Curt pushed out his legs and eased into a horizontal position. He locked eyes with her. “I don’t know. I guess I think about how the stars are just a collection of Hydrogen and Helium, nothing more than balls of gas, separated by billions of light-years. And that space is mostly cold and empty, except for this little speck of a rock that we live on that’s hurtling through the cosmos, as the universe creeps closer and closer to heat death.”
“Oh,” Hannah said, almost shivering at the despair his words induced.
“I’m kidding,” Curt said after a minute. “That isn’t really what I think.”
“Oh.” Hannah chuckled nervously.
“What I really think…” Curt trailed off as his eyes followed the outlines of constellations. “I guess I feel fortunate. There’s really no reason why we should be here. Not scientifically speaking, anyway. But we are. It’s like all of these forces conspired to bring us into existence, and even if that was a complete accident, it makes us fortunate. Like we won a kind of cosmic lottery.”
“Huh,” Hannah said.
Her youth pastor and father would have pushed back against Curt’s assertions. Describing a cosmos without God at the center had been taught to her as sheer lunacy. Atheists were assumed to float through life without any sense of purpose, one small step away from plunging into complete emptiness and depression. But what Curt described was different.
“That sounds kind of nice,” Hannah admitted, even if she didn’t agree one-hundred percent with the idea.
The two lay next to each other. His arm lightly brushed against hers—only for a second. The momentary touch sent a quiver of excitement through her.
“So when does the meteorite shower start?” she asked.
The night sky was spectacular, but she hadn’t seen even the slightest hint of a meteorite, yet.
“Yeah, actually the eta Aquariids isn’t such a prolific shower in the northern hemisphere. If we were in the southern tropics, then we’d see a much better show. We might only see 5-10 ten an hour. If that.”
She shifted to her side. “So why come out then? Not that this isn’t beautiful.”
Curt exhaled. “Well, that’s part of it. My dad once said that people spend most of their lives ignoring the night sky. So coming out here is kind of an excuse to see it. But my dad always said that coming out, even for something so rare, was worth the effort. And we shouldn’t just do stuff because it’s easy, but because it’s worth it.”
“That’s kind of a nice way to look at life.”
Curt nodded. ”Yeah, it is.”
“Can you tell me about your father?” she asked.
He stared at her. “Does it matter?”
A little bit of the edge that had been in his voice when he confronted Hannah in the hallway crept back in.
“It matters to me.”
Curt rolled his eyes back to the sky. “You guys probably thought of him as a trouble maker, as someone who’s always creating issues. But he didn’t care about Ten Commandments monuments. He didn’t want to put himself in the middle of these issues. But he did it because he wanted to protect people. People like me, people like Kate.”
By nature of who her father was and the church she attended, the Ten Commandments monument had attracted a lot of attention. As had Matt McDonald’s opposition of it. People had ascribed some pretty nefarious motives to Curt’s father’s actions. Suffice to say, protecting other people wasn’t chief amongst these professed reasons. Curt’s testimony to the contrary didn’t immediately sway her opinion of him. But she forced herself to listen, to hear Curt out without trying to prove he was wrong.
“Anyway, even when he was dealing with people he didn’t agree with, my dad wanted to understand where they were coming from. He wanted them to understand him as well. So they could treat each other as humans.”
Hannah nodded. Had her father understood Matt McDonald? Had he even wanted to? Of course, he would have claimed to understand Matt McDonald better than the atheist understood himself. Knowing scripture gave Christians like her father that absolute confidence. But were they right about who Matt McDonald was?
“When I heard you walk into the bush tonight, before I knew it was you, I thought you were my father,” Curt said. He glanced at his feet. “That’s pretty stupid, right? I mean, I know he’s gone and he’s not coming back.”
