A few blocks west, we approached my family home, a wood-sided structure with a large front porch. The closer the car brought us, the faster my heart beat. Max remained silent, and I stared resolutely out the window. I felt the dread I expected, the nervousness of knowing that in a few minutes I would see my mother, my family, for the first time in a decade.
My childhood home ever closer, I drew a deep breath. The opening words to a familiar prayer popped into my head, but I pushed them out. That, I reminded myself, wasn’t something I did any longer. I wasn’t the Clara who’d walked these streets.
We reached the house. I expected Max to pull over and park, but he drove past. I didn’t see the double-wide where Naomi and Sariah lived with their children. Max kept driving and the house I grew up in disappeared behind us.
“Aren’t we stopping to talk to my family? Isn’t that why I’m here?”
“Your family doesn’t live in town anymore. A couple from Salt Lake bought the house – computer programmers who telecommute. One husband. One wife. Five kids.” He glanced over at me, his lips stretching into a straight line. “After your father died, your mothers lost the house to taxes. Ardeth had the mobile home moved. They’re living in it at the foot of Samuel’s Peak. There’s a community of true believers like them—ones displaced from their homes—squatting on public land out there.”
We drove on, but a short distance later he looked over at me. Something must have telegraphed that I was struggling against a chaos of conflicting emotions. “You okay?”
My chest tightened. I lied. “Yeah. I’m fine.” I thought about Max. “What’s it like, living here, interacting with the people you grew up with, after what they did to you? You were just a kid when they forced you out.”
Max stayed quiet for a moment, and I wondered if I shouldn’t have asked. Then he raised his eyebrows and cocked his head in something of a half-shrug. “I have good memories as well as bad.” His deep voice grew gravelly with emotion. “This is my job. I’m lucky to have it. To do it, I have to put the past in the past.”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” I confided.
“It’s an art I’m still attempting to perfect,” he admitted.
As we continued toward the mountains, Samuel’s Peak drew closer. We turned at the edge of the town toward what had once been open farmland. Someone had erected a cyclone fence and partitioned the area off from the town. I recognized the arch over the gate, topped with an angel blowing a horn. It used to mark the entrance to Alber’s cemetery. Behind the fence stood a dismal settlement made up of shacks, single- and double-wide trailers. It had the look of a place without hope.
“How are the women making ends meet?” I asked. “With so many children.”
“Most rely on the little government assistance they qualify for. Some take in sewing and sell vegetables from their gardens. One group quilts and sells what they make through the gift shop in town.”
“There’s a gift shop?”
“In the old Johnson house.”
As we drove the dirt roads, dozens of dilapidated trailers spread out around us. I’d never seen poverty like this in Alber before, and it saddened me to think that the families I’d known, so proud of their homes, now had so little.
“Where’s my family?”
“At the back, near the cornfield.” Max glanced at me, and I sensed that he understood how hard I was fighting to stay calm. “It’s a lot to take in,” he said.
“I’m fine,” I insisted again, this time betrayed by an emotional catch in my voice.
We drove by a drilling machine, men with shovels chiseling away at the earth. “There’s no sewer or water back here,” Max explained. “Some of the men are putting in a well.”
On the final narrow road, the one that ran parallel to the mountain, under the peak where legend said the spirits of our forefathers lived, the cornfield spread out in front of us. Max signaled a right turn where the rows met the road, allowing no shoulder. The stalks were a thick, vibrant green. The car rounded the corner, and a figure leaped onto the road directly in front of us. Max slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded to a stop. I braced myself on the dashboard as someone darted back into the cornfield.
“You okay?” Max asked. He looked shaken. It had been close. A second later on the brake, and he wouldn’t have been able to stop in time.
“Yeah, but who…” I coughed hard and cleared my throat. “The belt knocked the air out of me.”
“I nearly hit him,” Max said.
“Him?”
“Whoever it was,” Max said, spitting out the words. Angry. “Where’d he go?”
The edge of the corn shimmered as something hidden moved inside it. A man, six foot or more, broad at the shoulders and narrow at the waist, emerged slowly, tentatively. He wore heavy-rimmed glasses. Once out on the road, he wiped off his brow with his shirtsleeve.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“Jim Daniels,” Max whispered, reaching over for the car door handle. “He manages the cornfield for the settlers.”
“You okay, Jim?” Max shouted, as he climbed out of the car. I swung my door open.
“Thought you were going to run me over!” Daniels shouted back. “Don’cha look?”
“Shit, Jim. I don’t expect folks to run out of the corn onto the road without looking. Couldn’t see you until you were right in front of me.” Max said, irritated. “You’ll get yourself killed if you’re not more careful. What are you doing in there?”
“Checking the crop. It’s near ready to pick,” Daniels said, his face weather-beaten from years in the sun. He scrutinized me, curious but distant. I’d gotten out of the car and stood on the passenger side. His eyelids hung heavy, and his gaze felt cold. “Who’s that with you, Max?”
“A visitor,” Max said, sidestepping the