Did She

She leaves the front door wide open. The snow cover is thin and patchy, her slippered feet seek grass. The corner streetlight is pitifully weak, yet she squints and turns away from its needle-like violet aura – how will she ever find Billy out here? He’ll freeze, and her dear children, and dear dear grandchildren, especially Melvin’s boys, they’ll miss him. Or will they. Sitting out in the side yard the way he does, spring, summer, and fall, in his metal chair with that silly clam shell back. Hardly ever speaks, not even to himself. Whistles of course. 

Even the light bouncing off the snow is prickly. She squints north up to Main Street a measly block away; Billy might be headed for his old, ugly, corrugated tin box garage, empty now, tools auctioned off, barn swallows in the rafters, but Main is a blur. The street is good as gone anyway, like rotten teeth pulled, the bank razed, general store burned. Stay away from those limestone foundations, she’s told the boys, they’re snake pits more than likely. 

She turns to the abandoned high school diamond a block south. Every morning he walks to their potato patch just beyond right field, though the potatoes were dug months ago, it’s January. Or is it February. She could phone Melvin, six-two-three-nine, tell him his father flew the coop. The crazy old coot, is what the children call Billy, the few left in town. She hears them out the kitchen window. Can’t see for nothing, but she hears everything nowadays, the world turning. The street light humming, buzzing. 

A sense of dread clenches her chest and throat, an undefined fear that’s risen up many times since that night ages ago, before the children. A June night, summer in full swing. The heat had been stagnant, no breeze, and she and Billy lay awake in their attic bedroom, when she became aware of a faint humming from above. Was she imagining it, she’d wondered, but it grew larger, and louder too, but mostly larger, filling the space around her, and she’d sat up in bed. The voices, Billy said. What? she said. It’s the voices, he said. She listened; it did sound like mumbling. Then like chanting, coming from some godforsaken chorus in a foreign tongue, gibberish, unholy. It came to her whose voices he was talking about: the men. Her nerves exploded, her entire body seemed to track the circling of a mosquito and Billy’s hands clenching, unclenching under the covers. Within seconds the humming, chanting, whatever it was, faded and stopped, like the racket of cicadas sometimes did, leaving a hole in the night. She sat for a moment in the silence, then realized she was burning up. She jumped out of bed and peeled off her nightclothes and fled downstairs and outdoors, out to their well, where she unlatched the iron handle and frantically worked the pump. After a few moments, cool water gurgled out, and she splattered her face, neck, and chest. While standing naked and dripping, she burst into a fit of sobbing, but only a very short one. The sobbing was mechanical, an act of expulsion, like coughing. She dried herself off with a towel from the line, marveling at how normal the world seemed, a few fireflies drifting in dotted routes, the faint, brisk odor of cedar windbreak, shadows taking form as she stared. She walked back up to the bedroom. For several moments she sat on the edge of the bed, then she turned and patted around for Billy’s arm. They mean no harm, he said. 

At seven the next morning, after a wordless Billy left for his garage, she walked across the street to the church and sat on the broad stone steps shaded by an elm. A few neighbors walked by on their way to work. Mornin’ Ginny, they said, or Nice mornin’, ain’t it Ginny, as if she always spent her early mornings on the church steps. She responded in kind. It was a nice morning, hot, but at least a breeze nudged the air around, and she decided to walk out onto the prairie, a quarter mile and she would be across the creek and up a draw, into the hill pastures. She walked back to the house for her boots, and at the porch door she looked up and stopped. Bees were swirling around the edge of the roof, flying under the overhang, disappearing into a crack, others emerging from it and flying off. Swarms of bees, hundreds of them, angry invaders, at least they looked angry. But just bees. 

Just bees, just a streetlight’s hum, yet the force of that chilling dread leaves her dizzy. Her body sways, and she topples into the yew bush beside the house. It feels almost like a miracle, almost heartening when she finds herself unharmed and sitting straight up, supported by the bush, which also shields her from the streetlight. She hears nothing. It’s as if the world keeps shifting on her. She untangles her long silver night braid and hangs it down her front, where she prefers it. 

Splatters of starlight appear. Billy never gazes at stars, he had his fill of nights outside a long time ago, back when he rode the rails, camped in the jungles. After his hitch in the army, in the war in the Philippines with the 20th Kansas, he’d hopped a freight, a boxcar, gunny sacks of feed his pillow and mattress. The spring of ‘01, his wandrin’ year, Billy called it. Wandrin’ Billy. 

He’d looked so skinny the day she’d spotted him back in town, khaki sleeves rolled up, droopy reddish mustache, sitting outside McCabe’s beer joint, chair tipped back, beer in hand, and while passing on the creaky plank sidewalk she caught the look in Billy’s eye, wide open, distant – he hadn’t noticed her, not really. She stopped, listened to the tune he was whistling, asked: Is that First Light of Day? He’d tipped his cap, finished the tune. Drank his beer. That look … far-flung but content. Perhaps from having survived. The war, dysentery, the wandrin’. 

Her upstairs bedroom light flashes on, warm light in the window, a butterscotch glaze on the yard’s islands of snow. Billy? Was he inside? Now she remembers, she’s been searching for him high and low, and his bed in the guest room hasn’t been slept in, no more than a glorified cot, that bed, no headboard. She hears feet galloping down the stairs inside. Much too quick for Billy, with his rickety legs, hickory cane, he was never the man to rush about anyway. Whistlin’ Billy. 

