The Four Winds / ×åòûðå âåòðà (by Kristin Hannah, 2021) - àóäèîêíèãà íà àíãëèéñêîì

PROLOGUE Hope is a coin I carry: an American penny, given to me by a man I came to love. There were times in my journey when it felt as if that penny and the hope it represented were the only things that kept me going. I came west in search of a better life, but my American dream was turned into a nightmare by poverty and hardship and greed. These past few years have been a time of things lost: Jobs. Homes. Food. The land we loved turned on us, broke us all, even the stubborn old men who used to talk about the weather and congratulate each other on the season’s bumper wheat crop. A man’s got to fight out here to make a living, they’d say to each other. A man. It was always about the men. They seemed to think it meant nothing to cook and clean and bear children and tend gardens. But we women of the Great Plains worked from sunup to sundown, too, toiled on wheat farms until we were as dry and baked as the land we loved. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I swear I can still taste the dust … 1921 To damage the earth is to damage your children. —WENDELL BERRY, FARMER AND POET ONE Elsa Wolcott had spent years in enforced solitude, reading fictional adventures and imagining other lives. In her lonely bedroom, surrounded by the novels that had become her friends, she sometimes dared to dream of an adventure of her own, but not often. Her family repeatedly told her that it was the illness she’d survived in childhood that had transformed her life and left it fragile and solitary, and on good days, she believed it. On bad days, like today, she knew that she had always been an outsider in her own family. They had sensed the lack in her early on, seen that she didn’t fit in. There was a pain that came with constant disapproval; a sense of having lost something unnamed, unknown. Elsa had survived it by being quiet, by not demanding or seeking attention, by accepting that she was loved, but unliked. The hurt had become so commonplace, she rarely noticed it. She knew it had nothing to do with the illness to which her rejection was usually ascribed. But now, as she sat in the parlor, in her favorite chair, she closed the book in her lap and thought about it. The Age of Innocence had awakened something in her, reminded her keenly of the age of time. Tomorrow was her birthday. Twenty-five. Young by most s. An age when men drank bathtub gin and drove recklessly and listened to ragtime music and danced with women who wore headbands and fringed dresses. For women, it was different. Hope began to dim for a woman when she turned twenty. By twenty-two, the whispers in town and at church would have begun, the long, sad looks. By twenty-five, the die was cast. An unmarried woman was a spinster. “On the shelf,” they called her, shaking heads and tsking at her lost opportunities. Usually people wondered why, what had turned a perfectly ordinary woman from a good family into a spinster. But in Elsa’s case, everyone knew. They must think she was deaf, the way they talked about her. Poor thing. Skinny as a rake handle. Not nearly as pretty as her sisters. Prettiness. Elsa knew that was the crux of it. She was not an attractive woman. On her best day, in her best dress, a stranger might say she was handsome, but never more. She was “too” everything—too tall, too thin, too pale, too unsure of herself. Elsa had attended both of her sisters’ weddings. Neither had asked her to stand with them at the altar, and Elsa understood. At nearly six feet, she was taller than the grooms; she would ruin the photographs, and image was everything to the Wolcotts. Her parents prized it above all else. It didn’t take a genius to look down the road of Elsa’s life and see her future. She would stay here, in her parents’ house on Rock Road, being cared for by Maria, the maid who’d managed the household forever. Someday, when Maria retired, Elsa would be left to care for her parents, and then, when they were gone, she would be alone. And what would she have to show for her life? How would her time on this earth be marked? Who would her, and for what? She closed her eyes and let a familiar, long-held dream tiptoe in: She imagined herself living somewhere else. In her own home. She could hear children’s laughter. Her children. A life, not merely an existence. That was her dream: a world in which her life and her choices were not defined by the rheumatic fever she’d contracted at fourteen, a life where she uncovered strengths heretofore unknown, where she was judged on more than her appearance. The front door banged open and her family came stomping into the house. They moved as they always did, in a chattering, laughing knot, her portly father in the lead, red-faced from drink, her two beautiful younger sisters, Charlotte and Suzanna, fanned out like swan wings on either side of him, her elegant mother bringing up the rear, talking to her handsome sons-in-law. Her father stopped. “Elsa,” he said. “Why are you still up?” “I wanted to talk to you.” “At this hour?” her mother said. “You look flushed. Do you have a fever?” “I haven’t had a fever in years, Mama. You know that.” Elsa got to her feet, twisted her hands together, and stared at the family. Now, she thought. She had to do it. She couldn’t lose her nerve again. “Papa.” At first she said it too softly to be heard, so she tried again, actually raising her voice. “Papa.” He looked at her. “I will be twenty-five tomorrow,” Elsa said. Her mother appeared to be irritated by the reminder. “We know that, Elsa.” “Yes, of course. I merely want to say that I’ve come to a decision.” That quieted the family. “I … There’s a college in Chicago that teaches literature and accepts women. I want to take classes—” “Elsinore,” her father said. “What need is there for you to be educated? You were too ill to finish school as it was. It’s a ridiculous idea.” It was difficult to stand there, seeing her failings reflected in so many eyes. Fight for yourself. Be brave. “But, Papa, I am a grown woman. I haven’t been sick since I was fourteen. I believe the doctor was … hasty in his diagnosis. I’m fine now. Truly. I could become a teacher. Or a writer…” “A writer?” Papa said. “Have you some hidden talent of which we are all unaware?” His stare cut her down. “It’s possible,” she said weakly. Papa turned to Elsa’s mother. “Mrs. Wolcott, give her something to calm her down.” “I’m hardly hysterical, Papa.” Elsa knew it was over. This was not a battle she could win. She was to stay quiet and out of sight, not to go out into the world. “I’m fine. I’ll go upstairs.” She turned away from her family, none of whom was looking at her now that the moment had ed. She had vanished from the room somehow, in that way she had of dissolving in place. She wished she’d never read The Age of Innocence. What good came from all this unexpressed longing? She would never fall in love, never have a child of her own. As she climbed the stairs, she heard music coming from below. They were listening to the new Victrola. She paused. Go down, pull up a chair. She closed her bedroom door sharply, shutting out the sounds from below. She wouldn’t be welcomed down there. In the mirror above her washstand, she saw her own reflection. Her pale face looked as if it had been stretched by unkind hands into a sharp chin point. Her long, corn-silk blond hair was flyaway thin and straight in a time when waves were all the rage. Her mother hadn’t allowed her to cut it in the fashion of the day, saying it would look even worse short. Everything about Elsa was colorless, washed out, except for her blue eyes. She lit her bedside lamp and withdrew one of her most treasured novels from her nightstand. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. Elsa climbed into bed and lost herself in the scandalous story, felt a frightening, sinful need to touch herself, and almost gave in. The ache that came with the words was almost unbearable; a physical pain of yearning. She closed the book, feeling more outcast now than when she’d begun. Restless. Unsatisfied. If she didn’t do something soon, something drastic, her future would look no different from her present. She would stay in this house for all her life, defined day and night by an illness she’d had a decade ago and an unattractiveness that couldn’t be changed. She would never know the thrill of a man’s touch or the comfort of sharing a bed. She would never hold her own child. Never have a home of her own. THAT NIGHT, ELSA WAS plagued by longing. By the next morning, she knew she had to do something to change her life. But what? Not every woman was beautiful, or even pretty. Others had suffered childhood fevers and gone on to live full lives. The damage done to her heart was all medical conjecture as far as she could tell. Not once had it failed to beat or given her cause for real alarm. She had to believe there was grit in her, even if it had never been tested or revealed. How could anyone know for sure? She had never been allowed to run or play or dance. She’d been forced to quit school at fourteen, so she’d never had a beau. She’d spent the bulk of her life in her own room, reading fictional adventures, making up stories, finishing her education on her own. There had to be opportunities out there, but where would she find them? The library. Books held the answer to every question. She made her bed and went to the washstand and combed her waist-length blond hair into a deep side part and braided it, then dressed in a plain navy-blue crepe dress, silk stockings, and black heels. A cloche, kid gloves, and a handbag completed her outfit. She went down the stairs, grateful that her mother was still asleep at this early morning hour. Mama didn’t like Elsa exerting herself except for Sunday church services, at which Mama always asked the congregation to pray for Elsa’s health. Elsa drank a cup of coffee and headed out into the sunshine of a mid-May morning. The Texas Panhandle town of Dalhart stretched out in front of her, wakening beneath a bright sun. Up and down the wooden boardwalks, doors opened, CLOSED signs were turned around. Beyond town, beneath an immense blue sky, the flat Great Plains stretched forever, a sea of prosperous farmland. Dalhart was the county seat, and these were booming economic times. Ever since the train had been routed through here on its way from Kansas to New Mexico, Dalhart had expanded. A new water tower dominated the skyline. The Great War had turned these acres into a gold mine of wheat and corn. Wheat will win the war! was a phrase that still filled the farmers with pride. They had done their part. The tractor had come along in time to make life easier, and good crop years—rain and high prices—had allowed farmers to plow more land and grow more wheat. The drought of 1908, long talked about by old-timers, had been all but forgotten. Rain had fallen steadily for years, making everyone in town rich, none more so than her father, who took both cash and notes for the farm equipment he sold. Farmers gathered this morning outside the diner to talk about crop prices, and women herded their children to school. Only a few years ago, there had been horse-and-buggies in the streets; now automobiles chugged their way into the golden, glowing future, horns honking, smoke billowing. Dalhart was a town—fast becoming a city—of box suppers and square dances and Sunday morning services. Hard work and like-minded people creating good lives from the soil. Elsa stepped up onto the boardwalk that ran alongside Main Street. The boards beneath her feet gave a little with each step, made her feel as if she were bouncing. A few flower boxes hung from stores’ eaves, adding splashes of much-needed color. The town’s Beautification League tended them with care. She ed the savings and loan and the new Ford dealership. It still amazed her that a person could go to a store, pick out an automobile, and drive it home the same day. Beside her, the mercantile opened its doors and the proprietor, Mr. Hurst, stepped out, holding a broom. He was wearing shirtsleeves rolled up to expose his beefy forearms. A nose like a fire hydrant, squat and round, dominated his ruddy face. He was one of the richest men in town. He owned the mercantile, the diner, the ice-cream counter, and the apothecary. Only the Wolcotts had been in town longer. They, too, were third-generation Texans, and proud of it. Elsa’s beloved grandfather, Walter, had called himself a Texas Ranger until the day he died. “Hey, Miss Wolcott,” the storekeeper said, pushing the few strands of hair he still had away from his florid face. “What a beautiful day it’s looking to be. You headed to the library?” “I am,” she answered. “Where else?” “I have some new red silk in. Tell your sisters. It would make a fine dress.” Elsa stopped. Red silk. She had never worn red silk. “Show me. Please.” “Ah! Of course. You could surprise them with it.” Mr. Hurst bustled her into the store. Everywhere Elsa looked, she saw color: boxes full of peas and strawberries, stacks of lavender soap, each bar wrapped in tissue paper, bags of flour and sugar, jars of pickles. He led her past sets of china and silverware and folded multicolored tablecloths and aprons, to a stack of fabrics. He rifled through, pulled out a folded length of ruby-red silk. Elsa took off her kid gloves, laid them aside, and reached for the silk. She had never touched anything so soft. And today was her birthday.… “With Charlotte’s coloring—” “I’ll take it,” Elsa said. Had she put a slightly rude emphasis on I’ll? Yes. She must have. Mr. Hurst was eyeing her strangely. Mr. Hurst wrapped the fabric in brown paper and secured it with twine and handed it to her. Elsa was just about to leave when she saw a beaded, glittery silver headband. It was exactly the sort of thing the Countess Olenska might wear in The Age of Innocence. ELSA WALKED HOME FROM the library with the brown-paper-wrapped red silk held tightly to her chest. She opened the ornate black scrolled gate and stepped into her mother’s world—a garden that was clipped and contained and smelled of jasmine and roses. At the end of a hedged path stood the large Wolcott home, built just after the Civil War by her grandfather for the woman he loved. Elsa still missed her grandfather every day. He had been a blustery man, given to drink and arguing, but what he’d loved, he’d loved with abandon. He’d grieved the loss of his wife for years. He’d been the only Wolcott besides Elsa who loved reading, and he’d frequently taken her side in family disagreements. Don’t worry about dying, Elsa. Worry about not living. Be brave. No one had said anything like that to her since his death, and she missed him all the time. His stories about the lawless early years in Texas, in Laredo and Dallas and Austin and out on the Great Plains, were the best of her memories. He would have told her to buy the red silk for sure. Mama looked up from her roses, tipped her new sunbonnet back, and said, “Elsa. Where have you been?” “Library.” “You should have let Papa drive you. The walk is too much for you.” “I’m fine, Mama.” Honestly. It sometimes seemed they wanted her to be ill. Elsa tightened her hold on the package of silk. “Go lie down. It’s going to get hot. Ask Maria to make you some lemonade.” Mama went back to cutting her flowers, dropping them into her woven basket. Elsa walked to the front door, stepping into the home’s shadowy interior. On days that promised to be hot, all the shades were drawn. In this part of the state, that meant a lot of dark-interiored days. Closing the door behind her, she heard Maria in the kitchen, singing to herself in Spanish. Elsa slipped through the house and went up the stairs to her bedroom. There, she unwrapped the brown paper and stared down at the vibrant ruby-red silk. She couldn’t help but touch it. The softness soothed her, somehow, reminded her of the ribbon she’d held as a child when she sucked her thumb. Could she do it, do this wild thing that was suddenly in her mind? It started with her appearance.… Be brave. Elsa grabbed a handful of her waist-length hair and cut it off at the chin. She felt a little crazed but kept cutting until she stood with long strands of pale-blond hair scattered at her feet. A knock at the door startled Elsa so badly that she dropped the scissors. They clattered onto the dresser. The door opened. Her mother walked into the room, saw Elsa’s butchered hair, and stopped. “What have you done?” “I wanted—” “You can’t leave the house until it grows out. What would people say?” “Young women are wearing bobs, Mother.” “Not nice young women, Elsinore. I will bring you a hat.” “I just wanted to be pretty,” Elsa said. The pity in her mother’s eyes was more than Elsa could bear. TWO For days, Elsa stayed hidden in her room, saying that she felt unwell. In truth, she couldn’t face her father with her jaggedly cut hair and the need it exposed. At first she tried to read. Books had always been her solace; novels gave her the space to be bold, brave, beautiful, if only in her own imagination. But the red silk whispered to her, called out, until she finally put her books away and began to make a dress pattern out of newsprint. Once she’d done that, it seemed silly not to go further, so she cut out the fabric and began to sew, just to entertain herself. As she sewed, she began to feel a remarkable sensation: hope. Finally, on a Saturday evening, she held up the finished dress. It was the epitome of big-city fashion—a V-neck bodice and dropped waist, a handkerchief hemline; thoroughly, daringly modern. A dress for the kind of woman who danced all night and didn’t have a care in the world. Flappers, they were being called. Young women who flaunted their independence, who drank hooch and smoked cigarettes, and danced in dresses that showed off their legs. She had to at least try it on, even if she never wore it outside of these four walls. She took a bath and shaved her legs and smoothed silk stockings up her bare skin. She coiled her damp hair into pin curls and prayed they would create some wave. While her hair dried, she snuck into her mother’s room and borrowed some cosmetics from the vanity. From downstairs she heard the Victrola playing music. At last, she brushed out her slightly wavy hair and fit the glamorous silver headband on her brow. She stepped into the dress; it floated into place, airy as a cloud. The handkerchief hemline accentuated her long legs. Leaning close to the mirror, she lined her blue eyes with black kohl and brushed a streak of pale rose powder across her sharp cheekbones. Red lipstick made her lips look fuller, just as the ladies’ magazines always promised. She looked at herself in the mirror and thought: Oh, my Lord. I’m almost pretty. “You can do this,” she said out loud. Be brave. As she walked out of the room and went down the stairs, she felt a surprising confidence. All her life, she’d been told she was unattractive. But not now … Her mother was the first to notice. She smacked Papa hard enough to make him look up from his paperback Farm Journal. His face creased into frown lines. “What are you wearing?” “I—I made it,” Elsa said, clasping her hands together nervously. Papa snapped his Farm Journal shut. “Your hair. Good God. And that harlot dress. Return to your room and do not shame yourself further.” Elsa turned to her mother for help. “This is the newest fashion—” “Not for godly women, Elsinore. Your knees are showing. This isn’t New York City.” “Go,” Papa said. “Now.” Elsa started to comply. Then she thought about what it meant to obey and she stopped. Grandpa Walt would tell her not to give in. She forced her chin up. “I am going to the speakeasy tonight to listen to music.” “You will not.” Papa rose. “I forbid it.” Elsa ran to the door, afraid that if she slowed, she’d stop. She lurched outside and kept running, ignoring the voices that called for her. She didn’t stop until her ragged breathing forced it. In town, the speakeasy was tucked in between an old livery station, now boarded up in this era of automobiles, and a bakery. Since the Eighteenth Amendment had been ratified and Prohibition had begun, she’d watched both women and men disappear behind the speakeasy’s wooden door. And, contrary to her mother’s opinion, many of the young women were dressed just as Elsa was. She walked down the wooden steps to the closed door and knocked. A slit she hadn’t noticed slid open; a pair of squinty eyes appeared. A jazzy piano tune and cigar smoke wafted through the opening. “,” said a familiar voice. “?” “Miss Wolcott. You lost?” “No, Frank. I’ve a hankering to hear some music,” she said, proud of herself for sounding so calm. “Your old man’d whoop my hide if I let you in here. Go on home. No need for a girl like you to walk the streets dressed like that. Only trouble comes of it.” The slid shut. She could still hear music behind the locked door. “Ain’t We Got Fun.” A whiff of cigar smoke lingered in the air. Elsa stood there a moment, confused. She couldn’t even go in? Why not? Sure, Prohibition made drinking illegal, but everyone in town wet their whistles in places like this and the cops looked the other way. She walked aimlessly up the street, toward the county courthouse. That was when she saw a man headed her way. Tall and lanky, he was, with thick black hair partially tamed by glistening pomade. He wore dusty black pants that clung to his narrow hips and a white shirt buttoned to his neck under a beige sweater, with only the knot showing of his plaid tie. A leather newsboy cap sat at a jaunty angle on his head. As he walked toward her, she saw how young he was—not more than eighteen, probably, with sun-darkened skin and brown eyes. (Bedroom eyes, according to her romantic novels.) “Hello, ma’am.” He stopped and smiled, took off his cap. “Are you talking to m-me?” “I don’t see anyone else around here. I’m Raffaello Martinelli. You live in Dalhart?” Italian. Good Lord. Her father wouldn’t want her to look at this kid, let alone speak to him. “I do.” “Not me. I’m from the bustling metropolis of Lonesome Tree, up toward the Oklahoma border. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it. What’s your name?” “Elsa Wolcott,” she said. “Like the tractor supply? Hey, I know your dad.” He smiled. “What are you doing out here all by your lonesome in that pretty dress, Elsa Wolcott?” Be Fanny Hill. Be bold. This might be her only chance. When she got home, Papa was probably going to lock her up. “I’m … lonely, I guess.” Raffaello’s dark eyes widened. His Adam’s apple slid up and down in a quick swallow. Eternity ed while she waited for him to speak. “I’m lonely, too.” He reached for her hand. Elsa almost pulled away; that was how stunned she was. When had she last been touched? It’s just a touch, Elsa. Don’t be a ninny. He was so handsome she felt a little sick. Would he be like the boys who’d teased and bullied her in school, called her Anyone Else behind her back? Moonlight and shadow sculpted his face—high cheekbones, a broad, flat forehead, a sharp, straight nose, and lips so full she couldn’t help thinking about the sinful novels she read. “Come with me, Els.” He renamed her, just like that, turned her into a different woman. She felt a shiver move through her at the intimacy of it. He led her through a shadowy, empty alley and across the dark street. “Toot, toot, Tootsie! Goodbye” floated from the speakeasy’s open windows. He led her past the new train depot and out of town and toward a smart new Model T Ford farm truck with a large wooden-slat- sided bed. “Nice truck,” she said. “Good year for wheat. You like driving at night?” “Sure.” She climbed into the enger seat and he started up the engine. The cab shuddered as they drove north. In less than a mile, with Dalhart in their rearview mirror, there was nothing to see. No hills, no valleys, no trees, no rivers, just a starry sky so big it seemed to have swallowed the world. He drove down the bumpy, divoted road and turned onto the old Steward homestead. Once famous throughout the county for the size of its barn, the place had been abandoned in the last drought, and the small house behind the barn had been boarded up for years. He pulled up in front of the empty barn and turned off the engine, then sat there a moment, staring ahead. The silence between them was broken only by their breathing and the tick of the dying engine. He turned off the headlights and opened his door, then came around to open hers. She looked at him, watched him reach out and take her hand and help her out of the truck. He could have taken a step back, but he didn’t, and so she could smell the whiskey on his breath and the lavender his mother must have used in ironing or washing his shirt. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, feeling hopeful. He spread a pair of quilts out in the wooden bed of the truck and they climbed in. They lay side by side, staring up at the immense, star-splattered night sky. “How old are you?” Elsa asked. “Eighteen, but my mother treats me as if I’m a kid. I had to sneak out to be here tonight. She worries too much about what people think. You’re lucky.” “Lucky?” “You can walk around by yourself at night, in that dress, without a chaperone.” “My father is none too happy about it, I can tell you.” “But you did it. You broke away. D’ya ever think life must be bigger than what we see here, Els?” “I do,” she said. “I mean … somewhere people our age are drinking bathtub gin and dancing to jazz music. Women are smoking in public.” He sighed. “And here we are.” “I cut my hair off,” she said. “You would have thought I killed someone, the way my father reacted.” “The old are just old. My folks came here from Sicily with only a few bucks. They tell me the story all the time and show me their lucky penny. As if it’s lucky to end up here.” “You’re a man, Raffaello. You can do anything, go anywhere.” “Call me Rafe. My mom says it sounds more American, but if they cared so much about being American, they should have named me George. Or Lincoln.” He sighed. “It sure is nice to say these things out loud, for once. You’re a good listener, Els.” “Thank you … Rafe.” He rolled onto his side. She felt his gaze on her face and tried to keep breathing evenly. “Can I kiss you, Elsa?” She could barely nod. