by Lisa Wingate
He blinked, then snickered, like he couldn’t believe he was hearing that from me. The words did taste a little strange coming out, but they were heartfelt. I did love my brother, despite all his impracticalities.
The rest of the way to Gnadenfeld, we talked about some of the imaginary characters Clay had created as a kid. Off and on, I’d served as a bit player or cameraman during his fantasy productions. We were laughing about his Star Wars obsession as we passed through Gnadenfeld, its pristine antique shops, Mennonite bakeries, quilt stores, and mom-and-pop restaurants speaking of a healthy economy and plenty of tourism. Guten Tag, the sign read. Good day.
Judging by the look of the town, Gnadenfeld was enjoying good days. When I was little, the place had practically withered away, the Mennonite families moving off, finding it difficult to make a living farming in this hardscrabble country. Now the town spoke of prosperity, a symbiotic economy having developed between residents who worked for Proxica, the Mennonites who’d left the family farms to operate corporately-owned poultry production barns or to work in the processing plant, and those who still farmed and lived the old-fashioned way, selling their wares in roadside stands and the bakeries in town. The Mennonite residents of Gnadenfeld ranged from highly conservative to those who lived fully modern lives. They existed harmoniously, other than some differences in philosophy about mindless entertainment, like television. There seemed to be a place for all of them.
I imagined the economy of Moses Lake booming like this, the town thriving rather than scraping along on tourism dollars and dealing with a school in which half the population lived below poverty level in Chinquapin Peaks. I considered pointing that out to Clay, but I couldn’t bring myself to spoil the pleasant mood in the car.
Memories—fresh and powerful, like a summer rainstorm—surrounded me as we turned into the gateway of Ruth’s family dairy. I knew this place. I remembered coming here with Ruth several times over the years. She’d brought us here the night after my father’s death. She’d taken Clay and me home with her, and we’d stayed in her sister’s house at the dairy, where we were surrounded by kids, animals, activity. Distractions.
Ruth had led us into the big, white two-story house, given us fresh milk and oatmeal cookies. She’d stroked my hair, kissed the top of my head, told me everything would be all right. That night she knelt with me by the bed, and we prayed together. But I was praying for something that couldn’t happen. God, please don’t let my dad be gone . . . please . . .
I’d never thought about the specifics of that night until now. The moments, the days after my father’s death were a blur of family, dark clothes, dark thoughts, stark little rooms with police officers asking questions. Heather, were there any problems between your parents that you knew of? Did you hear any arguments? There were packed suitcases in your parents’ room. Do you know why your mother was packing . . . ?
The questions burned again now, demanded answers I didn’t have. I couldn’t remember anything after hearing the shot and running to the cellar door. I didn’t know what happened next. I didn’t know how much I’d seen or what I’d seen. Mom said she’d come into the cellar from the outside door when she heard the gun go off. She told the police she’d caught me on the stairs, turned me away before I made it to the bottom, before I could see anything.
Had she? Was that true?
Did Ruth know what had really happened that day? Did she know more than I knew?
The trip up Ruth’s driveway took on a strange sense of urgency, an eerie feeling that chased away the beauty of the dairy farm, where various members of Ruth’s family lived in three different houses, generations alternating through as elders passed on and younger members married. Beyond the green fields and tall white-washed stone dairy barns, a collection of toys in the yard—a wooden teeter-totter, a homemade swing set, a carousel of a sort, made by cabling a ring of wooden seats to a tall center pole—testified to the fact that there were children living on the farm now.
The swinging carousel had been there even years ago. I remembered pushing Clay on it the day after my father’s death, trying to distract him. The sheriff’s deputies came to talk with me, and then they wanted me to go with them. Somehow, I gathered that they’d been questioning my mother all night, and they thought I might know something. Clay and the carousel had slowly grown smaller and smaller in the yard as we drove away.
