Fields Of Gold (6 page)

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Authors: Marie Bostwick

BOOK: Fields Of Gold
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I stood at the window until the engine sounds died away completely, until I was certain he wasn't turning back, and a little longer than that. Finally I left off waiting and got dressed. There was nothing else to do.
Chapter 3
L
ife in Dillon plodded on. It was as if Slim and I were pebbles dropped into a pond, creating a brief, transparent disturbance on the surface, and when it was over everything returned to flat calm.
It didn't seem right. The most important thing that had ever happened in my life, that probably would ever happen in my life, had come and gone, yet nothing had changed. I wished I had asked Slim for something, a lock of his hair, or one of his shirts, some physical evidence of our little time together, but it was too late for that. Resolved not to feel sorry for myself, I determined not to be surprised at how little effect Slim's unheralded entrance and exit would have on the steady march of days and weeks in Dillon.
What did you expect,
I thought,
that the sun would set a different shade of red because you love someone? Be satisfied with your moment.
Oddly, most of the time I was. In some ways, he was still very much with me, or, at least, I was with him. I can't explain it, and I don't expect anyone to understand it because I don't understand it myself, but sometimes, at unexpected and cherished moments, I could see him, talking, resting, working, on city streets, in empty darkened hangars, in places I didn't know. Not confused or cloudy like a dream, but bright, clear scenes, like a picture show, but in color and more true, as though I were actually standing next to him.
I can't say that he saw me, or even sensed my presence, but that didn't worry me. I didn't ask myself those questions, not then. It was enough to wrap myself in his life and make it my own. His curiosity and excitement and ambition were always present, his driving, propelling need for something bigger passing through the atmosphere to me like a magnet until it became part of me. That summer and fall I clung to the smallest glimpse of his life and wore it as a disguise over my own, which marched on as predictably as every year.
The county fair was in September after the harvest was in. Mama won prizes for her pickles and for a Baltimore Album style quilt she'd made out of my old dresses the previous winter. Papa went to watch the cattle judging, at least that's what he told Mama, but I'm pretty sure he snuck off to place a bet or two on the horse races. I'd wager Mama knew that too, though she wouldn't admit it. Gambling was something she simply could not condone, at least not right out in the open, so she pretended not to know, and he pretended she didn't know, and somehow that made it all right.
While Papa was off on his own, Mama and I went over to the poultry barn. The moment we walked in, the smell washed over me like a wave and I felt sick at my stomach. Mama had met a friend and was busy congratulating her on winning a blue ribbon in the pie judging, so I didn't say anything. It seemed ridiculous after so many years of living on a farm that a little whiff of chicken manure should leave me feeling nauseous. I scolded myself for a being a weakling and willed the feeling to pass.
Mama turned around to include me in the conversation, “Eva, you remember Mrs. Stanley, don't you?” When she saw my face her eyes opened wide in alarm. I thought I must look pretty bad off to see her look so worried, or not exactly worried, more like shocked. Her hand flew up to her cheek, and she said, “Oh my goodness, look at the time! Eva,” she lied, “we were supposed to meet Papa almost a half hour ago. We'd better run. Nice to see you again, Vera.” Then, quick as a shot, she grabbed me by the elbow and propelled me out of the barn.
Mama steered me over to the nearest bench and sat me down. “Breathe in, now, Eva. Breathe deep, and it will pass in just a minute. Put your head down between your knees if that helps. There you go. Feel better now? That's my girl.”
“I'm sorry, Mama,” I said, fanning myself with a brochure for chicken feed. “I don't know what came over me. I must be coming down with something. The smell! It just made me so sick, but it's better out here in the fresh air. I'm fine now.”
Mama sat down next to me on the bench and took my hand in hers. “Eva,” she said, then hesitated. “You are fine. I want you to know that, you're going to be just fine. I'm not going to be angry with you, but when were you going to tell me?”
