Luna (21 page)

They arrived in the yard with Tony right behind them, and as soon as the truck rolled to a stop, Selena jumped out and hurried into the house. Phoebe stood at the sink peeling potatoes, wearing one of Mark’s shirts that he had outgrown and the new maternity slacks Selena had helped her sew. If Phoebe wanted to, she had only to raise her head from the potatoes to see that they were finished with the cutting, that Tony had come, that the liners must have come and gone, that Selena had hurried across the yard to the kitchen. Tony and Kent would be having a conversation by the trucks. But she didn’t, and Selena, watching her back as she methodically peeled potato after potato, paused, then unknotted her scarf with stiff, cold fingers, took it off, took off her jacket and sat down to pull off her boots.

“Tony’s here,” she said.

Phoebe said, “Mmmm.”

The warm air in the kitchen was making Selena’s nose run. She dug into her jeans pocket, found a tissue, and blew into it. The clock above the table ticked on, interrupted only by a gush of water from the tap as Phoebe
turned it on to rinse a potato, then turned it off again. “He didn’t bring Diane,” she said.

Phoebe began to cut the potatoes and drop them into the pot. They thudded dully against each other and the sides of the pot.

Selena sat, sniffing, feeling herself nor yet a part of the kitchen, her reddened hands resting on her knees, knowing she should rise, check the roast in the oven, start the salad, peel the carrots, set the table. Out in the yard the men would be leaning against the truck, talking, and far away the boys were inching the trailer and the horses slowly home. She was paralyzed, wanting neither the outdoors, nor the house, wanting suddenly, like Diane, to get in the car and drive away.

Away to where? To do what?

Phoebe was filling the pot with water. When it was full and she had set it on the stove and turned on the burner, she glanced over her shoulder at her mother. Selena shifted her gaze from the space where she had been looking at nothing, and met Phoebe’s eyes unexpectedly.

Phoebe had all but stopped speaking. She nodded, she shook her head, she responded by doing or by walking away. Sometimes she murmured a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’ or something that sounded like ‘okay.’ She did all this without a hint of shame n her manner, without a touch of humility, without anything resembling shyness. She would look directly at the person speaking to her. The intensity of her gaze would silence the questioner, make him drop his eyes, wonder at her. Selena couldn’t understand this, she felt helpless against it, and yet somehow she found it reassuring. But in this instant, as Phoebe’s eyes met hers in that disconcerting way, Selena dropped her eyes in confusion. It was almost as though there was some judgement there.

She jumped up and went to the stove, opening the oven door just as the kitchen door opened and Kent and Tony entered.

“Brr! It’s cold out there!” Kent said, holding the door open to let Tony come in. The window above the sink rapidly steamed over with the rush of cold air that swept through the room. As Kent took off his cap and hung it up, she saw Tony look at Phoebe. Surprise crossed his face, then something that must have been embarrassment, followed by a quick
side glance at Kent, who didn’t seem to have noticed anything. “I gotta put on a clean shirt and follow the liners,” Kent said. “I’ll have to eat when I get back, or in town.” Tony started to take off his cap and jacket.

“Are you going to stay? Or go with Kent?” Selena asked.

“Oh,” he said, turning back to her, “I guess I’d better stay. I’ve got quite a bit to do today.” He didn’t meet her eyes. Kent had brushed past them and was taking the stairs two at a time. “How you doing, Phoebe?” Tony asked, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

“She’s fine,” Selena said. “Aren’t you?”

Phoebe turned slowly from the sink and looked directly at Tony, her eyes seeking and meeting his. He looked back at her steadily, without flinching. After a second, she said, “I’m glad you’re here,” and then quietly left the room to go upstairs. Kent came back down again, still buttoning his clean shirt and reaching for his jacket and his good hat.

Sorry, I gotta run,” he said to Tony. “I’ll drop over tonight, if you’re there,”

“Sure,” Tony said. “Maybe I’ll see you at the calf sale in the morning.” Kent put his hat on and hurried out. In a second they could hear the truck start and then roll out of the yard.

“The boys won’t be here for another half hour or so,” Selena said. The pots on the stove had begun to hiss softly. She sat down at the table in Kent’s place.

“What brings you here?” she asked.

“Oh, business,” he said.

“Have you got a buyer for the farm?”

“No,” he said, “no buyer.” He sighed, then said, “I decided not to sell.”

Selena was stunned by this, couldn’t even think what to say. As if remembering something, Tony said, suddenly, “What happened … with Phoebe?” She was startled again and he said, quickly, “I suppose it’s Brian’s?”

“He ran out on her,” she said. Tony stared at her, his cheeks growing red.

