never understand. I’m just thankful that I do own some grass. You can still ride a horse here and imagine it the way it used to be and was meant to be. I can’t wait to show it to you, Julene
. That longed-for moment was upon us. I would see his place the next day. Finally. His hand would envelope mine again.
“So are you going to marry this guy?” Jake asked.
Had he been silent all this time because he was mulling over the radio diatribe? Had he connected that poor Emily’s husband to his dad, whose drinking had led to our divorce, then to “this guy,” who, as far as he knew, could be a drinker too? “Gee, Jake,” I said, “we’re nowhere near that point. For now, I just hope you’ll like him.”
“You think I will?”
I paused. “I want you to, but I can’t promise.”
He greeted this with no words, only silence that I could read too well. I reached across and squeezed his shoulder. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, sweetie.”
“Thanks, Mom. I know. I don’t have to like him. I just want you to be happy.” He blessed me with a smile.
• • •
S HORTLY AFTER CROSSING THE K ANSAS BORDER, WE exited the interstate. With a population of five thousand, Goodland was the largest town since Denver. We shot past the new Walmart Supercenter, which had put all three grocery stores and half the other stores on Main Street out of business.
After the Farmer’s Co-op, where my dad used to fuel his pickup before heading out to the farm, we zoomed over the railroad tracks past peeling white grain elevators, then threaded the grid of square corners and straight streets. Paint had weathered off the older clapboard houses. Many had for-sale signs in their front yards.
The town was as predictable as tic-tac-toe. On the west side came Sherman Street, then Custer. Naturally, I thought. Two generals in the war against the Plains Indians. The settlers had named the county after Sherman too. I’d never made the connection as a child, but this seemed entirely appropriate to me now. The army’s chief commander had taken the flat, arable land from the Cheyenne and delivered it to us on a silver platter.
We rumbled down brick-paved Main Street. When I was Jake’s age, Goodland had been a bustling town. Back then mannequins with aquiline features and long, expressive hands posed in the manyclothing-store windows. The only downtown store that sold clothes now was a Penney’s. I pointed to the fried-chicken take-out place. “You won’t believe this, Jake, but when that building was a shoe store, they had an X-ray machine you could stand on and look at the bones in your feet. I must have done it a hundred times.”
“No kidding? It’s amazing you didn’t get toe cancer or something.”
“We used to eat there,” I said, pointing to the once elegant, now seedy, Waters Hotel. We would go on the rare Sundays Dad had joined the rest of us for church. I remembered linen tablecloths, heavy silverware, and other diners stopping by to tease my father.
Did she have to bribe you with dinner to get you off the farm, Harold?
“If I could eat like this every Sunday, I’d become a holy roller.”
The store where we’d bought our first TV, when I was six, had been taken over by a Mexican vendor of candies and other “
cosas de México
.” Mexicans had come with irrigation, to hoe weeds from between row crops. They’d stayed and prospered, in relative terms.
The previous summer, when I’d dared mention my concerns for the Ogallala to one of our old farm neighbors, he’d warned that I shouldn’t knock irrigation. It had been “good for Goodland.”
I’d nodded politely. I didn’t want to alienate this old family friend, who took time out of his busy schedule, running a large farm, to pay regular visits to my mother.
“If they’d put through that zero depletion,” he said, “you could shoot a bullet down Main Street and not hit anyone.” Zero depletion had been a water-control
. That longed-for moment was upon us. I would see his place the next day. Finally. His hand would envelope mine again.
“So are you going to marry this guy?” Jake asked.
Had he been silent all this time because he was mulling over the radio diatribe? Had he connected that poor Emily’s husband to his dad, whose drinking had led to our divorce, then to “this guy,” who, as far as he knew, could be a drinker too? “Gee, Jake,” I said, “we’re nowhere near that point. For now, I just hope you’ll like him.”
“You think I will?”
I paused. “I want you to, but I can’t promise.”
He greeted this with no words, only silence that I could read too well. I reached across and squeezed his shoulder. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, sweetie.”
“Thanks, Mom. I know. I don’t have to like him. I just want you to be happy.” He blessed me with a smile.
• • •
S HORTLY AFTER CROSSING THE K ANSAS BORDER, WE exited the interstate. With a population of five thousand, Goodland was the largest town since Denver. We shot past the new Walmart Supercenter, which had put all three grocery stores and half the other stores on Main Street out of business.
After the Farmer’s Co-op, where my dad used to fuel his pickup before heading out to the farm, we zoomed over the railroad tracks past peeling white grain elevators, then threaded the grid of square corners and straight streets. Paint had weathered off the older clapboard houses. Many had for-sale signs in their front yards.
The town was as predictable as tic-tac-toe. On the west side came Sherman Street, then Custer. Naturally, I thought. Two generals in the war against the Plains Indians. The settlers had named the county after Sherman too. I’d never made the connection as a child, but this seemed entirely appropriate to me now. The army’s chief commander had taken the flat, arable land from the Cheyenne and delivered it to us on a silver platter.
We rumbled down brick-paved Main Street. When I was Jake’s age, Goodland had been a bustling town. Back then mannequins with aquiline features and long, expressive hands posed in the manyclothing-store windows. The only downtown store that sold clothes now was a Penney’s. I pointed to the fried-chicken take-out place. “You won’t believe this, Jake, but when that building was a shoe store, they had an X-ray machine you could stand on and look at the bones in your feet. I must have done it a hundred times.”
“No kidding? It’s amazing you didn’t get toe cancer or something.”
“We used to eat there,” I said, pointing to the once elegant, now seedy, Waters Hotel. We would go on the rare Sundays Dad had joined the rest of us for church. I remembered linen tablecloths, heavy silverware, and other diners stopping by to tease my father.
Did she have to bribe you with dinner to get you off the farm, Harold?
“If I could eat like this every Sunday, I’d become a holy roller.”
The store where we’d bought our first TV, when I was six, had been taken over by a Mexican vendor of candies and other “
cosas de México
.” Mexicans had come with irrigation, to hoe weeds from between row crops. They’d stayed and prospered, in relative terms.
The previous summer, when I’d dared mention my concerns for the Ogallala to one of our old farm neighbors, he’d warned that I shouldn’t knock irrigation. It had been “good for Goodland.”
I’d nodded politely. I didn’t want to alienate this old family friend, who took time out of his busy schedule, running a large farm, to pay regular visits to my mother.
“If they’d put through that zero depletion,” he said, “you could shoot a bullet down Main Street and not hit anyone.” Zero depletion had been a water-control
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