Stars in the Grass

by Ann Marie Stewart

“What does Joel’s name mean?”

  Dad tilted his head, as if carefully considering what he was about to say.

  “‘Yahweh is God,’” he said at last.

  Oh, how I wanted to give him back Joel’s voice. I had seen Joel’s fingerprints, his toys strewn around the house, the crib in our bedroom. I thought of his voice, but I couldn’t imagine the sound. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a color—orange, but it, too, disappeared. I could think words Joel would say, but I couldn’t hear them.

  The clocks ticked in the background, absorbing the silence with their cacophony. “I was having a good day yesterday,” Dad began. “I was going in to pick up something your mom wanted at the grocery store. There was a clerk I used to see. An older lady. Kind of forgetful sometimes, but very sweet. She said, ‘Where’s your little friend today?’” Dad stopped, his voice high and thin, and fragile. “She didn’t know.” His voice now faint as he held back the tears. “I was having a good day. But I couldn’t tell her.”

  “So what did you say?”

  “I said, ‘He’s not with me today,’” Dad whispered, and wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “Maybe I’ll write her a note sometime to explain.”

  “You didn’t lie.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Joel was happy,” I said, trying to make him feel better.

  “This is what I know,” Dad began, as if he’d thought a lot about what he was about to say. “Joel only lived long enough to know good things. He didn’t see evil in the world. He didn’t have any bad memories. Even his death was so sudden that he never knew what happened. I take small comfort in that.” Dad sat back in his chair. He was done. As if rested. Maybe even at peace. I wanted a little of that.

  “I saw a boy on the playground, Dad. He had thick blond hair and overalls and a shirt with green stripes. I yelled, ‘Joel!’ but it wasn’t Joel. Some people turned and stared at me. I waited for the kid to turn around. But up close, the boy didn’t even look like Joel.”

  Dad nodded his head. I knew he understood. Maybe something like that had happened to him.

  “Do you ever wonder what happens when he’s been gone longer than he was alive?” I asked.

  I watched Dad set the clocks in motion and turn time backward and forward until everything seemed to match. And as he lovingly adjusted the hands, I wondered why clocks had hands and faces but no eyes.

  “We won’t forget, Abby. We won’t forget. A part of him is still alive.”

  Death had made only some things past tense. I knew then that I’d never say Joel was my brother. He is my brother and will always be my brother. And I am Joel’s sister.

  Still, though we had pictures of Joel, and even some home movies, they were mute. I longed to give my dad the one thing he wanted. My dad, whose big voice used to fill a sanctuary, needed to hear his son. And then my heart began pounding with a little idea and a big hope.

  “Just a minute,” I said, jumping up from the table.

  “Abby?” Dad questioned as I bolted up the stairs.

  On the card table in Mom and Dad’s bedroom was a Dictaphone Dad used for dictating sermons. His handwriting was illegible, but Sherrie the church secretary could “read” his voice. Dad would use a foreign language when he spoke into the microphone, ushering in each new thought with a “New Paragraph” and ending each sentence with “Period.”

  When we interrupted him, sometimes he’d let us tape our voice, and he’d play it back for our amusement. When my father played back his own voice, it sounded the same as when he recorded it. But it was not the same when I heard my recorded voice—so unfamiliar and childlike. Matt said it had something to do with hearing through your bones.

  The Dictaphone sat among a pile of notes and reference material from Dad’s last sermon. It was dusty and I assumed it hadn’t been used in the last year. I unplugged it and hugged it close as I returned to the basement. I set it in front of Dad and plugged it back in. Dad looked like he was about to say, Not now, Abby, but I pushed the lever to the left and the tape swished in reverse. If I left it on PLAY I could hear the tones go backward over the tape heads. It was so inconceivable to me that sound could be captured and replayed. I didn’t understand how it worked and I didn’t need to know. It could stay magical, and with it I would rewind time.

  I pressed PLAY and heard Dad’s resonant voice.

  “The seed was sown in different ground. Period. What ground are you today? Question mark. In other words, comma, quote. How’s your dirt? Question mark. End of quote.” This was Dad’s last sermon before we went on our trip. I remembered sitting through his oratory thinking we would soon be at Grandpa and GramAnna’s farm with all of its dirt and his message would make more sense.

