By Way of Accident

by Laura Miller

  “Now, you’ve gotta remember somethin’ else for me, son.”

  I nod again. “Okay, Grandpa.” My voice is shallow and broken; it sounds like somebody just punched me in the gut.

  He clears his throat and swallows before he goes on. “Just remember, the single most important thing in this world is love.”

  I’m so still I could probably pass as one of those wax dummies they make into famous people. I’ve never really heard my grandpa say that word before, much less tell me that it’s the secret to life.

  “You find it, you fight for it. Don’t be like all these other knuckle heads runnin’ around who think money or playin’ all your life is gonna make ya happy. Don’t be like your Uncle Joe.” He gives me a stern look. I just nod.

  “And don’t think the fight stops once you got her either. You’ve gotta fight for her every day. You hear me, son?”

  I swallow and nod.

  “Every day, act like you’re still tryin’ to get her to smile at you from behind the counter of her daddy’s store.” His eyes drift back to the night sky outside the window for a moment before returning to mine. “Act like you’re still tryin’ to get her gray eyes to turn your way down by that old creek.” He pauses, and my eyes grow wide as I suddenly sit up a little straighter. Is he talkin’ about Brooke?

  “You hear me, son?” he asks in his stern voice again.

  He’s gotta be talkin’ about Brooke. I always wondered what he knew.

  “Yes,” I say, nodding my head. “I hear ya, Grandpa.”

  “Now, son...” He shifts in the old chair. “Tell me about your unfinished business. Tell me about Brooke.”

  I’m a little caught off guard. I didn’t even know he remembered her name. And I’m not really accustomed to talkin’ to Grandpa—or anybody, for that matter—about anything more than work or the weather. And I sure as hell ain’t accustomed to talkin’ about a girl. I refit my cap over my head. “Well, what do you wanna know?”

  “Start from the beginning.”

  “The beginning?” I ask.

  “Son, I’ve got the time.”

  I slowly nod my head once. “O-kay.”

  I breathe in and then out, and then I start by tellin’ him about how I just wanted to cool off at the creek, how it was one of those hot June days over the summer when we were balin’ hay. I tell him how she just happened to be there—how her family was rentin’ Mrs. Catcher’s old place. And I tell him how she came back the next day and asked if she could bale hay. He chuckles softly when I mention that. And I laugh to myself too. Then I tell him how her daddy had to move her away from here and how we write letters back and forth. I tell him how she’s gonna move again soon and about my plans to go see her. He just nods his head. Usually that means he approves. I smile and keep goin’.

  And after I tell him everything I can about Brooke, I sigh happily and sit back in Grandma’s old chair. It feels kind of good to tell someone about her. I look over at Grandpa. He’s lookin’ out the window again. The blinds are pulled up, and the curtains are wide open, and all you can see is black and specks of white now. The white reminds me of somethin’. He seems to be in the talkin’ mood tonight, which might never happen again. So I figure it’s now or never.

  “Grandpa?”

  “Son?”

  I hesitate before I just decide to spit it out. “Why do you like Aquarius so much?”

  He glances at me and then quickly returns his stare to whatever he’s lookin’ at outside that window.

  “The Star of Hidden Things,” he recites.

  “The star of what?” I ask.

  “Near the top of Aquarius is The Star of Hidden Things.” He seems to smile a little bit—not with his mouth, but more so, with his eyes. “Makes me remember there are things we can’t see—memories we haven’t made yet.” His gaze never wavers from the window as he speaks. It’s like he’s thinking about somethin’ far off—or far back.

  A minute passes like this, and then he turns his eyes back on me. “Remember that, son. There are things you and I can’t see. But He’s always workin’, son. He’s always workin’.”

