lot more of the same where that came from. My mother was not stupid.
About my dad I can only guess—and he was not stupid either; you can’t achieve what he did and then hold on to it too, even during the depression, when just about everything else around him was turning to dust and foreclosed mortgages, you can’t do that and not have something more than just gas and sawdust separating your ears—I guess my dad must have been at the point where melted ice seemed preferable to warm beer and a fist in the face. Anyway, they got married in the fall of 1925, which would make Widow Newcomb thirty-two and my dad thirty-five, and then three years later, on March 9, 1928, I came along.
And like I say, I was a surprise to them. So it must have been Jason Newcomb who couldn’t have babies that other time. Or at least together with my mother, he hadn’t been able to make any. And I don’t believe that was the reason why he hanged himself, either. Knowing my mother, I believe there must have been a few other reasons.
S O ALMOST twenty years passed.
Prohibition came and went. The Great Depression came—and then lasted so long that people began to think of it as a normal condition. There was a civil war in Spain, a Roosevelt in the White House, a madman loose in Germany, and nothing happened to the Goodnoughs down the road from us. It was all the same slow gray there. Edith and Lyman went on doing all they had to do, and Roy continued waving his grim stumps.
My dad and Edith didn’t see each other very much during those years, though I believe they still thought about one another a great deal. My dad had stopped helping with the harvest; Roy wouldn’t have him on the place; Roy had begun to trade Lyman’s sweat for someone else’s help when it came time to cut wheat. So, whenever ithappened that both my dad and Edith were in town and then by chance ran into one another on Main Street—and that was rare—they would stop and talk for a minute about nothing important. Only once or twice my dad asked her, “Are you all right?”
And she said, “Yes. Are you?”
And my dad said yes, he guessed he was.
Or—and this happened more often—if he was working within sight of the road and heard a car coming, he would straighten up, and if it was the Goodnoughs he would watch the car pass and notice Edith looking out the window, before the car and the three people in it got shut off from view by the boiling dust. Then my dad would go back to work and not say anything, but you could see that he had his mouth set hard like a horse will do with a curb bit.
Of course my mother didn’t notice the Goodnoughs at all. She never visited them nor encouraged them to visit us. My mother had her own car and she always had the Methodist Church. So I was the only one of us who saw very much of the Goodnoughs then. When I was six or seven I started walking that half mile down to the Goodnoughs’ house about once a week. I would help Edith hoe the garden or gather eggs or wipe dishes—things I hated to do at home and fought my mother about and wouldn’t do until my dad made it plain to me on the seat of my pants. But Edith and I would talk a little bit.
“How’s your mother, Sandy?” Edith would say.
“She’s buying another dress.”
“Your mother looks lovely in dresses.”
“But she makes me go to church with her.”
“Don’t you like church?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“They make you put your gum in a napkin.”
“Well,” Edith would say, “you can chew gum here. We’re not in church now.”
“But I don’t have any gum.”
“Don’t you, Sandy?”
“I chewed it all already. That’s why.”
“Well, I guess we’ll have to see about that.”
So the next time I would walk down to see Edith, she would have a pack of chewing gum in her apron pocket, and she would offer me a stick and take one herself. While we gathered eggs in the chicken coop, with the fierce-looking red chickens jerking their heads about
About my dad I can only guess—and he was not stupid either; you can’t achieve what he did and then hold on to it too, even during the depression, when just about everything else around him was turning to dust and foreclosed mortgages, you can’t do that and not have something more than just gas and sawdust separating your ears—I guess my dad must have been at the point where melted ice seemed preferable to warm beer and a fist in the face. Anyway, they got married in the fall of 1925, which would make Widow Newcomb thirty-two and my dad thirty-five, and then three years later, on March 9, 1928, I came along.
And like I say, I was a surprise to them. So it must have been Jason Newcomb who couldn’t have babies that other time. Or at least together with my mother, he hadn’t been able to make any. And I don’t believe that was the reason why he hanged himself, either. Knowing my mother, I believe there must have been a few other reasons.
S O ALMOST twenty years passed.
Prohibition came and went. The Great Depression came—and then lasted so long that people began to think of it as a normal condition. There was a civil war in Spain, a Roosevelt in the White House, a madman loose in Germany, and nothing happened to the Goodnoughs down the road from us. It was all the same slow gray there. Edith and Lyman went on doing all they had to do, and Roy continued waving his grim stumps.
My dad and Edith didn’t see each other very much during those years, though I believe they still thought about one another a great deal. My dad had stopped helping with the harvest; Roy wouldn’t have him on the place; Roy had begun to trade Lyman’s sweat for someone else’s help when it came time to cut wheat. So, whenever ithappened that both my dad and Edith were in town and then by chance ran into one another on Main Street—and that was rare—they would stop and talk for a minute about nothing important. Only once or twice my dad asked her, “Are you all right?”
And she said, “Yes. Are you?”
And my dad said yes, he guessed he was.
Or—and this happened more often—if he was working within sight of the road and heard a car coming, he would straighten up, and if it was the Goodnoughs he would watch the car pass and notice Edith looking out the window, before the car and the three people in it got shut off from view by the boiling dust. Then my dad would go back to work and not say anything, but you could see that he had his mouth set hard like a horse will do with a curb bit.
Of course my mother didn’t notice the Goodnoughs at all. She never visited them nor encouraged them to visit us. My mother had her own car and she always had the Methodist Church. So I was the only one of us who saw very much of the Goodnoughs then. When I was six or seven I started walking that half mile down to the Goodnoughs’ house about once a week. I would help Edith hoe the garden or gather eggs or wipe dishes—things I hated to do at home and fought my mother about and wouldn’t do until my dad made it plain to me on the seat of my pants. But Edith and I would talk a little bit.
“How’s your mother, Sandy?” Edith would say.
“She’s buying another dress.”
“Your mother looks lovely in dresses.”
“But she makes me go to church with her.”
“Don’t you like church?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“They make you put your gum in a napkin.”
“Well,” Edith would say, “you can chew gum here. We’re not in church now.”
“But I don’t have any gum.”
“Don’t you, Sandy?”
“I chewed it all already. That’s why.”
“Well, I guess we’ll have to see about that.”
So the next time I would walk down to see Edith, she would have a pack of chewing gum in her apron pocket, and she would offer me a stick and take one herself. While we gathered eggs in the chicken coop, with the fierce-looking red chickens jerking their heads about
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