Dwelling Places (13 page)

This five acres has never been cleared of hackberry, silver maples, and cottonwoods. The Deckers' son built the larger farmhouse a generation after them. The sturdier parts of that original house form the center of the house Mack's family lives in. Over the years and generations, rooms were added to every side of the house, and outbuildings were built, torn down, or left to sag gradually back to earth.

Elda and Hiram's son, Andrew, married once and lost his wife when she bore their first child, a daughter. The girl loved the land and found for herself a young farmer who was more than happy to find not only a wife but one with land. Together they added six children to the family, four of whom lived past the age of ten. Two of the remaining four were sons, and both died in the war, so the homestead went to the eldest daughter, Mack's grandmother. During that generation of births and losses, the family added acres to the farm. By the time Mack was born, it was a sizeable spread.

Sixty years ago, Mack's grandfather and Taylor Senior replaced the original cabin ruins by the stream with a two-room lodge of native limestone, equipping it with a wood-burning stove and running water. It stands near the corner of two county roads, which over time have gathered other farmhouses. The horse barn that stood not far from the cabin was torn down years ago to its lower stone level and replaced with a simpler structure where hay and feed could be stored and cattle sheltered in cold weather.

Now Tom Adams rents the barn and its surrounding small pasture. Today the wind whistles through the cracks, and a dozen or so head of Holsteins congregate there when Mack and Young Taylor pull up the gravel drive.

The drive leads to the barn and gives no indication that a few hundred yards to the east, in the middle of old, tall trees, there sits a small stone house. It has become a place for the kids to play in warm weather, for extra relatives to sleep when necessary, and for the men to occupy when fishing and hunting. It can comfortably sleep six or seven full-grown men in sleeping bags, and no women fret when they track in mud or blood, rise up and clatter coffee cups and thermoses
at ungodly hours, or stay up late smoking and having more beer than usual.

The old Frigidaire played out several years ago; its corpse lies on its side, the door removed, on the west side of the barn. The last several years have been so full of fatigue and panic that Mack and Alex didn't need the stone house for hunting or fishing. After Mack gave up his part of the farm, his time with Alex was strained.

So the place has gathered dust and the droppings of small animals. The daybed against the wall squeaks but seems sturdy enough. Young Taylor and Mack scoot the refrigerator into the place of the old one. This one needs to be defrosted often and is marred and rusty, the place where they've been keeping extra ice and soft drinks and frozen items. Jodie wordlessly cleared out what she wanted last night. She even dug out a blanket for covering the sofa, the one on the back porch piled with boxes and work jackets. It is the type of furniture that would have been moved to the stone house long ago if the house had been in use, if that part of family life had continued—the summer fun, the men's time together, the little getaways.

When he and Young Taylor finish with the moving, Mack takes his son back to the farmhouse. “Thanks, son. I'll see you all in the morning.” Young Taylor says good-bye, lightly. Mack doesn't know what the lightness means, and his own emotions stop him from pondering that.

This first evening, Mack spends an hour cleaning out the stove, gathering wood, and starting a decent fire. By then the sky has gone dark, and he doesn't catch the sun sliding down and the colors changing. He planned on those moments, feeling the need for that kind of transition to mark this retreat he's made for himself. But by the time he deals with the stove and fire, he is tired and sore and hungry and thirsty. Most of all, he feels so alone that he wants to march back up the road and into his home. He wants to snap out of this and just settle down and make life work. But the small room is gritty and cold around him, and the night outside is too quiet. From time to time he hears a vehicle over on the road, just barely. If he strains, he can hear
some burbling from the stream, but the night and cold dampen everything. He wishes he'd brought a radio or a book, something to help pass the time.

Kenzie

Prayer time today is painful and tiring. Kenzie's heart just isn't in it. Something dark and uncomfortable keeps welling up there. Instead of praising God and thanking him for all his goodness, she keeps hearing questions pop out of her mouth.

