If It Rains

by Jennifer L. Wright

The train groaned and shook and picked up speed. Mr. Hickory lagged behind. I felt the urge to call to him but found I couldn’t push the words out of my mouth. I wanted to yell at him for putting me on this stupid train, making me more scared than I’d ever been in my life. But also to tell him thanks. He hadn’t quit on me. The only one in my entire life except Melissa.

The Tin Man was always my favorite character on The Wizard of Oz, which is perhaps why Mr. Hickory receives a more positive reception than any of the other characters in this book. How often do we love without even realizing it?

The child shuddered and coughed, sucking in air and spitting it out like poison. I put my hand on her chest, feeling it rattle through my fingertips. “Is it dust pneumonia?” “Don’t know.” She looked away. Because she did know, and so did I. You don’t lose a husband—half a town—and not know what dust pneumonia looks like. But saying it, admitting it, was in some ways worse than the illness itself.

Dust pneumonia was a prevalent illness during the Dust Bowl. Repeated exposure to dust storms often left victims' lungs so full of dirt, they became incapable of clearing themselves. Symptoms included high fever, chest pain, coughing, and difficulty breathing. Death was an all-too-common outcome.

The man was a beast. Even sitting down, it was impossible to miss his size. His torso was like a drum and his arms and legs as thick as fence posts. His face was hidden by a mane of strawberry-blond hair, which melted into a great red, bushy beard. He was a beast stuffed into a tight brown jacket and tweed pants, worn at the knees.

Here's our Lion!

I wrinkled my nose. Fish. The worst of all the meats. Pa always said it was the Oklahoma in me that hated them. I said it was the part of me that didn’t want to eat things that swam around in the same place they went to the bathroom.

This part is all me. I'm not a big fan of fish, no matter how good for you they are supposed to be. It has to be the desert dweller coming out of me.

To my surprise, the man laughed, earsplitting in this small space. “Fair enough. You can call me Bert.”

This is a nod to Bert Lahr, who played the Lion on the classic movie version of The Wizard of Oz.

followed. Two steps into her small kitchen, I wished I hadn’t. A cold sweat broke out across my forehead at the stench of simmering carrots and stewed rabbit. I covered my face, but the smell had already burned into my nose and soured my throat.

I had terrible morning sickness while pregnant with both of my children. I had a hard time reliving it through Melissa's experience.

I’d barely made it out of town when the wind died suddenly. No birds chirped. No grasshoppers clogged my path. Not even a single stalk of wheat shuddered. That was always the first sign. Nature knew what was coming before we did.

Survivors of the Dust Bowl often recalled an eerie, almost other-worldly stillness before a duster struck, just like calm before a tornado. As with many other things, nature could sense the danger before people and gave warning signs, if folks were willing to listen.

In the silence after his departure, I lay on the floor, hands across my face, and sobbed, tasting blood as it mixed with tears on my lips.

This scene between Melissa and Henry was the most difficult of the entire novel to write. My heart broke for, not only the physical abuse she endured, but the emotional destruction the truth behind Henry's motives caused.

“I’m a photographer for the Farm Security Administration. Do you know what that is?” I nodded, even though I didn’t. “I take pictures. Or rather, I’m supposed to take pictures. Of the dusters and the people. Show everyone how the government is fixing it.”

Some of the most iconic Dust Bowl images we have today came from FSA photographers such as Dorothea Lange and Roy Stryker.

“There’s no amount of money in the world that can save the Plains. It’s over. No matter what Roosevelt thinks.”

This was a commonly held belief among many in Washington and beyond.

“You’re an Okie, aren’t you?” “What?” A glance. His back straightened. “You said us. ‘What about us?’ You’re one of them. An Okie.” That word. Spoken just like the outsider he was. “What’s it to you?” “Are you fleeing the drought?” Fleeing. That word was worse than Okie. It hit me like a punch in the gut. “I ain’t fleeing nothing.” He clicked his tongue and wagged one thick finger. “I shoulda known. A girl your age hopping a train by herself. You aren’t normal stock. I’ve been around enough Okies to know ’em when I see ’em. Either spitting fire as they march away with their tails tucked or else wasting taxpayer money, clinging to a land not fit to be clung to. Stubbornest darn people I ever met.”

