Dana's Valley

by Janette Oke

  Meg came and went with regularity. Corey and I got quite used to her. Grandma came a couple of times too, but it wasn’t always easy to make the necessary plans ahead of time.

  In a weird kind of way, it became almost routine at our house to live with interruptions. I think we got used to it, and we assumed that whatever plans were made were sure to be rearranged in some fashion. Or discarded entirely. It got so it was pretty hard to schedule anything at all. You just knew they wouldn’t work out. Graham was always so understanding whenever I had to call and cancel an outing with the youth group at the last minute. It made me realize what a special person he was. Our first date—if you could call it that—had been over a year before. Mom and Dad didn’t really view it as dating, since we always went with the church group or with one family or another. But for me, in a teenage way, I thought of Graham as my special friend. My “steady.” In fact, Graham was about the only truly steady thing in my life.

  But even though I was used to the chaos, I was not prepared for Dad’s next announcement to the family. He had gathered us together on one of those rare occasions when we were all home at the same time—all except Dana, who was still in the hospital.

  I noticed again how weary he looked. But there was something else. His shoulders sort of sagged, and his eyes had a troubled look. He reminded me of our team after we’d just lost an important game. That defeated look. I was sure it was going to be more bad news about Dana.

  But after looking over at Mom as though to gain some strength from her support, he let his eyes travel over us one by one, then took a deep breath. “Your mom and I have been doing a lot of thinking—and praying—and we’ve finally decided what will be best for us all is to …” He hesitated for a moment. I think that it was hard for him to continue. “ … to sell the house.”

  I was totally confused. What did he mean? What house?

  “We really don’t need a place this big,” he went on. “Grandma isn’t with us anymore, and Brett is on his own. So this house is really more than we need.”

  Corey caught on first. “You mean this house?” he burst out. Dad nodded.

  “But we can’t. All my stuff is here. ”

  “We’ll move your stuff.”

  “Not my tree. Or the fort. And Max likes it here.”

  “We all like it here,” put in Mom. Her voice sounded weak.

  “Then why are we gonna move?”

  I think Corey expressed the feelings of all of us. Dad ran his fingers through his hair and looked over at Mom.

  “It’s not that we don’t like it here,” he said. “But this place is more than we need now, and the monthly payments …” He paused, then must have decided on another approach. “There have been a lot of extra expenses with Dana’s illness. We’re getting deeper and deeper into debt. Selling the house is one way we could ease some of our monthly bills. We could find a nice smaller house in a good neighborhood and—”

  “But I still couldn’t move my tree.” Corey seemed to be the only one able to respond.

  “No,” Dad agreed. “You couldn’t move your tree. It’s too big now. But you might be able to plant a new one. Watch it grow.”

  Corey didn’t look convinced. In the meantime, my thoughts were swirling one way and another. I had a tree too, though I certainly wasn’t as attached as Corey. It would be far tougher for me to leave Dana’s little weeping willow or Corey’s mountain ash. Though it would certainly be a relief to leave behind all the reminders of Dana’s illness and crisis moments. But I did like it here. It was home. It had been home now for almost three years. I liked the space. The view. The feeling of having room to grow. I’d hate to lose this house. I’d really hate it.

  Brett sat and said nothing. He didn’t even look up. I didn’t suppose he’d care much one way or the other because he had his little apartment in town. I felt a bit peeved that he wasn’t willing to fight for the rest of us. Wasn’t that what big brothers were for?

  To my surprise he did speak up. “What if I moved back home and helped with the house payments?”

  I was as surprised as Dad looked. Independence had been Brett’s chief goal for a very long time. But after the initial shock, Dad shook his head slowly. “I appreciate that, Brett. More than I can say … but no. Even that wouldn’t be enough. With what we have invested here, we hope to be able to purchase another house outright so we won’t have a monthly house payment to worry about. It’s very important that we not put our home in jeopardy with a second mortgage. With a house paid for, we can start to work on some of the other bills. See if we can get them whittled down.”

