The Magic Of Ordinary Days Part 2

After four long days of this, I told him over dinner, "We could stand to stock up on groceries."

He glanced up between bites of bread. "Sure thing. I'll drive you into town tomorrow."

"I can drive a car."

He rumpled the napkin to his face and said, "Sure enough?" But his eyes told me he was uncertain. "Sometimes the clutch on that truck tends to stick."

"I'll learn how to handle it." I wanted to pat his hand or his back in the same manner one a.s.sures a child, but most certainly he would've crumbled into ash if I'd touched him. "If it would make you feel better, I'll drive with you along first, so you can see for yourself."

He still looked as if he had just chewed cactus. "Tomorrow, then," he said.

The next morning, I drove with him in the truck, the "beet box," as Ray called it, west toward La Junta, where I got my first glimpse of j.a.panese interns toiling in the fields along the way, their dark hair like ripe blackberries among the greenery.

Ray gestured that way and said, "They're from Camp Amache."

"But isn't that a long way east of here?"

"The government brings them in, puts them up, so they can work where needed."

"Will they come to your farm?"

"You mean our farm?"

A second later, I nodded.

"Sure enough."

We pa.s.sed through La Junta and drove the paved road south-west all the way to Trinidad. Ray said it had a feed store with the best prices, and therefore justified the farther traveling. But as I was driving, I realized he had chosen the route purposefully. Maybe he wanted to drive all that distance so I could see some variety in terrain, or maybe he wanted me to get a long drive under my belt, or maybe he wanted to observe my driving skills on less-traveled roads. I didn't know or ask why. At any rate, I enjoyed taking the same route that had once been part of the Santa Fe Trail, the path that had brought pioneers, trappers, and traders into the former hunting grounds of roaming bands of Arapaho and Cheyenne. Now the road pa.s.sed quickly through farmlands that changed to range lands, then through virgin prairie land still not tilled or grazed.

By the time we reached Trinidad, I was used to the stiff clutch and loose steering of Ray's truck. I even backed it into a spot between two others along the former trail, now Main Street.

The town of Trinidad struck me as a conundrum of differences: adobe buildings next to brick Victorians, coal miners among sheep and cattle ranchers, citizens of Mexican descent among Anglos. Cobblestones covered the hilly streets of old downtown not far from the smoothly paved blacktop highway. Without a military base nearby, the town was distinctive for extremes of ages, too. Children ran in and out of the shadows cast by store-fronts, whereas a prevalence of older men and women seemed to thrive inside the shadows, becoming a denser part of the darkness themselves.

"I've read about Trinidad," I told Ray and handed him back the keys to the ignition. "This is one of the oldest towns in the state."

Ray headed for the feed store while I headed for the library. I hadn't opened my book on Egypt yet; somehow I couldn't do it here. But I was desperate for something to read.

As I walked the downtown area, I noticed the lack of attention I received. People pa.s.sing me on the street looked beyond me, as if one sideways glimpse had already told them I didn't belong. During the war, we were taught that anyone could be a spy, even a nice-appearing or pleasant person. Posters everywhere featured Uncle Sam holding a finger to his lips. "Shhh." Don't give away secrets. "Loose lips sink s.h.i.+ps." The message was on the radio, in the newspapers, and in movies. But as I walked on, I doubted that distrust was the reason I was being ignored in this place. In the city, pa.s.sersby on the street didn't notice each other, either, but it had to do more with preoccupation and hurriedness. Here, I got the impression that newcomers or visitors simply didn't matter.

I sped up. By the time I reached the library, I was salivating like Pavlov's dog. Inside the door, I paused for a minute, breathing it in. I loved everything about the library, even the smell of dust on the bookshelves. I loved fingering through tight card catalogs, perusing the rows of endless subject matter, lifting books so word-heavy they felt as though they might break my arm. In the local history section, I read up on Trinidad. First a favorite camping spot for nomadic tribes and later mountain men, the town became a stopping point for Conestoga wagons heading south over Raton Pa.s.s on the trail to Santa Fe.

