“They eat mosquitoes. They’ll sting anything, though. I guess if something happened to a little bird in there the mama wouldn’t really be able to pull it back out through the little hole.”
“That’s terrible,” Sarah Jane almost said, but she stopped herself, because she wasn’t sure it was what she meant. Maybe it’s terrible, the dead bird inside the gourd, the gourd full of wasps hanging from the rail on the porch, the wet spot spreading on the bottom of the gourd. But maybe there was a better explanation for the spot, something about dewpoints and organic matter and the lifespan of an empty gourd. Nothing was really certain. She reached into her purse.
“I brought two. I didn’t want to answer a bunch of questions,” she said instead, handing Lisa the tapes, their bulky cases dully reflecting a little sun. She heard the hum inside the gourd grow a little louder and dutifully took a step back.
“They will swarm,” said Lisa, turning discreetly, tapes in hand. Sarah Jane followed her inside; they stood behind the screen door, watching as a few wasps ventured out to see if the shadows they’d felt required a response. “I’ve had to run inside real quick a couple of times.”
“Couldn’t you call Orkin and just get rid of them?” asked Sarah Jane.
But Lisa had a dreamy look on her face; the sentry wasps were tracing patterns in the sunlight. “I guess,” she said quietly, still under the spell of the lazy figure eights the wasps followed in the air. “But it seems kind of mean. It’s their home now, you know?”
She closed the door and turned, heading for the cellar steps. “It’s just nature,” she said conclusively, but also, as it seemed to Sarah Jane, sadly, as if somewhere in the question of the birds and the wasps there was something to be regretted, but nowhere that any reasonable person might fix the blame.
9
“Hello?”
“Big man? It’s Dad.”
“Hi.”
“Hi. I just thought I’d call and see if—hey, listen. I was thinking about getting dinner in Des Moines.” A beat. “There’s a friend from work, we thought we might get dinner together.”
Steve listened to the short silence after he’d said it; it was a rift in something. Jeremy felt it too. They almost always had dinner together. It gave shape to their days.
“Oh, OK,” said Jeremy.
“If you’d rather I—” Steve looked at the wall of his office; he was calling from work. Next to an old family portrait on the wall above the desk, there was a printout of a Love is … cartoon. Love is … the greatest feeling you can feel! It had been there for years; it came from another time.
“No, it’s no problem, Dad. I’ll fix myself something. See you later?”
“I won’t be late,” said Steve. “See you later, then.”
“Sure,” said Jeremy. It was true. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“If you’re up later, let’s visit a little,” his father said finally, trying to hide the effort it took to say it under the easy burble he used when talking to clients.
“All right,” said Jeremy.
* * *
He was at the Spaghetti Works in Des Moines. Sitting across the table from him, eating a piece of garlic bread, was Shauna Kinzer; she was an office manager at a lumberyard. He’d been nodding casual hellos to her for several years; a couple of times they’d had lunch, nothing fancy, just an Applebee’s out near a site they were both involved with. In the middle of fine-tuning the details on a big job, he’d asked if she’d like to get dinner, and she’d given him an easy, natural yes that filled him with a quiet warmth. He’d been nervous, worried that she could see it. It had been a long time. She’d ordered the pepperoni chicken.
“Chicken all right?” he said.
“It’s great,” she said, smiling at him. “I always try to order something I wouldn’t make for myself at home.”
Steve twirled his spaghetti against a spoon and gave a small laugh. “My house has two grown men in it,” he said. “We eat a lot of spaghetti.”
“Are you the cook?”
“We take turns,” he said. “If you brown your own beef you can make a pretty nice sauce. We get kind of competitive.”
It seemed early, but she saw an opening, and she liked him. “How long have you two—” Not quite. “When was—”
“Winter of ninety-four.” He stabbed and twirled. There was a small beat; kitchen sounds, other tables talking, laughing at something. “Christmastime.”
“I can’t imagine.”
