Gate (9781441240569)

by Stouten, Dann A.

  I nodded.

  “Do you remember what she used to say at the end of the meal? As the dishes were being cleared from the table, she’d say—”

  “Keep your fork,” I interrupted. “She’d say, ‘Keep your fork!’”

  “That’s right! And what she meant was that something better was coming: cream pie, apple pie, cherry pie, something wonderful. And this is your reminder of the same thing. This is just a taste of heaven, something to tide you over, but keep your fork because something better is coming.”

  Then we embraced, and Ahbee walked away.

  Only Rae and I remained now. I looked across at her, hoping for some direction for what to do next. Sensing this, Rae said, “I’ll walk you out.”

  With that, we went out through the kitchen and into the driveway.

  “You’re leaving me too?” I asked.

  “No, you can’t get rid of me so easily! I am always with you. At times I’ve been your guardian, your guide, and even your guilty conscience. Never once, not even for a moment, have I ever left your side, nor will I. You may not see me, but in your heart you’ll know I am there. But it’s getting late, and you’ve got a drive ahead of you. You’d best be on your way.”

  As I got in the car, Rae climbed into the seat beside me and said, “You might want to check the mail on your way out.”

  I started the car, pulled out of the driveway, and drove down along the lake road. As we went through the back gate, Michael was standing guard. “I’ll leave the gate unlatched for you, Scout,” he said as we drove by.

  As I looked at him in the rearview mirror, I saw my reflection as well. I was older again. The gray had returned to my temples, and laugh lines creased my cheeks. I could see the sun setting in the distance. Streaks of orange and yellow splashed atop the ripples of the water, and the low rumble of thunder welled in the southwest.

  I took Rae’s advice and looked inside the mailbox with my name on it. There I found an envelope addressed to me, and inside was a note from Ahbee.

  “My son,” it said, “there are things you need to learn, and things you need to teach. Let me begin with the learning. This life is the preschool for eternity. Much of what you want to know is simply beyond your ability to understand. You must take baby steps. Grasp what you can understand, grapple with what you can’t, but don’t let it eat you up inside. Wisdom takes time. Don’t be in such a hurry. All your questions have answers, but you’re not ready for all of them. That’s what eternity is all about.

  “When you were a child, many foods were simply too harsh, too sharp, too complex for your young palate to appreciate. If you stroll down the baby food aisle at the supermarket, you’ll find strained carrots, peas, and applesauce, but you won’t find things like onions or chili peppers, garlic or salsa, or mustard, or even salt. These things come with time. You need time to develop a taste and appreciation for them. If someone tried to feed them to you before you were ready, you would make a face and spit them out. It’s not that it would be bad, it’s just that you wouldn’t be ready for them yet. And that’s the way it is with life.

  “Many of the things that shock you or that you find offensive now will one day prove to be the spice of life. They are the very things that molded your character, deepened your faith, challenged your thinking, and softened your heart. Think about it. Have you been closer to me and the people who matter in your life in the easy times or the hard times?

  “You have done well in preschool. You have learned many things, but there is so much more to learn. So don’t shrink from such things or pull back and make a face. Accept them for what they are. Embrace them. Live the salty life. Remember, as Josh has told you, ‘You are the salt of the earth.’

  “And then, as for the teaching,” the letter said, “start with the inner circles. There is a natural progression to these sorts of things. When Josh sent out the disciples, they were to go from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth, and your Jerusalem is Europa Motors.”

  I knew what he meant. I had to start by talking to Ben. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it was necessary. There is an old Dutch proverb that says, “If everyone swept off their own front porch, the whole world would be clean,” and I had some housecleaning to do.

  “You must teach,” Ahbee wrote, “with the same patience, gentleness, and grace with which you’ve been taught.”

  I looked over at Rae, who smiled and raised her eyebrows inquisitively. “Do you understand what the letter means?” she asked.

  I nodded and said, “I understand some of it.”

  “Some is enough to start,” she replied, and then ever so slowly, she began to fade from my sight. “Even though you don’t see me,” she whispered, “I can still see you,” and in my heart I knew it was true. The ancient promise echoed in my memory: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5 ESV). It was and is a comforting thought.

