Sufficient Grace (19 page)

19

HIS HAND IS
BEHIND HIS BACK
.
IN ALMOST ALL HIS
NAVY
slides, Uncle Peter's arm is crooked at a strange angle, tucked up and away and hidden from the camera. He's grinning wide and his buddies are laughing, slouching in their rumpled off-duty gear. And the ladies with them — long black hair looping across sundresses, bare shoulders and barely covered breasts — are sparkly-eyed with wet, pink mouths. I know without them saying: he's got a bottle of beer in that hidden hand.

Daddy and Peter and Reuben are smirking at the picture projected bright and big against the screen because they think I can't know. They think that I don't know about the liquor behind his back or what those wet mouths mean, but I do. They needn't hide it — well, maybe they should from Mom and Naomi — but they needn't hide it from me or for me. In the darkened living room, the slides of a teenaged Peter flash; the corners of the pictures glide off the screen and splash blue Pacific light across the curtains.

Plain winter light creeps in through the cracks between the curtains and the windows. It's unusual for the men to be inside during daylight, but this cold Saturday afternoon seemed a good day for Uncle Peter to remember the old times, his away times. Dad and Peter are on the couch together, and my brother sits before them on the floor. Naomi and I are sharing the recliner, legs up on the footrest to make enough room. After New Year's she came home with me. She was supposed to stay the night, but we're almost tired of each other already after just a morning of hairstyling and radio. So she called Uncle Ingwald to come and get her before supper. For now, I'm thankful for the slides and the break.

Mom is edging around the room, shelving blankets, folding clothes, and sending sideways looks to make me feel guilty. Cleaning is Saturday afternoon's chore, but my dust rag hangs clean and still between my knees. Naomi is supposed to be sorting odd socks — about the only job my mom trusts to the girl — but Reuben rests there without duty or blame.

Daddy lets Mom slip around the edges of the house, clanking pots and sighing, but he can't ignore the vacuum cleaner's roar.

‘Marie. Marie, come set with us a bit.' And he grabs at her waist as she runs the vacuum near the couch.

Mom pushes his hands away but then smiles as he grabs her again and pulls her down, hard but catching her fall, onto his lap.

‘Let's see all what Peter got up to, eh?' Daddy smooths her hair and wraps his arms around her elbows, pulling her close in a tight hug.

My mom can't help but smile, and she can't really get away anyway. She leans back against him and turns her face to the flickering screen. She's probably seen these slides before, all Peter's adventures while he was in the navy. But that doesn't mean she can't see them new all again: white sand and palm trees; fish with sharp faces and fanned fins; coconuts stacked like cordwood; and girls, girls, girls.

The colours flash as each slide jangles into the projector and I see the places so far away. He left Failing, my uncle, and saw people and things none of us has seen. He met folks who didn't know his name or where he was from, and no one knew he was one of us. No one even knew why he kept that hand hid behind his back. He left us, and could have gotten away, and still he returned. While the slides clink ahead, and Naomi braids and re-braids her hair, I imagine my way outside this place — outside this family and house. Me, lounging next to a boat with my shoulders bare and hair hanging loose; my mouth a wet, pink kiss. But there will be no slide of me hiking up my dress, the ocean up to my knees; there is no war for girls.

When the slides stop, Daddy slithers out from beneath Mom and opens the curtains. He heads into the kitchen. ‘Coffee?'

And both Mom and Uncle Peter agree. Bored, Reuben pulls on his boots and goes out the door, but Naomi and me stay quiet on the recliner. If we are still enough, maybe Mom will forget the cleaning. Maybe we can waste all afternoon.

Uncle Peter and Mom rest side by side on the couch, talking about the oceans he's crossed.

‘Sometimes I can't believe I've been there, Marie.'

And she nods and smiles and puts her hand on his elbow.

‘Sometimes I can't believe I ever left.' My uncle looks down at his knees and back at my mother. ‘It all changed while I was gone: you all changed.'

