Crossing Tinker's Knob

by Cooper, Inglath

  Green bean casserole – The Cundiff family

  Blueberry oat muffins – Carl and Ida Turner

  He closed the door, turned to the kitchen table. Tupperware cake boxes and glass pie plates sealed in Saran wrap covered the surface. He walked over, glancing at the names on the containers. Again, all familiar. But the one at the far corner made his stomach drop.

  Carrot cake – Mrs. Aaron Brubaker

  Written in neat cursive across the strip of masking tape. Mrs. Aaron Brubaker. He’d never let himself think of her this way. In his mind, she had remained Becca Miller. Just Becca.

  He edged around the table, lifting the lid and staring at the cake. Three layers, with thick swirls of cream cheese icing. He sat down on a ladder back chair, one elbow on the table, the other hand still holding the lid to the box.

  Had she remembered it was his favorite?

  Matt got up from the table, opened a drawer and pulled out a knife. He reached for a plate from the cabinet next to the sink-–same spot where they’d always been-–then lifted the cake out of its box and sliced a piece.

  He hadn’t been hungry for days. But he cut into one edge now, lifting the fork to his mouth. If memory could be found on the taste buds, then a hundred of them flooded through him now.

  And at the very center of each was Becca.

  ∞

  Then

  FOR A SEVENTEEN-YEAR OLD, Matt did a better than average job of displaying a healthy respect for authority. Gran had insisted he grow up knowing when and where to use his manners, and as a rule, he did a fine job of backing himself out of difficult situations with a humble apology. A yes, sir, no sir. Yes, ma’am, no, ma’am.

  Judge Wilson Anderson, however, had apparently seen it all before. And he wasn’t buying Matt’s rendition of regret and contrition. On the judge’s right stood a stone-faced Deputy Sheriff, a uniformed reminder that the matter at hand was serious business.

  Matt stood silent before the courtroom bench, his hands hanging awkward at his sides as if they no longer remembered their purpose. At the judge’s request, his attorney remained seated. Gran sat behind him at the front of the room, and he could feel the disappointment in her eyes burning clear through the center of his back.

  Judge Anderson peered down at him through round spectacles perched on the end of his long, narrow nose. His steel-colored hair was cut short, military style, and Matt suspected it was good enough validation of his no-nonsense reputation. “So, son,” the judge said. “If you were me, what kind of punishment would you consider appropriate for a seventeen-year old boy driving under the influence of alcohol?”

  The question caught Matt off guard. He’d expected a slap on the wrist, a couple days of community service cleaning up Mary Elizabeth Park and all would be forgotten. But Judge Anderson looked as if he really wanted his input on the decision. So he aimed a little higher than weed eating around the tennis courts.

  “Well, sir,” he said, clearing his throat. “I guess some of the roads around town could use a good trash detail.”

  “That’s true enough,” the judge said, his face darkening like a July thundercloud. “Dang slobs hurling their beer bottles out the car window as if they’re never going to see a trash can again.”

  Having apparently hit a sore point, Matt thought better of this particular suggestion. “The recreation park,” he offered up. “I’d be glad to do some work down there in the afternoons when I’m done at Winn-Dixie.”

  Judge Anderson raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you would, would you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That where you planning to work this summer?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The judge rubbed his chin with thumb and forefinger, studying Matt. “Did you know I knew your granddaddy, son?”

  “No, sir.”

  “He was a fine man, your granddaddy. A mentor of mine, actually. I have to believe if he were here, he’d urge me not to go soft on you, but to do what I could to steer you back to the straight and narrow.” He pulled a white handkerchief from beneath the desktop and blew his nose, loudly, thoroughly. When he was finished, he tucked it away and looked at Matt. “So I’m thinking a boy like you could use a job that burns up a sufficient amount of energy every day. The kind of job that makes you tired at night. Too tired to be driving around this town with a blood alcohol level well over the legal limit. When I was your age, I worked on a dairy farm one summer. As I remember, it’s the kind of job that should accomplish all of the above nicely enough.”

  “A dairy farm?” The words popped out before he could think better of his tone. He bit his lip and tempered it with, “But I’ve never done anything like that before, sir.”

  Judge Anderson narrowed his eyes, and then said, “You know, son, I realize you’ve been a fairly big deal in the high school’s senior class this year. Baseball hero and such. Kind of thing that can make a young man feel like he’s above it all. Not so in this courtroom. In here, you break the law, I’m going to make sure you think twice before you do it again.”

  He pounded his gavel on the desktop. “Matthew Griffith, I hereby sentence you to eight forty hour workweeks at the dairy farm of my choice. I’ll make a few calls and let you know where you’ll be going.”

  For a blank moment, Matt could think of nothing to say. “But, sir, I’m supposed to be at UVa for training camp on August 19.”

  “Since we’re already into the first week of June, I suggest you make some of those weeks sixty hours instead of forty. I’ll be asking for regular updates from your employer. I expect not to be disappointed, son.”

  Several arguments sat ready to roll off the tip of Matt’s tongue, but the look on the judge’s face made him think better of it. The summer he had been looking forward to had just turned into three hundred plus hours of wading around in cow manure.