I didn't understand what she was talking about—until a frightening thought popped into my mind that maybe I did. Suddenly I felt butterflies in my stomach again, not from any strange smell, but because I knew that if Mama was talking to me so patiently, so serious, then something really must be wrong. I didn't want to believe it. “Tell you what, Mama?” I asked softly.
She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, “About the baby, Eva.”
I looked at her blankly, still not completely understanding, not wanting to believe what she was trying to tell me. “Didn't you know?” she questioned incredulously. I shook my head, and tears started to well in my eyes.
“I'm not sure, Mama,” I choked out. “Maybe I did. Remember when Ruby and I took a picnic down by the pond? I got sick after. For a moment, maybe I knew, but then I told myself it was the heat or maybe the mayonnaise had turned. I didn't want to think about it.
“Oh, Mama!” I sobbed. “I didn't mean for this to happen! That night, we weren't either of us thinking. It was just that ... We found each other, Mama. We were the only two people in the world that night and we had be together! We didn't stop to think if it was right.” I fell into a fresh wave of weeping, and Mama held me, murmuring sounds of comfort that weren't even words, but meant much more. She was so patient and calm, as though she were nursing a child with a cut finger that would soon heal, but I knew that inside she had to be churning, and with good reason.
Mona Gilroy's parents had sent her away to visit an aunt three years before, and she'd never come back. Word in town was they'd shipped her off because Mona was going to have a baby and the boy wouldn't marry her. Ruby's mother said that she didn't blame the boy one bit and that a girl who would give in to one boy might as easily give in to a dozen, so who was to say who the father was. The scandal was whispered around town for months. Mrs. Gilroy was so embarrassed that she never came to town anymore, and finally they sold their place and moved.
I started crying for real, thinking how I'd shamed my parents. “Mama! What are people going to say? What am I going to do? You can't send me away, please, Mama!”
Mama's look of patience suddenly turned hard. She grabbed me by the shoulders and held me still, her expression more serious than I'd ever seen it, and made me look at her. “Eva, stop that nonsense! Right now! What do you mean, what are you going to do? You're going to have a baby, and then you'll go on and live your life, that's what you'll do.” She shook me firmly, the way you shake someone out of a bad dream. “Listen to me! We're not sending you away! The very idea ...”
“But Papa will be so angry!” I sniffed, trying to get hold of myself and failing. “I've disgraced him! I won't be able to make him understand ...” I choked on my thoughts and buried my head in Mama's shoulder, unable to put words to my fear, terrified that my father could never love me again. Somehow discovering so suddenly that I was to be two instead of one made me feel smaller, more alone, and more in need of my father's love than ever.
“Nonsense!” Mama clucked in reproach. “Your papa could never be ashamed of you. This won't be easy, not for you—or us, either—but whatever we have to get through, we will. We'll manage, as a family, just like we always have. I'm not saying he'll be happy or that it will be easy to tell him, but you'll see, he understands, oh ... a lot more than you think.”
Mama fished around in her handbag for a handkerchief. Her tone softened a bit, but she kept her eyes downcast, searching inside her bag while she spoke. It was hard for her to speak plainly about such things. “Your papa and I ... we were ... we got married in a hurry, Eva. You understand what I'm saying? We were engaged anyway, and I've never for one instant regretted a thing, but when we moved the wedding up, well ... there was a lot of talk. You understand?”
I nodded as I dried my eyes with the hankie she held out to me. Suddenly a lot of things about my parents, but especially about Mama, made more sense than it ever had.
“Oh, Eva, people can be awfully cruel, but loose talk is the least of your problems. You're so young! It's going to take all your courage, but, like it or not, you're going to be a mother and you have to be strong. Life is hard for a woman and even harder for a woman alone, but you'll see, in the end it will all have been worth it.”
She put her arm around me and stroked my hair. I could feel the sadness in her fingertips and knew that it was the last time she would touch me like that and the last time I could cry on her shoulder. From now on I would be too big for that kind of comfort. “You'll see, Eva. Children are always worth it.”
I believed her, everything she said.
