by S. M. Hulse
Hawkins pulls his eyes to mine, shakes his head. I wave the bartender down, ask for a beer.
“You hate beer.”
“Not drinking it for the taste.”
Hawkins presses his lips together. “I don’t like seeing you this way.”
“I’m not allowed to be pissed off that my brother blew up a building?” I don’t care about the building. But it’s easier to say than Emily.
“I just—” He passes his hand over his phantom mustache again. “I wish I could do something to make it better.”
“You can’t,” I say, but I send the words across the table gently.
Our food arrives, and I’m glad for an excuse not to talk. I’ve forgotten to ask the kitchen to hold the pickle, but I leave the sour slices where they are; it isn’t so good a burger that they ruin it. Hawkins shakes extra salt onto his fries and ferries them to his mouth by the handful. He doesn’t drink—never does—and he’s ordered a lemonade he leaves untouched. I don’t think he really likes the stuff, figure he orders it because it seems like something an Old West lawman in a dime-store novel might do, a habit that would get another man mocked but that the sheriff can get away with because no one questions his righteousness or courage. Sometimes I think Hawkins looks in the mirror and sees Gary Cooper.
The lone customer at the bar pushes his stool back and ambles toward the door in a not-quite-straight line. He’s tall, and thin in an unhealthy way; he doesn’t make eye contact with either Hawkins or me as he passes.
Hawkins swipes at his mouth with a napkin. “I don’t want to have to drag my ass out of bed tonight ’cause I’ve been called to your place, Branson.” He cranes his neck. “You hear me?”
Branson doesn’t turn but raises his hand in a brief wave that’s half acknowledgment, half dismissal. Hank Branson was out sick the day of the mine collapse. He should’ve been in that stope, which means someone else was there in his place. I don’t think he’s held a job since, and I can’t imagine he can afford to pay his extensive bar bill. I wonder who does.
Hawkins turns back once the door shuts behind Branson. “The man gives me fits, Jo.” I offer a tight smile. I’ve seen the Hawkins-Branson exchange before, and there’s something performative in it. The two of them are like a couple actors in a long-running play, and Hawkins especially embodies his part well. I don’t think he’d know what to do if Branson suddenly got sober. “He’ll be back soon as he’s sure I’m gone,” Hawkins declares.
I nod to his empty plate. “Guess he won’t have to wait long. Ready?”
He doesn’t stand. Crosses his arms, sighs. “I got a question.”
A question. Not a surprise, not really. Yes, Hawkins takes me out for a burger now and then, or has me over to his place for microwave dinners in front of the tube, but nothing gets to be that simple anymore.
I don’t make it easier on Hawkins, though part of me wishes I could bring myself to; he’s wound so tight, so obviously uncomfortable, that I almost expect him to huff and stamp a foot like an unhappy horse. Still I wait, silent.
Finally he meets my eyes. “Where did you and Samuel go that summer?”
Whatever question I thought he might have, this isn’t it. For a moment it’s so unexpected I can’t imagine why he’s asking—it seems as random as wanting to know who took me to prom, or what kind of soda I last sold at Fuel Stop—and then, in a single, awful, heavy moment, I understand exactly why he’s asking. “I’ve told you that,” I say, very softly.
“Tell me again.”
I become aware of the buzzing hum of the fluorescent Coors sign over my head. “Did Devin tell you to ask that?”
Hawkins’s voice hardens, just a hair. “Devin hasn’t figured out he should tell me to ask that.”
I spin my empty beer glass, widening the wet circle on the tabletop.
South Dakota. That’s what we told everyone, when we came back. We’d been staying with Mom’s friend in South Dakota, yes, we should have called, we could see that now, but couldn’t everyone understand, we’d just lost our mother, we wanted to go somewhere we felt safe, now we were back and it was all fine, we’d only gone to South Dakota. I told the story so many times, to so many people, it started to seem nearly real.
