“Well, I see glimpses every spring when the earth renews itself. And sometimes I see glimpses in a worship service when I’m singing about Jesus and all of a sudden I feel like I’m right there in His arms. And sometimes I see glimpses at dawn after a snowfall, before the plows come through, before the sunlight touches the new snow and only the dying moonlight is falling on it. I see it all the time.”
I looked away toward the heavy sky. “But those things all seem like, like, earthly things to me,” I said quietly.
“Yes, I suppose they are. I guess it’s like the beauty I can see here on earth is a taste of what’s to come. It’s not the real thing, but it makes me think of the real thing. It makes me long for the real thing. And I think that’s what we’re meant to do. We were created to long for heaven.”
“Not the real thing…” I was trying to fully understand what my father was saying.
“But like it. It reminds you of it,” Dad said, leaning forward. “Like—like right now, if you went into the house, what would you smell?”
“What would I smell?”
“Yes. What would you smell?”
“Well, I guess I would smell the turkey, the stuffing, the pumpkin pies. All the food Mom’s making for Thanksgiving.”
“And will you eat the smell?”
“Well, no—I’m not going to eat the smell.”
“No, you’ll eat the real thing when Mom calls us to the table,” Dad said. “Until she does, the smell will be wonderful. Intoxicating, almost. It’ll make us want her to call us to the table. But the smell is not the real thing, it just makes us long for it.”
I leaned back against the wall of the tree house, considering my father’s words. I could understand that God would purposely place humans on a planet with limitations, that He would give those same humans the ability to make choices, but that He would also instill in every person a tiny longing for heaven, a longing designed to blossom. I even began to feel that tiny longing stir within my own heart and soul. It all made sense except for one thing. It did not explain why God had allowed such an abundance of tragedy into Norah’s life. She never saw glimpses of heaven. Never. How could she? All she saw were glimpses of hell.
“But Dad,” I said. “What about Norah? What about Kieran? When do they ever get to smell the turkey? When do they ever get to smell the pumpkin pie? Dad, their world is like a nightmare.”
Dad leaned forward and placed his hands on my shoulders.
“Luke, listen to me. Every time you’ve showed kindness to Norah and Kieran—and I’ve seen you do that for years now—they’ve seen the love of God in you. I know their lives are harder than yours, but Luke, God hasn’t forgotten about them. They have smelled the turkey and the pies. They’ve smelled it all. Every time they came over to our house. They smelled it every time you cared for them.”
I could think of nothing to say in response. Nothing at all. I had never heard my dad compliment me in such a way. It made me feel hot inside, despite the ice-cold air.
My dad smiled at me, squeezed my shoulders, and let go. “Ready to go in?” And I nodded.
We carefully made our way back to the window and eased our chilled bodies back inside the house. From the open doorway of my bedroom, the heady fragrances of a Thanksgiving meal wafted into the room, welcoming us inside.
Darrel Janvik was laid to rest on an upper slope of the Halcyon Cemetery under a cottonwood tree the day after Thanksgiving. The casket that bore his body was placed in the plot next to that of his brother, Kenny. City workers had managed to coax out the semi-frozen earth so Darrel could be buried the same day as his funeral. And there was no freak blizzard. The sun peeked through the clouds off and on, and the temperature hovered around thirty degrees.
I attended the funeral with my parents with the sole purpose of making sure Norah and Kieran were all right.
There hadn’t been much of a crowd at the funeral. It hadn’t been at all like Kenny’s, whose patriot’s death fourteen years before had brought out the whole town, as Mrs. Liekfisch described it. There was instead a scattering of people—distant relatives, a few neighbors and friends, the owner of the paint factory, and several of Darrel’s co-workers and former high-school classmates.
After the interment, the four dozen or so people gathered back at the church for little ham sandwiches, Jell-O salad, chips, and Rice Krispies bars.
I waited impatiently for the moment when I could talk to Norah alone. A large, sixtyish woman hovered over her and Kieran constantly. I didn’t know who she was—the foster mother, maybe. Finally she left the two alone at a table and went to sit with Nell, who was also sitting at a table and looking rather dazed. I made my way over to them.
“Hello, Norah, Kieran,” I said when he reached them.
“Hi,” Norah said softly. Kieran said nothing.
I sat down by Kieran. “You doing okay, Kieran?”
Kieran toyed with his fork. “We’re going to live in Minnesota.”
I turned to look at Norah. “You are?”
Norah’s flannel-gray eyes blinked. “We’re going to live with Aunt Eleanor for a while.” She nodded her head toward the woman who had been hovering over them.
“How long a while?”
“I don’t know.”
“Grandma doesn’t want us,” Kieran said, squishing a Jell-O’ed marshmallow on his plate with his fork.
“Grandma is too sad right now to take care of us,” Norah said to her brother, without expression.
“So where will you be?”
“In Albert Lea. It’s a few hours away.”
She seemed flat. I could think of no other word to describe her. I wished I could talk to her alone.
She must have sensed this because she suddenly asked Kieran if he would go get her another cup of lemonade. He slipped off his chair and started walking toward the beverage table.
