Dwelling Places (31 page)
Authors: Vinita Hampton Wright
So now that home is feeling a little better, Mitchell is in crisis. Kenzie has known this was coming, because of the way he acted after the Christmas pageant. She sneaked away to see him the next day, and he was silent and dark. He hardly mentioned Kenzie's singing at all. Instead, he mumbled something about how evil lived within established religion. He'd felt demons all around him in the church. He acted disappointed that Kenzie hadn't made that discernment herself.
Today, though, he seems brighter. He's been up since four this morning, he says, “putting my house in order.” He has carried garbage bags out to the trash heap and had a fire going there all day. Kenzie doesn't understand why so many perfectly good items should be burned, but Mitchell says that he wants to purify the property before he leaves.
Before he leaves.
He has talked about leaving since Thanksgiving, that awful night when he pushed Kenzie away. But today his actions move him closer to a real exit. Only now he wants Kenzie to leave too. He mentions nothing about her age this time, and she doesn't bring it up. Something important is happening, and all she can do is watch it unfold.
“Baby, we've talked about this,” he says, tossing some rotten boards onto a pile near the barn door. “You've known for a long time that God is calling you to a different life.
We've
known it. And it's hardly ever easy to follow God's call.”
“I know.” She's ashamed of how weak she sounds. When he calls her “baby” she feels totally loved. But the words that follow it today are very, very hard. “Are you sure you have to leave now? I thought that maybe once the school year is overâ”
“God's time is not our time. His ways are above our ways.” He points toward his chest with emphasis. “I know, from the bottom of my soul, that if I stay here, I die. The enemy will overcome me. I've already called Reverend Francis's community, and they didn't have room before, but just this week a space opened up. Our place is being made ready for us.”
“Do they know that I'm coming with you?”
“Yes. And after a period of counseling, Reverend Francis will marry us himself, with the whole community as witness to our covenant.”
Today is the first time he's come out and said anything about getting married. In one way it's totally thrilling, but in another it's almost too scary to think about. Mitchell seems so confident that everything will work out, and Kenzie feels her own faith faltering.
“But can he do that, since I'm not eighteen yet?”
“The government's laws are not God's laws. Reverend Francis follows God and only God.”
“Could my family come at least?” Now that her life's calling is more imminent, she is bothered by details and doubts.
He comes over to her and places hands on her shoulders. “They won't understand, and I think you know that.” He brushes back her hair, and she closes her eyes at the tenderness of it. “All we can do, Kenzie, is follow the Lord. And I believe he'll give us the strength we need.”
“You're right.” She grabs another armload of scrap. They work into the evening, and Kenzie leaves just in time to eat supper with her parents. Mitchell says that he will likely work through the night. He wants to pack up the house and be gone after dark tomorrow.
“Pack up as much as you can carry,” he says. “Tomorrow at midnight, I'll drive down to just below the timber, south of your house. You can meet me there.”
“Do you want me to come over tomorrow?”
“No. I've got matters to take care of in town. It's better if you spend the day getting ready.” He stops her as she heads for the gate. It's dark, and just a few stars show from behind a veil of clouds. He holds her and kisses her hard on the lips. She hangs on to him a long time before moving away and down the road.
Once home, Kenzie stands in her bedroom and tries to slow the thoughts speeding around in her head. She doesn't know what to take. She'll have to decide tonight and somehow sort through everything tomorrow during the day, with everybody around. Well, Mom will believe her if she says that she's reorganizing her room; she does that every few months anyway. Mom understands reorganization and will leave her alone. If anyone sees her getting her suitcases out of the hall closet, she'll just say that she's storing some old clothes and books in them for now.
Supper is uneventful, but every little comment or movement makes Kenzie want to rush out of the room and cry. She keeps saying to herself,
God will give me the grace I need. Jesus goes with me, wherever I go, and I will never be alone.
She wants to say something meaningful to each member of her family, but words will not come. The time has passed for making appeals or getting their attention. It is truly time to leave.
But she falls apart when she goes upstairs later and sits on her bed. She cries so hard that she worries that someone will hear her and knock on the door. She soothes herself by writing a long prayer to Jesus. She copies several Psalms into her journal and prays them for herself. Then she gets the suitcases from the hallway, with no interruption or detection, and places them on the bed. She starts with her closet, sorting clothes and shoes. She goes downstairs and gets several garbage bags from the kitchen. Mom is watching television by herself.
