As Wide as the Sky

by Jessica Pack

  Amanda would start back to work on Tuesday, at the computer in the new condo she’d never seen except for pictures. Maybe she would babysit Lucy once or twice a week. Maybe they would go to parks. Swing on swings. Make cookies. The thoughts overwhelmed her, as though she didn’t know how to do any of those things anymore. She would take one step at a time. One day at a time. One box. One goal. Maybe she would make a list so she could check things off as she went. There were no guidelines about how to move on after your child was executed. She would have to make things up as she went along, but she was freer than she had been in such a long time and she could finally mourn her son. And herself. And everything that had changed so horribly.

  And Mr. Mathis . . . Steve, had his ring. Some measure of order in this chaotic world had been restored. It was a starting place.

  20

  Steve

  Ten years, five months, four days

  “What’s that ring?”

  Steve held up his hand as though he wasn’t aware that he still had the ring on, then looked across the pink plastic tablecloth that matched the balloons that matched the plates that matched the Barbie cake that was prominently displayed on top of the fridge where Steve’s grandchildren could be driven crazy with the wanting. Steve made eye contact with Max, his oldest son and the parent of said grandchildren. Eli was almost two. Emma had turned four today, hence the Barbie cake and the small gathering of family. “It’s my high school ring,” Steve said, shrugging as though it weren’t a big deal. As though he hadn’t relived Amanda’s visit over and over while he’d worked today. Amanda? Mrs. Mallorie? Robbie’s mom?

  Robert Mallorie’s mother.

  “No way,” Max said, putting out his hand. “I haven’t seen this for years.”

  Steve twisted the ring off of his pinkie finger and handed it across the table, watching as Max turned the ring in his hand, reading the different designs and insignia that encompassed the identity of Steve Mathis in 1989. Max put it on his ring finger; it fit. “That’s awesome, Dad,” he said, then took it off and handed it back across the table.

  “What’s awesome?”

  They both looked up to see Rachelle sit down with a plate of loaded baked potato. She looked between them expectantly with those same brown eyes Max had inherited; Emma too. Mitch was still sick from yesterday’s chemo, so he wasn’t at the party.

  “Dad’s class ring,” Max said, waving toward Steve. Steve had already put the ring back on his finger.

  “You still have that?” Rachelle asked, picking up her fork and spearing a bite of potato.

  “I, uh, just found it.” He didn’t want to tell them how he’d gotten the ring back. The encounter felt . . . sacred and . . . confusing to try to explain. But he told the truth these days. To everyone. Come what may. But did he tell the whole truth? Had he told the whole truth to Amanda? Mrs. Mallorie? Robbie’s mom? Robert Mallorie’s mother? “Actually, a lady brought it to me this morning.”

  Kassie, Max’s wife, called Max to help make Eli a plate. “Be right back,” he said, popping up from the chair and moving toward the kitchen counter, where the items for tonight’s dinner had been laid out. Steve had brought shredded cheese, sour cream, and Oreo ice cream—items easily picked up at the store on his way from work to here; Rachelle and Kassie’s mom had helped with the dinner portion. Two of Kassie’s sisters were here as well, one with her two kids. Steve watched his son bend to little Eli’s level and ask what he wanted. Max was a good dad.

  “Some woman found your class ring?” Rachelle asked, drawing Steve’s attention. “Where?”

  Steve looked back at the ring and twisted it so the blue stone was centered on his finger. “I gave it to her son back in Sioux Falls. She found it in his stuff.” Still not the whole truth.