  I don’t know what he means. I don’t know who’s workin’ or what for or what I can’t see, but I nod just the same. Then I watch him go back to starin’ out that window again, at the black and the stars and the quiet. And I just do the same, and I think about Brooke and the freckles on her shoulders and the gray in her eyes and the way her words sounded like butter and flowed like honey. And I think about what Grandpa said—about love and about Aquarius and its star. And I wonder if Brooke is lookin’ up at the same sky. And I wonder if she’s thinkin’ about me. Nobody had to tell me to fight for Brooke. I don’t understand why grown-ups are always fightin’ for everything. Love seems pretty simple to me. It feels natural—easy. I love Brooke. She loves me. I would never give up on her. No matter how far her daddy might take her away from me, I’d still find a way to get to her. But what I hadn’t considered, I guess, was that there was a chance she could give up on me. And I didn’t know it at the time that Grandpa and I were sittin’ there together, but I was about to get a hard dose of reality. I was about to find out what all the fightin’ was for.

  Chapter Twelve

  There Is No Brooke Here

  I haven’t heard from Brooke in a little more than a month. She has to be in her new place by now, and I’m guessin’ she just hasn’t had time to write or her last letter got lost in the mail or somethin’. I only have her return address but maybe they’ll forward it to wherever she went. I have to try.

  I stick the letter into the envelope and scribble her last address onto its front. Then I send up a little prayer that it gets to her. Grandma always used to say that all prayers are answered. I hope she’s right. Next, I jot down my address in the top left corner and fish for a stamp in my mom’s purse before I shoot out the door and off to the mailbox.

  A few minutes later, I’m closin’ the lid with the envelope inside. But I keep my fingers on the mailbox’s metal handle. I’m puttin’ a lot of trust into this whole mail system. I tap the handle a couple more times and then step back and stare at the metal box. She would have written as soon as she got there. I know she would have. I let a weighted breath fall from my lips; it feels like it was sittin’ in my lungs for way too long. And I think of all the reasons why her letter wouldn’t be here, and then I remember somethin’. In one of the letters she sent me when she first moved to Illinois she gave me her phone number. My body stiffens right before I tell it to run. And I run back up the driveway and into the house. I sprint up the stairs to my parents’ bedroom and close the door. There’s a phone on their nightstand, and neither of them would know I was usin’ it until they got the bill, of course. Then I would hear about it, but I would have to worry about that then.

  I punch in the numbers I memorized the same day I got the letter. The number was for emergencies. I think this counts.

  I press the last digit and put the phone to my ear. There’s a slight pause, and then the first ring comes as loud as a giant damn bullfrog. I jerk the receiver away from my ear a little as the second ring comes just as loud. After three, I hear someone pick up the phone, and I hold my breath. Maybe it’s Brooke.

  “Hello.” Somebody with a gruff voice answers on the other end. I try, but I can’t put a face to the voice.

  “Uh, hi, is Brooke there?”

  “Brooke?”

  I nod my head at the deep, grumpy voice that makes him sound as if he’d rather pull his own arms off than talk to me.

  “Hello?” he says.

  “Y-yes,” I stammer. “Brooke.”

  “There is no Brooke here,” the man growls.

  “Okay,” I say, as I gnaw on my bottom lip. “Sorry to bother you.”

  “Okay, bye then.”

  “No, wait.”

  I listen as his breaths return to the phone.

  “Do you know where she went?” I ask.

  “Where she went?”

  �
��Yeah,” I say. “She used to live there.”

  “Oh.” There’s a pause. “Sorry, I don’t know the people who used to live here.”

  “Oh,” I say, disappointed. “Okay. Thanks anyway.”

  I hang up the phone and fall into my parents’ bed. I think it’s just hittin’ me now that I have no address, no phone number, no way of reachin’ her. It’s as if she’s just disappeared—or as if she were never there in the first place.

  So, I guess this is the fight Grandpa warned me about. I sit up straight and grab my imaginary armor. It’s time for battle.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I’m Not Ready Yet

  “Grandpa.” I make my way to his room in the back of the house. He hangs out in there most of the time now. Mom has been stayin’ by his side pretty much day and night for a week now. He had another “scare,” as my mom puts it, last week and was in the hospital for a few days. Dad says he’s on borrowed time now. But I don’t know. Grandpa never liked to borrow anything from anyone. And anyway, I try not to think about it. I can’t imagine a world without him, so I don’t even try to. And anyway, we still have things to do around the farm. We had been talkin’ about fixin’ some fence a while back—back before he got sick. I think deep down somewhere I’m still just waitin’ for him to get better so we can go do that.

