“I know,” Martha said, nodding.
“But you are worried.”
Martha glanced at Emmy and then back at Clara, exhaling a long sigh. “I wish I could say I wasn’t.”
Aside from Daniel, Martha had never talked about any of this with another person. Eighteen years ago, Martha needed the wisdom and advice of her friend who understood the choices that Daniel and Martha made that awful August. Clara respected Martha’s commitment to following through with what Daniel believed best for their family and everyone involved. As children, they had both been raised to respect a husband’s decision-making, to submit in times of disagreement. And this was what Martha had done.
She turned her hand over and squeezed Clara’s in return. “Thank you. You somehow manage to arrive just when I most need one of our chats.”
“Friends should be good for something, shouldn’t they?”
Martha pressed her lips together and then said, “You have no idea, Clara, what it means to me that you’ve never judged me. Sometimes, I don’t think I’ve done the same for my own children.”
“I think I do understand. But let me say this as someone who loves you. In the end, none of us will be the one doing the judging. We’ll have to do our own individual accounting.”
Long after Clara left, her words still rang in Martha’s head, impossible to deny. Because, in truth, she feared she wouldn’t even know where to begin.
16
Maybes
What happens to the wide-eyed observer
when the window between reality
and unreality breaks
and the glass begins to fly?
- Author Unknown
Now
They think I didn’t hear them talking. Mama and Mrs. Bowman.
But I wasn’t asleep. And I heard the awful worry in Mama’s voice when she’d talked about Mrs. Griffith’s passing.
That explains then the differences I’ve sensed in Becca. The way she stares off out the window when she’s in my room, the longing in her eyes.
Matt came back.
I wonder now how I could have thought Becca had forgotten him.
When Becca and I were girls, I saw her as the strong one. The one who could do things I never imagined myself doing. When I was four years old, I had Scarlet Fever. It didn’t respond to the antibiotics at first, and it took a really long time for me to get better. I guess it’s true that I was never as strong afterwards. I was always the one to get anything that came along, and Mama said things just hit me harder than everybody else.
Maybe that’s how I began to see myself as the weak one, convinced throughout the years of my childhood that I didn’t have what it took to beat the really hard stuff.
Somewhere along the way, it became clear to me that Becca did, that if I stood back and let her, she would shoulder the difficult things, and I wouldn’t have to. Like the time we broke Mama’s mantle clock, and Becca took the blame even though I was the one who said we should open it up and see how it worked. She had to do extra chores for a week, and neither of us ever told Mama about my part in what had happened.
I told myself I hadn’t really meant to do anything wrong. I just wanted to know what the inside of the clock looked like.
Does anyone ever really mean to do wrong?
The first time I considered this question, my answer was yes, of course. People think, plot, and figure out the best ways to carry off their wrongdoings every day. People go to great lengths not to get caught. Each of these facts makes a good argument for intent.
But I don’t think it’s that simple.
I’ve looked at the possible answers from a dozen different angles. And what I’ve come up with is this: most people justify their actions with excuses they believe cancel out their own accountability. Most people believe they had no choice to do anything other than what they did.
I think this theory mostly holds water. That if it didn’t, the world would be full of people like me, people forever changed by a single choice.
As for me, I believe that what I did was wrong. I knew better. I did have a choice. If John and I hadn’t met in the barn that night to figure out how we were going to provide for ourselves as newlywed teenagers, maybe he would still be alive today. Maybe I would still be living in this world rather than existing somewhere in between.
Maybe. . .so many maybes.
None of which matter now.
Perhaps then, what does matter isn’t intent. Perhaps in the end, what matters is remorse.
I do have this.
I can only hope that when all is said and done, it’s what will count.
17
Hope and Boxes
“Nothing is certain but the unforeseen.”
- Proverb
Now
Matt pulled into the small parking lot at the side of Tom Williams’ office and cut the engine on the Land Rover.
He leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes and telling himself this was no big deal. It would be a short meeting. He and Becca would sit across from Tom’s desk for a few minutes, hear what he had to say, and then go their separate ways again. That was it. One small intersection in eighteen years. And probably the last of their lives.
He opened his eyes against the blackness of the thought, looking out at the cars stopped at the light on Main Street. Not for the first time since running into Tom that morning, he wondered what Gran had been thinking when she put Becca in her will. Why she had never told him they’d kept in touch. Had Becca asked her not to?
The thought brought with it an actual stab of pain to the center of his chest. He got out of the Land Rover, shutting the door a little too hard, as if he could reseal all those memories, leave them out here where they would have no chance of getting in between Becca and him today.
Inside the office, he stepped up to the receptionist’s desk. An older woman with white hair and wire glasses that sat perched on the tip of her nose glanced up and said, “May I help you?”
“Matt Griffith,” he said. “I have an appointment with Tom.”
