His nerves buzzed. His throat was sore. He grabbed the shoe box off the floorboard and removed the lid. In the streetlight’s glow, he peered down at the letters. It had to be done. He dug aspirin out of his pocket and chewed them, then placed the lid on the shoe box and opened the door.
Vernon climbed out into the cold. His breath plumed. The air stank of salt, of exhaust. He held his collar with one hand, the shoe box in the other. It was dark off by the buildings, so he stayed in the light and shuffled down the middle of the road.
Then he was at the Avemore lot, and hurried through the dark cars. He entered the snowy courtyard. Footlights marked three shoveled walkways to the building’s three wings. Martha lived in the rear. Vernon took its path and entered a dimly lit vestibule with a wall of metal mailboxes. He tugged the interior door, but it was locked.
Then he saw the box of buttons marked with names and unit numbers. Vernon found HAMBY 609, pressed the button. It made no sound. He wasn’t sure it was working. He waited, staring back out into the courtyard. A light rain had begun to fall, stippling the snow.
“Hello.” Through the box her voice sounded far away.
“Martha?” he said, glancing about the little room, not knowing where to speak.
He stared at the box, waiting for a response. At last, the interior door buzzed and he quickly took the handle. Just inside lay the stairwell, and though he was weary from not having slept, and brittle from a three-day flu, Vernon took the steps two at a time.
Vernon pushed through a door marked 6 and leaned huffing against the wall. A door opened down the hall. In the doorway stood a man in a brown coat with a white wool collar. Vernon stood away from the wall, gathered himself. Then he saw Martha behind the man and realized the cowboy was leaving apartment 609.
The man was young, not a hint of gray in his beard. He eyed Vernon as he approached, loudly asked Martha if she was going to be all right. She patted the cowboy’s arm. She wore a long sweater of white and tan cables, and hugged herself, a cup of coffee in one hand.
“You’re at the right place, Vernon,” she said, and Vernon realized how pathetic he must look.
“See you tomorrow,” the cowboy said to Martha, then turned and extended a hand to Vernon. “I’m Vance.”
Vernon firmly shook his hand. “Vernon.”
“I know.” The cowboy glared at him a moment, then ambled off. “Thanks for dinner,” he called back to Martha. Martha waved and then her eyes fell to Vernon and the corners of her mouth sank.
Vernon followed her inside. The apartment was small and filled with furniture from the parsonage. Furniture that had been theirs, tweedy couches, the oak coffee table, the bookcase dressed with angel figurines and other country knickknacks. She’d been gone only a few months, but the apartment felt lived in. Piano music played from a stereo, their son’s old boom box. Beneath a large window overlooking the courtyard, a little fountain gurgled water into a trough of slick black stones.
“Hope I didn’t interrupt your date,” Vernon said.
“He’s a classmate.” She smiled, but her tone was curt. “We have an exam tomorrow.”
Vernon didn’t want her to see the shoe box, and slyly set it on a wicker-seated rocker beside the door, laid his overcoat over the chair. “You going to pass?” he asked.
Martha stared hard at him. “Soon as the buzzer rang I knew who it was,” she said. “I’m still in the loop, you know? Sadie Walsh says you couldn’t even finish the service this morning?”
Vernon stood stiff. “He’s a nice man? This Vance?”
Martha stepped close and patted Vernon’s chest. “Poor Vernon,” she said, teasing. “Let’s get you out of that jacket and get you some coffee.”
She helped Vernon out of his suit jacket, plucked off his hat, and hung them both on the doorknob. She took Vernon’s arm and led him to the sofa by the window, then left off into the kitchen. He sat listening to cupboards being opened, cups clinking. A coffee cake, half eaten, sat on a small table in the kitchen, and Martha called to Vernon that he should have some.
“No, thank you,” he said, though he was famished.
Martha cut him a slice and set it on the coffee table. “I’m not asking, Vernon,” she said. “You look terrible. Folks’ve been telling me you aren’t taking much care of yourself.”
“Who’s saying that?”
“People.”
“Scuttlebutts like Sadie Walsh?”