 
It took several days before I worked up enough courage to tell Papa about the baby. He was known for his ready grin and Irish humor, but when he was finally pushed to anger it was something to behold. His thick brows would draw together to a single, immovable line, and a stream of language would spill forth from him that was part English, part Gaelic, part gutter, and pure fury. His wrath had almost never been directed at me, but I was sure I was in for it this time. A part of me actually wanted to face the anger I felt he was entitled to. However small a penance it might be, enduring his righteous fury might remove some of the shame I'd brought on him.
But he didn't yell, or bluster, or even slam his fist into his hand. He didn't allow himself the smallest gesture of ire. Instead he just stared at me hard, then looked at Mama, who confirmed the news with a nod of her head. Silence clouded and filled the room for a long moment before Papa spoke.
“Will you be finishing school, then?”
I shook my head no. Even if such a thing would have been possible, a ruined girl allowed to go to school with the rest of the students, I wouldn't have returned to class. All my life, people had stared at me and whispered behind my back. I wouldn't have them doing the same to my baby.
“And, that fella. That ... Slim,” Papa said, a curl of derision playing at his lip as he spoke the name we both knew was no name at all, “will he be coming back, do you suppose?”
“I don't know, Papa.” Heat rose on my cheeks and the back of my neck when I realized how cheap he would think I'd held myself not even to have exacted a promise of return from my baby's father. “I don't think so,” I whispered and hung my head, too ashamed to look him in the eye.
Surely it would come now, I thought. Surely all the anger and hot words he held back would finally spill out and soak me through to the bone. I wouldn't have blamed him. Instead, he just rocked back on his heels and stared at a corner of the ceiling as though something important were written there. “I see,” he said, without looking at me, then turned and went to the barn, mumbling something about being late feeding the stock.
He didn't come in for supper. When the clock struck nine, Mama said we'd better be getting to bed. I wanted to go out and get him, but Mama said he needed some time alone. “Best let him come back when he's ready. He's got to think things through. Now go to sleep and quit brooding.”
I went to bed, but didn't sleep. I lay awake, ticking off the hours by tracking the moon's progress across my window and waiting for the sound of a footfall on the porch and the squeak of the screen door opening. The moon had set, and I was half-dozing, waiting for day, when I heard the sound of someone trying to be quiet and a whispered shuffling of papers. Papa stood in his stocking feet, his boots removed to keep from waking anyone, bent over the kitchen table and poring over a stack of books he'd pulled out of a trunk where he stored them. He jerked in surprise when I asked him what he was doing.
“Evangeline, why are you up? You should be getting your rest, especially now.” He gestured awkwardly in the direction of my still flat belly.
“I was waiting for you. I ... I thought, maybe ...” I didn't know what I'd thought, just that if I could think of something to say, maybe it would prime the pump and end his silence. That silence was more painful to me than a slap on the face.
“Look here,” he said, pointing to one of the books on the table. He opened it and began flipping the pages, “I've got out my collected works of Shakespeare. He wasn't a bad writer for an Englishman.” He winked. “Here's my Hume's history, and a book on French painters, and another by Saint Augustine. What I was thinking,” he continued excitedly, “is that you can keep studying here at home, even if you can't go to school. I've got more books in here than you could read in a year. You finish these and you'll know more than they'd ever teach you in high school anyway.”
“That's a good idea,” I agreed. It was such a relief to know he was still speaking to me, I'd have endorsed any plan he'd proposed, but I was genuinely interested. The sight of a new book always piqued my interest, and the idea of passing the time until the baby arrived wrapped in study of places and ideas far removed from Dillon was appealing.
“Good!” he enthused. “I won't have it said that the mother of my grandchild was dull-witted. We Glennons have never had much formal education, but we could never be called ignorant. Most of these books were my mother's. Before she married, she was a cook for a rich family. When the old woman died, she left these books as a legacy to my mother. They were her most treasured possessions. She couldn't read them herself, so she made me read them to her. We both got quite an education that way.”

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