“Of course. He’s expecting you,” she said, picking up the phone and then directing him down the hall to the last door on the left. He stopped just outside, his feet refusing to move. Through the partially open door, he saw Becca seated in front of Tom’s big desk, her back to him.
Tom looked up, waving him forward. “Come in, Matt. Have a seat, please.”
Becca turned her head and looked directly at him. “Hello, Matt,” she said, her voice polite and even.
“Becca.” He cleared his throat, adding, “How are you?”
“Fine, thank you. I’m so sorry about your grandmother.”
“Thanks,” he said, managing to cross the floor and take the chair next to hers, all the while feeling as though he were walking the deck of a listing ship.
“Well,” Tom said, “before we get started, can I get either of you anything? Some coffee? Bottled water?”
Becca shook her head. “Not for me, thank you.”
“I’m fine,” Matt said.
“All right then, we can get started.” Tom opened the file in front of him. “As you know, the two of you are named as the sole beneficiaries of Mrs. Griffith’s will. At her request, I’ll read the following out loud.”
Matt sat back in his chair, his heart suddenly beating so hard he was sure Becca could hear it from her seat. He leaned forward and anchored sweaty palms to his knees.
Tom slipped on a pair of glasses, then picked the paper up off the desk, cleared his throat and began to read.
Dearest Matt and Becca,
I’m sure you must have many questions about this meeting involving you both. In some peoples’ eyes, what I have done will seem a curious thing. To me, though, it is nothing short of logical, and I hope you will each see it that way.
Matt, you are my beloved grandson, more like a son to me, as you know. When your father and mother died, I could not imagine how the pain of that would ever recede enough for
me to go on living. Losing a child is the closest thing to having your heart cut from your body that I can imagine. You, dear boy, were my saving grace. I love you more than I could possibly ever tell you with words. I leave to you the remains of any and all bank accounts bearing my name as well as the Highland Street house and all of its contents.
And dear Becca. I have so much admired your honor and integrity. I hope you will take what I am leaving you in the spirit in which it is given. A token of appreciation from an old woman who believes you are a special person. I leave to you my house on Tinker’s Knob Lake and its surrounding thirty acres of land.
Matt and Becca, I never voiced aloud my hopes for what might have been for you two. Life is full of blind curves, and who am I to question the rightness of the direction you chose? But I do know this to be true. Sometimes, it is nearly impossible to look beyond the parameters of the boxes we put ourselves in. And maybe that is the one thing we should somehow find a way to do.
With deepest love,
Gran
Tom placed the paper back on the desk, coughed once, removed his glasses, his voice wavering a bit when he said, “Well. Either of you have any questions?”
Matt stared at the attorney, as if to set his eyes anywhere else would mean acknowledging what had just been said. “No,” he finally managed, breaking the silence.
Becca got to her feet abruptly, her chair teetering backwards and then crashing to the floor. Matt quickly stood and picked it up. She looked at Tom, shaking her head. “I can’t possibly accept this.”
“I think it’s very clear that she wanted you to have it, Mrs. Brubaker.”
Becca looked at Matt, her hands clasped tightly around the strap of her black purse. “I had no idea,” she said.
“It never occurred to me that you did,” he said quietly.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I really have to go.”
“Becca, wait,” he said, but she was already out the door and running down the hall.
Matt stood there for a moment, not sure what to do, even less sure that he had a right to do anything. Sometimes, it is nearly impossible to look beyond the parameters of the boxes we put ourselves in. Gran’s words echoed in his head, forcing his feet to move. “Thanks, Tom,” he said and left the office.
18
Beans and Boys
A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.
- Jean de La Fontaine
Now
Becca forced herself to walk up the street to the parking space where she’d left her car. One foot in front of the other. Walk. Walk. Walk. When she wanted to run. But even that wouldn’t do. What she really wanted was to turn the clock back to that morning when Tom Williams had called, to tell him there couldn’t possibly be any reason for her to attend a reading of Millie Griffith’s will. In the back of her mind, she’d thought maybe the kind old lady had left her a few of her books. They used to talk about them, their favorite stories. Mrs. Griffith had loved Willa Cather and William Faulkner, writers Becca had discovered the last year she’d attended school. They would drink tea and talk about the characters in the books they read as if they were people they’d met on the streets of their own lives, full-blown, real.
That first year after Becca had married Aaron, it was hard for her to continue going to Mrs. Griffith’s house. Becca had known the older woman was lonely for Matt, just as she was. The stark difference in their grief being that Mrs. Griffith’s loss was temporary while hers was permanent. Maybe at first it was this mutual mourning that fueled their conversations. But it eventually became more, and Becca grew to look forward to their visits as a high point in her week.
Mrs. Griffith understood things about her that no one else did. That it was not an easy thing to turn away from something you knew was real and good. That sometimes there was no other choice.
