Driftless (43 page)

Feeling with her hands around the bed, she reached her mother’s dressing table. When she was a child, it had always seemed like a
personal shrine, and she drifted into the memory of her mother’s face—combing her hair, sucking color from a shiny tube of lipstick, and making her eyes dark, her mirrored reflection so serene, so filled with graceful dignity, so unapproachably goddesslike that Olivia despaired, even now, of finding a maturity of her own.

She removed the rolls of fabric from the embroidered stool, carefully set them on the floor, and seated herself before the mirror. In the dim light she could only make out the outline of her head, where tufts of hair curled outward like dark flames. Behind her, the magnolia faces loomed larger than life, and in an instant of unpremeditated bravery she reached out and turned on the lamp.

The plastic-against-metal
click
exploded the room in fulgent light, and Olivia, unprepared, noted three instantaneous events. The glare could not be contained in the room and raced out of the window and crashed against the oak tree in a blaze of bright leaves; her eyes looked owl-like into their own reflection; and she heard Violet’s bed making noises in the room below. She reached to turn the lamp off and succeeded only after knocking a cardboard box to the floor, where it landed in a solid
phalummmp.

Olivia closed her eyes and prayed she would not be discovered. She confessed to every sin she had ever committed, knowingly and unknowingly, and promised never again to disturb the dead.

When she heard footsteps mounting the stairs she did not know where to turn; her heart was beating so loudly she could hardly listen. She thought of hiding beneath the bed but was sure there was not enough room. Besides, what was the point? Her empty wheelchair sat at the bottom of the stairs like a neon arrow pointing upstairs. There was nothing she could do. What she most feared had passed out of her imagination and into existence. The heavy steps came down the hall and Olivia turned to face them, ready to accept her undying curse.

The door was pushed wider open and the pit bull plodded into the room, looking like a small white cow.

Olivia crept out of the room and closed the door seamlessly behind her. With exacting care, she traveled the length of the hallway
and descended the stairs in a seated position, the dog following patiently.

In the safety of her wheelchair, she uttered a sigh of relief that allowed so much of her strength to escape she could barely get back to her room and into bed.

Trixie returned to Violet’s room.

MUSHROOMS ARE UP

W
INNIE GOT UP EARLY. SHE SET HER CUSHION BEFORE THE east-facing window, lit the candle and placed it on the floor beneath the ledge. Her shawl was in the closet under an oilcloth and she pulled it around her thin shoulders, folded into her ritual posture, and began her morning devotions.

But after closing her eyes she discovered a freshly plowed field of worry. Among other distractions, the sweet smell of furniture oil on the shawl crawled through her landscape of mental images, preventing her from fixing her mind and calming her breath. Her heart beat like a cornered raven’s. Shapes howled and thorns sprang from even the most soothing recollections. As though to prosecute her, her thoughts returned again and again to Jacob Helm.

She pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders and tried harder. Moving her lips, she carefully considered every syllable of every word of the Twenty-third Psalm, yet even this rigorous discipline could not force her mind to behave. She took off the shawl and threw it to other side of the room but its smell had invaded her pajama top, and like homeopathic medicine it worked more powerfully in diluted form.

Every thought had Jacob Helm beneath it, smiling through his eyes, interested in her, understanding her, appreciating her, respecting her, liking her, his black hair wet, his feet bare, his living room steamy hot.

Maybe if I stop resisting, she reasoned. Perhaps struggle helped the Enemy wax stronger. To end the war, stop fighting. Closing her eyes again, she allowed her attention to follow whatever course it wished, pursuing spiritual victory through surrender.

But surrender, it seemed, had an agenda of its own and this plan
came to an emphatic end when she felt saliva climbing up her throat and below, warm and moist, she swelled up like a young grape.

She quickly blew out the candle, left the room, and took a shower. Ever since last fall she had waited for the rest of her New Life to begin, but the one that presently seemed to be emerging couldn’t possibly be the one intended for her.

