Emory's Gift

by W. Bruce Cameron

  I raised the big roll-up door to the pole barn and Emory watched it go up as if trying to figure out how it worked. “See, we have this big sink in here for water,” I said, showing the place off like a Realtor. In the back was a big couch, too big for the living room, still wrapped in plastic from the move. I attacked the plastic, pulling it off as eagerly as a child going after a Christmas present. “And if you ever got sleepy you could take a nap right here. And there’s food in the freezer.”

  Emory watched all of this with his inscrutable expression. I wondered if this meant he didn’t understand I was hoping he’d live in our barn.

  Because the air was so still I easily heard an unfamiliar car turn off onto Hidden Creek Road and start the climb toward our house.

  “Hey! Uh, I have to close the front door, okay?” Anyone driving past our house would be able to see right in the barn, where it would be pretty hard to miss a six-hundred-pound animal. I ran to the garagelike door and pulled it shut with a crash.

  The sunlight seeped in from the various gaps along the top edges of the walls like stars all lined up in single file, and there was a big square splash of light from the window in the top half of the exit door on the side of the pole barn, but even still, Emory’s dark shape seemed to disappear in the shadows for a minute. I listened for the car, thinking I’d feel a little better when it passed and I could open the door again.

  But the car didn’t pass. It pulled in our driveway, making a squeak as it stopped. I heard the driver’s door open and light footsteps hurrying to our front door.

  Yvonne? Probably. I wondered if she would come to the pole barn when no one answered the front door. That would be bad. I walked over to the side door and put my hand on the knob. “It’s my dad’s … it’s a friend of my dad’s,” I said to Emory. “I’d better go out there and see what she wants.”

  “Charlie!” a woman called. It did not sound like Yvonne.

  I opened the door, stepped outside, and firmly shut it behind me.

  I’ve often wondered what would have happened, how things would have been different, if I hadn’t shut that door.

  A woman I had never seen before was standing on our front deck. She was maybe my dad’s age, with black hair pulled back from her face and wrapped in a knot behind her head. She was peering through the window into our house, knocking on the door. She looked a little frantic.

  “Charlie, are you in there?” she shouted again.

  I wondered what kind of trouble I’d gotten into now. I approached the woman and she caught sight of me out of the corner of her eye. She jumped a little, putting a hand to her chest.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. She took a breath. “Are you Charlie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m Margaret Shelburton. Rod Shelburton’s wife? Your dad’s partner in bison?”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Charlie, there’s…” She pursed her lips together, as if she didn’t want to say what she’d come to say. She came off the front porch and down to the driveway, leaning over a little to look in my eyes. “Your father was in an accident.”

  “What?”

  “Something happened at the ranch and he fell off the fence. He had to go to the hospital. I came to get you.”

  All I could do was stare in dumb wonder. It simply wasn’t possible that my father was hurt; he couldn’t be hurt. He was the only thing I had to hold on to in life.

  “Why don’t we go inside and get some things. You can stay with us for a few days. Okay?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m okay here.”

  “Charlie.” Her eyes were soft and caring—mother’s eyes, the kind that can look right into a child and see what he needs. “It will be okay. Your father’s going to be fine.”

  That’s what they said about my mom at first. She was going to be “fine.” “Is he in a coma?” I asked tremulously.

  “Oh no, nothing like that. He might have to stay in the hospital for a few days, though, and if you come home with us we can take you to see him. Okay? Let’s go pack.”

  I certainly couldn’t tell her I had a quarter ton of live grizzly in our pole barn, so I wound up passively following her into my house and leading her to my bedroom. I was numb with denial. None of this could be happening. At her request I pulled out a suitcase and opened drawers, not objecting when she picked out clothing for me, not complaining when she touched my underwear. She told me to grab my toothbrush and as I did so I looked in the mirror and my face was blank.

  I hesitated getting in the car, looking back over my shoulder at the doors to the pole barn, firmly shut. But what could I say or do? I would have to figure out a way to get back up to the house later.