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. His lips softened against her skin; at the touch, she felt herself come alive. He trailed kisses along her throat, and it made her want to touch him, but she didn’t dare. Good women almost certainly didn’t do such things. “Can I … do more, Elsa?” “You mean…” “Love you?” Elsa had dreamed of a moment like this, prayed for it, sculpted it out of scraps from the books she’d read, but now it was here. Real. A man was asking to love her. “Yes,” she whispered. “Are you sure?” She nodded. He drew back, fumbled with his belt, undid it, pulled it free, and threw it. The buckle clacked against the side of the truck as he pulled off his pants. He pushed up her red silk dress; it slid up her body, tickling, arousing her. She saw her bare legs in the moonlight as he pulled down her bloomers. Warm night air touched her, made her shiver. She held her legs together until he eased them apart and climbed on top of her. Sweet God. She closed her eyes and he thrust himself inside of her. It hurt so badly she cried out. Elsa clamped her mouth shut to stay silent. He groaned and shuddered and went limp on top of her. She felt his heavy breath in the crook of her neck. He rolled off her but remained close. “Wowza,” he said. It sounded as if there were a smile in his voice, but how could that be? She must have done something wrong. That couldn’t be … it. “You’re something special, Elsa,” he said. “It was … good?” she dared to ask. “It was great,” he said. She wanted to roll onto her side and study his face. Kiss him. These stars she’d seen a million times. He was something new, and he’d wanted her. The effect of that was a staggering upheaval to her world. An opportunity she’d never really imagined. Can I love you? he’d asked. Maybe they would fall asleep together and— “Well, I reckon I’d best get you home, Els. My dad will tan my hide if I’m not on the tractor at dawn. We’re plowing up another hundred and twenty acres tomorrow to plant more wheat.” “Oh,” she said. “Right. Of course.” ELSA CLOSED THE TRUCK door and stared through the open window at Rafe, who smiled, slowly raised his hand, and then drove away. What kind of goodbye was it? Would he want to see her again? Look at him. Of course not. Besides, he lived in Lonesome Tree. That was thirty miles away. And if she did happen to see him in Dalhart, it wouldn’t matter. He was Italian. Catholic. Young. Nothing about him was acceptable to her family. She opened the gate and entered her mother’s fragrant world. From now on, blooming night jasmine would always make Elsa think of him … At the house, she opened the front door and stepped into the shadowy parlor. As she closed the door, she heard a creaking sound and she stopped. Moonlight bled through the window. She saw her father standing by the Victrola. “Who are you?” he said, coming toward her. Elsa’s beaded silver headband slipped down; she pushed it back up. “Y-your daughter.” “Damn right. My father fought to make Texas a part of the United States. He ed the Rangers and fought in Laredo and was shot and nearly died. Our blood is in this ground.” “Y-yes. I know, but—” Elsa didn’t see his hand come up until it was too close to duck. He cracked her across the jaw so hard she lost her balance and fell to the floor. She scrambled back into the corner to get away. “Papa—” “You shame us. Get out of my sight.” Elsa lurched to her feet, ran up the stairs, and slammed her bedroom door shut. With shaking hands, she lit the lamp by her bed and undressed. There was a red mark above her breast. (Had Rafe done that?) A bruise was already discoloring her jaw, and her hair was a mess from lovemaking, if that was what it could be called. Even so, she would do it again if she could. She would let her father hit her, yell at her, slander her, or disinherit her. She knew now what she hadn’t known before, hadn’t even suspected: she would do anything, suffer anything, to be loved, even if it was just for a night. THE NEXT MORNING, ELSA woke to sunlight streaming through the open window. The red dress hung over the closet door. The ache in her jaw reminded her of last night, as did the pain that lingered after Rafe’s loving. One she wanted to forget; one she wanted to . Her iron bed was piled with quilts she had made, often sewing by candlelight during the cold winter months. At the foot of her bed stood her hope chest, lovingly filled with embroidered linens and a fine white lawn nightdress and the wedding quilt Elsa had begun when she was twelve years old, before her unattractiveness had been revealed to be not a phase but a permanence. By the time Elsa started her monthlies, Mama had quietly stopped talking about Elsa’s wedding and stopped beading scraps of Alen?on lace. Enough for half a dress lay folded between pieces of tissue. There was a knock at the door. Elsa sat up. “Come in.” Mama entered the room, her fashionable day shoes making no sound on the rag rug that covered most of the wooden floor. She was a tall woman, with broad shoulders and a no-nonsense demeanor; she lived a life above reproach, chaired church committees, ran the Beautification League, and kept her voice low even when she was angry. Nothing and no one could ruffle Minerva Wolcott. She claimed it was a family trait, inherited from ancestors who had come to Texas when no other white face could be seen for a six-day horse ride. Mama sat down on the edge of the bed. Her hair, dyed black, was drawn back into a chignon that heightened the severity of her sharp features. She reached out and touched the tender bruise on Elsa’s jaw. “My father would have done much worse to me.” “But—” “No buts, Elsinore.” She leaned forward, tucked a ragged lock of Elsa’s shorn blond hair behind her ear. “I suspect I will hear gossip today in town. Gossip. About one of my daughters.” She heaved a heavy sigh. “Did you get into trouble?” “No, Mama.” “So, you’re still a good girl?” Elsa nodded, unable to say the lie aloud. Mama’s forefinger moved down, touched Elsa’s chin, tilted her face up. She studied Elsa, slowly frowning, assessing. “A pretty dress doesn’t make one pretty, dear.” “I just wanted—” “We won’t speak of it, and nothing like it will ever happen again.” Mama stood, smoothing her lavender crepe skirt, although no wrinkles had formed or would dare to. Distance spread between them, as solid as any fence. “You are unmarriageable, Elsinore, even with all our money and standing. No man of note wants an unattractive wife who looms over him. And if a man did come along who could overlook your weaknesses, certainly he would not dismiss a tarnished reputation. Learn to be happy with real life. Throw away your silly romantic novels.” Mama took the red silk dress on her way out. THREE In the years since the Great War, patriotism ran high in Dalhart. That, combined with rain and rising wheat prices, gave everyone a reason to celebrate the Fourth of July. In town, store windows d Independence Day sales and bells clanged merrily as folks went in and out of the merchants’ stores, stocking up on food and drink for the festivities. Usually Elsa looked forward to the celebration, but the past few weeks had been difficult. Since her night with Rafe, Elsa had felt caged. Restless. Unhappy. Not that anyone in her family looked closely enough at her to see the difference. Instead of voicing her discontent, she buried it and went on. It was all she knew to do. She kept her head down and pretended nothing had changed. She stayed in her bedroom as much as she could, even in the ragged heat of summer. She had books delivered from the library—suitable books—and read them from cover to cover. She embroidered dish towels and pillowcases. At supper, she listened to her parents’ conversation and nodded when she needed to. At church, she wore a cloche over her scandalously short hair and made the excuse that she didn’t feel well and was left alone. On the few instances when she dared to look up from a beloved book and stare out the window, she saw the emptiness of a spinster’s future stretching out to the flat horizon and beyond. Accept. The bruise on her jaw had faded. No one—not even her sisters—had remarked upon it. Life returned to normal at the Wolcott house. Elsa imagined herself as the fictional Lady of Shalott, a woman trapped in a tower, cursed, unable to leave her room, forever doomed to watch the bustling of life outside. If anyone noticed her sudden quiet, they didn’t remark upon it or ask the cause. In truth, it was not so different. She’d learned how to disappear in place long ago. She was like one of those animals whose defense mechanism is to blend into the landscape and become invisible. It was her way of dealing with rejection: Say nothing and disappear. Never fight back. If she remained quiet enough, people eventually forgot she was there and left her alone. “Elsa!” her father yelled up the stairs. “It’s time to go. Don’t make us late.” Elsa pulled on her kid gloves—required even in this terrible heat—and pinned a straw hat in place. Then she went downstairs. Elsa stopped halfway down the stairs, unable to keep going. What if Rafe was at the party? The Fourth of July was one of those rare events where the whole county gathered. Usually the different towns celebrated in their own halls, but for this party, people came from miles around. “Let’s go,” Papa said. “Your mother hates to be late.” Elsa followed her parents out to her father’s brand-new bottle-green Model T Runabout roadster. They climbed in, squished together on the heavy leather seat. Although they lived in town and the grange hall was close, they had a lot of food to carry, and Mama wouldn’t be caught dead walking to a party. The Dalhart Grange Hall had been decorated in layers of red, white, and blue bunting. A dozen or so cars were parked out front. Most belonged to the farmers who’d done well in the past few years and the bankers who had financed all that growth. Great care had been taken by the women of the Beautification League, so the lawn out front was a lush green. Flowers grew in bright profusion alongside the steps that led up to the front door. The grounds were full of children playing, laughing, running. Elsa couldn’t see any teenagers, but they were here somewhere, probably sneaking stolen kisses in shadowy corners. Papa parked in the street and turned off the engine. Elsa heard music. Party noise drifted through open doors: chattering, coughing, laughing. A pair of fiddles played along with a banjo and a guitar: “Second Hand Rose.” Papa opened the trunk, revealing the food Maria had spent days preparing. Food Mama would take credit for making. Family recipes, handed down from her Texas pioneer ancestors—molasses stack cakes, Aunt Bertha’s spicy gingerbread, upside-down peach cake, and Grandpa Walt’s favorite ham with red-eye gravy and grits—every item designed to remind people of the Wolcotts’ deep place in Texas history. Elsa fell into step behind her parents, carrying a still-warm Dutch oven toward the wooden grange hall. Inside, colorful quilts had been used for everything from decorations to tablecloths. Along the back wall were several long tables filled with food: pork roasts and rich, dark stews, trays full of green beans cooked in bacon fat. There would undoubtably be chicken salads, potato salads, sausage and biscuits, breads, cornbread, cakes, and pies of all kinds. Everyone in the county loved a party and the women worked hard to impress each other. There would be smoked hams, rabbit sausage, loaves of bread with freshly churned butter, hard-boiled eggs, fruit pies, and platters full of hot dogs. Mama led the way to the corner table, where the women of the Beautification League were busy rearranging the offerings. Elsa saw her sisters standing with the women of the Beautification League. Suzanna was wearing a blouse made from Elsa’s red silk. Charlotte wore a red silk scarf at her throat. Elsa stopped; the sight of her sisters in that red silk made her heartsick. Papa ed the men clustered in loud conversation beside the stage. Even though Prohibition made liquor illegal, there was plenty to be had for the men, who were a tough, sturdy group of immigrants from Russia, , Italy, and Ireland. They’d come here with nothing and made something out of that nothing and they didn’t cotton to being told how to live, not by each other or by a government that hardly seemed to know the Great Plains existed. Although they tended to look a little worn, many of the men had plenty of money in the bank. When wheat sold for a dollar thirty a bushel and cost forty cents to grow, everyone in town was happy. With enough land, a man could become rich. “Dalhart is on its way,” Papa said loudly enough to be heard above the music. “I’m gonna build us a damn opera house next year. Why should we have to go to Amarillo for a little culture?” “We need electricity in town. That’s the ticket,” Mr. Hurst added. Mama continued to rearrange the food, which had never yet been done to her standards in her absence. Charlotte and Suzanna laughed with their pretty, well-dressed friends, most of whom were young mothers. Elsa spotted Rafe, standing with the other Italian families in the corner by a food table. His black hair, floppy on top and shorter along his ears, needed cutting. The pomade he’d used made it shiny but couldn’t quite control it. He wore a plain shirt, worn at the elbows, brown pants, saddle-leather brown suspenders, and a plaid bow tie. A pretty, dark-haired girl clung to his arm. In the six weeks since she’d seen Rafe, his face had been further tanned by hours in the fields. Look this way, she thought, and then: No, don’t. He would pretend not to know her. Or, worse, not even to see her. Elsa forced herself to move forward, hearing her heels click on the hardwood dance floor. She put the Dutch oven down on the white-clothed table. “Heavens, Elsa. Ham in the middle of the dessert table. Whatever are you thinking?” Mama said. Elsa took the pot up and carried it to the next table. Each step took her closer to Rafe. She set the pot down as quietly as possible. Rafe looked over, saw her. He didn’t smile; worse, his gaze cut worriedly to the girl standing next to him. Elsa immediately looked away. She couldn’t stand here, longing like this. It was suffocating. And the last thing in the world she wanted was to be ignored by him all night. “Mama?” she said, moving in beside her mother. “Mama?” “You see I am speaking to Mrs. Tolliver?” “Yes. I’m sorry. It’s just…” Don’t look at him. “I’m not feeling well.” “Too much excitement, I imagine,” Mama said, glancing at her friend. “I think I should go home,” Elsa said. Mama nodded. “Of course.” Elsa was careful not to look at Rafe as she walked toward the open door. Couples spun past her on the dance floor. She opened the door and stepped out into the warm, golden early evening. The door banged shut behind her, softening the strains of the fiddle music and the stomp of dancing feet. She made her way through the collection of parked cars, past the horse-drawn wagons that brought the less successful farmers to town for events like this. Main Street was quiet now, bathed in a butterscotch glow that would soon melt into night. She stepped up onto the boardwalk. “Els?” She stopped, turned slowly. “I’m sorry, Els,” Rafe said, looking uncomfortable. “Sorry?” “I should have spoken up back there. Waved or something.” “Oh.” He came closer, so close she could feel the warmth emanating from him and smell the trace scent of wheat. “I understand, Rafe. She’s lovely.” “Gia Composto. Our parents decided we would marry before we could walk.” He leaned closer. She felt his warm breath on her cheek. “I dreamed about you,” he said in a rush. “Y-you did?” He nodded, looking a little embarrassed. She felt as if she’d just edged toward a cliff; below was a fall that could break her bones. His look, his voice. She stared into his eyes, which were dark as night and soulful and just a little sad, although what he could possibly have to be sad about, she couldn’t imagine. “Meet me tonight,” he said. “Midnight. At the old Steward barn.” ELSA LAY IN BED, fully dressed. She shouldn’t go. That much was obvious. The bruise on her jaw had healed, but the mark of it remained beneath the surface. Good women did not do the thing Rafe had asked of her. She heard her parents come home, climb the stairs, open and close their bedroom door down the hall. The bedside clock read 9:40. Elsa lay there, breathing shallowly, as the house quieted. Waiting. She shouldn’t go. It didn’t matter how frequently she said it in her head, because not once, not for one moment, had she considered following her own advice. At eleven-thirty, she got out of bed. The room was still stiflingly hot, but her window looked out on the Great Plains night sky. Her childhood portal to adventure. How often had she stood at this window and sent her dreams into those unknown universes? She opened the window and climbed out onto the metal flower trellis. It seemed as if she were crawling into the starlit sky itself. When she dropped onto the thick grass, she paused, waited nervously to be detected, but no lights came on inside. She crept over to the side of the house and retrieved one of her sisters’ old bicycles. Climbing aboard, she pedaled out to the road and down Main Street and out of town. The world at night was big and lonesome in a way that locals had become used to, illuminated only by starlight, pinpricks of white in a dark world. There were no homes out here, nothing but darkness for miles. She pulled up to the old barn and dismounted, setting her bicycle in the blanket of buffalo grass beside the road. He wouldn’t show up. Of course he wouldn’t. She could every word he’d said to her, few as they were, and every nuance of expression on his face as he spoke. The way his smile started on one side and kind of slid slowly into place. The pale comma of a scar along his jaw, the way one incisor poked out just a little. I dreamed of you. Meet me tonight. Had she answered him? Or had she just stood there, mute? She couldn’t . But here she was, standing all alone in front of an abandoned barn. Fool that she was. There would be hell to pay if she got caught. She stepped forward, her brown oxford heels crunching on tiny stones on the road. The barn loomed up before her, the peak of the roof seeming to get caught on the fishhook moon. Slats were missing; fallen boards lay scattered. Elsa hugged herself as if she were cold, but in truth she was uncomfortably warm. How long did she stand there? Long enough to begin to feel sick to her stomach. She was about to give up when she heard a car engine. She turned, saw a pair of headlights coming down the road. Elsa was so shocked she couldn’t move. He was driving too fast, being reckless. Gravel spit out from the tires. His horn blared: ah ooh gah. He must have jumped on the brake, because the truck fishtailed to a stop. Dust rose up around him. Rafe jumped out of the car in a hurry. “Els,” he said, grinning, producing a bouquet of purple and pink flowers. “Y-you brought me flowers?” He reached into the cab and produced a bottle. “And some gin!” Elsa had no idea how to respond to either. He handed her the flowers. She looked into his eyes, and she thought, This. She would pay any price for it. “I want you, Els,” he whispered. She followed him into the back of the truck. The quilts were already spread out. Elsa smoothed them a little and lay down. Only a thin thread of light came from the scythed moon. Rafe lay down beside her. She felt his body along hers, heard his breathing. “Did you think about me?” he asked. “Yes.” “Me, too. About you, I mean. About this.” He began unbuttoning her bodice. Fire where he touched her. An unraveling. She couldn’t still herself, couldn’t hide it. He pushed her dress up and pulled her bloomers down and she felt the night air on her skin. All of it aroused her, the air on her skin, her own nakedness, the way he was breathing. She longed to touch him, taste him, tell him where she wanted—needed—to be touched, but fear of humiliation kept her silent. Anything she said was bound to be wrong, unladylike, and she wanted so much to make him happy. Before she was ready, he was inside of her, thrusting hard, groaning. Seconds later, he collapsed on top of her, shuddering, breathing quickly. He whispered something unintelligible into her ear. She hoped it was romantic. Elsa touched the stubble of beard along his jaw. Her touch was so soft and tenuous that she didn’t think he felt it. “I will miss you, Els,” he said. Elsa brought her hand back quickly. “Where are you going?” He opened the bottle of gin and took a long drink, then handed it to her. “My folks are making me go to college.” He rolled onto his side and rested his head on one hand and stared at her as she took a stinging, fiery drink and clamped a hand over her mouth. He took another drink. “My mom wants me to graduate from college so I’ll be a real American. Or something like that.” “College,” she said wistfully. “Yeah. Stupid, huh? I don’t need book learning. I want to see Times Square and the Brooklyn Bridge and Hollywood. Learn by doing. See the world.” He took another drink. “What do you dream of, Els?” She was so surprised to be asked, it took her a moment to answer. “Having a child, I guess. Maybe a home of my own.” He grinned. “Heck, that don’t count. A woman wanting a baby is like a seed wanting to grow. What else?” “You’ll laugh.” “I won’t. I promise.” “I want to be brave,” she said, almost too softly to be heard. “What scares you?” “Everything,” she said. “My grandfather was a Texas Ranger. He used to tell me to stand up and fight. But for what? I don’t know. It sounds silly when I say it out loud…” She felt his gaze on her and hoped the night was kind to her face. “You ain’t like any other girl I know,” he said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “When do you leave?” “August. That gives us some time. If you’ll meet me again.” Elsa smiled. “Yes.” She would take whatever she could get from Rafe and pay whatever price there was for it. Even going to hell. He’d made her feel more beautiful in one minute than the rest of the world had in twenty-five years. FOUR By mid-August, the flowers in the few hanging planters and window boxes in downtown Dalhart were scorched and leggy. Fewer merchants could find the energy to prune and water in this heat, and the flowers wouldn’t last much longer either way. Mr. Hurst waved listlessly as Elsa ed him on her way home from the library. As Elsa opened the gate, the cloying, sickeningly sweet scent of the garden overpowered her. She clamped a hand over her mouth but there was no way to hold back her sickness. She vomited on her mother’s favorite American Beauty roses. Elsa kept dry-heaving long after there was nothing left in her stomach. Finally, she wiped her mouth and straightened, feeling shaky. She heard a rustling beside her. Mama was kneeling in the garden, wearing a woven sun hat and an apron over her cotton day dress. She set down her clippers and got to her feet. The pockets of her gardening apron bulged with cuttings. How was it that the thorns didn’t bother her? “Elsa,” Mama said, her voice surprisingly sharp. “Didn’t you get sick a few days ago?” “I’m fine.” Mama pulled off her gloves, one finger at a time, as she walked toward Elsa. She laid the back of her hand against Elsa’s forehead. “You’re not fevered.” “I’m fine. It’s just an upset stomach.” Elsa waited for Mama to speak. It was obvious she was thinking something; her face was drawn into a frown, which was something she tried never to do. A lady doesn’t reveal emotions, was one of her favorite adages. Elsa had heard it every time she’d cried from loneliness or begged to be allowed to go to a dance. Mama studied Elsa. “It couldn’t be.” “What?” “Have you dishonored us?” “What?” “Have you been with a man?” Of course Mama could see Elsa’s secret. Every book Elsa had ever read romanticized the mother-daughter bond. Even if Mama didn’t always show her love (affection being another thing a lady should conceal), Elsa knew how bound they were. She reached out for her mother’s hands, took them in her own, felt her mother’s instinctive flinch. “I’ve wanted to tell you. I have. I’ve been so alone with these feelings that confuse me. And he—” Mama wrenched her hands back. Elsa heard the gate creak open and snap shut in the quiet that had settled in between Elsa and her mother. “Good Lord, women, why are you standing out in this vexing heat? Surely a glass of cold tea would be the ticket.” “Your daughter is expecting,” Mama said. “Charlotte? It’s about durn time. I thought—” “No,” Mama snapped. “Elsinore.” “Me?” Elsa said. Expecting? It couldn’t be true. She and Rafe had only been together a few times. And each coupling had been so fast. Over almost before it began. Surely no child could come from that. But what did she know of such things? A mother didn’t explain sex to her daughter until the wedding day, and Elsa had never had a wedding, so her mother had never spoken to her of ion or having children, it having been assumed Elsa would never experience any of it. All Elsa knew of sex and procreation came from novels. And, frankly, details were scarce. “Elsa?” Papa said. “Yes,” was her mother’s barely there answer. Papa grabbed Elsa by the arm and yanked her close. “Who ruined you?” “No, Papa—” “Tell me his name right now, or as God is my witness, I will go door to door and ask every man in this town if he ruined my daughter.” Elsa imagined that: Papa dragging her from door to door, a modern-day Hester Prynne; him banging on doors, asking men like Mr. Hurst or Mr. McLaney, Have you ruined this woman? Sooner or later, she and her father would leave town and head out to the farms … He would do it. She knew he would. There was no stopping her father once he’d made up his mind. “I’ll leave,” she said. “I’ll leave right now. Go out on my own.” “It must have been … you know … a crime,” Mama said. “No man would—” “Want me?” Elsa said, spinning to face her mother. “No man could ever want me. You’ve told me that all my life. You’ve all made sure I understood that I was ugly and unlovable, but it isn’t true. Rafe wanted me. He—” “Martinelli,” Papa said, his voice thick with disgust. “An Eye-talian. His father bought a thresher from me this year. Sweet God. When people hear…” He shoved Elsa away from him. “Go to your room. I need to think.” Elsa stumbled away. She wanted to say something, but what words could fix this? She walked up the porch steps and into the house. Maria stood in the archway to the kitchen, holding a silver candlestick and a rag. “Miss Wolcott, are you all right?” “No, Maria, I’m not.” Elsa ran upstairs to her room. She felt the start of tears and denied herself the relief they promised. She touched her flat, nearly concave stomach. She couldn’t imagine a baby in her, growing secretly. Surely a woman would know such a thing. An hour ed, then another. What were they talking about, her parents? What would they do to her? Beat her, lock her away, call the police and report a fictitious crime? She paced. She sat. She paced again. Outside her window, she saw evening start to fall. They would throw her out and she would wander the Great Plains, destitute and ruined, until it was time for her to give birth, which she would do alone, in squalor, and her body would give out on her at last. She would die in childbirth. So would the baby. Stop it. Her parents wouldn’t do that to her. They couldn’t. They loved her. At last, the bedroom door opened. Mama stood there, looking unusually harried and discomfited. “Pack a bag, Elsa.” “Where am I going? Will it be like Gertrude Renke? She was gone for months after that scandal with Theodore. Then she came home, and no one ever said a thing about it.” “Pack your bag.” Elsa knelt beside her bed and pulled out her suitcase. The last time it had been used was when she went to the hospital in Amarillo. Eleven years ago. She pulled clothes from her closet without thought or design and folded them into her open suitcase. Elsa stared at her overstuffed bookcase. Books lay on top, were stacked on the floor beside it. More books covered her nightstand. Asking her to choose among them was like having to choose between air and water. “I haven’t all day to wait,” Mama said. Elsa picked out The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights. She left The Age of Innocence, which in a way had started all of this. She put the four novels in her suitcase and clasped it shut. “No Bible, I see. Come,” Mama said. “Let’s go.” Elsa followed her mother out of the house. They crossed through the garden and approached Papa, who stood by the roadster. “It can’t come back on us, Eugene,” Mama said. “She’ll have to marry him.” Elsa stopped. “Marry him?” In all the hours she’d had to imagine her terrible fate, this had not even occurred to her. “You can’t be serious. He’s only eighteen.” Mama made a sound of disgust. Papa opened the enger door and waited impatiently for Elsa to get into the car. As soon as she was seated, he slammed her door, took his place in the driver’s seat, and started the engine. “Just take me to the train station.” Papa turned on his headlights. “You afraid your Eye-talian won’t want you? Too late, missy. You won’t simply disappear. Oh, no. You will face the consequences of your sin.” A few miles out of Dalhart, there was nothing to see but the yellow beams of the twin headlights. Every minute, every mile tightened Elsa’s fear until she felt she might simply break apart. Lonesome Tree was a nothing little town tucked up toward the Oklahoma border. They blew through it at twenty miles per hour. Two miles later, the headlights shone on a mailbox that read: MARTINELLI. Papa turned onto a long dirt driveway, which was lined on both sides by cottonwood trees and fenced with barbed wire attached to whatever wood the Martinellis had been able to find in this mostly treeless land. The car pulled into a well-tended yard and stopped in front of a whitewashed farmhouse with a covered front porch and dormer windows that looked out to the road. Papa honked his horn. Loudly. One. Two. Three times. A man came out of the barn, holding an ax casually over one shoulder. As he stepped into the glow of the headlights, Elsa saw that he wore the farmer’s uniform in these parts: patched dungarees and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up. A woman walked out of the house and ed the man. She was petite, with black hair woven into a coronet. She wore a green plaid dress and a crisp white apron. She was as beautiful as Rafe was handsome; they shared the same sculpted face, high cheekbones, and full lips, the same olive complexion. Papa got out of the car, then walked around to the enger door, opened it, and yanked Elsa to her feet. “Eugene,” the farmer said. “I’m up-to-date on my thresher payments, aren’t I?” Papa