Where You Once Belonged

by Kent Haruf

  “Where is Toni now?” I said.

  Dr. Martin ignored that for the moment. He went on. He said he thought that Danny Pohlmeier was going to live. There was a good chance of it, he said. He was a healthy young boy. It was too soon to tell, though. They were making arrangements to fly him to Denver.

  “Where is Toni?” I said.

  Dr. Martin looked at Nora. “We have your daughter in a room just down the hall here. But I don’t think she suffered. It was too sudden. I feel certain she didn’t suffer.”

  “Where is she? We want to see her.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “Yes,” I said. “We want to see her.”

  He looked at Nora again. She was standing very rigidly, watching him. “Very well,” he said.

  I took Nora’s arm and we followed Dr. Martin down the hallway to one of the rooms in the emergency area. Inside on an examining table there was a small figure with a white sheet pulled over it.

  “We want to be alone now,” I said.

  Dr. Martin took my hand and pressed it and put his arm around Nora’s shoulders. He was going to say something more but evidently thought better of it. He went out and shut the door.

  After he was gone Nora lifted the sheet. We could see Toni’s poor face then. Her black hair was matted at the side of her head and her face was swollen and discolored. Her eyes were only half-shut. Her face had been badly cut up and she had bled from the nose and mouth. There was dried blood in her nostrils and there was more blood at the corners of her mouth.

  “Oh god,” I said. “That’s enough, Nora. Put it back now. Jesus god.”

  But Nora lifted the sheet so that she could see all of Toni’s body. They had cut her clothes off. Our daughter looked very small and broken. Nora moved her fingers gently over the bruised arms and then she walked over to the counter and pulled a Kleenex from a box and moistened it with her tongue so she could removed the dried blood from Toni’s mouth. She bent and kissed the forehead and put the sheet back.

  After that we went home again. It was beginning to be daylight now. And later in the morning John Baker, who owned the mortuary, came to the house and we made the arrangements for the funeral. A couple of days later Toni was buried in the Holt County Cemetery northeast of town.

  It was a large funeral; all of her friends from school were there and many of their parents and various townspeople. There were a great many flowers at the altar of the church. The minister spoke and there was some music, I remember, and afterward, at the cemetery, after the brief prayers and rites, people filed past us to shake our hands while we stood in the shade under the green awning at the gravesite. For the funeral John Baker had done what he could with Toni’s face, but it was not recognizable. It was merely the mask of a dead child, caked with powder and waxen-looking. So we had not permitted the casket to be opened and we had not allowed anyone to view her at the mortuary in the evenings before the funeral. When it was all finished and everyone had driven away, Nora and I went home again to a house that seemed utterly quiet. None of the public ceremonies had helped.

  * * *

  But as it turned out Danny Pohlmeier did live, as Dr. Martin said he might. He was in the hospital in Denver for two or three months and then he was in a cast for another half year or so. When he was home again he came to the house one night to talk to us. He sat on the couch and cried into his hands while he told us about it. After he had stopped talking there was nothing more to say. We walked him to the front door and he left. Nora and I did not blame him for what had happened. We did not feel that way about it. He was a nice boy and it was obvious that he felt very badly. Still we never mentioned his name to one another again.

  In fact we were hardly speaking at all. It was an awful summer. Nora was quieter and even more withdrawn than she had ever been. She couldn’t sleep at night and she had begun to take things to make her sleep. Then she would get up late in the morning with a headache and move silently about the house. In the evenings she would still garden a little, among her roses, pulling weeds and dusting the flowers with insecticide, but she wasn’t much interested in her roses anymore and she had begun to wear white gloves whenever she worked outside. They were the same gloves she had worn previously to church and for women’s society meetings; now she was using them to protect her hands from the soil in the backyard. It was as though she were afraid of being contaminated by even that much of Holt County. Finally at the end of summer we agreed that it would be better if she left town for a while.

  We gave people another reason for her leaving, however. Earlier that spring her father had been forced to retire from teaching at the university and he had decided that he wanted to move to Denver, to be in a larger city. He needed help to make the move. So at the beginning of September, Nora went to Boulder to assist in making the arrangements. We were both relieved that she was going to be gone for a time.

  Then she refused to come back. It was at this time that Nora rented for her father the large apartment on Bannock Street, on the ground floor of an old Victorian house. It was a roomy place. It had leaded windows and outside there was ivy growing on the brick walls, with a black wrought-iron fence separating the house from the sidewalk and street, and evidently the whole thing suited the old man so well that he was quite pleased with his daughter and even told her so. Consequently Nora stayed awhile longer to help him establish his desk and his books. Then she decided to stay with him permanently. She took a job at the city library downtown and returned every evening to cook supper for him. It was an arrangement they both seemed to like. She wrote me a letter about it. That was how I learned that she was not coming back.

