On Shifting Sand (14 page)

“I’ll stay with him,” Ronnie volunteers a little too eagerly. “We can listen to the
Hour of Prayer
on the radio.”

It seems the best solution. We find a pair of soft, clean pajamas for Pa to wear, and as soon as Russ is out the door, I settle the three—Ronnie, Pa, and Ariel—in front of the radio with slices of sugar-buttered bread and warm milk.

“I’m downstairs if you need me.” I speak directly to Ronnie, who all of a sudden seems like such a grown-up young man. Strong and responsible, carefully admonishing his little sister not to slurp her milk, and discreetly offering his grandfather a napkin to wipe his grizzled chin. In that moment, the sight of them, together, terrifies me. It isn’t the maturity of my son that stirs that storm of fear; I’ve been watching him grow, minute by each minute of his life, since he was nothing more than a heart-stopping awareness.

No, it is my father, instantly ancient, infirm, transforming me into one of those women. Soft, matronly, cooking rice pudding and mashed peas, speaking with a steady increase in volume, the roles of parent and child reversed. It is the age of my father that makes me old; his decline, my decline.

What a fool. Teasing myself with an idea of what I used to be, what
I could have been, back when my father was young. Shameless flirtation with cautious steps outside the edge of my family, the family where I am wedged so squarely in the middle.

I go back to our armoire to find a set of clean sheets—the cleanest we have—before rummaging through the bureau to find clothing for him to wear when his strength returns, as everything he brought with him will need three washings at least before it can be worn. All of this I drape over my arm and take downstairs, through the shop, and into the back room. I haven’t been in here, not once, since the day Jim took to sleeping on the narrow cot tucked within. I keep my cigarettes stashed in the bathroom cabinet, and I smoke them on the front balcony. He tried to join me once, but I held him on the third step with a simple no, punctuated by a pinpoint glowing orange. He left me to hide in my shadows, never approaching me again.

Now I find myself in a different darkness, no longer as familiar as it used to be. I am the stranger, the intruder, and I cannot predict what I would find were I to blindly feel my way through it. The light is a single bulb in the middle of the ceiling, and when I pull the chain, an explosion of light reveals everything about him.

While my bundle from upstairs remains a neat, folded cube within my grip, Jim Brace spills out all around me. Shirts draped over empty crates, books lined up sloppily on a shelf. A narrow bed—the cot having been replaced at some point, without my knowledge—unevenly made, the loose rippling blanket not quite pulled, not tucked. And a pillow, with a soft dent.

An empty chair sits in the corner, and I set Pa’s things on its seat. I’ve stashed two cigarettes in my apron pocket, and with a shaking hand I light the first, inhaling the smoke and blowing it out. Stalling, yes, but also reveling in unforeseen victory.

He is gone. Blown away before he can take me with him.

Spying a worn leather bag in the corner by a box of out-of-date almanacs, I’m galled by its familiarity. I remember it from that first night, slung over his shoulder in our kitchen doorway. My cigarette burns away
in three deep drags before I grind it straight into the floor to be swept away later. The metal clasps of the bag are smooth and silent, its cavernous center smaller than I imagined. A few items lurk in the darkness, and a power other than my own guides my hand in exploration. Another book—a small Bible by the feel of it. A glass bottle. Socks. A comb. All the bits and pieces that make a man.

Were he a traveler, Russ would have the same things.

That thought emboldens me further to take liberties I’ve no right to claim. It isn’t a Bible but a thin volume of poetry, and a thumb through the pages unearths notes written in fading pencil.

August 9, 1928.

Chicago, in the Park.

Something to read at sunrise.

The glass bottle holds a scent so familiar, I see his face the moment I uncork the lid. I’ve no right to such recognition, and even less to run my finger inside the neck, bringing a hint of it to my own skin, transferring it to the inside of my wrist, right at my pulse.