“People who care.”
Martha left again into the kitchen and Vernon eyed the cake. He slid it toward himself, but didn’t pick up the fork. He watched Martha, washing up cups, pouring the coffee. He wanted to go to her, to hold her and lay his face upon her shoulder.
Martha carried in two cups of coffee and handed one to Vernon. He sipped it and it tasted wonderful, like it always had.
“It’s been a long day.” He drank again and closed his eyes as the coffee spread its warmth through him. Vernon sat forward, hunched over his knees.
“What’s wrong, Vernon?” Martha asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
She laughed. “You’ve always been the worst liar.”
“Thanks.”
“Lord knows, I wish you were a better liar. But one thing about Vernon Hamby is he just can’t help but let the truth be known.”
Vernon nodded. “It’s exhausting.”
“I know it is, sweetie. Was for me, too.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No,” she said. “I’m all done with sorry. No more sorry. Now what’s wrong, Vernon?”
“Not wrong—” He thought a moment. “Just disappointing.”
“There’s no such thing as wrong for Vernon Hamby?”
“It’s God’s will.”
“And you take comfort in that?”
“It’s not about comfort, Martha.”
She tucked her feet up under her, leaned against the armrest. “I take no comfort in it, Vernon.”
“I know it. Maybe you will someday.”
She grinned. “Eat your cake, Vernon. Am I going to have to feed you myself?”
“I don’t want it.”
“Because another man ate from it first?”
Thirty years of marriage, there was no place to hide. “I’m not here to fight, Martha.”
“You need to eat,” she said, firmly. “I used to not be able to get my arms around you, and now I could knock you down with a sneeze.”
“I’m fine.”
“You want some eggs? I’ll make you an omelet?”
“Coffee’s fine,” Vernon said.
“I do care, you know? I don’t hate you.”
“Anymore.”
She lowered her head. She gazed into her coffee. “Fair enough,” she said, nodding. “I don’t hate you anymore.”
“I’m glad, Martha.”
“In class,” she said, “we’ve been talking about forgiveness. How no matter what you say, or how much you talk, someone isn’t really forgiven until you can stand beside them without wanting to slap them in the face. Been thinking a lot about that. About a lot of things.” She chewed her lip, eyes drawn inward. She looked as if she might say more, then she smiled. “Why you here, Vernon?”
Vernon glanced at the wicker rocker by the door. “Sometimes,” he said, “I wake in the night and can’t remember his voice, or the way he laughed.”
She sipped her coffee, staring out the window at the dark sky and the lit tops of trees. “Someday maybe this’ll pass, and we can just get on with our lives.”
Vernon gazed again at the doorway. He shouldn’t have come.
“It was Henry who called,” Martha said.
Vernon’s shoulders fell heavy, his chin. Henry. He took up his coffee. “Yeah?”
“He told me about the vote, about the congregation meeting next Saturday.”
Vernon set his coffee back down, without having drunk. “Deacons came last night, stood around me in the kitchen with their coats on.” He chuckled, sadly. “The
y said folks’ve been complaining about the music. About how I hired Dillard Hurstenberg as organist.”
Martha’s eyes were solemn. “Oh, Vernon. It’s not about the music.”
Vernon nodded. “I know it. They’re cowards.”
“They’re your friends. It’s awkward.”
He pushed away the coffee cake. “I suppose.”
“I’m going to the meeting Saturday night. Henry said I could stay with him and Arlene if I need a place.”
“You got a home.”
“I don’t know about that, Vernon.”
“It’s as much yours as mine.”
“You are kind,” she said, like a lament. “You know, there’s a lot of folks saying a lot of things about you. Lots of folks wanting you out as pastor.” She picked at her sweater cuff. “Guess they think I want to hear it now that we’re apart. But I don’t. I listen and think they just don’t know you. Deep down you’re the kindest man I’ve ever met. I always believed that. Still do. I’ve always been so jealous of you, you know? As hard as I tried I couldn’t come close to that kind of care. Nobody cares deeper than Vernon Hamby.”
“That’s not fair.”
She tilted her head. “Maybe not.”