  When she caught me examining her in the car she gave me a reassuring smile. I was, oddly enough, thinking what a perfect match she made for Mr. Shelburton. She wore more makeup than the ladies around Selkirk River, but she dressed like a rancher’s wife, with a thick plaid shirt and cowboy boots. She didn’t have a Chicago gangster accent like her husband, yet there was something decidedly citified about her manner, a real sense that she was a transplant from a different world. It showed up in her manicured nails and the way the rings on her fingers flashed as she steered the car a bit too fast down the paved road into town.

  The hospital hit me with a wave of dread so powerful it was almost nauseating. I hadn’t considered what it would be like to turn up the driveway and into the visitors’ parking lot, didn’t give it any thought at all until I was there. This was where Mom died, curled up and shrunken down to the size of a small child.

  I don’t think I made a sound, but somehow Mrs. Shelburton knew what I was feeling. When we got out of the car she pulled me to her and hugged me. The tenderness in her embrace made my throat ache; I had to concentrate really hard on not letting any tears flow.

  “I’m so sorry. I know how hard this will be for you. But this time is different. Your father is going to be okay, Charlie.”

  We went inside. Same carpet, same smells, same background noises. A muddle of TV sounds was occasionally punctuated by what seemed to my ears to be someone calling for help or mercy. Sharp antiseptic chemicals mixed their odors with sour, unhealthy air.

  I loathed everything about the place. Everyone always acting so busy, industriously walking back and forth, none of it helping. Each patient room was a study in self-absorption, all attention focused on their insulated personal tragedies, none of them aware that Laura Hall lay dying of C.M.L. I deliberately picked a chair as far away from where I usually sat as I possibly could, though they were all beige chairs, uniformly stiff and uncomfortable. Mrs. Shelburton sat next to me and held my hand.

  Mr. Shelburton hurried in a few minutes later, and his wife and I both stood up. He was taking the cowboy thing pretty seriously, with dusty jeans, cowboy boots, a denim jacket, and even some kind of handkerchief tied around his neck, like the Boy Scouts.

  “Beth and Craig are with Mrs. Landers.” Mr. Shelburton looked pale and all the folksiness had gone out of his voice. I gathered that Beth and Craig were their children. He patted his pocket absently for cigarettes, then gave his wife an oh yeah, I quit smoking look.

  “What happened?” I asked him.

  “Your dad was up on a fence and a buffalo decided to ram it for no reason. I’m getting so I hate those things,” Mr. Shelburton told me. “He tumbled off and hit his head pretty bad.” Mrs. Shelburton gave him a stern look. “Oh, but he’s okay!” he said hurriedly.

  As it turned out, my dad had dislocated his shoulder and had a skull fracture. Neither would prove life threatening, but he’d been knocked unconscious and the doctors wanted him to hang around so they could make sure he was okay.

  He looked so weak in that hospital bed, a snakelike tube clinging to his nose so that he’d get extra oxygen, that I almost fell down. The strength just left my knees and I got really wobbly, but Mr. Shelburton grabbed my arm and propped me up.

  My dad said his head hurt and that he felt really woozy. Then
we stood around, not sure what to say next.

  With my mother, there was always something to talk about. We never had these dead moments of silence. Mom always made an effort to engage me in conversation and to try to make me feel better, even though she was the one with C.M.L. Left up to our own devices, my dad and I would probably have just stood there and gazed at her, like I was doing right then with him.

  Eventually the Shelburtons and I wound up feeling bored and then we felt guilty because we were supposed to be keeping my dad company. When he finally suggested to the Shelburtons that they should take me and head on out you could practically hear our relief. I shook hands with my dad and followed Mrs. Shelbuton out to her car.

  The Shelburtons’ house was sort of the opposite of ours. We lived high on a hill with a commanding view of the valley and could see distant mountains on the horizon. The Shelburtons lived right along the river, lushly surrounded by trees, the hills crowding around them. Their driveway had its own bridge over the stream, even. Where our house was two stories and felt even taller because of the way it was built into the slope, their home sprawled out just one story high, its shape following the bend in the stream in the backyard.