“Where's Dad?” Kenzie doesn't know why she should ask this now; she will no longer be here to follow her parents' every move and worry about its consequences.
“Over at Grandma's working on her car.”
“Mom, I'm cleaning out my room.”
Mom looks up. “Getting sorted out for the new year?”
“Yeah, I guess. If I label some bags and boxes, can you take some things to the community closet for me?”
“Sure.”
It is one in the morning when she falls exhausted into bed. She has sorted through her closet and dresser and most of her bookshelves. She has her trunk and desk to go through, but they'll have to wait until tomorrow.
In the corner are several piles of books and various other things. She's decided to give some of them to Bekka and some to Janelle. She won't need them anymore, and at least her friends will have something to remember her by.
Rita
Can it really be January? But, yes, Christmas is packed away, and Rita has just turned the calendar to its new page. It's as blank as can be, and she detects some failure in her system. Usually the month is penciled in before she even turns the page. She writes in birthdays and anniversaries, deadlines for insurance payments and the like. When she feels so inclined, she includes events listed in the church bulletin, but she doesn't participate as much as she used to, so the months are automatically freer.
And Mack got her car running last night. It didn't take that long, which irritated her, and she said so.
“Mom, you never know about these things. It could have just as easily taken me a day or two to get to the bottom of it.”
“Well, thank you. It'll be nice to have transportation again.”
Her son looked as if a comment was on the tip of his tongue.
“I do appreciate you and Jodie carting me around. You've been a lot of help.”
“No problem, Mom.”
Their conversation hasn't been as easy since the afternoon Mack brought up his father's death. She can't yet forgive him for such
disrespect. But she can't fault him for the way he looks after her. She's decided that it's best not to bring up that discussion. He hasn't either, so maybe he's realized how wrong he was. Life will carry on. And now that she has her wheels again, she can freely mark up the month of January.
She is at the kitchen table doing just that when someone knocks on her front door. Through the frosted glass, Rita can see a person's shadow. Nobody knocks on her front door anymore.
But there it comes again, this time with a woman's voice. “Mrs. Barnes? It's Reverend Maynor.”
The pastor of the Methodist church. Rita goes to the door. When she opens it, Alice smiles. “Have I caught you at a bad time?”
“No. Come on in.” Alice wipes her feet carefully on the small rug in the entryway. Rita shows her to the living room.
Alice is close to fifty, and divorced. Slightly overweight but always looks healthy. She preaches out of books of the Bible that the former pastor, the ancient Reverend Sipes, didn't seem to know existed: Amos, Ruth, Obadiah, Titus, even the Song of Songs with all the racy stuff. It's hard not to like Alice, because she's so down to earth. But she's unpredictable too, and Rita wonders what has brought the woman into her house.
They chat for a few minutes about the holidays, the weather, and the pathetic state of the town's streets, which is a regular topic this time of year. But after a few minutes, Alice sits back against the sofa.
“Rita, I'm telling people about a special service we have coming up. It'll be at the church in Oskaloosa two Sundays from now, in the evening.”
“What kind of service?”
“Well, it's sort of a grieving service.”
Rita sits up a little. “You mean a memorial?”
“Not really. We're not mourning the death of people necessarily.” Alice watches Rita's reaction to this. “It's more like we're mourning a way of life that's gone.”
“I'm sorry, Reverend, but you've lost me.”
The pastor scoots forward on the couch, her corduroy skirt draping past her calves. “This service is for families who have left farming over the past several years.”
Rita struggles to comprehend, and Alice keeps talking. “You see, a number of people around here have gone through huge changes. They've lost farms or simply decided to leave farming for one reason or another. But it's hard to just leave a whole lifestyle and go on as if nothing has happened. And so what the church here and in Oskaloosa would like to do is hold a special service that will help those families say good-bye to the former life and look forward to what comes next.”
“Well,” Rita says, smoothing the doily on the arm of her chair, “I don't know why you're talking to me. I've lived here for years, haven't farmed since 1990 or so. I switched lifestyles some time ago.” She adds a slight laugh to that.
“I know, but the rest of your family is still moving through this transition.” Alice tries to meet Rita's eyes, and her voice grows soft. “Rita, there's been a lot of loss in your family. And nothing anyone can do or say can lessen that, but I really think it's time that your faith community support you in a more tangible way.”
