“I was thinking about that cotton idea we had.”
“We had?”
“Yes, we are a we. Like it or not. We are. You need me whether you know it or like it or not.”
“Well, I’m not sure about that.”
“Sure about what? I told you the cotton industry is shifting from the southeast to the southwest. We could get in front of the wave and—”
“Listen to me Frank. I can’t handle this or you or your schemes or air castles or air-cotton-plantations. Nothing that you suggest exists in reality unless I have a hand in making it so. So, forget it. I’m not pulling up stakes.”
“You hate it here.”
“I do.”
“So?”
“So what? I’m not leaving James ever.”
“That’s just…“
Jeanie stood over the still reclining Frank. “Do you care a whit for your son?”
“Don’t harry me.”
“Harry you? You’re lucky I don’t pluck you like a prairie chicken then twist off your toes and fingers and feed them to the rattle snakes before I kill you.”
Frank opened his eyes. “I can see this isn’t going to work. I’m leaving, Jeanie. I didn’t hurt our son on purpose, or you. I didn’t. It was simply circumstances. Hundreds, hundreds of people died that day and that has to be forgiven. You’re my wife and any living you made from your books before is gone so I’m going to leave and give you a moment to consider the intelligence of your recent mind-set. Can’t you feel the bitterness I see in your whole being? Greta has lost too, yet she still has an eye for household cares, yearns for the comfort of Nikolai—”
“You don’t see the difference in our circumstances?”
Frank looked away, shrugging.
“Go ahead Frank. Make a go of it alone.”
“We are still alive, Jeanie.”
Jeanie’s mouth pulled. She realized that in many ways, to her, Frank and their marriage, anything they meant to one another was as dead as poor cold, rotting James. All she cared about, all she could understand was the loss of her son; she didn’t want to or think her capable of soothing her childish husband’s spirit. She quaked with anger.
“You make a go of it, Frank. Go ahead.”
Frank, facing away from her, buckled at the words.
Jeanie held the spit in her mouth that she’d wanted to release all over his face, picked up Yale and headed to the Zurchenko’s. She cared so little for the outcome of Frank’s threat that she decided to walk to the Zurchenko’s, to leave Frank the wagon so he couldn’t use his not having transportation against her. Why couldn’t he have been the man she thought she married so long before? Because she was a child at the time, subject to infatuation that she read to be love and compatibility.
Jeanie wasn’t half way to the bee tree when she heard Frank caterwauling atop the dugout. She turned to see him in his undergarments, waving all four of his pairs of pants above his head, his face twisted with insult.
“Oh, I guess I did do that,” Jeanie said out loud. She shrugged then walked on. She snickered as the memory flooded back, her sewing madly, when the mending of one pocket turned into her sewing all Frank’s pockets shut, the button flies shut, and on two pairs of the pants, she’d madly sewn the leg holes shut. Jeanie snickered again. It was like a dream. Had she really done that? Well, she had, and to her, at that moment, it seemed fitting.
Frank was gone. To where, Jeanie didn’t know. She’d spent many spring days, trekking to the bee tree with the baby hoping to find solace. No one else ever went there and that suited Jeanie fine. She wandered as though she were the opium-eater, and from certain perspectives she didn’t appear any different than one.
All she could manage to do was feed the children and accept charity from Greta who was much stronger than she. And Greta had a decent husband after all. No wonder she could function.
Jeanie had told Tommy and Katherine that their father left the prairie, spurred by the crushing loss of James. Both kids nodded, accepting that statement. Katherine pushed Jeanie on it a few times, inquiring where she could write, what exactly Frank said when he left. And Jeanie, who hated Frank in the depths of her body and soul, couldn’t tell Katherine the truth. So, she stitched a shirt-waist of lies, depicting how Frank cried when he left, that he could barely spit out his grief-laden words, but that he was clear that he loved them all down to his toes, that he couldn’t stand the pain, that he’d be back just as soon as he could breathe again.
Still, Jeanie couldn’t press herself to be productive in her normal sense, she did note from time to time how comfortable she’d become living in squalor, doing nothing, expecting nothing from anyone or anything, how that condition was somehow comforting. She’d even burned one of the books she wrote when she ran out of fuel. And page by page, she cackled at the disappearance of Jeanie as the print certainly exemplified who’d she’d been at one time, not a bit like the woman she was at that moment.