Closing my eyes, I tried to tame the flood of memories. It was ancient history. The police had ruled my father’s death an accident. Our lives went on, but barely—the struggle becoming more and more difficult as my mother sank into darkness, her eyes hollow, distant. Her behavior only helped to fuel the speculation of community members uncertain whether to believe the police reports or the gossip. My mother had never been well liked in Moses Lake, so the gossip was tempting, popular among the ladies in their bridge circles and garden club meetings. The men wondered how someone like my father, who’d grown up around rifles and hunting, could have accidentally shot himself while cleaning a gun. There were whispers, of course. Looks.
But not from Ruth. Ruth had stood by us steadfastly. Perhaps it was easier for her. Being from Gnadenfeld, she didn’t have to live in Moses Lake, but she had always been devoted to Uncle Charley, Uncle Herb, and the family. She’d stood by my dad through the funeral of my grandmother and through moving Grandpa Hampton to a nursing home within two months of our arrival in Moses Lake. When our family faced another funeral, sudden, tragic, unexpected, impossible to understand, she was our rock. I couldn’t even begin to count the number of times she had stayed over at Harmony House in the weeks following my father’s death, when all of us, including my uncles and aunts, were wandering through life in a fog.
I’d never realized how deep Ruth’s connection to my family was, but she’d saved us in those dark months—pulled us up by a string, quilted the tatters together with her silent, even stitches. I’d never properly thanked her for that. As soon as high school graduation was over, I couldn’t get out of Moses Lake quickly enough. If nothing else came of this trip, at least I would have the chance to thank Ruth for all she’d done to help Clay and me. It shouldn’t have taken me so long to say it.
I prepared the words in my mind as we entered the largest of the three farmhouses and walked through the utilitarian but comfortable interior to the sun porch out back. We found Ruth settled in a chair, entertaining a come-and-go crowd of friends, relatives, and community members. It was an eclectic group—the attire ranging from Old-Order cape dresses and mesh prayer caps to jeans and sweatshirts.
In Gnadenfeld, the Mennonite population had always been in a strange state of flux, many of the younger members of the community gravitating toward the more liberal church on the outside of town, and the older people, like Ruth, tending to fall closer to the practices of the traditional church on Main Street. Even so, there seemed to be no hard-and-fast rules as to styles of dress and head covering. For as long as I could remember, Ruth had usually worn modest, floral print dresses and a small scarf-like covering fastened over her braided and coiled rope of hair. Today, she was just as I remembered her, except that her hair was thinner, fully gray now, and her cheeks, in the past always round and plump, had a hollow quality. Her dress hung loose, as if she’d borrowed it from someone else.
Her smile was as welcoming as it had always been, her eyes still a sparkling blue, her hug exactly as I remembered. When Ruth took you in her arms, you knew she meant it. You felt her hugs through your entire body. She held me away from herself afterward, her hands cupping my cheeks. I hung bent over her chair, unable to rise and move back so that the rest of the family could come closer.
“You’ve been away too long,” she said.
I couldn’t help feeling that she was right.
Remember ye not the former things,
neither consider the things of old.
–Isaiah 43:18
(Left by Mildred and Millie Millfast, twin sisters letting go of the past)
Chapt
er 10
Our visit with Ruth was sweet, and relaxing in a way I couldn’t quite explain. Ruth’s family and friends were easygoing people who loved to laugh. Other than the work involved in cooking and basic farm chores, they didn’t believe in laboring on Sunday, so it was routine for them to spend the day visiting.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in a roomful of people who weren’t in a hurry to rush off somewhere. Not a single cell phone rang. Nobody pulled out an iPod. Nobody was huddled in a corner, texting away on a Droid. I sat back in a chair and just enjoyed listening as Ruth and my uncles laughed and recounted old times, sharing somewhat off-color funeral stories that delighted Ruth’s family and friends.
While we talked, two little red-haired girls in long flowered jumpers, Mary and Emily, sat at Ruth’s feet, listening. Mary, whose thick red hair had been carefully plaited and secured with a blue ribbon in the back, couldn’t have been more than five years old, and Emily, whose hair escaped her braid in wispy red corkscrews, seemed only slightly younger. They sat with their dresses tucked around their white stockings and tennis shoes, their attention moving from speaker to speaker around the room, as if they weren’t the least bit disinterested.
