The Widows of Eden
ALSO
BY
G
EORGE
S
HAFFNER
One Part Angel
In the Land of Second Chances
The Arithmetic of Life and Death
A NOVEL
George Shaffner
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
To Kathy,
with apologies for the
Great Dishwashing Gambit
of 1962.
With thanks to Kathy Atchison, Dean DeBoer, Bill Dittrick,
Jane Dystel, Antonia Fusco, Rodney Liesveld, Dick Resseguie, Grace, and the kids.
Contents
Chapter 4: M
R
. M
OORE
B
RINGS
A
D
ELUGE
Chapter 5: T
HE
W
HIMS
OF
THE
H
OI
P
OLLOI
Chapter 7: T
HE
C
IRCLE
P
URCHASES AN
U
MBRELLA
P
OLICY
Chapter 10: T
HE
S
COREKEEPER
'
S
L
OT
Chapter 11: A T
EAL
AND
T
URQUOISE
S
EA
Chapter 12: T
HE
W
IN
-W
IN
I
LLUSION
Chapter 15: T
HE
P
RINCE
C
HARMING
M
YTH
Chapter 17: L
OHENGRIN
'
S
C
HILDREN
Chapter 19: A Q
UESTION
OF
B
LASPHEMY
Chapter 20: A C
ANARY
IN
A
U
RANIUM
M
INE
Chapter 21: T
HE
F
ARMER
'
S
R
ETIREMENT
P
LAN
Chapter 25: I
T
'
S
THE
T
HOUGHT
T
HAT
C
OUNTS
Chapter 26: D
IVINE
I
NTERVENTION
Chapter 30: T
HE
I
RISH
C
ONNECTION
Chapter 31: R
EVELATION
, P
ART
II
Chapter 35: A
T
THE
C
ORNER
OF
T
HIRD
AND
P
EA
Chapter 38: M
Y
K
INGDOM
FOR
A
H
ERSHEY
'
S
B
AR
Chapter 40: A P
ILL
FOR
B
EREAVEMENT
Chapter 1
Â
D
UST
B
OWL
D
AYS
M
Y
NAME
IS
W
ILMA
P
ORTER
. I own the Come Again Bed and Breakfast, which is the last of its kind in Ebb, Nebraska, and the only B & B in Hayes County that is listed in seventeen Internet directories. I have lived in rural America all my life, and I can tell you that it will bend a man's back and try his spirit in the best of times, but last year's growing season was the driest and most inhospitable in seven decades. On Thursday, July the sixth, smack in the middle of summer, the fire station recorded our one-hundredth consecutive day without a drop of rain. It was hotter than Beelzebub's oven outside, even in the shade if you could find any, the soil was harder than a cast-iron skillet, and a thin layer of dust hung over the fields and roads like a gritty yellow fog. All the old people were talking about the “Dust Bowl” days over at the Corn Palace, and not like it was past history.
Clifford Yelm, a third-generation bean farmer and hog caller, got to worrying that Sunday because Rufus and Winnie Bowe weren't at church, so he hopped in his pickup and drove over to their place to see what was going on. A withered old heifer was grazing on parched, dead grass in the front yard, which is
a peculiar way to care for a lawn even in these parts, and the windows were wide open. Nobody answered the doorbell, so Clifford invited himself inside.
The house was as empty as a politician's promise. The furniture and the rugs and the pictures were all gone, Rufus's and Winnie's clothes were missing, and the pantry and the refrigerator had been cleaned out. According to Clifford, it was eerily quiet. All he could hear were the drapes flapping in the breeze and the echoes of his footsteps on the hardwood floors. Under a gray, bone-dry dirt clod on the kitchen counter, he found a handwritten note that read:
To Whom It May Concern:
We couldn't make a go of it any more. I am so sorry. We will miss you all. May God be with you. He wasn't with us.
Winnie (and Rufus) Bowe
The bank started soliciting bids for the property from the usual out-of-state agricultural conglomerates two days later, which caused a huge commotion on Main Street. An amendment to the state constitution was supposed to prevent the sale of family farms to big corporations, but it turned out to have more loopholes than a cheap shag rug. The number of farming operations in Nebraska has dropped by twenty percent in the last two decades anyway, and every time we lose one, another rural business goes bust.
Clement Tucker, my fiancé and the richest man between Omaha and Oklahoma, could have stopped the sale of the Bowe place with a single telephone call, and it's not like I didn't ask a zillion times, but he was in no mood to discuss it â because he had just
been diagnosed with skin cancer. A man of his age ought to have known better, but he refused to see Doc Wiley until I made him go. By then, the cancer had spread to his internal organs, and he was angrier than a wet cat about it, like it was somebody's fault besides his own!
For those of you who may not be familiar with the history of Ebb, a mysterious traveling salesman named Vernon L. Moore appeared out of nowhere to save our bacon twice before, although there is an ongoing controversy about what he did or didn't do. I had no idea how he could fix a drought, not to mention a deadly case of cancer, but I got down on my knees and begged the Lord to send him back for a third time anyway. Then I didn't hear so much as a peep until two weeks later, at the town Starbucks, no less.
I was gossiping in a booth with my best friend, Loretta, and her daughter, Laverne, who is all of three-and-a-half years old and my perfect little goddaughter. Out of the blue, Laverne looked up from her chocolate milk and announced, “Daddy's coming.” It was a plain, factual statement, like, “Mee-maw is on the phone,” or, “You left the light on in the kitchen.”
Loretta kissed her on the forehead. “Of course he is, darlin'. He went to Omaha for a business meeting, but he'll be home by suppertime.” Last spring, Loretta married Calvin Millet. He is the chairman and majority owner of Millet's Department Store, plus he manages the Tucker family trust for Clem now, so he travels nearly every week.
The child looked straight into her momma's eyes. “Not that daddy, my other daddy. He's coming.”
Laverne's biological father, her namesake, and the love of Loretta's life until she fell for Calvin, was none other than Vernon L. Moore. Laverne hadn't seen him since the autumn
before her second birthday, and for only a week at that. None of the rest of us had seen hide nor hair of him either, and we never spoke of him in her presence. In my simple, country girl's mind, that raised a few questions.