picking, she said lamely.
He watched her quietly. No. You're ill with me, he said.
No.
You're ill because I dragged you out here and not married you first. His hand curled up on the table, dark and dry like a tanned leather.
It's just how things happened. Her voice was soft, womanish.
That's right, he said. Don't attach nothing to it. You want me to marry you in a real church wedding, right? Ain't that right?
Well, she said and shrugged.
Well, don't you?
Oh hell, Orren, I don't care, she said.
Well, I care, he said and stood up and his chair squawked against the floor as it was forced back. He walked out of the room, not so much angry as purposeful, as if he'd suddenly remembered he had somewhere more important to be. She followed quick in his footsteps until she saw he wasn't leaving the house, only standing at the door with his back to the room, and she fiddled with the dishes in the sink, casting a glance over her shoulder as he removed his cigarettes from his pocket and peered out into the backyard. But she could not be patient long. Her nerves rattled within her when she didn't know his mind, and that was more and more these days. She walked up behind him.
Now you're ill with me, she said in a low voice.
No, not with you, he said, lighting his cigarette and facing out the door where the long day wound out and down. No, I just can't see how I can … His voice drifted and again he did not finish his sentence. Aloma bit her lip and sighed, not able to see past the block of his shoulder to the land. But she did not mind, the land only looked like grief to her.
Well, you're not mad at the farm, she said grudgingly, though it took some effort not to call it the soil, the dirt, the dust that you feel unholy bound to and that's keeping us suckled up to the tit of the mountains. But her voice was even, balanced between her want for him and her distaste for all of this that he was holding in his eyes with tenderness just now like it was a newborn.
You figure it's not right to you, he said, without turning around. A tiny wisp of smoke spun around the side of his face and touched her nostril momentarily.
Don't worry yourself about that, she said.
I got a debt to pay by which he meant the bank loans, but she didn't know that and she said, Well, God, Orren, you could mind to pay me some attention. He turned around and looked down at her then and she grinned and took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it out the door.
She waited until he was sweaty and spent, having made his bereaved sound against her hair, before she pushed up against his chest and said, Just about now's when I'd like to play some piano. Still half on top of her, he said nothing, but breathed heavily on her for another long moment, his belly pressing with each breath into hers, before he rolled over onto his back and sighed and righted himself. Then he cleared his throat and said, easy and even, I won't keep you. It was this new flirtless damper in his voice, devoid of any play, that she did not care for.
Her eyes rolled over to him in the half-light. That piano's a mess, Orren. I can't play on it.
Is that right? he said and he seemed genuinely surprised.
Aloma tugged at the sheet that he had taken with him when he rolled away. He didn't help her, but just lay there and let her pull and pull until she had a ragged corner to cover herself.
Have you looked at that thing? she said. I can't play on it. God knows how long it's been sitting there. It's falling apart.
Well, if it needs tuned up, we might could do that.
I don't think that's enough.
Well, said Orren, and then in a way that didn't sit right with her, That's all I reckon we can do.
I need a real piano, Aloma said, raising herself on one elbow so that he would be forced to see her more clearly.
Last time I checked, Aloma, that was a real piano.
Orren, I'm a pianist, she said, hissing the word. I want to get serious about buying a real piano so I can play. We always planned I'd go on and I still want to. I want to go to school.
Orren shook his head before she even finished her first sentence. He didn't look at her, though her own stare was unbroken. We can't do that, he said, and her ear caught at his long, drawled vowel, the way it swooped in the air, and for a hopeful second she thought he would say we can do that.
Why can't we? she said.
Because, Aloma, we ain't got the money.
Why not? she said.
Are you being dumb with me? He looked at her straight now.
No, she said.
Goddammit, Aloma, he said and he rose up on both elbows to better meet her eyes, we ain't got dick for a nickel. I'm a happy man I can even feed you at night. I can't afford to shit, much less buy you a piano. Be reasonable.
When she made no response, he went on, softer, You know I want you to play your music, but I got to worry this farm right now. This is all I got, right here, right now. I'm fixing to get you a piano, but I need you to be still about it. Just for a while. We'll get this place going and then I don't mind to buy you anything you want. But I need you to set tight. I swear it won't be long. If you can just set tight …
He settled back down onto the mattress and then, as if it were an afterthought, reached out to pull her in close against him so the scent of his sweated daywrung body bit her nostrils. When he turned his face up toward the ceiling, stretching his neck just slightly so his chin jutted and hardened for a moment, she saw the lie in the way he moved, heard it in his overearnest words. He was lying mostly to himself, she was just a secondary casualty.
You thirsty? she said suddenly, rolling out of his grasp, which was too loose to hold her, and stood unsteadily on the floor. Her legs shook a little from holding his body.
Yeah, he said, but don't work the tap up here. It's rusted out.
She padded down the wooden steps into the shadowed living room. Why he wanted to live in this old place and not the new where there was light and linoleum and good well water, she couldn't say. It was as if he were trying to make it clear to a world that wasn't even watching that he was in this thing alone, that there was suffering under way for the one left alive, but that he could endure. Perhaps even endure it better the rougher it was, as if couched in the pain was the secret satisfaction of suffering. He would prolong now the sorrow if that was all there was to prolong. She walked into the kitchen and filled up a glass and, unable to quiet her thoughts, she watched the rings of light spiral the skin of her hand. As she carried the cold glass back through the front room, she stopped suddenly, her heart cramped in her chest, and she looked up. The photographs hung serried frame to frame on the wall and she did not want to walk toward them, but she did. She met their gazes, the ones she could, there were too many to count. Boys, not older than fifteen or sixteen in their uniforms, the butternut color hand-drawn, their small swords gray and toyish. A little boy, his eyes unfocused, with a tall dog beside him. And young and old women with their flat-cheeked faces and knifed middle parts, all in their black dresses. Everywhere she looked, women in black with their hands on their black Bibles or folded on the fabric of their full skirts. And babies too, their dark eyes closed or open, some of them blurred in motion, while the adults simply stood and managed themselves for the long moment of the gaping shutter. And in the middle, she recognized Orren as a little boy with his mother, father, and Cash standing around him. They posed in front of a white clapboard church. Aloma leaned in. The boys and their father were smiling, but Emma appeared to have only just looked up, no certainty of expression to be read on her face. Aloma straightened up. Perhaps it wasn't about a piece of land, it wasn't about what was expected of Orren, and it wasn't about herself, the girl he once said he would marry. A soul loves most what is lost, so it was about all of these here, even the ones long dead, many he'd never met and probably didn't know the names of. It wasn't fair. Here she was in the flesh, her flesh having just ushered his flesh into hers, but he could