Where the Lost Wander: A Novel(54)

“Naomi’s gone up the bluff on Red,” she says. “She wanted to see the view.” Winifred points to the bluff about a half mile off and the lone rider just cresting the rise.

“She shouldn’t have gone alone.” I sound as irritated as I feel.

“I told her to let Warren or Wyatt go with her, but she’s headstrong.” Winifred looks at me. “And she’s not a child anymore. So I don’t treat her like one.” Winifred’s voice is perfectly mild, her gaze steady, but I don’t miss her point. I don’t acknowledge it either. “I don’t think one needs to climb the bluff to appreciate the view. A body can see so clearly from here. It’s all so wide open. Yet it looks nothing like the prairie. We’ve seen some country, haven’t we, John?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Are you going to follow her?”

“Ma’am?”

“Naomi. Are you going to follow her? I think that’s what she wants.”

“I’m not sure Naomi knows what she wants, Mrs. May.”

Winifred’s eyebrows shoot up, but she lets my response drift away on the breeze. She raises her hand to shade her eyes, finding the lone rider ascending the bluff.

“In all her twenty years, I don’t think that’s ever been true, Mr. Lowry,” she says.

We are silent for a moment, standing side by side. Winifred sways back and forth to keep Wolfe content. I’ve noticed it’s something she always does, even when she’s not carrying him. It reminds me of the metronome Jennie kept on her piano, ticktock, ticktock, and I am suddenly engulfed in a longing for home. It stuns me. Maybe I’ve just never been away long enough to appreciate it. Maybe that’s the way it is with everything. Even Naomi. She withdraws, and I miss her so bad I can’t breathe.

“Do you love her, John?” Winifred asks softly, her hand still pressed to her brow.

I am taken aback, but Winifred doesn’t pause long enough for me to answer anyway.

“Because if you don’t, you have my respect. You’ve told her how it’s going to be, and you’ve stood your ground. But . . . if you do love her . . . the ground beneath you isn’t very firm.”

“She wants us to marry,” I blurt out. “Did she tell you?”

“And you don’t want that?”

“I want that.” It is a relief to say the words out loud and know them to be true. I want that.

“So what’s stopping you?”

My flood of reasons rises like a torrent, a million drops of water inseparable from each other, and I don’t know where to start.

“Is it because she’s not Pawnee?” Winifred asks.

I shake my head no, though I know that’s part of it. There is guilt in choosing one of my feet over the other.

“Then . . . is it because you are?”

I sigh. That too is part of it. “I don’t want life to be harder for Naomi because she is my wife,” I explain.

“Well, that’s something to think about.” Winifred sighs, and she studies the girl on the bluff that I’m keeping in my sights; I might lose her altogether if I look away. “But don’t think about it too long.”

“I’ve been thinking about it since I met her.”

“Then I reckon that’s long enough.”

“ka’a,” I grumble.

“The hardest thing about life is knowing what matters and what doesn’t,” Winifred muses. “If nothing matters, then there’s no point. If everything matters, there’s no purpose. The trick is to find firm ground between the two ways of being.”

“I haven’t figured out the point or the purpose.”

“Just trying to survive makes things pretty clear most days. We have to eat; we need shelter; we have to keep warm. Those things matter.”

I nod. Simple enough.

“But none of those things matter at all if you have no one to feed, to shelter, or to keep warm. If you have no one to survive for, why eat? Why sleep? Why care at all? So I guess it’s not what matters . . . but who matters.”

From the back of my mind echo Jennie’s final words to me before I left St. Joseph.

It’s worth it, you know.

What is, Jennie?

The pain. It’s worth it. The more you love, the more it hurts. But it’s worth it. It’s the only thing that is.

“Many people matter,” I argue, though it is not a protest as much as a plea. I have very few people who matter to me, and I’m not convinced I matter very much to them.

“Yes. But you have to decide if Naomi matters to you . . . and how much. What would you do to keep her fed, to keep her breathing, to keep her warm?”

“I would do just about anything,” I admit.

“And that right there is purpose.”

“I cannot give her shelter. Not out here.”

“That’s what marriage is. It’s shelter. It’s sustenance. It’s warmth. It’s finding rest in each other. It’s telling someone, You matter most. That’s what Naomi wants from you. And that’s what she wants to give you.”

She reaches up and pats my cheek and turns away. She has mouths to feed, and she has said her piece. But she calls over her shoulder after only a few steps. “You’d best be going after her now.”