No Place Like Home (11 page)

I let an apple peel, unbroken from top to bottom, fall into the bag. On the television, a bright red banner warned of severe thunderstorms in Pueblo West. In surprise, I looked out the window and saw the trees starting to toss in the wind coming hard down the highway, and far to the west, a line of heavy gray rain falling from clouds laced with lightning. Narrowing my eyes, I wondered if I had enough time to get the apples into their broth before the storm arrived, and decided to try. Another thing that sets Abe’s pie apart is that he cooks the apples first. Trust me, it’s one of the best pies you have ever tasted in your life. Ever.

The warnings on the television escalated—
reports of damaging hail; tornado sighted in Pueblo West—
and my mood rose with each warning whine. It was the first big storm since we’d arrived in Pueblo. After a few minutes, I decided not to take a chance—I remembered clearly a stove that had been hit when I was a child, because my mother had left a burner on low under the supper that was cooking when the lightning moved in—and shut everything down. Humming, I moved through the house, turning off switches and radios and unplugging clocks, then found a sweater and danced out to the porch.

The men were sitting in my aunt’s rattan chairs. Michael and Malachi had been raised in the south and knew that kind of sky, but Shane, who’d at least had enough sense to get out of the orchard, had no idea. Thunder had been rumbling closer and closer, but just as I came out, a brilliant, jagged slash of lightning cut the black clouds, and practically before the light was gone a sharp report of thunder came, almost painfully loud. I jumped reflexively, then laughed.

“God, Jewel, you look like it’s Christmas morning!” Michael said with a chuckle.

“I love this!” The wind blew closer, biting and cold, bringing down the temperature ten degrees with a single heavy gust. It smelled of sulfur and earth and that piercingly rich note that is rain, and every hair on my body stood up in anticipation as I lifted my face to it, feeling the moisture my dry skin sucked in like the dry earth would take it.

A hush fell, birds and grass and river all waiting. Then a soft whoosh of sound, the rain moving toward us. The treetops at the far end of the property started tossing, gray and green and frenzied beneath the onslaught, and then it was on us, like a wave, a great roar of noise and water. Lightning danced, lashing out like a whip, the sound of it hitting trees deafening, crackling. “Once,” I yelled over the noise, “I saw lightning hit a tree right over there. It exploded!”

Shane stood up and came to stand beside me, his brow furrowed. “Isn’t it dangerous to be outside?”

“Not really.” I had to shout it, and he waved a hand, leaning over the railing to look at the ground. There was little hail and not a lot of it, which allowed me to enjoy the rest of the spectacle without guilt. An insurance man had told me once, wearily filling out a claim for my aunt Sylvia’s roof—her second in ten years—that hail damage in this stretch of land was the highest in the entire country. Big hail killed the crops, but these teeny little spitballs wouldn’t do any harm.

But, oh, how it rained! Pounding, pouring, drenching rain, gallons and gallons pouring relentlessly out of that heavy black sky for twenty minutes. It didn’t slow, either, it just stopped when it stopped, like someone turned off the faucet.

“Wanna see something cool?” I said.

Malachi grinned at me. “How cool?”

“Really, really cool. All of you, pile in the car. I’ll get my keys and be right back.”

I drove to the river first, and although it was churning a little more than usual, the waves of water had not really swelled it yet. Taking a series of back roads, avoiding the low-lying spots that would be filled with flash flood waters, I drove to a bluff on the east side of town and parked the car. “Can’t drive any farther,” I said. “We have to get out here and walk down.”

Shane scowled. “It’s muddy!”

“A little mud never hurt anybody.” I got out and let them follow if they would or not. Skidding a little on the sloppy hill, I ducked under some drippy trees and there it was. The guys were right behind me, and I laughed, pointing. “There!”

“What?” Michael said, and Shane said, “A river is what’s cool?”

But Malachi said, “A confluence!” and made a happy little noise, running ahead of me. He smacked the back of Shane’s head playfully as he went by. “It is cool, boy, don’t you know nothin’?” He grabbed my hand and pulled me along. “Two rivers, coming together.” He whistled. “That’s still the Arkansas, I reckon, right?” I nodded and he said, “What’s the other one?”