I remember the day the social worker told me that when I left rehab, I couldn’t go home with Samuel. He was only seventeen. (Almost eighteen, I protested.) We’d been traumatized by our mother’s death. I had special needs. Not the most suitable environment.
I remember the way everyone worried that I never cried, not since the night my mother died. Not even when the therapists and social workers came to talk to me. Not even when they told me I’d never walk again. I remember that when they told me I couldn’t go home with Samuel the tears finally came, and I couldn’t stop them. (Very nice foster parents, they assured me. Experience with physically disabled children. We can reevaluate when…) I remember Samuel looking me in the eye and telling me everything would be okay, and I remember that then the tears stopped.
I remember him coming to visit me the day before I was scheduled to leave the rehab facility. We went outside together, as we had almost every day for a month, me pushing the handrims of my still-new wheelchair, Samuel beside me, waving to the receptionist in the lobby. I remember that instead of turning left toward the city park, he turned right toward the parking lot. I remember him telling me to hurry. I remember the rifle in the back window of the pickup.
And I remember the summer. Despite all that had happened in the preceding months—our mother’s death, my injury—those six weeks with Samuel are still a time I look back on with something like happiness. I felt peaceful. I felt safe.
Samuel made me practice the story before we came back. South Dakota, he said. Our mother’s friend’s name is Mary, you don’t remember her last name. She lives in a yellow farmhouse in a small town, you don’t remember where. Let me worry about that. He showed me a map, traced our imaginary route with a pink highlighter. We stopped at Devils Tower, he said. At Mount Rushmore. At the Corn Palace. And I told the story many times, to many people. To Hawkins most of all, because he asked again and again. South Dakota, I said. South Dakota. And finally he stopped asking. Finally he let it be truth. We’d gone to South Dakota.
We hadn’t, of course.
Hadn’t left the state.
Hadn’t even left the county.
“Samuel wouldn’t—” I bite the words off just in time. Samuel wouldn’t go back there, I almost said.
He might.
“Where did you go, Jo?”
I still the glass in my hands. Lift my eyes to Hawkins’s. “South Dakota.”
* * *
I have prayed.
I have prayed with words. With any words that come to my lips, with eloquent words and words so jumbled they scarcely make sense. With words that say exactly what I mean and words that can’t come close. I have prayed with my eyes shut and my hands clenched so tightly they ache for hours afterward. I have prayed at her bedside, and at mine. I have prayed as I walk down the street, as I swallow food I no longer seem able to taste, as I sit on the toilet. I have prayed at night in lieu of sleep.
When my own words fail me, I have prayed with the words of those who have come before me, with the words others have used to reach out to You: Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast. And: The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust. And, sometimes, more and more, simply: Hear my cry, O God: attend unto my prayer.
I am not brave enough to pray as Jesus did in Gethsemane. Every day, a dozen times a day, a hundred, I ask You to spare me—to spare her—but the second part of that prayer, the Not what I will, but what thou wilt … that I have tried to pray but cannot. They seemed rote words until I was asked to mean them myself.
Sometimes even the words of Your book are ash in my mouth, and then I have prayed without words, trus
ting You to know what is in my heart, trusting You to hear me even in silence. (Do I trust? Do I really? I try.)
I have prayed her name.
I have prayed Your names.
I have even prayed with my hands. One hand on her head, one on her heart—her pulse slight as a sparrow’s; You see the sparrows, don’t You?—and I pray with all that is in me that You might work through me as You once did when I was a young man.
I have prayed every way I know how.
I have prayed in new ways and old.
I have prayed without ceasing.
I drive to Elk Fork after work Monday. I need more canvases, paints, and a new bottle of glazing medium—never before have I used so many supplies without a completed painting to show for it—but more than that, I need to get out of Prospect. Out of the house that seems too empty without Samuel in it, and emptier with each box I pack. Out of the shadow of the mountains that haven’t looked the same to me since my conversation with Hawkins.
