One hundred and four degrees in the shade, and the well was drying up. The water in the tank had to be carefully conserved, carried by the bucketful to the house. At night, they gave the animals what water they could.
The vegetables that Elsa and Rose had tended with such loving care were dead. Between yesterday’s wind and dust and the relentless sun, every plant had either been torn out by the roots or lay wilted and dead.
She heard Rose come up beside her. “There’s no point watering,” Elsa said. “No.”
She heard the heartbreak in her mother-in-law’s voice and wished she could say something to help.
“You’ve been awfully quiet today,” Rose said.
“Unlike my usual chatty self,” Elsa said to deflect a conversation she didn’t want to have.
Rose bumped her shoulder against Elsa’s arm. “Tell me what is wrong.
Besides the obvious, of course.”
“Loreda is angry at me. All of the time. I swear, before I even speak, she gets mad at whatever it is I’m about to say.”
“She is at that age.”
“It’s more than that, I think.”
Rose stared out at the devastated fields. “My son,” she said. “Stupido. He is filling her head with dreams.”
“He’s unhappy.”
“Pssht,” Rose said impatiently. “Who isn’t? Look at what is happening.” “My parents, my family,” Elsa said quietly. This was something she rarely talked about, a pain too deep for words, especially when words wouldn’t change anything; Loreda’s opinion of Elsa lately had brought all that heartache of youth back. Elsa remembered the day she’d taken Loreda, swaddled in pink, to her parents’ house, hoping her marriage would allow them to accept her again. Elsa had worked for weeks on a lovely pink dress for the baby, trimmed it in lace. She knit a matching cap. Finally, she borrowed the truck and drove to Dalhart alone, pulling up at the back gate. She remembered every moment in detail: Walking up the path; the smell of roses. Everything in bloom. A clear blue sky. Bees buzzing around the roses.
She had felt both nervous and proud. She was a wife now, with a baby girl so beautiful even strangers remarked upon it.
Knocking on the door. The sound of footsteps, heels on hardwood. Mama answering the door, dressed for church, wearing pearls. Papa in a brown suit.
“Look,” Elsa had said, her smile unsteady, her eyes filling with unwanted tears. “My daughter, Loreda.”
Mama, craning her neck, peering down at Loreda’s small, perfect face. “Look, Eugene, how dark her skin is. Take your disgrace away,
Elsinore.”
The door, slamming shut.
Elsa had made a point of never seeing them or speaking to them again, but even so, their absence caused an ache that wouldn’t go away. Apparently you couldn’t stop loving some people, or needing their love, even when you knew better.
“Yes?” Rose said, looking up at her.
“They didn’t love me. I never knew why. But now Loreda has turned so angry, I wonder if she sees me the same way they did. I could never do anything right in their eyes, either.”
“Do you remember what I told you on the day Loreda was born?”
Elsa almost smiled. “That she would love me as no one else ever would and make me crazy and try my soul?”
“Sì. And you see how right I was?”
“About part of it, I guess. She certainly breaks my heart.”
“Yes. I was a trial to my poor mamma, too. The love, it comes in the beginning of her life and at the end of yours. God is cruel that way. Your heart, is it too broken to love?”
“Of course not.”
“So, you go on.” She shrugged, as if to say, Motherhood. “What choice is there for us?”
“It just … hurts.”
Rose was silent for a while; finally, she said, “Yes.”
In the distant field, Tony and Rafe were hard at work, planting winter wheat in ground that was as powdery as flour at the surface and hard beneath. For three years, they’d planted wheat and prayed for rain and gotten too little and grown no crop at all.
“This season it will be better,” Rose said.
“We still have milk and eggs to sell. And soap.” Small blessings mattered. Elsa and Rose combined their individual optimism into a communal hope, stronger and more durable in the combination.
Rose put an arm around Elsa’s waist, and Elsa leaned into the smaller woman. From the moment of Loreda’s birth, and in all the years since, Rose had become Elsa’s mother in every way that mattered. Even if they didn’t speak of their love, or share their feelings in long, heartfelt conversations, the bond was there. Sturdy. They’d sewn their lives together in the silent way of women unused to conversation. Day after day, they worked together, prayed together, held their growing family together through the hardships of farm life. When Elsa had lost her third child—a son who never drew breath
—it was Rose who held Elsa and let her cry, and said, Some lives are not ours to hold on to; God makes His choices without us. Rose, who spoke for the first time about her own lost children, had showed Elsa that grief could be borne one day, one chore, at a time.
“I’ll go water the animals,” Elsa said. Rose nodded. “I’ll dig up what I can.”
