The Magic Of Ordinary Days Part 11

It looked much like others I'd seen pictured in textbooks. Made of boards covered on the inside with tarpaper, sheets, or newspapers, crude shacks along with sod houses had dotted the treeless plains of the West throughout the homesteading days. The shacks often had packed dirt floors and roofs made with wide boards laid out flat and covered with a thick layer of dirt. The roofs leaked almost constantly, the prairie wind blew in dirt and dust through the cracks, and snakes regularly made their way inside. Upon first glimpse of the house in which they were to live, wives who had ventured west to join their husbands were known to break down and sob.

Nearby on the divan, Ray and Hank had finally stopped talking of farming. Out of his chest pocket, Ray pulled out a deck of cards. Chester and Hank Jr. plunked down on the floor at his feet, then to my surprise, Ray started doing a card trick. He fanned out the cards, face down, then asked the boys to each pick a card, secretly look at it, and place it back in the deck. Ray shuffled the deck over and over, smiling. He then sorted through the deck, found each boy's card, and gave it back. The boys sat looking at their cards and pondering for a moment. Then Chester checked the deck for markings, while Hank Jr. insisted Ray do it one more time. Ray did it more than once; in fact, he did that trick so many times I thought those boys would collapse from the concentration.

Wanda entered the room. She said to me, "I've seen his tricks before," but she ended up sitting at his side and watching, too. At one point, Chester made Ray do the trick with a different deck of cards, but still, he performed it perfectly.

While the card tricks continued nearby, Martha, Ruth, and I dug out more photographs and paperwork from the old box, including a receipt for a prairie-breaking plow bought in 1896 for $10.90, and some of the original papers that established the homestead.

"The filing fee cost fourteen dollars," Martha said. "They drove stakes into the corners of the land, then later they plowed furrows around the perimeter."

Martha went on to tell me about the dry fall seasons of 1874-7'7 when hordes of gra.s.shoppers came through, eating all the crops and even the handles of farm implements along their way. All had been lost, yet her ancestors had stayed on and tried again. "After the gra.s.shopper plague, they took over some of the abandoned claims and began to do some ranching. It was just too dry out here for much farming to be successful-that is, until all the irrigation ca.n.a.ls were finished during the 1890s."

Ruth had been hanging over my shoulder and watching me all the while Martha and I dug through that box. After we made our way to the bottom, she asked me, "May I brush your hair?"

I touched a strand on my shoulder. Pregnancy was making my hair grow faster than usual, so now it hung long on the shoulders, where it spread about in loose curls. I leaned back in my chair and let Ruth brush it out, starting at the scalp and bringing it down to the ends. Long after it was neatly brushed, she kept on working, brushing it ever so gently from around my face and away from it. That brushing felt like caring. I found myself closing my eyes, and all the tension from long months of worry began to slip down, out of my body, like melted wax slides down the sides of a candle.

As she continued to brush, Ruth asked me, "Have you chosen names for the baby?"

Now the words dripped out of me as liquid wax. "I haven't thought." After a deep breath, I said, "We're open to suggestions."

"My favorite name is Patricia."

I could feel Ruth take one hand away and could imagine her pointing her finger at her mother as she fussed. "My parents had to go and name me Ruth." Then I heard Martha sigh.

"Ruth's an old biblical name," I said. "A very nice one, in my opinion."

Martha said, "Thank you. Maybe now she won't hate her name so much anymore."

Ruth brushed longer. "For a boy, I like Richard."

"But not Ricky, I hope," said Martha.

"No," said Ruth. "It could be shortened to Rich, but never Ricky."

I think Ruth would've brushed for hours. My hair became as silky as duck wings. Eventually Martha sent Ruth to cut the pie for dessert, leaving us alone. At last, I opened my eyes and found I had to take a moment to let them readjust to the glare of the light bulb. As my eyes focused again in the bright light, that worry I had sent melting into the floorboards started to climb back up and harden around me again.

I remembered the only girl I'd ever known before who got herself in trouble. But instead of an arranged marriage to save her, her family had fabricated a story of tuberculosis and told everyone at the high school she needed treatment far away in a sanitarium. Unfortunately for the family, a small panic ensued among students and parents, and the health officials had become involved, uncovering their false story. Their elaborate lie made the story even more compelling. It was whispered about for all of the next months. And after that, no one ever saw that girl again.