  I hadn’t realized that our finances were so bad. That there were so many bills to pay.

  “We’re sorry to have to ask you to … to give up your home,” Dad went on. “But if we don’t make a move—work it out voluntarily—we might be forced to sell eventually. Then … we’d have no control.”

  I felt sick inside.

  “When?” It was the first word I’d uttered.

  “Well … we expect to talk to a Realtor soon. The home could go up for sale by the end of the week.”

  “Max won’t like it,” Corey insisted, but his tone indicated that he’d given up his fight.

  Brett said nothing. Just sat there leaning forward, his elbows on his knees and his fists tucked under his chin. His eyes looked dark. Brooding. I wondered what he was thinking. For the first time in many months I felt sorry for Brett. Really sorry. I wished there were some way I could reach out to him. I could see that he was in as much pain as the rest of us.

  “When do we hafta move?” This question from Corey.

  “That’s hard to say. Sometimes a house sells quickly. Sometimes it takes a very long time. Sometimes—on rare occasion—it doesn’t sell at all.”

  I saw a glimmer of hope lighten Corey’s eyes.

  “But we are hoping—praying—that this one will sell quickly,” Dad explained. “We really do need the money.”

  I shrugged and fidgeted to let my folks know as far as I was concerned the meeting was adjourned. There was nothing we could do about it anyway. But Dad straightened in his chair, looked around the room, and cleared his throat. I knew even before he said it that he was going to suggest we have prayer together. When I bowed my head I clenched my jaw. Why in the world do we always go through this familiar ritual? I wondered. It never seems to do us any good.

  On Friday morning a man in a bright jacket pounded a sign into the lawn at the end of our drive. Corey said the jacket was yellow, but I thought it was more of a gold color. But the jacket wasn’t what really drew our attention. The sign did. It said our home was for sale.

  I thought about it all day at school. I guess I expected to arrive home that afternoon and find packed boxes sitting throughout the house. Or maybe empty rooms with the furniture all gone. But when I walked into the kitchen, nothing had changed. I felt momentary relief. Maybe the house wouldn’t sell.

  But the sign did not go away. And on the next Monday when I came home from school, I was informed that the real estate agent was bringing someone to look at the house after dinner. Would I please check to make sure my room was presentable?

  From then on my room always had to be presentable. Possible buyers tramped through our house on a regular basis. I didn’t want to be there. I hated to see them come and go and exclaim about this or explain how they would change that. One woman even said Corey’s tree was too close. She’d have it removed. Removed. Without any idea of what the tree was all about, how special it was to all of us.

  So I stayed away as much as I could. Mom was often away too. I don’t know if she orchestrated it that way or if she really was needed at Dana’s hospital. Corey and I, with the help of Meg, managed to keep the house reasonably ready for these intruders. Dad came and went—looking wearier than ever.

  During the time people were looking at our house, Mom and Dad were busy looking at other people’s houses. It seemed to be a long process without much headway. I wondered if t
here were really so few house possibilities out there, or if it was just hard to pick one of them after having designed a house for our family and lived in it so long.

  At any rate, my parents usually came home discouraged. Then one day they looked a bit more hopeful. They had found one with promise. I wasn’t too sure what that meant and was hesitant when they wanted to take Corey and me to see it.

  I didn’t like it. But then I hadn’t expected to.

  It was a small ranch, pushed up almost to the sidewalk, with dark gray walls and ugly green shutters. The roof came sloping down until you felt you’d need to duck to enter the door. That wasn’t the case, of course. It just made you feel that way.

  Inside it wasn’t much better. Mom walked me through, exclaiming how this could be changed and that could be opened up to let in more light and the bathroom could be enlarged by robbing from the bedroom closet. After where we’d lived, this was not a pleasant house. But I didn’t say so. Mom and Dad had suffered enough without my adding to it. I nodded. Even tried to smile. But all the time I was still wishing our home wouldn’t sell. That we could stay right where we were. I fervently hoped that Corey was faithfully doing his praying. This was one change in our life we didn’t need.