He felt such tenderness for her. “All I ever wanted was to try and explain my mind to you.”
Martha stared long at him. “There’s not a corner of my mind you didn’t shine a light over. Sometimes I think if only we were a little bit shallow and didn’t try so hard we just might’ve made it.”
“That what they teaching you up here in that big city college?”
“Every counselor’s first client is themselves.” To this, she blushed. “Oh, Vernon, there’s so many damaged people. Vance was molested by his own father. His mother knew and never did a thing about it. Can you imagine such a thing? His own father? Poor guy’s all alone—can’t even trust himself.”
Vernon’s knees ached from scaling the stairs, and he stretched out his legs. “There anyone left in the world that’s normal?”
“Normal,” Martha said. “Gosh, I hate that word.”
Vernon rubbed his knees. “I’m sick of words. Sometimes,” he said, and suddenly felt himself sliding into that dark place, and breathed to keep himself level. “Sometimes,” he tried again, “what’s needed is just a good slap in the face. Maybe if you want to slap someone you ought to. Maybe it’d help as much as anything.”
Martha sat forward. “Vernon,” she said, “we’d be slapping folks until our hands were raw.”
“It’s better than silence.”
She nodded. “Yes, it’s better than silence.”
“I brought something,” he said. His pulse surged as he stood. He walked to the rocking chair by the door and lifted off his coat. He pulled out the shoe box, held it so she could see.
Her face fell grim. “Dear Lord,” she whispered. She pressed two fingers between her eyes. “He never lived away from us,” she said, her voice breaking. “He went away, but his home was always with us.” She stood, turned into the kitchen.
Vernon walked to stand at her back. He wanted to put his arms around her, but held himself against the urge. “It’s all we have.”
She turned to him. “You’ve never asked what I wanted. Not once. Not ever.”
“Please, Martha.”
Martha buried her face in his chest. Vernon embraced her, one arm tight around her shoulders, the other at his side, his hand clutching the box of letters.
They sat at the kitchen table. The letters had arrived weeks after the funeral, three letters in a large manila envelope. Martha had wanted to read them. But Vernon couldn’t face them. He put the letters in a shoe box and hid them in the cellar, behind the boiler, where Martha would never look. They’d fought bitterly over the letters, said awful things they’d long kept inside. Now Vernon took them from the shoe box and laid them on the table.
“Should we read them aloud?”
“If you want,” Martha said.
“Maybe we should take turns.”
“Just do it, Vernon.”
Vernon set aside the thickest envelope. He took up one of the others and with a butter knife sliced open the flap. Inside was a sheet of bluish paper with a scroll of vine around the edges. Vernon took a long sip of coffee. Martha sat sideways in her chair and stared out at the night through a small window above the sink.
The letter was in Wesley’s neat slanting print. Vernon cleared his throat. “‘Dear Mom and Pop,’” he read. “‘How’s everything on the green side of the world? Everything is great here aside from the war,’” Vernon read, without expression. There was a picture of a smiley face, and Vernon showed Martha. “‘And the sand is killing me. Sand and more sand. I’ll never go to the beach again. When I get home—’” Vernon’s throat caught on the line, and he tried again. “‘When I get home, I’m taking my rifle to Ed Munsen’s woods and sitting in a deer stand for a month. Man I miss the woods. I’ll even take the snow. It’s cold here, but no snow. There was a sandstorm last week that took the paint off the trucks. No kidding. I keep fixing the same trucks. Just cleaning out sand from every tube and casing. It’s been long days lately.’” Vernon held up the letter and showed Martha where Wesley had drawn a cross-eyed face with a wriggly mouth. She said nothing, turned back to the window.
