Page 27 of The Magic of Ordinary Days

On the ride back, I said to Ray, “I never imagined you as a magician.” He said, “Just a hobby.”

“How do you do it? The card trick?”

He glanced over at me and smiled. “It’s magic.”

I smiled, too. “No, come on. It’s a great trick. How did you learn it?”

“Really,” he said. “It’s magic.”

I sighed. “I can see you’re not going to tell me.”

“You’re a college girl, Liwy. You can figure it out.”

I laughed. “Oh, I see. That was a low blow, there, Ray.”

He laughed, then turned quiet again. “If you can’t explain it, then it must be magic.”

“Well, then.” I put my hands into my lap as a selfish thought occurred to me. “Maybe you could conjure up some magic to get us a telephone line.”

At first Ray didn’t respond. “Do you mean it? You want a telephone?”

“It would be nice to call people from home instead of at the pay telephone.”

“I didn’t know you stopped there.”

“I stop there often.”

Ray seemed to be thinking. “If you want one, I’ll look into it.”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

As we traveled over a wooden bridge, the rattle of rough boards underneath the tires shook the truck.

On the other side, Ray said, “I always thought telephones were for matters of life and death. That’s how I was raised, at least. But if you want one, if you’ll just tell me these things,” he said, “I’ll be open to changing my mind. ”

I had gotten my way, but then I didn’t feel as good as I had expected.

Ray went on. “I hear that vacuum man is in town. What’s the name?”

“Electrolux.”

“Maybe you could have him come out, too.”

“No, Ray. Thank you, but the telephone would be plenty enough.”

At home, Ray pulled out his manila folder and opened it on the table.

I opened my latest find from the library—a history of Logan County, Colorado, with reminiscences by pioneers, published back in 1928.

Between that and digging through that box at Martha‘s, my mind was churning backward in time.

I wondered about the earliest women, those first ones out on the plains living in soddies, shacks, and dugouts.

Some of the homesteaders had even been single women who came out without husbands.

Others had worked claims on their own after husbands had died or left them.

While I was reading, I felt eyes resting heavily on me and realized that Ray hadn’t even started on his paperwork. Instead he’d read briefly from his Bible, then after watching me read for a while longer, he arose from the table and stepped quietly around to stand behind me.

It had always annoyed me when someone read over my shoulder.

Even teachers who had done it in class had brought up my ire.

If he wanted to know more, he should read it for himself.

I sat back in the chair and silently wished him to go away.

But something was different about the way Ray stood behind me.

He wasn’t looking at the book. Instead his hands rested on the spindles at the corner backs of my chair, and his hands curved around them, caressing them.

Ray rubbed the spindles because he couldn’t touch me.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it. Being touched by Ray.

Now I knew the farming life was plowing me under, just as Ray had plowed under the remains of that shack. Nothing could be further from what I wanted.

When I was eleven, I got a new world globe for my birthday.

Of course, I received new dresses and a doll, too, but nothing fascinated me as much as that globe.

I’d sit and turn it, letting my fingers travel lightly on its surface as it spun around.

Often Mother would join me and we’d find all the countries, the ancient lands full of rich history, places that Mother would never see, but I would.

She told me about the caste system in India and the Hindu religion.

She drew an invisible line with her finger over the route followed by Marco Polo.

And when we came to Egypt, I imagined the pyramids in all their symmetrical perfection.

I pictured the mountain shrines raised out of the land of shifting sands, and knew I’d found the place where I most wanted to study.

After that, I started delving into the hieroglyphs, the language of the pharaohs, all on my own.

What I missed most, however, were the conversations.

Sometimes when I talked to myself, I was really talking to her, carrying on a seamless conversation that occurred only inside my head now.

And during those mental talks, I would often feel something sweet drift in and alight on my skin, a sigh from the walls or the other world, I never knew which, but when I looked about, I was always surprised not to see her.