Okie was actually a derogatory term for Dust Bowl migrants whom many saw as a drain on other states' resources.

“My pa done made the hard choice to leave. For Helen, for me.” I choked on the words. “But it was the right choice for now. The brave choice. It was his way of not quitting.” I gestured to Bert’s bag, swallowing the lump in my throat. “And those people in your pictures? They’re making the hard choice to stay.”

Such an important, maturing realization for Kathryn. In this life, we are all faced with difficult, almost impossible choices, and we won't all come to the same conclusions.

“The people here don’t understand you. The rest of the nation doesn’t understand you. Okies, I mean.” He tugged at his shirtsleeves. “They have no idea what it’s like. What you’re like. They just see a flood of people coming into their neighborhoods, begging for handouts they don’t have the money to give, a problem they don’t have time to fix.”

Again, not excusing bad behavior but at least shining a light on the rationale of the time. The entire country may not have been in the Dust Bowl, but they were all in a Depression, and charity was hard to come by when there was so little to sustain, let alone give.

Bert’s fingers flittered over his bag. “There’s a wire service here in town. Maybe I’ll go send in those pictures.” I dipped my head to the side. “Really?” He gave a sideways smile and gestured to the sky. Daylight was fading, the sun sinking behind the concrete hills. “It’s getting dark. Perhaps I can get people to notice the stars.”

I didn't necessarily like Bert, but I left his character open for redemption.

“Are you okay?” I shouldn’t have cared. But I did. Henry’s pen scratched against paper. He didn’t look up. I shifted in the squeaky wooden seat. My dress pinched my tender stomach, making me queasy. “I . . . I know what it’s like to lose a parent. I don’t think you ever really get over it. When I lost Ma—”

All through the book, Melissa doubts the strength of her faith, seeing only her insufficiency in the face of her mother's abundance. But this small gesture here speaks volumes. To offer love, compassion, and empathy to one who has shown us none may be seen as weakness in the eyes of the world. But we who are in Christ know it to be the ultimate form of strength--because it is one that does not and cannot come from ourselves.

I’d never liked Helen. I didn’t like how she looked at me, how she looked at my father. I didn’t like how she walked around our dugout, doing the things my mother should have done. And I certainly didn’t like how . . . Helen she’d tried to make everything in our lives. But now even those fake bonds between us were severed. She was no longer a Baile, if she’d ever really been one at all. She was just Helen Barrett. And I hated her. I hated her for what she’d done. Hated her for who she was. But most of all, I hated her for being the only person within a thousand miles who should have cared about me . . . but didn’t.

This may be perhaps the most telling moment of all for Kathryn. She was stubborn, difficult, and at times down-right awful. But all of it stemmed from a wounded soul just wanting to be loved and accepted. Anger is an easier emotion to feel than rejection.

“Good evening, Kathryn.” I jumped as a fire suddenly flared nearby. The orange glow rose and met the end of a cigarette, illuminating the silver hair of its smoker briefly before burning out and shrouding us both in darkness once again. The man at the door. It seemed like a million years ago. “I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up.” “I was tired.” The man laughed softly. “Yes, I imagine so.” He moved toward me, a dark shadow in an even darker twilight. Then came the rustling of his jacket and the sound of flesh against metal as he patted a bench I hadn’t realized was there. “Sit.”

His apperance is intentionally vague as a subtle nod to the mysterious nature of the Wizard in the Oz books.

“Mrs. Gale, no.” My heart broke under the weight of her compassion. “I can’t. I can’t have you involved.” She snorted, rubbing one hand across her brow. “Mrs. Mayfield, I’ve been involved from the moment you knocked on my door. Ain’t no turning back now.”

I love Annie so much in this moment.

“You done it wrong, but you done it with a right heart. And I think . . . I think I finally understand your book now.” “My book?” “The one you was reading to Mary Beth. About Dorothy. You read something about Oz being a good man but a bad wizard. And it didn’t make no sense. Till now.” She stared out the window again, speaking more to her reflection than me. “With this drought, these dusters, the world ain’t so black-and-white no more. It’s just all different shades of brown.” She turned. “And you . . . to the Henry Mayfields of the world, you may be a bad wife, but I think you’re a good woman.”