  I was alone, but I didn’t feel alone. Now more than ever before, I felt like God was with me, and there was something comforting about knowing that Rae was watching over me. I crossed the bridge that spanned the creek and started to head south toward the highway. As I drove along, shadows chased the tree line, rain clouds filled the western sky, and gradually the light was swallowed up by darkness. I began to hear the raindrops dance against the windshield like the sound of a leaky faucet, and as I turned on the wipers, I realized that I had come full circle.

  I was torn between going home to the ones I love and going home to the ones I’d left behind. For a few minutes I thought about turning around, but I didn’t. I went home thinking that I’d keep my thoughts to myself. I wanted what had happened to have its effect on me before I tried to explain it.

  As I drove back home my mind was reeling. I knew I had some things to do, but I didn’t know where to start. Unbeknownst to me, that had already been taken care of. As I pulled in the driveway I saw Dad’s white Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited sitting there. I knew it was his because he has a “Support Our Troops” ribbon on the tailgate and I could see his fishing gear through the window in the back.

  Besides, Dad had driven the same make, model, and color car for the past twenty years. He’d buy a new one every couple of years or so, but it was always a white Grand Cherokee with tan leather. Dad used to say, “It’s nobody else’s business how often I get a new car, and this way nobody knows except me and your mother.” If the truth were told, I think the only reason Mom knew that Dad was driving a new car was that, for the first few weeks at least, it didn’t smell like a bait store in the back. Unlike me, Dad didn’t fall in love with cars. He saw them as a tool, a way to get from point A to point B, and because he liked to be able to fish in places that were off the beaten path, the Jeep was the perfect car for him.

  As I pulled in the driveway, Dad got out of his car and started walking toward me with a deliberate and determined look on his face. Before I could say a word, he started talking.

  “I know what’s going on, Sky, and I’m sorry. Ben told me all about it, and I want you to know this is my fault. I favored him. I made it easy for him. I apologized and made excuses for him his whole life. I gave him a pass. I let him say things and do things that I never would have let you say or do because I was reliving my life through him.”

  “Wait, Dad—”

  “That’s part of the problem,” he said. “I’ve waited too long already. Your mother warned me, but I wouldn’t listen. I wanted him to do what I couldn’t. I always regretted not playing pro ball, not finding out how good I really was. When I had my shot with the White Sox I thought I could make it. That scout and my coach both said I had all the moves, I was a natural, it was a gift from God. So he gave me a train ticket to Chicago and at the tryouts I was a machine. I hit everything their best pitcher threw at me, and afterwards the coach said, ‘Kid, go in the locker room and tell Red I said he should get you a locker and a uniform.’

  “That’s when I told him that I’d love to be on the team but I had one problem: I pro
mised my mother I wouldn’t play ball on Sunday. ‘I’ll play every game on every day but Sunday,’ I said, ‘and I don’t even care if you dock my pay some for sitting it out on the Sabbath.’

  “ ‘Listen, kid,’ he said. ‘This is your shot. Think about this before you answer. Think about seeing your picture on a baseball card. You’ve got talent. You could maybe be somebody in this league. But if you don’t play on Sunday, you won’t play at all.’

  “My heart sank. I wanted to play bad, real bad, but I’d promised my mother. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m real sorry to hear that, but I promised, so I guess I’ll just have to take that train ticket home.’ Inside I was hoping he’d change his mind. I was hoping I was good enough to make an exception to the rule, but evidently I wasn’t.

  “ ‘You don’t play, we don’t pay,’ he said, and he turned and walked away. Brokenhearted, I hitchhiked my way back home with a lump in my throat and a pocket full of regrets. Since then, I’ve always felt God sort of let me down that day in Chicago. I always figured he could have softened that coach’s heart. He could have made him give me a chance, but he didn’t. Then Ben came along, and I thought God was making it up to me. The kid was a natural, a genuine ball player. Football, basketball, baseball—he took to sports like he was born to play, and so I treated him like he was special. The problem was, when he couldn’t play ball anymore, he didn’t know who he was anymore. He couldn’t figure it out, and I couldn’t help him, so you had to.”

