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  Buck watched all this in a seething cascade of emotion. Horror—he should have spent more money and bought more rocks. Sympathy—poor Ella, to be made to look so foolish. Amusement—the whole scene so off-kilter, how could you not laugh? And then, bewildered awe—what a stroke of luck! He wouldn’t have to say a word. Human nature being what it was, people would yak about this all through the luncheon. Ella would be embarrassed. Why, he could even come to her defense. She’d give it up, this ridiculous quest, and come back to him, relieved that she had escaped. They’d never have to speak of it again, and everything would go back to normal.

  He felt vindicated, victorious, and by then, Reverend Kane had retrieved his footing and managed to raise Ella up out of the water, completing the phrase, “Risen to walk in newness of life.” Her white dress clung to her body in just the way Buck had feared, her blond hair wet and plastered to her head. She did not falter, but stepped serenely toward the shore where Lily waited with a large towel to drape around her dripping body. Reverend Kane made it to shore, too, without mishap, looking shaken and sheepish, met by his wife, who wrapped him and patted him and murmured reassuring wifely things.

  Buck waited, all through the potluck luncheon, for someone to make fun of the minister’s folly. To his amazement, no one did. All anyone did was congratulate Ella as if she’d accomplished a tremendous feat, run a marathon or earned a purple ribbon at the fair. As for Ella, she seemed to have no awareness of anything having gone wrong. She basked in their attention, played the part of the gracious hostess.

  When everyone finally went home, they had a light supper. They sat on the porch into the evening. Buck watched Ella for signs, sensing that something had changed, though he couldn’t say in what way. She thanked him for all he had done to help prepare for the day.

  Later in bed, she nested her head against his shoulder, sighed deeply. Buck thought if she were a cat, she would purr. “It was lovely, wasn’t it, Buck?”

  Buck swallowed. This was his moment. He could burst her bubble, bring her home. But then, he thought of Ella’s face as she rose from the water, translucent with joy. He couldn’t follow her there, and he knew it. He simply didn’t believe. Not like that. He wondered if she knew and what she would do with the knowledge once it came to her. He tightened his grip on her and made a noise low in his throat, not sure what he intended.

  “I love you, Buck,” she whispered.

  He heard her breath deepen. He knew sleep would not come easy and not for a while. He turned his head toward the window and the moonlit sky. Who would believe blackbirds could rain from the sky? Or, for that matter, that Sputnik could rocket into orbit? What else? he wondered. What else is out there, lurking and unexplored in the deepening night?

  Confessions

  Rev. Everett Kane carries a load of secrets into Pighetti’s Café on a rainy Monday in May. Everett sits in the third booth from the door, his customary spot, and watches the street. The front window offers a fractured view, the top scrawled with PIGHETTI’S in black and red script, the bottom draped with lace curtains. Everett watches all the same. He thinks of himself as a watcher, someone who stands by while other people suffer, bleed, get born and die. The best he can do is hold their hands. Pray, of course. He does that.

  He takes note of Mr. Lindstrom, sheltered under the awning of Bert’s Drugs. The blind man and his dog wait patiently for a single customer who might buy a handmade broom from the bundle leaned up against the storefront. Arnold Summers ambles kitty-cornered across the street, returning to his hardware store from the post office, no doubt hung over from a bender the night before. Mr. Logan’s car, a brand-new 1955 Bel Air Chevy, is parked in front of his bank, I LIKE IKE stickered on the rear bumper. Everett knows too much about the people of this town.

  “Coffee, Reverend Kane?”

  Everett looks up into the bright face of Delores, Pighetti’s niece, who isn’t young anymore. Case in point. Everett knows Delores went home with Trevor Lang one night a few weeks ago. Trevor’s wife, Arlene, comes to the church every time Trevor acts up, even though they’re separated.

  “Coffee suits me fine, Delores.” Her red hair knots behind her ears in a tiny bun. She squints her eyes. Everett sees, as others do, a pig face. He knows he shouldn’t think this. For penance, he drinks his coffee black.

