Lost Without the River Read online

  Through those narrow openings, scents of grass and wild clover filtered in, along with a few flies and box elder bugs. Those bugs gathered in great clusters on the sides of buildings every August. When viewed up close, they displayed an art deco design of slate gray and orange, accented by protruding red eyes. These annoying creatures created dilemmas for grown-ups (and entertainment for us kids) as they slowly crawled up the back of the person seated in the pew ahead. To brush the bug off or let it continue its slow ascent? The first action would disturb the unaware person, perhaps jarring him from a short snooze. No action would eventually lead to a startled jump as the bug advanced to the person’s skin, followed by a conspicuous whack that sent the insect to the floor. The bug-laden person would hope to accomplish this final act of the mini drama without disturbing the priest’s exaltations.

  At every Sunday Mass from the beginning of May to the end of August, prayers for a good harvest were added to the service just before the sermon. Priests never omitted those prayers; the welfare of their parishes was as dependent on the quality and quantity of the crops just as much as it was for members of the congregation. Everyone responded to those intercessions the priest voiced with fervent intensity.

  In 2017, as I was sorting through old papers, I found a little leaflet of those prayers. I decided to time them. A friend took the priest’s role, calling on the individual saints. I took the part of the parishioners, appealing to those holy ones for mercy.

  “St. Stephen.”

  “Pray for us.”

  “St. Lawrence.”

  “Pray for us.”

  “St. Vincent.”

  “Pray for us.”

  “All ye holy martyrs.”

  “Pray for us.”

  And so we continued, calling out saint after saint, twelve more, until the end. We spoke the prayers at the pace at which I remember their being said in our church—that is, rapidly. Even so, it took us a full ten minutes to complete the series. At that point, the essential parts of the service were still to come. After a recitation of the Creed of the Apostles, there was the Offertory, followed by Communion. None of this would be hurried. So when the priest finally dismissed us with a rumbling “Go in peace,” we were ready to bolt out into the fresh air.

  RETURNING TO CHURCH

  Might it have been my mother’s announcement to my father that she was expecting? Pregnant again, that time with me. Was that the push that tumbled my father into nonbelief? Even though it was a mortal sin to miss Sunday Mass, at some point my father had stopped going to church with us.

  And was it I, a few years later, who caused him to reassess his faith?

  After my father’s funeral, which was held in our parish church, my sisters talked to me about this.

  “You were the one who brought Dad back to the Church,” they told me. There was something like awe in their voices.

  “Mother became very unhappy when Dad stayed home Sunday after Sunday,” Helen said.

  “He always said he didn’t have enough time, that there was too much work to be done,” Patt said. “He used that same excuse for years.”

  “What did I do? What did I say?” I asked my sisters. I would have been about five at that time.

  Neither could offer an answer or any details, and I have no memory of it. No matter what tactic I had used to persuade my father to once again go to church, the three of us recognized that doing so would have required a great deal of resolve on his part. To “return,” he first had to go to confession. “Bless me father, for I have sinned. It’s been [fill in the blank] years since my last confession.” Then he’d have to list all of the sins that he’d committed during the intervening years. And, according to church doctrine at that time, almost everything was a sin, and not attending Sunday Mass was a grievous sin, a mortal sin.

  In the airless cubicle, a screen separated the sinner from the priest. Privacy was an illusion. In our small parish, the priest recognized every voice. Of course he knew it was Roy Hoffbeck who knelt only a few inches from him on the other side of the screen. And, of course, my father knew that the priest knew.

  It’s unknown what turned my father away or what I might have done that gave him the impetus to return, but I’m sure it was his love for my mother that gave him the courage. He must have realized he possessed the power to erase one of her sorrows.

  So, one Saturday evening, in an unknown season of an unknown year, he parked the car, climbed the steps, and opened the heavy wooden door of the church. George Esterguard was the priest on the other side of the screen, waiting to hear my father’s confession. After he had listed his sins, Father Esterguard’s words would have been gentle, his counsel spoken carefully, and the penance he pronounced one that could be accomplished easily. As my father exited the confessional, each of the men, parishioner and priest, would have felt unencumbered and free of a great weight.

  In preparation for my First Communion, I’d been required to confess my sins aloud to the priest during my First Reconciliation. It was on a summer day some years after that when the same priest sat on the other side of the screen from me. I was only just beginning to understand the church and its teachings. Each Sunday, I’d listened to the sermons, which often focused on the Ten Commandments. Some of the commandments were easy to understand: “Thou shall honor your mother and your father.” “Thou shall not kill.” A few of them less so: “Thou shall not commit adultery.” “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife.”

  I was probably only six at the time of my nightmare confession. I was very scared but determined to tell the truth. Something I’d done was terrible, something that had to be confessed, something that could send me to hell. It now seems as if I were baptized with water and sprinkled with guilt.

  I wanted to get rid of the terrible feeling that followed me through each day. After my sisters had made their confessions and returned to the pew we were sharing, I walked to the back of the church, pushed back the heavy velvet curtain, entered, and knelt. I would be brave. I would tell the priest my horrible sin.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last confession. I fought with my brothers.”

