“Papa, where are you going?” Penny stepped into the hall, worry on her face.
He went to her, his boots creaking on the polished wood floor. The scent of baking bread wafted from the kitchen. Penny knew where he was going, and she knew why. “It’s Saturday,Liebchen.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, her mouth pinched tight. “It’s cold, Papa.”
Ephraim heard what his eldest daughter didn’t say.When are you going to give up on her?Ephraim brushed his calloused hand overher smooth cheek. His Penny was his no-nonsense girl, from her prim bun to her sensible shoes. But when would she understand that he would never give up? Someday Minnie would come back to them, and when she did, he’d be there to meet her. “I’ll keep warm enough.”
Penny turned away. “Dinner will be ready in an hour.”
He nodded, then tugged on his thick mittens and opened the front door to the smell of snow—a sharp, clean scent.Ja, the storm was coming.
He gave the hood of the Ford Model T an affectionate pat, as if it were a favorite horse. Yes, 1920 had been a good year. For Fords, for corn. They’d had a bumper crop and he’d bought his first automobile. Anna had been with him—full of life—Penny and Minnie still just girls. He’d had the world at his feet. Now, the Ford was a little rusty in spots, its joints creaky, its leather cracked. He cranked the old girl up until the engine sputtered. She still had plenty of life in her, ten years later. But 1930 hadn’t been a good year.
The bank had come down hard when he didn’t have the mortgage payment, and he couldn’t blame them, what with the tight corner everybody was in. In the end, Ephraim had put up the rest of his land and all the farm equipment in return for a short-term loan that would tide them over until harvest. If the rain had come last summer, they’d have made do. But the rain never came.
He drove the two miles into town and parked on the main street of Odessa. Through the frosted window of the barber shop, Old Bill raised one hand in greeting, the other guiding a straight-edged razor along the mayor’s loose jowls. Ephraim gave them a quick salute but didn’t slow.
A battered sign—Steak Dinner 30 Cents—blew in the gustingwind, knocking against the boarded-up restaurant that had once served the best pies in three counties. The picture house next to it had been Minnie’s favorite place. Now theFor Salesign hung crookedly, and the blank windows made him fancy it was waiting for Minnie to come back, too.
Irma Langer hurried along the sidewalk, clutching her coat close against the wind, but she stopped when they met a few paces before the bus depot door. “Storm is on the way, Ephraim.”
“Ja, Irma, gonna be a big one.”
Irma’s gaze went to the depot. Everybody knew everybody’s business in Odessa. That morning—ten months ago—when he’d woken to find Minnie’s bedroom empty, the news had spread through town. Now, it was common knowledge he came in every Wednesday and Saturday to meet the eastbound Great Northern, hoping this would be the day his daughter came home.
“Don’t let me keep you, Ephraim,” Irma said, her voice full of sympathy. She was a good-hearted soul.
“You stay warm, now.” He nodded back and pushed through the doors into the tiny one-room bus station. An oak bench held a bedraggled man with a cardboard valise at his feet and a worn-looking woman with a toddler clutched close to her side. Timetables and a yellowing map of the US were tacked on the opposite wall. Along the other wall, Gus sat behind a glass-topped counter, reading the newspaper and picking at his teeth.
“Afternoon, Gus,” Ephraim said.
“Eighteen inches,” Gus answered. “Eighteen inches of snow.” Anyone coming in the station to buy tickets, newspapers, or tobacco got Gus’s weather report for free, called out like bingo numbers at the church social.
Gus slid Ephraim a copy of thePierre Daily, tapping theheadlines about failing farms and bankrupt banks. “Pencil pushers telling us what we already know.”
Ephraim slid a nickel back. “Ja, it’s a shame.”
He and Penny were better off than some, truth be told. They had enough to eat. The potatoes and carrots, even some of the beans, had made it through the drought and the grasshoppers. The chickens were still laying and the cows giving milk. They had a roof over their heads and each other, like Anna used to say. Couldn’t ask for more.
Gus glanced at the black-and-white clockface, the main feature on the wall opposite the bench. “Shouldn’t be long now.” He went back to his paper, his face expressionless.
Ephraim made his way slowly to the bench and settled his creaking bones on the hard seat, smiling at the toddler. He and Penny would get by somehow. Minnie would come home someday, and when she did, he’d be waiting for her.
——————
The following Monday, Ephraim sat in a hard chair at National Bank of Pierre, Penny at his side twisting the strap of her handbag in her white-gloved hands. Behind him, at the marble counter, bank tellers spoke polite words to customers as they doled out bills and coins.
Ephraim couldn’t blame his problems on the young fellow in front of him. In all fairness, Robert A. Thomas wasn’t that young. Thirty, maybe. Tall and lanky, with a sharp nose and brown eyes that looked like they might have seen some hardship despite his pressed shirt and neat suit.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Zimmerman,” Mr. Thomas said, looking down at the papers on his desk, “but there’s nothing I can do.”
“You mean nothing youwilldo.” Penny’s voice was a bitter whisper. She glanced behind her as if she worried that someone she knew might overhear. “You don’t understand what this will do to us.”
Mr. Thomas didn’t fidget with his fountain pen or shuffle his papers like some bankers Ephraim had known. He didn’t hurry them along, anxious to get on to customers with money, or even seem put out by Penny’s outspokenness. That was something, at least.
“I do understand, Miss Zimmerman,” Mr. Thomas finally said, meeting Penny’s eyes and then Ephraim’s with a solemn glance. “And I’m sorrier than I can say.”
Ephraim figured it wasn’t the first foreclosure he’d handled. Maybe not even the first this morning.
