God's Country

Miranda imagined she was happy. At least, there wasn’t so much active pain anymore. She got up, went to work, and spent most of the rest of her time with Bradley, who was still living with her and seemed content enough. The chilly gray season passed and spring arrived, complete with the very first two macadamia nuts. She and Bradley divided them up carefully with a sharp knife, and ate them at the kitchen table, exclaiming over each buttery morsel.

“Darlin’, my job’s almost over here,” Bradley said, reaching for her hand. You’re in my mother’s chair, she thought.

“But it’s not even close to finished.”

“Closer than you think. Besides, my job was to supervise major construction, which really is just about done. Now it’s mostly finish work, and they’ll want Harry to supervise that.”

She picked at the formica table top with her fingernail. “So, are you leaving?” She almost felt something, like a glacier overtaking her in slow degrees, but the cold didn’t bother her much since she had already been lying frozen on the ground for months. The weight of it, however, was crushing.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Soon. A week or two.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve been offered a position in Pennsylvania, building a mall. It’s a good job – great pay for finishing early.”

“I’m glad for you,” she said. The words came from a faraway place. Not her throat. Not her brain.

“Mir, come with me.”

She jerked to her feet, crossing awkwardly to the coffee machine. “What? No, I can’t.”

“Why not? You’re a nurse. Every place needs nurses. I’m positive you could get a good job.”

“I live here. This is my home.” She started putting coffee in the machine, even though it was 9:00 p.m. on a Sunday night, and neither of them would want to be up all night.

He got up and put his arms around her from behind, stilling her hands. “Home isn’t a place.”

“For me it is.” His arms dropped away and he turned from her. “I thought you loved me, Miranda.”

“I’ve never said so.” She could practically watch the words coming out of her mouth, like cartoon bubbles, etched in ice.

“Oh, don’t I know it. The famous, self-sufficient Miranda Ruth would never admit to loving anybody. But Mir, we’ve been living together more than six months now. I’ve been with you through every single awful thing you’ve been through this year. For Pete’s sake, Miranda, doesn’t that count for something?”

“I’m…grateful,” she said stiffly, not turning away from the counter.

“So when you make love to me in your bed, when you reach for me in the middle of the night, is that because you’re grateful?” he said bitterly. “You’re just paying me off because I’m so nice to you? Shit, if I knew that’s what it was, I’d have driven a harder bargain.”

“I tried to break up with you,” she said weakly. “You wouldn’t leave.”

“Oh, I see. So you tried to throw me out because you didn’t love me or need me, but I was just such a bully I stayed and you couldn’t do anything about it.”

That did sound stupid, when he put it like that.

“I told you I wasn’t what you needed.”

“But that wasn’t true. You are what I need. Everything I need. The only family, the only home I want. But apparently, what you’re telling me is that I’m not what you need. In fact, you don’t need. You don’t need anyone.”

She stared at the floor. “Yes,” she said, nearly inaudibly.

“Say it again, Miranda. Look me in the eye and tell me again. Loud, so I can hear it.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she were back in the creek, or in the orchard with her back against a tree, or even driving down a yellow, dusty road. Anywhere she felt strong. Not here. Not here.

“This is my home,” she said, staring into his angry blue eyes. “You are not.” The words burned her throat, coming up like tiny chunks of icy vomit. His neck snapped as if she had slapped him.

“I tried to love you, Mir, I tried as hard as any man could.” He left the room, and Miranda heard him packing in the other room.

“I know,” she whispered to herself. “I’m sorry I hurt you.” But a part of her wasn’t. Some dark, nasty inner part of Miranda was glad he was going. Breathed easier.

She went to the kitchen door when she heard him in the living room. “You won’t see me again, Miranda,” he said, struggling under several heavy bags.

“What if I find something you’ve left?” she asked.

“Sell it. Toss it. I don’t give a fuck.” He slammed out the door, banging his bags on the doorframe and nearly throwing himself to the ground. He threw the bags in the back of his car. “Can’t you even say goodbye?” he shouted.

“No,” she said, and turned and went inside, locking the door behind her. She heard his car peel out, wheels spinning in the gravelly dirt. When he was gone, she made herself a cup of tea and sat out on the front porch, listening to the crickets and frogs, watching the patch of dead grass just within the circle of the porch light. Nothing moved in it. She was the biggest thing alive out here, but for the silent trees.

She sipped her tea – cinnamon – and enjoyed the peace. She slept soundly that night, alone in her bed, the scent of Bradley already fading from the sheets, his brief appearance in her life already fading from her mind. He was temporary. Unimportant. She was eternal, part of things. She would continue on and on here. Just like her mother.

The next morning, she ate a bowl of cereal with fruit in her quiet kitchen. After breakfast, before she left for the day, she retrieved a pack of cigarettes from her mother’s secret stash and smoked one out on the back porch. She emptied the ashtray as soon as she was done, as though someone might catch her. She brushed her teeth thoroughly, and stuck a piece of gum in her mouth. Then she got in her car, and went to see Rick, out on Paco Ano.

