I have this dream of seeing Thanett one day whole and healed. I see him tall and strong. I imagine him throwing a football with a friend in a meadow, running fast and laughing loudly. One day, I know my friend will do all of those things.
One time in a Bible study at our church, Thanett read his favorite verse to us. None of us were surprised that it was Isaiah 40:30-31: “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
Someday, my friend, someday. But until then, Thanett will continue making life here a little sweeter and a lot more fun. He’ll keep us laughing and he’ll keep celebrating friendship and life and love. It is for all these things, I choose Thanett as the person I admire the most on this earth.
I sat quietly, smiling at Henry’s essay, for a long time. Then I put everything together exactly as Henry had it and stacked it on his desk. I straightened his other papers and dusted off the pictures of his sisters and his parents that lined the back of his desk. This was the desk of the sweetest boy I’d ever known. I ran my hand over his pillow to smooth it, and then turned out his lamp and left, shutting the door behind me.
I fell asleep thinking how lucky I was to know Henry and Thanett.
The next day, Mrs. Whitmire cleaned and worked on a quilt while I did homework. By late afternoon, we were ready to get out of the house. We drove to town to run errands and eat dinner. When we got back to the house at nine, we watched TV for a while and then went to bed. Sometime in the night, I felt Henry next to me in the dark.
“Don’t wake up, Meg,” he whispered. “I just wanted to see you before I go to bed.”
I rolled over and held his cold hand to my cheek. “Did you just get home?” I mumbled.
He chuckled at my incoherence. “Yeah, just now. Dad’s still parking the trailer. I ran in to see if you were still awake.” He tucked my wild hair behind my ear and smiled.
“You’re gonna love the two quarter horses we bought today. They’re the best blood lines we’ve had on the ranch in a long time.”
“What did you name them?” I slurred, not even sure what actually came out. But I was lucid enough to realize he was laughing at me, that deep rumbling laugh that meant he was at least trying to hide his amusement.
“They already had names, Meg. They’re not puppies.”
“Oh, okay,” I whispered.
I noticed he was holding something behind his back. “What’s that?”
“Flowers, for you. Happy Valentine’s Day. Sorry I wasn’t here with you. I’ll put these in a vase.”
He held out a bouquet of cream-colored roses. They were soft and velvety and smelled incredible.
“They’re beautiful. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. They smell just like you. Go back to sleep, sweetie. I’m gonna help Dad stable the horses. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I felt his warm breath on my neck as he leaned down to kiss my cheek. “Hey, I kind of like coming home and finding you here,” he whispered. “Can’t wait until this can happen every night.”
I smiled and watched him walk to the door. Only instead of opening it and going out, he stopped with his hand on the knob. Then he turned around and grinned dangerously. He caught my eye and held his finger to his lips to tell me to be quiet, kicked off his boots, and slid under the quilt next to me.
I felt him sigh deeply. “Couldn’t resist this kind of temptation. This is a personal fantasy for me, but it usually happens in my bed, not my sister’s.”
Well, I was wide awake now! “No, your parents!” I complained as I pushed on his chest to get him out of the bed. He grabbed my wrists and held them gently until I relaxed.
“Easy, Meg,” he breathed in my ear. “My mom went out to see my dad and the horses. You are really warm, you know that?”
I smiled, but didn’t say anything. He could tell I felt uncomfortable with this whole scene, with his parents practically outside the door, or maybe looking through the window. His chest shook so I knew he was laughing at me even though I couldn’t hear it.
“Meg, it’s okay, I promise. My parents are both down at the barn, and I’ll leave in a second. I won’t even kiss you. You know I wouldn’t cross any lines with you. I just want to be next to you for a second. Please?”
I relaxed and he pulled my arms around him and folded me into his body. He smelled really good—like cologne, leather, and hay. We didn’t talk; we barely breathed. I could tell he was just trying to be very still so I wouldn’t try to push him out of the bed again.
Finally, he took a long slow breath. “Well,” he whispered. “I’m a man of my word so I’ll leave now. But you should know that this is right where I want to be for the rest of my life.”
Okay, that did it. I smiled, and pulled his face to mine and kissed him like I’d never kissed him. Of course, he didn’t object. After a few dizzying minutes, he pulled away reluctantly and cupped his hand around my cheek, and then slid backwards out of the bed and kneeled next to it. “Sweet dreams, Meg. I really love you.”
I smiled and touched his lips.
He picked up his boots and the roses and slipped quietly out the door, into the night.
School would be out for spring break in a few days, and I woke up this morning worried about my final paper for Landman’s class. Tennyson and I had just gotten our trays in the cafeteria and found a seat when she announced she’d already finished her Sylvia Plath paper.
“Are you almost finished with yours?” she asked, oblivious to my mounting stress level.
“It’s not due for two months,” I snapped at her, seeing the calendar clearly in my head. “It’s March 10th and we’ve got until the middle of May. I haven’t even started.”
