I stomped my feet in the snow. I could barely feel them anymore.
“Well, you weren’t driving the car,” I snapped. I felt like he was trying to trick me or something.
“No, really, Abby, I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember seeing it happen, and I don’t remember anything about the road or the ambulance or anything.” Matt’s face begged for information. “It’s all a blank. I just want to know what I did.”
“You tried to get a doctor,” I answered quickly.
“But that was afterward. WHERE WAS I WHEN JOEL GOT HIT?” he pleaded.
This felt like when the sheriff came to our back door. An interrogation.
I remembered Dad unfastening Joel from Matt’s back and carrying him, and I remembered thinking how nice that looked, and then I remembered a blue car and how it seemed like it was coming at us and I felt my mother push me and I fell and I saw the car hit Dad and then there was Joel and the windshield and then there was no Joel.
But there was no Matt.
I played the whole awful scene in my head over and over, but I couldn’t see what was happening beside or behind me. After the accident, Matt was running to Joel and Matt was running around, yelling for a doctor and pounding on car windows and begging people to do something, but there was no Matt when the car hit. I closed my eyes and let the snow fall on my eyelids. I didn’t have peripheral vision, and I couldn’t see something that wasn’t on the screen.
“You see? You can’t find me there either,” he said softly.
“So? What does that mean?” I asked.
“I ran. I must have run,” he decided. “I could have done something. Anything. But I didn’t see anything because I was a coward. Maybe the car was headed for me.” Matt’s eyes were a watery cold blue.
I kicked a clod of ice. I wanted to say something. I wanted to hug him, but that wouldn’t help because I didn’t know the truth. I only knew that even if he ran, he hadn’t done the wrong thing. Did anybody do the wrong thing? Did anybody do the right thing?
The longer Matt stood there, the more frozen he appeared. He would be a statue soon—unmovable, a solid ice sculpture. He stared at me in silence. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but his face looked cold and sad. I felt something trickle, the dampness of a tear, except I wasn’t crying. I touched the side of my face. My wool glove was stained with blood, but nothing hurt because I, too, was frozen. Matt’s eyes softened and he took off his glove again. His hand was warm when he touched my cheek. He touched my wound like I wished I could touch his.
SIXTEEN
We have a little over a month, John. Then what?” Mom asked over breakfast. The kitchen table suddenly seemed small and confined. When February began, we knew time was running out on Dad’s sabbatical, and our home. We tried not to talk about the obvious, but sometimes Mom brought it up. Usually at meals, when family time became fighting time.
“I can’t return just because of a deadline. There has to be a reason,” Dad said, adding two pancakes to his plate.
“What about three?” Mom asked, looking around the table. Matt acted like he wasn’t listening and pushed his scrambled eggs around with his fork.
“I’d be faking it. Every single day.”
“That sounds familiar.” Mom punched the words and then gained momentum as she paced the short length of the kitchen. “Every single day I get up and I pass the door to his bedroom and I think about getting him out of bed or I think about surprising him with pancakes or I forget and set the table for five. Every single day I’m home but he is not here. Every single day I say good night to Abby and then I turn to go to his bed and touch his sleeping face. Every single day. You want to talk about faking it? Give it a try sometime.”
Mom’s voice held anger and tears. I wasn’t afraid of her anger, but I feared her sadness, and the only thing I knew to do was throw my arms around her like she would throw her arms around me—but I just couldn’t.
Mom began clearing the table, although it was obvious most of our plates were full. Maybe she knew we weren’t hungry anymore. She scraped the plates into the garbage can and then dropped them in the sink with such force I heard something break. I cringed but nobody else looked worried. “And how about this? I’ve always hated playing that church organ. Did you know that? But I’ve done a pretty good job of faking that for all these years.”
Matt smiled and turned away.
“And what’s so funny about that, young man?”
Matt shrugged, trying to hide his half smile. “Well, I’m not sure it was such a good fake job.”
Mom’s face made an “ah,” but nothing came out.
