Street and sold what Dorothy judged were trinkets of dubious value: bean soup gift sets, blank-page books with embossed leather covers—so fancy one would be terrified to scar them with a single unworthy musing—chemically scented candles of sneeze-inducing intensity, papier-mâché parrot earrings, T-shirts with sayings on them such as,
Give me the chocolate and nobody gets hurt.

“Hello, Mabel.” Dorothy did not rise. Oh, Lord, she prayed, please don't start her talking about church.
Dorothy was still not quite over the unsettling image of Mabel McQuaid calling out to the Lord and babbling in a rhythmic jibber-jabber she referred to as speaking-in-tongues. Mabel, in fact, had not been at all pleased yesterday when, after the service, Dorothy asked her why angels didn't just speak in a language one could understand?

“Hideous weather,” said Mabel, by way of greeting. She was a large woman who walked with a swaying side-to-side gait that bespoke bad knees and hips.

“How are you?” Dorothy regretted the question as soon as it was out of her mouth.

“Are you kidding?” Mabel rubbed her right hand. “With this weather? I couldn't even get the jar of coffee open this morning the rheumatism in my hands was so bad. And since I don't sleep anymore, I need my coffee in the morning.” Mabel flapped her umbrella, scattering water droplets all around her.

Dorothy considered offering her a cup, but then didn't.

“So, did you hear?” said Mabel. “There's been a break-in at Wilton's.”

“Really? How dreadful. A robbery?”

“Not during store hours. It was last night after closing sometime. I told Bob he should put in an alarm system. They got a few thousand I heard and took a bunch of liquor and cigarettes and junk food, which means only one thing as far as I'm concerned and you know what that is.”

“Do I?”

“It means North Mountain people. Come on, Dot, those hill goats will be drunk for a week and then they'll come in to buy more and that's all I need to know. Erskines, most likely. They're nothing but white trash. I don't know why Carl just doesn't go up there and arrest the bunch of them.”

“I'm sure Carl's doing his job. You can't arrest people on speculation.” On
prejudice
she wanted to say. “If he finds proof he'll do what needs to be done.”

“I guess you're right. What can you do? That's the mountain. Can't do anything with that bunch. But you lock your doors. You're a woman in here alone and you need to be careful.” Mabel folded her arms over her substantial bosom. “I don't know why you even keep this place. You sure don't need the money.”

“I appreciate your concern, Mabel. I'll be sure to be vigilant.” She sighed. “Remember when we used to leave all our doors unlocked?”

“Times change. You just can't be too careful. It's dangerous times before the end.”

“I refuse to live my life in a prison of fear,” said Dorothy.

“Fine. Don't say I didn't warn you. Just lock your doors, will you?” She flapped her umbrella again and as she left, said over her shoulder, “It's going to get worse before it gets better. You heard what Reverend Hickland said at church, Dot. You can't ignore the signs.”

“You and I will just have to differ on this point, I'm afraid.”

“I was so happy when you came to church.” Her voice was petulant now, disappointed as a child. “I'm very fond of you. I don't want to see you left behind.”

“It was lovely of you to ask me. Really it was. And I do appreciate it. You've all done wonders with the new church.”

“I hope you'll come back this Sunday.”

“Hope springs eternal, but I fear I must insist on being left behind.” Dorothy couldn't entirely repress a grin.

“I don't know why I bother. I really don't.”

“Neither do I, dear.”

“I'll pray for you,” said Mabel as she left.

“We can all use more prayers,” said Dorothy to the closed door.

Dorothy's coffee was cold now. She might as well make herself a grilled cheese sandwich, she thought, and headed back to the little kitchen, grumbling under her breath. Mabel McQuaid. Surely people should be made to understand that most everything was none of their business.

She wished William was still with her. He had always listened so well. But William was gone, wasn't he? When he died, she'd felt the grief and loss of her companion, her confidant—indeed her very heart—fiercely and fully, and for the first six months she couldn't bear being in the store, and so she kept it closed. Then she began to go in three days a week, and sometime around month eight she found herself humming along to a song on the radio, which made her cry a little, but she knew she would be all right. She also knew she would live the rest of her life alone, and the thought, rather than being disturbing, was deeply comforting. She still felt William was with her, in some way, as though he were simply in the next room. A stack of good books, good coffee and her little store were all she needed. Dorothy would be snug and content in her shop, surrounded by bits of people's history, the discarded things she had rescued and restored. Burnished wood, sparkling glass, gleaming porcelain, the smell of polish and beeswax candles.