This time I avoid Lincoln Street and the visible damage Samuel wrought, take an earlier exit off the interstate and make my way on surface streets to the outskirts of Elk Fork’s small downtown. I park half a block from the art supply store; Martha Weatherby, the owner, sees me coming and holds the door. “Jo,” she greets, “so good to see you again.” I scrutinize her face and voice for any animosity, any hint she would rather I hadn’t come, but find nothing.
“Running low on a few supplies.” I force a cautious smile. I’m grateful for her kindness, but there is an odd artifice in this normalcy, a freshly foreign quality to these words we’ve exchanged so many times before.
“Let me know if I can give you a hand with anything.”
The place is empty except for me and Martha, so I take my time as I make my way down the aisles, savor the scents of graphite and linseed oil as I roll past pencils and inks, papers and boards, watercolors and oils. The tubes of acrylics hang neatly on racks toward the back of the store. I choose a bottle of glazing medium and two tubes of paint from the lower racks and go to the register. “I also need three twenty-by-twenty-four canvases and a tube each of cobalt blue and alizarin crimson, please.”
While Martha’s gone, I study the flyers taped to the countertop. A sign-up sheet for a still-life watercolor class. An advertisement for a new gallery near the river district. A call for artists for a plein air painting festival.
“You should submit a portfolio for that,” Martha says when she returns, tapping the plein air flyer with one of the paint tubes. “The deadline isn’t until Friday.”
“I don’t think—”
“You sell yourself short, but you’re quite talented, Jo. Besides, people would enjoy seeing you work with your painting knives. It’s not a method most of the public is familiar with.”
“I’m pretty sure they’ve all seen Bob Ross on TV.”
Martha gives me a schoolmarm look. “Think about it. There’s an auction at the end of the day, so look at it as an opportunity to make some money, if you must.”
I might have let her talk me into applying a few weeks ago, though I wouldn’t necessarily have expected to be chosen to participate. I can work quickly, have often tasked myself with completing a painting in a single sitting. It’s challenging, but also freeing, because I don’t give myself much time to think about the choices I make, and at its best, that kind of painting feels instinctive in a way it doesn’t when I slow down. But the plein air festival is a competition to which the public is invited. It’s for artists, real artists. I still feel like an impostor whenever I come into the store, still have to mentally justify spending money on professional-quality paints every time I purchase some. I know what I am: a talented amateur. I paint for tourists, not judges. That’s why my paintings hang in a gas station and not a gallery. It’s true I’m trying to do something more now, with this painting of the house, but it’s also true I’m on my fourth canvas and no closer to a painting that feels right.
Still, the festival could have been fun, even if I were outclassed—and there is a very small voice in my head saying, What if you weren’t?—but I can’t do it now. Even if I were accepted into the competition, no one would want to watch the Elk Fork Bomber’s sister paint a nice portrait of the city he wounded.
I can’t explain that to Martha, though—can’t say it aloud—so I just nod, try another smile. Martha purses her lips, then tears the flyer off the countertop and stuffs it into the bag with my purchases. “Think about it,” she says again.
* * *
Another nightmare last night. I went outside afterward and lay on the ground so I could look at the stars. We used to do that some nights when we were here together, do you remember? We both had troubled dreams then, and sometimes we’d find ourselves awake in the night at the same time, and we would go out to watch the stars. You were fascinated with the idea of the earth moving, and you’d try not to blink, hoping you could keep your eyes open long enough to see the stars cross the sky.
You used to ask me about the constellations. I knew some of them because Dad had taught me: Orion, Scorpio, Ursa Major and Minor, Cassiopeia. I’d forgotten so many, though, and you wanted me to keep talking, keep telling you stories, so I made up new constellations. Last night I looked at all those stars and tried to remember which ones I had joined, which I had pointed to and said, See there? I tried to remember, but the stars were like scattered stones.
