The Long Road Home (22 page)

Seth hoisted up his pants. “You ain’t spying on the missus, are you, son? That why you here?”

He let his head fall back as he took a deep breath. “No, that’s not why I’m here, and yes, I do need information from Nora. Believe me, Seth, I would never hurt her. In fact, I can help her. But my feelings for her and my duty to the bank are all tangled up.”

He drew a deep breath, deciding. “Seth, I have to go back
to New York, right away…tomorrow. It’s time to settle my accounts. But I won’t stay there. I don’t belong there anymore.” He shook his head. “The question is, where do I belong?”

Seth kicked a few stones. “Son, God gave each of us a field. It’s our job to find a way to live in it.”

“It’s hard to live in a field that one doesn’t belong in.”

“Life is hard, son. But it don’t have to dictate how you live. A man’s got to work out his own system. He’s got to make it work in a way that gives him satisfaction but don’t rile everyone else.”

Seth rubbed his chin, then moved his hand over to scratch behind his ear in thought. “I wanted to die when my Liza did. And my boy. But I learnt you can’t run from life. We enter and exit one by one. It’s all we got. And I like knowin’ the sun’s going to rise in the morning and set in the evening and who really cares whether I believe it rises on an earth that’s flat or round? I do my work, help my neighbors, keep the kids straight and true. I miss wakin’ up to my Liza, though. No doubt about that.” He sighed heavily, and C.W. sensed the loneliness of the old widower.

“But,” Seth concluded with a slap on his knee. “I’ll see her and Tom again when my own time comes.” He rested his hand atop C.W.’s shoulder in a rare show of physical affection.

“Find your field, son.”

NORA PICKED UP the broken china, carefully examining each piece to see if she could repair it. Chest drawers and boxes and books were strewn across the floor, which was littered high with practically everything she owned. The assassins, as Nora called the thieves, had a hurried search. Their target was obvious. Too obvious, Nora thought. They were trying to frighten her.

Well, they did not succeed, she told herself, rolling up her sleeves.

Esther and Nora worked together in the house as they did in the barn, efficiently and without idle gossip. Nora felt intensely violated by the robbery, and it was comfortable having Esther here with her now. They had reached an accord through their painting, and at times like this, Nora even ventured that she had a friend. She watched Esther lift up a huge box and carry it down the stairs.

Nora took the chance to sneak quickly up to her closet. She pulled out several dresses and pairs of shoes and added them to the piles already heaped across the floor. She cast aside a few
pieces of luggage and grabbed a small tapestry suitcase from the rear of the closet. Unzipping it, she flipped up the lid.

“Thank God!” she exclaimed, releasing a long sigh. Mike’s papers were still there. It was the ledger the thieves had been looking for, but these papers, memos, and his diary would surely have been taken if found.

“Anything missing?” asked Esther as she came up behind Nora.

“No,” Nora replied, flipping the lid shut and zipping it. “Everything is here. Either those bozos were lazy or I scared them out when I came back early.”

“I hate to think they were here when you were.”

“I don’t want to think about that. Lord,” she said, wrapping her arms around her bended knees, “I’m so tired, I don’t want to think about anything else tonight.”

“I’m sorry this happened to you, Nora. You’ve worked so hard, and now this.”

“It could have been worse, but thanks.”

Their eyes met and they smiled.

“Here,” Esther said, handing Nora a padded envelope. “Found this on the table. It’s from New York.”

Nora set the envelope beside her without looking at it. “It’s probably more paperwork. It can wait.” She shifted her gaze to Esther. “Speaking of work,” said Nora, “I appreciate the way you’ve been teaching me your jobs.”

“I never liked to do them anyway.”

“That’s hard to believe. You’re good. I could spend a lifetime here and still not know as much as you do.”

“I doubt it,” Esther said. “You’re learning about things I don’t know beans about. You see, the difference is you want to know about this stuff. I know it because I lived it, but it’s a drag. Pa gets real angry at me, though he doesn’t say it. I’ve
seen the way he watches you work. He knows you love it, same as him. Same as C.W.”

“And you.”

“Me? No. I stay because Pa needs me here. Never wants any of us kids to leave the farm. But I swear, sometimes I feel like I’m chained here, and if I just pull hard enough, the link to him will break and I’ll be free.” She sighed. “I used to watch you all pack up and leave at the end of summer—God, I envied you when I saw your packed luggage, ready to go.”

Esther’s voice trailed off as her gaze fell to her boots.

“Remember how once you told me you wished you knew what you were good at?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, now you know. Sad thing is, the table’s turned. Now I don’t know.”

“What do you mean? You still have your talent.”

Esther leaned back against the wall, arms tight across her chest. “I have nothing.”

It shocked Nora to see her lip tremble. Esther, who never revealed a chink in her armor.