  Rachelle was quiet and he looked up at the anxious expression on her face that reminded him why he wasn’t telling everything, even though part of him wanted to divulge. If he explained it out loud, maybe they could sort through it like receipts at the end of the year or coins from the cup holder in the car. Maybe someone else could make sense of what had happened this morning and how he should feel about it. Rachelle, however, got a particularly strained look anytime Steve talked about the years he’d spent hiding from everything but the one thing he wanted distance from the most: himself. They didn’t talk about those years very often, not since the family therapy they’d attended after he came back. Every Thursday night for four months after his return, he and Rachelle, and the boys sometimes, met with Dr. Gary, who helped them sort through the years of history they shared, then plan for the future they would also share. Rachelle had raged in those sessions when the boys weren’t there to overhear—had he any idea what he’d done to them? Hadn’t he ever wondered how she took care of three boys by herself? Didn’t he care how much his boys needed their father? His defenses were small and sickly. I was drinking too much. I was depressed. I was selfish. Eventually the anger was spent and the therapist was able to build from where they were. Steve became a dad again. Rachelle forgave him. The boys had been old enough to know he’d left them. He’d had a lot of work to do to earn back their trust. Still did. Always would.

  Max slid back into his chair, slightly out of breath but with a plate of food in his hands. Eli was seated at the plastic picnic table Max had brought in from the patio earlier. He had a pile of grated cheese, three tortilla chips, and half a banana on his plate. He ate the cheese one shredded particle at a time while eyeing his cousin across the table as though afraid he might want Eli’s cheese. “You’d better get some dinner before it’s gone, Dad.”

  “Yes, I should—it smells delicious. You guys did a great job.”

  As Steve stood, Rachelle leaned into Max, so easy and sweet and comfortable. The liberties of a mother who had never left and therefore had earned the right to be affectionate on a whim. “I love to do it.”

  Max turned his head and kissed his mom’s temple. “You’re the best.”

  “Thanks.”

  Steve smiled, grateful to be a part of this. Max had forgiven him. Steve’s youngest son, Garrett, had also allowed Steve to prove himself dependable again. Steve had coached Garrett’s flag football team for three years before Garrett moved on to the junior division. They’d come together through their love of sports, especially football, and Steve had found a place in Garrett’s life. Garrett had graduated from high school last summer and accepted a scholarship to the University of New Mexico. Not on football, but academics. He got his smarts from Rachelle. Jacob, their middle boy, had been suspect of Steve’s return from the start. He resisted visitation, didn’t invite Steve to his events, and still kept Steve at arm’s length. The therapist had told Steve he couldn’t force it, so Steve had stopped trying, but Jacob was a reminder that not everything can be fixed.

  Steve went to the food table and chatted with Max’s wife, Kassie, while he dished up his dinner. He liked Kassie, and she seemed to like him, but he didn’t have much in common with a twenty-five-year-old mother of two and they ran out of topics pretty quickly. Steve had thought Max and Kassie too young to get married five years ago, when Max was only twenty-two and Kassie only twenty—two years older than Steve and Rachelle had been. But Max was different. He wasn’t restless and burdened by his family; he adored them and worked from home half the week as a software developer so he could eat lunch with his little family on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Steve was so proud of his son.

  Steve loaded his potato with chili, cheese, broccoli, and onions, then grabbed a root beer from the bucket of drinks moved onto the counter so the kids wouldn’t throw ice at each other. There used to be beer at these family gatherings—before he’d left anyway. The new church Rachelle had joined didn’t sanction drinking, so he’d come home to teetotalers, which was a relief. He hadn’t had a drink in almost a decade and although he couldn’t blame his leaving on the booze, if he hadn’t been drinking he’d have come back sooner. Years sooner. It had only taken a couple of months afte
r abandoning his family for the reality of what he’d done to hit him in the chest like a battering ram. You left them. You left. Another beer. Three more. A whiskey chaser. Make it a double.

  Liquor softened the edges of his regret. It softened the lines on the hard-living women he met in those bars. It bought him one more day. Day after day. Running. Hiding. Coward. It was only when he stopped drinking that he finally dared go back to the life he’d turned away from. It was when Robbie reminded him of his sons and gave him his father’s token as a symbol of change. Steve hadn’t told Robbie’s mother that. Amanda. Mrs. Mallorie.

  Steve returned to the table, catching sight of his class ring still on his finger as he put down the plate. Would Rachelle or Max resurrect the topic? Did he want them to? Could he talk about the strange meeting this morning and get clarity, or would talking about anything from the lost years cast a pall over the evening? There was still a fragile edge to each of the relationships and he was very careful to focus on the people he loved and how he could make their lives better—not how they could take care of him. He needed them, not the other way around.