“The faith community around here has outlived its usefulness where our family's losses are concerned.” Rita straightens up even while she feels that her body is caving in on itself. “You're still pretty new here, and you don't know the history, but I don't have a lot of fond feelings for some of the church folks around here.”
“I do know that. I wasn't here, but the same kinds of hurts happened in the town where my parents farmed.”
“Then you'll understand that these kinds of things are best kept in a person's family. Nobody else can really help.”
“I don't agree. I've seen what happens when people are allowed to share their grief in a place where they are supported.”
“Honey,” Rita gets up suddenly, pretending to stretch out her knee. “We're doing all right. I really appreciate what you're trying to do, but I don't care to participate.”
“What about your son and his family?”
“You'll have to ask them, but I doubt they'll be interested either.” The pastor gets up and slips on her coat. Rita stands politely as she does so. “Please don't think that I'm being ungrateful.”
“I'd never think that, Rita.”
“Good. I hope the service accomplishes what you want it to.”
She watches Alice go down the walk. Her own heart is pounding. She feels invaded, just as she did the day Mack said all that about his father.
“People have no right to dig up hurts.” She returns to the kitchen and her calendar but is too agitated to sit down. She says to the refrigerator and telephone, “I wish to hell everybody would stop trying to help me!” She opens the fridge to survey her dinner options but closes it after a moment, instead microwaving leftover coffee. Once in her chair in the sitting room, she searches through channels and finds a movie. She stares at it for two hours, hardly aware of the plot or the dialogue.
HOLDING ON
Though vine nor fig tree neither their wonted fruit should bear,
Though all the field should wither, nor flocks nor herds be there;
Yet God the same abiding, his praise shall tune my voice,
For while in him confiding, I cannot but rejoice.
â“Sometimes a Light Surprises”
Mack
He can't remember the last time he and Jodie ate alone in the farmhouse. Usually at least one of the kids is around. It's early afternoon, and they're having a late lunch. While defrosting the freezer, Jodie found some round steak that had been in there a while, and so she has thawed it out and made them pepper steak. Young Taylor is running around with Eric. They dropped Kenzie off at Bekka's in town. She was carrying boxes and said she needed to see two or three other friends and would be back in the early evening. So Mack and Jodie sit in the quiet while the freezer drips onto towels they have spread across the linoleum.
The outdoors is drippy too, with a cold constant rain that has begun in the past half-hour to make tiny tapping sounds against the
windows to signal the temperature dropping. As raindrops turn into sleet, Mack hovers over his plate of warm food, happy that his wife sits across from him in the sweater he bought her for Christmas.
“Good steak, sweet.”
“Thanks.” She nudges hers with a fork. “So Mom is happy, I'll bet, now that she's got her car back.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Did she figure out what you did?”
“Nope.” He laughs.
“We dodged that bullet, didn't we?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You know, she wants us to get marriage counseling.” She looks up to see his response.
“She harping at you about that? She cornered me a week ago.”
“I think it's probably a good idea.”
He stops chewing. “You do?”
She nods, taking a steak knife to the meat on her plate.
“Wellâ¦sure. It's fine with me. I didn't want to drag you through any more than necessary. And it's worked out pretty well with this guy I'm seeing. You want me to set up a time with him?”
She keeps looking at her food. “If you like him, yeah. I'd rather not see a complete stranger.”
“Have you been wanting to do this? You should have told me.”
She lets out a careful breath. “I hadn't really thought about it until lately.”
He reaches for her hand and squeezes it. “Let's do it then. Whatever you want.” To his surprise, she pulls away. She covers her eyes with her hands. He stares at her while several moments go by.
“Mack, I've really screwed up.”
A knot pulls tight in his stomach. She stays hidden behind her hands.
“What?”
“I really have. And it's all my fault, and I don't want to tell you anything.”
No. No, please.
He works hard to swallow and then decides to get right to it. “Are you about to ask me for a divorce?”
“No. But you may want one anyway.”
“God, Jo, what's happened? Just tell me.”
“I've been with someone.”
There it is. Jodie's face is in her hands again. He notices, in an odd second of coherence, how red and chafed they are.
He can't utter a word. After a long moment, he brings a fist down on the table. Jodie flinches, but speaks again.
“It's not been going on for long, and I've already ended it.”
He sits there while silence pulses around them. Finally, he manages, “I guess it was too little too late.”
She remains quiet, and the words spill out of him.
