Chapter 25
Lana 1938
“I’m hungry.” Magdalena craned upward on her toes, stretching over the warm platter of rolls on the kitchen stove. She drew in a deep breath. “Let’s eat. I’ll put these on the table.”
“Your father’s not here yet.” Lana frowned at her daughter as she stirred the gravy. “You know we don’t set the food out until we hear his truck.” Lana glanced out the kitchen window. The lane was empty. So was the whole of the outdoors. There was no sound of Cletus’ truck. Dusk was fast approaching. He was late. Cletus was never late.
“Can I have just a little bite?” Harold stood in the doorway. At six, he was shooting up like a weed. Cletus trusted Harold with most of the chores, and the boy worked hard. He was wiry. He had good reason to be hungry.
“Hold on just a minute or two longer. In fact, run outside and listen for your father’s truck. As soon as you hear him, hurry in and tell me. I’ll put the food out right away.”
Harold eyed the rolls. “Okay.” He lolled his head the direction of the back door and dragged himself that way.
“The table’s all set and ready, Mama!” Gail stuck her head in the kitchen. “I did a perfect job. Just like always.”
“Thank you.” Lana tried to sound grateful. Gail was so little, but already she was too precise, too helpful, too old for her age. Gail’s diligence made Lana more tense, more hurried to make sure everything was just right for her husband. “Please ask Betsy to help Alex wash off, and then go check on Carla.”
Carla was their most recent child, the mouth to feed, the last one Cletus apparently ever intended to father. He hadn’t touched Lana since Carla’s birth, and she was two now, a beautiful child. Carla was graceful, thoughtful, a child with heart. She had Lana’s auburn hair and quiet demeanor. Carla was Magdalena’s opposite, something Lana thought might have appealed to Cletus, but it didn’t. When he closed Lana out, he closed out the mouth to feed, too.
“Magdalena! Get your finger out of the potatoes!” Lana set aside the spoon she’d been stirring the gravy with and gave Magdalena’s hand a smack.
“That didn’t hurt.” Magdalena grinned as she stuck a fingerful of potatoes into her mouth.
“Go help Harold watch for your father.”
“I say we eat without him.”
Without him.
Two words. They struck like a slap.
Without him.
They resounded in Lana’s mind, volleying back and forth, creating an echo that reverberated to her heart and through her soul. Without Cletus. Lana dropped the gravy spoon. It clattered to the floor, a splatter of warm gravy stinging her ankles. That’s what she was even when he was here. That’s what she never wanted to be, not her and not her daughters. But that’s what she was, now, this evening. What if he didn’t… What if something had happened… She shook the thoughts away and looked at Magdalena. “Go on. And stop disrespecting your pop that way.”
Magdalena tossed her light curls and sashayed out the door. Lana heard the back door slam after a moment.
Without him. Without him
. She didn’t like the uneasiness that came with her daughter’s careless remark. Lana picked up the spoon and wiped it off. Nothing had happened to Cletus. He wouldn’t just go. He had two sons here. He would be home soon, just like he always was.
“Mama, Carla’s hungry, too. Can I give her something to eat?” Gail had Carla around the stomach, hugging her like a bag of flour.
“Oh, I guess. Just a little. You know your pop insists we all eat when he does.”
Gail lugged Carla to the table. Lana could hear her baby-talking to the youngest, settling her into a chair. Carla wouldn’t fight her. She was a compliant girl, thoughtful even at two. Gail came back into the kitchen. She handed Lana a bowl, and Lana filled it with a small portion for Carla. Gail toted the single bowl to the other room. Another slap. A reminder Cletus wasn’t there.
He wouldn’t… Surely he wouldn’t go… Two years he’d stayed away from her, saying nothing, never watching her undress. There’d been no more small talk before bed, either. His silence said what his mouth didn’t. It was her fault. He’d been wrong to ask for her. She’d had too many girls. Four girls. Four reasons that kept him away from her, left her without him.
Without him.
Gail cooed and giggled with Carla in the other room, playing as she fed her little sister, barely older herself. Lana moved to the kitchen doorway and watched. Each child was a gift, a unique personality, every single one of them learning to live around their father. The back door opened. She jumped and listened. It slammed closed.