When I ran out of reading time, I signed up for a library card and checked out the most detailed local history book I could find, a basic cookbook, and The Sun Also Rises. I had read some of Hemingway's later books, but had always intended to read this early one that had made him famous. Now would be my chance.

On the way back, Ray drove. I tried enjoying the silence. Before me, the domed sky was even larger than the sage lands below it. As we pa.s.sed under the shade of high clouds, I turned to face Ray across the seat. "Do you know much about the history of this land we're driving through?"

He shrugged and kept his eyes focused on the empty road ahead. "Can't say that I do."

"I found it in this book." I spread my fingers over the wrinkled leather cover. "It was once part of a huge land grant belonging to Mexican citizens."

He shook his head. "Didn't know that."

"The grant covered four million acres, but U.S. courts threw out Mexican claims for lack of written proof, and the lands were opened up for homesteading, for example, to your family." I only wanted to share a conversation, but as the words came out of my mouth, I realized they sounded like a school report.

"That so?" Ray said. He glanced over his shoulder at the things he'd piled in the truck bed. Clearly he wasn't interested in what I was saying.

"What about your family, Ray? How did they come here and why?"

He crunched himself deeper into the driver's seat. "Well. They came out here and started farming."

"In what year? Where did they live?"

Again, he focused straight ahead. "Don't rightly know the details. Better ask Martha," he said. "Our grandma used to tell us all about that stuff, but I'm sorry to say I've gone and forgot it."

Now I looked straight ahead, too. s.h.i.+mmering distances on the horizon never came closer. After we pa.s.sed a train going in the opposite direction, I waited until the high whine of the steam whistle left the still air, then I pointed to the tracks. "In some places the ruts are so deep you can still see the old Santa Fe Trail. Right there, between the tracks and this road."

"Sure enough?" he said, but that was all.

Afterward, I tried reading my book but had to stop because it was making me motion sick. And the only other thing Ray told me was the name of the high point along the road, Jack's Point, a grazing spot for mules. When we stopped for groceries in La Junta, I couldn't think of anything to talk to him about as we walked the few aisles picking out canned goods and produce together.

Before we left town I bought a copy of the other La Junta newspaper, the Democrat, and looked over copies of both the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post, all of which I found out were available for mail delivery. I decided to subscribe to the Denver Post. Reading about events a day late was better than not reading about them at all.

The following morning, I got up out of a sound sleep to make Ray breakfast. He shoveled it down and headed out the door, then I returned to my room and napped until a more reasonable time for awakening. The next two days, however, Ray started staying around later in the mornings. I heard him up before dawn, just as before, but then he'd be shuffling around the house instead of leaving it. When I got up, there he was, waiting around in the kitchen for breakfast and drinking down coffee.

One morning I told him, "You don't have to stay in because of me."

He had continued sipping out of his mug and didn't look up. "I just been more tired, is all."

I opened my mouth, just about to do it, to correct his English. Most of the time Ray spoke correctly, but every so often he slipped up. He reminded me of fellow students I'd known who had grown up without proper English having been spoken in their households. They knew the correct ways from schooling, but sometimes what they heard at home accidentally sneaked out of them, and how those errors embarra.s.sed them, especially around students such as me, who rarely even slumped to slang. So I closed my mouth before I could say a word to Ray.

The next morning, after I'd made pancakes and fried eggs for breakfast, Ray drank coffee and lingered until the sun was well up into the eastern sky. I asked him about the harvest, and he answered by naming machinery and listing a nondescript course of events I had difficulty following. He told me about various fields, reminding me that he had shown them to me during our drive. But I couldn't remember one field from another, although I pretended I could.

After he went out to the truck and drove away, I sat until my coffee turned cold. I finished cleaning the kitchen and watched the breeze coming in through the window screen, how it lifted the curtain into an arc, dropped it, then lifted it again.

How could something as big as this farm feel so confining? I'd only been here a week, but it felt more like a month. And I'd never spent so much time alone before. Already I'd discovered the weird things I was capable of doing, the thoughts I was capable of entertaining, during too much free time. I'd already examined my hair up close in the mirror and categorized all the different strands of color I found there. I'd studied my toes, counted clouds in the sky, and tried to discern the different facial expressions that could be made by a cow. I'd wondered how many people would die overseas in the time it took me to make up my bed.

