On Shifting Sand (15 page)

“I wasn’t thinking. Lost track and let the cigarette burn too low. Singed my fingers.”

He kissed them. “Next time, be more careful.”

I promise that I will, and more. “There won’t be a next time. I’ll stop, I promise. Give them up completely. No more secrets.” It is the least I can give, this promise I can measure and keep.

“Even better,” he says, and together we go inside.

  CHAPTER 10
  

O
N THAT FIRST NEXT DAY
after Pa came home, the morning after my promise, Russ asks, “What about Jim?”

“What about him?” I’m stirring a pot of grits, thankful to have something to command my attention.

“We can’t leave him out at the farm.”

He speaks to me the way I speak to Ariel when I’m trying to reason her away from whimsy, and I respond with childish obduracy.

“It’s more of a home than he had when he came here.”

“It’s an abandoned farmhouse.”

“It’s not abandoned. Pa owns that land flat-out.”

“He can’t live there anymore, Nola.” He’s behind me now, one hand on my shoulder, speaking softly to spare my father’s pride. “Nobody can. He has a home here with us.”

“Don’t you think I should have some say in this?” My wooden spoon scrapes the bottom of the pot, perhaps more strongly than is necessary.
“He’ll be fine. He’s just sick and confused right now. He won’t want to stay here. He’s too proud.”

“We’ll see,” Russ says in that way he has. Not condescending, exactly, because we share the same stake. But authoritative, in that I understand the need to walk away.

I return to the original conversation. “And as for him—” I don’t trust myself to say his name—“take his things to him. I put everything in his bag.” I spoon the grits into five shallow bowls and go to the icebox to get the butter and sugar. “You could drive it out there today.”

“Can’t today. Meeting with the deacons. But you—”

“I can’t leave Pa.”

And so we live that day, and the next, with Russ insisting that we must check on the welfare of his friend, who—until recently—had been his guest.

“It’s a matter of hospitality,” he says when I dismiss the conversation. “It’s not biblical—”

“He’s a grown man,” I say. “A veteran of war who’s traveled the breadth of this country. He’ll survive.” Then I distract him with my womanly ways, pulling him into an unoccupied corner of our house to kiss him with abandon, or whispering about the anticipated night without worrying about our son listening on the other side of the wall. I pour my distraction and my guilt into my husband, with a double measure of passion and intent, using my body to push away my thoughts.

The day Russ is insistent enough to toss Jim’s bag in the backseat of the car and gather supplies for the drive, a familiar dark cloud threatens on the horizon.

“Don’t go,” I say.

“Look how high and far off,” Russ counters. “That’s not going to make it within ten miles of here.”

“You can’t take that chance.”

He is right about the storm, but I buy one more day.

That night, in bed, Russ snores beside me, and I lie awake, trying to stay still and not wake him. It is just a matter of time—very little time,
I know—before my husband will act on his compassion, fetching Jim right back here. Let him sleep on the sofa, or a cot in Pa’s room. A pew in the back of the church, even.

I cannot let that happen.

God knows—and he
alone
knows—the depth of my temptation and the shallowness of my strength. I pray silently,
Keep him away. Find him a home.
Like the sparrows and the foxes. A nest, a den, a smooth stone for his head—only far away from me.

I know I can never tell Russ why there could be no place for his long-lost friend in
this
home—adding that to the long list of what I cannot say. Not about the lunch hours we share, or the time he touched me, or that I’d rummaged through his box of treasures, or the picture I found there. The one reduced to ashes. Part of me tingles with a delicious fear, thinking about my image traveling the country like some hidden inspiration, but there is an unease there too. Like I might be something more akin to prey. How can I present either to my kind, generous husband without betraying all three of us at once?

I swing my feet over the side of the bed and sit up. I don’t dare stand. If I do, I’ll break my promise. I bring my itching fingers to my mouth, imagining the taste of tobacco. Fighting the urge to slip away, I go instead to my knees, burying my face in my hands.

“Spare me.” My lips brush the softness of the worn cotton sheet. “Spare us.” I reach across the mattress and grasp Russ’s hand. “Spare us.”

He makes an inquisitive, sleepy sound and shifts to his side.

“From this storm,” I add, in case he can hear me, and I realize that if Jim ever returns, there will never be complete truth in my marriage. To make the paradox complete, I can never be completely truthful about why he must stay away. I dare not entrust my husband with the task of protecting me from this danger, so it falls to me to protect myself. To protect us.

And then it seems so simple. No other way, really.

I must go alone.

The next morning moves to the rhythm of every other. Coffee, grits.
A check to the sky, hoping for a clear horizon. Russ and I sit at the table, hands clasped, reading aloud from the Psalms and praying for God’s blessing on the day. I ignore the lie at the back of my throat—that unsettling mix of dishonesty and silence.

He kisses me on his way out the door, a full slate of visitation ahead. Given how small our congregation has become, each family gets its own personal attention. Prayer time, a few words of comfort, a few jokes, and sharing cake and coffee. He’ll come home later in the afternoon, patting his soft, rounded stomach, humbled at the knowledge that these people have given him their best, and unable to eat a bite of what I’ve prepared.

The second round of breakfast goes to Pa and Ronnie and Ariel. In between I slip out to the car with three canteens of water, two blankets, and one well-worn satchel.

