Vinita Hampton Wright

by Dwelling Places (v5)

  Reverend Maynor has some opening comments, but they are short. The congregation sings a hymn, and a deacon offers a prayer. The man has likely never prayed at this type of service before, and he sounds a bit unsure. He keeps his thanks and requests general, but does say at the end, “Lord, help our hearts heal tonight,” and these words cause a shift in Mack’s thinking. It is a personal, painful request, and he is unaccustomed to bringing raw emotion into a church building. By now, such pain comes up as normal when he sits in George’s office. But the public feel of this church makes him wonder what in the world he is doing here, and he dreads what may happen next.

  “I’ve asked a few of you to come prepared tonight,” the reverend says, smiling, “just to get things going. I’d like for us to spend some time telling stories. They can be any stories at all, but the important thing is that they are your stories. So Julia is going to start, and then I think a couple of others. Then we’ll open it up to whoever wants to talk.”

  The stories do come, one after the other. To Mack’s surprise, only a few recount hard times—droughts, accidents, or sick hogs. But there are many more stories of kids, cats, and even calves, stuck in trees or muddy stream bottoms, of hilarious chases after persnickety livestock, of poison ivy making the rounds through three families in a week, of parties of women sweating in one another’s kitchens, putting up pickles, green beans, corn, and applesauce.

  He didn’t expect the stories or the warm, at-home feeling their telling brings. He didn’t expect to cry from laughing and for that to feel good. He didn’t expect any laughter at all, just some Scripture readings and admonitions to praise God and trust his providence. They have been sitting here for more than an hour now, and no one has read any Scripture at all.

  Their neighbor Dave Kernbetter, who is going on seventy, clears his throat and begins to speak.

  “Young Taylor was three years old and somehow got into my sweet corn patch. I guess he’d been in the truck with his mom when she brought lunch out to Mack and Taylor Senior, the next field over. I could see the adults standing around the truck with the hood up—always something breaking on the equipment—” Chuckles around the room confirm this. “Anyway, I guess while they had their heads together, Young Taylor got away and got into my field. But I didn’t know he was anywhere around.

  “So I’m chopping weeds out of my rows, and I see some stalks moving like there’s an animal comin’ right for me. I’ve got my old dog Patch there with me, and usually he’d take after anything that didn’t belong there. But Patch just looks back at me, confused.” Dave stops while a laugh rumbles up from his gut. His wife Mary is shaking beside him and wiping her eyes.

  “Then all of a sudden I see this little brown head of hair and a totally naked kid underneath it. It was hot as blazes, and I guess he’d been just wearing a diaper, but he must have lost that a few rows back. But—oh yeah, he did have his sneakers on. So there’s Young Taylor, movin’ ahead straight as a plowhorse, red as a little beet. He looks up at me, and I say, ‘Young Taylor, what are you doing here?’ and I reach down to grab him, but he takes out and runs east, away from me and his folks. So all I can do is run after him. But a little guy with no clothes can travel pretty fast, you know.” The whole room is laughing itself to tears. “I caught up to him and grabbed him, and he screamed bloody murder all the way back to the truck. And I’m tryin’ to figure out how I’m going to explain how come he’s got no clothes on.”

  Mack doesn’t dare look back at Young Taylor. He hears little sobs beside him and sees Jodie pull out a tissue, her face red and bright from laughing. She leans toward him suddenly. “We could never keep a diaper on him.”

  Mack smiles and squeezes her shoulder. “Nope. We almost got him a leash after that, though.”

  Reverend Maynor stands up, in the center aisle, the pulpit behind her. “We’ve remembered the history so many of us share. The good and bad times. Most of these memories have to do directly with your farms. You’ll always have those memories and those stories. They will be part of you forever. But for the families we are honoring tonight, there will be no new stories connected with that livelihood.”

  The room falls silent, as if she has mentioned something they have all agreed will not be spoken aloud. She is not daunted by this.