“I know about the school. I’m sorry.”

“It might all be for the good. Kinda knocked the dreams right out of me, you know? I can go back to John Henry now, if he’ll have me. Get married. Have kids. Do what’s expected.” Her eyebrows lowered over her closed eyes and clenched lips.

“Esther, don’t,” Nora said with deathly cold. “Don’t marry a man you don’t love. You will regret it. I know.”

Esther stared at her wagging boot.

“I might have another choice to offer you. I’ve made some calls to New York, to contacts I have in the art business, and who knows? Something might turn up. Hang in there awhile longer.”

Esther’s mouth fell open. “You did that for me?”

“I’ve done nothing, yet. Unfortunately, I can’t offer you financial help. Contacts I have. Money I don’t.”

“I’ll get it from somewhere,” Esther replied, full of enthusiasm. “I have some saved. At least enough to get me there and settled. I heard how expensive things are in New York.”

“It’s true.” How ironic life was, Nora thought. This was one of the times having money would be fun, not to hoard it in a bank but to give it to someone who really needed it.

“Talk to your pa and Aunt May. I think they have a few ideas on that.”

A cloud settled over Esther’s face. “Excuse me for asking,” Esther asked guardedly, “but…what happened to all your money?”

“Mike spent it.”

The look of perplexity on Esther’s face made Nora laugh. She must have worn the same expression herself months ago when the lawyers told her she was broke.

“Really,” said Nora. “I’m poor.”

Esther’s face gathered into a picture of doubt. “Come on. You’re not poor like I’m poor. You still have this house, this land. Shoot. You have those ‘contacts’ you can call.”

“Poor is poor. No use splitting hairs.”

Nora watched as comprehension registered, then another undefined emotion grabbed hold of her features.

“So,” Esther said with finality, “Mike left you with nothing too.”

Nora swung her head around. “What?”

Suddenly, Esther’s face mottled and she looked away.

“Esther?”

Esther turned to face Nora again. All her previous joy had fled. Now her features were set in seriousness.

“Nora, there’s something I have to tell you. You’ve been
fair with me, and I can’t accept your help without your knowing the truth about…” She took a breath. “About me and Mike.”

Nora’s breath felt caught in her chest as an old, too familiar, suspicion took hold. She recognized this look. She had seen it far too many times to miss it now. Her heart tightened in a vise.

“Esther, what about you and my husband?”

Esther’s face suddenly appeared haunted. She took a deep breath and when she spoke her voice took on a faraway quality.

“He used to like to watch me paint.”

Nora’s heart skipped a beat. With a sense of impending doom, she huddled and rested her chin on her knees. In her mind’s eye she recalled how Mike used to watch
her
paint, back in the early days of their marriage. She could still picture him lying in the fields beside the canvas, eyeing the brush as it brought a blank canvas to life with hues of blue, yellow, green, and red. Only this time the woman holding the brush wasn’t herself. The hair blowing in the wind wasn’t the color of wheat but of strawberries.

For the first time, she studied Esther’s long hair, her peaches-and-cream complexion, and her intense green eyes with a critical eye. Esther had an earthy beauty—very alluring. Her flame-colored hair matched her passionate nature as well as the color that now rose upon her cheeks.

Nora chewed her trembling lip. Esther’s former disregard, her jealousy, her referrals to Mike: all the pieces fell into place. The clink clamored in Nora’s brain. The realization was deafening.

“Oh, Esther,” she whispered.

The color spread from Esther’s cheeks to cover her entire face. Centimeter by centimeter her chin jutted forward, by
small degrees the flame in her eyes heightened, breath by breath her breathing hastened. Nora braced herself for the explosion.

“What do you know of it?” Esther shouted at Nora. “You left him!”

“I did not leave him!” Nora shouted back, scrambling to her feet. “I did not leave him!” She choked on a sob. “He drove me away!”

Nora was so angry she was trembling and her hands made small fists at her side. She could not contain herself. She was like a bantam: pacing, fluttering her wings, beak forward, ready to strike. “Who the hell are you to throw this up at me now? What right have you?”

That brought Esther to her feet and she towered over Nora by a good five inches. Esther breathed heavily, and Nora saw a wild anguish in her eyes as she stood there, mouthing but not making a sound. Nora glared back; she was not afraid.

Then Esther’s rage disappeared as quickly as it had come. Her face stilled, then contorted, and she slumped to the floor, covering her face with her hands. Small, short cries escaped as her shoulders rocked.

“I have no right,” Esther blurted out. “None at all. Except that I loved him.”

Nora stood rooted to the spot. Oh, please, don’t let me hear this, she cried to herself. Not Esther. No, not Esther too. Pain, jealousy, betrayal, all stabbed her heart and it hurt. It hurt so badly.