  Dad looked thoughtful as he listened. Then I fast-forwarded until I hit Dad’s closing prayer. “Heavenly Father, comma, we want to be the good earth. Period. We want to be planted with Your Word and to grow in You. Period. Nourish our faith so that we might weather the storms, comma, the temptations, comma, and the heat. Period. May we bear fruit for You. Period. Amen. Period.” There was a click and then I hoped there was something more. I held my breath. Silence, then a clicking and rustling.

  “Just count down. Say anything.” It was Matt’s voice.

  “Anything,” I repeated.

  “Very funny, Abby,” Matt scolded, then added, “Okay, just count.”

  “1-2-3-4-5-6,” I said. “Now play it back and let me hear it.”

  “No, say something else,” Matt ordered.

  “Testing, testing. 1-2-3. Testing, testing.” There was my voice again, thin, high, young. It didn’t sound like me. Was it really me? No, it was that other me. I was so much younger then. “Okay, Matt, it’s airtime. Let’s do it.”

  “And now for The McAndrews Radio Theater, hosted by Matt McAndrews,” Matt’s voice boomed. We were ready with a script and a collection of sound effects, but we were not ready for an interruption.

  “Me, too! Me, too!” Joel said, and I could almost see him running in. My heart beat like the ticking of one of Dad’s clocks. I think I stopped breathing, and Dad’s eyes widened as he stared at the recorder controls. It looked like he thought Joel might climb right out of the Dictaphone.

  “Joel, not now. This is our show. Go find Mom,” my voice said. I can’t believe I asked him to leave. I felt a useless guilt. “Just turn it off, Matt,” said that selfish me on the tape. Don’t turn it off. Don’t turn it off. Don’t turn it off, I prayed, unable to remember what happened next.

  “I pway, too!” Joel begged in his toddler voice that we laughed at, never correcting his dropped letters. When Joel asked Mom to “please pray,” it always came out, “Pweeze pway.” Not only did Joel drop his r’s and l’s, but his t‘s often became f’s. Someone said he’d outgrow it. He never had the chance.

  “Joel, say something into the microphone,” Matt said, suddenly accommodating. Joel went uncharacteristically speechless.

  “Say ‘I love Abby,’” I suggested.

  “I wuv Bee,” Joel repeated. I smiled but I couldn’t look at Dad. Why didn’t I ask him to say, “I love Daddy,” or “Daddy’s home!” But then again, how could I know?

  “Say ‘big truck,’” Matt coached.

  Joel loved trucks. But he couldn’t pronounce the word, and Matt knew just how it would come out. I forgot about this part of the tape. My hand reached for the OFF button, but Dad shook his head and pulled my hand away.

  “Say ‘big truck, big truck, big truck.’” Matt could barely talk he was laughing so hard.

  “Matt.” I heard myself scold in that unfamiliar voice, and now as I listened, I found myself mouthing his name in correction a year later. Out came the words in Joel’s little voice, but not as Matt had dictated.

  “Big truck, big truck, big truck!” Joel obeyed enthusiastically, and Matt laughed and hit the table with his hand. Joel joined in the giggling, unaware of what was so funny and that he was the source of our laughter. I frowned now just
as I must have then.

  “Oh, it’s funny, Abby,” Matt rationalized.

  “Do you wanna hear it now, Joel?” Matt said, and then the machine clicked off and there was nothing. Nothing but silence. Nobody had recorded anything since July 1970. We had never finished our radio show, and Dad had not preached another sermon.

  I tried to remember that day and what was left unrecorded, but somehow it had blurred together with all the other days I didn’t hold on to tightly enough. With this Dictaphone recording, I only had sound. No picture and no real memory of the event. I could barely remember speaking into the mike. The entire episode couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds.

  Dad nodded his head.

  “It sounds just like him. I remember now,” Dad said softly. “Thank you, Bee.”

  And then I wasn’t sure why I asked the question, but I had to know.