“Mama, he’s not coming. Can we please eat?” Harold dragged himself into the room. His legs were bent at the knees, his arms dangling like a scarecrow, his shoulders stooped. At any other time Lana would have smiled, maybe laughed at the way he let his jaw hang slack to prove he was near death. She wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t.
He’s not coming
was all she could hear.
“He is too coming.” She sounded harsh, and she bit her lip. Harold straightened and frowned.
“I don’t hear him.” Harold nodded in the direction of the road. “And he’s never this late.”
“I mean eventually. He’ll come eventually.” Lana glanced around the room, all eyes were on her. “Okay, get Alex and Betsy. Call Magdalena in. We’ll go ahead and eat.”
“Yippee!” Harold revived. He raced outside.
“Want help getting the food on the table?” Gail asked, a spoonful of food midair in front of Carla’s open mouth.
“No, you go ahead and feed your sister. I can get it.” If she did it alone, it would take longer. Buy more time for Cletus to come. She listened hard, imagining the sound of a distant engine as she went back and forth, one dish at a time, hoping, praying, listening. Of course he would come. Surely he’d had problems at work. He’d explain when he got here. She’d have his plate filled and ready. And then someday, maybe even tonight, he’d be with her again instead of without her. It would all be fine, surely.
****
The truck finally came. Lana heard it from the dark of their bedroom. The night had been long. Without him. Without her children’s Pop. She’d lain through each hour, counting each minute, waiting and listening. The rumble was his, unmistakable although more subdued than usual, like he and the truck were both tired, not in a hurry for a change. It eased around the house and stopped where it always did. The hum of the engine cut, and then there was silence. Interminable silence that made her wonder if she’d imagined the truck. Maybe it hadn’t been there at all.
The silence became a living thing, thick and palpable. It filled her ears and blocked all sound. She fought it, tried to hear through it, listened for even the tiniest noise. At last there was something. The back door creaked open, then closed, without a slam. Footsteps shuffled through the house, one at a time, slow, soft, and loose.
The door to their bedroom eased open. Slightly at first, then wider. It was him, home to be with her. She smelled the burnt metal that was so much a part of him. As he stripped in the darkness, the odor grew stronger. More burnt metal.
And then something else. Something sweeter. Another odor that told her he’d been somewhere different. Somewhere without her. Somewhere not alone.
Chapter 26
Lana 1939
“Mrs. Paine.” Mr. Morgan bowed, tipping his hat, a black cowboy hat. The sun caught his hair and it shone, a blue sheen off hair as dark as his hat. She’d forgotten that color and the depth of his eyes.
“I think you can call me Lana,” she said. She held the back door close to her side, looking out at him. “For all of your kindness, especially when Carla was born. It…it was a difficult time, but the things you brought by now and then—my children still talk about them.”
“Happy to help. I was the oldest of five, and I know how hard my own mother worked.” His voice was like a gentle song, soothing and calm. She didn’t want to hear it, though. It grated across the deadness of her heart, trying to make it bleed again in the places she’d forced it to stop. The kindness of his demeanor, the warm beckoning in his eyes, drew up hidden tears that if allowed to spill over would be tainted with red. She just wanted to be alone. He set the hat back on his head.
Lana stared at him. His countenance was full of life, while she felt solid where she used to hurt. She looked away, beyond him, into the drive behind her house. His car was parked there, with someone sitting inside. She looked back at him. “I’m sorry, you’ve someone with you.” Whoever was there was either small or hunched in the seat. “You should both come in, I’m sorry…my manners…”
Mr. Morgan tipped his hat back and scratched his head. A lock of black hair fell down over his forehead. He glanced at his car, then at Lana. “So, I take it you don’t know who that is in my car.”
Lana shook her head, stared again at the hump in the passenger’s seat.
Mr. Morgan squinted and shielded his eyes as he looked back at the car. Then he dropped his hand and turned back to her. “Guess maybe she doesn’t want you to know who she is.”
Lana was too tired for puzzles, too broken to care. Talking to Mr. Morgan, trying to guess who that was, took more of her than she had. “I really can’t imagine who would be that small, except a child…” She felt the color drain from her face. She looked again at the car, shielding her eyes from the sun. The tiny bump had fuzzy hair. “Well, I’ll be!” Lana gathered her skirts and started toward the car.
Mr. Morgan laid his fingers on her arm, his touch was light, but it held her there. She looked down at his hand, his tan fingers, then up into his face. She drew her arm close to her side while she still looked at him, and stepped back.