ignored him, yelled: “Rafe Martinelli!” Elsa wished the earth would open up and swallow her. She knew what the farmer and his wife saw when they looked at her: a spinster, skinny as a length of twine, tall as most men, hair cut unevenly, her narrow, sharp-chinned face as plain as a dirt field. Her thin lips were chapped, torn, and bloody. She’d been chewing on them nervously. The suitcase in her right hand was small, a testament to the fact that she was a woman who owned almost nothing. Rafe appeared on the porch. “What can we do for yah, Eugene?” Mr. Martinelli said. “Your boy has ruined my daughter, Tony. She’s expecting.” Elsa saw the way Mrs. Martinelli’s face changed at that, how the look in her eyes went from kind to suspicious. An appraising, judging look in which Elsa was condemned as either a liar or a loose woman or both. This was how people in town would see Elsa now: the old maid who’d seduced a boy and been ruined. Elsa held herself together with sheer willpower, refusing to give voice to the scream that filled her head. Shame. She thought she’d known shame before, would have said it was even the ordinary course of things, but now she saw the difference. In her family she’d felt ashamed for being unattractive, unmarriageable. She’d let that shame become a part of her, let it weave through her body and mind, become the connective tissue that held her together. But in that shame, there had been hope that one day they would see past all of that to the real her, the sister/daughter she was in her mind. A flower closed up tightly, waiting for the sunlight to fall on furled petals, desperate to bloom. This shame was different. She’d brought it on herself and, worse, she had destroyed this poor young man’s life. Rafe came down the steps and moved in beside his parents. Standing in the glare of the headlights, the Martinelli family stared at her in what could only be described as horror. “Your son took advantage of my daughter,” Papa said. Mr. Martinelli frowned. “How do you know—” “Papa,” Elsa whispered. “Please don’t…” Rafe stepped forward. “Els,” he said. “Are you okay?” Elsa wanted to cry at that small kindness. “It can’t be true,” Mrs. Martinelli said. “He’s engaged to Gia Composto.” “Engaged?” Elsa said to Rafe. His face turned red. “Last week.” Elsa swallowed hard and nodded matter-of-factly. “I never thought you … you know. I mean, I understand. I’ll go. This is for me to deal with.” She took a step back. “Oh, no, you don’t, missy.” Papa looked at Mr. Martinelli. “The Wolcotts are a good family. Respected in Dalhart. I expect your boy to make this right.” He gave Elsa one last look of disgust. “Either way, I don’t ever want to see you again, Elsinore. You’re no daughter of mine.” On that, he strode back to his still-running roadster and drove away. Elsa was left standing there, holding her suitcase. “Raffaello,” Mr. Martinelli said, turning his gaze to his son. “Is it true?” Rafe flinched, unable to quite meet his father’s gaze. “Yeah.” “Madonna mia,” Mrs. Martinelli said, then rattled off something further in Italian. Angry, that was all Elsa got from it. She slapped Rafe on the back of the head, a loud crack of sound, and then began yelling: “Send her away, Antonio. Puttana.” Mr. Martinelli pulled his wife away from them. “I’m sorry, Rafe,” Elsa said when they were alone. Shame was drowning her. She heard Mrs. Martinelli yell, “No,” and then, again: “Puttana.” A moment later, Mr. Martinelli returned to Elsa, looking older than when he’d left. He was craggy-looking—his brow thrust out, tufted by sagebrush eyebrows; the bumpy arch of a nose that looked to have been broken more than once; a blunt plate of a chin. An old-fashioned cowcatcher mustache covered most of his upper lip. Every bit of bad Panhandle Texas weather showed on his deeply tanned face, created wrinkles along his forehead like year rings in a tree trunk. “I’m Tony,” he said, and then cocked his head toward his wife, who stood about fifteen feet away. “My wife … Rose.” Elsa nodded. She knew he was one of the many farmers who bought supplies from her father each season on credit and paid it back after harvest. They had met at a few county gatherings, but not many. The Wolcotts didn’t socialize with people like the Martinellis. “Rafe,” he went on, looking at his son. “Introduce your girl properly.” Your girl. Not your hussy, your Jezebel. Elsa had never been anyone’s girl. And she was too long in the tooth to be a girl anyway. “Papa, this is Elsa Wolcott,” Rafe said in a voice that cracked on the last word. “No. No. No,” Mrs. Martinelli shouted. Her hands slammed onto her hips. “He’s going to college in three days, Tony. We’ve paid the deposit. How do we even know this woman is in the family way? It could be a lie. A baby—” “Changes everything,” said Mr. Martinelli. He added something in Italian, and his words silenced his wife. “You’ll marry her,” Mr. Martinelli said to Rafe. Mrs. Martinelli cursed loudly in Italian; at least it sounded like a curse. Rafe nodded at his father. He looked as frightened as Elsa felt. “What about his future, Tony?” Mrs. Martinelli said. “All of our dreams for him?” Mr. Martinelli didn’t look at his wife. “It’s the end of all that, Rose.” ELSA STOOD SILENTLY BY. Time seemed to slow down and stretch out as Rafe stared at her. The silence around them would have been complete but for the chickens squawking from the pen and a hog rooting lazily through the dirt. “I’ll get her settled,” Mrs. Martinelli said tightly, her face a mask of displeasure. “You boys go finish up for the night.” Mr. Martinelli and Rafe walked away without a word. Elsa thought, Leave. Just walk away. That was what they wanted her to do. If she walked away now, this family could go on with their lives. But where would she go? How would she live? She pressed a hand to her flat belly and thought about the life growing in there. A baby. How was it that in all the maelstrom of shame and regret, she’d missed the only thing that mattered? She would be a mother. A mother. There would be a baby who would love her, whom she would love. A miracle. She turned away from Mrs. Martinelli and began the long walk down the driveway. She heard each of her footsteps, and the cottonwoods chattering in the breeze. “Wait!” Elsa stopped. Turned back. Mrs. Martinelli stood directly behind her, hands fisted, mouth set in a hard line of disapproval. She was so small a good breeze might topple her, and yet the force emanating from her was unmistakable. “Where are you going?” “What do you care? Away.” “Your parents will accept you back, ruined?” “Hardly.” “So…” “I’m sorry,” Elsa said. “I didn’t mean to ruin your son’s life. Or dash your hopes for him. I just … it doesn’t matter now.” Elsa felt like a giraffe looming over this petite, exotic-looking woman. “So that’s it? You just leave?” “Isn’t that what you want me to do?” Mrs. Martinelli stepped closer, looked up, studying Elsa intently. Long, uncomfortable moments ed. “How old are you?” “Twenty-five.” Mrs. Martinelli did not look pleased by that. “Will you convert to Catholicism?” It took Elsa a moment to understand what was happening. They were negotiating. Catholic. Her parents would be mortified. Her family would disown her. They already had. You’re no daughter of mine. “Yes,” Elsa said. Her child would need the comfort of a faith and the Martinellis would be her only family. Mrs. Martinelli nodded crisply. “Good. Then—” “Will you love this child?” Elsa asked. “As you would have loved one borne by Gia?” Mrs. Martinelli looked surprised. “Or will you just put up with this puttana’s child?” Elsa didn’t know what the word meant, but she knew it wasn’t kind. “Because I know about growing up in a household where love is withheld. I won’t do that to my child.” “When you are a mother, you will know how I feel right now,” Mrs. Martinelli said at last. “The dreams for your children are so … so…” She stopped, looked away as tears filled her eyes, then went on. “You cannot imagine the sacrifices we made so that Raffaello could have a better life than we’ve had.” Elsa realized the pain she’d caused this woman, and her shame intensified. It was all she could do not to apologize again. “The baby, I will love,” Mrs. Martinelli said into the silence. “My first grandchild.” Elsa heard the unvoiced remainder loud and clear: You, I will not, but just that word, love, was enough to steady Elsa’s heart and shore up her fragile resolve. She could live among these strangers unwanted; invisibility was a skill she’d learned. What mattered now was the baby. She pressed a hand to her stomach, thinking, You, you, little one, you will be loved by me and love me in return. Nothing else mattered. I will be a mother. For this child, Elsa would marry a man who didn’t love her and a family who didn’t want her. From now on, all her choices would be thusly made. For her child. “Where should I put my things?” FIVE Mrs. Martinelli walked so fast it was hard to keep up with her. “Are you hungry?” the diminutive woman asked as she bounded up the steps and strode past the collection of mismatched chairs on the porch. “No, ma’am.” Mrs. Martinelli opened the front door and stepped inside. Elsa followed her into the house. In the parlor, she saw a collection of wooden furniture and a scarred oval cocktail table. Crocheted white doilies hung on the backs of chairs. There were large crucifixes hanging on two of the walls Catholic. What did that mean, really? What had Elsa promised to become? Mrs. Martinelli moved through the sitting room and went down a narrow hallway, past an open door that revealed a copper bathing tub and a washstand. No toilet. No indoor plumbing? At the end of the hall, Mrs. Martinelli pushed a door open. A boy’s bedroom, complete with sports trophies on the dresser. An unmade bed faced a large window, framed by blue chambray curtains. Elsa saw a photo of Gia Composto on the bedside table. A suitcase—no doubt packed for college—lay on the bed. Mrs. Martinelli scooped up the photograph and tossed the suitcase under the bed. “You will stay here, alone, until the wedding. Rafe can sleep in the barn. He loves that on a hot night anyway.” Mrs. Martinelli lit a lamp. “I will speak to Father Michael promptly. No need to draw this out.” She frowned. “I will need to talk to the Compostos.” “Perhaps Rafe should do that,” Elsa said. Mrs. Martinelli looked up. The small woman was a study in contradictions: she moved with the fast, furtive motions of a bird and looked fragile, but Elsa’s overwhelming impression was of strength. Toughness. She ed Rafe’s family story, how Tony and Rose had come to America from Sicily with only a few dollars between them. Together they had found this land and survived on it, lived for years in a sod dugout they’d built themselves. Only tough women lasted on Texas farmland. “I think he owes her that,” Elsa added. “Wash up. Put your things away,” Mrs. Martinelli said. “We will see you in the morning. Things often look better in sunlight.” “I don’t,” Elsa said. Mrs. Martinelli studied Elsa for an agonizing moment, obviously found her lacking, and then walked away, closing the door behind her. Elsa sat down on the edge of the bed, unable suddenly to catch her breath. There was a quiet knock on the door. “Come in,” she said. Rafe opened the door and stood in the opening, his face dusty. He took off his cap, twisted it in his hands. Then, slowly, he closed the door behind him. He came toward her, sat down on the bed. The springs protested at the additional weight. She glanced sideways at him, seeing his perfect profile. So handsome. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Aw, heck, Els, I didn’t want to go to college anyhow.” He gave her a strained smile; black hair flopped across one eye. “I didn’t want to stay here, either, but…” They looked at each other. At last he took her hand, held it. “I’ll try to be a good husband,” he said. Elsa wanted to tighten her hold on his hand, give a squeeze to show how much those words meant to her, but she didn’t dare. She was afraid that if she really held on to him, she’d never let go. She had to be cautious from now on, treat him as she would a skittish cat; be careful to never move too fast or need too much. She said nothing, and in time, he let go of her hand and left her in his bedroom, sitting on his bed, alone. THE NEXT MORNING, ELSA woke late. She pushed the hair from her face. Fine strands were stuck to her cheek; she’d cried in her sleep. Good. Better to cry at night when no one could see. She didn’t want to reveal her weakness to this new family. She went to the washstand and splashed lukewarm water on her face, then she brushed her teeth and combed her hair. Last night, as she’d unpacked, she’d realized how wrong her clothes were for farm life. She was a town girl; what did she know about life on the land? All she’d brought were crepe dresses and silk stockings and heels. Church clothes. She slipped into her plainest day dress, a charcoal-gray with pearl buttons and lace at the collar, then pulled up her stockings and stepped into the black heels she’d worn yesterday. The house smelled of bacon and coffee. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since yesterday’s lunch. The kitchen—a bright yellow-wallpapered room with gingham curtains and white linoleum flooring—was empty. Dishes drying on the counter attested to the fact that Elsa had slept through breakfast. What time did these people waken? It was only nine. Elsa went outside and saw the Martinelli farm in full sunlight. Hundreds of acres of shorn wheat fanned out in all directions, a sea of dry, cut, golden stalks, with the homestead part taking up a few acres in the middle of it all. A driveway cut through the fields, a brown ribbon of dirt bordered by cottonwoods and fencing. The farm itself consisted of the house, a big wooden barn, a horse corral, a cow paddock, a hog pen, a chicken coop, several outbuildings, and a windmill. Behind the house was an orchard, a small vineyard, and a fenced vegetable garden. Mrs. Martinelli was in the garden, bent over. Mr. Martinelli came out of the barn and approached her. “Good morning,” he said. “Walk with me.” He led her along the edge of the harvested wheat field; the shorn crop struck her as broken, somehow, devastated. Much like herself. A gentle breeze rustled what remained, made a shushing sound. “You are a town girl,” Mr. Martinelli said in a thick Italian accent. “Not anymore, I guess.” “This is a good answer.” He bent down, scooped up a handful of dirt. “My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family. We plant, we tend, we harvest. I make wine from grape cuttings that I brought here from Sicily, and the wine I make reminds me of my father. It binds us, this land, one to another, as it has for generations. Now it will bind you to us.” “I’ve never tended to anything.” He looked at her. “Do you want to change that?” Elsa saw comion in his dark eyes, as if he knew how afraid she’d been in her life, but she had to be imagining it. All he knew about her was that she was here now and she’d brought his son down with her. “Beginnings are only that, Elsa. When Rosalba and I came here from Sicily, we had seventeen dollars and a dream. That was our beginning. But it wasn’t what gave us this good life. We have this land because we worked for it, because no matter how hard life was, we stayed here. This land provided for us. It will provide for you, too, if you let it.” Elsa had never thought of land that way, as something that anchored a person, gave one a life. The idea of it, of staying here and finding a good life and a place to belong, seduced her as nothing ever had. She would do her best to become a Martinelli through and through, so she could their story, perhaps even take it as her own and it on to the child she carried. She would do anything, become anyone, to ensure that this family loved the baby unconditionally as one of their own. “I want that, Mr. Martinelli,” she said at last. “I want to belong here.” He smiled. “I saw that in you, Elsa.” Elsa started to thank him, but was interrupted by Mrs. Martinelli, who called out to her husband as she walked toward them carrying a basket full of ripe tomatoes and greenery. “Elsa,” she said, coming to a stop. “How nice to see you up.” “I … overslept.” Mrs. Martinelli nodded. “Follow me.” In the kitchen, Mrs. Martinelli took the vegetables from her basket and laid them on the table: plump red tomatoes, yellow onions, green herbs, clumps of garlic. Elsa had never seen so much garlic at one time. “What can you cook?” she asked Elsa, tying an apron on. “C-coffee.” Mrs. Martinelli stopped. “You can’t cook? At your age?” “I’m sorry, Mrs. Martinelli. No, but—” “Can you clean?” “Well … I’m sure I can learn to.” Mrs. Martinelli crossed her arms. “What can you do?” “Sew. Embroider. Darn. Read.” “A lady. Madonna mia.” She looked around the spotless kitchen. “Fine. Then I will teach you to cook. We will start with arancini. And call me Rose.” THE WEDDING WAS A hushed, hurried affair with no celebration before or after. Rafe slipped a plain band on Elsa’s finger and said, “I do,” and that was pretty much that. He looked to be in physical pain throughout the brief ceremony. On their wedding night, they came together in the darkness and sealed their vows with their bodies, just as they had done with their words, their ion as silent as the night around them. In the days and weeks and months that followed, he tried to be a good husband and she tried to be a good wife. At first, in Rose’s eyes at least, Elsa seemed unable to do anything right. She cut her finger when chopping tomatoes and burned her wrist taking freshly baked bread out of the oven. She couldn’t tell a ripe squash from an unripe one. Stuffing zucchini flowers was nearly impossible for someone as clumsy as Elsa. She converted to Catholicism and listened to Mass in Latin, not understanding a word but finding a strange comfort in the beautiful sound of it all; she memorized prayers and learned the rosaries and kept one always in her apron pocket. She took confession and sat in a small, dark closet and told Father Michael her sins and he prayed for her and absolved her. At first none of this made much sense to her, but in time it became both familiar and routine, a part of her new life, like no meat on Fridays or the myriad saints’ days that they celebrated. Elsa learned—to her surprise and to her mother-in-law’s—that she wasn’t a quitter. She woke up each morning well before her husband and got into the kitchen in time to make coffee. She learned to make and eat and love food she had never heard of, made from ingredients she’d never seen—olive oil, fettuccine, arancini, pancetta. She learned how to disappear on a farm: work harder than anyone else and don’t complain. In time, a new and unexpected feeling of belonging began to creep in. She spent hours in the garden kneeling in the dirt, watching seeds she planted sprout and push up from the earth and turn green, and each one felt like a new beginning. A promise for the future. She learned to pick the rich purple Nero d’Avola grapes and turn them into a wine that Tony swore was as good as his father could make. She learned the peace that came with looking out at a newly tilled field and the hope those fields inspired. Here, she sometimes thought, standing on land she cared for, here her child would flourish, would run and play and learn the stories told by the ground and the grapes and the wheat. THROUGHOUT THE WINTER, SNOW fell, and they hunkered down in the farmhouse, settling into a new routine; the women spent long hours cleaning, sewing, darning, and knitting, while the men took care of the animals and readied the farm equipment for the coming spring. On snowy evenings they huddled around the fire and Elsa read stories aloud and Tony played his fiddle. Elsa learned little things about her husband—that he snored loudly and was restless in his sleep, that he often woke with a cry in the middle of the night, shaken by nightmares. It’s quiet enough on this land to make you mad, he said sometimes, and Elsa tried to understand what he meant. Mostly she just let him talk and waited for him to reach out for her, which he did, but rarely and always in the dark. She knew the sight of her growing belly frightened him. When he did talk to her, he usually smelled of wine or whiskey; he would smile then, spin stories of their imagined, someday life in Hollywood or New York. In truth, Elsa never knew quite what to say to the handsome, quicksilver man she’d married, but spoken words had never been her forte and she didn’t have the courage to tell him how she felt anyway, that she’d found an unexpected strength in herself on this farm, and in her love for both her husband and his parents she’d become almost fierce. Instead, she did what she’d always done in the face of a painful rejection: she disappeared and held her tongue and waited—sometimes desperately—for her husband to see the woman she’d become. In February, rain came to the Great Plains, nourishing the seeds planted in the soil. By March, the land was vibrant with new growth—green for miles. Tony stood by his fields in the evening, staring out at the growing wheat. On this particularly blue, sunlit day, Elsa had opened every window in the house. A cool breeze moved through, carrying the scent of new life with it. She stood at the stove, browning bread crumbs in the delicious, nutty-flavored, imported olive oil they purchased at the general store. The pungent aroma of garlic browning in hot oil filled the kitchen. They used these bread crumbs, mixed with cheese and fresh parsley, on everything from vegetables to pasta. On the table behind her, a crockery bowl full of flour, ground from last year’s abundant crop, waited to be turned into bread dough. The Victrola in the sitting room played a “Santa Lucia” record loudly enough that Elsa felt compelled to sing along, even though she didn’t understand the words. A pain came without warning, stabbed her deep in the abdomen, doubling her over. She tried to be still, held her stomach, waited it out. But another pain came, minutes later, worse than the first. “Rose!” Rose rushed into the house, her arms full of laundry to be washed. “It’s…” Elsa’s water broke, splashed down her stockinged legs, and puddled on the floor. The sight plunged Elsa into panic. For the past months, she’d felt herself getting stronger, but now, as pain upended her, she couldn’t think of anything except the doctor telling her so long ago not to get overexcited, not to put strain on her heart. What if he’d been right? She looked up in terror. “I’m not ready, Rose.” Rose put down the laundry. “No one is ever ready.” Elsa couldn’t catch her breath. Another pain hit, wrenched through her stomach. “Look at me,” Rose said. She took Elsa’s face in her hands, although she had to get on her tiptoes to do so. “This is normal.” She took Elsa by the hand and led her to the bedroom, where she stripped the bed and threw the quilts and sheets on the floor. She undressed Elsa, who should have been ashamed to be seen that way, with her swollen belly and shapeless limbs, but the pain was so great she didn’t care. Such teeth in this pain. Gnawing at her, then spitting her out to breathe for a moment and then biting again. “Go ahead and scream,” Rose said, helping Elsa to the bed. Elsa lost her hold on time, on everything but the pain. She screamed out when she needed to and panted like a dog in between. Rose positioned Elsa as if she were a doll, spread her bare legs wide open. “I see the head, Elsa. You can push now.” Elsa pushed and strained and screamed. “My … heart’s going to stop,” she said, panting. She should have told them she was sick, that she wasn’t supposed to have children, that she could die. “If it does—” “It’s bad luck to speak of such things, Elsa. Push.” Elsa gave one last desperate push, felt a great whooshing relief, and sagged back into the pillows, exhausted. A baby’s cry filled the room. “A beautiful little girl with a good set of lungs.” Rose cut and tied off the umbilical cord, then wrapped the baby up in one of the many blankets they’d knitted over the long winter and handed the bundle to Elsa. Elsa took her daughter in her arms and stared down at her in awe. Love filled her to the brim and spilled over in tears. She’d never felt anything like it before, a heady, exhilarating combination of joy and fear. “Hello, baby girl.” The baby quieted, blinked up at her. Rose reached into the velvet pouch she wore as a necklace around her throat. Inside the pouch was an American penny. Rose kissed the penny and held it out for Elsa to see. The coin had two wheat shafts imprinted on the back. “Tony found this on the street outside my parents’ home on the day we were to leave on the boat for America. Can you imagine such good fortune? The wheat revealed our destiny. A sign, we said to each other, and it has been true. This coin will watch over another generation now,” Rose said, looking at Elsa. “My beautiful granddaughter.” “I want to call her Loreda,” Elsa said. “For my grandfather, who was born in Laredo.” Rose sounded out the unfamiliar name. “Lor-ay-da. Beautiful. Most American, I think,” she said, placing the penny in Elsa’s hand. “Believe me, Elsa, this little girl will love you as no one ever has … and make you crazy and try your soul. Often all at the same time.” In Rose’s dark, tear-brightened eyes, Elsa saw a perfect reflection of her own emotions and a soul-deep understanding of this bond—motherhood—shared by women for millennia. She also saw more affection than she’d ever seen in her own mother’s eyes. “Welcome to the family,” Rose said in an uneven voice, and Elsa knew she was talking to her as well as to Loreda. 1934 I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.