“You have to drink it fast, Martha,” he said to her with a wink at his comrades. “Like this.” He picked his beer up and chugged half of it down.
“Fast?”
“Um-hmmm.”
She picked up the beer and drank three swallows before coughing and choking. The toothpick man patted her on the back.
“That’s a good girl. Take a couple more swallows. It’ll go down easier.”
She did as she was told.
Mike watched all this with a wary eye. These guys were troublemakers. Poor old Martha, she didn’t hurt anybody; she was just a poor lost soul. These guys got no right to get her drunk. When she had finished her beer, a white mustache rimming her smeared upper lip, he said to them, “Okay. You’ve had your fun. Now get out of here.”
But Martha, with a new feeling growing inside of her, put her hands up to the bartender’s face and simply said, “Stop.” The bar was unearthly quiet, with just the ticking of the clock in the background, while she tried to concentrate, wrestling with this new feeling, a new concept. It was a new idea, it was just out of reach, please, where did it go? Her eyes started to bulge a little bit, and perspiration stood out on her powdered forehead as she worked so very hard to grasp that one thing, but like a fine wire, it had sprung from her mind. It was lost.
“Lost,” she said, slumping a little.
“C’mon, Mike,” said the one missing a front tooth. “She just needs a little fun. Retards are entitled.”
“Retard?” Martha picked up her head and examined each of the faces. “Daddy?”
“Oh, Christ. Come on, Martha, maybe you better be getting on home.”
She remembered. “Chickens gotta eat,” she said.
Mike smiled and handed her the sack. She left the bar, her feet unsteady, strange thoughts confusing her as she walked home. She walked toward her tiny little house with weeds up to the windows and scrawny chickens picking at beetles. She felt the warm places where the man had touched her arm and then her back. She walked toward the faded memories of shame and disgust and tears and sorrow, and suddenly she remembered the thread of her thought. She let it come, let it find its own way through the crevices of her mind, tried not to block the path of new understanding, tried to remember her mother’s words. “Just relax, honey. It’ll come. Be patient.”
There it was, but not an idea—an overpowering feeling, a flooding of emotion, of understanding. The companionship in the bar, the nice Mr. McRae offering to buy her bread. Her breath came in short gulps. She wanted more of it; she wanted more people, more talk, more laughter. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t keep up. She knew she couldn’t. A hot, solitary tear of loneliness squeezed out the corner of her eye.
The moment passed. Martha swiped at the tear with the back of her hand as she trudged home. “Dust,” she said to herself.
CHAPTER 2
Fern Cook and Harry Mannes were married on Fern’s seventeenth birthday. Immediately after the intimate ceremony in Fern’s white house on the tree-lined street, the newlyweds took the train to the farm Harry had inherited from his parents. They had died of flu while he was in school, and without the minor support money they sent every month, he was forced to drop out and return to Morgan, Illinois, and the farm of his childhood.
Morgan was a small place, a nowhere place, and Harry spent many hours walking the campus thinking about Morgan, the farm, and his parents. God, he didn’t want to go back. More than once he lifted his fist to the sky and cursed, then begged God to give him something better. His parents had modest savings, and he could always sell the farm, but it was his home, his heritage. When the bitterness had passed, Harry thought realistically about his situation. He knew he had to go back. The farm was his parents’ life; they wanted it to be his life. He knew, deep down, that it would be his life. His whole life. Once that was decided, he began to think of the realities of the farm, and of Morgan. And he decided he needed to take a wife back with him.
He began attending the local Congregational Church and saw Fern, a small, dark beauty with a songbird’s voice. Listening to her solo in the church choir was as close to heaven as he would ever get, he thought. So he went to church twice, and asked her if he could come courting.
One month later they were married.
Fern and her parents were very taken with this good-looking young man who had just inherited a farm. Fern was a constant worry to her father—she was too good-looking and too available—so he promoted this courtship with all his heart. Fern could do worse. He was flattered that an educated, rich man like Harry would take such an interest in Fern, but when the train pulled out of the station and his daughter waved to him one last time, he saw her not as she was—a young bride, in love and happy—but as an old embittered woman who had lived too long and known too much tragedy and grief. This premonition shook him, and the tears ran down his face. Even as he stood there, his petite wife by his side, he waved back and grieved for his lost daughter and her lost life.
Fern loved the tickety-rock motion of the train, sneaking glances at her new husband, thrilled with the adventure of her life. The suddenness of this turn of events was overwhelming, but she’d half expected it. She’d always known something special was in store for her.
Daddy always called her his special little girl. She was, she knew it. She didn’t know how yet, but there was a seed of something buried deep in the soil of her heart, something special, that no one else had. As she looked at Harry, his hair slicked back, wearing his one and only suit, she felt the stirrings in her breast, felt the gift of her specialness sprouting and taking root within the nourishment of newness, surprise, Harry, love.
The trip took longer than she had expected. By the time they pulled into a tiny station with a tinier sign that identified it as Morgan, Illinois, she was filthy and exhausted. Dust clung to the inside of her nostrils and behind her teeth. She felt not at all ready to meet Harry’s hometown.
Harry helped her down from the train, then handed her the heavy cloth bags she was to carry to their home. They walked down the main street, each with two suitcases, stopping frequently to shake hands somberly with old friends. Harry seemed to know everyone; he ducked in and out of shops, systematically introducing her to every person they met in the two sweltering blocks of town. People offered their condolences on the death of his parents, their greetings, their pleasure at seeing Harry come back to run the farm. He gracefully declined offers to take them out there, much to Fern’s disappointment, but Hiram McRae, who owned the general store, said he’d drop some things off for them later. Then they walked out of town and kept walking.
The bags were heavy banging against her legs, and it was hot and her clothes were stifling, but Fern would not complain. She would not start their marriage grumbling. They walked down the main street until it branched off in three directions, and Harry guided her down the rutted dirt road for another half mile, to their new home. Harry became a silent stranger as soon as they left the town of Morgan, but she respected his grief, both for his fallen dreams and for his dead parents. She could feel the memories of his childhood closing in on him with every step. She kept her mind busy dreaming of setting up housekeeping, of eating fresh fruit in the shade, of their children playing on the lawn. She tried hard not to think of her best clothes being ruined by perspiration stains, or their wedding night.
The road took a turn to the right, and there was the farm. It had been beautiful once. Fern could almost see the way it had been, when Harry was a child. The way it would be again. They would make it even better for their children.
For now, however, it was a shambling wreck. Harry had been away at school for three years, and it was clear the farm had been neglected the entire time. The house and barn needed painting, the weeds had overcome the yard and were taking over the buildings, the chicken coop had collapsed, and a rusted hulk of a car with no wheels leaned crazily on two blocks.