Glass Girl

by Kurk, Laura Anderson

  Landman suddenly looked at me like he was studying a newly found tribe member in the jungle.

  “Let me understand. You think she was being dishonest when she wrote about hope? Speaking tongue in cheek, if you will? You believe, personally, that it is possible for hope to fail us or to not even exist, and that’s what Dickinson is trying to tell us?”

  “I think to call hope a ‘bird’ that sings without ever stopping was her way of saying hope isn’t a real enough thing, a concrete enough concept, to matter. It’s cartoonish.”

  “Wow. Such cynicism, Meg. I didn’t expect that from you. Actually, I tend to think Miss Dickinson did know of hope and I think I can explain why I’ve come to that conclusion. But I certainly respect your opinion.”

  He turned to the class, “Class, did you know Dickinson was best known in her community, around the time she wrote this poem, for her love of gardening? She spent hours tending impossibly difficult garden patches and writing about exactly what each plant needed to have a chance. I think the act of nurturing tender little leaves out of the cold hard New England ground is itself a thesis on hope. This is, after all, one of her earlier poems, perhaps before life, and maybe mental illness, had turned her into a harsher critic of hope. If she ever was a critic as Meg believes.”

  “Henry, what do you have to say about this poem?” The class turned to Henry wondering if he would try to defend me.

  Henry’s face looked so troubled that I had to fight the urge to reach out and smooth his forehead again. I didn’t like to see the lines that formed there when he worried. He leaned forward, glanced at me, and cleared his throat. “Well, I tend to read the poem a little more optimistically, I guess. I think Dickinson tried to put into words the hope that she felt and a bird fluttering in her soul was the nearest image she could come up with. I think that’s a pretty good description of the way hope feels. Kind of ethereal but definitely there—if only a tiny little flutter— if you’re patient enough to wait on it. But there’s a lot about her that I don’t understand, so I could sure be wrong about that.”

  I didn’t hear the rest of Landman’s lecture. I sat, silently fighting angry tears, and digging my nails into my hands. Tennyson passed me a note that said, “Are you okay?” I didn’t respond. Henry didn’t take his eyes off my face, and after class, he helped me up and walked me out. He took my hand in the hall and, without a word, led me outside to the parking lot. He opened the passenger door of his truck and helped me in. I slumped over in the seat in tears. He climbed into the truck, pulled me into his lap and held me without saying a word. His arms were all that held the pieces of me together.

  “Meg, no kidding,” he said huskily, “you’ve got to start talking.” He sighed loudly when I still didn’t talk. “I can’t be in the dark here. I need to know what is wrong with you.”

  “My mom,” I sobbed. “She’s gone. She left us to go back to Pittsburgh. She doesn’t want to be with us anymore. She needed…” I stopped myself before the words tumbled out. I couldn’t say it all. He knew enough now.

  Henry held my face and wiped my tears with his thumbs. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “You’re going to be okay, Meg. I’m so sorry you’re hurting. It’s about to make my heart explode. You’re too sweet to hurt like this. But you’re going to be okay. Your parents will work this out. God will fix this soon.”

  That touched a nerve, and I stiffened and looked at him. “God doesn’t bother with my family. There’s no point.”

  He held me while I cried for a long time. He never even shifted his weight because he didn’t want to disturb me. After a while, he slid me into the seat next to him and put his arm around me. Then, he started the truck and backed away from the school. We drove for twenty or thirty minutes out of Chapin. Then we exited onto an old farm road where I saw a small sign that said “Whitmire Tract #1328.”

  We turned again onto a dirt road that seemed to wind through pasture-land forever. The cows heard Henry’s truck and wandered slowly to the road. Some of them blocked our way, but Henry rolled down his window and yelled at them while he inched the truck forward slowly. The cows got the message and dispersed. We kept driving until we came into a small group of tall pine trees with a tiny cabin in the middle. It looked very rough and old—not like anyone’s current home.