I straightened myself back in the chair. In a whisper, I asked Martha, "What will we do when the baby comes, full term, in March?"

She brushed a crumb off the table and looked at me dead in the center of my eyes. "Hold the biggest baby shower in the county."

And she was serious.

Twenty.

On the ride back, I said to Ray, "I never imagined you as a magician." He said, "Just a hobby."

"How do you do it? The card trick?"

He glanced over at me and smiled. "It's magic."

I smiled, too. "No, come on. It's a great trick. How did you learn it?"

"Really," he said. "It's magic."

I sighed. "I can see you're not going to tell me."

"You're a college girl, Liwy. You can figure it out."

I laughed. "Oh, I see. That was a low blow, there, Ray."

He laughed, then turned quiet again. "If you can't explain it, then it must be magic."

"Well, then." I put my hands into my lap as a selfish thought occurred to me. "Maybe you could conjure up some magic to get us a telephone line."

At first Ray didn't respond. "Do you mean it? You want a telephone?"

"It would be nice to call people from home instead of at the pay telephone."

"I didn't know you stopped there."

"I stop there often."

Ray seemed to be thinking. "If you want one, I'll look into it."

"If it's not too much trouble."

As we traveled over a wooden bridge, the rattle of rough boards underneath the tires shook the truck. On the other side, Ray said, "I always thought telephones were for matters of life and death. That's how I was raised, at least. But if you want one, if you'll just tell me these things," he said, "I'll be open to changing my mind."

I had gotten my way, but then I didn't feel as good as I had expected.

Ray went on. "I hear that vacuum man is in town. What's the name?"

"Electrolux."

"Maybe you could have him come out, too."

"No, Ray. Thank you, but the telephone would be plenty enough."

At home, Ray pulled out his manila folder and opened it on the table. I opened my latest find from the library-a history of Logan County, Colorado, with reminiscences by pioneers, published back in 1928. Between that and digging through that box at Martha's, my mind was churning backward in time. I wondered about the earliest women, those first ones out on the plains living in soddies, shacks, and dugouts. Some of the homesteaders had even been single women who came out without husbands. Others had worked claims on their own after husbands had died or left them.

While I was reading, I felt eyes resting heavily on me and realized that Ray hadn't even started on his paperwork. Instead he'd read briefly from his Bible, then after watching me read for a while longer, he arose from the table and stepped quietly around to stand behind me.

It had always annoyed me when someone read over my shoulder. Even teachers who had done it in cla.s.s had brought up my ire. If he wanted to know more, he should read it for himself. I sat back in the chair and silently wished him to go away. But something was different about the way Ray stood behind me. He wasn't looking at the book. Instead his hands rested on the spindles at the corner backs of my chair, and his hands curved around them, caressing them.

Ray rubbed the spindles because he couldn't touch me.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it. Being touched by Ray.

Now I knew the farming life was plowing me under, just as Ray had plowed under the remains of that shack. Nothing could be further from what I wanted.

When I was eleven, I got a new world globe for my birthday. Of course, I received new dresses and a doll, too, but nothing fascinated me as much as that globe. I'd sit and turn it, letting my fingers travel lightly on its surface as it spun around. Often Mother would join me and we'd find all the countries, the ancient lands full of rich history, places that Mother would never see, but I would. She told me about the caste system in India and the Hindu religion. She drew an invisible line with her finger over the route followed by Marco Polo. And when we came to Egypt, I imagined the pyramids in all their symmetrical perfection. I pictured the mountain shrines raised out of the land of shifting sands, and knew I'd found the place where I most wanted to study. After that, I started delving into the hieroglyphs, the language of the pharaohs, all on my own.

What I missed most, however, were the conversations. Sometimes when I talked to myself, I was really talking to her, carrying on a seamless conversation that occurred only inside my head now. And during those mental talks, I would often feel something sweet drift in and alight on my skin, a sigh from the walls or the other world, I never knew which, but when I looked about, I was always surprised not to see her.

