On Shifting Sand (23 page)

A new wind buffets the car, and I am thrown toward him. He catches me as if I’ve fallen a great distance, pulls me closer without risk of protest. All I can think is that God has blocked the sun, denied me even the tiniest sliver of light. Turned his back, leaving me to cloak myself in sin. And like my dear friend, a wife and mother whose grave awaits, I bury myself. Alive.

  CHAPTER 15
  

E
VERY KISS, EVERY TOUCH—
all of it utterly wordless. My mind releases its memories into my skin, and I relive each moment on the drive home. The storm left the roads miraculously clear, and I keep my eyes trained straight ahead. If there are stranded motorists, abandoned cars, or wandering souls, I see none. In fact, I have no recollection of the intervening miles between my father’s gate and the battered, hand-painted sign welcoming me to Featherling.

An odd sight greets me as I creep up on the early outskirts of our town. Actually, starting about a mile outside of what we consider our territory, two or three cars are scattered beside the road. Not stranded, nor weighted down with chains, but parked. And now, beyond them, half a dozen people, marching straight out in a line.
Searching.
My heart leaps to my throat. Someone else is missing, and without rolling down my car’s window to hear their shouting, I know they are looking for me. None, however, bother to turn around to observe the dust-covered car
driving straight between their ranks. I’m not so fortunate, however, to be ignored once I arrive in the town proper. Turning onto the first street, a scattering of familiar faces see me, registering what I take to be anything from relief to elation. They point and shout—to me and to each other. Men and women run out from alleys and storefronts, clutching the hands of their children.

My eyes flit from one face to the next, reaching their eyes, acknowledging their presence, but making no communication with my own. One woman stares with such incredulity that I fear I’ll run her over unless I offer a wave, which she returns. Hers is a slow, full-palmed response to the mere flicker of my wrist before I turn yet another corner, onto our street, where the white steeple of the church beckons at the end.

I’ve arrived at our congregation’s agreed-upon time, about three hours after the storm’s end, at which point I expect to see the parishioners walking with a singular purpose to gather in the pews for rejoicing and accounting. They are there in dutiful clusters, but wandering in every direction. Embracing one another, their faces awash with worry. Then Kay Lindstrom sees me. Her face turns rapturous, her eyes search the clear sky now darkened only by dusk.

One by one they find me, and soon are racing—staggering—toward the car. I force a smile, as if merely returning a greeting, and keep a slow, even speed, fearful to stop lest they all converge like two-legged tumbleweeds. With each turn of my tires, I realize I’ll eventually have to bring my cocoon to a stop, emerge, and expose myself to their elation. Their joy over the lost being found. Their questions about just where she has wandered.

But of course, theirs aren’t the questions I fear. Somewhere their leader, my husband, must be playing a part in the search. I want to scan the streets, looking, but every moment I avoid his eyes is a moment he can still love the woman he kissed this morning.

I pull around into the alley behind the shop, cut the engine, and rest my head against the steering wheel. Every breath taken since leaving this
very spot hours before builds up and finds release in the long, muffled scream I wail into my clenched fist. I suck it back in, then out again, my teeth bearing down on my knuckles.

We’ve heard stories of people being picked up by storms—not the kind of late, but tornadoes, great violent cones of wind that rip across the land, tearing people from their homes and depositing them miles away. Sometimes crushed like rag dolls, but other times mercifully intact, only confused and unsure as to which world was real—the one they left, or the one they landed in. I have only a matter of minutes to decide which world I will live in when I open this car door.

I grip the handle and breathe in and out, wishing I could pray for strength. By now a semicircle of neighbors surrounds me, ready, no doubt, to shower me with attention and praise—relief that I’ve come home at all. Door open, one foot out, and then the swarm.

“We’ve been searching everywhere!”

“Praise the Lord!”

“Somebody go find the pastor!”

Nobody, it turns out, has to go anywhere to find Russ. Steps away from the car, the crowd—those wanting to lay their hands on the wayward lamb—parts, and he is revealed. His skin ashen with worry and dust, he strides to me, taking me up and crushing me against his chest in one swift, smooth motion. At once the ground disappears from my feet as his two strong arms hold me aloft. I bury my face in that warm space between his shirt collar and his neck.

“I’m sorry.” It is all I manage to say. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” My lips move against his skin, and I taste the grit of dirt with each repetition.

He hushes me, holds me tighter, and plants kisses in my hair. I recognize his words as prayer, thanking God for my safe return. Thanking God for preserving our family. I listen, concealing my betrayal in silence. If I cannot voice my own prayer, even one of silent confession, then I must be content to ride along on those of my husband. He will be my strength until I am strong enough on my own.

My feet touch the ground. Russ grips my shoulders and steps
away, drinking in the sight of me. He searches the top of my head, my disheveled clothing, my bare legs. Then back up to my face.

“Nola, darling. Where did you go?”

“Out. Out to Pa’s.”

“But why in heaven’s name—? We were all . . . all of us worried sick about you.”

“Plates.” That truth rolls out, seeming strong enough to stand alone. “For the dinner tomorrow. Merrilou said we needed—”

“Plates.” Russ’s brow furrows in something I don’t recognize. Displeasure, at the very least. “Why didn’t you say something before you left? You can’t take off like that.”

“I’m sorry.” The phrase sounds so much smaller in this utterance. “I told Pa I had an errand.”

