A Thousand Acres: A Novel (48 page)

I extricated my hand.

Rose closed her eyes and waved me out the door.

W
HEN
I
ARRIVED AT THE FARM
on the day before the sale, one of those iron-chill days in early March, I saw that Caroline, like me, had brought a truck. Marv Carson wanted to be generous with us—we could take whatever personal possessions we liked, and he wasn’t going to say a word about it. “You girls deserve that much,” was what he told me over the phone.

It wasn’t even ten—I’d left St. Paul by six, stopped and had breakfast on the way. Linda and Pam had been stirring, but they knew where I was going, and I didn’t want to talk about it with them any more. Pam, I knew, would get in the car, Rose’s old car, and drive herself to school and follow the course of activities prescribed for her. Linda might or might not. She had cut school seventeen times since moving in with me after Thanksgiving. We no longer fought about it.

I’d intended to stop at my old house, first, and pick up some kitchen equipment for Pam, who was doing most of our cooking, and at least look through my clothes and books, but when I saw from a distance that Caroline had already pulled into Daddy’s driveway, I got suddenly eager to be there, eager and anxious and ready.

She was wearing wool slacks and a beautiful sweater with an elaborate snowflake pattern around the yoke. She was standing in the kitchen, and she glanced around, startled, when I opened the back door. I was wearing Levi’s belonging to Pam and a University of Minnesota sweatshirt (Pam had started to date a boy who had a
passion for the U of M, who liked to see them both dressed in as much U of M clothing as he could). I was going to the U of M, too, at night; my plan was to major in psychology. The house was cold—the heat and electricity had been off since the first of December. I thought that we would divvy up what we wanted and let what was left be auctioned. In my experience, there would be buyers for everything, even the old shoes and boots and coveralls.

Caroline looked at me for a long moment before she smiled, and then her smile was formal, you might even say careful. She remarked, “I wasn’t sure when you’d get here.”

“I’m an early riser.”

“That’s my favorite part of the day, too.”

I don’t know that an independent observer would have suspected we were related—the same ethnic stock, perhaps, though my hair was dark, with gray streaks by then, and Caroline’s was almost red, but the difference now ran deeper than our clothes, to body type and stance, to skin and hair, to social class and whether we expected to be seen or not. She dressed to look good, and I dressed for obscurity.

I knew I seemed hostile. I said, “There’s a kerosene heater in the barn. I could set that up.”

“Some couple in Johnston died from one of those last year.”

“We could open the window a little. You just need ventilation.”

“We’ll see.”

“Daddy used it for years out in the shop.”

Her eyebrows lifted a millimeter and dropped again. She said, “If we work quickly, we can stand the cold. It’s above freezing.”

“Fine. Where do you want to start?”

“Why not right here?”

“Fine.”

So we started. Taking dishes out of the pantry, and glassware and stainless and old cake plates and coffee makers and cut-glass dessert plates and clear cups and saucers that I hadn’t seen for thirty years, since Mommy would have the Lutheran ladies over for coffee and cake on a Sunday afternoon. I felt a small, chilled inner blossom of surprise. There were Christmas napkins in a drawer that I’d never seen, white linen with embroidered holly wreaths in one corner. A
waffle iron, the pressure canner, an electric frying pan with a broken handle. There were three vases with dried-up flower cubes crumbling in their bottoms, a soup tureen shaped like a lemon, a Tupperware cake holder and two Tupperware pie holders, a ten-inch pie plate, a nine-inch pie plate, and four cupcake tins that I knew well, but also a china cream and sugar set with roses painted around the rim that I hadn’t seen in thirty years. There were eight glass jars with lids, old olive jars and pickle jars and peanut butter jars. There was a box of corks that Rose must have thought would come in handy. I said, “Once I looked around for some of Mommy’s things, and I didn’t find any. I thought they’d all gone to the Lutheran Church, but I guess Rose had them.” Did I mind? I couldn’t have said.

“Which things are Rose’s and which things are Mother’s?”

“At this point, they’re all Rose’s, I guess.”

“But some things—these Christmas napkins, for instance. You must remember—”

“I remember the cups and saucers.” I gestured toward the glass coffee things on the counter. “I remember because I thought it must be a sign of festivity to have the coffee visible like that.”

