Bottomland

by Michelle Hoover

  If I stopped moving, I couldn’t make mistakes. If I wasn’t breathing, I would make even fewer.

  Five past nine, still early in the morning. I sat back from my machine. Down the line, the girls in the same blouse, same dress, their hair caught back with the same cut of string. Even Abigail with that patch over her eye. If you looked too close at a thing, you got hurt. That’s what Abigail knew. Best not to look at all. Electric, I once thought. But light like that only showed what a person couldn’t have. I liked it dark. That needle, such a hot silver thing. I didn’t dare touch it. If I wasn’t working, there’d be no more needles. No more electric. I wouldn’t go home. I wouldn’t stay. I’d disappear even as I sat right here.

  Five for disappearing. Five times five for every day you were gone and never telling anybody why. You owed ten dimes. You owed twenty. And all the time, Myrle had been growing bigger, those pipes in our room banging, Charlotte trying to get in. And now she had. The both of them, Charlotte and Keyes, saying everything would be all right. Just like home, no matter what my sister did. The way Mother held her and Father put his hand on her head like a cap. That heavy hand of his that was warm and never so sharp with Myrle the way it was with me. How many dimes was that?

  A hand on my shoulder. I flinched. Preston stood behind me with the foreman. I threw that hand off.

  “Number 57,” Preston said. “Let’s take a break, why don’t we? Down in my office.”

  “A break?”

  He nodded. Next to me, Charlotte worried her fingers.

  “I don’t need a break.”

  “Esther,” Charlotte whispered.

  Preston cocked his head. An old man. He was nothing more than that. Old men, you never could change their minds about you. I stood from my chair, looped one of Charlotte’s curls around my finger, one last time. Charlotte touched the back of my hand.

  “Watch yourself,” she said. “I’m sorry. Really I am.”

  But I didn’t know what she was sorry about. I wasn’t sorry at all.

  V

  I took the train home. I’ll be back, I’d told Myrle every day before I left. Soon as I can. And that quiet on the other side of the door said she believed me and didn’t. With Charlotte around, she didn’t seem to care. But I didn’t have a dime anymore to keep the both of us there. Two charity cases, too much for Charlotte or even Mrs. Keyes. On the last night, Myrle asked me: “When?” I told her I didn’t know. “But you can’t come.” With how far along she was, we could never knock on our door. We couldn’t even cross the yard, for fear Father would see or Nan and then they all would know, and that would be the end of home. “That girl’s close to bursting,” Keyes said. “Don’t you even think of tromping off with her to the middle of nowhere.” Like a trick, now even Keyes took Myrle’s side. As soon as I got money, I said, I’d be back. Soon as I could tell the story straight and bring her along, pregnant or not. Myrle opened the door. It was just enough to show a sliver of her eye and one raw cheek. She reached her fingers through the crack. I touched them with my own. “Wait for me,” I said. “I’ll come. I promise.” She squeezed my hand and closed the door again.

  I shared my seat with an old woman who wore a yellow flowered hat. She held it in her lap and stroked it with her thumb, stroking it until minutes after we left the station when she dropped her head to sleep. Out the window, the lake was gray and rough. The lights from the city faded, and all that was left was dark. Dark fields and dark roads, going no place I ever would know. My face peered back at me in the glass, dark as everything else. The train rocked, the wheels going full out. I could ride this train and never get off. Go west as far as the Dakotas, farther even, to a place where waking wasn’t so hard and electric wasn’t and knocking on a door was even less.

  “Dear,” I heard. I opened my eyes. “You were dreaming some sort of nightmare,” the old woman said.

  “What about?”

  “Good heavens, I have no idea. I don’t trust them myself.”

  “What?”

  “Dreams. A person never knows whether they’re up or down. Why, whenever I’ve slept through the night without one, it’s a triumph. When you’re older you’ll feel the same.”

  Her face was puffy, her eyes red-rimmed like she hadn’t slept in years. “I don’t have a clue know how far along we are. Do you?”

  I looked out the window. It was black as pitch, not a house, a tree. “We could be anywhere.”