“She wasn’t in school. I assume she should have been,” he said, dropping his hand.
Lana knew he was talking about Magdalena. Betsy would never miss school; she would be mortified.
“Where was she?” Lana asked. It felt like his fingers were still on her arm. She ran her hand over the spot, rubbed until she could feel her own heat. “What was she doing?”
Mr. Morgan’s brows pinched together beneath the hat. He looked to the side, then glanced at Lana again. “Just talking. That’s what she told me.”
“Just talking? To who?”
“You know the Olson family?”
Lana shook her head. She knew almost no one. Cletus knew everyone, but he never talked about them, nor did they ever go visiting.
“Well, they don’t do any harm, but they’re not…well, let’s say they’re not ambitious. She was talking to Wayne Olson. He’s the oldest boy. I’d say he’s around sixteen and probably hasn’t been in school since fifth grade.”
“No…” Lana whispered. “No…” What would a nine-year-old girl have to say to a sixteen-year-old boy? Lana was too hurt to hear her own scream inside, but she heard her daughter’s—it rose from each of their hearts and echoed within the other’s. “Thank you,” she whispered. She glanced at Mr. Morgan. “Thank you for helping my daughter. And me.”
Lana looked to the car where Magdalena was hiding. The top half of her face peeked above the dashboard, a rim of curly hair capping it like rays of a rising sun. She understood this daughter so well. She loved Magdalena passionately, fiercely, like a mother bear.
Lana stepped toward the car, one or two steps. Then she quickened her pace until she ran. She ran to Magdalena’s door and yanked it open. Her daughter’s eyes were enormous, highlighted and lined with an artificial blue as she looked up into Lana’s face. Lana nearly fell into the car. She swooped Magdalena into her arms, the thin girl clamped in her grasp. Lana hugged her, drew her out of the seat, and held her tight.
Magdalena’s small arms slid upward and wrapped around Lana’s neck. Lana buried her face in her daughter’s hair. “Magdalena.” She held her, Magdalena’s feet dangling above the ground. Lana carried her to the house, past Mr. Morgan’s dark eyes that said he understood. “Thank you,” she mouthed. He closed the back door behind her. Before she and Magdalena reached their front room she heard his car start. She sat on the sofa and nestled her daughter on her lap as his engine purred down the drive and then vanished as he drove away. Her tears trickled into Magdalena’s hair, molten tears of melting stone.
Magdalena clung to Lana as Lana cried. How long had these tears been solidified in her? Since she was nine like her daughter? Maybe longer? Holding Magdalena was like holding herself in her arms, two girls trying to escape the terror of being unwanted. Not just unwanted, but also discarded.
Magdalena slipped her arms from around Lana’s neck and coiled them at her stomach, pinning them there with knees she drew up also. “I have something, Mama.”
Lana leaned her face around her daughter’s head and watched one thin arm come out, nine-year-old fingers opening like a bloom.
“It’s for you.”
Lana looked down at Magdalena’s open fist, a small pot of rouge on her palm.
“Magdalena, where… Why…”
“It’s for you, Mama. You have to.”
Lana looked at the rouge. “Why, Magdalena? Why do I have to?”
“It makes men notice you more.”
Without him.
It cut like a knife. The wound was too deep and festered to withstand another blow. And Magdalena, she was only nine… The blue highlighting her eyes. How could she know this or understand?
Lana thought of Jeanie and the colorful accents on her face. She remembered the last time she’d seen Jeanie. The truck, her pride, Cletus’ quiet enthrallment with Jeanie’s accomplishment. Jeanie’d said she would stay with them that night. She’d entertained them throughout the meal, she’d stayed at the table while Lana cleaned up, her melodic voice singing out her stories, even ones they’d heard before, while Magdalena competed with her, telling taller tales, drowning out Jeanie until Cletus told Magdalena to pipe down and go upstairs. Jeanie continued while Lana put the children to bed, her voice carrying up the steps where Magdalena stood listening. Then it stopped. When Lana came downstairs, Cletus was alone in the living room, settled back in his chair.
She’s gone,
he’d said, and that was all. Jeanie’d married soon after that. Not Jim, but another local boy. That’s all Grandma had said in her letter.
“This isn’t going to help. You know it won’t.”