  I wasn’t certain how I felt about this. The truth is, I did not miss her particularly. It was easier in the house without her there, without having to watch her every day. But a week or two later, on a Sunday, I drove to Denver to see them. I took Nora and the old gentleman out to eat at a restaurant. It was a place they suggested. There were white linen cloths and linen napkins folded in cones on the tables and heavy silverware beside the white plates. There were several wineglasses too. Dr. Kramer ordered the wine and when the waiter brought the bottle to the table the old man made a bit of dignified show, sniffing the cork and feeling it with his papery fingers. He decided the cork was sufficiently moist and told us it proved that the bottle had been placed on its side, that the cork hadn’t been allowed to dry out. Then the waiter poured wine into his glass and he tasted that and it seemed that the wine was satisfactory too. We all had a glass of wine.

  So it was a long complicated meal of four or five courses. But Nora and the old man appeared to enjoy it. I had to admit that Nora’s face looked lovely again; the rigid control she had held on herself during the summer seemed to have been relaxed and she looked almost girlish once more. She sat beside her father and was very attentive to him. They discussed each course as it was brought by the waiter, sampling the food the other had ordered and making comparisons. Later we had dessert and coffee. Then we were finished with dinner and so we drove around in the city for an hour, across town through the city park and past the zoo and the museum, and back through the Cherry Creek retail area toward Broadway and Bannock Street. At the apartment again, Dr. Kramer decided he would take a short nap.

  “Of course,” Nora said. “Why don’t you rest for a while, dear.”

  “But don’t let me sleep too long. You know I mustn’t sleep too long.”

  “No. Just for an hour.”

  “No more than that.”

  “I’ll wake you in an hour. Then we’ll have some tea.”

  She followed him into the bedroom. Through the opened door I could see her bending over him, removing his shoes and covering him with a blanket. They were quite affectionate with one another; they called one another “dear.”

  When she came back to the living room I said: “Why don’t we take a walk now? I need some air and I want to work off this dinner. Maybe we can even talk a little.”

  It was early
evening then. It was in the fall of the year and the trees standing up in front of the old houses in the neighborhood were just beginning to turn. The apartment they had rented was in an old established area of Denver. Formerly it must have been an attractive part of town; there were many large brick houses, built before the turn of the century, but the houses were nearly all divided into apartments and the streets were lined with cars. We walked five or six blocks south along Bannock Street and then turned west where we could see the mountains, high and blue-looking out beyond the city, and then north, and then east again to make a circle. It felt good to be walking. It was pleasantly cool outside and we saw a number of Hispanic families sitting out on the big porches of the neighborhood houses, playing music and drinking beer and talking, while handsome little black-haired kids played games in the yards or rode bicycles on the sidewalks, and I thought there was a sense of real life in the neighborhood, of things happening which would be interesting to know about. But soon Nora was ready to return to the apartment and her father. “I should wake him,” she said. “If he sleeps too long, he won’t be able to sleep again tonight.”

  “Let’s go back, then. If that’s what you want.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  We walked a little farther.

  “And this is what you want, isn’t it? You want to stay here and live with your father? And work at the library?”

  “Yes. You wouldn’t like it. I know you wouldn’t, but I do. It suits me.”

  “Well. I hope you’ll be happy.”

  “Oh please. Don’t be that way.”

  “I’m not. I do hope you’ll be happy. I mean that.”

  “Because I tried,” she said. “I did try, don’t you think I did?”

  “Yes. I think you did. I think we both did.”

  “Thank you for saying so.” She touched my arm and then took her hand away.

  “Yes. Well. I miss Toni. I can’t help but miss her.”

  “I know,” Nora said. “I miss her too.”

  Then we arrived at the apartment. We stood on the sidewalk in front of the iron fence.

  “Do you want to come in?” she said.

  “No. I don’t think so. You go ahead.”

  “Thank you for dinner.”

  “Good-bye,” I said.

  She went on up the steps into the apartment. I stood for a moment longer watching as the lights were turned on inside. Then she pulled the curtains shut and I got into the car and drove home, out of Denver onto the High Plains toward Holt.

  * * *

  After that I was lonely for a while. I do not mean that I missed Nora herself very much, but it was the absence of there being anyone else at all in the house. I suppose after eighteen years, even if it is an unsuccessful marriage, you still miss the sound and presence of someone’s being there when you go home. I missed Toni horribly.

  Finally I began to eat supper at one of the local restaurants to delay going home, and often I ate at the Holt Cafe. Jessie Burdette was still working there. She looked very attractive in her yellow blouse and dark slacks, with her brown hair pulled back away from her face in combs. She was thirty-one years old then. She was very competent as a waitress, and it was pleasant to see her and to talk to her briefly in the evenings.

  So the fall passed in that way. I worked steadily at the newspaper office every day, editing and publishing the Holt Mercury, printing whatever was profitable and of interest locally without attempting to do anything that would take much effort, just the routine small-town-weekly-newspaper kind of thing. Then one evening at the Holt Cafe, after I had eaten supper, when Jessie brought the bill to the table I asked her if I could drive her home when she got off work. The evening had turned cool and I knew that she usually walked home.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I drove this time. I was late leaving the house so I decided to drive.”

  “Oh. Well maybe another time.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Why don’t you ask another time? But do you want anything else? Any dessert?”

  “I guess not.”