A few days after Frank disappeared into the horizon and Katherine took off to the Zurchenko’s with Tommy, Jeanie trudged off to the tree with Yale. Yale had been lethargic, still just barely the size of a newborn. Being born two months premature then having been stunted by the blizzard catastrophe, there were times Jeanie wondered if Yale would ever grow.
The sun swamped the pair and as they sat under the blooming bee tree where Jeanie spent over an hour talking to James, Lutie and the Zurchenko boys as though they were alive and well, though unusually mute. Yale whimpered and when her breath became even more choppy, Jeanie held her to her breast, but Yale turned away. It sounded as though Yale was swallowing her tonsils, hacking so hard her limbs tensed then finally she went limp.
Jeanie hadn’t even realized what happened right away, that Yale had stopped drawing breath, and that she had stopped moving, looking so angry and upset to have been born. She guessed it had been an hour before she fully processed the death of Yale, the death of her second child in just months. Jeanie felt her insides rip open like a hot anvil had been dragged through her soul. She was being torn in two, wanting her body to take its own life in the same way Yale’s had, by simply giving up on itself. Jeanie rocked the baby, crying into her neck, begging her to start breathing again. In between sobs, Jeanie would hold her own breath to see if in fact, Yale would start to breathe again.
Jeanie screamed, cursing herself for not being more careful with the baby, for not noticing how weak she’d gotten, for writing it all off as a consequence of prematurity and the stress of barely eating anything during the blizzard. But mostly, she admitted to herself, that she’d let her pain of losing James control every aspect of her life and in doing so she’d lost another child. Jeanie ripped at her clothes, scratching her chest, her face, her body, trying the scrape the life out of her from the outside in.
Still clutching Yale’s lifeless body, Jeanie had made the decision to kill herself, then abandoned the idea, going back and forth several times, finding strength in the moments she’d made the solid decision to end it all. Either way she had to get back to the dugout or go to the Zurchenko’s and inform the children of Yale’s death. They would want to say goodbye. But as she began in the direction of the dugout, she heard someone calling her name.
In the blaze of the sun Jeanie couldn’t see who was coming toward her at first, but shielding her eyes and listening to the voice as it came closer she realized it was Ruthie. Jeanie turned to walk away, cradling Yale like she were still alive, but something in Ruthie’s screeching voice made Jeanie wait. Ruthie stumbled, rested on all fours then rose again, careening toward Jeanie.
It wasn’t until Ruthie fell into Jeanie that she realized Ruthie was wearing her silk shoes, the ones that went missing in the fall.
“You.” Jeanie ripped her body out of Ruthie’s grip. “My shoes. You. How could you steal my shoes? My beautiful, little tokens of my life before. My shoes!” Jeanie clenched her teeth. Back in September she had allowed her mind to let go of the shoes, to take their absence a
s a sign that she’d embraced her prairie life, that she didn’t need such ridiculous reminders of her past, because her future was going to be fulfilling.
But in the end, her missing shoes only signified the life that had been stolen from Jeanie. She could have cared less about the actual, beautiful, but now well-worn, dirty, shoes.
Ruthie groaned, hugging herself, face contorted with the look of pain that Jeanie knew only too well. Ruthie was having contractions that were wracking her body. Her legs began to give way. With her one free arm, Jeanie caught Ruthie under her armpit as blood gushed, splashing over the ground, the shoes, Jeanie’s hem.
Not only was Ruthie pregnant, but she was in the middle of what appeared to be a labor going very bad. Ruthie’s hands were bloody and her skirt was dripping with fluid and blood as well. Ruthie slurred her words, unable to make eye contact. But she clung to Jeanie begging her for help. Jeanie stiffened and pulled away though Ruthie’s grip was surprisingly tight and Jeanie stumbled under Ruthie’s weight. She lowered Ruthie to the ground.
Jeanie nuzzled Yale’s dead body. “You think I should help you, Ruthie Moore? I have another dead child to bury!”