  “Grandpa, you up causin’ trouble yet?”

  I stop a few feet inside his room. His eyes are closed.

  “Grandpa?” I whisper.

  I walk over to his bed and sit down on the chair that’s been next to his side for the past week. I know Mom’s always tellin’ me to let him sleep, but I’ve gotta ask him a question about Brooke. And I’ve got to ask him fast before Mom comes waltzin’ back in here, catches me botherin’ him and shoos me away.

  “Grandpa,” I whisper again. And this time I rest my hand on his arm.

  He doesn’t move. I take my hand back and study his face and then his chest, and then I know somethin’s wrong.

  “Mom,” I yell. I get up and run into the kitchen. “Mom, somethin’s wrong with Grandpa.”

  Mom takes one look at me and then drops the towel she’s holdin’ before runnin’ past me. I follow her but stay back at the door. I’m terrified of what she’s gonna say. I watch her try to wake Grandpa. I watch her check his pulse. Then I watch her head fall and rest on his chest, and I know. I feel tears start to burn my eyes. I don’t know what life is like without Grandpa, and I’m not ready yet—I’m not ready to find out.

  ***

  Grandpa passed away on a Tuesday afternoon. It was sunny—not a cloud in the sky. It was just a normal day—until it wasn’t. And he went out just about the same way he lived—quietly. I cried my eyes out that day and several days after that too. Somehow, cryin’ didn’t seem all that weak anymore; it just felt right. And by the time the funeral came, I was all out of tears. And then the day after the funeral was the first day I smiled thinkin’ about him. I just so happened to catch a glimpse of his damn leather cap sittin’ on my desk, and it made me think of him and Grandma. I really hope he looked good enough for her, though somethin’ tells me she’d be happy to see his stubborn self with or without the cap.

  It’s funny, but I think I learned more about Grandpa in the last days of his life than I did in all the years before that. In fact, if you put all the words he said to me in my thirteen years together, it still wouldn’t add up to how much he said to me in those last days. He was always a quiet man, but I always knew he wasn’t short on thoughts. And I might not have understood everything he said to me in those last days, but I could tell he believed every word of it. So I vowed to myself that I wasn’t gonna forget what he told me about Grandma and Aquarius and love. And even though I never got the chance to ask him if I should marry Brooke some day, I’m pretty sure I already know what he would have said anyway. So, I’m gonna hold onto that too.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I’ll Take Care of the Farm

  “River, son, your mom and I have decided to sell the farm.”

  It’s a Thursday afternoon. The sun is shining. There’s not a cloud in the sky. It’s about like the day Grandpa passed away, except it’s cold outside, but you wouldn’t know that by just lookin’ out the window.

  “What?” I blurt it out without even thinkin’. I never would have thought that I’d care about those words—sell the farm—so much. The farm always meant hard work, and I wasn’t ever really keen on hard work necessarily, but for some reason, now, I can’t imagine it any other way. And now, suddenly, the farm means Grandpa and quiet mornin’s—before the sun rises and the world gets up—and long evenings when we’d sit on the porch drinkin’ root beer and spittin’ out watermelon seeds.

  “Now, son, I know you grew up here, and you’ve got a lot of memories here, but your mom and I can’t work two jobs and keep up the farm. Your grandpa did a pretty good job of it...”

  He stops there. Dad misses Grandpa—just like I do, but he’ll never say it out loud. Instead, he closes his eyes and clears his throat.

  “I’ll do it,” I say.

  My dad looks at me.

  “I’ll take care of the farm,” I say.

  He flashes me a small, sad smile. “You’ve got school and baseball, and anyway, son, you’ve got to focus on makin’ a life for yourself. This farm is not your life, son.”