“Well, we’ll set those aside then.” She carried the set carefully to the table.

I said, “I don’t know anything about the napkins. They seem more like Mommy than Rose, but they’re new to me.”

She left them where they were.

She said, “What about the dishes? What dishes did Daddy eat off of?”

“Some white with a turquoise rim. I don’t see them. Maybe Rose put them away.”

“Or sold them.”

“Or gave them to the church.”

She said, “I remember those. I’d like to have them.”

“They were just glass. From the fifties. They weren’t valuable.”

“From that point of view, what is valuable here?” She had her hands on her hips and her tone was rising. I said, “I don’t know, Caroline,” and I could feel my own eagerness gearing up to match hers. She said, “Those Corningware plates must have been Rose’s. You can have those.”

I spoke with conscious coolness. “You don’t want anything of Rose’s?”

She was taking some mugs off cup hooks. The one in her hand said “Pete’s Joe” on it. I held out my hand for it, and she gave it to me. Then she said, “Not really, no.”

I was about to challenge her. I thought I could make my “why not” feel like a slap, but I suddenly wasn’t as ready as I thought. I was disoriented by the array of unfamiliar goods arrayed about. I said, “You finish this. Set aside what you want. I’ll go upstairs.”

The girls and I had cleared their bedrooms, so I left those doors closed. The bathroom, on the north side of the house, was freezing cold and inhospitable. I opened the medicine chest. Some generic aspirin, of which I took four, Gaviscon and Pepto-Bismol, an unfinished course of Amoxicillin, hydrogen peroxide, syrup of ipecac, Bactine, iodine, Band-Aids and gauze patches. I closed the medicine chest. Towels still hung over the towel racks. I began to fold them over my arm. I stopped after two and put them down on the toilet seat. The cold seemed to play over my skin like a fever. I walked out of the bathroom, looked around. There would be more towels in the towel closet, sheets in the drawers beneath it. I stared at those drawers, beautiful dark oak that you could order from Sears in 1910 that you couldn’t even get any more. The floors. The door frames. The tiny hexagonal white tile in the bathroom that as a child I used to try and fit my toes into. It seemed to me that if I only knew the trick—just a small trick—I could look around this familiar hallway with Rose’s eyes, and if I could do that, then I could sense everything she had sensed in the last few years. That, it seemed, would be one way to stop missing her. The cold beat against me in rhythmic blows. A headache pushed up from beneath the aspirin and swelled to fill my skull. I went back down the stairs.

Caroline’s face met mine as soon as I entered the kitchen. I said, “You must think you’re going to take all of Mommy’s and Daddy’s things, and I’m going to take all of Rose’s.”

“I’m sure there’s more that was Rose’s—”

“That’s not the point.” I realized I was gasping. She looked at me, and I saw that for once she was a little afraid.

Her eyes widened, but she didn’t speak.

I said, “Let’s hear it.”

“What?”

“Let’s hear what you’re thinking?”

“Why do you want to?” Her momentary fear hardened. “I think it’s better if we just divide up the stuff and go home.”

“How can we divide up the stuff without knowing what it means?”

She smiled at this.

I turned and ran back upstairs. I opened the door to what had been Daddy’s room, after that Rose’s room. The pictures were gone, leaving vivid squares on the faded wallpaper. I pulled open the closet door and fought my way back toward the shelf above the window. They were there, in a stack, just where I knew Rose would have stored them. In the kitchen, I laid them out on the table, the nameless baby at the top, kicking on a pale blanket, smiling in his or her little white hat. I said, “Okay, tell me who all these people were.”

Caroline sauntered over and surveyed them. She said, “I’m not taking tests.”

“Just tell me.”

“Well, those must be the Davises. Those would be the Cooks. Grandfather Cook again, with the tractor. Mother.”

“Who’s the baby?”

“You, probably. You’re the oldest.”

“We didn’t have a camera when I was a baby.”

“Rose, then. Or me. Who is it?”

“I don’t know. Rose didn’t know. You don’t know.”

“So what?”

“So this. Everyone here is a stranger, even the baby. These are our ancestors, but they don’t look familiar. Even Daddy doesn’t look familiar. They might as well be anyone.”

“Daddy looks familiar.” She smiled.

