Burning in the Heartland

Helen limped down Main Street clutching a tin lunch pail. The walk from her dad's house to Mabel's Penny Store was four blocks, but the pregnancy made her ankles swell. Iowa's hot August weather, heavy with humidity, made matters worse. Folded white socks hid fat ankles but the leather saddle shoes were unforgiving and left deep, red grooves that itched at night. Pretty soon, she'd told her dad, Helen would need to work in his slippers.

"Over my dead body," he'd said, smoking a pipe in the dining room. He shut the Home Workshop Manual he was reading and let it clatter onto the walnut table. The table was a wedding gift 25 years earlier for his bride only because his neighbor needed someone to take the tree and dispose of it. He had only just started at B & A Lumber back then, but they lent him the equipment to fell the tree and haul it to his workshop across town where he spent the last weeks leading up to their nuptials bent over large slabs of dark wood, smoothing edges and planing wooden curlicues—as delicate looking as if they were made from chocolate shavings. Like they'd melt at the slightest touch of a warm finger.

He pointed his pipe toward the door. "You got yourself into this mess. You get yourself out."

Main Street was empty except for store owners sweeping the sidewalks, getting ready to unlock their doors. Helen basked in the shade of the overhang to catch her breath before opening the heavy wooden door that jangled the bell. Mabel's Penny Store had the largest store front in Rolling Rock, population 650. Helen considered herself lucky to have a job right after high school, and her father depended on her paycheck even more after Helen's mother died suddenly from a brain aneurysm a little over a year ago. Shortly after her mother passed away, Helen found out she was pregnant and married Wayne in late November during a rushed ceremony with cake and punch in the church basement. She had quit her job the very next day.

The newly-married couple moved in with Wayne's family until they could find a place of their own, but a few weeks later, Pearl Harbor was bombed. Wayne enlisted, citing it his duty, and was now overseas somewhere, machining metal. He would miss the birth of his child. It took some convincing, but Mabel did hire Helen back, and Helen moved back in with her father and brother.

"Morning," Helen called. She slid her lunch pail behind the counter and sat on the stool Mabel had brought up for her to rest while she managed the register.

"Morning," Mabel emerged from the back and handed her a stack of handkerchiefs to set out in the window display. "Traffic heavy?" she asked.

Helen heaved herself up and limped over to the window. "Awful," she said, playing into the joke. She saw three cars, and Rolling Rock only had four stop signs in the whole town. At least they didn't have horses and buggies anymore, Helen thought, or she'd have to watch out for horse manure each morning. She had ruined a pair of shoelaces once after the Fourth of July parade because the street cleaner let the horse droppings sit for a day. The manure wouldn't wash out no matter how much elbow grease, castile soap, and Ajax she used.

"New treatment?" Helen asked, referring to Mabel's hair.

Ever since they were little girls, Mabel always had the most recent hair styles and visited Miss Cora's Salon whenever she fancied because it was right next to her father's store. Mabel's father would do anything for his only daughter—even change the name of his family store upon her birth. From G.H. Pullman's General Store to Mabel's Penny Store. He argued it was strictly a business decision to drum up new customers and draw in out-of-towners. But everyone knew it was because of her.

"Oh, yes," Mabel touched her hair and looked out the window. Mr. Jacobs held the door open for Mrs. Harold Hansen to walk into the bank. Little Johnnie Johnson raced by on his bike, cutoff jeans shorts, no shirt, and a raccoon tail hat. The summer sun had already risen to 'It's too hot out for that.'