The Magic Of Ordinary Days Part 17

"Fine," I told her. Then I had to get it out. "Look, Abby, I can't come for Christmas after all." I could hear her sigh. "With all these travel restrictions, I don't see how I could justify the trip."

Abby said, "You need your family."

I leaned my forehead against the wall of the booth. "I can't."

I could hear Abby breathing into the receiver. At last, she said, "If you feel so strongly about it, then I'm sure you're doing the right thing."

"It's not that I don't miss you and Bea."

"I know."

"And Father."

Again, I could hear her sigh. "It's still hard to believe everything that's happened over the past year. I used to think we were one of the lucky families, that nothing really bad would ever happen to us."

"Me, too," I told her. I could feel the baby buckling a knee under my rib cage, and I stood up straight. "The baby moves all the time now."

"Oh, my gosh. Sometimes I forget. Have you seen a doctor? Is all well?"

"As well as can be expected."

"Do you think often about what you'll do?"

"Only when I'm not still pretending it didn't happen."

I thought I heard her sniffle.

"At least Mother didn't have to see this."

Abby reined herself in. "Mother would never have bound you to marriage."

But that's exactly what she had done to herself. "Let's not talk about Mother anymore."

"I agree," said Abby. "Tell me about him."

I stood still and thought, how could I explain Ray? "He's a good man. Honest. Loyal." I didn't say angry.

"Livvy," Abby said. "That's all well and good. But do you love him?"

Again, I leaned my head against the wall. "Truthfully, Abby, I can't say. I'm not sure what it feels like to really love."

"You loved Edward."

"I thought so, but the truth is-I never knew Edward."

Abby waited. "You doubt yourself now, and that's understandable. I think you should come back to your family as soon as possible. We can help you figure this all out."

Funny how I'd planned to always figure things out on my own. But perhaps I'd been strong because I did have them. "I'll call again soon," I told her.

"Just hold on and don't make any decisions until we can talk in person. Come as soon as the restrictions are lifted. You're welcome anytime."

The next morning, Ray disappeared in the truck for all of the daylight hours. When he strode in that evening, he handed me a letter. I had recently received letters from both Abby and Bea, so I was immediately curious. The return address was a box at Camp Amache. I tore open the envelope and read a note penned by Lorelei on the palest of pink stationery. She was asking me to meet them and go for a drive the following week. I held that letter in my hands the way the organist at my father's church once held her new sheet music. Finally we would have time alone. Finally we could catch up. And I could find out what was really happening in their lives. I continued to read. But the other lines contained only a meeting place, well-wishes, and a goodbye.

That night, Ray started speaking to me again, but only in the most perfunctory tones, nothing beyond necessities. And the next day, he left me alone again. I stared out the kitchen window while I listened to more gloomy radio news reports of war in the Pacific. On the island of Leyte, the land battle was progressing, but not without huge casualties. The high numbers were especially tragic because one of the main objectives of the operation wouldn't be met. The Americans had planned to build airfields to launch future missions, but found that the monsoons and the topography of the island, mainly the swampy ground, would make it impossible.

Ray and I went on for two more days in a similar manner. I found myself living in silence again, exactly as I'd done in the weeks following Mother's death. One afternoon, as I was putting away Ray's clean undershirts, I noticed his calendar lying open on the dresser top. The month of December lay out before me in small squares, and one day stood out at me and screamed. December seventh, Pearl Harbor Day, and the date of Daniel's death. I picked up the calendar, then sat on the edge of the bed with it opened in my lap. Today was December 2. In just five days, our country would acknowledge the third anniversary of the day that would live in infamy. For the rest of us in this country, it marked U.S. entrance into the war and numbers of casualties too high to fathom, but for Ray, the pain would be more personal.

Ray used his calendar to keep track of bills and orders, deliveries and other such needs for running the farm. I looked at the days before me and studied his rough scrawl, which tried to fit into the small squares of one day on paper. I turned back one page, to the month of November. On the thirtieth, just two days ago, Ray had written inside the square, "Livvy, 3 months together."