  There was a boat on a trailer next to their garage for weekend trips to Priest Lake. We didn’t have a boat. It had sort of gone the way of my horse. Another promise broken when my mom got sick.

  Mr. Shelburton said he’d go get the kids and drove off. The air in the home was filled with a warm, sweet cinnamon fragrance that turned out to be homemade snickerdoodles. Even though it was before dinner I was allowed to eat several on account of what had happened to my dad. Then Mrs. Shelburton showed me a bedroom, one of what looked like four or five, and had me put my stuff in there. She set out towels and a washcloth, as if she thought I might be anxious to wash my face.

  While she was doing all this, I felt a rising sense of alarm. How long did they think I was going to be staying here? I had to get back to Emory; I couldn’t just leave him in the pole barn. What do you say, though, to a woman who is being so kind, so motherly? No thank you, I have a bear to take care of?

  I heard car doors slamming and the sound of running feet heading my way. “Mom!” A boy of maybe eight barreled into the room and stopped, staring at me. This, I figured, was probably Craig.

  Mrs. Shelburton introduced us. “I’ve got a new mitt. We could play ball,” Craig said. I nodded—it would beat throwing G.I. Joes at each other.

  “And this is Beth,” Mrs. Shelburton said.

  My mouth dropped open in shock.

  chapter

  THIRTEEN

  A DARK-HAIRED girl was standing silently in the doorway, watching me with clear green eyes. Her features were petite: everything about her was small, her lips, her nose, her ears, even. She stood half a head shorter than I.

  What stunned me was how perfectly beautiful she was. I hadn’t really ever seen a girl with such an astoundingly pretty face.

  I put her in fifth grade, which made me, an eighth grader, something like an adult in comparison. It gave me the confidence to say “hi” to her without stuttering—if she’d been my age, my brain would have been flooded with distress signals and I probably wouldn’t have been able to squeak out a word.

  “Hello, Charlie,” she said. “What sort of music do you listen to?”

  I opened my mouth at the unexpected question, then closed it. Music hadn’t been much of a feature at my house the past couple of years. I couldn’t think of a single artist who was currently popular.

  “We were going to play ball,” Craig objected.

  I could see right away that my relationship to Craig would consist mostly of ignoring him. Beth raised her eyebrows, waiting for my answer.

  “Beatles,” I finally said, mentally pulling an album cover out of my dad’s collection.

  Beth’s green eyes flared brightly. “Yes,” she said. “I can’t stand Wings, though. Come on.”

  She vanished. Craig pouted at me as I hastened to follow.

  Beth led me down the hall to a room with a fireplace and a couple of couches. She went to a shelf and began pulling out records. “White Album or Abbey Road?”

  “Abbey Road,” I replied, ready to say, No, I meant White Album! if she frowned.

  Instead she smiled at me. Her teeth were absolutely perfect, white and straight in her mouth. “Yes. Also I love Sergeant Pepper’s. You do, too, if you love Abbey Road.”

  She put the album on, carefully lowering the needle and then sitting on a couch. She indicated with her hand that I should sit on the same couch, so I did.

  I was doing a mental calculation. Let’s say she was ten years old. The age gap was less for us than for Kay and me, which had been my most serious romantic relationship to date. In three years Beth would be the age I was now and I’d have a driver’s license and would therefore completely overwhelm any competition from boys in her grade.

  “You never say hi to me. Didn’t you know our dads were partners?”

  “I’m … now what?”

  She brought her feet up underneath her. Her pants were the plaid kind that were newly popular, wide up and down the length of her thin legs. “You didn’t know I was Rod Shelburton’s daughter?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. I suppose I forgive you, then, though you completely ignore me even when I’m looking right at you. Is your dad going to be okay?”

  “I guess he has a concussion. But when do I ignore…?”

  “In the hall.”

  “The hall,” I said stupidly.

  Beth gave me a considering look. “You really don’t remember seeing me before, do you.”