Another flush of anxiety hit me as I realized that most of the class had at least started this major project—after all it was fifty percent of our grade. Landman meant business when he assigned it at the first of the year. I’d be leaving for Pittsburgh in a few days, and I’d planned to work on my paper there. I doubted my mom would be in the mood to spend much time with me.
“I’m starting this afternoon,” I said as much to myself as Tennyson. On the way to art, I ducked through the library to check out a book on Frost’s poetry. “Home Burial” was supposed to be one of his more difficult poems, but I always seemed to understand Frost, so I wasn’t freaking out yet.
Mrs. Brierley, the librarian, smiled as I breezed in and plopped down in front of a monitor to locate the book. I scribbled the reference number on my hand with a pen and took off into the stacks to look. I found it immediately and decided to scan through the summary and criticism of the poem before my next class. The instant I read the first sentence, the walls began to close in on me.
This, the saddest of Frost’s poems, details the tragic ‘burial’ of a home that occurs after the burial of a son.
“Home Burial”…of course, what had I thought this would be about? I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans and tried to stay calm as I continued reading.
The husband and wife, who have suffered unspeakable loss, must now try to find their way back together again, or not. The lack of empathy one shows to the other for their varying styles of grieving points to a probable dissolution of their relationship. Possibly the most important message Frost conveys is that communication is fallible, weak, and ineffectual in the face of such a tragedy. Are we, any of us, able to understand another heart that is grieving? And, if we understand, are we able to put this understanding into words—to reach across the huge chasm that a death leaves in every relationship? Maybe silence is the only answer.
I closed my eyes and shook my head slowly back and forth. “No, no, no, no,” I moaned.
Mrs. Brierley stepped up to me suddenly and put her hand on my shoulder.
“Meg, are you okay, honey?”
“Unbelievable,” I muttered. “Mrs. Brierley, I have to
take this book. It’s Frost. I’ll check it out in a minute, but I have to see Mr. Landman before his next period.”
I ran out of the library, leaving my backpack behind. Sprinting down the hall, blinded by my own tears, I struggled to pull air into my lungs. Landman’s classroom was dark and I thought I’d missed him. He saw me in the doorway and called to me from his desk in the back of the room. When he saw my face, he stood. “Meg,” he said, “what can I do for you?”
“Mr. Landman, I’m sorry to be this direct, but you have to let me choose another poem. I can’t write about ‘Home Burial’ for personal reasons. I’ll take any poem you want to give me, any other poem.”
“Meg, I’m sorry. I can see how distressed you are. The thing is I make it a policy that once a poem is assigned, there is no switching. Imagine the can of worms that would open in class. You take what you’ve drawn—it’s part of the challenge of the assignment. But, I can help, maybe, by talking through whatever it is that’s bothering you. What poem are you studying?”
He glanced at the Frost book in my hand as he gently pulled it from my grip. My finger was holding the place and he surveyed the page.
“Ah, yes. One of my very favorites, but one of the saddest poems he wrote. Have you had a similar experience, Meg? Is that what this is about?”
I closed my eyes against the temptation to tell him right then, took a deep breath to steady myself and decided that I couldn’t do it. I’d made it almost the entire year as a normal student and I couldn’t mess that up now in a moment of blind panic. Most people would have just been open about it from the beginning, but I couldn’t, and now it just seemed too weird to admit that I’d hidden something so extreme.
He sensed my reluctance to share, and sat down at his desk again. He silently read the poem to himself and then he leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on his desk. I slowly sat down in a desk close to him and pulled it around to face him. He watched my face for a long time without saying anything.
Finally, he took a deep breath. “You know, Meg, there’s a great deal of tragedy and unhappiness on this earth and it touches every family to one degree or another. No one is immune, despite appearances.”
I stared at him, impatient for him to come to the conclusion that he could break his stupid policy in this case.
“Do you think you’re brave or fragile, Meg?”
I shook my head and stared at him incredulously. “I think the people who know me best would say I’m fragile, but that’s got nothing to do with…”
He interrupted me by taking a sharp breath in through his nose and closing his eyes. “It has everything to do with it. ‘Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.’ Alice Swaim wrote that.”
He opened his eyes and looked at me very directly, measuring his words while he judged my soul. “Do you believe that, Meg?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, wondering where he was going with this, and a little angry that he was trying to figure me out.
“It’s okay to feel fragile in the face of fear or pain. It’s not okay to be paralyzed by it. Courage is when you open up and do what you’re meant to do even though you’re scared. There are an infinite number of ways that this world can hurt us. No two heartaches are exactly alike and no one can articulate the heartache of someone else. If you are unable, or unwilling, to tell me what it is about ‘Home Burial’ that affects you so deeply, then I can’t make you. But I will tell you something I learned the hard way as a young man: sometimes the best way to heal is to share our pain with others—others who care about us. Let them divide it up so that we have just a little less to suffer.”
