The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow

by Rita Leganski

  —Jackson was his first name?

  “That’s right.”

  —That was a president’s name, but it was his last name.

  “I know.”

  —Did your husband die?

  “Yes.”

  —When?

  “A long time ago.”

  —How did he die?

  “He got too close to a horse that be scared by a storm. That horse reared up and knock him to the ground and then come back down on him. His chest be crushed by that poor scared animal, and that’s why my man died. And him never sick a day in his life.”

  Head hung down, shoulders sloped. —An accident, Bonaventure wrote. (It was just as he’d suspected: people who died before they got old probably all died in accidents.)

  “I don’t know if it be a accident, Mr. Bonaventure. I just think it be his time.”

  Well, there was something new. Bonaventure didn’t know what to say. He decided to come back to it later, and so took the conversation in a different direction.

  —Do you have kids?

  “No, I am sad to say I never be so blessed.”

  —Do you have a cat?

  “No, sir, I surely do not.”

  —A dog?

  “Nope. No dog neither.”

  —Do you wish you did?

  “I don’t believe I do.”

  —Do you have a bird?

  “Oh, I got plenty of birds. They out in the woods and they sing to me every day. And a little old hoot-owl sing to me at night.”

  —I like birdsongs and owl hoots.

  “Me too, Mr. Bonaventure, me too.”

  When the day was done and dusk had gone to bed, Trinidad sat in the rocking chair left to her by her old maiden aunt and thought of little Bonaventure Arrow. She knew the purity of his heart and the completeness of his innocence, for she’d felt them the first time she’d ever laid eyes on him, back on that day at her roadside stand when she looked at his beautiful eyes. She also knew that while she had certain gifts that let her know of secrets, little Mr. Bonaventure had something very much more than that. She knew that was why he did not speak, and she knew he was part of her Purpose.

  Friends

  DANCY Arrow’s social life was confined to haircuts and manicures. She had put on widowhood the day William died and had not once taken it off since. In all those years, she’d never felt that anyone really understood her aloneness, as there were no widows among her friends. But maybe that had changed.

  “Hey, Venture Forth, is Trinidad married? Do you know?”

  Headshake. —Nope.

  “Is that, no, she isn’t married, or no, you don’t know?”

  Signed response. —Husband dead.

  “How did he die? Was it an accident?”

  —No. Trinidad say time to die.

  He watched for a reaction from his mother, but she didn’t show one.

  Dancy had planned to take the day off to shop for clothes for Bonaventure, since he’d outgrown everything he owned overnight. But first she went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee and invited Trinidad to sit and have a cup with her.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Miss Dancy, I got a lot of work to do.”

  “Aw, come on, Trinidad, it doesn’t take more than fifteen minutes to drink a cup of coffee. Besides, you do enough work around here for five people.”

  So Dancy poured and Trinidad sat.

  “I asked Bonaventure if you were married, and he told me your husband died.”

  “That’s right, he surely did. His name be Jackson and he the finest looking man I ever did see,” Trinidad said, and closed her eyes as she called up the memory of him. “He got kicked by a horse what be scared of a storm. That how he died.”

  Dancy didn’t need to tell how William had died. Letice had informed Trinidad of it right after she’d come to work for them, but Trinidad offered her condolences nonetheless.

  The minutes ticked by, the coffee pot emptied, and a friendship began to form. Dancy changed her hours on Wednesdays, postponing opening the shop until eleven. Without any formal announcement, she showed up in the kitchen on those mornings, made a fresh pot of coffee, and set out two cups. Before long, she and Trinidad began to share life stories, which brought them around to love.

  “My Jackson, he the best man I ever did know. And hard-workin’? Lordy, you had to tell Jackson Prefontaine when to stop and come in to supper. That man would work by the light of the moon if I let him. I swear he would.”

  “William was a lawyer, a brand-new one. I think he would have been one of the best and most honest lawyers ever if he hadn’t gotten killed. Mr. Robillard and Mr. Broome—they were the bosses where he worked—they came to the funeral and said it was a terrible shame what happened; they said William had a real bright future.”