I do remember one of the stories. There was an eagle constellation, I told you. A long time ago there was a small village that lived peacefully but was surrounded by dangerous enemies. There were two friends there, a young man and a young woman, who had grown up together and were very close. One day word reached the villagers that their enemies were approaching, and there was no time to flee. The people prayed to their gods to save them, and just before the enemies reached the village, the gods turned all of the villagers into animals. The young man was turned into an eagle, and almost before he understood what was happening, he was soaring high above his enemies, out of reach of even their most powerful weapons. He watched them burn the village, but he didn’t care. Just before he had become an eagle, he had seen his friend turn into a mouse and scamper into a field, darting between the enemies’ feet. He began immediately to search for her. His eyes were very good for this now, but still it took him a long time to find her. He spotted her just before dusk, but as soon as he swooped toward her, she scurried into a hole. The eagle was alarmed to realize his talons were flexed, ready to seize the mouse, and he beat his great wings and took himself back high into the sky.
He had thought he was simply a young man in the shape of an eagle, but he understood now that he was an eagle. His gods had saved him from his enemies, but in doing so they had made him into the enemy of his dearest friend. He circled the moon all night, then circled the sun when it rose, and all the time he prayed he would be turned back into the young man he had once been. But his prayers went unanswered. The eagle’s wings grew tired, for he was afraid to approach the earth again in case he couldn’t stop his eagle-self from destroying his mouse-friend, but he forced himself to stay aloft. He watched her from there, circling, riding the air currents as high into the sky as they would take him. He could not bear to leave her, but he did not dare go near. The eagle flew to exhaustion, but the gods were impressed by his loyalty to his friend, so rather than let him die, they made him part of the sky itself. Now he rests during the day, but at night he flies again, watching over his friend.
As I write it out now, I see it was not a very cheerful story for me to tell my little sister. With gods like that, who needs the devil?
* * *
I tell myself I’m beginning to get used to the house without the sound of Samuel’s footsteps, the clutter he left in any room he passed through, the butchered-timber scent he brought home from work. I’ll have to get used to it. Whatever happens in the end, whether he stays gone, is arrested, or … something else, he will not be coming back here. When I first understood I was p
aralyzed, and it was permanent, Samuel told me it was okay to be sad, and okay to wish things were different, but it wasn’t okay to pretend they were different. He would tell me the same thing now. I’m on my own. Accept it.
Four weeks until I have to be out of the house. I’ve already left the planning too long. We were supposedly going to receive “fair market value” for the house and property, but that barely accounts for the many modifications Samuel made over the years to make our home more accessible: the ramps, the wider doorways, the multi-height countertops in the kitchen. And I have no idea what the implications of Samuel’s actions will be—still haven’t called a lawyer—but the house is in his name; I have to assume whatever money he would have gotten for it will no longer be available to me. I have a little money in a savings account, maybe enough for a security deposit, but not much more.
I bought a copy of the Miner at Fuel Stop after my last shift. I spread it on the kitchen table now, leafing past the sports page and community calendar until I find the scant classifieds. Two apartments for rent in Prospect, both on second stories. No elevators in this town. Split Creek is a little bigger and might have a house or two for rent, but even those are likely to have a few steps to reach the front door. Ramps aren’t cheap, even if a landlord let me build one.
Elk Fork will have more options. I’ve seen a couple newer complexes on my visits; they probably have some accessible apartments. The rugged western pride in independence that sometimes leads to a convenient amnesia regarding the existence of disabled people will be softened in a city, and in some ways my life would be easier there. But moving to Elk Fork would mean leaving Prospect. It would mean waking up and seeing the contours of unfamiliar mountains out my window. It would mean quitting my job. Selling Lockjaw. Giving up burgers with Hawkins at the Knock-Off. It would be exile.
I stare at the paper, willing more ads, better ads, to appear. Then I fold the newsprint around a ceramic bowl and tuck it into a moving box.