I couldn’t help being fascinated, not only by the fact that they were adorable, but by their ability to quietly sit and listen. Trish’s twins had just turned three, and we couldn’t even carry on a conversation with them in the room. They were cute and sweet, but they moved constantly from one form of entertainment to another, and when they were around, they demanded attention.
Emily, the smaller girl with the cotton-puff hair, finally yawned and crawled into Ruth’s lap. Whispering something in her ear, Ruth nestled the girl under her chin, smoothing the flowered jumper around her legs, then gently patting her thigh as Emily relaxed against her. Mary, seeming a little lost on the floor by herself, shimmied into the armchair beside me as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Twisting my way, she smiled, and I moved my arm, so that she could wiggle back in the seat. Her hair tickled my neck as she snuggled in, and I found myself resting my chin on her head, drinking in the soapy, grassy scents of childhood and feeling the tug in my chest that had caused me to imagine a future with Richard when there really wasn’t one. As much as I loved my work, some primal part of me wanted this. At moments like these, it stood inside me, screaming, You’re thirty-four! You’re thirty-four and you’re still alone. Time is running out!
I hated that voice. I hated it because it made me question everything about my life, and really, I liked my life. I liked the excitement of it, the travel, the sense of accomplishment that came from seeing a project I’d helped design take shape in the real world and become something massive and lasting. The feeling of little Mary in my lap ran in direct contrast to all of that. If I had kids right now, with the demands of my job, a nanny would be raising them. What kind of sense did that make?
Ruth glanced my way, her eyes meeting mine with a knowing look, as if she sensed what was going on inside me, as if she could read me like a book, just as she had in the old days. I was grieving again, whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not. Not grieving the breakup with Richard, but grieving the life I might never find. I wanted the sense of connection I felt among Ruth’s family. I’d always wanted it.
I tried to put away my painful self-analysis and focus instead on the ongoing story in the room—something about a fiendish escape of Proxica chickens and a run for freedom down the highway. Uncle Herbert and Uncle Charley were red-faced, laughing as one of Ruth’s neighbors described his wife and other Proxica plant employees, trying to round up the chickens. The poultry stories continued from there. Before long I was laughing, too, my problems temporarily whisked away, as if one of the hand-tied brooms on the wall had swept them under the carpet where they couldn’t cause trouble.
When it was time for us to leave, Ruth rose slowly from her chair and walked with us through the house to the front door. Her steps were labored as she moved along, her fingers clasped around Uncle Charley’s elbow, clinging like the roots of a withered tree. Uncle Herb assured her that she didn’t need to walk us to the door, and she insisted that the exercise would do her good. Mary and Emily escorted me to the porch, holding my hands, until finally they released me and bolted after some puppies playing on the lawn.
“You’re not to start coddling me.” Ruth swatted a backhand at Uncle Herb. “I’m fine. These young people fuss over me too much.”
Clay’s cell phone rang as he stepped onto the front porch. He moved off to answer it, and I strained an ear in his direction. Call me nosy, but I couldn’t help it. The phone call was from Amy, and I was still trying to figure out their relationship. Not that Clay wasn’t adorable in his own rebellious way, but a sweet, conservative, hometown girl who was by my estimation barely out of high school wasn’t the sort I would have pictured him with. Usually Clay wound up being a project for girlfriends who viewed his scruffy surfer-bum look and aimless nature as evidence that he just needed a good woman to shape him up and mold him into perfect husband material.
Amy, on the other hand, seemed somewhat clueless herself, and in need of Clay to take the lead in their relationship dance. Right now they were on the phone trying to coordinate a date. Listening to them attempt to come up with a meeting place, figure out what to do with her car, and decide between options for Roger—take him on the date, leave him here at Ruth’s during the date, lock him in Amy’s parents’ garage, try to sneak him into the movie theater by pretending he was a seeing-eye dog—was somewhere between funny and painful. Clay practically had smoke coming out his ears from the pressure of it all.
