He nodded. “Sometimes. When I need to think about things.”
Becca found a grassy spot at the edge of the creek and sat down, folding her legs beneath her. Matt hesitated and then sat down next to her. “You have a lot to think about?” she said, aiming for a light note.
“More and more.”
She turned to look at him, a half-smile lightening her words. “From the surface, it seems like you’ve got it all together.”
“Glad to know I’ve got somebody convinced,” he said.
Becca leaned forward, dug her fingers into a sandy spot and then let it sift back through. “Could I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he said.
“What happened to your mama and daddy?”
Matt picked up a small rock, skipped it across the creek’s surface. He didn’t answer for a good while, and when he did, his voice wasn’t that of the overly-confident baseball player who had come to work on the farm just a few weeks before. “They died when I was six.”
“Oh,” she said, wishing suddenly that she hadn’t asked. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged, as if it had all been too long ago to matter.
“Do you remember them?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “Not a whole picture or anything. Just pieces. Like my mom’s smile when she would wake me up in the morning. Or my dad’s laugh when he thought something I did was funny.”
Becca swallowed hard and put her hand on his, not knowing what to say.
He was quiet for a few moments, and then, “I was with them that day. In the back seat when we hit the ice. I remember the car starting to slide and the way it felt like it would never stop.”
“Oh, Matt,” she said.
“Right before it happened, they were laughing at something on the radio. Then all of a sudden, it stopped, like someone had pushed a button. And everything just got really quiet. All I could hear was the sleet against the car, and then we hit a bank on the side of the road and flipped over.”
Becca reached out and put her other hand under his, squeezing hard because she couldn’t find any words of comfort.
“No one could explain why I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t even wearing a seat belt. They were.” He pulled his hand away, as if he didn’t deserve the comfort. “And you know the really funny thing?”
“What?” she said, her voice soft.
“There was a circus in Roanoke, and they’d been promising to take me all week. My dad had to work late every night, and so this was the last day. Mama said she didn’t think we should go because of the weather. But I pitched a fit until they gave in. And then they died.”
“Matt.” Becca reached for his hand again, ignoring his stiff resistance, feeling somehow that he needed her to push through it. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened to them. You were a child. You didn’t make the decision to go. They did.”
He looked at her then, and she saw the regret in his eyes, wondered how this wounded boy had hidden himself so well that she had not caught even a glimpse of him until now.
But then maybe he’d been there all along. Maybe she just hadn’t been paying attention, looking only at the surface details. Whatever the explanation, she was wholly drawn to him, a well of tenderness forming somewhere deep inside her so that she only had to think his name to feel its pulse.
She reached out then and put her hand to the side of his face. Her touch startled him, as if it were the last thing he had expected. And yet, instantly, she saw his relief in it, mirrored acknowledgement of her own yearnings.
She had no idea where her courage came from. She’d only been kissed one other time in her life, and she had not been the initiator of that seriously disappointing encounter. But she leaned in now and placed her lips to the line of his jaw, light as a butterfly’s landing, then the corner of his mouth, imbuing each kiss with her own unyielding need to heal him. To somehow bring closure to the Matt of here and now, the Matt who had let himself be defined by the unwitting actions of a six-year old boy.
It was Matt who kissed her then, really kissed her, laying her back against the sandy bank, as if this weren’t the first time, as if they already knew how to please one another. Becca had no idea how this could be so, but she loved the heavy feel of him, the way she felt small and protected beneath him, as if she had finally found the place where she belonged.
Around them, the heat of the summer afternoon began to give way to dusk, the air cooling and thinning beneath the lightening humidity. Becca heard the sounds of the farm in the distance, cows lowing, the start of a tractor engine. Entwined with it, the rasp of their own breathing.
Matt kissed her neck and then her ear, propping up on one elbow to look down at her with questions in his eyes.
She heard them clearly, as if he had voiced them out loud. “I don’t know,” she said.
“I do,” he countered.
“Matt-”
“I know what you’re going to say,” he said, winding his hand through her hair. “That your parents won’t approve. That we’re too different. That this will never work.”
“I wasn’t going to say it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“It’s only true if we let it be.”
“You really believe that?”
“Yeah. I do.”
And in that moment, as the summer dusk began to descend into evening, she thought he really did. In truth, so did she.
32
Connection
In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Now
After supper, Abby took her aunt a plate of cherry pie, putting it on a tray, along with a glass of milk and a yellow paper napkin.
Upstairs, she knocked at the door, then opened it to find the lamp beside Emmy’s bed on. Emmy stared at the shadows on the wall, and Abby wondered, as she always did, what she was thinking. She wondered if she had real thoughts or if there was just emptiness where hopes and memories used to live.
She set the tray on Emmy’s nightstand and sat down on the corner of the bed. “Mama made this pie,” she said. “I know you like it, so I brought you some.”
