by Sam Halpern
“No.”
“Next year we’ll go t’ New Hampshire in June . . . after UK’s spring semester ends. You can ride to New Hampshire with me, then fly back t’ Kentucky whenever you want. Meet th’ other people in my life.”
Lisa June thought about my proposal. When she answered she was smiling. “I’d love to see New Hampshire.”
I took a deep breath. “You know, I came here a couple months ago a dyin’ man. I . . .”
Lisa June had started walking and stopped abruptly and turned to face me. Her eyes were wide and I saw her tremble. “What do you mean?”
I quickly remedied my error. “I’m perfectly healthy. What I meant was, I was dying a death of the spirit, not th’ body. Society saw me as someone whose life had been successful, but I felt like a failure.”
The look on Lisa June’s face changed from fear to relief, then wonder. “I don’t understand. How could someone who won th’ most important prize in their field have considered himself a failure?”
This was not going to be easy to explain. “Lisa June, I was raised in these hills. Simple things in our little community took on special meanings, and you lived your life by those simple things. You told th’ truth. You came through for your friends, no matter what, or you weren’t a man. My childhood society was defined by simple rules and I believed them with all my heart.”
The slight nod of Lisa June’s head told me that she had gotten the big picture.
“Your life after leavin’ Kentucky got a lot more complicated, didn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said, “and I kept trying to live by th’ old rules. I couldn’t make the adjustments. The old rules didn’t work in my new world and I paid a big price. Constant conflict with the rule makers and the rules that they made . . . and bent . . . without having problems of conscience.”
Lisa June swallowed. “If I’d been there, I’d have used Grandpa Fred’s slingshot on them!”
I laughed. “Slingshots are great for huntin’ frogs and shootin’ fence posts. I want you to remember something—if you wanta have a happy life, Lisa June, be willin’ to bend little rules. Not the important ones, though. Important rules are best not bent.”
I moved my head in the direction of the car, meaning that we should start back.
“Which rules do you think are the important ones?”
“Those covering truth,” I answered. “Never disregard a vow made with all your heart without doing everything you can to keep it.”
We walked to the car by way of a blackberry thicket, picking berries and shoveling them into our mouths until our hands and lips were stained red. It was getting late and Lisa June needed to get to her restaurant job. As we drove, I delicately brought up the subject of the Langleys’ offer to help with her education.
Lisa June turned in her seat until she faced me. She wasn’t angry, but she was obviously bothered. “Samuel, Jenny and Melvin have been great to me, but they aren’t rich and they’re getting old. When they’re real old they might need that money and suppose I couldn’t pay them back. What’s good in this for Aunt Jen and Uncle Melvin? What do they get out of it?”
“Happiness. Jenny and Melvin would be helping someone they love dearly. Your education budget isn’t going to destroy their estate. You’ll undoubtedly pay it back. If you’ll let me, I can add to th’ kitty and that will cut back on the amount the Langleys have to contribute.”
There was a brooding silence. I was so sure our friendship was on solid footing now that I hadn’t considered what I said to be risky. Had I been wrong?
“This has to do with Fred, doesn’t it,” she said, turning to the front again.
Fine raindrops had started to fall. I turned on the Ford’s wipers and watched them sweep as I thought about what she had asked. Then all fear of hurting her left me. “Some of it has to do with Fred, but mostly it has to do with his granddaughter who needs to learn from the life of her grandfather’s best friend. If she doesn’t, there are some kids in the Kentucky Mountains who will go through life without an appreciation of fine literature.”
We drove quietly through the misty rain. When we were almost at her door she said, “I’ll think about it.” Then her demeanor became like that of a scolding daughter. “You know, you are somethin’ else. You must’ve driven Nora crazy.”
I parked next to the curb, and we stood together on the sidewalk. She hugged me and I kissed her forehead, then she ascended the stairs. At the door of her apartment she turned and called, “When are we gettin’ together again? This time I wanta make some slingshots.”
“I’ll call when I find th’ right elm tree, an old inner tube that ain’t rotted, and some Bull Durham twine.”
Lisa June laughed, then entered the apartment, and I was alone on the sidewalk. I was happy. I’d come a far piece, but I’d found my Canaan land.
Acknowledgments
A number of people have helped me bring this book to fruition. First, my writing group, the Monday Morning Club, which meets on Tuesdays every two weeks. Don’t ask. These precious people, along with my wife, Joni, are greatly responsible for teaching me how to write. They are, in alphabetical order, Louise Goodman, Peggy Markham, Patricia Maxwell, Helen Ritchie, Elliott Schubert, Bess Tittle, Annette Winter, and Elsie Zala.
The following people read the rough manuscript and made comments with which I improved the original text. Again in alphabetical order, Naomi Alazaraki, Bob Arnold, Mary Barr, Bill Clark, Annie Gaunder, Joni Halpern, Justin Halpern, Jan Kunsa, Eileen Rendahl and Andrew Taylor.
A thank-you to David Watson, my editor at HarperCollins, and a special thank-you to Byrd Leavell, an agent with guts enough to take on a curmudgeon for a client.
Copyright
A FAR PIECE TO CANAAN. Copyright © 2013 by Sam Halpern. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-223316-5
EPub Edition June 2013 ISBN 9780062233189
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