In An Arid Land (29 page)

"This has been on my mind all day for some reason," she said. She pulled up her sweater against the night air and she looked at the starry sky and she seemed almost to be reading something up there, she paused so long. Then she said, "I wish I owned a pair of white sandals, with little straps across the back and with low, pointed heels. Like some I saw on a woman once."

"At this time of year?" I said and she smiled at me shyly.

"And I wish I had a little white dress with one tiny rose embroidered right over my breast here." She gently touched her breast as if imagining what the rose would feel like. "I wish it was summertime and that I was in the Rocky Mountains of Canada, at some lodge or resort. My only thought would be what to eat for supper and then whether to go dancing or sightseeing or just go to bed in the nice clean sheets."

She said, "You've never been to Canada, have you."

I told her no, though I've been there since.

"It's real pretty country," she said. "Nothing like this around here. I went once with a man I knew. A pilot, of course. Sort of a vacation. This was before I met David and I left Crissy with some people in Corpus, good people that would baby-sit for me. They were neighbors of mine who went to church and everything, and they would take Crissy with them, and they were always after me to go too. Can you imagine that? Me in church?"

I said, "Yes, I can imagine that," which caused her to smile and to look at me as if I were too naive to understand anything.

"Anyway," she said, "we stayed at a place on Lake Louise, and for two weeks we did nothing but play and make love. He was a nice man, as I remember, even though it didn't work out for us. Nothing ever works out, I guess. But for two weeks it was good and fun, and I thought maybe I was in love with the man. For a while I thought about not coming home at all. I thought about just living there with him and leaving Crissy with those people." She said, "That's awful, isn't it, to think such a thing?"

I said something about it depending on circumstances, but she wasn't listening. She said, "There were even times when she was a baby that I actually thought of leaving her on somebody's doorstep, figuring she'd be better off with anybody but me. There were times when I thought about just getting rid of her."

Shepherd Fred had returned by now and he was sitting at our feet grinning up at us. It was perhaps nine o'clock. I was starting to think again about what was up ahead, about what it meant to be on the run and that we would have to find a newspaper in the morning to see if there was a report on us, and that we would have to decide what to do if there was, or even if there wasn't. This was my family, what was left of it, and I wanted to do my best by them. I wanted to talk to Marie about it, though I knew she was still in shock, as she had a certain wisdom in such matters and since I was thinking I wanted us to face it together.

"Listen, Marie," I began, but she interrupted me.

"No, don't," she said. "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't. I suppose you think I'm a pretty worthless human being, don't you, after what I did to David. And maybe it would be better just not to talk about it. Most worthless things are better left alone."

"I don't think any such thing, Marie."

"Well, I do. What I did was a rotten thing, as rotten as it gets. It was not something a woman should ever do to a man she loves. And I want you to know I'll never do it again."

The dog made a whining sound at that moment and Marie looked at him with affection. She reached down and scratched his ears and he thumped his tail in appreciation, staring up at her as if she were the center of the universe. "Do whatever you think is best, Johnny," she said, giving me a look direct as any I've ever seen. When she seemed satisfied with what she saw, she told the dog to come and together they went off slowly to the room, leaving me there to think.

After a while, once I'd sorted it out as best I could, I went into the room myself. Before sleep came, as I lay exhausted under my covers, I could hear Marie humming some tune and hear her muttering the words a lullaby or a hymn perhaps. She was sitting on their bed, sort of petting Crissy and old Fred, first one then the other, looking down at them both as they slept, sweet as anything. I don't know how long this went on, or whether she slept at all, because in the morning Marie wasn't around to talk about it. The motorcycle was missing and she had put all but a couple hundred dollars of our take into my bag before she left. I should have seen this coming, but a mind can take in only so much and mine was worn out with worry. It was many years before I got rid of the worry, and even today there remains a lingering feel of it in my blood. I haven't seen my sister, the woman I call Marie Smith, since that night, in that cheap motel room, with the neon light of the sign out front glowing through the window curtain. It's an image of her that has always stayed with me: Marie on the bed, bent over, humming to herself, touching her loved ones for the last time.