I Will Send Rain (29 page)
Authors: Rae Meadows
The early sun warms her back, and in front of her, the High Plains sky extends to eternity. It is quiet enough that she can hear the sound of her shoes against the pavement, a soft, insistent tap, tap, tap. The breeze is gentle and intermittent. She breathes in the sharp and earthy smell of sand sage and lemon sumac mixed with rich clay loam. It is beautiful out, the kind of day that coaxes roots from seeds, and Birdie cannot say whether she is happy or sad. She will miss the land, the sky, and the space between. This place will always be her place, despite its capacity for cruelty, despite what has been lost. The yearning will go on and on.
But for the unknown she harbors hope as fragile as a tiller shoot. Seventeen will surely be better than sixteen, she thinks. Mama and Pop have a baby now. She will be their girl. And that is all Birdie will allow.
There's a car somewhere, getting closer. She can hear the rattle and puff of a worn-out engine. She has walked west and now it's time to turn south. She is tired and would welcome a ride. For a moment, she fears it will be her father come to fetch her, but then the sound of the car isn't quite his and she breathes deep and lets it go. She isn't scared. She feels powerfully alone.
She arranges her face in a smile, and turns and waves.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
A
NNIE AWAKENS TO
the baby's cries. She listens, hoping Birdie might be able to soothe the child, but the baby cries on in frantic bleats. The dawn is violet. Annie goes to her daughter's room. She can see immediately that Birdie's bed is made up and empty. She goes first to the cradle and lifts the flailing baby, resting her cheek against that tiny softness until she quiets.
Birdie has left a short note on her pillow, her loopy scrawl filling the paper from edge to edge.
Dear Mama and Pop,
I am going. I'm not going after Cy or anything like that. But I'm going west just the same. I know all the reasons why I shouldn't. It's just what I have to do. I will be okay so don't worry about me.
Love,
Birdie
Annie flips the paper looking for more, then reads it again. Gone west. Gone. Her breathâheld for how longâeases out and she feels herself smaller, older. She does not think, Go after herâshe knows already there will be no hope if Birdie doesn't want to be foundâbut neither does she think, Let her go. Her daughter alone in the world. She heaves air back into her lungs.
The new sun cuts sharply through the window. The baby gurgles and yawns. Annie can't remember how Birdie looked as an infant and she feels a panic rise about forgetting. How do you remember everything? What will be lost? She catalogues the details: the uneven spray of freckles across her nose, the slight pigeon-toed stance, the way she works a walnut from its shell, so intent, so serious about getting all the meat out. Her face on the Ferris wheel in Oklahoma City, open and expectant as they swooped up and up.
The baby dozes; her lips purse and then settle into sleep. Annie pulls a quilt from the cradle and wraps her, the same way she swaddled all of her children. She sits still and breathes quiet shallow breaths.
Annie knows she should run to wake Samuel, but she wants to be alone a little longer. She already misses Birdie with a fierce ache. She will not let herself think of all the possibilities, the dangers, or they will overcome her. She closes her eyes and imagines Birdie on a train, the fields slipping by until she is free.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
T
HE BABY SQUIRMS
away from the eyedropper of sugar water and milk, screws up her little wrinkled face in confusion and dismay and cries until Annie holds her to her breast and she latches on, soothed until she falls asleep.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
A
NNIE MOVES THE
rocking chair outside into the shade of one of the locust trees and rocks Rose. She and Samuel named her the day Birdie left. In recent days, Samuel has taken to walking Rose around and talking to her about how the leaf sheaths are emerging from the tillers of the wheat and how the robins have returned and laid their blue eggs and how when Birdie and Fred were small they used to hide up in the haymow in games of hide-and-seek. Annie fashions a sling out of flour sacks and wears Rose while she weeds and waters her garden or hangs out the wash or shells the peas. They are like first-time parents again. They never put the baby down, always checking, touching, cooing.
Wrapped in the baby quilt she made for Birdie, Rose has pink cheeks and her mouth is puckered and Annie holds her soft fragile head and feels an ease in her chest as something finally gives. That infant face has laid claim on her. The dust will come again, she knows. But on this day, the land spread out before her, she allows herself to return to what she once loved about itâthe mad colors of the wildflowers, the sporadic green of the dormant wheat coming to life in the fields. She does not feel whole, no, but she has a baby in her arms, and that feels as close to right as she has ever hoped to feel again. Beneath the damage she can still find moments of wonder, hints of joy. Would she even say she is optimistic? It isn't the shiny optimism that lifts Samuel, but it's a hard-won kind, born from the depths. A choice. It is enough.
She cannot accept yet that Birdie is truly gone, her first girl, her strong impulsive one, her survivor, her daughter who, in the end, knew how to want more. Part of her thinks, Go, Birdie, go. Go on and find something else, go on and take what you can get. But the other part of her watches the road at the edge of the farm, will watch it always, hoping she will see her walking home.
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Also by
Rae Meadows
No One Tells Everything
Calling Out
Â
R
AE
M
EADOWS
is the author of
Calling Out
, which received the 2006 Utah Book Award for fiction;
No One Tells Everything
, a
Poets & Writers
Notable Novel; and most recently the widely praised novel
Mercy Train
. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York. You can sign up for email updates
here
.
    
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CONTENTS
Â
I W
ILL
S
END
R
AIN.
Copyright © 2016 by Rae Meadows. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Cover design by David Shoemaker; cover photograph by Dorothea Lange, courtesy Library of Congress
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Meadows, Rae, author.
Title: I will send rain: a novel / Rae Meadows.
Description: First edition. | New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015046689 | ISBN 9781627794268 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781627794275 (electronic book)
Subjects: LCSH: Rural familiesâOklahomaâFiction. | Dust Bowl Era, 1931â1939âFiction. | Farm lifeâOklahomaâFiction. | DroughtsâFiction. | Domestic fiction. | GSAFD: Historical fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3613.E15 I2 2016 | DDC 813/.6âdc23
LC record available at
http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046689
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First Edition: August 2016
Designed by Kelly S. Too
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
