The Testament of Harold's Wife

by Lynne Hugo

  I don’t know what I thought I was going to see. I can only tell you what I did see: a roadblock. Not a hundred feet from my own driveway. A sheriff’s car, red and blue lights careening in circles, parked across the road to keep anyone from passing. A second black-and- white, farther down, similarly parked facing the opposite direction, lights warning cars off. Orange cones. Flares. Between them, an ambulance, more lights. There must be a terrible accident. Glass shone up like pieces of fallen night on the highway. I glimpsed a heavy man with a broom, backlit, wearing a ball cap and a neon-orange safety vest. He laid the broom down, walked toward my car, and I opened the window.

  “Road’s closed for a while here. You’ll have to turn arou . . . Louisa?”

  “Gus?” I should have recognized him, but he was in jeans and a plaid shirt with his badge pinned to the safety vest. The ball cap had confused me, too.

  “Oh my God. Louisa. Turn around now. You can’t see this.”

  But I just had. My eyes were already wet.

  Gus reached through my open window and put his hand on my shoulder. “I know. But if it helps at all, this guy didn’t hit a person. Dunno. Driver was likely your intruder. Hit a buck . . .” He pointed, and then I saw the rack shining as if by sunlight or moon, as the lights glinted around, and the dark mound of the body on the side of the road.

  I moaned. I put my head in my hands and whispered, “I tried, Cody, I tried.”

  Gus touched my shoulder through the open window. “Wasn’t coming after you, Louisa honey. The shots you heard? Guy’s dressed for hunting, not that it’s in season, and he’s got a Winchester that’s been fired in the truck. Poaching. Damn thing is, that buck’s got a bullet in him, too. Billy noticed when he checked to see if he needed to be put down. Musta gotten too dark—there’s a skid in the back of the truck he’d of used if he’d . . .” Gus glanced at the scene and then back at me. “Guy musta been going like a bat outta hell because that big boy bounced enough to shatter the windshield, and that’s hard to do.” He shook his head as if to stop himself from talking. “Please,” he said. “You need to turn around and go home. I’ll come by and check on you when I’m done here.”

  “Is it bad, Gus?”

  “You don’t need to hear.” There were night sounds, cicadas and crickets, and in the distance, someone—a deputy maybe—called something to someone else. Above it all, the high yellow lights of a wrecker blinked their approach from the other side. Gus looked over at it, his cruiser lights reflecting in his glasses. “I should go check—”

  I wiped my face with the back of my hand and got my voice under control. “I can’t go without knowing.”

  He waited me out but I didn’t move. Finally, he pulled off his ball cap and rubbed his hand over the top of his head, replaced the cap, and sighed. “I’m not supposed to say,” he said. “Only a doc can pronounce him. EMTs gotta take him to the hospital. This has to be hard after what you’ve been through with Cody. And Harold. I’m real sorry.” His voice was gentle. He reached through the open window and put his hand over mine where it was still on the steering wheel, and for just that moment he was exactly like Harold. He waited, maybe a minute while both of us were quiet, then he took his hand back when I finally looked up at him.

  “Dead?”

  He closed his eyes, then opened them, and his chin bobbed down once in a nearly invisible acknowledgment. “You turn around now.”

  “Gus, is it somebody local?”

  “He’s pretty messed up. We’re running the plates. I don’t know the vehicle.”

  But I knew I would.

  Gus hit the top of my car with the palm of his hand. “You go home now. This has nothing to do with you, so you don’t need to be afraid anymore.” Of course he was dead wrong about that first part, and I think we are all rightly afraid of a lot of things, but it was nice of him to say that, don’t you think? Harold used to think he was shielding me, too.

  “Anyone else hurt?”

  Gus shook his head. “Thank God.” He reached in and patted the hand of mine that was closest to him. Like my other hand, it was tight and high on the steering wheel, my knuckles bumping up and down in odd, flashing silhouette. “A boy’s on the berm down past Atherton’s, nowhere near the scene,” he said. “I passed him when I was coming to your house and stopped in case he was your intruder, but he’s just a kid, real polite, no gun, waiting for a friend to pick him up. And right then dispatch called about the crash. You get yourself home now. I’ll stop in to check on you after this is cleaned up. Gonna take a while.”