“Why are you letting Dad do this?”

“I thought you were healing him. How am I supposed to pray when I can't tell if you've really answered the prayers I prayed before?”

“If you'd just tell me what to do, I'd do it. Why don't you have something to tell me about Mom and Dad? Don't you think I'd be faithful?”

She leaves the sanctuary totally frustrated. The gray evening clouds spread over her as she pedals down the road. So it is with a sudden, overwhelming relief that she sees Mitchell Jaylee standing at his mailbox, one elbow resting on top of it. She stops in front of him and says hi.

“How are you this evening? About to freeze?” His face looks full of conversation he is waiting to have. The injury to his right eye is healed, and the patch is gone. Even in the twilight his eyes have warm light in them.

“Yes.”

“Want some cocoa?”

“I need to get home.” The word
home
makes her realize how much she dreads being there. “But I can take time for cocoa.”

She follows him inside the house. It is dim but seems clean enough, with magazines and tools lying around. She sits in the tiny breakfast nook and watches him put water on to boil and get out cups and packets of hot chocolate.

“How's your sculpture coming?” It is so cool to be in on Mitchell's artistic life. Because she's never heard anyone talk about it, Kenzie figures that she is the only person who has seen his work.

“Oh, great! I added three pieces to it since you were here last time.”

“Wow. What are they?”

“Let's see, the seat of an old lawn mower…a scythe…and one of those old baking tins that has indentions shaped like corncobs.”

“Awesome.”

“I'll show you while the water's heating.” He leads the way through the back door and into the barn. When he turns on the lights, the cold, dusty space is flooded with orange-yellow. Kenzie walks closer to the sculpture.

“I see the mower seat…and there's the pan.” She looks and looks but can't find the scythe.

“Give up?”

“No!” She points a warning finger, and he laughs. “I'll find it.” As her eyes search through the scramble of metal for the round blade, she feels Mitchell watching her. It makes it hard for her to get a good breath. It also makes her feel safe. He comes closer while she searches. Finally, she sees the scythe, worked into the chicken wire so that the blade itself hardly shows, but the handle forms a sudden angle. “There it is.”

“Good. I think you should try sculpting for yourself.”

“I don't think I really get it.”

“You don't get it before you do it. It gets
you
.”

“Huh.” This is a different concept, but she sees the sense of it right away—the idea that something determines your destiny rather than you determining anything. After all, Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” He said it to the disciples. Kenzie thinks about how every person is probably chosen for something.

Mitchell laughs again, softly. “You're shivering. Let's go back inside.” He waits until she is outside before reaching back and shutting off the lights. Then he rests a hand, just barely, on her waist. “Watch it—I've got some old boards here to your left.”

“Thanks.” She walks slowly enough to keep that contact between them, all the way to the house. It makes her feel so cared for, this hand on her back. Suddenly her throat hurts and hot tears form in her eyes. She blinks frantically so that Mitchell won't see once they are in the house again.

But he is noticing everything. She isn't used to being studied like this. “You got a cold?” he asks.

“Uh, yeah, a little.” She sits at the table and won't look at him. He finds a paper napkin and hands it to her.

“Guess it's time I put you on
my
prayer list,” he says, smiling.

She stares at him. Could he know this—that his name is written on her list?

“I know you pray for me, Kenzie.” He empties the chocolate packets into the cups of hot water.

“How would you know who I pray for?”

“Oh, I can just tell. You've got that kind of a soul. I bet you pray for a lot of people. And I bet that anybody you meet goes on that list in your head.”

“Are you mad that somebody would pray for you?”

“Oh, no! It really touches me that you would do that. Are you crying?”

This moment has slipped out of her control. Something inside her collapses, and the tears spill out of her eyes and down her face. She tries to catch them with the napkin. She feels Mitchell close beside her, pressing a fresh one into her hand.

“I didn't mean to upset you, Kenzie.” His voice is gentler than any voice of any person who has ever talked to her.