Steve chewed his food for a minute, and swallowed, giving the moment the time it needed. “It’s all right now. Thanks, though. Honestly,” he said, and he meant it. From early on he’d had to hear lots of people tell him how Linda was in a better place now. Right out of the gate: She’s in a better place now. Why did they say that?
“How old—”
“Jeremy,” he said. “Sixteen. That’s really the hardest part, you know. You don’t know what to say. To him. To anybody, I guess, but … it was hard.”
“I am so sorry, Steve.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “We miss her, you know. But we know she’d want us to be strong, that’s what she would have wanted. I wish she could see our boy, you know. He—he’s a good boy,” he said, his voice breaking a little, because he hardly ever talked about it; he was surprised to find himself feeling so open.
“Good kid, I mean,” he said, clearing his throat, taking a drink of water. Jeremy hadn’t been a boy for many years. “He’s always been a good kid.”
“He is lucky to have a good dad,” Shauna Kinzer said very deliberately, reaching across the table and putting her hand on his. The warmth soaked into his skin, rain on cracked earth.
They ordered dessert: two hot fudge brownies; sharing just one would have felt awkward. Out in front of the restaurant they said their good nights and then drove off in separate cars.
* * *
Ken Wahl, M.S.W., M.F.C.C.: 15 years experience in central Iowa. Individual and couples counseling. Specializing in grief, loss, and transition—it had been the least flowery ad in the Des Moines Yellow Pages back in 1995; it was important to Steve that the people he chose to share his private troubles with weren’t the type to try to convince him to cry out loud, and that they lived at least one county away.
Ken Wahl saw Steve Heldt clearly; over the years he’d known lots of men who didn’t want to make spectacles of themselves, whose need to retain their composure often surpassed their desire to be healed. “Did you ever think about keeping a journal?” he’d asked casually during their second meeting, and Steve had said no, he’d never been much on writing: but Wahl had reached into a big drawer in his desk and pulled out a composition book.
“You might try to write a little in it every day,” he said. “Just to see if it helps. You don’t have to show it to anybody, not even me, unless you feel like it—we can do that, but we don’t have to. It’s not for reading. Some people just find it comforting to write all this stuff down.”
You or I, finding ourselves in Steve Heldt’s shoes, might fill this book with intricate reckonings of our grief, trying to empty ourselves of its burden. But Steve only ever finished a few entries, which he meant to share with Wahl, but never did. The first few pages were simple sleep diaries: Two hours, 11:00–1:00; awake, watched TV until 5:00, fell asleep on couch. He’d ventured a little inward later, remembering all the times he thought of Linda during a given day: at work, while driving, before bed. At lunch with a client, having to swallow it all down. And then, suddenly: this.
Some accounts of Steve Heldt’s journal omit this entry, while other versions of his story make no mention of any diary at all. I place full credence in both the journal and its disputed, penultimate entry, which feels true, like a purge. A years-long gap followed in its wake: this, too, makes sense to me. Steve began journaling with a view toward completing an unpleasant task, and when he thought the job was done, he stopped.
I wonder if I can really tell you what it was like to lose Linda, h
ow heavy the blow was to me. She was the mother of my only son; that’s not even what I really mean, when I hear it out loud like this, because he’s not my son, he’s our son. In February 1978 I drove her to Mary Greeley during a snowstorm in the middle of the night, because the contractions were coming too fast for us to wait any longer; she was sailing through early labor really fast, and we were young and scared, and I didn’t know what would happen, but I tried to stay strong, because I thought that was what she needed, and I always try to stay level-headed in choppy waters: that’s what I’m good at, it’s one of the things people know me by. Good old Steve, never flies off the handle. But I couldn’t stop my mind from scaring up all these worst-case scenarios, things I was afraid of: complications, terrifying grisly scenes. In my daily life, at work, at home, I don’t dwell on possible bad outcomes. What’s the point? If anything worries me I swat away the worry like a bug, but on the drive to the hospital it was like waves of worry crashing inside me. I focused on the road and told Linda just to keep breathing, that it wouldn’t be long.