Elsa grabbed a metal bucket from the porch and wiped the grit from its inside. At the pump, she put on gloves to protect her hands from the blazing-hot metal and pumped a bucketful of water.
Carrying the sloshing pail carefully back to the house, not wanting to spill a precious drop, she was nearing the barn when she heard a sound, like a saw blade grinding over metal.
She slowed, listened, heard it again.
She set down the bucket and moved around the corner of the barn and saw Rafe standing by the new crack in the ground, his arms propped on the head of a rake, his hat pulled low on his downcast face.
Crying.
Elsa walked over to him, stood silently by. Words were something she could never pull up easily, not for him. She was always afraid of saying the wrong thing, of pushing him away when she wanted to draw him near. He was like Loreda, full of mercurial moods and given to bouts of passion. It frightened her, those moods she could neither tame nor understand. So she held her tongue.
“I don’t know how long I can stand all of this,” he said. “It will rain soon. You’ll see.”
“How can you not break?” he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
Elsa didn’t know how to answer that. They were parents. They had to stay strong for the children. Or did he mean something else? “Because the kids need us not to.”
He sighed, and she knew she’d said the wrong thing.
 |
THAT SEPTEMBER, HEAT ROARED across the Great Plains, day after day, week after week, burning away whatever had survived the summer.
Elsa stopped sleeping well, or at all, really. She was plagued by nightmares of emaciated children and dying crops. The livestock—two horses and two cows, all bones and hollows—were being kept alive by eating the prickly Russian thistles that grew wild. The small amount of hay they’d harvested was nearly gone. The animals stood still for hours at a time, as if afraid that every step could kill them. In the hottest part of the day, when the temperature rose above 115 degrees, their eyes became glassy and unfocused. When they could, the family carried pails of water to the corral, but it was always too little. Every drop of water that came up from the well had to be carefully conserved. The chickens rarely moved, they were so lethargic; they lay like feathered heaps in the dirt, not even bothering to squawk when they were disturbed. Eggs were still being laid,
and each one was like a nugget of gold, although Elsa feared that each one would be their last.
Today, like most mornings, she was awake before the rooster crowed.
She lay in bed, trying not to think about the dead garden or the dried-up ground or the coming winter. When sunlight began to stream through the windows, she sat up and read a chapter of Jane Eyre, letting the familiar words soothe and comfort her. Then she put the novel aside and got out of bed, careful not to waken Rafe. After dressing, she took a moment to stare down at her sleeping husband. He’d been out in the barn until late last night and finally stumbled to bed smelling of whiskey.
She had been restless, too, but neither had turned to the other for solace. They didn’t know how, she supposed; they’d never learned to comfort each other. Or maybe there was no comfort to be found when life was so bad.
What she knew was that the slim hold she’d had on him was loosening. In the past few weeks, she’d noticed how frequently he turned away from her. Was it since the dust storms had ruined their fields and tripled the work? Or since he’d planted the winter wheat with his father?
He stayed up late, reading newspapers as if they were adventure novels, staring out windows, studying maps. When he finally stumbled to bed, he rolled away from her and thumped into a sleep so deep that sometimes she feared he had died during the night.
Last night, as so often, when he finally came to their bed, she lay in the dark, aching for him to turn to her, touch her, but even if he had, they both would have remained unsatisfied. He never spoke while they were intimate, not even whispers about his need, and he rushed through the act as if he regretted it before he began. Sometimes Elsa felt lonelier when their lovemaking ended than she had been before it began. He said he stayed away from her because she conceived so easily, but she knew the truth was darker than that. As always, it came down to her unattractiveness. Of course he had difficulty wanting her. And clearly, she was not good in bed; he rushed through it so.
In earlier years, she had dreamed of boldly reaching for him, changing how they touched each other, exploring his body with her hands and her mouth; then, upon waking, she’d felt frustrated and swollen with a desire she could neither express nor share. She’d waited years for him to see it, see her, and reach out.
Lately, though, that dream felt far away. Or maybe she was just too tired and worn out these days to believe in it.
She left their bedroom and walked down the hallway. She paused at each of the kid’s bedroom doors and peered in. The peacefulness in their sleeping faces squeezed her heart. At times like this, she remembered Loreda when she’d been young and happy, always laughing, her arms thrown open for a hug. When Elsa had been Loreda’s favorite person in the world.
She went into the kitchen, which smelled of coffee and baking bread. Her in-laws didn’t sleep anymore, either. Like her, they held on to the unproven hope/belief that more work might save them.
