They all stand then in a silent ring under the darkening sky, to watch the heedless fire.
L
avinia waits for Paul to finish and come in. She daren't go near the door, or she'll be beckoned out, too, and made to comment again on everything Paul has surely just said. He can't ever just come home anymore. Delayed each and every day by stunned well-wishers and gawkers, both of them nuisances in their own way, he delivers the same painful litany from the front porch: Yes, just a miracle. It is true, we are all fine. The house, too, and the lumberyard.
When she hears him begin on the “thank you, I will. I surely appreciate that. We're all praying for you,” she watches for the front door to swing open. Paul takes a backward step into the house, still calling out, still waving. He's framed by the glass insets in the heavy oak door. “So long, now,” he calls, but he won't close the door until the people he's been talking to have moved along the sidewalk and looked away. He won't close the door in anyone's face, he says.
“We could start selling tickets,” she says when he turns and sees her there. “Give the money to the relief effort.” There is a smile for Paul, playing at the edges of her eyes, but her mouth is pursed in wry defeat. He'd never take advantage of another living soul, but neither would he ever admit being taken advantage of. Generous to the end, like his father.
“They just can't believe it, Mother. That's why they keep coming; to see for themselves. They'll keep coming, too, for a good long while. Why, it hasn't even been two weeks yet. Folks are still just crawling out from under.” Paul holds his cap lightly in one hand, then the other.
“What is it? Has something happened?” Lavinia says.
“Nothing, Mother, nothing's happened. It's just that so many people have said it. We're the only ones who made it through. You don't even have to look at the rest of the town to see it; you just look right here at our street. Pretty much everything around us got flattened. Our neighbors' homes just turned into so many sticks. The Duttweilers' might as well have been leveled; they can't live in that house, spun around like that. And then there's our place. Dirty is all. Just needs a wash to get the mud off.
“Then there's folks that lost more than everything, you might even say, because of what they found when they went home. It's one thing to have come home and found your house tossed into a neighboring field. Even with the windows blown out and the stuff inside all broken up, a body can salvage what's left and shelter there for a while. But what about folks like those miners over in Atkinson? Didn't even know anything was wrong topside until their power went out. So they climb out of the mines and find that a twister's been, and their homes and women and children are gone.
“And what about the Welches? What happens after you've come home and found Grandma sitting right where you left her in her rocker, except both the house and Grandma's head are ripped off and blown to kingdom come?”
“Paul, don't!” Lavinia pleads, warning him more than she is scolding. “We all saw horrible, horrible things. I saw things I could never have invented. No, now you wait. I know it's not the same. None of the injured or dead were our people, but they were our friends. We've got to live alongside the ones who lived. We'll carry this to our graves, every one of us.”
Paul looks down at his cap while he speaks, taking it more firmly in both hands.
“At first, I couldn't stop thinking about the car. How on earth that storm twisted the house across the street and spun our car around, right where it stood in the driveway, but didn't touch our house, I'll never understand. I stopped thinking about it when I realized it was funny, the part about the car. It was harmless, after all, just a remarkable, funny thing that happened. No one else seems to have a funny story, though, only us. And it's not just that we didn't have to bury anyone, or that the house and the lumberyard are still standing. We're whole! We've all got our legs and arms and our prospects intact. And, yes, we saw the same things as everyone else, but we saw them, Mother, we watched them. They didn't truly happen to us, not in the same way. I'm just starting to wonder why.”
“Why? What ever do you mean, why?” Lavinia doesn't hold much with introspection, especially in times like these when folks should take things for what they are, be grateful or be sad, and move forward. “And, yes, it most certainly did happen to us. We may not have lost anyone in the family, but we all lost friends.” Paul finally looks up at Lavinia's wary frown.
