Broken Ground Read online

  Edna Faye is crying. Out the window as we pull away, I watch that little girl, my bright girl, do a woman’s work of tears.

  SPRING CREEPS IN, as it will. Blossoms open on the redbud by the road; I see them from my bedroom window. A flash of blue streaks by one day—an indigo bunting whistling its sharp, clear song. The bellflowers out back will bloom soon, no doubt. All things blue recall Charlie’s eyes. Mother says I am blue. “Pray. You’re not praying hard enough. You must end this blue mood, Ruth.” Darker than blue, I think. Darker than Charlie’s eyes. Black, the color of my eyes. Black fog punctured by occasional birdsong, the flickering movement of pink buds on a brown branch tossed by the wind—the wind that used to remind me of God’s spirit encompassing me. Mother is right about one thing: I’m not praying hard enough. I’m not praying at all. I’ve tried. I can’t. And if God speaks in a still, small voice, well, I can’t hear God for the wind.

  I lie in bed days and nights. I don’t sleep much.

  “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!”

  Out of nowhere, Daddy’s voice. It’s the first time he’s spoken to me since our return to Alba. I open my eyes, look toward the bedroom doorway. There he stands, wearing a denim shirt and a pair of hickory-stripe bib overalls, as he does every day of the week but Sunday. Dim light fills the bedroom; outside, the rooster, Captain, crows. It must be early morning. How long have I been lying here, awake?

  Daddy strides to my bed, stands over me. He rubs his hand roughly over the gray stubble of his beard. “Free ride ends now, Ruth. Understand.” A statement, not a question.

  He’s gone then, leaving Mother in his wake. She pushes her thin hands through her thinning red hair. “You heard your daddy.” She’s mustered sternness, but a thread of pity laces her tone. “Let’s get on with it. Get on with life.” She glances at the wedding band I still wear. “Time to take that off, put it somewhere safe. Don’t you think?”

  I tuck my ringed hand under the bedcovers—a reflexive gesture, the kind a child would make. My expression must say, Never, because Mother sighs. “All right, then. Just get out of bed, Ruth, if you know what’s good for you. Your daddy made his demands clear. You don’t want to go messing with that. You know what I mean.”

  At her rising urgency, the black fog lifts a little, and I do know what she means. Mess with Daddy and live to regret it.

  So with Captain still crowing, I get out of bed. For the first time, I take stock of the bedroom. Somehow, the little bit left of what I had with Charlie has been unpacked and put away. Mother did this, more than likely. Here I am, right back exactly where I was, as I was, before. It’s as if I never left Alba. It’s as if my life with Charlie was a beautiful dream.

  My nightgown is rank; I’ve been living in it. I give Mother a look, and she complies by leaving the room and me to myself. I strip off my nightgown and drop it in the empty basket that will soon hold other dirty laundry now that enough is enough. I put on the black dress I wore to the memorial service for Charlie and the other lost men. Then, without much more than a sip of coffee from the cup that Mother sets on the kitchen table before me, and a bite of milk toast from the bowl she puts down beside that, I say, “I’m going out.”

  “Already?” Mother draws back in surprise. “Well, good.” Sounds like she’s saying the opposite.

  “I’ll be back soon.” If only I were saying the opposite.

  Out I go.

  On the front porch, I stop. Beyond out suddenly seems impossible. Then the door bangs shut behind me, shaking the brittle Christmas bough that still hangs there, scattering a shower of dead needles at my feet, propelling me toward the porch steps and down them. Across the patchy lawn I go. One foot in front of the other, headed toward what’s most familiar I go, leaving footprints in the red dust that coats everything all around. By the time I’ve walked the four blocks to Central Street, the dust coats me, too. A block down Central, the one-room brick building that is Kickingbird School has, from the dust, turned the color of dried blood. Across from the school, the Alba Public Library, a small fortress constructed of rough-hewn stones, has turned from yellow to orange.

