As Wide as the Sky

by Jessica Pack

  Cambian was born in September and Russell lived two more weeks. They buried him a week before Cambian’s dedication at church. Cambian’s father didn’t do much for his son, and Cherie tried to be the mom for a while, but she was only eighteen years old and nurturing came so much easier to Margo. Cherie got to where she was living like a teenager again while Margo let that baby fill all her empty spots. When Cambian was eighteen months old, Cherie met some white guy online and moved to South Dakota. She’d come back for Cambian as soon as she was settled in, she said—Tony was going to be a great dad. “Over my dead body,” Margo had said, and she meant it. If that boy would take her away from her child, he’d never do right by either of them. Margo got state-appointed guardianship of her grandson after six months and tried hard not to resent her daughter for not doing better with the life Margo had worked so hard to give her. “You’re a damned fool,” she said every time she hung up after a phone call with Cherie, which was once a month or so. She’d stopped asking for money now that she had a job, but she’d been gone longer than she’d ever been a mother to her son—twenty months now. Almost two years.

  “How’s my baby?” Cherie would ask each time she called, and Margo would try not to grind her teeth, then ask the Good Lord to forgive her for being so angry. It had been long enough now that Margo needed to start the process to officially adopt Cambian. It would be best if she could have it all squared away before he started kindergarten in a couple more years. Life sure didn’t turn out like you expected sometimes.

  The boys finished their homework and Margo’s moments with Cambian came to an end as they all started wrestling and taunting each other. Margo took that as her cue to get started on dinner—a good chicken stew would be perfect. Maybe she’d whip up some brownies too.

  She was dicing celery when her phone rang. She wiped her hands on a dishrag as she crossed to her purse and pulled out the hot-pink phone. She raised her eyebrows when she saw it was Cherie—they’d talked a few days ago and Margo didn’t expect to hear from her for a few weeks at least.

  “Hey, baby girl,” she said in the falsely chipper voice she tried to use to cover her frustrations.

  “Hey, Mama.”

  There was something wrong, and Margo turned to lean her hips back against the counter. “What’s goin’ on?”

  Cherie sniffed.

  “Cherie?” Margo asked, her voice a little more demanding. “What’s going on?”

  “Can I come home, Mama?”

  A bubble of hope rose into her throat, but she forced herself to take a breath and keep her perspective. Wouldn’t do any of them any good for her to get too excited. “You know the conditions.”

  “I’ll go to school,” Cherie said. “And I’ll live clean . . . I . . . I just really need to come home.” Her voice caught.

  “What happened?” Margo asked.

  “He hit me again.”

  Again? Margo felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. That boy was hitting her baby girl? Lord have mercy.

  Cherie took a breath and it all came tumbling out. How Tony had convinced her that the first time was the last time, how she’d so wanted to make this work, how she’d known for months that she didn’t want to be with him, but she didn’t want everyone to be proven right about her having been an idiot for being with him in the first place. “I’m sorry for being so prideful, Mama, and I’m so sorry I’ve stayed away from my baby for so long.”

  “He’s not a baby anymore, Cherie. He’s three years old and he barely remembers you.” Cherie hadn’t visited, not once. She always said she couldn’t afford the gas, or Tony had just started a new job. “It’s not gonna be an easy road.”

  “I know.”

  Margo almost laughed out loud—Cherie didn’t know anything. She opened her mouth to say so and then remembered the woman who’d snuck into her library this afternoon. She’d lost her son . . . yesterday. Margo couldn’t make sense of what she was doing trying to find the owner of that ring instead of planning her boy’s funeral, but there was something haunting enough about the woman that Margo hadn’t pressed. She’d felt like she should help her, and so she had. That’s what Christian women did. And Christian mothers did not stop loving their children because those children were idiots.

  “We all get a few chances in our lives to choose different,” Margo said, keeping her voice calm and feeling the truth of those words and how they had played out in her own life. “I will do everything I can to help you, but you’re the one who’s gonna have to make better choices—the freeing kind of choices that keep your future open instead of slammin’ doors on you. You can come home—I’ll even send you the bus money if you need it—but this is the only second chance I can give you. If it don’t work, I’ll adopt Cambian and raise him as my own ’cause he needs a stable place. Do you understand?”

  “I understand, Mama,” Cherie said, sounding relieved. “And thank you. I’ll make you proud.”

  They talked a few more minutes to iron out the details; then Margo went back to making dinner, humming a hymn and making a plan.

  17

  Amanda

  One day, twelve hours, two minutes

  Amanda looked at Coach Miller’s phone number on the paper in front of her, letting the wish for a friend to talk to fade as it always did. Friends were too hard. She started her car and headed toward a gas station, where she had to ask for a phone book from the clerk—were there truly no pay phones anymore? The headlines of the Tennessee newspapers next to the cash register didn’t say anything about Robbie and that helped keep her breathing in check despite feeling like everyone who came into the store was looking at her as though they knew she didn’t belong here; didn’t belong anywhere.

