If Wishes Were Horses (12 page)

Etta stared at the sign and then walked back up the lane toward the house. She stopped and gazed at the house framed by the greening leaves of the tall trees. The first day she had arrived here as Roy’s wife came back to her.

“Well, honey, here’s where we’ll hang our hats.” Roy had swung her up in his arms there on the walk between the red-tipped bushes. “What do you think of it?” he had asked, his expression for that second as anxious and proud as that of a schoolboy.

“I’ll live with you anywhere, Roy.”

As she spoke, she had been looking at the house, though, and not at Roy, her heart already racing over the threshold to take up residence.

The memory propelled her quickly up the steps, across the porch, and in the door. She stood there a moment, looked around the entry and into the living room and up the staircase. Then she walked through into the kitchen and found Latrice on a stepstool, emptying a top cabinet of little-used glasses and jars.

“What are you doin’?” Etta asked.

“I thought I might as well start packin’ away the things we don’t use much, so we’re ahead of the job when it comes time for movin’.”

Etta picked up two glasses and thrust them at Latrice. “Put them back. Edward said that even if the place sold, we could stay here until the baby is born. There’s a lot that can happen between now and then.”

Latrice frowned. “What are you thinkin’ of doin’?”

“I don’t know right now, but to pray, and you are the one always pointin’ out the power of prayer.

“And I’ll say one thing, and that is I am not a quitter. I didn’t quit with Roy, and I don’t see that all I’ve gone through ought to be for nothin’ and we end up losing this house—this place that is my baby’s home.”

Latrice gave her one of those disapproving looks. “I don’t see anything wrong with prayin’ for a nice little house in town. There hasn’t been anything but trouble since we came to this house, so we might be better off leavin’ it behind—and there’s somethin’ to be said for town. Our baby could walk to school and come home for lunches. I never liked movin’ out here to the country anyway. I like havin’ close neighbors and sidewalks. There’s a lot to be said for bein’ able to get decent television reception and a grocery store a person can walk to.”

Etta gazed at her. “Where are we gonna live? We live with the white, you’ll be treated like a maid. We live with the colored, me and the baby will be like sore thumbs. And are you willin’ to give up this kitchen? You aren’t likely to find another like it, not with what we’ll be able to afford.”

Apparently it would be a blue moon night, because Latrice appeared not to be able to think up a reply.

Etta picked up two more glasses and handed them up, waiting stubbornly until Latrice took them and replaced them in the cabinet.

Daily the bills came, and Latrice put them before Etta, and Etta placed them, unopened, in a basket on the desk in the den, exactly as Roy had done. She did not see a reason to open the bills she could not pay.

Leon offered her money on more than one occasion, but she declined as gently as possible, mindful of his sensitivity. Leon might not consciously expect some reciprocation on her part, but such expectation would no doubt arise. Etta did not want further entanglement with Leon. As it was, he had already guaranteed her electric bill payments, adamant that she not be threatened by lack of electricity. She accepted this because her only choice would have been to be without electricity.

Etta mulled over ideas of what to do about her situation, but most of her thoughts were not really ideas at all but more like fantasies, such as the representative of The Millionaire showing up at her door. She kept hoping a way out of her predicament would present itself. To this end, she sat one afternoon and went through Roy’s account books.

“Find any millions?” Latrice came in and asked.

Etta shook her head and closed the book. “It looks like Roy quit recording anything four months ago.” She hadn’t really expected to find money, but she supposed she had hoped. She supposed she was riding the wish horse.

Within the first days that the for-sale sign was up, two people inquired about the farm. The first inquiry came from a farmer, who wanted to buy part of the land only, and the second from a developer, who was building an upscale housing tract in Chickasha and was interested in building a community of country estates. Neither made a hard offer, which was just as well, because Etta wasn’t interested in that happening.

The garden flourished, and Latrice pressed foods upon Etta such as mustard greens and spinach, “to build your blood,” and milk from Obie’s cow made into tapioca pudding, “to give you some fat for nursin’ the baby.”

At last Etta was able to drink coffee, as long as she laced it liberally with cream. She had, however, grown very fond of warm cola.