  “Athertons’ nephew! Andrew spends time with them—”

  “No. Brandon McSomething. A kid, honey. No gun.”

  “You didn’t just leave him there?”

  It took Gus a couple seconds to catch on. “Oh, the boy?” Another shake of his head then. “Someone’s coming for him.”

  “Gus, that boy could get hit. No! You know how people speed on this road. You can’t leave him.” I couldn’t help myself. The boy must have people who love him the way Harold and I loved Cody, people who wouldn’t want him walking on the dark road, people who would want someone like me to look out for him. Someone who knows what can happen to a boy if no one takes care of him. “I’m going to go get him. He can wait at my house.” I straightened in the driver’s seat, and pointed at the dizzying maze of lights and vehicles that looked like a small city ahead on the night road. “Make them move out of the way!”

  Gus was silent a minute, maybe trying to figure how to handle the crazy woman. But that’s not fair; I know he remembered how Cody died. He just didn’t know what to say. Then he came up with, “Louisa, honey, don’t cry, now. That’s a good thing to offer, but you can’t get through. See, the road is closed. I don’t have it cleared. Body’s not out. The boy said someone was on the way. He’s likely been picked up already.”

  Poor Gus. My Harold could have told him he was never going to win against a determined Louisa. “Where’s your car?” I said, unfastening my seat belt.

  “Over there, Atherton’s side,” he said, pointing. “My lights are going. The blue-and-red set.” Then he realized where I was headed and blocked my opening the car door. “Right,” he said. “But I can’t let you drive it. You can’t be here.” If I’d closed my eyes, I might have dreamed Harold had come back to take care of Cody, to go pick him up after practice that last twilight, because Gus’s voice was that kind as he bent to speak through the window while he wouldn’t let me out of the car. “Look, I can’t leave the scene, but, tell you what, how about I send Billy down right now, see if the boy’s still there. If he is, I’ll have Billy follow up,” he said.

  But my eyes stayed open because I had to go on. There are mistakes we don’t have to live again, and we can help to save others from making them. At least sometimes. “What does ‘follow up’ mean?” I did not want tears on my face, but of course, there they were. I swiped at them and tried to stare Gus down. “Follow up exactly how?”

  Gus’s hand went to my shoulder and stayed there, but not too heavy. It was big like Harold’s. More puffy, not callused like a farmer’s, but I can’t say that bothered me. “Exactly by calling his parents and staying with him just to be safe until he’s picked up,” he said. “We won’t leave him to walk or wait alone. We’ll make sure he’s safe, I promise. Don’t cry, honey. We’ll take care of the boy, I promise. Will that do it? If you watch me go and send Billy right now, will you turn around and go home?”

  “You’ll send him right now.”

  “Right now.”

  “Okay. Thank you.” I managed to get it out. He was a man who would keep his word. He stood by the car while I fastened my seat belt again and put the window back up. Then he motioned to me to lock the door, and he turned. But I did stay to make sure, even though I believed him. Gus made his way past the ambulance, the EMTs, and the driver of the wrecker, picked his way around the mess on the highway. By the streaking lights, I saw him in the distance. Within a minute, the second squad car heade
d the other direction, down the highway toward Atherton’s, to keep a boy out of harm’s way. The boy wasn’t Cody, but he was a boy and I could love him and other boys, bless their wild hearts, bless the yet-unlit Independence Day fireworks of their lives, and I could be grateful that there are still boys in the world with wild hearts and dangerous, glorious futures. Maybe I can be of use. Maybe I can watch out for some of them.

  Like CarolSue says, sometimes you have to come up with an entirely new Plan. I really hate it when she’s right.