I opened my eyes. Ray was still standing behind me, his hands just as gentle on those spindles as they had been on that wounded fish. "Excuse me," I said to him and pushed back my chair. I walked into the bedroom without once looking his way.

The next morning, over breakfast, Ray wouldn't look near me, as if I had a layer of danger enclosing me, something that repelled his eyes each time they drew close. As he ate breakfast, Ray was instead studying every grain of food, every minute surface crack in the pottery of his plate.

I should've left him alone. But all I could see before me was a day without anything to do, in rooms without personality, in a house that held no memories. I said to him, "Last night, we went through Martha's box of family things." I set down my fork. "But I'm puzzled. She's keeping track of old records and photos, just as you told me. But primarily her things pertain to your grandparents and your parents when they were young, but not your family, Ray. Nothing of the three of you growing up."

Ray shrugged.

"You don't know what happened to all that?"

He looked up and pa.s.sed a napkin across his mouth. Then he shrugged again and kept on eating.

Amazing. An entire chapter of family history was missing, and Ray didn't know about it or care. I washed and dried all of the breakfast dishes, except for Ray's, then wiped off all the countertops. I stood at the sink with my back to him until I built up the nerve to turn around and ask, "What are your plans for the upcoming holidays?"

Ray was still staring into his food, but now his hands were still. "We'd be welcome at Martha and Hank's."

"I'm sure we would." I took in a big breath. "But I'd like to go see my family, my sisters, in Denver."

It was out now, but I couldn't bear to look at him. Instead, now I was acting as shy as he was. I studied the nicks and dents on the countertop that couldn't be scrubbed away.

"If that's what you want," he said.

To the counter, I answered, "I haven't seen them since August, and it's the first holiday season without our mother, and with everything else that's happened ..." I let my voice trail off.

Now I could feel his eyes upon me. "What else?"

I shook my head. "I'd just like to see them, that's all."

His voice was low. "I already told you. Do what you want."

I tried to think of a compromise. "I'll stay here for Thanksgiving and only go for Christmas and New Year's."

He stood, gathered his wool jacket, old felt hat, coffee thermos, and a canteen of water, and then he aimed for the door. "I'm taking the truck way over to the far side. You won't be needing to drive today?"

"I'll find something to do."

He went outside, and I stayed in the same spot. I looked about the empty house, and then, on sudden impulse, I went out through the screen door after him. "Could I please go along today?"

He gestured toward the truck bed filled with tools and rolls of barbed wire. "I'm going to repair fencing way out on the other side. It'll take all day."

"Fine. I've got all day."

He swept his arm toward the truck. "Then get in."

I went back inside, grabbed my overcoat and a sweater, then rushed back out to the truck. Ray drove us down narrow roadways that crossed the farm. When we reached the eastern property line, Ray gathered his tools and materials, and then he nodded over past the fence. "That there's Hank and Martha's. As the crow flies, it ain't far, but as you already know, it takes quite a spell by car."

The first snow had already melted away, but the ground remained damp. Decaying leaves and wet twigs were stamped into the soil like fossils. The sun drifted over us. I stood by and watched as Ray began to replace rusted and sagging lines of barbed-wire fencing. I found the work not interesting in the least, but in a strange way soothing. Ray had that ease of movement that one acquires after years of doing the same thing over and over again. He shifted his jaw just a bit forward as he worked, and his eyes never left sight of the things his hands were doing. He'd go back to the truck and pick out a tool, return with it, and begin working again in one smooth, fluid movement.

I think he could have done this work while dreaming. Ray was completely at home out here, giving his rapt attention to every last wire. He strung out the barbed wire, nailed it to the wood posts, cut it, and twisted it around until it was tight. Then he cut off the excess wire and tossed the remaining pieces into a pile.

As the day drew on longer, we were able to shed our overcoats. I'd noticed that farmers seemed to always wear long sleeves, even in summer heat. But although it was well into November, the midday warmth was intense enough to make Ray roll up his sleeves and wipe his brow occasionally with the back of his hand. Soon, however, I saw that Ray had been correct in not wanting me to join him. This was the most monotonous work I'd ever seen. How long would it take? I looked down the fence line and saw a rank of posts standing at attention and disappearing in both directions.