Sing me your favorite song, she’d told him, riding home after repeating their sacred vows, sitting high and mighty in the open buggy, her wedding dress soft white like peach fuzz. The song leapt out as if he’d been expecting her command. The team’s ears picked up, he sang to their slow trot, I’m going to roam the wide world, to lands I never hoed, prairie hills left right and ahead, lazy broad-faced Herefords grazing at the fences, watching, milkweed blazing in beardgrass, Farewell forever, to old Tennessee, his crystal tenor, she did love that voice of his, truly loved it. Patches of sunshine drifting, bobwhites. And on the stretch up to the hillcrest overlooking the river valley, the pocked limestone cliffs, golden wheat stubble stretching miles to the southwest, the vast quiet splendor, that diamond day, their life looming – she still sees his hands holding the reins in that off kilter way of his, thumbs out, still sees herself tucking her arm into his seconds before the crest, still hears his untenored voice informing her that he’d killed five Filipinos in the war, prisoners they had no time for, he’d had no choice, orders, they’d tied their hands and pushed ‘em down on their knees, and he shot ‘em one by one, quick, in the temple. And later on he tussled with it in his head, but finally he’d made a peace of sorts with it, not with God, he’d lost track of God there on those islands, and don’t think he was the only one, the Almighty left plenty of others in the lurch. Unburdened them of their souls, he’d heard one of them say. She had to understand, they were all under orders, one village after the other burnt to the ground, and he’d learned how to see with just his eyes, not let it sink in, let it all pass by, though them screams was a whole ‘nother story, but never she mind, that whole business was over and done with far as he was concerned, and he’d not be speaking of it again, he just felt she ought to know. Being wed and all. 

The back door busts open, MOM, MOM, WHERE ARE YOU!!, Melvin, why was he here, MAAAAAWM!!!!!! He barrels through the back porch screen door, the spring stretches, screams, now he’s around the house, MOM!, all this screaming, screeching. 

Melvin. It had been so close to him, to all the children never being born. She’d been a heart beat away from hopping out the buggy up on the hill and running, but she’d hesitated – what if she ripped her wedding dress? It meant the world to her, sewed and embroidered by her Aunt Jessie, her favorite aunt. And in that moment of indecision, thoughts streamed through her head: had he not been following orders? What if he had refused to obey? Court-martial, military stockade – would they have stood him in front of a firing squad? What would her parents, sisters, brother, aunts, cousins, friends, the entire county think of her for abandoning a man who’d done his duty in a far-away war? Forsaking him on the day of their wedding? If she jumped and ran, she would have to keep running and never return to the only place she’d ever known. 

All those first years she’d kept an eye out, how could she not. For a sign of cruelty, pouring kerosene down an anthill, anything, but no, he’d hardly ever raised his voice, she’d been the one who swatted the children’s bottoms, not him, no, he’d sung at night, bedtime, his voice like an angel, I long for Jeannie with the daydawn smile, and she’d wanted the children to believe in that Billy, that angel, so she’d slept with his murders, the gunshots, men folding, falling, fallen, the last one turning his head, staring at her, then silence, and she’d not spoken of it to anyone, ever.

MOM! WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE!! 

A shadow appears, sweeps her up, whirls them around. Clouds of stars above her, silver, silent, pure. What she’s doing … 

Billy’s gone, a voice says, one that must be hers, quivering, yet her head feels light and clear, never clearer. 

I know, Mom, I know, but let’s get you inside, get you bundled up. 

Your father, she says. 

Let’s raise your feet a little now, he says, here we go, just need to, need it open a crack, get my foot in here … okay, now, watch your feet, or I guess I’ll watch. 

He’s gone, she says. 

Melvin hesitates only a second, then they’re on the move again. 

Mom, listen, he says. It’s been really tough, ‘course it has, for all of us, and terrible hard on you. We’re all going to help though. 

They’re climbing the stairs now, she feels the lilt of every step. She smiles, it’s practically like being a baby again, the jouncing, the warmth of a body near. 

I can’t believe you’re not half-froze to death, Melvin says. Guess we’ll have to tie you down to keep you in bed, huh Mom?

Melvin lays her down on the bed, covers her with her blanket, then another blanket. It’s almost as if he’s not there, as if it’s only these actions taking place, pillow fluffed, feet de-slippered, rubbed. The world has changed again, now it’s the hallway light slanting in, catching the edge of her chest of drawers, the mirror above. The slender porcelain hand reaching up, red-nailed fingers extended, showing off her rings. The velvet-lined black walnut music box, a present from Billy – open it Ginny, he’d said, and the tune played, only the music, of course, but she knew the lyrics: Oh where are you going, Billy boy, Billy boy, oh where are you going, Charming Billy. She’d kissed his cheek and laid the box down. 

Charming Billy to the children, at least. All the years, and through it all, the given was the children – he’d needed them desperately, she sees that now, yes. Their innocent love. She’d asked him no questions. And asked herself very few questions, at least ones she had no answer for, she hadn’t dared, but the one she has now, the only one that matters to her, has always been with her, hidden, biding its time. Did she love him all their years, truly love him? After the crest of the hill, that Billy. 

Okay, Mom, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite. 

Did she.