“I mean, well …,” he stammered. “You didn’t fake playing that well.”
Dad’s eyes widened. Mine must have been saucers. Then even Dad smiled and I got the giggles. The nervous kind because you’re not supposed to. Like during prayers of repentance when a big belly laugh comes out of nowhere.
“Laughter at my expense?” Mom asked as she threw up her hands and turned to leave.
“Don’t feel bad,” Dad called after her. “The organ and the clock are the two most complicated mechanical inventions prior to the Industrial Revolution.”
We three made eye contact, shrugged shoulders, and sat in silence like scolded schoolchildren, united by memories of dissonance and discord. But she wasn’t through.
“Tell me again why I’m still playing that obsolescent monstrosity?” she asked, returning as if an idea was forming. I think it was a rhetorical question, which was a good thing because we had no answer.
The next day, while I watched Saturday morning cartoons, Mom announced, “You’ve got a new Sunday school teacher.”
“Really? I thought nobody wanted our class.” I stopped spreading peanut butter on graham crackers, my pre-breakfast appetizer. At that moment the Road Runner slapped a false train tunnel on the side of a mountain, foreshadowing doom for Wile E. Coyote. “Mrs. Tinsley’s out for the rest of the year?”
“Who’s the brave one to take on the Class of 1979?” Matt asked. as he came in with a bowl of cereal.
“It’s not Mrs. Johnson, is it?”
“No,” she said slowly.
“Please tell me it’s not Mrs. Ludema!” I begged.
“It’s not,” Mom answered, biting her lower lip.
“Well who is it then?” I asked, running out of ideas.
“It’s me,” she said, looking at Matt and then finally at me.
“You’re not disappointed, are you?” she asked at last.
“No, but you can’t. I mean, you have to practice with the choir during Sunday school.”
“No, I don’t,” Mom continued. “I’m not the organist anymore,” she announced. Mom stood taller, prouder. “I now teach fourth-grade Sunday school.”
Mom had officially resigned as church organist.
That Sunday Mom’s first lesson was on Paul and the early Church. Mom found a way to get us under the church, to pretend we were apostles hiding in the catacombs. The boys in their Sunday best, and we girls in our dresses and black patent leather shoes, trekked through dark, gritty corridors, past cleaning supplies, drippy pipes, the old furnace and the new boiler, and ended by emerging out the basement window to our salvation and the sunny parking lot above. Our class loved her—especially the boys. But their parents probably preferred Mom back at the organ, looking like she was driving it straight through the altar.
When we arrived home after Mom’s debut, I raced downstairs to tell Dad all about the mysteries of our church basement. Dad sat, alone, with the monotonous ticking of clocks. Mom had followed me and, upon hearing the end of the story, smiled shyly.
“Do I rename you Apostle Renee?” Dad asked. Mom cocked her head to the side as if unsure whether he was teasing her. “Sounds like Abby enjoyed Sunday school,” Dad reassured, and she was drawn down the remaining stairs.
“Well, at least she wasn’t in the library under the table,” Mom said. How did she know a
bout that?
“Anything else to report?” Dad asked. I was surprised at his interest.
“The Fitzsimmonses had a baby boy, and Mrs. Sycolin’s dog got bit by a raccoon, and Angela’s grandma is taking her to Florida for spring break,” I said, all in one breath.
“And Greg and Carol got engaged on New Year’s Eve, and they asked if you were still doing weddings,” Mom added quickly.
“They can get married at the church,” Dad answered.
“But Carol doesn’t want just anybody doing the service.”
“I don’t know,” he answered, which really sounded like no.
“I could understand not doing a funeral, but you could do a wedding,” Mom continued.
“It might send a message,” Dad said, adjusting his Clock Doc glasses.
“What kind of message?” Mom questioned. “That you’re back in business?”
Dad concentrated on the back of the clock, a miniature screwdriver in his hand. Mom leaned over the table until she was nearly face-to-face with him.
