How the Light Gets In

by Jolina Petersheim

  Elam squeezed Ruth’s hand, drawing her back from that dingy apartment in Colombia to a prosperous cranberry farm in Wisconsin. Everything Elam did was gentle, an alluring contradiction since his hands were calloused in a way Chandler’s had never been.

  Elam asked, “What were you thinking of?”

  Ruth didn’t want to tell him. Unending comparison was no way to begin a marriage. But at this point, she didn’t know how to stop. “I’m thinking that I’m glad you’re back.”

  He smiled at her, but then stopped walking. “I got something for you,” he said. “While I was gone.” Elam looked at his booted feet, and she looked down too, as if it were there. “I wasn’t sure when to . . . give it.” He rubbed his neck. “I wasn’t sure you’d even want . . . it.” Swallowing, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather pouch.

  Ruth took it from him and glanced up. “You crazy man. What have you done?”

  Elam shrugged and pocketed his fists, as shy as a schoolboy. She loosened the pouch’s thin string and fished inside for what she knew was there. Her heart thumped hard. She kept her eyes on the pouch. Ruth had been engaged twice in her life, and neither engagement was typical. Therefore, she didn’t think it strange she didn’t have a ring. Elam was Mennonite, after all. He wore no wristwatch, and nobody else in the community wore any jewelry, unless they were hiding it somewhere Ruth couldn’t see. Ruth pulled it out and ran her finger over the facade, reading the details like braille. It was a Claddagh—hands holding a heart—a piece of jewelry native to Ireland. A heart. Before coming here, Ruth had wondered if she had one.

  “I saw it,” Elam said. “In Boston. It reminded me of you.”

  Ruth looked up at him through tears. “I love it.”

  “I’m glad.” Despite the darkness, Ruth could see how his eyes squinted at the corners, and Ruth reveled in the fact that Elam was happy, and that this happiness stemmed from her.

  She slipped the ring onto her left ring finger. So little time had passed since she’d removed Chandler’s wedding band that a white patch of lighter skin still encircled that finger. She wasn’t sure of the significance, but she could feel it in her spirit as Elam’s Claddagh covered that pale spot. The heart facing out so that everyone she met would know she was already his.

  Sofie was the first to notice Zeus was missing, but Ruth initially didn’t think too much of it. The Great Pyrenees was becoming increasingly independent and often ventured to the far reaches of the farm, as if he could not be content until he had marked every shrub growing on the two-hundred-acre property. At lunchtime, Ruth stood on the porch, calling for the dog and clapping her hands. She half expected him to come gamboling past her with burdock matting his coat, so Ruth would have to brush him down with the currycomb Elam used for his horses. And yet, Zeus did not return. Ruth bundled her daughters and led them out of the house, each girl holding her hand. The sky was lead gray and oppressive, as if burdened by the beginning of winter.

  Ruth found Elam in the barn, looking over a ledger book—the kind she hadn’t seen since she was a child visiting her professor father’s office. Elam did everything the slow way, by hand.

  She asked, “You seen Zeus anywhere?”

  Sofie watched Elam from beneath the brim of her red hat lined with faux fur. Her eyes shone out at him with mild distrust, but Vi let go of Ruth’s hand to climb onto Elam’s knee. Closing the ledger, he bounced her and let her fiddle with the zipper of his coat.

  “No,” he said, meeting Ruth’s eyes. “When did you see him last?”

  “This morning,” Ruth said. She shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll turn up.”

  “Maybe he found a lady friend.” Elam’s face flamed as soon as he said this. Ruth had been married for five years and endured all the exposure surrounding a hospital birth. There were few things that could make her blush anymore, so she rather enjoyed Elam’s discomfort.

  She said, “He’s already fixed.”

  But Ruth became worried when Zeus still had not returned after dark. He always came home after dark, at least for a few hours, and Ruth wasn’t sure if that’s when he became too hungry to continue roaming or if his sense of responsibility beckoned him home. The girls had a hard time going to sleep unless he was there.

