The Four Winds(58)

“Anthony,” Elsa said. “Where are your shoes?”

“They broke.”

“You have no shoes?”

Ant shook his head.

Elsa closed her eyes so he wouldn’t see her emotion. Going west with no shoes.

“What’s wrong, Mommy? Don’t worry. I have tough feet.”

Elsa managed a smile. She opened the truck door and helped him up into the bench seat. He sidled close to Loreda, who hugged him so tightly he had to claw his way free.

Elsa got into the truck and closed the door.

This was it.

They were leaving.

It was up to Elsa now, her alone, to keep them alive.

With no shoes.

She drove out of town and turned south. There wasn’t another car on the road. Every house she passed looked deserted.

“Wait,” Ant said, giving a short, sharp cough. “You forgot Grandpa and Grandma. Mom?”

Elsa looked at her son, thinner now, missing front teeth. He would know now, forever, as Elsa had known after her rheumatic fever, that he was fragile, that life was uncertain.

His gaze widened; she saw when he understood. He looked back—toward home—and then back at her, his eyes bright with tears. In that one look, she saw a bit of his childhood slip away.





1935





We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.

—CéSAR CHáVEZ





SEVENTEEN





Elsa kept her foot on the accelerator and her hands curled tightly around the steering wheel. They drove past a family of six walking on the side of the road, pushing a cart full of their belongings. People like them who had lost everything and were going west.

What was she thinking?

She didn’t have the courage to set out on a cross-country journey into the unknown. She wasn’t strong enough to survive on her own, let alone strong enough to care for her children. How would she make money? She had never lived on her own, never paid rent, never had a job. She hadn’t graduated from high school, for gosh sakes.

Who was going to rescue them when she failed?

She pulled off to the side of the road and stopped, staring through the dirty windshield at the road ahead, at the devastation left by the black storm; buildings broken, cars in ditches, fences torn away.

The rosary that hung from the rearview mirror swung from side to side.

More than a thousand miles to California, and what would they find there? No friends, no family. I could work in a laundry . . . or a library. But who would hire a woman when millions of men were out of work? And if she did get a job, who would watch the children? Oh, God.

“Mommy?”

Ant tugged at her sleeve. “Are you okay?”

Elsa shoved the truck door open. She stumbled away and stopped, breathing hard, fighting the tidal wave of panic.

Loreda came up beside her. “You thought Grandpa and Grandma would come?”

Elsa turned. “Didn’t you?”

“They’re like a plant that can only grow in one place.”

Great. A thirteen-year-old saw what Elsa hadn’t.

“I checked the glove box. They gave us most of the government money. And we have a full tank of gas.”

Elsa stared down the long, empty road. Not far away, a crow sat on a shed that was buried almost to the peak in black dirt.

She almost said, I’m scared, but what kind of mother said those words to a child who counted on her?

“I’ve never been on my own,” Elsa said.

“You’re not on your own, Mom.”

Ant popped his head out of the window of the cab of the truck. “I’m here, too!” he chirped. “Don’t forget me!”

Elsa felt a rush of love for these children of hers, a soul-deep sense that was akin to longing; she drew in a deep breath, exhaled, and smelled the dry Panhandle Texas air that was as much a part of her life as God and her children. She’d been born in this county and always thought she’d die here. “This is home,” she said. “I thought you’d grow up here and be the first Martinelli to go to college here. Austin, I thought. Or Dallas, a place big enough to hold your dreams.”

“This will always be home, Mom. Just because we’re leaving doesn’t change that. Look at Dorothy. After all her adventures, she clicked her heels together and went home. And really, what choice do we have?”

“You’re right.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, remembered another time when she’d been scared and felt alone, back when she’d been sick. That was the first time her grandfather had leaned down and whispered, Be brave, into her ear. And then, Or pretend to be. It’s all the same.

The memory calmed her. She could pretend to be brave. For her children. She wiped her eyes, surprised by her tears, and said, “Let’s go.”

She returned to the truck, took her seat, and banged the door shut beside her.

Loreda settled in beside her brother and opened up a map. “It’s ninety-four miles from Dalhart to Tucumcari, New Mexico. That should be our first stop. I don’t think we should drive at night. At least, that’s what Grandpa told me when we were studying the map.”

“You and Grandpa picked out a route?”