  “What happened in the ambulance? Did he say anything?” Dad didn’t answer at first. He just sorted the remaining clock parts and carefully put them in four different boxes. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  “Well,” Dad began slowly, “nothing, Abby. That’s just it. They worked on Joel and asked me questions about my leg. I said I was fine. At first they spoke a language I didn’t understand, and then they didn’t talk much at all. It was like they already knew something I didn’t want to know. I felt so helpless. And the whole time that siren was ringing in my head.”

  “So you didn’t get to talk to him?”

  “I talked to him. He might have been alive, but I don’t know if he heard me,” he said as if that still bothered him. “I said, ‘Hang in there, kiddo, I love you.’” Dad looked like he was thinking hard. I patted him three times so he could feel my “I love you.” Dad unconsciously patted the clock as if it were Joel. “I hoped he’d say ‘Daddy.’” He closed the face of the anniversary clock. I had no idea if it worked now or if he was finished, but I had an idea that was as much as he could relive. “I needed to hear him say ‘Daddy,’” he continued. “It would have sounded like a prayer.”

  Dad put the clock on a shelf with the other works in progress and clicked off his desk lamp. “Thank you, Abby.” He rested his hand on mine.

  “Daddy,” I said, hoping I could be my father’s joy. Hoping my voice would sound like Joel’s. “I love you, Daddy,” and then I started crying. Just softly at first, but then it got louder until I was sobbing. I couldn’t make my dad happy by saying what Joel would have said. I couldn’t be my father’s joy or anybody’s joy.

  “I can’t be Joel.”

  “Abby, Abby.” Dad pulled me close. “You just need to be Abby.”

  “But I can’t even do that good enough.”

  “You’re wonderful just like you are.”

  “No, I’m not. I don’t get Roman numerals and I …”

  “What does it feel like to be you?”

  “My stomach hurts all the time and I think about things so much harder than everybody else, and I’m scared, and I don’t know how to stop worrying.”

  “Well then, that makes two of us,” Dad said at last. “Are you looking forward to talking to Matt’s counselor next week?”

  “Not really.” I wiped my tears and laughed. “But I guess that’s what you do when your fears get too big for your heart.”

  I had to begin somewhere. Mrs. Clevenger had said that the end of the movie didn’t have to be sad, and that I might get a chance to write it differently. She knew I had something to say. And so I knew I would talk and I would relive the last year and I might find help and hope in the process. It might all begin with telling my story.

  TWENTY-SIX

  I’m in charge of the Fourth of July,” Dad said rather suddenly on the third of July. We all looked to Mom, who smiled. “I’m packing a picnic and we’re going to town.” We were three weeks into a summer that, though not perfect, wasn’t terrible. Dad went on a grief and loss retreat, and I had been seeing Matt’s counselor.

  At first I didn’t want to talk. Where could I begin with someone I hardly knew? Mrs. Sherman wasn’t a bad person. Actually she was rather grandmotherly and wore glasses on a string around her neck, her hair graying slightly around her face. When she said, “I hurt for Abby McAndrews. It must be hard to be her,” something happened and it all broke loose and there was more babbling than anything else. She had an interesting way of repeating what I said but in a new way. It was sort of like paraphrasing but adding some kind of information I hadn’t thought of. And it was that piece that tugged my heart in sad but happy ways. She always made me feel like I was smart and clever and that I had nothing but hope in front of me.

  The last time I talked to her she gave me a leather journal. “You have quite a vocabulary. Expressive. Write down your thoughts. When it’s full you can always throw it in the back of your closet and discover it years later for an interesting read.” At first I wrote slowly, but now my journal was almost full.

  And so Dad, Mom, Matt, and I all changed. Individually. Personally. Sometimes we did our own things, and sometimes our things came together. I hoped the Fourth of July would be one of those things and that our Fourth wouldn’t be too independent.

  To start our Fourth, Mom made blueberry buckle and served sliced strawberries with whipped cream for breakfast. “A little patriotism,” she explained as she arranged our red, white, and blue breakfast. When the three of us came home from church, Dad had the picnic ready. Mom said we needed to dress in red, white, and blue for the town parade and gave us red, white, and blue flip-flops and baseball caps. We wore them to humor her, knowing we looked silly, ludicrous. Mom did not have to give me that word for the day; I knew it fit.