“Or does it have something to do with the institution of marriage? Is that something you question, too?” she whispered. She must have thought I couldn’t hear.
“Renee, I don’t question marriage—yet,” he muttered, glaring at her persistence.
“We’ve got a couple of weeks, John, and then I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t know if we can make it on this clock stuff. And why would they allow us to stay in the house? The attendance is way down after those first interims. The church is struggling, John. People need someone to do weddings, to do funerals. To do life.“
Dad looked grim.
“Please tell me you have a plan.” And with that she turned quickly and trudged upstairs.
Every tax season Miss Patti’s house looks like a tornado hit, but this year was the worst. She had long ago converted her living room into her office. Every available horizontal space was covered with manila file folders and paperwork labeled with the names of almost everybody in Bethel Springs. Though it looked disorderly, Miss Patti seemed to know where everything was. I was in awe. She also knew everything about everybody, but with Miss Patti you knew your secret was well kept. She was the most private person I knew.
When Miss Patti came down with what she called the February flu, Mom took over. Miss Patti said she felt so awful, she couldn’t get up the stairs to her bedroom and instead collapsed on the couch of her office, the one place not yet occupied by files.
“Renee, you really need to leave. I don’t want to make y’all sick.”
“You need some help, Patti. Tell me what to do.”
“Only if Abby leaves,” Patti said. Mom nodded in agreement but I didn’t move. I knew she wouldn’t notice one way or the other. “Maybe if you could hand me a few files, I could work on them here on the couch. I need to get started on some of these right away,” Miss Patti added, vaguely waving her hand in the direction of a stack of files. Miss Patti looked flushed and unable to focus.
“Tell me the names,” Mom asked, eager to help.
“Hindrichs. Try the third drawer down in the file cabinet. And then pick up that blue notebook from the end of the table.” She wiped her sweaty brow and Mom frowned.
“You don’t need to do anything right now except get better,” Mom said. “You should take it easy.”
“It’s tax season,” Miss Patti argued. “I can’t.”
“Then you’re going to need help,” Mom said. “I think I can do it.” To me she added, “Abby, you need to go home now. Miss Patti’s right. You might get sick.”
“And I’m paying you,” Miss Patti said, as if not giving up without getting her way. “We’re both getting a deal out of this.” She sighed and leaned back on the couch. Rita nodded at me. We were getting a good deal, too.
Mom began spending each day at Miss Patti’s, leaving our house after making breakfast for Matt and me. Miss Patti was down for days, and then had to play catch-up. She had Mom typing, filing, running numbers, and filling out forms. Mom’s heels would click across the floor, and Patti would roll her office chair to various file cabinets, opening and shutting drawers with a swish and a click. Mom didn’t come home after school, and so I often joined her at Miss Patti’s, where Rita and I did our homework at her kitchen table.
Most of the time, it was quiet in the living room, but sometimes the two of them laughed. And when they did, we tried to listen in but were always too late for the punch line. Mom was efficient and organized, and finding accounting a better fit than accompanying. When Miss Patti said Mom was a natural, Mom beamed as if it were her first compliment.
After homework, Rita and I played board games, read books, and sometimes watched television. They often sent us to run certain files to clients’ houses and even do special pickups for elderly customers. Miss Patti even paid us. But the more time Mom spent at Miss Patti’s, the less she spent at our house with Dad. The more time I spent with Rita, the less I spent with Matt. Five minus one divided by two equaled two, but we were lonely twosomes. If we were talking accounting, the minuses outweighed the plusses, and I missed being a family. Though I didn’t want to think about it, I couldn’t help but remember how the Hanleys alternated holidays, and that made me worried.
Valentine’s Day fell on a Sunday. Mom and I went to church together and heard Reverend Davidson speak from the love chapter about fourteen ways to say “I love you.” I wished Dad had been there to hear it. I wondered if Dad would take Mom out later, but when we got home, Mom heated up Campbell’s soup and made tuna melts, which didn’t seem like much of a Valentine’s dinner.