After a few hours, I'd had enough. I'd heard that factory work was inherently dull, but at least those workers had comrades with whom to talk. Every day Ray awakened and worked under this same broad stage of unmarked sky. What did he think about all day long as he worked by himself doing the same things repeatedly ? What went on in that mind? I sat in the truck and rested my head on the back of the seat. It was oh-so-quiet again, now that the harvest had been completed and the workers had left us. I wondered what Lorelei and Rose were up to on this day.

I hadn't realized I'd drifted off until I heard the truck door close. Ray turned the key and started up the engine.

I rubbed my eyes awake. "What are you doing?"

"Taking you home."

He drove me back, and when we finally arrived at the house, I said, "I'm sorry."

At first he didn't respond, but then he said quietly, "It's no bother." He stretched his arm out on the seat back behind me. "I'll be back again around sunset."

"You had to make a special trip because of me."

But he just shook his head once and wouldn't let me see his eyes.

After trudging up the steps, I stretched out on the bed for a nap and dreamed of past holiday seasons. The candlelight services my father held on Christmas Eve, and the new dresses my mother chose especially for us girls to wear. The huge spreads of food in the fellowship hall, the presents individually chosen and wrapped up by my mother for each of us girls, and finding those gifts on Christmas morning underneath an evergreen tree in our living room.

That evening, the sunset lasted forever. In Denver, the mountains lifted the horizon and shortened the sunsets. But here, every tiny change of fading light could be appreciated. The sinking sun lit up the dust and each hovering cloud with gold and saffron and finally amber hues.

Before dinner, Ray took a longer time than usual praying. Well after I had finished with my blessing, his eyes were still closed and unmoving, his mouth soft. Even his nose looked relaxed, breathing invisibly. After dinner, we listened to Burns and Allen and found their comedy a nice break from the news of the war. Then I asked Ray for a game of rummy. I won the first few games easily, and afterward I started to let up on my strategy, deliberately discarding cards I would've normally kept. And still, I won the game. It took me a few more wins to realize what Ray was doing.

"Ray, you don't have to let me win." I started shuffling the deck for one more game. "I don't have to win every single time. Believe me, I've lost in many things before. It isn't necessary for me to-"

His hand was on mine.

The cards slid out of my hold and onto the table, fanning away. He took my hand off the table and held it in the warm flesh and blood of his palm. I didn't resist his touch, but I didn't return it, either.

My hands. With him, it had also begun with my hands.

It was early June, just weeks after Mother's death. Time mattered little to me. I spent my days on dirty sheets with half-read books stacked on the floor all around me. I was in the midst of a misery that nothing-not reading, talking, sleeping, or eating- could relieve. By the time I felt able to get up and do something with myself, weeks had pa.s.sed, and I had missed the deadline to enroll for summer cla.s.ses.

My friend Dot had saved up her three gallons of gasoline so she could take me out for the first time since the funeral. We shopped, bought the khaki-colored dress for me, then Dot drove us over to the big USO on California Street to take in a show. A comedy troupe was performing for the soldiers, and we could watch the routine just by volunteering to help with refreshments at intermission and by cleaning up at the end of the program. When we arrived, the room that served as auditorium, the same room that sometimes doubled as dance floor, was packed with servicemen in uniform, and all of them, it seemed, smoking cigarettes and talking loudly, enjoying a cup of coffee or a gla.s.s of punch. Upon our arrival, many of the men looked our way, and some of them nodded or smiled. Dot was a real looker, not as cla.s.sically beautiful as my sisters, but even more showy. She could always catch a man's eye.

As soon as the lights dimmed and the show began, Dot and I pulled out folding chairs and sat against the back wall. Everyone needed a laugh to combat the somber news of Allied preparations to invade France, a feat we knew would cost many American lives. So although the program wasn't all that funny, the crowd hollered out, laughed way too loudly, and clapped their approval. At intermission, as I was filling punch cups and serving coffee, I noticed a soldier slowly sidling his way up to Dot. It was always fun to watch Dot put her spell on a lonely guy. But to my surprise, the soldier didn't come up to Dot. Instead, he worked his way up to my side of the table, and as I served him coffee, he said, "You have lovely hands."