“Where is he?”

“Oklahoma,” she replied. “He sent his mother a postcard.”

“I could go after him,” he offered suddenly. “I’m not too busy right now.” Selena heard a touch of bitterness in his voice and her dread grew. The middle of the week, no Diane, no kids.

“No,” she said, almost absent-mindedly. “Phoebe won’t marry him anyway.”

“Why not?” he asked, surprised. “Too much pride, after he ran out?” Selena hesitated.

“He forced her, she says,” Selena said it slowly. Tony was after all, a man. He stared at her, puzzled, then something crept into his eyes, and the muscles of his face tensed. He swallowed, and she could see in the way his eyes shifted to the clock that he was trying to understand this. Selena found herself embarrassed. She had never spoken about such things with any man but Kent.

“How did Kent take it?” Tony asked.

“Not very well.” She was surprised to find tears still so close. “But he knew when he was licked, he didn’t even try to find Brian. But he wouldn’t let her have an abortion, either.” She threw her hands out, looking at him. “So here we are.” Tony didn’t say anything for a long time and neither did she.

At last he said, “I’m sorry to bring you more bad news.” She forgot Phoebe and raised her head to look at him, hardly daring to breathe.

“Where is she?” she whispered.

“In the city.” He took a deep breath, sat back from the table, and lifted his hands from beside the plate to place them on his lap. “She moved to an apartment last weekend. I quit my job. We’re … we’ve separated.”

Selena gasped, then thought, I knew it. I knew it all along.

“How will she manage without you,” she said, not even asking a question. The expression on his face was puzzled, faintly surprised. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table.

“I couldn’t stand it, Selena,” he said, and she was surprised to hear him say her name. “When I thought of all the rest of my working years like that. I couldn’t stand it. And she wouldn’t come back with me.”

“She wrote to me,” Selena said. “Her letter scared me.” Tony went on talking as if she hadn’t said anything.

“She changed to a day job. She’s working as a clerk in a record store now and still taking classes at night. I thought she might drop them when she found out how hard it would be to work and run the house and everything, but no. Cathy is in daycare and Tammy’s in school and then she goes to our neighbour’s till one of us gets home from work.”

“What can she be thinking of?” Selena cried, clasping her hands against her chest. “You’re a good husband! You love the kids! You love her!”

“Take it easy, Selena Tony said, alarmed.

“But to break up your home just to sell records! I’m sorry, Tony. I’m so sorry.” She had begun to cry. She lifted one hand and placed it over her eyes, resting her elbow on the table by her plate.

“It isn’t your fault,” Tony said, surprised. “You did your best for her. It’s got nothing to do with you. She’s grown-up.” He pushed his plate back angrily. “Something just got into her. I don’t know what.”

“I’ll go to her,” Selena said, putting her hand down. “I’ll talk to her.”

“No,” Tony said, gently. “It’s no use, believe me, Selena, it’s no use.”

“But the kids …” Selena began. “I’ll do whatever I can,” Tony said, his voice harsh, then more tenderly, “whatever she’ll let me do.”

“Is she having a breakdown?” Selena asked. “Do you think she’s maybe having a breakdown? Is that what’s wrong?” Tony shrugged.

“The funny thing is,” he said, “it seems to me that she’s getting stronger, not weaker. She’s sort of focused, like she’s never been before. You know how she was always tense and reckless, bouncing around from one thing to another, never satisfied.” He stared at the kitchen window, watching the small, hard flakes of snow whip past it. They were bigger now than they had been when she came inside, and they were coming down more thickly. It was beginning to look like the first blizzard of the season.

It seemed now to Selena, watching the wind-driven snow whirl past the window, that all the light was dying, that the snow would come and bury them all. Phoebe, pregnant, silent, piercing them each with that burning look of hers, as if the old Phoebe had died or gone away forever; Diane gone mad; the little girls sentenced to suffering because they were too young to speak; her own sons turning away from her as they grew up, as if she were the enemy.

“Hey,” Tony said, touching her arm and then withdrawing his hand. “You take things too hard, Selena. I came to tell you—I had to do that—but it’s not the end of the world. I’ll visit them often. I’ll bring the kids here whenever she’ll let me. I’ll keep a close eye on things.”

Selena broke her gaze away from the snow whirling past the window. How handsome he is, she thought. How kind. A really kind man. No wonder Diane fell so hard in love with him. I could love him myself … and stopped herself, shocked. Since she had married Kent she had never looked at another man in that way. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she might do that. Why would she want to? Tony looked steadily back at her and it was all she could do to stop herself from putting one hand gently on each
side of his face, leaning forward slowly, putting her mouth on his … she pushed herself back against her chair, reached out and put her hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry,” she said. They sat like that for a moment, before he pulled his arm away and patted her hand.