  “Anywhere,” she said. “That’s a place.”

  “We could be nowhere too.”

  “Don’t say that.” She gripped her chest. “It’s always better to have a place. Whether you like it or not. It makes a person somebody.” She sighed like a great wind and peeled herself from her seat. “Now I’m off to the ladies. Would you mind watching my things?”

  Down the aisle she waddled, balancing herself. The woman was as round as a peach. The door closed behind her with a bang. After a quarter of an hour, she didn’t come back. I flattened my hand on the leather where she’d been and it was warm. As far as I could see, she’d left nothing behind. After a while longer, I wondered if she’d been there at all.

  Home.

  The fields weren’t any different, a rough tide after planting, and the yard yellow with spits of grass. Those fields were low and hollow after Chicago. In the pasture, the cows dug their noses in puddles of rain. The house seemed squat, the sills wanting a coat of paint, and I couldn’t do more than stand on the steps. It took me almost an hour to knock the first time. No one came. It was late afternoon. The porch was shadows, the crickets sawing. In no time, Lee would come in from the corrals or Ray, and I didn’t want to be found at the door like an old cat. I knocked again.

  The door opened. Nan stood with her hand on the knob, an apron at her waist. Taller than poles, she was, and sun-dark, but that hand of hers shone with a ring and she carried a bump under the front of her dress. A strand of hair clung to her cheek. She swept it back. I’d never thought of my oldest sister much, but now she seemed bigger than she ever was.

  “Esther,” she said, turning. Her mouth opened and she pressed her fingers to her throat. “It’s Esther.” In a rush, she folded me in her arms. The house behind her was warm and full. One voice and another, a scurry of them in the hall.

  “Agnes!” Nan called over her shoulder. “Lee!” She held me tighter. “What a terrible child you are. What a terrible, terrible child.”

  “Your father will never believe it,” Patricia said. She picked a lump of gristle from her teeth.

  We sat around the table, every one of us in the same place, everyone but Father. He was off in his room, asleep, just like after Mother went. Next to Nan, in Myrle’s chair, was Carl McNulty. His sleeve hung empty, he smelled a stranger, but the bunch of them acted like he’d been there all along.

  Nan rested her fork. She hadn’t touched her food. Since setting out the plates, she’d perched in her chair, her eyes on the hall. The others didn’t do much better. Ray sat at the end, rubbing his hand. Well now, he’d said when the others rushed me on the porch. He’d given me a pat on the shoulder, worse than a dog. Outside and in, it was quiet. I wasn’t used to that. In a place like this, a cry from an animal carried miles, right through the windows, as if it was in the room with us, and there was nothing to do but feed it scraps.

  Nan folded her napkin in her lap. The sigh she gave. It could cut a girl to pieces.

  “Oh, Nan, don’t,” Agnes said. Nan cupped her face. Carl reached for her while the rest of them dropped their heads.

  “She doesn’t know,” Nan let out.

  “Not now,” Agnes said.

  “Know what?”

  Agnes was out of her chair. She gripped me by the arm. With a look, Nan tried to hold us in place. My oldest sister was younger than I’d ever seen her, her old bones with flesh on them, like what that man next to her did, he’d done in reverse, got her pre
gnant with herself. She’d never wanted to be our mother in the first place.

  “Come on,” Agnes said, tugging at me. “I’ll show you.”

  We walked to the river that wasn’t anything more than mud and weeds. The moon was out, the water black. Across the fields, the Clarks’ kitchen was busy with shadows, but the Elliot farm was dark, not a spit of smoke. It looked like those houses that sat closer to town, where the farmers had given up the goose and moved off. Only squatters in those houses now, or emptied out, a sign from the bank staked in the yard. The Elliot house didn’t have a sign. Even their fence was gone.

  “About a mile off,” Agnes started. “That’s where they found her.”

  “Who?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Myrle, of course.”

  I turned my head. A mile off was more river, the place the water sank into a pool where we went swimming. Myrle always floated in her knickers, paler than any of us. But the way Agnes said Myrle’s name, it sounded something worse.

