by Chris Fabry
Karin
“Tell me more about him,” Ruthie said one day, turning down the country music station she listened to.
I was trying to forget about Will and move on with my life, but for some reason she wouldn’t let go, so I launched into a spiel about Richard, how I’d met him after some horrible relationships, how he accepted me as I was. She noticed my hesitation, which was always the wrong thing to do with Ruthie. She had an innate sense of when you were giving her your heart, lying through your teeth, or just plain holding back.
She probed again, and to spite her, I guess, I told her of boyfriends past and the vagaries of my dating life. I felt nothing but shame about those years, but Ruthie didn’t seem shocked. It was the first time I had regurgitated the past without someone trying to clean it up or make it pretty. But the more the story gushed, the better it felt, stumbling through piles of my own dirty laundry.
I thought of Ruthie’s belief that women, especially young ones, don’t listen to their gut, that inner voice that tells them something is wrong and needs to change. I suppose I’ve done that a thousand times in little ways, pushing my feelings aside.
“Do you know where those gentlemen are now? Have you ever talked with any of them?”
I laughed. “They’ve probably all moved on to executive positions or jobs with the government. The funny thing is that my parents thought a lot of those guys were knights in shining armor. They couldn’t understand why I married a preacher.”
“They don’t like him?” Ruthie said.
“I guess they’re happy for me, though they don’t understand how we’ll possibly make it on his salary. I tell them that love conquers all, but my mother doesn’t believe it can conquer the mortgage and the MasterCard bill.”
Ruthie bent over Tarin and smiled, as if giving a blessing. Ruthie’s skin looked even more wrinkled next to that baby face. She was such a kind woman, and I wondered if I could ever be thoughtful like her.
“I moved in with my parents after a particularly bad relationship and let them think what they wanted . . . that I needed some direction. I looked at my mother’s cabinet full of pills more than once. But something kept me going.”
“He knew,” Ruthie said. “He was there with you.”
“God?” I said, laughing. “I don’t know if I’ve ever felt as far away from God as during those months. It felt like, ‘You abandoned me. I’ll abandon you.’ I didn’t put much stock in him during that time. Then the preacher came along, and my ship stopped listing. At least for a while. Now I still think God might have abandoned me.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Ruthie said. “Maybe it’s someone you’re not telling me about.”
I excused myself to her bathroom, a quaint, quiet escape. A bouquet of flowers sat haphazardly in front of the mirror. The sink was tiny but elegant, the wallpaper festooned with eagles soaring above the mountains. It would have looked kitsch in any other bathroom in the universe, but it spoke to me of Ruthie here.
She had stitched a quote and framed it with a beautiful, weather-beaten piece of wood. It hung at sight line of the toilet, unavoidable. I wondered if it was there for me or another of her disciples who happened to find themselves sitting there. Words penned by Mark Twain, perfectly positioned.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
The words sank deep, like an injection of adrenaline. I had been afraid so long. After all the empty and broken dreams, I had come to a place where safety was the prize. Could God restore the dream? Could he patch the torn sails of my life, fill them, and push me into deep water?
Will
I had been home a few weeks, searching the want ads each day and going through the process of reclaiming the room of my youth, when I came upon an envelope at the bottom of a dresser. My name was on the front, nothing else. I opened it carefully, finding a baseball card that had survived our bikes—we used to tape them to the spokes to make it sound like we were riding motorcycles.
The card was a Pete Rose rookie, 1963. I examined it and figured it would bring a lot of money to some collector. Rose stared just to the right of the camera, as if he couldn’t bring himself to look at it squarely. Or his attention had been drawn away, or perhaps someone had suggested he look away. He played second base that year and wore the white Reds cap only seen on retro days. He had the boyish look of a man following a dream, unaware that he would garner the most hits in the history of the game, 4,256, and that he would be banned from the Hall of Fame.
Along with the card was a note. My father’s handwriting. A little shaky and slanted to one side, but it was his. I closed the door quickly and sat on the bed.
Will, my son,
I think I managed to keep this from your mother’s eyes, and if you find it in your room, congratulations. She moves my stuff around. My gut tells me she won’t come into your room. She likes to keep things as they were, not as they are, and I can’t say I blame her.
