Perfect Glass (A Young Adult Novel (sequel to Glass Girl))

by Laura Anderson Kurk

  ***

  I couldn’t get to Wind River Books fast enough. Nearly tripping down the stairs, I managed to right myself and climb into the rental car. By the time I parked in front of the bookstore, evening had darkened the streets and the lights inside the store gave me a perfect view of Meg.

  She didn’t see me because of the reflection on the store windows; she wouldn’t know me in this car anyway. In fact, she probably wouldn’t know me with shaggy hair and the beginnings of a beard. So I sat for a minute, watching her dusting bookshelves, either talking to herself or singing. Her feather duster had become a prop in whatever scene she had going.

  She looked heart-stoppingly, breathtakingly beautiful, my Meg.

  I grabbed her pathetic little metal souvenir from my bag and walked to the door, opening it carefully so the bell wouldn’t bounce around. Scratchy country music played in the background. Meg hadn’t seen me yet, so I took a minute to appreciate the adorable picture she made pretending to two-step with her duster.

  “You looking for a dance partner?” I moved into the room, letting the door and the bell bang behind me.

  When she started into a full run, I braced for impact and caught her in the air. She hung on for dear life while I soaked in the moment, enjoying having the breath knocked out of me by Meg.

  The first thing I needed, possibly the only thing, was to kiss her and I did, for as long as I could. I let us both breathe for a minute, then I perched her on a counter so I could touch the face I’d missed so much.

  I poured every bit of frustration, anger, sadness, and worry into that kiss. Meg understood and received it all, pushing her fingers into my hair and giggling against my lips. I didn’t care that anybody passing by could be watching us through the window or that I could fall right there and sleep for a week.

  “I’m afraid this is another dream,” she whispered. “I’m going to wake up and you’ll still be gone.”

  “No dream, honey. I’m home now.” Even as I said it, I didn’t feel the relief I wanted to feel. I wanted to be here. I needed to be here. But I’d left things undone. So this perfect moment seemed borrowed, a debt I would need to square up later.

  Walking to the door, I flipped the sign to CLOSED and turned the lock. Then I cut the lights and led Meg by the hand up the stairs to a couch on the second floor. I just wanted to hold her until my world stopped spinning.

  “Ouch!” She scooted off my lap. “What is that?”

  “It’s your souvenir. A mangled piece of metal from a trash dump.” I’d been confident when I bought this thing but now, not so much.

  She reached for the fragment and turned it over and over in her hands. “It seems more valuable than it looks.”

  “I laid out quite a bit of cash for that thing.”

  “Where?”

  “It came from a little boy who lives in a trash dump called La Chureca. Thousands of people live there. It covers four and a half miles of shoreline on Lake Managua.” I felt my throat tightening as I tried to describe the hell of that place. “The people who live in the trash sell the metal they find and eat the food that restaurants dump. Half the kids are naked, but they tie scarves around their mouths to cut down on the smells and fumes.”

  Meg was silent as she studied her treasure. “Maybe the little boy who sold it to you had money to buy food for his family after you bought this.”

  “That was my thinking, anyway.”

  “I love it.”

  I smiled. “I knew you would.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home?”

  “Because I didn’t know for sure until I knew for sure.”

  She wrinkled her nose.

  “Anyway, turns out surprising you is fun.” I wound her long hair around my fist and tugged gently, still trying to convince myself I held the real thing, not a mirage created out of my extreme thirst for Meg.

  “Have you seen your parents yet?”

  “No…but I met your mother.”

  She jerked upright. “What do you think?”

  I smiled at her shocked look. “I think you look just like her. I think she’s really beautiful and smart and sweet like you. I think you’re her world.” I shrugged and hid a smile. “I think she liked me….”

  Meg blew a warm breath out and smiled in a thoughtful sort of way. “I’d made that meeting into some sort of overblown, stressful event in my head. Like I had to plan a formal dinner where I would introduce the two of you and we would all sit around looking at the ceiling and the floor and feeling awkward.”

  “She does want to have dinner.”

  “And when you looked at her, you didn’t think about straightjackets and shuffling slippers?”

  “Of course not.” I touched her cheek. “Have I ever told you I’ve got a thing for you?” I pulled her tighter into my chest.

  “Once or twice.”

  “I need to drop off a really crappy rental before the place closes. Can you follow me and get me home?”

  ***

  On the way to the rental office, I had a chance to look around town. The fact that I’d come home a different person made Chapin feel like a different place. It would be easy to judge the people I passed on these streets as shallow and small-minded because they had everything they needed. Most had everything they wanted. But that wouldn’t be fair. Life’s hard all over. In different ways.

  It was external forces—poverty, government—that messed with the people in Nicaragua. Here, we managed to screw ourselves up all on our own. I guess the difference was here, where we’d been blessed beyond belief, we ought to be held to a different standard.

  Once I’d turned in the car and climbed into Meg’s Jeep, my long day caught up with me. I dozed as she drove out to the ranch and she woke me as we got close.

  “I think your parents might know more than you think,” she said softly.

