A Thousand Acres_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [80]
My father said, “That’s a nice place.”
I looked right, but we were past it. I said, “Ward LaSalle’s place?” Ward was Ken’s second cousin.
“Fields were real clean.”
“I see you took the gauze off your cut, Daddy. It looks pretty good.”
“Let the air get at it.”
“Today, maybe. But you don’t want to get into the combine with an open wound, do you? Do you have some antibiotic ointment at home?”
He didn’t reply.
“We can get some.”
It was silly to think that Jess would never marry. Being like Loren was just the way he didn’t want to be.
“What’s the matter with you?”
I started. “What?”
“What’s the matter with you? That semi passed and you acted like you were going to jump out of your skin.”
I hadn’t even seen the semi.
It was remarkable how my state of mind had evolved over the last five days. I could distinctly remember the strength I felt as I walked away from Jess, ducked under the rosebushes and trotted toward my house. I’d wanted to put distance between us. I had literally had enough of him, was full of him, and while not precisely happy or elated, I felt finished somehow, made right. We had promised nothing, not even spoken of the future—what we were doing seemed more essentially a culmination of the past, only a culmination of the past.
I don’t know why I was surprised to find how quickly those feelings drained away, how eagerly I longed to have again what I thought had been sufficient for a lifetime.
I don’t know why I was surprised to discover myself questioning all my memories of Jess, sifting through them for clues about his feelings and plans. I knew about his feelings and plans. He was all the things he had told me—restless, fearful, torn between what he would have called American greed and Oriental serenity. I knew what was up with Jess, but it was suddenly all mysterious.
I don’t know why I was surprised to discover everything changed, since it was obvious in retrospect that I had sought to change it.
And I was surprised to discover how my mind worked over these things, the simultaneity of it. I seemed, on the surface, to be continually talking to myself, giving myself instructions or admonishments, asking myself what I really wanted, making comparisons, busily working my rational faculties over every aspect of Jess and my feelings for him as if there were actually something to decide. Beneath this voice, flowing more sweetly, was the story: what he did and what I did and what he then did and what I did after that, seductive, dreamy, mostly wordless, renewing itself ceaselessly, then projecting itself into impossible futures that wore me out. And beneath this was an animal, a dog living in me, shaking itself, jumping, barking, attacking, gobbling at things the way a dog gulps its food.
Daddy said, “That Spacelab thing is going to go right over this area, according to the paper.”
I said, “What?”
“The thing that’s falling. Goes over here all the time. It’s going to be something when it falls, let me tell you.”
I glanced at a passing field, flat and defenseless, and thought for a moment about meteorites and space capsules, things glowing in the atmosphere, then making holes in the ground. I felt a visceral flutter of fear. It was his voice that did it, I think. I said, “Don’t worry about it. You could draw it to you.” He turned his big head and looked at me. I smiled. I said, “That was kind of a joke, Daddy.”
He said, “What happens is people don’t watch out. They get careless because they weren’t taught right.”
I said, “You can’t watch out for Skylab, Daddy. The pieces are too heavy.”
“They were careless with that whole thing. Shouldn’t even be falling. The joke’s on them, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.” After a second I said, “I thought it was supposed to be cooler today.” We came into Pike passing the elevator that sat right