The Fulfillment (24 page)

 

He left the pails in the barn, for it was still raining when he finished. The howling wind had waned to a less fearsome strength, and the rain had eased off.

When he opened the kitchen door, he could
see the trapdoor open on the pantry floor. He called Mary's name, and she came running from the other room with Sarah in her arms, her face pale.

“Are you all right?” he yelled. But he could see that she was. His main concern now was for Jonathan.

“Yes,” she assured him. “I had the cellar door open in case we needed to go down…” Then she stopped abruptly. Her voice became intensely quiet. “Where's Jonathan?”

“I hoped he'd come back,” Aaron said.

“Back from where? Wasn't he in the barn with you?” She clutched the baby closer.

“Don't worry, I'll find him.” Aaron's voice was trailing him as he ran back out into the rain.

She held the door open and pulled the blanket over Sarah's head as she shouted after Aaron, “Where did he go?” But Aaron was already halfway across the yard. She could see that he was heading in the direction of Vinnie's pasture.

Aaron had hoped that somehow Jonathan had gotten back to the house. Now as he ran he knew it had been a foolish hope. He could see ahead of him strange shapes on the edge of the woods. A fear clutched his gut as he identified the broken boles of trees.

Jesus, it must have been a tornado, he thought, realizing only now just how bad the storm had been. The house had gotten only the side winds, but the path of the funnel was easy to mark.

He began to call Jonathan's name, and the longer he called, the slower he ran. He jogged around great gnarled roots that had been ripped
up by the storm. He reached the end of the lane and swerved east, toward the pasture.

He could see Vinnie standing with his rump to the rain. He had slowed to a walk, his fear crystallizing as he approached the gate that lay loose where it had fallen.

The bull moved when he heard the man coming, and Aaron saw a shape on the muddy earth in front of Vinnie. He knew it was Jonathan before he could discern any more than that. He ran toward the two and gave the bull a vicious kick in his wide belly.

“Git away from him!” he screamed as the bull pranced sideways, surprised.

Aaron dropped to his knees beside the inert figure that lay crumpled facedown in the mud. He knew before he turned the lifeless body into his arms that Jonathan was dead.

“Jonathan,” he cried as he saw the rain falling on his brother's battered face and chest. “Jonathan why didn't you listen to me? Jonathan…” He pulled him up and shielded Jonathan's face and railed at the sky, “Stop that! Don't rain on his face!” But the rain splashed on the torn, bloody face and ran over Aaron's shirt sleeve, staining it a weak red. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus, no. You can't be dead.
Jonathan. Wake up
!”

The bull took a step nearer, and Aaron pulled the still form closer in his protective embrace while he railed again, “Keep away from him, you bastard!” But his words ended in sobs as he rocked his brother. The bull stood by, watching.

He carried Jonathan beyond the fence and locked the gate again. It was too far to carry him
back to the house, so he stripped his own white shirt off and covered Jonathan's face with it.

He ran across the cornfield at an angle this time, taking the shortest way to where the lane joined the yard. Before he reached the edge of the corn, he saw Mary standing in the lane waiting for him.

Runnels of rain were trailing down the strands of hair that washed over Aaron's forehead. They camouflaged his tears as he ran. But there was no hiding his bare chest. She saw it, saw how hard Aaron ran to meet her, and her hands flew to her mouth, stifling a cry.

Aaron panted to a halt just short of her and saw her open, silent mouth beneath her hands, her wild, frightened eyes above them. He choked, “Oh, God, Mary.”

As if his words tore her loose from the spot, she lurched, trying to pass him, screaming, “Jonathan! Jonathan!” But he caught her shoulders and stopped her. She tore at his hands, scratching his chest, screaming again, “Let me go!” She fought with a mindless strength and tore herself loose, her arms flying free as she spun from him. She was racing down the lane when Aaron caught her from behind and stopped her flailing arms, pinning them to her sides in an encircling grip.

“No, Mary. You can't go out there. Jonathan's dead.” His words at last took the fight from her. “Vinnie…” But he didn't need to finish it. Her head dropped back against Aaron's chest, a keening wail beginning as she lost control. The rain licked her face. Her body was consumed by sudden, violent spasms that quaked through her
limbs with such force that Aaron could feel his own body being jerked by hers. She began slipping down, and he lowered her to her knees in the wet grass. He knelt behind her, and she suddenly fell forward onto her hands, knelt there on all fours, sobbing Jonathan's name over and over again. He surrounded her waist with his arms and leaned his face on her back, trying to still her shaking but unable to. For he was shaking, too, as they both cried for the man they loved.

 

It was hard to tell what time of day it was, though the rain had stopped. Aaron saddled the mare. He knew he had to go for help, but what about Mary?