  Everett rubs his fingers across his forehead. His hair has thinned since his last birthday, when he turned forty-five, and he’s not used to feeling his forehead naked under his hand. He removes his glasses, places them on the black tabletop in front of him, and digs at his eyes until color spots kaleidoscope. He watches the rain drizzle across the window, but he can’t get away from his thoughts. Mr. Bigelow, the school principal, has a problem with pornography. Lillian Dellman drinks too much, hides the bottles from her husband. A sixteen-year-old girl in his own congregation is afraid of her stepfather. Everett worries that she may be trying to tell him something else, something he’s not prepared to hear.

  “You okay?” Everett is surprised to see Delores still standing by his table.

  “Sure. Fine.” You can go to hell for lying. He used to think that. Now, he knows that people need lies. He deals in lies. People tell him devastating truths, and he pretends it doesn’t matter. God forgives. God has a plan. It’s a weird exchange rate. They cash in their anxieties, and he blots them out. Until the next week or day or hour when the spiritual dust wears off.

  Everett smells bacon frying in Pighetti’s kitchen. Delores pours a coffee refill, steaming. He catches a glimpse of his reflection in the oil that slicks on the surface, a result of Reach’s questionable water supply. The caramel roll squats on his plate, mired in sugary goo.

  The brass bell on Pighetti’s door clanks. The door is shoved open by Dr. Reuben Silverman. Reuben is one of three doctors in town, but he’s the only Jew and the only person with a peg leg. He lost his left leg during the war. He says he likes wearing the peg because it reminds him of members of his family who disappeared during the Holocaust. They suffered so much more than this, he says. I should complain?

  Dr. Silverman slides in the booth opposite Reverend Kane. An unlikely pair, the Baptist minister and a Jewish doctor, in a small town in Nebraska. Reuben takes off his black jacket, holds it at arm’s length in the aisle, shakes off the raindrops, then tosses it into the corner of the booth. The red plastic upholstery sucks at the back of his damp pant legs. He’s older than Everett in years, but also in experience.

  Reuben lifts a finger and nods to Delores. She smiles as most people do when they see the doctor. He’s their resident foreigner. He’s so far out of the fray of Catholic-Protestant mistrust that his oddities don’t register on the local scale. He does his job, keeps to himself, and Reverend Kane likes him. Good enough, for most.

  “So?” The doctor turns his attention to Everett. “How’s your soul today?”

  Everett looks up with sad eyes. “It’s raining.”

  “Ah.” Reuben turns in the booth and looks toward the street. Odd, Everett thinks, how people will look back to verify where they’ve been. Like returning to the scene of a crime. Or bringing up old, painful topics.

  Delores sets a scalding cup of coffee in front of Reuben. She retreats and sits on a counter stool, absorbed in Look magazine. They are the only customers.

  The two men sit for a time in silence, a habit of theirs. Everett notices Reuben holds his hand to his mouth and breathes against his fingers. A shiver passes through the doctor’s arm and over his body.

  “And you?” It’s easy for Everett to ask Reuben. Even if Reuben tells him things, Reuben won’t expect an answer. Reuben doesn’t buy Everett’s God. Reuben thinks Jesus Christ is too young to understand the age-old ills of the universe. They’ve been over this ground before, and to Everett’s great relief Reuben has refused to be either insulted or converted.

  Reuben gathers himself before he speaks. Everett watches the effort, the squaring of the shoulders, the deep intake of breath, the hand pressed firmly again
st the lips.

  “I’ve come from the Cantwells,” Reuben says. Something about the tone, the way he shakes his head.

  “Is something wrong?” Everett asks.

  “Are they one of your families?”

  “Yes. Well, Iris and the kids. We haven’t seen Pete in some time. I don’t know. People fall away.”

  Everett lifts his hand, heavy off the table, and lets it drop. He should have gone out there. Anyone can see the Cantwells are a family in trouble. Something’s wrong with Pete, the way his feet shuffle. It’s a bad time for Iris to be pregnant.