… The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. —FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT SIX It was so hot that every now and then a bird fell from the sky, landing with a little thump on the hard-packed dirt. The chickens sat in dusty heaps on the ground, their heads lolled forward, and the last two cows stood together, too hot and tired to move. A listless breeze moved through the farm, plucking at the empty clothesline. The driveway that led to the farmhouse was still hemmed in on either side by makeshift posts and barbed wire, but in several places the posts had fallen down. The trees on either side were skeletal, barely alive. This farm had been reconfigured by wind and drought, sculpted into a land of tumbleweeds and starving mesquite. Years of drought, combined with the economic ravages of the Great Depression, had brought the Great Plains to its knees. They’d suffered through these dry years in the Texas Panhandle, but with the whole country devastated by the Crash of ’29 and twelve million people out of work, the big-city newspapers didn’t bother covering the drought. The government offered no assistance, not that the farmers wanted it anyway. They were too proud to live on the dole. All they wanted was for rain to soften the soil and sprout the seeds so the wheat and corn would once again lift their golden arms toward the sky. The rains had begun to slow in ’31, and in the last three years there had been almost none at all. This year, so far, they had had less than five inches. Not enough to fill a pitcher for tea, let alone water thousands of acres of wheat. Now, on another record-breaking hot day in late August, Elsa sat in the driver’s seat of the old wagon, her hands sweating and itching inside her suede gloves as she handled the reins. There was no money for gas anymore, so the truck had become a relic stored in the barn, like the tractor and the plow. A straw hat, once white and now brown with dust, was pulled low on her sunburned forehead, and she’d tied a blue bandanna around her throat. Grit in her eyes made her squint as she made a clicking sound with her teeth and tongue and maneuvered the wagon off the farm and onto the main road. Milo’s plodding, even clip-clop steps rang out on the hard-packed dirt. Birds sat on telephone wires strung between the poles. It was not quite three o’clock in the afternoon when she pulled into Lonesome Tree. The town was quiet, hunkered down in the heat. There were no townspeople out shopping, no women gathered outside the storefronts. Those days were as gone as green lawns. The hat shop was boarded up, as was the apothecary, the soda fountain, and the diner. The Rialto Movie Theater was hanging on by a thread; it showed one matinee a week, but few could afford to attend. Raggedly dressed people stood in line for food at the Presbyterian church, metal spoons and cups in hand. The children, freckled and sunburned and as whittled down as their parents, were quiet. The lone tree on Main Street, a plains cottonwood that was the town’s namesake, was dying. Each time Elsa came to town it looked a little worse. The wagon rolled forward, wheels clacking, ing the boarded-up county welfare building (there was lots of need, but no funds), and the blank-eyed jail that was busier than ever with drifters and hobos and no- train tramps. The doctor’s office was still open, but the bakery was out of business. Most of the buildings were single story and made of wood. In the wet years, they’d been repainted yearly. Now they were untended and turning gray. Elsa said, “Whoa, Milo,” and pulled up on the reins. The horse and wagon clanked to a stop. The gelding shook his head, snorted tiredly. He hated being out in this heat, too. Elsa stared at the Silo Saloon. The squat, square building, half as wide and twice as long as any other Main Street building, had two windows that faced the street. One had been broken last year in a fight between two drunks and had never been fixed. Rows of dirty tape closed the square. The saloon had been built in the 1880s for the cowboys of the three-million-acre XIT Ranch that ran along the Texas–New Mexico border. The ranch was long gone and most of the cowboys had moved on, but the Silo remained. In the months since Prohibition had been repealed, places like the Silo had reopened for business, but the Depression had left fewer and fewer men with spare pennies for beer. Elsa tied the gelding to a hitching post and smoothed the front of her damp cotton dress. She’d made the dress herself, from old flour sacks. Everyone made clothes from grain and flour sacks these days. The manufacturers of the sacks had even begun printing pretty designs on the material. It was a small thing, those floral patterns, but anything that made a woman feel pretty in these hard times was worth its weight in gold. Elsa made sure that the dress, once fitted to her figure and now bagging at her narrowing hips and bust, was buttoned up to her throat. It was a sad fact that she was thirty-eight years old, a grown woman with two children, and she still hated to enter a place like this. Although she hadn’t seen her parents for years, it turned out that a parent’s disapproval was a powerful, lingering voice that shaped and defined one’s self-image. Elsa steeled herself and opened the door. Inside, the long, narrow saloon was as drab and untended as the town itself. The smoky air smelled of spilled hooch and men’s sweat. A mahogany bar had been worn to a satin finish by fifty years of men drinking at it. Faded, shredded barstools were positioned along it; most were empty now in the middle of a hot summer day. Rafe sat slumped on one of them, elbows on the bar, an empty shot glass in front of him, his head hung forward. Black hair curtained his face from view. He wore faded, patched dungarees and a shirt made of plain beige flour-sack fabric. A brown, hand-rolled cigarette burned between two dirty fingers. In the back of the saloon, an old man chuckled. “Watch out, Rafe. The sheriff’s in town.” His voice was slurred, his mouth almost lost in the tufts of his gray beard. The barkeep looked up, a dirty rag slung over his shoulder. “Howdy, Elsa,” he said. “You come to pay his tab?” Perfect. There was no money to buy the children new shoes or to replace her last pair of stockings, and now her husband was drinking on credit. She felt awkward and unattractive in her baggy flour-sack dress and thick cotton hose, with the fraying leather of her shoes making her big feet look even bigger. “Rafe?” she said quietly, coming up behind him, laying a bare hand on his shoulder, hoping to gentle him with touch, as she would a skittish colt. “I meant to have one drink.” He let out a ragged sigh. Elsa couldn’t count the number of times her husband’s sentences began with I meant. In the first years of their marriage, he’d tried. She’d seen him trying to love her, to be happy, but the drought had drained her husband, just as it had dried out the land. In the past four years, he’d stopped spinning dreams for the future. Three years ago, they’d buried a son, but even that loss hadn’t broken him the way poverty and the drought had. “Your father was counting on you to help him plant fall potatoes this afternoon.” “Yeah.” “The kids need potatoes,” Elsa said. He cocked his head, just enough so he could see her through the dust black of his hair. “You think I don’t know that?” I think you’ve been sitting here drinking up what little money we have, so how can I know what you know? Loreda needs new shoes, she thought but didn’t dare say out loud. “I’m a bad father, Elsa, and a worse husband. Why do you stay with me?” Because I love you. The look in his dark eyes broke her heart yet again. She did love her husband as deeply as she loved her children, Loreda and Anthony, and as deeply as she’d come to love the Martinellis and the land. Elsa had discovered within herself a nearly bottomless capacity for love. And, God help her, it was her doomed, unshakable love for Rafe, as much as anything, that repeatedly rendered her mute, made her withdraw so that she wouldn’t seem pathetic. Sometimes, especially on the nights he didn’t come to their bed at all, she felt she deserved better and that maybe if she stood up and demanded more, she would receive it. Then she would the things her parents had said about her, the unattractiveness that had never changed, and she would remain silent. “Come on, Elsa, take me home. I can’t wait to spend the rest of the day rooting through the dirt to plant potatoes that will die without rain.” She steadied him as he stumbled out of the saloon, and helped him up into the wagon. She took the reins and slapped them across the bay gelding’s butt. Milo snorted tiredly and began the long, plodding journey through town, past the abandoned grange hall where the Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs used to meet. Rafe leaned against Elsa, placing a gentle, long-fingered hand on her thigh. “I’m sorry, Els,” he said in his soft-spoken, what-have-I-done voice. “It’s okay,” she said, meaning it from the bottom of her heart. As long as he was beside her, it was okay. She would always forgive him. As little as he gave her, as frayed as his affection for her sometimes was, she lived in fear of losing it. Losing him. Just as she feared losing her moody, adolescent daughter’s love. Lately, that fear had grown almost too big to handle. Loreda had turned twelve and immediately become angry. Gone overnight were the days of mother-daughter gardening and reading hour at night, when they’d discussed Heathcliff’s nature and Jane Eyre’s strength. Loreda had always been a daddy’s girl, but as a child she’d had room in her heart for both of her parents. For everyone, really. Loreda had been the happiest of children, always laughing and clapping and demanding attention. For years, she had only been able to sleep if Elsa was in bed with her, stroking her hair. Gone, all of it. Elsa grieved daily for the loss of that closeness with her firstborn. At first she’d tried to scale the walls of her daughter’s adolescent, irrational anger; she’d volleyed back with words of love, but Loreda’s continuing, thriving impatience with Elsa had done worse than grind her down. It had resurrected all the insecurities of childhood. Somewhere along the way, Elsa had begun to withdraw from Loreda, first hoping that her daughter would grow out of her mood swings, and then—worse—believing that Loreda had finally seen the lack in Elsa that her own family had seen. Elsa felt a deeply rooted shame in her daughter’s rejection. In her hurt, she did what she’d always done: she disappeared. But all the while, she waited, prayed, that both her husband and her daughter would someday see how much she loved them and they would love her in return. Until then, she dared not push too hard or demand too much. The price could be too high. There was something she hadn’t known when she went into marriage and became a mother that she knew now: it was only possible to live without love when you’d never known it. ON THIS FIRST DAY of school, the town’s only remaining teacher, Nicole Buslik, stood at the chalkboard, chalk in hand. Her auburn hair had worked free from its constraints and become a fuzzy nimbus around her heat-flushed face. Sweat turned the lace at her throat a shade darker and Loreda was pretty sure Mrs. Buslik was afraid to lift her arms and show sweat stains. Twelve-year-old Loreda sat at her desk, slumped forward, not paying attention to today’s lesson. It was just more blather about what had gone wrong. The Great Depression, the drought, blah, blah, blah. It had been “hard times” for as long as Loreda could . Oh, in the early years, the time before memory, she knew rains had fallen, season after season, nourishing the land. Pretty much all Loreda ed of the green years was the sight of her grandfather’s wheat, golden stalks dancing beneath an enormous blue sky. The sound of rustling. The image of tractors rolling over the ground twenty-four hours a day, plowing the earth, churning up more and more fields. A horde of mechanical insects chewing up the ground. When had the bad years begun, exactly? It was hard to pinpoint. There were so many choices. The stock market crash of 1929, some would say, but not the folks around here. Loreda had been seven years old then, and she ed some of that time. Folks lined up outside the savings and loan. Grandpa complaining about bad wheat prices. Grandma lighting candles and keeping them lit, whispering prayers with her rosary. That had been bad, the crash, but most of the hardship landed in cities Loreda had never been to. Nineteen twenty-nine had been a good rain year, which meant a good crop year, which meant times had been good enough for the Martinellis. Grandpa kept riding his tractor, kept planting wheat, even as the prices plummeted because of the Depression. He’d even bought a brand-new Ford Model AA stake-bed farm truck. Daddy had smiled often then and told her stories of faraway lands while Mom did chores. The last good crop had been 1930, the year Loreda turned eight. She ed her birthday. A beautiful spring day. Presents. Grandma’s tiramisu with candles poking up from the cocoa-powder topping. Her best friend, Stella, had been allowed to spend the night for the first time. Daddy had taught them how to dance the Charleston while Grandpa accompanied them on the fiddle. And then the rains slowed and never started up again. Drought. These days, green fields were a distant memory, a mirage of her youth. The adults looked as parched as the ground. Grandpa spent hours standing in his dead wheat fields, scooping the dry earth into his callused hands, watching it fall away through his fingers. He grieved for his dying grapes and told anyone who would listen that he’d brought the first vines from Italy, stuffed in his pockets. Grandma had built altars everywhere, doubled the number of crucifixes on the walls, and made them all pray for rain each Sunday. Sometimes the whole town came together in the schoolhouse to pray for rain. All different religions begging God for moisture: the Presbyterians, the Baptists, the Irish and the Italian Catholics, each in their own rows. The Mexicans had their own church built hundreds of years ago. Everyone talked about the drought constantly and missed the good old days. Except her mother. Loreda sighed heavily. Had there ever been any fun in her mother? If so, it was another of Loreda’s lost memories. Sometimes, when she lay in bed, drifting toward sleep, she thought she ed the sound of her mother’s laughter, the feel of her touch, even a whispered, Be brave, just before a good-night kiss. More and more, though, those memories felt manufactured, false. She couldn’t the last time her mother laughed about anything. All Mom did was work. Work, work, work. As if that would save them. Loreda couldn’t when exactly she’d begun to be angered by her mother’s … disappearance. There was no other word for it. Her mother rose well before the sun and worked. Day after day. Hour after hour. She harped constantly about saving food and not dirtying clothes and not wasting water. Loreda couldn’t imagine how her handsome, charming, funny father had ever fallen in love with Mom. Loreda had once told her father that Mom seemed afraid of laughter. He had said, “Now, Lolo,” in that way of his, with his head cocked and a smile that meant he wouldn’t talk of it. He never complained about his wife, but Loreda knew how he felt, so she complained for him. It brought them closer, proved how alike they were, she and Daddy. As alike as peas in a pod. Everyone said so. Like Daddy, Loreda saw how limited life was on a wheat farm in the Texas Panhandle, and she had no intention of becoming like her mother. She was not going to sit on this dying wheat farm for her whole life, withering and wrinkling beneath a sun so hot it melted rubber. She was not going to waste her every prayer on rain. Not a chance. She was going to travel the world and write about her adventures. Someday she would be as famous as Nellie Bly. Someday. She watched a brown field mouse creep along the baseboard under the window. It stopped at the teacher’s desk, sipped at a blot of fallen ink. When it looked up, blue painted its tiny nose. Loreda elbowed Stella Devereaux, who sat at the desk next to Loreda. Stella looked up, bleary-eyed from the heat. Loreda indicated the mouse. Stella almost smiled. A bell rang and the mouse ran into the corner and disappeared into its hole. Loreda got to her feet. Her flour-sack dress felt sticky with sweat. She grabbed her book bag and fell into step with Stella. Usually they’d be talking nonstop on the way out, about boys or books or places they wanted to see or movies coming to the Rialto Theater, but today it was too hot to make the effort. Loreda’s little brother, Anthony, was the first one to the door, as usual. At seven, Ant ran like an unbroken colt, all bent elbows and loose ts. More spirited than any of the other children, Ant always had a spring in his step. He was dressed in faded, patched dungarees that were inches too short, the ragged hems revealing ankles as skinny as broom handles and shoes with holes in the toes. His freckled, angular face was tanned to the color of saddle leather, with big red patches of sunburn on his cheeks. A cap hid the fact that his black hair was dirty. Outside, he saw his parents in the wagon and waved broadly and started to run. He had never known anything but drought, not really, and so he played and laughed like an ordinary boy. Stella’s younger sister, Sophia, tried gamely to keep up with him. “How does your mom always sit up so tall in this heat?” Stella said. She was the only kid in class wearing new shoes and a dress made from real gingham. Times weren’t so bad for the Devereaux family, but Loreda’s grandpa said all the banks were in trouble. “It doesn’t matter how hot it is, she never complains.” “My mom doesn’t say much, either, but you should hear my sister. Ever since she got married, she cries like a stuck pig about all the work it takes to be a wife.” “I ain’t getting married,” Loreda said. “My dad and me are going to go to Hollywood together someday.” “Your mom won’t mind?” Loreda shrugged. Who knew what bothered her mom? And who cared? Stella and Sophia turned left and headed toward their home on the other side of town. Ant ran up to the wagon. “Hey, Mommy,” Ant said, his grin showing off a new lost tooth. “Daddy.” “Howdy, son,” Daddy said. “Climb into the back.” “D’ya wanna see what I drew in class today? Missus Buslik says—” “Get in the wagon, Anthony,” Daddy said. “I’ll see your artwork at home, when the sun goes down and we are out of this damnable heat.” Ant’s face fell in disappointment. Loreda hated how sad and beaten her dad looked. The drought was sucking him dry. He and Loreda were bright stars who needed to shine. He said so all the time. “You wanna go to the movies tomorrow, Daddy?” she said, staring up at him adoringly. “Little Miss Marker is playing again.” “There’s no money for that, Loreda,” Mom said. “Climb in the back with your brother.” “How about—” “Get in the wagon, Loreda,” Mom said. Loreda tossed her book bag into the back of the wagon and climbed in. She and Ant sat close together on the dusty old quilt that they kept in the back. Mom snapped the reins and they were off. Swaying with the motion of the wagon, Loreda stared out at the dry land. The air smelled of dust and heat. They ed the rotting carcass of a steer, its ribs sticking up, its horns reaching out from the sand. Flies buzzed around it. A crow landed on the carcass, cawed proprietarily, and began plucking at the bones. There was an abandoned Model T beside it, doors open, tires buried up to the axle in dry soil. To their left stood a small farmhouse, unshaded by trees, surrounded by brown earth. A pair of signs—AUCTION and FORECLOSURE—were hammered to the front door. In the yard, a jalopy was stuffed to the gills with people and junk. Tied to the back end were a stack of buckets, a cast-iron frying pan, and a wooden crate full of mason jars and sacks of wheat. The running engine puffed black smoke into the air and rattled the metal frame. Pots and pans had been tied wherever there was something to tie them to. Two children stood on the rusty running boards and a woman with a sad face and lanky hair sat in the enger seat holding a baby. The farmer—Will Bunting—stood by the driver’s-side door, dressed in coveralls and a shirt with only one sleeve. A banged-up cowboy hat was pulled low over his dusty face. “Whoa,” Mom said, drawing the gelding to a halt, tilting back her sun hat. “Heyya, Rafe,” Will said, spitting tobacco into the dirt at his feet. “Elsa.” He pulled away from the overburdened car, walked slowly toward the wagon. When he got there, he stopped, said nothing, shoved his hands in his pockets. “Where yah goin’?” Daddy asked. “We’re licked,” Will said. “You know my boy, Kallson, died this summer?” He glanced back at his wife. “And now there’s the new one. Can’t take it no more. We’re leaving.” Loreda straightened. They were leaving? Mom frowned. “But your land—” “Bank’s land now. Couldn’t make the payments.” “Where will you go?” Daddy asked. Will pulled a creased flyer out of his back pocket. “California. Land of milk and honey, they say. Don’t need honey. Just work.” “How do you know it’s true?” Daddy said, taking the flyer from him. Jobs for everyone! Land of opportunity! Go West to California! “I don’t.” “You can’t just leave,” Mom said. “Too late for us. A family can only bury so much. Tell your folks I said goodbye.” Will turned and walked back to his dusty car and climbed into the driver’s seat. The metal door clanged shut. Mom clicked her tongue and snapped the reins and Milo began plodding forward again. Loreda watched the jalopy drive past them in a cloud of dust, unable suddenly to think about anything else. Leaving. They could go to one of the places she and Daddy talked àbout: San Francisco or Hollywood or New York. “Glenn and Mary Lynn Mounger left last week,” Daddy said. “They headed for California, just up and left in that old Packard of theirs.” It was a long moment before Mom said, “You the newsreel we saw? Breadlines in Chicago. People living in shacks and cardboard boxes in Central Park. At least here we’ve got eggs and milk.” Daddy sighed. Loreda felt the pain of that sound, the hurt that came with it. Mom would say no. “Yeah, I reckon.” He dropped the flyer to the floor of the wagon. “My folks would never leave anyhow.” “Never,” Mom agreed. THAT NIGHT, LOREDA SAT out on the porch swing after supper. Leave. The sun set slowly on the farm around her, night swallowing the flat, brown, dry land. One of their cows lowed plaintively for water. Soon, in the darkness, her grandfather would start watering the livestock, carrying buckets of water from the well one by one, while Grandma and Mom watered the garden. The creaking whine of the porch swing chain seemed loud amid the quiet. She heard the jangling of the party-line telephone come from inside the house. These days, a phone call meant nothing fun; all anyone talked about was the drought. Except her father. He wasn’t anything like the farmers or shopkeepers. Every other man seemed to live or die by land and weather and crops. Like her grandfather. When Loreda had been young and the rain reliable, when the wheat grew tall and golden, Grandpa Tony smiled all the time and drank rye on the weekends and played his fiddle at town parties. He used to take her by the hand and walk with her through the whispering wheat and tell her that if she listened, there were stories coming from the stalks themselves. He would get a clump of dirt in his big, callused hand and hold it out to her as if it were a diamond and say, “This will all be yours one day, and it will to your children, and then to your children’s children.” The land: he said it the way Father Michael said God. And Grandma and Mom? They were like all the farm wives in Lonesome Tree. They worked their fingers to the bone, rarely laughing and hardly talking. When they did talk, it was never about anything interesting. Daddy was the only one who talked about ideas or choices or dreams. He talked about travel and adventures and all the lives a person could live. He’d repeatedly told Loreda that there was a big beautiful world beyond this farm. She heard the door open behind her. The aroma of stewed tomatoes and fried pancetta and cooked garlic wafted her way. Daddy came out onto the porch, closed the door quietly behind him. Lighting up a cigarette, he sat down on the swing beside her. She smelled the sweetness of wine on his breath. They were supposed to be conserving everything, but Daddy refused to give up on his wine or his hooch. He said drinking was the only thing keeping him sane. He loved to drop a slippery, sweet slice of preserved peach into his after-supper wine. Loreda leaned into him. He put an arm around her and pulled her close as they glided forward and back. “You’re quiet, Loreda. That ain’t like my girl.” The farm transitioned around them into a dark world full of sounds: the windmill thumping, bringing up their precious water, chickens scratching, hogs rooting in the dirt. “This drought,” Loreda said, pronouncing the dreaded word like everyone did around here. Drouth. She fell silent, choosing her words with care. “It’s killing the land.” “Yep.” He finished the cigarette, stubbed it out into the pot full of dead flowers beside him. Loreda pulled the flyer out of her pocket, unfolded it with care. California. Land of milk and honey. “Mrs. Buslik says there’s jobs in California. Money lying in the streets. Stella said her uncle sent a postcard saying there’s jobs in Oregon.” “I doubt there’s money lying in the streets, Loreda. This Depression is worse in the cities. Last I read, over thirteen million folks were out of jobs. You’ve seen the tramps that ride the trains. There’s a Hooverville in Oklahoma City that’d make you cry. Families living in apple carts. Come winter, they’ll be dying of cold on park benches.” “They aren’t dying of cold in California. You could get a job. Maybe work on the railroad.” Daddy sighed, and in that exhalation of his breath, she knew what he was thinking. That was how in tune she was with him. “My parents—and your mom—will never leave this land.” “But—” “It’ll rain,” Daddy said, but there was something sorrowful about the way he said it, almost as if he didn’t want rain to save them. “Do you have to be a farmer?” He turned. She saw the frown that bunched his thick black brows. “I was born one.” “You always tell me this is America. A person can be anything.” “Yeah, well. I made a bad choice a few years back, and … well … sometimes your life is chosen for you.” After that, he was quiet for a long time. “What bad choice?” He didn’t look at her. His body was sitting beside her, but his mind was somewhere else. “I don’t want to dry up here and die,” Loreda said. At last he said, “It’ll rain.” SEVEN Another scorcher of a day, and not even ten in the morning. So far, September had offered no respite from the heat. Elsa knelt on the linoleum kitchen floor, scrubbing hard. She had already been up for hours. It was best to do chores in the relative cool of dawn and dusk. A scuffling sound caught her attention. She saw a tarantula, body as big as an apple, scurrying out from its hiding place in the corner. She got to her feet and used the mop to chase it outside. It was crueler to send the spider back out into the heat than to crush it with her shoe. Besides, she barely had the energy to stomp on the spider, let alone the will strong enough to care. She had trouble lately doing anything that didn’t result in food or water. The key to life in this dry heat was conservation of everything: water, food, emotion. That last one was the biggest challenge. She knew how unhappy Rafe and Loreda were. The two of them, as alike as grains of sand, had more trouble these days than the rest of them. Not that anyone on the farm was happy. How could they be? But Tony and Rose and Elsa were the kind of people who expected life to be hard and had become tougher to survive. Her in-laws had worked for years—him on the railroad, her in a shirtwaist factory—to earn the money to buy their land. Their first dwelling here had been a dugout made of sod bricks that they’d built themselves. They might have come off the boat as Anthony and Rosalba, but hard work and the land had turned them into Tony and Rose. Americans. They would die of thirst and hunger before they’d give that up. And although Elsa hadn’t been born a farmer, she’d become one. In the past thirteen years, she’d learned to love this land and this farm more than she would have imagined possible. In the good years, spring had been a time of joy for her, watching her garden grow, and autumn had been a time of pride; she’d loved seeing her labor on the shelves of the root cellar: jars filled with vegetables and fruits—red tomatoes, glistening peaches, and cinnamon-scented apples. Rolls of spiced pancetta made from pork belly and cured hams hanging from hooks overhead. Boxes overflowing with potatoes and onions and garlic from the garden. The Martinellis had welcomed Elsa in and she repaid that unexpected kindness with a deep devotion, a fierce love for them and their ways, but even as Elsa had merged deeper into the family, Rafe had veered away. He was unhappy, had been for years, and now Loreda was following her father’s path. Of course she was. It was impossible not to be captivated by Rafe’s charm and caught up in his impossible dreams. His smile could light up the room. He’d fed his impressionable, mercurial daughter a steady diet of dreams when she was young; now he ed along his dissatisfaction. Elsa knew he said things to Loreda, complained of things that he wouldn’t say to his parents or his wife. Loreda had the greatest part of Rafe’s heart, and had from her first breath. Elsa went back to scrubbing the kitchen floor, and then went on to scrub the floors in all eight rooms, washing dust off the woodwork and windowsills. When she finished that chore, she gathered up the rugs and took them outside and hung them, beating the dirt out of them with a stick. The wind picked up, ruffled her dress. She paused in beating the rug, sweat running down her face, between her breasts, and tented a hand over her eyes. Past the outhouse, a murky, urine-yellow haze burnished the sky. Elsa tilted her sun hat back, stared out at the sickly yellow horizon. Dust storm. The newest scourge of the Great Plains. The sky changed color, turned red-brown. Wind picked up, barreled across the farm from the south. A Russian thistle hit her in the face, tore the skin from her cheek. A tumbleweed spiraled past. A board flew off the chicken coop and cracked into the side of the house. Rafe and Tony came running out of the barn. Elsa pulled her bandanna up over her mouth and nose. The cows mooed angrily and pushed into each other, pointing their bony butts into the dust storm. Static electricity made their tails stand out. A flotilla of birds flew past them, flapping hard, cawing and squawking, outrunning the dust. Rafe’s Stetson flew off his head and tumbled toward the barbed-wire fence and was caught on a spike. “Get inside,” he yelled. “I’ll take care of the animals.” “The kids!” “Mrs. Buslik knows what to do. Go