  If we did have to move, at least I wouldn’t need to be there for long. Like Brett, I’d get my own place. Once I was eighteen I could legally be on my own. Come summer I’d be fifteen and have my driver’s permit. Though it did me little good with neither parent available to accompany me on practice sessions.

  I was beginning to hope our house really wouldn’t sell. I answered the door one night, and there stood the man in the gold jacket. He grinned and extended his hand. I wasn’t used to shaking hands with adults—except at church. It made me feel funny.

  “Your folks in?” he asked. His voice sounded a bit too cheery. I wasn’t used to that either, at least lately.

  “My father is.”

  “May I see him? I’ve got some good news.”

  Even as I nodded, I had a sinking feeling. I was sure that what this man would consider good news wouldn’t be good news to me. Or Brett. And especially not to Corey. I silently hoped the buyer was not the woman who was going to rip out Corey’s tree.

  I nodded again and stepped back so the man could come in. Dad was in his office. I went to get him, leaving the man standing in the entry, his jacket looking very yellow in the light of the hallway.

  “The Realtor wants to see you,” I said to Dad as I poked my head in the door. Then I went on to my room. Later I would look Corey up and maybe read to him for a while. Right now I needed a bit of time alone.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It’s one thing to pack for a move when you’re excited about a new home. It is another matter entirely when nobody wants to leave. This was the case with us. Mom worked for days systematically emptying closets and cupboards and labeling packing boxes. She was getting close to completing the task when the cancer center called again. Dana had taken another bad turn. Mom tossed a suitcase in the car and left, her expression grim, her eyes weary, and her shoulders bent. That left us to finish the last of the packing and make the move.

  A sense of mourning fell over our house as we gathered together the last of our belongings and stuffed them into boxes to be whisked out the door and into the borrowed truck. Our nearest neighbor, Rayna’s father, had graciously offered his vehicle, and Dad was glad we wouldn’t have to rent a moving van. But the modest-sized truck required many trips and certainly made the whole procedure drag out.

  The furniture went last, spread over the course of three days. Brett, Travis, and Graham did much of the heavy lifting and transporting. Dad’s time was used up between trips to the center and the job that he was doggedly trying to fit in. Travis had completed his first year of college but hadn’t started his summer job yet. I think he enjoyed being back with Brett again. As they worked together, Travis was telling Brett stories about his classes and the dorm life. I think, in his own way, he was hoping to convince Brett that college wasn’t so bad. He knew Dad and Mom were both really disappointed when Brett had decided to continue his job with UPS instead of leaving for college after graduating from high school.

  The guys huffed and struggled with the heavier pieces, but little by little our spacious home was emptied of its contents. I hated the feel of the stark rooms. It made me feel empty inside too. What an awful way to begin a new summer, I mourned inwardly.

  Graham was the one who drove Corey and me away from our home for the last time. Graham reached for my hand as I struggled not to cry. Then Corey crawled up from the backseat to sit between us in the front and I cuddled him close. We didn’t look back. It was far too painful.

  The new house was a jumble of furniture and boxes. Brett had tried to decide where Mom would want things to be placed, but he had very little knack for it. We rearranged as many of the furnishings as Graham and I could manage and then tried to stack boxes so they would be out of the way before he needed to leave for home. The church had offered to send a group of men to help with the moving, but with only one truck, it had not seemed reasonable.

  Now I surveyed the disaster area that we were to call home and dragged myself off to the kitchen to begin placing dishes into cupboards. It was a time-consuming task. I was pretty sure Mom would have done a good deal more cleaning first, but I was too tired to care.