“‘I’d go crazy without the kids,’” Vernon read on. “‘Whenever I get a break from the shop I head over to help. Me and Sergio helped paint the school last week. Kids just follow me around—got my own platoon.’” Another smiley face drawn beside this. “‘I asked my sergeant if I could take off my flak jacket and helmet because I want the kids to know I trust them. But sarge said to be a good soldier and—’” Vernon had to stop. He set the letter on the table. It was what he’d feared. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
Without a word, Martha plucked the letter from the table. Her lips moved as she found her way down the page. “‘But sarge said to be a good soldier and keep my brains in my head where they belong,’” she read. “‘The kids call me Rocket because I raced a few and dusted them. Still got my track legs. It’s a mess over here. There’s more talk of us moving to BSA. Keep your fingers crossed. I miss short pants. I’ll wear shorts all winter when I get home. I’ll go shirtless for a year. I’ll sit naked in Ed Munsen’s woods. Sometimes writing these feels like I’m just writing to myself. Got the care package. Tell Ms. Peerman’s class thanks for the batteries.’” Martha’s voice took on a weariness. “‘Tell Muggie and Sam hey—’” Martha glanced up at Vernon. Her eyes scanned the page, her lips stiff.
“What’s it say?” Vernon asked.
Martha stared a moment into Vernon’s eyes, then turned back to the page. She was crying now, and wiped her cheeks with a tissue. “‘Send me some underwear, Ma,’” she sniffed. “‘Nothing fancy. Boxers. Anything that won’t hold sand.’”
Martha laid down the letter. Vernon took it up from the table, stared at the handwriting until it blurred. He grabbed the next envelope and sliced it open.
Inside was a flattened cardboard box, the packaging for a beef stew dinner—on one side a picture of a steaming bowl of stew, and on the back a short message in red marker. Here’s all I eat!!! In large script across the bottom, MY LEFT NUT FOR A PEACH COBBLER! along with a doodle of a smiley face with devil horns.
“Let’s hear it,” Martha said.
Vernon handed it to her. He watched her turn it in her hands, watched her wet cheekbones rise. “Never serious,” she said, almost proudly.
“Bet he was hoping we’d put it up on the bulletin board.”
Martha grinned, dabbed at her eyes.
Vernon grabbed up the last letter. Thick, dog-eared, it sat weighty in his palm. He stared at his own name on the outside of the envelope, his address. Had the words Hamby, or Krafton, ever been written from so far away?
“Go ahead, Vernon,” Martha urged.
Vernon pried up the edge with his thumbnail. He slid in a finger and tore the top. He unfolded
several sheets of cream-colored construction paper. They were crayon drawings. A brown rectangular house and stick people playing soccer. A lion on its hind legs, standing atop a rock, its mouth wide and full of jagged teeth. A hooded man raising a sword beneath a huge rainbow. An egg-shaped soldier, an egg in combat fatigues, madly flapping his arms, either to fly out of, or keep from falling into, a giant smoking skillet.
Vernon held the egg-soldier picture up to Martha. She squinted, nodded. Vernon set the page on the table between them. Written on a diagonal in the corner of a page, it said: Meet G.I. Humpty! The others are by my kids. Hard to make them smile. Pray for us!
Then there were no more words, and the anchor whose ship was battered by a yearlong storm broke free from the reef of Vernon’s heart. He felt as if he were seeping heat, as if his chest had cracked wide, then the tiles rose up and he found himself on the floor, Martha over him, pleading, “Oh, get up, hon. Get up—”
Her hands beneath his arms, Martha helped him stand. His legs felt numb. He couldn’t see through his tears. He staggered, Martha a crutch beneath him. Then they were in a dark room and he plopped down upon a bed. She untied his shoes and took them off. His tie came loose from his neck, and Vernon lay back on the bed, rain splashing against the window and light from outside glittering across the ceiling.
Then Martha was beside him, the length of her body warm against his. She whispered into his ear for him to settle down, and he lay his cheek against hers and closed his eyes to the rain-bleary darkness.
Wind gusts rattled the windows. Vernon blinked, light from the courtyard swaying on the ceiling. He wasn’t sure how long he’d slept. Martha lay in his arms, her face against his chest. Vernon carefully slid his arm from beneath her, rolled out of bed. The bed stand clock read 4:46. Every lost and wounded part of Vernon wanted to crawl back in beside Martha. Instead, he found his shoes by the door, his tie draped over a chair, and carried it all out into the hall.
Volt: Stories Page 16