These are my favorite lines of the entire book.

“Got one of those brochures from the Resettlement Administration. They want us to leave. They’ll even give you money if you do. I’ve been saving up some of my own as best I could.

The Resettlement Administration was an agency created by Roosevelt's New Deal program. Its goal was to relocate families from struggling locations to communities planned by the federal government. Most of the migrant camps in California ( made famous by John Steinbeck's classic novel 'The Grapes of Wrath) were created and run by the RA.

I could only hope Kathryn would understand. Maybe she had grown up during these past few months and forgotten childish things like Oz. Or maybe, like me, she had clung to them as a last thread of home in a world that was meaner and scarier than either of us could ever have imagined. I had no way of knowing. But when she came back—if she came back—this book would be here for her. It was a risk. But I couldn’t leave the book with Henry; he would burn it the moment he discovered my escape. And it would be months before I could write to Kathryn, if ever. I had no way of knowing how long Henry would keep up the search. Maybe the book would give her hope, as it had done for me. That I was still out there. And that somehow, someway, just as Dorothy had traveled through Oz, never ceasing in her quest to return home, I would not give up until I found my way back to her.

In the original draft, Melissa outlines a section of the text describing the lush green landscape of Oz in hopes Kathryn would understand it as a veiled reference to California (which was being described in the same way in all the resettlement brochures).

I shrieked as something shattered the window behind me. I was too late. But instead of Henry, a large ball of ice rolled to a stop at my feet. Hail. From outside came what sounded like a thousand stampeding hooves. Mother Nature was in a foul mood, and she had released her full anger on Oklahoma.

This storm was based on weather reports from a severe hailstorm that actually did occur in Oklahoma in September 1935.

The reason my father hadn’t allowed me to have the surgery wasn’t because he didn’t love me. It was because he did. Because Ma had loved me. Because he had just lost her and couldn’t lose me, too. And because, if I’d had it, everything would have been different. Pa would have been different. Melissa would have been different. I would have been different. His choice had molded us, shaped us, defined us. If I’d had the surgery, who we were—and were supposed to be—might never have been.

Difficult choices are inevitable in life, and the consequences of those choices aren't restrained only to those who make them. Just like the millions of families who had to decide whether to stay or whether to go, the rationale-and ramifications-behind these choicces were complex--as was James Baile's decision not to subject his infant daughter to risky surgery.

“Goodbye, Helen.” “Goodbye, Kathryn.”

In the original draft, Kathryn's last meeting with Helen was a lot more spiteful and harsh. I ultimately decided it did not properly reflect her growth and changed it to the current scene. Kathryn's journey was just as much about learning to see truth in other people as it was discovering the truth about herself.

Because I was the sole surviving member . . . for now. The baby would come soon, and although she’d be half a Mayfield, I’d raise her as a Baile. Someday I would tell her about Henry. When she was ready.

In the original draft, Melissa lost the baby. But, in the end, that felt like too much of a blow after all the hardships she had endured. I wanted a somewhat more hopeful ending for her and for Kathryn.

“I was thinking that right over there might be a good spot for some grass. They say the government’s handing out seeds. We could grow a patch, maybe even plant some trees. Might be good for some livestock someday. Whatcha think?”

The government handed out free trees and grass seeds in an effort to reclaim and restore the Plains. Some farmers resisted but many were willing to try anything to end the Dust Bowl.

Much like us, this land was changed, scarred. No one would call it beautiful. It was barren, dry, cracking beneath a sun that refused to quit and clouds that refused to open. It was a violent place, prone to wrath and cruel to those who didn’t belong. But for those it called its own, there was peace. It was a peace that prevailed despite hardships, despite sorrow, despite uncertainty. A peace that encouraged us to hang on one more day, pray for one more night, and nurse the wounds of our greed, rather than abandon the land to its injuries. It was the peace of knowing that, whatever lay ahead, we were home. And we would never be alone.

It never ceases to amaze me that this is how God sees us, His creation. No matter how broken, sinful, and scarred we may be, He loves us. And, most importantly, He will never, ever leave us.