He scooped up his hat and looked at the sky, suddenly interested in the absolute nothing above us. “Nuttin’.”
“Well, thanks for the water. But as you have already pointed out, I have a long journey ahead. So goodbye.”
“You really think you’re gonna walk to Indianapolis? In your condition?”
“And just what is my condition?’
He pulled his hat down lower over his already-red face and kicked at the ground with his shoe.
I curled my lip and let out a short burst of air through my nose.
He put his hands on his hips, yellowed fingernails scraping against shabby fabric. “How old are you anyway? Why are you out here by yourself?”
I straightened my body as best I could, trying not wince as the brace rubbed my swollen ankle. I did not answer his questions.
He stared at me.
I stared back.
Finally he sighed, shrugging his bony shoulders. “Well, keep the canteen then. You’ll need it.”
I nodded once. “Good day, sir.”
I started back eastward down the dusty road, trying my best to keep my gait steady. I could feel the stranger’s eyes at my back. But now that my body was no longer concerned with finding water, the pain in my foot grew more intense. I was less than twenty paces away before I started limping.
“Aw, come on. Get back here.”
I kept going forward.
“I can’t leave you out here. Not like this. Let me give you a ride into town.”
“No thank you,” I whispered through clenched teeth. He couldn’t hear me. I didn’t care.
The next sound I heard was the car engine starting. I moved to the side of the road to allow him to pass.
He did not. “Sweetie, get in the car.”
I kept my face forward, the stabbing in my calf seizing my breath. But still I walked.
“Don’t make me force ya. I’m trying to do the right thing here. I ain’t a smart man, but I know enough not to leave a young woman out here in the middle of nowhere.”
I shifted my eyes just enough to look at him.
“The next guy who comes along might not be so nice. It ain’t safe for a girl out here.” Inside the car, his face looked different. Creepy. Shadows wrapped around his temples, darkening his eyes. “I’ll take ya to Pratt. Next town up. ’Bout fifteen miles. I got me some business there, and we’ll get you some food. Figure out what to do with you after that.”
My skin prickled. Run, Kathryn. Just run.
The man’s car sputtered and grumbled, waiting.
I took a step back. And then a fleeting shadow forced my gaze skyward. The crow was back, swooping and circling, threatening me with his shrill caws. And this time he had brought a friend.
The man smiled at me with gray teeth. “So you coming?”
Maybe Pa had stopped in Pratt. Maybe he was still there. And I could get there a lot faster in a car than on foot.
I slid inside, keeping my body pressed to the door and one hand on the handle. The interior smelled of tobacco and sweat.
“Good girl. Now what did you say your name was?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
MELISSA
The Ladies Auxiliary Club met in the church basement every Wednesday morning from nine to noon. A three-hour, once-a-week commitment seemed excessive, especially when there was so much to do at home. I’d been prepared for Henry to say no.
And truth be told, I wanted him to. Those women . . . I’d said nothing, and yet they already seemed to know everything. Who knows what Henry would say—or do—if our dirty laundry was aired all through Boise City because I couldn’t keep my tears where they belonged.
But to my dismay, he had agreed wholeheartedly. I needed friends, he’d said, in a tone that conveyed quite plainly he did not mean Doris McIntosh. All the wives were part of the Ladies Auxiliary. Which in Henry’s world was true, though it hadn’t been in my own. Not that I mentioned this. I was no longer a part of that old world. The Ladies Auxiliary was for the wives of the important men in town, which now included me.
The following Wednesday, Henry and I took the ten-minute drive to Boise City together. I’d planned to ride my bike. It was one of the few things I’d brought with me from my previous life; I’d ridden it everywhere, usually with Kathryn balancing on the handlebars. Nonsense, he’d said when I suggested it. I couldn’t ride properly in those clothes. He wanted to take me. Or wanted to make sure I actually went. Henry was very good at saying things without actually saying them. He dropped me off in front of St. Paul’s with a lingering kiss and a promise to return promptly at noon.
