The Homecoming
Now that I felt a lightness come back into my life, my mind eased; I had a wife and Asher had a mother. I decided to look into the Horseshoe Mine again, the one I had invested in along with Reese Murray. His widow still didn't speak to me, didn't acknowledge my presence but she had been keeping company with Harry Baxter, the man who had purchased her shares and saved her. I hadn't really paid much attention to them, just noticed it like you would a fly buzzing about; you're aware of it but unless it lands on your food, you can't be bothered with swatting it.
What initially took my full attention was moving the three of us back out to the house.
I hadn't entered the place after Asher and I had moved to the Ponderosa; couldn't bring myself to do so. I knew that everywhere I looked, I would see my wife, where she had sat in the evenings, the kitchen where she and our housekeeper, had sat and laughed and gossiped. And then there was the bedroom where we had lain and talked and loved. So I was reluctant. Actually, I was afraid, as ridiculous as that is.
"You don't have to move," my father had said as I packed my things. Miriam was helping Asher, trying to make the move exciting and joyous. She herself had few possessions and wasn't interested in accruing more. I couldn't understand why and other than a few new dresses so she could shed the black she had worn for so long, she owned a vanity set and her new wedding band and the pair of pearl earrings. That was about all.
"I do. We do. We have to move back. I think Miriam would like her own home."
"Has she complained?" I knew my father didn't dislike Miriam but she was distant and he had been trying to reach out to her. And she responded politely. But as with me, she protected herself from something—I had no idea what it was.
"No, she hasn't complained but we've been here three months and next year Asher starts school and we need to be closer to town. And I'm hoping her having her own home will…please her." I buckled the carpet bag and waited. I knew something was coming.
"So that's it."
"What do you mean?"
"Things are bad, aren't they?"
"No." I wasn't convincing. "Things aren't bad, it's just that…Pa, sometimes I feel I married a complete stranger and I guess I did but…I don't understand her. She keeps everything to herself and shares nothing with me—nothing. I've tried to get her to say what she wants. Does she want to go, stay at the Ponderosa, move into town? I don't know what the hell she wants." My frustration showed.
My father shoved his hands deep into his pockets. I knew he was worried about me.
I smiled. "Don't worry, Pa. If things aren't to Miriam's liking, I'm sure she'll say something. And I do appreciate that you let us stay so long."
"Well, I enjoyed having all of you, having a full house for a while. I'll miss Asher."
"Don't worry. I'll drop 'im off all the time and you can babysit." I smiled and he did too. But we understood each other, my father and I. It wasn't as if women hadn't fucked up his life many times over. It was almost a legacy.
My two sisters-in-law had cleared out my wife's things soon after Asher and I had left for the Ponderosa. I couldn't do it, go through her belongings and dispose of them. I knew the scent of her lavender water would waft through the air—it would be as if her spirit was floating about me but I would be unable to touch the fabric that had lain against her skin. Out of kindness, Millie and Addie had intended to donate the clothing to the church poor box; that was one of my wife's valued charities, but I stopped them.
"But, Adam, It's what she would want," Millie said.
"It's not what I want. How do you think it'll be if I go into town and see some...loose woman flouncing about in one of her dresses or some barefooted, filthy farm-wife dragging her kids behind her, their grimy hands soiling and crumpling the fabric?" The two women looked at one another exchanging a glance that only women seem to understand and then, in calm voices—in patronizing tones, they apologized; they hadn't considered that, they said.
So instead, they packed up her clothes along with her other items and put them in crates, marking what they contained. As for the jewelry, the many things I had bought my wife, initially I had a quandary. I didn't want to give them to another woman I might one day marry; that seemed ghoulish. I told Addie to save certain pieces for Bethy. I also told them to take any pieces they admired. They demurred. After all, Millie had said, I might one day have a daughter and would want to pass the pieces on to her. But back then, I had no thought of ever marrying again—I wouldn't live through another loss-and insisted. So they reluctantly each chose a piece. Millie chose a pair of garnet earrings and Addie chose a coral bracelet. I kept the pearl necklace for Asher to give to his wife on their wedding day. My father put the other pieces in the small safe in his home just as he had stored our mothers' jewelry; he had given the pieces as gifts to our wives on our wedding days. I had slipped my mother's wedding band on my wife's hand and she was buried with it along with my mother's silver vine pin. But as for Miriam, there was nothing left to give her when we married and other than the thin gold band for her finger, I hadn't given Miriam gems or golden chains. Nothing. But if she was hurt, she never let on. Miriam was a blank page.
The day we rode up into the yard of the house, I was surprised to see how nature had reclaimed so much of the area. Wild vines wound about the porch railings, having smothered the rose bushes my wife had toiled over for so long, and seedlings were growing tall—some now saplings. They encroached on the house. I groaned at the thought of all the work I'd have to do.
The inside was musty and I hadn't known that my father—it must have been he—had thrown old sheets over the furniture. It looked like a room of ghosts. I stopped in the threshold while Asher took off for the stairs. He had chatted all the way about his room and about how I said he could have a pony. Miriam had listened and smiled and asked him innocuous questions. I was sure Asher remembered nothing about the house or his room or the toys we'd left behind but I had talked about his room in the hopes he would be happy to leave the Ponderosa and it seemed to have worked. But I found that I was reluctant now to take back the house as ours.
"It'll be all right, Husband," Miriam said once inside, and placing her valise on the floor, she began to gather the sheets while I stood and watched. She stopped as she rolled the sheets together. "Would you open the drapes and widows? The air is stale."
But I couldn't move from the spot. I had to change something, anything to rid myself of this overwhelming sadness.
"Why can't you say my name?" I asked. Yes, turn things around-change the energy—anger is best for doing that.
"What?"
My question came from nowhere and Miriam was surprised, blind-sided.
"We've been married for almost four months and you've never called me Adam. Why not?"
She ran her tongue over her lips and then, bracing herself said, "If you like, I will."
Now I could step into the room. "It's not 'if I like'. Why don't you 'like' it? We're husband and wife. We share the same bed and I call you Miriam but it seems if you said my name, you'd choke on it." I grabbed her arm and her face took on a look of fear, her eyes wide. And then the curtain dropped and I couldn't read anything in her expression. I released her arm. And although her face was unreadable, her voice betrayed her.
Miriam placed the sheets she had removed on the floor. "I'm going to see the kitchen. If you would, when you have time…Adam…bring in the stores?" And she turned on her heel and went stiffly into the kitchen.
I was going to follow, to apologize, to tell her I was sorry for being cruel. She could call me Adam, husband, sonovabitch if she desired—I was sorry. But Asher called out to me from upstairs.
"Pa, Pa, come here! Look what I found! Pa!"
I had to make a choice. I called out, "I'm coming, Asher," and I headed for the stairs. But I looked toward the kitchen and could hear sounds of cupboards being opened. I would imagine Miriam was looking for possible mouse dropping or insects who had made the vacant house their home. Home. Even the beasts of the fields could find a home in this place but I wasn't yet there.
TBC
