The Sound of Gravel

by Ruth Wariner

  “He leaves for El Paso tomorrow morning.”

  “When’s he coming back?”

  “He said he doesn’t know.”

  “Okay, listen.” Matt’s mind was racing. “I just bought you a car, an Oldsmobile station wagon. It’s old but it runs good. I was gonna bring it down for you and the girls. But”—he took in a deep breath— “here’s what I’ll do. I’ll take tomorrow off, and Maria and I will bring the station wagon and pick you guys up. We’ll be there by tomorrow night.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll figure out the rest once the kids get across the border.”

  “How are we gonna get across the border? The border guys aren’t gonna believe we’re old enough to be their parents.”

  “You’re right.” We both went silent, thinking. “You’ll have to find someone to help us.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Someone. Ruthie, someone we can trust.”

  “But who?

  “Someone. And go get everybody’s birth certificates and Social Security cards.”

  “That’s all still back at the house.”

  “Then go back to the house, Ruthie.”

  I gasped. “I haven’t been back there—”

  “Go back to the house and look in Mom’s purse. And look in Mom’s dresser.”

  “Matt, can’t we do that when you get here?”

  “No, we have to have everything ready by then. You have to get the birth certificates now.” His voice was so forceful I hardly recognized him. “We have to have them if we’re gonna cross the border.” I sat there a moment. “Okay, Ruthie?”

  “Okay.”

  “And make sure Luke doesn’t tell anyone about this. Understand? If Lane or his family finds out, there’s no way we’re gonna get the kids out of Mexico.”

  I hung up the phone, relieved but frightened. Alejandra’s house, where Lane was staying that night, was perilously close to Mom’s, so I took a roundabout route, through acres of pecan orchards, past a dozen fences, and over several ditches. Twenty minutes later I was there, at the back fence of Lane’s farm, staring across at our tiny home.

  I touched the barbed-wire fence lightly, thinking I might get shocked, forgetting that the power had been off since the day Susan and I had flipped the switch. I ran up the pathway, past the alfalfa, past the well, the corral, Lane’s shop, Lane’s rusting pile of appliances, Lane’s rusty tractors, and all the broken-down cars of Mom’s that Lane had forever promised to fix.

  Then I was at the front door, the veins in my throat throbbing and the blood pounding in my ears. I stepped inside gingerly, like a character in a horror movie. The floor was covered by a thick layer of dust, and the stench from mouse droppings was overwhelming. I peeked at the living room where I’d played the piano, where Luke and Matt had played checkers and cards and wrestled, where Audrey had attacked me, and where we’d heard the news about Mom. I walked through the kitchen where I’d made dozens of birthday cakes for my family, where Lane had taken a belt to Mom, and where Matt had told Mom that he was leaving. I walked down the hallway where I’d watched my younger brothers and sisters take their first steps.

  Her bedroom. The bedspread tossed aside, as Mom had done when she ran to see what was happening to Micah. The romance novel still open to the page she’d been reading. The air still smelled of her perfume. I felt dizzy and had to rest on the edge of the bed. All at once I felt compelled to throw myself into the line of dresses hanging in Mom’s closet, rifling through them until I found the fuchsia one she’d worn that night she’d danced with Matt. My hands began to shake again as I held the dress to my face and smelled the scent of her skin. I lay it on the bed, put my head into it, and breathed again.

  A mouse scampered across the floor and startled me from my reverie. I went to the closet and picked up Mom’s old, navy-blue purse. The handle pinched my fingers where the leather was hard and cracked. Digging around for her wallet, I felt the guilt and fear that I had always felt when digging through Mom’s things. The wallet fell open when I found it, and two $1 food stamps fell to the floor, as did a stack of blue Social Security cards and a wallet-size family photo from days gone by. In it, Micah was on Mom’s lap, chewing on his fist and looking at something other than the camera. Meri was on Lane’s lap. He was holding her tightly, but her body still collapsed over his forearms and her head hung lifelessly to one side.

