If Wishes Were Horses

by Matlock, Curtiss Ann

  “Oh,’’ she said.

  She kept her tightly folded hands in her lap and her back perfectly straight.

  Leon propped on the corner of the desk and leaned forward on his shiny shoes. “Etta, you will not be destitute. You’ll make enough after the debts are paid to get a nice little place and even to keep you goin’ for a year or so, until the baby is a bit older. Maybe Latrice could hire out as a day maid, you know, like she used to . . ."

  He continued on, and her gaze flickered to Edward, who regarded her silently. Her mind drifted, and she recalled how Roy had refused to discuss finances with her. She had her own checking account, into which he had deposited money for her to spend as she wished for herself and for running the household. On occasions when Roy had appeared in straits over money, she had attempted to be of help, but he would touch her cheek and say, “You don’t need to worry your head about the Rivers estate, darlin’. I’m takin’ care of it.”

  Feeling as helpless to change the financial situation as she had been to change her marriage, she had closed her eyes to it.

  Leon had finished speaking, and both men were gazing at her, obviously awaiting a response.

  “What happened to all the money?” she asked. “Roy made money. I saw him make money with wheat and oats, cattle and horses. And what about the two gas wells? Don’t we get money from those wells?”

  All the while Roy would tell her not to worry her head, she had been listening. She had known little of his dealings.

  Edward said, “Roy sold the family mineral rights to Alice back right after the war. Alice already owned half of ‘em.” He paused, then added, “Roy did make money, Etta, but he spent a lot, too. And you had to know about his gamblin’.”

  Etta looked downward, fingering her wedding rings.

  “It wasn’t all that people think, Etta,” Leon said earnestly. “Yes, Roy spent his money runnin’ around, but he inherited a lot of debt from his daddy: For one thing, ol’ Carterroy never had been able to make money or say no to anyone, most of all his wife. He let Cynthia go hog-wild on spending, let her send Roy to private college up in St. Louis where she came from, and Roy never wanted it, never was ready for it. He got into some trouble, and it cost Carterroy plenty to bail him out. After his daddy passed, Roy did no better when it came to his mama. He never would let her know how tight things were from time to time. He would send her off with Alice up to St. Louis to visit, and she’d come home with crates of stuff, and he just kept borrowin’ to keep her livin’ how she expected, the same as his daddy always had.”

  “Cynthia’s been dead for seven years. Since then he made money. What about the wheat? And there’s the cattle.”

  Leon opened his mouth to answer, but Edward broke in, saying, “The wheat isn’t goin’ to amount to much, Etta, after this drought we’ve had. You’d only go in deeper to get it harvested and should just graze it out. Roy never planted for wheat other than to feed the cattle, anyway, and the debt is still owed the bank for the cattle, too.”

  Edward leaned forward. “Etta, selling is all that is left. I’ve been tryin’ to get Roy to do that for two months. The bank is within its right to start foreclosure right now, but considerin’ your condition and the shock that has been handed you, we are willin’ to wait and work with you on this thing. As Leon pointed out, the worth of the land and house together is considerably more than the debt, so you will come out ahead.”

  “I see,” she said. She did see, her eyes wide open now, although she didn’t quite accept.

  * * * *

  When Etta stepped out on the street, she stopped so suddenly that Leon bumped into her. She dug into her handbag. “I need a couple of aspirins.”

  “Would you like me to go down to Parker’s to get you some?” Leon asked anxiously.

  “No. I’m sure I have some.” She began to yank things from her handbag. She pulled out a handkerchief and with it came her coin purse, which fell, opened, and sent money rolling all over the sidewalk.

  “Oh!” She went immediately after the money.

  “I’ll get it, Etta. You don’t need to be bending,” Leon said.

  But Etta, feeling a certain panic, kept after the coins. She couldn’t afford to waste even pennies.

  Going for a dime in the gutter, she suddenly found herself gazing at a snakeskin cowboy boot. She looked upward into the gray eyes of the cowboy from the blue pickup truck.

