In Open Spaces (41 page)

“I thought…” Muriel’s voice faded. “I thought he was.”

I thought back to the day that Helen revealed Jack’s secret at the dinner table, and realized that Muriel had been off at school in Belle Fourche by then. She wasn’t there.

“Muriel always told me he was. That you used to get letters from France,” Stan said.

“We did,” Muriel said. “What about his injury, his arm?”

Rita again spoke bitterly. “He hurt his arm in a bar fight. That’s why he was discharged early, before the war was over. And friends he met in boot camp mailed those letters from France for him.”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “Well, not that long. But maybe not worth going into right now.”

“Like Bob and Helen?” Muriel asked. “Is that not worth going into now too?” She looked around at each of us, and her face started to lose its color, a pale white covering her skin like paint. “What’s going on with this family?”

“Muriel, honey, simmer down,” Stan said. “Jeez, I didn’t mean to start something here.”

“I just want to know what’s going on.” Muriel spoke in a careful, measured tone, keeping her voice low. “That’s all.” She looked around at each of us.

Dad breathed deep, holding his hands over his face, so that his nose showed from between. He lowered them, then reached up with the back of one and wiped his eyes. He shrugged. “I can’t imagine why you want to know, but it don’t matter to me.”

“Why don’t I tell them,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Dad said, leaning back in his chair.

So, after taking a moment to collect my thoughts, I proceeded to tell Muriel and Stan everything they didn’t already know about Jack, Helen, and how all the stories fit together. It was actually the first time I’d told anyone about the letter Helen had stolen from my room, way back when, and when Dad heard this, he shook his head, his eyes closing with a look of dismay. When I told about the argument that prompted Bob and Helen to move, I had to admit I didn’t know the cause. I looked at Dad to see if he could help me out, but he shook his head again.

Stan and Muriel sat and listened to the whole story, he puffing on his cigar and shaking his head from time to time, she with her hands folded in her lap, clenched tightly together. Now and then, one hand would flutter away from the other, up to her face, where she brushed back a strand of hair or scratched behind her ear.

And I was surprised to find my body tensing up, my muscles tightening with each word. The emotions that had accompanied each event came back as I recounted them. I felt myself going through all the anger, hurt, embarrassment, and an overwhelming sense of sadness. Telling about the money Bob and Helen had stolen, I looked down to see that both hands were clenched into tight fists, recalling the indifference on Helen’s face. It seemed impossible that this was our family I was talking about.

Muriel and Stan asked few questions, as I left out few details. And when I finished, they both sighed and looked down at the floor for a while. Stan twirled his cigar in the ashtray, forming a point with the burning ashes.

“I had no idea,” he said.

Muriel turned to him as he said this, then looked back down at the floor, as if contemplating whether she had suspected any of this. She lifted her eyes to mine, and they looked very sad.

“Neither did I,” she said. “You sure do keep a lot to yourselves.”

“Well, there’s not much you can do about it from out there,” Dad said, a little irritably. “There’s not much anyone can do about it.”

Stan leaned forward, looking past Muriel at Dad. “She wasn’t criticizing you, Dad. Were you, Muriel?” She shook her head. “It’s just that we, especially Muriel, sometimes worry about you folks out here. I’ve always said I’d be glad to help you out any way I can, and you’ve never asked. We don’t know if it’s because you don’t need help, or if you just aren’t saying.”

Dad looked away, squinting through the smoke from his cigarette. “There’s still not much anyone can do about any of this.”

Muriel threw her hands in the air, and turned her head to one side, her nostrils flaring. “So that’s it, then,” she said. “Is that all there is to it? Because we can’t do anything about it, we don’t have a right to know what’s happening in our own family.” She turned to Dad, who did not meet her gaze.

I felt the need to jump in. “I think all Dad’s trying to say is that we don’t see any reason to worry all of you out there when you have problems of your own. Isn’t that right, Dad?”