  I was stalling. Finally, I continued, “I have committed”—I concentrated on saying the next word correctly—“adultery.”

  My announcement was followed by silence, probably the longest pause in the history of confessions. I could hardly breathe. I waited for a terrible scolding and a never-ending penance. I realize now that the silence probably indicated that Father Esterguard was trying very hard not to laugh.

  Listening to a Sunday sermon, I must have misunderstood one of the priest’s pronouncements. My child’s mind had conflated innocent play with a sinful act.

  One day, my friend MaryLee and I had been splashing around in the shallows near the Little Rock when we’d decided it’d be fun to take our swimsuits off. Staying below the water, we put our suits under rocks to keep them from being carried away by the current. When we decided to leave the river and return to the house, in the process of retrieving our suits, we stood up. Then we heard my brothers calling out to us from farther up the river. They’d seen us naked!

  As I knelt in the confessional, my stomach ached. I waited.

  At last, the priest spoke: “Say ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys.” And with that, he blessed and dismissed me.

  “Go in peace,” he said, as he closed the screen.

  A WIDER WORLD

  “Can I ride to town with you?” I asked my father. “Please.” When I was not yet two, I left the house and followed my father to the barn. He didn’t see me until I walked up right behind a cow. With a swoop, he pulled me away before a high-powered hoof could have done me in. My mother told me that the spanking I received did nothing to change my inclination to venture out and discover.

  A few years later, I began to pester my father to allow me to ride to town with him.

  “Please!”

  It was a fine line. If I went from asking to
begging, he’d definitely say no.

  This happened only in late fall or during the winter, when the fields were frozen hard. When I was four, my siblings, including my brother Bob, who was my coadventurer, were off at school. I was bored. I had one hand-me-down doll and was good at make-believe, but I had no one to play with.

  Usually my father said no, but when he did agree, I got to sit up front. This in itself was exciting. It was the only chance I ever got to ride in that important spot. My view, of course, was not straight ahead—I was too short for that—but out the side window. Down the drive, up the hill, down the other side, past the slough and a small, still-green field, and then up the sand hill. All the time, my father was doing fun things with his feet and the pedals while his hand was pushing the shift this way and that.

  We came to a stop, and he looked back and forth before he turned down the big road to town. He always parked in front of the post office. Sometimes he helped me out of the car and let me tag along. The inside of the post office had rows and rows of small boxes trimmed in gold with glass windows, and a man sitting in a cage. My father and that man talked about the weather. Our box was numbered 516. Once, my father lifted me up so I could put the small key into the tiny slot and swing the door open.

  Next, he headed to the grocery store. My father always said good morning to Mr. Lauster, who stood behind a counter. They talked about the weather, and then my father told him what my mother needed. It was usually only a few items, things we didn’t grow on the farm, maybe baking powder or vanilla. Then we waited as the man went to shelves behind him and picked out the items. My father signed his name on a small piece of paper, gathered the things up, and said, “Thank you! Goodbye.”

  After he put those things in the car, my father took my hand and we crossed the large road to a little restaurant. It was smoky and noisy inside. Men sat on tall stools at the counter. They moved around to make room for the two of us. Even before my father sat down, the waitress had already brought him a cup of coffee. With a smile, she handed me a cookie. I took small bites to make my treat last longer. The men talked about the weather.

  I realize now that after we left the cafe, both of us had hated to get into the car. At home, chores waited for him, as they did for me. Back in front of our house, I’d hear him sigh as he turned off the engine.

  “Now, go in and help your mother,” he’d say.

  My chores were limited because of my strength and my height, but I brought up jars of canned food from the cellar, set the table, swept, and, of course, did the most boring job of all: dusting. A small, stand-alone bookcase in the corner of the living room held a few grown-up books and a ten-volume set of The Book of Knowledge.

  The man who sold that set to my parents must have been a very enterprising salesperson. He’d been able to find his way down the unmarked road to our house, and, once there, somehow he’d convinced my parents they could manage the payments.

  At the bookcase, I’d stop dusting and curl myself in close to the wall where I couldn’t be seen. I’d pick up one volume and then another, flipping the pages at random and studying the black-and-white photographs. Time would drift away. I was no longer a little girl on a farm. I was wearing an embroidered skirt and jacket and herding reindeer. I was in a very dry place, pounding kernels of corn on a large, flat stone. I was far, far away. Until, that is, my father would come in and see my mother working alone in the kitchen.

  His booming voice made me jump.

  “Where’s Barbara? Why isn’t she out here helping you?”

  I’d jump up, quickly gather the dustcloth, and move to an area where he could see me work.

  It was that urge to see more of the world that got me into trouble shortly after my ninth birthday. It was unusually warm that fall, and my father had planned a hunting trip. Overnight! A first. My brothers and he were going “west of the river.” They always spoke those words a little differently. They’d drive a long way before they crossed the Missouri River to wide-open spaces. There, they’d hunt for grouse.

