I’m bent so far over Mama’s Bible that she just hands it to me. She’s never seen any of us besides Hope take such a deep interest in one of Daddy’s sermons. I catch her following my finger over the words of that verse, over and over. I want to scream at her, at Daddy, at all of them. This! This is what I’ve been trying to explain! The Knowing comes from a good place. A God place. I feel Mama shudder next to me like when you get a chill but it’s not cold. When I look up at her she looks away. I close the Bible and go back to counting organ pipes. The big clock on the wall hits five after twelve and people start fidgeting, worrying about burnt pot roasts and such. Finally Daddy says, “Let us pray,” and I can almost hear the walls let out a sigh.
After Sunday dinner, since it isn’t my turn to do the dishes, I spread out the funny papers on the living room floor. Just as I prop my chin in my hands, Daddy walks by and swats me on the hind end with his rolled-up newspaper.
“Ought to be ashamed of yourself, Grace.” I know better than to say anything back. “Blasphemy,” he mumbles as he walks off on his way to the bedroom for his afternoon nap.
Guess I was wrong about Mrs. Lankfurt forgetting.
* * *
Joy and Chastity have run off to catch frogs in the creek together. I walk to the lake alone with the candy I hid from my sisters yesterday. Spending my allowance is always a hard decision. Every week, if Joy doesn’t cheat me out of my dime first, I stand in front of the candy counter so long my spit gets to be too much for my mouth and I have to keep swallowing. I love Hershey bars, but it makes more sense to buy three smaller things. Yesterday I decided on a Tootsie Roll, a three-pack of wax bottles filled with Kool-Aid, and a candy bracelet.
We’re not allowed to swim on Sundays, so I stop at the playground next to the beach and sit on a bench that looks out over the lake to eat my candy. A little girl sits directly in front of me on the beach, away from all the other children. Her brown curls remind me of ribbons on a Christmas package, as though somebody swiped the blade of a nail file down the length of each lock. Her mother is sitting farther down the beach with her curlered head deep in a book. I can tell it’s her mama by the way she glances over this way every so often to check on her daughter.
The girl was digging in the sand with a pail and shovel when I got here, but now she has her eye on me, creeping closer bit by bit. By the time I finish my Tootsie Roll she’s made her way to the edge of the bench and climbs up. I suck the juice out of a wax bottle before turning to look at her. She’s staring at my wrist.
Candy? She says it in her head, not out loud. Just like Isaac speaks to me. Then, Me have one?
My heart does a somersault inside my chest. I look down at my wrist, then back to her and nod.
Okay. Just one.
She leans over and nibbles a pink pearl of candy off the elastic string before I have a chance to take the bracelet off my arm. I stare at her as she chews. She smiles up at me.
More?
I nod again. This time she pulls the bracelet away from my arm and chomps through the whole caboodle, like cleaning an ear of corn of its kernels. When all that’s left is colored spit drying on my arm, she sits up and leans her head against the back of the bench. The way she stares out at the lake looks like an old lady in a three-year-old body.
You have talk in head like me, she says without speaking.
Yes, I have talk in head, too.
Her mama looks around and spies her daughter sitting with me. “Carolyn! Come to Mommy!”
The girl squints up at my face before scampering off the bench. When she reaches her mama she glances back in my direction. It’s too far away for me to see her face, but I hear her thoughts just fine.
Thank you.
I half skip, half run back to the house. I want to shout about what just happened, to finally convince my family I’m not crazy. But by the time I reach our front sidewalk I’ve already changed my mind about telling anyone. I keep walking toward the backyard. I know they won’t believe me. They never believe me. They don’t want to believe me. Every time I know a name before it’s given or turn to the right page in the hymnal before it’s announced or even when I gave details of the day I was born, they just make up silly explanations. Even when I knew that boy had drowned in Cherry Lake they wrote it off as a daydreaming coincidence.