  I slipped the food stamps, Social Security cards, and other paperwork into my back pocket with the photo, folded Mom’s dress, and put it in a plastic bag. I noticed Mom’s watch, her makeup, an old pair of glasses, and some perfume and threw those in too. The sun had begun setting behind a cracked windowpane, and the house was growing dark. Now I would have to work quickly. I searched through all the drawers in all the bedrooms, taking every little thing I thought that Luke, the girls, or I might need. Finally, I left and closed the kitchen door behind me.

  A cool breeze blew my hair into my face, and for one last time I heard the water running through the irrigation ditches and the crickets chirping. Then I swung the bag over my shoulder and walked away, never once looking back.

  When I returned to Marjory’s, she looked at the plastic bag suspiciously. “What’s going on?”

  For some reason, I hadn’t anticipated this confrontation and mumbled through a long-winded nonanswer. She interrupted me and pulled a chair out from under the kitchen table, a sign that we needed to sit down and talk.

  “Ruthie, is this about Lane?” I just stared at her across the table. “It is, isn’t it?” I looked down, unable to hide. “Listen, I want you to know something, honey.” Her hands reached across the table and she held my hands. “I know you and Lane don’t get along because of what he put you through, but your mom is gone now, and we all have to learn to get along for your little sisters’ sake.”

  I looked up stunned, and once again at a loss for words

  “You know, Ruthie, you can’t let what he did ruin your life. You can’t carry that around with you forever. You have to get over it. And that means you have to forgive him.”

  Her last two words incensed me. I had finally had enough. I pushed my chair back with a screech, bolted up from the table, and ran down the hall. “Hey, Luke, come in here!” I yelled. He was looking through his leaflets when I stormed through the door of Marjory’s back bedroom. “Hey, Lukey, we need to talk.” He looked up at me startled, then suddenly stood up as if he knew I was serious.

  “What’s wrong? Have you lost your mind, Ruthie?” Marjory shrieked.

  “Tell her,” I commanded Luke. “Tell her what Lane did to you.”

  Marjory listened to Luke’s story, and the shock on her face was so obvious I wanted to get down on my knees and thank God for the reaction. And when I told her that Lane wanted to take Elena with him, Marjory began to cry.

  “What do you want to do?” she asked through tears.

  “We need to get my brother and sisters out of here. Matt is already on his way to pick us up.”

  “You’re right. You have to get out of here, Ruthie.” Marjory sniffled. “And so do I.”

  Now it was my turn to be shocked. Marjory had been raised in a polygamist family and had lived the principle for most of her life. I had no idea she’d been having her own serious misgivings about LeBaron. She felt that she didn’t belong here anymore. She said she wanted to return to the Christian church she’d been part of in the States and to live closer to her children. This was apparently the final push she needed.

  The next morning, with Marjory’s help, I started getting things ready for the trip. Marjory had decided she’d help me and my siblings get across the border, and then we’d go to my grandmother’s house in Strathmore. I was counting the minutes until Matt and Maria arrived. Not until nightfall did I tell Leah and Elena that we were going to visit Aaron and Grandma. The clapping and screaming went on for some time. Luke seemed happy as well. I never told any of them that we wouldn’t be coming back. />
  Late in the evening Matt and Maria rumbled into the driveway in an old, brown Oldsmobile station wagon, and I met them at the door with a tight hug of relief. They both looked exhausted and smelled as if they needed showers, but there wasn’t a moment to waste. Lane’s trips to El Paso were often short, and he might suddenly walk through the door, especially since it was Marjory’s night.

  The atmosphere was tense when Marjory and the three of us sat at the kitchen table to organize all our paperwork and come up with a game plan for the border crossing. Marjory would come with us—she had already spoken with her daughter in the States—and we would drop her off there once we’d safely made it into the States. Then, we would drive to Grandma’s house.

  “Matt, I don’t care what we do after that,” I said, “as long as we keep Mom’s kids together.” He looked me in the eye and nodded in agreement.

