Ten Thousand Charms (32 page)

Gloria bristled and turned away “And I'm supposed to keep on pretending to be Mrs. MacGregan?”

“No,” Maureen said. “Become her.”

Gloria thought back to the first Mrs. MacGregan. Cold and withdrawn, the type of woman who hated women like Gloria.

“You know,” Maureen continued, “not everybody has a story like Josephine's. Not all women are lucky enough to ever be young and in love. So if that's what you're waiting for—”

“It's not,” Gloria snapped. “I don't even know what that is.”

“I loved Ed Brewster,” Maureen said, her face and voice softening, “but I didn't marry him because I loved him.”

“So why did you?”

Maureen reached over to pat Gloria's hand. “Don't think that you're the only woman to feel like she doesn't have a choice. I was twenty-six years old. I'd spent my whole life taking care of my parents—when they died, I was just so alone. I'd known Ed for a while, and when he said he was pulling up stakes to move out west and wanted someone to go with him, I went.

“John William's a good man,” Maureen continued. “He's strong, and handsome in his own way. Most important, he's a godly man who cares for you a great deal.”

“He told me once that he thought God brought our paths together,” Gloria said. “But I think he was just talking about Kate. What I did for her.”

“Maybe so. Maybe you were meant to save Kate, but you know what I really think? I think God sent
Kate
along to save
you.”

The idea hit Gloria like a horseshoe to the head. “Why would He do that?”

“For the same reason that Josephine's father would stand at the edge of their camp and call out to his child. He brought you to safety.”

Safe.
It was the very word to describe how Gloria felt every minute with John William. The first day she met him, he'd protected her from the barbs of his wife. The first night in her cabin, when he entrusted her with his daughter, not even his imposing size and demand intimidated her. They'd journeyed together for countless miles, and even in the wildest country she'd felt protected. Sheltered. He steered conversations with strangers away from incriminating questions, and built her up to be a natural, welcome part of his life. She had never felt as valued as the night he destroyed the detestable little man at Fort Hall. Then there was the day, just one month ago, when together she and John William drove this very path, rounded this very corner to the pretty house with the welcoming blue door. She'd felt at home. Not just then, but ever since the day she'd put her foot in John William's hand and he lifted her up into this wagon.

“All my life,” Gloria said, her voice barely above a whisper, “I've wanted two things. A father, and a home. And the minute I knew I was pregnant, I promised myself that my child would have those things.”

“And he will,” Maureen said. “But girl, there's no reason to deny them for yourself, too.”

“But I told him I was leaving. He said he didn't care.”

“He said no such thing.” Maureen answered Gloria's questioning look with a smile. “I was awake, remember?”

“Well, that's what I heard.”

“That's what you wanted to hear.”

“What
did
he say?”

“That he cares for you. That he has feelings for you. He wants to marry you and take care of you and your child.”

“But he didn't ask me to stay.”

“No, child, he's asked you to choose.”

They drove into the yard, stopping just a few feet from the front door. Gloria turned around to check on the children and smiled at their ability to slumber through bouncy roads and conversation. Off in the distance, she heard the sound of the men's voices as they worked. They were singing. The actual words were lost in the distance, but John William's voice rose slightly above the rest.

“But what will 1 tell him?” Gloria said.

“Don't tell him anything. I'll just stand on the porch with a shotgun waiting for him to show up.”

loria didn't say another word about leaving. Each morning seemed to be a little colder, and while there was no threat of an imminent frost, a sense of urgency prevailed. John William was anxious to get his wheat to the miller in Centerville, not only to have his own supply of flour and grain set aside for his newly acquired family, but also to pay the wages earned by the crew he'd hired to bring in this first crop. Each day, the men worked past the threshold of darkness, returning to the house too exhausted for their accustomed evenings of supper, drinks, and card games.

After the second week, four of the men John William hired left to fulfill obligations to other farmers, leaving just Big Phil and Lonnie to help bring in the remainder of the crop.

Just after breakfast one morning, John William stood in the kitchen doorway, hat in hand, and announced that he needed a favor.

“What?” Gloria asked suspiciously

“Now, John,” Maureen said, casting a disparaging look at Gloria, “we're all family here. Asking for help isn't like asking for the moon. What do you need?”

“Another set of hands.”

“Gather up as much as your hand will hold,” John William said, demonstrating by filling his palm with a generous bunch of newly cut wheat.

“Like this?” Gloria held up a scrawny bunch—probably no
more than twelve stalks—clutched in a hand that seemed to mirror her sullen attitude.

“Only if you want to make this last till it's time to plant again.” He reached over to unclench Gloria's fist, placed his own cut bunch into her grasp, and curled her fingers around it. “There. About like that. Enough that you can get a grip on it, not so much that you're gonna let any drop.”

“I think 1 have the idea,” Gloria said with an exaggerated tone of understanding.

“Good. Now transfer it under your arm, hold it tight against you. Just like that. Now, take another handful, hold it with the rest until you have a nice big bundle. Good, now take a piece of twine,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a length of string, “and wrap it ‘round.”

“Then tie it off?”

