by Lisa Wingate
“My God, Shad!” I gasped. “Don’t you have any sense? He trusts you. How could you do that to him?”
Shad blinked at me through a haze of alcohol. “Aw, don’t go into one of them woman-fits on me. He said his leg was throbbin’, so I gave him some of his pills. It ain’t gonna hurt him.”
“Where’s Drew?” I demanded, slapping the side of Nate’s face to wake him up. “Nate, are you all right? Where’s Drew?”
Nate opened one eye and shrugged toward the road. “He took the tractor and went on out to feed the cows and check on Mr. Jaans’s place. I don’t know when he’s comin’ back.” He chuckled, raising his head and looking at Shad. “Shad and I were just talkin’ about work, that’s all.”
Shad chuckled, pulling a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket. “How about a smoke, Nater?”
I turned around, furious, grabbing the lighter and knocking the cigarettes to the ground.
Shad rolled his eyes again, finishing his beer and tossing the can onto the lawn. “Jenilee, lighten up. He’s fine. You know I’d never do anything to hurt our little Nater.”
“Yeah, Jenilee, lighten up,” Nate chimed in, slurring the words. “Little Nater’s just fine. Just … fine …” He took a deep breath, his head sagging as he drifted into sleep.
Somewhere across the field, the tractor rumbled to life. I leaned out to look around the bushes, to see if Drew was coming up the road toward home. I could only imagine what would happen if he found out what Shad had done to Nate.
Shad glanced in that direction, and then back at me. “Nate and I been talkin’ about how we’re gonna work things when your daddy comes home.” He suddenly seemed remarkably sober, his eyes hard and narrow beneath his ball cap. “Nate says them hospital people think that if your daddy makes it, he ain’t gonna be in too good of shape. Nate says he don’t have insurance on the hay barn or the hay that got ruined, and without that hay, he’s pretty sure your daddy’s gonna have to let the place go back to the bank. I was thinkin’ if you and I went ahead and got married, I could probably get my dad to buy this place out, so your daddy wouldn’t lose everything.”
“What are you talking about?” I said, my mind spinning.
Shad threw a hand into the air and let it slap hard against his thigh. “This has always been your thing, makin’ lots of plans. So here I am, makin’ plans.” He climbed to his feet and moved across the porch so that he stood towering over me. “We been getting along good these past couple months. How come all of a sudden you act like you don’t know what I’m talking about?”
Because I’m leaving. I’m leaving here. I’m leaving all of it behind, and I’m taking Nate with me. Somehow.
“You’d better go before Drew gets back.”
Shad leaned unsteadily against the porch post, crossing his arms over his chest. “Well, I ain’t goin’ until I get an answer. What’s goin’ on, because I thought we were getting back together.”
“Shad, please.”
“It’s a pretty simple question, ain’t it, Jenilee? It’s yes or no, ain’t it? Are we getting back together? Yes or no?”
“No,” I whispered. “It’s no.”
CHAPTER 20
Shad pushed away from the porch railing and staggered backward down the steps onto the lawn.
“Everything’s changed … everything’s different,” I explained, following him down the steps. “I want to do something with my life. I want to go to school, make something of myself.”
Shad threw his head back and laughed ruefully. “Where did you get an ignorant idea like that? Who you been talking to, anyway?”
“It’s not an ignorant idea.” Is it? I felt my footing crumble, felt myself sliding back to that place where the doors were closed.
Shad laughed so loud that Nate stirred on the chair behind us, then drifted into sleep again. “How are you going to go off to some school? Where you gonna get the money for that?”
I paused, suddenly unsure of myself. Was I out of my mind? Was I crazy thinking that, just because Mrs. Gibson and Mr. Jaans said things would work out, they really would?
The rumble of the tractor grew louder again, and I glanced over my shoulder. “Oh, Lord, Drew’s coming through the pasture.” My heart leaped into my throat and fluttered like a swallow trapped in the chimney. “You’ve got to go before he gets here.”
