by Gish Jen
“You thinking about a farm?”
“No.”
“Then I guess he’d approve.”
They were starting over. Drawing plans. They were thinking through the kitchen. The bathrooms. The flow. That being what they used to talk about over at J. H. Moses, the flow. They weren’t building fancy, now. But it was going to be homey, with a great big front porch. They were going to have the mudroom they’d needed so bad on the farm. And instead of a parlor, they were going to have a great room like the hippies had, only smaller, with a red woodstove. The woodstove was sort of like the hippies, too, but he didn’t remind her of it.
’Course, the hard talk was the kids’ rooms. Should they have kids’ rooms at all. But finally they decided on two, with a bathroom in between. If nothing happened, they could adopt, they decided. In fact, they were more or less planning to adopt—what the heck. If nothing happened.
And now, wasn’t it a happy day when she said that. Just a happy day. He took her out to the inn to celebrate. Walked home holding hands, as if they were in high school.
They were happy.
They shot their levels, got their septic in. Dug for the basement, got in their drainage. Their water lines, their electric.
Ginny quit smoking. She was wearing a patch and dieting and walking with the town walk group. Looking one last time for a teaching job, in case that was God’s will. But if not, well, she was thinking to open a café, she said. She still liked that idea and was wondering if there might not be a reason she still liked it. If it was God’s will.
“We could call it the Good News Café,” she said. “It could be one part café, one part reading room.” She’d heard of a place where they had a room in back for a prayer band, but she thought a reading room would be better.
“Reading room?”
“For Bible study.”
“You mean, Watch out, Come ’n’ Eat, here comes the Come ’n’ Read?” he said.
“Christians like to get together with Christians,” she said. “It’s how we stir up love.”
She was wearing a silver chain like Belle Tollman’s now, except with a cross instead of a skate. And she was talking more and more about folks at church. About how they thought. ’Course, to Everett they sounded a lot like folks at the commune, only with a stress on the divine. The divine instead of the organic.
But what the heck. He tried to listen. He did. He tried.
“They understand me at church,” Ginny said. “They get me. What the farm meant to me—they get that. That our family had lived on that land for centuries. That it was important. But that I was the only one who saw that. They get it that Jarvis didn’t see it, and that Bob didn’t, either. That I was the only one who saw, and that that was a burden in a way. A gift and a burden.”
“It was tough.”
“It was. It was a weight. But I took it up anyway, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“That’s what folks at church say. They say I didn’t shirk away, or duck. And they respect that. They think that was a beautiful thing.”
“That it was.”
“Seeing,” she said. “I was a seeing person.”
“That you were.”
“It was a lot like seeing the Truth about the Lord. That’s why they understand. Why they get how hard it was to defend the farm against forces much stronger than me. How hard it was to defend my father.”
“Harder’n hell.”
“It was. Fighting godless people out for themselves. Greedy people out to destroy everything good. Everything decent.”
“It was tough.”
“They stole from us, Everett. They cheated us and caused us to lose the farm so that they could help themselves to it. They dispossessed us. And you know why? Because they couldn’t stand our goodness, that’s why.”
“I dunno, Gin,” he said then, slow. Careful. “Were we that good? Like angels? You and me?” He didn’t bring up Rex.
“The Bible says that all who live godly in Jesus will meet with persecution,” she said. “And that’s what we met with. Persecution.”
“Gin,” he said then. Slow. “Gin. We made some bad moves. We shouldn’t have trusted Giles. We shouldn’t have trusted Belle.”
“They were out to destroy us, Everett. They hated Pa. They hated our farm. Hated it that we stood on our own two feet. Hated it that we stood for something. They hated the whole world where people believe in honor and don’t sleep with everything that walks.”
“They hated your pa, Gin. I’m with you there. His chemicals. They hated his chemicals. But we made some bad moves. We should have opened a café. We should have sold off some land.”
“We were up against evil,” insisted Ginny. “Don’t you see?”