“You didn’t say—” He stops, seeming to notice the crowd for the first time. There is a stir, and my Ariel emerges, calling for me and launching herself into my embrace as I stoop to catch her.

“We thought you were lost!” Her face, red and blotched with tears, presses hard against my cheek.

“Never lost,” I say, the words twisting up out of me. “Only away for a bit.”

“Don’t go away again. Promise me.”

I look up to see Russ with a new tightness in his jaw. Ronnie emerges from the crowd. My big boy with red-rimmed eyes has his hands plunged in his pockets and shoulders hunched. He goes to his father’s side, clearly angry with me for bringing him to the threshold of such emotion.

“I promise,” I say, relinquishing half of my grip to reach out to him. He takes my hand, uniting us. It is enough for now, and in affirmation, our neighbors and friends reward us with a smattering of applause, as if witnessing the final act in a staged melodrama. I stand upright, bringing my little girl up with me, and acknowledge them all with what I hope is a fitting smile of gratitude.

But then, in the center of the adulation, two faces refuse to smile back. One, of course, belongs to Ben Harris, who can only wait for such
a blessed reunion with his wife on the other side of heaven. The other is my father’s.

Pa stands with his arms folded across his sunken chest, his narrowed gaze seeing straight through patches of my untold story. A certain chill runs down my neck, and I swallow against the soured bile in my throat.

“Come on,” Russ says, taking Ariel from me. “Let’s gather at the church.”

I take the first few steps, then reach for his sleeve, bringing him close.

“I can’t.” The mere thought of walking into the house of God, sitting on the pew where I hold my place as the wife of its leader, hearing my name echoed in prayers of thanksgiving fills me with a burden I can’t carry another step. Our gatherings are meant to hold an accounting of one another, to show that all are well, all restored. I am neither. I haven’t survived at all. The death of all I know to be good and faithful festers, threatening to burst and bleed in public confession.

“I understand.” The softness of Russ’s voice heaps salt. “Go home, clean up, and rest.”

All I can hear is the voice of Jesus, his words vocalized from the pulpit, saying to the adulterous woman at the well,
“Go, and sin no more.”
Release, if only for a short time. Sanctuary from prying, if well-meaning, eyes and potential inquisition.

I bow my head and manage to choke out a thank-you, followed by a final “I’m sorry,” before heading for the stairs leading up to the front door of our apartment. A tiny hand covers mine as I grip the railing before taking the first step.

“You’ll let us know if there’s anything we can do for you, won’t you, dearie?” Merrilou Brown’s sweet, smiling face, its creases highlighted with Oklahoma soil, sets a new fire to my steps.

I half worry that Pa will want to stay home with me, as he sometimes has to be cajoled into accompanying us to the after-storm meetings, but his heavy footstep does not follow. I slam the door behind me and push the latch. That moment, with my back against the door, the last of my strength leaves me, and I crumple to a heap. The very air within the walls
pushes against me, restricting me to the few square feet of floor reserved for strangers and unwanted guests.

“Oh, God.” I bury the heels of my hands in my eyes, deep enough that the initial darkness turns into dancing bits of light. No other words come, so I simply plead his name over and over, waiting for some wash of mercy to take away the filth I’ve carried into my home. How can I ask forgiveness for a sin so willingly committed? How do I claim repentance when, even now, were I to give half a breath to the memory, I’d long for his touch again? Still, I speak aloud to the empty room, “Forgive me, sweet Jesus,” and I wait for some sense of grace.

There is none.

Instead, I open my eyes to find the room has grown darker in these passing minutes, and I know it is a real possibility that Russ and the children might be home at any time, as he tries not to keep his people out much after dark. They mustn’t find me here, heaped upon the floor. I need time to think, time to compose my response to the inevitable questions. Where was I? How did I take shelter? Was I alone?

These, I know, might be the last minutes of my marriage.

Slowly, I rise to my feet. Leaving the door latched, I make my way through the parlor, running my finger over the surfaces covered with a fine layer of the afternoon’s onslaught. Tomorrow will be full to overflowing with Rosalie’s service. But the day after, I will take a rag and polish every piece of furniture, bringing it to a gleam bright enough to reflect the sun, should it choose to shine. Ariel will be charged with running a dry mop across the floors, Ronnie with beating the rugs. Russ can take Pa out for a drive—if the air seems safe—while I restore our home, the way I do after every storm. The never-ending battle of cleaning, reclaiming, restoring.

And then. Then. With everything in place, I will tell him. I will confess to my husband my weakness. I will tell him my sin, leaving no detail hidden, laying the blame solely on my head.

I went to him. To Jim, because I wanted to. And I was leaving. Really, truly, intending to leave, but then he got in the car, and the storm hit, and then, somehow, in the dark . . .

Even alone, I can’t bring myself to say the words. To
think
them. What we’d done in the dark. When I try, every sensation returns, bringing me back to that darkness. Reliving.

I need to hate him. More than that, I need to hate myself. Hate our sin. I need, somehow, to rid myself of it. A physical repentance, cleansing the memory of his touch. His kiss. Scraping away that layer so I can offer myself clean and whole to both my Lord and my husband.

I wander through the darkening house into our bathroom, where I instinctively reach for the switch that brings the bright, white light. Door closed, I slide the latch and begin to fill the tub with water hot enough to create an intimidating cloud of steam. I assemble necessities along the edge: nail brush, washcloth. A new bar of Ivory soap. My Drene shampoo, normally reserved for Saturday night.