In An Arid Land (24 page)

"Go out, all of you, and do God's business," the preacher said after his "Amen," and the congregation rose to its feet.

To avoid a scene, Eveline waited until Monday to return the check. Angela hadn't said a word about the money; she must have talked Floyd into it and then wanted it to be a surprise for Eveline when she got home.

That afternoon, while she was changing Toby's diapers, the man with the job called again. He said he was setting up interviews. Would next Monday fit into her schedule? She said, "Just a second." She smiled and said, "Yes, it would."

Eveline was so thrilled she could hardly breathe. It had been two months since her last interview and this man sounded serious. She knew better than to tell anyone. But that evening when Nina arrived she couldn't contain her excitement; her face was hot with it.

"You look like somebody just gave you a thousand dollars," Nina said, lifting Toby onto her hip. "What's up?"

"It's going to be a good Christmas. I can feel it."

On Friday morning a man with a clipboard came to the house. He said Walter had sent him to do an appraisal of what the add-on would cost. "That tree'll have to go," he said.

"It's a tallow," Eveline informed him.

She called Nina at her office.

"Are y'all really going to cut down my tallow tree?"

"We'll plant others."

"It won't be the same. I'll be dead and buried by the time they're as big as this one. Couldn't you wait a month or so?"

"Walter wants to do it this year. For tax purposes."

"I'll pay the taxes."

"It's not a matter of paying them, it's a matter of deducting them. You know that . . . . Listen, I got to go."

Eveline was silent on the line. She had hoped that if she got this job, any job, she would be able to buy the house from Walter and Nina and save the tree. She didn't need a den.

Nina said, "Are you all right . . . Eveline?"

"Eveline?"

"It was Walter's idea. He thinks I should quit with 'Mama.'"

The interview went smoothly. It was the perfect job for her with a large, secure company based in San Francisco. She would, more or less, pick up just where she had left off. She talked briefly with two men in their separate offices. Then they took her to lunch. The three of them got along like old friends.

"With your experience we see a cost savings to the company of several thousand dollars. We want you at the first of the year, and we'll project the move to San Francisco by Feb-First."

"Wait a minute," said Eveline. "San Francisco?"

The two men, both shorter than Eveline, and younger and brighter and busier, looked at each other. "Didn't you tell her?" They laughed and reddened. "Sorry," said one. "We've talked to so many," said the other. "It's being transferred to headquarters after training here with us. That decision delayed the hire."

"I sure thought you knew," said the balding redhead.

"Is that a problem?" said the blond. "Relocating?"

"Yes," she said. "I mean, no. I love San Francisco."

They wanted her answer by Christmas.

Eveline drove home in confusion. In her previous job she had traveled all over the States and to six foreign countries, but she had lived all her life in Houston. She couldn't imagine living anywhere else. Everything about her was associated with the city. What about Nina? (She'd never allow it.) And Toby? What about Angela? Who would visit Ed's grave? And she didn't know a soul in San Francisco, or in all of California for that matter.

Two trucks were parked in front of the house. On the doors of each was a sign: Mackey's Tree Service. She went inside, paid the elderly lady from next door for watching Toby, ushered her out in a hurry and then stepped to the back door. Limbs and branches and yellow berries were strewn all over the yard. Three men were sitting on the ground, taking a coffee break, it appeared. The trunk of the tallow tree was already naked as a toothpick. She went to her bedroom to change out of her good clothes. She heard a chain saw crank up outside. She sat down on the bed in nothing but her underwear. She just listened . . . .

Christmas was the finest time of the year to Eveline. Houston's humid weather usually turned for good in December and the holiday brought to mind the only really good memories she had of her childhood, of her father bringing home the tree and her mother baking rich-smelling pies in the kitchen. It was a longstanding tradition that Eveline and her family would gather at Angela's house for the annual celebration on Christmas Eve. This year, and with only a week to go, no one had called to settle plans and recently Nina never had time to talk. Eveline knew the holidays were the hardest time on people alone and more than ever before she was looking forward to the get-together up in Conroe. She decided to make the arrangements herself.

"I've been meaning to tell you for weeks," Angela said over the phone. Then she started crying. "We're going to Kansas City for Christmas." It was Floyd's idea to meet in Missouri at the home of the eldest son, because "it's more central, geographically speaking, you know," Angela said, sniffling.

"Hush now," said Eveline. "It's not the end of the world."

"Plan on coming up for New Year's, hun, will you?"

When Nina arrived that evening Eveline broke the news and suggested an alternative. "Why don't we all have Christmas here. Maybe you could invite some friends. We'll have a real party."

Nina said just what Angela had said: "I've been meaning to tell you for weeks." They were going skiing.

"Skiing? You don't know how to ski."

"We can learn, Mama. Eveline. Heard of ski instructors?"

