by Lynn Austin
‘‘We can drag out the copper bathtub for you,’’ Aunt Batty offered. ‘‘I’ll fix you a bath of tomato juice. That’s guaranteed to take away the stench.’’
‘‘No...no...’’ he said, still sputtering.
‘‘Well, at least let me give you a change of clothes,’’ I said. But he couldn’t get into his car and drive away fast enough.
‘‘He should have listened to me,’’ Aunt Batty said as the sheriff roared out of the driveway. Then, before the dust even had a chance to settle she burst into laughter as if she’d held it inside for so long she either had to laugh or explode. I stared at her.
‘‘You led him to that skunk on purpose, didn’t you!’’
‘‘I didn’t do anything,’’ she said as innocently as a child. ‘‘Winky did it.’’
‘‘But—’’
She patted my arm. ‘‘Winky thought the world of Gabe, you know.’’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
We saw no more of Sheriff Foster that day. I waited and watched all afternoon, hoping Gabe would come back and explain himself, but he’d disappeared. Didn’t he trust us enough, after all this time, to tell us who he really was and why he was running? I guess not because he was gone for good. Once again, I felt all alone.
‘‘Where did Mr. Harper go?’’ Becky asked as we sat around the dinner table that night. I think we were all painfully aware of Gabe’s empty chair.
‘‘He didn’t tell anybody where he was going,’’ I said. ‘‘Back to where he came from, I suppose.’’
‘‘You mean to heaven? Was he really an angel?’’ Becky asked.
‘‘No, he wasn’t an angel—’’ I began, but Aunt Batty interrupted me.
‘‘Well, he was in a way,’’ she said. ‘‘Angels are messengers from God, sent to give us some help whenever we need it. That’s what Gabe did. He helped all of us out, didn’t he? He worked in the orchard for your mama, and he fixed my roof as good as new, and he taught you boys how to play baseball and swim and catch fish, and he made Becky’s swing....’’
‘‘Then why did he leave us?’’ Jimmy asked.
‘‘I guess his work here must have been all finished,’’ Aunt Batty said. ‘‘Maybe God needed Gabe’s help someplace else.’’
‘‘But we still need him here!’’ Jimmy said. I heard the tears in his voice. This was exactly what I’d been so afraid of—that my kids would feel the awful pain of being abandoned when Gabe left. And I felt the pain every bit as much as they did.
‘‘You’re looking to the wrong person for help,’’ Aunt Batty said. ‘‘God is the one who helped us. He sent His messenger into our lives because He wanted us to know that we can rely on Him. And God is still here helping us, even though Gabe is gone.’’
My kids didn’t want to hear all this church talk, and neither did I. We were all hurting much too badly to take any comfort in God just then.
‘‘Is Mr. Harper c-coming back?’’ Luke asked.
Aunt Batty seemed to realize that her fancy words about God weren’t getting through. She wrapped her arms around Luke, who sat at the table beside her, and gave him a hug.
‘‘Listen, Toots,’’ she said. ‘‘Gabe loved all of us very much, and he loved living here. He wouldn’t have left us like he did unless he had a very good reason. And if there’s any way in the world he can come back to us someday, I believe he will.’’
The more I thought about the mystery of Gabriel Harper, the more unsettled I felt. I had believed he was Matthew for so long that I still found it hard to root out the idea, even though I now knew for a fact that he wasn’t. But why would he impersonate Matthew? Had he planted all those stories about his father and his brother Willie in that burlap bag of his, hoping I’d find them? Did he want me to think he was my brother-in-law? And what about his injured leg? He had arrived at our door a very sick man—he might have died!—and that wasn’t something he could fake.
But the thought that unnerved me the most, the thought that made me want to lock all the doors when I went to bed that night, was the question the sheriff had raised—what had happened to the real Matthew Wyatt? Gabe must know the answer if he took on Matthew’s identity. Why would he run from the sheriff if he had nothing to hide? Could Gabe Harper really be capable of...murder?