Pouring herself a cup of black coffee, she drank it quickly and washed out the cup, then stepped into her brown shoes—the heels almost worn away—and grabbed her sun hat.
Outside, she squinted into the bright sun, tented a gloved hand over her eyes.
Tony was already at work, taking advantage of the relative cool of the morning. He was putting up hay—what little there was—and doing it early because he was afraid the afternoon heat would kill their horses. Both geldings moved more slowly every day. Sometimes the lowing moans of their hunger was enough to make Elsa weep.
Elsa waved at her father-in-law and he waved back. Tying on her hat, she made a quick stop at the outhouse and then hauled water by the pailful to the kitchen for laundry. There was no reason to water the orchard or the garden anymore. By the time she finished carrying water, her arms ached and she was sweating. At last, she went to her own little garden. She’d hollowed out a square of ground directly below the kitchen window, in a narrow patch of morning shade. It was too small to grow anything of value, so she’d planted some flower seeds. All she wanted was a little green, maybe even a splash of color.
She knelt in the powdery dirt, rearranging the stones she’d set in a semicircle to delineate the garden. The latest wind had pushed a few out of place. In the center, still standing, was her precious calico aster, with its leggy brown stems and defiant green leaves.
“If you can just make it through this heat wave, it will cool down soon,” Elsa said, pouring a few precious drops of water onto the soil, watching it darken instantly. “I know you want to bloom.”
“Talking to your little friend again?”
Elsa sat back on her heels and looked up, blinded for a moment by the bright sun.
Rafe stood in a halo of yellow light. He rarely bothered to shave these days, so the lower half of his face was covered in thick, dark stubble.
He knelt on one knee beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder. She could feel the slight dampness in his palm, the way his hand trembled from last night’s drinking.
Elsa couldn’t help leaning into his touch just enough to make his hold feel possessive.
“I’m sorry if I woke you up when I got in,” he said.
She turned. The brim of her straw hat touched the brim of his, made a scratching sound. “It was nothing.”
“I don’t know how you can stand all this.” “All this?”
“Our life. Digging for scraps. Being hungry. How skinny our kids are.” “We have more than lots of folks have these days.”
“You want too little, Elsa.”
“You make that sound like a bad thing.” “You’re a good woman.”
He made that sound like a bad thing, too. Elsa didn’t know how to respond, and in the silence of her confusion, he rose slowly, tiredly to his feet.
She stood in front of him, tilted her face up. She knew what he saw: a tall, unattractive woman with sunburned, peeling skin and a mouth that was too big, and eyes that seemed to have drunk all the color God allotted her.
“I need to get to work,” he said. “It’s already so goddamn hot I can’t breathe.”
Elsa stared after him, thinking, Look back, smile, but he didn’t, and finally she stopped waiting and headed in to start the laundry.
|
THE FIRST PIONEER DAYS celebration had taken place in 1905, back in the days when Lonesome Tree was a vast plain of blue-green buffalo grass and the XIT Ranch employed a thousand cowboys. Homesteaders had been
drawn to this land by brochures that promised they could grow cabbages the size of baby carriages, and wheat. All without irrigation. Dry farming, it was called, and it was promised to them here.
Indeed.
Loreda was pretty sure the party was really about men celebrating themselves.
“You look beautiful,” Mom said, coming into Loreda’s bedroom without even knocking. Loreda felt a rush of irritation at the intrusion. She bit back an angry remark about privacy.
Mom came up behind her; for a moment their faces were reflected together in the mirror above Loreda’s washstand. Beside Loreda’s tanned skin and blunt-cut black hair, Mom’s pallor was remarkable. How was it that Mom’s skin never tanned, just burned and peeled? She hadn’t even bothered to do anything with her hair beyond braiding it in a coronet. Stella’s mom always wore cosmetics and had her hair pinned and curled, even in these hard times.
Mom didn’t even try to look good. The dress she wore—a floral flour- sack housedress with a button-up bodice—was at least a size too big and just exaggerated how tall and thin she was.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make you a new dress or at least buy you some socks. Next year. When it rains.”
Loreda couldn’t imagine how her mother could even say those words anymore. Loreda pulled away, smoothing the waves she’d coaxed into her chin-length hair and ruffling her bangs. “Where’s Daddy?”
“He’s hitching up the wagon.”
Loreda turned. “Can Stella spend the night after?”
“Sure,” Mom said. “But you’ll have to do your chores in the morning.”
Loreda was so happy, she actually hugged her mother, but Mom ruined it by hanging on too long and squeezing too hard.
Loreda yanked free.
Mom looked sad. “Go downstairs,” she said. “Help Grandma pack up the food.”
