Sin and Drought

           She slammed the electric bill onto the maple table. Missing a leg but too expensive to replace and, therefore, propped up by dog-eared paperbacks, it wobbled. Arden stopped fiddling with his glucose meter to turn toward her and scowl. She sighed. “We can’t let this keep going on.”

           “What do you want me to do? I can’t make it rain.”

           If only he, or anyone else, other than Trista Pitchford, could, they wouldn’t have fallen into this predicament. Their fields, once a verdant paradise, had browned and withered after about two months of dry days. After three, the corn stalks had started dropping. Now, after a year, the soil had grown as dry as the bristles of an unused toothbrush, netted with fissures, as bald as pear skin. When they trooped through it, their boots scraped up dust that billowed in clouds, clung to their clothes, and stole their breath. The sun beat down, a bully unlike any she’d faced before. The sky had become a cloudless bowl, its blueness blinding; the wind, cackles at those helpless enough to fall victim to its cruelty. They couldn’t afford the electricity. The water. The food for the animals. The fertilizer. The mortgage. Arden’s insulin. They’d sold off seventy-five percent of their livestock and may have to do more—Would the next be Dairy Underwood, the herd vocalist? Moo McClanahan, a diva if she’d ever known one? Georgia O’Beef, for whose distinguished pallet only flowers would do? Milky Bobby Brown, a quiet, subdued companion with chocolate-drop eyes that could’ve melted a glacier? Who knew? They may even have to sell the entire place. Ordinarily, she would’ve cursed Mother Nature. But, in this case, nature had nothing to do with it.

           “You know who can make it rain, though.” Everybody in town did. Kaylyn hadn’t been there that day—she’d gone to the city, taking Arden to the doctor’s appointment where he’d received his diagnosis. But gossip, here, spread like ink on soaked paper, so, by that night, she’d heard about it multiple times, from multiple mouths: Trista had come in from the nearby city to which she’d moved fifteen years ago, to the county fair. She’d shoved her way onto stage, interrupting a bluegrass band, to inform everyone present that no rain would fall from here on out. As to her reasoning, she’d said only that the town had sinned, and it should pay. No one knew why she’d chosen now, a decade and a half after she’d last set foot there, to make this happen—though, of course, speculation and rumors abounded.

           Kaylyn had hoped that Trista would tire of the charade, realize that it wouldn’t do her any good, or perhaps even feel guilty if she happened to see what she’d wrought. But day after day squashed those hopes, and she now felt certain that Trista would keep it up until everything and everyone in Barnett turned to dust.

           “I’m going to Trista’s,” she declared. “Gonna talk to her. See if we can’t get this sorted out.”

           Arden’s frown deepened, his eyes flickering. “You can’t possibly think this is a good idea. Do you know what she can do?”

           “We’re living in ‘what she can do.’ And we can’t afford to any longer.”

           “Then we’ll move.”

           He’d suggested it before, and she’d considered it. But Barnett had grown her, nourished her, provided for her and her family her whole life. It had given to her, and she wanted to give back. Deserting it when it needed the favor returned seemed heartless. Plus, everything here—the people, the land, the general store, the post office, the heart no one knew, but everyone loved to speculate regarding, who had carved into the gnarled oak on Emily Rd.—had grown so entangled in her DNA that extricating it would tear her apart. Arden had grown up in a city for which he didn’t feel the same, so she hadn’t expected him to understand. She had, however, expected him to sympathize, and support her.

           “You can’t go,” he said, glaring at her. “It might piss her off, and who knows what she’ll do then?”

           “Well, I can’t just let her destroy this town. If that means taking a chance, so be it.” She jumped to her feet and headed for the foyer.

           “Think about this, Kay,” he pleaded, nipping at her heels. “The risk-reward isn’t in your favor.”

           She slipped into sneakers and grabbed the front door’s knob. “I’m going. You can come, or you can stay.”

           “No way. I’m not walking myself into—“

           “Then I’ll go alone.”

           He continued to argue, but she ignored him, throwing open the door, storming out, and slamming it.

           As she strode to her Toyota, he emerged from the house, shaking his fist and shouting with volume that, though high enough for their nearest neighbor half a mile away to hear, was dwarfed by its desperation. It made her freeze, reconsidering. She hated to see him so scared, and she hated herself for causing it. But what choice did she have? She couldn’t let Trista do this to Barnett. 

Forcing herself to ignore him, she climbed into the car and left. Once out of sight of their farm, she pulled over and grabbed her phone from the pocket of her jeans. After a few flicks of the fingers, she had Trista’s address. She plugged it into the GPS and resumed her journey. As she drove, the world outside her windows a blue and taupe blur, she contemplated what she’d say. She composed, and crossed out, and composed again, and again, and again. She still hadn’t come up with something satisfactory by the time she reached her destination, one of hundreds of concrete-and-glass stalks shooting from the pavement and into the sky. The streets separating one line of them from another teemed with cars, trucks, vans, and taxicabs; the sidewalks, with people, young and old, clad in everything from sweats and pajama bottoms to designer suits. Air dense with a cacophony of blaring horns and the stench of smoke leaked through her vents. Already, she craved home.