I hadn’t been in the church basement since my mother’s funeral. I was six. Kathryn was just a newborn. I don’t remember a lot about that day, but I do remember it was hot. Too hot for October. Sweat dripped inside my black dress, Kathryn’s small body pressed against mine, doubling the heat. Pa had held her all through the night Ma died, but he wouldn’t hold her that day. I thought maybe it was because it was so hot. Now I knew better.
She wiggled and cried through the preacher’s eulogy. I tried swaying with her, rocking her, whispering and pleading. Still she whined. And still the preacher droned on. My eyes scanned the room, desperate to make contact with someone, anyone, who could rescue me. All eyes pointed at the ground, unable or unwilling to help. Perhaps grief made people deaf, too.
After the preacher finished, the crowd moved to the basement, where the Auxiliary Club had prepared a meal for the mourners. It was even hotter down there. The meat was lukewarm and sticky. The cheese was like rubber. Everything smelled like dead flowers. And Kathryn continued to cry.
I shifted her to my other arm, perspiration trickling down my back, wetting the top of my underpants and making me itch. People milled around, knocking into me and murmuring muted apologies. They didn’t really look at me. Or maybe they did. But looking back now, all I can remember is one mass of black, sweaty stink.
Kathryn erupted into a full-blown wail.
Nervous glances flitted in my direction. Sympathetic maybe, but to me every look said, There’s the baby that killed Lynette Baile. The deformed baby. She killed her, and now she won’t even let us mourn in peace.
Another wave of heat washed over me, this time from the inside out. I couldn’t breathe. Even my lungs were too hot. I clutched Kathryn to my chest and fled up the stairs, bursting through the church door. Collapsing under the nearest tree, I laid my sister on the ground and clawed the buttons on my collar.
She continued to scream.
I grabbed the mass of blankets surrounding her and tore them back, exposing her pink flesh to the air.
Instantly she quieted. Her dark eyes studied my face as her arms and limbs flailed with sudden freedom. The toes on her clubfoot stretched and twisted. Everyone who visited talked about her deformity in hushed voices, like it was some kind of monstrosity with a mind of its own. But seeing it now, laid bare in the bright sun, it was just a foot. Soft, wrinkled skin. Five toes. Tiny nails. Perfectly normal but turned inward, as if an invisible magnet drew it toward the other foot. I traced my finger along the top, watching goose bumps sprout on her leg.
And then she smiled at me.
I know they say babies that small can’t smile. But Kathryn did. She smiled at me. And I smiled back. We were going to be okay, me and her. Because all my sister needed was freedom. And fresh Oklahoma air. And me.
Creeping down the church basement stairs all these years later, I was struck by how much everything—and nothing—had changed since then. The carpet was still ugly and brown, but my dress was no longer old and black and itchy. It was pink and cotton and new. The walls were still papered with faded flowers, but my face wasn’t gritty with sweat and dirt. It was clean and powdered, enhanced with lipstick and blush. And the air still smelled old down here, like books and mothballs, but I no longer clutched my baby sister. No, Kathryn was gone and my hands were empty, save for the diamond on my finger.
Mrs. Brownstone rushed to g
reet me. “Oh, honey. You came!” She embraced me with thin arms, her lavender dress stiff against my body.
“Yes, I came.”
Her eyes swept over my face but didn’t linger. The bruise was faded now, practically invisible beneath the rouge. “Well, come here, come here.” She grabbed my hand and led me to the corner where a group of women gathered around a table, mugs in hand. Some of them I recognized from the meeting at church a few days ago; many more I did not. They quieted as I approached. “Ladies, as some of you may already know, this is Mrs. Mayfield.”
The women nodded and smiled their hellos.
“Well, Melissa—may we call you Melissa?”
I nodded. Yes, please. Please call me Melissa.
“Melissa is here for the first time, and we are so excited she’s decided to join us. The body of Christ can always use the extra hands and feet.”
The women murmured amens. Mrs. Willis raised her chubby hands toward heaven.