Shad glared toward the pasture. “Let him come on home. He and I got some things to talk about.”
The tractor stopped. I glanced around the oleander bush and saw Drew opening the gate to the barnyard. “Shad, please. Just go. There isn’t anything else for you here. It’s over.”
He took a step toward me, then backed off, raising his hands in the air. “All right. I’ll leave.” The anger seemed to fade, and he looked like a hurt boy again. “You ain’t making sense, though, Jenilee. I’m gonna go to the woods for a few days; then I’ll be back.” He rammed his hands into his pockets and walked out the gate.
I stood silently, watching as Shad got in his truck and sped away.
“What’s wrong, Jenilee?” Drew came around the corner of the house and stopped to look at me.
I tucked the lighter in my pocket, my hands shaking. “Nothing,” I replied.
On the porch, Nate woke up and roared like a suffering lion. “Owww, my leg’s asleep!” he hollered. “Hey, come get me off this chair. I gotta go to the bathroom.”
“Can you look after Nate for a few minutes?” I asked, my mind spinning. What if thinking about college really was a crazy idea? “I need to go take a walk and clear my head.”
Drew looked suspicious. “You’re not going to run off with my truck again, are you? I’ve got to be able to find you if the hospital calls about Daddy.”
“I’ll just be down at Mrs. Gibson’s,” I said, as an excuse. “I want to see if I can find her notebooks.”
Drew nodded as Nate howled again. “You sure you want to leave me here with him?” he grumbled. “I might kill him.”
“Just do the best you can to ignore him.” Questions crowded my mind. “He got his hands on a couple of beers and I think he took an extra pain pill. He’s pretty well out of it. Keep an eye on him, all right? Don’t let him have any of that pain medicine from the hospital until after I get back.”
Drew rolled his eyes and looked toward Nate. “I ought to leave him sitting there with his leg asleep. He doesn’t need any beer; and he’s too young for it, anyway.”
“I know,” I said, feeling sad, realizing how wrong everything about our lives was for Nate. Nate couldn’t even imagine a life with all the normal rules in it.
I walked away, my throat a giant lump of emotions I was afraid to share. What was Nate going to say when I told him I was thinking about going away to school? Would he think I was running out on him?
My head cleared as I walked down the road, looking at all of the debris that had blown into the ditch overnight—papers, bits of clothing, more pictures, wrappers and empty food boxes. Fluffy scraps of foam insulation clung to the tops of the weeds like cotton candy. In the strangest way, it was beautiful.
Mrs. Gibson’s farm was just as it had been before, except that someone, probably Weldon, had come and gotten the old grain box where Drew and I had stored the salvaged items. I wondered if Weldon had found her notebooks. Would she tell him about losing her memory, and see the doctor about it, as she promised?
Picking my way slowly through the tangle of wood, nails, barn metal, glass, insulation, and twisted pipes, I looked for Mrs. Gibson’s memory books. I moved slowly around the house and barn, crawled into the fallen section of the house roof that rested offkilter against the side of the barn. Here and there, I gathered her belongings—a few old pictures, some recipes, a doll with a handmade dress, a faded movie program from The Wizard of Oz. Picking up an old bucket beside the house, I put the things inside and stood staring around the place, thinking of those first, terrible moments after the tornado.
I heard the roar in my ears, felt th
e hailstones falling, heard water gurgling from the pipes where the well house had been.
Lacy’s voice called to me from the cellar. I turned and saw her hands pressed against the screen, her eyes wide, gray, filled with fear in the darkness below.
The cellar door that had barred her escape was gone now. A branch had fallen from the power line above and knocked the door into the cellar, so that only a dark hole remained with the end of the branch sticking out where the door had been.
I moved closer to it without knowing why. Somewhere in the darkness below, I heard the mewing of the cat. My mind spun with a mixture of memory and reality that was hard to comprehend.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the cigarette lighter and struck it, then started slowly down the steps, moving carefully around the branch. Breath caught in my throat as I descended from the sunlight into the darkness, into the memory of that day, of those moments when there was nothing around me but darkness and my own fear.