Soon I folded up my ap.r.o.n, changed from loafers to sneakers, and headed for the outbuildings I'd been staring down ever since my arrival. I found the barn guarded at the open doors by a milk cow that was so big up close I hate to admit it scared me. From behind the cow, a long-eared hound plodded out the barn doors. I had seen him from afar several times before, but he'd kept his distance from the house. Now as I stood outside the barn, he chugged up to me like a streetcar going uphill. He padded circles about me, sniffing my scent that had fallen down into the dust. I reached down and rubbed the bony top of his head and stroked down his backbone-a string of marbles set out under a rug.

"Hey, boy," I whispered to him.

Now he sniffed around my neck and huffed out dog breath that made me smile and remember. When I was a child, we'd never been allowed a pet. But Abby, Bea, and I had often visited a neighbor who kept a yard full of schnauzers and miniature poodles, so we grew up with some knowledge of pets and no fear of dogs. When one of the poodles gave birth to a litter, we each chose a favorite before those pups had a chance to open their eyes. Although we couldn't take them home, Abby and Bea chose fat white ones, and I picked a wriggling black that reminded me of a caterpillar. I still remember the name I gave him: Shadow.

That old hound padded along with me as I moved on. We pa.s.sed by rows of crops lined out to the horizon. This was a place of leaves, stalks, and stems in every shade of green, ordered and watered by man but grown by the blue, dry sky. The land was breathing deeply. Human exchange of air seemed meager compared to all the synthesis going on at ground level, and the houses and buildings seemed simply like small boxes of right angles and deadwood planks surrounded by all these big, buzzing fields.

A clay-colored tumbleweed wedged between rows of green leaves caught my eye. Th.o.r.n.y, trapped, and out of place, it let me know the insignificance of any one, distinctive thing caught in a place so mapped with sameness. Aunt Eloise and Aunt Pearl had once accused me of hiding out in school. Instead Father had sent me into hiding here, where the openness of land and sky made hiding out about as unlikely as finding clover among the sage.

I went past a windmill that pumped water out of the well, a wind charger that Ray had told me provided our electricity, and a gasoline storage tank. Behind the barn and next to the livestock pond, I found the last of the outbuildings. Stacked with crates and old tools, the inside of the shed smelled like the attic where my mother had once kept boxes of our old dolls and dresses. On a shelf, I found the hand tools Ray's mother must have used for flower gardening. I picked up a small trowel, brushed off the dirt, and pa.s.sed it slowly from one hand to the other. It was already too late to start summer annuals, but in the fall, I could still plant bulbs.

I searched over and under the other shelves in the shed and found things I hadn't expected to find. In the house, there seemed to be room for only the most practical of items. But here, I found pieces of the past-an old wooden b.u.t.ter churn, a small pie safe, b.u.t.tonhooks, and a flat pan with a long handle that was once used to heat bedding. Pioneers would heat the pan over the fire, then run it in between the sheets to warm them before slipping in for the night.

The b.u.t.ter churn and the pie safe needed to be sanded and refinished, but the b.u.t.tonhooks and pan simply needed polis.h.i.+ng. Everything I found could be worked on and restored. I could even learn to do the restoration myself. Soon I found an empty burlap bag, shook it open, and began stacking it inside with the things I wanted.

That evening, Ray came in early. I was just about to tell him about the shed when he asked, "What do you say we go and visit my sister tonight?" Then he headed for the bathroom.

Maybe he sensed I needed a change, or maybe he needed one himself. "For dinner?" I called after him.

"You bet," he said as he closed the door.

I looked about for the telephone before remembering we didn't have one. "Don't we need to let her know we're coming?" I called back.

"No need," he answered from behind the door.