  Henry’s face looked determined, almost fierce, like he was trying to will away my pain. I felt myself relax for the first time in such a long time, leaning into his chest. I’d been on my own, emotionally, since Wyatt died. I hadn’t even been able to unload on my parents for fear of what it would do to them. And how screwed up was that? Henry was here now and he was strong enough to take it. I would not burden him with Wyatt, but he could help me through this. I could rest for a little while in his strength. He pulled next to the cabin and cut the engine, opened his door, and helped me out of the truck. He pulled a key out from under a loose board and opened the door.

  I still wasn’t sure where we were, and Henry wasn’t talking. The cabin was clean inside, but sparsely furnished with just a cot, a chair, a table, a sink and an old stove. A fireplace took up one corner of the room and firewood lay neatly on the stone hearth. Henry lit a lamp on the table with a match.

  “What is this place?” I asked quietly.

  “It’s an old house that’s been on this property since the early 1900s. My dad keeps it up so that our ranch hands can use it as a shelter in case they get caught out here in a storm. They can at least be warm and dry in here until they can get back to the main houses.”

  “It’s so quiet out here.”

  “Mm hmm. No one has actually used the place in years. I come here a lot, though, to get away from things. I always write papers in here for some reason. It’s just a place where I can think better. Sometimes I spend the night.”

  He pulled the chair close to the fireplace and motioned for me to sit. And then he went to work building a fire. When he had it going well, he sat on the floor by my feet; I slid down to the floor next to him.

  “Thank you, Henry,” I said without taking my eyes off the fire.

  He rubbed the small of my back gently. “You don’t need to thank me, Meg. I just want you to be okay. I thought it might clear your head to get away from things.”

  The fire burned warm and I felt better.

  “She’s had a difficult time, my mom. And, she just felt that it wasn’t her choice to move here. She needed to go back home to be closer to…to family.”

  “I’m sure she has her reasons and someday you’ll understand better. Give it a little time.”

  “Well, I just wanted you to know that I’ll get through it. I’ve handled worse. I quit relying on her to manage my emotions a long time ago.”

  “Meg, you don’t have to downplay this with me.” He cupped his hand under my chin. “I’m right here looking at you; I know you’re hurting. But I have to know something. Earlier you said God doesn’t bother with you. What did you mean?”

  I shook my head slowly. “If you knew everything about me, Henry, you’d know that if there is a God he turned his back on me a long time ago.”

  His eyes were so full of something when he looked at me: sadness, confusion, disbelief? “Meg, you can’t believe that. There is a God and he is involved in this…in your life. You’re his child and he’ll never turn his back on you.”

  “Then how could he allow such evil to happen, not just to me, but all over the world? How can you believe that he’s good and just? If he were perfect, then heartache wouldn’t exist, right? He wouldn’t want his children to hurt! It’s counterintuitive and it makes my head hurt to think about it.”

  “Meg, look around you. What do you mean, how can I believe? There’s nothing in this life that he doesn’t touch.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and held my cheek. “He brought you here, to me, which was no accident. You have to understand that all he wants is for us to love him back. He craves you even more than I do.”

  He paused and rubbed my cheek with the ba
ck of his hand while he thought, or waited for me to respond. “It wouldn’t be real love if there wasn’t the possibility for another response to him, right? If we couldn’t choose not to love him, then our love would be empty and unsatisfying. That’s why there’s evil in this world, because there’s free choice in this world. He allows the one to prove the other. Don’t you see that, Meg? We were never promised a rescue from every heartache on this earth. This is what it is, Meg, this life we live. The promise is that when everything falls down around us, he’ll hold us and taste that sorrow with us. And someday we’ll understand the meaning of it all. Right now, we accept it on faith.”

  The tears flowed and the crushing pain in my chest returned. I hadn’t planned on ever considering this again. I was done with trying to muster a love for a God who’d let Wyatt die, who’d let my mother drive away from me. But Henry’s words were so sincere and full of tenderness that I felt like a child listening to someone much wiser than me. “I don’t know what I see anymore, Henry. I’m just trying so hard to make sense out of things.”