After I’d tucked the kids into bed for the night, I went out to the workshop in the barn where Gabe used to sleep. I told myself I needed to gather up those clothes of Sam’s that he’d left behind, but in my heart I think I hoped to find Gabe hiding out there somewhere. I wanted him to offer me a simple explanation for this whole mess. I wanted to joke about what a silly misunderstanding it all was. I wanted to hear him laugh as I told him how Winky had saved the day and helped him escape from the sheriff. I wanted Gabe back—the old Gabe who’d worked beside me trimming trees and filling smudge pots and spraying apple trees and helping Angel the calf come into the world—not the dangerous Gabe who the sheriff insisted had lied in order to steal my orchard and my heart.
As I sat on the edge of Gabe’s cot, listening to the gentle rustlings of the cows and horses in their stalls, I knew one thing for certain—Gabe had indeed stolen my heart. He was gone and he’d taken my heart with him. He’d left behind a big, empty, hurting place where it once had been.
I stood to go, scooping up the clothes I had come for. I knew I would have to hide them away in a drawer again, so they wouldn’t remind me of Gabe. As I turned to leave I noticed that the door to the pot-bellied stove stood open a crack. I gave it a quick push with my foot to close it, but it wouldn’t shut. The stove should have been empty in the summertime, but it wasn’t. Something was jammed in the way.
I laid the clothes on the bed and bent to see what it was. Inside lay one of Gabe’s notebooks—the one he had just asked me to buy for him the last time I went to town, in fact. One of the corners was charred, and it looked as though Gabe had shoved it into the stove in a hurry, then lit a match to it. The fire must have gone out when the door didn’t close. I brushed away the burnt wooden match and singed paper, then pulled the rest of the notebook out of the stove. Gabe had shoved it in upside down and only a few blank pages at the end of the book had burned. I could still read the ones filled with writing.
I carried Gabe’s notebook back to the house, and after locking all the farmhouse doors for the first time in my life, I took the notebook upstairs to read in bed.
I started writing when I was ten because the words had begun to pile up inside me and I had no other way to release them. All my hoarded thoughts and feelings exploded onto the pages of my journals where I could finally liberate them, sort through them, make sense of them. Writing became my secret release valve when the pressure to express myself built up. And without ever mentioning my father or describing him, every word I wrote had to do with him, about coming to terms with who he was. And who I was.
My father was a sturdy, square-shouldered attorney who carried himself with the dignity of a prince and the belligerence of a prize fighter. People naturally stepped aside when they saw him coming. They had to—my father would step aside for no man. But he was no boor. Raised in wealth and privilege, he possessed impeccable manners, dressing for even the most casual occasions in a starched white shirt, dark suit, waistcoat, and tie. He began going bald while in his thirties, but his demeanor was such that people saw a broad, wise forehead, not a lack of hair. Beneath his plain, almost somber appearance lay a magnetic, charismatic personality that drew people to him. He was a man to be respected, feared, and hated.
I descended from a long line of such men. My grandfather had been a prominent state supreme court justice, also respected, feared, and hated. My father groomed me to carry on the family legacy, just as my grandfather had groomed him to assume the state leadership of his political party. They expected me to study law, to pattern myself in their mold, to become a partner in their prestigious law firm. One day I would take over the reins of power, making or breaking potential candidates, keeping the political
machine well-oiled.
By the time I was ten, my mother was no longer allowed to be involved in my life. Raising a son was a father’s job. My mother’s life consisted of making my father look good, orchestrating the endless stream of social events his position required, and raising my three sisters to be proper ladies. She also took part in various social causes—carefully chosen by my father, of course. Woman’s suffrage was not among them.
My father reminded me of his expectations with every glance, every gesture, every breath he took. He was a loud, angry man whose voice carried through the walls and doors of our house. He had little patience for fools—and I seemed to be chief among them. He never physically abused me, never resorted to slaps or thrashings no matter how badly I deserved them. Instead, he used words as his most potent weapons—the tools of his trade as a lawyer and political mastermind—and he wielded them with deadly accuracy to attack, destroy, and avenge. Whether in the echoing courtroom or in the smoky political meetings he held in his study, my father marshaled words like a general commanding troops, deploying them to annihilate his enemies. I couldn’t defend myself against his arsenal.