“All I'm trying to do here, to get myself straightened out, is to be here for you and the kids the way I should be. But I guess I just didn't get well fast enough, did I?” The last sentence rips out of him. If he didn't feel so out of breath he would raise his voice. But this is like a dream in which he tries to run but can't, tries to take a swing but his arm will hardly move, tries to cry out but there is no sound.
“I just said that it wasn't your fault.”
“But if I'd been any kind of husband, I don't imagine we'd be having this conversation, would we?” He gets up from the table and stares out the window above the sink. She seems small, just feet away from him, huddled over her dinner plate. For the first time in their years together, her size and softness make him want to hurt her. It isn't softness after all, but cunning and looseness. She's taken that softness elsewhere. Another man has loved the comfort of her body. Mack hears oceans roaring in his head.
“Who?”
She doesn't answer.
“Huh? Who is it?” He doesn't wait for a reply but steps closer. “What I want to know is why you waited until now. You had the perfect opportunity back when I wanted to die anyway. But then it was all this âOh, Mack, I love you, and me and the kids still need you and
there's so much to hope for!'” The force of his words makes her lean away. “Why wait until I've let all those doctors take me apart and put me back together again?”
He draws back and watches her. She won't look at him. “Do you have any clue in your head how hard I've worked over the past few months? You could have just divorced me a while back.”
“And have you kill yourself and then everybody would blame me anyway.” Her voice is surprisingly strong. Any fear or sorrow of moments before slips aside now, and her features come alive. “I didn't have the luxury of making a choice back when you were suicidal. I had to concentrate on helping everybody survive.”
He is exhausted suddenly, and slumps into the chair nearest her. “Jo⦔ His mind gets cluttered, the way it so often does when he needs to make a decision or think hard about something. Jodie isn't looking at him, but she isn't moving away either. “Jo⦔
“Like I said, I've already ended this mess. It was a stupid thing to do. I just wanted somethingâ” She is working hard to form sentences. “I just needed something for
me,
Mack. I needed a break. Needed to feel different, or something.”
“You needed a break from me.”
“It's more than you. I'm just so tired. No matter how much I sleep, I'm so tired I can hardly walk or talk.”
Even as anger pounds his gut, he is compelled to search for something to repair this disaster. “That's how I felt when things were so bad. Maybe you're depressed too. Maybe you should talk to George yourself.”
She's crying, her face once again hidden behind her red hands.
“We're all having a rough time.” He wants to stroke the hair back from her face, but now that feels like something he needs permission to do. He senses an awful new reality descending over them. His relationship to Jodie has changed, more than he's suspected or is ready for. The kitchen is now a strange room, and he wonders if he should take himself away from this house. Only this time it will have to be farther than the stone house. This time it will be a gigantic move. The whole world will shift.
“I guess we've got to figure out what to do now.” How many times in nineteen years has one of them said this? When both vehicles were broken at once or one of the kids needed surgery or a hailstorm shredded their profits for the year. They had taken turns saying this. Now this sentence is but an ugly punch line. All the other problems solved still add up to this. Mack believes, though, that this problem will not be solved. This is the one that will take them down.
“If you want a divorce, I won't fight it. You're right. It's time for you to do things for you now.” His voice breaks, but he recovers. “We'll need to agree about what to tell the kids.”
“I'm not asking for a divorce.”
“When did you start seeing this guy?”
“A couple months ago.”
“So, the way things have been lately with usâthat's not good enough.”
“I don't know, Mack, I don't know. I can't think right now.”
“So am I the last to know? Has the whole town been laughing at me?”
“Only one other person knows, and it's somebody who's not going to talk.”
“Please tell me he's not one of our friends.”
She pauses a long time, and he thinks of Ed, who has been close to both of them for years. It wouldn't be like him to betray a friend or cheat on his wife, but who can predict stuff like this? A few minutes ago, Mack wouldn't have suspected Jodie either.
“If I tell you who it is, you have to promise not to go over there. You've got to let me deal with this, not cause a scene.”
He leans back against the cabinet, gripping the metal lip of the countertop. “Okay.”
“Terry Jenkinsâat the school.”
He is slightly relieved that it's someone outside his own circle. But the image of the social studies teacher brings on immediate nausea. A younger guy. Somebody without bags under his eyes, who can still make it happen twice in one night.
“Don't talk to him,” she says.
“You've told him it's over?”
“Yes.”
“You won't see him again.”
“I'll have to see himâwe both work at the school.”