Ray's handwriting in those few words differed from his scrawl on the rest of the page. The lead markings were paler, more faint, as if he had written with a soft touch as he formed the letters of my name. I put my fingers on the pencil markings made by his hand and looked about the room.

Three months and I wondered, how much longer? Every time I asked myself if I could rein back my dreams and live my life as a farmer's wife, if I could just give up on what I'd once wanted so badly, if I could settle for something simpler like teaching history instead of rewriting it, something inside me screamed, No! But I couldn't picture myself walking out on Ray, either. I looked back at the calendar. At the end of 1944, I could never have imagined I'd end up here.

Already, I knew much about him: that he awakened early before dawn, and nearly every morning he made up his bed. He read the Bible more than any other book, he could do card tricks, of all things, and this family farm was his life, his life's commitment. I put the calendar back where I had found it, and then continued to put away Ray's clean clothes. Now I knew the plaid shirt he favored for work on warmer days, the heavier flannel shirt for chilly ones. I knew the herringbone pattern woven into the wool of his one suit, and the two dress shirts he alternated wearing on Sundays. I could fold socks in the way he liked them, wrapped one inside the other and flattened out. He had accepted me into his home without asking questions, had loved me despite the way I'd come to him. Once I'd thought such a simple love could only come from simple people, or from those who didn't know better.

That evening after dinner, I sprawled out on the floor and began wrapping Christmas presents. When I came to that wallet for Father, my offering, I rubbed my fingers along the grooves in the leather. I placed the wallet in a box and began wrapping. Father and I weren't so different from each other. He had lost himself before her death, but I had crumbled afterward. Neither of us had been as strong as we'd wanted to be. Perhaps the scene on the front would remind him of those days in the mountains after the first snow, those good times.

Ray was finishing up the last of a cobbler I'd made for dessert. He stood up from the table and put his plate in the sink. Then he stood around in different spots on the kitchen floor. Finally he came forward, stood over me, and pointed to the wrapped packages. His scent of earth and soap came with him. "You've done your shopping?"

"Well, I'm not finished yet." I had purchased presents for my family in Denver, but had bought nothing for Martha, Hank, and the kids. I would've loved to buy a bicycle for the boys, but with rubber and metal so scarce, new ones weren't available. And what would I get for Ray? I sat back and rested on the heels of my hands. "But I've made a good dent."

Ray pulled up a chair and sat before me. The tips of his old work boots looked up at me like a pair of wise old eyes. I tied a ribbon around the last package. Now finished, I shoved the box aside and looked down at my hands. "I'm sorry for all I've done to hurt you, Ray. Maybe I should never have come here."

His boots hadn't moved, and his voice was the softest I'd ever heard it. "You were supposed to come here. I knew it the second I saw you.

Now I sat still. "Ray, I wasn't supposed to come here. I had dreams far different from this. I thought I did have a destiny, but it wasn't this one." I wanted him to understand. "There are so many things I planned on doing, places I dreamed of going. What you know of me is simply the outside sh.e.l.l. You don't know what creature lives inside me yet."

His hands, which I'd watched for over three months now, hung down before me, the curled fingers motionless. Underneath his nails, I could still see faint lines of dirt from this land he so loved. "I know enough," he said. "And I want to know more."

I shook my head. "I never imagined a marriage like this."

"I didn't, either."

I wanted to understand his love, to see it clearly before me, to put it into a form I could roll around in my palm and examine like modeling clay. Or I wanted to write it with words of reason and ill.u.s.trate it with romance. I wanted to study it as once I'd studied my books. I still remember the way the kitchen light filled the room behind him when I said, "I don't understand, Ray. Many girls get in trouble. I could've been any one of them. Do you love me just because I came here?"

"Of course not," he said in a whisper.

I c.o.c.ked my head to one side. "Then why?"

Ray continued to defy all logic. "I love you because you came here to me."

Thirty.

Perhaps because Ray and I were speaking again, I rested well throughout that night. The tension that had run through the house like wire on fire seemed to be burning itself out.

The next day was Sunday. I wore the new suit Lorelei and Rose had made for me to church. In the kitchen after the service, Ruth came rushing up to me to get a closer look at it, her eyes as big and wide open as ever. "Where did you get this?" she asked me and touched a finger to the shoulder seam.