  She put the bill on the table and carried the dishes back to the kitchen. I finished my coffee. Well that was foolish, I thought. She doesn’t need you bothering her. I got up and walked over to the register to pay. Jessie was clearing another table. I waited for her, then she came back and rang up the bill and made change and I started to leave.

  “But, Pat,” she said. “Wait. Would you like to come to the house? I could make some fresh coffee.”

  “I would, if it’s all right.”

  “I’ll be here another hour or so.”

  “Okay.”

  “Say about seven-thirty?”

  “Okay.”

  She laughed. “Sure that’s okay?”

  I grinned back at her. “I’m real quick. I guess I’m out of practice.”

  “I know you are,” she said.

  I walked on outside. I thought of taking something to her, some cake or cookies to go with the coffee, but the bakery was closed and only the bars and liquor stores and the 7–11 were open now at this time in the evening. So I went back to the office and worked for an hour and then waited half an hour longer; then I locked up again and drove over to her apartment on Hawthorne Street.

  TJ and Bobby were watching television in the front room when I walked up onto the front porch. I could see them through the window. I rang the doorbell and Jessie came to let me in. “This is Mr. Arbuckle,” she said. “He owns the newspaper.” Her sons looked at me. “Can’t you say hello?”

  “Hello,” they said. Then they turned back to the television.

  Jessie led me out to the kitchen. It was clean and bright, with space enough for a large table and four chairs. “Do you want to sit down?” she said. “I’ll get the coffee started.”

  “You have a nice place here,” I said.

  “It’s all right. Anyway, it’s not too expensive.”

  I watched her making the coffee. She had changed clothes since coming home from the cafe; she was wearing a long-sleeved blue pullover now and faded Levi’s and her hair looked freshly combed. When the coffee began to perk she sat down across from me at the kitchen table.

  I don’t know what we talked about that first evening—well yes, I do know. We talked about ourselves, about her childhood in Tulsa, her crippled mother and about her brothers and her father, and I told her a little of growing up in Holt. It was awkward at first. We drank several cups of coffee and at nine-thirty Jessie said, “Excuse me a minute,” and went into the front room. She told the boys they had to go to bed now. They turned the television off and came through the kitchen to enter the bathroom. I was still sitting at the table and as they passed through the room they looked suspiciously at me. When the bathroom door was shut I could hear them brushing their teeth and whispering to one another. Then they came out and stood beside the table while Jessie kissed them. “Go to bed now. And no funny stuff. Okay?”

  They looked at me once more. “Good night,” I said.

  “Good night,” TJ said. He poked at Bobby.

  “What?”

  “You’re supposed to tell him good night.”

  “I don’t even know who he is.”

  “Tell him good night anyway.”

  “Good night,” Bobby said. Then he walked out of the kitchen and TJ followed him.

  “Oh my,” Jessie said. She laughed and made a face. “Such manners.”

  “It’s all right. You’ve done a terrific job raising them. They’re good kids.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Yes. You have a right to be proud of them.”

  She reached across the table and touched my hand. “Thank you. You’re a nice man. Did you know that?”

  “I’m not so nice.”

  “You seem to be.”

  Later I stood up and Jessie walked with me to the front door and out onto the porch. We stood looking out across Hawthorne Street toward Harry Smith’s horse pasture. There was a half-moon and you could just make
out the shapes of soapweed and sage against the dark native grass.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” I said. I started down the steps.

  “Pat.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think you’ll be eating at the cafe tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. Probably.”

  “Then I probably won’t drive my car to work.”

  “Then I probably will drive mine,” I said.

  “There,” she said. “You see? You’re not as much out of practice as you thought.”

  I laughed. It was the first time I’d laughed in months. “Maybe it’ll all come back to me.”

  “I think it will.”

  After that it was a wonderful fall and winter. I wasn’t lonely anymore, and I think perhaps they were good weeks and months for Jessie too. After that first evening we saw each other nearly every day. When she had finished work at the Holt Cafe I would drive her home to the apartment, and then while the boys watched TV or did schoolwork we would sit in her kitchen and talk. We talked for hours. I had never talked with anyone as much as I did with her, telling her things I had not told anyone before, things which I hadn’t known I’d thought until I heard myself saying them to her. It was a new experience for both of us to be unguarded with someone, and as the months passed I began to stay at her apartment later into the night, talking and drinking coffee, and then after the boys were in bed and asleep often we would move back to her bedroom. She was a beautiful woman and very warmhearted and generous in bed, and I looked forward to seeing her every day, to talking to her and being with her. I thought about her constantly.

  She had Sundays off and during the week we made plans to do something together with the boys. We took drives out into the country, or drove to another town or went to a movie, and if there had been a rain or if the wind had blown hard we hunted arrowheads in the bare fields of the farmers I knew. In the spring TJ and Bobby each found a number of pieces of flint and a few complete points. We ordered books about Plains Indians and about arrowheads and read them together, and one Sunday we spent an afternoon constructing a glass display case to put the points in. The boys lined it with dark velvet. They were pleased with what they had made and I believe they came to think that I was all right too. I certainly thought they were. They were wonderful little boys and I was crazy about their mother.