“Back door’s locked,” he says, as if apologizing for coming through the front. “So this is all of it?” He keeps his gestures close and tight.
“This is it,” Russ says, heaving a sigh that sinks his shoulders. “I’ll go upstairs and get Ronnie to come help us load.”
“I’ll go,” I say. “He might be out with friends. You two can start organizing a bit.”
Jim catches my eye, perplexing me with the sheer blankness of his stare. His look goes straight through me, piercing, like a spear through my core, pinning me in place. I imagine bits of my flesh peeling off and landing on the floor as I step away.
Upstairs, Pa is at the window. He turns when I arrive. “He’s here?”
“They are.”
“Got the truck runnin’.”
“Apparently.”
“Saw it turn the corner and go around the back.”
“Yes. I’m up here for Ronnie. It’s time to start loading. Perhaps you’d like to help?”
“Reckon I could.” Beneath the gruffness of his reply, I sense he is pleased to be useful.
“Where’s Ariel?”
“Taggin’ along after her brother. Tol’ him to check back in an hour.” He glances at the clock. “Might be quicker to wait than to wander off tryin’ to find him.”
“I’m sure he’s just a block over. Playing ball. Probably saw the car coming into town. I can just—”
“You can wait. Like I said. He’ll be back directly.”
Pa disappears through the kitchen door, and I listen to his slow, shuffling step down the stairs.
I exhale.
Once, when Ronnie was a very little boy, he dropped a small sack of marbles on the floor, and they scattered and rolled in all directions, and the more we tried to gather them together, the more they clacked against one another, setting off in slow, straight trajectories behind furniture, under rugs, ricocheting off walls. I’d pick one up only to have it slip through my fingers while picking up another. I knocked them away with a touch of my foot, losing some forever.
That’s how I feel now. Over the course of such a short time, my life has been ripped open, everything I know and love dumped out. My affections and secrets dispersed and strewn about, every word poised to set off some dangerous reaction.
“Give me this day, Lord.” I repeat the prayer, though it gives no comfort. This day—this afternoon, maybe, should the weather hold—and I’ll chase down all those dangers. Gather them up before they roll away. Uncover what’s hidden. Everything neat and tidy again. Cinched up, safe.
It never occurred to me that he’d follow me upstairs. That he’d watch and calculate, knowing I’d be alone. So when he walks into the kitchen, just as he did that first night, and stops himself in the doorway, waiting to be beckoned, I feel the same flash of excitement, only now it is heightened by both fear and familiarity.
“You shouldn’t be up here,” I say, backing away though he is nowhere close.
“Apparently I shouldn’t be anywhere.”
“I mean it.” The words eke their way out of my pinched throat. “Go back downstairs.”
“I have to talk to you.”
“Please.” He is three steps in, and I find myself pleading to my own weakness. “Go.”
He holds his hand up in a gesture of peace. “I will. I promise. Just let me say that I’m sorry.”
“Stop.”
He moves closer.
“And I know there’s nothing I can do to ever make it right. But I promise you, I’ll never say a word to Russ.”
I fold my arms tight across my chest. “Why should I believe you?”
“Up to now, which of us is the liar?”
He touches my face and a shock runs through me—sharp, electric, and painful enough to make me yelp as if he slapped me. In reaction, I bring my hand to his cheek, my palm stinging with the contact, and for a moment it seems we might both catch fire on the spot.
“Go.” The syllable takes the last of my strength.
“Storm’s kickin’ up,” he says. “Won’t be safe enough to leave until tomorrow.”
The air crackles between us, the phenomenon stronger now with the earth so parched dry. I don’t dare move, knowing the next step, the next touch of anything—furniture or flesh—will crisp my nerves. The best thing to do is to stay still, to settle into the moment until the surrounding energy acclimates. Jim knows this too, because he turns into a portrait before me, and I stare into him, study him, unabashed and bold, as I would study any other work of art. The defined curl of the hair on his brow, the shadow of stubble on his chin, the pox scar at the top of his cheekbone. He studies me, too, our bodies moving together in breath the way they have before. I don’t need to touch him. I remember. I relive.
“Looks like I got here in the nick of time.” Merrilou Brown’s voice somehow cuts through the pounding sound of my own blood in my ears.
I glance around Jim’s shoulder to see her standing at my table, holding a wicker basket twice the width of her shoulders.
“In time?” I slide out from Jim’s gaze, telling him the glasses are in the cupboard to the left of the sink.
“Looks like we’re in for a whopper. And you might want to know that your kids made it in safe and sound downstairs.” She sets the hamper on the table. “Brought over enough dinner for all of us, if you don’t mind me and the mister joining you.”
“N-not at all. Of course, we’d love it.”
“Good.” She sends Jim, who calmly sips what will be the last of the good water for a while, a wink that only I can interpret as disapproving. And yet protective, like she is prepared to launch herself into battle for my honor. She knows too. Just like Pa. But I feel no shame, only gratitude. “And,” she continues, taking out a stack of sandwich-shaped wax-paper bundles, “you’ll be glad to know, there’ll be enough left over to pack this one a meal for the road.”