  The cake was cut. The presents unwrapped. His bouncing granddaughter raced from room to room, high on gifts and sugar. Steve talked basketball with Kassie’s dad while they did the dishes. Max took the kid-sized picnic table back outside. Eventually everyone began making their goodbyes. Steve thanked his family for the meal and then drove the eight minutes from their house in a suburban neighborhood to his condo by Walmart.

  He entered through the garage door and flipped on the kitchen lights. Mrs. Mallorie had come inside when he’d invited her the second time. She’d stood right there in the living room. He moved to the doorway between the living room and kitchen and stared at the spot where she’d waited while he’d gone upstairs. He guessed Mrs. Mallorie was about his same age—Robbie had been a year younger than Max when Steve had known him. Robbie. Robert Mallorie. That prickly feeling ran down his arms and legs again, the way it had this morning when he’d made the connection and each of the five hundred times he’d remembered the moment throughout the day. He could not reconcile the awkward teenage boy he’d known with the tattooed face he’d seen on TV, but must have recognized him somehow. He still wanted to argue that it was impossible for Robbie and Robert Mallorie to be the same person, but Mrs. Mallorie had confirmed it by coming here. Steve had assumed the parents of people who committed such depraved acts were angry and broken and raising broken human beings who were destructive and volatile. Mrs. Mallorie didn’t seem like that. She looked like . . . Rachelle. A middle-aged mother with a no-fuss haircut and a Lands’ End coat. She drove a Toyota, but he wouldn’t hold that against her. He knew from what Robbie had told him all those years ago that she was divorced and her ex-husband was an alcoholic. Robbie’s dad had visited that summer—that was how Robbie had the token—but he hadn’t been a regular part of Robbie’s life back then. Steve hadn’t looked for a wedding ring on Mrs. Mallorie’s finger, but he sensed a familiar loneliness that told him she hadn’t remarried. Or, if she had, that it had ended badly too.

  During his thoughts, he had removed his coat and hung it by the door, filled a glass with water, and now sipped it while leaning against the sink. That his eyes kept going to the laptop, closed on the counter, was almost unnoticed. How much did he want to know about the man Robbie had become?

  Steve had known Robert Mallorie. He’d shared lunches with that kid, dug trenches, and showed him how to wire a sprinkler timer. Robbie had become Max that summer and given Steve the motivation to go back to the people he’d left behind. Steve had given his high school ring to Robbie. And Robbie had given Steve that chip and said he should hang on to it until he had one of his own. Had his dad stayed sober, Steve wondered? Had Mr. Mallorie ever asked his son if he still had the chip?

  Steve put the glass down on the counter and turned toward the stairs. After returning from South Dakota, he had started attending AA meetings. He’d hated being lumped in with a bunch of addicts who had made a mess of their lives. In the beginning he’d attended to prove to Rachelle that he was serious about giving up the bottle for good. In time the steps became more than words on a paper, though. The people at those meetings turned out to be parents and children desperate for salvation from the vices that had nearly destroyed them too. Instead of weakness he saw strength, and instead of keeping a death grip on willpower he found reason and purpose and hope. He didn’t go to meetings very often anymore, but he thought about the steps a lot. Lived them. Praised them for what they had given him.

  “My dad gave me this,” Robbie had said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the green token. “It’s proof that he’s gone three whole months without a drink. He’s never gone that long.” Robbie had smiled, proud and hopeful. “It’s proof, Steve, that people can change and be better.”