It wasn’t that I had nothing to say—words filled my head. But my tongue continually misfired like a bomb with a faulty detonator, leaving me defenseless against the intensity and range of his firepower. The problem began when I was in fifth grade.
‘‘Why is your arithmetic score lower than all the others?’’ my father bellowed as he surveyed my report card.
‘‘I...Id...don’t—’’
‘‘Stop it! You sound like a blithering idiot!’’ Father stared at me with his courtroom glare and I didn’t dare look away, didn’t dare cry. He shoved the report card under my nose. ‘‘I asked you a question!’’
The words were right there in my mind. I knew what I wanted to tell him. But the knots that twisted through my stomach like a nest of snakes had spread to my tongue, immobilizing it. ‘‘M...my t...Teacher—’’
‘‘Spit it out! What’s the matter with you? Do you want people to think you’re a moron?’’
The more he raged, the worse I stuttered, and the more I stuttered, the worse he raged. I grew so nervous that my speech problem soon spilled over from home to school and the other boys mimicked and mocked me. I reacted with my fists. The punishment I received at school couldn’t compare with the punishment of facing my father that night. Winning his approval was the sole purpose of my life—to lose it meant to lose all meaning. I lived an arctic existence in the best of times, basking in the feeble warmth and dim rays of his benediction. To lose even that scant winter sunlight meant suffering a frigid darkness that was unbearable. I faced him in his study, shivering.
‘‘I would expect the son of an ignorant immigrant to resort to using his fists,’’ he began. ‘‘Certainly not my son. I have properly educated my son to use his brains to dispose of his enemies, real or imagined. But perhaps a mistake has been made. Perhaps it wasn’t my son after all, who involved himself in this...brouhaha?’’ He hadn’t looked at me from the time I first entered the room, but his eyes finally met mine as he spoke the last word. He froze me with his gaze.
‘‘No, s...sir.’’
‘‘Speak up!’’ he bellowed.
‘‘It w... was m...me, sir.’’
‘‘Stop that! You know how I hate your moronic stammering!’’ I nodded. He seemed satisfied with that. ‘‘Now, would you care to enlighten me as to the cause of your degrading behavior?’’ He held the headmaster’s letter, which fully explained the incident, in his manicured hand.
Words stampeded through my brain like an ill-disciplined army, knocking each other down as they jostled for position, piling up in confusion and disarray. Very few of them ever made it past my lips. ‘‘Th...They were m...mocking me.’’
‘‘What? M...mocking you? Why would anyone m...mock you?’’
My mouth opened. My lips moved. I willed my voice to speak, to explain, but nothing came out. I felt sick with selfhatred.
‘‘Get out of my sight if you’re going to act like an imbecile!’’ he growled.
I fled to the bathroom and vomited.
Later, the words behaved themselves as they paraded onto paper, marching in orderly sentences and phrases. I composed letters of apology to the boys I had attacked, to my teachers and headmaster, to my father. I cited examples from literature and history to demonstrate that I understood my folly. I humbly begged their forgiveness. Then I worked harder than I ever had in my life to make the long journey back to my father’s good graces, secretly warming myself beside the small bonfires of contentment I found in writing.
I learned to talk no more than necessary in school. Some of my teachers sympathized, allowing me to stay within my safe shelter of silence—most didn’t. Most of my teachers knew my father and my grandfather as prominent, powerful men who had also attended their private, exclusive boys’ school and contributed generously to their alumni fund. To compensate for my paralyzed tongue I learned to write, and once I’d expressed myself on paper, I could read what I’d written without stuttering. Armed with a dictionary and a thesaurus, my arsenal was nearly as well-stocked as my father’s, even if my delivery lacked his firepower.