Hannah inched closer to Curt without even thinking about it. “It’s not stupid. Your mind plays tricks with you.” She swallowed again, trying to moisten her dry mouth. “I lost my mom five years ago. I still think I hear her in the kitchen when I wake up. She used to sing in the morning when she made breakfast. I swear I can hear those songs some mornings, but when I walk into the kitchen, no one’s there.”
Hannah swept a hand through her blonde hair, which must have been a mess. She hadn’t even bothered to brush it before leaving home. Curt was staring at her, seemingly watching every slight movement she made.
“Sometimes I see her in the stands when I play softball. Maybe that’s just what I want to believe. That she’s there, watching me.”
Curt nodded. “That must be a nice feeling.”
“Yeah, it kind of is. Even if I still get disappointed when she actually isn’t there.” Hannah turned onto her back just in time to see a flash of light streak against the western sky. “Ooh! I saw one!” she exclaimed, pointing to where the silvery trail of space dust had vanished. “Did you see it, too?”
Curt smiled for the first time that night. “Good eye.”
“It was amazing,” she said before her eyes furrowed into a frown. “It’s too bad they don’t last longer.”
“Yeah. But if they lasted longer or happened more frequently, maybe they wouldn’t feel as special.”
“Yeah, maybe.” She bit down on her bottom lip. In the grand scheme of things, she and Curt—along with all the people they loved—were blips on the horizon, disappearing almost as quickly as they appeared. At least, without God. But with Him, they were eternal.
Curt moved his hand, grazing Hannah’s fingers. She jerked her hand away. He lifted his in surrender.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that,” he apologized.
“No, it was okay. Just surprised me,” Hannah said, trying to downplay her dramatic reaction.
The truth was, the touch was more than okay. As a virginal high school girl growing up in a conservative church with largely puritanical values, she’d barely ever touched a boy before and never in a romantic sense. And definitely not under a starlit sky in the middle of the night.
“Your hand was cold,” Curt said, his voice almost fading into the chorus of tree frogs serenading them.
“Oh, yeah, just a little,” Hannah said. “I’m okay.”
“Do you want some hot chocolate?” Curt asked, reaching for a metal thermos on the other side of the blanket.
“Uh, yeah, sure,” Hannah replied.
Her parents had taught her that you should never turn down something that people offer you. In this case, the idea of hot chocolate wasn’t hard to accept.
Curt twisted the cap open and filled it halfway with hot chocolate, then handed the cup to Hannah.
“Thank you.”
She blew on the cup as she scanned the sky for more meteorites. “Mmh. It’s good.”
Hannah would have complimented the beverage even if it hadn’t been good. But the steaming drink hit the spot, warming her entire body as she drank it.
“I should probably go home now,” Hannah announced after she finished the hot chocolate. She handed the cup back to Curt. “I have a softball game tomorrow, so I need to get a little sleep.”
She stood up. Dawn was only an hour away. It looked like Hannah would have to rely on adrenaline for this game.
“I’ll walk you home.” Curt scrambled up after her.
“No, that’s okay. You don’t have to,” Hannah said, breaking the rules her parents had taught her about accepting the help of others.
“I want to,” Curt insist
ed, meeting her eyes.
“Okay.”
Curt escorted Hannah through his front lawn. As they walked, Hannah was hyper-aware of his movements: how he moved closer or further from her. Strange thoughts drifted through her mind. She imagined him reaching for her hand. What would she do if he did?
They remained mostly silent on the way home. Their relationship hadn’t followed a normal pattern. The first conversation they ever shared started with Curt venting his frustration toward Christians at her and ended with Hannah comforting him over his father’s death. They’d never participated in anything remotely resembling “smalltalk”.
Beaumont was starting to come to life as shades of gray began lightening the night sky. Still, few people had taken to the streets. For the first time that night, Hannah worried over someone spotting the two together. Word traveled fast in Beaumont Baptist church.
“What were you going to do if I wasn’t outside tonight?” Curt asked as they moved within a block of her house.
“Easy. I would’ve gone home and gone back to bed.”
