Dwelling Places (14 page)
Authors: Vinita Hampton Wright
Of course, Alex did not rise and heal, did not sober up. Everything fell deeper into the hole. And he and Marty fought so horribly that the whole family thought one of them might kill the other.
“It's not as bad as I'm making it sound,” Jodie says. She realizes how quiet the house is. She has no idea where her kids have gone. “He's trying so hard to be useful, and I wish he'd just relax. And then he gets defensive because he doesn't think I trust him to do anything.”
“It's that idiot guy stuff. Got to be competent, in control.”
“I think that's what brought him down the first time.”
“It'll work out, Jo. You and Mack have a real strength between you.”
Jodie does not say that Mack has moved out of the house. Instead, she remembers vividly when Marty packed up the kids and headed for Omaha to stay with her parents. They stopped long enough to say good-bye to Rita, Mack, Jodie, and the kids. But she'd left the family before that day. They'd all felt her twisting against the tight-lipped resignation they had all grown to wear so well. She left, and Alex died, and God only knows what suffering that has dealt her. Jodie wonders if Marty lies awake still, all this time later, and replays her last words to Alex, replays herself walking out the door, and condemns herself for his death. Some things Jodie will not allow herself to think about for more than a second or two, the pain of those seconds being so swift and complete.
After she hangs up the phone, Jodie walks into the front room of the house. Its picture window overlooks a harvested beanfield, its autumn presence lumpy and gray. During the warm months Jodie gazed over the endless rows, their young leaves twittering and green, inching up and filling out, day by day. She has stood here and watched the
motion of breezes through the rows, has breathed in the smell of seedlings growing earthy and luxurious.
When she was a child, living with her parents on the edge of another farm town, she imagined that angels played in the fields, that the wind sounds were really angel whispers, and that when the greenness rippled from one end of the field to the other, the angels were playing. She remembers how intent she used to be on seeing the angels. She would wander out in early mornings, through her parents' back gate, and venture into the neighbors' fields. Somewhere she'd gotten the idea that angels become visible in the half-light exactly between night and day. So she would shiver in her pajamas and jacket and tiptoe into a row of corn and look hard at the spaces between the stalks. The angels never became visible to her, but she never doubted they were there.
She stares now, through the large window Mack and Alex installed when their families were young, and the view before her appears infinite. The sense of distance cuts her to the core. So many people she loves are far away now. Her mother and brother Paul, Marty and the kids. Wayfarers, they are off to other regions, following their individual roads. And then there are the dead, who are farthest away of all. She wonders if Daddy, Taylor Senior, and Alex wander the fields as she once imagined the angels did, playing in the breezes and watching over the ongoing family story.
Maybe Jodie is the true wayfarer. Mom and Paul, Marty and Sharon and David are at least headed somewhere. And the deceased have arrived to wherever they were going. It is Jodie who wanders now, from room to room and memory to memory. Even as she stands fast in her living room, she is lost. When she scans the field beyond her window, it is for some sign. She remembers vividly the day she lost five-year-old Kenzie. One moment Kenzie was playing in the sandbox Mack had built for the kids to the east of the vegetable garden; the next moment she was simply gone. Jodie was aloneâMack and Alex were in fields several acres awayâand her frightened calls for little Kenzie turned quickly into screams. Then, as she looked out
at the soybeans for maybe the twentieth time, there was the rapid bobbing of a sun-streaked head of hair, nearly a hundred yards out. Jodie ran toward the movement in the field, and mother and daughter met and locked under the glare of midday.
The old hymn about the wayfarer puts reunion in each verse: “I'm going there to see my fatherâ¦saviorâ¦companions.” Jodie no longer knows who exactly she longs to meet in that awful space between now and forever, who she hopes will appear between the crop rows. All she knows is how much it hurts to stand alone at her window now, and how much she wants to believe in angels again.