  11

  Deliveries

  Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.

  - Cherokee Indian Proverb

  Now

  Next to Becca, Aaron slept, the rhythm of his breathing deep and even.

  She lay on her back, alternately jacking and twisting her arm beneath her, her head finding no comfort in her too flat pillow. She’d always preferred sleeping on a fat, fluffy pillow, but Aaron liked a thin one. She had conceded, thinking a fat pillow and a skinny pillow wouldn’t look right lined up on the bed together.

  Unreasonable, she knew, to blame Aaron for her own unwillingness to disagree with him. But then maybe she saw it as one more quarter dropped inside the piggy bank of debt she owed him, a debt she’d been trying to repay for the duration of their marriage. She was only too aware of how inadequate her efforts had been, never having given him the one thing he had really wanted, reciprocal love, pure and true. Granted, from the day she had accepted his marriage proposal, she had committed herself to being a good wife. From the outside looking in, there was little to be faulted. But even though they never discussed it, Becca knew, and Aaron, too, that the inside of their marriage was hollow.

  Aaron made a snuffling noise, turned onto his side, away from her. She turned over also, facing the opposite wall and staring into the dark.

  They’d been married for so long now that it was hard to remember life without him, what it was like to sleep in this bed alone, the same heirloom four-poster her grandfather had made and she’d slept in as a child.

  Growing up, she’d never imagined living here in her parents’ house as an adult. Where she would live had never been clear, the picture fuzzy with her own uncertainty about whether she wanted to follow her parents’ life. It was hard to love something with all your heart and at the same time want to be something so very different. But throughout her childhood, that was how Becca felt. She’d loved helping her daddy cut hay, picking apples every August in the orchard at one corner of their farm and the daily milking of the Holstein cows she’d grown up knowing by name.

  Her family had lived a simple life. They’d shopped at the Winn-Dixie in Ballard on Sat
urdays and gone to church whenever the doors were open. When Becca was five, they’d driven to Ohio one summer to visit her mother’s sister. She didn’t remember much about it except being car sick in the back seat most of the way there and back.

  At thirteen, she’d swung high in the old tire that hung by a rope in the oak tree in their back yard and wondered about the places she’d never been. Were there mountains in Nevada? What was it like to live in a place that had no winter? Did the people in New York City really walk down the street without meeting eyes with the other people they passed?

  She could have found most of the answers to her questions in a book. But even then, she didn’t think that was the same as seeing it for herself, living it for herself.

  As much as she’d loved those things, she couldn’t help wondering what else the world could offer.

  She got out of bed now, slipping quietly across the room to the window that looked over the back yard. Beneath the maple tree, she saw their shadows dancing in a single line, Abby and this boy she’d been sneaking out to meet. Something inside Becca broke open with a piercing memory of what it felt like to be young and in love, kissing under the moonlight, dreading an inevitable parting.

  She knew that a normal mother would march outside, chastise her daughter for sneaking out and send the boy home with his tail tucked between his legs. But then, she was hardly a normal mother. And wouldn’t it be the height of hypocrisy to correct Abby for the very thing she had once done herself?

  ∞

  Then

  WHEN BECCA WAS old enough to drive, she began making the egg deliveries alone. The number of customers for the business had increased, and they made two trips into town each week now, Mondays and Thursdays. She’d been coming to the Griffith house for eight years, and although she did at least catch a glimpse of Matt most weeks, she never got to see that secret room.

  On this particular Thursday, she pulled into the driveway just behind Mrs. Griffith who got out of her car and waved. “Afternoon, Becca,” she said.

  Becca opened her door and slid out. “Hi, Mrs. Griffith. You look nice today.”

  “Probably smell like mothballs,” she said, pressing a hand to her plaid skirt and smiling. “I don’t have cause to get this out of the closet too often, but I thought Judge Anderson deserved the respect of a good suit. Seems my renegade grandson ran into a little trouble with the law. Hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”

  “Actually, I was a little late getting here myself,” she said.

  The passenger door to Mrs. Griffith’s car opened then, and Matt got out, attitude in the set of his jaw. He took long strides up the walkway, muttering, “Hey,” in Becca’s direction, then vaulting up the steps and into the house.

  Mrs. Griffith shook her head. “Never mind him,” she said. “He’s having a little trouble adjusting to the taste of some well-deserved medicine.”

  Curious, Becca didn’t ask. She opened the trunk instead and lifted out the two cartons of eggs.

  Mrs. Griffith unzipped her purse, flipped through her wallet and pulled out a fifty. “You have change, dear?” she asked.

  “No,” she said. “But that’s all right. You can pay me next week.”

  “I’d rather do it now so I won’t forget. Let me just run in the house and get it. I’ll be right back.”

  She took the eggs from Becca, walked up the steps to the porch in her high heels, the screen door slapping shut behind her. Seconds later, a blast of music cut through the quiet neighborhood, and a classic red Mustang convertible pulled into the driveway behind Becca’s car.

  Becca recognized the driver as Wilks Perdue, a buddy of Matt’s.