"You don't have to be smart with me . . . ."

"What about Toby?"

Nina's face answered the question. "Please, Mama?"

"It's Eveline." Eveline gave her daughter a sarcastic look.

Nina said, "I mean, Eveline."

"I'll have to think about it," her mother said. "Turns out I've got some news of my own. A job offer."

She hadn't intended to tell Nina until she had made the decision. She knew it would complicate things; Nina would be upset and irrational about it. But Eveline was tired of being the only one with no developments in her life. Now it had slipped out, more like a confession than an announcement.

"Tell me why I shouldn't go," said Eveline.

Oddly, Nina's reaction was mixed. She was excited about the offer but hesitant to advise Eveline to move. It would be such a startling change. They had never lived so far apart from each other. "You have to think of your family," she said at one point. By the time she had packed up Toby, however, Nina's position had softened. The salary, the benefits, the opportunities: a career requires sacrifices, she said. "I mean, we could visit back and forth several times a year. And just think San Francisco."

"So, you're saying I ought to do it?" Eveline heard the surprise in her voice which rose from the surprise in her heart.

"I don't know, Mama. It may be for the best. You need to get on with your life. Daddy would want you to, don't you think?"

They went silent and thoughtful and their eyes wandered.

Eveline said, "How much rent will y'all ask for this place?"

"Walter thinks we could get four hundred," said Nina who immediately realized her mistake. "Oh, Mama, that has nothing to do with it."

"I know, I know," Eveline said. "Close your mouth."

"Well, it doesn't. I'd never . . . ."

Nina's protest was so vehement that Eveline could hear Walter's plans for the future in every word. And she knew that Walter was right. And Floyd too.

"Here, give me a kiss and go on home to your husband."

That night Eveline bought her Christmas tree and then went shopping at the mall. Everyone in the crowd seemed to be with someone else and they were all carrying packages. The familiar music put her in a queer, distant mood. She couldn't smile at anyone or anything, until, in a little boutique, she came across something that was just perfect for her tree. It was a Christmas ornament in the shape of a lizard. The glass was all green except for a crescent of red at the throat. It reminded her that she hadn't seen the real lizard in more than a week, not since the day before Walter's hired men had hacked down her beautiful tallow, the lizard's home. And that reminded her that the men were coming on Monday to start work on the add-on. Everything would be disrupted, dusty and noisy, for no telling how long.

She bought the ornament, but when she got home, instead of hanging it on the tree, she attached it to the window screen in the empty back room, hoping it would entice the real lizard to return. Eveline knew it was a false whim, a doubtful idea, at least until the construction work was done and everything was back to normal, which might not occur until well after New Year's, and she realized then that she might never see the lizard again.

Suddenly she said, "I'm a widow, I tell you, as if you didn't know." Her voice echoed within the empty room. In a rush of temper she snatched the ornament from the window screen, snapping the flimsy piece of wire she had attached it with. She hurried into the living room and carelessly hung the thing on the tree, where it belonged. It dangled from its limb all alone, green on green, still swaying from her heavy touch.

"I'm a widow," she said again, but softly, mysteriously this time, and she finally heard the truth in it.

We were religious in the worst of ways then and looked at things differently than most people, more severely, or more biblically maybe everything we did involved The Church and Father ruled with a cast-iron hand. Back in his deacon days.

I was only eight when all this happened, so I don't know for sure. But this is what I remember and what I've figured from them since them being Mother and Jancy (Jancy's my sister, only two years older, almost in college now) and Roger (my brother by nine years, a real flesh-and-blood brother) and there was Brother Hobson (the preacher at church) and there was Father too, though he hates to talk about it.

So here's what happened. It was Sunday. First, all four of the kittens died and then Roland (he's my brother by ten years, the oldest of us, my favorite) and Roland's wife who was his girlfriend the nor maybe his fiancée already, or maybe she was his wife already. Anyway, the kittens died and then Roland and Mary went down front to confess before the whole congregation. Not over the kittens, I know that now. They confessed their love, as best I can tell, which must have been an awful sin, as it got everybody in an uproar. A terrible time. And then they had the wedding. And I became Uncle Robert. And then everybody simmered down, even Father, and everything changed. But that was later, after Tiger and Roland had both left home.

For me it begins with Tiger, our cat that we'd had a long time, maybe a year, ever since old Max the dog had run away.

Jancy and I named her Tiger because of her stripes and because she was fierce and independent too, a real tomcat we thought, though we might have named her something else like Sophie or Elsie if we'd known. I guess nobody who could have told us different had ever looked, being so busy and so tall you know, and mostly ignoring the cat anyway since Mother had made it clear that she was to be our responsibility and ours alone, Jancy and me, "not like the dog that I ended up caring for despite your promises." And so we didn't find out the truth till one day after school when Mother said, "What's wrong with Tiger?"