My Abandonment(24)

"You're going to like this, Caroline," one of the officers says. I didn't know he knew my name.

Just past the horses we turn at a gravel driveway and roll by two red barns. Up ahead is a tall house and a smaller building at the bottom of a slope and next to the smaller building is a car with its door open. I see as we get close that it's Miss Jean Bauer and Mr. Harris and two other men standing next to that car, waving at our car.

When we stop I open the door and set my feet down on the unmoving ground.

"Welcome," they are saying, shouting. "Welcome to your new house!"





Our new house has a table and two chairs. There are two bedrooms and two beds. The bathroom has a shower and sink and a toilet and mirror. The kitchen has a refrigerator. Also it has: pots, pans, a kettle, matching plates, sharp knives that stick into slots in a wooden block. It is not a proper house but it is a real house. It is a bunkhouse since it is where the workers lived who worked for the man in the proper house. Mr. Walters lives in the big house now and Father is going to work for him. This is the job they've found for Father since we can no longer live in the forest park.

The whole time they are showing us they are proud of themselves. I keep hold of Father's hand as they show us through all the rooms. It is tight with all of us to get through the doorways.

"This will be so much better," Miss Jean Bauer says with her hand on my shoulder. "Caroline will be able to start school in a month and a half and get back to having a regular education like any child here in Oregon."

"Yes," Father says. "Thank you for all this. Say thank you, Caroline."

"Thank you," I say.

"We'll pay you back," Father says. "For all this. I didn't expect."

"Oh, no," Mr. Harris says. "If you want to pay us back, work hard and keep being good to each other. Mr. Walters is a generous man," he says. "You're lucky."

"We are," I say.

Mr. Walters is short and round and very friendly. His skin is pale white and there is no hair on his head, hardly even eyebrows. He wears both suspenders and a belt and he stands listening to Mr. Harris talk about him. He points things out as we go.

"I'm so excited we can do this," he says. "I've been hearing and reading all about you and I think this could be the perfect solution. I do need some help out here."

The other man is from the newspaper and he says hello but is already writing in his small notebook the whole time. He looks up at us and then to what he's writing. He turns a page.

"Is it all right if I take a photograph?" this man says.

"No," Father says. "No."

"A few questions?"

"I'm afraid not," Father says.

"That's all right," Mr. Harris says. "That's just fine. We all respect your privacy."

I keep looking around. In the bedroom that's mine there's a poster of a tall brown horse on the wall. The bathroom has a shower with a glass door. A back door goes out Father's room. The refrigerator holds food and there are cans in the cupboards. There's milk that isn't powder.

"Do you like it?" Miss Jean Bauer keeps asking me.

"It's too much for her to process," Mr. Harris says

After a while they have run out of things to show us.

"Tomorrow will be a full day," Mr. Walters says. "We'll go through all sorts of things tomorrow."

The police car drove away before and now the rest drive away and we turn from where we are in front of the small house and go back inside.

"It feels good to be by ourselves again," I say.

Father opens a window and breathes out.

"They had me take tests," I say. "I passed, I was ahead of where I'm supposed to be."

"Of course you were, Caroline," he says. "They wouldn't know what to do with a smart girl like you."

"And they had pictures," I say, "where I had to make up a story."

"Enough, Caroline," he says. "All of that, let's forget it happened. That tires a person out."

"But everything's different now," I say. "How we're going to live here and everything."

"It only seems different," he says. "Really it's going to be the same."

I am kicking off my shoes and balling my socks. Father goes into the kitchen and takes the tinfoil off the casserole they left then puts the tinfoil back over it. He opens the refrigerator door so the cold light shines on him and then shuts it without taking anything out.





Later I stand alone in the bedroom that is my bedroom. Through my window I can see the long slope of tall grass that leads into trees which is where the stream is and where we'll irrigate. I can also see the edge of the pasture and a corner of a corral where in the dusk I can see the dark shapes of horses. Randy rests on his side atop the dresser with my blue ribbon tied around him so I won't lose it. Beneath him in the drawers are: underpants, undershirts, socks, jeans, skirts. Blouses hang in the closet. I have a sweater and sandals and blue sneakers with blue stripes, all new.