  Mabel offered to stay with the children while Elam and Ruth carried a lantern out into the field to look. They called his name and walked, called his name and walked. They passed the barns, the lake, the bogs, and the channels. Finally, they gave up and returned to the house. Mabel was tucking Sofie and Vivienne into bed when they came upstairs. Elam stood in the doorway while Ruth went inside the room. She sat on the bed and reached out to stroke her girls’ hair. They were night and day in both their personalities and looks, and Ruth’s mouth went dry as she considered the impossible task of trying to raise them.

  Sofie asked, “Did you find Zeus?”

  Smiling, Ruth touched her daughter’s cheek. “No, Liebe, but he’ll turn up.”

  Sofie’s lips quivered as she tried not to cry. Elam must’ve seen this in the lantern light, even from the doorway, for he cleared his throat and said, “I’ll go back out and look.”

  Ruth turned to him. “Really. You don’t have to.”

  He smiled. “I want to. Besides, it’s a good night for a walk.”

  When he left, Sofie asked, “Is Elam a nice man?”

  “Yes,” Ruth said, pulling her closer. She looked out the window, toward the darkness, and saw Elam’s lantern bobbing across the expanse of the field. Elam was out searching for a dog because he knew it was the only way her older child would sleep, but also because it was the only way he could win that child’s heart. “He is a very nice man.”

  Ruth awoke to someone tapping her shoulder. She looked up at Elam, standing by the side of her bed. She had no idea what time it was, but the context had returned. Fear cramped her stomach. She checked to make sure the girls were sleeping and re-covered them with quilts.

  They walked out of the room together, and Elam said, “Zeus got hit.”

  Ruth knew, by his expression, just what he was trying to convey. “Is he dead?”

  Elam glanced at the door, as if to ensure the girls would not overhear.

  “No.” He winced. “Not yet anyway.”

  Ruth nodded, but tears rose in her eyes. Her daughters. That was all she could think of—not Zeus’s condition, not how bad off he must be. All she could think of was them. But Sofie especially, who did not seem strong enough to lose another thread in the unraveled tapestry of her life. Ruth went downstairs, and Elam followed, his hand on her back. They walked out of the house. Elam’s horse and wagon were tied to the porch post in the yard.

  Elam led Ruth toward the back of the wagon. He’d placed a blanket down, and Zeus lay on top of it. It was hard to see in the dark, but Ruth could hear the animal’s labored breathing.

  “Oh, baby,” she said and climbed up into the wagon, lifting the dog’s massive, leonine head onto her lap. His muzzle was wet with blood. Ruth wiped a hand across her tear-dampened face. “How’d you find him?”

  Elam climbed up on the wagon’s other side. “I rode my horse out on the road, to make sure.” He stroked the dog’s flank. “I came back for the wagon once I found him.”

  Ruth’s crying became audible. “He’ll have to be put down, won’t he?”

  Elam said, “It’s up to you, but he’s suffering pretty bad.”

  “Can we call the vet?”

  “I already tried, from the barn. Nobody answered.”

  “Could we drive Zeus there?”

  “The vet’s an hour away, and he could already be out on another call.”

  Ruth began crying harder. Elam moved around Zeus and ran a hand over Ruth’s hair. “I could do it,” he said. “It’d be very quick.”

  Ruth looked up at him, and then she understood. “You would shoot a dog?”

  “I know. It’s awful, but I don’t want him to have to wait until we can get ahold of the vet. Do you?”
/>   Ruth shook her head and leaned forward, sobbing against Elam’s chest.

  Elam continued stroking her hair, the same as she’d stroked her children’s a few hours ago. “It’s all right,” he soothed. “It’s all right.” And she felt he wasn’t just speaking to the heartbreaking situation before her, but all the heartbreak which had preceded it.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Are you sure you know how?”

  Elam nodded. He held her, wiping her tears with his thumb. “Laurie had a pony when she was little, named Socksie. She got into the grain bin one night and foundered.”

  Ruth’s stomach twisted.

  “There was nothing to be done.” He paused. “My family didn’t have money for a vet, and my daed was taking care of Mamm, so I did it. For Laurie.”