They are gone in the predawn hours of the next day. Russ and I stand on the balcony overhanging the street and wave, his arm wrapped lightly around my waist.
“I’m still worried about Pa,” I say, never losing my hopeful smile.
Russ plants a reassuring kiss on my temple. “I’d say there’s nothing better for him. He’s almost back to his old self. Maybe stronger. And this will give us time to make some improvements in his room.”
I should say something about Jim, inquire whether Russ is going to miss his friend, maybe, or express some gratitude that Pa has a traveling companion for at least half of the journey. But I say nothing.
As soon as the truck and trailer turn the corner and disappear from view, Russ tugs at me to go back inside.
The children are asleep, and it’s easy to pretend that we have the small apartment to ourselves. Last night’s storm wasn’t nearly as volatile as we had anticipated, and working together, Russ and I have the kitchen pretty much clean before the coffee is ready.
“We could go back to bed,” he suggests with a hopeful grin.
“No,” I say, reaching for a cup. “We can have a nice breakfast while it’s still cool outside. Grits and eggs?”
He agrees, and while he is washing up, I go through the motions of preparing breakfast by rote, my mind full of the moments to come. I’ve made a promise to God, and to myself, that I will unburden myself of this secret. And now, with the threat of Pa’s judgment removed, I can go to my husband, claiming God’s forgiveness of my sin, and imploring Russ to grant the same.
I stir the grits and flip the eggs, thinking, As soon as the food is cooked. Then, when we are seated, I know I have to wait until after the blessing. Under his watchful, concerned eye, I eat half my portion, needing every bite for strength. He looks at me with such love, such contentment, reaching the small distance across the table to touch my arm as he speaks—thankful, he says, for this moment.
“I can’t imagine living the way Jim does,” he says. “Drifting, unanchored.”
I respond with an inarticulate sound and clear the plates. Refill the c
offee. Buy a few more precious minutes. While I do, Russ takes our well-worn Bible and opens it to the place where the ribbon marks our last reading.
“Psalm 32,” he says as I settle back down in my seat. “Shall I read? Or you?”
I slide the Bible toward myself, volunteering. My own words remain stuffed down, drowning in grits and coffee. I think, maybe, speaking God’s Word will dislodge them, clothe them with strength I could never summon on my own. The moment my eyes scan the first words of the chapter, I feel hope.
“‘Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.’” I look up to see Russ in earnest agreement. “‘Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.’”
Here I stop, forced to question my spirit. My guile. I’ve held nothing back in my confession to God. Jesus knows my duplicity, by my heart and by my words. And while I am fully prepared to confess the act of adultery to Russ, I freeze at the thought of telling him the depth of my depravity, how I’ve schemed and manipulated both truth and circumstance.
Still the psalm prods. “‘When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.’”
Selah.
“Maybe your pa’s right,” Russ says, “about the land paying for the sin of our greed.”
“Maybe,” I agree, thankful for the diversion from the words that seem so clearly meant for me. Russ waits patiently. Tears gather at the base of my throat, impeding my voice as I attempt to read the next verse, but I push past them. “‘I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.’”
“Darling.” Russ pulls me over and brings me to sit on his lap, because I’ve lost the battle. Tears flow, and as he wipes them away, he says, “Your pa’s not right about everything.”
“Can it be that simple?” My eyes rake again over the verse, now clouded by tears. “To confess my sin and be forgiven?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s simple, but it’s true. Think of the sins David committed. Adultery. Murder. And yet . . .”
“He was king.”
“The lineage of Christ himself.”
There is comfort in recalling my prayer of repentance last night and in the image this morning of watching the object of my sin being taken away. Somehow I know that, were I to come clean with Russ this very moment, he would ask, “Have you confessed your sin before the Lord?” Indeed, having listened in on so many pastoral conversations, I know he has posed this same question to others seeking reconciliation.
And my answer would be yes. God has forgiven my iniquity. I know I must also confess to my husband, but to do so now would destroy my assurance of grace. As fine a man as he is, Russ is a man—Christlike in every way, but not Christ himself. Capable of forgiveness, yes, but not cleansing. With the Lord’s forgiveness, I am clean—a state so rare these days, I long to enjoy it just a little longer.
“Shall I finish?” Russ pulls the Bible closer and uses his finger to find the place. “‘For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.’” He jiggles his leg beneath me. “That doesn’t sound too bad, does it? A flood of great waters?”
I rest my head on his shoulder and feel the vibration of Scripture. “‘Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.’”
For these next few days, I will hide myself in Russ. Forgiven, I will lose myself in him, his every word, spoken with love, a song of deliverance.
Thine hands have made me
and fashioned me together round about;
yet thou dost destroy me.
Remember, I beseech thee,
that thou hast made me as the clay;
and wilt thou bring me into dust again?
Hast thou not poured me out as milk,
and curdled me like cheese?