  The wind rises. I lean into it. I lean toward the library, toward Miss Berger. I keep going. With each step, my footprints disperse, swept from this earth as Charlie was, his life no more substantial than a grain of dust. But here is the library, a small fortress. Here, its door—red, like those of certain churches. Pull, pull hard, and the door opens against the wind. I am inside. The wind may buffet the windows and hiss at the door closing behind me, but inside, all is still and calm. Miss Berger sits at the front desk, a red bandana covering her short, gray hair. She leaps up at the sight of me—her lean, rangy body taut with barely contained energy—knocking her chair to the floor. Disregarding this, she’s upon me in a moment, pulling me close. My head rests on her bony chest, and I hear her heartbeat, vigorous and vital.

  “I’m sorry, Ruth. I’m so sorry.” Her words are close to comfort—the closest any have come. She pats my back. “You’re shivering, and it’s hot as blazes out there. Are you ill?”

  “Just cold.” As I say this, I realize it’s true. “Always cold.” That’s true, too.

  Miss Berger guides me to her desk, rights the chair, sits me down, then retrieves her green wool shawl from the bottom drawer and starts to drape it over my shoulders. I lean away. “The wind and dust. I’m filthy.”

  She gives an impatient huff and wraps the shawl around me, firmly securing the ends in a thick knot that hangs, a warm weight, against my ribs. Now she darts off to her little office, just behind the desk. I hear her lift the kettle from the two-burner unit, then pour out what’s inside. Next moment, she presses a full steaming mug into my hands. “Just brewed this. I was going to pour it over ice when it cooled, but it’s put to better use this way.” She resolutely tugs her bandana down on her forehead. As usual when the weather warms, she wears a white cotton T-shirt neatly tucked into a long khaki skirt. When Charlie was a boy, he once told Miss Berger that she looked like she should be going on safari in this attire. To which she said that the library was adventure enough. Her work here—she loves it. It was all she’s ever needed out of life and all she’ll ever need.

  I thank her for the tea. As I take a scalding sip, she nervously clasps and unclasps her hands. “I was one day away from coming to your parents’ house, Ruth, never mind your daddy.”

  Daddy doesn’t like Miss Berger, in spite of the fact that, as my previous employer, she paid me twice a month without fail for my work, and my wages helped us get by.

  Miss Berger’s fingers are trembling. With a hiss of exasperation, she gives them a shake. “Now’s as good a time as any, I guess.”

  She opens the top drawer of her desk and takes out two envelopes, then holds them right before my eyes. The tea’s steam momentarily clouds the formal handwriting, but after a moment the words come clear. One envelope is addressed to Mr. Charles Warren, c/o The Alba Public Library. The other is addressed to Mrs. Charles Warren, c/o The Alba Public Library. The return addresses on both envelopes read:

  Admissions Office

  Union University

  Pasadena, California

  Wet heat sears my thighs. Miss Berger drops the envelopes on the desk and swiftly extracts the dripping mug from my hands and sets it on the floor.

  “Look what I’ve done!” My voice breaks with emotion far greater than what’s called for. “I’ve gone and spilled all over everything!”

  “Not everything.” Miss Berger yanks off her bandana and hands it to me. Her short hair stands on end; she clearly couldn’t care less. “Go ahead, use it.” She gestures at the bandana. “No, don’t worry about the chair. Take care of yourself first.”

  Dutifully, I try to dry my dress. Then Miss Berger uses the bandana to wipe down the mug. She whisks off to the back room, returns to freshen my tea, and picks up the envelopes again. They might as well be glass, the way she holds them.

  “Came about a month ago, before I got the news about Ch
arlie,” she says. “I’ve been keeping them safe, as I promised I would. But now I can’t wait any longer. Please, Ruth. Open them.”

  Any moment, it seems, the envelopes might do something. Leap from her hands. Levitate. Speak. Bite. But of course, they simply wait to be acted upon. Outside, seeping in, the wind hisses and buffets. It stirs the encroaching black fog. “I only did this for Charlie and me. That’s why we both did it. For us. College doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “It most definitely matters! Despair is a coward’s choice, Ruth, and you’re no coward.” Miss Berger gives me a glare as scalding as the tea. I look away; the cooling stain on my dress becomes something to study. Last time my clothes got wet like this, I was doing wash. The time I want to remember—not the smoky night, but the clear day—there was Edna Faye, bravely working away at her math, tackling problems others might dodge. Not so long ago, I prided myself on being as brave as Edna Faye. Not so long ago at all.

