The Long Road Home

by Mary Alice Monroe

  Her back to him, she didn’t see him smile.

  He scanned the small room, picking up the myriad details of change. The effect wasn’t frilly, but homey. The blue-checked curtains matched the tablecloth, and there was no doubt in his mind she’d sewn them herself. The floors smelled of soap and the windows sparkled. And seeing the tea, he realized she’d noticed that he preferred herbal. C.W. was touched, much more than he cared to admit.

  “It looks quite nice, Nora.”

  Her hands stilled upon the brown bags. Without looking up, she murmured, “Thank you.”

  He watched her as she bent over the bags. Her softly rounded bottom was so womanly, complementing her actions. How could a woman like her have been married to a man like Mike MacKenzie, he wondered for the hundredth time?

  “Nora,” he said, stepping inside, “why do you never speak of your husband?”

  Nora stiffened, caught off guard, and quickly finished collecting her supplies. “It’s too painful,” she replied, not looking at him.

  He winced, thinking that he’d been wrong. That she still mourned him. “Yet you said you didn’t miss him. At all.”

  Nora heaved a sigh, one that spoke of frustration and impatience. She slowly rose to her feet, all the while wiping her hands upon her apron.

  “By the time Mike died,” she explained in a matter-of-fact voice, “there was nothing much between us to miss. He thought I’d failed him, not having his baby and all.”

  Nora walked over to the window and stared out over the bluff. But rather than pines and hills, in the vista Nora saw shapes and figures of her past.

  “As he…went out more, I buried myself in my work on various art museum committees. People said I should have left him. They called me a fool, laughing behind my back. Did they think I didn’t hear?” She grasped the curtain tightly in her hand. “But that’s not my way. Not the way I was raised. I believed in my marriage vows—for better or for worse. I just got a little more of the worse.”

  Nora’s shoulders slumped as she slowly untied her apron and lifted it over her head. C.W. watched as she folded it neatly, pressing the creases in the fabric while lost in thought. Then she walked back and tossed it carelessly into the bag.

  “I spent a lot of time at our house in Connecticut,” she continued. “In my garden.” She lifted her brows, daring him to question. When he didn’t, she said, subdued, “I guess I was hiding from the truth.”

  Nora met his eyes. “What about you, Mr. Walker? It’s obvious you’re not some uneducated laborer.” She waved her hands to indicate the stacks of books all over the room.

  “When we were in town, did you think I didn’t notice the way you tugged the brim of your hat over your sunglasses? I’ve never known a man to check over his shoulder as often as you did. What are you hiding from?”

  C.W. walked over to the table, allowing his hand to rest upon the opened book. Nora tracked each movement. C.W. appeared to read a line or two of it, then moved his hand the few inches over to the paper that held her name. It lingered there, the tip of his index finger tracing over the circled name. Then, very slowly, he crumpled the paper into his large hand.

  “Have you ever killed a man?” he asked, slowly raising his eyes to hers.

  Nora paled. Old suspicions flashed through her mind. “No,” she replied softly. “Of course not.”

  “Of course not,” C.W. repeated. “Neither have I. At least not directly. But indirectly I caused a man’s death. And the guilt is just as strong.” He raked his hair with his fingers, leaving paths in the gold like plowed fields of wheat. “Does one ever escape from that?”

  Nora was struck with the pain in C.W.’s eyes and she knew, for certain, that she’d never have to fear this man.

  “It doesn’t pay to hide,” she told him. “I’ve tried it. The problem doesn’t go away.”

  Silence settled in the room as peacefully as the sun settled in the western sky. A pinkish pall flooded the gray cabin. Off in the distance, the birds sang out a mournful call, sounding the end of another day.

  “It’s getting late. I’d better go,” said Nora, gathering her things. As she lifted them she felt his two strong arms hoist the bags from her. He walked to the wagon and was about to put them in when, resting the bags on his bent knee, he carefully removed a grapevine wreath from the bin.

  “What’s this?” he asked, settling the bags in the wagon and lifting the wreath.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” muttered Nora, rushing over.