“No. If you hold it tight enough, you'll just need to tuck the end under, like this…no…here, let me…” John William leaned in and helped Gloria guide the end of the binding twine under and around itself. It was the first time he'd touched her since the night she'd said she was leaving, and he half-expected her to flinch. He was pleased when she didn't.

“And we'll do this all day?”

He chuckled. “Time will fly. You'll see.”

For this day's labor, John William had given up his seat driving the reaper and chose instead to walk behind the machine. He had cheerfully handed the reins over to Big Phil, who seemed only too eager to climb up and master the rig. Lonnie worked behind them, cutting the missed stalks with a scythe and bundling them in seemingly one motion.

“See him?" John William said, gesturing toward Lonnie. “Before you complain about the labor, look at that and realize it could be a lot harder. I spent my childhood workin’ alongside my father. Hired out.”

“There's worse ways to spend a childhood,” Gloria said.

The newly formed sheaves were unceremoniously dropped
in the wake of the reaper, but when three or four were formed, John William showed Gloria how to stand them together, each supporting the other, so they could dry.

“You see why you need to make the bundles strong?” John William said. ‘They need to be able to support each other.”

On they worked throughout the morning, stopping only for swigs of gingered water from the stone jug that rode alongside Big Phil on the reaper's seat. At the first break, there was some hemming and hawing and searching for a suitable cup so that Gloria, too, could drink, but thirst overwhelmed her and she simply grabbed the jug from John Williams hand and swigged away like the rest of them. She followed her swig with a satisfied swipe of her sleeve across her chin.

Then they were off to work again. They made an interesting crew. Big Phil rode the reaper, occasionally looking over his shoulder to share witticisms and wisdom.

“Know why some dogs just won't hunt?” he'd ask. And just as the others braced themselves for some great truth, he'd answer, “'Cause they're lazy.”

This made Gloria laugh and John William groan and Lonnie grumble that if he had half a dollar for every time he heard someone fall for that one, he sure wouldn't be here choppin’ wheat alongside no potbellied philosopher and greenhorn farmers.

Somehow, John William's prediction about time passing quickly proved to be true, but by noon every inch of Gloria's body—from the tips of her fingers rife with tiny cuts to her blistered feet—called for a time of respite. The ache in the small of her back intensified each time she stooped or stood, and her right arm was sheathed in pain. The decision to leave Maureen home to tend to the children had been made with the understanding that, come noon, Gloria would walk back to the house to nurse Danny and Kate. But now such a trek seemed far too heroic an effort, and her breasts felt none of the heaviness she associated with mealtime. Instead, she dropped her last bundled sheaf and asked, “Can we eat now?”

“Hungry, are you?” John William flashed her a smile full of
understanding. “Maureen sent somethin’ with us. I guess we can break.”

He called out to Big Phil, who willingly called a halt to the team and jumped down, bringing Maureen's wicker basket with him. Lonnie swung his scythe through one more handful of wheat, bundled it, and steadied it against the sheaf Gloria had just dropped to the ground.

John William took the familiar frayed quilt from under the reaper's seat and spread it, flinging weeks’ worth of grass and dirt into the air. The massive noon meal of that first day of harvest had diminished, being replaced by a loaf of bread, a crock of sweet apple butter, and cheese, but to Gloria it seemed a feast.

“Cheer up, darlin',” John William said, mistaking the exhaustion on her face for disappointment. “When 1 saw Maureen this mornin', she was pickin’ out a chicken I suspect she's plannin’ to fry up for supper.”

It didn't take long for the last morsel to disappear. Lonnie unhitched the team of horses from the reaper and took them to drink from the creek at the far edge of the field. He wasn't more than five steps away when Gloria saw the real reason he volunteered for the job—a silver flask he'd been sipping from all morning. Big Phil sat propped against the overturned basket and declared he would rest his old eyes for just a minute while the horses got watered.

“I thought we were all so desperate to get this done,” Gloria said. “If we all have enough time to take a nap, then maybe you can just finish up without me.”

“Calm down, darlin',” John William said. “The body has to rest a bit if it's to be any good at all. And since we have to wait for the horses to get back anyway…” His final thought trailed into silence as he stretched himself out on the quilt, flat on his back with his hat covering his face, just as he had every afternoon of their journey together.

So, just like every afternoon of their journey, Gloria was left alone with her thoughts as she sat, bolt upright on another corner
of the quilt. Just next to her was a little patch of some wildflowers that had miraculously escaped the whirring of the blades. She picked one, then another, and worked their ends together. She picked another and another, finally making a chain long enough to fit over her head, like a necklace. She lifted one of the blossoms and scrutinized the color. Lavender. Maybe he would notice that it just matched her eyes.

Until now, it always seemed as if life was like this chain— each moment, each man, a link stretching on and on until suddenly it was over. That had certainly been true for her mother. The final link, the final cough.

But now Gloria wondered if life wasn't a little more like what she'd lived this afternoon. Maybe people didn't pass through your life, weighing down your past like so many rings of iron. Maybe she and Danny and Kate and John William and even Maureen had been scooped up by some giant hand—maybe even by God—and brought together, held close and tight and wrapped and tied. Maybe life wasn't a chain of moments and people strung along, but a bunch of them, tossed together chaotically and imperfectly to be set against one another, leaning, depending, pulled from the safety of their soil and roots to become something better.