I corner Ronnie in the bathroom as he splashes his face with warm water—the boy has still not developed a daily habit of soap.

“I need to take a drive out to Pa’s house.” I keep my voice soft enough to go undetected, but not so soft as to imply a secret. “Just to check on things.”

His face lights up. “Can we all go?” He’s spent so much of his childhood begging to go to Paw-Paw’s farm, a request so rarely granted. And here I disappoint him once again.

“No, sweetie. I think it would upset Pa too much right now. And I need you to stay here and watch after him.”

“And Ariel?”

I’ve thought about this, and become uneasy with what seems like a devious instinct. “No, I’m going to take Ariel with me.” Her presence will be my shield.

“But that’s not fair.”

“I don’t want you to feel too burdened. I’m a grown-up woman and sometimes it can be hard even for me to take care of all who need tending.”

“Ain’t a problem for me. Seems Ariel’s a true comfort to Paw-Paw.”

I smooth his hair. “We’re barely even going to get out of the car.
I need to make sure it’s still standing is all. Maybe get some of his things. Clothes and such. I’ll pick you up some Hershey’s at the store when we get his mail. Deal?”

He shakes my hand, so grown-up. “Deal. But can you make mine a Clark Bar?”

I agree.

With a flat cardboard box full of enough paper dolls to keep her occupied for the drive, Ariel settles on the seat beside me. The dolls carry on a long, lyrical conversation among themselves, freeing me from the responsibility of explaining to my daughter why she’s been uprooted for this little jaunt.

The roads have been cleared since Sunday. The same wind that threatened our very lives has cleared this path, with drifts piled up against the weeds and grasses along the side. The wind, I suppose, and our people, driving through, forcing the renewed passage. Intentional, incremental restoration.

The ease of driving gives me time to plan the whole conversation in my head. I don’t envision the house, or the farm. Only his face, as I’d last seen it. Looking at my father—and me—with compassion. And promise.

I’ll walk up to the front porch, through the front door, and hand over his satchel, saying, “It’s best you not come back to Featherling, Jim. I think we both know that.” Then I’ll tell him he can stay on Pa’s property as long as he likes, or at least until we decide what to do.

No, better, I’ll slip the bag inside the front door. Leave, saying nothing. Even if I hear him calling my name—and in my imagination he calls to me—I’ll keep walking. Head high, not looking back.

Better still, I’ll stop at the front gate. Leave the bag. Drive away.

The minute I reach the turn to Pa’s property, something begins to pulsate at the base of my spine. Excitement. Anticipation. Glancing over at Ariel, happily absorbed in her dolls, I’m so thankful that I’ve thought to bring her with me. No need, really, to leave his bag at the gate and drive off like a thief in the day. If nothing else, how would he know it
had been delivered? Was I to assume he made this pilgrimage of a day in hopes of a reunion with his worldly possessions? I need to see him, to hand them over in person, if only for my own satisfaction.

But I will not stay.
Will not stay.
Not even for a conversation. Or a glass of water. Because I have Ariel, our timekeeper. I have to get her home. Have to get myself home. Back along that new, cleared path.

I am still tempted to follow through with my idea of leaving the bag on the front porch, though, and skulking away anonymously, when I see him, sitting on Pa’s swing, arm stretched out beside him. Waiting.

Had anyone told me less than a week before, when Pa’s farm looked like an abandoned wasteland, that it would reveal itself to me as a recognizable shadow of the home I remembered, I would have refused to believe it. And yet—here is a porch, swept clean. Window shutters, level, closed, and possibly painted. The truck set free from the drifts that held it prisoner. Beside the swing sits a small, round table, and on that table a clear glass pitcher filled with clean water, an empty glass beside it.

He stands as I approach. I notice he wears the same overalls and shirt as the day we left him here, but they seem none the worse for what must have been continual wear. I glance down at Ariel, whose attention is piqued by the slowing of the car. Paper dolls abandoned, she rises to her knees and plasters her face to the window.

“Where are we?” My sweet girl hadn’t thought to ask when we first got in the car, and I hadn’t bothered to tell her. To be safe, I don’t tell her now, either, lest she mention it to Pa and upset him.

“Visiting a friend. I need to bring him something.”

“Mr. Jim?”

It occurs to me, briefly, that it might actually be more dangerous for her to be in possession of
that
knowledge, but I will have to explain to Russ eventually.

“Yes. Now sit down before you tumble.”

“We’re driving in a cloud!”

Indeed, loose dust kicks up all around the car, and I suppose to some imagination it might look as if we are appearing out of a fine, brown
mist, but my eyes focus on the man standing on the porch. Leaning, now, against the newel, arms crossed so he looks completely whole. His face is set in an indefinable expression—expectant, amused, maybe even relieved—and if I were to allow myself a smile, it would be big enough to cut through the dust.

I bring the car past Pa’s truck, stopping right in front of the steps. Ariel shoots out, dolls forgotten, hollering an urgent request to milk a cow, or feed a goat, or take a ride on a horse.

“’Fraid none of that’s possible,” Jim says, and he looks at my little girl with an expression of limitless indulgence. “None of them around here anymore.”

Ariel turns to me, betrayed. “You said it was a farm.”

“It was,” I said. “But everything’s changed now.”

“But what can I
do
?” She whines the last word.

“There’s kittens in the barn,” Jim says. “Four or five—tiny things. Why don’t you go play with them?”