  I set the mug of tea on the desk. I take the envelopes from Miss Berger. While she watches, I carefully open one envelope, then the next. Side by side, I scan them. The words are nearly the same.

  Dear Mr. Warren, one letter opens. Dear Mrs. Warren, opens the other. Then they both read: After much deliberation, we are pleased to offer you a full scholarship to Union University.

  The letters continue from there. Intelligence, potential, and congratulations. Those are the words I can take in.

  “We’re accepted.” My voice sounds flat.

  “Indeed, and not only that, your way is paid!” Miss Berger gives me a fierce hug, then releases me. “Do you know how rare this is? What a gift—a gift for which you longed, Ruth. Now it’s yours, and you must receive it. You have to say yes.”

  For a long moment, we are quiet, so quiet that, along with the wind, I hear something scurry across the floor. The library is often overridden with mice. When it is, they wreck havoc on the books, nibbling covers and pages. We got good at catching mice, Miss Berger and I, wielding brooms and boxes. I was the one who usually carried our captives outside. It was satisfying to see them shake off their trembling and bolt, their sleek brown and gray bodies darting into bushes, disappearing among twigs and leaves. By some kind of grace they could not possibly understand, they were free.

  “A gift.” I try on the word for size, wondering whether it will ever fit.

  HOME AGAIN, I walk past the front door and around the side of the house, past the cackling chickens, past strutting, glittering-eyed Captain. I go to where the bellflowers bloom. At least Mother said they were blooming some vague, immeasurable time ago—the time that constitutes the days before today. I expect flowers glowing on long stalks in the noonday light, such as the light is, for the sky is opaquely gray behind a scrim of dirty air. Still, I expect flowers. I expect them to remind me of Charlie’s eyes. But there are no blooms, not anymore. The wind and dust have stripped them away and beaten the stalks to the ground. Nothing remains of the bellflowers but a messy pulp.

  I sink to the ground. Lost as I’ve been in black fog, I missed the chance to see that blue again.

  Go.

  Not a still, small voice but one that reverberates to my marrow. Beneath the opaque sky and low-hanging haze, upon a bed of broken bellflowers I listen and hear it again: Go.

  Go, Charlie said once upon a time. Go, Miss Berger said only today. Go, God seems to be saying now. Go, says a woman I don’t know, the woman I am becoming, the woman I must become. “Go.”

  THREE

  I write the letter I must to Union University, declining Charlie’s scholarship. I am able to do this only with Miss Berger’s help. She stays by my side, encourages me when I falter. Words are insufficient to describe all that has happened, but even in their insufficiency, they work a terrible magic on me. Writing things down makes them true. Charlie’s death becomes a fact fixed on a page.

  Almost as an afterthought or a postscript, I accept my scholarship. “Could you qualify your acceptance a bit?” Miss Berger asks. “Could you gladly accept it, or gratefully?” At this, I draw the line. I seal the envelope, affix the stamp, and send the letter off in the mail. The next day, I return to my old job at the library. I tell Mother and Daddy about this last—it’s what they wanted, after all, for me to get on with it. But I don’t tell them about my college plans. Tell them about college now and I’ll get such grief that, come mid-August, I’ll be too weighed down to leave the house, let alone take the train to California. Tell them come mid-August, when I’m due to depart, and I might actually do just that. Depart, mouse from captivity, Rapunzel from tower. Not glad or grateful, but going.

  My hours at the library are every day but Sunday, as long as I care to work. I arrive before the library opens and stay after the library closes. There’s no place I’d rather be, cataloging and shelving books, leading patrons through the stacks to find what they’re looking for, sending them on their way. Over my lunch break, I read voraciously. I read far more than I eat. I stay busy at all costs, for when I am not busy, I am consumed by distraction, worry, and sadness—not necessarily in this order. The black fog hovers, waiting for an unguarded, opportune moment to descend. Hope tastes tainted, at best bittersweet, without Charlie sharing the cup.