Ruthie nodded, her eyes rolling back in her head. “Please, please, forgive me. I’m begging you. I can’t go on if I know you won’t help me.”
“I’d rather slit my wrists.” Jeanie started to stalk away, to leave Ruthie to have what she suspected was Frank’s child on her own. God knew he was not really there for Jeanie and now he was definitely not there for his mistress.
Ruthie reached up to Jeanie, opening and closing her fingers. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I won’t stay here. I’ll go to my aunt’s home in Vancouver. I won’t make trouble. All I want is the baby. Someone to love me.” Ruthie’s words were scratchy, barely audible.
Jeanie shook her head. “I don’t forgive you. I hate you, you weak woman.” Jeanie didn’t trust Ruthie, that she would leave on her own with a baby. Ruthie would end up living near Jeanie forever and if that was to be the case, Jeanie would not grant her forgiveness. Jeanie wanted to walk away, to pack her bags and head to Des Moines where at that point, to live in shame there would not feel as bad as living inside such bad memories with people she couldn’t look in the eye for reasons that dwarfed those that originally sent her to the prairie.
Stupidstupidstupid.
Ruthie grabbed Jeanie’s wrist. “I need your forgiveness. I didn’t mean…I never had anyone love me…ever…no one, my parents, no one. Frank loved me. I had no choice…I will take this baby and go. I realize now, that’s the only love that matters. I’m so, so sorry to have been a part—”
“Shut up Ruthie. Shut. Up.”
“To understand…I wouldn’t…I didn’t mean harm…“ Ruthie curled up in pain. She choked, spitting out mucus tinged with red. This got Jeanie’s attention.
She rubbed her temples and looked down at Ruthie again, finally feeling Ruthie’s pain as her own, knowing how frightened she must be in that position and Jeanie decided right then her life would be a series of decisions based on what was right rather than what didn’t scare her. Right then, she decided fear, in fact, was everything, the only thing she could count on.
Jeanie lay baby Yale’s lifeless body under the bee tree. She brushed back Yale’s wispy hair, signed a cross over her body as she’d seen the Zurchenkos do, and kissed Yale’s lips before tending to Ruthie. She got between Ruthie’s legs, pushed them up and tried to discern exactly what was happening. Ruthie was nearly silent but for shallow breaths. And the baby crowned then slid out as though Ruthie’d had several children before.
The baby, a girl, had black hair, but round, blue eyes. Though she’d just come out of Ruthie’s body, the baby was all Frank G. Arthur, the rebirth of Katherine.
Jeanie was so enthralled with the resemblance to Frank that it took a moment to realize the baby wasn’t breathing. Jeanie thwapped her on the bottom and back and gave her a good shake, but only a whimper came from the baby. She was months younger than Yale, but due to Yale’s inauspicious start, Ruthie’s baby was nearly the same size, but plumper, pinker, even in whatever distress she was experiencing.
Jeanie looked around the ground and picked up the sharpest rock near the bee tree. Without thinking too much about what she was about to do, she pounded the sharp edge against the throbbing umbilical cord until it finally severed.
Ruthie reached up and Jeanie handed her the baby. “It’s a girl. She’s beautiful. She is.”
“Oh,” Ruthie said.
Jeanie massaged Ruthie’s belly to speed the dispelling of placenta.
“Please, my pocket, get my medicine. My medicine. It hurts. I hurt so much.”
Jeanie stopped kneading and looked at Ruthie. “Still? You’re still using that drug after all that happened?”
“My pocket, please, I need to stop the pain.”
Jeanie squinted at Ruthie wondering how Ruthie could even have medicine as they all would have known if a doctor had made a trip to the Moore’s. Jeanie pulled the glass bottle and a piece of paper from Ruthie’s pocket. She lay the paper aside and read the bottle’s embossing: Laudanum. Jeanie tipped the bottle into Ruthie’s lips and let her take a swig.
The baby was curled against Ruthie, still pink, but not displaying the normal cries or jerky motions or grimaced faces that most newborns did, just thin wails and a loll of the head here or there. Perhaps the laudanum had reached the baby, Jeanie wondered, making the baby as sluggish as her mother.