Last summer I got tired of being teased and started saying, “Answer the phone!” as a joke before it rang, until Hope cried because it scared her. Daddy threatened to ground me for a month if I did it again. For all the times Isaac tries to convince me I’m special, there are another ten times when my family has hurt my feelings either by denying the Knowing or making me feel dirty because of it. Most of the time I feel crooked, like the old walnut tree in our backyard where Daddy strung a clothesline between the trunk and the barn. The branches poke at the air like a plump ballerina. That unruly tree seems to enjoy its uniqueness but not me.
I climb up to my favorite branch to think about what just happened at the beach. It’s just like Isaac said. I’m not the only one. Little Carolyn has the Knowing too. I’ll probably never see her again, but it doesn’t matter because even if nobody else does, I know I’m not an oddball or a devil child like I’ve overheard Daddy say to Mama when he thinks I can’t hear him. That little girl was as close to God as you can get. Maybe even closer than Daddy.
“Hey, Grace!” Joy stands under the tree and hollers up at me. “Come explore the loft with us.”
I don’t move.
“Grace, I know you’re up there. I can see your foot.”
I peer down at her between the leaves. “Daddy says we’re not supposed to go up there.”
“They’re taking a nap. We’re bored. C’mon.”
Joy gives me her I dare you face, which she must’ve given Chastity or she’d never get Miss Priss near the loft.
“You going, Chas?”
Chastity nods while looking at Joy, probably hoping our older sister will change her mind as quickly as she thought up this stupid idea. Unfortunately for both of us she doesn’t.
“Okay,” I say. “But if we get caught I’m telling them it was your idea.”
“We won’t get caught. They’re already snoring.”
Joy waits for me to jump down before the three of us head toward the barn. It sets back from the house about five car lengths, although we don’t put our car in it. The barn used to be red but most of the paint has peeled off. The inside is full of rusty pipes, Daddy’s tools, and the lawn mower and such. Plus a bunch of boxes we still haven’t unpacked even though we’ve lived here almost seven years since Daddy’s last church.
Joy and I roll back the heavy wooden door. The three of us make our way to the row of old boards nailed against the wall at the back of the barn. Joy tells me to go first. This is not a surprise. Joy often comes up with bad ideas she wants other people to try before she’ll give it a go.
“Why me?”
“Because you’re the middle sister of us,” she says, as if this makes perfect sense.
I don’t feel like arguing with her so I head up, batting away cobwebs as I climb. When I get to the top rung I push up on a door that’s set into the ceiling and slide it to the side.
“What do you see?” Joy yells from beneath me.
“I can’t see anything until my eyes adjust. And I’m getting dust in my nose.”
“Keep going!”
“All right, all right!” I say. But I purposely scrape the bottom of my shoe on the top step to make dirt fall in her hair for being so pushy.
I hoist my rear end onto the ledge of the loft floor, and leap to my feet. Several bales of straw lay scattered across the back of the loft. A heavy rope hangs from the rafters between rows of old wooden pews and a stack of hymnals piled up against one wall. A podium leans against a pile of broken pews, some on three legs. I wonder if they collapsed from sheer boredom after listening to all those sermons year after year.
Joy bounds up behind me. “What a perfect place for a fo
rt!”
She stands with her hands on boyish hips and already I can see her taking over this space. She’ll figure out some way of making neighbor kids pay to see an ugly old loft.
“I can’t believe we’re stupid enough to come up here,” I say. “If Daddy finds out we’re toast.”
Joy calls down to our youngest sister who’s still lingering near the bottom step. “Hey, Chas, climb on up.”
Chastity inches up the ladder at a worm’s pace before finally poking her head through the hole in the floor. Her pink barrettes twinkle in the one ray of sun coming through the back window. Joy reaches down and pulls her the rest of the way up. Chastity immediately starts dusting her dress with her hands. “It stinks up here.”