“You've got a guilty look on your face, Paul,” she says. “I sincerely hope you're not trying to find blame or fault here. No, don't just shake your head. You listen to me. There's no why about it. Our good luck was chance, that's all. We had the same chance, good or bad, of coming through as anyone. We had a cellar and we got to it in time, but we might just as easily not have.” Lavinia sees more people outside, slowing as they approach the house. “Come away from that door,” she says to Paul and pulls him to the side and out of sight. “They'll be ringing the doorbell next, asking to be shown around the place.”
“But that's just it, Mother, even if you hadn't gotten to the cellar in time, you'd all still be fine! You could just have sat there in the living room like you were, never budged, and that storm would have hopped over you just the same.”
“Paul, don't be simple! What if that tree had been dropped on the cellar door before we got outside? We'd have been out there for who knows how long, not knowing what to do, not able to hear ourselves think for that wind. We could easily, any of us, have been hurt or even killed by something flying through the air.”
“I know it,” Paul says, looking his hands, wringing his cap.
“I'm not sure you do. I hope you won't go trying to find meaning in any of this. It was random, that's all it was. Randomness and luck saved us, and you and everyone else will profit by remembering that.”
Paul looks up at Lavinia, cautious and wary. There's that look again, Lavinia thinks, the second time this week.
“If you're going to chide me, get it over with,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“That's the same look you gave me a few days back when you stopped Mae and me from cleaning the outside of the house, remember? âLeave it be,' you said, âclean the inside if you have to clean something, but let the outside be.'”
“You know I don't think we should rub people's noses in it, Mother. Glass in all the windows, and clean glass at that.”
“Yes, I remember Paul, and I thanked you for stopping us. Now why did you look at me like that this time?”
“I guess I figure our coming through safe ought to have some meaning. Maybe it doesn't mean anything by itself, but we can make it mean something.”
The door bell jangles beside them, and Lavinia cries out loudly before she can clap a hand over her mouth.
Paul lays a hand firmly on Lavinia's shoulder, as if he's pressing her back down to the floor. She moves her hand from her mouth to her heart and nods, and then he goes to answer the door.
“Come on in, Bill,” he says, shaking the man's hand, turning aside to pull him gently over the threshold.
“Oh, no, I won't stay. You're probably about ready to sit down to dinner. I shouldn't have come, but I wanted to see you, to tell you how gladâ” A sob erupts from him, the same bottomless sorrow folks all over town have been holding in their bellies until they break.
Lavinia steps around Paul. She knows a man doesn't like to be seen to be broken, even if he is. “Don't you be silly, Bill. We haven't even sat down yet.” She keeps her voice bright and takes him by the arm. “You're not disturbing a thing.”
He lets Lavinia lead him to the davenport, where they sit together politely, perched and jittery on the edge, both ready to get up if the other should rise. Paul draws up a chair to sit on, and waits.
“I heard your Ford got turned around, right where it was standing,” Bill says.
Paul and Lavinia's eyes shoot up at each other's, then just as quickly return to Bill who is stuffing his handkerchief into a loose fist, like a magician setting up for a trick.
“That's right,” Paul says quietly. He continues, unsure of the right thing to say. “Funny thing. I heard a two-by-four got itself driven through Myerson's oak, too. Kids looked at it for a while, sticking out there. Finally someone found some rope and a plank and hung a swing on it.”
Bill nods, and says, “I guess you heard the storm picked up my car.”
“I did,” Paul says softly, as if he's been chastised.
“I suppose they drove over to see the new frame going up. They weren't even supposed to be there that day. I don't know why they would've been, except for Isaac's pestering. He was always after us to take him to see the new house going up, you see, and I reckon Clara thought she'd just satisfy him with a quick trip.”
Bill worries his handkerchief, folding now it into smaller and smaller squares, pressing it between his palms, shaking it out again. Paul and Lavinia sit still, each knowing in their way that, however horrifying the story and however much dread they feel at the thought of hearing it, their role is simply to hear it, solemnly and reverently.