“I can't leave you alone here,” he said again.

“I'll be all right,” she answered, “just hurry!” But she was still far from under control.

He slapped the reins, and the horse shot forward. Hooves thundered beneath him, but to Aaron it seemed he moved on a treadmill. When he had barely started down the road, doubts assailed him. Should he have left Jonathan like that in the field? Oh, God, why hadn't he brought him up to the house? But he couldn't do that and leave Mary there to see him. Mary, Mary…I shouldn't have left you alone. But you said you shouldn't take the baby in the rain. No matter, you shouldn't be alone. What should I do?

As he rode, one thought recurred: he couldn't leave Mary there alone while he made the long trip to town. At a curve in the road he slowed the mare to turn around and go back for her. He could take her and Sarah to a neighboring farm. Why hadn't he thought of that before?

But before the mare had completed the turn, a miracle took place. The buckboard full of Garners appeared around the curve. They pulled up, hands waving and voices calling Aaron's name. The children were babbling about the tornado. Mabel Garner silenced them with a quick word as she and her husband saw Aaron's face.

“What is it, boy?” Uncle Garner demanded.

“It's Jonathan,” Aaron's voice quaked. “He's been gored by the bull.”

“How bad?” The terse question cut through Aaron's shock.

“He's dead.”

The instant he said it, the Garners took over. Aaron felt the easing of a weight as Mabel quieted the children and left Garner to question Aaron.

“Where's Mary?” he asked.

“Back at the house. I was going back to get her, take her to a neighbor's.” Aaron was sobbing pathetically now.

“And Jonathan?”

“In the south pasture,” Aaron began, but his voice broke, faltered. “I didn't know what…”

“It's all right, boy. You turn around and follow us back.”

Uncle Garner stopped at the first house he came to and sent the neighbor to town for help. When they reached home, he saw to Aaron's horse and everything else.

The Garners' presence during that endless night was the loving thread that held them in one piece. Uncle Garner drove the buckboard out to the pasture and brought Jonathan in, then saw
to the arrangements when the undertaker arrived.

Aunt Mabel took over the house, dispatching her children to collect eggs, see to the milk that still sat in the barn, make beds in the loft, help lay food out. She forced order where, without her, chaos would have threatened. She made them drink coffee when they would have no food, made them put on dry clothes when they'd have sat damp, made them rest when they would have resisted. Somehow they all made it through the night.

Moran Township
folk always turned out for weddings, births, and deaths with a great show of strength, their understanding making them a people unequaled in generosity.

The tragic death of Jonathan Gray brought out these good people with full hands and full hearts. In the days before and after the funeral, they filled the house, bringing comfort, companionship, and food. They saw to it that Mary had company and Aaron had help. They helped him put in his crops. Some came to call at chore time, even helping for the first few days. Someone else pastured Vinnie, knowing his presence on the Gray farm was unthinkable. Someone came with crosscut saws and took care of the fallen trees, repairing fences where needed. Someone else offered to repair the roof of the chicken coop, but Aaron finally refused, saying they'd all done enough already. They all had work of their own to do, and many of them had suffered damage from the tornado, too, and had let their own repairs go. But the neighbors had done what they set out to do. They made those first days possible.

Aunt Mabel stayed several days after Jonathan's funeral, but she had her own family at home, and soon had to return to them. “Y'know you can come live with us, girl, and we'd be happy to have you,” she told Mary.

But Mary knew that two more additions would be a hardship to the family now. The Garner children were bigger now, bigger eaters and bigger helpers. Mary wouldn't be needed, as she once had been. “I need time to decide what to do,” she answered.

“'Course you do, dear,” Aunt Mabel said, accepting the girl's refusal with understanding.

When everyone was gone at last and things were quiet, Aaron came into the yard and found Mary kneeling listlessly near some green things sprouting in the garden. She held a trowel forgotten in her hand.

“It's too damp on the ground. How long have you been kneeling there?”

She sighed and began absentmindedly chucking the trowel in the dirt. It made a rhythmic scratching sound as she did it. He knelt down on one knee and stopped her arm. “We have to talk about…some things,” he said.

He pitched the tool in the dirt and said, “Come on.”

She shivered and got up to follow him into the house. He went to the stove and did something to the fire, then said, “Sit down. We've got to talk about the farm, Mary, and what we should do.” His eyes looked sunken and completely out of place in his already tanned, healthy-looking face. When she saw how haggard he looked, she felt worse but didn't know what to do for him.

“Well, I don't know,” she began lamely.

“I can't stay here anymore,” he said, his sunken eyes avoiding her swollen ones. “It wouldn't do. I've had several offers to stay with neighbors. I can take my pick, so I guess I'll take Dvorak up on it. They're about the closest ones I'd want to stay with.”