She leaves the front room and studies the calendar on the kitchen wall. Before long, her niece and nephew will be here. Marty will once again sit at the table and sip coffee and wax gently sarcastic about any and all matters. Christmas. Jodie can't bring herself to think about that. It is just two months away, and nothing is ready. Worse, she doesn't have any inclination to work at a celebration of any kind. She flirts with the idea of going by herself down to Galveston right on the holiday, let the rest of them fend for themselves. But no, that would be too simple. It would be too much of a comfort for her, to be with her own mom, near the ocean, not having to lift a finger.
BUYING TIME
Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand,
The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land;
A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way,
From the burning of the noontide heat, and the burden of the day.
â“Beneath the Cross of Jesus”
Rita
In the space of a morning, Rita has pulled together three boxes of items to take out to the stone house. Pots and pans, linens, soap, cereal and all manner of canned goods, blanketsâshe even bought a new one at the pharmacy. If Mack is going to soul-search out by himself in the woods, then he needs to at least be comfortable. This is still within Rita's power.
Amos helps her load the stuff. He doesn't ask where it is going, just assumes that she is taking it to somebody's house or to the local food pantry or something. And Rita doesn't enlighten him. He is half-deaf and not that connected to community gossip anymore, so chances are Mack will do his little retreat and get himself back home without Amosâor her other neighborsâhearing anything about it.
Mack isn't at the stone house when she pulls up. It occurs to her then that this is a weekday and of course he'd be at Hendrikson's. He is still holding down his job, after all.
Well, she can't carry the boxes in by herself. She sits in the concealed drive, a chilly wind whipping against the car. The minute she gets out in that wind, she knows the coughing will start again. And she'll have to make trip after trip to the house, unloading the boxes a handful at a time.
She looks at her watch. Young Taylor should be out of school by now. She shifts into reverse and heads for the farmhouse.
When she gets there, she stays in the car and honks. Jodie appears at the back door. She reaches for a corduroy jacket and wraps it around herself as she skips out to the car. Rita rolls down the window just enough to talk.
“Young Taylor here?”
“No.”
“I need him to help me.”
“Can I do it?”
“Can you leave now?”
“Sure.” Jodie hops in.
“I'm just taking some things out to Mack.”
Jodie looks into the boxes on the backseat and says nothing.
“Got extraâit's just taking up space.”
“He told me he didn't need anything.”
“He doesâjust doesn't know it yet.”
Jodie laughs.
“What's so funny?”
“Oh. That's quite a statement: he needs something but doesn't know it yet.”
Rita thinks about that and chuckles. “I suppose that applies to just about everybody, doesn't it?”
Jodie insists that Rita stay in the car while she carries the boxes in. It takes her all of ten minutes. Her cheeks are pink by the time she gets back in the car.
“He'll think it's Christmas.”
“Have you seen him today?”
“No, he's at work.”
“He doesn't even stop by in the morning?”
“Just to pick up the kids and take them to school. Speaking of Christmas, Marty called and said that she and the kids were planning to come down for the holidays.”
Rita's heart makes an extra powerful thump. She'll finally get to see David and Sharon. They are both teenagers now. Immediately, a new list forms in her brain, all that she has to get accomplished before they come. When they get back to the farm, she is so distracted by the sudden new plans that she barely hears Jodie say good-bye.
My Lord, Christmas is around the corner, isn't it?
She has lots of cooking to do in the next few weeks. And shopping. And helping all her old folks with their shopping and their Christmas cards. And extra church events.
As she enters Beulah's city limits she sees Young Taylor on foot, apparently heading home. She slams on the brakes and honks. He looks up and doesn't appear happy. But he comes to her side of the car.
“Let me give you a ride.”
“I'm fine, Grandma.”
“It's miles to walk!”
“I'm not going straight home. Eric's meeting me at the video store.”
“It's too cold out here! And why aren't you getting a lift from your dad? He should be getting off work in just a little while.”
“Dad needs his space.”
She stares at her grandson, trying to read something in those shadowy eyes of his. “What in the world does that mean?”
“I don't think he wants any company right now. Eric will drive me home later.”
He turns from her suddenly and continues down the street. Rita slowly pushes on the gas and moves toward home. What makes
teenagers so sullen? Were they always that way? What a thing for Young Taylor to say about his dad. She needs to talk to Mack about this. Maybe she should stop at Hendrikson's before he gets off work. Maybe she should drive back out to the stone house and be waiting for him there. She could cook something and have it ready for him.
