Forsaking All Others

by Allison Pittman

  I scuttle up against the pillows and indulge myself in watching him. Russ Merrill is tall—taller than me, which was a rarity among my suitors. His shoulders are broad, his body imposing. A gentle giant of a man, with a head full of close-cropped curls, a wide, handsome face, and a voice that resonates with the kindness of his person. As a pastor, he is beloved by men for his overt masculinity, and by women for the undeniable gentle spirit beneath. I, too, love him for both these qualities, knowing the pinnacle and depth of each.

  “Guess I need to send you off to church alone more often, if this is the treatment I’ll get when you come home. I’m thinking Ronnie might be coming down with a case of sniffles. Should be full-blown Sunday morning.”

  With a quick flash of a wicked grin, he scoops up his shirt and takes himself off across the hall. I hear the water running for his washup and use that time to get up from the bed and take another peek in the mirror above my dressing table. The soft light makes his words true enough, though it helps that I rub my Pond’s in faithfully each night. It is the best I can do against the Oklahoma wind and sun. Lately, too, the dust has been so bad, with great dark storms rising up from the earth, though we’ve had a spell of sweet, clear days. Maybe that’s what has Russ in such a mood.

  The water turns off, and I move quickly to the bed, easing in to keep it quiet, and bring the cover up around me. Turns out I didn’t need to rush, as I hear his steps take him into the kitchen, the rattle of the milk bottles, the closing and locking of the back door.

  “Checked the kids one last time,” he says, walking into the room. “Sound asleep, both of them.”

  He wears blue striped pajama trousers and a clean undershirt, and I have a moment of doubt in my calculations. If I get up now, I might have enough time to run across the hall and come back, better prepared. But he climbs in beside me, the weight of him tipping me toward the center of the mattress, and folds his hands behind his head on the pillow. I’m held, even if he’s not touching me at all.

  “Peaceful end to a beautiful day,” I say. And it has been, clear and cloudless, the perfect kind of warm, and not a bit of wind. More than that, not a bit of dust, which means the windows are open, letting the cool night air seep through the curtains. The room feels fresh and alive, and a glance down at Russ’s face tells me he appreciates it too.

  “Too peaceful, if you ask me.”

  “How can a home be too peaceful?”

  “Too quiet. What would be the harm of bringing in a bit of noise?”

  “And what kind of noise would that be?” Though I know what he’s getting at.

  “Maybe a little one, cooin’ in the corner.” He says it with an affected accent, as if that will speak to my rancher’s daughter’s heart.

  “More like cryin’,” I say, steeling my resolve. “’Cause he’s hungry. You taken a look at the ledger books lately? I don’t know how I’m going to feed the four of us in the next months. Let alone five.”

  “We can leave those worries off for a time, don’t you think?”

  He runs his knuckle, the one on his first finger, up the length of my arm, catching my heartbeat up with its travel, and that’s all it takes.

  Later, after, while Russ rests in slack-jawed sleep, I climb out of bed, put on my nightgown, and creep to the bathroom for a washup before checking on the children. They, too, sleep with the peace that comes from innocence. Satisfied to be every inch alone, I make my way through the dark of the kitchen to the door that leads downstairs to the feed and hardware store below. It is ours now. My brother, Greg, and I own the property, but it’s been up to Russ and me to run it since Uncle Glen died ten years ago, and that’s just about the last time it turned a profit big enough to live on. The little it brings in supplements Russ’s church salary, and minding the store gives us all something to do during these long days of drought.

  Streetlight streams through the big glass window, casting the letters Merrill’s Tools and Feed in shadow across the floor. Around a sharp corner at the bottom of the steps is a small storeroom, dwindled to empty these days, as we can barely move the inventory we have on the shelves. The storeroom has a door that opens out to a platform where the trucks backed up to unload pallets of cattle feed in the days when local farmers had the wherewithal to buy such a thing. On a hook beside it is my ratty gray cardigan sweater, a gift from my mother to my father that did nothing but baffle him from the minute she finished the last stitch.