  Ruth looked up at him. “Oh, Elam. How old were you?”

  “Sixteen. I remember it like yesterday. It was quick, though, Ruth, and I’ll make sure it’s quick now, too.”

  Ruth looked down at Zeus. The poor animal was whimpering, his fight for life becoming more intense. She stroked Zeus’s muzzle, swallowed a sob, and stood. Resting a hand on Elam’s shoulder, she climbed down from the wagon and entered the house.

  She sat on a rocking chair in front of the cold fireplace and wrapped her arms around herself. She couldn’t get warm, even after she got up and pulled a blanket from the cupboard and draped it around her shoulders. Five minutes must’ve passed before she heard it, the shot, distantly, as though Elam had driven the wagon into another field. Ruth began sobbing in earnest then, the sound of it ripping her apart. She got up from the rocking chair and stretched across the couch and cried, grieving the pain her children were bound to experience in the morning, and the pain their young, innocent lives had already endured.

  Ruth expected Elam to return to the farmhouse after burying the dog. She knew she should participate in the burial itself, but she was suddenly too spent and remained on the couch as if some unseen force tied her there. But Elam did not come. Hours passed, and Ruth’s emotional exhaustion induced a catatonic-like state. She didn’t fall asleep so much as she tumbled headlong—dreaming of bombs and blood and her beautiful daughters crying over a grave, crying in a way they hadn’t over their father’s. Ruth loved Zeus; that was not a question, but she did not mourn him because of him. She mourned him for her girls.

  What Ruth feared the most, as she was lying, shivering, on the couch, was that the loss of Zeus would reawaken the loss of their father. Sofie was the greatest concern, since she had barely spoken when they took that long, silent flight from London to New York. What if she regressed to the point Ruth lost her? What if, this time, she never got her back?

  Ruth awoke before dawn, when the headlights from a car swept over the front of the house. Ruth sat up on the couch, bleary-eyed and confused that she had fallen asleep there. Then she remembered. She stood and wiped her dry mouth on her sleeve. She needed water, but she was too curious to see who was here to take the time to get a drink. She was walking toward the front door when it opened, and Elam stepped in. He was wearing the clothing he’d been wearing last night. His shirt was stained; Ruth didn’t care to think about how that stain had gotten there. “I need you to come see something,” he said.

  Ruth stepped closer. Elam’s bloodshot eyes told her he hadn’t slept since everything happened. “What is it?” she said.

  But Elam did not say. He simply put his hand on the small of her back, like he had earlier, reminding her she was safe. “It’s okay if you want me to return him. I just thought—” he riffled a hand through his hair—“I guess I thought it was a good idea, but now I’m not sure.”

  Ruth looked up at him and then walked down the porch toward the van. The driver—a man Ruth hadn’t met—waved, and she waved halfheartedly back.

  Elam moved in front of her and pulled open the van door. The interior light came on, and Ruth saw it there, the snow-white pup, pressed down into the floorboard like that proximity could keep him safe.

  “Oh, Elam,” she said. And even she wasn’t sure what she thought. Could loss be so easily replaced? Could her daughters go to bed with one pet and wake up with another? Ruth felt a sinking sensation in her gut as she knelt beside the van and stroked the puppy’s head. His hair was like down. Zeus’s had been coarse, especially around his ruff. Was she attempting to replace her children’s father with another man? Did she really think it was that easy? Because it was not. She had never experienced loss to this extent, and yet she knew that, even if they had a stepfather who adored them, a part of their spirits would always be longing for their dad.

  Elam said, “There’s a family who sells Pyrenees and Samoyeds over in Cashton. I remembered it after I put Zeus down. He’s a little boy. The last of the litter.”

  The driver couldn’t continue sitting in the driveway, idling, but Ruth didn’t know what she should do. Should she make Elam take the puppy back? Should she thank him? Tears stung her eyes again, and she wiped them discreetly with the palm of her hand.

  “I really can take him back,” Elam said. “I explained the situation, and they were very kind. She said she’d even waive the home inspection.”