  “The difficulty you face is that the life you had as farmers—all the wonderful and tragic moments that came with it—is over. This is the part that is not so easy to talk about. I remember when my daughter died in a traffic accident, six years ago, at age seventeen, I felt for months afterward that if I admitted out loud that she was gone for good, I would lose everything I had of her. I was afraid that the moment I said good-bye, all the memories would fly out the windows and doors and never return. I lived in fear of losing my memories. As you know, if you’ve lost a loved one, memories can be so vivid and close that they are almost like objects in the room with us.”

  Mack thinks of Alex sitting by the stream in the dead of night, and of his father’s boots in the museum.

  “But the truth is, putting your grief into spoken words will not steal the rich history you have built. And until you put your grief into words, until you truly grieve and say good-bye, you won’t be able to build new stories for yourself and your families. This is another reason we’re here this evening. We’re here to celebrate your families as the farm families they have been. But we’re also here to say good-bye and help you move to the next part of your lives.”

  She asks then that people speak, one at a time, and briefly, of what they must say good-bye to. Nearly a minute goes by, and the pastor remains steady. Finally, Adri Bart speaks up. She is in her early fifties and looks as plain and strong as farm women tend to look. Her voice does not waver, but her hands shake slightly where they grip the pew in front of her.

  “What I miss most of all is the spring planting. The world just feels new when it’s thawing out from a long winter. Now we hardly ever hold the soil in our hands.” She sits down quickly, and others rise, one by one, and speak.

  “Harvest is what I loved most. When you can pull in a good crop, nothing in life feels better. You’ve got the proof right there that you did a good job.”

  “Now that we’re in town, we’ve got a smaller garden spot. I hate not having half an acre to do with as I want. My favorite smell is green beans when I’m cooking them with ham and putting them up. I used to count jars by the dozens. Now I don’t put much away at all. It doesn’t feel the same, with that little garden patch.”

  “Working with the hogs, believe it or not. I had hogs ever since I was seven years old. Used to show a sow every year at the fair. Then I’d cry when we’d sell her come winter.”

  “I miss having the whole family around. It was so hard the day Frank got a job in town to bring in more money. I had three little ones at home. He worked in town during the day and farmed at night. I hated seeing him work to exhaustion. I hated that he didn’t enjoy the farming, since he was always too tired to do it. But I really hated that he wasn’t there with me during the day. I missed carrying lunch out to him or just going out to where he was and listening to him talk about how things were growing.”

  “The hardest for me was when my wife had to work outside the farm. The kids were in high school, and she took a job at the nursing home. Harder work than the farm, and the pay was hardly enough to matter. Life felt different after that.”

  Mack feels his heart throbbing, moving words to the front. But he’s been putting things into words for months now. He knows they will come out and yet he won’t be destroyed. He clears his throat. A few people look at him, but some look at each other, understanding what he has been through.

  “What’s been hardest for me is farming without my dad and brother. Dad’s been gone ten years, but I’m still not used to that. And as you know, my brother died a couple years ago, not long after we sold everything but the house and a few acres. I haven’t farmed for a while now, but I still miss working with both of them.”

&n
bsp; A long silence follows Mack’s short speech. He feels tears in his throat, but nothing gets so far as his eyes. Since that day with George, when he stated how God had forsaken them, the tears have not been so easy to come. He wrestles now with bigger, deeper things that don’t show themselves so freely.

  A few more people speak, and Mack ventures a peek at Jodie’s stone face beside him. Young Taylor says nothing, but that isn’t a surprise. Kenzie sits slumped beside her mother, not seeming to connect to any of this. Maybe she will be able to later, with the pastor she knows better. But Mack aches for his wife to speak. He wants to know if the worst of all this for her is really him or if her grief includes the sorts of things people are naming now.

  “Anyone else? I don’t want to rush anyone, but I feel as if we’re winding down.” Reverend Maynor searches the room with patient eyes. Mack sees the eyes rest on Jodie. He sees Jodie look back at the minister, her head coming up just a bit.