While he showered, I chose my khaki-colored dress with collar and shoulder pads that I had bought while shopping with my friend Dot shortly after Mother's death. Never before had I bought anything so military-inspired, as was the latest fas.h.i.+on, but after I had tried it on at May Company and with Dot's rea.s.surances, I had decided it was a good fit and quite flattering. I donned the dress, polished my shoes, and then combed out my hair and put it up in pincurls so that just before we left, I could take it down and style it in a bob to graze my shoulders.

Ray came out dressed in his better slacks and a clean plaid s.h.i.+rt. He had washed his hair and combed it over the thinning area on top, but obviously hadn't checked the back of his head. Open to the air, his biggest bald spot s.h.i.+ned like an Easter egg in the gra.s.ses.

Finally ready, Ray and I slid into the truck. As he started the engine, Ray looked my way. "Onions are ready. This'll be the last chance to get out for a long time coming."

The trip took us nearly twenty minutes of travel down rutted dirt roads, over wooden bridges without railings, and past wind-mills that creaked around in silent currents of air. As we pa.s.sed by some spare green plants I hadn't seen before, I asked Ray, "Are those tomatoes?"

"No. Those are potatoes."

"Oh."

"They get grown mostly down in the San Luis Valley." He glanced over at me once, then continued. "But some farmers around here grow a few fields, then send the harvest straight off to the potato chip makers."

"I see."

We kept the windows down for needed cooling, letting the air whip in. I could feel the output of plants landing heavily on my skin. And as we arrived, I could tell my efforts to stay neat had done little good. Dust covered the sleeves and bodice of my dress, and I could feel tangles twisted in my hair.

Martha and Hank greeted us with smiles and handshakes, as if dropping by unexpected weren't unexpected at all. Their farm could have been a replica of ours. Inside the house, which had had a second story added for more bedrooms, they introduced me to their children. Sixteen-year-old Ruth wore a big s.h.i.+rt over denims, and her hair swung behind her in a long, rusty-colored pony-tail. Her eyes grew large as she looked me over. "Is that dress ready-made?" she asked.

It hadn't occurred to me until then, but of course store-bought clothes might still be considered quite extraordinary out here. During the Depression, farm wives and children were still wearing chicken-feed-sack dresses and flour-sack underwear. I nodded to Ruth and said, "It's my favorite," but then I wondered if perhaps I should have worn something simpler.

"Oh, I can see why," she replied, still looking me up and down.

Ruth's thirteen-year-old sister Wanda rose from reading a book to be introduced to me. She had copper-colored hair the same shade as her freckles and thick, straight hawk brows that must have spent a lot of time in thought. The two boys, Hank Jr. and Chester, looked more like twins than brothers. "They're only a year apart," Martha explained. As I shook their hands, I noticed they had the same shade of brown eyes that ran in the blood of this family-lighter than mine-the color of brown eggsh.e.l.ls.

After a polite exchange of how-do-you-do's, the boys headed back upstairs to finish a game of cards until dinner was served. Wanda took herself back between pages, but Ruth never left my side. Over dinner and dessert, she stared at me. She asked about the fabric of my dress, and later she asked to try on the opal ring I wore on my right hand, a gift from my mother.

In the kitchen, Martha started pulling out pots and pans, ladles and spoons, jars of spices. Ruth and I offered to help her, but she a.s.signed us nothing but the table to set, and working together, we finished it in minutes. As we sat to fold the napkins, Martha kept moving about her kitchen with a certain ease of movement and steady purpose that let everyone around her know she had everything under control. Ray and Hank discussed farming business endlessly, and I overheard words and terms I'd never heard before, letting me know for certain just how out of my own element I was.

Beet pullers and feedlots. Fresnos and slips.

At last, Martha took a rest. She sat with me at the kitchen table while dinner baked in the oven. Ruth stayed with us, too, her chair scooted up flush with mine. When I told Martha I was not a cook, she offered to loan me recipe cards she kept in an old oak box, and she told me she knew a secret for perfect piecrust, if ever I wanted to know it. And she offered to pa.s.s on her "starter" for baking bread. I thanked her but didn't say I had no wish to spend my one evening out wasting it in talk of nothing but the kitchen.