  Three girls sat in the backseat. Becca knew them, too. Trish McGuire. Andrea Shively. Pattie Watson.

  Judging from the empty front seat, she assumed they’d come to pick up Matt.

  “Hey, Becca,” Pattie called out over the blasting music.

  “Hi,” she said, raising a hand.

  “Matt here?” Wilks asked.

  “He’s inside, I think.”

  Wilks hit the horn a couple of times.

  Mrs. Griffith appeared on the porch, shaking a finger. “Wilks Perdue! Turn that racket down. Not everyone on this street shares your enthusiasm for such noise.”

  Wilks leaned over, lowered the volume, then looked back at the girls and rolled his eyes.

  Matt jogged out of the house, dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and a baseball hat with the bill in the back, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

  “Just a minute, young man,” Mrs. Griffith said, stern.

  Matt stopped and turned to face his grandmother. In his expression, Becca saw something angry, a little wild even. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “I trust Judge Anderson made an impression on you this morning?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Where are you headed?” she asked.

  “Out to the lake,” Matt said.

  Mrs. Griffith threw a glance at Wilks, now drumming the steering wheel with impatient fingers. “You planning on driving your parents’ boat, son?”

  “Yeah,” Wilks said. And then, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “They know you’re going out there?”

  Wilks nodded.

  Mrs. Griffith shook her head as if she found him completely hopeless. “I better not hear about any more alcohol incidents,” she said, looking at Matt.

  “Gran. . . .”

  “If I do,” she interrupted, “you’ll be spending your free time this summer on that front porch with nothing more exciting to do than watch me knit.”

  Matt’s expression held steady, but Becca strongly suspected he was tempted to roll his eyes as Wilks had. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, managing to sound humble.

  He jogged off then, catapulted over the door of the car into the front seat. Wilks backed up, pulled out with a low roar and cranked the music. But his voice rang out loud and clear when he shouted to Matt, “So why didn’t you invite the little Dunkard girl? It’d be a hoot to see her in a bikini.”

  Becca turned away, but not before catching a glimpse of Matt looking back at her, muted apology in his expression.

  And that, somehow, only deepened the insult.

  12

  Tapestries

  Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

  - Emily Bronte

  Now

  The worst part of losing Daniel, although there were certainly many, was the loneliness Martha found in her bed each night. It had been six years, and still, the loneliness lingered.

  Except for the earliest weeks after his death, the days became manageable enough. Once the initial shock of losing him began to wear off, life’s everyday chores eventually served as enough of a distraction to get her through those waking hours. But it was here in this place where they had shared most of the important conversations of their lives that she realized over and over again just how alone she was.

  This, she found to be the cruelest piece of her current phase of life. Oh, she had her aches and pains, and certainly those could color a day grey. But less tolerable still was the fact that at seventy-four, she had no one to share her worries and concerns with. It was as if the path of aging thinned out the real confidantes in a person’s life. Because in truth, there had only been a few people from whom she kept nothing. Her mother, gone for years now, Clara, her best friend, and Daniel.

  She missed this part of her relationship with Daniel in the way she imagined a person who lost an arm or a leg must miss its function. She could not count the number of times throughout the decades of their marriage when she had sought comfort in Daniel’s arms, sliding into bed and finding her place against his right side, her head seeking with unerring accuracy a single spot at the center of his wide chest.

  “What’s wrong, Martha?” he would ask, the question her invitation to pour it all out to him. And she would, talking until she could begin to see reason through his eyes. That was the kind of man he’d been. A man who thought with str
aight-line logic, able to weigh the positives and negatives of a situation without the smothering cloud of emotion that tended to affect her own judgment.

  It was her understanding of this that had allowed her to go along with the decision they made eighteen years ago. If there had ever been a time when she had needed Daniel’s ability to weed out all the what-ifs she tended to bring into the picture, this had been such a time.

  There had been many moments in the six years since Daniel’s death when she considered unraveling the tapestry of deceit they’d woven around the events of that single devastating night, but each time she stopped herself, unable to imagine what good it would do for any of them. Her final conclusion was always the harm that would no doubt be done in recasting the truth.

  Now, though, without him, she felt as if she were alone in a boat that had managed to struggle along on calm seas. Finally, now, as if she had been expecting it all along, the wind had begun to pick up, and she could feel her small vessel of security rocking from side to side. All her questions were surfacing again, and she could not manage to anchor herself with the assurances Daniel would have given her.

  She lay here on her back in the room’s thick darkness, her eyes wide open, sleep nowhere near. In her memory, she searched for his voice, struggled to remember what words he would have used to calm her. She tried for a long time, and when two single tears of defeat rolled down her wrinkled cheeks, they came with the admission that she could no longer hear him. Any resurfacing of the past would be up to her to address alone. It was as if, really, Daniel had never been here at all.

  13

  Connections

  “Do not be afraid; our fate

  Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.”

  ― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

  Now

  Matt woke with the sun on Tuesday morning. He pulled on shorts and an old Redskins t-shirt, and then went downstairs to brew some coffee in Gran’s electric percolator, the kind he remembered as a kid, bursts of hot, brown liquid shooting up through a glass bubble on the lid.