  He leaned his face close to mine and spoke so softly I could barely hear him. “I know, Meg. It’s a messed-up world, it really is. But a few things make sense. For me, it’s God and my family and you. I know there’ll be suffering in this life, but I also know that suffering is what creates hope. And I want you to know that about me and I want you to hope. That’s what this whole journey here is about.”

  I looked at Henry in awe. How could he have such peace, knowing that someday he’ll lose someone that he loves, or that he’ll get sick and suffer?

  “Meg, you said that if I knew everything about you, I would understand. What is it, honey? What are you not telling me?”

  For a split second, I considered telling him everything. But I didn’t want to see pity in his eyes, anything but that. I knew he would find a reason to run. If nothing else, he’d Google the whole story and it would be too much for him. He’d never look at me the same way again.

  “I want to tell you, Henry, but I can’t.”

  I leaned into the warmth of his arms and stifled a yawn. Henry sighed deeply and chuckled. “What is it with you and warm rooms? Why don’t you sleep? That would actually be good for you. I’ll sit right here and read.”

  It didn’t take much to convince me. I crawled to the cot and lay down. Henry pulled a quilt out of a wooden chest and covered me up. I fell asleep almost immediately—it was that sleep that takes over after you’ve cried for a long time. I slept deeply without dreaming.

  Sometime later, I woke groggily and saw Henry reading at the table.

  “How long have I been out?”

  “A couple of hours,” he said quietly. “It’s almost three o’clock. What should we do about Annie and your dad? I’m sure they’ll be looking for you. You want to call Annie?”

  “I guess I should try to make it to work. I skipped out on her yesterday.”

  “Well, she won’t mind if you take another day off. But we should probably get you to town before everyone has time to worry.”

  I sat on the bed and tried to clear the fog from my head. Suddenly, Henry sat down next to me and wrapped his arms around me. He buried his face in my hair and whispered, “Stay here, Meg, in Chapin. I don’t want you to go back to Pittsburgh. It has to work out that you stay here.”

  “Why, Henry? I’m a wreck. You don’t even know. Why would you want me to stay here?”

  He pulled my chin up to his face and pressed his mouth against my ear. “Because, Meg,” he whispered. “Because I want you here with me.”

  Suddenly I knew that I had a reason to stay here. No longer was it just that I didn’t want to be in Canning Mills. Now, I knew where I wanted to be—in Chapin, with Henry.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said without hesitation. “I want to be here, with you and with my dad.”

  I felt him smile into my hair. His breath puffed warm on my neck and a chill ran down my arms. He pulled away, held my face, and stared into my eyes for a long minute and then gently kissed my lips and my eyelids. His lips were soft and warm and comforting.

  The drive back to town ended too quickly. Henry dropped me off at my Jeep and then followed me to the bookstore to make sure I got there okay. Annie met me at the door, concerned because Thanett had told her that I left school early. I answered her questions, gave her a hug, said hello to Thanett, and got to work sorting the stacks of inventory that had piled up in the back.

  The afternoon passed quickly and when I got home, I found Dad sitting alone in the dark kitchen. I startled him when I came in. I put my hand on his shoulder and he covered it with his own. We stayed this way for a long time.

  “Are you hungry, Dad?”

  “I might be.”

  “I’ll make us some grilled cheese sandwiches. That’s about the only thing I can make well.”

  I pulled the bread and cheese out and started grilling sandwiches. We both sat at the table and picked at our food. Once we were sure we’d made enough of an effort to appear normal, we cleared our plates and said goodnight. I felt like we’d both regressed a few grieving stages. Or maybe now we were starting to grieve Mom’s absence. Either way, neither of us felt like talking, and it was a relief to close my bedroom door and sit alone in the dark.

  TO: adelek@yahoo.com

  SUBJECT: Hi Mom

  I miss you so much. I hope you’ll change your mind and come back to Wyoming. Dad and I both do. Are you okay? How is Aunt Catherine? Will you be staying with her or going to our house?