“My favorite in all the world,” I said. “The Fountain. She’s so deceptive and sleepy most of the time you can wade across and never get your ankles wet.” Not now, though. “Up north, they call her a creek, and though they call her a river down here—”

“Rightfully so.”

“—she is even too wild for that. The French called her ‘the River that Boils.’ ”

His fingers squeezed around mine, and I wondered why that didn’t feel scary, only right. His big, callused hand wrapping around mine like it belonged there. He bent his head to peer at me hard. “You a river geek, too?”

“Too? Are you?”

He laughed. “Darlin’, I’ve been crazy about rivers since I was a teeny little boy. Ask my brother.”

“This one must seem pretty silly to be a favorite, then,” I said, a bit defensive and ready to present my case for why my wild woman river was as good as any other.

But he shook his head, his eyes on the boiling, rushing confluence. “I understand it. This is a river La Llorona walks.”

I looked at him, startled. “Yeah.”

He let me go and raced down the hill like a ten-year-old, that long-limbed body oddly graceful for all his size. Shane rushed by me, pulled along as if he were attached by some invisible string. They ran all the way to the banks, and Malachi bent down and tossed something in, and Shane followed suit.

I looked over my shoulder and saw Michael ten feet or so up the hill, alone with the dark sky as backdrop, and he looked as powerfully Otherworld as I’d ever seen him, as if he commanded the magic that brought the clouds to this weight and darkness, as if all the power were concentrated in his slim body. His blond hair lifted in the wind, the only movement about him, and his mouth was very sober. I wanted to know what he saw with those pale eyes, what thoughts wove through him.

Below, Malachi whooped over something or another, and a soft, indulgent smile crossed Michael’s mouth. He seemed to suddenly sense me standing there, and looked over. “Go on,” he said with a tilt of his head. “Go play.”

I’d really intended to stay there with him, but that strange invisible wall was up and he wanted to be alone. I grinned and turned to tumble down the hill. “Wait up!”

* * *

I finally made it upstairs at ten. My limbs all felt as if they weighed five thousand pounds. Every apple, every discussion, every phone call and upset and minute of the day seemed to be etched on my spine—and I had to be up again at five.

Malachi was the only one who went upstairs ahead of me, and by the silence that greeted me when I hit the landing, he was out cold. His door was open, and when I turned on the bathroom light, I could see the barest outline of his body, facedown as I had predicted, on the old double bed. As tired as I was, there was a lure to thinking about going in there and lying down next to his long, strong body. Not real thought, you understand, just that vague, tired, if-I-could-win-the-lottery kind of thing. In an ideal world, I’d be taking my shower and going into that room to lie down next to his body. Not for sex. I was way too tired for that. For—

I closed the bathroom door quietly, then turned on the water and let steam fill the room, tying my hair into a knot and shedding my clothes. My breasts fell down against my chest and I didn’t want to even think about what a rear view of my bottom would look like.

Which made me think of Malachi’s behind under those covers. I took a breath. He wasn’t what I wanted—not even close. What I
really
wanted was someone calm and easy, a steady man like Michael, to be there, warm and sleepy in my bed when I went to it, with no pressure attached. That was definitely not Malachi’s style. Hot sex, definitely. Wild flattery. He’d probably even be okay with my body—
if
he’d ever seen a forty-year-old body, which I doubted seriously.

But calm and warm and easy? Not a chance.

Steam curled downward from the ceiling, and I stripped off the panties, thinking again of that rear view in a regretful way—but sick thoughts make sick bodies, and I remembered an exercise a midwife friend of mine had taught me.

I closed my eyes. Breathed deeply. Made myself think consciously of my fingertips and palms, and thank them directly for all the things they had touched and felt and found pleasure in. I thanked them for skill and speed and sensuality. Raised them to my gravity-ravaged breasts. For a minute, I had to pause, wishing in spite of myself for the perky breasts of youth. Took a breath, focused on thanks. They were still soft, still silky, probably still a joy in the hands of a man who genuinely liked women. These breasts had given me delirious pleasure and great pride and sustenance to my son. I thanked them.

The whole body. Belly, thighs, buttocks, feet. Ovaries, heart, kidneys, lungs. And last, but not least, vulva and vagina, the dark secret between my thighs that had been so very dangerous we couldn’t even call it by its right name when I was a child. Only “privates.”