  “Look, Dad,” I said as we walked through the garage and into the house, “I never minded helping. I knew that you were as devastated as he was about that, and it was my turn to step up. I just did what I could do, that’s all.”

  Dad slumped into a big leather chair in the living room and spoke softly. “The only problem was that when I stopped treating him special, you started treating him special. You gave him a job, you looked out for him, you looked the other way, and you bailed him out when he messed up. And don’t you even try to deny it because he’s already told me all about it.

  “He came to me and asked for his inheritance early. And what could I do? I’m his father and I’m your father, and to hear that you two were at odds with each other broke my heart. It was my fault and it was mine to fix, so I sold a piece of property I had to cover the prodigal’s debt. He and I went down to the bank and paid off the note yesterday.”

  “Property?” I said. “What property?”

  “Remember that cottage we used to rent when you were a kid?” he asked, and I nodded that I did. “Well,” he said, “there was this piece of property down the road from there called Promise Point. Your uncle Herb and I used to go bass fishing off the rocks by the bay, and one July I caught a five-pounder. I was telling your mother about it later that night and she wanted to see it, so the two of us drove over there just before sundown. We sat on a picnic table underneath a couple of white pines, and we started talking about you kids and how much you loved it up there, and then she noticed a For Sale sign hidden in the weeds. She took out her lipstick and wrote down the number on an old bulletin in her purse, and I told her I’d check it out. ‘Do you promise?’ she said. ‘I promise,’ I said, and then I carved the words and our initials into the top of that old picnic table. I said, ‘This place is a little taste of heaven, and someday we’ll build a house up here.’

  “We never did, but I did check into it. The lot was listed by a place called Paradise Reality, and when I called them they said they’d sell it to me on a land contract. I made monthly payments on it for the longest time, but by the time I got it paid off, life had changed. First there was Ben’s accident, then Sharon and Jim moved out of town, after that you went back to school, so I sat on it. Then, right after Ben came over and told me about what was going on, a guy named Michael DeAngelo from Paradise Reality called me out of the blue and told me he had a buyer for the property if I’d be willing to sell it.

  “I can’t explain it, and you probably wouldn’t understand if I tried, but it just seemed like a God thing to me, so yesterday I signed the papers, got the check, and Ben and I went down to see Jake at Old State and made things right. I told Ben that when I die that money gets deducted off the top of his share of my estate, and I expect you to make it happen, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll see to it, but I hope I don’t have to do anything about it very soon.”

  “None of us can know that,” Dad said, “but I do know that I’m eighty-nine, and I’m ready.”

  “Well, I’m not,” I said. “I want you to stick around for a while.”

  “I know, I know,” he said. “But I wanted to make this right. And I also wanted to tell you how sorry I am for what I said the night of the accident. I never should have done that, but I needed to unload on someone. I thought you could take it, but I realize now how much pain my words caused. The truth is, in the things that count, you’re the strong one, and you always have been. In that way you’re the one who’s most like me, because when times get rough, everybody leans on you. I should say this more, but, well, you know how it is. Son, I’m proud of you.”

  By this time both of us were starting to get a little emotional. “It’s true,” he said, “and you know it’s true!” After a long, awkward moment of silence, he gave me a hug and silently walked out the door. I wanted to yell, “Dad, wait, there’s something I’ve got to tell you,” but he looked over his shoulder and said, “I’m going over to your sister’s for supper, and I’m already late. If you want to come I’m sure you’re welcome, but Ben asked me to tell you that he’d be out in the barn if you wanted to talk.”

  The barn was a four-stall pole barn nestled in the pines behind Dad’s house. He used it as a workshop and a place to store his boat. I used it as a place to rebuild cars when I was younger. Most nights Ben would come out and help, or at least try to. Once in a while Dad would come too, but most nights it was just Ben and me.