“Now, dear, for the past few meetings, we’ve been doing some sewing and mending for local widows.” Mrs. Brownstone gestured to a pile of clothes on a nearby table. “We distribute used clothing to them but also collect discarded fabric to make new dresses and pants for their children. Most of them are so busy trying to make ends meet, they have little time for such matters. So we do it for them.”
I didn’t tell her I knew all of this already. Before Helen came along, when I was still too young to mend, we’d received several donations of clothes from the Ladies Auxiliary. Did they remember? Or did all the needful faces of the past blend together?
Mrs. Brownstone led me to the table. “Do you know how to sew, dear?”
“Yes.”
She winked. “I figured you did.”
So she did remember.
She rummaged through a pile of fabric, pulling out various pieces of brown and gray. “So how are things at home? Settling into married life okay?”
I twisted the ring on my finger, swallowing much too loudly. “I—”
“Learning to be a servant wife takes time, dear.” Her hand on my arm, a look in her eyes I couldn’t quite place. “Before, you were a child with childish ideas and childish dreams. But the time has come to put those away. You are a woman now, and a woman’s job is as a helpmate to her husband. You remember the story of Creation, don’t you?”
Not a question. A rebuke. Gentle, but a rebuke nonetheless.
“God designed us to be helpers, taken from Adam’s rib. Not an easy role, of course, but necessary. And blessed.” The last word sharp and pointed. “Why, take Mrs. Marimen over there.” She nodded her head ever so slightly at the table behind us and lowered her voice. “You think it’s easy being the sheriff’s wife with things the way they are? It’s enough to drive a man to drink . . . and his wife to pick up the bottles.”
The muscles in my legs seized, causing a shuffle in my step, which I tried quickly to shake off. Sheriff Marimen, a drunk? Surely not. I’d never seen the man with anything stronger than a lemonade.
Mrs. Brownstone cleared her throat as she pulled a small dress from the pile, holding it up to judge the size. “It’s our job as wives to meet the needs of our husbands and help them in whatever way we can. Quietness, obedience, and respect should be your defining qualities. Practice those things, and I promise your marriage will be a happy one. A peaceful one.” She folded the dress and put it in a pile with several others. Lowering her voice, her hazel eyes met mine for the first time. They were the eyes of a mother—stern but tinged with a sorrow too deep to voice. “And in these things we find our strength, Melissa. You must practice them even when it hurts. Do you understand me?”
I nodded, putting one hand on my chest to silence my heart. I did understand. Even these women, for all their love and faith, for all their respect within the community, were still just pawns in the game, powerless to change the rules, so intent on enforcing them instead. Their motives might have been pure but theirs was a prudent love, care shown in the constrained way that was appropriate for women of our station.
I would find sympathy here, but little else.
Mrs. Brownstone clapped her hands, causing me to jump. “Good!” She gathered the folded clothes in her arms. “How about for now you take this pile here to Mrs. Gale?”
“Mrs. Gale?”
Her face contorted into a sympathetic pucker. “Annie Gale? Do you know her? Poor thing. Five kids underfoot and her husband done succumbed to the dust pneumonia last fall. She had to sell the farm—oh, but I’m sure you know that.”
Heat rose in my cheeks. Of course. The farm was one of Henry’s now. One of ours. I gripped the sides of my dress with sweaty hands, unsure what to say. Or feel.
“Anyway, she moved to a place over on Murray Avenue. She does some cleaning for people to earn a little money. When she can get those little ones to school, that is. It isn’t easy to keep five kids healthy in a time like this.”
She pressed a basket into my hands and filled it with clothes. “I believe we have a few canned goods in the pantry over there too. Let me grab some for you. We usually pass out food at the beginning of the month, but I can’t send you over there with nothing. Who knows if those kids have eaten anything this week.”