Ruth was such an observant girl. She could tell just by the sight of this suit that I hadn't bought it anywhere close by or even ordered it from a mail-order catalog. "My friends from Amache custom-made it just for me. In their family, everyone is an expert tailor."

Ruth ran her hand down the collar, then took a step back to get the overall effect. "It's wonderful."

"We could hire them," I said. "To make a suit for you."

Ruth put her hand over her mouth to hide a grin. "A suit for me?"

"Sure. You're a young woman now. With a bright future, too. You never know when you might need a good suit."

Ruth looked amazed, and I could swear she blushed. She was still lost in wonder over my suggestion when Martha came up and handed me something on a covered plate. "It's angel food cake," she said with a sad little smile. "Angel food for the baby."

I took it from her, but wondered why she would be baking for Ray and me. We still received pies and cakes from Mrs. Pratt all the time, and I'd been trying some recipes for new holiday desserts I'd found in the newspaper. "Thank you," I told her. "But you shouldn't have bothered."

Martha had dullness in her eyes I'd not seen before, and she looked tired, too, but she kept the smile on her face anyway. "We've been baking a lot lately." She glanced over at Ruth, who had now been taken away from her thoughts of new suits, I could tell, and was looking at the floor. "To get our minds off of other things, you know."

Ruth glanced up and gave me a knowing look.

Pearl Harbor Day coming up on Thursday, of course. The loss of Daniel. The next few days were going to be tough ones for this family. But Martha would never say it aloud.

"Maybe we could go shopping together," I suggested. "I don't really know what I should be buying for the baby."

Ruth now beamed at me from beside her mother, and Martha looked pleased, too.

"I haven't bought anything yet, and I'm sure I should be stocking up. "

Martha said, "We'd sure enjoy helping you."

"Love to," echoed Ruth.

The next morning, I stretched out in bed and waited for the now familiar baby kicks to begin. After the first nudge or two, I got up, threw on my robe, and headed for the kitchen. On the table, instead of Ray's breakfast dishes, I found a dusty old box. I moved in closer. Ray apparently had ripped off the tape, so I opened the flaps.

Inside, I found stacks of old framed photographs. On top was one of Ray's family. In it, Martha looked to be a preteenager, Ray was a boy of about five, and then, in their mother's arms, I saw the tiny plumped face of a baby who could only be Daniel. I didn't touch anything, didn't lift anything out, but I did peer closer into the dark corners of the box. I could see bronzed baby shoes in one corner, and in another, a stack of silver baby cups. Beneath the framed photos, it looked like alb.u.ms, perhaps yearbooks and sc.r.a.pbooks, too.

Back in my room, I threw on clothes and thrust my arms into my overcoat. I found Ray outside the barn, moving haystacks from the truck bed inside.

"Morning," he said as he lifted a bale of hay and tossed it inside the barn.

I gave a half smile. "I saw the box." I put my hands in my pockets. "I looked inside, but I won't touch anything without your permission."

He kept working. "I got it down for you."

"From the attic?"

He nodded and slowed for a moment. "I told you once Martha had pretty much everything. But I didn't tell you that Daniel had put a bunch of stuff in our attic after our folks died." He stopped to catch his breath. "It did make it easier." He gestured around, outside the barn. "They're everywhere around here, anyway." Then he looked at me. "But those photos and other things, why, they were like flags waving sadness in our faces. After Daniel died, I did the same thing with his stuff, too."

Just outside his ear, I saw a thin line of shaving cream he had apparently missed that morning. I wanted to brush it away, to touch his cheek, to see how soft it would feel after a shave. "After I look through the box, what shall I do with it?"

He leaned on the pitchfork. "I couldn't face it before, but now ..." His voice trailed off, then he said, "You can do anything you want."

The sun was beginning to burn off the chill of the morning. Icicles that hung from the barn eaves began dropping tears on the ground. But Ray looked relieved, as if he'd finally shed his sadness. Three years since Daniel's death, and even longer since his parents'. Three years it had taken him to get to this spot.