“How familiar?”

“He looks like Daddy, that’s all.”

“How familiar?”

She turned her gaze from the pictures to my face, took her hands out of her pockets and picked up the picture. It was from the thirties, when Daddy would have been about twenty-five. He looked handsome but a little exasperated, as if this picture taking were a waste
of time. Finally, she said, “As familiar as a father should look, no more, no less.”

I said, “You’re lucky.”

“What does that mean?”

I didn’t answer. She put down the picture, then picked up the one of the baby and scrutinized it. I said, “Isn’t it strange there’s only one? I looked for other pictures, but they start in school. This is all, before that.”

“Well, so what?”

“So why do you want these things? Pictures of strangers, dishes and cups and saucers that you don’t remember? It’s like you’re just taking home somebody else’s farm childhood. You don’t know what it means!”

“So I can’t pass some test.”

“What if I weren’t truthful? What if I sent you off, on purpose, with all of Rose’s things, and kept Mommy’s things for myself?”

“I thought of that.” Now her look flared at last. She exclaimed, “Have you got to wreck everything? Why are we having this sale? Because you and Rose bankrupted the farm. I can’t even accept that, but I’ve got to. So I come here, and you can’t leave me alone. You’re going to tell me something terrible about Daddy, or Mommy, or Grandpa Cook or somebody. You’re going to wreck my childhood for me. I can see it in your face. You’re dying to do it, just like Rose was. She used to call me, but I wouldn’t talk to her!” She walked over to the sink and turned on the faucet. When nothing came out, she stared fixedly at it for a moment, then said, “I told Frank last night, ‘I don’t know what makes them tick. It’s like they seek out bad things. They don’t see what’s there—they see beyond that to something terrible, and it’s like they’re finally happy when they see that!’ ” Now she looked at me. “I think things generally are what they seem to be! I think that people are basically good, and sorry to make mistakes, and ready to make amends! Look at Daddy! He knew he’d treated me unfairly, but that we really felt love for each other. He made amends. We got really close at the end.”

“He thought you were dead.”

“That was the very end! Before that, he was just as sweet as he could be. We talked about things. It was a side to him that didn’t
come out much before that, but suffering brought it out. That was the real him.”

“How did he mistreat you?”

“Well, by getting mad and cutting me out of the farm. He knew he’d been unfair.”

I found myself shaking my head.

She flared up again. “I know you don’t believe me! I don’t expect you to believe me, but it’s true.”

“Caroline—”

“I just won’t listen to you! You never have any evidence! The evidence isn’t there! You have a thing against Daddy. It’s just greed or something.” She abruptly looked me in the face. “I realize that some people are just evil.” For a second, I thought she was referring to Daddy. Then I realized she was referring to me. But I was unmoved. There was not even the usual inner clang of encountering dislike. This was Caroline. Truly we were beyond like and dislike by now.

I said, “You don’t know what—”

Her hands dropped to her sides. It was clear that she couldn’t think what to do for a moment, that I could tell her everything, pour it right into her ear, with no resistance on her part.

Rose would have.

I didn’t.

Then Caroline turned suddenly and ran out of the house, slamming the back door behind her.

I continued to sort things, in the living room, where I wouldn’t be tempted to look out the window for her. The living room, I realized, hurt me the most, because that was where Rose made her last stand, with the couch and the lamp and the chairs, and other things, too, like a subscription to
The New Yorker
and another one to
Scientific American
. In the bench of Pete’s piano was a beginning piano method for adults; in the bookcase, where stacks of
Successful Farming
used to sit, were some course catalogs from the community college in Clear Lake. It was easier, from these artifacts, to imagine Rose by herself, in this room, contemplating her past, planning her future, reckoning up what it was possible to recover. It was a grievous but soothing picture of Rose, one to set against the memory I had
of her in which she was shaking me and shaking me, trying to wake me up, work me up, push me out of my natural muddle.

A truck engine roared outside of the house. I looked at my watch. Caroline had been out there a half an hour. I looked out the front window. Her truck, a new red Ford, I noticed, turned north and passed the big picture window, between me and the old south field across the road. A frozen rind of snow lay between the furrows and drifted against the fence posts. It was nearly blackened by the fine dust of wind-borne soil.