  My mom and dad stood on the porch watching us approach. My mom smiled and waved, but my dad looked a little somber for my liking. Kate had definitely made a phone call. I’d barely had time to open the car door before Mom was there, hugging me.

  “What took you so long?” She patted my face, looking for explanations there. “Your flight landed hours ago. I bet you’re starving.”

  “I could eat.” I reached toward my dad, who hugged me hard and said, “Welcome home, son.”

  By this time, my dog, Butch, had joined the reunion, doing his best to jump into my arms and complaining loudly about how long I’d been away. Meg and my mom disappeared inside, so I grabbed my bag and started in that direction, whistling for Butch to follow.

  “What’s your hurry, Henry?” Dad called.

  “Sir?”

  “Let the girls go in and we’ll sit a while on the porch. You’ve probably missed the chilled air we have here. And you’ve got some things to clear up with me.”

  I tried to shake off my fog of fatigue so I could be fully present with this rock of a man. I set my bag on the porch and zipped my coat up.

  My dad perched his hip on the porch railing. I dropped into the swing and waited, knowing, from past experience, Dad couldn’t be rushed when he was working up a life lesson.

  “Kate said she was fairly certain you’re home for good.”

  “I told her I needed a break and I wanted to help you with planting. I’ll go back soon enough.”

  I wasn’t sure how much my parents knew about the situation with Raf. I understood now that Kate spared them the details about her life in San Isidro that would cause worry. I felt like I was dancing on the edge of the roof, trying to explain my presence without falling into a full confession.

  “How much of your work did you finish?” He stared right through me.

  I sighed. “I finished the roof on the dining hall and got a bit of the fence put up around the property.”

  “That probably took you all of a week,” he said. “I’ve seen you raise a barn in a few days. What about the building that needs finishing?”

  “The thing is,
Dad, building supplies are hard to come by there. It’s next to impossible to find a place that will order what you need and deliver things on time. And forget about finding men to help.”

  “That’s no hill for a stepper, Henry.”

  I chuckled. “Maybe not. I plan to figure it out from here and, once things are delivered, I’ll head back down and finish up. I’d just get in the way right now.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck with his callused hand. “I just wouldn’t want to think you gave up when things got rough. Or you let your heart get in the way of your work.”

  I shook my head but stayed quiet.

  “I know what you feel for Meg. I recognize that look, because it’s the one I wore for years after I met your mother.” Scrubbing his hand over his face, he hid a smile. “You and Meg will have all the time in the world to be together. Right now, you need to do the clean thing and finish what you started.”

  My neck burned with embarrassment and I struggled to maintain composure as my dad dressed me down. “Yes, sir. I’ll finish the building.”

  We struck a companionable silence there on the porch until Dad cleared his throat and said, “There’s something else.” Tough as he sounded, I could tell he was showing restraint. “I saw the strangest thing in the Managua paper online today.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Seems when you search for Whitmire in that paper, you come up with an article about my son involving himself in a gang fight and drawing the eyes of the government to a certain children’s home.”

  I dropped my head and stared at my boots. “I won’t deny that I caused a problem.”

  “I don’t think your sister tells me the whole truth about that place.”

  “I’ll tell you, Dad. There’s this kid at Quiet Waters named Rafael. He’s there because he’d been involved in a gang.”

  Dad glanced up at me, eyebrows raised.

  “They killed his mother after he turned one of the members in for rape.”

  “Poor kid.” I could see Dad’s demeanor softening already. “What’s he like?”

  “He’s this dodgy punk, acting out in all the expected ways…and some unexpected ways. And way too smart to be in the situation he’s in.”

  “I’m following you.” He took a toothpick out of his shirt pocket and put it between his teeth so he could think better. I stood and leaned against the railing next to him.

  “Raf and I had a little altercation one morning. I got…angry. I guess I wasn’t thinking straight when I made him ride along with me into Managua. I didn’t tell John that I had him. If I had, I would’ve saved us all a lot of trouble.”

  “In what way?”

  I shrugged. “John would’ve pulled Raf out of the truck. It turns out he wasn’t supposed to go near Managua; it was a condition of his placement with Quiet Waters. I would’ve ordered my supplies and come home to a quiet dinner of beans and rice and gone to bed.”

  “But the dominoes fell in a different direction.” He patted my shoulder and I met his gaze.

  “A kid got hurt and now there’s some unwelcome attention on the orphanage. I messed up.”

  Dad was quiet for a minute, chewing on his toothpick. “You packed your bags and left because you couldn’t stand that you’d made a mistake.”

  I winced a little with the deadly accuracy of that truth. I’d kind of built a reputation around doing the right thing, making solid decisions. I was his son, after all.

  “It wasn’t that simple,” I argued. “I felt like if I got out of the country for a little while, things would go a little easier on them. Like they could pretend they’d sent home the troublemaker and all would be well again.”

  Dad smirked.

  “Plus, there’s no way now I can move around freely in Managua, the only place where I can buy building materials.”

  “Did you leave before you really knew whether it was the right thing to do?” His voice had become gentler.

  “I thought it was the right thing to do.”

  “That’s not what I asked, Henry.”