  My brothers called back and forth as they packed the car. Our two Labrador retrievers jumped around excitedly. There was no way they were going to be left behind.

  My father sat drinking a final cup of coffee while Mother wrapped sandwiches in waxed paper. She and I would be left alone, our feet the only mode of transportation.

  “This isn’t fair! I never get to go anywhere!” I said.

  “What! You have such an easy life. And you’re complaining?” my father replied.

  “But I never get to go anywhere!”

  My father began to push back his chair. I didn’t see his face, but I saw something in the hunch of his shoulders.

  I didn’t hesitate. I ran out the door, letting it slam shut, across the yard, swung open the gate to the horse pasture, not bothering to latch it behind me, and just kept going. Fear pushed me. I picked up speed as I ran down the slope and across the top of the Big Rock.

  “Barbara! Stop! Stop right now!”

  From there, tall, wilted weeds and brown grasses made it almost impossible for me to see the path. But I knew it by heart. I didn’t slow down even when I felt thorns catching on my clothes and scratching my arms. My father was so close, I could hear his feet thud-thud-thudding on the dirt. I’d never seen my father run. I didn’t know he could.

  Then I reached the barbed-wire fence.

  He was right behind me, about to grab my blouse. Just in time, I dropped to the ground and rolled under the lowest rung of the spiky wire fence.

  I knew that it would take him a few minutes before he could separate and hold the two middle wires apart to step through the fence. In that short time, I’d be able to run through the corn rows and find a place to hide. By the time he could fetch the dogs and begin searching for me, I’d already have crossed the field to the highway.

  My father was on one side of the fence. I was on the other.

  He was panting. I was crying.

  “If you come home, I won’t spank you,” he said.

  I stood there, tears running down my face.

  “I mean it. If you come home, I won’t punish you. But now. I mean now!” With that, he turned and walked away.

  I hesitated. He continued walking. I watched him until he reached the Big Rock, until I couldn’t see him anymore. Then I slipped back under the fence. When I opened the door to our house, I didn’t look at anyone, not even Mother. I went to the stairs, up to my room, fell on my bed, and began to sob.

  Only when I heard the car move away did I go downstairs. There I looked out the window and watched as the dust slowly settled back down on our driveway.

  It was very quiet that evening, both inside the house and out in the yard. No father, no brothers, no dogs. I was very tired and got ready for bed early.

  In the morning, my uncle Earl came down to milk the cows, as he had the evening before. Then Mother and I went to the barn, my mother to wash the separator, I to feed the cats.

  When we returned to the house, Mother went to the kitchen. I wandered into the living room, where I sat on the couch, swinging my legs back and forth. After a time, Mother came to the doorway.

  “Come. We’re going on our own adventure.”

  I looked up. She was wearing an old white shirt of my father’s, as though she were going to work in the garden, and held a brown paper bag in her hand.

  We walked down the driveway, across the white bridge, and continued toward the South Hill. When we reached the wild plum thicket, she climbed through the barbed-wire fence. Then she held the strands apart for me and I stepped through. We walked westward along the side of the hill.

  Soon I was in new territory! I’d never been here before. How had Bob and I not discovered this place?

  The dull browns of weeds and brambles changed to green. Everything was lush. A small spring ran over rocks covered in patches of yellowish green. Near the water, short grass, the color of peas, grew in spiky clumps. Moss that covered the rocks along the edge of the wat
er was brilliant green; it seemed to glow in the dim light. High above us, brown leaves, still holding fast to the oak trees, moved gently.

  Mother and I stood on the steep slope with one foot below the other. We scouted for a large rock, and when we found one, to avoid its sharp bumps, we sat close together in a scoop of its surface. We were looking in the direction of our yard and our house but couldn’t see them. It was as though they’d disappeared.

  Mother opened the bag and gave me a ham sandwich, and from a blue glass jar she poured lemonade. After we finished our sandwiches, we folded the waxed paper. Then she handed me two chocolate chip cookies. I thought she’d given the whole batch to my father and brothers!

  We didn’t talk. We just listened to the music that the water made as it tumbled over the rocks, down the hill to the river.

  I never tried to find that spot again. I’m not sure why, but I’m glad I didn’t, because this way it stays as it was when my mother and I picnicked there, the emerald-green moss clinging to the rocks, the song of the water as it slipped down its narrow channel, the oak leaves on the branches shielding my eyes, and my mind, from what had happened the day before.

  TRYING TO FIT IN

  Working to fit in and trying to please were the elusive quests of my girlhood. After Helen and Patt had left home, my father continued to dominate. As my brothers grew, so did their value, and with that my father began to take their opinions seriously. Not so with me. My brothers had plenty of opportunities to bond with him—not only while working, but also while hunting and fishing.

  My brothers always gathered up their hunting gear with a sense of purpose and expectancy. Bob, who began hunting alone when he was ten, was doing that one January Sunday afternoon. It had snowed the day before, producing ideal conditions for tracking animals. Our parents were half reading, half sleeping in the living room. There was nothing for me to do.