I opened my eyes. Ray was still standing behind me, his hands just as gentle on those spindles as they had been on that wounded fish. “Excuse me,” I said to him and pushed back my chair. I walked into the bedroom without once looking his way.

The next morning, over breakfast, Ray wouldn’t look near me, as if I had a layer of danger enclosing me, something that repelled his eyes each time they drew close. As he ate breakfast, Ray was instead studying every grain of food, every minute surface crack in the pottery of his plate.

I should’ve left him alone. But all I could see before me was a day without anything to do, in rooms without personality, in a house that held no memories.

I said to him, “Last night, we went through Martha’s box of family things.

” I set down my fork. “But I’m puzzled. She’s keeping track of old records and photos, just as you told me.

But primarily her things pertain to your grandparents and your parents when they were young, but not your family, Ray.

Nothing of the three of you growing up.”

Ray shrugged.

“You don’t know what happened to all that?”

He looked up and passed a napkin across his mouth. Then he shrugged again and kept on eating.

Amazing. An entire chapter of family history was missing, and Ray didn’t know about it or care.

I washed and dried all of the breakfast dishes, except for Ray‘s, then wiped off all the countertops.

I stood at the sink with my back to him until I built up the nerve to turn around and ask, “What are your plans for the upcoming holidays?”

Ray was still staring into his food, but now his hands were still. “We’d be welcome at Martha and Hank’s.”

“I’m sure we would.” I took in a big breath. “But I’d like to go see my family, my sisters, in Denver.”

It was out now, but I couldn’t bear to look at him. Instead, now I was acting as shy as he was. I studied the nicks and dents on the countertop that couldn’t be scrubbed away.

“If that’s what you want,” he said.

To the counter, I answered, “I haven’t seen them since August, and it’s the first holiday season without our mother, and with everything else that’s happened ...” I let my voice trail off.

Now I could feel his eyes upon me. “What else?”

I shook my head. “I’d just like to see them, that’s all.”

His voice was low. “I already told you. Do what you want.”

I tried to think of a compromise. “I’ll stay here for Thanksgiving and only go for Christmas and New Year’s.”

He stood, gathered his wool jacket, old felt hat, coffee thermos, and a canteen of water, and then he aimed for the door. “I’m taking the truck way over to the far side. You won’t be needing to drive today?”

“I’ll find something to do.”

He went outside, and I stayed in the same spot. I looked about the empty house, and then, on sudden impulse, I went out through the screen door after him. “Could I please go along today?”

He gestured toward the truck bed filled with tools and rolls of barbed wire. “I’m going to repair fencing way out on the other side. It’ll take all day.”

“Fine. I’ve got all day.”

He swept his arm toward the truck. “Then get in.”

I went back inside, grabbed my overcoat and a sweater, then rushed back out to the truck.

Ray drove us down narrow roadways that crossed the farm.

When we reached the eastern property line, Ray gathered his tools and materials, and then he nodded over past the fence.

“That there’s Hank and Martha’s. As the crow flies, it ain’t far, but as you already know, it takes quite a spell by car. ”

The first snow had already melted away, but the ground remained damp.

Decaying leaves and wet twigs were stamped into the soil like fossils.

The sun drifted over us. I stood by and watched as Ray began to replace rusted and sagging lines of barbed-wire fencing.

I found the work not interesting in the least, but in a strange way soothing.

Ray had that ease of movement that one acquires after years of doing the same thing over and over again.

He shifted his jaw just a bit forward as he worked, and his eyes never left sight of the things his hands were doing.

He’d go back to the truck and pick out a tool, return with it, and begin working again in one smooth, fluid movement.

I think he could have done this work while dreaming.

Ray was completely at home out here, giving his rapt attention to every last wire.

He strung out the barbed wire, nailed it to the wood posts, cut it, and twisted it around until it was tight.

Then he cut off the excess wire and tossed the remaining pieces into a pile.