That was the night our son was born! Men cry all the time now, it seems like, over any old thing, but it wasn’t like that then, and anyway, I’m not ashamed to admit I cried. Our son was so beautiful. He was perfect. A round little baby boy. Linda was tired afterward, so tired, and she and Jeremy both slept almost constantly for the next three days, and again I started worrying: that something might be wrong, that it wasn’t normal for him to sleep so much, that we ought to call the doctor. But she comforted me, and she said in that quiet, whispery voice: Steve, it’s OK. That’s what she was like. Even in her own exhaustion she helped me stay the course. All this is normal, she told me, that little baby so sweet, sound asleep on her chest and the house so quiet, and then as the ship steadied itself we began to grow into the family we became, a happy family for sixteen whole years. His first day of school. Christmases. Summer vacations. You don’t think about how you really have your whole life planned out until a part of it goes missing suddenly one day. You’ll panic then. I don’t care who you are. But for Jeremy’s sake and to make Linda proud I kept myself sane, and we got through it.
I’ll always miss Linda and I know Jeremy does, too, but he almost never talks about her, and I don’t know what I should do. I can’t tell if he needs help, if there’s something special a father’s supposed to do for his son when they’re in a situation like ours. I’m a guy who works on projects with blueprints, but I’m on my own here. It feels dark a lot of the time; I thought it would clear up, and it’s eased a little, but it’s still dark. So I watch what’s left of my life like a security guard on the night shift, checking the locks when I know I don’t need to, pacing the perimeter of someplace nobody’s going to break into, except that you never know. Something could happen. So you keep watch. They don’t pay security guards just because they’re a few bodies short on the payroll.
He drove home up Interstate 35, the sky so dark, the air cold. Reading the highway signs for Saylorville Lake he got that sentimental urge some men get to spend a day fishing with their sons. It seemed like a good opening. When he got home and found Jeremy in the living room watching the highlight reel, he tried it out: “Passed Saylorville Lake on the way home,” he said.
“Yeah? Bob Pietsch says he had to throw back more bluegill than he could take home last time he went out,” Jeremy said.
“We should get out there sometime,” Steve offered, pleased with himself: no false notes in the opening. They were talking like guys at work.
“Sure,” said Jeremy.
Steve kept his eye on the TV as he spoke. “Had dinner with Shauna Kinzer,” he said. “Did I tell you about Shauna Kinzer?”
Jeremy looked at his dad over there on the other end of the couch, the screenlight flickering on his face. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“Well, she’s somebody I met at a job site.” Baylor was beating the Cyclones again. “We kept running into each other and then tonight we got supper together. It was kind of a date.”
State couldn’t seem to do anything against ranked opponents this year. Jeremy wanted to tell his dad it was all right if he went out on a date, but he wasn’t sure if he meant it or if it just felt like the right thing to say, so he waited.
“We had a good time. She’s a really nice person. It’s nice to have somebody to talk to. I’d like to ask her out again.”
“You shouldn’t feel bad if you want to spend time with somebody, Dad,” said Jeremy, very tenderly, trying to help. “Like, go on dates. I mean, it’s fine. It’s great. But you don’t have to ask my permission. Or my blessing, I don’t know. It’s all right.”
Steve regarded his son for a second. All grown up. He wondered what somebody else in his shoes might have done, but he couldn’t think of many similar cases. Bob Pietsch, maybe. Maybe not. “I know I don’t,” he said then. “It just feels a little strange. I thought we should might have a little talk about it, I guess. I don’t know.”
There was a space of a few breaths. Steve looked up at the shelf by the sliding glass door that led to the backyard: there was a framed family portrait from Oceans of Fun, back when Jeremy was in grade school.
“It’s always going to feel strange without Mom,” Jeremy said.
“Do you think—do you think it’d be all right with your mom?” Steve said, miles high in the darkness now, airless, trying to acclimate himself to the cold.
“Well, sure,” said Jeremy. “I mean, sure. She’d want you to meet somebody, I mean. She was like that.”