Dad remained in the same position, his eyes distant and narrow, his whole body turned away from us, legs crossed. “Well…not exactly,” he said.

“So what then?” Stan asked. “If that’s not the reason, then I don’t get it.”

Dad took a drag off his cigarette, the paper burning down to his fingers, and crushed the butt in the ashtray. He exhaled through his nose, a thin stream of smoke drifting from each nostril up toward the ceiling. “The way I see it, if a body decides to move away from their family, well…” He lifted one weathered hand, as if that explained everything, and he said nothing more.

Muriel lifted her chin, taking short breaths in through her nose and clamping her hands together, the knuckles white. “I see.” She nodded. “I think I understand,” she said. She stood up, slowly, and walked from the room.

Stan ground his cigar into the ashtray and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He locked his hands together, the fingers relaxed, curved slightly. He held this position for a long time before he spoke. “Dad, I’m sorry this came up today. It wasn’t the right time to talk about family matters. But I’m hoping that your grief is affecting what you say. And I hope you didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” He said this in his deep, steady voice, speaking directly at Dad without a pause. Then, without waiting for a response, he rose and went to the room where Muriel had retreated.

Now it was just Rita, Dad, and I, and if there was ever a time I felt
helpless, it was that moment. I sat exhausted, as if I had just relived the last twenty-five years of my life.

“Dad, is there anything you want, some coffee or anything?” Rita asked.

He shook his head, and I said a silent thank-you to Rita as the gesture made it somewhat comfortable for us to leave the room. I stood and stretched my arms out in front of me. Rita stood beside me.

“I think I could use a nap right now,” I said.

“Actually, that sounds pretty good to me too,” she said.

So we went to separate rooms and lay down, leaving Dad alone, staring out the window. It seemed to be what he wanted.

I woke up an hour later, and I rolled out of the bed, sweating and nearly choking on my twisted dress clothes. I wondered why I hadn’t taken them off before I lay down. I quickly changed into dungarees and a work shirt.

Drifting into the dining room, I sat down with a deck of cards, laying out a game of solitaire. It seemed that every adult in the house had been napping, as they emerged one by one from their rooms, hair mussed, yawning and scratching. All except Jack and Dad.

“Anybody seen Jack?” I asked.

“He’s down at his house,” Teddy said.

I nodded. “What about your grandpa?”

They all shrugged and shook their heads. “Haven’t seen him.”

“I think he’s sleeping, too,” Rita said. “I heard snoring from that direction.”

The kids laughed.

“Well, I suppose we should get something going for dinner,” I said. “We have a bumper crop of food here.”

Rita, Muriel, and I went to the kitchen and surveyed the icebox.

“This looks good,” Muriel said, pulling the lid off a beef casserole.
Her spirits seemed to have improved with a little sleep.

“I think all we need to do is warm up a few of these dishes,” Rita said.

We filled the oven with the casserole, some scalloped potatoes, and a vegetable dish. We also found a beautiful chocolate cake and set it aside for dessert.

We sat down to eat. Teddy ran to the old house to get Jack, but Dad had still not come out of his room.

“He probably needs sleep more than he needs food,” Stan said.

“This all looks so good,” Muriel said.

“It certainly does,” Rita agreed. “It would be nice to eat like this all the time without doing any of the work.”

Stan had a good “Ha” for that one.

There was a strange sort of giddiness to our mood, as if we had forgotten for the moment that we had just buried our mother that morning. Or as though we were all relieved to have some of the secrets out in the open after so many years trying to protect each other from them.

Teddy came huffing into the house, probably having sprinted the whole way. “Dad says he ain’t hungry.”

“Ain’t?” Rita said.

“Well, you know what I mean,” Teddy said.

“Ain’t?” Rita repeated.

“It means the same thing as isn’t,” George said in his droll, low voice.

Rita’s eyes flashed, but she couldn’t help smiling. “You, young man, are a smart aleck,” she said to George, grabbing for his ear.

