Mr. Hickory lay on the hard ground next to me, his hat over his eyes. “Two days. Maybe three. We need to rest.”
I poked at the fire with a dead branch, watching sparks float up and disappear into nothing. “I’m tired of resting. I want to get there.”
“You’re welcome to go on ahead. Chelee and I need rest.”
Every moment we weren’t moving put a bigger distance between me and Pa. Made catching up to him seem even more unlikely. And worse, made the journey take even longer. We needed to keep moving if we ever wanted to get to Kansas City. If we ever wanted to be able to go our separate ways again.
“We could have made it a little farther today,” I said pointedly.
“Could have. Chelee could have stumbled in a dune or tripped over some rocks in the dark and broken his leg, too. I ain’t too keen on walking to Kansas City. Don’t think you are neither.”
I wrinkled my nose. “You don’t seem in an awful big hurry to get where we’re going.”
“I am and I ain’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it means.”
He couldn’t see me, but I stuck out my tongue anyways and threw my stick into the fire, causing a loud pop. Chelee neighed irritably.
Mr. Hickory sighed beneath his hat. “You talk too much.”
“You don’t talk at all.”
“Where I come from, you don’t talk unless you got something to say.”
“And where I come from, it’s rude to ignore someone sitting right next to you.”
Mr. Hickory finally moved his hat, revealing tired eyes. In this light, his skin looked as gray as his hair. When he spoke, however, there was nothing weary about him. “I don’t want to go and I don’t want to stay. But I had to make a choice, and I made it. So that’s that. I ain’t turning back but it don’t mean I gotta run with my tail between my legs. You just settle your britches. I said I’d getcha there, and I’ll getcha there, alright?”
Gone was the ghost I’d been riding with. His words dripped with so much anger, sadness, and ruin, it struck me dumb. All I could do was nod.
Mr. Hickory replaced his hat over his face, coughed, and was still.
I stared at his body, now dead again on the ground. His beat-up boots. His ripped jeans. The bruised and scarred fingers intertwined across his chest, moving up and down with his breathing. I finally realized where I’d seen him before. Not him exactly but men just like him. I’d seen him in the eyes of my pa. I’d seen him all over Boise City. Men with no more hope. Those men who decided it was never going to rain again. That God had cursed us worse than Job and there was no atonement that would satisfy. The war with Mother Nature was lost.
Mr. Hickory was a defeated man. And that was even scarier than Frank Fleming.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MELISSA
“You again.” Words as bitter as thistles. “I told you I don’t need your charity.”
“I’m not here to give you any.”
Annie Gale glared at me through her ripped screen, face twitching. Her dress was the same as last time. So was her expression. “Well, whatcha want then? I got work to do.”
What I wanted was to get on my bicycle and ride away from here, pretend she didn’t exist, hide myself in my house and repeat my name in the mirror—Melissa Mayfield, Melissa Mayfield, Melissa Mayfield—over and over again until the events of the last few weeks faded and I no longer felt sick.
“I, um, I . . .” I fiddled with a thread on my skirt. Henry didn’t know I was here. Henry wouldn’t like it that I was here. But it was Monday, and on Mondays Henry drove down to Dalhart to discuss business with John McCarty, editor of the Texan. Business meaning tobacco and whiskey, with a bit of real estate or oil gossip thrown in the mix. But it also meant he was gone all day and so Mondays were the days I was the most courageous. Or stupid.
“I heard you clean houses.”
Behind her, Mary Beth peeked around a door. Her face was shiny, her stringy hair matted against her forehead. She gave me a shy smile before retreating. Annie, however, did not notice her daughter. She was too busy scowling at me. “So?”
“So I was wondering if you’d like to come clean mine?”
I’d come prepared for many reactions. In a perfect world, acceptance. More than likely, refusal. I was even ready for her to slam the door in my face. I was not prepared, however, for Annie Gale to laugh.
Her face contorted in a way that was the opposite of beautiful, her laughter that of a wounded jackal. I preferred her scowl.