Loreda bolted out of the bedroom and hurried down to the kitchen, where Grandma was already busy packing up the pot of minestrone soup. A plateful of her cannoli with sweetened ricotta filling waited on the table. Both of which only the other Italian families would eat.
Loreda covered the tray of desserts with a dish towel and carried it out to the wagon. She climbed up into the back and sat close to her father, who put his arm around her and held her close. Grandma and Grandpa took their places up front. Mom was the last one to climb up into the back of the wagon.
Ant tucked in close to Mom and talked constantly, his high-pitched voice rising in excitement as they neared the town. Daddy, she noticed, was uncharacteristically quiet.
Lonesome Tree appeared on the horizon, a meager town squatted on a table-flat plain, surrounded by nothing.
Only the water tower stood tall against the cloudless blue sky.
Once, patriotism had run high in town. Loreda remembered how the old men used to talk about the Great War at every community gathering. Who fought, who died, and who grew the wheat to feed the troops. Back then, Pioneer Days had been an expression of the farmers’ pride in themselves and a celebration of their hard work. Americans! Prosperous! They’d draped the stores of Main Street in red, white, and blue bunting and planted American flags in the flowerpots and painted patriotic slogans on the windows. The men had gathered to drink and smoke and congratulate each other on winning the war and turning grazing land into farmland. They drank homemade hooch and played music on their fiddles and guitars while the women did all the work.
Or that was how Loreda saw it. In the week leading up to the celebration, Mom and Grandma Rose cooked more, made more homemade macaroni, did more laundry, and had to darn or repair every scrap of clothing that was to be worn. No matter how dire times were, how tight money was, Mom wanted her children to look presentable.
Today there was no bunting (too hot to put up, she figured, or else some woman finally said, Why bother?), no flowers or flags in the flowerpots, no patriotic slogans. Instead, Loreda saw hobos gathered around the train depot, wearing rags, their back pockets turned inside out in what were being called Hoover flags. A shoe with holes was a Hoover shoe. Everyone knew who to blame for the Depression but not how to fix it.
Clop-clop-clop down Main Street. Only two automobiles were parked out here. Both belonged to bankers. Banksters, they were called these days, for the way they cheated hardworking folk out of their land and then went
bust and closed their doors, keeping the money people had thought was safe.
Grandpa maneuvered the horse and wagon up to the schoolhouse and parked.
Loreda heard music wafting through the open doors and the sound of stomping feet. She launched herself out of the wagon and hurried to the schoolhouse.
Inside, the party was on. A makeshift band played in the corner and a few couples were dancing.
Off to the right were the food tables. There wasn’t a lot of food out, but after the years of drought, Loreda knew it was a feast the women had worried and slaved over.
“Loreda!”
Loreda saw Stella moving toward her. As usual, Stella and her younger sister, Sophia, were the only girls in the room in pretty new party dresses.
Loreda felt a pinch of jealousy and put it aside. Stella was her best friend. Who cared about dresses?
Loreda and Stella came together as they always did, grasping hands, heads tilted together.
“Say, what’s the story, morning glory?” Loreda said, trying to sound in the know.
“I’m behind the grind, don’tcha know?” Stella answered.
Stella’s parents came up behind the girls, stopped to talk to the Martinellis.
Loreda heard Mr. Devereaux say, “I got another postcard from my brother-in-law. There’s railroad work in Oregon. You should think about it, Tony. Rafe.”
Like women had no opinions.
And her grandfather’s reply: “I don’t blame nobody for leaving, Ralph, but it ain’t for us. This land…”
Not that again. The land.
Loreda pulled Stella away from the grown-ups.
Ant ran past them, wearing a gas mask that made him look like an insect. He bumped into Loreda and giggled and ran away again, arms outstretched as if he were flying.
“The Red Cross donated a big box of gas masks to the bank—for the kids to wear during dust storms. My mom is handing ’em out tonight.”
“Gas masks,” Loreda said, shaking her head. “Jeepers.” “It’s getting worse, my dad says.”
“We are not talking about gas masks. This is a party, for gosh sakes,” Loreda said. She reached out, took hold of Stella’s hands. “My mom said you can spend the night tonight. I got some magazines from the library. There’s a picture of Clark Gable that will make you swoon.”
Stella pulled back, looked away. “What’s wrong?”
“The bank is closing,” Stella said. “Oh.”
“My uncle Jimmy—the one in Portland, Oregon? He sent my dad a postcard. He reckons the railroad is hiring, and there’s no dust storms out there.”
Loreda took a step back. She didn’t want to hear what was coming. “We’re leaving.”
