Page 37 of The Magic of Ordinary Days

That night, as we drove back from Martha‘s, exhaustion came over me.

A rod of iron rode across my shoulders, and my legs felt as heavy as telephone poles.

Perhaps the fatigue had resulted from my restless night before, or from the full day of travel, or perhaps because we had begun the day with that strained visit at Camp Amache.

Or maybe the pregnancy was finally beginning to push its weight down on top of me.

When Ray and I came into the house, I set the empty Thanksgiving dishes on the table and didn’t bother putting them in the cupboards. Instead I washed my face and brushed my teeth, then bade Ray a good night. But as I stretched out into bed, although my body ached for rest, I found my eyes open.

Outside there was no wind. Instead I listened to pinging sounds coming from the pipes in the bathroom, and later, I could hear Ray’s rhythmic breathing coming from the bunkroom.

I tried turning from side to side and clearing my mind of all the day’s events, but despite my attempts to relax, something was needling me.

I closed my eyes and the world was green again.

The plants of the summer past tried again to grow up, not out of the ground, but instead out of the center soil of me.

The small of my back grew roots that twisted into the flesh.

I got up out of bed and tiptoed to the bathroom.

After closing the door, I turned on the light.

The brightness of the bulb blinded me for an instant, then as my eyes began to adjust, I looked in the mirror.

My former sunflower eyes now looked glazed over with a layer of dust. My face was full, and along the sides of my neck I could see bulging veins.

I looked so bad it was almost exciting. I opened the medicine cabinet.

Perhaps a couple of aspirin tablets would ease the pain and help me to sleep.

I downed the aspirin and opened the door.

I met Ray, wearing an open robe, standing just beyond the doorway. “What’s wrong?” he asked me.

I wore only my nylon nightgown. Over these months since my arrival, often Ray had seen me wrapped in a robe over night-clothes, but never had he seen my body so flimsily covered as now I found it.

I was aware of my engorged breasts pushing through the thin fabric of my gown and the curved melon that had replaced my waist. “My back,” I answered him.

“I have a backache. I took some aspirin.”

“Maybe you did too much today. Hurt yourself.”

I started to move past him. “I’m sure it’s just fatigue.”

I brushed by his arm as I headed toward the bedroom.

“I could give you a back rub,” he was saying.

I turned around and opened my mouth to say it wasn’t necessary. But he was explaining, “Back when my folks were still alive, my father had the arthritis. At night, I’d watch Mom give him a rubdown.” He held up his hands. “I think I could help.”

The pain was now coming out of the small of my back and stemming down my legs in wild creepers and roots. Maybe he could help.

Ray followed me into the bedroom, where I stretched out on top of the covers and turned to my side. He sat on the edge of the bed at my back and put his hands on my shoulder blades. His hands were gentle, just as they’d been on that hooked fish.

“I hope they’re not too cold.”

“No,” I said and let myself sink farther into the mattress. “They’re not cold at all.”

He started by lightly rubbing the skin all over my back, warming it. “Where is it worst?” he asked.

“Low,” I answered. “Where I used to have a waist.”

I felt his breath on my bare arms. Now he took that skin over my lower back and rolled it under his palms. He kneaded and plied it until I could feel the root coils begin to unravel.

I’d never have believed those callused hands could feel so good.

Through the nylon of my gown, they had the same effect that the wonder drug morphine had once had on my mother.

All unnecessary things went away, pain first. I hadn’t felt this good since Ruth brushed out my hair.

I took a long deep breath and let myself start to drift away.

I don’t know how much time passed. I became aware of heaviness on the mattress, and when my eyes popped open, I realized that Ray had stretched out on the bed behind me.

Now his body was big and warm just at my back.

I felt him now, up against my buttocks, and he was hard.

He was hard, but his hands, which curved around my arms, touched me lightly, gently.

“Ray,” I said.

His head moved up, and his mouth found my ear. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t. I just wanted to hold you, is all.”

I closed my eyes again and let myself enjoy the weight of him behind me, the support of his body against my back. After all the nights I’d been sleeping alone, his body beside me made me think of animals curled together on hay in the barn. I began to drift back to sleep.

“After the baby comes...” he started.

Now my eyes flew open. Once before, at the Harvey House in La Junta, he’d tried to have this conversation with me.

“We can start over, you and me. Just like newlyweds.”

My body remained motionless, but my mind started unfurling.

“Could you feel that way about me?” He buried his face into the hair at the back of my neck. “Could you feel like you did about him?”

Now I was back in the weeks of waiting by the telephone and rushing to an empty mailbox.

The questions that plagued me then were the same ones that haunted me now.

What had happened after Edward left me for the last time?

Had he met someone else, had he changed his mind, or was the worst true?

That he never meant any of it. That he had seen me as nothing but an object of conquest, a nonperson whose feelings mattered not at all.

And what of me? Why had I trusted so completely?

Why had I been susceptible to the seduction of a handsome man who flattered me, just like so many other girls I’d once thought myself over and above?

Had it happened because of the grief after my mother’s death, or was I just fooling myself? Would it have happened anyway?

Now Ray’s hand was softly stroking the length of my arm. “I’ll wait,” he was saying. “For as long as it takes.”

I closed my eyes and wished for a gentler way to say it. “You deserve better, Ray.” Then I stated the obvious. “The child isn’t yours.”

Now his hand stopped moving. “Whose is it, then? On this farm, I’ve watched animals abandon their own blood kin for years. Blood ain’t the most important thing, you know.”

I closed my eyes even tighter. This was the reason I’d acted distantly to Ray ever since my arrival: to prevent this.

I had no right to tempt someone so innocent and unexposed.

Of course, Ray would easily fall in love.

I had kept him at a safe distance until tonight. How could I have let this happen?

Now my mouth went dry. How could I explain that this life, his life, was far from what I’d wanted? That I’d once had dreams of an extraordinary life, and that maybe someday I’d find my way back to those dreams? “You’re a good man, Ray.”

I could hear his breath catch and stop. “You’re a good woman.”

“But I’m not the right woman,” I whispered. “For you.”

Now he lay still for a long time. Against my back, his chest rose and fell. His hands, which had before felt so light on my skin, now felt like bricks. Finally he turned over and lifted himself off the bed, leaving me alone again.

In the morning when I awakened, I found all the dishes I’d left out on the table sitting untouched. No signs of breakfast, not even his coffee. The truck was gone, and I could see no sign of Ray anywhere.