"How did your ancestors arrive here?" I asked her instead.

"Oh, well, that's a story," she said as she knotted her hands together on the tabletop. "Our grandfather came out here in 1870, one of the first to homestead in these parts. He was only nineteen at the time."

Already she had me hooked. "Where did he come from? Why did he do it?"

Martha looked puzzled. "I guess I don't truthfully know for certain why he did it. Most likely it was the lure of free land. For poor folks, owning land was the only way to get respectable," she said with a smile. "Anyway, he came out from New York City's Lower East Side, traveling by rail and by steams.h.i.+p and then by rail again all the way to Granada. From there he loaded a wagon and followed the Arkansas."

"And he was alone?"

"At the beginning of the journey, yes." She smiled and gazed as though remembering something pleasant. "I heard the story many times as a young girl. He met our grandmother, a pretty little thing of only seventeen, on the steams.h.i.+p and convinced her father that he would be a good husband. He was quite the smooth talker, I heard. They were married by the s.h.i.+p's captain, and she finished the journey along with him."

Martha went on to tell me that through tough times and often disappointing farming, her grandparents had built crude homes, then other homes, and stayed on. Martha had a gift for story-telling, like that of my mother. If only her brother shared the same gift.

"In the earliest days," she told me, "farming wasn't very successful without irrigation. They had to try to raise crops just on rainwater, which isn't much. Then, beginning in the 1870s, the irrigation companies put in ca.n.a.ls off the river, but the farmer still had to dig out his own ditches." She sat back in her chair and pulled at a loose thread on the tablecloth. "I doubt any of us could work that hard nowadays."

She studied my face now, but without a hint of hardness. "I keep a box of old photographs and papers in the attic. If you ever want to take a look, you're most welcome."

I nodded. "I have to say I find the history of the farm more interesting than present-day operations."

Martha smiled; then, after a period of silence, she glanced over toward the divan at her brother. "When Daniel joined up, Ray decided to stay behind and run the farm." She looked down at her hands. "It's funny. They never fought over anything. And they never spoke of dividing up the land between them, either. Most brothers would have done that, you know." She caught my eye for a moment, then looked back at her hands. "They always planned on running the farm together. When Daniel returned."

Ruth was still right beside me, but now she looked away.

I said the useless words, "I'm sorry," to Martha, although after my mother's death, while I was still walking pure grief, those words had done nothing for me. I had wanted people to do something bold, take action, shout and rage, anything to express the magnitude of my loss. But I said the words, "I'm sorry," to Martha because I was incapable of creating anything else.

Martha took a long breath. "Now that he's gone ..." But by then, her air was gone, too.

I finished saying it for her. "Of the Singletons, now only the two of you remain."

She looked up at me. "No longer."

I puzzled, and then she smiled. "Now we have you."

Later the two boys joined us at the table. They wanted to know everything about living in Denver. Did I go often to the cinema, was the capitol building really made of gold, what card games were played at the USO, and had I ever met the governor? When Martha excused herself, the oldest boy, Hank Jr., moved to my side. After he checked to make sure his father wasn't listening, he whispered, "I want to tell you something, but it's a secret."

I crossed my heart. "Promise not to tell."

"When I grow up, I don't want to be a farmer. I want to live in the city like you did, and I want to work in one of those factories that make s.h.i.+ps for the Navy."

I touched his shoulder. This youngest generation had known nothing of a world without war. "Let's hope the Navy doesn't need wars.h.i.+ps by then."

After dinner, Martha took me outside and showed me the new porch swing they had recently hung. "Let's sit, Livvy," she said.

But Ruth slipped down on the seat beside me before Martha had a chance. The boys stood across from me and thought up more questions for me to answer. As I continued to chat about the city life, Ruth inched her way closer to me. I could feel her studying the movements of my face, and I could feel her breath land on my shoulder, soft, like warm air without wind.

In the middle of our conversation, Ruth blurted out to her mother, "I want to cut off my hair." Then she touched one of the curls resting on my shoulder. "I want a bob, just like Livvy's."

And after that, I couldn't make myself meet Martha's eyes.