  I dig into the pocket of the sweater and find what I’m looking for—a half-crumpled pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. With deft fingers, I slip one out of the pack and another one into my pocket and strike a match against the darkness. I touch the flame to the tip of the cigarette and inhale until it glows red, then shake the match and drop it between the slats of the loading dock.

  Peaceful, Russ had said. Not so peaceful, perhaps, if he finds me here, and I briefly wonder if I wouldn’t have been safer staying inside the storeroom closet. But our bedroom window is on the side of the building, meaning we never have complete darkness for sleeping, but also assuring me that the smoke from my cigarette isn’t going to drift in past the starched white curtains.

  I take another drag, determined not to be wasteful and let the cigarette burn to nothing of its own accord. I only get one a day, and not even every day—only those nights when Russ falls asleep first. Otherwise, he is always there. Working in the store while I clean the house upstairs. Sitting beside me on the sofa, across from me at the table. Staring down at me from behind the pulpit while I sit with the children in the pew at church.

  Another drag. I hear the burning of the paper and tobacco. Half-gone already, and I touch the one in my pocket, counting. Calculating, again, just how many are left, wondering when I’ll have another perfect night like this one.

  Clear and cool and clean.

  “Beautiful night, isn’t it?”

  The voice startles me so, I fumble the cigarette before stubbing it out on the railing and dropping the butt to the platform, using my toe to nudge it between the planks.

  “Good heavens, Mrs. Brown. I didn’t expect to see you out at this hour.”

  Merrilou Brown lives across the street and down the block from the store, having stubbornly refused to sell her property even as business after business built itself up on what the town council renamed Commerce Street in an effort to persuade her and her husband to move. She is a tiny woman, bespectacled and beloved. Each week, the children in Sunday school scramble to measure themselves back-to-back against her, and it is an anticipated rite of passage to be taller than Miss Merrilou. Most achieve that status before the age of twelve.

  “Luther needed a walk. And at his age, who am I to say no?”

  Luther is a once-white poodle, his coat a perfect match for the neat cap of curls on Mrs. Brown’s own head. The two are inseparable, more so since Mr. Brown, as massive in stature as Mrs. Brown is diminutive, has taken to passing his days listening to gospel radio and writing fiery letters to stations whose programs fail to line up with Scripture.

  “It’s late, is all,” I say, tugging my sweater tightly against me. “You might feel safer walking on the lighted side of the street.”

  She makes a dismissive sound. “I’ve been out and about around here before there was a street. What kind of life would it be if a person can’t take her buddy out of her own backyard? I noticed you weren’t in prayer meeting tonight. Thought you might be ill.”

  “I’m fine. The baby, she was sick.”

  Before she can respond, Luther takes that moment to lift his leg and do his business against the side of our building. Thankfully, I have a mask of darkness to hide my irritation.

  “That’s it, then,” she says, unmistakable triumph in her voice. “Here, let me give you this.” She wears a battered sweater of her own, and fishes around in its pocket as she approaches. Even though the loading platform is less than three feet off the ground, I loom above her like a monster. The night crackles with the sound of cellophan
e, and I see she is holding something up to me in her tiny hand. “A peppermint. For when you go back inside. I never developed a taste for the things myself, but I had a grandma who was never without her corncob pipe. And let me tell you, her breath . . .”

  She makes a high-pitched sound that sends Luther into a frenzy as he howls to match her tone.

  “Thank you.” I take it with sincere gratitude and hope the howling won’t wake Russ.

  “And maybe a spritz of perfume in your hair. It’s the hair that really traps the smell.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “And don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me. And with Luther here, so long as he doesn’t learn to talk.”

  I indulge her joke with a shallow laugh. “Really, it’s not so much of a secret.” Russ knows, of course. He simply doesn’t approve. And because he doesn’t approve, I think it best he doesn’t know.

  “Still,” she says, “I won’t breathe a word.”

  “Well, I appreciate that.” She feels more like an ally than a conspirator, and I make a grateful show of unwrapping the mint and popping it into my mouth while Luther prances an arthritic circle around her leg. “Thanks again,” I speak around the candy.