“And why would I go and do something like that?”
I straightened my back, biting my trembling lip. “Because I am in need of a cleaning lady, and I heard you’re the best.”
Her laughter stopped abruptly, the return of her frown almost comforting. “Go get your kicks somewhere else. I ain’t in no mood to be played with.”
“I’m not playing with you, Mrs. Gale. I’m trying to hire you. If you’ll let me.”
“Ain’t you Mayfields got your own maid?”
“Mr. Mayfield Sr. does, yes, but Henry and I do not. And I’m afraid with the dust, the house is just much too big—” I stopped myself, embarrassed. Of course Annie knew the house was big. I didn’t need to point it out, especially not when I was standing on her small, crumbling porch. “I could just use the extra help, that’s all.”
Annie raised her eyebrows. For a moment, I thought she was going to walk away. Or perhaps strike me. But she did neither. She simply stared, face continuing to twitch in what I assumed was an internal battle between pride and desperation. “Why me?” she said finally. “Plenty other cleanin’ ladies in town.”
“I heard you’re the best—”
“No more lies, Mrs. Mayfield.”
I started. I hadn’t expected to be called out, so suddenly and so directly.
“There’d have to be a darn good reason for me to take up with a Mayfield. And I sure as anything won’t be working for no liars. So you go on and tell me the truth now. Why me?”
Why her? Why her indeed? I couldn’t tell her about the coldness in my house, felt despite the sweat on my brow, about the void inside those walls that was bigger than the despair I’d felt when Kathryn left, more intense than the fear I now felt toward my husband. It had started with the screams of the jackrabbits, the look on Henry’s face, and turned into something much more frightening.
The horror I’d witnessed in that desolate field—from godly men, from the man who shared my bed—had shaken my faith, the only solid rock I had left from a life that was fading as fast as the crops beneath the relentless Oklahoma sun. Where was God in this place? The God of my mother, of my youth—I could no longer see Him or feel Him here. He had abandoned this place. Abandoned me. And I had never, in my entire life, felt so alone.
Kathryn was gone. Pa was gone. Henry was a stranger. God was all I had left. So I was chasing Him. Chasing Him the only way I knew how: the way my mother had done—through acts of love that sometimes seemed reckless, crazy, making no sense at all. I was chasing Him through the mirror of things that could have been.
I was chasing Him through Annie Gale.
“Because you’re the best.” My voice was barely above a whisper.
Annie Gale slammed the door in my face.
The force broke a single tear from my eye. I needed this just as much as she did. Maybe even more. Balling my hands into fists, I pounded on the weathered wood. “Mrs. Gale!” The door shuddered beneath my hands. “Mrs. Gale, now you listen to me! I’ll pay you two times whatever you’re making!”
From inside the house, silence.
“Mrs. Gale!”
Down the street, a dog began to bark, competing with my shouts. And still Annie Gale did not answer.
“Fine!” A frustrated snort escaped my nose. “You go on ahead and be that way, you stubborn old mule!” I kicked at the door, wincing as the wood dented. It only made me madder. “When you get tired of trying to feed those k
ids with your pride, you know where to find me!” I stomped down the steps, pretending not to notice a pair of tired eyes peering at me from behind a threadbare curtain.
Those same eyes stared at me from outside my own door the following morning.
Henry had been gone less than five minutes, with some business in town. The coon dogs howled. They knew she wasn’t supposed to be here. Somehow they knew. I tried not to let my panic show as I fiddled with the latch. “Mrs. Gale. Good . . . morning?”
A bag full of cleaning supplies hung from her back. She did not smile. “Morning.”
I glanced over her shoulder. No car. Of course she didn’t have a car. That meant she had walked. Up the driveway. Where Henry had just driven. Oh no. He’d seen her. He had to have seen her. I twisted my hands inside my apron.
Something shifted in Annie’s face. “I cut through the fields to get here,” she said flatly.