The horror of my action jolts me to where I nearly drop the bottle, and I shove the cork back in with double strength. I don’t want to run the risk of its breaking in the bag, so I take a shirt, a blue one, and hastily wrap it protectively around the glass. Before I can succumb again to any such brazen impropriety, I stride around the room, snatching up clothing and keeping it at arm’s length while folding it sloppily before shoving it in. I wrap his safety razor in a scrap of towel, and search for a case to protect the pair of thin, gold-rimmed reading glasses found on the small table next to the bed, thinking it strange that he never wore them in our afternoons reading together. The thought that he would hide such a thing makes me smile, and I lift them up to my eyes to test their strength. Doing so brings the spot on my wrist where I’d rubbed the tonic. With a simple turn, I touch my cheek to his scent and breathe him in.

I chastise myself out loud. “Stop it. Stop being such a fool. Stop.” And still I feel a ridiculous smile tugging at my lips.

Three books are stacked haphazardly on the overturned crate on the other side of the bed, and I have to put one knee on the thin mattress and crawl over to get them. One is a copy of
Jude the Obscure
with a stamp proclaiming it the property of the Dennison City Public Library. I think back to his telling me he wasn’t much of a library guy, and after an initial twinge of betrayal, decide that this might be the reason why. The other is a well-battered pocket-size road atlas. I turn the pages, following the red wax pencil paths with my finger, touching the places he’s been.

The third, I discover, isn’t a book at all, but a clever little cardboard box designed to look like one. The word
Treasures
is stamped where the title would be, and a piece of blue silk ribbon is tied around it to keep the lid down. With less than a breath’s hesitation, the ribbon is slipped away, and the thin cover opened. Inside, a modest amount of money—less than ten dollars, I’d guess—and a handful of train ticket stubs. Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, Detroit. There is a heart-shaped medal on a purple ribbon, three shirt buttons, and four packets of headache powder. And then, just when my conscience pricks at me for such bald-faced snooping, something catches my eye.

I drop the books onto the bed and sit down, the squeak of the springs threatening to expose me. I push the corner of a headache powder packet aside, and find my own face behind it.

The back of my neck turns ice cold in recognition, knowing before I even take the photograph out from the bottom of the box what it will be. Hidden behind what looks like a trusting Dennison City Public Library card is Russ’s face. He looking lovingly at me on the day of our wedding.

“He . . .” But I don’t know what I want to say to myself. I don’t even know which
he
I mean. “And how . . . ?” But of course, Russ had sent it. He told me as much—corresponding with a buddy; wanting to show me off.

A note.

Somewhere, there might be letters. Words that passed between them. What had he said? What did he know?

I put the box back on the crate and begin a thorough search. First, through everything in his bag, digging with vain hope, the meager contents already inventoried in my mind. I lift the mattress, get on my hands and knees to look under the bed. I flip through every page of every book, return to the shirts to check the pockets, turn every leaf in the volume of poetry.

None.

Sitting on the now-tousled bed, with trembling fingers I dig the picture out from the bottom of the box. The thick paper is worn along one side, and I know this is how he holds it. I can see the place where his thumb has dented the image. I put on his glasses, smell his skin, and look at myself.

I am beautiful in my peach-tinted gown, though this print shows no color. My neck is long and smooth, my hair shines like dark waves with a single white rose pinned behind my ear. I remember the photographer wanting Russ and me to stand facing each other, gazing into each other’s eyes, but my rounded stomach in profile must have made my condition too obvious for his practiced eye, and with an embarrassed stammer, he’d suggested I turn and face the camera head-on, maybe hold the bouquet a little lower.

I look into my own eyes, remembering this woman. A year before this picture, she thought she might attend a university, or be somewhere—anywhere—away from Oklahoma. Then, months before this picture, she met Russ Merrill. Years have passed, lives have been lived and lost between the woman in the peach-colored lace dress and the woman with a single cigarette waiting in her apron pocket.

But Jim didn’t know that. Or he did, and he came anyway. Looking closer, I see a telling indentation along the top of the photograph and turn it over. There, in the now indecorously familiar handwriting, are three words:
Denola, Featherling Oklahoma.

I know if I were to look at the road atlas closely, I’d see a circle in the
spot where our town would be if it were big enough to warrant attention from Rand McNally.