George smiled into his shirt. We were still laughing when Dad emerged from the bedroom, rubbing the back of his head with his knuckles. He passed right by us as if we weren’t there, and our laughter died a quick death. We all turned our attention to our food, not
looking at each other. Dad rummaged around in the kitchen.

“Dad, do you need help finding something?” Rita called.

“I’m all right,” he answered. We heard water running, filling a glass. Then Dad appeared in the doorway.

We were stricken with rusty joints, all of us at once. We moved slowly, cutting and lifting our food as if each forkful weighed several pounds. None of us looked directly at Dad, but you can bet we had him in the edge of our vision.

He walked into the room, straight over to Muriel, tipping the glass of water to his mouth as he walked. He bent at the waist and whispered something into Muriel’s ear, then gave her a peck on the side of her head, right in her hair. And she burst into tears and threw her arms around his waist, nearly knocking him over.

I
n the corner of the living room, a fresh pine stood thick and shining green, strung with popcorn, cranberries, candles, and the gleaming colored balls that Muriel and Stan bought in Billings. The radio played Christmas carols softly, so that we could still talk at normal volume. The smells of pine, wax, and a raging fire filled the house. The bottom three-quarters of the windows sported an intricate frost, with an arc in the icy coating. And small glass and paper figurines littered the mantel, shelves, and tables. Since Mom’s death, Rita’s decorative eye had transformed our once-functional house. Her touch made the house seem more like a home, and I was pleased with how much more comfortable, relaxing, it felt. The decor helped compensate for the absence.

Toys lay like battle victims across the floor—a red metal car with rubber wheels, a doll with wiry blond hair and a hole in her mouth for her plastic bottle, a wooden train, each car painted a different, bright color. Dad slept in his overstuffed chair, snoring lightly, a pair of new
wool socks resting in his lap. Stan, George, and I had just come in from feeding. We gathered the wrapping paper, which we used to feed the fireplace. The women created the aroma of Christmas, working their magic in the kitchen, and the kids had been sent upstairs to play, where they wouldn’t disturb Grandpa (or at least that’s what we told them).

“Well, did you get what you wanted?” Stan asked me.

“Santa was very good to me,” I answered.

“Ha.” Stan balled up a wad of wrapping paper and tossed it into the fire. “I didn’t know you still believed in Santa, Blake.”

I held a finger to my lips. “Quiet, Stan. You don’t want to disillusion young George here.”

“What, you mean there’s no such thing as Santa?” George adopted a shocked, hurt expression, and Stan and I laughed.

Just two months past his eighteenth birthday, George was trying to decide whether to join the army. Rita jumped on any and every opportunity to talk him out of it, showing him articles in the newspapers that gave casualty totals, and telling him that he probably wouldn’t even get to fight, but would end up like his father, stationed somewhere in the states, shuffling papers around. “I wouldn’t mind,” he’d say. “I just think it’s my responsibility.”

But I think he was more drawn to the glory of fighting than he let on. When his mother wasn’t around, he pored over the descriptions of battles, or read books like A Farewell to Arms. It was easy to imagine him putting himself in the place of Hemingway’s wounded soldier, being tended by a beautiful, sympathetic nurse. And as much as I also hoped that he wouldn’t enlist, I could understand the romantic allure.

“Well, whatever they’re cooking in there sure smells good,” Stan said.

“Sure does,” I agreed. “And I’m getting hungry. Seems like breakfast was yesterday.”

We had just sat down to Christmas dinner, said grace at Muriel’s request, and begun to pass the food around the table, when the sound of stomping echoed from the back porch. A pocket of cold air blew through the house. Jack entered the dining room from the kitchen. He cupped his raw hands up to his mouth, and his shoulders hunched up around his neck. I was sitting at the head of the table, a position I had taken since Mom died. One evening, I came to the dinner table and found Dad sitting in my chair. He nodded toward his, indicating that I should sit there. I never asked why. But it had been that way ever since. And now, everyone looked at me after seeing who it was.