  “So you go to Benny H.?” I responded, stupefied. Our junior high was formally Benjamin Harrison Junior High School, named after the President who signed the law giving Idaho its statehood. Everyone called it Benny H. and felt cool doing so. It seemed impossible, though, that this little girl was a student there.

  “Do you think I go to Benny H.?” Her eyes were laughing at me. “How old do you think I am?”

  I supposed that this was what it was like to be drowning with nobody there from Junior Lifesaving to pull me out of the pool. I had no idea how I was supposed to answer this question and felt ridiculous and mocked.

  She decided to let me off the hook. “I’m a sevie.” She gave me another look at her pretty smile. “It’s horrible. It’s ludicrous. I feel like a little kid. The ninth graders are huge. You’re going to say hi to me in the hallway from now on though, right?”

  I nodded.

  “See, that’s how I’ll survive. I’ll feel like everyone hates me and then I’ll say, ‘Why, there’s that Charlie Hall and he’s saying hi to me, a big eighth grader.’” She slid off the couch. “Come on, Charlie; it’s such a beautiful night out there and we’re sitting inside. We can always listen to music.”

  Was that true? Always? I could always just show up at the Shelburtons’ house and sit in a room with Beth and listen to Beatle albums?

  Beth led me to the river, energetically chatting about gymnastics, and I followed passively.

  I think I managed to hold up my end of the conversation, though in retrospect most of what I had to say was communicated in one-word sentences. I said “yeah” a lot; I remember that. “Do you like gymnastics?” “Yeah.” “Does your dad have a CB radio?” “Yeah.” “Do you like living in Selkirk River?” “Yeah.”

  Especially now.

  When my mom was in the hospital it seemed like I never thought about anything else. I had trouble paying attention in class and usually only snapped back to reality when I realized everyone in the room was waiting for me to answer a question I hadn’t heard. Now, though, my dad was the furthest thing from my mind. I wasn’t even thinking about Emory, trapped in our barn back home. My entire focus was on the girl walking next to me.

  Beth was dainty and childlike on the outside and womanly and self-assured on the inside. She reminded me a little of Kay, whom I had been madly in love with when the
day started but who now seemed to be fading a little in priority.

  At dinner I tried not to stare at Beth and when I failed I caught Mrs. Shelburton grinning at Mr. Shelburton and Mr. Shelburton looking cluelessly back at her, trying to figure out what she was communicating. Craig prattled on about one of the Planet of the Apes movies, which I gathered he felt represented the most significant accomplishment in cinematic history, and I completely ignored him. Beth shot me an occasional look of amusement over something and I did my best to look clever in return. For dessert Mrs. Shelburton produced a raspberry pie, still warm from the oven. I took my first bite and couldn’t help moaning a little—my dad’s pies were rung up whole at the cash register by Yvonne and then kept frozen until he stuck them in the oven. They always smelled great but were usually dark on the outside and mushy on the inside. Mrs. Shelburton’s pie, on the other hand, felt as if it were handmade by the gods. The Shelburton family laughed at my reaction.

  After dinner I helped Beth with the dishes. Several times I accidentally bumped into her. She came away from these soft impacts with a small grin on her face. I grinned back so broadly my cheek muscles quivered with fatigue. Mrs. Shelburton took Mr. Shelburton aside and whispered something to him and as she did his eyes narrowed at me, making me feel guilty.

  It was Friday, so we stayed up and watched TV. It became evident why Craig was so excited about monkey-based entertainment—a new show called Planet of the Apes was on, though from the quality of the program it looked like the apes were not only the stars but also the writers. Mr. Shelburton sat in his chair with a newspaper that he snapped loudly in case we forgot he was there. The couch Beth and I sat on sort of sagged, pulling us down into the cushions with an irresistible gravity, and every time I readjusted myself I found I had moved closer to Beth and Mr. Shelburton would give his newspaper a workout. I couldn’t help it; everything seemed to be revolving around Beth and my orbit was rapidly decaying.