Nora slipped to the floor beside Esther. She did not reach out or try in any manner to comfort her. Compassion was beyond her. Still, she saw in the weeping, pathetic figure a mirror of herself a year ago. She could not help but pity Esther.

“Why?” Nora asked in a husky voice. “Did Mike lure you
out? He was like that. Esther, you know there were others. Many others.”

Esther wiped her eyes and sniffed as she nodded her head.

“But not right away.”

Bit by bit, Esther collected herself, pulling the damp hair from her face and wiping her nose. Red face, red hair, and now red eyes. Nora waited. She didn’t wait long. After a deep, shuddering breath, Esther continued.

“He—he said you didn’t love him. Tha-that you and he weren’t, you know, weren’t together anymore.”

Nora closed her eyes in shame. “That’s right,” she whispered. “We weren’t.”

“I couldn’t help loving him. He was so different from the men I knew. Then he—he just stopped coming up. I waited and waited. It was so hard. I never dared try to contact him. Not ever. I knew he was married.” She blushed and cast a nervous glance at Nora.

“Then one summer night he did come back. I saw the Jaguar go by. I was breathless. I hurried so to get cleaned up. Then you drove by too. I was terribly disappointed, but you left again, in a real hurry. I figured you had another row. Mike told me you used to fight a lot. So up I went, all dressed and excited to see him again.” Esther sniffed and let out a shaky laugh. “Well, I got what I deserved.”

Nora remembered that night. Esther must have seen the same tawdry scene that she did. Probably felt the same shame. No, she thought again. Not quite the same. That particular shame was reserved for wives only.

“It’s cruelly ironic.”

“Yeah. He got two birds with one stone.” Esther covered her face with a hand and looked away. “I am so ashamed.”

Nora was unmoved. She rubbed her temples. She felt like a piece of glass about to break into infinite pieces.

“He wasn’t exactly your type.” Nora’s voice was hoarse in the strain.

Esther sat up wiping her eyes and gathering herself together. “It’s not because of who he was but because he represented New York.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I only understood it recently myself. It’s not an excuse, but… You see, all I’ve ever wanted to do was paint. I teach at night at the country college and show my work in local shows that no one ever comes to. But I dreamed of going to New York. Mike used to say he’d help me get there.”

Nora hardened her heart. “So. You did it for the money.”

Esther paled and her mouth dropped open. “No! It wasn’t like that at all. I thought I loved him. Really.”

“And that makes it right?”

Esther shook her head and looked at her hands. “No. I’m sorry. I am so very sorry.”

“Yes, well.” Nora started to get up, but Esther shot out a hand to restrain her.

“Please, let me explain.”

Nora coolly looked down at the hand, then at Esther. Esther dropped her arm, recoiling.

“I cannot discuss this any further,” Nora said, unconsciously assuming her haughty tone. “If you would be so kind as to leave now.”

Esther looked completely defeated as she nodded. Her pride had been humbled. Picking herself up from the floor she slunk away, repeating, “I’m sorry” once more at the door.

Nora remained staring at the floor, completely drained. It didn’t matter, she told herself again and again. Mike was dead. It was all over.

But it wasn’t. Like an insidious snake, the truth danced before her, weaving, spitting its venom, mesmerizing her into
depression. Nora leaned against the wall, exhausted. She gazed absently around the room. Tonight it looked tawdry and unkempt with its plywood floors and plastic-wrapped ceilings. Books had been knocked off the dusty cinderblock shelves and the makeshift closet of nails and clothesline sagged in the middle, threatening to topple more of the iron hangers. The place was a mess. Who did she think she was kidding?

She flopped her hands upon the floor, hitting the padded envelope that Esther had brought up to her. With little care and less interest, she picked out the four staples and pulled several papers from the envelope. They were from Ralph Bellows.

Nora skimmed the first page. Then, sitting up sharply, she raced through the second, the third, and the fourth. Nora’s insides felt sore and raw, as though she’d just been mugged.

Slowly, as if each movement brought pain, Nora doubled her knees and hugged them tight against her chest. Her vocal cords strained to keep the cry in, but the timbre of anguish grew louder than she could control. It escaped as a high hum from her tight lips. She began to rock back and forth as she tried desperately to lull the misery to sleep. Misery never sleeps. It welled up larger and larger inside until her chest swelled, pushing painfully against her rib cage.

Crumpling the pages in her fists, Nora moaned. “I cannot bear any more.” Unable to stop the flow of misery, she buried her face against her knees and unleashed the avalanche of tears.

A sweet-smelling wind was blowing in from the south as C.W. hiked up the mountain for his appointment with Nora. A sweet smell for a foul day, he thought. This late in the fall, dusk set earlier in the evening. Already, the vibrant pink and blue sunset was lowering in the western sky. As he walked the
gravel road, equally vibrant colored leaves fell around him, twirling in the breeze.