So it was that I found myself walking with rubbery legs westward from St. Paul’s, searching for Annie Gale’s house on Murray Avenue. Most of the sidewalks were so drifted over, I had to walk on the road. I could remember as a child walking these same streets to Norma’s Cafe for a Green River after church. Pa’d be hankering for some chicken-fried steak, and I’d wolf down my lunch—usually pancakes and sausage, a special treat—just so I could get that lemon-lime sweetness. But Norma’s was closed now, the paint on the windows advertising her specialties—old-fashioned meat loaf and green chile stew—long since chipped away. I noticed a small pile of sand gathered in front of the door as I passed, crisscrossed with small footprints and claw marks. Jackrabbits most likely. They could find crumbs and scraps quicker than a hound dog nowadays. Desperation does that to an animal.
The houses were no different. Beaten near to death with sun and wind, it was amazing most of them were still standing. You could tell they’d been nice at one time—picket fences, trimmed lawns, trees planted with the hope of shade. Most of them weren’t yet forty years old. Neat little squares of land divided up for neat little homesteads, all planned to grow into a tidy little town full of promise. But Oklahoma is not a place for the neat and tidy. And all the planning in the world couldn’t make up for the drought.
The basket grew heavier as I approached, my footsteps louder. Less than two blocks, and yet I felt faint by the time I arrived at the base of her sagging porch. I could leave the package on her doorstep and run. Tell the ladies back at church no one was home. I didn’t imagine they’d care. I eased up the steps, wincing as the rotting boards creaked under my weight.
Through the ripped screen door, a child wearing only a diaper stared at me. I was caught.
“Hi,” I ventured, taking a step forward. “Is, um, is your momma home?”
I couldn’t even tell if the child was a boy or a girl. Its brown hair was short and tangled and looked as if it hadn’t been washed in weeks. Dirt colored his—her?—cheeks, and dried snot collected beneath the nose.
“Can, um, can you get her for me? I’m from the Ladies Auxiliary over at St. Paul’s. I have something for her.” I held up the basket.
The child didn’t even blink.
I crouched down. From here, I could tell the diaper needed to be changed. “Can you get your momma for me? Please?”
“Mary Beth!”
A figure emerged from the interior of the house. I stood up and straightened my dress, then immediately felt foolish. The woman who materialized out of the shadows did not care about my dress. From the look on her face, she did not care about—or for—me at all.
“What do you want?” She grabbed the child and swept her into her arms. Her face was plain and weathered, brown and cracked from t
oo much time in the sun. Stringy red hair was pulled back into a bun nearly as tight as her mouth.
The resemblance was striking. Green eyes, red hair, though all of it muted, tired, aged beyond the years she held over me. No one would call her beautiful, yet I could still see it. It lay just below the surface, hidden beneath layers of dust and grief.
I touched a hand to my throat, willing out my breath. It was as if I were looking in a mirror, though not the ornate and impossibly clear one that hung over the sink in Henry’s tiled bathroom. No, this mirror was like the small one Helen had kept in the dugout, a relic of her previous life. The glass was scratched and warped, twisting our reflections into unrecognizable ghosts.
The woman was me. Me several years in the future. Me without this new dress and my new last name. Me in another life, another world, another twist of fate.
“What do you want?”
Her words pulled me out of my spiral. “You, uh, you must be Mrs. Gale,” I stumbled. “I’m from the Ladies Auxiliary. Mrs. Brownstone—from the church—asked me to bring this to you.” I held the basket out in front of me.
The door did not open. Annie Gale did not speak. Or move. Or even look at me. Instead, she stared at my shoes. They were bright and white against her gray porch. Annie’s shoes were ordinary. Brown and sturdy, worn through at the toes. I used to have the same pair.
I tucked one foot behind my calf. “It’s, um, some clothes for you and the kids. I believe there’s some mending in there too, as well as—”
“What’s your name?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your name. What’s your name?” She shifted the child on her hip. The girl picked at a piece of lint on the frayed fabric.
“Melissa Mayfield.” The answer came out like a swear word. Hushed. Timid.
Annie’s face remained neutral. “That’s what I thought.”
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