But she hasn't yet delivered medicine to Mrs. Garvey. Since her stroke, Mrs. Garvey depends on Ritaâand othersâa lot. It is that or the nursing home. Rita has long suspected that the day Elaine Garvey figures out they are planning to ship her to the nursing home, she'll eat rat poison or something.
So here is an old woman who'll die before leaving her house. And then here is this son who is compelled to not be in his home at all. In a perfect world, Rita would own a mansion and just put everybody in his or her own room. At least then she could stay out of the weather.
Mack
The first Sunday after his move, Mack wakes up at five because he's cold. He digs out one of the blankets his mother brought. But he can't sleep, so decides to get up. The dawn has slipped behind lately, brightening the woods later and later. For a few moments, while Mack stokes the fire and revels in the heat and makes his coffee, his mind fills with plans for the day, even the week. This is a new start. He will figure things out here. But the enthusiasm fades when he stands up and looks around the place, looks outside at the dark sodden ground. His ideas always require much more energy than he actually has. For all of his planning, he comes to consciousness at about nine o'clock and realizes that he is still hunched beside the stove, clutching a cold and empty coffee cup.
He goes to church and is glad to see Jodie there. Religion used to be a simple thing. Life was arranged around regular times of worship, prayer meetings sometimes, holiday programs, and the church dinners that felt as familiar as noonday meals at the Lunch Hour. The same people were always at church. The same women prepared the
same dishes for potlucks. The same folks became disgruntled over every little thing or helped the rest of them keep a sense of humor. Belief about God wove in and out of conversations with people in the next pew and then in the discussion of pork prices over doughnuts and coffee after the prayers were finished.
Now there is some hitch in all of this. Mack sits next to Jodie this morning and tries to feel calm and normal. He tries to be comforted by the words he has always known by heart: the story of the woman at the well, the prayer requests that nearly always include someone entering chemotherapy or facing surgery. The announcements of church events that remain essentially the same year in and year out. There is the pancake breakfast to raise money for the senior ministry, a request from the local food pantry for extra donations with the holidays coming up. But Mack can't listen to them in the same way. He feels twitchy and tired at once. When the prayer requests roll around in their predictability, he silently questions their usefulness.
Will this make any difference? Will the cancer disappear now that we've mentioned it?
He has the sudden urge to add to the list.
I can't bring myself to live in my own house with my wife and kidsâhow would you announce that, pastor? The Barrys aren't here this week; I heard at work that she's filed for divorce. Where does that fit? An announcement or a prayer request?
To stop these thoughts, he blinks several times and shifts position. Why should he suddenly be so bothered? Why can't he just sit here and let the words come and go, same as always? They sing the closing hymn, and he turns to Jodie. Seeing the blankness in her face, he wonders if she ever has the sort of mental arguments he's just waged in his own head.
“Sweet, do you want to go over to the steak place for lunch?”
Her expression is pleasant enough. “Well, I was just going to make spaghetti anyway. Sure.” She turns to Rita and then informs Kenzie. Young Taylor didn't come to church. They leave in their three vehicles, Mack taking the lead, and travel a couple of miles down the highway and pull into the parking lot that is just beginning to fill; it's a popular after-church place. The steaks are cheap and come with baked
potato and salad bar. Rita mentions another restaurant that has added a hot food bar as well, but she's not complaining. This is merely her ongoing assessment of local food establishments.
As they sit at the table together, Mack watches his mother, wife, and daughter. He misses his son but knows that Young Taylor's presence would add more tension than pleasure. It seems to be Young Taylor's job in life to add tension and see what the rest of them do with it. This thought occurs to Mack just as swiftly as the other thoughts intruded during church. He piles sour cream on his baked potato and asks his mother if she still goes to the nursing home every Sunday afternoon. He knows that she does and that she will now give them the rundown on the residents they know, and on some they don't. He is able to relax as the space fills with her words; he doesn't have to respond to them, only to let them be. This is what he wants more than anything in lifeâto let things be, and to be left alone.
