"Maybe it's not so bad, once you get inside," she replied doubtfully.
"Actually, it's worse," Laura told her.
Janet turned to gaze at her sister-in-law. "Worse? What could be worse? It doesn't have dirt floors, does it?"
Laura carefully brought the car to a stop in the weed-choked front yard, and Janet fell silent, studying the house once more. There was something about it that didn't fit. And then she realized what it was.
"My God," she breathed. "All the windows are whole."
Laura gave her a puzzled look. "Why wouldn't they be?"
"But the place is abandoned. What about-well, don't kids like to throw rocks anymore?"
Suddenly understanding, Laura laughed. "Amos fixes them when they do get broken. I'm not going to pretend everybody's perfect around here." She opened the car door and eased her bulk out, smiling wryly at Janet. "I hope you carry your babies more gracefully than I carry mine," she said, then turned her attention to the house. "Actually, it isn't nearly as bad as it looks. It's weathered, and it needs a lot of work, but basically, it's sound. And the floors, believe it or not, are hardwood."
Slowly, the three of them went through the house, and to her own amazement Janet discovered that Laura was right. Though the paint and wallpaper were peeling and the floors needed refinishing, the house did seem to be solid. The floors were level, and the doors square. The plaster had no holes in it, and the plumbing worked.
There were four rooms downstairs-a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a pantry; four more upstairs-three bedrooms and a bathroom, with an attic tucked under the steeply sloping roof. Each of the upstairs rooms had a dormered window, including the bathroom. A narrow staircase through the center of the house connected the two floors, with a spring-loaded pull-down ladder providing access to the attic.
There was no furniture.
Ten minutes later, Janet and Laura were back in the living room.
"I know it isn't much," Laura sighed, moving out onto the front porch and lowering herself awkwardly onto the top step.
"No, Laura," Janet protested. "You were right. It's much better than it looks from the outside."
"And it's a lot better than it looked yesterday," Laura pointed out, brightening a little. "Ione Simpson and I worked like dogs cleaning out the grime."
"I wish you hadn't," Janet began. "The kids and I could have done it. And in your condition-"
Laura brushed her objections aside. "You'd have taken one look and fled. Ione and I almost gave it up ourselves. But by next week or the week after, you won't know the place. We'll have all the weeds cleaned out, the buildings painted, and the fields plowed."
"But I can't afford-"
"Janet," Laura said quietly, "this was Mark's home. Now it's going to be yours, and we're your family. Let us do for you what we'd do for each other." When Janet still hesitated, she added, "Please?"
"But there's so much that needs to be done-"
"And the whole town can do it," Laura stated. "We'll make a party of it, just like an old-fashioned roof-raising. Except, thank God, the roofs in good shape."
The two women fell silent, gazing out into the prairie. It was a comfortable silence, and Janet could feel the quiet of the plains seeping into her, easing the tension that had been her constant companion over the last several days.
"I think I'm going to like it here," she said at last. Next to her, she felt Laura shift her position slightly.
"Really?" the other woman asked. Then she laughed, a brittle laugh that made Janet turn to face her.
"It's so quiet. So different from New York. There's a sense of calm here that I haven't felt since I was a little girl. I'd almost forgotten it."
"That's boredom you're feeling," Laura remarked, her voice tinged with uncharacteristic sarcasm… "Right now it seems like peace, but just wait a year or so."
"Oh, come on," Janet cajoled. "If it's that bad, why do you stay?"
Now Laura turned to face her, her large eyes serious. "You think it's that easy?" she asked. "How do you leave a place like this? When you've grown up here, and your husband's grown up here, and you've never been anywhere else, how do you leave? They don't let you, you know."
"But Mark-"
"Mark ran away," Laura said, her voice suddenly bitter. "Mark fled, and I should have too. Except that when he got out, I was too young to go with him. And by the time I was old enough, it was too late. I was already trapped."
"Trapped? What do you mean, trapped?"
"Just that," Laura told her. "That's what a small town is, you know. A trap. At least that's what Prairie Bend is. I used to dream about getting out. I used to think I'd take Ryan and just run away. But of course, I never did." Suddenly her eyes met Janet's. "You won't either, if you stay. They'll get to you, just like they get to everyone."
"Who? Laura, what are you talking about?"
"Father-all of them."
"Laura-"
But Laura pressed on, her words building into a torrent. "I can't get out, Janet. I'm stuck here, trapped by this whole place. I tried to leave once. I really tried. Do you know what happened? Mother just looked at me. That's all she had to do. Just look at me, with those sad, empty eyes.
She didn't have to say a word. Didn't have to tell me that I was all she had left, that Mark was gone, and the baby was dead, and there was no one left but me. It was all right there in her eyes. Ever since that night…" Her voice trailed off, and her eyes wandered away from Janet, across the yard, fixing finally on a pair of doors that lay low to the ground, covering what Janet assumed was a root cellar.
"What night?" Janet asked at last. "What are you talking about?"
Laura turned back to her, and when she spoke, her voice was unsteady. "Didn't Mark ever tell you about it?" Then, without waiting for Janet to reply, she sighed heavily. "No, I suppose he didn't. No one ever talks about that night. Not mother or father, not even me. So why would Mark?"
"Do you want to talk about it?" Janet asked, her voice gentle, sure that whatever had happened that night must account for the odd haunted look she had seen in Laura's eyes.
There was a long silence, and then, finally, Laura shook her head. When she spoke, it was in a whisper. "I'm not even sure I know what happened, really. Isn't that strange? I think it was the most important night of my life, and I'm not even sure what happened." Again she fell silent, then finally nodded toward the twin doors she had been staring at a few moments before. "I was in there. Right in there, in the cyclone cellar."
"Here?" Janet asked, her voice reflecting her puzzlement.
Laura's eyes came back to Janet. And then she suddenly understood, and a harsh laugh emerged from her throat. "My God, they didn't even tell you that, did they? This was our house. This is the house Mark and I were born in."
"But I thought-their farm-"
"This was our farm until that night. It was in the summer. I was nine, and Mark must have been sixteen. And mother was pregnant."
"Pregnant?" Janet repeated. "I thought there were only the two of you."
"There were," Laura replied, her voice dropping to a whisper. "The baby-well, mother lost it. At least, that's what they always said." Her eyes clouded for a moment, and she seemed almost to disappear somewhere inside herself, into some dark corner Janet knew she couldn't penetrate. And then Laura's expression cleared again, and she began speaking once more. Something in her voice had changed, though. It was almost as if she was repeating a memorized story, reciting carefully rehearsed words.
"It was hot that day," she said, "and Mother had been trying to do too much, and her labor came on early. Father was furious at her. It was almost as if he blamed her for the early labor. And then a storm came up, and they sent me to the cyclone cellar. And I stayed there. All afternoon, and all night. I stayed there," she repeated. And then, once more, "I stayed there."