Each day Etta played several games of Scrabble, either with Latrice or by herself, bending the rules and using proper names, putting each on a list as a possibility for the baby. Throughout the day, Etta would speak the names aloud, “Mary Rose Rivers.. . Jolene Rivers . . . Summer Marie Rivers,” repeatedly testing the sound of each and asking the opinion of the child growing inside her.

Her daughter began to move and kick with vigor that delighted and comforted Etta. The child growing inside her kept her hoping for a future. She returned to working on the nursery, which she had almost completed before Roy’s death. With Latrice’s instructions, she embroidered on squares to make a baby quilt and hung curtains Latrice made.

Whenever going to the nursery or the guest room upstairs, Etta continued to hurry past the door of hers and Roy’s bedroom. She had not entered that room since the day of the funeral.

“You haven’t seen Mr. Roy or heard him anymore, have you?” Latrice asked her.

Etta said, “No . . . but I smell his cologne, that expensive stuff he ordered from New York.” She had found the actual bottle in the medicine cabinet and flushed the contents down the toilet, then had thrown the bottle away, but that had not seemed to help. Now, rubbing her shoulders, she said to Latrice, “It’s like he’s callin’ to me to help him.”

Latrice nodded. “He always called to you. Just tell him that he’s dead.”

“Well, I should imagine he knows he’s dead.”

“You haven’t accepted it is all over yet, though,” Latrice replied.

“All over? I don’t believe our past is ever all over. It just stays around to torment us.”

“Only if you allow it,” Latrice said. “To let go of the past, you have to let go of anger and resentment. Time will work it out.”

“Time doesn’t work it out,” Etta said. “It wears us out."

“That solves a lot of problems, too,” was Latrice’s reply.

Obie Lee worked on Etta’s old Ford, which had been her car before marrying Roy. It was registered in her name alone and free of debt, so no one was going to be able to take it from her. It occurred to Etta that she might end up driving away from this house in about the same condition she had arrived, with little or nothing except poor history.

And good clothes, she reminded herself. For her entire marriage, she had been buying classic quality clothing which would see her through another decade. No matter if she lived in a shanty and drove a junker, she would be well dressed.

“This car’s sixteen years old, Miz Etta, and it’s been sittin’ here all winter,” Obie told her. “It’s gonna take right much work. I may have to rebuild the whole engine. At the very least we’re talkin’ new fuel pump, distributor, and some wires. Likely a rebuild on the carburetor.”

Etta couldn’t afford any of those things. Obie said he would scrounge around and see what he could pick up from junkers.

“Thanks for tryin’, Obie. We’re gonna need a car.”

She touched the dull fender and thought how she would be driving her baby away from this house in this car.

“Obie, you know it looks like the farm will have to be sold.”

“I know that, Miz Etta. I’m real sorry.”

She peered up at him. “The land is all tied up with the mortgage at the bank, or I’d be able to just deed you your forty acres. It is yours by rights.”

He removed his ball cap and wiped his sleeve over his graying hair. “I appreciate your generous sentiment, but I don’t really want that land, Miz Etta. If you and Miss Latrice move off, I’d just as soon go, too. I’m not really overly fond of that cotton field.” He gave a low chuckle with the last statement.

Obie’s chuckles were such—dark eyes sparkled like stars—that Etta had to smile, too, although the next instant the heavy weight of dread fell back on her.

“Where will you go, Obie?”

He shrugged. “Oh, there’s possibilities all over. There’s a few who’ve wanted me to come work their farm over the years. I have considered off and on to go up to Okie City. My brother up there has a barbeque restaurant and has asked me several times to throw in with him.”

After a minute he said, “You might consider movin’ up to Okie City, too, Miz Etta.” He looked a little hopeful.

“I don’t know, Obie. I guess we could consider it. Latrice would prefer town livin’—if she could have the same modern kitchen,” she said with a small grin. She looked over at Little Gus in his corral. “I’m happier here, though, where I can have my horses and things. And I think it’ll be better for the baby, too.”

She sighed. It seemed she was doing a lot of sighing lately, and she didn’t like it.

“Have faith, Miz Etta,” Obie said, his dark eyes warm. “No matter what it looks like, the Lord has it in hand.”

Etta gazed for a long moment into the dark, dirty engine. “It’s hard to believe that sometimes, isn’t it?” She lifted her eyes to Obie. “I mean, sometimes it sure doesn’t look like God has anything in hand, considerin’ all the mess we get ourselves into.”