“Guess I don’t,” he said then, shaking his head. “Guess I don’t see.” He wished he had a field he could head to, seeing as how she was about to start blasting. She was going to blast.
But, well, see, she didn’t, now. She didn’t.
“At least you’re honest,” she said. “The sad fact is that this is the story more and more, these days. More and more.” Her voice was patient. The teacher voice she would have used every day, if she had ever gotten another teaching job. “You don’t see the pattern because you haven’t talked to enough people, or on a deep enough level. But folks at church’ve heard people’s real stories. Not just the chitchat. The real stories. And they recognize the pattern because they’ve faced it, too.”
“You sure, Ginny? You sure this is right?”
“Don’t you ever have things you just know?” She looked serious. “I just know.”
The house was framed up, but Ginny thought they could still work in a café. All it took was a deck, she said. She wanted a big deck facing the view, so they could put out some tables and chairs. And a second fridge, she said. She was going to need a second fridge.
“Let’s check zoning,” he said. “ ’Cause, to be frank, I don’t know if you can have a business like that in your house. To be frank.”
But down at Town Hall, Rhonda the clerk said that they could. Said people around here’ve always had to find ways to get by. Taken in sewing. Had themselves a repair shop. Scrappy, she said. They’ve always been scrappy.
“I’m just not crazy about this plan,” he had to say then. “I want my home to be a home, Gin. I don’t want it to be a restaurant full of strangers.”
“They would not be strangers,” she said. “They would be Christians.”
“I don’t want it full of Christians, neither.”
“What’s the matter with Christians?”
“Nothing the matter with Christians. I just don’t want ’em in my house, Gin. I want peace.”
’Course, that made Ginny mad. You could feel the rise. But she didn’t blast—she didn’t blast. Instead she just said, “I’m going to pray for you. I’m going to shower you with Christian love and kindness and use the power of that.”
And, well, those were uncomfortable days, but happy days, too, now. They were happy. ’Cause Ginny was getting out cookbooks and trying new things. Sprouts. Avocado. Tofu. She was putting out bouquets and candles. Dyeing her hair what she called “real blond,” on account of she’d always felt like a real blonde. And losing weight—she lost weight. Had her a special prayer program just for that, and what do you know, it worked. She wore pink now and walked with her walking group. Even took a massage class. Said she could see how hard Everett worked, and got him this pillow set for Valentine’s Day. The pillow set had a place to put his face, and a wedge thing to lie on. A roll to put under his ankles. Went together with Velcro. He’d never seen anything like it and would not have recognized it as a path to heaven. But turned out, it was, now. It was. Led to activities they hoped would fill up those kids’ bedrooms, too.
“You see?” Ginny would say later. “I knew but you didn’t, did you?”
And, well, he’d have to admit, “Guess I didn’t.”
“You didn’t see, did you?”
“N
ope. I did not.”
She wanted him reborn for two reasons. One was so they could be buried with Rex someday. ’Cause while Everett was Christian, he was Eastern Orthodox, on account of his pa. Hungarian Greek Catholic. And that didn’t count at the cemetery, see. That wasn’t the right kind. But the other reason was, she didn’t want to be unequally yoked. Yoked like draft horses? he said. Yoked like mules? But that was how Paul put it, she said. Unequally yoked. She wanted to be married to a committed Christian. Someone who’d given up trying to do things by himself. Someone who’d realized what a lot of bad decisions he’d made. Someone who had put his trust in Jesus instead. She wanted him to put the Lord on the throne of his life.
And one night, well, what the heck, he did sort of say that he would, now. He did. He was firming up again like a youngster, see, and in what you might call an agreeable frame of mind.
“I said I’d give you my life, and it’s yours,” he said.
“You did, didn’t you.”
“I certainly did.”
“Meaning you’re going to listen?” she said, touching him. “Meaning you’re going to put your trust in Jesus?”