  “That’s what I thought too,” Agnes went on. “It can’t be. The girl had been in the river for months, and she only came up with January thaw. By then, no one could recognize her. Just a girl, blond like Myrle, blue eyes. But no one else was missing. And we’d already found Myrle’s dress in the washhouse.” The corners of her mouth drew up sharp. “If it was just you who’d run off, we knew we wouldn’t hear anything. Myrle was different. She’d at least try to write.”

  I crouched in the dirt and stuck my hand in the water, cold as nails. It wasn’t so terrible what I did with Myrle’s letters. Not so terrible as rivers.

  “You can’t tell,” Agnes said.

  “Tell what?”

  “Where she really is.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “Chicago. Just like you.”

  I didn’t answer her.

  “They thought it was Tom Elliot who did it. He always did have a thing for Myrle. But they didn’t have enough to arrest him. Still Tom was acting crazy. A week later, he put a gun to his head.”

  Tom and that loft in the barn. Sure enough, he must have felt guilty after that. Even if he hadn’t taken Myrle to the river himself, maybe he drove her there with what he did. Maybe that’s what he’d thought.

  “But if Tom had killed her,” Agnes went on, “he wouldn’t have left her dress in our washhouse. And he wouldn’t have torn it up like that. The way Mother taught us.”

  “If you know so much, why can’t I tell them?”

  “Because of Lee.” She took a step closer. “I tried to tell them her drowning didn’t make sense, but they wouldn’t believe me. Wishful thinking, they said.” She sighed. “Lee would die if he found out. Tom used Lee’s gun.”

  “Lee’d never let that happen.”

  She looked away. “What I don’t understand is why Tom didn’t use his own. If he wanted to kill himself, I mean.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Why don’t you ask Lee? He tells you everything. Me, I can only guess.” She took my hands. Hers were hot and small and nothing like I’d thought. “Just tell me,” she said. Her eyes turned dark. “Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine.”

  Agnes let out a breath. Biting her lip, she started off.

  “What about you?” I called out. “You ever think of leaving this place?”

  “What for?” she shouted. “It’s not like anyone gets anywhere.” Before she was too far, she turned again. “By the way, Father’s asking for you. ‘She’s come back.’ That’s what he’s saying.”

  “He means Myrle.”

  “No, he means you.”

  Lee had his fire going in the smithy. He waited in the doorway across the yard. By the time I walked in, Lee was cross-legged on the floor, his head against the wall. I could have curled into his lap, fallen asleep right there and never talked about Myrle.

  “Did I see you?” he asked. “In Chicago?”

  I sat next to him, tucking in my skirts. “Don’t you remember?”

  He shrugged.

  “You never should have been there, you know.”

  Lee stayed quiet.

  “Agnes told me about the gun.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What’d you do, Lee? You and Ray. It was the both of you, wasn’t it?”

  “It wasn’t the both of us anything. The man was drinking.”

  “Who?”

  “Tom Elliot.”

  “Tom is dead.”

  Lee’s feet twitched. He closed his eyes. “We paid him a visit. A couple of days after they found her, after the deputy came. He and Old Elliot were sitting at the kitchen table, as if nothing had happened.”

  “Tom’s wife?”

  “Gone, I guess. Took the baby with her, what with Tom acting like he was. Heard she was scared.” Lee wiped his mouth. “They weren’t saying anything, just opened the door. Old Elliot laid out four cups. It was Ray who did the talking.”

  I could imagine them in that kitchen, though I knew I was remembering wrong. I hadn’t been any taller than a table the last I’d seen it. Doilies on the chairs, knickknacks and flowers. That’s when Mrs. Elliot was alive. But the way I saw it now, those doilies were dust. The knickknacks had cracked, the place running with dogs. And there were my brothers, kicking their legs like boys, the cups bigger than their fists by twice. As if everything in that place was too large.