  Ruth sensed the smile in his voice, but she wasn’t sure she could return it. Instead, she scooped the puppy up from the floorboard and carried him toward the house. She could hear Elam speaking to the driver. The van left. She sat on the porch steps. She found herself cradling the puppy, her hand supporting the warm globe of his belly, her other hand nestled in his fur. Elam came and sat beside her. After a while, he asked, “Did I make a mistake?”

  Ruth wondered if Elam had made the same poor correlation she had: comparing their hasty union to the replacement of a dog. She shook her head and squeezed his arm. The two of them hadn’t talked about love, but she knew—sitting there on the porch of the farmhouse where they would live as a family—that she did love this man, who was so unbelievably kind, it caught her off guard. “You didn’t. I think the girls are going to love him.”

  The dog whined, and she adjusted him in her lap. The couple sat there, then, on the front porch of their Wisconsin farmhouse, as the morning sky shifted from navy to mauve.

  “I love you,” Ruth said. She had not been planning to say this, but as soon as the words were uttered, she was so glad she did.

  Elam looked down and then over at her. For a long time, he didn’t speak, but he didn’t need to. The look in his eyes conveyed everything. “Oh . . . Ruth,” he finally said, pressing a kiss to the side of her hair. “I love you so much. You have no idea how happy I am.”

  Ruth wanted Elam to be the one to present the puppy to Sofie and Vi. This seemed like the least she could do, considering how hard he’d worked to contact the driver and the seller of the dogs. It warmed her to see Elam’s excitement as the two of them sat at the kitchen table with their plates of eggs and steaming mugs of coffee, their ears tuned for any stirrings from the girls.

  The puppy dozed at their socked feet, which touched slightly. This is how it’ll be, Ruth thought. She could see it all so clearly—their simple, fulfilling life here on the cranberry farm. They would wake early, just to have time to drink their coffee and talk about their day’s plans as husband and wife rather than as father and mother who were flung into the ceaseless demands of parenthood from the moment their young children opened their eyes. Elam’s work allowed him to remain on the farm, and so Ruth imagined him coming in for lunch and again for supper—their family a solid unit rather than a shifting composition.

  Elam’s thoughts must’ve been in the same vein as Ruth’s, for he smiled at her across the table. Now they’d spoken of love—of what they’d each long since known—it was as if a wall between them had fallen, and their marriage wasn’t just a concept, but an awakening dream.

  They heard it, then—the sleepy “Mama?” coming from the top of the stairs.

  Ruth and Elam didn’t merely stand; they bolted from the table, as if this were Christmas morning and the roles were r
eversed. She loved Elam for taking something she’d dreaded and turning it into a gift. Elam picked the puppy up from beneath the table and carried him under his arm, like a football, but his other hand rested on the pup’s gray-tipped ears.

  Sofie stood next to the staircase railing, her blankie in hand, her black curls springing free around her face, and her little tummy protruding against the zipper of her pajamas.

  “I have a . . . present for you,” Elam said.

  “A present?” She looked from Elam to her mom, trying to understand.

  “The puppy,” Ruth explained. “Elam brought it back home for you.”

  Sofie left her blankie on the steps and walked down them. Only at the base did she reach for the animal. “Is it yours?” she asked, looking up at Elam.

  His smile widened. His happiness hid the fact he had not slept. “It’s ours,” he said.

  Sofie nodded and reached out, stroking the puppy’s head. “A boy or a girl?”

  “A boy.”

  “Zeus likes him?”

  Ruth met Elam’s gaze. She knelt and put her arms around Sofie, pressing one hand to her chest. This was a second chance to use simple, clear words; to listen and to comfort; to tell Sofie what to expect. “Zeus died, sweetie.” Her daughter’s heart thrummed beneath her hand.

  Sofie looked at Ruth and then she looked down at the puppy. “Where?” she asked, not how, and Ruth wished that none of this had happened. That her daughter’s sensitive spirit had time to fully recuperate before she received a blow like this again.

  “On the road,” Ruth said.

  “By a car?”