Could individual destinies be mixed up and assigned to the wrong people?

Jacob Helm had called her in the middle of the night, not saying anything, apparently just to frighten her. Even though he didn’t speak, she knew it was him. She just knew. And he had her father’s name written down next to his computer. These were clearly the actions of a potential stalker.

And even if he wasn’t a potential stalker and there was some explanation for her father’s name on his kitchen table, what could possibly happen next? Nothing good could ever come from what she felt now.

Downstairs, she combed out her hair, set a pot of water and tea on the stove, and looked into the dim, premorning shapes outside. The back of the church with its two low windows looked like a wide face.

Finished with cording her long flaxen braids, she stared into her brewing tea, decided against drinking it, poured it into the sink, put on her corduroy skirt and jacket, and went outside.

Standing in the front yard felt no better, she discovered, but she soon understood where she needed to be. Her yellow car started with a rattling purr and she drove without headlights into the growing morning light, away from Words, down the valley, over the ridge, through Grange, all the way to the little bridge in the marsh.

This was not the first time she had returned. She had come often and tried again and again to rediscover the epiphanic presence that had once called her name out loud. Yet she found only the barren, empty place—the bottle without the genie. She had even eaten as many as six custard-filled pastries, thinking that perhaps they would help, but they didn’t.

She sat on her favorite wooden plank near the middle of the bridge, hooked her arms over the steel railing, her legs dangling over the side. Beneath her shoes the water rushed and murmured along with the industrious chattering of many large, hungry birds and the numb thrumming of insects. She looked into the stream and wondered what would become of her, and added her voice to the others:

“I used to be so excited about my life, Dear One, so willing to be good no matter what—so convinced I would find happiness and peace. But now I spend my whole life taking care of old people who don’t know me, don’t understand anything about me, don’t even like me. I’m lonely and don’t know how to stop being lonely. I’m sick of wanting the things I was born wanting and I’m sick of trying not to want them. Mostly I’m sick of me. I want to be more than I am, different than I am, but I can’t be. You leave me here alone and it’s certainly not safe. There’s no telling how I might turn out. My teeth are growing crooked. I’m fraying like an old rope. Must every joy die in a single lick, yet longing last through a thousand banquets? I know I have no right to complain—I’m such a worthless thing—but does that seem fair to You? Why must the puzzle of happiness be so difficult to solve while the twists of grief always grind in the same horrid direction? If You don’t want me in Your World why did You invite me in? Why didn’t You just leave me outside? Why let me visit if I couldn’t stay? Is this a test? What must I do to pass? If being good isn’t good enough, how about being bad? I’m so lonely.”

She walked to the car, took a pair of scissors out of the glove compartment, and returned to the bridge.

As she cut, ropes of her hair fell into the water.

A noisy vehicle came over the rise. She did not bother to get up and continued cutting until only several ragged inches remained attached to her head. July Montgomery parked his white pickup, walked over, and sat next to her.

“You’re out early, Miss Winifred,” he said.

“So are you, Mister July.”

“Wade wanted to make some extra money, so he’s milking for me this week,” said July. “It’s beautiful here. Just listen to those birds.”

“I should be going,” said Winnie.

“Wait, I’ve got something for you,” he said and he returned to his truck.

Winnie looked in the plastic bag and her mouth fell open. “Where did you find these?” she shouted, jumping to her feet.

“Around,” said July.

“No,” said Winnie in disbelief.

“I found them this morning.”

“I can’t believe it,” said Winnie again, handing the bag filled with morel mushrooms back to him.

“Don’t you want them?”

“I’ll find my own,” she said, running toward her little yellow car with the scissors in her right hand.

MAKING BAIL

G
AIL SHOTWELL LEFT THE TAVERN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE afternoon and drove home. Her brother’s pickup sat in her driveway. Her sister-in-law, Cora, came running out of her house as though chased by a grease fire.