  A few days later, and two full weeks without a drink, Steve made his decision to go home. On the last day that he and Robbie had worked together, Steve gave him the ring. It had felt necessary to separate himself from that carefree jock who felt he had the world by the tail in high school. A kid who was convinced he’d be somebody. In high school, Steve had raced motorcycles on the weekends and thought he might go pro. Get sponsors. Meet bigwigs. He sweet-talked his girlfriend into going further than she wanted. A dozen times. He’d felt invincible, with this simmering potential that was ready to burst forth into the brilliant light that would be his future. High school would only be the start of what he’d thought would be a life full of accomplishment, and he’d bought the ring to represent how far he’d already come in what would only be the first arena of success. He’d been a boy who expected to make everyone proud. A boy who might or might not spend his life with Rachelle Anderson, but would enjoy his time with her while it lasted.

  Instead of greatness, he’d become a statistic. A has-been before he was nineteen. While his friends went on to college, he worked in a carpet factory. When other friends went to bonfires and spring break trips to Mexico, he tried to figure out what he was supposed to do with a baby on the nights when it was his turn to be in charge. By then the ring had become a reminder of better days. Days he felt robbed of and would do anything to return to. Robbie had been part of Steve’s realizing that leaving had fixed nothing. So, he’d given the ring to Robbie, who was the right person at the right place at the right time to help Steve break out of his self-pity and be the man he should have been already.

  More than once Steve had felt bad for having kept the sobriety token. It was Robbie’s, a gift from his father. But Steve had held on to it anyway. When Steve got his ninety-day chip, he’d given it to Max and kept Robbie’s in his pocket. He’d given his 180-day chip to Jacob, who had left it in the kitchen of Steve’s apartment when Rachelle had picked him up later that night, and his one-year token to Garrett, who had been so proud of him.

  Steve entered his bedroom and turned on the light. It was sparsely furnished, with a full-sized bed, an overflowing laundry hamper, a nightstand, and a dresser which held an old TV and a jar half-filled with change and some crumpled-up receipts. There was no woman’s touch here, no sir; all he needed was function. He walked to the dresser and pulled the top drawer out, none too smoothly. It was on wooden tracks, rather than rollers or ball bearings. The top drawer was narrow, possibly meant for handkerchiefs and ties.

  He had a tie tack his mother had given him, still on its plastic backing since Steve didn’t own a tie. Some pictures of the kids and a stress ball he’d never gotten the hang of. There was a Led Zeppelin CD case, some safety pins, and a Ziploc baggie full of his sobriety chips. A rainbow of colors, but no green. Not now that he’d given the green one to Mrs. Mallorie. He fished out the one-month token, gold. It hadn’t felt like long enough to brag about back then, which was why he hadn’t given it to one of the boys. Once he hit three months he’d felt as though he’d accomplished something.

  Steve put the token in his pocket, even though he hadn’t kept a chip on him fo
r years, and headed back downstairs—today had come with a lot of reminders about who he’d been and he needed some fortifications to help him remember who he was now. He turned on the TV in the living room for company, grabbed a bag of pretzels from the kitchen, and planted himself on the well-worn center cushion of his couch—the only piece of furniture he’d ever purchased new from an actual furniture store. He put the laptop on the coffee table and flipped open the lid.

  21

  Amanda

  Three days, twelve hours, forty-seven minutes

  Amanda returned to Melissa’s at 3:00 on Sunday afternoon, just as she’d promised the evening before after they’d had dinner at a local restaurant, Randal’s Diner. Paul had said it had amazing corn chowder and he’d been right, but she’d been relieved when she was alone in the unfamiliar condo later that night. It was hard to be with people. Now, standing on her daughter’s doorstep, Amanda clenched and unclenched her fists in an attempt to release the tension. It didn’t go away.

  The door swung open and Amanda smiled in time for Melissa’s greeting. “Mom,” she said, and stepped onto the porch to give Amanda a hug. Amanda hugged her back, but she couldn’t relax. The last three days kept cycling through her head, and over and over she would ask herself if it had all really happened. Was Robbie really dead? Had she really driven to Tennessee? Had she run away when Steve recognized her? She could still see his face, pale with realization. “I’m so glad you’re here,” Melissa said, a huge grin on her face that was overwhelmingly expectant.

  “Me too,” Amanda said in a voice that didn’t sound like hers.

  “Lucy just got up from her nap and is begging to go to the park—do you mind if we do that?”