The Puzzle Master

by Heather Spiva

  “I don’t think anyone will ever bother you two again.” The phone rang, and Iris and Marshall walked to the back room. They popped open apple juice and corn chips and sat on the floor with the picture of the ten-thousand-piece puzzle.

  “That would be an amazing place to live, don’t you think?” Iris was leaning back on her hands, gazing at the picture as if lost inside of it.

  “It would.” Marshall agreed. “Except that we’d have to slop the hogs, milk the cows, collect the eggs.”

  She smiled. “How fun.”

  “No,” said Marshall, “more like how hard. Then we’d have to keep another garden so we could feed ourselves, and keep the barn in shape and the house.” Marshall stopped talking and they could hear the country music coming in through the crack under the door.

  “All I’ve ever lived in is a city,” Iris said, sitting criss-cross now. Her face looked even paler than last time he’d seen her. “I would love to live in the country.”

  Marshall nodded in agreement. “Me too, but it’s a ton of work I’m sure. Just keeping my mom’s garden clean and picked is a chore all by itself. Imagine acres of them.”

  She smiled. “Yeah,” showing her slightly-yellowish teeth, maimed from chemotherapy. “Imagine that. Such freedom, freedom from people, freedom from buildings...”

  “From stupid clubs and annoying sisters…”

  “From hospitals and hallways, treatments, drugs and bone marrow transplants. It would be so peaceful there, just like the picture looks. And we’d be surrounded by fields, and other farms and cows …”

  A fly buzzed in the corner of the window. They still hadn’t turned on the overhead light, and they let the room go dark. Their shadows grew long across the back wall. They talked about how many horses and cows they’d have and who would feed the chickens and who would mend the fences. Marshall insisted on several tractors; one for mowing, the other for working the land, and the third for riding around for fun, at a top speed of thirty miles an hour.

  Luke came in once to make sure they weren’t spraying up the room with any more glue and let them be. And for the rest of the afternoon straight until dinner, when Marshall should’ve been home, they talked about the picture and the things they could do if they lived there, content to let the puzzle wait one more day.

  Chapter 10: Working the Puzzle

  By mid September, Iris and Marshall finally got the big one started. They found more boxes and separated every piece by color even got the perimeter completed and on the table.

  Saturday was the best day of the week to get the puzzle together because they had all day. Marshall explained his calculations and their mandatory piece connections so it would be finished by Christmas.

  “If we each do about twenty five pieces a day, and extra on Saturdays, we’ll have this thing done for sure. Your uncle is giving up a nice fishing pole, you know.”

  “But you’re forgetting my uncle,” Iris said. “He doesn’t usually lose bets.” She raised her eyebrows while she fitted a piece together. “He used to gamble back when he was younger. Went to the casinos all the time, won lots of money.”

  Marshall was shocked. He never thought of Luke as the gambling type. He had the store to look after and things to sell: responsibility. “Does he still gamble?”

  “No. That was years ago. And he picked up a bad habit during that time. So he may not gamble with money, but he’s still gambling with his life.”

  Marshall stopped. “You mean the smoking?” Iris nodded her head and sat in her chair, looking at the pieces.

  Marshall kept quiet. He didn’t want to think about Luke having cancer. It wouldn’t happen to him anyway. Lots of people smoke and don’t get sick, he was certain of that.

  At lunchtime, they pedaled to the river’s edge. Autumn was right above their shoulders, almost ready to descend, and the air was comfortable; mild, and it almost seemed weird that they didn’t have to bat away flies, or feel like they had to dive into the water just to feel normal. They were content to watch the water flow right by them.

  They found a giant rock to sit on and faced the river.

  “You think your uncle’s going to die?” Marshall asked, after biting into his egg salad sandwich. Leila had been begging for them again, so Marshall decided to yield something from her whining, and snagged a sandwich of his own.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’ll live years longer, but with the way he smokes, I just don’t know.” No one was on the water. One canoe went by, but that was it. It was the air and water and them, and it was perfect. Iris was watching him from the corner of her eye again.

  “Are you worried about something?’ she asked, chomping down hard on her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “You’re asking questions.”

  Marshall shrugged. “No, I guess I was just wondering what would happen if something happened to him.”

  “I thought you said not to worry about him.”

  “I’m not worrying. I’m just … I mean … well, would he go to heaven?”

  She thought about it for a second and then looked at him. “I suppose so.”

  Marshall took a drink of his root beer. “But how do you know for sure?’

  “I guess I don’t know for sure.”

  “Then God is just playing with us in a giant game,” said Marshall. “Why, he’s practically gambling with us then. We’re his money. ”

  She laughed. “No silly, God’s not like that. He’s not like that at all.”

  “But how do you know?” Marshall gulped down the rest of his sandwich. He ignored the lump in his throat, the one that was making him confused, and frustrated, as if he didn’t understand what was going on. He really wondered why he was asking her these stupid questions, too. That was the worst part.

  “You haven’t gone to church in a while have you,” she said matter-of-factly. A crow landed on the rock with them. He pecked at the rock and eyed the bag of chips that Iris had brought out.