  “I’ll get that, ma’am,” he said, stepped into the gutter and stiffly bent to get the coin. “I believe this is yours also,” he said, extending several coins.

  She took them. “Thank you.”

  For long seconds they stood there staring at each other. Etta was struck by the sunlight on the man’s chestnut hair and his gray eyes, a silvery gray, bright as the coins he put into her hands shining from his very tanned face. With a suddenness she recalled his eyes from the day of the funeral. The day he had held her in his arms as she made a pure fool of herself.

  “I hope you are managin’ well, Missus Rivers,” he said.

  “Yes. I’m managing.” She added hoarsely, “I thank you very much for your help the other day.” It was the best she could do.

  “It was my pleasure to be of assistance.”

  His gaze drifted past her, and then he tipped his hat and walked away down the sidewalk. Gazing after him, she noticed that he had wide strong shoulders and that he walked with a limp.

  “Who was that?” Leon asked, his voice sharp.

  Etta looked up to see him frowning at her. “Another man Roy owed money.” Only just then did she realize she had again not gotten the man’s name.

  “Was he botherin’ you? Anyone comes pesterin’ you for Roy’s debts, you tell them to come see me. I’ll handle all that,” Leon said firmly.

  “No . . . he wasn’t botherin’ me.” Etta felt suddenly near tears. She really didn’t want to break down. She was too wrung out to break down.

  Leon put the coins he’d rescued into Etta’s hand. She had not found any aspirin, and he suggested they walk down to Parker’s drugstore, where they could get aspirins and have a cold drink.

  Etta snapped her handbag closed with trembling fingers and shook her head. “I’d really just like to go home, Leon.”

  The expression on her face made Leon worry that he might have a hysterical woman on his hands. He had considerable experience in this vein, as his wife was a woman given to emotional outbursts.

  People would have been shocked to know that Betsy, a plain woman who put forth a cool and collected persona, was in private moments possessed of both severe fears and severe passions.

  His wife’s flirtations with Roy had not been a surprise to Leon; Betsy had been in love with Roy Rivers since the two were children, and she had never stopped loving him. She had married Leon because she knew full well that she was too plain for Roy to ever look her way, at least for anything more than a dalliance. Leon had married Betsy on the rebound from a broken relationship at college. Both knew these facts going in. Betsy had been a woman who needed a man to take care of her, and Leon had been a man who needed to take care of a woman. Their arrangement had suited them both. When their union had not produced children, neither had been terribly sorry. They had the main things either needed from the other. If sometimes each was lonely, well, life was not perfect.

  Some time ago, however, Leon had fallen half in love with Etta. He had never admitted this foolishness fully to himself. For one thing, Etta somewhat frightened him. There was about Etta a certain wildness that at once attracted him and put him off. He didn’t often feel up to Etta.

  Looking at her right this moment, as he drove her home, he experienced the rarity of feeling needed by her. It did seem that his opportunity had arrived, and that if he stepped in, perhaps something would come of it. He did not allow himself to examine exactly what he wanted to happen, but the fantasy of Etta leaning on him, in the circle of his arms, perhaps crying and trembling, and him, as the stronger, more capable man, comforting her
. . . kissing her . . . played at the edges of his mind.

  Now as he passed a cafe, be suggested hopefully, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to get a bite to eat? You really should eat, honey.” He thrilled to calling her honey.

  She shook her head. “I just can’t eat much these days.” She put a hand on her stomach, and Leon was forced to remember that she was pregnant. He felt a little foolish for his flights of fantasy just then.

  Heading out of town, he began to feel depressed that he had not done better in taking care of Etta. Here she was a widow and having to face having a baby all alone. He felt that he should have made Roy do things that would have ensured Etta’s security. They had been good friends, he and Roy. But even though Leon was older, Roy had always been the one to get Leon to do things, and not vice versa.