  “She has a history of miscarriages,” Reuben says.

  “Oh? I didn’t know that.” Everett is genuinely surprised. He could have figured it out, he thinks. Jim must be, what, thirteen? Annie, maybe six. A lot of years between kids.

  “The baby—” Reuben lifts his coffee, holds it to his lips, but does not drink.

  “It’s not time, is it?” Everett knows that he loses track of time. It stretches out endlessly before him, like a dark room he does not want to enter. Yet, at the end of a day, it seems that he has never done the things he meant to do.

  Reuben’s hands are trembling. His right hand is fixed to the cup, held as if by electric shock. Coffee sloshes over the table. Everett gently lays his palm on Reuben’s shaking arm. He steadies the hand until the cup comes to rest on the tabletop. Reuben lifts himself on one haunch, withdraws a wadded handkerchief from his right rear pocket, blows his nose, and stuffs the handkerchief back in place.

  “Sorry,” Reuben mutters.

  “What is it?” Everett asks. He hears the tone of his own voice, the soothing undercurrent. Alarming, how easily he slips into this role.

  “The baby came early,” Reuben says. “Pete went up to the neighbor’s to call me. They don’t have a phone.”

  “Pete’s a private man. He must have been scared plenty.” Everett pictures Pete Cantwell standing in his overalls outside the door of his nearest neighbor, most certainly his landlord.

  “Pete asked me to come out.” Reuben’s voice sounds strangely flat. Everett picks up on these nuances. “He said Iris wasn’t doing so good. He didn’t think it was the baby. So, I drove out there last night. Seven miles, sliding around on those country roads. Iris was lying down in the bedroom. There’s a crib crammed in the corner. Annie still sleeps there. They don’t have water in the house. Just a washstand in the kitchen with a bucket and a dipper.”

  Reuben pauses to take a drink from his cup. The rain outside gushes in waves, whole buckets dumped down the front of Pighetti’s window. Everett remembers a car wash he saw in Omaha, newfangled with brushes and water squashing at the window like this. He worries about water rising in the river. He pictures basements full of water, people canoeing down Main Street, the street dumping into the North Platte River, then the Platte, the mighty Mississippi, down into the Gulf. If enough rain falls, he can step into a canoe and not get out until he’s crossed into another country.

  “Everett.” Reuben’s voice scrapes at his name, throwing it up from the bottom of a barrel. “What do you think of playing God?”

  Everett is unprepared for Reuben’s question, even though it has been on his mind for years.

  “No one plays God, Reuben. No one would want the responsibility.”

  “Suppose God is not around?”

  Everett squirms in his seat. “Reuben, don’t talk to me like this. Because if you want proof of spirit, I can’t give it to you.”

  Reuben leans forward in his seat. His voice rasps. “I’m asking what we are supposed to do when God is absent?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what we are supposed to do. I’m not allowed to think God is absent, by the way. I’m only allowed to think God has other things in mind.”

  “Other things?”

  “Bigger things.”

  “Yes, yes. But what do we do in the meantime while God is working on bigger things. Heh?”

  “Stand it. That’s what we are supposed to do. Stand it until something better comes along.”

  “Suppose you have to make a decision? Suppose you can’t stand by because you are the one who must decide?”

  Everett starts to feel flattened, like a tire losing air. He sneaks a sideways look at Delores and is relieved to see that she’s absorbed in her magazine. “Don’t ask me this, don’t . . .” Everett bats the air with the back of his hand. Then, he leans across the table and lowers his voice. “Reuben. What do you want?”

  “Peace, Everett.” Reuben’s voice is calm. His doctor voice, Everett thinks. Handling him with velvet. “To be able to sleep at night. What do you want?”

  Everett tugs at the gluey mess of his caramel roll. His breath comes fast and hard. He’s got to start getting more exercise. Give up these caramel rolls. He needs some air.

  “Nothing,” Everett says at last. “I want nothing.”

  To Everett’s surprise, Reuben laughs. “That’s a good way to get it,” Reuben says.

