Dogwood
Page 8
“So you what, wallow in it?”
“No, girl, I put my hip boots on and waltz through the cow pies.”
Will
I tensed as the door opened, not knowing whether to sit or stand. I put my palms up, pushed the chair with the backs of my legs, and stood as a withered ghost hobbled into the room. She looked a thousand years old. Her leg bones appeared as thin as straw, her knees just bumps, shoulders stooped.
She transfixed me with those eyes, as if she were an aged vampire ready to suck the lifeblood from me. I doubted her false teeth were up to the task, but the ferocity of her stare left no doubt she had the willpower. I sensed strength in her. You develop that in prison—knowing the ones who will make it and those who won’t.
She stopped to catch her breath, looking like a battle-worn soldier who had come out stronger on the other side. She seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place her. Was she from Dogwood? one of my mother’s friends? a teacher? She glanced behind her and motioned.
All music that had been the soundtrack of my life in Clarkston faded. The world stopped turning, stars fell, and the sun stood still as she entered the room.
“Karin,” I whispered. The word I had spoken only to myself the last twelve years. The name on my lips as I went to sleep each night. The face in my dreams. I hadn’t dared believe it was true, that she was really coming, but here she stood.
She moved tentatively, as if something in the room might swallow her whole if she made a wrong step. What these two had in common, what drew them together and to me, I couldn’t fathom.
Karin’s face had aged gracefully, unlike my own. I could feel a new line or wrinkle every day I washed my face. Her skin still looked as I remembered in my dreams. Cute freckles just above her cheeks—like someone who studied a map of home and tapped a pencil on a familiar spot—long eyelashes, and milky white skin.
Her eyes, however, betrayed a hard road. I remembered them as deep blue pools, moons circling an unknown planet, full of life. She was thinner, too, and I recalled the fears she used to have of growing up and inheriting her mother’s hips. She hadn’t.
Here was the answer to my prayers, every longing of a dozen years, standing half a room away, and yet so far.
Karin glanced to her right, and the old woman waved her forward. The woman spun to the back and with a grunt sat in a chair shoved close to the wall.
For the first time, Karin’s eyes locked on mine, and she smiled and glided to the chair across from me.
I leaned forward to speak through the holes, unable to quell my excited laughter. “You came. You really came to see me.”
“It took me a while. I’m sorry, Will.”
The mention of my name gave me chills. “Did you get my letters?”
Wrinkles formed at her brow. It looked like confusion. “I don’t think so. At least I don’t remember any.”
I let it drop, but I wanted to tell her I’d written her every day for a year, that some of the other inmates had called me Letter Man.
“How are you?” Karin said.
Did she want the truth? “I’m looking forward to getting out,” I managed. “I’m okay. Really.”
“I heard about your father. I’m very sorry.”
“Yeah. Are you still living in Dogwood?”
She nodded and a shadow crossed her face. “I’m married now. We have children.”
It was like a hand grenade to my heart, though I had heard all the rumors. I didn’t want to believe any of them. I tried to recover quickly. “That’s great. I’m happy for you, if you’re happy.”
“Well, I love my husband. I’m devoted to him and my children. I hope you’ll understand.”
I looked at the old woman in the shadows, trying to figure out this meeting. Why were they really here?
“Can you believe I actually have kids?” Karin said. “You’d think there’d be a law against it or something.”
She told me their names and a little about each. I could tell how much she loved them by the way her eyes twinkled, and she used her hands to reach out and caress their faces in the air. “Darin is a handful. He’s just the most adventurous, playful thing in the world. I swear he’s going to be an astronaut someday. And Kallie is . . . well, I don’t want to brag on them too much.”
“I’ll bet she’s as pretty as her mother,” I said.
Karin grinned and looked away, embarrassed.
“That’s really great. I always thought you’d make a good mother. What about your husband?”
“He’s a pastor. There’s another shocker. Can you imagine me a pastor’s wife?” She made quotation marks with her fingers. “In ministry together.”
I shook my head.
“We’re at the Little Brown Church. You remember it, don’t you? Richard likes it. The people. The challenge of it all.”
“Those people would be a challenge.”
“Yeah.” Karin laughed. “It’s kind of a day-to-day thing. You can’t plan what’s going to happen long term, but Richard says, ‘Faithful in the little things will work the big things out.’ I can’t believe we actually wound up back in Dogwood, but I guess the Lord’s ways are mysterious.”
I stared into Karin’s eyes, searching for the girl I’d fallen in love with long ago. I had pictured us growing old together. All the romances that lined the bookstore shelves would pale in comparison to our story. “Is he good to you? I mean, are you really happy?”
She chuckled, and a bit of the young girl shone through. “A lot better than some of the other guys I went out with. He’s a good man, Will. He’s kind and caring, loves the children. His schedule is a little crazy visiting the hospital and some of the older members, but I’ll take it. I could certainly do worse.”