  A few minutes later, while Maria and I loaded all the bags into the back of the station wagon, she whispered that she was pregnant. She seemed disappointed when I didn’t act excited. I blamed my reaction on the stress of the day, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the little girl who’d once been so set on becoming a designer that she’d cadged money away while selling pine nuts. Part of me felt sad for her.

  With the car packed, Matt woke Luke up; I woke the girls and put them all in fresh diapers, having only one size to fit all. Holly’s diaper looked enormous, while Elena’s was so small I had to use masking tape to keep it together.

  “Are we gonna take the goat with us?” Elena asked me, still half-asleep.

  “Not this time. It won’t fit in the car. But a neighbor’s going to take good care of it for us.”

  “Are they gonna feed it until we come back home?”

  “Of course they are. They won’t let the goat starve. Okay, come on, let’s go.” I scooped Holly up and headed for the car. I put the smallest of my sisters between the other two, in the fold-up seat in the very back of the station wagon, then went back inside to mix a fresh bottle of formula.

  “You ready yet?” Matt yelled, bursting through the door and startling me. “It’s already two o’clock in the morning, Ruthie. We gotta get out of here.” He started switching off the lights in the house. I picked up the diaper bag and flipped the kitchen light switch, and Marjory locked the door on our way out. I opened the car door behind the driver’s side and threw the diaper bag in between Luke and me.

  He looked at me sadly. “We not gonna bring the goat, Ruthie?”

  “Don’t worry, the neighbors are gonna feed it while we’re gone.”

  “Oh, dat’s good.” He looked out his window into the moonlit darkness.

  Matt started the engine and backed the car slowly out of Marjory’s driveway. We didn’t want to wake anyone up and arouse suspicion, so he drove at a snail’s pace while we were in town. I closed my eyes and felt each pothole and pebble we rolled over during what seemed like the longest few minutes of my life. At last the bouncing and the lurching stopped. Matt turned north onto the highway, and the car began to glide. I opened my eyes to see the back of Matt’s shaggy head and the open road beyond.

  I turned to look out my window. A full desert moon lit the road ahead and shone brightly on the mountainside with the giant L. I couldn’t help thinking of all the wonderful moments of my childhood that had happened in those hills: the afternoon hikes with my half sisters and friends, scrambling over hot rocks, stickers and sharp weeds scratching my ankles. The hours we spent sitting around the big white L, eating Mom’s round, dry peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. I knew I had no choice but to leave. I would not live to inherit my father’s town, just as I hadn’t inherited his name when he chose not to place LeBaron on my birth certificate.

  Holly began fussing in her sleep behind me, rousing me out of my thoughts. I picked her up, pulled her over the back of the seat, took out the bottle of formula, and pushed the nipple between her little, chapped lips. She was bathed in eerie moonlight, pale and so thin you could hold her in one hand, her once-chubby cheeks now sunken by malnourishment.

  In the front seat, Matt and Marjory mumbled back and forth, trading ideas about what we should tell the officials when we crossed the border, and what we should say if anyone from the colony crossed our path, which was likely. To avoid any chance of passing Lane on the highway to El Paso, we decided to cross the border into Douglas, Arizona, even though that meant driving an extra hour before reaching the United States. My shoulders tensed with each new set of lights that crept up behind us, and I held my breath till the vehicle passed.

  “Are we there yet?” Elena asked, suddenly sitting up behind me. Matt, his nerves thoroughly frayed, whipped his head around.

  “Ruthie, those girls have to keep their heads down,” he commanded, glaring at me. “Tell them! What if someone we know passes us? Come on, now. I already told you that.”

  “Hey, I didn’t know she was up,” I snapped back. “Please lie down, Elena,” I said quietly. She gave me a puzzled look and then ducked back down. I caught Maria’s tired eyes in the rearview mirror, her head resting on Matt’s shoulder. I pressed my head against the cold window glass and gazed at the landscape as it rushed past, the reality of my new life beginning to set in.

  A few hours out of LeBaron, my exhaustion caught up with me, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I drifted into a deep sleep and was awoken hours later by the short, plaintive squeal of brakes. Jolting into consciousness, I realized that we were in line at the border. Dawn had come and a deep blue sky hung over the morning.