Jeanie returned to Ruthie’s nether-regions to check on the placenta delivery. Not only had the placenta come out, but Ruthie was bleeding so much, thick clotted blackish blood, that Jeanie nearly threw up. She had no idea how much blood was normal as she’d never tended to her own afterbirth, but the amount saturating the ground seemed excessive.
It didn’t take long. Ruthie bled to death with Jeanie talking to her, telling her to hang on, that it would stop. Jeanie felt as though a bad joke was upon her, the amount of death was astonishing, even though she’d heard of prairie deaths, and deaths in childbirth were not uncommon, but still, so much at one time, it strangled her. She lay on Ruthie, her fingers in Ruthie’s neck, feeling for her pulse. She felt a thud of pressure and Jeanie felt swept by forgiveness. She couldn’t believe she was party to so many deaths—just being in the presence of death again made her feel responsible.
Jeanie found a patch of softness in her heart and told Ruthie she forgave her, but Ruthie didn’t respond.
“I forgive you Ruthie, I forgive you, I forgive you.” Jeanie shook Ruthie, pushing her face side to side. “Please hear me. Do something to show me you hear me.” Jeanie sat back on her knees, face upturned to the sky, crying, feeling a different kind of grief, the sort that only comes from one inflicting pain instead of absorbing it. She’d not been an awful person until the time on the prairie. There, she’d been transformed into a person she didn’t recognize nor did she want to.
Jeanie was sorry Ruthie died, that Yale had too, in that instant of death, Jeanie’s heart yielded toward Ruthie then hardened again that it took death for Jeanie to realize her own stubbornness.
Once Jeanie went dry, the paper that had been in Ruthie’s pocket fluttered in a gentle wind. Jeanie picked it up and noticed Frank’s handwriting hidden by the folded crease.
“I’m sorry, Ruthie, but I have to read this.”
Dearest Ruthie,
My love, my soul—both live with you even when I don’t.
Jeanie covered her mouth, her hands shook as she read what she knew she didn’t want to know.
I’ll be gone for a short time, to set about making a life for us in Texas. I’m heartbroken that you can’t travel, but that baby inside of you—our sweet gift from God—is too precious to risk. I will forsake my family for you, as it can only damage them all to live a lie right in their presence. It will be better this way. For everyone. I’ll be back for both of you and we will spend our days contemplating the beauties of nature—the kind that spr
outs white and puffy out of Texas dirt, the kind that lives within the two of us, holding hearts over many lonely miles.
Love, dearly,
Your Frank
Jeanie couldn’t feel the final loss of her marriage. She was dry, empty, singed inside, with nothing but a mind whose sole quest was to figure out how to keep the rest of her family together, so they wouldn’t all perish in squalor.
Ruthie’s baby let out a cry, startling Jeanie. She shushed the child, petting her head. Jeanie didn’t think Ruthie’s infant would last more than a few minutes, with the way she laid there, limp.
Jeanie pulled Ruthie’s pocket out, to put the letter back inside. She noticed a round glass button—the pasque flower paperweight button, and another paper—a train ticket to Seattle with a transfer to Vancouver, British Columbia. Jeanie covered her mouth, tasted blood that spackled her hand. Ruthie hadn’t been lying.
She was on her way out of the country, to Canada. Jeanie buckled at the thought. It was her fault. If Jeanie had accepted Ruthie’s apology, she might have had the strength to survive. The button. Lutie’s lavender dress had been missing its buttons when they found her the morning of her death. All but one. Jeanie couldn’t fathom why Ruthie felt it important to keep, but Jeanie stashed it in her pocket, knowing she wouldn’t part with it.
Jeanie hadn’t thought another exposure to grief could actually add pain. But there it was, building. How could she live with Ruthie’s death on her hands? She could have gotten help. Done something besides let the woman die, in pain, emotionally alone. She had begged Jeanie for forgiveness and she’d denied it, felt power in denying it. The shame Jeanie felt stopped her breath. She wretched, vomiting amid the red soil.
The letter. Frank was coming back for Ruthie. How could she explain this? Jeanie felt as though she’d killed Ruthie and though she knew she hadn’t she wasn’t sure that guilt wouldn’t be draped upon her, pointing to her as murderer, negligent at the very least. She was a murderer.
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