“And what about happy?” I said. “Are you?”
Karin studied her hands and fiddled with a scrap of newsprint so thin you could see through it. When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes. “I’m not sure I know what happy means. And I’m not sure it’s as important as I used to think, you know?” Her voice was pleading, whining. Tears fell and ran down her cheeks. She wore no makeup that I could tell.
She continued. “I used to dream of getting out of our skanky little town, of going someplace and becoming somebody. But that was all so I could come back and prove to people that they were wrong about me. I’m not sure it’s important what those people think. I’m not sure that being happy is a good goal.”
It sounded like something someone had told her. Something she’d learned in a Sunday school class and was now parroting to me.
“I’m glad you’ve found someone,” I said, trying not to show the hurt.
“What about you?” she said.
I wanted to say I’d been waiting for her, praying she would wait for me, hoping against all odds that there would be a future for us. “It’s kind of hard getting dates in here. At least with the opposite sex.”
Karin laughed and squinted, taking me in with new eyes. “Will.” She said it like a prayer. Like I was the mystery. Then she scooted closer to the glass and put a hand gently on the table, her skin pale. “Remember when we were kids? the day you walked me home?”
“Racing those sticks in the creek,” I said.
“Boats,” she corrected. “And my mother came out.”
“I remember like it was yesterday,” I whispered.
She turned and looked at the old woman, then back at me. “You said something to me. When we were at the spelling bee. Whispered something. I was thinking about it the other day. Do you remember what you said?”
I could almost hear the water trickling over those rocks. I had been there a thousand times in my mind. When the heat of the summer or the smells and sweat of prison overtook me, I retreated to those hills, that water, the sound of the frogs and crickets filling the night, the buzz of june bugs, diligent bees spreading pollen. I had replayed the look of her hair, the smell of elementary school perfume.
“I just said you deserved to win,” I lied.
I tried to believe and ask, but there must be prayers that amuse God. The Ancient of Days and Giver of Life is also the Laugher at Men. I had harbored a secret hope all these years, like a child who is too afraid of asking for what he truly wants at Christmas but blurts it out at the last minute on Christmas Eve and receives nothing but blank stares and chuckles.
If God sees the beginning from the end, if he knows the secrets and dark avenues of the heart, surely he must know what hope he steals when something like this happens to one of his children. Surely he must grieve as the wound-up world spins like a top, knocking against the dreams of his creation.
To say time stood still as I looked at Karin would not be accurate, because time had no consequence at that moment. I could see myself aged, living alone in some cabin on a hill with nothing but jerky and a bottle. Maybe a dog. Women would take their children by the hands and lead them to the other side of the street when they saw me coming. From this one visit, this one revelation by Karin, I had been banished to my own Patmos.
I closed my eyes and thought of that childish moment long ago. I had thrown the bee, had misspelled the word on purpose, had taken the fall for the lovely girl who needed something good in her life.
“One day I will marry you,” I had whispered. I had held on to those six words for most of my life, certainly since the day I set foot in Clarkston. I had planned the very spot I would build our home, the playground in the backyard, even the sandlot where our boys would bring their friends to play baseball. We would hike in the woods together, pretend we were great explorers, greet trees and animals that had never met a human being. When our children were exhausted, when they lay sleeping soundly in their beds, I would take my wife to the room that had come to life from my own imagination—with a fireplace near the bed and a skylight above so we could make love watching the moon and stars.
One day I will marry you.
It was as certain in my mind as anything I had ever believed. My father’s love. The 1975 Reds. It was more certain than my conviction or incarceration.
All my life, if I could see something in my mind, I could make it come true. I could take that idea and create. It didn’t matter what the object was—a cradle, a chair, an end table—if I could see how to piece it together in my mind, I could accomplish it.
That was what I had tried to do all these years at Clarkston—piece together the two separate parts of Karin and me. I had conducted this conversation a thousand times. Perhaps a million. I would make her laugh, her laughter would turn to love, and I would see in her eyes that she truly felt the same for me. We would embrace somehow, if only with our eyes, and she would promise to be there on the day of my release.
One day I will marry you.
I whispered it as a prayer as a child. I whispered it to myself in regret, as praise to the One who knows beginning from end, east from west, freedom from captivity. I whispered it to myself because I could not bring myself to believe the words.
One day I will marry you.
Karin
Will whispered something, his head down, eyes closed. It seemed like he was working on a sentence he could not bring himself to utter.
“What is it?” I said. “Did something happen in here? You’re not telling me something.”
“I’m not telling you a lot of things,” he said. “Karin, you can only care about so much, and then it just becomes overload. They call it compassion fatigue.”
“You’re not some third world country.”
“Maybe I am.” He looked away. “An island.”