“I’ve got to go and open the old house,” he said. “Get some heat on in it so I don’t freeze to death tonight.” He got up slowly, pushing his chair in to the table carefully.

“But, why don’t you just stay there with her? Look after the kids? There’s no farming to be done now, anyway.” He was standing with his back to her, reaching for his jacket, putting it on. She could hardly hear his answer.

“Because she doesn’t want me there. She doesn’t want to be married.” This, too, felt like a blow.

“But … you love her …” she cried again. He had turned toward her and pulled up the zipper on his jacket so rapidly that the hissing sound was louder than the pots on the stove.

“And she loves me,” he said, and went outside into the cold and the snow, shutting the door quietly, but firmly, behind him.

Selena sat there, staring at the clean dishes on the table. She remembered now what she had deliberately forgotten. How when she had been waiting in the truck, before she fell asleep, she had been listening to the cows standing around the corrals in clusters, bawling their loss into the driving
wind. After a while it seemed to her that she could hear one cow’s voice over the others. The cow wailed again, a long, drawn-out cry. She had heard the anguish in its voice, as if it were a human voice, a human mother crying for its lost, dead child, and for the first time in all her years on the ranch, all the years that she had been listening to the animals, she had heard the sound. Horrified, she had raised her hands and covered her ears.

They set out at first light when there were still long blue shadows across the glistening, crusted snow and the distant hills were purple with shadows, the sky streaked with grey-mauve and a dull, sad pink. Selena drove the four-wheel drive loaded with square hay bales, while ahead of her, Mark, Kent and Jason each sat on horseback, trotting through the frost-filled, sparkling air.

Every year they walked the same tightrope—let the cattle graze as long as possible in the fall pasture in order to save as much as they could on their never adequate feed supply, but get them home to shelter before the winter storms would make it impossible to get feed to them. That critical moment had come; the snow cover was too deep for grazing, the grass was all gone anyway, and one more storm would prevent them from reaching them to bring them home. Ten below or not, they had no choice now but to start home with them in this lull between storms, before they starved or froze.

Ever since Kent had been granted a government lease on this section of grazing land, maybe fifteen years before, Selena had driven the truck when they trailed the cattle home. Every winter since Phoebe was born until Jason was seven or eight, she had had at least one child riding in the cab with her, and for a couple of years, she had had all three of them. The worst had been those years when Phoebe was five and six, too young to ride a horse that distance, Mark was two and three, and Jason an infant, and she had had to change diapers on two of them. They had climbed all
over the cab, they had fought, and cried and slept and been sick, and begged to get out to play in the snow. She had driven like that through blizzards where she could barely see the hood of the truck and Kent had had to ride ahead of her to show her the way, through mud once, and more often, through the long, bright winter days when the snow-covered pastures and fields seemed to roll out forever, gleaming into dreams. It had not occurred to either of them to leave the children behind with a relative or a neighbour. This was the way things were done, they were a family, the ranch was a family ranch, the children included. If it was hard for Selena, it didn’t occur to her to complain or to refuse. This was what it meant to be a rancher’s wife, this was her lot. And one by one her children had gotten old enough to ride with their father, and had left her. She found she missed having someone riding beside her in the cab.

The terrain they were travelling through was a region of low, sloping hills, monotonously repeating themselves over and over again, some a little higher, some a little lower, with frequent rough, dry slough bottoms in the basins between them. There were no landmarks, no way to tell where you were except from a hilltop where black dots in the distance marked somebody’s farm, or a faint fenceline could be used for orientation. And the sun. There was always the sun to keep them moving in roughly the right direction.

Nobody lived out here. For thirty miles west of the ranchhouse there was only mile after mile of grazing land, native grass or seeded grass, all of it belonging to the government, some leased out to individual ranchers, most of it forming a community grazing pasture. It would be easy to get lost out here, hard to find help, impossible to find shelter.

Occasionally Kent would turn in his saddle and point to a spot in the snow. She would drive the truck there, avoiding whatever he had seen that she couldn’t see through the windshield—a snow-filled burnout maybe, or a rock hidden in the snow. She watched him slowly disappear from view down an incline till even his head was below her line of sight, and where he had been was only a grey melting-together of slope and hill. Jason followed him, and then Mark, till she was alone in the snow, inching forward, lurching over bumps, dipping into hollows and grinding slowly out again. She tried to follow the tracks of their horses, but the snow-covered earth
blended into the grey, sunless sky making them hard to see. In a moment, having mistaken a shadow for their tracks, she found herself in deep snow, the truck roaring as she gassed it, but not pulling itself forward.