After her first stroke, Mrs. Griffith stayed at home for a while with a nurse who came in every day. When she could no longer take care of herself, Becca heard from others how Matt tried to get her to move up to D.C. He’d wanted her to stay with him, but she had chosen not to leave the county. She’d been born there, she’d said many times, and it was her intention to die there.
Eventually, she moved to the nursing home that sat on a hill at the lower end of Main Street. It was a hard place to visit, an even harder place to be. Most of the nursing assistants there tried with the patients, smiles, kind voices, but there was always the sense that people in a place like that were just waiting for the next phase.
As time passed, Mrs. Griffith became less and less the person she had once been. Becca continued reading to her, hoping some piece of the stories would reach her, give her a small nugget of the joy it had once given her.
Becca stopped beside her car now, fumbling through her purse for the keys. She heard again the last of Mrs. Griffith’s letter. . .my hopes for what might have been for you two.
“Becca, wait!”
She couldn’t look at him now. Not with her own emotions so unrestrained. She opened the door, slid onto the seat and tried to stick the key in the ignition. But her hands refused the simple task, and she dropped the key onto the floor, reaching down for it with a cry of frustration.
“Becca.”
He stood by her window, rapping gently against the glass with his knuckles. She found the key, sat for a moment, then finally opened the door.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, still without looking at him. “I’m fine. Really.”
“The coffee shop up the street,” he said. “Could we go get a cup?”
“I can’t,” she said quickly. “I have to get home.”
“Ten minutes, Becca. That’s all.”
She finally looked at him then. His eyes were guarded, uncertain. She wondered if he was anything like the Matt she’d once known. Or if he had become someone completely different.
The desire to know won out. She got out of the car, and they walked the half block to the shop in silence, a good wedge of space between them. She felt as if none of this could be real, that it must be one of the countless dreams she’d had over the years where she woke up with a crater of emptiness inside her.
But this time it was real.
He held the door open, waving her inside first.
The Second Cup had been in town for a couple of years, but this was the first time she’d been inside. The walls were painted the color of toast, and the artwork of local middle school and high school students filled up one entire side. The place smelled of fresh-brewed coffee. A couple of teenagers sat at a table by the window, sipping some kind of concoction covered with whipped cream, laptop computers blinking in front of them.
At the counter, a young girl with an earring in the left side of her nose greeted them. “What can I get you?” she asked.
“Becca?” Matt said.
“Just a regular coffee,” she said, opening her purse and pulling out her wallet.
He motioned for her to put it away. She wanted to insist on paying for herself, but it was awkward, so she didn’t. “Two coffees,” Matt said.
“I’ll bring them over,” the girl said, smiling.
They picked a table in a corner opposite the students. Becca felt their eyes on them. She thought how odd they must look. She in her cape and bonnet. He in jeans and a white oxford shirt. This part felt too familiar, exactly the same as it had so many years before when they’d gone out together.
They sat, and the waitress arrived with their coffee. Becca busied herself with sugar and cream. When she’d taken as much time with that as she could, she was left with no other choice but to look at him.
His dark blonde hair was still thick and unruly. His eyes an unsettling blue, fine lines now at the sides. His nose was still straight and almost too perfect. His jaw line had not softened, and she could see that he’d taken care of his athletic body over the years.
“It’s been a long time, Becca,” he said, as if he, too, couldn’t
quite believe they were sitting there together.
“Yes.” She tried to smile, but the effort failed, and she ended up pressing her lips together and wrapping her hands tight around the white coffee mug.
“Your family. How are they?” he asked.
“My father passed away three years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Matt said, sitting back. “Your father was a good man.”
“Thank you. And yes, he was.”
He glanced away, then raised his eyes to hers again. “I’ve thought of you, Becca,” he said, hesitating, and then revising, “I wanted to call you so many times.”
She swallowed hard, searching for something to say that wouldn’t lay her heart out as the raw and vulnerable thing it was just then. “It’s better that you didn’t,” she said.
“Is it?”
She took a sip of her coffee, buying time. “Yes.”
“I didn’t know you and Gran kept in touch.”
She nodded. “It must seem kind of unusual, but we enjoyed each other’s company.”
“No,” he said. “I’m glad.”
“About the will,” she said. “I can’t accept that.”
He was quiet for a moment, before saying, “She left it to you, Becca. It’s yours.”
She shook her head. “I could never feel right about it.”
“And since it was her wish, I could never feel right about it being any other way.”
“What would I do with something like that?” she asked. “It would be wasted on me.”
“Maybe it could be a place to go when you need something of your own.”
She wanted to say how remarkable that sounded, how wonderful, and yet there was no way she could ever choose that house as a place to get away from anything. It could never be a place of her own. It had been their place, and for her, it held too many memories, too many shadows of their past.
Crossing Tinker's Knob Page 8