  I love you,

  Meg

  Several mind-numbing weeks later, I sat in Biology next to Tennyson. Mrs. Slaten babysat us with a video for the second day in a row on the migration patterns for Canadian geese. Two days of geese…what could possibly be left to say? The past couple of days have been wasted at school because no one could concentrate. We’re out all next week for Thanksgiving, and our brains are already on vacation.

  While the video droned on, Tennyson and I passed notes and, between notes, I daydreamed. Mostly my mind stayed on my parents. Mom, still living with Aunt Catherine, had responded to only about one in ten of my emails since she left, although “responded” may be too generous a word. Really, she’d given me the equivalent of an electronic grunt, with no information about her condition and no guarantee of anything. Dad and I have bumped around in the house like a couple of ghosts and he cut back on his hours at the hotel so he could always be home for dinner with me. I think we’d tacitly agreed to pretend we were okay.

  In a few days, everyone in America except this branch of the Kavanaghs will celebrate Thanksgiving. Mom asked us not to come to Pittsburgh and when my dad argued, it turned into a horrible fight. In the end, he decided we shouldn’t force the issue. He and I will “celebrate” in Wyoming—not that we feel all that thankful.

  A folded piece of paper dropped into my lap. I picked it up and read Tennyson’s curly cursive.

  Tennyson: I see it in your eyes—you’re thinking about him.

  Me: Wrong. I was thinking about my Spanish homework. Como se dice boring?

  Tennyson: Yeah, right. Did you know every girl at this school has had a crush on Henry? Wish you could’ve seen him in elementary school… sooooo cute.

  Me: Grrrrrrr

  Tennyson: He hasn’t been the same Henry since the day you got here.

  Me: Really? Tell me more.

  Tennyson: Tell me you’ve noticed how he watches you when you’re not looking. He’s been crazy for you since the day you walked into Landman’s class.

  I thought about this and laughed out loud. I tried to decide when exactly I “bloomed.” I think it must have been last year. No one noticed, of course, because everyone at home was too focused on survival, and everyone at school averted their eyes when I came in the room. I’m sure I missed out on the whole rite of passage that should’ve happened at my age—the insane interest in shopping, hair and makeup that my friends and their moms seemed so obsessed with, and the rampe
d up comfort level of physical relationships with guys.

  I was definitely an untouchable—people were intimidated by the grief. Not that I didn’t have a crush on a hundred different guys. I was attracted to pretty much the entire male population at our high school. The way they moved and stretched. Their soft laugh when a girl said something to them. The lazy way they grinned at girls who weren’t me—the grins that were so full of ambiguity that they made my head hurt. I never could get my voice to work around guys; it sounded like a squeaky wheel on a shopping cart, and my words came out in the wrong order…verbal dyslexia.

  I’ve been looking in the mirror more lately trying to figure out what Henry sees in me. I mostly see my mom staring back at me. All my life I’ve been amazed by her eyes, and now I see that they’re mine. I’ve always known my mom was a beauty. One time, when Wyatt and I were little, we had to make a quick trip to the grocery store with her. On the way in the door, Mom stopped, creating a traffic jam.

  “Oh, I took off my wedding ring to rinse paint brushes and I forgot to put it back on,” she said.

  I remember thinking it was weird that she would worry about it. We hadn’t been in the store ten minutes before I noticed a nicely dressed man who seemed to be following us around. He stared at her. Finally, in the cereal aisle, he spoke to her. “I’m sorry. I never do this. But, I noticed you when you walked in and I think you’re stunning. And, well, you aren’t wearing a ring, and I wondered if you’re single.”

  My mom turned a million shades of red and laughed, throwing her head back as if she found it hilarious and wonderful and intriguing all at the same time. “No. Not single. Happily married and raising these two little ones. But thank you, really, for saying that.”

  Dad was always a little intoxicated by her. He said he would’ve done just about anything to convince her to marry him. I’ve fantasized that Henry will feel the same way about me someday. I’ve missed him lately. His dad relied on him a lot and every season his work load seemed to increase. I’ve tried to be supportive, though, and not whine when we’re together.