How many times over the years had this happened? Still, she couldn’t quite control her panic. She pulled off her mitts, throwing them on the seat beside her, and using both hands and all her strength, managed to shift into reverse. She touched the gas gently, working the clutch, and the truck moved slowly backward a few inches before the wheels began to spin. She pressed a little harder on the gas, hoping it would take only a little more power to get her out, but no, she was only digging herself in deeper. She eased up on the gas, shifted into neutral, closed her eyes, took a deep breath then opened them again.

She would try rocking. If she got stuck too deeply, one of the boys or Kent would have to ride all the way back home for a tractor to pull her out. That would mean a delay of a couple of hours and Kent would be furious, although as usual, he wouldn’t say much. She had to get herself out.

She put in the clutch again, feeding a little gas, and the truck rolled forward a couple of inches. Quickly she let it out, and the truck rolled back. Then she put it in again and gassed it so that it rolled forward. She repeated this several times, till, with rocking back and forth, it began to gain momentum, and at the right moment, rolling backward in reverse, she gassed it, and it gathered enough traction and power to roll right out of the depression it was stuck in.

Breathing deeply, working hard in her heavy clothes—the truck had neither power steering nor power brakes—she shifted back into low, cranked the steering wheel around, and moved forward to the right of where she had just been stuck, into the horses’ trail.

Kent was riding uphill toward her as she pulled over the crest of the hill and started down. When he saw her coming, he turned his horse back again in the direction he had been going. Triumphant, but careful not to show it, although nobody was there to see, she inched her way down the slope. The riders moved on, often cutting cross-country where she couldn’t follow in the truck, so that she had to loop around, finding her own way, to catch up with them.

Surprisingly, after such a dry summer, there had been an unusual amount of snow. She had made this trip many times when there was only the thinnest covering, barely enough, in fact, to provide moisture for the cows once the waterholes froze over, and no cover for the rabbits and other small animals. But this year it had begun to snow in November and had snowed day after day through the next five or six weeks, till now the banks were often knee-deep on the level and much deeper in the hollows. If a wind hadn’t come up a few days before and swept away quite a bit of the snow, it would have been touch-and-go just to make it the fifteen miles out to the cattle.

Selena drove on, finding her way from experience, or sometimes with Kent’s help, moving deeper and deeper into the hills. Sometimes she forgot where she was and what she was doing, the outer part of her mind watching the terrain and handling the truck, while the rest of her mind retreated into an inner world where she moved through the days of her life and the lives of her children.

Phoebe, five months pregnant now, her pretty, young girl’s body turned bulky, slow and ugly, her plump child’s face a jarring note over that woman’s body. It hurt Selena just to look at her, but she made herself, she would be the last one to avoid looking at Phoebe. She drove on, peering out the windshield, which the heater was barely keeping free of ice, to the grey, freezing day outside, feeling it creep inside her, filling her with gloom.

It didn’t seem possible that there would ever be an end to Phoebe’s pregnancy. She couldn’t even imagine such a time, and she knew that Phoebe couldn’t either. Something in Phoebe’s gaze spoke to Selena of a determination, a holding-on that did not dare to look beyond this time.

Phoebe had refused to marry Brian when that seemed a possibility, she had refused to have an abortion, she would not even listen to Kent when he suggested giving the baby up to be adopted. Selena thought, wondering even as she thought it, perhaps she has accepted her motherhood. She manoeuvered the heavy, unresponsive truck over the rough terrain, the distant hills growing closer, the three riders spread out, moving at a trot in front of her, dreaming on their horses, passing through the freezing day.

No, she replied to herself, it isn’t that Phoebe has accepted her motherhood. Phoebe doesn’t know anything about motherhood, doesn’t
really understand that what is growing inside her is a child, a human being. That will only come when she actually sees the baby.

No, what Phoebe was contemplating was something else. It was her womanhood, into which she had been dragged too soon, before she was ready. That was why her eyes had grown so dark, her gaze had become so penetrating. She was trying to understand what it meant to be a woman. Because, Selena suddenly thought, what did I teach her about being a woman? Dances and fowl suppers and showers and anniversary celebrations, making pickles, sewing a dress, combing out her long, bright hair.

She thought of Phoebe’s first menstruation. She had told Phoebe, it’s nothing, you’ll never even notice it, just be careful you don’t get blood on your clothes so nobody will know. And remember, you’re a woman now, this means you can have babies. Phoebe had looked up at her, her eyes filled with questions, and when Selena had not known what else to say, she had simply looked away and they had not talked about it again.