  Mrs. Brown scoops Luther up, wishes me a good night, and sets off in a purposeful stride. The second cigarette lingers, forgotten, in my pocket while I suck on the candy, the taste of tobacco mixing in soothing concert with the mint, until it is dissolved to nothingness on my tongue.

  Once I’m back upstairs, having stolen my way into the bathroom, I wash my hands, tap a drop of Ariel eau de toilette on my fingertips, and run them through my hair, ready to slip back into bed beside my slumbering husband, all evidence of my secret erased.

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  That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.

  ECCLESIASTES 1:15

  Breath of Angels Nursing Home

  October 13, 2010—11:56 p.m.

  Ma always called it cheating to stay up past midnight.

  “Tomorrow don’t come with the dawn,” she’d said. “When that big hand sweeps across the top, it’s past midnight. End of one day, start of the next. It’s like stealing two for the price of the one God gave you.”

  In the dark, of course, she can’t see the sweeping hands. But she hears them. Steady, rhythmic ticks coming from the same round-faced clock that once graced the big stone mantel in her parents’ home. One of the only possessions she has from that place. In just a few minutes, she’ll close her eyes and transport herself back there, but for now, she directs stubborn, sleepy attention to the harsh, glaring red numbers on the table next to her pillow.

  11:57.

  Three more minutes until this day passes into the next.

  It’s part of her rhythm, dozing through the evening only to wake up in time to witness the changing of the day. Or at least the first few minutes of it. Cheating not God, but death, living a little longer than anybody imagined possible. As a child, it had been a challenge, sneaking out of bed to gaze at the clock face by the waning light of the fire. These days, it’s less of a game, given how few days must be left.

  11:58.

  A tune enters her head, filling in the spaces between the ticking of the clock. The fingers of her right hand, thin and curled in upon themselves, move in listless strumming of silent strings as her left hand contorts to create chords on the neck of an invisible guitar.

  I know not why God’s wondrous grace to me he hath made known . . .

  She hears a million voices joining in, her own, clear and strong, above them. Somewhere at the edge of hearing, a less familiar sound pierces the darkness. Tuneless, wordless. The only kind she’s made since that blinding light took her voice away.

  A soft knock on the door—a mere formality, really. She turns her head.

  “Miss Lynnie? Everything okay in here?”

  She hates that her singing could somehow be mistaken for a cry for help. So she stops and nods, bringing her fingers to stillness at her sides. She looks back at the clock.

  11:59.

  She hasn’t missed it.

  “You ought to be asleep by now.”

  Now soft shoes bring the even softer body of Patricia Betten, RN, to the bedside. She hears every swish of the woman’s barrel-like thighs.

  “Let me tuck you in, make you a little more comfortable.”

  She surrenders to Nurse Betten’s ministrations, keeping her arms still as those pudgy, purposeful hands smooth the thin sheet and blanket. Yet another blanket is dropped over her feet, anchoring her to the bed with its warmth.

  “There, there,” the nurse prattles on, obviously quite pleased with her efforts. “Rest up. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

  12:01.

  Nurse Betten’s wrong.

  The big day’s today.

  Late. Late. Late.

  She could feel both moss and mud caught up between her toes as she ran across the soft carpet of the forest floor. With one hand she clutched her cardboard-covered journal to her heart. The other gripped the neck of the guitar slung across her back. Every few steps, the strings would brush against her swiftly moving hip and elicit an odd, disjointed chord.

  It was too dark for shadows, meaning Ma would have supper on the table. Maybe even eaten and taken off again. Bad enough Dorothy Lynn hadn’t been home in time to help with the fixing, but to be late to the eating—well, there was no excuse.

  The dark outline of her family home stood off in the distance, soft light coming through the windows. And then through the front door, when the familiar silhouette of her mother came forth in shapely shadow.

  Dorothy Lynn slowed her steps. Ma always said a lady shouldn’t run unless a bear was on her tail. Now, to Dorothy Lynn’s surprise, Ma actually came down off the porch and, with quick, striding steps, met her at the edge of the stone footpath that ran from the main road to their front door.