  Trinidad, a woman with spiritual leanings, and Dancy, a woman with none, enjoyed sympathy and empathy and mutual solace over coffee and conversation. Until now, neither had spoken much to anyone about how it felt to go from wife to widow when still in the early years of desire. The bond they were forming allowed them to admit that even when they were among people, they still felt all alone.

  “I’m real glad to have you for a friend, Trinidad,” Dancy said on one of those mornings, “and I hope you’re glad to have me.”

  “Well, now, you be easy to get on with. Just like Mr. Riley.”

  Trinidad noticed a flicker in her friend’s eyes. Dancy had taken to watching the clock on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and she’d started talking to Gabe less about Bonaventure and more about songs she liked or books she’d read or something she’d seen in the paper.

  “Do you have a favorite book?” she’d asked him.

  “I have several,” he had replied.

  “You can’t have several favorites. There can only be one favorite,” she said.

  “Not for me. I have two: Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. I like them both the same.”

  “I’m going to allow you to have a favorite and a favorite favorite, but just this once,” she said.

  “What about you? What’s your favorite book?” he asked her.

  “Well, since we seem to be able to change the meaning of favorite, I’m gonna say that my favorite book is anything by William Faulkner,” she said.

  “What do you like so much about Faulkner?”

  “The first time I read the words Yoknapatawpha County, the gentleman had my heart.”

  Gabe Riley lay awake nights trying to think of a set of words that would do the same for him.

  Their conversations continued, and one day she gave him a playful touch on the arm and said, “Sorry, you go ahead,” when they both started to speak at the same time. The touch surprised them both, and they became self-conscious. Dancy began to withdraw after that.

  Subtle changes came to her behavior, and they were not lost on Trinidad. For a time she’d thought about certain herbs and certain potions, but had rejected the idea in the end, believing that love should happen on its own. Trinidad knew the problem was nothing to do with Gabe or Dancy. It was to do with the phantom presence in the Arrow house; the one that put a mixed-up, bittersweet ache into the air; the presence of one departed.

  During one of those coffee times, Dancy was a million miles away.

  “Don’t you try to tell me there be nothing wrong, Miss Dancy, cuz I know there is.”

  Dancy looked up, took a deep breath, let it out, and slumped her shoulders.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Trinidad. I’ve just been feeling kind of bad lately.”

  “About what?”

  “Just things, I guess.”

  “Might it be one thing in particular?”

  Dancy looked into her coffee cup as though she’d find an answer there. She seemed unsure and not at all like herself. “I think maybe I should let Gabe go.”

  Trinidad reached over and took both of Dancy’s hands in her own. “You could do that,” she said, “but your William still be dead.” />
  “There’s more to it than that,” Dancy said. “It’s hard to explain.” Then she added, “I gotta get going. I’ll see you later.”

  After Dancy had gone, and their coffee cups had been washed, dried, and put away, Trinidad fetched the broom and began to sweep the floor. She could feel the gaze of the half-departed; she’d felt that gaze before. Sometimes she would step to the side to move around its shadow by way of showing respect for the dead. But not this time.

  “I know you be there, Mr. William. I knowed it the whole time. I knowed it from the day I come into this house. And I gots to wonder why you still here.”

  The Voices of Crayons

  DANCY noticed that she was not the only one to have a friend in Trinidad; Bonaventure had one too. When Dancy got to thinking about it, she realized he probably made friends out of adults because he’d always been surrounded by them. She wondered if she’d done him wrong by keeping him too close to the family. Perhaps she should have given him more of a chance to be with other kids. There were children in the neighborhood, but they were all older and Dancy hadn’t even tried to find other options for Bonaventure. She resolved to raise the matter with Mrs. Humphrey when parent-teacher conferences rolled around.

  The teacher began with, “If I had a classroom full of Bonaventures, I would be a very happy woman.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Dancy said.