How she wished she had said more. Her chest ached with all the unsaid words, with all the silences of womanhood, all the things she hadn’t even the words for, nor had her mother, or, she supposed, her mother before that. You’re a woman now, whatever that meant. Each of them left alone to brood over what it meant—having sex, the babies coming, the end of the bleeding, old age, and which of them knew, even then, what it meant to be a woman?

The truck lurched, the steering wheel pulling out of her grip to the right, the load swaying. For a second she was bewildered, then realized that she had driven over a rock buried in the snow, with the left front tire, and she struggled to turn the wheel to keep from going over it with the back tire too, where it would almost certainly loosen her load. When she was clear of it and on a level spot, she stopped the truck and clambered out, awkward in her parka and ski pants, and waded around the vehicle to see if any of the load of bales she was carrying, which were stacked higher than the truck cab and tied on with a couple of ropes, were loosening or falling off. Some of it they would feed to the cattle before they chased them home, and some she would need as a lure. It was important not to lose any of it. When she saw that it was all still secure, she got back in and drove on.

It was ten o’clock now, but instead of warming, the day was growing colder. Realizing this, she stepped on the gas, risking losing the load, and caught up with the riders. Rolling down the window, she called out to

Kent, “Does anybody want to get in and warm up? I can ride for a bit.” Kent drew his horse to a stop and looked steadily, first at Mark, and then at Jason, who had stopped too. In this cold, his eyes and the lines of his face had deepened. He said brusquely, “Jason, are you cold?” Jason promptly shook his head no, but they could see that his nose was dangerously white-tipped.

“You drive for a while,” Kent said to him. Reluctantly Jason dismounted, handed his reins to Kent and put his hand on the driver’s door to get into the truck. Selena reached for her scarf. “No,” Kent said, “don’t bother. I’ll just lead him.” Before she could reply, he had ridden away, leading Jason’s horse. She slid over and let Jason get into the driver’s seat. She wondered why Kent didn’t want her to ride, and then realized that he was worried about the weather, and anxious to arrive at the lease so they could start back right away. He was too impatient to wait for her to put on her scarf and mount the horse.

“Are you cold?” she asked Jason, knowing whether he was or not, he would deny it. They all did, even if they were half-frozen.

“Nope,” Jason said, sniffing, and throwing his mitts onto the seat between them. He had trouble shifting into low and she helped him, knowing that he didn’t want her to, but doing it anyway. Both boys had to be better than she was at things she had been doing since before they were born. Sometimes it annoyed her, but mostly she accepted it. They had to do that to grow up, to be able to think of themselves as men. Phoebe she could teach. Phoebe expected her to be better at all the household tasks, Phoebe expected to learn from her. Boys seemed to be born with a sense of superiority. She wondered where it came from. Well, men are valuable out here, she thought; they can do all sorts of necessary things that women can’t do, because they aren’t strong enough. It’s no wonder boys feel more important than the girls do, and that they grow up thinking they’re better than women. She drove on, rocking across the prairie, lumbering up hills and down again.

Before noon they had arrived at the lease. As soon as the cattle, which had been scattered out all over the section searching for food, heard the truck motor, then came on the run, bellowing, their bags swinging, their backs crusted with snow. Selena hated to look at them, suffering as they were from the cold. At least we’ve brought them food, she thought, and they’ll be home tonight, where there’s shelter.

Kent and Mark dismounted and tied the three horses to the fence, scattering a little hay on the snow from a bale Kent broke, then came over to the truck.

“We’ll throw ‘em a little feed,” Kent said through the open window, “then we’ll eat while they’re cleaning it up.”

Jason rolled the window back up and began to watch in the rearview mirror. Watching in her mirror, Selena saw Kent climbing up on the load on her side and knew Mark would be climbing up on the other side. Jason put the truck into gear and began to inch it forward, watching carefully so as not to hit any rocks or holes that would rock the load and knock Kent or Mark off onto the ground She had so much more experience, she wished she were driving, but she said nothing. Jason has to learn and there was only one way to do that. But, she couldn’t help thinking, I like doing this, I’m good at it, and I never get a chance anymore. Somehow, that didn’t seem right. She thought of all the outdoor work she had done for years. As her sons grew, they had taken over more and more of it as their birthright, so that she rarely got to do any of it anymore, and was increasingly—while hiding, not even acknowledging her resentment—being forced to stay inside. It isn’t really right, she thought again, remembering the early days of her marriage, when she had worked alongside Kent each day, to shut women up in the house that way. Not when she loved being outside. But it was the same in most of the families, and she knew lots of the women preferred staying indoors, were glad when their sons grew up and could take over the outside jobs. And she wasn’t one to hold her sons back.