  “Dorothy Lynn Dunbar, I promise you are goin’ to make me into an old woman.”

  Even in this new darkness, Dorothy Lynn could tell that her mother was far from old—at least by all outward appearances. Her face was smooth like cream, and her hair, the color of butterscotch, absent even a single strand of gray. She wore it coiled into a swirling bun that nestled in a soft pouf.

  “I’m so sorry—”

  “Not that you’ve ever been a great deal of use in such things, but even an extra hand to peel potatoes would be nice.”

  “So, is he here?”

  “Been here for nearly an hour. He’s been entertained, looking through some of your pa’s books, but he’s here to have supper with you, not your mother.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me if he was just here for the books. They served Pa well all his years behind the pulpit.”

  Three wide steps led to her home’s front porch. Ma hesitated at the first step and dropped her voice to a whisper. “From the way he talks about you, your pa’s books are the last thing on his mind.” Ma’s face was bathed in light from the eight-pane glass window, her smile as sly as any fox.

  Dorothy Lynn brought her face nearly nose-to-nose with her mother’s. “I think you’re crazy. Could be he thinks I’m just a silly girl.”

  “A silly, pretty girl. Or one who would be pretty, if her hair weren’t scattered out wild as wheat stalks after a windstorm. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’d be askin’ Pa for your hand most any day. Guess he’ll have to settle for askin’ me.”

  Dorothy Lynn clutched her pages tighter, willing herself to match Ma’s excitement. “Well, I’d think if he was going to ask anyone, it’d be me.”

  Ma looked instantly intrigued. “Has he?”

  Dorothy Lynn lured her closer. “There’s hardly any time between the kissing.”

  Shocked but clearly amused, Ma turned and resumed her ascension, her old-fashioned skirts swaying with authority. At the
top, she looked back over her shoulder and said, “Leave that,” indicating the guitar.

  Without question, Dorothy Lynn wriggled out from the strap and placed the guitar gently on the swing, knowing she’d bring it in before the night was through. Then, as her mother held the screen-covered door wide, she walked inside to take the first step on the smooth, varnished floor.

  “So, has our wood sprite returned?”

  Brent Logan, looking entirely too comfortable in Pa’s leather chair, glanced up from the thick green tome open on his lap. A Commentary on the Letters of Paul. Pa’s favorite.

  “She has.” Ma’s voice was at least ten degrees cooler than the temperature outside.

  Brent stood, and the minute he did so, all thoughts of Pa sidestepped behind the commanding presence of a man who seemed perfectly at ease in another’s home. He had broad shoulders and thick, strong arms, testifying to a life of good, honest labor. He might have been taken for a local farm boy, but there was a softness to him too. His hair—free of any slick pomade—tufted just above his brows, which at this minute arched in amusement at her disheveled appearance. Were her mother not standing here, Dorothy Lynn knew she would be wrapped in those strong arms—swept up, maybe—and he’d kiss away each smudge. The thought of it made her blush in a way she never would if they were alone.

  “Sorry I kept supper waiting,” she said, rather proud of the flirtatious air she was able to give her words, despite her ragged appearance.

  Ma caught her arm, turning her none too gently in the direction of her room. “Why don’t you go wash up, honey-cub, while I get supper on the table?”

  Any womanly charm Dorothy Lynn might have been able to muster came crashing down around her at her mother’s singsong tone and that detestable nickname.

  “Honestly, Ma,” she said, rolling her eyes straight to Brent, who had the grace to avert his gaze. Instead, he’d wandered over to the fireplace to look at the pictures on the mantel. The largest, in the center, was her brother, Donny, looking more like a boy playing dress-up than a man in uniform, ready to go to war. On each side of Donny were wedding photos: Ma and Pa’s, in which Ma—standing—was only a head or so taller than Pa, who sat tall in a straight-backed chair, and her sister Darlene’s, which featured the same wedding dress worn by the bride, whose new husband stood by her side.