“Twenty Questions,” I began. “I’m thinking of something …”
“Is it bigger than a bread box?” Mom began so obviously.
“Yes.”
“Is it bigger than a car?” Matt continued.
“Yes,” I answered. I didn’t know if my idea counted since it was kind of tricky. They’d probably say I was cheating.
“Is it bigger than a building?” Mom asked.
“Yes.”
“Is it a place?” Mom asked.
“No.” They were starting to catch on.
“Well, it’s certainly not a person!” Matt laughed.
“Is it an idea or emotion?” Dad asked.
“Yes,” I answered, looking up at Dad. He was on to me.
“That’s five,” I said, holding up my hand.
“Is it love?” Dad asked softly.
“Yes,” I answered, nodding.
“That was a good one,” Mom said gently. “How’d you guess it so easily?”
“Well, it is Valentine’s Day,” Matt said sarcastically.
“It was our verse today,” I said, nodding to Mom and then repeating what she had given me a star on the chart for just an hour before. A verse about the height, breadth, depth, and width of God’s love. When I finished, I added my own conclusion: “God’s love is immeasurable.”
Matt shook his head like he was disgusted.
“That’s not really fair,” Matt argued, even though I knew he didn’t care about the game. “Love isn’t really a thing.”
“Person, place, thing, or idea,” Mom corrected. “Let it go, Matt.”
“Okay, so here’s mine,” Matt said suddenly, more to me than anyone else. “Why didn’t God just make us love Him so we wouldn’t mess up?”
“And then, if God’s love is so great,” Dad added, “why do bad things happen?” We became quiet. This wasn’t the way to play Twenty Questions. He was breaking the rules. His question couldn’t be answered with a yes or no. Or maybe couldn’t be answered at all.
I felt confused. I had always been the one to ask where the butterfly goes when it rains, or why God bothered making mosquitoes, or how places in the world are in different times or even different days, and suddenly I was very scared my dad didn’t have the world figured out.
“So if it’s okay to ask questions, then okay,” I said. “Why are we here? Why would God bother making p
eople who would sin? And why did God create people when He had angels? And why did Adam get to name the animals? Eve would have come up with something better than dog or cat.” I said it in one breath. I didn’t have answers but I wanted to prove I had questions, too, and that just because I had questions didn’t mean there wasn’t a God.
“Bravo, Abby!” Matt said, clapping slowly as if capturing air between his hands.
I blinked quickly, hoping I wouldn’t cry. I didn’t dare look at anyone. Finally Mom broke the silence.
“My turn.” She looked straight at Dad. “Do you wish Joel had never been born?”
Dad stopped suddenly.
Mom and Dad stared at each other as if in a no-blinking contest.
Had Dad not heard? I could repeat the question for him. I could scream, “Do you wish that Joel had never been born?” But I didn’t and neither did Mom. She waited and so we all waited.
“That’s hard to answer,” Dad said at last. And then the silence built up a pressure so strong that the idea of a lifetime of no Joel hit me like an ocean wave, threatening to knock me off my feet. Joel was not erasable. I couldn’t just stop and rewind my life like when Dad made the family movies go in reverse. We couldn’t rewind to before Joel’s birth, throw away the reels, and then go forward never knowing him. It was so impossible, it was ridiculous. We could never forget.
But now Mom’s question had to be answered. Good or bad.
“I would answer that question differently at different times,” Dad concluded. “So much joy, so little sadness. We weren’t unhappy before, but look at us now. Ask me again in ten years. I’ll have a better perspective.”
I felt like Dad had hit me in the stomach. Or that maybe I should hit him in his. He couldn’t have actually said that. This was Joel we were talking about. But nobody spoke until Mom drew a deep breath.
And at first I thought I imagined Mom’s response because my head was ringing with that question and it didn’t sound like her voice. This voice was steely.
“You mean right now you’d say you wish Joel had never been born?”
Stars in the Grass Page 14