“Don’t I always listen?” he whispered. “Ain’t I listening now?”
“I love you,” she said. Then she took him in her mouth, a thing she’d never done before. Worked her tongue in ways he didn’t know she could. And that was a revelation, all right. Made him wonder if there was more instruction in the Bible than he knew. He did think he’d gone to see the angels. And, well, when he came back to himself, he might as well have been born again.
It was a good time. They were seeing his ma and pa more, and Ginny wasn’t complaining. In fact, she was bringing them pie. Fruit. Articles from the paper. She was having folks from church over, now, too. It was kind of a trade. And what the heck—he was almost getting used to the Was he with Jesus thing. Figured it was like looking past Belle Tollman’s parrot. What the heck.
But, now, the café stayed a sticking point, see. It stayed a sticking point. He made him a list of the issues, starting with privacy. Would a café in the house make them feel like they’d lost their privacy. Then there was cost. Was a café going to be the mower all over again.
But Ginny just said, “This is about keeping Jesus out of the house, isn’t it?”
They went on building. Punched through their punch list, and come one day, Ginny was spending hours in the sunroom, just as he’d predicted. Loving it. She was spending hours in there, curled up with her Bible.
’Course, he hadn’t predicted that part.
Just as he failed to predict that come one day the commune would subdivide the land. Sell it for housing. But, well, they had no choice, see. They had no choice. A lot of people felt sorry for them, but Ginny was blasting mad. And that was even before the hippies put a standing-seam roof on the house. Silver. The thing shone like a pie plate. So that where before you had to squint to see the farm from the sunroom, now you could see it plain. Now you couldn’t miss it.
“We have to have the deck,” she said then. “We have to.”
’Cause what with the farm sitting a little lower than the house, their view of it would be blocked by a deck, see. And that’d be a good thing, she said. Because she didn’t want to spend her time on earth in hate. She really didn’t.
And he got that, now. He did.
Still one day he loaded up the woodstove and said, “Ginny. Gin. We can have the deck, but I just don’t want a café. You can say this is about Jesus, but it ain’t. It’s about a café. It’s about hanging up a sign and having strangers come for coffee. I don’t want it.”
She fingered her cross.
“I made us a new list of things to think on,” he said. “Starting with coffee. I don’t want my house to smell like coffee.”
“Your house,” she said.
“Our house,” he said. “I just said that because I was trying to get across that I live here, too. It ain’t just your house. I live here, too.”
Her look was rock ice.
“This house,” she said, “is what’s left of the farm. The farm my family had for over a hundred years. It’s not your house. It’s my house.”
“Ain’t we married?”
“The money came from the farm.”
“I built this house with my own two hands, Gin. I made every stick of furniture in it.”
“You’re a poor man’s son who’s done good,” she said. “But this is my inheritance.”
’Course, he wanted to deck her, then. If she’d been a man he probably would have decked her. Instead, he laughed. “Glad to hear I done good,” he said. And that helped him, see. Helped him stop himself. And it gave him his pride back, now, to know he stopped himself. It gave him his pride back. “You mean, it’s your house,” he went on.
“It’s my inheritance.”
“Even if I put my heart and soul in it, it’s yours.”
“If you want to put it that way.”
Now they were just plain fighting again.
“I never asked whose it was going to be, now,” he said. “I just gave it everything I had. Gave you everything. I never asked.”
“Well, maybe you should have.”
“I’m talking about our marriage, now,” he said. “Should I have asked about that, too? Should I have asked you what you were going to give me before I gave you my life?”
He did think she was going to stop and remember the dance at the Grange Hall, then. He did think she was going to remember how they danced with everyone watching and went walking in the dark, and about the stars and the trees and their warm bodies and the cold air. But instead her eyes just stayed this ice-green.
He could barely go on. “If I was a fool, you ought to just tell me now, Gin. If I wasted my life. ’Cause my life ain’t worth much, but if I’ve thrown it away, I’d still like to know. I would. What the heck. I’d still like to know.”