“Where have you been?” Cora demanded, with the same tone she always wielded—one that assumed everything in her life was important and everything else wasn’t. “I called your work and they said you weren’t there.”

“I didn’t work today,” said Gail. “Why are you here?”

“Grahm’s in jail,” Cora began, the words flooding out of her. “They came and got him. They just walked into the machine shed and arrested him while he was fixing the skid loader. When he wouldn’t cooperate or accept the contempt citation, they put handcuffs on him even though I told them not to. We didn’t have anyone else to help with the milking tonight, the kids were at practice and if Teresa wasn’t there they needed a ride home, and I had a load of laundry fresh out of the machine, but they just pushed him into the back of the car and drove away. They didn’t say anything—just shoved him in the back and drove away. I didn’t have time to do anything or call anyone. I wasn’t even sure who they were. I mean the side of their car said the sheriff’s department and they looked like police, but how can you tell for sure? I didn’t think real police would act like that—taking people away when they had work to do. I actually thought when I first saw them that they were looking for Wade because of what happened the other night. That’s what I thought when they first pulled into the yard. I thought it had to do with Wade. And I got in the car and followed them and Grahm was hardly able to turn around to check if I was following because of his hands tied up behind him. That must have been uncomfortable. I could tell it was,
and they didn’t even take the handcuffs off when they pulled him out and pushed him into the building and the district judge fined him a thousand dollars for contempt because they had a video of Grahm at the annual meeting saying all those things that he had been ordered not to say and then when Grahm told the judge that he wasn’t going to take it anymore and that this was against all this United States of America was supposed to stand for the judge said he was in contempt again and fined him another thousand. We said we couldn’t pay that much and the judge said we either had to pay it or Grahm had to stay in jail for forty days. I asked how we were supposed manage with all we had to do and me looking for a new job and all the work on the farm and not having that kind of money, but I was afraid to go on very far because I thought maybe we’d get fined some more.”

“I’m not following all this, Cora.”

“I’m telling you just what the district judge said, Gail. Aren’t you listening? I’m telling you exactly what he said. Somebody’s got to pick up the kids. Somebody’s got to milk the cows. We’ve got all those heifers to feed. I’ve got to find some money somewhere and get Grahm out of jail. I’ve got a load a laundry just out of the machine still waiting to be dried. Where were you all day? I’ve got a job interview tomorrow morning. God, I can’t believe this.”

“If Grahm’s in jail, let’s get him out,” said Gail. “You can explain on the way. The banks will close soon.”

“Do you remember that box of papers we left with you? Do you still have it? Those papers are really important, Gail. Have you been drinking?”

“I know where the papers are.”

“You’ve been drinking. I can smell it. You’ve been drinking.”

“Not much.”

“Show me the papers.”

“I can show you later. Let’s get Grahm.”

“No. Those papers are more important. I want to see them with my own eyes.” And for emphasis she pointed two fingers at her eyes.

They went inside.

“Where are they?” demanded Cora, as if it was her house and Gail’s living in it was an unnecessary indulgence.

“In the closet,” said Gail. “They’ve been there ever since you gave them to me.”

But when Gail looked, the box was gone.

“It’s gone,” she said.

“I knew you’d lose them, you worthless drunken fool!” screamed Cora. “Look again.”

“There’s nowhere else to look. The box is gone, but I didn’t lose them. They’re just gone.”

Cora burst into tears.

“Come on, Cora, stop crying. Let’s go to the bank before it closes, borrow some money, and get Grahm.”

“Those papers proved everything!”

“Cora, someone has taken them.”

“It’s that damn brother of yours,” sobbed Cora. “He doesn’t have the sense of a goat. At that American Milk meeting he told them everything. He went there and talked about the things we’d been told not to talk about. And he stood out in the parking lot and told a whole bunch of other farmers that his sister had the papers.”

“How do you know that?”

“July told me when I went over to tell him not to let Grahm go to that meeting up in Snow Corners.”

“What meeting in Snow Corners?