  Marshall shrugged. “We used to, but the past few years, dad’s been out of town so many Sundays. And mom doesn’t want to go without him. Actually, I can’t remember the last time I went to church. And when I go, they don’t talk about God like you do.”

  Iris smiled. “Well then, you have read the Bible haven’t you?”

  He nodded his head no. She’d read practically a million more things than he had. This was the millionth and first. “Not my first choice,” said Marshall.

  She continued on, tossing a chip to the crow, “It talks a whole lot about God in there, and how he made us and why and all sorts of stories and things that show how much God is a part of our life, all the time, in and around us, like a friend. He’s just a word away. Have a question? Need help? He’s right there.” She pressed her pointer finger on the rock, wrote her name in the stone and said quietly, “He’s been a friend to me more than you know.”

  Marshall crinkled up his nose. “Like a real friend? An all-the-time friend?”

  “All the time.”

  “So what about your uncle? What about him?”

  “What about him?”

  “He smokes like crazy. If he dies, what do you feel then?”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Wouldn’t you feel that God has … I don’t know… left you when you needed Him most?”

  She nodded. “Yeah I would feel that way. But I would also know that was just a feeling. A feeling doesn’t make something real.”

  She looked at the water. “This water, this river and all of nature, I mean, who in the world could create all of this?”

  Marshall hadn’t thought about it. It was beautiful, but he thought it just … was. That it always existed. “It was here before us, and we’re all here living on this earth, like ants in an ant hill,” Marshall said. “That’s just how it is and we can’t explain it.”

  “Marsh, that’s really ridiculous you know.” He knew the analogy was ridiculous, but he couldn’t think of anything else. He felt powerless, as if he had little control over
his life anyway. But, maybe that was the way it was suppose to feel?

  Marshall turned back to the water. He could see the silvery backs of the salmon, swimming every which way, turning with the current. Iris was spooking him. Even her weakness was strength for her; her fear overcome with trust in her God.

  “Well, I don’t know about all that God stuff,” he said after a minute. “I just don’t understand it … don’t think I want to understand it.”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to.” She watched the water, and the sun cast its light down on their shoulders, warming the giant rock—their chair—to the right temperature. “I think I remember my aunt telling me that uncle believed in Jesus way back in the day.” She sighed. “So, my hope is that if anything bad happens to Uncle, I’ll see him in heaven one day.”

  Marshall was suddenly overcome with the weight she bore; her sickness, her aunt’s health, her uncle’s health: it was all so precarious and so very real for her. He felt awful for even questioning her belief in God. She needed what she needed to get through the day, even if he didn’t understand it. Or believe it.

  “But you won’t be going to heaven anytime soon,” he said, tossing a rock into the water. “So that’s good.”

  She was serious with thought, but a smile spread across her face. “No, I’ll be here for a while. And when I’m not, you’ll know where to find me.”

  “What do you mean if you’re not?”

  “Like if I have to move again,” she said, eyes softening to her words.

  They let their thoughts drift with the water, and headed back to the store when they’d had their fill of the sun.

  ***

  As September moved to October, a funny thing happened: no one minded that Iris and he hung out exclusively. It was nice, and different, and they spent time together even when they weren’t at the store. If anyone had a question about Iris, they would ask him. She had one or two friends, who wondered if she was really doing better and Marshall had to convince them that she was, that her checkups went well, and she was cancer-free.

  “She’s doing great,” he would say to Becca Anderson, who talked to him during History class, which Iris didn’t take with them. She was not being her snobbish self, and actually looked concerned. “I don’t know why you can’t ask her yourself?”

  “Because I feel like I would jinx her or something,” said Becca, “I don’t want to talk about something and make it come back.”

  “Don’t be stupid. Cancer doesn’t come back just because you talk about it.”

  “It doesn’t help she doesn’t want to talk about it either.”

  That comment made Marshall feel special, because he never had that impression with Iris. She was always ready to talk about it with him, or explain her treatments.

  Marshall’s mom made a new rule by the end of September. “You only get to go to Luke’s two nights a week, and Saturdays too, but only until three.”

  He pouted about it, but couldn’t get her to change her mind. He also knew she was right. He spent more time at Luke’s than at home. He had no idea where his family was half of the time and although the puzzle was getting finished, and although Iris was a recovering cancer patient, he couldn’t ignore his flesh and blood—although he really had been trying to.

  This meant that Monday, Wednesday and Friday’s, he had to be home right after school. It meant less time with Iris, and it felt weird. Especially when she walked to the store alone and he climbed up an old bus. The ride home was always uneventful, though he did have an interesting conversation on Friday with the three amigos about the cool things kids were showing just to get into the club.

  It was interesting because all of the things Michael mentioned was nothing that Marshall would’ve thought to bring to join the club. He had no idea if the old fishing rod would be worth anything to Michael, but Marshall didn’t care.

  Saturday came again, and they met at Luke’s in the back. Mason almost got Marshall to mow the grass for him for free, but he’d run out of the garage with his bike just in time.

  “Got to go Mason!”

  “But wait, I have football practice today.”