  The uncomfortable memory came to him of when he’d been eighteen and Roy just fifteen, and Roy had talked him into stealing a car from out front of the Muleshoe Bar one night. They’d just meant to joy ride and return the car, but then Leon had turned it over while going around a corner. Roy had taken the full blame, had never revealed Leon’s involvement to anyone.

  “Everybody expects it of me, so they won’t do hardly nothin’,” Roy had said that night. “I’m underage, and Dad’ll get me out of it, so just let it go.”

  With his first year of college approaching, and knowing his own father would have skinned him alive, if not disowned him, Leon had done as Roy said. He’d never told anyone, and Roy never had told, either.

  Leon had a sudden urge to tell Etta all about it. But as he was trying to get the words to his tongue, she said, “There’s Obie Lee to think about. He’s been here fifteen years . . . since he quit playin’ ball. He and Roy would fish together. He helped Roy a lot.”

  Leon said, “I’m sorry about Obie, Etta. But he’s a capable man. You need to think about yourself and the baby. With the sale, you’ll get out from under the debts, and you’ll come out with somethin’.”

  “Come out with somethin’? What? The farm is what I have, what gives me and Latrice a good life. It is our home. It’s my baby’s home.”

  Her tone was upset, and Leon knew dispiritedly that he had not said the right thing. He knew he’d never tell about his boyhood escapade with Roy, either, because he’d just come out looking like a coward. He knew himself to be a coward, terrified of his emotions. If he was not such a coward, he would do something about how he felt about Etta. Maybe he still would, he thought, turning into the Rivers drive. He came to a stop in front of the house, shoved the stick into park, and turned to her.

  “You have no choice, Etta. The only reason the bank hasn’t moved on this is that Roy’s Uncle Edward is on the board. Edward’s not so much charitable, but he and Alice don’t want to look bad in takin’ this place from the pregnant widow of their only nephew. That’s all that’s held them off, and frankly Edward is not gettin’ a lot of help from Alice, and Alice is on the board, too.” He felt stronger, giving her the warning about Alice.

  “I’m sorry, Etta. Edward called me about this a month ago, wantin’ me to help convince Roy to do what needed to be done. If Roy had done that, you wouldn’t be in this mess right now.”

  “Leon, I appreciate your position, but please don’t criticize Roy to me. He was my husband. I might criticize him, but I don’t believe others should do so.”

  Hurt crossed Leon’s face, and Etta regretted her sharp tone. Leon was already getting out of the car. She sat and waited for him to open her door, as she knew he preferred her to do.

  “I apologize for sounding so sharp, Leon,” she said, touching his arm. “God knows you’ve been the best friend Roy ever had—and mine, too.”

  Leon looked away, as if embarrassed. “Roy was a friend to me, too. More than anyone knew.” His gaze returned to her. “I know Roy would want me to do the best by you that I can. That’s why I’m tellin’ you that sometimes you got to quit beatin’ a dead horse and cut your losses. You and the baby will be better off in a house in town where you won’t have to deal with all the work of this place.

  “I’ll take care off all the arrangements, honey. You won’t have to do a thing. Don’t worry about anything right now, except havin’ that baby.”

  * * * *

  Leon didn’t waste any time taking care of things. Only a few hours later a station wagon pulled into the lane and stopped. Seeing it, Etta walked down the lane toward the road. The station wagon had the logo for Fred Grandy Realty on the door.

  She stood back and watched a man she didn’t know dig a hole and bury a post upon which he hung the for-sale sign. He cast her a polite nod, got back into his station wagon, and drove away.

  Etta stared at the sign and then walked back up the lane toward the house. She stopped and gazed at the house framed by the greening leaves of the tall trees. The first day she had arrived here as Roy’s wife came back to her.

  “Well, honey, here’s where we’ll hang our hats.” Roy had swung her up in his arms there on the walk between the red-tipped bushes. “What do you think of it?” he had asked, his expression for that second as anxious and proud as that of a schoolboy.

  “I’ll live with you anywhere, Roy.”

  As she spoke, she had been looking at the house, though, and not at Roy, her heart already racing over the threshold to take up residence.