  “Of course, that’s not to say his attention doesn’t wander at times, but that’s the way of all children, isn’t it? Even then, it’s not that he completely abandons what he should be doing and starts to do something else. It’s more like he gets very still and then all of a sudden he’ll pick up with what he was about.”

  Dancy had noticed the same thing and always thought it unusual. “Do you know what sorts of things distract him?” she asked.

  “Well, if I had to guess, I’d say it’s something he hears.”

  Dancy had experienced the same thought so many times, but always pushed it to that place in the back of her mind where she’d put it years before when he was only a baby and she realized there was something more to his silence. She set the idea aside this time too and brought up her concern about Bonaventure having friends. She asked how he got along with other kids.

  Mrs. Humphrey paused before saying, “Mrs. Arrow, I can honestly say that I see no difference between Bonaventure’s social interactions and those of the other children. They all have their ups and downs, and I’d say he’s doing very well, considering.”

  “Considering that he doesn’t speak?”

  “Considering that he’s so very bright,” the teacher said. “This is an age when jealousies rise to the surface, and that has definitely come into play. Bonaventure is reading, writing, and spelling years ahead of his grade level, and he has no difficulties that I can see in any other area. His printing is absolutely beautiful, though I suppose he gets more practice than most, what with all that writing he does on his notepad. Given all of these factors, it’s not unusual that he faces some resentment, but it’s an occasional thing. He’s formed some friendships, though if I’m being honest I’d have to say that he does seem to hold back a little bit. I think that’s due more to shyness than anything else.”

  “I worry about him getting his feelings hurt,” Dancy said.

  “That’s something all parents worry about. Acceptance is a problem every child faces, Mrs. Arrow, not just Bonaventure. The best we can do is to take it one day at a time,” the teacher offered. “And don’t forget that he’s caring and helpful, which the other children definitely pick up on. For example, when we have art, I put out two shoe boxes full of crayons and the children are to find the crayon they need and put it back when they’re finished. It’s a good way to teach the importance of sharing and being considerate of others. Of course, it always seems that someone is digging for a red or a black and becoming quite frustrated in the process. Well, it’s the darnedest thing, but Bonaventure will go to the child and comfort him or her. And then he reaches right in and finds that specific crayon. I’ve seen him do it time and again.”

  Bonaventure could have told her that the red crayon sounded like the trombones in the brass band that played in the gazebo in the park on summer Saturdays; it started out low and then slid around your ears. The black crayon was different; it made a sound like a pancake dropped off a spatula and landed on a plate with nothing more than a puffed-up thud.

  Mrs. Humphrey assured Dancy that she would continue to keep an eye on social interactions, and that for the most part Bonaventure was blending in well with the other children. To which Dancy responded, “But he’s not really like the other children, is he?”

  “No, Mrs. Arrow, he’s not. Your son is definitely the kindest child I’ve ever seen, and in twenty years of teaching, let’s just say I’ve seen a few.”

  The session ended, but Dancy’s worst fear remained—that Bonaventure’s muteness made him vulnerable to tragedy. Her maternal instincts worked overtime imagining terrible things that might happen to a child who could never cry out for help. She could remember every story she’d ever heard about children who fell down abandoned wells or got locked in discarded iceboxes or died in a fire because no one knew where to look for them.

  Dancy didn’t need to worry so. Her gifted boy lived in a silence that brought him the sound of danger whether it lurked down in a hole or in an icebox left for junk, and he most definitely could hear the change that takes place in the air right before a flame is lit.

  Bonaventure was waiting on the front porch for his mother. He was waiting as hard as he could, which involved not moving even one single muscle. He kept both feet stuck flat to the step; knees pressed together, hands over kneecaps. He’d been sitting so long in one spot that his little behind had started to hurt. It was how Bonaventure conducted himself when hoping for the best.