“Thanks for getting that information from Mexico for me,” she said when her brother was out of earshot, but again her voice was without emotion.
“So, you know about your mom?”
“We have a social worker with the county. She told me you took the call. She gave me my mom’s address.”
“So… are you going to write her?”
Norah looked away. “Maybe.”
“Does she know what happened?”
“The social worker wrote to the prison officials. I’m sure she knows by now.”
“Norah, I—” I began, but she cut me off.
“He’s coming back,” she said. A second later Kieran was at the table with a cup of lemonade.
“I’m tired of being here,” he said.
Norah held out her arms and her brother came into them, falling against her chest. She bent her head, and her honey-blonde hair fell against his brownish-black curls. I suddenly felt like an intruder. I rose from my chair, and she raised her head.
“Do you want me to write to you?” I said softly, impulsively.
Again, the gray eyes blinked as she considered my request.
“I guess that would be okay.”
“What’s your new address?”
She looked back down at her brother’s head nestled against her. “I don’t know what my new address is.”
I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to go ask that big hovering woman for her address.
“I’ll write to you first,” she said. “Then you’ll have my return address.”
“All right.”
I kneeled down to look at Kieran. “I’ll miss going sledding with you,” I said. “If you come back to visit your grandma, make sure you come over to say hi, okay? Maybe we can go sledding.”
“Okay,” Kieran said, but he didn’t look at me.
I stood up and waited for Norah to look at me.
“I’m sorry about all this, Norah,” I said when she finally did.
She looked at me for a second without saying anything. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything,” she finally said.
I didn’t
know how to say I was aching for her and Kieran.
“I know I didn’t do anything,” I said instead. “But I wish I could.”
She held my gaze for a moment and then rested her cheek on Kieran’s head.
“’Bye, Luke,” she said softly.
And for a moment, her voice did not sound flat.
Sixteen
December eased into itself in typical fashion, in a flurry of pre-Christmas activities that kept me busy and distracted. Basketball practice and games dominated my schedule, followed closely by capturing all the local holiday happenings on film for the Halcyon Herald. When I wasn’t on the court or behind the lens of a camera, I was doing homework or learning how to drive on glare ice or writing stories. I found I didn’t miss the tree house as much as I had in previous winters. I wondered if that was simply because he was growing up. I wasn’t the scrawny twelve-year-old who first climbed into the tree house imagining there were elves nearby. I was now nearly as tall as his father, with a deeper voice, and I’d given up the fantasy genre to write science-fiction stories. I suppose my decreased interest in the tree house might have been because my most recent memories of being in it included Norah, and she was no longer around.
In the days after she and Kieran had left, I was unclear in my mind how I felt about their absence. My home life was certainly less complicated without them right next door, but there was a new kind of emptiness at home. I wasn’t sure if it was just another sign I was maturing, that home was becoming less and less my favorite place to be because I would soon be leaving it. I felt more comfortable writing at the library than in my bedroom, since I couldn’t write in the tree house. And I wasn’t sure I even wanted to.
Coupled with this odd sense of restlessness was the mounting knowledge Matt and I were continuing to grow farther apart. Matt enjoyed living life on the edge of trouble, sometimes falling smack into it and barely registering any remorse. The only thing that kept him away from trouble on the weekends was his desire to keep his place on the basketball team. I had a horrible feeling that when basketball ended in March and there was no longer a team eligibility issue to keep him from partying, Matt would throw caution to the wind and lose himself to bad choices. I had no desire to go down that road. And Matt had no desire to stay away from it.
I had never thought of Norah as my second-closest friend until she disappeared at the same time that my decade-long friendship with Matt was finally disintegrating. As Christmas approached, I found myself feeling alone and out of place, like I was living someone else’s empty life. I pretended it didn’t bother me that day after day there was no letter from Norah. But it did bother me.
My parents were concerned for me—my mother especially. I think my mom knew I had feelings for Norah. And though she’d never said anything to me, she worried about where those feelings were headed. In the beginning, I think she’d been proud of my compassion for Nell’s troubled grandkids. But then Norah began to grow up. And so did I. It wasn’t difficult to see Norah was becoming a young woman young men would be drawn to. It wasn’t that she was beautiful—there were prettier teenage girls in Halcyon—but she was definitely striking. Those eyes of hers were strangely stunning. How could I not notice her?
And while my mom still felt compassion for the Nell’s grandkids, I think she was glad they no longer lived next door—and infinitely glad her spontaneous offer to take Norah and Kieran the night their father died had not worked out. She had pity for those kids, genuine pity. They came from a family of problems, which was precisely why she didn’t want me falling for Norah. She didn’t want her firstborn to fall in love with the daughter of trouble.
My parents decided a change of pace was probably the tonic I needed—and Ethan, too. The death of Darrel Janvik had been hard on all of us. So for Christmas, they took us to Florida to spend the holidays with my mothers’ parents at their new winter home. It was only the second time in fourteen years that my father had left the paper in the care of employees over Christmas and New Year’s.