“It’s not bad,” Joy says, sniffing. “Not that bad.” She marches over to the split double doors at the front end of the loft and pushes the top half open wide. The view from the loft overlooks rows of neighboring houses in the distance all the way to the lake, the fruit processing plant, the railroad tracks, and the cherry orchards beyond. It’s a long way down to the ground, where our rusty swing set sits, its sharp edges like an openmouthed crocodile waiting for its next meal.
I sense something behind us. Without thinking I wheel around, but nobody’s there.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say, taking a step toward the ladder.
Joy flutters her nail-bitten fingers in my face, mocking my fear. “What’s the matter, Grace? You worried about tripping over your big feet and falling out the window?”
I’m not about to tell them that I don’t think we’re alone up here. “I just don’t want to get in trouble,” I say.
“Scaredy-cat! You go on down to Mama and we’ll be in later, right, Chas?” She nudges our little sister, who sticks her adorable nose in the air, although it’s obvious she’s as nervous as she is disgusted with the filth.
“Jo-oy! Gra-ace! Chastiteee!” Mama calls from the back door of the house.
All three of us scramble for the ladder, but to prove my bravery I make sure to go last. While waiting my turn on the top step the rope swings gently as if waving to me, its frayed edges glimmering in a dusty sunbeam.
3
Joy and I dragged the screens out from the barn and sprayed them down with the hose. Daddy doesn’t want Mama on the ladder, but she’s stubborn like me. Joy left to babysit for a neighbor. As soon as Daddy left to study for tomorrow’s sermon Mama propped a tall, wooden ladder under the first window and up she went. She won’t let me climb past the second step so I just steady the legs while she snaps the screens into place and twists bent nails over the edges.
Mama never wears slacks, but I’m thinking it might be a good idea since if anyone came by they’d be able to see up her dress. Maybe that’s another reason Daddy didn’t want her up there. When I crane my head back to watch Mama, a bird flies past and lands on the barn. As usual I forget what I’m supposed to be doing and my mind wanders back to the loft and who or what might be up there.
I wonder if it’s a ghost, a real one, not the holy kind. Every time I look toward the barn, I get that same uneasy feeling as when we were up there after church last Sunday. It feels a little like when you walk into a room after someone just left and you can still smell their breath. Or how a chair slowly finds its old shape again after someone gets out of it. It scares me a little and yet not. Maybe it’s not a ghost. Maybe it’s nothing.
“Grace, hold it tighter,” Mama calls from above me.
“Sorry, Mama.”
When she asks what I keep staring at I tell her my “eye is on the sparrow” and this makes her laugh. It’s one of her favorite hymns. She immediately starts singing the chorus and I join in. “I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, for His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.”
The last line gets me thinking about Isaac and I wonder how often he watches us. Was that him I felt in the loft? It didn’t feel like him. When Isaac is with me it feels like a giant, warm light that I can’t see with my eyes but makes me feel lit up on the inside. This other thing in the loft felt more like a dim flashlight under the covers.
Mama clears her throat and I realize I’ve been staring off toward the barn again.
“Sorry, Mama,” I say again.
When we’ve finished putting everything away, Mama goes inside the house for a nap. Hope is holed up in her bedroom reading the Bible as usual. I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and bring it outside to eat on the back steps. I’ve only taken two bites when a figure flashes past the loft window fast as a blink before it’s gone. I cock my head to one side and look up toward the empty barn window, concentrating. I feel the pull and hear the chatter of unfamiliar thoughts, but only one gets through. Hungry.
I glance down at my half-eaten sandwich. I can’t go up there alone. What if it’s that creepy man I heard Joy telling about? She said a bum lives in an abandoned school bus down by the railroad tracks and he got caught pulling his pants down in front of a bunch of kids. Plus it turns out the reason Sheriff Conner flew by Mama and Chastity and me on our walk home from the post office was because some girl had been molested. I’d be stupid to go up there by myself.