           Perhaps she should go home. Perhaps this would more likely lead to doom than the result she wanted. She didn’t want to see Barnett rot, but she didn’t want to die here, now, at Trista’s hands, either.

           However, she reminded herself, that would mean staying silent in the face of atrocity. She’d done it before; from kindergarten to twelfth grade, she’d watched Jessica Faris and her posse torment Trista and done nothing. Had she acted, Jessica might have backed off. She might not have mocked Trista at graduation, in front of their whole class. Then, Trista wouldn’t have, declaring that she’d pay, pointed upward, and lightning wouldn’t have split the cloudless blue sky, striking Jessica with force that had crippled her for life. Kaylyn saw the latter around town here and there, and, to this day, she couldn’t look her in the eye. She had been a coward. She would not make that mistake again, even if that meant stepping onto a precipice and giving a woman who most likely hated her guts the option to push her off.

           She parked at the curb, steeled her shoulders, left the car, and wove through the shuffling cloud, through the glass double-doors, into the lobby. Sneakers squeaking on the marble floor tile, she made a beeline for the elevator’s gaping steel doors. She took it to the fourteenth floor and found room 183. She braced herself, stomach twisting, lungs as flat as peanut brittle, and knocked with a trembling hand.

           Footsteps sounded from within, each drilling a nail into her gut. The door opened. Trista took one look at her and rolled her eyes. “Oh, no. I’m not getting involved with that again.” She started to close the door.

           “Wait,” Kaylyn commanded, sticking her foot between it and the jamb. Pain lashed the area, but she ignored it. “Please. I’m sorry about what happened to you in school. I should’ve done something, said something—“

           “Wow, only fifteen years ago. You catch on quick, don’t you?”

           “Trista, please—“

           “You know why I did it. That hellhole deserves it.”

           “What about my husband?” she blurted. “He’s not even from—“

           “Your husband?” she repeated, as if she’d just suggested that her wrath had struck Santa Claus. “Your husband is the first person I’d wanna go after.”

           Kaylyn’s brows furrowed. “What’re you talking about?”

           “You mean he still hasn’t told you?” A smile she didn’t like one bit spread across her face. “Oh, this is rich. This is rich…”

           “What’re you talking about?”

           Trista leaned one hip against the doorframe, suddenly giving the impression of wanting to take her sweet time and savor the anticipation. Kaylyn had half a mind to take off, because she had a feeling that whatever burgeoned behind Trista’s lips would prove far worse than abandoning the only home she’d ever known. Instead, she froze, sweat dripping, heart trembling like a tire rolling over grated asphalt.

           “He and I met at the bar down on Pitt St.,” Trista continued. “Got to talking. Really hit it off.” She sighed, shaking her head. “I should’ve known better. If I took one second to think about how people’ve treated me my whole life, I would’ve walked away.” She straightened. “Anyway, I didn’t, and one thing led to another, and…well, you get the picture.”

           It stabbed her like a spear to the chest. She tried to hide it, to avoid giving Trista the satisfaction she’d so looked forward to, but couldn’t help wincing. How, she asked herself, could he do this to her? To them? Yes, they bickered sometimes, but she’d thought that, at the end of the day, the warmth that she, and, she’d thought, he, had felt as they’d joined hands across the petal-strewn aisle would hold them together. Perhaps, though, he hadn’t felt it, or perhaps he had, but had stopped feeling it sometime in the years that had passed since then. In either case, how could she have missed it? Had she enshrouded herself in denial? Or was she just that oblivious?

           Trista’s face illuminated, rivaling the moon itself. Heat, not pleasant but welcome in the face of its alternative, flared in Kaylyn’s chest, and she fought the urge to slap her.

“Anyway, fast forward a few weeks. We’re still…getting together…on the regular.” Her expression darkened, her eyes sharpening. “And then what do I find out? He’s married. Been married five years. To you.”

The heat increased. Blinding. For several moments, it blocked the words from leaving her mouth, but, finally, she managed, “When did this happen?”

About two weeks before the county fair—he was the last straw.”

It hit her like a tornado: And that was one week before his symptoms had begun. Her jaw dropped, the world swirling into a Technicolor blur. She staggered against the railing; otherwise, her buckling knees would have sent her somersaulting down the steps.

“I’ll tell you, Kay,” she said, words dripping with satisfaction, “you really picked a winner. He’s got a lotta nerve.”

           Yes, he did have a lot of nerve. Or a lot of stupidity. Or both. Whichever proved the case, she’d make him regret it.

Forcing strength back into her legs, she turned and made a beeline for her car. Screw the drought. At this point, what good could a little rain do?