All of this revelation brings a certain thrilling nausea to the pit of my empty stomach. My hands as steady as I can will them to be, I tuck all of the dislodged items back into the box and replace the ribbon, going so far as to position the knot above the
r
in
Treasures
, just as it had been. I even place his reading glasses within, to keep them safe, as I toss the box onto the top of the other belongings in the satchel. The flap is closed, the worn latches latched. For all I know, everything in the world Jim Brace owns is in that bag.

Almost everything. Because one of his possessions is actually mine, and I’ve stuffed it into my apron pocket.

I pick up the satchel—heavy, but not too—and deposit it behind the counter in the shop. I should go straight upstairs to check on Pa and the kids, but outside the night is cool and clear, so I find myself on our loading dock, cigarette between my lips, lighter touched to its tip. After the first drag, the flame still dances in the lighter. With my free hand, I take the photograph out of my pocket and examine it in the light.

I can see my sin behind the fire. I drew him here, luring in my own temptation. Pa would’ve said I cast a spell, much as I had on Russ, lying with a man pledged to follow God in a holiness too pure for war. Same as my mother had done Pa, when he’d been drawn into her darkness.

I touch the flame to the corner of the photograph and watch it recoil. Gone is the dress, the bouquet, as I twist the paper to burn myself away first. Russ looks on, standing steady and tall, impervious to such destruction.

“I’m so sorry, Russ.” I pucker my lips and blow to fan the flame, watching my husband disappear before my eyes. I look up to the sky. “Forgive me, Lord,” though I can’t articulate any action that would warrant God’s mercy. The afternoons spent with Jim were in harmless conversation—literature and art and dreams, all things Russ neither condoned nor understood. “Forgive me,” I start again, “for
wanting . . .
” But I haven’t the words to voice what I wanted. What I still do, but to
no avail. Because it’s over. He’s gone and not coming back, and for this I conclude my prayer with thanksgiving.

Throughout my prayer the photograph burns, until the flame licks at my fingers. I drop the final scrap, stamp it out with my foot, and nudge it to disappear between the boards of the loading dock.

“I caught you.”

It’s Russ, home from church, newly round the corner and fast approaching. The dock is only three shallow steps above the ground, and in an amazing feat of limberness, he grasps the side rail and ascends with a single step.

“Your pa already fraying your nerves?”

“I’m so sorry.” The words of my apology have not varied from the one I spoke moments before, but now it is carried out with tears that seem to spring up from a deep, hidden well. “I try—I’ve tried to be a good woman. But sometimes—”

His smile is soft and indulgent, as is the first kiss, after which he says, “It’s okay,” before kissing me again, deep and searching. I might have gone on to grant approval had we not been interrupted by the chirping intrusion of Merrilou Brown saying, “Oh, you lovebirds!” before steering little Luther down a different path.

We pull apart and I run my hands down my apron, straightening it, feeling the weight of the lighter in its pocket. “I was getting the room ready for Pa. I had no idea there was a bed in there. It’s nice.”

“From the Gillicks’.”

I don’t ask how it came to be in our storeroom. I want to tell him that I was packing up Jim’s things, but I can’t bring myself to put words together in my head, let alone across my tongue and to the space between us. The best I can muster are a few stammering starts: “I was—I just—”

“Darling, there’s no hurry.”

I create a silent inventory. Books, glasses, shirts—things he needs.

“About your father, I mean. Let him stay in Ronnie’s bed for a while, and let Ronnie sleep down here. The boy will enjoy the independence, and I’m pretty worried about Lee.”

“Keep Pa upstairs at our place?” I laugh, a strange, strangled sound. “The two of you can barely stand each other’s company of a Sunday afternoon.”

“True, but he’s not quite himself. Maybe this new incarnation can be more tolerant.”

“But he’s always been so terrible to you.”

“How can I ever appreciate the forgiveness of Christ if I can’t practice forgiveness myself? I worry that it will be harder on you, but maybe you need more time together to heal.”

My fingers still sting from the flame, and I bring them to my lips, but not before Russ captures them and brings them to his. I want to pull away, knowing they bear the trace of Jim’s scent, but it’s too late.

Russ wrinkles his nose. “Smells like smoke?”