  “Not so fast,” he said in a teasing voice, raising it out of her reach. “Let’s take a look.” The rough grapevine wreath was adorned with dried flowers and milkweed pods. The effect of the soft gray puffs against the curling, woody vine was exquisitely natural. Like Nora.

  Nora’s cheeks were flaming. She had made it for him. Compared to Esther’s powerful painting, however, it seemed so naive. Yet, it was her best, and that was all she had to give.

  “It’s quite nice,” he said, admiration in his eyes. He grabbed a hammer and nail from his tool chest and headed straight for the door. With three firm taps, the nail was in and the wreath was up.

  Nora walked over to the wreath and ran her fingertip through the downy seeds. “Now, it’s home,” she whispered. “You can stay here, C.W.,” she added, eyes on the wreath, “for as long as you wish.”

  Behind her, she sensed him shorten the distance between them until he stood inches away from her. His breath was warm upon her head. She could smell the musky scent of his skin. She recognized it, like a pheromone, and it sent her blood racing and her heart palpitating.

  She waited for what seemed an eternity, listening to his breathing grow labored behind her. The fine hairs on her head tingled as his lips lowered to lightly graze in the soft gold. His breath was warm. His fingertips lightly cupped her elbows, then stretched out to caress upward along her arms to her shoulders. Suddenly, his grip tightened, even as his lips lowered to her head and he pulled her back against his broad chest. She closed her eyes and arched her neck back like a swan. For a moment they stood there, as the birds called, as the sky darkened. For a moment they were not Charles Walker Blair and Nora MacKenzie, nor boss and hired hand. They were simply a man and a woman.

  C.W. released her shoulder to grab the door and give it a closing shove. But Nora flashed out her own arm, stopping its swing shut.

  “I’m not ready for this, C.W.,” she hammered out.

  Feeling his hands drop away from her, Nora moved away and hurried from the cabin. She couldn’t look back. Grabbing hold of the wagon’s handle, she hastened her trek back across the meadow. The little red wagon wobbled behind her. Nora heard the clunk, clunk, clunk of bottles banging in and out of the bag, but she didn’t dare look back to see what she had lost.

  Junior and Frank sprawled across the front seat of their Impala not saying anything, just staring out the left side of the car toward the plate glass window of the Look, a small dress shop in Rutland. The dress shop sat between Putnam’s Ace Hardware Store, with a few snow shovels and snow blowers in the window, and the Green Earth health food store that stuffed every square inch of their display window with tea, vitamins, and assorted snack foods. The tiny shops clustered together in the dirty stone federal building like war veterans at a parade. They were old, run-down, and had seen former days of glory. Not one had “the look” that would stop the parade of cars from passing.

  Except one car. In it, Frank wasn’t thinking about the chipped paint or the outdated neon sign as he stared at the plate glass. Inside the window, Katie Beth Zwinger was busily laying out the new display: a couple of classic wool skirts with coordinating orange and yellow sweaters. Colored paper leaves that were ragged and curled at the edges were tacked on the window in a disappointing attempt at fall frolics.

  Frank thought it was all grand as he watched Katie Beth’s long fingers work rapidly over the mannequin. He studied the way she carefully plucked out the straight pins from her pursed lips. He eyed with stilled breath
the slight length of thigh that crept into view as Katie Beth lifted a knee and stretched to pin the back of the kilt.

  “She sure is good at her job,” Frank said with awe.

  Junior shrugged. He couldn’t think of much to comment about.

  “Why’d she start goin’ out with John Henry, do you think?” he asked anxiously, swinging his head to face his brother.

  Junior shrugged again, shifting his gaze, knowing for sure what he’d like to say but didn’t dare.

  Frank’s gaze strayed back to Katie Beth. “We’ve been datin’ for four years now.”

  “Five.”

  “Yeah.” Frank scowled. “It must be that dairy farm John Henry got. Shoot. If I had that dairy farm, Katie Beth wouldn’t be lookin’ around.”

  “You got a farm, too.”

  Frank shook his head and ran his hand along the back of his neck. A dull ache throbbed. “Do not. Neither do you. We’re just like Esther said, two bachelors without a dime to rub between us. Pa ain’t never gonna let me run things. He never wants to see the land split up.”