I stood in the nest of branches at the bottom of the cellar steps and looked around in the flickering yellow light. Water seeped through my shoes, cool and dark. I smelled it, remembering the scent from that day when I had crawled across the floor toward Mrs. Gibson.
I realized now how afraid I had been, how terrified of everything around me. Afraid to talk, afraid to do, afraid to leave, afraid to stay, afraid to be. Afraid to save someone else. Afraid to confront the darkness and save myself.
As I stood there, I realized I didn’t want to be afraid anymore. In these strange, uncertain days after the tornado, I had come to believe that I didn’t have to be.
The flame flickered out, and I felt the darkness close like something solid around me. There was no fear in me. No voices telling me what to do or who to be. Only silence.
Striking the flame again, I held it out and looked around. The walls of the cellar were lined with long dust-covered shelves that sagged in the middle under the weight of dozens of mayonnaise and pickle jars, the labels carefully scrubbed off. I supposed that at one time they had been filled with canned goods, but they were nothing but forgotten containers now.
I turned slowly as the light glittered against the collection of jars. The glass distorted the light as I moved, bending and changing the image of the flame.
In the corner, the light reflected against the cat’s eyes, orange and glowing, hiding beneath the legs of a small table. The cat hissed as I came closer, then it slipped away into the shadows again.
Something caught my eye on the tabletop. I stepped closer to be sure, but in my mind, I already knew what it was. The notebooks. They must have been there all along. Along with the other things Mrs. Gibson had forgotten, she had forgotten taking her notebooks to the cellar before the tornado.
What would she say when I told her where I had found them? Would she be so glad to have them back that she wouldn’t be upset about forgetting what she had done?
Holding the light in front of me, I moved carefully through the water, took the notebooks, and carried them up the stairs just as we had carried each other after the tornado. At the top, I stood in the uneven shadow of the stark trees and looked at the notebooks. Just ordinary spiral-bound, like the ones I had used in school, ten of them, the pages rippled and worn on the edges, as if she leafed through them often.
You never really know about people, I thought. All the time that I thought she was living a perfect life down the road, she was hiding, just as I was. Afraid, just as I was.
Maybe everyone is, in some way or other… .
The sound of Drew’s truck chased away my thoughts. I saw him coming fast with Nate in the backseat. Scrambling over the rubble, I hurried to the road as the truck slid to a halt where Mrs. Gibson’s gate used to be.
Panic rushed through me where only a moment before there had been peace. Oh, God, please, God, don’t let it be Nate.
“What’s wrong?” I hollered, crawling over the remains of the toppled well house to reach the ditch. “Is Nate all right?”
“Get in!” Drew called, throwing open the passenger door as I jumped over the stagnant water in the ditch and reached the road. “It’s Daddy. He’s awake, and they need us at the hospital.”
I climbed into the truck and shut the door, stacking Mrs. Gibson’s notebooks on the seat between us. “What’s wrong? What did they say about Daddy?”
“It was a receptionist on the phone. She told me she was calling for Dr. Garland in ICU, and they needed us at the hospital as soon as possible. She said it would be best to bring all the family members.”
I clutched the base of my neck, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Is Daddy worse?” I whispered, my soul hiding in a dark corner of the shell that was my body.
“I don’t know.”
“Is he better?”
“I don’t know. She—she couldn’t say. She didn’t know the details. She just said we should come.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, his fingers kneading nervously. “She said Dr. Garland had to go into surgery, so he couldn’t talk to us. Things are still pretty crazy at the hospital, she said. I told her we ought to be able to get there in about an hour now that the highway is open.”
“Daddy’s not in surgery, though?” I glanced at Nate, asleep in the backseat.
“No. Daddy’s not in surgery,” Drew answered, impatient with me for asking questions he couldn’t answer. He glanced over his shoulder at Nate. “What’s wrong with Nate? How many of those pain pills did he take this morning? I could hardly get him awake long enough to take him to the truck. What was he doing out on the porch drinking beer, anyway?”
