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Even the teacher at school had said to Rosanna, “I had to tell her that she could only raise twenty objections in the morning and twenty in the afternoon. They tend to bring a halt to the educational process.”
After a month or two, she had garnered massive praise for not succumbing to her grief, but how could you do that on a farm? Never could you say to the corn, you must wait to be harvested; never could you say to the cows, you must put off being milked; never could you say to the boys, don’t get up today; never could you say to the winter weather, I don’t want to build yet another fire.
That was life, as far as Walter was concerned—you surveyed the landscape and took note of what was needed, and then you did it, and the completed tasks piled up behind you like a kind of treasure, or at least evidence of virtue. What life was for Frankie he could not imagine.
Rosanna said, “So—no one can buy food because of the Crash, but does that mean they are just going to let the people starve? Why don’t the churches buy it up? Or some rich people? The food is there, the people need it. Are they going to let it rot in the bins while people starve?” And, irritated, Walter said, “Yes, probably they are, Rosanna.” She found the Grahams’ empty house an abomination for the same reason. She said, “People are roaming the roads and living outdoors in the cold and freezing to death, and that house is sitting empty.” But there was no answer for her that Walter understood
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Papa said, “There isn’t going to be a war in Europe. They learned their lesson the last time.” Oma spoke in German again, and Mama said, “You can talk English, Grandma.” Oma said, “Nicht zu diesem.” Then she added, “Alles, was Teufel will, ist Krieg. Die Engländer können es nicht sehen, aber die Deutschen können.” Papa said, “What did she say?” “She said Hitler is bent on having a war.” There was an uncomfortable silence; then Papa said, “Prices will go up.”
“How can you die from a tooth?” she said. “How can God make that happen?” Frank said nothing, but tightened his arms around her. On a farm, you knew that you could die from anything, or you could survive anything. “Why?” was a question that his relatives never asked—they just told the stories, clucked, shook their heads.
Well, that’s what a war did for you—it made you look around at your shabby house and your modest family and give thanks for what you had and others had lost. It made you wonder what it would be like, bombs falling through the ceiling, craters in the front yard, nights in shelters, waking up dead, as Henry said once. It made you stop talking about what you wished for, because, in the end, that might bring bad luck.
Women were supposed to be mysterious, and most of the girls he knew did their best, but Andy truly was mysterious, in the way that only someone you had once known as a girl and now knew as a woman could be; he missed what she had been, and therefore loved it, and he marveled at what she had become, and so loved that as well.
who was sitting beside her, moved her chair in a bit—but she didn’t want to sit down, or eat, at all (what with tasting everything, she wasn’t hungry); she just wanted to stand there and look at them as they passed the two gravy boats and began to cut their food. It couldn’t have happened, she thought. They couldn’t have survived so many strange events. Take your pick—the birth of Henry in that room over there, with the wind howling and the dirt blowing in and her barely able to find a rag to wipe the baby’s mouth and nose. Take your pick—all of them nearly dying of the heat that summer of
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“Well, you’d better contemplate the difference between a reason and an excuse. A reason is its own reward, but an excuse leads to disappointment every time.”
“Corporal, here’s what I learned in the war. There’s nothing more haunted than a house. Doesn’t matter where, how grand, how small, made of brick, straw, stone, or gingerbread, whether perfectly cared for or blown to bits. Beings gather there. Every house is a planet, exerting gravitational pull. Every house is in a dark wood, every house has a wicked witch in it, doesn’t matter if she looks like a fairy godmother
Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter Willa Cather, O Pioneers! Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Philipp Meyer, The Son Ruth Ozeki, All Over Creation Marilynne Robinson, Gilead Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge
