God's Country

Miranda lay back on the sand, shielding her eyes from the dim-bright sun. She felt the sand shifting beneath her, hollowing out under her hips, lifting to fill in the line of her spine. A sand bed, that’s what I need, she thought, wiggling her shoulder blades deeper in.

It was so easy to forget how close the ocean really was to her secluded valley. No more than half an hour, without much traffic. Few of her patients were this far west. She worked mostly north and south on the I-15, up as far as Temecula, south as far as Mira Mesa. Lots of patients in Escondido, Vista, San Marcos, Rancho Bernardo, and Poway. She knew the winding back roads as well as any county road worker, but the ocean, so close, was an infrequent refuge.

She remembered Nadine bringing her here, sometimes with Lupe, when she was just a little kid. The water was so cold, even in midsummer, and the massive chunks of kelp that washed ashore had frightened her, lying like stinking carcasses, rotting under the hot sun. But she had liked the sand, and the heat, and dipping her toes in the water. She would dig for hours, constructing elaborate crumbling edifices that never had shape for anyone but her. Nadine would grill hot dogs on the hibachi, and sometimes skewers of marinated beef. There would be fruit and cold water in the little styrofoam cooler. Her mother had had an elaborate system for making sure that no grains of wayward sand ever ended up in the food. Part of the system ensured that Miranda herself most often ended up coated in sand, from her efforts to stay off the blanket and away from the cooking food. Then she would have to trot down to the ocean and wash off her hands before eating, holding them out in front of her chubby brown body on the way back, shaking them dry.

Her favorite swimsuit had been a red and white striped sailor suit, with a tiny blue skirt and a square white collar with anchors embroidered on the corners. She felt like a Rockette in it, and would do high kicks in the water, sending the chilly spray tossing in sparkling arcs, while her mother cheered and laughed. In the photograph of her mind, she saw her mother clapping, a lit cigarette dangling from one slender hand.

She inched farther away from the water as she felt it lick at her calves, and turned over onto her stomach, hiking up her t-shirt so the sun could stroke her lower back. I am all alone, she thought. My family is dead or gone, my boyfriend left me, and my only remaining friend belted me to the ground. She snuggled her hurt face into the sand, seeking the coolness hiding beneath the warm top layer. She knew she should put ice on it, but she didn’t want to. She wanted a souvenir. This was the first time in memory she had been struck by another human being. She felt the memory of violence in her bones and wanted the physical evidence to remain with her awhile.

It didn’t feel so bad, this aloneness. There was a pleasant numbness to it, a cessation of feeling that she found soothing. Like the cold seeping into her feet from their intermittent bathing in the spring-cold ocean. Bradley had been an annoyance, a grain of gritty sand in her hot dog, constantly urging her to feel something, to take some sort of action on her own behalf. Rick, too, had inspired her to feel things, for him, or about him. Protective things, worry things. But not anymore.

The chill seeped up into the rest of her body, starting a series of unpleasant shivers. She stayed on for awhile anyway. She was a mermaid, after all, and the cold water her born element. But soon enough, her stomach grumbled, and that was enough to finally get her moving. The body is no respecter of emotional pain, or the desperate run therefrom. It just keeps its own cycles, ingesting, digesting and shitting out the waste, no matter what else is going on.

She wandered up the strand and got a couple of tacos from a stand she was sure hadn’t been there the last time she was here. Oceanside had such a temporary feel about it, as though it had been built by two of the Three Little Pigs. Eateries in falling-down shacks, a couple of flaking apartment buildings, too many liquor stores. Despite the massive presence of military personnel, perhaps even because of it, the place wasn’t safe, especially after dark. Too many eighteen-year-old Marines from places like Tennessee and Nebraska, stationed up in Camp Pendleton, living down here because it was close and affordable. Too green to have any self-control, trained up to be strong and tough. Bad combination. Miranda shook her head. They should keep them on the base, she thought, until they grew up a little. Like reservations, for the immature.

The next day was Saturday, and then Sunday. Miranda did not go to Paco Ano. She did not see Rick. She puttered around the house, chopping at the weeds in the orchard, scrubbing the kitchen floor, and both bathrooms. She even rehabilitated the henhouse, thinking she might get herself a chicken or two. She missed the fresh eggs. But then she’d have to get a dog, to protect the chickens, and she didn’t know if she could take care of a dog right now. It would want her to love it.

Her face turned a deep purple, her mouth so swollen she was reduced to eating soup and yogurt for two days. It finally started to go down and turn that sickly yellow color on the third day. She put a little makeup on it, but that seemed to make it look worse, so she washed it off.

On Monday, she went on her rounds, and ended up in the office around 2pm, doing paperwork. She had her head down, paying no attention to various comings and goings around her, until she heard a throat clearing just over her head. She looked up and saw a huge bouquet of brilliant red poppies.