He chuckled. “Probably would’ve been easier.”
Her house loomed twenty feet away. “This is mine,” she gestured, coming to a stop.
Curt nodded and stopped, too. “Thanks for coming tonight. You did make it better, less lonely.”
She shrugged. “It’s no problem. I know what it’s like to lose a parent.”
“Still, I appreciate the risk you took.”
Hannah smiled once more before advancing up the first step to her house.
“And Hannah, I owe you an apology.”
She stopped and raised an eyebrow. “For what?”
“For unloading on you like I did earlier today. I guess it’s yesterday, now.”
Hannah shrugged. “It’s okay; you were hurting.”
Curt frowned. “But when I thought about it later, I realized how much I scared you. And that wasn’t a cool thing to do.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Goodnight. Or good morning.”
“Good luck with your game.”
“Thanks.”
They exchanged tentative smiles. With that, the two parted. Hannah quietly inserted her key into the lock and jiggled it open. In a moment, she had disappeared into her house. Once again, everything was quiet. Hannah slunk up the stairs and dropped into her bed. She barely thought about her night with Curt, as she instantly surrendered to sleep. Even if she had, Hannah wouldn’t have known what to think of it.
9
Softball & Stereotypes
“Good morning,” Elizabeth McDonald greeted her son when he stumbled into the kitchen well past ten o’clock.
Curt should have been in school hours ago. Usually, his mom prevented him from sleeping in on weekdays. But not today.
She put down the book she was reading. “I went to wake you up before, but you were out. I figured maybe you had a rough night and let you sleep. I already called the school and said you wouldn’t be in today.”
“I should probably go in, anyway,” Curt said.
Since he’d finished with his AP tests, his academic workload was pretty light for the last few weeks of his high school career. He could easily afford a day off. But school kept him occupied.
She tilted her head. “You feeling okay?”
Curt sat across from his mom at the cherry-stained round wooden table where the family typically ate their breakfasts.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I was up late last night because of the eta Aquariids.”
His mom’s head slumped into her hand. “Oh, that was last night, wasn’t it? I must have slept through my alarm.”
Elizabeth rarely accompanied father and son on their meteorite viewing excursions, opting for the warmth and comfort of her own bed. She had assured Curt she’d join him on this one, though—for obvious reasons.
“No, don’t worry about it, Mom. I checked on you, but you were sleeping pretty soundly. I know sleep hasn’t been easy for you lately.”
For her part, his mom looked well-rested. She’d dressed in a matching long-sleeved shirt and navy blue yoga pants. The informal ensemble far surpassed the haphazard attire she’d managed after the wake and funeral.
“I shouldn’t have let you be alone.” She glanced remorsefully at the table.
“I wasn’t alone, Mom,” he said softly.
Curt wasn’t anxious to reveal his viewing partner from the previous night. But he didn’t want his mom stressing oversleeping through the shower, either.
“Who? Did Kate come by?”
“No, it wasn’t Kate.”
When Curt never specified who did accompany him, her brow furrowed. “It wasn’t Alexis, was it?”
Though the couple had been split for a few months and hadn’t exactly parted as “friends”, Alexis’ appearance at the wake and funeral might have made his mother wonder.
“No, it wasn’t Alexis, either.”
“Then who?”
It was worse to keep Hannah’s identity a mystery. Curt kept few secrets from his parents. Their relative tolerance and relaxed perspective on drinking, light pot experimentation, and safe sex tended to keep the lines of communication open. Curt seldom felt the need to withhold information from them.
He met his mother’s eyes. “Hannah Wilson.”
Her mouth contorted in surprise. “Hannah Wilson? The reverend’s daughter?”
He nodded.
“Oh. I didn’t realize you were friends.”
“We aren’t. Or we weren’t.” Curt sighed and swept his hand through his hair. “I kind of let it slip to her that without Dad, I’d have to watch the meteorite show by myself. She lost her mom five years ago to cancer, so she kind of sympathized with what I was going through. So she just showed up last night.”
