The Magic of Ordinary Days Read Online Free PDF Page A

“I’ll manage somehow.”
    He looked embarrassed. “The truth is, I can cook a fair bit.”
    â€œDon’t bother,” I said, smiling. “I’ll teach myself.”
    At sunset, he explained to me that farmers went early to bed, then he disappeared into the bunkroom. Upon our arrival, he had placed my bag in his parents’ bedroom, so I could only assume I was to sleep in there, alone. This didn’t surprise me. Women in my condition were considered most delicate. And although Ray and I had just gotten married, we’d also just met.
    I cleaned and dried the dishes, watched the waning sunset, then waited. It was so silent the whir of grasshopper wings in the front garden sounded like shouting. I found myself passing through the screen door and out onto the porch. At the railing, I stopped. A full moon slowly rose over the top fringes of dark distant cottonwood trees rimming the banks of creeks that fed into the Arkansas. Not yet silver, the moon reflected the honey gold of the setting sun, lighting her face from continents away.
    Finally, I let myself exhale.
    My father’s plan to give the baby a name had come to fruition. And in the end, he had saved himself the disgrace of preaching morality to others while at the same time housing his own daughter, a girl in trouble. Would I now be able to sleep? Certainly my body needed rest, and flailing about during the quiet hours after midnight could not be good for mother or baby. Would I grow roots here, as Clytie had? Perhaps, in this silent land at the end of the road, I would find rest.
    But if I did rest, I prayed not to sleep so deeply as to dream, and most of all, not to dream of him.

Four

    Once I read about the homesteaders who first populated the plains of eastern Colorado, and I learned something not widely written about in history books. The isolation of the homesteaders throughout the West drove many to the brink of insanity. The government required homesteaders to live on their claims, and because of the difficulty of travel in those days, compounded by bad weather and much work to do, many settlers went for long months at a time without social contact. This was particularly tough on the women and, for some reason, on those of Scandinavian descent, who had proportionately the highest numbers of immigrants ending up in insane asylums.
    I could understand that descent. I could understand why one settler wrote in his memoirs that during his youth, he read over and over again the copy of a New York newspaper his father had put up to paper the walls. And as to the question of the Scandinavians—they had emigrated to the U.S. after living in small, close-knit villages where folk dances and community celebrations had been common. Surely their lives there had been tough at times, but never lonely.
    The first morning after my wedding day, I awakened to the sounds of pans and utensils clanging together in the kitchen. I rolled over and checked my watch. Five-fifteen, and outside, still dark. Amazingly, I had slept well and could’ve used even more sleep. I thought of getting up and offering to make my husband something for breakfast. That was what farm wives were probably supposed to do. But hadn’t the man been living by himself for several years now? I flopped over, hugged the pillow to my chest, and drifted back to sleep. When I awakened after nine, the only sign of Ray was the kitchen mess from a large breakfast he had left behind.
    I bathed and dressed, ate something for myself, did the dishes, and cleaned up. Then I went investigating. In the kitchen, the cupboards held basic cooking implements and pottery dishes, a fair amount of canned goods, and a breadbox. A radio sat on the countertop. In the bathroom, I found only a few extra towels and washcloths, one brush, one comb. I also found Ray’s shaving set and shaving powder, a tube of Brylcreem, but no men’s after-shave. Outside on a narrow back porch, I saw a