“Maybe you should work somewhere else now.”
She moans, head in her hands.
“You feel something for him?” He hates himself for opening this door.
“How am I supposed to answer that? You think I'd just screw around with someone I had no feelings for?”
In Mack's mind, the complications are multiplying. Even if she has ended this, can it stay that way? Maybe they should all move away. But does he really want her to stay, after this? Is he being too kind? His wife has cheated on him. And lied, and left him without letting him know.
“You do what you have to do.” He walks out the door and into the yard, giving room to his anger. He wants to hurt her, knock her off the chair, jerk her up by her hair, make her sorry, make her beg forgiveness, make her hate Terry Jenkins.
But he gets in the truck and drives away. He doesn't act like a kid and spin his tires. He is still a man, a grown man. He is big enough to let her go. He only wishes that he hadn't come to care so much about his life again. He wishes he hadn't already made plans for what he might do this year and next.
He has to work harder to drive, because the roads have begun to get slick. But even while he maneuvers the next few miles, a new sensation registers. He can't bring his thoughts to rest on what has just happened in the kitchen; it's a pain he can't come at straight on. But at the center of him is motion, a stirring of something like hope. He knows that he will have to drive for a while and maybe get out to walk and endure all the hurt that's in him. He will need to take time and pay attention.
And then he will follow his son more closely and talk to him more readily. He will even talk to George, with Jodie or without her. He will go to church some more and listen to his daughter sing.
Jodie is part of the picture but not all of it. Still, he will do everything he can to keep that part.
Jodie
She hears a car in the drive, and even though she's sure it wouldn't be Mack returning so soon, she hopes that it's him. But when she goes to the door, Bekka is standing there. Her older brother waits in the drive, his car idling loudly. Bekka's eyes are wide.
“Mrs. Barnes?”
“Hi, Bekka. I thought you were bringing Kenzie home.”
“She left my house an hour ago, walking. I thought she was going to her grandma's.”
Jodie doesn't know what to say, or why Bekka is on her step looking scared.
“Mrs. Barnes, this will probably make Kenzie really, really mad, but I need to tell you something.”
Jodie is not used to seeing Bekka intense in any serious way. The girl is pulling something out of her school bag.
“This is Kenzie's journal. She left it by accident.” She looks distressed. “You know, earlier, she gave me some of her things, some books and stuff she didn't want anymore. And I guess she accidentally packed this with them.”
“Oh, well, thanks for bringing it. I know she'll get worried when she finds it missing.”
“I read some of it.” Bekka looks close to tears. Jodie guides her to a kitchen chair and sits in the one next to her. The girl keeps talking. “I can't believe I never figured it out.”
“Figured what out, honey?”
“She's running away.”
Jodie pulls back and laughs automatically. “Oh, noâKenzie's fine. Who told you that?”
Bekka opens the journal to a page and points to a handwritten paragraph. “She and Mitchell Jaylee are leaving for this retreat place near Kansas City. Did she come home yet?”
Jodie reads the paragraph at Bekka's finger. She can barely make sense of it. Mitchell's name appears several times. “Bekka, what does she have to do with this guy?” Her mind flips through any reference she has of their neighbor to the north. Hardly anyone ever sees him.
“I didn't know she had anything to do with him. But we haven't been hanging out much. I thought she was spending more time here, now that Mr. Barnes is back home.”
“No. We hardly see her until suppertime.”
“I didn't read much moreâit's private, you know? But she wrote this yesterday. Do you know where she is now?”
Jodie is on her way upstairs, Bekka right behind her. They enter Kenzie's room, and both of them gasp. The bed is made, and the shelves and dresser top, the desk, and every other surface is spotless, with only a few items remaining on them. Jodie throws open the closet door to find just a few clothes hanging there. Against the wall are several garbage bags with big labels on them; some are for the community closet, others are for Bekka and whoever wants them. The dresser is empty, and the bookshelves are nearly bare.
“Dear Jesus.” Jodie runs to the hall phone and calls Rita, hoping Bekka is right and that Kenzie is there. No one answers.
“I can call Janelle and anybody else I can think of. Maybe she's giving them some stuff, like she did me.” Bekka pulls out her cell phone and begins punching in a number.
“Good. And call the Baptist pastor, all right? I'm going over to the Jaylee place.”
Bekka looks frightened. “You think you should do that? By yourself, I mean? You want Regan to go with you?”