inside.” Her kids. Out in this. The wind was howling now, slamming into them, shoving them sideways. Elsa bent into it and fought her way to the house against the wind-driven dust. She inched up the uneven stairs and across the gritty porch and grabbed the metal doorknob. A current of static electricity knocked her off her feet. She lay there a second, dazed, coughing, trying to breathe. The door opened. Rose yanked her to her feet, pulled her into the rattling, howling house. Elsa and Rose ran from window to window, securing the newspaper and rag coverings over the glass and sills. Dust rained down from the ceilings, wafted from infinitesimal cracks in the window frames and walls. The candles on the makeshift altar blew out. Centipedes crawled out from the walls, hundreds of them, and slithered across the floor, looking for somewhere to hide. A blast of wind hit the house, so hard it seemed the roof would be torn off. And the noise. It was like a locomotive bearing down on them, engines grinding. The house shuddered as if breathing too hard; a banshee wind howled, mad as hell. The door opened and her husband and Tony staggered in. Tony slammed the door shut behind them and threw the bolt. A crucifix fell to the floor. Elsa leaned back against the shuddering wall. Elsa could hear her mother-in-law’s breathy, scratchy voice as she prayed. Elsa reached sideways, took her hand. Rafe moved in beside Elsa. She could tell that they were both thinking the same thing: What if the children had been out on the playground? This storm had come up fast. With everything dying these days, there were no strong roots to anchor the soil to the earth. A wind like this could blow whole farms away. At least that was how it felt. “They’ll be okay,” he said, hacking through the dust. “How do you know?” she yelled above the sound of the storm. The despair in her husband’s eyes was all the answer he had. LOREDA SAT ON THE floor of the quaking schoolhouse, her brother tucked in close beside her, both wearing bandannas drawn over their mouths and noses bandit-style. Ant was trying to be brave, but he flinched every time a particularly fierce gust of wind hit the building and rattled the glass. Dust rained down from the ceiling. Loreda felt it collecting in her hair, on her shoulders. Wind battered the wooden walls, wailed in a high, almost human scream. Panicked birds kept hitting the glass. When the storm first struck, Mrs. Buslik had called them all in and made them sit together in the corner farthest from the windows. She’d tried reading a story, but no one could concentrate, and in time no one could hear her voice, so she gave up and closed the book. There had been at least ten of these dust storms in the past year. One day this spring, the wind and dirt had blown for twelve straight hours, so long that they’d had to cook and eat and do chores in the raging dust. Grandma and Mom said they should pray. Pray. As if lighting candles and kneeling could stop all of this. Clearly, if God was watching the people of the Great Plains, He wanted them to either leave or die. When the storm finally ended and silence swept into the schoolhouse, the children sat there, traumatized and big-eyed and covered in dirt. Mrs. Buslik slowly unfolded from her seat on the floor. As she stood, dirt rained down from her lap. The sand outline of her body on the floor remained behind, a dirt design. She went to the door, opened it to reveal a beautiful blue sky. Loreda saw Mrs. Buslik sigh with relief. The exhalation made her cough. “Okay, kids,” she said in a scratchy voice. “It’s over.” Ant looked at Loreda. His freckled face was brown with dirt above the bandanna that covered his mouth and nose. By rubbing his eyes, he’d given himself a raccoon look. Tears hung stubbornly onto his lashes, looking like beads of mud. She pulled down her bandanna. “Come on, Ant,” she said. Her voice was thin and scratchy. Loreda and Stella and Ant retrieved their book bags and empty lunch pails and left the schoolhouse. Sophia shuffled along behind them, her head hung. Loreda held Ant’s hand firmly in hers as she stepped from the building. Town was catastrophe-quiet. The carbide arc streetlamps—such a source of community pride four years ago when they had been installed—were lit because people and cars and animals needed light to find safety in the storm. They walked up Main Street. Tumbleweeds were caught in the boardwalk. Windows were boarded up, from both the Depression and the dust storms. When they neared the train depot, Stella said, “It’s gettin’ bad, Lolo,” quietly, as if she were afraid her voice would carry all the way to her parents’ house. Loreda had no answer to that. In the Martinelli house it had been bad for years. She watched Stella walk away, shoulders hunched as if to protect her from whatever hardship was waiting; she climbed over a new dune of sand that had been swept into the street and turned the corner on her way home. Sophia followed her sister. Loreda and Ant kept walking. It felt as if they were the only two people left in the world. They ed several FOR SALE signs on fence posts, and then there was nothing. No houses, no fences, no animals, no windmills. Just endless brown-gold dirt molded into hills and dunes. Sand piled up at the base of the telephone poles. One pole was down. Loreda was the first to hear the slow, dull clip-clop of hooves. “Mommy!” Ant yelled. Loreda looked up. Mom drove the wagon toward them; she sat strained forward, as if she wanted Milo to move faster, faster, but the poor old gelding was as exhausted and thirsty as the rest of them. Ant pulled free and started to run. Mom brought the horse to a halt and jumped down from the wagon. She ran toward them, her face brown with dirt, her dress shredded into fraying strips from the waist down, apron flapping, her pale blond hair brown with dust. Mom swept Ant into a hug, pulled him off his feet, twirled him around, as if she’d thought she’d never see him again, and covered his dirty face with kisses. Loreda ed those kisses; Mom had smelled of lavender soap and talcum powder in the good years. Not anymore. Loreda couldn’t the last time she’d let Mom kiss her. Loreda didn’t want the kind of love that trapped. She wanted to be told she could fly high, be anything and go anywhere—she wanted the things her father wanted. Someday she would smoke cigarettes and go to jazz clubs and get a job. Be modern. Her mother’s idea of a woman’s place was too sad for Loreda to bear. Mom helped Ant up into the wagon’s front seat, then came to stand in front of Loreda. “You okay?” Mom asked, tucking the hair behind Loreda’s ear, her touch lingering there. “Yeah. Great,” Loreda said, hearing the sharpness in her voice. She knew it was wrong to be angry with her mother now—the weather wasn’t her fault—but Loreda couldn’t help herself. She was mad at the world, and somehow that meant she was mad at her mom most of all. “Ant looks like he’s been crying.” “He was scared.” “I’m glad his big sister was with him.” How could Mom smile at a time like this? It was irritating. “You know your teeth are brown with dirt?” Loreda said. Her mother flinched and instantly stopped smiling. Loreda had hurt Mom’s feelings. Again. Loreda suddenly felt like crying. Before her mom could see the emotion, Loreda headed for the back of the wagon. “You can sit up here with us,” Mom said. “Seeing where we’re going ain’t any better than seeing where we’ve been. The view never changes.” “Isn’t,” Mom corrected automatically. “Oh, right,” Loreda said. “Education is everything.” As they headed home, Loreda stared out at the flat, flat land. All the trees that lined their driveway were dying. The hot, dry years had turned them a sick gray-brown; their leaves had turned into crunchy, blackened confetti and been swept away by the wind. Only three of them were even still standing. The dusty soil lay in heaps and dunes at the base of every fence post. Nothing grew or thrived in the fields. There was not a blade of green grass anywhere. Russian thistles—tumbleweed—and yucca were the only living plants to be seen. The rotting body of something—a jackrabbit, maybe—lay in a heap of sand; crows picked at it. Mom pulled the wagon to a stop in the yard. Milo pawed at the hard earth beneath his hooves. “Loreda, you put Milo away. I’ll get the preserved lemons and make lemonade,” Mom said. “Fine,” Loreda said glumly. She climbed out of the wagon and took hold of the reins and led the horse and wagon toward the barn. Poor Milo moved so slowly Loreda couldn’t help feeling sorry for this bay gelding that had once been her best friend in the whole world. “It’s okay, boy. We all feel like that.” She petted his velvet-soft muzzle, ing the day her daddy had taught her to ride. It had been a bluebird day, with wheat a sea of gold all around. She’d been scared. So scared, to climb all the way up onto that grown-up-sized saddle. Daddy helped her up, whispered, “Don’t worry,” and moved back beside Mom, who looked as nervous as Loreda felt. Loreda hadn’t fallen off once. Daddy told her she was a natural and told the family at supper that Loreda was the best little horsewoman he’d ever seen. Loreda had soaked up his praise, grown to fit it. And after that, for years, she and Milo had been inseparable. She did her homework in his stall whenever she could, both of them munching on carrots she pulled from the garden. “I miss you, boy,” Loreda said, stroking the side of his head. The gelding snorted, blew wet, sandy mucus on Loreda’s bare arm. “Ick.” Loreda opened the double doors of the barn that was her grandfather’s pride and joy. The large barn had a wide center aisle where the tractor and truck were parked, and two stalls on either side, both of which opened onto corrals. Two for the horses and two for the cows. A loft that had once been stacked with fragrant green bales of hay was emptying fast. Everyone knew it was her daddy’s favorite hiding spot, that loft; he loved to sit up there and smoke cigarettes and drink hooch and dream big dreams. He stayed up there more and more these days. As Loreda unharnessed the gelding, she smelled the rubber on the tires and the metallic taint of the engine along with the comforting aromas of sweet hay and manure. In the side-by-side stalls at the end, their other gelding, Bruno, snorted softly in greeting, banged his nose into the stall door. “I’ll get you boys some water,” Loreda said, easing the slimy bit out of Milo’s mouth. She turned him into his stall, the back of which opened out to the corral. As she closed the stall door, clicked it shut, she heard something. What? She left the barn, stepped outside, and looked around. There it was again. A deep rumbling. Not thunder. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The ground trembled beneath her feet, made a loud, crunching, splintering sound. A crack opened up in the earth, a giant snaking zigzag. Boom. Dust geysered into the air, dirt crashed into the new crevasse, the sides crumbled away. A part of the barbed-wire fence fell into the opening. New cracks crawled off from the main one, like branches on a tree limb. A fifty-foot zigzagging crevasse opened in the yard. Dead roots stuck out from the crumbling dirt sides like skeletal hands. Loreda stared at it in horror. She had heard stories of this, the land breaking open from dryness, but she’d thought it was a myth … Now, it wasn’t just the animals and the people who were drying up. The land itself was dying. LOREDA AND HER DADDY were in their favorite place, sitting side by side on the platform beneath the giant blades of the windmill. As the sky turned red in the last few moments before darkfall, she could see to the very end of the world she knew and imagine what lay beyond. “I want to see the ocean,” Loreda said. It was a game they played, imagining other lives they would someday live. She couldn’t now when they’d begun; she just knew that it felt more important these days because of the new sadness in her father. At least it felt new. She sometimes wondered if his sadness had always been there and she’d just finally grown up enough to see it. “You will, Lolo.” Usually he said, We will. He slumped forward, rested his forearms on his thighs. Thick black hair fell in unruly waves over his broad forehead; it was cut close to the sides of his head but Mom didn’t have time to tend it closely and the edges were ragged. “You want to see the Brooklyn Bridge, ?” Loreda said. It scared her to think of her father’s unhappiness. She hardly got to spend any time with him lately and she loved him more than anything in the world, he who made her feel like a special girl with a big future. He’d taught her to dream. He was the opposite of her dour, workhorse mom, who just plodded forward, doing chores, never having any fun. They even looked alike, she and her daddy. Everyone said so. The same thick black hair and fine-boned faces, the same full lips. The only thing Loreda had inherited from her mother was her blue eyes, but even with her mother’s eyes, Loreda saw things the way her daddy did. “Sure, Lolo. How could I forget? You and I will see the world someday. We will stand at the top of the Empire State Building or attend a movie premiere on Hollywood Boulevard. Hell, we might even—” “Rafe!” Mom stood at the base of the windmill, looking up. In her brown kerchief and flour-sack dress and sagging stockings, she looked practically as old as Grandma. As always, she stood ramrod stiff. She had perfected an unyielding, unforgiving stance: shoulders back, spine straight, chin up. Wisps of corn-silk-fine pale blond hair crept out from beneath her kerchief. “Hey, Elsa. You found us.” Daddy flashed Loreda a conspiratorial smile. “Your father wants help watering while it’s cool,” Mom said. “And I know a girl who has chores to finish.” Daddy bumped his shoulder against Loreda’s and then climbed down the windmill. The boards creaked and swayed at his steps. He jumped down the last few feet, faced Mom. Loreda crawled down behind him, but she wasn’t fast enough. When she got down, her father was already headed toward the barn. “How come you can’t let anyone have any fun?” she said to her mother. “I want you and your father to have fun, Loreda, but I’ve had a long day and I need your help putting the laundry away.” “You’re so mean,” Loreda said. “I am not mean, Loreda,” Mom said. Loreda heard the hurt in her mother’s voice but didn’t care. That anger of hers, always so close to the surface, surged up, uncontrollable. “Don’t you care that Daddy is unhappy?” “Life is tough, Loreda. You need to be tougher or it will turn you inside out, as it has your father.” “Life isn’t what makes my daddy sad.” “Oh, really? Tell me, then, with all your worldly experience, what is it that makes your father unhappy?” “You,” Loreda said. EIGHT One hundred and four degrees in the shade, and the well was drying up. The water in the tank had to be carefully conserved, carried by the bucketful to the house. At night, they gave the animals what water they could. The vegetables that Elsa and Rose had tended with such loving care were dead. Between yesterday’s wind and dust and the relentless sun, every plant had either been torn out by the roots or lay wilted and dead. She heard Rose come up beside her. “There’s no point watering,” Elsa said. “No.” She heard the heartbreak in her mother-in-law’s voice and wished she could say something to help. “You’ve been awfully quiet today,” Rose said. “Unlike my usual chatty self,” Elsa said to deflect a conversation she didn’t want to have. Rose bumped her shoulder against Elsa’s arm. “Tell me what is wrong. Besides the obvious, of course.” “Loreda is angry at me. All of the time. I swear, before I even speak, she gets mad at whatever it is I’m about to say.” “She is at that age.” “It’s more than that, I think.” Rose stared out at the devastated fields. “My son,” she said. “Stupido. He is filling her head with dreams.” “He’s unhappy.” “Pssht,” Rose said impatiently. “Who isn’t? Look at what is happening.” “My parents, my family,” Elsa said quietly. This was something she rarely talked about, a pain too deep for words, especially when words wouldn’t change anything; Loreda’s opinion of Elsa lately had brought all that heartache of youth back. Elsa ed the day she’d taken Loreda, swaddled in pink, to her parents’ house, hoping her marriage would allow them to accept her again. Elsa had worked for weeks on a lovely pink dress for the baby, trimmed it in lace. She knit a matching cap. Finally, she borrowed the truck and drove to Dalhart alone, pulling up at the back gate. She ed every moment in detail: Walking up the path; the smell of roses. Everything in bloom. A clear blue sky. Bees buzzing around the roses. She had felt both nervous and proud. She was a wife now, with a baby girl so beautiful even strangers remarked upon it. Knocking on the door. The sound of footsteps, heels on hardwood. Mama answering the door, dressed for church, wearing pearls. Papa in a brown suit. “Look,” Elsa had said, her smile unsteady, her eyes filling with unwanted tears. “My daughter, Loreda.” Mama, craning her neck, peering down at Loreda’s small, perfect face. “Look, Eugene, how dark her skin is. Take your disgrace away, Elsinore.” The door, slamming shut. Elsa had made a point of never seeing them or speaking to them again, but even so, their absence caused an ache that wouldn’t go away. Apparently you couldn’t stop loving some people, or needing their love, even when you knew better. “Yes?” Rose said, looking up at her. “They didn’t love me. I never knew why. But now Loreda has turned so angry, I wonder if she sees me the same way they did. I could never do anything right in their eyes, either.” “Do you what I told you on the day Loreda was born?” Elsa almost smiled. “That she would love me as no one else ever would and make me crazy and try my soul?” “S?. And you see how right I was?” “About part of it, I guess. She certainly breaks my heart.” “Yes. I was a trial to my poor mamma, too. The love, it comes in the beginning of her life and at the end of yours. God is cruel that way. Your heart, is it too broken to love?” “Of course not.” “So, you go on.” She shrugged, as if to say, Motherhood. “What choice is there for us?” “It just … hurts.” Rose was silent for a while; finally, she said, “Yes.” In the distant field, Tony and Rafe were hard at work, planting winter wheat in ground that was as powdery as flour at the surface and hard beneath. For three years, they’d planted wheat and prayed for rain and gotten too little and grown no crop at all. “This season it will be better,” Rose said. “We still have milk and eggs to sell. And soap.” Small blessings mattered. Elsa and Rose combined their individual optimism into a communal hope, stronger and more durable in the combination. Rose put an arm around Elsa’s waist, and Elsa leaned into the smaller woman. From the moment of Loreda’s birth, and in all the years since, Rose had become Elsa’s mother in every way that mattered. Even if they didn’t speak of their love, or share their feelings in long, heartfelt conversations, the bond was there. Sturdy. They’d sewn their lives together in the silent way of women unused to conversation. Day after day, they worked together, prayed together, held their growing family together through the hardships of farm life. When Elsa had lost her third child—a son who never drew breath—it was Rose who held Elsa and let her cry, and said, Some lives are not ours to hold on to; God makes His choices without us. Rose, who spoke for the first time about her own lost children, had showed Elsa that grief could be borne one day, one chore, at a time. “I’ll go water the animals,” Elsa said. Rose nodded. “I’ll dig up what I can.” Elsa grabbed a metal bucket from the porch and wiped the grit from its inside. At the pump, she put on gloves to protect her hands from the blazing-hot metal and pumped a bucketful of water. Carrying the sloshing pail carefully back to the house, not wanting to spill a precious drop, she was nearing the barn when she heard a sound, like a saw blade grinding over metal. She slowed, listened, heard it again. She set down the bucket and moved around the corner of the barn and saw Rafe standing by the new crack in the ground, his arms propped on the head of a rake, his hat pulled low on his downcast face. Crying. Elsa walked over to him, stood silently by. Words were something she could never pull up easily, not for him. She was always afraid of saying the wrong thing, of pushing him away when she wanted to draw him near. He was like Loreda, full of mercurial moods and given to bouts of ion. It frightened her, those moods she could neither tame nor understand. So she held her tongue. “I don’t know how long I can stand all of this,” he said. “It will rain soon. You’ll see.” “How can you not break?” he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Elsa didn’t know how to answer that. They were parents. They had to stay strong for the children. Or did he mean something else? “Because the kids need us not to.” He sighed, and she knew she’d said the wrong thing. THAT SEPTEMBER, HEAT ROARED across the Great Plains, day after day, week after week, burning away whatever had survived the summer. Elsa stopped sleeping well, or at all, really. She was plagued by nightmares of emaciated children and dying crops. The livestock—two horses and two cows, all bones and hollows—were being kept alive by eating the prickly Russian thistles that grew wild. The small amount of hay they’d harvested was nearly gone. The animals stood still for hours at a time, as if afraid that every step could kill them. In the hottest part of the day, when the temperature rose above 115 degrees, their eyes became glassy and unfocused. When they could, the family carried pails of water to the corral, but it was always too little. Every drop of water that came up from the well had to be carefully conserved. The chickens rarely moved, they were so lethargic; they lay like feathered heaps in the dirt, not even bothering to squawk when they were disturbed. Eggs were still being laid, and each one was like a nugget of gold, although Elsa feared that each one would be their last. Today, like most mornings, she was awake before the rooster crowed. She lay in bed, trying not to think about the dead garden or the dried-up ground or the coming winter. When sunlight began to stream through the windows, she sat up and read a chapter of Jane Eyre, letting the familiar words soothe and comfort her. Then she put the novel aside and got out of bed, careful not to waken Rafe. After dressing, she took a moment to stare down at her sleeping husband. He’d been out in the barn until late last night and finally stumbled to bed smelling of whiskey. She had been restless, too, but neither had turned to the other for solace. They didn’t know how, she supposed; they’d never learned to comfort each other. Or maybe there was no comfort to be found when life was so bad. What she knew was that the slim hold she’d had on him was loosening. In the past few weeks, she’d noticed how frequently he turned away from her. Was it since the dust storms had ruined their fields and tripled the work? Or since he’d planted the winter wheat with his father? He stayed up late, reading newspapers as if they were adventure novels, staring out windows, studying maps. When he finally stumbled to bed, he rolled away from her and thumped into a sleep so deep that sometimes she feared he had died during the night. Last night, as so often, when he finally came to their bed, she lay in the dark, aching for him to turn to her, touch her, but even if he had, they both would have remained unsatisfied. He never spoke while they were intimate, not even whispers about his need, and he rushed through the act as if he regretted it before he began. Sometimes Elsa felt lonelier when their lovemaking ended than she had been before it began. He said he stayed away from her because she conceived so easily, but she knew the truth was darker than that. As always, it came down to her unattractiveness. Of course he had difficulty wanting her. And clearly, she was not good in bed; he rushed through it so. In earlier years, she had dreamed of boldly reaching for him, changing how they touched each other, exploring his body with her hands and her mouth; then, upon waking, she’d felt frustrated and swollen with a desire she could neither express nor share. She’d waited years for him to see it, see her, and reach out. Lately, though, that dream felt far away. Or maybe she was just too tired and worn out these days to believe in it. She left their bedroom and walked down the hallway. She paused at each of the kid’s bedroom doors and peered in. The peacefulness in their sleeping faces squeezed her heart. At times like this, she ed Loreda when she’d been young and happy, always laughing, her arms thrown open for a hug. When Elsa had been Loreda’s favorite person in the world. She went into the kitchen, which smelled of coffee and baking bread. Her in-laws didn’t sleep anymore, either. Like her, they held on to the unproven hope/belief that more work might save them. Pouring herself a cup of black coffee, she drank it quickly and washed out the cup, then stepped into her brown shoes—the heels almost worn away—and grabbed her sun hat. Outside, she squinted into the bright sun, tented a gloved hand over her eyes. Tony was already at work, taking advantage of the relative cool of the morning. He was putting up hay—what little there was—and doing it early because he was afraid the afternoon heat would kill their horses. Both geldings moved more slowly every day. Sometimes the lowing moans of their hunger was enough to make Elsa weep. Elsa waved at her father-in-law and he waved back. Tying on her hat, she made a quick stop at the outhouse and then hauled water by the pailful to the kitchen for laundry. There was no reason to water the orchard or the garden anymore. By the time she finished carrying water, her arms ached and she was sweating. At last, she went to her own little garden. She’d hollowed out a square of ground directly below the kitchen window, in a narrow patch of morning shade. It was too small to grow anything of value, so she’d planted some flower seeds. All she wanted was a little green, maybe even a splash of color. She knelt in the powdery dirt, rearranging the stones she’d set in a semicircle to delineate the garden. The latest wind had pushed a few out of place. In the center, still standing, was her precious calico aster, with its leggy brown stems and defiant green leaves. “If you can just make it through this heat wave, it will cool down soon,” Elsa said, pouring a few precious drops of water onto the soil, watching it darken instantly. “I know you want to bloom.” “Talking to your little friend again?” Elsa sat back on her heels and looked up, blinded for a moment by the bright sun. Rafe stood in a halo of yellow light. He rarely bothered to shave these days, so the lower half of his face was covered in thick, dark stubble. He knelt on one knee beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder. She could feel the slight dampness in his palm, the way his hand trembled from last night’s drinking. Elsa couldn’t help leaning into his touch just enough to make his hold feel possessive. “I’m sorry if I woke you up when I got in,” he said. She turned. The brim of her straw hat touched the brim of his, made a scratching sound. “It was nothing.” “I don’t know how you can stand all this.” “All this?” “Our life. Digging for scraps. Being hungry. How skinny our kids are.” “We have more than lots of folks have these days.” “You want too little, Elsa.” “You make that sound like a bad thing.” “You’re a good woman.” He made that sound like a bad thing, too. Elsa didn’t know how to respond, and in the silence of her confusion, he rose slowly, tiredly to his feet. She stood in front of him, tilted her face up. She knew what he saw: a tall, unattractive woman with sunburned, peeling skin and a mouth that was too big, and eyes that seemed to have drunk all the color God allotted her. “I need to get to work,” he said. “It’s already so goddamn hot I can’t breathe.” Elsa stared after him, thinking, Look back, smile, but he didn’t, and finally she stopped waiting and headed in to start the laundry. THE FIRST PIONEER DAYS celebration had taken place in 1905, back in the days when Lonesome Tree was a vast plain of blue-green buffalo grass and the XIT Ranch employed a thousand cowboys. Homesteaders had been drawn to this land by brochures that promised they could grow cabbages the size of baby carriages, and wheat. All without irrigation. Dry farming, it was called, and it was promised to them here. Indeed. Loreda was pretty sure the party was really about men celebrating themselves. “You look beautiful,” Mom said, coming into Loreda’s bedroom without even knocking. Loreda felt a rush of irritation at the intrusion. She bit back an angry remark about privacy. Mom came up behind her; for a moment their faces were reflected together in the mirror above Loreda’s washstand. Beside Loreda’s tanned skin and blunt-cut black hair, Mom’s pallor was remarkable. How was it that Mom’s skin never tanned, just burned and peeled? She hadn’t even bothered to do anything with her hair beyond braiding it in a coronet. Stella’s mom always wore cosmetics and had her hair pinned and curled, even in these hard times. Mom didn’t even try to look good. The dress she wore—a floral flour-sack housedress with a button-up bodice—was at least a size too big and just exaggerated how tall and thin she was. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make you a new dress or at least buy you some socks. Next year. When it rains.” Loreda couldn’t imagine how her mother could even say those words anymore. Loreda pulled away, smoothing the waves she’d coaxed into her chin-length hair and ruffling her bangs. “Where’s Daddy?” “He’s hitching up the wagon.” Loreda turned. “Can Stella spend the night after?” “Sure,” Mom said. “But you’ll have to do your chores in the morning.” Loreda was so happy, she actually hugged her mother, but Mom ruined it by hanging on too long and squeezing too hard. Loreda yanked free. Mom looked sad. “Go downstairs,” she said. “Help Grandma pack up the food.” Loreda bolted out of the bedroom and hurried down to the kitchen, where Grandma was already busy packing up the pot of minestrone soup. A plateful of her cannoli with sweetened ricotta filling waited on the table. Both of which only the other Italian families would eat. Loreda covered the tray of desserts with a dish towel and carried it out to the wagon. She climbed up into the back and sat close to her father, who put his arm around her and held her close. Grandma and Grandpa took their places up front. Mom was the last one to climb up into the back of the wagon. Ant tucked in close to Mom and talked constantly, his high-pitched voice rising in excitement as they neared the town. Daddy, she noticed, was uncharacteristically quiet. Lonesome Tree appeared on the horizon, a meager town squatted on a table-flat plain, surrounded by nothing. Only the water tower stood tall against the cloudless blue sky. Once, patriotism had run high in town. Loreda ed how the old men used to talk about the Great War at every community gathering. Who fought, who died, and who grew the wheat to feed the troops. Back then, Pioneer Days had been an expression of the farmers’ pride in themselves and a celebration of their hard work. Americans! Prosperous! They’d draped the stores of Main Street in red, white, and blue bunting and planted American flags in the flowerpots and painted patriotic slogans on the windows. The men had gathered to drink and smoke and congratulate each other on winning the war and turning grazing land into farmland. They drank homemade hooch and played music on their fiddles and guitars while the women did all the work. Or that was how Loreda saw it. In the week leading up to the celebration, Mom and Grandma Rose cooked more, made more homemade macaroni, did more laundry, and had to darn or repair every scrap of clothing that was to be worn. No matter how dire times were, how tight money was, Mom wanted her children to look presentable. Today there was no bunting (too hot to put up, she figured, or else some woman finally said, Why bother?), no flowers or flags in the flowerpots, no patriotic slogans. Instead, Loreda saw hobos gathered around the train depot, wearing rags, their back pockets turned inside out in what were being called Hoover flags. A shoe with holes was a Hoover shoe. Everyone knew who to blame for the Depression but not how to fix it. Clop-clop-clop down Main Street. Only two automobiles were parked out here. Both belonged to bankers. Banksters, they were called these days, for the way they cheated hardworking folk out of their land and then went bust and closed their doors, keeping the money people had thought was safe. Grandpa maneuvered the horse and wagon up to the schoolhouse and parked. Loreda heard music wafting through the open doors and the sound of stomping feet. She launched herself out of the wagon and hurried to the schoolhouse. Inside, the party was on. A makeshift band played in the corner and a few couples were dancing. Off to the right were the food tables. There wasn’t a lot of food out, but after the years of drought, Loreda knew it was a feast the women had worried and slaved over. “Loreda!” Loreda saw Stella moving toward her. As usual, Stella and her younger sister, Sophia, were the only girls in the room in pretty new party dresses. Loreda felt a pinch of jealousy and put it aside. Stella was her best friend. Who cared about dresses? Loreda and Stella came together as they always did, grasping hands, heads tilted together. “Say, what’s the story, morning glory?” Loreda said, trying to sound in the know. “I’m behind the grind, don’tcha know?” Stella answered. Stella’s parents came up behind the girls, stopped to talk to the Martinellis. Loreda heard Mr. Devereaux say, “I got another postcard from my brother-in-law. There’s railroad work in Oregon. You should think about it, Tony. Rafe.” Like women had no opinions. And her grandfather’s reply: “I don’t blame nobody for leaving, Ralph, but it ain’t for us. This land…” Not that again. The land. Loreda pulled Stella away from the grown-ups. Ant ran past them, wearing a gas mask that made him look like an insect. He bumped into Loreda and giggled and ran away again, arms outstretched as if he were flying. “The Red Cross donated a big box of gas masks to the bank—for the kids to wear during dust storms. My mom is handing ’em out tonight.” “Gas masks,” Loreda said, shaking her head. “Jeepers.” “It’s getting worse, my dad says.” “We are not talking about gas masks. This is a party, for gosh sakes,” Loreda said. She reached out, took hold of Stella’s hands. “My mom said you can spend the night tonight. I got some magazines from the library. There’s a picture of Clark Gable that will make you swoon.” Stella pulled back, looked away. “What’s wrong?” “The bank is closing,” Stella said. “Oh.” “My uncle Jimmy—the one in Portland, Oregon? He sent my dad a postcard. He reckons the railroad is hiring, and there’s no dust storms out there.” Loreda took a step back. She didn’t want to hear what was coming. “We’re leaving.” NINE Loreda leaned out her bedroom window and screamed in frustration. Below her, the chickens squawked in response. “Fly away, you idiot birds. Can’t you tell we’re dying here?” Stella was leaving. Loreda’s best—and only—friend in Lonesome Tree was leaving. The room seemed to close in on her, becoming so small she couldn’t breathe. She went downstairs. The house was still, no wind poking at the cracks, no wood settling onto its foundations. She moved easily in the dark. In the past month they’d turned off the party-line phone—no money to pay for it—and now they were really out here all alone. She found the front door and went outside. A bright moon shone out, glazing the barn’s roof with silvered light. She smelled the sunbaked dirt and a hint of chicken manure and … cigarette smoke? Following the smell of it, she walked around the side of the farmhouse. Beneath the windmill, she saw the red glow of a cigarette tip rise and fall and rise again. Daddy. So he couldn’t sleep, either. As she approached him, she saw his red eyes and the tear streaks on his cheeks. He’d been out here in the dark, all alone, smoking and crying. “Daddy?” “Hey, doll. You caught me.” He tried to sound casual, but the obvious pretense made her feel even worse. If there was one person she trusted to tell her the truth, it was her father. But now it was so bad he was crying. “You heard the Devereauxs are leaving?” “I’m sorry, Lolo.” “I’m tired of I’m sorrys,” Loreda said. “We could leave, too. Like the Devereauxs and the Moungers and the Mulls. Just go.” “They were all talking about leaving at the shindig tonight. Most folks are like your grandparents. They’d rather die here than leave.” “Do they know we might actually die here?” “Oh. They know, believe me. Tonight, your grandfather said—and I quote: Bury me here, boys. I ain’t leaving.” He exhaled smoke. “They say they’re doing it for our future. As if this patch of dirt is all we could ever want.” “Maybe we could convince them to leave.” Her father laughed. “And maybe Milo will sprout wings and fly away.” “Could we leave without them? Lots of folks are leaving. You always say this is America, where anything is possible. We could go to California. Or you could get a railroad job in Oregon.” Loreda heard footsteps. Moments later, Mom appeared, dressed in her ratty old robe and work boots, her fine hair all whichaway. “Rafe,” Mom said, sounding relieved, as if she thought he might have run off. It was pathetic how close an eye Mom kept on Daddy. On all of them. She was more of a cop than a parent, and she took the fun out of everything. “I missed you when I woke. I thought…” “I’m here,” he said. Mom’s smile was as thin as everything else about her. “Come inside. Both of you. It’s late.” “Sure, Els,” Daddy said. Loreda hated how beaten her father sounded, how his fire went out around her mother. She sucked the life out of everyone with her sad, long-suffering looks. “This is all your fault.” Mom said, “What am I to blame for now, Loreda? The weather? The Depression?” Daddy touched Loreda, shook his head. Don’t. Mom waited a moment for Loreda to speak, then turned away and headed for the house. Daddy followed. “We could leave,” Loreda said to her father, who kept walking as if he hadn’t heard. “Anything is possible.” THE NEXT MORNING, ELSA woke well before dawn and found Rafe’s side of the bed empty. He’d slept in the barn again. Lately he preferred it to being with her. With a sigh, she got dressed and left her room. In the dark kitchen, Rose stood at the dry sink, her hands deep in water that she’d hauled from the well and poured into the sink. A large cracked mixing bowl lay drying on towels on the counter beside her. Towels Elsa had embroidered by hand, at night, by candlelight, in Rafe’s favorite colors. She had thought that making a perfect home was the answer to making a marriage happy. Clean sheets scented with lavender, embroidered pillowcases, hand-knit scarves. She’d filled hours with such tasks, poured her heart and soul into them, using thread to say the words she could not utter. A pot of coffee sat on the woodstove, pumping a comforting aroma into the room. A tray of rectangular chickpea le was on the table and a tablespoon of olive oil popped in a cast-iron pan on the stove. Beside it, oatmeal bubbled in a pot. “Morning,” Elsa said. She removed a spatula from the drawer and lowered two of the le into the hot oil. These would be the midday meal, eaten like a sandwich, squeezed with precious drops of preserved lemon. “You look tired,” Rose said, not unkindly. “Rafe isn’t sleeping well.” “If he’d stop drinking in the barn at night it might help.” Elsa poured herself a cup of coffee and leaned against the cabbage-rose-papered wall. She noticed the corner of the flooring where the linoleum was coming up. Then she went to turn the le over, seeing a nice brown crust on them. Rose moved in beside her, took over the cooking. Elsa began to take apart the butter churn. The parts needed to be washed and scalded and put back together in a precise, numbered order and then stacked for the next use. It was the perfect chore to keep one’s mind occupied. A centipede crawled out of its hiding place and plopped onto the counter. Elsa took out a pair of knives and chopped it into pieces. Sharing the house with centipedes and spiders and other insects had become commonplace. Every living thing on the Great Plains sought safety from the dust storms. The two women worked in companionable silence until the sun came up and the children stumbled out of their bedrooms. “I’ll feed them,” Rose said. “Why don’t you take Rafe some coffee?” Elsa was grateful for her mother-in-law’s insight. Smiling, Elsa said, “Thank you,” poured her husband a cup of coffee, and went outside. The sun was a bright yellow glow in a cloudless cornflower-blue sky. Instead of noticing the latest destruction to the land—broken fence posts, damage to the windmill, dirt piles growing in size—she focused instead on the good news. If she hurried, she would be able to do laundry today, bleach everything into whiteness. There was something about fresh sheets hanging on the line that lifted her spirits. Perhaps it was simply a vision of having accomplished a thing that improved her family’s life, even if no one noticed. Tony was up on the windmill repairing a blade. The bang-bang-bang of his hammer echoed across the endless brown plain. Rafe was in the last place in the world she expected him to be: the family cemetery. A small brown plot of land delineated by a sagging picket fence. Once, it had included a beautiful garden, with pink morning glories crawling up and over the white picket fence and a carpet of blue-green buffalo grass on the ground. Elsa used to spend an hour here every Sunday, rain, heat, or snow, but she hadn’t been out here as often lately. As always, the headstones reminded her of her lost son, of the dreams she’d spun for him while he was in her womb and the pain that had softened over time but never gone away. She unclicked the gate, which hung askew on a broken hinge. Dozens of white pickets lay on the ground; some had broken, others had been yanked out of the ground by the savage wind. Four gray headstones stood from the dirt. Three of Rose and Tony’s children—all daughters—and Lorenzo … Rafe was kneeling in front of their son’s headstone. Lorenzo Walter Martinelli, b. 1931, d. 1931. Elsa knelt beside him, laid a hand on his shoulder. He turned to her. She had never seen such pain in his eyes, not even when they’d buried their newborn son. Rafe had been only twenty- eight when he’d held his tiny, unbreathing child in his arms and cried for their loss. He had, to the best of her knowledge, never come out here, never knelt at this grave. “I miss him, too,” Elsa said, stumbling a little over the words. “Old Man Orloff butchered his last steer this week. The poor thing was full of dirt.” “Yes.” Elsa frowned at the odd change in topic. “Ant asked me why his stomach hurt all the time. How could I tell him that the land is killing him?” He stood, took her by the hand, and pulled her up to stand with him. “Let’s go.” “Go?” “West. To California. People are leaving every day. I hear there are railroad jobs to be had. And maybe I’ll qualify for that program of FDR’s. The Conservation Corps.” “We don’t have money for gas.” “We could walk. Jump on trains. Folks will give us rides. We will get there. The kids are tough.” “Tough?” She pulled free of his hold, took a step back. “They don’t have shoes that fit. We have no money. No food. You’ve seen the Hooverville photos, what it’s like out there. Anthony is seven. How far do you think he can walk? You want him to jump on a moving train?” “California is different,” he said stubbornly. “There are jobs there.” “Your parents won’t leave. You know that.” “We could go without them?” He made it a question, not a statement, and she could see how ashamed he was to even ask it. “Go without them?” Rafe ran a hand through his hair and looked out over the dead wheat fields and the graves already on this land. “This damnable wind and drought will kill them. And us. I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t.” “Rafe … you can’t mean this.” This land was his heritage, their future, their children’s future. The kids would grow up on this land, always knowing their history, knowing who they were and who they’d come from. They’d learn the pride that came with a good day’s work. They would belong somewhere. Rafe didn’t know how it felt not to belong, the pain of it, but Elsa did, and she would never inflict that heartache on her children. This was home. He had to know that hard times ended. Land endured. Family endured. How could he think they could just leave Tony and Rose here alone? It was unconscionable, unthinkable. “When it rains—” “Christ, I hate that sentence,” he said, sounding more bitter than she’d ever heard him. She saw the agony in his eyes, the disappointment, the anger. Elsa wanted to reach out and touch him but didn’t dare. I love you burned in her dry throat. “I just think—” “I know what you think.” He walked away and didn’t look back. LEAVE. JUST GIVE UP on this land and walk away with nothing. Actually walk away. She was still thinking about it hours later, well after night had fallen. She couldn’t imagine ing the horde of jobless, homeless hobos and migrants who were headed west. She’d heard it was dangerous to jump onto those trains, that legs and feet could be cut off, bodies severed in half by the giant metal wheels. And there was crime out there, bad men who’d left their consciences along with their families. Elsa was not a brave woman. Still. She loved her husband. She’d vowed to love, honor, and obey him. Surely “follow him” was understood. Should she have told him they’d go to California? At least talked about it? Maybe in the spring, if they’d had rain and a crop, there would be money for gas. And God knew he was unhappy here. So was Loreda. Perhaps they could leave—all of them—and come back when the drought ended. Why not? This land would wait for them. She could at least discuss it with him properly, make him see that she was his wife and they were a team and if he wanted this enough, she would do it. She would leave this land she had come to love, the only home she’d ever had. For him. She threw a shawl over her worn lawn nightgown, then stepped into the rubber boots by the front door and went outside. Where was he? Out on the windmill, alone, chewing on his disappointment? Or had he hitched up the wagon and gone to the Silo so he could sit at the bar and drink whiskey? It was nearly nine o’clock and the farm was quiet. The only light on in the house shone in Loreda’s upstairs window. Her daughter was in bed reading, just as Elsa had done at her age. She walked out into the yard. The chickens roused themselves lethargically as she ed by and quieted quickly. She heard music coming from her in-laws’ bedroom. Tony was playing music on his fiddle. Elsa knew that music was how he spoke to Rose in these hard times, how he reminded them of their past and their future, how he said, I love you. She saw Rafe in the darkness by the corral, an upright slash of black against the black slats of the corral, all of it sheened silver by the light of a waxing moon. The bright orange tip of his cigarette. He heard her footsteps, she could tell. Rafe pulled away from the corral, stubbed out his cigarette, and dropped the unsmoked portion into his shirt pocket. Tony’s love song wafted toward them. Elsa stopped in front of Rafe. All it would take was the smallest movement and she could rest her hand on his shoulder. She knew the faded blue chambray of his work shirt would feel warm after this long, hot day. She’d hemmed and washed and stitched and folded every garment he owned and knew each one by touch. How was it possible that Elsa was close enough to her husband that she could feel the heat coming off him and smell the whiskey and cigarettes on his breath and still feel as if an ocean sloshed between them? He surprised her by taking her hand and pulling her into his arms. “You that first night of ours, out in the truck in front of Steward’s barn?” Elsa nodded uncertainly. These were things they didn’t speak of. “You said you wanted to be brave. I just wanted … to be somewhere else.” Elsa stared up at him, saw his pain, and it hurt her, too. “Oh, Rafe—” He kissed her on the lips, long and slow and deep, letting his tongue taste hers. “You were my first kiss,” he whispered, drawing back just enough to look at her. “ me then?” It was the most romantic thing he’d ever said to her, and it filled her with hope. “Always,” she whispered. Tony’s music stopped, leaving a heavy silence behind. Insects sang their staccato songs. The geldings moved listlessly in the corral, bumping the fencing with their noses, reminding them that they were hungry. The night around them was black, the huge sky bright with stars. Maybe those were other universes she saw up there. It felt beautiful and romantic, and just now, the two of them could be alone on the planet, attended to only by the sounds of the night. “You’re thinking about California,” she began, trying to find the right words to begin a new conversation. “Yeah. Ant walking one thousand miles on bad shoes. Us in a breadline somewhere. You were right. We can’t go.” “Maybe in the spring—” Rafe silenced her with a kiss. “Go to bed,” he murmured. “I’ll be there soon.” Elsa felt him pulling away, releasing her. “Rafe, I think we should talk about—” “Don’t fret, Els,” he said. “I’ll come to bed shortly. We can talk then. I just need to water the animals.” Elsa wanted to stop him and make him listen, but such boldness was beyond her. Deep down, she was always afraid of how flimsy her hold on him was. She couldn’t test it. But she would reach for him tonight, touch him with the kind of intimacy she dreamed of. She would overcome whatever was wrong with her and finally please him. She would. And when they were finished making love, she would talk to him about leaving, talk seriously. More important, she would listen. She returned to their room and paced. Finally, she went to the window and peeled away the dirt-crusted rags and newspaper that covered the sill and pane. She could see the windmill, a slash of black lines, a flower almost, silhouetted against the bejeweled night sky. Rafe was there, leaning against the frame, almost indistinguishable from the windmill. He was smoking. She climbed into bed and pulled the quilt up around her and waited for her husband. THE NEXT THING ELSA knew, it was daylight and she smelled coffee. The rich, bitter aroma drew her out of the comfort of her bed. She finger-combed her hair and slipped into a housedress, trying not to be hurt that Rafe hadn’t come to their bed again last night. She rebraided her hair and wrapped it in a coil at the back of her head, pinning it in place and then covering it with the kerchief. She checked on her children—letting them sleep in on this Saturday morning—and headed to the kitchen, where a pot full of last night’s potato water had been saved to make bread. All they had for breakfast was wheat cereal, so she got it started. Thank God they had one cow that was still producing milk. Loreda was the first to stumble out of her small second-floor bedroom. Her black bob was a rat’s nest of tangles and curls. A sunburn peeled in patches across her cheeks. “Wheat cereal. Yum,” she said, heading to the icebox. Opening it, she took out the yellow crockery pitcher that held a bit of precious cream and carried it over to the oilcloth-draped table, where the speckled bowls and plates were already in place, upside down to protect from dust. She turned over three bowls. Ant came out next, climbed up into the chair beside his sister. “I want pancakes,” he grumbled. “I’ll put some corn syrup in your cereal,” Elsa said. Elsa served up the cereal, doctored it with cream and added a little corn syrup to each bowl, and then set down two glasses of cold buttermilk. As the children ate—silently—Elsa headed for the barn. Wind and shifting sand had changed the landscape overnight again, filled in much of the giant crack that had cut through their property. As she ed the hog pen, she saw their only remaining hog kneeling lethargically on the hard-packed earth, and the John Deere one-horse seed drill, unused now, half buried in sand. Beyond that, she saw Rose in the orchard, looking for apples on the cracked ground. In the pen, their two cows stood side by side, heads down, mooing pathetically. Their ribs stood out, their bellies shrunken, their hides blistered with sores. Elsa couldn’t help but a few years ago, when the younger of the two cows, Bella, had been born. Elsa had fed her by bottle because the cow’s mother hadn’t survived the birth. Rose had taught Elsa how to make the bottle and get the unsteady calf to take it. Sometimes Bella still followed Elsa around the yard like a pet. “Hey, Bella,” Elsa said, stroking the cow’s sunken side. Bella looked up, her big brown eyes blinded by dirt, and mooed plaintively. “I know,” Elsa said, taking a bucket from the fence post. Elsa led Bella into the relative coolness of the barn, tied her to the center post, and pulled out the milking stool. She couldn’t help glancing up into the hayloft—nearly empty now of hay. She was pretty sure Rafe had slept there last night. Again. Elsa had always loved this chore. It had taken her a long time to catch on in the beginning; she had heard a hundred tsks from Rose as Elsa tried to master the technique, but master it she had, and now it was one of her favorite chores. She loved being with Bella, loved the sweet smell of fresh milk, the hollow clanking as the first stream hit the metal bucket. She even loved what came next: carrying the bucket of fresh, warm milk to the house, pouring it into the separator, cranking the machine by hand, skimming off the rich yellow cream, saving the whole milk to feed her family and using skim milk for the animals. Elsa reached out for the cow’s barely swollen udder, touched the wind-chapped teats gently. The cow bellowed in pain. “I’m sorry, Bella,” Elsa said. She tried again, squeezing as gently as she could, pulling down slowly. A stream of dirt-brown milk squirted out, smelling fecund. Each day, it seemed, milking took longer to reach white, usable milk. The first streams were always dirty like this. Elsa dumped out the brown milk, cleaned the bucket, and tried again. She never gave up, no matter how sad Bella’s moans made her or how long it took to get clean milk. When she finished, getting less than they needed, she turned the poor cow out into the paddock. As she ed the horse stalls, Milo and Bruno both snorted heavily and bit at the door, trying to eat the wood. As she locked the barn door behind her, she heard a gunshot. What now? She turned, saw her father-in-law at the hog pen. He lowered his rifle as their last hog staggered sideways and collapsed. “Thank God,” Elsa murmured to herself. Meat for the children. She waved at him as he hefted the dead hog into a wheelbarrow and headed to the barn to hang it for slaughter. A tumbleweed rolled lazily past her, pushed along by a gentle breeze. Her gaze followed it to the fence line, where the Russian thistles survived against all odds, growing stubbornly even in the drought, against the wind. The cows ate them when there was nothing else. So did the horses. She took the milk into the house and then went outside again, crossing the expanse of dirt that lay between the barn and the fence. The wind plucked at her kerchief, as if trying to stop her. The Russian thistles were a tangle of prickles and stems, barely green. Wiry. Tough. Spikes as sharp as pins. She pulled her gloves from her apron pocket and put them on. Making a bowl of her apron, she eased her hand past the sharp prickly ends and plucked off a green shoot. She tasted it. Not bad. Maybe they could be cooked gently in olive oil, wine, garlic, and herbs. Would they taste like artichokes? Tony loved his artichokes. Or maybe pickling them was the answer … Tomorrow she’d get everyone picking them and find a way to preserve them. At noon, when she’d picked as many as her apron could hold, she went back to the house. Inside, Elsa found the children and Tony already seated at the table for the midday meal. “I found some grapes,” Ant said, bouncing in his seat, beaming at his contribution. Elsa tousled his hair, felt its texture. “Bath tonight for a little boy I know.” “Do I hafta?” Elsa smiled. “I can smell you from here. Yep.” Tony pulled off his hat, revealing a strip of white skin across his brow, and sat down. He downed an entire glass of tea in two gulps, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Rose came into the kitchen and poured her husband a glass of red wine. Tony dug into