  * * *

  By late the next day, word had spread. There really wasn’t a way to make the story larger than life as it passed among my neighbors; once Larry Ellis was identified, the sheer ballsy improbability that he’d been poaching out of season on land owned by the widowed grandmother of the boy he’d killed, shot a buck and left it to suffer, but then the buck had appeared—it must have seemed an apparition as he sped down the road!—and used the last of its life to take Larry’s. Well, it’s not really a tale anyone can exaggerate much, so people got it the way it happened, and they marveled at it, the mystery of how things sometimes work out making you believe in the unseen.

  Helen Atherton even picked up a copy of the Dwayne Weekly and found Larry Ellis’s obituary, which was unusually short for a paper that typically finds an excuse to go on and on about life accomplishments of the “She brushed her teeth well” variety. Helen brought it to me, pleased as punch, saying the buck was a hero and Ellis being dead restored her faith in the possibility of cosmic order. Helen’s loyal that way, but I didn’t want that clipping. Before I got rid of it, though, I looked, double-checking that it had really happened and something was over.

  The notice said Ellis was survived by his girlfriend, LuAnn McNally, and her son, Brandon McNally. Something pinged in my mind when I read it, but that’s all it was. A little warning ping that resonated with something from earlier. Not loud. I threw the clipping away as I had the rest, satisfied by Larry’s name and address. It was true.

  Remember I suggested you get yourself some tea with a splash of bourbon to hear the rest of the story? If you did, I imagine you’re glad and you may have gotten yourself a second, too. Perhaps you are satisfied, and think The Plan completed itself, without my action. Or perhaps you trace a convoluted thread between the intentions of my heart and what became of them. Don’t think I haven’t considered it. It’s all right with me. You’ve stuck with me this long, which was kind. All I can do is tell you what happened; it’s for you to decide what it means. You probably have questions. That makes two of us. I can answer your small ones. The large questions, the ones about life itself that roam like ghosts to disturb the night: I am no closer to putting those to sleep. Was it justice after all? Who are the innocent and who the guilty?

  I rise and take responsibility at the same time I look at how I made my great Plan, and then life took over with its own Plan that was far bigger than the one I’d conceived. Maybe I glimpsed just one piece of it tumbling into place. None of us really knows what comes next, do we? But perhaps you can see better than I where this story truly began, and when or if it will end.

  * * *

  Here’s one thing I do know: life changes us in ways we never foresee. It even sends our hearts to places we were once determined not to go. No, Glitter Jesus isn’t hanging on my bedroom or living room wall. Nor will Gary’s church be constructed on my land after I’m dead. I suppose I ought to tell him that I’ve deeded my land to a conservation easement to protect it for the deer and other wildlife. The land, the wide clear creek that runs through it, the animals and birds are sacred, and that’s enough church for me.

  Did I ever tell you that great blue heron nest around my little river every year? how glorious the span of their wings is against a late afternoon sky? Yes, my spirit flies, too, then, just as it rides the backs of my deer, and I feel connected to everything that lives and perhaps has ever lived, or will, and my love for life is as tender as a first green shoot coming up in my garden after the winter kill.

  Here’s what I mean, though: I’m letting Gary have his tent revival. I’m taking the plane ticket he bought me and going to CarolSue’s to help out there. It’s a decent trade, and more; I see that my son is only finding his way, like all of us. Like I am. Who am I to say what someone else should find holy? Who’s to say what or who someone else should love? CarolSue says I am trying to understand Gary more, and that will help our relationship. I hate it when she’s right, but the revival is a one-time thing, and I’ve hired Alyssa, the Atherton’s reliable daughter, to stay in the house while I’m gone to take care of the girls and Marvelle, plus guard them during the event. I don’t think one night will hurt the root crops I planted for the deer, though I admit to hoping not too many people show up. Alyssa’s dad will come over that night so she’s not alone, even though she’s nineteen and says she doesn’t need him to baby her. Gus will be around, too. Not that I imagine the people who come to a tent revival are generally vandals or drunk and disorderly, but on the other hand, you never know what behavior religious fervor will excuse, do you? Alyssa’s mother thinks it’s a good idea, though, and I agree. They’re good, sensible folk who don’t truck with nonsense.

