NOLA CAME TO weekday Mass and sat down in Father Travis’s office afterward, waiting for him. He was often detained in the hallway. Sure enough, Nola heard someone talking now. Father Travis was listening, dropping in an occasional question. The two voices were figuring out some repair detail on the basement wall. Or maybe the windows. Cold was threading in, then spring would bring seepage, mud, snakes. There had always been snakes around and sometimes inside the church. Several places in the area and on the Plains, into Manitoba, were like that. The snakes had ancient nests deep in the rocks where they massed every spring and could not be driven out.
Nola had never been afraid of snakes. She drew them to her. Here was one now—a gentle garter snake striped yellow with a red line at the mouth. Hello, beauty. The snake curved soundlessly under a shelf of books and pamphlets, then stopped, tasting the air. I might as well talk to you, thought Nola. He’s not coming and I don’t think he wants to see me. Thinks I’m weak. I’m alone with this, anyway. I don’t like where my thoughts go but I can’t argue them down all of the time, can I? Maggie will be all right, after, she’ll just flourish away. LaRose will be so relieved. Peter is becoming love-hate for me, you know? He’s getting on my last nerve. I know I shouldn’t sleep so much. Who would notice an old green chair? Snakes notice. You, or the one in my iris bed when I was putting them to sleep, the irises. When you’re thinking of not being here, everything becomes so fevered, fervent? And the sun comes in. Strikes in. To be alive for that, just to see it striking through a window in the afternoon. A warm light falling on my shoes. And the steam comes on, hissing in the pipes. That sound’s a comfort. Maybe I’m not seeing properly. No, there is not a snake underneath that shelf, it’s just a piece of dark nylon rope.
Nola!
I’m just waiting here. I thought you’d maybe have time.
Father Travis stood in the doorway. It was disturbing that she’d showed up after she’d tried to blackmail him, he thought. You’d think she’d have better sense. Meaning she might be serious about suicide. He should stop comparing normal people to lost Marines. And he should never have laughed.
I’m leaving the door open, see? Don’t pop your breast at me again, okay?
I won’t, Nola said.
How are you?
Better, not better.
Father Travis sighed and tore off a piece of paper toweling, slid it across the top of his desk. Nola reached out, caught it up, and put it to her face.
I don’t like where my thoughts go, she sorrowed.
I’ve heard everything, said Father Travis.
I thought that piece of rope underneath your shelf was a snake.
They both looked; there was nothing.
Probably there was a snake, said Father Travis. They like the steam pipes.
Of course they do. She smiled. I don’t know why I thought it was a rope.
Father Travis waited for her to say more. The steam pipes clanged and hissed.
A rope, he said. Why?
I have no idea.
Because you have a plan?
She nodded, mutely.
A plan to hang yourself?
She froze, then babbled. Don’t tell, please. They’ll take him away. Maggie already hates me. I don’t blame her but I hate myself worse. I am a very, very bad mother. I let Dusty go outside, didn’t watch him. I sent him up to bed because he was naughty, fingerprints on everything. He climbed up, got a candy bar. He loves, loved, chocolate. Maggie put him up to it. She was sick that day, or anyway she was pretending. And she put him up to being naughty and I sent him up to bed. But he sneaked out.
Do you blame Maggie?
No.
You sure?
Maybe I did at first, when I was crazier. But no. I am a bad mother, yes, but if I permanently blamed her that would be, I don’t know, that would be a disaster, right?
Yes.
Nola studied the palms of her hands, open on her lap.
To blame yourself, that would also be disaster.
Her head swirled and yellow spots blazed in space. She lay her forehead carefully on the desk.
I yelled, Father Travis. I yelled at him so loud he cried.
After Nola left, Father Travis stared at the desk phone. She had a plan, but telling about Dusty’s last day had seemed to lift a burden. She seemed reasonable, denying the possibility that she might hurt herself now. Begged him not to tell Peter, not to add this to his burden. He’d crack, she said. Father Travis didn’t doubt that. But there would be no piecing him together if his wife killed herself. He lifted the receiver out of the cradle. But then he put it back. Such an air of relief surrounded her as she walked away—she was wearing white runners. Her step was springy. She had promised to talk to him if these thoughts came over her again.
WOLFRED HACKED OFF a piece of weasel-gnawed moose. He carried it into the cabin, put it in a pot heaped with snow. He built up the fire just right and hung the pot to boil. He had learned from the girl to harvest red-gold berries, withered a bit in winter, which gave meat a slightly skunky but pleasant flavor. She had taught him how to make tea from leathery swamp leaves. She had shown him rock lichen, edible but bland. The day was half gone.