  There were three Christopher Millers in the Decaturville area, but matching up the phone numbers showed which one was the former coach. She scribbled down the address and thanked the clerk, who gave her a bored smile, probably annoyed that Amanda had troubled her for the phone book and not even bought a candy bar. Amanda had almost reached the doors before she turned back and picked up a Kit Kat from the rack.

  Once back in the haven of her car, Amanda typed Coach Miller’s address into her GPS and ate two of the candy bar segments. Once her phone had the address loaded, she followed the dictated route to a neighborhood of older homes and mature trees that shaded the street. It was warmer here than it had been in South Dakota or Iowa, but it was still winter. Feeling a little tipsy from both the sugar rush and growing eagerness, Amanda got out of her car and walked up the sidewalk, noting that the flower beds had been overgrown before winter had mangled the different plants, perennials mostly, into crooked, nasty-looking tentacles of varying shades of brown and black. It seemed that at one point the landscaping had been well tended, but a year, maybe two, had gone by since someone’s green thumb had run out. There was a broom, snow shovel, and baseball bat leaning against the corner of the porch, as well as a mangy-looking wreath that hadn’t come down after Christmas.

  Amanda rang the doorbell and waited. No one answered, and the failure threw her into another spin of uncertainty. Hope was dangerous—she’d known that all along—and now it had abandoned her and she felt foolish. She shifted her weight and took note of the spider webs in between the bricks in the corner.

  How long would she wait for him? Melissa was expecting her in Ohio. Perhaps she could find this Stephen Mathis without the old coach’s help. Yes, that was it. This was a sign that she’d gone the wrong way on this crooked path. She was acting rashly, not thinking things through. All she needed was a motel room and her computer; that was how she’d find Steve Mathis, right? It was an oddly regretful sense of relief that kept step with her off the porch and down the walk while she began planning her online search. And why hadn’t she looked up Stephen Mathis when she had that phone book? He might be only a few blocks away.

  She had just reached the curb when an old yellow pickup truck turned onto the street. She was about to open the door of her car when the t
ruck slowed to a stop beside her, leaving her trapped in the four-foot section of road between the other vehicle and her driver’s door. An old man was looking at her from the driver’s seat. He motioned her toward him, but she didn’t know what he was trying to indicate until he’d done the waving gesture three times. Did he want her to open the passenger door of his truck? She looked up and down the street as though she might need to call for help. Who would help her? She walked forward and pulled up on the old silver handle. The heavy door squeaked open on what were likely original hinges from the late seventies.

  “Looks like you’re coming from my place, young lady. What can I do you for? Windows on this old clunker ain’t automatic, so I can’t roll that one down from my side.”

  Amanda blinked at the man, who had to be in his eighties but had a large build that hadn’t entirely given way to his age. “I’m looking for Coach Chris Miller.”

  “Ho,” the man said with a laugh. He had a full head of white hair, pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck, and, she realized for the first time, he was wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt with jeans and black Velcro shoes. “Been twelve years since I deserved that title, but I sure don’t get tired of hearing it.” He slapped the seat with his hand. “Sit on down and you can drive with me the rest of the way.”

  The rest of the way was about twenty yards into the driveway, but Amanda didn’t want to hurt the man’s feelings so she climbed up into the cab of his truck, careful not to kick either of the two grocery sacks on the floor. She pulled hard on the door so that it slammed shut—her dad had had a truck like this for years and years. There were few things more embarrassing than his showing up to pick her up from some activity in Old Belle. More than once she’d told him she’d rather walk.

  Amanda felt as though she should say something by way of introduction, but her atrophied social graces got the better of her. She remained silent and imagined this man’s face turning red if he learned who she was and that he’d let her sit in the front seat of his truck.

  “There’s a chance of a storm tonight,” Coach Miller said as the engine growled and the truck moved forward ten feet to his driveway. He pushed a button on a garage door opener connected to his visor and waited as the garage door was slowly pulled upward. “Didn’t want to be caught without some staples, so I went to the store. Glad I caught you before you left.”

  Amanda looked at him, certain her expression reflected her confusion. “You don’t even know me.” As soon as she said the words, she flushed, embarrassed to be so bad at making simple conversation.

  He smiled at her, the skin of his face folding into a hundred wrinkles that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. “At my age, when a pretty young thing comes knockin’ at your door, you don’t ask too many questions.”

  Amanda looked down but couldn’t suppress a smile. She’d turn fifty next year and she wasn’t pretty or young, but the way he said it made both feel possible.

  Once he came to a stop in the cluttered garage, he shifted into park while Amanda looped the handles of the grocery sacks in her hand. “I’ll bring these in for you.” Only after she said it did she realize that she’d invited herself into his house. Her face turned red. She wasn’t fit for association with people. She was making a mess of this!

  “Lucky indeed that I came home when I did,” he said as he took off his seat belt and pushed open his door—it was better oiled than Amanda’s side had been. Maybe he didn’t get many passengers.

  She considered pulling back her assumption that she’d go into his house, but he didn’t seem nearly as affected by her poor manners as she was, so she waited for him to lead the way inside. She tried not to look at the mess. Cardboard boxes, an ironing board, tube-style television, and various odds and ends were stacked haphazardly next to the door that led from the garage to the interior of the house. He looked over his shoulder in time to catch her perusal. “Every few months I pay the neighbor kids to clear all this junk out—’til then I just throw stuff I don’t need out the back door. Guess I’m due to help them earn some video game money, ain’t I?”