Crisp hair against my palm, and the folds of flesh. I thought of Billy and his unerring ability to coax an outrageous response, and of Shane, emerging with such gusto even then, his outraged cry bawling into the delivery room before they had a chance to spat him on the bottom.

In that same spirit of thankful reverence, I showered, and afterward anointed all the thanked parts with sweet-smelling oils, rubbing them especially along the backs of my cracked heels and my dried out elbows and my neck, which my mother had always told me would be the first to wrinkle. In this, as in many things, she proved to be correct. Rubbing moisturizer under my eyes with the third finger of my left hand, the very weakest finger and therefore the least likely to damage the delicate flesh, I wished that I’d listened to my mother more often.

My mother. How she embarrassed me when I was a young teen! Her piety, her plainness, her very Italian Italianness, in spite of the small rebellion of naming her daughters in such thoroughly modern ways. In my later teens, I worried about her, worried that my father didn’t really see her or love her enough. In church, at the grocery store, at PTA meetings (all of which they accomplished together), women fawned over my father. The divorcées and widows worried me especially. They seemed so much more polished than my housewife of a mother. They wore eyeliner and face powder and perfume. They painted their nails and wore tight, short skirts. They especially displayed their bosoms. Discreetly at church. Less discreetly everywhere else.

In comparison, my mother looked . . . plain. Her long, thick black hair was an asset, but she didn’t do anything with it, just wore it very long and straight, usually braided in a single long tail that fell to her hips. Her bosom was hidden beneath demure blouses. Her nails were unpainted and she wore the same coral lipstick every day of her life. Didn’t she see those women throwing themselves at my father? Didn’t she think it was time to lose that extra twenty pounds?

It took me years to understand that my father was never—never—interested in another woman but his wife. He adored her. He planted kisses on her neck when she cooked and he didn’t think we were looking. He patted her bottom when she was out in the garden. When he came home from work, she took him a beer in the bathroom and they talked while he took his bath. Every night. Always.

So different from my life with Billy. Brushing the tangles from my wet hair, I wondered if my sisters had found that with their husbands. Jordan’s Henry seemed capable, and he was certainly devoted. Jasmine’s Brian was a high-powered car salesman and didn’t strike me as demonstrative in the slightest, but who knew what went on behind closed doors? She seemed happy with the arrangement. They enjoyed doing things together, movies and a dinner out, sometimes the symphony or a play. Jane’s Steve was mostly a mystery—I’d met him only twice, but there was passion in his big dark eyes and an almost painful devotion to my sister. Yes, of the four of us, I thought Jane would come closest to replicating the sound marriage of my parents.

And I’d gone the farthest afield.

Braiding my hair, finished with the many lotions and unguents and moisturizers necessary to preserve whatever youth might be left to me, I put on my pajamas and gathered my clothes from the floor.

But there, hanging forgotten on one of the three hooks on the back of the door, was Malachi’s shirt. I had noticed it earlier, but my nose had been full of apples and pie dough and now it wasn’t, and I could smell him in the fabric, a scent just a little deeper, a little richer than sun-dried laundry. The fabric touched my nose and forehead and I let go, imagined breathing in these notes from his skin. His chest. That wide, supple expanse. I remembered how his back had felt when we were on the motorcycle, taut and strong, and knew his chest would be the same.

For five seconds, in that steamy quiet bathroom, I let myself admit how much I wanted him. All day long I’d been noticing his mouth, a mouth that laughed easily and had big white teeth in it; his hands, enormous and full of dexterity; his thighs, so sturdy and powerful. His size appealed to me; it made me smaller in contrast, gave me that sense of delicacy that’s almost impossible for a woman in my size category, and I know you’re not supposed to say that you think about the size of a man’s penis, but I’m sorry—we do. Not that it makes that much of a difference when a man knows what he’s doing, but all things being equal . . . well, enough said.

A noise on the other side of the door jolted me out of the embarrassing swoon over his stupid shirt, and I yanked open the door, feeling the slap of my braid against my arm. It wasn’t Malachi waiting in the hall, thank the saints, but in a way it was even worse. Shane. Blinking at me. “God, you were in there for ten thousand years.”