The Four Winds(12)

A woman walked out of the house and joined the man. She was petite, with black hair woven into a coronet. She wore a green plaid dress and a crisp white apron. She was as beautiful as Rafe was handsome; they shared the same sculpted face, high cheekbones, and full lips, the same olive complexion.

Papa got out of the car, then walked around to the passenger door, opened it, and yanked Elsa to her feet.

“Eugene,” the farmer said. “I’m up-to-date on my thresher payments, aren’t I?”

Papa ignored him, yelled: “Rafe Martinelli!”

Elsa wished the earth would open up and swallow her. She knew what the farmer and his wife saw when they looked at her: a spinster, skinny as a length of twine, tall as most men, hair cut unevenly, her narrow, sharp-chinned face as plain as a dirt field. Her thin lips were chapped, torn, and bloody. She’d been chewing on them nervously. The suitcase in her right hand was small, a testament to the fact that she was a woman who owned almost nothing.

Rafe appeared on the porch.

“What can we do for yah, Eugene?” Mr. Martinelli said.

“Your boy has ruined my daughter, Tony. She’s expecting.”

Elsa saw the way Mrs. Martinelli’s face changed at that, how the look in her eyes went from kind to suspicious. An appraising, judging look in which Elsa was condemned as either a liar or a loose woman or both.

This was how people in town would see Elsa now: the old maid who’d seduced a boy and been ruined. Elsa held herself together with sheer willpower, refusing to give voice to the scream that filled her head.

Shame.

She thought she’d known shame before, would have said it was even the ordinary course of things, but now she saw the difference. In her family she’d felt ashamed for being unattractive, unmarriageable. She’d let that shame become a part of her, let it weave through her body and mind, become the connective tissue that held her together. But in that shame, there had been hope that one day they would see past all of that to the real her, the sister/daughter she was in her mind. A flower closed up tightly, waiting for the sunlight to fall on furled petals, desperate to bloom.

This shame was different. She’d brought it on herself and, worse, she had destroyed this poor young man’s life.

Rafe came down the steps and moved in beside his parents.

Standing in the glare of the headlights, the Martinelli family stared at her in what could only be described as horror.

“Your son took advantage of my daughter,” Papa said.

Mr. Martinelli frowned. “How do you know—”

“Papa,” Elsa whispered. “Please don’t . . .”

Rafe stepped forward. “Els,” he said. “Are you okay?”

Elsa wanted to cry at that small kindness.

“It can’t be true,” Mrs. Martinelli said. “He’s engaged to Gia Composto.”

“Engaged?” Elsa said to Rafe.

His face turned red. “Last week.”

Elsa swallowed hard and nodded matter-of-factly. “I never thought you . . . you know. I mean, I understand. I’ll go. This is for me to deal with.”

She took a step back.

“Oh, no, you don’t, missy.” Papa looked at Mr. Martinelli. “The Wolcotts are a good family. Respected in Dalhart. I expect your boy to make this right.” He gave Elsa one last look of disgust. “Either way, I don’t ever want to see you again, Elsinore. You’re no daughter of mine.”

On that, he strode back to his still-running roadster and drove away.

Elsa was left standing there, holding her suitcase.

“Raffaello,” Mr. Martinelli said, turning his gaze to his son. “Is it true?”

Rafe flinched, unable to quite meet his father’s gaze. “Yeah.”

“Madonna mia,” Mrs. Martinelli said, then rattled off something further in Italian. Angry, that was all Elsa got from it. She slapped Rafe on the back of the head, a loud crack of sound, and then began yelling: “Send her away, Antonio. Puttana.”

Mr. Martinelli pulled his wife away from them.

“I’m sorry, Rafe,” Elsa said when they were alone. Shame was drowning her. She heard Mrs. Martinelli yell, “No,” and then, again: “Puttana.”

A moment later, Mr. Martinelli returned to Elsa, looking older than when he’d left. He was craggy-looking—his brow thrust out, tufted by sagebrush eyebrows; the bumpy arch of a nose that looked to have been broken more than once; a blunt plate of a chin. An old-fashioned cowcatcher mustache covered most of his upper lip. Every bit of bad Panhandle Texas weather showed on his deeply tanned face, created wrinkles along his forehead like year rings in a tree trunk. “I’m Tony,” he said, and then cocked his head toward his wife, who stood about fifteen feet away. “My wife . . . Rose.”

Elsa nodded. She knew he was one of the many farmers who bought supplies from her father each season on credit and paid it back after harvest. They had met at a few county gatherings, but not many. The Wolcotts didn’t socialize with people like the Martinellis.

“Rafe,” he went on, looking at his son. “Introduce your girl properly.”

Your girl.

Not your hussy, your Jezebel.

Elsa had never been anyone’s girl. And she was too long in the tooth to be a girl anyway.

“Papa, this is Elsa Wolcott,” Rafe said in a voice that cracked on the last word.