My head says no, but my heart is noisier. I wrap a napkin around the sandwich and slip an apple into my pants pocket. Even as I climb the ladder I can’t believe these are my hands traveling up the ragged boards in front of my face. When I get to the top I poke my head up into the loft and look around. My voice comes out like a whisper.
“Hello?”
Nothing. I say it a little louder.
“Hello?”
“Hello yourself.”
I follow the voice to the back pew, where he’s sitting with his hands folded between his legs. I’m not sure if he’s shy or embarrassed. I stay put.
“I won’t hurt you,” he says.
Isaac is always telling me to trust my instincts. I close my eyes and let my other sense take charge over what I can see and not what I’ve heard. I instantly feel safe instead of scared. I walk over and hand him my sandwich.
“I know you won’t,” I say.
He takes a bite, closes his eyes, and chews for a long time. He must be really hungry. I sit on a bale of straw, facing him. He’s older than Daddy but not quite as old as my grandpa. Stains cover his wrinkled pants. One of his shoes is black and the other is brown. His eyes slant down just a bit at the edges and the corners of his mouth bend slightly upward, almost like they’re trying to meet each other. It’s a kind face.
“Do you live up here?”
He sighs out of his long nose and opens his eyes. “Sometimes.”
“Isn’t it cold in the winter?”
“Sometimes.”
He finishes the sandwich and wipes his hands on his knees just like I always do.
“Oh, wait, here’s an apple,” I say, remembering the treat in my pocket.
He takes it in his bony hand and rolls it around. “Looks mighty good.”
But he doesn’t take a bite. Instead he looks at me and grins really wide, showing the spaces where teeth used to be. I take the apple from his hand and bite off a piece, being as careful as possible not to get spit on it. I pluck it from my lips and hand it to him.
We sit there for a long time, me chomping off little pieces and him mostly gumming them while I talk.
“We’re not supposed to come up here. Mama’s worried about lockjaw if we step on a rusty nail or something. She said there was a story in the Chronicle—that’s our newspaper—about a boy whose mouth rusted up in the middle of a sentence. My sisters probably wish it would happen to me. Especially Chastity. She says she hates when I sing in bed, but I happen to know it helps her fall asleep.”
I look at the old man, who, unlike my sisters, actually seems to be listening.
“I know things,” I blurt out. “I know things other people don’t, like the fact that you were up here. And you were hungry.”
I wait for him to laugh at me but he doesn’t, just nod
s as if that were a perfectly normal thing to say.
“You got a name, mister?”
“Lyle.”
“Mine’s Grace.”
“Nice to meet you, Grace.”
I walk to the front window and toss the apple core into the backyard, wiping my hands on the seat of my pants. “Well, I guess I better go.”
“Thank you for sharing your lunch, young lady.”
“Sure thing.” I start down the ladder but stop when my head is even with the floor because I feel a question form in his mouth.
“Grace?”
“Yes?”
“You won’t tell nobody ’bout me stayin’ up here in the pastor’s barn sometimes, will ya?”
“No, Mr. . . .”
“Lyle,” he fills in.
“Lyle,” I say.
* * *
I’m making another sandwich when Daddy tells me to get in the car so we can go buy groceries. I like when he chooses me and I get time with just us and no sisters. Sometimes when we’re at the store I pretend I’m an only child and my daddy takes me everywhere because I’m his special girl. I make up stories about Mama and Daddy driving to Mackinac Island on vacation, where we eat homemade fudge and stay in the Grand Hotel, which Daddy can afford with only one kid to feed. I picture us walking hand in hand down the street with me, their precious child, smack dab in the middle.
Daddy pulls our rusty station wagon into a spot right in front of Norberg’s grocery store. He hands me the list and pats his suit jacket to make sure he has his wad of coupons. He does. The pocket is so fat it looks like he’s got an extra Bible stuffed in there. All his pockets already bulge with religious tracts that he keeps on hand for giving out to people. Sometimes he embarrasses Mama. I can tell because she looks around like he isn’t really there when he’s “witnessing” to the public.
This I Know Page 4