  “I just…” Jodie says, her voice abrupt, “I just don’t know what I’m part of anymore.”

  It feels as if the whole room turns then and focuses on Jodie. Mack wonders suddenly if any of the people here know about Terry Jenkins. He looks for judgment in the faces around them, but all he sees are eyes that seem as hungry to hear Jodie speak as he is.

  “So much of living out here is being part of everybody’s life. We’re all in this together. We’re dependent on the weather and the market. Hardly anybody goes through something that everybody else doesn’t go through. I used to belong to all that. I was part of the seasons changing and the neighbors working. What am I part of now?”

  A tear slips down her cheek. Her whole body is trembling. “I don’t know what I’m part of now. And I don’t know who my family is.” Her hands come up then, to cover her face, and she rocks. Mack hears Lacy begin to cry behind him.

  He will remember forever how the room seems to collapse as his wife’s sobs fill the arched space above them. How she makes sounds that he’s never heard come out of her before, and how Kenzie suddenly slides close and clings to her mother. And then Lacy comes up too, scooting around Mack to gather both Kenzie and Jodie, and by then the room is weeping. He thinks that he weeps too, but mostly he is riveted to the sight and sound of his wife. He doesn’t move, but allows her to be comforted by others. For the first time since all the hard times began, this does not feel like failure to him. He watches others stroke her hair and grasp her shoulders and speak soothing things to her, and he knows that this is meant to be. At some point he notices Ed sitting beside him. His arm comes down on the back of the pew behind Mack. Mack can’t tell if the wetness on Ed’s face is tears or sweat, but the grief is plain.

  When the weeping subsides, Reverend Maynor reads two Psalms. They sing two hymns, easy ones that are old and second nature and require nothing but the heart and tongue to remember them.

  Then each of the four families is presented with a small cloth bag filled with corn. This represents all their lives’ harvests. The second is an empty scrapbook, leather-bound, a place in which to collect new memories and stories. Reverend Maynor has written a blessing, and she asks the families to stand, and she blesses each one. It is a lot like a baptism. After the blessing, they sing the Doxology, and the congregation comes forward to add good words, handshakes, and hugs. By then, the tears have dried and the mood has shifted. The air, though warm from the gas heater in the back of the room, feels light.

  Rita

  Rita’s alone, on her couch, her bum leg resting on pillows on the coffee table. She hasn’t done a useful thing for two days now. Jodie has helped deliver all the pill bottles to the neighborhood, and Mack picked up mail. It hurts too much for Rita to stand long enough to make soup for her folks. This is miserable.

  Mack came by at noon, as he promised. He was pleasant enough, but his mind was on other things. He offered to take Rita to the church service tonight, but didn’t push it when she declined. She quickly shifted the topic to asking about Jodie, Kenzie, Young Taylor, things at work. His answers were no different from a thousand other answers on other days.

  Her TV remote had stopped working, a real inconvenience. She can get to the bathroom in just a few steps. But the crutches hurt her underarms, and changing channels by hand had become a burden. So Mack replaced the batteries. He got her fresh water, putting the little pitcher on the TV tray next to her. He washed the few dishes in the sink and reheated the lunch Jodie sent. Rita has to admit that her grown-man son is pretty good with the details. Taylor and Alex were fairly worthless when it came to anything inside the house, but Mack, maybe because of Jodie, has learned how to put a plate in front of a person and clean up the little messes that aren’t that important but irritating all the same. He followed Rita’s instructions wordlessly and with no resentment that she could see. She hopes he’ll be this nice a decade from now, should she live that long. This is part of why she takes care of so many old folks—hoping God will notice her good works and provide the care she needs when she can’t do for herself anymore. She has watched the light go out of too many faces as the years stole mobility and memory and simple pleasures. When she thanked Mack for his help, she meant it.