  “Crop rotations.” Lee pinched the skin on his arm. “That’s what Ray was talking about.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged again. “Using corn for a spell, then oats. ‘Taking out one thing to save another.’ Ray was always going on about that. After the bottle was empty, we took our hats to go. Even me, I’d had a few cups. Can’t say I wasn’t some dizzy with it.”

  “That all?”

  “Ray insisted it was an accident. He was particular about that part.”

  “What was an accident?”

  Lee frowned. I picked at a loose thread in my lap like it didn’t make any difference what he said. Though it did. It made plenty.

  “It wasn’t any cold,” he said at last. “Not after the thaw. But Ray walked home fast, and he rubbed his hands together like he was freezing. I couldn’t figure that. ‘Don’t you worry about it now,’ Ray said. Then he threw an arm over my shoulder.” Lee shook his head, but I knew what he was thinking. It’d been years since Ray had done anything like that.

  “It wasn’t until the next day I figured the gun,” Lee said. “I don’t know why I left it. Ray said I’d brought it to show the Elliots, the gun being new and all. But I don’t remember thinking it needed showing. The next day, that’s when they told us about Tom.”

  “Ray,” I swore. In the loft in the barn, that’s what I saw. A gun out of nowhere. One good hand on the trigger, the other good for nothing much. Or maybe Ray didn’t have to go that far. Maybe the Elliot boy just needed a little talking to. Crop rotations, sure. Taking one thing out to save another, though Ray likely said a lot more at the table with Lee forgetful and Old Elliot near to deaf. Tom was the only one he needed to hear it. Then a cocked and loaded gun left in the right spot. On the counter, by the door. Even on Tom’s bed. A plain enough message to get Tom thinking he didn’t have a choice, Old Elliot too deep in his cups to notice. And what did Tom have left? The wife gone. The farm a wreck. The loft, it was the perfect place. The kind to split a girl in half. That’s why he’d pick it. A shot like that, it would’ve sent the animals bucking in their stalls. After he pulled the trigger, I imagined Tom breathing a skip or two. I could even hear it, the way it stuttered out of his mouth. A shot that might have sounded all the way to Chicago.

  “Maybe Tom deserved it,” I said. “Maybe he really did do something.”

  Lee sighed. “That doesn’t forgive much.” He rubbed at his eyes, as if they hurt him. “My head was some
sore the next day, I know that. ‘You don’t remember,’ Ray said. And it was true. Cups or no, these days I don’t remember lots. An eye for an eye. That’s what Ray said. And the deputy didn’t seem to care much.”

  Lee’s cheeks had gone pale as the wall. The fire, it was only coals. My brother was still the one who saved spiders. In the war, I don’t think he even aimed his gun. Agnes was right. If Lee found out where Myrle was, found out his gun had taken a life for something less, even if he hadn’t aimed the thing himself, it just might kill him on the spot.

  “So you’re back,” he said.

  “Maybe.” I took off his hat, sat it on my head. “Ray and you, you buddies now?”

  He smiled. “It’s been a long time.”

  Without the fire, it was cold, but next to me Lee was a furnace. I pulled his arm around me and he drew me close. Outside, the cicadas thrummed, the fields nothing but leaves and crawlers and the river running. If we were quiet enough, we could hear that murmur against the rocks. If we were more than quiet, we could hear our own worries, his and mine.

  Patricia peeked in Father’s door. “He’s asleep. We should wait.” She was more than fat, her cheeks drooping like an old cake. The woman hadn’t looked at me yet, not square in the face.

  “Patricia,” Nan scolded.

  “All right. All right.” Patricia opened the door.

  Nan pushed at my shoulders to follow, but she stayed in the doorway herself. Patricia leaned over the bed. “He’s such a sleeper these days. Ever since they found your sister.” She clicked her tongue. “One day Lee caught him sitting on a wash bucket in the smokehouse with his eyes closed. You know what he had in his hands? A chick. Hadn’t lived long enough to even grow fuzz. Your father almost froze out there.” She busied herself straightening the sheets. “Oh, now, here he is.”

  A noise from the bed. Father blinked at me and blinked again. “Wo ist die andere?”