  “Are they practicing, Ruthie?” asked Matt, his face almost angry. “Make them practice.” Practice what? I wondered, and then I remembered how each of the kids needed to say “American” convincingly if and when a border agent flashed a light inside and asked what country they were from.

  “If they ask you anything, Elena, just say American,” I told her.

  “’Merican.”

  “Good enough.”

  “Leah? American.”

  “Melcon.”

  “Good enough.”

  “Remember,” Matt told the girls, “Marjory is your mom.”

  “She is?” said Elena, thoroughly confused.

  “What’s my address, Ruthie?” Matt went on.

  “I know your address,” I said impatiently.

  “I know you know it, but can you say it naturally so they’ll think you already live there?”

  “Of course I can!”

  A minute or so later, just three cars were ahead of us in line.

  “Nobody say anything else from now on,” Matt whispered.

  I usually trembled when I was nervous, but this time the anxiety was too great. All I could do was stay lock still. I looked down at my hands. We crept forward and stopped, crept forward and stopped.

  “Okay, here we go,” said Matt, looking at me through the rearview mirror. Both of us rolled down our windows.

  A tall woman, her hair pulled beneath her hat, leaned forward and peered in Matt’s window. Blue eyes scanned the car. “What’s your nationality?” she asked him.

  “American.”

  The border agent moved on to my window, looking at Luke and the rest of us. “What’s your nationality?”

  “American.”

  “American.”

  “’Merican.”

  “Melcon.”

  The agent nodded and moved back to Matt’s window. “What brought you to Mexico?” she asked Marjory.

  “Oh, just drove down for the weekend to do some shopping.” Marjory looked relaxed and smiled casually. Wow, I thought to myself, she’s done this before, just like Mom.

  The agent half smiled in reply, took a step back, and looked at something on the car. Then she waved her hand. At first I didn’t know what she meant.

  Matt and Marjory both smiled and said thank-you. We were through.

  No one said a word as the car crept into Arizona. Even after the border was a dot in the rearview mirror, the silence continued. I think we
were stunned, not to mention overwhelmed by the obstacles that lay ahead.

  “Can we talk yet?” asked Elena finally.

  “Yes, we can talk,” I said.

  Matt looked at me through the rearview mirror, his eyes full of fear and relief just like mine.

  “That’s the first step,” I said, and took a deep breath.

  Epilogue

  The sun shines brightly through a window above the oval, full-length mirror in front of me. I see a slimmer face than that of the fifteen-year-old girl I was on the night we left Colonia LeBaron; my round, adolescent cheeks have narrowed. Now I look like my father. The square jaw I used to stare at in his omnipresent black-and-white photograph in church—that’s my jaw now. But I am not ashamed of it. Experience, time, and life have somehow given me the confidence to confront my own reflection.

  There is a knock at the door. “Ruth, how’s it goin’ in there? Can I come in?”

  Elena. Her “Can I come in?” sounds eerily similar to her “Can we talk yet?” from so many years ago. I lift my long dress to keep it from picking up dust from the wood floor and go to the door.

  “You’re almost ready!” says my twenty-six-year-old sister. Her eyes are as wide and happy as they were the day she first laid eyes on the white goat. “Have you seen my stockings and shoes?” She asks me this because over the past two decades I’ve been the one who’s found things and put them away, slipping them into her dresser drawers. And sure enough, I know where they are this time too.

  I can’t help but think back to that fall in 1987 when we arrived at Grandma Wariner’s house in Strathmore, the joy of seeing my brother Aaron again, the peace that came from escaping my stepfather, and the deep heartache and loneliness that came from leaving so many friends and family members behind. But I’ve never doubted my decision.

  I stare at Elena a moment—a woman who is vibrant, beautiful, smart, and most important safe. Strands of her thick blond hair fall around her bare shoulders in loose curls. She smiles sweetly at me, almost in admiration, just as Mom used to when I was a girl, with the same heart-shaped face and slightly crooked jaw.