JOB 10:8-10
CHAPTER 18
UNTIL THIS SUMMER, we only thought we knew misery. Never before would I have imagined that a season could attack with such a vengeful spirit, but as the weeks wear on, the wind and the heat and the dust meet each other midair in battle, and our very lives fall victim to their hate.
I can’t take a single step outside without feeling my skirt twist and wrap around my legs, crippling my progress in the shortest journey. As time wears on, however, there prove to be fewer and fewer reasons to leave home at all. The number of church families dwindles so low as to leave more than half of the pews completely empty, so Russ’s ministerial visits become little more than weekly social calls, kept up to encourage the remnant to remain. I go with him these days—a decision of my own making, claiming a need to get out of our stifling apartment even if it means an hour spent in another home no less oppressive. We always venture out early in the day to capture the coolest hours and to better the odds of escaping a storm.
Back at home, the melancholy sets in. The unrelenting monotony of waging war against the stirred earth. Windows kept closed against the dust manage only to trap the heat. Fans moving to cool the air kick up miniature storms within the walls.
And the thirst—the dryness of our bodies keeps us from making spit or sweat or tears. The ever-present dust in our hair, our nostrils, our eyelashes. Caking in the folds of our skin. Coating our tongues; splitting our lips.
I’ve given up on all but the basest of housekeeping: Running a damp mop over the floors every morning. Storing the dishes upside down under a wet towel in the cupboard. Folding all our bedding and stashing it in a trunk, leaving our beds with nothing more than a barren, striped mattress during the day.
It has been six weeks since Jim and my father drove away, truck and trailer laden with the lost promise of profit. Five weeks since Pa came home, alone, with only terse answers to all of our questions. Ariel wanted to know if there were dust storms in Tulsa, to which Pa said yes. Ronnie wanted to know if the Civilian Conservation Corps camp looked like fun, to which Pa said no. Russ wanted to know if Jim decided to stay behind and get work with the CCC, to which Pa said nothing.
I took a chapter from Pa’s book, holding my silence until later, when I had a chance to get him alone.
“Is he in Tulsa?” I asked, only for my own sense of comfort.
“Don’t you bother ’bout where he is.”
I didn’t eat a thing during the week I waited for their arrival. His arrival—Pa’s. I’d sit with the family, picking around at the food on my plate, imagining the unwanted crunch that came from the dirt no amount of careful cooking could escape. Russ and Ronnie made good-natured jokes about “living off the land,” and Ariel declared she would pretend it was a crushed-up cinnamon stick from the drugstore in Boise City. I, however, couldn’t bear the shame of bringing even one filthy bite past my lips. I’d smile, sip my water, chime in when the conversation allowed, and hand my plate over to my growing son the moment he asked, “Are you going to finish that?”
Once Pa returned, having survived on so little, it seemed needless to nourish myself more. Starvation, it seems, has become my only true sense of peace. The very emptiness of it fills me, and I imagine my stomach being something like a balloon, so puffed up with nothing that allowing even a morsel would perforate its wall, and the resulting pang would ignite not only my physical hunger but the spiritual deprivation I’ve chosen to deny. Feeding my body might bring to light the malnourishment of my soul. By now I’ve managed to transcend the appetites of both. I do not eat. I do not pray. Above all—or perhaps at the heart of all—I do not confess. Day by day, God gives our family the strength to survive, despite my selfish weakness.
It is the third week of July when I take down the dust-catching draperies from all of our windows and replace them with pull-down shades I ordered from
Sears and Roebuck. They cost every penny I had stashed away in my powder box—including Jim’s fifty-cent piece—and four dollars begged from the cash remainder of our inventory sale.
The day the blinds arrive, as I work to affix one above our living room window, a new kind of blackness rises up against my eyes. For a moment, I think it to be a sudden, ferocious storm, but then dizziness overtakes me and—as Ariel, who is playing nearby with the ever-growing Barney, will tell me later—I drop off my stool like a sack of potatoes.
When I wake up, two days have passed. I find myself in a clean white room, covered by a crisp white sheet. The sound that brought me out of the darkness was that of my husband’s voice, brimming with prayer.
“. . . and for how I’ve failed her, Father. How I’ve failed you, and the children you’ve given over to my care . . .”
He is praying for the restoration of our marriage and our land, seeing the two of them as coconspirators in the ravaging of my body. I lift my finger in a nascent effort to reach out, to beg him to stop. His confession rings like blasphemy in my ears, as my waking thoughts are consumed with the sin that has managed to weave itself within my bones, bringing a constant, familiar ache that springs to life not long after I’ve eased into consciousness.
I try to say, “Russ, stop,” but the only sound that comes is a soft, snakelike hiss, which frightens me more than silence. I’ve willed my eyes open to the bright whiteness around me, and wonder briefly if I haven’t died. If this isn’t heaven, and the voice I hear that of an angel speaking a petition on my behalf. But when I see his head bowed low, his shoulders slumped, hands clasped, Bible open across his knee—it is a sweeter sight than any glimpse of heaven could afford.
On Shifting Sand Page 19