I sighed, smoothing a finger over my eyebrows. “Shad came by. He gave Nate two of the pain pills because his leg was hurting.”
Drew slammed a hand into the steering wheel, and the truck swerved, fishtailing on the gravel. “Oh, great! That’s just great, Jenilee.”
“Drew, be careful!” I screamed as the truck slid wildly around a corner, the rear tires careening off the shoulder and spinning out.
Drew ignored me. Letting the truck slow slightly, he turned toward me and pointed a finger. “The next time I see that Shad Bell, I’m going to kill him. You keep him away from Nate.”
I nodded. It was my fault that Shad was coming around in the first place.
“And I’ll tell you something else.” Drew turned his attention to the road again, but kept his finger pointed at me. “When this is all over, I’m taking you and Nate back to Springfield with me. If Nate’s drinking beer and popping pills with Shad Bell, he’s about that close to some real trouble.” He held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “And if you’re still thinking about getting back together with Shad, so are you.”
“Drew, I …” I stood on the line between fear and anger, unsure of which way to let my emotions fall. “Daddy will never let you take Nate away, Drew, and Nate won’t want to go, either. Nate won’t just walk out on Daddy. He won’t. Nate’s nothing if not loyal. Even to Daddy.”
Drew glanced at me narrowly. “Nate’s still a minor. I’ll go to court if I have to.”
“He’s sixteen, Drew. You can’t force him.”
Drew glanced at our little brother in the backseat, and then at me, his dark eyes softening. “One way or another, I’m going to make it all work. I did the wrong thing when I left the two of you here alone. But Mama was sick, and I knew if I took you away, there would be no one to take care of her. I told myself it was best that way, but the truth was, I knew it was wrong.”
He turned his attention back to the road, shaking his head, the hardness melting from his profile so that he didn’t look so much like Daddy. “You know, Jenilee, I stood in the door that day, and I came so close to telling you to hop in the truck, we’d go by the school and get Nate, and we’d be out of there. But Darla was pregnant, and I was just out of the army. I didn’t have a house or a job, and I didn’t see how I could handle anything more.”
I nodded, closing my eyes and thinking of that day, and how much I had wa
nted him to rescue us. I wondered what our lives would have been if he had. My mind couldn’t paint the picture. I could not imagine what I would have become without the years of hardship, Mama’s death, the tornado, all that had happened afterward.
I laid my hand on Drew’s arm, and took a breath. “Drew, I want to tell you something. There are a lot of details to it that I don’t know yet, but Dr. Albright, you know, the doctor who helped us at the armory? He thinks he can get me into this internship program where I could work in a hospital and start on a college degree in something to do with medicine. I know it seems like a crazy dream, but I was thinking … well, I was thinking maybe it would work. Maybe I could do it.” I stared straight ahead, afraid to move, afraid to say anything more.
Drew rolled up his window so that the truck was quiet. The minutes ticked by in painful silence as he stared at the road ahead. Finally, he said, “I think it’s a good idea. It would be a good thing for you.”
I found myself nodding before he finished. “I know. It sounds perfect. I don’t know any of the details yet, but it sounds like … well … like the answer to a prayer.”
Drew quirked a brow to hear me talking about prayers, then nodded like he agreed. “Well, then we’ll make it work out somehow. Somehow it’ll be all right.”
I nodded, but inside I was thinking, Will it? In all our plans, there was one thing left to consider—the one thing neither of us wanted to think about. The one person who held sway over our lives, and always had. Daddy.
I looked at Drew, now softened, weary, worried. If Daddy was recovering, if we reached the hospital and we had to face him, would we still have the strength to break free?
The questions spun through my mind like the cloud of dust billowing around the truck as we stopped at the highway intersection before pulling onto the interstate. Drew stepped on the accelerator and we sped toward Oklahoma City, toward something we didn’t know or understand, and couldn’t be ready for.
