My father sat dying, sheltered from the rain but not from what assailed him.
He was listening to the squabble; already the pain was coming to his temples. I closed my eyes. How could I leave him to this? How? I knew he would be dead within a few years, and I’d be in Milwaukee. The thought pierced me like an icicle to the heart. My lips trembled.
Leave? Impossible.
My mother rapped on the window and motioned, Get in here. My father and I, clammy with rain now, sat still, not speaking.
I suddenly thought of Jake Smuddie. He’d left town after the arrest of Gustave. He’d told a friend he was going to California, and his father supposedly had implored Chief Stone to fetch him back. When Caleb Stone refused, telling him Jake was a man and responsible for his own life, Herr Professor Smuddie had stormed away and cursed the good sheriff in rapid-fire German. Now I pictured this boy I always liked, out there on the Pacific Coast, the footballer on the white sand. All right. That was all right. That was good.
My father was speaking. “I never saw the world, Edna.”
“What?”
“I planned to. I started to, coming to America. Everyone plans to. America gave me this porch. And I can’t even see that.”
The rapping at the window. My mother, furious now.
“I can’t leave the family.” I choked out the words.
“Of course you can. You already have.”
“But I love…”
Jacob Ferber raised his hands, palms out, and I watched his long, slender fingers getting wet with rain, the sleeves of his jacket soggy. He turned his body to face me. He cleared his throat, and he was smiling.
“Go.”