  The memory propelled her quickly up the steps, across the porch, and in the door. She stood there a moment, looked around the entry and into the living room and up the staircase. Then she walked through into the kitchen and found Latrice on a stepstool, emptying a top cabinet of little-used glasses and jars.

  “What are you doin’?” Etta asked.

  “I thought I might as well start packin’ away the things we don’t use much, so we’re ahead of the job when it comes time for movin’.”

  Etta picked up two glasses and thrust them at Latrice. “Put them back. Edward said that even if the place sold, we could stay here until the baby is born. There’s a lot that can happen between now and then.”

  Latrice frowned. “What are you thinkin’ of doin’?”

  “I don’t know right now, but to pray, and you are the one always pointin’ out the power of prayer.

  “And I’ll say one thing, and that is I am not a quitter. I didn’t quit with Roy, and I don’t see that all I’ve gone through ought to be for nothin’ and we end up losing this house—this place that is my baby’s home.”

  Latrice gave her one of those disapproving looks. “I don’t see anything wrong with prayin’ for a nice little house in town. There hasn’t been anything but trouble since we came to this house, so we might be better off leavin’ it behind—and there’s somethin’ to be said for town. Our baby could walk to school and come home for lunches. I never liked movin’ out here to the country anyway. I like havin’ close neighbors and sidewalks. There’s a lot to be said for bein’ able to get decent television reception and a grocery store a person can walk to.”

  Etta gazed at her. “Where are we gonna live? We live with the white, you’ll be treated like a maid. We live with the colored, me and the baby will be like sore thumbs. And are you willin’ to give up this kitchen? You aren’t likely to find another like it, not with what we’ll be able to afford.”

  Apparently it would be a blue moon night, because Latrice appeared not to be able to think up a reply.

  Etta picked up two more glasses and handed them up, waiting stubbornly until Latrice took them and replaced them in the cabinet.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  Daily the bills came, and Latrice put them before Etta, and Etta placed them, unopened, in a basket on the desk in the den, exactly as Roy had done. She did not see a reason to open the bills she could not pay.

  Leon offered her money on more than one occasion, but she declined as gently as possible, mindful of his sensitivity. Leon might not consciously expect some reciprocation on her part, but such expectation would no doubt arise. Etta did not want furthe
r entanglement with Leon. As it was, he had already guaranteed her electric bill payments, adamant that she not be threatened by lack of electricity. She accepted this because her only choice would have been to be without electricity.

  Etta mulled over ideas of what to do about her situation, but most of her thoughts were not really ideas at all but more like fantasies, such as the representative of The Millionaire showing up at her door. She kept hoping a way out of her predicament would present itself. To this end, she sat one afternoon and went through Roy’s account books.

  “Find any millions?” Latrice came in and asked.

  Etta shook her head and closed the book. “It looks like Roy quit recording anything four months ago.” She hadn’t really expected to find money, but she supposed she had hoped. She supposed she was riding the wish horse.

  Within the first days that the for-sale sign was up, two people inquired about the farm. The first inquiry came from a farmer, who wanted to buy part of the land only, and the second from a developer, who was building an upscale housing tract in Chickasha and was interested in building a community of country estates. Neither made a hard offer, which was just as well, because Etta wasn’t interested in that happening.

  The garden flourished, and Latrice pressed foods upon Etta such as mustard greens and spinach, “to build your blood,” and milk from Obie’s cow made into tapioca pudding, “to give you some fat for nursin’ the baby.”

  At last Etta was able to drink coffee, as long as she laced it liberally with cream. She had, however, grown very fond of warm cola.

  Each day Etta played several games of Scrabble, either with Latrice or by herself, bending the rules and using proper names, putting each on a list as a possibility for the baby. Throughout the day, Etta would speak the names aloud, “Mary Rose Rivers.. . Jolene Rivers . . . Summer Marie Rivers,” repeatedly testing the sound of each and asking the opinion of the child growing inside her.