Z for Zachariah

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to. I was falling.” In my confusion I may even have tried to smile; I cannot remember clearly. Then I left the porch and went back to the kitchen. As I left he said:

“You held my hand once before.”

In the kitchen I was shaking so hard that at first I could not continue the cooking; I could not think clearly. I thought I was even going to cry, something I seldom do, but I managed to hold back. I sat on the kitchen stool and tried to calm down. I told myself it was not really so important. It was what the girls at school used to call a “pass”; they used to talk about it and laugh after they had had a date. But that was when they were in a car, after a film, and on their way home to their parents. It is different when there is no one else present, no one to turn to or tell about it. And I found myself doing what I have long since banned myself from doing—that is, imagining my parents were coming back, with David and Joseph, and wishing they were. I put the thought out of my head, as I have learned to do. I felt some what calmer then, and was able to continue with the dinner.

He walked back to the bedroom by himself. I was still cooking when I heard the sound of his cane and the dragging thump of his feet; he was holding himself up by leaning against the wall. Eventually I heard the bed creak as he reached it, and when I carried in his food he was sitting there surrounded by his diagrams. He took the tray calmly, as if nothing had happened. I ate in my usual place at the card table, but we did not talk.

It was true what he had said about my holding his hand. On the night when he was sickest, when his pulse was almost gone and his breathing only a flutter, when I thought he was dying, I sat by his side and held his hand. I am not sure how long; I think several hours. I did not think he would remember it; as with the music and the reading I was trying to let him know, wherever he was, that I was still there.

But it was not the same at all. There is a telepathy that goes with such things. When he was holding my hand I could tell that he was just taking charge, or possession—I do not know how to put it. Just as he had, in his way, of the planting, the use of the petrol, the tractor, and even of my going to church. And of the suit, and, in the end, of Edward.

For that reason his walking back to the bed without help, which should have been something to celebrate, instead makes me uneasy.

Chapter Seventeen

June 30th

I am living in the cave again, and I am glad now that I never told Mr Loomis about it or where it was. I moved up here two days ago, not because I wanted to, but because of what happened. I will try to write it down in order. That may help me to think clearly and decide what I must do.

On the night after the “pass”, the hand-holding, I went to bed as usual with Faro beside me. I was still extremely nervous and could not get to sleep until about three a.m. When I woke it was bright daylight—later than usual for me—and I had the worried feeling that everything had changed. At first I could not think why; then I remembered, and again I tried to convince myself that it was not so important. I had my work to do and I would try to do it as before.

So I got up, gathered the eggs (noting that one of the hens had hatched out eight baby chicks—all alive—and two others were sitting), milked the cow, went into the kitchen and got breakfast ready. And it was all as before except for my own feelings. I ate breakfast in the kitchen—I had been doing that each morning, since he did not wake as early as I did—and then, after cleaning things up a bit, took his tray into his room. I felt strained and tense but if he had any such feeling he did not show it at all. He took his tray, started eating his breakfast, and, as had grown customary, talked about what I would do that day. I had planned to fertilize the corn and the soy beans and pea-beans, which were now up. Also the garden if there was time.

He asked: “Fertilize with what?”

“The corn and beans with chemical fertilizer.”

“From the store.”

“Yes.”

“How much is there?”

“I don’t know exactly.” The fertilizer, in fifty-pound bags, was kept in a shed behind the store, next to a loading platform. The shed was full, with bags stacked to the ceiling—Mr Klein had been ready for the spring planting by the Amish. “There must be 500 bags.”

“Still it will run out.”

“But not for years.”

“It must last until we can switch to manure.”

“I know.”

I felt better down in the cornfield, driving the tractor and the spreader through the rows of new corn. It was doing well, several inches high already, the young stalks shining bright green and looking healthy. I tried to imitate my father and get the wheel—and thus the fertilizer—as close to the rows as I could without packing them down. The day was bright and still; in fact, for the first time it was a bit too warm for comfort in the sun, and Faro, after following me for a couple of rows, went to the edge of the field and watched from the shade of the apple tree. All in all, I felt normalcy returning and then, turning at the end of a row, I glanced up at the house. There on the porch sat Mr Loomis in his chair, leaning slightly forward. Because he was in the shade I could not see his face, but I could feel that he was watching me.

That made me feel nervous again; I could not tell exactly why. I tried to overcome it by not looking in his direction again, not even a glance, but pretending (mostly to myself) that I did not know he was there. I concentrated on the tows, and watched the spreader and the grey fertilizer sifting down from the hopper on to the soil. When I turned off the tractor at noon and walked up to the house he had gone in again. I did not see him go so I could not tell when.

Lunch was about as usual, and then I went out again. In the late afternoon I fertilized the vegetable garden, this time using manure. I hauled it in the old wooden hand-cart, some from the pile outside the barn, some from the henhouse. I used manure not because of anything Mr Loomis had said but because we always did; it makes the garden grow better than the chemical fertilizer. We used a mix of three parts cow to one part chicken, the chicken being much stronger.

All in all a fairly routine day until dinner time, and even what happened then was not really startling.

It was six-thirty, I was in the kitchen, and had almost finished cooking; in fact I was putting knives and forks on the tray when I heard the sound of his cane and the thump of his footsteps (somewhat brisker than before) coming out of the bedroom. I thought he must be going to the porch; I listened, standing quiet, and instead heard him turn in the opposite direction—towards the back of the house, towards me. I thought: was he coming to the kitchen? I heard a chair scrape, a thump, and when I looked out he had seated himself at the dining room table. He saw me in the doorway.

“I don’t need to eat in bed any more,” he said. “I am still weak, but not sick.”

I put away the tray and set the table instead. We ate together, he at one end of the table, I at the other. He even tried to create conversation.

“I saw you driving the tractor. I was on the porch.”

I said: “Oh?”

“Was it hot in the sun?”

“A little. Not very.”

“Some tractors have sunshades for the driver.”

“You can buy them. My father never did. He liked to work in the sun. When it got too strong he wore a straw hat.”

There was a pause; we ate in silence. Then he said:

“I thought the corn looked good.” He was paying me a compliment.

I said: “It’s okay. So are the beans.”

“And the vegetable garden.”

We were, in fact, eating spinach from the garden for dinner, and in a few more days would have peas.