The Four Winds

Rose was still for a moment. “I remember every bit of that day. He was packed to go to college. College. A Martinelli. I was so proud, I’d told everyone.”

“And then, me.”

“Skinny as a willow switch, you were. Hair that needed tending. You looked like a young woman who didn’t know how to smile. And you were too old for him, I thought.”

“I was all those things.”

“It took me months to see that you were a woman more capable of love and commitment than anyone I’ve ever known. You were the best thing that ever happened to my son. He’s a fool to have missed that.”

“It is a kind thing for you to say.”

“But you can’t believe it.” Rose sighed. “What damage I did to Raffaello by loving him too much, I fear your parents did to you by loving you too little.”

“They tried to love me. Just as Rafe did.”

“Did they?” Rose said.

“I was a sickly child. I had a fever as a teenager and it left me weakened. They told my parents that I would die young and that I have a damaged heart.”

“And you believed them.”

“Of course.”

“Elsa, I don’t know about your youth or your illness or what your parents said or did. But I know this. You have the heart of a lion. Don’t believe anyone who tells you different. I’ve seen it. My son is a fool.”

“The last thing he said to me before he left was, ‘Remember me then.’ I thought he was being romantic.”

“I imagine it will hurt us all for a long time, but Loreda and Ant need you. Loreda needs to learn that it is this land that will save her, not her silly father.”

“I want her to go to college, Rose. To be brave and have adventures.”

“A girl?” Rose laughed. “Ant will be the one. Loreda will settle down. You’ll see.”

“I don’t know if I want her to settle down, Rose. I’m in awe of her fire. Even if I’m the one who gets burned. I just … want her to be happy. It breaks my heart to see her as unhappy as her father was.”

“You blame yourself when they are the ones to blame.” Rose gave her a steady, reassuring look. “Remember, cara, hard times don’t last. Land and family do.”

TWELVE

In November, the first winter storm battered them from the north, leaving behind a fine layer of snow. Clean, glistening, and white, it dusted the windmill’s rough blades, the chicken coop, the cows’ hides, and the land itself.

Snow was a good sign. It meant water. Water meant crops. Crops meant food on the table.

On this particularly frigid day, Elsa stood at the kitchen table, rolling meatballs in hands that were pink and swollen and pocked with blisters. Chilblains were common this season and everyone in the house—in the county—had raw, burning throats and gritty, bloodshot eyes that itched from too many dust storms.

She placed the garlic-seasoned pork meatballs on a baking sheet and covered them with a towel, then went into the sitting room, where Rose sat by the stove darning socks.

Tony came into the house, stomped the snow from his boots, and slammed the door behind him. He made a chapel of his gloved hands and blew into them. His cheeks were red and roughened by cold, scoured by wind. His hair stuck out in frozen shards. “The windmill isn’t pumping,” he said. “Must be the cold.” He walked over to the woodstove. Beside it, a barrel held their dwindling supply of cow chips. In these dust and drought years, the animals on the Great Plains were dying, and so this treeless land was losing the fuel source that the farmers had assumed would last forever. He fed a few into the fire. “There are still a few broken slats in the hog pen. I’d best go chop ’em up. We’re going to need a roaring fire tonight.”

“I’ll go,” Elsa said.

She retrieved her winter coat and gloves from the hook by the door and stepped out into the frosted world. Glittery, frozen tumbleweeds cartwheeled across the yard, breaking pieces off at every rotation.

She grabbed an ax from the wooden box.

Carrying it out to the empty hog pen, she surveyed the remaining slats and picked her spot, then lifted the ax, brought it down, and felt the thunk of metal on wood reverberate up through her shoulder, heard the craaack of the wood breaking.

It took her less than half an hour to destroy what was left of the hog pen and turn it into firewood.