The sun trickles in through the window and shines on her braid, escaped wisps tangled and caught behind her ear. She is lovely and smiling, settled low in the sagging middle of the couch, chewing her lip. Mom closes her eyes and opens them like she's seeing old things new again. Sunlight streams through the glass and shows the dust in the air. The coffee percolator gurgles from the kitchen.

‘Up, girls. Get to work.' And Mom springs forward off the couch, grabs my dust rag and play-swats me a little on the legs.

She's humming and straightening and moving about the room before I can even get on my feet. I'm not going to feel shame for watching the slides, for sitting and resting gentle for an afternoon. Once I've done my dusting, I've decided we'll be done. We are going to leave this house. Naomi and I will be outside in the cold and the light today. We are going to walk outside, even if it is just for a moment.

Naomi's wearing Christmas presents from her mother's people: snow gear, brand new every year. I've got on Reuben's old camouflage pants and Naomi's last year's jacket. The jacket is missing a snap. She is a frosted cupcake; I am a yard sale.

Carrying a cup of hot water from the house, Naomi wants to throw it in the air and watch it freeze before it hits the ground. She heard the television weatherman say it would work. I don't believe it. Not even cold this cold can halt and hold time.

‘It ain't going to work.' I shake my head and walk toward Naomi. She's got her pink candy-striped gloves wrapped around the mug.

Her eyes darken. ‘Yes, it will. The weatherman said.' She's even pouting. ‘You don't know everything.'

She's always got to be right and, time to time, she gets mean about it.

‘Do it then. I'm cold.' I stamp my boots.

‘You ain't my boss, Ruth.'

‘Somebody has to be.' What's gotten into her, I don't know.

‘Well, nobody would ever pick you.' Naomi looks straight into my face with her black eyes. ‘Nobody would ever pick you first.' And she pulls back her arm and throws the hot water across my chest.

The water is seeping into the jacket, but I can't feel it. I can't hear any noise or even smell the air. I can only see the frost forming across my chest, crisscrossing white and blotching the faded purple. I can only watch the freeze.

I can't smell anything with my runny nose, but I can see breath and steam leave my body and hear birds and small things cracking little twigs. I can see sticks and trees and pale blue sky, dead long grass stiff and glazed with frost like diamond dust. Dirt don't frost but leaves do. Some trees don't release their leaves; they just die on the stalk. My legs ache in the cold.

A horn honks and we both jump. Without either of us noticing, the church van has wound its way down our long driveway. Uncle Ingwald doesn't bother parking. Avoiding the slushy corners, he just turns around in the yard and then honks the horn again. She's got to go home now. As she moves toward her daddy, Naomi looks over her shoulder at me but she doesn't smile.

As I head for the house, I see Peter's truck is gone. He and Reuben have gone off together again. I hear raised voices inside. Pressing my frosted body against the siding, I try to listen to the goings-on inside the kitchen. My parents must've fought the whole while Naomi and I were in the snow.

‘Shame you didn't choose the right one.' Daddy's slamming pots and boxes around the kitchen, must be looking for his keys.

‘That ain't fair.' Mom ain't even crying.

The keys jingle as he pushes the door with his hip. ‘Money don't measure a man, Marie.'

She's holding firm. ‘All I'm saying, all I've been saying, is that we need to fix the dryer.'

She's right: hanging clothes by the fire means we've stunk of wet wool all winter. Kids sometimes won't share a desk with me.

‘Blood from a stone. I can't do any more than I can. I just can't make you happy.' And the door slams, and the warm air goes outside along with my daddy. He hardly ever says nothing, especially in a fight. His silence is worse than his words. He's headed for the truck and he didn't even grab his hat. He sure didn't notice me standing there.

Usually, we don't use words. We speak instead with eyes, head and hands: looking through, turning down, holding thighs. Folks move away to say what is necessary. My mother is soft and frightens easily. My father is not and does not. They stand and pray in our church pew. They walk up our dirt driveway, and the light between their bodies always shows like sun amongst the jack pines.

It is cold, inside and outside our house, and my mother is building up a fire. She banks the woodstove. The cast-iron stove throws and catches shadows, and I see more of that growing light of the in-between. Mom sits down on our soft sagging couch. Sometimes they rest there — my parents — near one another, not together but not alone.