  The library isn’t the busy place it used to be. The people of Alba, including the children, are increasingly busy scrabbling for necessities. When that’s the case, a leisurely trip to the library becomes yet another unaffordable luxury. So Miss Berger and I spend our days poring over publishers’ catalogs, trying to make the best book selections for the few remaining patrons, parsing out the meager dollars left in the budget. We do other things too, of course. We fix the building’s plumbing when we’re able and hunt down volunteers when we aren’t. We clean the toilet and sink, wipe away the red dust that seeps through crevices and cracks in the walls, and settles on every surface—on book covers, bindings, the edges of every page. We wash the windows. We mow the grass and tend the few flowers that have managed to survive. We maintain the library inside and out, and in doing so, we become better friends. Widowed, I’m able to be a better friend. The girl I was—consumed by the we of us—died with Charlie. I have to make room for others at the table or I’ll eat alone for the rest of my life. It’s right that I should first try doing so with Miss Berger, and she’s kind enough to help me know how.

  Working side by side from day to day with her, I confirm what I already assumed: Miss Berger is quite the freethinker. Years back, when Charlie wanted to talk more deeply about Darwin, she was the person to whom he turned. I knew about their exchange; Charlie relayed their conversation to me. But now I witness other examples of the confidence Miss Berger inspires. When women are in trouble—say their husbands are drinkers, or gamblers, or violent; or maybe their husbands are fine upstanding men, but the women are having health problems that lead to medical tests, and their husbands and doctors won’t let them see the results, or let the women give their opinions on the results—for whatever the reason (and there are so many), women come to Miss Berger for advice they can’t get elsewhere. At least a few times each week, Miss Berger pulls Grey’s Anatomy or an Encyclopaedia Britannica from the shelf, or one of the few scholarly journals the library owns, and reads and interprets information that might prove helpful to the person in need. “It’s the least I can do,” she says when anyone tries to thank her. “You’d do the same for me if our situations were reversed.”

  One night in early August, my thoughts on my imminent departure—the packing I have yet to do, the conversation with Mother and Daddy I have yet to endure—I’m about to flip the library’s sign from Open to Closed when a faint knock sounds. I open the door, but no one is there. Only when I hear the knock again do I realize it’s coming from the other entrance—a narrow side door. People never enter there. I doubt most know the door is there, hidden as it is by dusty shelves inside and by tall, dense holly bushes outside. The library shelves that conceal the side entrance hold our oldest bound newspapers, dating from the earl
y 1880s until just after the first Oklahoma Land Run in 1889. The few people who peruse these volumes are typically engaged in land disputes, heatedly challenging who staked what claim, settled where, and when. They’re much too worked up to notice a door off to the side, more an afterthought than a door, no doubt a last-minute addition to the architect’s plan. Miss Berger and I use the side entrance when we take out the garbage. Otherwise, it stays shut.

  The knocking grows more insistent. I start toward the sound, but from behind her desk, Miss Berger shows the flat of her hand: Stop. She hurries to answer. So stealthily does she slip behind the shelves that she appears to be going into hiding.

  Moments pass, during which I hear bits and pieces of a whispered exchange. Then Miss Berger emerges. Two women and an old man follow her.

  No wonder they knocked at the side door. Whites Only: That’s the library’s unwritten rule, implemented by Alba’s Powers That Be, to Miss Berger’s fury, and these folks—the women wearing carefully pressed if well-worn dresses, along with hats and gloves; the man wearing a faded gray suit and carrying a battered gray fedora—are Negro. I would have distinguished them as colored until a few weeks ago, when I used that word in conversation with Miss Berger and she set me straight. We were deciding which books we might donate to the traveling library, a truck that passes through the Negro side of town about once a month. Miss Berger chose a volume, The Souls of Black Folk, by Mr. W. E. B. DuBois—a thinker and spokesman for his people, she explained, adding that I’d learn a great deal if I read his work. “Mr. DuBois would say that Negro is the current, correct term, preferred by himself and other members of his race,” Miss Berger said, and laid The Souls of Black Folk, our library’s only copy, atop the stack of other donations. As the book was up for donation, I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to read it. I mentioned this to Miss Berger, and she said that we’d get another copy as soon as soon as the budget allowed. “But given the choice of here and there, I choose there,” she said quietly. “It’s a crime to keep the work of Mr. DuBois locked up inside this place, languishing on a shelf. This book needs to be shared with those who might not otherwise have access to it.”