  He didn’t think he’d messed up in school, but he wanted to know for sure. Mostly he loved school; it was recess that was the problem. For one thing, there were too many sounds to keep up with, and for another, there were two boys in his class who would trip him sometimes or shove him on the playground, calling him teacher’s pet. But he’d never told on them because he wasn’t a tattletale.

  Dancy saw her son sitting rigid on the bottom step and correctly assumed it meant he was anxious to know how things had gone.

  “Hey, there, Sunshine. I sure am glad to see ya. I was afraid you mighta run off and got married while I was gone.”

  Bonaventure flapped one hand at her and rolled his eyes. —You and your jokes, he was saying.

  She put an end to his anxiety then and started to go on about how Mrs. Humphrey could hardly find enough words to sing his praises, what with him being such a good student and very, very kind, not to mention easy to get along with. Bonaventure blushed and beamed all at the same time, the recess bullies forgotten.

  Marking Time

  EVEN though Dancy had become strong in the ways that an independent businesswoman needs to be, she had no desire to move herself and Bonaventure out of Letice’s house, and Letice had no desire to see them to go. It could be said that love held them together, but that would not be the entire truth, for there was another reason neither one of them could define. In fact, an existential gravity held them in orbit in that house, revolving around secrets and existing within a darkness that held the dust of long-dead stars.

  This gravity had no pull on Trinidad, but she could sense its heaviness, and she could feel the infinitesimal wind caused by the dust of those dead stars as they skimmed around Bonaventure and came to rest on Dancy and Letice.

  Even though Letice regularly invited Trinidad to move into the apartment once occupied by the Silveys, she continued to politely decline, choosing to stay in her house on the Neff Switch road. It was there that she kept those things she believed sacred on an altar she’d set up in a corner of the front room. It was there that she harvested healing and contemplated that odd kind of gravity.

  Trinidad kne
w that Dancy kept on paying a debt she didn’t owe. She also knew that Letice worried all the time and was looking to hire a detective to make the anxiety go. And she knew that Adelaide Roman bore the guilt of the Pharisees. The very sight of Adelaide always brought conjuring to Trinidad’s mind, and that was an idea she didn’t want much to do with because it brought her own mother’s beliefs up to her stomach, like a case of indigestion.

  Life on Christopher Street went on. Autumn came and Bonaventure dressed up as Captain America for Halloween because that’s who he wanted to be every day of his life. Thanksgiving that year was somewhat subdued, it being the first major holiday without the Silveys. The Arrows invited Trinidad for the meal, but strictly as a guest, even though Letice was hopeless in the kitchen and turkey was one thing Dancy had never made; she had some serious reservations about pulling the giblets out of the bird. In the end they bought a turkey breast and some mashing potatoes, opened a can of jellied cranberries, boiled some yams with marshmallows and brown sugar, and had store-bought pumpkin pie with whip cream from a can and maraschino cherries from a jar.

  Bonaventure made pilgrim hats out of folded-up newspapers and insisted on having popcorn instead of regular corn in remembrance of the Wampanoag Indians who’d brought it to the first Thanksgiving. Mrs. Humphrey had read that story out loud in school, and it was one of his favorites because it held the sound of friendship.

  Grandma Roman showed up in time for the meal; she said she’d been dishing up dinner to the homeless at the Resurrection Tent, and doggone it if she didn’t have to rush right back over there and wouldn’t get the chance to help them clean up. No one believed her, outfitted as she was in a new black dress and stylish satin pumps.

  Peace on Earth and Mercy Mild

  CHRISTMAS was different that year too, mainly because Bonaventure had gone to the trouble of examining the fireplace; of late he had formed some suspicions. He didn’t know why they even had a fireplace; it wasn’t like they ever used it much. He bent over and stuck his head in to get a good look, and one good look was all he needed. He straightened up and determined his suspicions had been correct—a cat couldn’t get down that chimney, never mind a fat man carrying a sack big enough to hold toys for all the children in the world. Bonaventure Arrow had let go of Santa Claus. Bonaventure Arrow was growing up.