The Florida sun melted much of the lingering gloom I felt, but as the eight-day reprieve drew to a close, I became aware I was already itching to graduate from high school and leave Iowa for good. The brilliant sun on my face, the wild call of sea birds, and the breeze off the Atlantic convinced me I was not meant for small-town life and small-town woes. I wanted the anonymity of big-city life, where I would only socialize with the people I wanted to, and they would be the only ones who knew my business, not every living soul within a four-mile radius. I wanted to write books in a New York City apartment where I didn’t have to know my neighbors on a first-name basis, where no one scrutinized the contents of my garbage can as they walked their dogs on early Tuesday mornings, where swimming holes were unheard of, where mosquitoes did not exist, and where people like Nell Janvik would not be interested in residing.
The thought of spending two-and-a-half more years stuck in Halcyon darkened my mood somewhat as we boarded the plane on the last day of the old year. But on the flight back to the Midwest I mentally sketched out a three-point plan to make the next thirty months pass as quickly as possible. It was blessedly simple: school, work, write.
It was late afternoon when we drove up Seventh Avenue the day we returned. Fresh snow had fallen since we’d left, and a misty twilight was not far off. As we climbed out of the car after the long drive from the Des Moines airport, every one of us noticed that fresh footprints led across Nell’s snow-covered lawn, her messily-shoveled driveway, and the adjoining lawn to the base of the elm tree, where the wooden slats began. Someone had been in the tree house. Perhaps was even still there.
“Luke,” my mother said, but I didn’t answer her and instead walked over to the elm and began to climb. I heard my father say, “Leave him be, MaryAnn.”
When I reached the tree house I could see it was empty, and I was surprised at the disappointment I felt. Snowy footprints showed inside, though. If Norah was the one who had been there, it couldn’t have been that long ago. I was about to climb down to see if she and Kieran were back, when I saw an envelope thumb-tacked to one of the walls. On the outside, in Norah’s handwriting, was my name. I reached for it, pried it loose, and opened it.
Luke,
We came to visit Grandma over Christmas vacation. We only stayed for a few days. I think seeing Kieran and me still reminds her of everything that happened. Aunt Eleanor thought it would be best if we didn’t stay long. I keep looking at your house, but I never see a light come on so I figure you guys must have gone somewhere for Christmas. Kieran is kind of sad you aren’t here. He really wanted to go sledding with you. I hope you don’t mind that we borrowed your sleds. I also hope you don’t mind that I came into the tree house while you were gone. I just needed a place to think. It is always very quiet and peaceful in here.
Aunt Eleanor is pretty nice, but she worries a lot. There is an indoor community pool a few blocks from the house, so I take Kieran swimming almost every day. I think he’d die if he couldn’t swim. He still talks about Tommy sometimes, though not as much. We are both seeing a counselor. She’s okay, I guess. Her name is Margaret. Kieran won’t see her without me in the room. I think he thinks Margaret will try to take Tommy away from him. I just tell him not to tell Margaret about Tommy. How can she take away what she doesn’t know he has? But he thinks she’ll see Tommy. He thinks she’ll see him and won’t like him. But she’s not insisting Kieran see her alone. At least for now.
The school here is big, more like California. The girls are kind of mean, though, and the boys just stare at me all the time. Kieran has met a kid named Bertie, who lives a couple houses away. He’s been to his house a couple times. Kieran would like to have him come over, but Aunt Eleanor gets a little uptight when there are too many kids in the house.
I decided to write my mom and send her a Christmas present. Aunt Eleanor thought it was a crummy idea, but she helped me wrap it and send it. I bought her a red scarf. I thought it would brighten her room. She hasn’t w
ritten back yet.
Today is New Year’s Eve and we are driving back to Albert Lea. Aunt Eleanor is paranoid about driving with all the drunk people on the road so we have to leave before noon.
I wish you had been here.
Norah
I read the letter three times and then sat in the tree house for many long minutes before climbing down.
Norah had written to me after all. But she had not left her return address, and I did not know what to make of that.
My mother waited until bedtime to ask me about the note. She knew there had been one because I’d had it in my hand when I’d climbed down and come into the house.
“Is it from Norah?” she’d said as she grabbed a suitcase and started to head upstairs with it.
“Yeah,” I’d replied.
“Are Norah and Kieran here?” his father asked as he, too, grabbed a suitcase.
“They were. They’re gone now. We missed them.”
I grabbed my own suitcase and said nothing else.
When my mother knocked on my door later to say good night, she asked if she could talk to me.
I was sitting at my desk, an open spiral-bound notebook under my hand.
“So, are Norah and Kieran doing okay?” she asked.
“I guess.”
“Did they come for Christmas?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know how long they were here. Just a few days. But they left today. At noon.”
“Mmm.”
She lingered at the door, and I sensed she was waiting for me to ask if she wanted to read the note.
I didn’t ask her.
I couldn’t. Tommy was in the note. The deadline was up—it was past Christmas—but I didn’t want to explain to my mother about Tommy. And she would wonder who he was if she read Norah’s note. She would ask. And I would not be able to lie to her.
“Well, good night, then,” she finally said.
In All Deep Places Page 17