I gave a weak smile, forcing myself to breathe. Henry wouldn’t have seen her from the fields. I was safe. But . . . did she know? “I’m, um, I’m surprised you’re here at all.”
She shrugged and looked down at her shoes. The tiniest hint of a stocking poked through one of the toes. “One of my regulars done packed up and moved to California last week. So I had some free time. I should ask for triple, seein’ the absurd size of your house, but I’ll do it for double. Like you promised.”
For the first time since she arrived, Annie met my eyes. It was a challenge. I was a Mayfield, but she still had her dignity.
I nodded quickly and looked away.
She let out a grunt, satisfied. A small victory. Battle won. As it should be. Because her face said all the words she hadn’t spoken: in her mind, she’d lost the war just by being here.
A squeak at our feet turned my attention downward. A small, dirty face gaped at me from behind Annie’s skirt. “Oh,” I said, giving a smile. “Hello.”
The child disappeared behind the drab folds.
“If you want me to clean, Mary Beth is part of the deal,” Annie said, an edge in her voice. “Others are at school, but she ain’t big enough yet.”
“Of course. It’s no problem at all.”
“I clean Tuesdays and Fridays, no exceptions and no substitutions. Yours ain’t the only house in town.”
I gave a slight nod.
Her foot tapped twice on my porch. Unlike hers, mine did not creak. “Well, are you gonna let me in?”
Was I? Henry’s coon dogs glared at me from beneath the shriveled pecan tree. Henry was not in Dalhart today. He could come home at any minute. My reckless confidence from the day before melted at the reality of this woman on my front step. “Um . . .”
That was enough for Annie. She swept Mary Beth into her arms and brushed past me. No turning back now.
Her shoes left smudges on the wooden floor of the foyer. She surveyed the room with a look of wonderment and disgust. With her in it, the house felt larger. Ridiculously large.
I cleared my throat. “I tidied up yesterday, but as you can see, the dust has already seeped back in. If you could do some touch-ups, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Touch-ups.” The words came out like they tasted foul.
“Yes. Please,” I added.
“Touch-ups ain’t really what I do, Mrs. Mayfield. I clean.”
“I’ll still pay you full wages.”
Annie sighed. “Alright.”
“You can, um, you can start in the library, if you want.”
“The library?” That tone again. Every word this woman said made me feel small.
“It’s right through here.”
I always enjoyed the library. It was the warmest place in this big, cold house. But today, everything about it made me cringe. And somehow Annie looked even dirtier in this room. I waited with bated breath for her snide comment.
But she said nothing. Merely dropped her bag to the floor and began removing her supplies. Rags, a whisk broom, a few bottles of polish. Mary Beth settled on the rug next to her and separated the items into piles. Obviously this wasn’t her first time as her momma’s tagalong.
I stood there for a moment, unsure what to do. Was I supposed to sit and watch? No, that would be strange. Retreat to another part of the house and pretend someone else wasn’t doing my job? That would be even stranger.
Annie straightened up, one rag in her hand, the other tucked into her belt. “I’m not gonna steal anything.”
“I know that,” I said, slightly irritated and even more wounded. “Do you, um, do you need any water? I can get some for you from the kitchen or—”
“I am perfectly capable of getting my own water, Mrs. Mayfield.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“But no, I don’t need any water at the moment. I’ll start with the dusting, if that’s okay with you.”
I nodded.
Annie looked pointedly at the door, but still I didn’t move. Partly out of embarrassment and partly out of spite. After several moments, she rolled her eyes and proceeded to the fireplace, running her rag carefully over the mantel. She left no streaks.
I turned my eyes to Mary Beth. She sat on the rug cross-legged, tugging at a strand of her hair, thumb in her mouth. She looked so much like Kathryn. Right down to the dark spots on her nose, which could have been dirt or freckles . . . or both. She eyeballed the books lining the shelves.
“Do you like books?”
She looked at her lap, and I instantly felt foolish. As if her family had money to spend on such things. You couldn’t eat books.