They say good-bye in the parking lot. Mack takes his time driving back to the stone house, going by a different route to lengthen the trip. He is not yet comfortable with being alone for hours. Maybe he should have accepted Jodie's invitation to come hang out with her and Kenzie at the farmhouse. But he needs to dive into solitude and suffer through it and come out on the other side. He's not sure there is another side, but he may as well find out sooner rather than later.
Most of the trees have faded lately under harvest dust, but the burr oaks and maples around the stone house have turned, filling the atmosphere with their own lights. This time of year the air is faintly sour with early decay. Already the cottonwoods have shaken leaves from their highest branches, layering the ground in dull brown.
He spends the afternoon gathering wood. He does nothing but walk slowly in one direction and then another, gazing along the ground for twigs and limbs. After a while he begins to separate the wood according to size. He finds a box that once contained a microwave and fills it with kindling. He fills a leaky bucket with the driest twigs. He piles larger sticks to themselves, breaking them across his
knee to make them kindling size. Fallen limbs are another pile; these he'll have to saw into manageable pieces.
There is a lot to be gathered right around the house. The clearing has filled up over the years with underbrush and small trees. But a bit farther out the woods are older, and the trees there have been shedding dead branches for decades. A broken limb, a tree split by lightning. Through an afternoon of searching the ground for firewood, Mack is aware of just how cluttered the ground can be without looking cluttered. When he sleeps that night, he dreams of tree parts in all their shapes and thicknesses. He keeps picking up branches through the night.
The next afternoon, when he gets home from work, he repairs the firewood rack his dad made years ago, and he fills it with the larger logs. By then, it's too dark to work. So the next day he searches out a few larger limbs and saws them into firewood, using an old bow saw. There was a time when Mack would have tossed that aside and gone back to the farm for the chainsaw. But now he has lots of empty time, and it's satisfying to do the cutting by hand. The following afternoon he is back at it again. It is a sunny day, and cold enough for a jacket. After a while Mack has slowed to an easy rhythm with the saw. He finds himself watching with interest the teeth biting into the wood and the orange dust building up around the blade.
He spends hours and hours with wood. With trees and twigs, breathing in the scent of fresh shavings and rotted stumps. By midweek he can close his eyes and identify five or six types of trees just by feeling their bark. He wakes up each morning, and his gaze wanders out to treetops. Wherever he goes he walks over roots. Trees become his habit.
He moved to the stone house on Friday, and by Monday he knew that he'd not moved far enough. Rita showed up with a backseat full of canned goods and blankets and old dinnerware. She soon ascertained that there was no place to store most of it, so she hauled him back to town to help her load a dresser and utility shelf. Of course, she insisted on staying to cook dinner. Mack decided to stand back
from all of this and not get upset. The old leopard would not change her spots, and she seemed less panicky about the situation as long as she was doing something. So let her bring out a dozen bran-banana muffins. That was less cooking he had to do.
But by now, Wednesday, when the old car rumbles up to his door, something inside Mack reaches its limit. Mom has worn a whole new set of ruts in the ground around the house. He looks out and sees her trying to wrestle a footstool out of the trunkâthe one covered with curtain fabric that has been filled for years with old hunting magazinesâand he strides out the door, both hands in the air.
“Mom, I don't need that. No. Leave itâjust take it to the thrift store.”
“But you've always used a footstool.”
“Well, I don't now.” He grabs the edge of the stool and maneuvers it back into the trunk. She glares at him when he shuts the lid. “I don't need anything else.”
She changes gears in record time, turning toward the house. “You've not had any supper I'll bet.”
“I've got everything I need. You just go home. It's getting too cold for you to be driving around this late in the day.”
She stops and does her pressed-lips look, pulling her jacket tighter. “You act like you're trying to get rid of me.”
“I'm out here by myself for a reason.”
“What do you think about out here?” Her directness takes him by surprise. She has shifted her weight to one leg, her arms crossed and making her look more formidable than ever. “Out here all by yourselfâwhat do you think about, son? That's what worries me. When people stay to themselves too much, they start having thoughts that aren't good for them.”