Emmy continued to stare at the wall, and Abby wasn’t sure she even knew she was there. “Here, I’ll help you,” she said, picking up the plate.
Emmy looked at her then, a jerk of her head, as if she had just realized she was in the room. Abby offered her a bite of the pie, and she took it, a little flash of pleasure lighting her face as her taste buds absorbed the flavor. The sight of it made Abby happy. She rarely saw anything but blankness in her aunt’s eyes.
She fed her the rest of the bowl, and Emmy drank half of the milk. Abby put everything back on the tray with a sudden sense that her aunt was glad she’d been the one to bring it to her. It had been this way between them for as long as she could remember. Emmy had never spoken a single word to her, but Abby had always sensed a connection between them, waves of understanding that felt almost like a kind of telepathy. She’d even gone to the library one time and checked out a couple of books on the subject, trying to figure out if what she felt was real. She still didn’t know whether it was or not. But at some point, she’d decided to just accept that whatever it was, it didn’t need an explanation.
“Would you like for me to take your hair down?” she asked, leaning over to remove Emmy’s bonnet. She’d seen her mama do this a thousand times, and she kept her hands gentle in the same way she did. She lay the bonnet on the bed, opened the nightstand drawer and removed a brush. She pulled the pins from the bun at the nape of her aunt’s neck, her long, thick hair tumbling down her back.
It was still beautiful, dark and shiny, although the gray streaks were becoming more noticeable. Abby slid the brush through it, and Emmy leaned her head back as if the attention felt good. She kept going long after the tangles were gone, just because it seemed like a small thing to do if it
gave Emmy any kind of pleasure at all.
The lamp threw a shadow across the room, and through the cracked window on the other side of the bed, Abby heard the frogs start up. “There they are,” she said. “Just like clockwork.”
Emmy turned toward the sound and tipped her head back, as if it reminded her of something good from long ago.
Abby wondered what it would be like to live as her aunt lived. Here, but not really. She’d been like this Abby’s entire life. Abby didn’t remember her any other way. She wondered what Emmy had wanted when she was young, before this happened to her. If she’d had dreams of being something, doing something. It seemed like the cruelest of fates, hanging suspended between a world she couldn’t really be a part of and the one waiting for her in the distance.
No one really knew how much Emmy took in of the world around her, whether she understood what was said to her. Abby liked to think she did. It was too awful to imagine otherwise.
The door opened. Her mama stepped into the room, a soft smile on her face. “Hi,” she said. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah. I was just brushing Aunt Emmy’s hair.”
“Want me to finish?” she asked.
“I’m okay.”
Becca walked over to the bed and sat down. She picked up her hand and smoothed her fingers back and forth across Emmy’s wrist. “Are you tired tonight?” she said.
No answer came, but Abby liked that her mama talked to her aunt this way. As if there were every chance that one day, she would answer the way she once had. Grandma talked to her in a completely different way, like Aunt Emmy was a three-year-old with no ability to understand anything at all. Abby knew she meant well, but she thought her mother’s way showed that she still had hope for Aunt Emmy.
“Why don’t we go ahead and get your nightgown on?” Becca said now, getting up to open a dresser drawer and pulling out a freshly laundered one.
They both removed Emmy’s shoes, then her dress and cape, before helping her into the nightgown. They settled her into bed against the pillows then, tucking the covers around her waist.
“I can read to her for a little while,” Abby offered.
“I will tonight,” Becca said.
“Okay. I’ve got some homework, anyway.”
“Good-night, honey.”
“Good-night.” Abby kissed her mother on the cheek and then reached over and kissed Aunt Emmy as well. Her hand fell across Abby’s, and for a moment Abby thought she felt the briefest squeeze.
In that moment, she remembered something that had happened at church one Sunday when she was a little girl, maybe four or five years old. It had been one of the big meetings of the year where visitors from Ohio and California attended, and people literally spilled out the doors of their small white church. Mostly her memory of that day was fuzzy except for one part. She’d been sitting at a picnic table with her family when Mr. Bowman, one of the church elders, came over and said something to Aunt Emmy. Abby couldn’t hear what it was, but he looked at her next with something on his face she’d never seen before. A kind of rejection she did not understand.
Abby had started to cry, although she had no idea why now. She remembered her mama jumping up from the picnic bench and gathering her in her arms, pressing her face to her neck and putting an arm around Aunt Emmy’s shoulders at the same time. She knew Mr. Bowman had said something else, had the feeling that she heard it, even though she couldn’t remember now what it was. It felt as though there was a hole in the memory, a blank spot that nagged at her like a sore tooth.
Several times, she’d started to ask her mother about that day, what Mr. Bowman had said. But something always stopped her. Along with the fragments of that memory, she’d had the sense that her mama had tried to protect her from something. And maybe Aunt Emmy as well.