his plate of arancini. It was a family favorite: rice balls filled with creamy cheese, swimming in a pancetta-and-garlic-flavored tomato sauce. Elsa put her pile of thistles into a bowl and set it by the dry sink. “What’s that?” Rose asked, wiping her hands on her apron. “Thistles. I think I can figure out a way to make them palatable. They almost taste like artichokes.” Rose sighed. “It’s come to that. Italians eating horse food. Madonna mia.” “Where’s Rafe?” Elsa asked, looking around. “I need to talk to him.” “Ain’t seen him all day,” Ant said. “I looked, too.” Elsa walked out to the porch, rang the bell for the midday meal, and waited, looking out over the farm. The horses and wagon were here, so he hadn’t gone to town. Maybe he was in their room. She headed back into the house and went into their bedroom. Sunlight made the pale white walls look golden. A large framed portrait of Jesus stared at her. The room was empty—just the bed and the chest of drawers she shared with her husband and the washstand with its oval mirror that captured her image. Everything was as it should be, except … There were marks on the floor, coming out from beneath her bed, as if something had been put under the bed or taken out from underneath it. She lifted the quilt and looked underneath the bed. She saw her suitcase, the one she’d brought into her marriage, and the box of baby clothes she’d saved just in case. Something was missing. What? She dropped to her knees for a better look. What was missing? Rafe’s suitcase. The one he’d packed all those years ago to go off to college. The one he’d unpacked when her father left Elsa here. She glanced sideways. His clothes were gone from the hooks by the door, as was his hat. She got up slowly and went to the dresser, opened the top drawer. His drawer. One blue chambray shirt was all that was left. TEN She couldn’t believe he’d left in the middle of the night without a word. She’d spent thirteen years living with him, sharing his bed at night, bearing his children. She’d known he’d never been in love with her, but this? She walked out of her room, saw the family—her family, their family—seated at the table, talking. Ant was retelling his grape-finding story. Rose looked up, saw Elsa, and frowned. “Elsa?” Elsa wanted to tell Rose this terrible thing and be held, but she couldn’t say anything until she was sure. Maybe he had walked to town for … something. With all of his belongings. “I have … errands,” Elsa said, seeing Rose’s disbelief. Elsa hurried out of the house and grabbed Loreda’s bicycle. Climbing aboard, she pedaled through the thick dirt that layered the driveway, her legs working hard. More than once she had to zigzag around the dead branches of the fallen trees, which had been exposed in the last dust storm. She stopped at the mailbox, looked in. Nothing. On the way to town, she didn’t see a single automobile or wagon out on the road in this heat. Birds congregated on the telephone wires overhead, chattered down at her. Several cows and horses roamed free, plaintively moaning for food and water. Unable to butcher or care for their animals, farmers had let them go to fend for themselves. By the time she reached Lonesome Tree, her hair had worked itself free from the pins she’d used to hold it back from her face, and her kerchief was damp. On Main Street, she stopped. A tumbleweed rolled past her, scraped her bare calf. Lonesome Tree lay anesthetized before her, shops boarded up, nothing green, the town’s namesake cottonwood half dead; up and down the street boards had been ripped away by the wind. She pedaled toward the train depot and got off the bike. Maybe he was still here. Inside was a room full of empty benches. A dirty floor. A whites-only water fountain. She walked to the ticket window. Behind a small, arched opening sat a man in a dusty white shirt with black elbow guards. “Hello, Mr. McElvaine.” “Heya, Miz Martinelli,” the man said. “Was my husband here recently? Did he buy a ticket?” He looked down at the papers on his desk. “Please, sir. Do not make me interrogate you. This is humiliating enough for me, wouldn’t you agree?” “He didn’t have any money.” “Did he say where he wanted to go?” “You don’t want me to say.” “I do.” He sighed and looked up at her. “He said, ‘Anywhere but here.’” “He said that?” “If it helps, he pret’ near looked ready to cry.” The man pulled out a crumpled, stained envelope and pushed it through the iron bars of the ticket window. “He said to give you this.” “He knew I’d come?” “Wives always do.” She drew in a steadying breath. “So, if he had no money, maybe—” “He done what they all do.” “All?” “Men all over the county been leavin’ their families. Families been abandonin’ their kids and kin. I never seen nothing like it. A man over in Cimarron County kilt his whole family ’fore he left.” “Where do they go with no money?” “West, ma’am. Most of ’em. They jump on the first train that comes through town.” “Maybe he’ll come back.” The man sighed. “I ain’t seen one of ’em come back yet.” ELSA STOOD IN FRONT of the depot. Slowly, as if it were combustible, she opened Rafe’s letter. The paper was wrinkled and dusty and appeared blotched by moisture. His tears? Elsa, I’m sorry. I know the words don’t matter, may be worse than nothing. I’m dying here, that’s all I know. One more day on this farm and I might put a gun to my head. I’m weak. You are strong. You love this land and this life in a way I never could. Tell my parents and my children I love them. You are all better off without me. Please, don’t look for me. I don’t want to be found. I don’t know where I’m going anyway. R Elsa couldn’t even cry. Heartache had been a part of her life so long it had become as familiar as the color of her hair or the slight curve in her spine. Sometimes it was the lens through which she viewed her world and sometimes it was the blindfold she wore so she didn’t see. But it was always there. She knew it was her own fault, somehow, her doing, even though in all her desperate musings for the foundation of it, she’d never been able to see the flaw in herself that had proven to be so defining. Her parents had seen it. Her father, certainly. And her younger, more beautiful sisters, too. They had all sensed the lack in Elsa. Loreda certainly saw it. Everyone—including Elsa—had assumed she would live an apologetic life, hidden among the needs of other, more vibrant people. The caretaker, the tender, the woman left behind to keep the home fires burning. And then she had met Rafe. Her handsome, charming, moody husband. “Hold your head up,” she said out loud. She had children to think about. Two small people who needed to be comforted in the wake of their father’s betrayal. Children who would grow up knowing that their father had abandoned them at this tender time. Children who, like Elsa, would be shaped by heartache. BY THE TIME ELSA got back to the farm, she felt as if she were a machine slowly breaking down. Her family was in the house, bustling about. Rose and Loreda were in the kitchen, making pasta, and Ant and Tony were in the sitting room, rubbing oil into the straps of a leather harness. The children’s lives would never be the same after today. Their opinions of everything would change, but especially their opinions of themselves, of the durability of love and the truth of their family. They would know forever that their father hadn’t loved their mother—or them—enough to stay with them through hard times. What did a good mother do in this circumstance? Did she tell the harsh, ugly truth? Or was a lie better? If Elsa lied to protect her children from Rafe’s selfishness and to protect Rafe from their resentment, it might be a long while before the truth came out, if it ever did. Elsa walked past Tony and Ant in the sitting room and went into the kitchen, where her daughter was working the pasta dough on the flour-dusted table. Elsa squeezed her daughter’s thin shoulder. It was all she could do not to pull her into her arms for a fierce hug, but frankly, Elsa couldn’t handle another rejection right now. Loreda pulled away. “Where’s Daddy?” “Yeah,” Ant said from the sitting room, “where is he? I wanna show him the arrowhead Grandpa and I found.” Rose was at the stove, adding salt to a pot filled with water. She looked at Elsa and turned off the burner. “Have you been crying?” Loreda asked. “It’s just watery eyes from all the dust,” Elsa said, forcing a tight smile. “Can you kids go look for potatoes? I need to talk to Grandma and Grandpa.” “Now?” Loreda whined. “I hate doing that.” “Now,” Elsa said. “Take your brother.” “Come on, Ant,” Loreda said, pushing the dough away from her, “let’s go root through the dirt like pigs.” Ant giggled. “I like bein’ a pig.” “You would.” The kids shuffled out of the house and banged the door shut behind them. Rose stared at Elsa. “You’re scaring me.” Elsa headed into the sitting room, went straight to Tony’s bottle of rye, and poured herself a drink. It tasted awful enough that she poured a second one and drank that, too. “Madonna mia,” Rose said quietly. “I have never seen you take one drink in all these years, and now you take two.” Rose came up behind Elsa, put a hand on her shoulder. “Elsa,” Tony said, putting the harness aside and standing up. “What is it?” “It’s Rafe.” “Rafe?” Rose frowned. “He left,” Elsa said. “Rafe left?” Tony said. “To go where?” “He left,” Elsa said tiredly. “Back to that damn tavern?” Tony said. “I told him—” “No,” Elsa said. “He left Lonesome Tree. On a train. Or so I’m told.” Rose stared at Elsa. “He left? No. He wouldn’t do that. I know he’s unhappy, but…” “For God’s sake, Rose,” Tony said. “We are all unhappy. Dirt is raining from the sky. The trees are falling over dead. Animals are dying. We’re all unhappy.” “He wanted to go to California,” Elsa said. “I said no. It was a mistake. I was going to talk to him about it, but…” She pulled the letter out of her pocket and handed it to them. Rose took it in trembling hands and read it, her lips moving silently over the words. Tears filled her eyes when she looked up. “Son of a bitch,” Tony said, crumpling the letter. “That’s what comes of coddling the boy.” Rose looked stricken. “He’ll be back,” she said. The three of them stared at each other. Absence could fill a room to overflowing, apparently. The front door banged opened. Loreda and Ant came back with dirty hands and dirty faces and three small potatoes between them. “It’s barely any use.” Loreda stopped. “What’s wrong? Who died?” Elsa set down her glass. “I need to talk to you two.” Rose put a hand over her mouth; Elsa understood. Saying these words aloud would change the children’s lives. Rose pulled Elsa into a tight hug, then let her go. Elsa turned to face the children. Their faces unraveled her. Both of them were such spitting images of their father. She went to them, pulled them into her arms, both at once. Ant happily hugged her back. Loreda struggled to break free. “You’re smothering me,” Loreda complained. Elsa let Loreda go. “Where’s Daddy?” Ant asked. Elsa smoothed her son’s hair back from his freckled face. “Come with me.” She led them out onto the porch, where they all sat on the porch swing. Elsa pulled Ant onto her lap to make room. “What’s wrong now?” Loreda said, sounding put-upon. Elsa drew a breath, pushed off, let the swing rock backward and forward. Lord, she wished her grandpa were here to say, Be brave, and give her a little push. “Your father has left—” Loreda looked impatient. “Oh, yeah? Where’d he go?” And there it was. The moment to lie or tell the truth. He’s taken a job out of town to save us. It would be easy to say, harder to prove when no money or letters came, when month after month, he didn’t come home. But they wouldn’t cry themselves to sleep, either. Only Elsa would. “Mom?” Loreda said sharply. “Where did Dad go?” “I don’t know,” Elsa said. “He left us.” “Wait. What?” Loreda jumped off the swing. “You mean—” “He’s gone, Lolo,” Elsa said. “Apparently he jumped on a train.” “DON’T YOU CALL ME THAT. Only he can call me that,” Loreda screamed. Elsa felt fragile enough that she feared there were tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry.” “He left you,” Loreda said. “Yes.” “I HATE YOU!” Loreda ran down the porch steps and disappeared around the corner of the house. Ant twisted around to look up at Elsa. His confusion was heartbreaking. “When’s he comin’ back?” “I don’t think he will come back, Ant.” “But … we need him.” “I know, baby; it hurts.” She stroked his hair back from his face. Tears filled his eyes and seeing that made her own eyes sting, but she refused to cry in front of Ant. “I want my daddy. I want my daddy…” Elsa held her son close and let him cry. “I know, baby. I know…” She couldn’t think of anything else to say. LOREDA CLIMBED UP THE windmill and sat on the platform beneath the giant blades, her knees drawn up. The wood was warm beneath her, heated by the sun. How could Daddy do this? How could he leave his family on the farm without crops or water? How could he leave— Me. It hurt so much she couldn’t breathe when she thought of it. “Come back,” she screamed. The blue, sunlit Great Plains sky swallowed her feeble cry and left her there, alone, feeling small and lonely. How could he abandon her when he knew how much she wanted to leave this farm? She was like him, not like Mom and Grandma and Grandpa. Loreda didn’t want to be a farmer; she wanted to go out into the great big world and become a writer and write something important. She wanted to leave Texas. She felt the windmill rattle and thought, Great, now Mom was going to come up, looking all pathetic, and try to comfort Loreda. Mom was the very last person Loreda wanted to see now. “Go away,” Loreda said, wiping her eyes. “This is all your fault.” Mom sighed. She looked pale, almost fragile, but that was ridiculous. Mom was about as fragile as a yucca root. Mom continued climbing up to the platform and sat down beside Loreda, in the place her daddy always sat, and it made Loreda suddenly furious. “You don’t belong there,” she said. “It’s where…” Her voice broke. Mom laid a hand on Loreda’s thigh. “Honey—” “No. No.” Loreda wrenched free. “I don’t want to hear some lie about how it will be okay. Nothing will ever be okay again. You drove him away.” “I love your father, Loreda.” Mom said it so quietly Loreda could barely hear it. She saw tears brighten her mother’s eyes and thought, I will not watch you cry. “He wouldn’t leave me.” The words felt ripped out of Loreda. She climbed down the windmill and ran, blinded by tears, back into the house, where Grandpa and Grandma sat on the settee, holding hands, looking like tornado survivors, stricken. “Loreda,” Grandma said. “Come back…” Loreda barged up to her bedroom, and found Ant curled into a little ball on her bed, sucking his thumb. The sight of him crying finally broke Loreda. She felt her own tears burn, fall. “He left us?” Ant said. “Really?” “Not us. Her. He’s probably waiting for us somewhere.” Ant sat up. “Like an adventure?” “Yes.” Loreda wiped her eyes, thinking, Of course. “Like an adventure.” ELSA REMAINED ON THE platform, staring out, seeing nothing. The thought of climbing down, walking back into the house, into her bedroom—her bed—was more than she could bear. So she stayed there, thinking of all the things she’d done wrong that had led to this moment and wondering what her life would be like now. She felt a brush of wind lift her hair. She was so lost in her thicket of pain, she barely noticed. I should go after Loreda. But she couldn’t face her daughter’s fury and heartache. Not yet. She should have told Rafe she’d go west. Everything would be different now if she’d simply said, Sure, Rafe, we’ll go. He would have stayed. They could have convinced Tony and Rose to come with them. No. That was a lie she couldn’t tell herself even now. And how could Elsa and Rafe have left them behind? How could they have gone west with no car and no money? Wind yanked the kerchief off her head. Elsa saw her kerchief sail out into the air. The platform shook; the blades overhead creaked and spun. Storm coming. Elsa climbed down from the shaking platform. As she stepped onto the ground, a gust swept up topsoil and lifted it upward in a great, howling scoop and blew it sideways. Sand hit Elsa’s face like tiny bits of glass. Rose ran out of the house, yelled to Elsa, “Storm! Coming fast!” Elsa ran to her mother-in-law. “The kids?” “Inside.” Holding hands, they ran back to the house, bolting the door shut behind them. Inside, the walls quaked. Dust rained down from the ceiling. A blast of wind struck hard, rattled everything. Rose jammed more wads of cloth and old newspapers in the windowsills. “Kids!” Elsa screamed. Ant came running into the sitting room, looking scared. “Mommy!” He threw himself at her. Elsa clung to him. “Put on your gas mask,” she said. “I don’t wanna. I can’t breathe with it,” Ant whined. “Put it on, Anthony. And go sit under the kitchen table. Where’s your sister?” “Huh?” “Go get Loreda. Tell her to put on her gas mask.” “Uh. I can’t.” “Can’t? Why not?” He looked miserable. “I promised not to tell.” She lowered herself to her knees to look at him. Dirt rained down on them. “Anthony, where is your sister?” “She ran away.” “What?” Ant nodded glumly. “I tol’ her it was a dumb idea.” Elsa rushed to Loreda’s bedroom, shoved the door open. No Loreda. She saw something white through the falling dust. A note on the dresser. I’m going to find him. Elsa rushed downstairs, yelled, “Loreda ran away,” to Rose and Tony. “I’m taking the truck. Is there gas left in the tank?” “A little,” Tony yelled. “But you can’t go out in this.” “I have to.” Elsa fished the long-unused keys from the junk bucket in the kitchen and went back out into the blasting, gritty dust storm. She pulled her bandanna up around her mouth and nose and squinted to protect her eyes. Wind swirled in front of her. Static electricity made her hair stand up. Out where the fence used to be, she saw blue fires flare up from the barbed wire. Feeling her way in the dust storm, she found the line they’d strung between the house and the barn. She pulled herself along the rough rope toward the barn, flung the doors open. Wind swept through, breaking slats away, terrifying the horses. Bruno bolted out of his stall, through a broken slat, and stood in the aisle, nostrils quivering in fear, panicked. He snorted at Elsa and ran out into the storm. Elsa pulled the cover off the truck; the wind yanked the canvas from her grasp and sent it flying like an open sail into the hayloft. Milo whinnied in terror from his stall. Elsa climbed into the driver’s seat and stabbed the key into the ignition, turned hard. The engine coughed reluctantly to life. Please let there be enough gas to find her. She drove out of the barn and into the storm, her hands tight on the wheel as the wind tried to push her into the ditch. A chain tied to the axle rattled along behind her, grounding the truck so the vehicle wouldn’t short out. In front of her, brown dirt blew sideways, her two headlights spearing into the gloom. At the end of the driveway, she thought: Which way? Town. Loreda would never turn the other way. There was nothing for miles between here and the Oklahoma border. Elsa muscled the truck into a turn. The wind was behind her now, pushing her forward. She leaned forward, trying to see. She couldn’t drive more than ten miles an hour. In town, they’d turned the streetlamps on in the storm. Windows had been boarded up and doors battened down. Dust and sand and dirt and tumbleweeds blew down the street. Elsa saw Loreda at the train depot, huddled against the closed door, hanging on to a suitcase the storm was trying to yank out of her hand. Elsa parked the truck and got out. Thin halos of golden light glowed at the streetlamps, pinpricks in the brown murk. “Loreda!” she screamed, her voice thin and scratchy in the maw. “Mom!” Elsa leaned into the storm; it ripped her dress and scraped her cheeks and blinded her. She staggered up the depot steps and pulled Loreda into her arms, holding her so tightly that for a second there was no storm, no wind clawing or sand biting, just them. Thank you, God. “We need to get into the depot,” she said. “The door’s locked.” A window exploded beside them. Elsa let go of Loreda and clawed her way to the broken window, climbed over the glass teeth in the sill, felt sharp points jab her skin. Once inside, she unlocked the front door and pulled Loreda inside and slammed the door shut. The depot rattled around them; another window cracked. Elsa went to the water fountain and scooped up some lukewarm water and carried it back to Loreda, who drank greedily. Elsa slumped down beside her daughter. Her eyes stung so badly she could hardly see. “I’m sorry, Loreda.” “He wanted to go west, didn’t he?” Loreda said. The walls of the depot clattered and shook; the world felt as if it were falling apart. “Yes.” “Why didn’t you just say yes?” Elsa sighed. “Your brother has no shoes. There’s no money for gas. There’s no money for anything. Your grandparents won’t leave. All I saw were reasons not to go.” “I got here, and I didn’t know where to go. He didn’t want me to know.” “I know.” Elsa touched her daughter’s back. Loreda yanked sideways and scuttled away from the touch. Elsa brought her hand back and sat there, knowing there was nothing she could say to fix this breach with her daughter. Rafe had abandoned them both, walked out on his children and his responsibilities, and it was still Elsa whom Loreda blamed. THAT NIGHT, AFTER THE storm quieted, Elsa drove back to the farmhouse with Loreda. Somehow, Elsa found the strength to get herself and the children fed, and finally she tucked them into bed. All without crying in front of anyone. It felt like a major triumph. In the hours after Rafe’s abandonment, Rose’s pain had turned to seething anger that showed itself in outbursts in Italian. Loreda’s despair had left her mute during their evening meal, and Ant’s confusion was painful to see. Tony made eye with no one. It occurred to Elsa as she walked into her bedroom—finally—that she hadn’t spoken in a long time, hadn’t bothered to even respond when spoken to. The pain of him leaving kept expanding inside of her, taking up more and more space. There was no wind outside now, no forces of nature trying to break down the walls. Only silence. An occasional coyote howl, an every-now-and-then scurrying of some insect across their floor, but nothing else. Elsa walked to the chest of drawers beneath the window. She opened Rafe’s drawer to look at the only shirt he’d left behind. All she had of him now. She picked it up, a pale blue chambray with brass snaps. She’d made it for him one Christmas. There was still a small brownish-red mark of her blood on one cuff, where she’d poked herself in the sewing. She wrapped the shirt around her neck as if it were a scarf and walked aimlessly out into the starlit night, going nowhere. Maybe she would start walking and never stop … or never take this scarf off until one day, when she was old and gray, some child would ask about the crazy woman who wore a shirt for a scarf and she would say she couldn’t recall how it had begun or whose shirt it was. As she neared the mailbox, she saw Bruno, their gelding, dead, caught in the dried branches of the fallen trees, dirt caked in his open mouth. Tomorrow, they would have to dig into the hard, dry earth to bury him. Another terrible chore, another goodbye. With a sigh, she walked back to the house, got into bed. The mattress felt too large for her alone, even if she spread her arms and legs wide. She folded her arms over her chest as if she were a corpse being washed and readied for burial, and stared up at the dusty ceiling. All those years, all those prayers, all her hope that at last, someday, she would be loved, that her husband would turn to her and see her and love what he saw … gone. Her parents had been right about her all along. ELEVEN Loreda knew she couldn’t blame her mother for Daddy abandoning them, or not entirely. That was the sad, sorry truth she’d come to after a long and sleepless night. Daddy had left them all. Once she’d seen that fact, she couldn’t unsee it. Daddy had filled Loreda’s head with dreams and told her he loved her, but in the end, he’d left her and walked away. It made her feel hopeless for the first time in her life. When she got up the next morning and saw the blue sky outside her window, she dressed in the same dirty clothes she’d run away in and didn’t bother to brush her hair or teeth. What was the point? She was never going to get off this farm and if she didn’t, who cared what she looked like? She found Grandma Rose in the kitchen, with a breakfast of creamed wheat cereal bubbling on the stove. Grandma looked … clenched. There was no other word for it. She kept talking to herself in Italian, a language she refused to teach her grandchildren because she wanted them to be Americans. Ant shuffled into the kitchen, kicking through the inch of dirt that covered the floor, and Loreda pulled out a chair for him at the oilcloth-draped table, where the bowls sat upside down at their places, covered in more dirt. Loreda turned the bowls over and wiped them out, then sat down beside her brother, whose hunched shoulders made him look even younger as he ate cereal so tasteless that even cream and butter couldn’t make it palatable. Grandpa walked into the kitchen, buckling his tattered, patched overalls. “Coffee smells good, Rose.” He tousled Ant’s dirty hair. Ant started to cry. It ended in a hacking cough. Loreda reached out to hold his hand. She felt like crying, too. “How could he leave them?” Grandpa said to Grandma, who looked stricken. “Silenzio,” she hissed. “What good are words?” Grandpa released a heavy breath; the exhalation ended in a cough. He pressed a hand to his chest, as if the dirt from yesterday’s storm had collected there. Grandma Rose reached for the broom and dustpan. Loreda groaned out loud. They’d spend a whole day digging out from yesterday’s storm—beating rugs, scooping dirt from windowsills, washing everything in the cupboards and putting it away again, upside down. And still more sweeping. There was a knock at the front door. “Daddy!” Loreda yelled, leaping to her feet. She ran for the door, jerked it open. The man standing there was dressed in rags, his face filthy. He yanked off his tattered newsboy cap, curled it in his dirty hands. Hungry. Like all the hobos who stopped by here on their way “there.” This was what her daddy wanted? To be starving and alone, knocking on some stranger’s door for food? That was better than staying? Grandma moved in beside Loreda. “I’m hungry, ma’am. If you’ve got any vittles to share, I’d be much obliged.” The hobo’s shirt was so discolored by dirt and sweat that it was impossible to determine its original color. Blue, maybe. Or gray. He wore dungarees with a belt he’d cinched tight at his waist. “I’d be happy to do some chores.” “We have cereal,” Grandpa said. “And the porch could use sweeping.” They were used to hobos stopping by at mealtime, begging for food or offering work for a slice of bread. In times this hard, folks did what they could for those less fortunate. Most hobos did a chore or two and then headed off again. One of the tramps had drawn a symbol on their barn. A message to other wanderers. Supposedly it meant, Stop here. Good folks. Grandpa studied the vagrant. “Where are you from, son?” “Arkansas, sir.” “And how old are you?” “Twenty-two, sir.” “How long you been on the road?” “Long enough to get where I was a-goin’, if’n I knew where that was.” “What makes a man just up and leave? Can you tell me that?” Grandpa asked. They all looked at the hobo, who seemed to wrestle with the question. “Well, sir. I reckon you leave when you just can’t stand your life where it is.” “And what about the family you left behind?” Grandma asked sharply. “Doesn’t a man care what happens to his wife and kids?” “If he did, he’d stay, I reckon,” the hobo said. “That ain’t true,” Loreda said. “Let’s get you that cereal, shall we?” Grandma said. “No use talking the day away.” “LOREDA.” ANT TUGGED ON Loreda’s sleeve. “Sumpin’s wrong with Mommy.” Loreda pushed the tangled hair out of her eyes and leaned on the broom. She’d been sweeping long enough and hard enough to work up a sweat. “What do you mean?” “She won’t wake up.” “That’s silly. Grandma said to let her sleep.” Ant’s shoulders slumped. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.” “Fine.” Loreda followed Ant into their parents’ bedroom. The small room was usually as neat as a pin, but now there was dirt everywhere, even on the bed. It was a sharp reminder that Dad had abandoned them; Mom hadn’t even bothered to sweep before going to bed. And Mom was crazy about clean. “Mom?” Mom lay in the double bed, her body positioned as far to the right as she could go, so that there was a big blank space to her left. She wore a dirty kerchief and a nightdress so old the cotton showed her skin in places. A blue chambray work shirt—Daddy’s—lay coiled around her neck. Her face was almost as pale as the sheet, with her sharp cheekbones standing out above sunken cheeks. Mom was always pale. Even out in the summer sun, she burned and peeled. She never tanned. But this … She pushed Mom’s shoulder gently. “Wake up, Mom.” Nothing. “Go get Grandma. She’s milking Bella,” Loreda said to Ant. Loreda poked her mom’s arm, this time not gently. “Wake up, Mom. This isn’t funny.” Loreda stared down at the woman who had always seemed indomitable, unyielding, humorless. Now she saw how delicate her mother was, how thin and pale. Lying in bed, wearing Daddy’s shirt as a scarf, she looked fragile. It was scary. “Wake up, Mom. Come on.” Grandma walked into the room, carrying an empty metal bucket. “What’s wrong?” Ant was right behind her, staying close. “Mom won’t wake up.” Grandma put down the metal bucket and lifted the cement-sack towel that covered the cracked porcelain pitcher on the nightstand. Silt-fine dust sifted to the floor. She dipped a washrag into water and wrung the excess into the basin, then placed the washrag on Mom’s forehead. “She isn’t feverish,” Grandma said. Then: “Elsa?” Mom didn’t respond. Grandma dragged a chair into the room and sat down by the bed. For a long time, she said nothing, just sat there. Then, finally, she sighed. “He left us, too, Elsa. It is not only you. He left all the people he said he loved. I’ll never forgive him for that.” “Don’t say that!” Loreda said. “Silenzio,” Grandma said. “A woman can die of a broken heart. Do not make it worse.” “It’s her fault he left. She wouldn’t go to California.” “In your vast experience with men and love, you decide this. Thank you for your genius, Loreda. I’m sure it’s a comfort to your mama.” Grandma dabbed the cool wet washcloth on Mom’s forehead. “I know how much it hurts right now, Elsa. You can’t unlove someone even if you want to, even if he breaks your heart. I understand not wanting to wake up. Lord, with this life of ours, who could blame you. But your daughter needs you, especially now. She is as foolish as her father. Ant worries me, too.” Grandma leaned closer, whispered, “ the first time you held Loreda and we both cried? your son’s laugh and how he squeezes so hard when he hugs you. Your children, Elsa. Loreda … Anthony…” Mom drew in a sharp, ragged breath, and sat up sharply, as if she’d been thrown ashore, and Grandma steadied her, took her in her arms and held her. Loreda had never heard sobbing like this. She thought Mom might simply break in half at the force of her crying. When she was finally able to breathe without sobbing, Mom drew back, looking ravaged. There was no other word for it. “Loreda, Ant, please leave us,” Grandma said. “What’s wrong with her?” Loreda asked. “ion has a dark edge. If your father had ever grown up, he would have told you this instead of filling your head with fluff.” “ion? What does that have to do with anything?” “She’s too young to understand, Rose,” Elsa said. Loreda hated to be told she was too young for anything. “I am not. ion is good. Great. I long for it.” Grandma waved a hand impatiently. “ion is a thunderstorm, there and gone. It nourishes, s?, but it drowns, too. Our land will save and protect you. This is something your father never learned. Be smarter than your selfish, foolish father, cara. Marry a man of the land, one who is reliable and true. One who will keep you steady.” Marriage again. Her grandmother’s answer to every question. As if marrying well meant a good life. “How about if I just get a dog? It sounds about as exciting as the life you want for me.” “My son has spoiled you, Loreda, let you read too many romantic books. It will be the ruin of you.” “Reading? I doubt it.” “Out,” Grandma said, pointing to the door. “Now.” “I don’t want to be here anyway,” Loreda said. “Come on, Ant.” “Good,” Grandma said. “It’s laundry day. Go get us water.” Loreda should have left five minutes ago. “HE NEVER LOVED ME,” Elsa said. “Why would he?” “Ah, cara…” Rose scooted closer, reached out to place her rough, work-reddened hand on Elsa’s. “You know I lost three daughters. Three. Two who never breathed in this world and one who did. But never did we really speak of it.” Rose drew in a deep breath, exhaled it. “Each one I allowed myself to mourn briefly. I made myself believe in God’s plan for me. I went to church and lit candles and prayed. I was never in my life as afraid as when I carried Raffaello in my womb. He was so busy in there. I found I couldn’t think of him as anything but healthy and I grew afraid of my hope. If I saw a black cat, I would burst into tears. Spilled olive oil could send me rushing to church to combat bad luck. I didn’t knit a single pair of booties or make a blanket or sew a christening gown. What I did do, it seems, was imagine him. He became real to me in a way the girls had not. When he finally was born—so hearty and hale and too beautiful to bear—I knew that God had forgiven me for whatever sin I’d committed that cost me my daughters. I loved him so much, I … couldn’t discipline him, couldn’t deny him. Tony told me I was spoiling him, but I thought, how could it hurt? He was a shooting star and he blinded me with his light. I … wanted so much for him. I wanted him to know love and prosperity and to be an American.” “And I came along.” Rose was still for a moment. “I every bit of that day. He was packed to go to college. College. A Martinelli. I was so proud, I’d told everyone.” “And then, me.” “Skinny as a willow switch, you were. Hair that needed tending. You looked like a young woman who didn’t know how to smile. And you were too old for him, I thought.” “I was all those things.” “It took me months to see that you were a woman more capable of love and commitment than anyone I’ve ever known. You were the best thing that ever happened to my son. He’s a fool to have missed that.” “It is a kind thing for you to say.” “But you can’t believe it.” Rose sighed. “What damage I did to Raffaello by loving him too much, I fear your parents did to you by loving you too little.” “They tried to love me. Just as Rafe did.” “Did they?” Rose said. “I was a sickly child. I had a fever as a teenager and it left me weakened. They told my parents that I would die young and that I have a damaged heart.” “And you believed them.” “Of course.” “Elsa, I don’t know about your youth or your illness or what your parents said or did. But I know this. You have the heart of a lion. Don’t believe anyone who tells you different. I’ve seen it. My son is a fool.” “The last thing he said to me before he left was, ‘ me then.’ I thought he was being romantic.” “I imagine it will hurt us all for a long time, but Loreda and Ant need you. Loreda needs to learn that it is this land that will save her, not her silly father.” “I want her to go to college, Rose. To be brave and have adventures.” “A girl?” Rose laughed. “Ant will be the one. Loreda will settle down. You’ll see.” “I don’t know if I want her to settle down, Rose. I’m in awe of her fire. Even if I’m the one who gets burned. I just … want her to be happy. It breaks my heart to see her as unhappy as her father was.” “You blame yourself when they are the ones to blame.” Rose gave her a steady, reassuring look. “, cara, hard times don’t last. Land and family do.” TWELVE In November, the first winter storm battered them from the north, leaving behind a fine layer of snow. Clean, glistening, and white, it dusted the windmill’s rough blades, the chicken coop, the cows’ hides, and the land itself. Snow was a good sign. It meant water. Water meant crops. Crops meant food on the table. On this particularly frigid day, Elsa stood at the kitchen table, rolling meatballs in hands that were pink and swollen and pocked with blisters. Chilblains were common this season and everyone in the house—in the county—had raw, burning throats and gritty, bloodshot eyes that itched from too many dust storms. She placed the garlic-seasoned pork meatballs on a baking sheet and covered them with a towel, then went into the sitting room, where Rose sat by the stove darning socks. Tony came into the house, stomped the snow from his boots, and slammed the door behind him. He made a chapel of his gloved hands and blew into them. His cheeks were red and roughened by cold, scoured by wind. His hair stuck out in frozen shards. “The windmill isn’t pumping,” he said. “Must be the cold.” He walked over to the woodstove. Beside it, a barrel held their dwindling supply of cow chips. In these dust and drought years, the animals on the Great Plains were dying, and so this treeless land was losing the fuel source that the farmers had assumed would last forever. He fed a few into the fire. “There are still a few broken slats in the hog pen. I’d best go chop ’em up. We’re going to need a roaring fire tonight.” “I’ll go,” Elsa said. She retrieved her winter coat and gloves from the hook by the door and stepped out into the frosted world. Glittery, frozen tumbleweeds cartwheeled across the yard, breaking pieces off at every rotation. She grabbed an ax from the wooden box. Carrying it out to the empty hog pen, she surveyed the remaining slats and picked her spot, then lifted the ax, brought it down, and felt the thunk of metal on wood reverberate up through her shoulder, heard the craaack of the wood breaking. It took her less than half an hour to destroy what was left of the hog pen and turn it into firewood. THE SKY WAS SO gray it could smother a soul. Elsa sat with Ant in the back of the wagon, bundled up in quilts. Loreda sat by herself, wrapped in blankets, her cheeks pink and chapped from the unseasonable cold. She had become increasingly silent and distant since Rafe had left. Elsa was surprised to realize that she preferred her daughter’s loud anger to this quiet depression. Rose and Tony sat up front, with Tony handling the reins. All of them were dressed in what tattered clothes could be called their Sunday best. Lonesome Tree was quiet on this late-November day. Quiet in the way of a dying town. Snow covered everything. The Catholic church looked lonely. Half of the roof had been torn away last month, and the spire had been broken. One more good wind and it would be gone. Tony parked the wagon out front, tied the horse to the hitching post. He hauled a bucket over to the pump, filled it, and left it for Milo. Elsa tugged a felt cloche down over her braided hair and gathered her children close. Together, they climbed the creaking steps and walked into the church. Several broken windows had been repaired with plywood, making the altar dark. In good years there hadn’t been many Catholics in town, and these were far from good years. Every Sunday fewer came. The Irish Catholics had their own church, over in Dalhart, and the Mexicans worshipped in churches that had been built hundreds of years ago. But they were all losing . Every church in the county was. More and more postcards and letters had begun to land in mailboxes in the Great Plains, containing notes from people in California and Oregon and Washington who had found jobs and were encouraging their kin to follow. Elsa heard people coming in behind them. Unlike the old days, there was no gathering of women to gossip about recipes and no clot of men arguing about the weather. Even the children were quiet. The sound of hacking coughs rose above the squeaking of wooden pews. In time, Father Michael stood before the altar and looked out at his much-diminished flock. “We are being tested.” He looked as tired as Elsa felt. As tired as they all felt. “Let us pray this snow means rain to come. Crops to come.” “God’s no help,” Loreda grumbled. Rose elbowed Loreda hard. “Tested does not mean forgotten,” Father Michael said, peering through his small round glasses at Loreda. “Let us pray.” Elsa bowed her head. God help us, she thought but wasn’t certain it was exactly a prayer. More of a desperate plea. They prayed and sang and prayed some more and then filed up for Communion. When it was over, they looked at their remaining friends and neighbors. No one made eye for long. Each was ing the food and fellowship that used to grace their Sundays. Outside, the Carrio family stood by the frosted water pump. Mr. Carrio broke free of his family and strode toward them, his face shuttered tightly. No one wanted to show too much emotion these days, afraid a little could become too much in an instant. “Tony,” he said, pushing the hair back from his cold-reddened face. He was a shriveled, sinewy man, with a bulwark of a jaw and a thin nose. Papa removed his hat, shook his friend’s hand. “Where are the Cirillos?” “Ray got a letter from his sister in Los Angeles,” he said in a thick Italian accent. “Seems she’s heeled. Got herself a good job. Him and Andrea and the kids are fixin’ to head out that way, too. Says there ain’t no reason to stay.” A silence followed. “Wish we’d left already,” Mr. Carrio said. “No money for gas now. You heard from your boy? He found work?” “Not yet,” Tony said tightly. None of them had told anyone the truth of Rafe’s desertion. The idea of his betrayal and weakness becoming public was more than they could bear. “Too bad,” Mr. Carrio said. “Seems you’re stuck.” “I’d never leave my land,” Tony said. Mr. Carrio’s face darkened. “Ain’t you figured it out, Tony? This land don’t want us here. And it’s gonna get worse.” EVERY DAY OF THAT long, unseasonably cold winter, Elsa woke with a single purpose: keep her children fed. Each day their survival felt less certain. She woke in the dark, alone, and dressed without the benefit of light. Lord knew nothing good came of looking in a mirror anyway. Her lips were always chapped with cold and swollen from her habit of biting down when she worried. And she was always worried. About the cold, about the crops, about her children’s health. That was the worst of it. School had closed last week for good—it had fallen to twenty degrees in the schoolhouse. With the supply of cow chips disappearing, heating the school had become a luxury none of them could afford. So now Elsa had added schooling to her list of chores. For a woman who hadn’t graduated from high school, being responsible for her children’s education was a daunting ordeal, but she did it with zeal. If there was one thing she wanted above all else, it was for her children to have the opportunities that came with education. It wasn’t until nighttime, after prayers with her children, when she collapsed into her lonely bed, that she let herself think of Rafe, miss him, ache for him. She thought of how kind he’d always been and she wondered now if he would miss her, even some small bit. They had history together, after all, and she couldn’t help loving him still. In spite of everything, all the pain and heartbreak and anger he’d left in his wake, when she closed her eyes at night, she missed him beside her, missed the sound of his breathing and the hope she’d felt that one day he would really love her. She’d think, I wish I’d said, “I’ll go to California,” over and over until a fitful sleep came to save her. Thank God for this farm and her children, because some days she still wanted to crawl in a hole and cry. Or maybe become one of those crazy women who wore pajamas and slippers all day and stood at a window awaiting the man who’d left. For the first time in her life, she understood the physical pain of betrayal. She would do almost anything to hide from it. Run. Drink. Take laudanum … But she wasn’t an I. She was a we. Her two beautiful children were counting on her, even if Loreda didn’t know it yet. On this cold late-December day, she woke late and dressed in every piece of clothing she owned, covering her stringy hair with both a red bandanna and the woolen hat Rose had knit her for Christmas. She coiled Rafe’s shirt around her throat like a scarf and went into the kitchen and put wheat cereal on to boil. Today, finally, they were going to get help from the government. It was big news in town. Last Sunday at church, no one had been able to talk about anything else. She slipped into her winter boots and walked outside, shivering instantly. She tossed handfuls of grain at the chickens and checked their water. The well had been troublesome during this freezing winter, only working sporadically. Thank God when it froze they could gather snow to keep the animals and themselves in water. She saw Tony chopping wood by the side of the house—barn boards being ripped down and cut into kindling. She waved as she headed to the barn. At the corral, she snapped a lead rope onto Milo’s halter. The poor starving animal gave her such a sorrowful look that it gave her pause. “I know, boy. We all feel that way.” She led the bony gelding out into the bright blue day. She had just finished hitching him to the wagon when Tony appeared beside her. She saw how red his cheeks were from the cold, saw the plumes of his breath and the weight loss that had sunken his face and eyes. For a man who had two religions—God and the land—he was dying a little each day, disappointed by them both. He spent long minutes throughout the day staring at his snow-covered winter-wheat fields, begging his God to let the wheat grow. “This meeting will be the answer,” she said. “I hope so,” he said. The season of cold had been hard on Loreda, too. She’d lost her father and her best friend and now school had closed. The dwindling of her world left her sullen and depressed. Elsa heard the farmhouse door bang open. Footsteps clattered on the porch steps. Loreda and Ant shuffled toward the wagon, bundled up in anything that still fit. Rose came out behind them, carrying a box full of the goods they’d be selling in town. Elsa and the children climbed into the back of the wagon with the box of goods to be sold. Elsa wrapped Ant up in a quilt and held him close. Loreda would rather freeze than them, so she sat across from them, shivering. Tony snapped the reins and Milo plodded forward. In the wagon bed, soap clattered in the slatted box. Elsa kept one gloved hand on the stack of eggs to keep them from falling. “You know, Loreda, if you ed us just to get warm, I promise I would still know that you are angry.” “Very funny.” Loreda crossed her arms; her teeth chattered. “You’re turning blue,” Elsa said. “No, I’m not.” “Sorta red, though,” Ant said, grinning. “Don’t look at me,” Loreda said. “You’re directly across from us,” Elsa said. Loreda pointedly looked away. Ant giggled. Loreda rolled her eyes. Elsa turned her attention to the land. Snow-covered, this landscape looked beautiful. There weren’t many dwellings between town and the Martinelli farm, but several of the places along the way were abandoned. Cabins and shacks and dugouts and homes with boarded-up windows and FOR SALE signs plastered over foreclosure notices. They ed the abandoned Mull place. Last she heard, Tom and Lorri had followed their kin to California on foot. On foot. How could anyone be that desperate? And Tom had been a lawyer by trade. It wasn’t just farmers going broke these days. So many were leaving. Let’s go to California. Elsa pushed the thought away with force, although she knew it would come back to haunt her in the dark. In town, Tony parked the wagon and tied Milo to a hitching post. Elsa retrieved the wooden box full of eggs and butter and soap and hefted it into her arms. On the few still-open storefronts, placards announced the arrival today of Hugh Bennett, a scientist from President Roosevelt’s new Civilian Conservation Corps. In an attempt to put Americans back to work, FDR had created dozens of agencies, put folks to work documenting the Depression in words and photographs and in sweat labor, building bridges and fixing roads. Bennett had come all the way from Washington, D.C., to finally help the farmers. Inside the mercantile, Elsa was struck by the empty shelves. Even so, there was a tantalizing collection of colors and aromas. Coffee, perfumes that hadn’t been purchased in years, a box of apples. Here and there on the barren shelves were utensils and dress patterns and shade hats and bags of rice and sugar and tinned meat and canned milk. Stacks of gingham and polka-dot and striped fabric lay gathering dust, as did the stacks of eyelets and lace. Grain sacks had become the only fabric used for clothing. She went up to the main counter, where Mr. Pavlov stood, wearing a weary smile and a white shirt that had seen better days. Once one of the richest men in town, he was now hanging on to his store by his fingernails, and everyone knew it. His family had moved in above the store when the bank foreclosed on his house. “Martinellis,” he said. “You in town for the meeting?” Elsa set the box of goods on the counter. “We are,” Tony said. “You?” “I’ll walk over. I sure hope the government can help folks around here. I hate to see people give up and leave.” Tony nodded. “Most are staying, though.” “Farmers are tough.” “We’ve worked too hard and made too many sacrifices to walk away. Droughts end.” Mr. Pavlov nodded and glanced at the box Elsa had laid on the counter. “Chickens still laying. Good for you.” “That’s Elsa’s soap, too,” Rose said. “Scented with lavender. Your missus loves it.” The children came up to stand beside Elsa. She couldn’t help ing how they’d once run around in here, oohing and aahing over candies, begging for treats. Mr. Pavlov pushed the rimless glasses higher up on his nose. “What do you need?” “Coffee. Sugar. Rice. Beans. Maybe some yeast? A tin of that nice olive oil, if you have it.” Mr. Pavlov did calculations in his head. When he was satisfied, he yanked on the basket that hung from a length of rope beside him. He grabbed a piece of paper, wrote on it: Sugar. Coffee. Beans. Rice. Then said, “No olive oil in stock and no charge for yeast,” and put the list in the basket and pulled a lever that lifted to the second floor of the store, where his wife and daughter did the receipts. Moments later, a heavyset girl came out from the back room hauling a sack of sugar, some coffee, a bag of rice, and another of beans. Ant stared at the jar of licorice whips on the counter. Elsa touched her son’s head. “Licorice is on special today,” Mr. Pavlov said. “Two whips for the price of one. I could put it on a tab.” “You know I don’t believe in handouts,” Tony said. “And I don’t know when we could pay.” “I know,” Mr. Pavlov said. “My treat. Take two.” His kindness was the sort of thing that made life bearable out here. “Thank you, Mr. Pavlov,” Elsa said. Tony stowed the new goods in the back of the wagon and covered them with a tarp. Leaving Milo tied to the hitching post, they walked along the icy boardwalk toward the boarded-up schoolhouse, where several other horse-and-wagon teams waited outside. “Ain’t many folks here,” Tony said. Rose reached for his hand. “I heard Emmett got a postcard from his kin in Washington State. Railroad jobs there.” “They’ll be sorry,” Tony said. “Those jobs are a pipe dream. Gotta be. Millions are out of work. Let’s say you do run off to Portland or Seattle and there ain’t work. Then where will you be—in a strange place with no land and no job.” Elsa held Ant’s hand. Together they climbed the steps up to the schoolhouse. Inside, the children’s desks had been pushed out of the way, positioned along the walls. Plywood covered several of the broken windows. Someone had set up a row of chairs facing a portable movie screen. “Oh, boy,” Ant called out. “A movie!” Tony led the family to a row in the back, where they sat with the other Italians who were left in town. A few more folks filed in, no one saying much. A couple of the older folks coughed constantly, a reminder of the dust storms that had ravaged the land this fall. The door banged shut and the lights went out. There was a whir and clatter of sound; a black-and-white image appeared on the white screen: it was a howling windstorm blowing through a farm. Tumbleweeds cartwheeled past a boarded-up house. The caption read: 30% of all the farmers on the Great Plains face foreclosure. The next image was of a Red Cross hospital, beds full, gray-uniformed nurses tending to coughing babies and old people. Dust pneumonia takes a terrible toll. In the next image, farmers poured milk into the streets, where it disappeared instantly in the arid dirt. Milk sells for below production costs … Haggard, ragged men, women, and children drifted across a gray screen, looking ghostlike. A Hooverville encampment. Thousands living in cardboard boxes or broken-down cars or shacks cobbled together from cans and sheet metal. Folks standing in soup lines … The movie snapped off. The lights came back on. Elsa heard footsteps, boot heels clacking confidently on the hardwood floor. Like everyone else, Elsa turned. Here was a man with presence, dressed better than anyone in town. He moved the makeshift movie screen out of the way, stepped over to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, wrote Farming methods, and underlined the words. He turned to face the crowd. “I’m Hugh Bennett. The President of the United States has appointed me to his new Conservation Corps. I’ve spent months touring the farmland of the Great Plains. Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas. I got to say, folks, this summer it was as dire in Lonesome Tree as anywhere I’ve seen. And who knows how long the drought will go on? I hear only a few of you even bothered to plant a crop this year.” “Don’t you reckon we know it?” someone yelled, coughing. “You know there’s been no rain, friend. I’m here to tell you it’s more than that. What’s happening to your land is a dire ecological disaster, maybe the worst in our country’s history, and you have to change your farming methods to stop it from getting worse.” “You sayin’ it’s our fault?” Tony said. “I’m saying you contributed,” Bennett said. “Oklahoma has lost almost four hundred and fifty million tons of topsoil. Truth is that you farmers have to see your part in it or this great land will die.” The Carrington family got up and walked out, slamming the door behind them. The Renke family followed. “So, what do we do?” Tony asked. “The way y’all farm the land is destroying it. You dug up the grasses which held the topsoil in place. The plow broke the prairie. When the rain died and the wind came up, there was nothing to stop your land from blowing away. This here is a man-made disaster, so we got to fix it. We need the grasses back. We need soil-conservation methods in place.” “It’s the weather and the damn greedy banksters on Wall Street, closing their banks, taking our money, that’s what’s ruining us,” Mr. Carrio said. “FDR wants to pay y’all not to plant next year. We’ve got a conservation plan. You’ve got to rest some of this land, plant grass. But it isn’t enough for one or two of you to do it. Y’all have to do it. You have to protect the Great Plains, not just your own acreage.” “That’s it?” Mr. Pavlov said, standing up in a huff. “You’re telling ’em not to plant next year? Grow grass? Why don’t you just light a match on what’s left? The farmers need help.” “FDR cares about the farmers. He knows you’ve been forgotten. He has a plan. To start with, the government will buy your livestock for sixteen bucks a head. If possible, we’ll use your cattle to feed the poor. If not, if they’re full of dirt, which I’ve seen out here, we’ll pay you and bury them.” “That’s it?” Tony said. “You brung us all the way down here to tell us the disaster is our fault, we need to plant grass, which ain’t a crop that makes money, in land too dry to grow anything, in a drought—seeds we can’t afford—and oh, yeah, kill your last living farm animal for sixteen lousy bucks.” “There’s a plan for relief. We want to pay you not to grow crops. Might even get the banks to forgive mortgage payments.” “We don’t want charity,” someone called out. “We want help. We want water. What good is keeping our houses if the land is useless?” “We’re farmers. We want to plant our crops. We want to take care of ourselves.” “Enough,” Tony said. He shoved his seat back and stood up. “Come on. We’re leaving.” When Elsa glanced back, she saw the disappointment on Bennett’s face as more families followed the Martinellis out of the schoolhouse.