  “You can have my piece, Frank. I don’t care.”

  “Don’t matter none,” he said morosely. Frank glanced quickly at his brother and saw the hurt shining in Junior’s eyes. He gave him a gentle shove. “Hey. You and I are always gonna be a team, right?”

  Junior’s eyes brightened and he bobbed his head. Frank ventured a lopsided smile, then sunk his chin in his palm and stared back out at Katie Beth.

  Junior gathered his brows in worry. “Don’t worry. Katie Beth ain’t that way. She’s real nice. She dances good, too.”

  “I know it,” replied Frank, looking at Katie Beth with a new sadness in his eyes. It occurred to him that life wouldn’t be worth much without Katie Beth, and his face fell farther into his hand at the thought of losing her.

  “I want to marry her,” he said, real slowly, the idea cementing in his mind as he spoke the words.

  Junior shifted and grimaced as if he was sitting on a burr.

  “If’n you marry Katie Beth, I know you’re gonna want your own house and all. And wanna be alone. You won’t want me hangin’ around all the time. And that’s okay and all. But, what’ll happen to us? I mean, you know?”

  Frank jabbed at his brother’s rib. Then again. “Come on, whaddya think? Nothin’s gonna change. Like I always say, we’re a team. Katie Beth’ll be, you know, at home. You and I’ll work together and go out sometimes like always. Shoot. You can come to our house anytime,” he said, swelling his chest and warming to the idea of him and Katie Beth having their own home after all. “Maybe someday you’ll get married, huh? What about that?”

  This time Junior jabbed at Frank, then Frank jabbed back again, and after a few more punches and laughs, Junior decided it would be a good thing after all if Frank married Katie Beth. He said as much to Frank.

  Frank’s smile fell and he nervously shifted his eyes toward the display window. He watched as Katie Beth neatly gathered up her supplies in a box and crawled out from the window, real dainty-like, he thought. The full window looked empty without her. The mannequins, dressed in their autumn colors, seemed to Frank like every other girl in the world: fake and wooden. Only Katie Beth held any life.

  “A girl like Katie Beth wants more than a poor boy like me can offer,” Frank said, his voice trembling with emotion. He jerked his arm down, rammed the key in, and fired up the engine.

  Junior may not have been able to understand all the details that people sputtered, but he was astute at picking up the bottom line. He braced himself against the dashboard as Frank spun the tires and squealed away from the curb. Junior knew that he had to help his brother, somehow. Or someday, his brother was gonna crash and burn.

  18

  NORA’S FIRST MONTH passed in relative peace in the country. Down in the pen, Nora developed an air of camaraderie with C.W. and Esther. They worked in harmony to usher into the world sixty-two more lambs. Witnessing another creature slip into the world and wobble to its feet on its own strength instilled in her an awe and renewed respect for God and nature. The experience grounded her to the power of life: that which was around her and within herself. As each day passed, her confidence and self-esteem grew as steady and sure as the lambs she cared for. By the close of her first month, she was completing her chores with the same confidence that she had admired in Esther only weeks before.

  Her routine was sacrosanct. She spent the morning feeding the barn animals and the afternoon doing house chores and paperwork. Seth joked that he gave up wearing a watch; he could tell the time by what Nora was up to. Winterization of the house was also coming along nicely. Freed from the chores of the pen, Seth drove his sons at a steady pace, all the while keeping an eye on the skies above. Within the month floors had been laid and the walls and ceilings had been Sheetrocked. Even a few closets and shelves had been installed.

  Nora worked overtime vacuuming up all the dust that fell onto every surface, picking up the nails and wood chips, and moving furniture from one room to the other. She never complained. The work had to get done, and time was of the essence. Quietly and quickly she worked, figuring that not only did it speed things up, but that in fact, no one worked harder or did the job better than herself.

  Frank, Junior, and the others called her the Whiz. No sooner would they set something down than she’d whiz by, offer a cheery comment, then clean it up. The guys no longer maintained a deferential distance. Her superior air had long since vanished and she laughed at their jokes. That they could talk freely with her in the room was testimony to her acceptance. She delighted in it.