  My eyes lower to the floor. There’s a little part of me that knows my dad’s right. I could never keep this farm up like my grandpa did. I never had the heart for it like he did. In the end, I hate to admit it, but I think he was right; I was never cut out for farm work.

  “Where are we goin’?” I think I resign to the fact we’re leavin’.

  My dad takes a long breath and then pushes it out. “Your mom and I have been looking at some places right outside of town—nice places, where you’ll still have a yard to practice your pitching and where you’ll still have at least a little pond to go fishin’ in.”

  I think about it—long and hard. I still don’t like the idea, but it sounds as if Dad’s hell-bent on it, and I guess it really doesn’t sound all that bad. I did always want to try somethin’ new—a new adventure. And at least now, I’ll have somethin’ else in common with Brooke. But I still hate that we have to leave. I know these valleys and hills up and down—so much so that I feel as if they’re mine. I can’t imagine someone else walkin’ these fields or swimmin’ in this creek.

  “What about the cows...and Ace?” I ask.

  “We’ll keep Ace and take him along with us. But the cows will go to a different farm.”

  I gnaw on my bottom lip and chew on the idea in my head for a little while, until my eyes happen to catch on the old coon dog lyin’ in the corner. At least we get to keep Ace.

  “It’ll be all right, son. You’ll see,” my dad says, standin’ and pattin’ me on the shoulder.

  I nod my head because I know I really don’t have a choice in the matter. I’ll have to make the best of it regardless. I just wish Brooke were here. At least, she’d make me smile.

  Dad takes a few steps away from me.

  “Dad,” I say, stopping him.

  He turns back toward me.

  “What about Brooke?”

  He keeps his stare on me. I can tell he doesn’t know what I mean. He doesn’t know the whole story about Brooke—not like Grandpa did. He knows I write her letters though. “How will she find me?”

  “Oh.” He seems to understand a little more now. “They’ll forward our mail, so anything she sends will get to us.”

  I breathe in as deeply as my lungs will let me, and then I slowly force it out. “Okay,” I whisper.

  My dad leaves the room, and I just sit there. I’m gonna miss this place. And believe it or not, I’m gonna miss this darn farm. I hated all the work that went into it most of the time, but lookin’ back, I guess it wasn’t all bad. And anyway, if I hadn’t been balin’ hay that day, I might never have met Brooke. I sit back in my chair. All of a sudden, my heart feels
heavy, which is strange because it also feels as if there’s a hollow hole in my chest—a hole where Grandpa and Brooke and home should be. I miss him, and I miss Brooke, and I already miss the very first place I laid eyes on her. I feel as if I’m in the middle of my own nightmare. But I think about the story Grandpa told me about Grandma. And I think about how he told me to fight for Brooke. And while I can’t do anything about Grandpa or this farm, I can still do somethin’ about her. I don’t know where she is or if she’s written, but I’m gonna keep fightin’ anyway because Grandpa told me his secret to life, and he told me it’s worth fightin’ for. So damn it, I’m gonna fight. I’m gonna fight for her. I’m gonna fight for Brooke.

  Chapter Fifteen

  You Check the Mail?

  “What’s it like—livin’ so close to town?” Tim asks.

  It’s evening, and we’re sittin’ by the edge of the pond on our new place. Tim’s diggin’ a hole in the dirt with a stick. I’m convinced if he keeps diggin’, we’ll have two ponds back here by mornin’.

  I shrug my shoulders. “It ain’t so bad.”

  “You ready to start high school then?” he asks.

  I shrug again. “What do I gotta do to be ready?”

  “I don’t know. Uncle Joe says you’ve gotta kiss a girl before high school or they’ll stuff you in a locker.”

  I laugh. Then I think of Brooke, and my laughter fades to a smile. I notice quick that I’m smilin’ like a damn lovesick fool, and I do my best to hide it before Tim sees it.

  “And they’ll leave you in there for hours,” he goes on. “And Uncle Joe says if you make a noise, they’ll stuff a rotten egg in there with ya.”

  “That ain’t true,” I say, laughin’. “And Tim...”

  “What?” He stops diggin’ in the dirt and looks at me.