“I can hardly stand to sleep,” Bill says. “I see them there every night, running back and forth, Clara holding onto Isaac, not knowing what to do. I call out to them, but the wind is too loud; they can't see, because of the dust that's driven into their eyes. Their clothes are flapping hard, the wind pushes at them so that they can't even stand in one place. And then they get into the car because there isn't any other shelter, and I'm shouting at them to get out, but they stay there in the backseat. Clara is bent over Isaac, and the car is rocking, lifting up on one side and then slamming down again. I know they must be screaming, but I can't hear them and I can't get to them. Then the storm lifts the car right off the ground, easy as you like, flips it over and smashes it down again.”
Bill face breaks into a strange, dazed smile. “And once they're gone,” he says, “the storm stops and it's just me standing there, seeing what I saw when I found them.”
Paul sits, powerless and frowning, leaning forward on his knees with his hands clasped hard together. Lavinia daubs at her damp cheeks again and again.
“The thing I keep coming back to is the car. If I'd just taken it that morning, they'd have stayed at the old place and had a finished cellar to go to. But I didn't. I wanted them to be able to drive the car if they wanted to go somewhere.”
“Of course you did,” Lavinia says.
Paul exhales, wishing he could feel more resolute, instead of merely baffled. He straightens his arms, props himself up higher with his palms gripping his knees. “Look here, Bill,” he says, “You and I have known each other a good long while now. You're a sensible man. I can hear what you would say if this weren't happening to youâyou can't blame yourself. There's pain enough right now without adding blame to it.”
The kitchen door slams at the other end of the house, and Mae's voice comes rising, shushing the children, sending them off to wash before dinner. Mae comes in with a stack of dinner plates, ready to lay the table. She hesitates, but only barely. “Hello, Bill,” she says, smiling softly, with a fondness reserved for old friends, almost as if she had expected to find him sitting there. “Supper's ready. It's not much, but I hope you'll stay.”
“No, no, I don't want to impose,” Bill shakes his head adamantly and holds up a hand, to prevent further entreaty.
“It's not an imposition, and you know it,” Lavinia says. “We'd all like you to stay.”
She gets up from the davenport, smoothes her dress, and starts laying the table as if the matter has been decided. She lays the plates and cutlery quietly, though, so she can hear what the others are saying. It's up to Paul and Mae now to get Bill to stay; she'll only embarrass him into leaving if she says anything more.
Bill leans forward and drops his voice to speak to Paul. “I wanted to come to see for myself that you all were all right, but I won't stay. I'll get my supper down at the relief center, same as yesterday.”
“Bill, I think you should stay, and not just for supper. We can make room for you, easy. You'd have a home with us while you decide what to do next.” Paul's voice is earnest, but he speaks softly so that only Bill can hear him. “I mean it.”
“I know you do,” Bill says with a remorseful smile. “And I thank you for it. I hope you'll understand that I can't imagine myself living in a house with children. Not now, maybe not ever again.”
Bill sees Little Homer over Paul's shoulder, standing in the doorway, watching the adults in the room. Grief bubbles up again from his belly, but he can't look away from the boy.
“Do you reckon you'll stay, or are you fixing to leave town?” Paul asks. He figures he might as well be frank, seeing as Bill has paid him the compliment of not disguising his grief.
“I couldn't say yet, althoughâ” Bill rises to leave but crosses the room to Little Homer before going to the door. He lays a hand on top of the boy's head, feels the shape of his head that fills his hand, just so. Looking down at him, with his arm obscuring the boy's face, he could be any boy of five. “I do think it might be easier to start somewhere fresh. Maybe Carbondale. That's a big place. They'd surely have room for one more banker there.”
He turns swiftly for the door muttering, “Good-bye, folks.” They hear his footfalls, rapid on the steps, then the heels of his shoes striking the pavement, fading away.
Mae is watching the door, the forks still in her hand, ready to lay on the table.
“We won't be seeing him again,” she says, frowning, distracted, as if she is really thinking about something else.