  Most of the buildings on the parade route had red, white, and blue buntings hanging from their awnings. We stood at the edge of town and watched children pedal by on decorated bikes with flags hanging off the back end like tails. The Shriners drove by in their little cars, followed by happy- and sad-faced clowns that scared the smaller kids. Next came fire trucks and police cars, their sirens nearly overpowering the BSHS band marching in wool uniforms. The Rotary Club came from behind in a truck loaded with kids throwing candy to us.

  After the parade, we went to the Kiwanis barbecue and ate baked beans, corn on the cob, fried chicken, three-bean salad, and watermelon. And for dessert, we enjoyed bowls of red, white, and blue: strawberry shortcake with ice cream topped with blueberries.

  The parking lot at the Food Mart had a few rides and concession stands, and so we spent the afternoon with the ten tickets Dad gave each of us. I wouldn’t ride the Leap Frog with its sudden plunging drop, but Matt did. Some of the people coming off looked as green as the mascot. Thankfully, because there weren’t any other wild rides, Matt stayed with me, making this one of the best Fourth of Julys I could remember.

  It was so hot and humid, Matt and I rode the Egg Scrambler three times to cool off. Then we headed to the arcade, where we laughed at the crazy mirrors that made us look short and fat, or long and skinny. I looked so thin. Was that really me? The barker challenged Matt to hit the hammer and make the bell ring—but only if he was strong enough. Matt eyed his remaining tickets, but I shook my head.

  “Win a horse for your girl!” another man called out. It looked simple enough; Matt just had to pitch a ball at a circle to win me a stuffed pony.

  “I could do it, Abby,” he claimed. “For you.”

  “Let’s go ride some more rides,” I said, pulling him away. I didn’t need another stuffed animal, or for him to prove himself. I just wanted for him to be with me.

  After we ran out of tickets, we searched Pop Keeney Stadium, where Mom and Dad had spread a quilt on the field at the thirty yard line, ready to hear the band from Columbus followed up by an evening of fireworks.

  Dad unpacked the dinner of Italian subs, peaches, Bugles, Orange Crush, and Pecan Sandies. Nothing very healthy, only good old-fashioned junk food. And then he gave us another dollar in case we wanted to go buy a corn dog o
r a sno-cone or even a long red licorice rope.

  “What did you use your tickets on, Abby?” Mom asked, as I poked Bugles on my fingertips to look like claws.

  “I rode the Bumble Bee, the bumper cars, the Egg Scrambler, the merry-go-round, and the Ferris wheel,” I answered. Dad nodded and I looked away, remembering the last time I had ridden the Ferris wheel—and that he was with me. “Matt rode them with me,” I said, shooting Matt a smile of appreciation. This day would not be sad. Matt would turn sixteen at the end of the month, and that sounded so much older than ten. He was almost a grown-up. I wanted this happy day to last forever.

  I finished off all ten of my bugles.

  “I wish there had been a roller coaster, though,” Matt said.

  “I think I’ve had enough roller coasters,” Mom said softly. “This whole year.” Mom bit into a perfect peach and, without dripping, ate it.

  “This band is supposed to play some forties tunes,” Dad said. “You think we can dance?”

  “Everybody is pretty close together.” Mom scanned the football field, now a patchwork quilt of blankets.

  “Forties?” Matt asked. “I thought it was a band. A real band.”

  “It’s a community event, Matt. The Who won’t be here tonight. These are the Good Notes. Ever hear of big band?” Dad asked.

  Matt groaned and I laughed. “Dad and I used to go dancing,” Mom explained. “We were pretty good.”

  “For Presbyterians,” Dad added as a disclaimer.

  When the Good Notes began, they played what I called “happy music.” Dad took Mom’s arm and they held each other’s hands and rocked back and forth in place. Dad swung Mom and she twirled in the space of grass between blankets. Whenever they made a mistake, Mom tossed her head back and laughed until Dad caught her up again in his arms. He wouldn’t let her go. They danced one song after another. Any other day I would have been embarrassed because hardly anybody else was dancing. But people were clapping and pointing, and not making fun of them: Mom and Dad were fun to watch, and something said that their audience, like me, was happy to see them on their feet and in each other’s arms.