"I'd like to put them out. The house is so bare anyway. And I think it's those personal things, those remembrances, that make a house into a home."

He nodded. "Go on ahead, then."

But as I walked back up the steps into the kitchen, and then found myself standing before the box again, I hesitated to do it. It wouldn't be fair to pry into these lives, especially those ones dead and gone that meant so much to Ray, if I wasn't at least willing to try it. I looked back outside and watched the easy, comfortable shape of him stepping outside the barn as he hooked another bale of hay.

The house did seem warmer when he came home. The awful news of the war had been easier to take when he was here to share and validate the horror of it with me. He continually surprised me by doing things, such as magic tricks, I'd never have imagined him likely to do, such as checking out that book from the library, marking on his calendar with my name, thanking me for the strangest things. We didn't share a single interest, but he had found things in me to love. And over the past months, the pain of losing Mother had become less dreadful in his company.

I opened the box and touched the top photo frame. What would happen if I just gave in and allowed him to love me? Could I continue to be the seeker I'd always been, only planted here on this growing ground instead of far away? Outside, Ray had paused from his work to throw a stick to Franklin. When that dog came loping back up to him with the stick in his mouth, panting and so proud of himself, Ray crouched down and scratched both sides of Franklin's neck at once.

I lifted the first photo out of the box, brushed it off, and started back in time. I didn't know it then, but as I went down into that box of Ray's gentle love, I was traveling back in time, too, peeling off layers of past pain and grief, and beginning to heal my own damaged heart.

On Wednesday, I went shopping with Martha and Ruth. We bought diapers and diaper pins, some yellow receiving blankets, and a few long white baby gowns. We looked at cradles and bas sinets, but I didn't find one I liked enough to buy.

The next day, December 7, Ray emerged from his room as if the day were like any other. He sat down, prayed as usual, and then began eating the eggs over easy and sausage I'd made for breakfast.

I waited until he had finished up, had downed each bite and emptied his coffee mug, too. Then I whispered, "Ray, I want to help you." I put my napkin on the table and moved in closer. "To get through this day. Maybe we could go somewhere, do something special."

He looked up at me, and to my surprise, his eyes were dry.

I asked, "Where would you like to go?"

He rubbed his chin. "The truth is"-he sat back in the chair-"I'd like to stay around the farm. I could show you more parts you never seen before."

I smiled. "That sounds fine. Whatever you want."

The sun was coming up warm, but still we loaded up coats and a thermos full of hot coffee. Ray drove away in the direction opposite where he'd taken me before. We pa.s.sed by clumpy dirt in empty fields spiked with every shade of brown dry plants, then, unexpectedly, a broad green rectangle of winter wheat lit up the landscape, looking to me exactly like a park of summer gra.s.s.

As we drove out, I asked Ray, "How does it feel to have all the photos and things around?" The night before, after I'd sifted through the box, I'd dusted and found a spot for each item around the house. The photos of Ray's parents; childhood pictures of Martha, Ray, and Daniel; sc.r.a.pbooks; yearbooks; Ray's and Daniel's bronzed baby shoes-silver baby cups engraved with their names; and the greatest find of them all-the Singleton family Bible filled with information and words of inspiration on every birth and death over generations. These treasures now adorned every room.

"It's not bad," Ray said and looked over. "There's more, you know. In the attic. Her china, her knickknacks, and whatnot. She collected b.u.t.tons."

"Your mother? b.u.t.tons? I knew she collected stones for the garden, but I didn't know she could sew."

"She did sew." Ray nodded. "But most of those b.u.t.tons never got put on clothes. There's all kinds. Old ones, bra.s.s ones, ones with tiny birds and other things painted on the fronts. They're in the attic, a whole box of them in jars."

I tried to imagine what else might be up there. Even in my exalted, blown-up physical state, I could climb up there and find it, examine it all.

Ray seemed to know what I was thinking. "Oh, no, you don't. You're not going up there after it." He put his hand on the seat between us. "It's yours," he said. "If you want it. But please let me get it down for you. Promise?"

I nodded.

He pulled to a stop where the fence met the railroad tracks. "End of the line," he said.