The summer after I finished fifth grade was one of the hottest ones on record. My father sent me to my aunt and uncle’s farm downstate to escape the feverish heat that blanketed the city. Aunt June, my mother’s youngest sister, had ‘‘foolishly married beneath her’’ and lived on a farm with her husband and five children. But if Aunt June had made a mistake, I certainly saw no sign of it. The three summers I spent with their loving, contented family were the happiest days of my life. My stuttering stopped completely. I spent a good part of the time devouring Herman Walters’ adventure books, and for a little while I could forget my own blundering incompetence and self-loathing as I fearlessly triumphed with Walters’ heroes. His books took me to places far beyond my father’s reach. Then, in a rare burst of self-confidence, I sat down on my aunt and uncle’s shady front porch as the cicadas buzzed, and I wrote an adventure novel of my own.
The evening I returned to the city, my father summoned me to his study to give an accounting of my summer. I brought the notebook filled with words, hoping it would do the explaining for me.
‘‘What did you do with yourself all summer?’’ he asked, not unkindly. I showed him my notebook. ‘‘What’s all this?’’
‘‘I w...wrote a story. It’s about p...pirates and—’’ But he was already reading it, scanning the first page, flipping to the next and the next. My father could read very rapidly. He digested The New York Journal, The Boston Globe, and The New York Timesevery morning before I finished my bacon and eggs.
‘‘This is nothing but banal, sentimental trash,’’ he said, slapping my notebook closed a few moments later. ‘‘I might have known that fool you call your uncle would encourage something like this.’’
He rose majestically from his club chair and carried my adventure story into the kitchen. Cora, our cook, bustled around the room working up a sweat as she prepared our dinner on the huge cast-iron stove. My father grabbed one of the stove’s chrome lifters in his beefy hand and opened a lid.
‘‘This is what we do with rubbish.’’
I saw the flames licking inside and cried out, ‘‘No!’’
But he casually tossed my notebook into the fire and slammed the lid shut again. I ran from the kitchen, knowing my father would scorn my tears. The sound of that cast-iron lid closing so irrevocably has echoed in my heart ever since. In the years that followed, I would often lay in bed in the morning and listen to Cora slamming those lids as she stoked the fires to cook our breakfast, and the tears would come. My writing was rubbish—banal, sentimental trash. I never wrote fiction again.
My father wasn’t entirely tyrannical. At times he was a glorious, glittering, gregarious man who drew people to himself by cords of their own obligation and neediness. Important people such as the mayor, the governor
, and various state senators and congressmen attended the lavish parties my father hosted, and their longing for his approval seemed as great as my own. We all craved his respect and admiration more than light and air, knowing that only then would our lives have meaning.
It was possible to win my father’s favor, and I strove with all my heart to do just that. But he doled out his words of approval like a miser handing out pennies to urchins. A grunt conveyed acceptance; a faint, grudging nod gave his endorsement; a near-smile appeared when his furrowed brow would smooth for a moment and his grim mouth would form into a straight, hard line instead of its usual down-turned snarl. I learned to recognize these as expressions of praise, and I sought to earn them as diligently as a monk seeks purity.
Since my father’s one passion outside of politics and the courtroom was baseball, I took up the sport in high school.
‘‘Will you come to my game, sir?’’I practiced pronouncing the words again and again, longing to ask him, but in the end I knew I’d never get past ‘‘w...will’’or ‘‘y...you’’without stuttering. Instead, I left copies of our game schedules where he was sure to find them. The entire season passed, his law practice and his political maneuverings keeping him too busy to come.
Then one miraculous day he finally did come. It was our team’s last regular game of the season and we were tied with our school rival for the championship. That rivalry, which dated back to my father’s years at the school, drew him from his office.
I nearly collapsed in a state of nerves when I saw him in the bleachers, but I quickly recovered when I recognized my long-awaited opportunity to make him proud of me. I played harder and better that afternoon than I’d ever played in my life, diving to the grass as I stretched to catch a ground ball; making a mad, sliding dash to steal third base; hitting a crucial single to bring in the run that tied the score. But I wasn’t the star. Our pitcher, Paul Abbott, was clearly the star.