Obie grinned again, sad sparks in his eyes now. “That’s true.” Then he paused, the carburetor piece in his greasy hand, and said, “But very often you gotta take all the wrong roads, in order to learn the right one. Our lives are school, and we have lessons to learn. Don’t mean the Lord ain’t right there with us, givin’ a guiding hand. I’ve sure made my share of mistakes, but I’ve always thought two things: that the right place to look is at God, and you only gotta live one day at a time.” He seemed suddenly embarrassed at his speech, and looked away.

Etta said, “You are right, Obie. It’s just hard to remember to do sometimes.” She laid a hand on his arm. “Thanks so much.”

“Somethin’ will turn up that will be just right for you and the baby and Miss Latrice,” he said. “Right now all you gotta do is hold on and wait.”

“Well, if it’s right for us, then it will be right for you, too, Obie.”

“Likely so,” he said and turned back to the car. The hand that worked the wrench inside the greasy engine was bony and gnarled. When he shifted and stretched for better leverage he did so stiffly. He was not young.

Etta turned away and looked out across the corrals, now empty and desolate, except for Little Gus. Wishes welled up inside her. But if wishes were horses they’d all ride, and right then there was only one horse, and he was a pretty scrubby fellow who was barely green broke.

She thought of Obie’s words: Look at God and take one day at a time. She supposed she wasn’t in a position to do anything else.

The morning Roy’s Aunt Alice showed up, she didn’t bother to telephone first. She came in surprise attack was how Etta thought of it. She rang the doorbell, and back in the kitchen Latrice said, “That’s Miz Alice Boatwright’s ring.”

“Alice’s ring?” Etta was washing fresh spinach.

“It rings like her sayin’, ‘Get your butt in here on the double.’”

This was not a great surprise. Alice had been telephoning, and Latrice had been putting her off. It was only a matter of time before Alice reached her limit. In fact, Etta and Latrice were both surprised that Alice had been thwarted this long. Alice Boatwright wasn’t one to be thwarted.

Frowning, Etta said, “Go tell her I’m on my deathbed with cholera.”

Latrice raised an eyebrow. “You can either let Miz Alice come chasin’ you down and catch you on the run, or you can face her and put her on the run.”

“I don’t know as God Himself can put Alice on the run,” Etta muttered as she dried her hands with a towel.

She walked through to the front door, straightened her back, and gathered herself, wishing she wore something other than overalls; it was very difficult to face Alice in baggy, worn overalls.

Then she opened the door and said with all graciousness, “Why, hello, Alice, won’t you come in?”

Alice was a member of the Richards family of St. Louis, as had been Roy’s mother. She had married a little beneath herself when she had married Edward Boatwright, but the tradeoff had been that Edward was of the family that owned a bank and ruled a county. As Alice’s branch of the Richards had come down in the past fifty years, marrying Edward was a smart thing. Rather than be a small, obscure fish in an enormous pond, Alice had succeeded in making herself an important fish in a tiny pond, and she liked it very well.

Although Latrice maintained every person had a heart, she conceded about Alice: “If there’s any charity in the woman, it’s well hid by power and spite.”

Etta agreed, except when it came to Roy. Etta thought Alice had felt something at least close to love for Roy, even if her feelings had still carried the heavy mark of control.

The day after Etta and Roy had returned from their honeymoon, Alice had stormed over to the house and screamed at Roy, “What in the hell’s the matter with you? If you wanted her, you could have just had her . . . you didn’t have to marry her, for godsakes. A man marries a woman like Corinne Salyer, not some poor trash like Etta Kreger. You’re just gonna piss your life away after all, aren’t you?”

Alice had not been deterred one iota by Etta’s hearing all this. When alone with family, Alice got as crude and down and dirty as she wished.

For her part, Etta had been shocked. She had not known that a woman of Alice’s proper social standing would know any swearwords, much less be screaming them like a crazed shrew. Actually, Etta had not personally known any women of Alice’s social standing. But she had seen them in the movies and had observed them entering shops on the street. She had saved up for a month and had her hair done in a swank salon among the “better people,” and they had all appeared exactly like Margaret from Father Knows Best: tranquil, genteel, and perfect ladies.