I crossed the room and grabbed a familiar gold-and-green volume from its spot on the table. “This was my sister Kathryn’s favorite book. I used to read it to her every night. Somehow she never got tired of it.”
My voice caught unexpectedly. Oh, how I missed my sister. I’d pushed it down so far but just mentioning her name brought it rushing back. I wondered what she was doing now. I still hadn’t heard from her. Surely she’d arrived in Indianapolis by now. Was she enjoying the city so much she’d forgotten Oklahoma? Forgotten me? Not, not Kathryn. She would never. Even surrounded by the beauty of the City of Emeralds, Dorothy had longed for Kansas. There was no place like home, right?
But Kathryn had been gone a month now. A lot longer than Dorothy.
The child pulled the thumb from her lips and glanced at the cover sideways, hands fiddling with the seam of her flour sack dress.
“Would you like me to read it to you? It’s got a wizard and a lion and a witch and—”
“You ain’t gotta entertain her,” Annie interrupted. “She may still be learning to get to the toilet on time, but she knows how to sit quietly and wait.”
“I don’t mind. I was going to read it anyway.” It could have been the truth. “No reason I can’t read it out loud.”
“Well, I ain’t taking a dock in my pay because you played babysitter.”
I ignored her, settling instead on a couch in the corner. Mary Beth remained at her spot on the rug. “‘Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies,’” I began, “‘with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles.’” The gentle sucking of Mary Beth’s thumb slowed as she studied the back cover. “‘There were four walls, a floor, and a roof, which made one room. . . .’”
By the time I’d finished page two, Mary Beth had given up pretending not to listen. By the time the cyclone arrived, she had scooted to my feet, brown eyes wide. And by the time the story reached the land of the Munchkins, she had climbed onto the couch beside me, getting as close as she could to my side without actually touching me. She stared at the words as if they were magic. When I turned the page and revealed a small black-and-white drawing of Dorothy’s shoes, Mary Beth forgot all pretense and leaned forward, her small hands leaving smudges on my dress. She smelled like the outside.
During all of this Annie said nothing. She dusted and polished and swept, all t
he while pretending like I wasn’t there. Just like I pretended not to notice the small pause of the rag above the shelf as she waited to hear if Dorothy would, indeed, follow the road of yellow brick to the City of Emeralds.
Annie finished her work by eleven. The entire downstairs—the kitchen, washroom, library, and living room—sparkled. Well, sparkled for an Oklahoma house in the middle of a drought. She took her money without making eye contact and left without saying goodbye, tugging Mary Beth behind her. The child, at least, gave me a small wave as they rounded the hill and headed back toward Boise City.
I rushed through the house, searching for any sign that might reveal my secret visitor. A forgotten rag. A stray bottle. A scrunched cushion. But all was well. Annie was nothing if not meticulous. And unpleasant.
Nevertheless, the rumble of Henry’s truck in the drive still sent me into a panic. Moment of truth. There was no way he would know. I had covered my tracks, left no trace. Except he was Henry Mayfield. And Henry Mayfield knew everything.
The coon dogs howled as if tattling when his truck door slammed shut. I clutched the countertop, fingers tingling, and waited for him to come inside. The air in the room pushed against me. His thirty-second walk from the truck to the door took an eternity.
“Hey, honey, what’s for lunch? I’m starving.” His voice was a shout in the stillness. He threw his hat on the table with a thud and kissed me on the cheek, his boots echoing on the spotless floor.
I forced my muscles to uncoil. “I . . . I made you a sandwich.” The plate slipped in my sweaty hands, but I managed to grab it before it fell to the floor.
“I can’t stay long,” he said, crumbs spraying from his mouth. “I’ve got a meeting in town this afternoon with Mr. Egan.”
“Everything okay?” I scrubbed a nonexistent mark on the counter.
“Everything’s fine. Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head over.”
I flinched as his plate clanged into the sink.
Henry laughed. “Goodness, Melissa. Jumpy today. What’s wrong?”
If It Rains Page 14