  It is evening now, and she nibbles on the ham sandwich and carrot sticks and apple cake Jodie sent. Her leg is throbbing again, and she changes positions to ease it. Of course the doctor gave her pain pills, but they remain in their little bottle by the water pitcher—all she needs is to lose what little clarity she has to narcotics.

  She got bored with television an hour ago, so now she stares at the blank screen and notices that the landscape hanging on the wall above it is tilted. It’s too high for her to reach; even Mack would need a step stool to get up there and fix it. But he’s gone now—and with the whole family off to this grieving service, probably no one will stop by later tonight. So Rita gets to look at this crookedness for the livelong evening. She tries to picture a person tall enough to reach and make the adjustment. Amos is shrunken up—and she wouldn’t trust him on a stepladder anyway.

  Another image comes to mind then, of Joe, Marty’s new friend. Huh. She hasn’t thought of him much since Christmas, has decided not to get too attached until they make it official—if they ever do. But that Joe, he could reach right up there. He towered over everybody at Christmas.

  Maybe she should take a little more initiative. She picks up her notebook and turns to a blank page, writes “Dear Joe,” and stops. He’s new to the family and probably wonders if they like him or don’t. She should have written him a note right after the holiday. Well, that’s one oversight easy enough to correct.

  Dear Joe:

  Happy New Year—I hope it has started out well for you. I’m at home with a busted leg, but other than that, things are fine.

  We really enjoyed having you visit us for Christmas. It was so good to have Marty, David, and Sharon with us, and we appreciate that you spent precious holiday time here in Beulah. We didn’t hear much about your family. I hope the holiday was good for them too.

  As you must know, our family has had its struggles. That’s not so unusual for any family, but we did seem to pile up more than our share over the past few years. We’ve managed to deal with whatever comes. And we value helping each other through hard times. I’ve told Marty this, and now I’ll tell you the same: No matter what happens, you can always come home to us. We’ll do whatever we can to help.

  It appears that you and Marty are pretty serious, and I think that she and the kids do well by having you around. So I hope things work out for all of you. And if you stay with them for the long haul, you’ll automatically become part of the Barnes clan.

  That’s not a threat, just a promise!

  Please don’t be a stranger. Beulah’s not big and busy the way Omaha is, but we’ll treat you well when you come to see us.

  Most sincerely,

  Rita Mae Barnes

  She folds the letter and sets it where she’ll remember to give it to Mack tomorrow. He needs to get her stamp
s too—better yet, stamped envelopes, because she’s on her last envelope or two. She’s let herself run low on a lot of things lately. No matter how hard she works to keep everything organized, one thing or another gets neglected. She considers turning this concern into a new prayer request, but her notebook landed on the kitchen cabinet somehow, and she is unwilling, for now, to go get it.

  Mack

  On the way home from the service, Jodie begins to cry again, not the sobs of before but steady, rhythmic sighs. No one speaks. Mack glances in the rearview mirror and sees that Young Taylor has his arm around Kenzie’s shoulders. Kenzie looks tired and sad. Young Taylor’s face is calm. His eyes meet Mack’s in the mirror, but he says nothing.

  They get to the farmhouse, and Jodie takes hold of Kenzie, and they walk together inside and upstairs. They go to Jodie and Mack’s bedroom and shut the door. Mack taps on it and is told they are fine but need some time. He walks downstairs and finds Young Taylor at the kitchen table, having a bowl of cereal.

  “I need to go see how your grandma’s doing. I won’t be long.”

  “Want me to come?”

  “No. I’d rather you stay here with Mom and Kenzie. I won’t be long at all.”

  “Okay.”

  Mack is surprised at how tired his mother looks. He’s also angered at how little she wants to hear about the service.

  “I thought you’d be interested,” he said.

  “I’m glad it went well. Sure it did good for some people.”

  “I think you would’ve liked it.”

  She shrugs and asks him to move her tray closer. She pours water from the Styrofoam pitcher. “I don’t need some preacher telling me how to move on.”