“You been smoking?” he said, as she bent over him.

“You weren’t supposed to notice.”

“You’re chewing gum, and your clothes smell like smoke.” He laughed, delighted to have caught her out in bad behavior.

“Okay, Mom, you got me,” she said, smiling against her will. “Am I grounded?”

“You shouldn’t smoke,” he said. “That shit’ll kill you.” She pulled a half pack of cigarettes off his bedside table and waved it at him.

“Neither should you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, “I’m half dead anyway.”

“No, you damn well aren’t,” she said, yanking the sheet from under him while he pulled up on his bar.

“Easy!” he said, as the sheet caught on one of his legs, dragging it halfway off the bed. She stopped and put him back into alignment, bundling the sheet more carefully.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

“What’s wrong with you? Shit. I didn’t do nothing.”

“No. It’s not you.” She unfolded the new sheet and worked it under him as he shifted from side to side. She blew out a breath. “I broke up with my boyfriend last night.”

“That redneck dude Michael saw you with?”

She snorted. “Yeah, I guess.”

“He’ll be happy.”

Miranda rounded on him, fists on her hips. “What do you mean by that?”

Rick grinned slyly. “Michael told me what happened in the parking lot. You like him.”

“He kissed me,” said Miranda flatly. “I told him not to, but he did anyway. That was it.”

“Oh, okay,” he said, but he kept grinning. Miranda growled to herself, irritated with him in a way far beyond the usual.

“Why do you keep seeing that Sandy, anyway?” she demanded, ready to spread her anger around.

“What’s wrong with her?” he stopped grinning, immediately on the defensive.

“Oh, nothing. Except that she left you once you became paralyzed and fucked your brother and had his baby.”

“Shut up!” he said, red-faced. “You don’t know shit about it. We had a fight and it was my fault!” He jammed his finger into his own chest, practically spitting. “I was lucky she came back to me, do you hear me?”

“She’s lucky!” Miranda shouted back, just as fiercely. “She’s goddamn lucky you took her back! She doesn’t love you, Rick! She loves your money. This whole fucking house is in love with your money. You deserve better.”

“Better? What, better? I’m a fucking cripple, Miranda, who in the world would have me except the mother of my fucking daughter? I’m glad she wants my money, because otherwise I would be sitting in this bed all alone, all the goddamn time, having fantasies about the next time you were coming over to give me a fucking bath.”

She glared at him. “That would be better than sitting back here, waiting for your brother to finish with her so she’ll come back and fuck you after.”

A loud sound rang out. It took Miranda awhile to realize that she had been smacked hard across the face and was now lying on the floor, more than halfway across the room. She noticed the layer of dirt on the tile under her face, not too thick, but gritty. She sat up slowly, testing her jaw for movement. A deep ache started in the left side of her face. She got to her feet.

“Damn, Miranda, I’m sorry,” he said, pleading.

“You just called me Miranda,” she said, and laughed, stopping and wincing at the instant pain that shot through her jaw. She approached the bed. “Friends tell each other the truth, Rick, even when it hurts, even when it’s not what they want to hear. I’m the only friend you have. I thought that you were my friend, too, but I can see that’s not true. I’m leaving now.” And she turned for the door, leaving him unwashed, his bandages unchanged.

“You can’t leave me like this.”

“I could have you arrested for battery,” she said, the words coming hard from her rapidly swelling mouth.

“Are you coming back?”

“That’s up to you.” And she left. Damned if she’d give him step by step instructions on how to make this right. She got in her car. She reached a 7-11 in Vallejo and stopped to call Roberta and let her know she was unable to finish her patients for the day. She thought about going home, but instead, she just kept driving. She hit the I-15 and went south, then west on the 78. She kept going until she felt the ocean breeze. She exited and went north to Oceanside, parking on a little back street and heading down to the water. It wasn’t crowded, too early in the season to be hot enough for the sunlovers. She took off her shoes and socks and wandered right in, crouching down to lift a handful of cool seawater to her hot face. It was swelling up into quite a lump. She sat, her butt in the dry sand, her feet in the wet, watching the tiny waves wash over her toes. A few salmon-colored clouds hung in the sky, the sea a strange steely color stretching out and out.

Miranda wondered if she had deserved it. She had been angry, and not exactly tactful. She had been provoking him, quite deliberately, to avoid talking about Bradley. Or Michael. All right, she had been cruel. She could admit that. But no one deserved to be hit. She did believe that, quite firmly. Not even Sandy, as she’d already told him. But somehow, she couldn’t help feeling somewhat guilty. She was the adult. She knew who he was, what he was. She knew he was violent. She was the one who had been unprofessional, who had stuck a pole into the den of a wild animal. Wasn’t it her own fault that she got bit?