“Maybe that’s where you’ll go when you get out,” I said. “A place where the sun will keep you warm all year long and you won’t have to worry about seasons.”
Will faced me. “I like the seasons. I like the change, the currents of life. I couldn’t live on sand or in a place where the sun doesn’t go down or come up. As much as I complain, I don’t think there’s another place on earth I want to exist outside Dogwood.”
I smiled and pointed a finger at him. “You keep talking like that and we’ll be seeing you at church with some young thing on your arm, walking into worship like you own the place.”
“I don’t know that I could . . . I hope your husband won’t be offended if I hang out with the snake handlers.”
I snorted and laughed, and he looked at me like he remembered the old Karin. Carefree and young, nostrils flaring, sucking in air. There was life in my laugh, and it took control.
Someone coughed and I turned. Ruthie pointed to the clock as if I didn’t know our time was limited. She wobbled and stood with the help of her cane.
“I have a friend who wants to meet you,” I said. “Would that be all right?”
Will glanced at Ruthie and lifted an eyebrow. “Is she single?”
“Very.” I laughed. “Ruthie is wise beyond her years, if that’s possible. And she’s become a good friend. I think you’ll like her as much as I do.” I put a hand out and touched the glass.
“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face,” I thought. It was a Scripture I had memorized as a kid from the King James Bible, and I knew even then that I couldn’t fully understand it as a child. Now, looking at Will, I felt I understood it less.
Will touched the other side of the glass, and we both smiled.
I lingered a moment, and something passed between us. There had been a connection long ago, but that had been severed. Something in me wanted to hold on, to roll back the clock and never let him go, but I had made my choice, as he had, and we had to live with our choices.
I pulled myself up and held the chair for Ruthie.
“Thank you, dear,” she said.
I hovered there, gazing at these two souls I cared so deeply about. You can pick your friends and choose who surrounds you, but family is something you cannot choose. That’s the way I felt about Will and Ruthie. They were the family that I hadn’t chosen but had found me.
“We need to be alone for a moment,” Ruthie said, breaking the silence.
“Of course.” I walked to the other side of the room where Ruthie had been.
The two stared, as if sizing each other up for a prizefight.
I folded my arms and sat back against the plastic chair, thinking of all the choices, big and small, that make up a life. Ruthie once said that eternity is a human stream and our stories are the rain, falling, flowing, surging, searching for an end. “But there is no end. Never will be. And that’s the great thing about living.”
I wanted to frame the picture before me. Two strangers united only by their love for me. One whose love I could return. The other’s, I could not. And never could.
I guess that’s the sad thing about living.
Will
“The name is Ruthie Bowles,” she said. Her teeth seemed to get in the way of her upper lip, or maybe it was the other way around. Her pupils were the size of stickpins. In fact every part of her seemed closed tight, even her heart. “You recognize that name?”
I nodded. “I recognize the name, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”
“I was at the trial. I figured somebody should be there since they never had the chance.”
“How do you know Karin?” I said as even and measured as I could.
“She comes to visit me. You could say we’re in the same boat, though maybe it’s the same river. I’m just a little farther along than she is. Sweet girl. She’s talked about you for a long time. I thought it would help her to come here.”
“So it was your idea?”
“Yes. Richard and I both thought it might help. But I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I have my own reasons.”
“You’re not g
onna attack me with that cane, are you?”
Ruthie didn’t laugh. “I’ve thought about it. Then I wonder if it’s not better to wait until you get out and come looking for you with my Confederate pistol.”
I stifled a smile. I could believe she actually had one.
“You know there are people waiting for you,” she continued. “Waiting for true justice.” She passed her hand across the desk, as if she were smoothing an invisible tablecloth. “But part of me thinks you need to be forgiven by someone. That you need to hear the words.”
“Which part usually wins?” I said.
“Depends on the day. Seeing you here, seeing you with her, I can imagine what it’s been like. You’ve paid a high price for your mistake. Almost makes me want to forgive you. Then I look at the pictures I’ve stored in the drawer, the futures cut down, the pain you brought to that whole town. To me.”
“Were you there for the sentencing? when I spoke?”
She nodded, and because of the way she held her mouth, the lower jaw jutting out like Larry King listening to a call, I thought her teeth would simply fall out. “I saw the tears. Heard your quavering voice. I suppose it must have made you feel better to—”
“I didn’t mean it. The part about being sorry for what I’d done. It was an act.”
It seemed like Ruthie had aged another ten years when she looked at me squarely. “What did you say?”
“There are things you don’t know. Things I’ve never told anyone.”
“Are you asking me to feel sorry? For you? Do you think after what you’ve done that anyone could feel sorry for you?”
“I don’t need your sympathy. I don’t want the town’s embrace. I don’t care if you forgive me or not. I just want to be left alone. I’ve paid the debt, and I want to live my life and put this behind me.”