too. Like the Devereauxs and the Moungers and the Mulls. Just go.”
“They were all talking about leaving at the shindig tonight. Most folks are like your grandparents. They’d rather die here than leave.”
“Do they know we might actually die here?”
“Oh. They know, believe me. Tonight, your grandfather said—and I quote: Bury me here, boys. I ain’t leaving.” He exhaled smoke. “They say they’re doing it for our future. As if this patch of dirt is all we could ever want.”
“Maybe we could convince them to leave.”
Her father laughed. “And maybe Milo will sprout wings and fly away.”
“Could we leave without them? Lots of folks are leaving. You always say this is America, where anything is possible. We could go to California. Or you could get a railroad job in Oregon.”
Loreda heard footsteps. Moments later, Mom appeared, dressed in her ratty old robe and work boots, her fine hair all whichaway.
“Rafe,” Mom said, sounding relieved, as if she thought he might have run off. It was pathetic how close an eye Mom kept on Daddy. On all of them. She was more of a cop than a parent, and she took the fun out of everything. “I missed you when I woke. I thought…”
“I’m here,” he said.
Mom’s smile was as thin as everything else about her. “Come inside. Both of you. It’s late.”
“Sure, Els,” Daddy said.
Loreda hated how beaten her father sounded, how his fire went out around her mother. She sucked the life out of everyone with her sad, long-suffering looks. “This is all your fault.”
Mom said, “What am I to blame for now, Loreda? The weather? The Depression?”
Daddy touched Loreda, shook his head. Don’t.
Mom waited a moment for Loreda to speak, then turned away and headed for the house.
Daddy followed.
“We could leave,” Loreda said to her father, who kept walking as if he hadn’t heard. “Anything is possible.”
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, ELSA woke well before dawn and found Rafe’s side of the bed empty. He’d slept in the barn again. Lately he preferred it to being with her. With a sigh, she got dressed and left her room.
In the dark kitchen, Rose stood at the dry sink, her hands deep in water that she’d hauled from the well and poured into the sink. A large cracked mixing bowl lay drying on towels on the counter beside her. Towels Elsa had embroidered by hand, at night, by candlelight, in Rafe’s favorite colors. She had thought that making a perfect home was the answer to making a marriage happy. Clean sheets scented with lavender, embroidered pillowcases, hand-knit scarves. She’d filled hours with such tasks, poured her heart and soul into them, using thread to say the words she could not utter.
A pot of coffee sat on the woodstove, pumping a comforting aroma into the room. A tray of rectangular chickpea panelle was on the table and a tablespoon of olive oil popped in a cast-iron pan on the stove. Beside it, oatmeal bubbled in a pot.
“Morning,” Elsa said. She removed a spatula from the drawer and lowered two of the panelle into the hot oil. These would be the midday meal, eaten like a sandwich, squeezed with precious drops of preserved lemon.
“You look tired,” Rose said, not unkindly.
“Rafe isn’t sleeping well.”
“If he’d stop drinking in the barn at night it might help.”
Elsa poured herself a cup of coffee and leaned against the cabbage-rose-papered wall. She noticed the corner of the flooring where the linoleum was coming up. Then she went to turn the panelle over, seeing a nice brown crust on them.
Rose moved in beside her, took over the cooking.
Elsa began to take apart the butter churn. The parts needed to be washed and scalded and put back together in a precise, numbered order and then stacked for the next use. It was the perfect chore to keep one’s mind occupied.
A centipede crawled out of its hiding place and plopped onto the counter. Elsa took out a pair of knives and chopped it into pieces. Sharing the house with centipedes and spiders and other insects had become commonplace. Every living thing on the Great Plains sought safety from the dust storms.
The two women worked in companionable silence until the sun came up and the children stumbled out of their bedrooms.
“I’ll feed them,” Rose said. “Why don’t you take Rafe some coffee?”
Elsa was grateful for her mother-in-law’s insight. Smiling, Elsa said, “Thank you,” poured her husband a cup of coffee, and went outside.
The sun was a bright yellow glow in a