Did you tell her how to find us out here?
She told me she already knew. She’d been asking around about us, she said.
Oh?
That’s what she told me.
THAT AFTERNOON SHE DROVE UP TO THE HOGWIRE FENCING in front of the house in a ten-year-old cream-colored Ford convertible. She got out and surveyed the gray house and the patches of dirty snow and the three leafless stunted elm trees in the side yard, then came up through the wire gate onto the screened porch. Before she could knock, Raymond opened the door. Come in, he said, come in.
I see I got the right place.
Yes ma’am.
Now you’ll have to call me Linda today, she said. You have to remember that.
You better come in. It’s cold out here.
She entered the kitchen and looked across the room at the girl holding her child at the stove.
This here is Victoria Roubideaux and little Katie.
Yes. I remember them from when you were in the hospital. How do you do.
Victoria stepped forward and they shook hands. Linda May tried to touch Katie but the little girl turned away, pointing her face into her mother’s shoulder.
She’ll be more friendly after a while.
Let me take your coat, Raymond said.
He hung it next to his coveralls and his canvas work jacket on the peg beside the door. Linda May wore black slacks and a red sweater and there were bright silver hoops suspended from her ears. Something sure smells good, she said.
It’s just about ready, Victoria said. Why don’t you go ahead and be seated and I’ll bring it in.
Is there anything I can do to help?
I don’t think so.
Raymond led his guest into the dining room.
What a beautiful table, she said. It all looks so pretty.
This table was my mother’s table. It’s been in that same spot for as long as I can remember.
May I look at it?
Well, how do you mean?
Just underneath, at the table itself.
It’s going to be kind of dusty under there.
She lifted the white cloth and examined the polished surface and then peered below at its massive center pedestal. Why, this must be real walnut, she said. An antique.
It’s old anyhow, Raymond said. Older than me even. Why don’t you sit here.
He pulled out a chair and held it for her and she sat down.
Thank you, she said.
I’ll be right back.
He went into the kitchen, where Victoria was dishing food at the stove. What’s next? he said.
Will you take Katie in and get her settled?
Course I will. Come on, little darlin. Are you ready for some dinner? He bent over to pick her up, then leaned back to take in her round dark eyes that were exactly like her mother’s, and brushed the shiny black hair out of her face. He carried her into the dining room and sat her on a wooden box on the chair opposite Linda May. The little girl looked across the table at her, then picked up her napkin and studied it with great interest.
Victoria came in with the steaming bowl of chicken and dumplings and another of mashed potatoes and went back for a plate of hot rolls and a dish of green beans flavored with bacon. Raymond stood at the head of the table until she sat down and then took the seat across from her, with Linda May and Katie on either side.
Would you say grace? Victoria said.
Raymond appeared startled. What?
Would you say grace, please?
He glanced at Linda May and back at Victoria. I suppose I could take a run at it. It’s been a hell of a long time, though. He dropped his iron-gray head. His cheeks were chafed red and his white forehead shone. Lord, he said. What we’re going to do here, we’re just going to say thank you for this food on the table. And for the hands that prepared it for us. He paused for a long time. They all looked up at him. He went on. And for this bright day outside we’re having. He paused again. Amen, he said. Now do you think we can eat, Victoria?
Yes, she said, and passed Linda May the chicken and dumplings.
LINDA MAY DID MUCH OF THE TALKING WHILE VICTORIA and Raymond listened and answered her questions. Victoria tended to the little girl. After dinner they helped her clear the table, then she took Katie back to the downstairs bedroom they’d been sharing since Raymond had moved up to his old room again, and she put the little girl into bed and lay down with her and read to her until she was asleep, and afterward lay in the darkened room listening through the opened door to Raymond and the woman talking.
They’d already done the dishes together at the kitchen sink and had retired to the parlor. Around them the old flowered wallpaper, stained in places and darkened in one corner from some long-ago rain, was dim and gray. When Linda May entered the room she’d seated herself in Raymond’s chair and he had looked at her and hesitated, then he sat in the chair that had always been his brother’s.
My, she said, that was a wonderful dinner.
That was Victoria’s doing. We never taught her any of that.
Yes. She looked through the doorway into the dining room. The ceiling light made a bright glare over the white tablecloth. I don’t know how you two stand it out here, she said. It’s lonely, don’t you think?
I’ve always been out here, Raymond said. I don’t know how it’d be other places. There’s a neighbor a mile and a half down the road if you need something.
A farmer like you?
Well, I wouldn’t say we was farmers exactly.
What would you say?
I guess you’d have to call us ranchers. We raise cattle. Poverty-stuck old cattle ranchers, more like it.
You make it sound like you’re close to starving.
We’ve done that a time or two. Or pretty near to it.
How big a ranch do you have?
How much land?
Yes.
Well, we have about three sections. All counted.
How much is that? I don’t know what a section is.
There would be six hundred forty acres to a section. It’s mostly grass pasture, what we have. We put up a lot of brome hay every summer but we don’t do any real farming. Well, I keep saying we. I mean me now. I haven’t figured out what I’ll do about haying next summer.
How will you manage?
I’ll think of something. Hire somebody I expect.
It must be terribly hard without your brother here anymore.
It’s not the same. It’s not anything like it. Harold and me, we was together all our lives.
You just have to go on, don’t you.
He looked at her. People always say that, he said. I say as much myself. I don’t know what it means, though. He looked out the window behind her where the night had fallen. The yardlight had come on and there were long shadows in the yard.
She sat watching him. I was surprised to see you come into the tavern the other night, she said.
No, it ain’t like me, he said. I was surprised to be there myself.
Do you think you might come in again?
I imagine it’s possible.
I hope you do.
She sat with one foot folded up under her in his big recliner chair. Her red sweater looked very bright against her dark hair.
And I want to thank you again for inviting me to dinner today, she said.
Well, yes, ma’am. Like I say, Victoria is the one that did all that.
But you’re the one who asked me. I’ve lived in this area long enough to know quite a few people, but I don’t think I’ve ever been invited into one of these old ranch houses before.
Our grandfather homesteaded this place. Him and our grandmother. They come out in eighty-three from Ohio. But where do you come from yourself, can I ask you that?
From Cedar Rapids.
Iowa.
Yes. I was ready for a change.
Don’t they have good hospitals back there?
Oh, sure. Of course they do. But my life kind of fell apart, so I thought I’d come out here. I thought I’d start over, try out life in the mountains. But I only got this far and kind of broke down. I think I may go on to Denver yet, though.