  We’d spend hours twisting wrenches and tinkering with things, and we’d get into deep discussions about everything from girls to God. Around ten we’d often end the night by going down to Vitale’s for a pizza. We both enjoyed those nights in the barn, and at some point out there we went from brothers to best friends. In the past few years we’d sort of put that part of our lives on the shelf, and I’m sure that was part of the reason that we’d grown apart. Ben was still my brother, but the relationship was heavier now. It was something we both had to work at.

  As I drove out to the barn, I regretted letting things between the two of us get the way they were, and I wondered if inviting me out here was Ben’s way of inviting me back into his life. I hoped so, and I let my mind play with what might be, but as always with Ben, I really didn’t know what to expect.

  The barn was about a quarter of a mile down a little two-track back through the pines, and when I turned into the clearing, I felt like I was stepping back in time. The barn was wrapped in turquoise and white ribbed steel siding that was rusted and weathered. It had two windows in front, each of which was propped open with a stick, and one of them still had a cracked pane in it from a baseball that got away from me when I was about eight. Weeds had grown up around the cement slab by the front entrance, and the horns off a nine-point buck were mounted above the door.

  There was a gunmetal gray 2002 BMW Z3 parked out front, and I knew from the dealer plate that it was Ben’s. He liked to drive hot cars, and this one sizzled. It was the mirror image of the one Pierce Brosnan drove in the Bond movie GoldenEye, and the car sparkled in the late afternoon sun.

  On the east end of the building, the old single-stall wooden garage door was partially rolled up. As I ducked underneath it and walked inside, it was like seeing an old friend. The barn was dimly lit by four fluorescent lights that hung off chains that dropped from the ceiling. The floor was cracked, yellowed concrete that sloped to a drain in stalls number two and three. Oil and paint had been spilled and sprayed on it over the years, and it kind of had the appearance of a speckled bass.

 
; In the first stall Dad’s weathered old fourteen-foot Starcraft sat on the trailer. It had a flat tire, but the boat looked pretty shipshape. The fifteen-horse Evinrude was tilted up on the stern ready for travel. The poles, cushions, and life jackets were stowed neatly in the side bins. The oars were fixed in the locks and tucked inside the fins on the back, and the chain link anchor dangled off the bow. There was a small dent in the starboard side of the hull from when I ran her into the dock one night coming in from bluegill fishing. As I looked at it, I thought, It’s been too long since I’ve taken Dad out fishing.

  In the next stall was a scuffed-up old Honda 90 motorcycle we used to run up and down the two-track when we were younger. Like the boat trailer, it had a flat tire, plus the brake handle was bent, the mustard yellow paint had faded, and the seat was torn and tattered. An open can of Quaker State sat on top, and by my guess it had probably been there for five years or more. Propped up against the side of the cycle was a faded piece of blue plastic with the letters VW on it. It had been part of a Volkswagen lollypop sign we’d had in the car business. Ben said that he wanted to frame it and hang it up at the car lot, but by the looks of it he never got around to it. Next to the Honda was the Lawn-Boy we used to cut down the weeds around the barn and a fire engine–red Radio Flyer wagon with wood rails. Inside the Flyer were a pair of garden gloves, a little trowel, and a three-tined weeder that Mom used to use in her garden.

  In stall number three a Coleman lantern, a blue hand-crank ice auger, and Sharon’s purple Schwinn Stingray bike hung from hooks in the ceiling. Dad’s old workbench stood up against the wall behind them. The top of the bench was made out of a piece of salvaged bowling alley, and he’d made the legs out of four-by-fours. On one end there was a vise bolted on the top and on the other end was an anvil. To say the bench was sturdy was an understatement. On the wall behind the bench there was a four-by-eight piece of pegboard with tools outlined and labeled in Dad’s block-style capital letters. A calendar from the forties with a picture of Betty Grable on it hung from a hook. She was in a bathing suit with her hair stacked up on top of her head, looking back over her shoulder and smiling, and Dad said he put it up there because it reminded him of Mom when she was younger. By a row of screwdrivers on the other end of the bench he’d tacked Mom’s high school graduation picture, and when I saw it I thought, If only he could see her now.