  Esther had finally come around, too. In painting, they had found that common ground, and from it they were building, albeit slowly, a working relationship. Not a friendship yet, but as always, Nora was optimistic and willing to work hard.

  It was the work at night, however, that Nora enjoyed the most. Each evening, at precisely seven o’clock, C.W. knocked on the kitchen door. And each night, Nora felt a thrill of anticipation. He never failed to fill the doorway and her heart with his presence. For the first several days his manner was cool and indifferent. They sat, head to head, toe to toe, at the dining room table, careful not to accidentally graze a finger or bump a thigh. They were accountant and client—teacher and student.

  Each night, with slow deliberation, C.W. took his wire-rim glasses out from his pocket and hooked them around his ears. Then, one by one, he spread the books before them. Nora sat, hands neatly folded, and watched how his hair fell over his broad forehead, just touching the thin wire-rims, which rested on and accentuated his broken nose. She thought the flattened bridge did not detract from his handsomeness but improved it. Without this flaw, his striking good looks would be too perfect, like a model’s. That, she would have found boring.

  C.W.’s small imperfection, however, sent her imagination running. Perhaps he’d been a football jock in high school, or maybe even college? Was it some rough and tumble barroom brawl; if so, who’d started it? Was the fight over some woman? Or maybe some horse kicked him during a shoeing?

  Nora enjoyed creating a past for the private Mr. Walker. He held his cards tightly abreast. Every once in a while he’d discard a tidbit of information that Nora quickly picked up and sorted. She discovered he was intelligent by his vocabulary. It was rich with multisyllabic choices that came naturally, without the millisecond pause of pretension. His breadth of knowledge on a wide array of subjects revealed a strong education. And although he wore worn and torn clothing and could throw hay as far as Frank, C.W. could not disguise his quiet aura of quality. Nora paired these pieces of information together but as yet could not play out her hand.

  As the nights grew colder, the kitchen became the only room cozy enough to work in without fingers and toes freezing. Nora tacked up large pieces of thick plastic at the stairwells to keep the wood stove’s heat from dispersing throughout the house. It worked like a charm. C.W. noticed it the first night. Although he didn’t comment, Nora
caught his nod of approval.

  With the same patience he had shown down at the barn, C.W. laid out the figures and explained what they represented. As he did so, he also taught her the ins and outs of sheep farming: the variable and fixed costs, and the high risk ventures versus the tried-and-true ones. Sometimes Seth and Frank would join him, and together they’d describe, with the excitement of a pack of inventors, the new crossbreeding they were trying out.

  She sat back and listened with rapture, getting sucked into this world of sheep, hay fields, and wool. Here, as in the barn, Nora proved an apt pupil. She had a decent handle on the math, but she surprised C.W. with an extraordinary grasp of concept and management.

  For the first several sessions, C.W. had maintained an employer-employee rigidity. He had seemed intent on getting a fix on her personal finances, offering to balance her books, referring often to any other ledgers she might have. But she demurred, returning instead to ideas and dreams for the farm. As the hours and days passed, however, their formality dissipated and a friendly exchange developed.

  By the end of that first week, C.W. had decided to stop pressing Nora for more of Mike’s records. She would confide only when she was ready and not before. He’d have to be patient. In truth, however, he was grateful for the reprieve. Without the pressure of a mission, he could relax and concentrate on his second goal: to get to know Nora better. After a while, he stopped gathering his papers at the hour’s close and stayed for that cup of coffee.

  During the second week, they settled into a peaceful pattern around the fireplace after their work—he with a book, and she with her sewing machine. They talked about everything: from Lenin to Lennon, grass roots to the ozone layer, Buddha to Christ, and apples to zucchini. They discovered that they shared numerous opinions and viewpoints. So rather than debate from opposite poles, they parleyed from the same side of the fence.

  He also started noticing the floral arrangements and wreaths she created from the wild vines and flowers she gathered. Bread baked in the oven, soups and coffee simmered, water steamed on the wood stove, fresh towels and a space heater warmed the bathroom. This house was becoming a home. He felt invited here, even welcome.