  It took me another full day before I had unpacked almost all the kitchen things—leaving in boxes what wouldn’t fit inside the cupboards. Then during the next day I arranged the bedrooms as best I could, and Dad found time to set up the washer and dryer. We worked together late into the night on the rest of the house. It had begun to take shape, but we worried that Mom would feel compelled to pick up where we’d left off the minute she got home. We both knew what she needed—rest. So we hid as many of the remaining boxes in the basement as we could manage.

  When she finally was able to come home and see how we were doing, she seemed greatly relieved. I don’t think she had expected us to have accomplished so much of the moving in and arranging.

  “Oh, Erin. It’s very nice. I like the sofa there, and you’ve even hung some pictures. Thank you.” She reached to hug me close. “Thank you so much. I know it must have taken a lot of time and work.”

  I thought about asking how Dana was doing, but I decided against it. Mom would let me know when she was ready to talk about it. For now I just followed her to the kitchen while she took her first look around. She exclaimed over the cupboards as she opened each one.

  Later Graham and I drove to the corner store to pick up a few groceries. He seemed to welcome the opportunity for us to be alone to talk. As much as I enjoyed his company, I felt just a bit awkward during moments like these when he tried to coax my inner thoughts from me. I knew our closeness was crippled by my disillusionment about God. Graham was a good friend—a best friend—and I was sure he hoped we could come to mean even more to each other. But I had presented such a false picture of myself to him. He was the pastor’s son. And more than that, I knew he really believed that God was God. I wondered if he’d even look at me if he actually knew my heart.

  Dad did his best to make our new place seem like home. I think he was particularly concerned for Corey, who was still mourning the loss of his mountain ash. “It was just getting big enough to make berries to feed the birds,” Corey had lamented as he’d told it a tearful good-bye.

  As soon as we were functional in the new house, Dad proposed that he and Corey make a trip to the nursery. I had no idea where they’d put trees. The small backyard was crowded as it was. But Corey fairly danced through the kitchen where I was trying to heat some spaghetti for lunch.

  “We’re gonna get some more trees. They’ll grow up fast.” I wondered if the last statement was his attempt to console me.

  But Dad checked his enthusiasm. “Just one,” he said. “Only one.”

  Corey spun on his heel and looked at Dad, his eyes wide.

  “There’s
only room for one.” Dad was quite firm about it.

  I could tell by Corey’s face that he was dreadfully disappointed. His chin dropped and his eyes looked so sad. Then he swallowed and nodded.

  We ate our lunch in relative silence. Then Dad and Corey left and I cleaned up. When they returned, a small spruce tree rode in the back of the van.

  “Have you decided where you want to put it?” I heard Dad ask as he wrestled the tree through the van’s back door.

  Corey had no hesitation. He ran on ahead and stood firmly on the spot he had chosen. He must have already given it careful thought.

  “Right here.”

  Dad rested the tree on the ground. A frown creased his forehead. “You can’t see the tree out of your window from there.”

  “I know.”

  “I thought you wanted to be able to watch it. You said you picked the spruce because the robins like the branches to build in.”

  “I know,” said Corey. “They do. I watched them build in Brett’s tree at our other house.”

  “But you don’t want to watch them build here at this house?” Dad seemed puzzled.

  It took a moment for Corey to answer.

  “It’s for Dana,” he finally said. “She can lay right in her bed and watch the robins.”

  I turned away. I didn’t want to cry, but the tears were already stinging my eyes. Maybe Dad was bothered by tears too. It was a few moments before I heard the shovel start digging the hole for the new tree.

  Mom called every night with a summary of the day. But the news about Dana continued to worsen. Things had come to the point where she asked us to keep the pastor updated. I wasn’t quite sure why she wanted him to be the first to know. It probably had something to do with the prayer thing again. It seemed to give her comfort to know that our pastor was aware of the situation on a daily basis. When Dad was home, he was the one to make the call. But often, Dad was with Mom and Dana, so I was forced to pass along the information. I hated the job.