The Personal History of Rachel DuPree_ A Novel - Ann Weisgarber [82]
“But here’s what I especially like remembering about that day. You took Mary from me—she was asleep by then. You tucked her into her basket and put her on the floor of our wagon, right under the buckboard. Then you looked right into my eyes and I remember thinking, Why, Isaac’s not the least bit sorry he married me. I’ve made him glad. He wanted a son but he got a daughter and still he’s glad. My heart nearly busted wide open, I was that happy.”
Isaac turned over on his side to face me. “You never complained,” he said. “As hard as I worked you, you never complained.”
“You didn’t either,” I said. Then, “You remember what happened next?”
“No.”
“You bowed, like a gentleman from a book, and said, ‘Mrs. DuPree, will you do me the honor of this dance?’ Before I knew it, we were dancing right there in the middle of the street in front of all those people.”
“It was a waltz,” Isaac said.
“That’s right, it was. It was our first dance. Married a whole year—more than a year—and we had never danced. Because we’d never courted.”
Isaac said, “You kept your head down. All I could see was your bonnet.”
“Couldn’t imagine what all those white people were thinking about us. But at the same time, I wanted that sweet music to go on forever. I knew I was the luckiest woman in the world, married to you and having Mary. It was the finest moment of my life.”
It was also when things changed between me and Isaac. It was when I became his wife.
I said, “When she stopped playing, the girl tipped her head to us like we had pleased her. Then you swung me up on the buckboard, and we rode off. We were halfway home before we thought to stop for dinner.”
I was quiet so we could both think about that. After a while I said, “Everybody needs a sweet time in their lives.”
“I don’t disagree with that.”
“That’s what I want for our children, a dab of sweetness mixed in with all the hard work. Because that’s mostly what it is. Hard work.” I put my finger on his cheek. “They need to do their own choosing.” I felt the rough stubble of his beard.
“I won’t hold a gun to them.”
“You won’t have to. They’ll do anything to please you.”
“I’m their father.”
“And that’s a big thing.”
Isaac didn’t say anything.
I thought about the freckle-faced girl sitting on the buckboard that long-ago day in Interior. It was the end of October, her horse had thrown a shoe, and she and her husband were far from home. Everybody needed something to fall back on when they were having hard times, and for that girl it was her mandolin.
I thought about the root cellar with its empty shelves. I thought about snowdrifts as high as a man. I thought about water frozen in buckets and white blizzards that burned people’s sight away. In blizzards, grown men were known to get lost between their houses and their barns. If they were lucky and found their way home, they were grateful that the worst thing that happened to them was frostbite. They were grateful if they only lost tips of noses, fingers, or a few toes. If a winter was particularly hard, cow chips for stoves ran low and children fell sick with chest ailments. Women died too, leaving their children motherless.
Our children needed something to fall back on during hard times. Isaac thought land was enough. I knew different. During hard times a person had to be able to say that it wasn’t always so hard. A person needed to say, Once I played hopscotch with girls my age, once I played baseball with boys like me, and once I sang and clapped my hands at a neighborhood dance.
Isaac’s breathing told me he was asleep. Tears came to my eyes. For him, everything was settled. He was going to Lead to work the mine this winter. Me and the children were staying behind. When it came time, he’d find a hardworking woman for John and men with land for our girls. Isaac was doing it for the ranch. The ranch was his way of