“Well, that was nice of her, I suppose.” His mom’s gaze continued to be wary. She had no specific reason to distrust Hannah, other than the general bad blood that threatened to divide the families. “Anything else I should know?”
“No. It was probably just a one-time thing.”
With that subject now settled, Elizabeth moved onto other matters. “Will you be home after school?”
“Probably not.” Curt grabbed a red apple from the fruit bowl on the table. “I think I’m going to check out the girls’ softball game. Apparently, they’re in the playoffs.”
“Oh. Kate isn’t on the team, is she? Not that all lesbians play softball, because I know that isn’t true.”
“No. She’s not. Just figured it would be nice to do some school spirit stuff since I’m only going to be there another month.”
Graduation. Neither mother nor son had verbalized how his father’s passing altered the equation of that. As an only child, Curt’s graduation always promised to be momentous and emotional. But now that his father was gone? He wondered how they would even make it through at all. Maybe he should skip graduation altogether. Beyond that, another few months in the distance, lay the start of college. Was Curt really going to leave his mother? She was an independent woman who possessed her own network of friends. Even still, the twin loss of her husband to death and her son to college seemed too great to absorb.
“Well, have fun,” his mom said, forcing a smile permeated by sadness. Perhaps she had just made the same mental calculations Curt had.
Kate shared Elizabeth McDonald’s skepticism about Curt attending a softball game when he sat next to her on the metal bleachers overlooking the field.
“What are you doing here? You’ve never come to a game before.”
Though Kate wasn’t on the team, she had a few friends on the team, several of whom were indeed attracted to other girls. Thus, Kate went to most of the games, making Curt’s attendance that much more conspicuous.
“Well, I figured since we’re in the playoffs that I should come.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You realize we’ve been in the playoffs every year we’ve been in high school, right?”
Curt ignored her question. �
�So, how are we doing?”
Right away he spotted Hannah, standing front and center on the pitcher’s mound. Hannah wore her blonde hair in a ponytail and black smudges beneath her eyes. She wound up and launched a strike.
“Just started,” Kate replied, studying Curt’s face as he watched Hannah. “Are you sure that you being here has nothing to do with the moment you shared with our little angel, here?”
“How’d you hear about that?”
She shrugged. “People are talking.”
Curt shook his head. For some reason, he doubted Hannah had broadcast what happened. Must have been her friend, whom he didn’t know.
“You gonna tell me what happened?” Kate asked.
“It was a vulnerable moment, that’s all,” Curt said, returning his gaze to the field. “It won’t happen, again.”
Hannah tossed a curveball that the batter couldn’t reach to complete the strikeout.
“Well, I’m sure you have plenty of those kinds of moments these days,” Kate said, folding her hands. “If you ever need someone to talk to, no matter what time it is, you can talk to me. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I do.” Curt patted her shoulder. “Thank you.”
“How’s your mom?” Kate asked.
A frequent visitor to the McDonald household, Kate had established a pretty strong bond with his mother.
“I guess she’s okay. You know my mom is strong. She’s gone to the shooting range a few times. I think that helps give her a release.”
Kate nodded and looked at the bleachers in front of them.
After another windmill release, Hannah threw a strike.
“God, that is terrifying,” Curt said, sympathizing with the hitter. “How does anyone even hit that?”
“Mostly, they don’t. Hannah is an all-conference pitcher. She’s one of the best around. Unfortunately.”
Curt raised an eyebrow. “Why unfortunately?”
“I don’t know. She’s nice enough, I guess. It’s more about them.” She nodded toward Caleb and Samuel Wilson seated in another section of bleachers to their right. “The dad is whatever. I’m sure he wishes people like me didn’t exist. And pretty much all high school parents are awkward as hell around other high schoolers. It’s more the brother that creeps me out. It’s like he’s always staring.”
Across the Western Sky Page 5
