The Four Winds

She was almost to the front door when a big man came lumbering down the hallway toward her.

“Stop her, Fred! She’s a criminal!” the woman at the desk yelled.

He blocked the door.

Elsa stepped closer to the man in the brown security uniform, holding the bat down at her side. Her heart was thundering, but strangely, she felt calm. In control, even. She had the medicine and no one was going to stop her from getting it to Jean. “How badly do you want to stop me, Fred?”

The man’s gaze softened. “The missus and I came here from Indiana about five years ago. It was a helluva lot easier then. I’m sorry for the way you’re treated.” He pulled out a five-dollar bill. “Will this help?”

Elsa almost cried at the small kindness. “Thank you.”

“Now go. Alice is probably calling the coppers already.”

Elsa sprinted out of the hospital, threw the baseball bat into the truck bed, then started the engine and stomped on the gas. The old truck fishtailed in the gravel and slowly straightened out on the dark road.

She turned onto the road to the squatters’ camp and pulled up in front of the Deweys’ truck.

She found Jeb in the bed of the truck with Jean, cradling his wife in his arms; the children stood with Loreda beneath the wooden overhang close to the side of the truck. The boys held the little girls’ hands.

“She keeps askin’ for gin,” Jeb said, looking bereft and confused. “She don’t drink.”

Elsa climbed up into the bed of the truck, settled in on Jean’s other side. “Hey, you, bad girl. I’ve got some aspirin.”

Jean’s eyes fluttered open.

“I hear you’re making trouble, demanding gin,” Elsa said.

“One martini before I die. Don’t seem too much to ask.”

Elsa helped Jean swallow two aspirin and drink a glass of water, and then stroked her friend’s hot forehead. “Don’t you give up, Jean…”

Jean stared up at Elsa, breathing heavily, sweating. “You dance, Elsa,” she said, almost too quietly to be heard. “For both of us.” Jean squeezed Elsa’s hand. “I loved you, girlfriend.”

Not past tense. Please.

She heard Jeb start to cry.

“I love you, too, Jean,” Elsa whispered.

Jean slowly turned her head to look at her husband. “Now … where … are my babies, Jeb?”

Elsa had to force herself to move away, get out of the truck. The four Dewey children climbed up and gathered around Jean.

Elsa heard whispering. Elroy said, “I will, Ma,” as the girls cried.

And then Jean’s broken voice: “I had so much more to say to y’all…”

Loreda touched Elsa’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Elsa’s answer was a primal scream.

Once she started, she couldn’t stop.

Loreda pulled Elsa into her arms and held her while she cried for all of it—the way they lived, the dreams they’d lost, the future they’d so blindly believed in. For the children who would grow up not knowing Jean. Her humor, her gentleness, her steel, her hopes for them.

Elsa cried until she felt emptied inside.

She pulled away from Loreda, who looked frightened. “I’m sorry,” Elsa said, wiping her eyes.