“You didn't upset me. I was already upset. Everything's so awful.”

“What's awful?” He is stroking her sleeve. It's just a matter of Kenzie leaning a little bit for her to be against his chest and for his arms to be around her shoulders. She lets go then, and her crying shakes both of them.

After that part is over and she's blown her nose and Mitchell has set their cups of cocoa on the table, Kenzie talks a long time. About
Dad and Mom. About her discipline of prayer and the times when Jesus's eyes move and when she floats. About how Young Taylor is into things he shouldn't be. About how nobody else in her family seems to have faith anymore, and now they need it more than ever. She talks, and Mitchell just listens.

After she's finished talking and the cocoa is gone and after Mitchell has given her a strong hug good-bye, Kenzie rides home feeling changed. Jesus knew that she needed a spiritual friend. This has been the plan all along. He is watching over her after all. God has heard her prayers and answered them better than she would have answered them herself.

She gets home late, and Mom and Young Taylor have already eaten. Mom doesn't ask questions about where Kenzie has been. She is distracted, cleaning out one of the closets upstairs. Mom sorts things when she is upset. She throws things away too. Kenzie decides to look through the spare room first thing tomorrow to make sure there's nothing in there she still wants. It's the room where all the odd clothes go—the jacket that needs the lining fixed or the jeans with a stuck zipper. But other items land there too, when Mom picks them up and doesn't know where they go or who they belong to. So Kenzie will look out for her personal property, because, with Dad gone again, Mom will likely clean and sort and throw things away all week.

Jodie

It is the worst of all times to get a call from her former sister-in-law. Jodie isn't in the mood to talk with anybody. But Marty's voice is friendly, and it sounds as close as next door rather than all the way to Omaha.

Marty just wants to hear how everybody is. Even though she hasn't lived in the area for nearly three years, she has a couple of friends who keep her updated. For instance, she knew about Mack's hospital stay. She called Jodie that very week. Marty has never stopped
caring about her husband's family. But some ties are just too tender to put much weight on. Jodie and Marty have kept a polite distance, especially since Alex's death. It's as if both of them know that any conversation will have to lead to that event and to other events that are over with and that nobody can fix.

“So how are you, Jo?”

“Oh, doing all right. You?”

“We're fine. I'm thinking we'll come down sometime around Christmas.”

“Good. We'll put you up here.”

Jodie becomes sad all over again, about Marty and the kids not living around here anymore. They don't live that far away even now. And Marty has been dating someone pretty seriously. Well, good for her. Jodie wonders if the guy is someone her niece and nephew like, or if this shift is one more variation of hell for them to survive. But she sincerely hopes Marty will get back on her feet.

“I heard that Mack's back from the hospital.”

“Yeah, he's back.” Jodie can't think of a single word to follow that.

“God, Jo, is it that bad?”

Jodie sighs into the receiver. “To be honest with you, I feel like I'm always one dinnertime away from complete annihilation.”

“I know, I know. I'm sorry it's so hard.”

Jodie remembers the day her sister-in-law stopped by and sat at this kitchen table and said, “I can't do this anymore.” She could no longer bear to walk into the bank to ask for more money. Alex's lack of coping skills left everything up to Marty. All the juggling of bills to pay and no money to pay them with. All the times picking up the phone and having to hear from creditor after creditor. All the trips to this business and that to explain, once more, why the balance couldn't be paid off yet. Her life, like every farmer's wife's, was filled with record keeping and calculations, endless forms and appeals. Marty sat up later and later, strategizing with pencil and calculator, and Alex disappeared frequently to drink, more than once bringing the pickup back late at night, dented and scratched up from forays
into ditches and fence posts. So that bright afternoon in March, Marty spoke the unthinkable to Jodie in a deathly quiet kitchen. She said that maybe if she just quit taking care of everything, something in Alex would come to life again. She didn't know, but this was where she had to stop.