“Every life is precious to the Lord,” she said.
“I’m not talking about the Lord.”
“Well, you ought to be,” she said. “Because it’s His will that brought you to me. It was His will that you gave what you gave.”
“Is that right.” He laughed again, if only to make her mad, what the heck.
And what do you know, she was mad.
To be frank, they ought to have broke up right then, see. To be frank, they ought not to have gone on. But somehow he thought it was like a war, or like a bad winter on the farm. Somehow he thought things would come round again. Peace. Spring.
Guess he just didn’t want to see the obvious.
They ought to have broke up. But then Jarvis and his wife got hit by a tractor trailer and died, see. And seeing as how Ginny and Everett had the bedrooms, they got the kids. Brian and Betsy, ages four and six. Good kids, but sad. For a bunch of years no one could think of much else but what those kids needed. Love. Those kids needed love. Then his pa died, and his ma. One right after the other, like they’d got planted together and so got cut down together, too. And wasn’t that a tough harvest, now. Hard to say what the yield was. He buried them in a Greek Orthodox cemetery right the same day as Ginny found a lump in her breast. ’Course, the doctors cut that lump out in the end, see. In the end, Ginny was just fine.
But before they cut it out, she started talking about the commune all over again. And when she had some church folks over for brunch one day, he was surprised to hear how big she sounded. Fervent. How fervent in spirit, as they liked to say. ’Cause it wasn’t her story anymore, now, see. It was His story, God’s story. She was only in it because He put her there. ’Cause He arranged for her to be persecuted by the commune. ’Cause He arranged for her to be dispossessed and defrauded as a way of helping her discover Him. And she did discover Him, she said—that was the Good News. She did. She did discover Him. It was such Good News that she was on fire with the desire to share it. She was on fire with the desire to say how she had conquered injustice and bitterness. How she’d come to see it was al
l a test. A trial. How she was filled with forgiveness for her enemies—thanks, even. How she was filled with thanks. Because without them she might never have gotten God’s plan. Without them, she might never have surrendered to God’s will. Without them, she might have gone on trying to find meaning in a farm. Looking at her life as if it was about her. About her fulfillment, instead of about the fulfillment of His will. Now she was righteous and happy. Peaceful. She was peaceful. Because she’d surrendered, she said. Because she wasn’t trying to direct her life anymore. Because she was putting her trust in Him. She was living her life in Christ.
’Course, all that made the church folk clap for joy to hear. And though Ginny had just said how she’d forgiven the commune, come to thank the commune, even, they said, “Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be as nothing and shall perish.” Then they went on talking about how the whole country had gone wrong somehow. How it’d been founded a Christian nation, but how it had gotten lost, like Ginny. How it was following its own law instead of God’s law. Trying to fulfill its own will instead of God’s will. An abomination of desolation, they kept calling it. An abomination of desolation. A place with communes instead of families. A place with sex instead of love. A place where men became women and women became men. They told Ginny she was Lazarus—that she was wrapped up in bandages, with a stone at her door. She was going to have to roll back the stone, they said. She was going to have to roll back the stone, and then she was going to have to take off those bandages and walk. It was a mighty task, they said, as she had her a mighty stone. But with the Lord’s help she could do it, they said. She could. With the Lord’s help, she could roll back the stone and walk.
It took Everett a while to realize he was the stone, now. Took him a while.
Unequally yoked. Ginny didn’t want to be unequally yoked. But she couldn’t just up and leave Everett, now, ’cause of Paul. ’Cause Paul said that even if a woman had an unbelieving husband, she couldn’t just leave him. She couldn’t just go. But, now, Paul also said that if an unbelieving husband should leave a woman, she could let him go. And so that was Ginny’s idea, see—to get Everett to leave her. To drive him out. Or not Ginny’s idea. It was the Lord’s idea. It was the Lord’s plan.