He paused here and his eyes went soft with emotion. When he spoke again, it was almost in a whisper. “Meg, if you are this adamant that you need a different poem, I will respect that. My heartfelt advice to you, though, is that you keep it. You use what is tearing your heart to shreds right now, and you write it. Enlighten us, Meg. Teach us. It’s what great writers feel compelled to do, you know? They never even think there’s another option. And I’ve seen this year that you are a great writer. You’re talented, and it’s coming from a place where these other kids in class have never been. You obviously know more than the rest of us about something. Help us learn through your experience.”
I felt my breathing calm, but my shoulders still felt so heavy. I placed my forehead on the cool desktop. My mind was no longer racing and I think I’d made a decision already. I realized in an instant that I didn’t have to continue having anxiety attacks every time I was faced with verbalizing Wyatt’s death. That out of control reaction had become a habit, more than a true indicator of what I felt. I could take control of how I dealt with my memories—and maybe the most in control thing I could do right now was to share and teach. But man, did that realization ever make me mad.
I nodded slowly. “Mr. Landman, it’s about my brother, and…”
He put his finger to his lips and shook his head, almost imperceptibly. I narrowed my eyes and watched him.
“Don’t tell me, Meg. Write it. Write it while it’s this overwhelming. I want to learn about it at the same time as the class. I want to hear your story. Write to us, Meg.”
I took a straggly breath and stood up very slowly, tentatively, taking care that my knees could hold me. I reached for the Frost book and he placed it gently back in my hands as he stepped from around his desk. I shuddered like I had a fever coming on.
“Meg, if at any time you need to talk or you decide this is too difficult, you know where to find me.”
I nodded and walked to the door, feeling disconnected from my body and a little dizzy. When I made it back to the library, I found that Mrs. Brierley had already checked the book out to me. She handed me my backpack that she had stashed behind the counter, and smiled sweetly as she asked if there was anything she could help me with. I shook my head and managed a slight smile. I was already too late to make it to art class without embarrassing myself. And since that was my last class of the day, I decided to go on to work.
Henry had already left. As a senior, he had a short afternoon schedule and he was probably already in a field somewhere working. They were in the middle of planting and I found his farmer’s tan completely adorable. From a distance, I saw a note, tucked under my windshield wiper, waving in the chilly breeze. My heart sped up a bit because I knew Henry had been there, thinking of me.
Hey, pretty girl—
I ducked out early today to help my dad with a lousy tractor engine. Missed you at lunch. Tennyson said you ate fast and headed to the library. Landman’s paper got you down?
I watched you breathe in English this morning. Didn’t hear anything Landman said. Have I told you lately how pretty you are?
I love you, my sweet Meg.
Henry
My shaky mood improved quickly and I went to work with a bit more optimism about life. After work, I ate dinner quickly at home and settled into my bed to begin writing. Dad called to say he had to work late so I didn’t expect any interruptions. I hoped to be inspired about how to tell my personal story while explaining “Home Burial” at the same time. The critical element, I thought, was that this couldn’t be a confessional time for me. It had to be a true evaluation of the poem, without sounding like a whine fest about my past. But Landman was right—my family’s crisis could lend an eerily real world glimpse into Frost’s study of grief.
After several false starts, I felt it, like a switch flipped and my heart began pouring out everything I understood about the poem. The words that had wanted expression for the last year found an opening and tumbled out faster than I could write.
Finally, when the storm settled, I lay my hand down and leaned back into my pillow. I fell asleep almost instantly and at some point in the night, I felt my dad taking my book and papers away. He turned out my light and settled me deeper into my quilt.
When I woke the next morning, I felt stiff and tired, but
at peace. I ate breakfast with Dad and he told me he didn’t get in until after midnight. He has to work late again tonight and he asked if Henry could bring me to the hotel for dinner.
“I’m not sure. He and his dad are really busy right now. I’ll ask, though.”
After he left, I took a shower and dressed slowly. I pulled on a soft pink sweater, a new black skirt, black tights and my boots, grabbed my backpack and locked up the house. The Jeep complained about the cold when I tried to start it. I drove slowly, trying to avoid patches of black ice all the way to school.
When I pulled into the parking lot, I saw Henry sitting in his truck, waiting for me. He had an empty horse trailer hitched to his truck. When he saw me pull in, he stepped out of his truck and motioned me into the space next to him. He grinned at me and I felt the familiar rush that seeing him always inspired. I reached over and unlocked my passenger door and he climbed in and hugged me.
“Wow, you look beautiful today, Meg. I like pink on you. It’s nice.” He tucked my hair behind my ear and held my cheek in his hand.
“I missed you yesterday,” I said.
“Did you get my note?”
I reached over and opened the glove box to pull his note out. “Of course. Dad wants to know if you can eat with us at the hotel tonight.”
“I think so. I’ve got to pick a horse up from another stable and get him settled. I could pick you up by six-thirty. Is that too late?”
Glass Girl Page 22