  “Get what?”

  “Nothing. You want nothing, you get nothing. A good plan. Wish I’d thought of it.”

  Everett knows he’s being laughed at. He doesn’t care. Laughing is better than all this probing. He chuckles along with Reuben.

  “Can I tell you something?” Reuben asks.

  “Please don’t.” Everett smiles, but he means it.

  “I’ve never told anyone here.”

  Everett shifts in his seat. “Some things are better off left alone.” He knows that once Reuben tells him, things won’t be the same. People hand over their secrets, little bits of themselves for his safekeeping, and then they walk away. Everett doesn’t want to lose his only friend.

  Reuben sweeps aside Everett’s objections, if he hears them at all. His voice opens. “In Warsaw, they herded us into a ghetto. You know about that?”

  Everett nods.

  “There was so little food. So little of everything. People were being shipped out every day. We heard rumors about camps, death camps. People were dying. It was a matter of when, not if.”

  Reuben stops. Everett waits and watches the rain. An absurd Bible verse flutters through his mind. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

  Reuben begins again, falteringly. “In Warsaw, everything turned upside down. I stole bread and medicine from the mouths of the sick. I doomed the old, and sometimes”—here Reuben’s voice drops to a whisper—“the very young.”

  “What could you do? You had no choice.” Everett remembers the first half of the verse. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. What, Everett wonders, is hyssop?

  “You completely miss the point, Everett. I had to choose. Poor old Mrs. Keynes, who once handed me candy sticks over her grocery counter, or Joseph Berger, a miserable man keeping twenty others alive with connections to the black market. Which deserves to live? Tell me, Everett, what would you have done?”

  “You did everything you could.” Everett offers this, hoping that Reuben will take it and shut up.

  “No.” Reuben reaches out a hand and grasps Everett’s wrist. “Not everything. I saved myself.”

  Everett doesn’t know what to do or say. Odd. Without his catalogue of condolences, he isn’t sure what is required of him. His mind is sloshing around somewhere in the Bible, over snatches of old hymns—showers of blessing—while his eyes watch Reuben’s face. Reuben’s gray hair sticks up in peaks ringed about his balding head. He looks strangely like a baby chick, vulnerable and naked in the world.

  “It was a girl,” Reuben says.

  Everett’s mind lurches back to the Cantwell baby.

  “She was too early. Pain, and I had nothing to give her. At the most, she would have had a few hours of suffering.”

  “Poor Iris.” Everett is relieved. An early death. Not so bad. A baby who could not live. One gets over these things.

  “I put my hand over her mouth.” The flat voice again, as uninflected as miles of prairie.

  “You mean, she died. She died, and th
en you covered her.”

  “I put my hand over her mouth.” Reuben stares straight at him.

  Everett registers shock. This is it, then. He wants to run. He actually shuffles his feet under the table. He whips his head from side to side, where, where can he go? What kind of world is this? God, Everett thinks, you bungle everything. You had no right to use him like that. He feels Reuben’s steady gaze on him and forces himself to look at Reuben’s face. He follows the pain in Reuben’s eyes to the hollows of his cheeks, to his clenched jaw, and his own breathing slows as he focuses on his friend, as good a man as he has ever known.

  Everett lays his hand gently on Reuben’s arm. “God wasn’t absent, Reuben. You were there.”

  Reuben’s face crumples, and he looks away. No more words come to Everett. There is nothing to do but sit with Reuben in silence.

  The two men part outside Pighetti’s. Reuben claps Everett on the back and hauls off to his black Chevy. Everett lingers on the sidewalk, looking up and down the street. There’s Mr. Summers, rolling out the awnings over the hardware store windows. Children are shrieking and stomping in gutter puddles left after the rain. Everett offers his arm to old Mrs. Watson as she walks her well-trained Pekinese to the beauty parlor. On the way, Everett reaches down, places his hand within the hand of the blind man sitting patiently under the awning of Bert’s Drugs, and exchanges four shiny quarters for a broom.