The Four Winds(128)

Elsa closed the window vent, then lit a kerosene lamp and went to wake the children.

Ant grumbled and kicked at her and rolled over.

“What?” Loreda said, yawning.

“Jack says there may be trouble tomorrow. He wants us to move out.”

“Of the cabin?” Loreda said.

In the faint light, Elsa saw the fear in her daughter’s eyes. “Yes,” Elsa said.

“All right, then.” Loreda elbowed her brother. “Get up, Ant. We’re on the move.”

They packed their few belongings quickly and stowed the boxes in the back of the truck, along with the crates and buckets they’d salvaged in the last few months.

At last, Elsa and Loreda stood at the door, both staring at the two rusted metal bed frames with mattresses and the small hot plate, thinking what luxuries they were.

“We can move back in when the strike is over,” Loreda said.

Elsa didn’t answer, but she knew they wouldn’t live here again.

They left the cabin and walked out to their truck.

The children climbed into the back and Elsa got into the driver’s seat. Jack took his place beside her.

“Ready?” he said.

“I guess.”

She started the engine but didn’t turn on the headlights. The truck grumbled down the road.

Elsa parked in front of the boarded-up El Centro Hotel, where they’d stayed during the flood.

Jack unlocked the heavy chain from the front door and led them inside.

The lobby stank of cigarette smoke and sweat. People had been here, and recently. In the dark, Jack led them up the stairs and stopped at the first closed door on the second floor. “There are two beds in here. Loreda and Ant?”

Loreda nodded tiredly, let her half-sleeping brother angle against her.

“Don’t turn on the lights,” Jack said. “We’ll come get you in the morning for the strike. Elsa, your room is . . . next door.”

“Thank you.” She squeezed his hand and let him go, then got the kids settled in their separate beds.

In no time, Ant was asleep; she could hear his breathing. It struck her with painful clarity that this simple sound was the very essence of her responsibility. Their lives depended on her and she was letting them strike tomorrow.

“You’re wearing your worried face,” Loreda said when Elsa sat down on the bed beside her.

“It’s my love face,” Elsa said, stroking her daughter’s hair. “I’m proud of you, Loreda.

“You’re scared about tomorrow.”

Elsa should have been ashamed that Loreda saw her fear so clearly, but she wasn’t. Maybe she was tired of hiding from people, of thinking she wasn’t good enough; she’d filled that well for years and now it was empty. The weight of it was gone. “Yes,” she said. “I’m scared.”

“But we’ll do it anyway.”

Elsa smiled, thinking again of her grandfather. It had taken decades, but she finally knew exactly what he’d meant by the things he’d told her. It wasn’t the fear that mattered in life. It was the choices made when you were afraid. You were brave because of your fear, not in spite of it. “Yes.”

She leaned down and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “Sleep well, baby girl. Tomorrow will be a big day.”

Elsa left her children and went into the room next door, where Jack sat on the bed, waiting for her. A single candle burned in a brass holder on the nightstand. The few boxes that held their belongings were stacked along one wall.

Jack stood.

She walked boldly up to him. In his eyes, she saw love. For her. It was young, new, not deep and settled and familiar like Rose and Tony’s, but love just the same, or at least the beautiful, promising start of it. All of her life she’d waited for a moment like this, yearned for it, and she would not let it pass by unnoticed, unremarked upon. Time felt incredibly precious in these hours before the strike. “I promised a girlfriend something crazy.”

“Oh, yeah?”

She brought her hands up, linked them behind his head. “I’ve never asked a man to dance. And I know there’s no music.”

“Elsa,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss her, moving to a song that wasn’t being played. “We are the music.”

Elsa closed her eyes and let him lead.

For you, Jean.





THIRTY-FIVE





Elsa was awakened by a kiss. She opened her eyes slowly. Last night was the best night’s sleep of her life, which seemed almost obscene, given the circumstances.

Jack leaned over her. “My comrades should be downstairs by now.”

Elsa sat up, pushed the tangled hair from her eyes. “How many of you are there?”

“Across the state, thousands. But we are fighting on many fronts. We have organizers at every field we can from here to Fresno.” He kissed her again. “See you downstairs.”

Elsa got out of bed and walked—naked—over to one of the boxes that held their belongings. Burrowing through, she found her journal and the latest pencil nub Ant had found in the school’s trash can.

Settling back in bed, she opened the journal to the first blank page and began to write.

Love is what remains when everything else is gone. This is what I should have told my children when we left Texas. What I will tell them tonight. Not that they will understand yet. How could they? I am forty years old, and I only just learned this fundamental truth myself.