  I shook my head. “I was looking for a reason to come home.”

  Dad hunched his shoulders over and put his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “That boy’s down there hurting because of something you did. He’s thinking he’s not worth your time and effort.”

  My eyebrows shot up. He wasn’t angry that I hadn’t stayed to finish the work. Instead, he was confused about why I’d leave Raf in a bad way. I took a moment with that, rolling it around in my head.

  “He’s dying for a clean start,” he said, “and you could help give it to him.”

  The cold wind picked that moment to blow through, making our porch swing knock up against the railing behind it. I got behind it to protect the paint I’d put there, but also to distance myself from my dad’s words. Instead of suggesting we go in, out of the wind, he just spoke louder.

  “Here’s what I’ve learned.” He walked toward the porch swing, making sure I was listening. “I am capable of working myself to death, taking care of my family and my land, helping out in my church and my town. In fact, I’m the hardest worker you’ll ever know and you’re just like me.” He poked a finger into my chest to emphasize his point. “Men like us, though, we sometimes blow right through the moments that matter most.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said. In fact, I knew there was no probably to it.

  “When I think of why I’m proud of you, Henry, two things rise to the top. One—the way you wrapped your arms around little Meg, loved her through her pain, and told her about things that matter.” He stopped here and smiled as he thought about it.

  I smiled, too, because I remembered the night in the cave with Meg. The night she figured out what it meant to forgive and what it meant to accept mercy. And to offer it.

  “What’s two, Dad?”

  “Two is you made the decision all on your own to spend a valuable year of your life helping out some little people in Nicaragua—a year when you could’ve been enjoying your freedom in college. You accepted a calling. It was bigger than a construction project.”

  He leaned over the swing and put both hands on my shoulders. “Don’t you feel the difference in your heart between changing a child’s life and finishing a building? They’re both good, but one blows the other out of the water.”

  “I feel the difference,” I said.

  “Quit worrying so much about the boards and nails of your life. Focus on the stuff that lasts.” He glanced through the window toward the glowing light of the kitchen where Meg and my mom were laughing about something.

  “Relationships last, son. Buildings don’t even matter. You should go back and offer yourself up to those kids. If you get a building or two built, so be it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Even as I said it, I felt my head turning so I could watch Meg moving through my house.

  My dad chuckled. “Meg will be waiting.”

  THIRTEEN

  meg

  Henry fell asleep last night, midsentence, on the couch. “I’ll follow you home, Pittsburgh, just give me a minute….”

  With his head in my lap and his arms, which must weigh twenty pounds each, wrapped like steel bands around my waist, I couldn’t move. I didn’t care.

  His mom watched us from her chair. His dad came through to find boots and stopped. He smiled, pointing at Henry’s long legs sprawled over the armrest.

  It took both of them and all of my own strength to loosen Henry’s hold so I could scoot out from under him. I put a pillow under his head and his mom wrapped him in a quilt. We turned out the lamp.

  I drove home, fighting his gravitational pull the whole way.

  He looked like a guy who had been lost on a mountain for weeks, with a beard and crazy hair. His eyes were red and puffy. His lips were chapped.

  There was a strange part of me that knew what Henry felt the minute I saw him. I knew not just that he was sad, but I knew exactly how sad, and my heart broke. My mouth filled with the bitterness of w
hat he’d gone through. My head rang with his frustration. I kept expecting him to crumple in front of me.

  We’d made plans to ride horses today because the weather was supposed to be tolerable. When I parked at the stable, Henry was already on his horse, Ben. Dylan sat on the fence watching them run in a far pasture. He glanced at me and smiled, disappearing into the barn to bring Trouble out.

  I rode out toward Henry and Ben and, when I got close, he smiled. “Stay close, Pittsburgh.”

  ***

  Trouble and I followed Ben and Henry through pasture after pasture, then up a steep hill where there was no trail. When we finally reached a flat section of land, Henry reined Ben in and turned him around. I did the same.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “It’s beautiful. Are we still on Whitmire land?”

  He nodded. “This is as far back as the ranch goes. The view’s the best, but this land is mostly worthless for farming or livestock.”

  “Good grief, this ranch is enormous.”

  He scanned the horizon. “I loved it here when I was a kid.”

  We tied the horses to a couple of trees. The forest of pines created shadows on the moss-covered boulders and made this hilltop much colder than the pastureland. Henry stepped behind me, blocking the wind and stretching his arms around to warm me.

  “A few years ago, I stood right here and looked around, really looked at this view for the first time. I rode back home and asked my dad why he hadn’t built our house right here.”

  “What’d he say?” I leaned back so I could see Henry’s eyes.

  “He said it just hadn’t occurred to him to put a house so far away from the business of the ranch.”

  “Seems like the farther away, the better,” I said.

  Henry was quiet for a few long moments. When he turned me around to face him, he was smiling. “I think so, too. That’s why I want to build a house for you right here one day. I know exactly what it will look like—a stone house with big old windows all around. I’m going to put a screened-in porch on this side so you can watch the sun going down.”

  “Do it,” I whispered, completely serious. “Start tomorrow.”