She hadn't thought she had much left in her for tears, but she was wrong. There were enough left to wet her eyes again, and they stung her swollen lids, already raw. “Oh, Aaron, isn't it bad enough without you going, too?”

“I've got to go. You know that.”

She nodded dumbly but said, “Sure, you've got to go again. I've got to push you out of your own house again. Why should you be the one who has to go?”

He leaned an elbow on the table, shutting his eyes and squeezing the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. “Mary, let's make sense. You aren't making this too easy for me, okay?”

She squared her shoulders and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “Aunt Mabel told me I could go to her place. Why don't I go there?” she suggested as he released his squeezing fingers and faced her again.

“Now listen, that doesn't make any sense at all. They pack a baker's dozen into that house and this one should stand empty while you go to their place? It makes more sense for me to go.”

“But I…”

“Hey…I want you and Sarah here. You need the house worse than me. I mean, I won't see you crowded in where you're not needed.”

“If I say I'll stay here, then what?”

“Well, I'll write and say I'm not coming to that job I planned to take.” She was relieved that at least he wouldn't be pushed that far. “I can come and work the place here days and sleep at Dvorak's nights.”

“You'd do that, Aaron? You'd keep the place going when it's not…” But she couldn't say it wasn't his.

“…not mine?” he finished for her. “The crops are more than half in. Who's going to take care of them if I don't?”

She just shrugged dismally.

“I didn't mean that like it sounded,” he consoled, seeing the shrug. “I don't know anything but this farm, and anyway, I really didn't want to go to Douglas County to work. You knew that, didn't you?”

She looked at her lap and nodded, then, smoothing her skirt repeatedly over her knees said, “I appreciate it, Aaron. I mean, I don't know what's going to happen here.” But then she became upset and waved a flat palm at the kitchen around them. “Oh, it's all so mixed up. The land and the house—just everything.”

“It usually is when somebody dies,” he said, looking at her squarely. “But we'll take it a day at a time, and for now I'll go to Dvorak's and see if I can't get the rest of the crops in and a new roof on the chicken coop. Okay?”

But she was silent.

“Mary?” he asked.

“Who gets the profits?” she challenged.

“The land is yours, Mary,” he said.

“The house is yours,” she said stubbornly, “and so is the chicken coop, for that matter, the
one with my hens in it. I'm not taking everything free, and I mean it.”

“Okay,” he agreed, “okay. We can work that out later. There won't be any profits till fall, and by that time some decisions will be made. But for now I go, and that's final.”

“Okay. So you go for the time being, but if you handle the crops, you handle the money. What do I know about the price of seeds and…well, everything? Jonathan took care of all that. The land is worthless to me since I don't know how to run it.”

“It's not worthless. You can sell it.”

He was serious, and it nearly made her laugh. “Sell it?” she asked, stupefied. “Do you think I'd sell the farm right out from under you?”

“Well, it's yours,” he said, “or it will be as soon as it's probated. Maybe then I could buy it…” But that sounded too ridiculous even to his own ears, and he finished, “…or something.”

“Aaron, can't we just keep on like we were for a while till I know what to do? I mean, do what you want, run the farm however you want, and keep what you need of the money or whatever. It'd be kind of like payment for me and Sarah living in the house.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I don't need payment for you and Sarah living in my house,” he said.

“Well, how're you supposed to live…on what?”

She had him there.

“People are so damn nosy around here. We just have to do our best to keep them from talk
ing till we settle the…estate.” The word was so forbidding.

“Aaron, I can't think about this any more tonight. I'm just too…can't we decide tomorrow?”

She looked whipped now, and of all the times he'd had to turn away from her, tonight would be the hardest.

“Mary, you don't seem to understand. I can't stay here tonight. With Aunt Mabel gone, I'll have to go to Dvorak's tonight. That's what I came up to tell you.”

“Tonight?” She swallowed. It was so quiet in the kitchen. He nodded silently.

“Will…will you wait till after supper?” she asked. He sighed and leaned back on his chair, running a hand through his hair.

“I've got to get some clothes together to take with me. You can get supper while I do that, okay?”

She agreed by nodding again, and the force of old habit made her want to please, so she asked, “What would you like? There's all kinds of stuff people brought. There's ham and hot dishes and…” But she stopped, the question sounding so silly now.

“Anything,” he said gently. “I'm not too hungry, Mary.” And she knew he'd probably rather not be faced with food at all, that he was doing it because she'd be lonely when he went.