I settle into a chair at the kitchen table to braid embroidery thread. Before we went outside, before the water, Naomi gave me some of her supplies and told me to make her a friendship bracelet. She was supposed to make me one too. Maybe she won't, but I still will: over, under, I weave the purple and pink strings. My wrist is smaller than hers.

When my mom is sad, she stays apart from us, restless and moving. She also sings.
All to Jesus I surrender; all to Him I freely give. I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live
. She sits alone at the battered wooden upright piano, singing and playing old hymns and choruses, even some from her childhood days.
All to Jesus I surrender; humbly at His feet I bow. Worldly pleasures all forsaken, take me, Jesus; take me now
. Even when singing alone, Mom sings the second part, and that low alto makes the meaning soar.
All to Jesus I surrender; make me, Saviour, wholly Thine. Let me feel the Holy Spirit, truly know that Thou art mine
.

I've listened to her songs, the same songs, dozens of times; but sometimes I hear something new in the singing. I can hear it especially when her face is wet, like today. It is the sound below that helps me hear.
All to Jesus I surrender; Lord, I give myself to Thee. Fill me with Thy love and power; let Thy blessing fall on me. I surrender all, I surrender all. All to Thee, my blessed Saviour, I surrender all
.

When Mom finishes singing, I halt my braiding and remembering and cross to the piano. She's hurting. I lay my hands on her back and ask why she's crying. She won't answer.

‘Do you still love Daddy?' I believe I need to know.

Her hands hit the piano, but soft like a sigh. ‘How can you ask me that?' She cuts her eyes at me, and I'm ashamed I spoke. Mom pulls the lid down on the piano keys, swings her legs over the bench and hurries away. She's in their bedroom now. I know she's standing just behind that door.

Every day we choose heaven or hell, and one day we will stand before the judgement seat of God. Life or death will be spoken from His mouth, and only then will we know for sure. All we know for certain is life on this earth. Until we see the Lord face to face in heaven, we haven't even felt real love. Mothers' love is the closest we'll get, though, and I can't imagine not having a momma.

My daddy told me that when he was in Alaska he saw a young moose trying to suck milk from its mother's gut pile. Nobody could drive it off for over a week, so the landowner had to come and shoot it before it starved.

We may not know true love yet, but I got to think that we're close.

20

UNCLE INGWALD IS DRIVING
ALL OF US TO THE CABIN
. The old church van is a white Chevy with rust so deep that I can feel the wind sneaking past the rags stuffed in the holes in the walls. There ain't any carpet left on the floor, but we got some of Grandma's braided rag rugs spread out. Red, blue and green, they decorate the inside of the van and keep the wind off our feet too. The van is packed, with Ingwald and Daddy in the front seats, and Naomi and me in the back with the supplies. Samuel is home from hockey camp; he and Reuben sit in the middle. Even if we get skunked and don't catch any fish, we got enough venison jerky, and cans of cream corn and pork and beans to keep us fed a week.

I love going to Uncle Ingwald's cabin up at Cranberry Lake. It's not really just their cabin, being that all the boys built it with Grampa Ole back when they were just teenagers. No one back home in Failing understood why someone would want to leave their perfectly good house on the farm and drive three hours every Saturday to slap together a shack on the edge of a mosquito-bit lake, but Grampa sold one of the horses and bought the land anyway. Now, most of the neighbours on the lake are all lawyers, doctors and such from Minneapolis or Chicago. Maybe because Grampa wasn't such a silly dirt farmer, there is a Rundhaug cabin stuck right in amongst them all.

Grampa's cabin is made of spare barn wood and some of the blood-stained floorboards from the butcher's shop in Failing. After the sheriff's wife got sick off of some venison sausages, the county health department came in to check on Seversen's shop. They made the butcher rip up the good oak floorboards just because there was some blood bringing out the grain. From what my daddy tells me, I don't know what else they were expecting to be on the floor except blood in a butcher's shop that's been there since the Indians, but we got a large part of our lake cabin courtesy of county health.