  Speaking of Gus, I was relieved to hear he isn’t a member of Gary’s or any cult. He helps him out because he’s always felt so bad about Harold, he said. That’s why he agreed to do security for the revival, but he said he had no idea that I wasn’t on board with the whole thing. I believe him. Gary wouldn’t have told Gus that he was going behind my back. When I return from CarolSue’s, Gus is taking me out to supper. At a real restaurant in Elmont, not that death museum they call a lodge. When I told him I never want to see another deer that didn’t die naturally if I can help it, he said, “I can live with that.” He thinks he understands, bless his heart. I haven’t told him that I don’t eat meat anymore. Based on his girth, I’d say Gus is definitely a meat-and-potatoes man, but, as CarolSue says, one blow at a time. Plenty of time to get to know each other, she says. That’s my sister for you. Have I mentioned how much I hate it when she’s right?

  And, about CarolSue: She is really excited I’m visiting. It’ll be a distraction from what they’ve been through with Charlie. She needs some fun, she says, so she’s going to give me a makeover (again) and we’re going shopping. I hate shopping, but she’ll pick everything out. She says I have to bring “that old blue thing” so she can personally put it in the trash. Then we’ll come home and have tea. She can dress me, and I’ll teach her how to fix tea the right way. It’s my turn to help her. We lean on each other, as you’ve seen.

  I’ve been thinking about the new Plan. Details. If you have a bit more tea left in your cup, you might refresh it with a couple drops more flavoring. Marvelle needed it when I announced that when I get back, I’m getting us a dog from the rescue shelter over in Elmont. I told her it’s nothing personal, but I miss Emerson and Thoreau, and another Lab can go walking with me come spring. I told her “Marvelle, it’s time.” The does will be dropping their wobbly-legged fawns by April, and I want to glimpse their spotted backs as they try to keep up with their mothers. We could use another little goat on the farm, too. Goodness knows the grass needs to be kept in check.

  I’ve already talked to the girls about starting with some chicks again, too. JoJo pooped on the back step at the mention, but Beth liked it, as I’d expect. She’s a nurturing sort. Amy was nonchalant. She’ll adjust. It’s surprising what you can finally adjust to and go on. Not only that, you may be glad of it, as I explained to Marvelle. The dog and goat and chicks could become her new friends and she might be surprised by gladness, yes, and grateful to discover that she’s glad when she’d thought that was impossible. (I will admit here and now that Marvelle hasn’t shown cheer or gratitude for anything except a patch of sunlight to sleep in or getting fed on time since her retirement from mousing, though she’s gotten pretty fond of her bourbon. I best cut her back some now.)

  And since young wildlife
is part of my Plan, I keep thinking about helping some boys. Cody would like that, and I think Gary will, too. I’ll give some hapless beginning teacher a hand with the unruly ones on the playground at my old school, bless their wild hearts. And I can tutor the ones fallen behind in reading. I imagine some high schoolers could use a boost with their college applications. I’m good at that, especially the personal essays. Cody would like that, too. He’d been working on his when he died. I’d already thought of offering to help that boy Brandon who works for Al when it’s time for him to apply. It did my heart good when he said he liked to read. And I know how to apply for scholarships and other financial aid. From what Al said, I gather Brandon might need a lot of that.

  It was that thought that led me to another the night before last. Even if the new goat can handle all the grass, which isn’t likely, I could use a hand planting the vegetables and the flowers come spring. Spreading the compost, too. Then I thought maybe Brandon could clean porch furniture. Al said he didn’t have enough to keep him busy full-time last summer so it came to me that maybe I can hire Brandon to help me, and I can help him in return. So the next logical thing was to call Al to ask him for Brandon’s phone number.

  “Well, Louisa, the boy could use the work, I’m sure, but he called off on Saturday, said his mother’s boyfriend died. You might want to give ’em a couple days. Lives way over outside Elmont, so you gotta put in the area code, don’t you know, even though it’s the same as ours.”