The delivery guy, a skinny boy of about nineteen or twenty years, said, “Miranda Ruth?” She nodded. He popped his gum and handed over his clipboard. “Sign here.”

She signed and he disappeared, dropping a large white envelope on her desk next to the poppies. Her first thought was that they were from Bradley, trying again to make up with her. But then she opened the envelope. There were three sketches inside, all in charcoal, but so vivid she felt as though she were seeing in full color, like the really good old black and white movies. They were torn down one side, yanked right out of Rick’s sketch book.

The first sketch showed a legless warrior, hands open and dripping with blood, while an ice storm swirled around him. The second showed a squaw, wrapped in what she knew was a brilliantly colored patterned blanket, huddled on the ground under a tree, with icy boughs threatening to drop ice on her black head. The squaw unmistakably wore Miranda’s face. The third showed them together, blood dripping off the warrior’s hands as he touched the fingers of the reaching squaw, the first signs of spring breaking through the snowdrifts around them.

It was a stunning apology.

The other nurses clustered around, so she quickly bundled the sketches away and brushed off their inquiries with a knowing smile that left them all chuckling, but Roberta, who had been standing behind her, called her into her office.

“What are you getting into, Miranda?” she demanded, as soon as the door was shut.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about that massive bruise near your mouth, which you should have taken better care of, and those flowers from this agency’s least favorite patient.”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” said Miranda. It wasn’t much use to try to lie to Roberta.

“Miranda, honey.” Miranda was startled to hear the endearment, wrung from Roberta’s tough old mouth. “You’ve been warned about Rick. Don’t let all our predictions come true.”

“I won’t.”

“So you say. But all the other nurses I sent out there at least had the good sense to detest him. They were…better protected. But you, you with your incredibly compassionate and generous heart, you are not protected. You are totally vulnerable, and I am worried sick about you. I have a mind to make Brenda take him back.”

“You will not,” said Miranda. “He’s mine.” She heard her own tone, and turned away, not meeting Roberta’s canny old eyes.

“And that is exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve…I don’t know. You’ve adopted him, somehow. You’re identifying with him, and that’s downright dangerous. Look in the mirror, Miranda. He’s already hurt you, and he’ll hurt you more. Please, at least let me get some of the other nurses to spell you, so you can get a little more distance. You’re too involved, and it’s not healthy.”

“Roberta, I’ve lost my whole family in six months,” she said, hating to drag out this personal stuff in front of her boss. “Rick is what I have left. Don’t take him from me. This,” she indicated her face, “shouldn’t have happened, and it won’t, not ever again. I’ll be careful, I promise.”

Roberta stared at her and sighed, then nodded. “All right, for now. But I swear, Miranda, if I see one more danger sign, I’m taking you off him faster than a stripper gets naked for a hundred dollar bill.”

“Got it,” said Miranda, exiting swiftly.

She went to see Rick first thing Tuesday morning, figuring he would be a terrible mess, and it would take twice as long as usual. But he was in pretty good shape. Someone had been caring for him, if not quite as well as Miranda, far better than when she had first arrived on the job.

“Good morning,” she said calmly, pulling on her latex gloves and setting to work without further comment.

“G’morning,” he said cautiously. They went through most of the routine nearly silently.

“The flowers were pretty,” she said finally.

“I just wanted something red.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Seemed to fit you.” She nodded and rolled him to one side for the wound care. “Did you like the pictures?” he said to the wall.

“They were beautiful,” she said shortly.

“I’m sorry, Miranda.” She cut him off.

“You’ve already said. With the pictures. I forgive you.” She swabbed A&D ointment over the wounds, nearly closed now, wrapped them in bandages, and rolled him back onto his back. “But I won’t forgive you again, Rick, not for something like that, no matter how many pictures you draw, or how many flowers you send.”

“Yeah,” he said heavily. “I know.”

Miranda turned away from the bed with the basin full of dirty water and nearly tripped over Lily, who had opened the door silently and stood just inside, fingers stuck in her mouth, a sad-looking Barbie dangling from her other hand.

“She likes to play in here,” said Rick. “Can she stay?”

“Sure, as long as she’s in the corner and not in the medical supplies.”

“C’mere,” said Rick, in as soft a tone as Miranda had ever heard from him. The little girl ran over to him. He tickled her sides and she giggled, a sound Miranda hadn’t been sure she could make. She looked up at him with glowing eyes as he directed her to sit over in the corner and play with her dollie.
“I didn’t see Sandy,” said Miranda, coming back in with a fresh bowl of water.

“She ain’t here. She went to Mexico with her mom.” Miranda hid a satisfied grin.

“So Lily’s staying with you?”

“Yeah.” His eyes strayed to his daughter, a half-smile playing on his lips.

“She’s a cutie pie.”

“She’s an okay little kid,” he replied, never taking his eyes off her. Lily held the Barbie awkwardly in her arms, cradling it, stroking its tattered blonde hair. She never made a sound, and after awhile, Miranda forgot she was there.