  “That’s not my fault,” said Marshall clipping on his helmet and pedaling away. “Besides, how else are you going to get your car if you don’t work?” Marshall snorted. His brother just didn’t want to work. That was the problem. He was a joke.

  The store was empty, all except for Luke and Iris who were looking over some papers when Marshall came in. But Luke stuffed them under the cabinet, and Iris greeted him with a smile and he forgot about the way their voices sounded strange and muffled, or the hint of moisture in Iris’ eyes.

  A minute later, they were at the table. The window at the AC unit was open, and bringing with it a cool, crisp breeze.

  “It’s going to be October tomorrow,” she said, sliding together two pieces of a small cow.

  “Yeah, and we’ve only gotten a quarter of this thing done. We have about seventy-five hundred more pieces to finish in less than three months.” Marshall groaned. “And with my mom limiting my time here, I had to recalculate all the pieces and hours we have, and we have a ton to do!”

  Iris smiled. “We’ll get it done, Mr. Pessimist.”

  “I’m not pessimistic, just realistic. This puzzle is awfully hard. Maybe I was just dumb to take his bet.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Iris said, finding another piece that fit. “Just think of all the great fish you can catch with that thing once it’s yours.”

  Marshall scrounged around the hillside pieces, and found one with a part of a dark brown barn on it and matched it to one he had in his hand, clipping it into place.

  “Well, if I do get that pole, you need to get one too.”

  She looked at him, her brown eyes soft and sad. “But what about your dad?”

  “What about him?” Marshall snorted. “He’s never home, and I mean never. It’s like a rarity for him to be home on a Saturday morning. That was when we used to go fishing, you know. All fall and all spring. Him and me, on the water. It was fun.”

  There was a minute of silence and then she spoke again. “When was the last time you guys went fishing?” Marshall didn’t want to talk about his dad. It was old news, like yesterdays’ disaster that just left a bad taste in your mouth. “I think it was before Leila was born. So, I guess about five years ago.”

  “That long?”

  “Yeah, that long. Sheesh, when I say it out loud, it sounds bad doesn’t it. I hadn’t actually thought about it really … I just remember him saying that my asthma was getting worse and needed a break from the morning air.” Marshall pursed his lips. “That was a lie if I’ve ever heard one.”

  “Maybe you two could go again? You know, sort of pick up where you left off?” Marshall didn’t know how to answer that.

  “Why?” Marshall asked, shrugging his shoulders. “He doesn’t want to.”

  “Maybe he does? Maybe he just needs to be reminded.”

  Marshall shifted. “I don’t know if I want to go.”

  “Yes you do, of course you want to go. The issue is you needing to forgive him.”

  Marshall’s hair on the back of his neck stood up. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Iris looked at Marshall squarely in the face and said, “Everything. It has everything to do with it.”

  Luke’s phone rang, and they could hear him cough and laugh and then cough again. But he remained out there, left them alone and dealt with the Saturday shoppers by himself.

  “Well, it was fun then,” Marshall finally said, not liking where the conversation was going, “But it was a long time ago. And he’s the one that has the problem. So instead, you and me need to go. As soon as I win your uncle’s bet, you can use my old one and we’ll go fishing.”

  Iris laughed. “I don’t think I’d do very well. I’d probably scare all the fish off.”

  “I’d teach you, you’d be fine. Really.” Marshall looked at her in earnest. “S
o, is it a deal? This Christmas break, we’ll go fishing. ‘kay?” He stuck out a hand. She looked at it with an eyebrow raised, deliberating whether or not she wanted to succumb to his agreement.

  “I taught you to skip rocks; I think I can teach you to fish.” She looked at his hand again and took it, shaking it gently.

  “Okay, fine,” she said and walked over to the mini fridge. She grabbed a bag of chocolate raisins. “Just don’t make me bait the hook. Worms are nasty.”

  “I think that should be a part, if not the first part, of your fishing lesson. In fact, some of the best worms are in my garden. So nice and early, like five o’clock, you come to my house and we’ll dig in the dirt. I’m telling you, they are the thickest, fattest worms you’ve ever seen in your life. There’s like a million of ‘em in my back yard.”

  “Oh, no,” she groaned, and grabbed her hair in anxiety. “What have I gotten myself into?”

  But she laughed, and then he laughed, and they spent the next few hours finding the pieces to their puzzle, and planning their future—one that very much involved fishing and skipping rocks.

  Chapter 11: Halloween

  October blew by quickly like the fall winds. And by the time Halloween rolled around, it was practically cold outside. Almost. Cold in Sacramento actually meant highs in the low-seventies. It was more like balmy and comfortable. But all the same, the air conditioning at home and at Luke’s wasn’t needed anymore. Marshall could barely remember what the sticky heat felt like. And that was okay.

  Summer was finally over.

  On the morning of Halloween, Leila came to the breakfast table in her costume. She slid into her seat and pulled her cereal bowl close to her chin.

  “Hey Marsh, how do you like it?”

  Marshall was concentrating on the o’s floating in the milk like tiny inner tubes. He finally looked at her when she yelled his name.

  “Oh, it’s nice … you’re a … are you a fairy?”