  “It’s fine,” Amanda said, embarrassed to be seen as judgmental and desperate enough to try to cover it to attempt something she wasn’t sure she could do anymore—small talk. “Have you lived here long?”

  “Kate and I bought this place back in seventy-five—same year as that pickup.” He nodded toward his truck while holding the door open for Amanda. “That was a really good year.” He continued grinning and she smiled back while she passed him in the doorway. The house was in nearly as bad shape as the garage, and she looked around the cluttered kitchen for somewhere to put the bags.

  “Just put them on the floor by the fridge and come set down and tell me what you’re here for—I’m a lonely old man but won’t be so rude as to take your entire afternoon, I promise.”

  Amanda did as he asked, putting the bags down on the dirty linoleum and following Coach Miller through an archway and into a living room stacked with newspapers and magazines. There was an old leather recliner with his imprint in it and he settled himself in before he waved her toward a velvety brown sofa. There was just enough room for a person to sit down between the stacks of newspapers and books.

  “Now, what can I help you with?”

  Amanda wondered if there were names carved into any shelves in this house, or a doorway used to measure the height of his children or grandchildren. She envied him the sense of belonging he had within these walls; it made her miss the home she’d left in South Dakota. She forced herself to get to the point.

  “I’m looking for one of your former students—a football player. Stephen Mathis. He graduated in 1989. The school thought you would know how I could get in touch with him.”

  “Number seventy-six, tight end.”

  “Y-yes,” Amanda said, even though she didn’t actually know about the tight end part. Come to think of it, she didn’t know what a tight end was. Robbie hadn’t been into football so Amanda hadn’t learned much about the game. “That’s him.”

  “He’s not in some kind of trouble, is he?”

  “No,” Amanda assured him. “I found his school ring and want to return it to him, that’s all.”

  Coach Miller looked relieved, making her wonder why he’d jumped to the conclusion of Steve Mathis being in trouble. “Glad to hear he’s keeping his nose clean. His class ring, you say?”

  Amanda nodded and pulled the ring out of her pocket. She handed it to him and he looked it over. “Wonder how he lost it,” Coach Miller mused, then passed the ring back to Amanda.

  “I think he gave it to my son nine or ten years ago,” Amanda said, still looking at the blue stone. “My son . . . died recently and I found this among his things.”

  “Ah, I’m sorry about your son,” Coach Miller said. Amanda refused to meet his eyes and simply nodded, still staring at the ring. “It’s a bittersweet thing to love so well.”

  Amanda knew exactly what he meant but only nodded again, afraid to speak for the way his sympathy drew on her emotions. He was the second person to console her in the last hour. She suspected that he’d lost his wife—Kate, whom he’d mentioned before—and knew firsthand the agony of death, but her loss was so different. So deserved, in a sense. Not like the loss of a sweetheart—an innocent. “I was hoping you might know how I could contact Steve,” Amanda said. “Does he still live in Decaturville?”

  “He hasn’t been around here for a while, but he stops in to see me from time to time—his mama’s still here. I got a Christmas card from him last month.” He used the armrests of the recliner to push himself onto his feet. He went to a desk fairly overflowing with papers he sorted through. Amanda stayed on the couch, unsure what to do and worried it would take hours for Coach Miller to find the Christmas card. Her fingers fairly itched to start straightening the disorder. Her mother had always said, “A cluttered house is a cluttered mind. Want to think clearly, then clean your space.” Her mom had never been able to wrap her mind around wh
at Robbie had done. She passed away last summer and by the end they didn’t talk about Robbie, which meant they didn’t talk much at all. Amanda had gone to her mother’s funeral that had been in Sioux Falls even though Mom had lived in Arizona the last five years, remembering that she had a brother and cousins and family friends as they came up to say hello. She kept a distance from every one of them and escaped back home as soon as she could.

  “Steve had some tough times after high school,” Coach Miller said, though his back was still to her while he rifled through the desk. “Some kids seem to peak out in high school and the reality of adulthood sends ’em running with their tail between their legs, if ya know what I mean.”

  “Yes,” Amanda said, staring at a spot on the carpet and thinking of that cross-country photo she’d decided to keep. If anyone had told her that would be the peak of Robbie’s life, she’d never have believed it.

  “Steve moved around a lot for a while,” Coach Miller continued. “Took him longer than it should have to settle into his responsibilities, but eventually he did—ah, here it is.” He turned back to her and held out a red envelope, the paper jagged across the top where he’d ripped it open. He handed the envelope to her and returned to his chair, which rocked slightly when he dropped back into it.

  Amanda held the envelope and blinked at the obviously male handwriting—blocky and efficient. She looked at the return address—handwritten. “Where’s Florence, Kentucky?” Kentucky was north of Tennessee, but how much farther out of her way would Florence be? She hated that she was going to have to face this choice all over again and wished she could make sure finding Steve Mathis was worth the extra miles and hours it would cost her.