Finally, he looked over and caught my eye, then performed a little pantomime of me taking Roger—who right now was having a grand time with Mary, Emily, the puppies, and various dairy dogs—to the Ladybug. Clay’s imitation steering-wheel motions indicated that I was being asked to transport Roger home, presumably while Clay and Amy went on their date in Amy’s car.
I rolled my eyes and nodded—don’t ask me why. After spending the afternoon laughing, talking, cuddling little Mary, and listening to stories, I guess I couldn’t help the continued yearning for family harmony.
Clay gave me the happy thumbs-up, then went on with planning his date. I wondered, as I listened, if Clay might have finally found the perfect woman for him. Maybe, by being unwilling or unable to take the parental role in the relationship, Amy would manage to force him to grow up. . . .
It crossed my mind that I was actually thinking about my brother’s love life, straining to hear the rest of the conversation as he trotted down the porch steps. How pathetic. Was it because I had no prospects of my own? Sadly, it probably was.
I felt that lost, somewhat pitiful feeling seep over me again, and I pushed it away, determined not to dip my toe into the blue waters of Lake Oh-Poor-Me, as Ruth used to call it. Funny, I hadn’t thought about that saying in years. She had some funny little song about it. I couldn’t remember the words now, but it had always made me laugh, even on the worst of days.
One thing I remembered about the Mennonites I’d met around Moses Lake was that they loved to sing. They were musical in all ways, in fact. Ruth said this was because, in the more conservative Mennonite churches, art for art’s sake had always been discouraged as a vainglorious pursuit. Things like music and quilting had a purpose, and thus provided an acceptable outlet for artistic expression.
A melancholy overtook me as the uncs finished their good-byes. Today’s visit was over. I wanted to get Ruth to tell me the words to the Oh-Poor-Me song, among other things. It struck me then that I might never know the words. Once I headed back to Seattle, I probably wouldn’t see Ruth again. Her cancer and her thin, frail, fragile appearance had been the elephant in the room all day. No one wanted to bring it up on such a happy occasion, but we all knew that there wouldn’t be another birthday gathering.
I watched her hug Uncle Herbert, her eyes closing as she rested her chin on his
shoulder. The two of them hung on to each other, the moment seeming private, intimate enough that it surprised me. In all the months I’d lived at Uncle Herbert’s and Ruth had helped to take care of us, I’d never seen Ruth hug either of the uncs. Of course, Aunt Esther was around then, and to her, Ruth was the help. Aunt Esther believed in the traditional, formal Southern rules about such things. One did not become overly familiar with the help, which at the time included Ruth, a retired man who tended the gardens, and a young guy named Lars, who did heavy lifting around the funeral home and took care of setup for services. Ruth, Lars, and the gardener ate at the breakfast table in the kitchen, while the family ate in the dining room, even on days when there was no one home except my aunt and uncle. Clay and I tended to be AWOL on purpose during dinners at the big house as often as we could. We preferred to eat in the kitchen while Ruth washed dishes.
She smiled at me as she released Uncle Herb and rested a hand against the doorframe, steadying herself.
“Hey, Ruth, I’m gonna change clothes in the dairy room, ’kay? I’m headed over to see Amy,” Clay called from the driveway, and I realized he was shopping for date clothes in the rusted metal toolbox in the bed of his truck. What a romantic.
“There’s no heat on in the dairy room!” Ruth’s voice crackled like the old phonograph disks she used to let Clay play in Uncle Herbert’s parlor, when Aunt Esther was gone to her teas and her meetings at the church.
“Not a problem,” Clay answered, waving his clothes over his head as he started toward the largest of the barns, a massive hip-roofed structure that was neatly painted and picturesque.
“You come on in the house!” Ruth leaned out the door, looking concerned. She lost her balance a little, and Uncle Charley caught her elbow.
