Later they put on their pajamas in the bathroom and then went into her bedroom and got into the bed that she used.
She undressed in the bathroom too. She brushed her hair and washed her face and put on a long nightgown, then came into the bedroom. She said she’d made up the bed in the other room for them. But they asked to sleep in this room with her. Couldn’t they, this once? They were already in the bed. She stood beside the bed looking at them. They wanted to sleep one on each side of her but she said that would be too hot. She got in on the outside and Bobby lay in the middle with Ike next to him. The ceiling light down the hallway shone in through the half-open door. They settled down and lay quietly. Occasionally a car went by outside on Chicago Street. They talked a little in the dim light.
Mother, are you going to be all right in Denver? Ike said.
I hope so, she said. I want to be. I’ll call you when I get there. Will you call me back sometimes?
Yes, he said. We’ll call you every week.
Does Dad have your number? Bobby said.
Yes, he does. And you know how much I love you, don’t you. Both of you. I want you always to remember that. I’m going to miss you so much. But I know you’re going to be all right.
I wish you didn’t have to go, Ike said.
I don’t understand why you are, Bobby said.
It’s hard to explain, she said. I just know I have to. Can you try to accept that, even if you don’t understand it?
They didn’t say anything.
I hope you can.
After a while she said, Do you have any more questions?
They shook their heads.
Do you think you can go to sleep?
In the night after they were asleep she got up and looked out the window at the front yard and the empty street, at the stark trees that stood in the lawn like arrested stickfigures. She went out to the kitchen. She made coffee and took it to the front room and lay down on the sofa and after an hour or more she went to sleep. But she woke early, in time to wake them and set out cereal, and then she drove them in the car back to the house in the early cold winter morning. She leaned across in the front seat of the car and kissed them both, and Guthrie came out on the porch to meet them, and then she turned the car around and went out the drive onto Railroad Street and drove through Holt, which didn’t take long, and then she was in the country on US 34 driving west to start her next life in Denver.
Victoria Roubideaux
The second time she drove out there she had the girl with her, beside her in the front seat of the car. The girl looked frightened and preoccupied, as if she were going to confession or jail or some other place that was so unpleasant that she was willing to go only under force of circumstance and nothing else. It was Sunday. A cold and bright day and the snow still as brilliant as glass under the sun, with the wind blowing as usual in sudden but regular gusts so that outside when they got beyond the town limits it was the same as before except that the wind had turned west in the night. The cattle, the same shaggy black baldy cattle spread out in the corn stubble as the day before, were still there. It was only as if the cattle had made a collective rightface in the night when the wind had changed and had then gone on slicking up the spilled corn, wrapping their tongues around the dry corn husks, raising their heads and staring off into the distance, all the time chewing steadily.
Maggie Jones had driven more than halfway to the McPherons before the girl said any word at all. Then she said:
Mrs. Jones. Would you stop the car?
What is it?
Please, would you pull over?
Maggie slowed and steered the car off onto the rutted shoulder. A bank of snow alongside was packed into the barrow ditch and from behind the car the white smokelike exhaust tore away in the gusting wind.
What is it? Are you sick?
No.
What then?
Mrs. Jones, I don’t know if I can do this.
Oh. Well honey, yes you can.
I don’t know, the girl said.
Maggie turned to face her. The girl was looking straight ahead with one hand on the door handle, sitting up rigid and tense in the seat as though she were waiting for the right moment to jump out and run.
All right, I’ll tell you again, Maggie said. I can’t guarantee anything about this. Don’t ask that. But you need to regard this as an opportunity. They called last night and said they would take you, that they’d try it. That’s a great deal for them to say. I think it will be all right. You don’t have to be at all afraid of them. They’re about as good as men can be. They may be gruff and unpolished but they don’t mean anything by that, it’s only they’ve been alone so much. Think of living your life alone for half a century and more, like they have. It would do something to you. So you can’t let their gruffness bother you or deter you. Yes, they are rough around the edges, of course they are. They haven’t been rounded off. But you’ll be safe out here. You can still come in to school, ride the bus back and forth and complete your course work as usual. But you have to try to remember what it’s been like for them. Both their folks died in a highway truck wreck when these old men were younger than you are now. Afterward they just quit attending school, if they’d ever gone very much anyway, which I don’t think they did, and they stayed at home and went to work ranching and farming, and that’s about all they’ve known in the world or had to know. Up to now that’s been enough.
She stopped. She studied the girl’s face to see what effect her talking had had.
The girl was looking out over the nose of the car toward the straight two-lane highway. After a while she said, But Mrs. Jones. Do you think they’ll like me?
Yes, I do. If you give them a chance they will.
But it seems crazy to be going out here to live with two old men.
That’s right, Maggie said. But these are crazy times. I sometimes believe these must be the craziest times ever.
The girl turned her head to look out the side window at the native pasture beyond the ditch and fenceline. The flower spikes of the soapweed stuck up like splintered sticks, the seed pods dry and dark-looking against the winter grass. Do they have a dog? she said.
There’s an old farm dog.
Do they have any cats?
I didn’t see any. But I would guess they do. I’ve never heard of a farm yet without at least one or two stray cats around to keep down the mice and rats.
I’d have to quit my job at the Holt Café. I’d have to tell Janine.
Yes. But you wouldn’t be the first one to quit washing dishes for Janine. She expects that.
Does she?
Yes.
The girl continued to look out the window. Maggie Jones waited. Whenever there was a gust of wind the car was rocked on its wheels. After a while the girl turned back and faced forward again. You can go on if you want to, she said. I’m okay now.
Good, Maggie said. I thought you would be. She steered the car back onto the blacktop and they drove down the narrow highway. After a time they turned east onto the gravel county road and then onto the track which led back to the old house with the rusted hogwire strung around it and the stunted elm trees standing up leafless inside the rusted wire. Maggie stopped the car in front of the gate. She and the girl got out.