It was true. It was one of the things Steve missed most. Linda knew what was best for him, and whatever was best for him was what she wanted, too; she’d always seemed happiest if she could put him at ease. There are people who talk to their loved ones in prayer, who seek guidance and hear something in the gap between asking and the subsequent silence, but Steve Heldt had never been one of those people. Linda was buried in Nevada Municipal Cemetery. He was certain of it. He had seen her lowered into the grave.
“I want to do right by your mother,” Steve said.
Baylor scored again. Jeremy wished his mom could send some sign to Dad from somewhere: from the stars, from a dream, from down in the soil.
“You should be happy in your life, Dad,” said Jeremy. They left it there.
* * *
In the darkness of his room, after the game, Jeremy lay awake trying to get angry about the Cyclones not being any good this year. But in his heart he didn’t care about the Cyclones, not like he had in the past. His heart was elsewhere now, and what he really wanted to think about was Bill Veatch and that opening in receiving, what all that might look like. Bill’d pay better than Sarah Jane, there wasn’t any doubt about that; there’d be opportunities for advancement, too. Veatch & Son had offices in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, big operations. Anything involved with construction was going to be solid for a while. Out in Ames near the North Grand Mall they had whole new neighborhoods going up. Who knew where any of the people living in them were supposed to find work—maybe they were mainly students? How did their parents afford these places?—but somebody had to be buying those houses, and somebody had to build them.
Jeremy didn’t see himself like those people who just drift from job to job: friends from high school tending bar in Campustown, staying up late with the waitresses. Morning shift clerks at Kum & Go. But signing on with a growing business—he felt pretty sure Bill Veatch would hire him more or less on sight—that was a commitment. Stephanie Parsons had talked about teaching abroad once, but that wasn’t right either. Not everybody wants to get out and see the world. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you just want to figure out how to fit yourself into the world you already know.
Besides: there was Dad. Jeremy felt like it was time to make room for his father. It was a strange feeling, thinking about Dad like this, as a person whose life might be distinct from his own. The two of them had shaped the space they lived in around his mother’s absence; they’d made it a comfortabl
e place you didn’t have to think about too much. It was a known quantity, a knowable outcome. In local terms, that was its strength, but some nights at dinner Jeremy looked at his father and felt a sadness he couldn’t quite name.
What if he just got out of the way? It would be strange. He’d get used to it. They’d both get used to it. Maybe it would be for the best.
He didn’t resolve anything just yet, but he registered the presence of some slow movement inside himself, a small change in the coordinates of his inner drift. He rolled over from his back onto his side. The last thing he saw before he fell asleep was the glint of a baseball trophy he’d gotten in fourth grade, still sitting on the same shelf where he’d put it all those years ago. His team had finished fourth overall. Everybody got a trophy. It was a statue of a player with a bat in his hands, waiting for the pitch.
10
It happened in a haze: one minute the car was carrying her through the dark down the road from Collins, stars and moon overhead, no light due for at least an hour, and the next she was riding back out, the car a little emptier but not palpably so, divested of its burden. She hardly ever drove into Nevada anymore: maybe to run payroll, or to show her face at the counter long enough to keep people from asking questions. Of the actual errand she could later recall only tangential details—her reflection in the glass door as she approached it in the glare of a streetlight; the extra minute she had to wait on the way back out for the early morning traffic to pass before she could turn left onto Lincoln Way.
It was sloppy, that huge pile of tapes all at once on the floor. How is something like that not a cry for help? Someone working with footage from a camera mounted on her rearview, monitoring her face as she drove, might have tried, in edit, to frame the scene like that—as Sarah Jane reaching out somehow, trying to get caught. This is a mood I can imagine if all this had taken place in South Carolina, maybe: all that salty air, high humidity, the coast giving way to broken shoreline. Or New Mexico, up in the mountains. The New Mexico Sarah Jane I can envision letting some anxiety bleed right through her expression, steering through the switchbacks on the way up to her cabin.
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