Кристин Ханна - The Four Winds

They left the cabin and walked out to the main road, where Jack’s truck was parked.

All the way there, she worried that they were being watched, but she didn’t see any foremen skulking about.

They crammed into Jack’s old truck. Elsa held Ant on her lap.

“And we’re off!” Ant said as Jack steered their way out to the road.

Soon they turned onto the road where the abandoned hotel was. “Wait here.” He parked the truck and bounded out and went into a small Mexican restaurant that appeared to be standing-room-only busy inside. Moments later, he came out with a basket, which he put in the back of the truck.

Well out of town, they turned onto a road Elsa had never been on before. It twisted and turned as it rose into the foothills.

At last Jack pulled over and parked at the edge of a large, grassy area, alongside a dozen or so other parked cars. People walked among the newly planted trees; children and pets ran across the grass. Elsa could see three lakes; one was dotted with people in paddleboats. People swam along the shore, laughing and splashing. Off to the left, in a copse of trees, a band played a Jimmie Rodgers song. A string of concession booths had been set up along the shore. The air smelled of brown sugar and popcorn.

It was like going back in time. Elsa thought of Pioneer Days and how she and Rose had cooked all day to be ready, how Tony had played his fiddle, and everyone had danced.

“It’s like home,” Loreda said beside her.

Elsa reached out for her daughter’s hand, held it for a moment, and then let her go.

The kids ran off toward the lake.

“It’s beautiful,” Elsa said.

Jack got the basket from the back of the truck. “The WPA built it with FDR’s funds. It put men to work and paid them a good wage. This is opening day.”

“I thought you commies hated everything in America.”

“Not at all,” he said solemnly. “We agree with the New Deal. We believe in justice and fair wages and equal opportunity for all, not just the rich. Communism is really just the new Americanism; I think it was John Ford, the director, who said that first. At one of the early meetings of the new Hollywood Anti-Nazi League.”

“You take it very seriously,” she said.

“It is serious, Elsa.” He took her arm, began strolling through the park. “But not today.”

Elsa felt people looking at her, judging her worn clothes and bare legs and shoes that didn’t quite fit.

A tall woman in a blue crepe dress walked past, her gloved hands holding fast to her handbag. She sniffed ever so slightly as she turned her head away.

Elsa stopped, feeling ashamed.

“That old bag has no right to judge you. Stare her down,” Jack said, and urged her to keep walking.

It was exactly the kind of thing her grandfather would have said to her. Elsa couldn’t help smiling.

They went to the edge of the lake and sat down in the grass. Ant and Loreda were splashing in water up to their knees. Elsa and Jack took off their shoes; Jack set his hat aside.

“You remind me of my mother,” he said.

“Your mother? Have I aged that much?”

“It is a compliment, Elsa. Believe me. She was a fierce woman.”

Elsa smiled. “I’m hardly fierce, but I’ll accept any compliment these days.”

“I often wondered how my mother did it, survived in this country, a single woman who barely spoke the language, with a kid and no husband. I hated how other women treated her, how her boss treated her. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“You probably think she was lonely, worry that you weren’t enough. Believe me, I know lonely, and I’m sure you were the thing that saved her from it.”

He was silent for a moment, studying her. “I haven’t talked about her in a long time.”

Elsa waited for him to go on.

“I remember the sound of her laughter. For years, I’ve wondered what she had to laugh about … now I see you, here, with your children … I see the way you love them and I think I understand her a little.”

Elsa felt his gaze, steady and searching, on hers, as if he wanted to know her.

“Come in with us, Mommy!” Ant said, waving her over.

Grateful for the distraction, Elsa broke eye contact with him and waved at her children. “You know I can’t swim.”

Jack got up and pulled Elsa to her feet. They were so close she could feel his breath against her lips. “No, really,” she said. “I can’t swim.”

“Trust me.” He pulled her toward the water. She would have fought, but they were garnering enough looks as it was.

At the shore, he picked her up and carried her into the water.

Cool water slapped Elsa in the back, and then suddenly she was in the water, in his arms, staring up at the bright blue sky.

I’m floating.

She felt weightless, a perfect combination of sun and water, cold and hot, steady in his arms. For a magnificent moment, the world fell away and she was somewhere else, before now, or long from now, and she wasn’t hungry or tired or scared or angry. She simply was. She closed her eyes and felt at peace for the first time in years. Safe.

When she opened her eyes, Jack was staring down at her. He leaned down, so close she thought he might kiss her, but he whispered, “Do you know how beautiful you are?”

She wanted to laugh at the obvious joke, but she couldn’t make a sound, not with him staring at her. After a moment, her silence turned the moment awkward. Still, she had no idea what she should have said.

He carried her back to the grassy shore and set her down and left her there, shivering and confused, both by his words and her sudden feelings for him.

He returned with a serape, which he wrapped around her shoulders. Opening the basket, he called for the kids, who ran up, dripping water from their clothes.

Ant collapsed beside Elsa. She pulled him under the serape with her.

Jack opened the basket and pulled out bottles of Coca-Cola and tamales filled with beans and cheese and pork and a deliciously spiced sauce.

It was the best day any of them had had in years, since before the dust and the drought and the Depression.

“It reminds you, doesn’t it?” Loreda said much later, when the park had emptied and the sky had darkened and the stars had come out to shine.

“Of what?”

“Home,” Loreda said. “I swear I can hear the windmill.”

But it was just the water, slapping rhythmically against the shore.

“I miss it,” Ant said.

“I’m sure they miss us, too,” Elsa said. “We will write them tomorrow and tell them all about this wonderful day.” She looked at Jack. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The exchange felt oddly intimate, or maybe it was the way he looked at her, or the way his look made her feel. You scare me, she wanted to say, but it was ridiculous and what did it matter anyway? This was just one day, a vacation. “And now…”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence. Jack stood. So did Ant and Loreda. He got them settled in the back of his truck and then opened the cab door for Elsa.

Back to the camp. Real life.

The road home was long and lonely and winding. In her head Elsa started a dozen conversations with him, found bits and pieces to say, but in reality she sat in silence, too confused to say much of anything. Today had felt … special, but what did she know of things like that? She didn’t want to humiliate herself by imagining some feeling that wasn’t there.

At the entrance to the Welty camp, Jack pulled off to the side of the road and parked. Elsa watched him walk through the headlights’ yellow glow to open her door.

She stepped out; he took her hand.

“I’m going up to Salinas soon. To try to unionize the workers up there. Maybe head over to the canneries. I’ll be gone awhile. So…”