Abby let go of her aunt’s hand then and headed for the door. But just before she closed it, she watched as her mama sat down on the bed next to Emmy and opened the book. A wave of love washed over her, and she thought how lucky Aunt Emmy was to have such a sister. And how lucky she was to have them both. It hurt to think of leaving them, of choosing a life that would take her away from here. Part of her didn’t ever want to leave, and yet another part of her wanted to know what else lay beyond here for her. It was her fervent prayer that having one wouldn’t mean giving up the other.
33
Real Love
The only gift is a portion of thyself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Now
Once when Abby was five years old, she brought a tiny kitten up from the barn to let me hold, sneaking it past Mama who would have immediately sent her back outside with it. I held it in the palm of my hand, a little gray fluff of life, its soft mewling for its mother bringing tears to my eyes.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Emmy,” Abby said, the happiness lighting her face fading to dismay. “I didn’t mean to make you sad. I shouldn’t have brought him up.”
I stared at her, unable to turn off my tears, and equally unable to explain that she had done nothing wrong.
Long after she’d taken the kitten back to the barn, I sat on my bed, a part of me yearning to open the window and call her back. I have thought many times to reject her efforts at kindness, to sever whatever sense of obligation she feels toward me. But it is something I haven’t been able to bring myself to do, the reasons entirely selfish. Her visits are like being bathed in warm light, and she has a way of appearing when the world around me seems at its blackest.
I look for myself in her, but there is little to be found beyond a certain set of her mouth when she’s giving something her full attention. Without doubt, she has Becca’s questioning mind. I have no idea whether this is genetic or simply something she’s learned from my sister.
I think of the ways in which Becca tries to share Abby with me, how when we’re alone, she refers to her as our daughter. And each time I hear this, it’s like I’ve been handed a gift. One I know doesn’t come from pity, but from a mutual understanding of how special Abby is and a recognition of the part we’ve both played in her existence.
And, too, maybe Becca’s generosity stems from a lesson we both learned somewhere along the way. That real love doesn’t set boundaries or guard with jealousy those at which it is directed. Real love, whatever its origin, is to be shared. Welcomed. Valued.
34
A Clean Heart
In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Now
At just after two a.m., Martha gave up on sleep and got out of bed, reaching for the soft cotton robe Daniel had given her more than a dozen years ago. She slipped it over her shoulders, wincing once when a pain shot through her left elbow, arthritis a nagging reminder of time’s passing.
She left her room and took the stairs to the kitchen, keeping her steps soft in an effort not to wake anyone else. She filled the stove-top percolator, which had belonged to her mother, with water and then retrieved the coffee can from the pantry, spooning in an extra tablespoon to chase away the fatigue weighing on her like a wet blanket.
But even caffeine seemed to have little effect these days. It made no sense that a person could stay so tired and yet not be able to sleep.
Martha waited for the pot’s last upward sputter and then poured herself a cup, adding a bit of cream from the glass pitcher in the refrigerator. She retrieved her Bible from the top drawer of the walnut Hutch that sat against one wall of the room, then lowered herself into a chair at the table. She heard a sound in the hallway and looked up to find Becca standing in the kitchen doorway.
“You couldn’t sleep either?” Becca asked.
Martha shook her head. “Coffee’s ready if you want some.”
Becca walked to the pot and filled a cup, thick silence hanging over the kitchen. She sat down at the table, cupping the mug with both hands.
&nb
sp; Martha noticed the circles beneath her eyes. “I’m worried about you, Becca.”
Becca took a sip of her coffee. “You don’t need to be, Mama.”
“I’m worried about the choices you’re making.”
“To accept a gift from someone I cared about?” Becca replied, the words sharp in a way that was not characteristic of her. And then, evenly, “What could be so wrong with that?”
“We both know it’s more.”
“Do we?”
“Have you thought about how this will make Aaron feel?”
Becca looked away then and sighed, as if the fire behind her last words had suddenly been doused with water, losing their flame. “I’m not doing this to hurt Aaron, Mama.”
“But you know that it will.”
“Mama, I—”
“I know what you believe you gave up, Becca. I knew when you married him that you didn’t love him the way he loved you. But I really thought you would come to. Aaron is a good man. He’s been there for you, for all of us.”
“I know he has.”
“Isn’t that worthy then of at least your loyalty?”
“He has that.”
“Does he?” Martha heard the judgment in her own voice and felt the sharp sting of guilt. She was quiet for several moments, rubbing the rim of her cup with one thumb. “I saw Jacob’s wife in Wal-mart the other night.”
Becca looked up then. “You talked to her?”
Martha nodded. “She had the boy with her.”
“Michael, you mean,” Becca said.
“Yes. Michael,” she said, realizing she had never said it out loud before.
“Was Jacob with her?”
Martha shook her head, feeling her daughter’s questioning stare and yet unable to bring herself to meet it.
“May I ask you something?” Becca said.
Martha looked up then. “Go ahead.”
Crossing Tinker's Knob Page 16