She fixed some food while he went upstairs, and his footsteps sounded menacing above her, only because she knew they soon wouldn't be there anymore. The sound of his heels back and forth on his bedroom floor marked off the
minutes that were flying too fast, and soon he came back down, gathered a few items from underneath the sink, his comb from the comb holder on the wall.

She struggled with tears all through supper and finally said in a shaky voice, “Aaron, you come home for your meals. There's no sense in putting the Dvoraks out any more than necessary.”

“I…” He wanted to say he'd eat only noon dinner with her, but she looked so forlorn, was having such a hard time keeping the tears in check.

“Please, Aaron,” she begged, “what will I do here alone?”

“Okay,” he agreed, and she seemed to deflate, releasing the breath she'd held while waiting for his answer.

He was all finished eating, and she asked over-anxiously, “Why don't you have a piece of marble cake? Agnes brought it.”

He just shook his head no, but she got up anyway to get it from the pantry. He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Tomorrow will be easier. It's just this first night alone, but don't worry.” He got up and went over to the door and said, “I'll put this key up above the outside sill, and you lock up from the inside with this one. But you don't have to be scared of anything here, Mary.”

It wasn't fear she dreaded, just loneliness—so much more final than when they'd gone off to Dakota and left her alone.

He gathered up his things from the seat of the extra kitchen chair, and she said, “Wait, I'll put
them in something for you,” and went to get brown paper to wrap them in. But then she couldn't think of any more excuses to keep him there.

“I gotta go now, Mary girl, okay?” he asked at the door, and his lips were quivering. “Hey, it's okay,” he added, as much for himself as for her. “Now lock the door, and I'll see you in the morning.”

She breathed only half-breaths, fearing that if she relaxed any more than that, her whole chest would collapse and she'd burst into tears again.

He squeezed her forearm, then turned at a run and was gone down to the lean-to to saddle the mare. When he galloped out she was in the doorway, and he raised a hand but never slowed. She watched the road long after she knew she wouldn't see him on it again. Then she went into Aaron's house, where everything reminded her of Jonathan. She went over to the comb holder and stared at his comb, then walked to the living room where his coffin had been, but the furniture was all back in its usual order. Just when she thought she'd surely break, Sarah started crying upstairs and she ran up gratefully to her.

But later, lighting the lantern, she couldn't make herself go up to the bedroom, hers and Jonathan's. She sat holding Sarah long after the baby should have been put in her cradle. Finally, when her head lolled where she sat, she gave up and went upstairs, but at the door of the first bedroom she found she couldn't go in. Taking Sarah, she hurried on down the hall to Aaron's room and climbed into his bed, putting Sarah beside her for the night.

Just for tonight, she thought, just till I get used to the quiet. Aaron's pillow smelled of bay rum, but she lay stiff and lonely on it, thinking of the empty room down the hall.

There were too many things to confront: the cold, quiet stove in the mornings that Jonathan had always had hot and snapping when she came down. The silence, when the house used to ring with stove lids. His clean, folded clothes in the dresser drawers beside hers and, worse, his few dirty ones she found the first time she did the laundry. His old jacket on the hook behind the door. The coffee grinder he'd fixed after she dropped it. She never used it now. His chair stared at her across the table.

After a first awful week, she realized she'd have to overcome his absence, and she began moving back into their bedroom. She dug out an old comforter to change the look of their bed, and rearranged the furniture, moving the bed away from the wall. Each night she got to sleep a bit easier.

She began laying a fire in the stove when the coals had died in the evening, so all she had to do was touch a match to it when she came down in the morning.

When she found herself listening for his whistle, she'd crank up the graphophone and put the Sousa march on again and again, sometimes even waking Sarah with the racket.

She washed his clothes and put the cambric shirts up in Aaron's dresser. It took longer before she could pack away all the other things from their dresser.

She took a leaf out of the table and left only
two chairs at it, putting the other two beside the breakfront.

People noted Aaron, working around the place but, finding no signs of his belongings around the house, nodded heads in approval, commending him for the way he kept the farm going when everyone knew it wasn't even his. And giving up his house that way to Mary and her baby—why, what would the girl have done if it hadn't been for him?

He rode the saddle horse over the rim of the east hill at the same time each morning, never surprising her early or inconveniencing her late. She would have breakfast ready for him, the baby already fed and asleep before he arrived. She'd see him gallop into the yard, passing under the elms and taking the horse to the lean-to where he left the saddle before turning her out to graze. It gave Mary time to get the food on the table. He always knocked on the door before he came in, and she knew how foreign that must seem to him.

They talked about the crops, the work he planned to do that day, the neighbors, the weather, the work she'd do during the day. Nothing personal.

At noon he came again, this time stopping at the well to wash his hands, giving her time to know he was on his way up.