I didn’t want to send this to you because I knew you would need to hear from me when you’re out, and I’m confident that day will come. I’m just not confident I’ll be around. So here goes.
I was never able to give you what you needed when you were young. I’m talking about the words—speaking into your life. They’ve never really been my thing. I don’t know why, but it wasn’t because of you. I guess I didn’t have much for you or Carson, but I’ve learned a lot since you’ve been gone. In fact, I’ve probably learned more through your experience than all the good combined, so I should start by thanking you. You’ve helped change our lives.
You’re probably wondering why I put the Pete Rose card here. It’s because I want you to remember that character counts. You can be the best there ever was at something, but if you have no character, what do you have? On the other hand, if you have very little as far as accomplishments but you have character, well, then you’re all right in my book.
If you’re unsure of where to go and what to do now that Clarkston is behind you, don’t worry. It will come to you. Give yourself time. Good things come to those who wait, as they say. You need a place to heal the broken parts, and I’m hoping home will serve as that place.
If I had to describe what I’ve learned these past few years, and you would probably echo this, I’d call it “a death to illusions.” We all have our preconceived notions of what the world is about and what will make us happy.
At some point, everybody glimpses how hard life really is, and they either go into depression or they throw themselves into the illusion. Despair is what some call it. My guess is, you’ve looked this full in the face and lived with it for a while.
As a young man I chased things that appeared to fulfill or excite me. It took a few years, but life beat the expectation out of me. For some people it never happens. They hang on to what they think life ought to give them. I lost that the day of your sentencing. It was a brutal feeling. I don’t bring it up to punish you but to learn from it.
To be honest, some deaths are good. Some deaths teach that chasing a mirage is useless. The mirage that a job or a car or a house or a person can make you happy. When everything good is taken and you’re left with a fading hope that the world was fashioned by someone who cares and loves you, you begin to understand how much you’ve hung on to what isn’t because you can’t stand the thought of what truly is. I’m not sure I’m making much sense, but I think what I’m saying is true.
You’ve died to the illusion that life is fair and that every story ends happily ever after. That’s why they call them fairy tales. You’ve died to the illusion that you can understand why. None of us knows the answer to that, and those who think they do are the saddest lot of all because they’ve never come to the end of their own understanding. It’s not faith to say that when something painful happens, when you lose and l
ose again and the hurt goes so deep that you don’t think you can take another breath, it’s all going to work out for good. Faith doesn’t explain. It doesn’t even need to know or expect a happy ending. That’s not what we’re promised. Faith is abandoning illusions. It rests in something bigger, something beyond us and our ability. And I suspect you know that now.
There are only a few things I know for sure. One is that I believe in you. That may sound shallow, and to anyone else it would be, but I think you know what I mean. I believe there is another explanation for the awful thing that happened. When you walked away from us and into that courtroom, it seemed to me there was something we didn’t know. One day I’ll find out, but I don’t have to know the truth to say I believe in you. I’m proud to call you my son. I can say that with my head high and my chest out. I’m proud of you.
The other thing I know is that I won’t be here when you return, and that breaks my heart. Some people probably think I dread that day, and we’re ashamed. I won’t lie to you and say it’s easy to feel the stares and hear people whisper, telling their kids who they’re walking by. But I could not care less what those people think about me or you or anything else. They just know us from a picture in the paper and what some newshound printed. The only thing that matters to me after you clean out the barn of life, after you strip away all the illusion, is that I love you. That’s it.
I can’t imagine what you’re thinking as you read this rambling letter. I suppose you’re in your room or on the hill by the trees, and if some developer hasn’t gotten to it, there’s woods that will explode with color come fall. I wish I could be there right now. Maybe I am somehow. It eases the pain a little bit to think that I am.
I do have one prayer for you, Son. One thing in my heart I want to give that I hope you’ll remember. I pray you will let go of what isn’t and hold on to what is. It’s going to be a big adjustment coming back, and there may be part of you that just wants to move on, move away, and start over. If so, I’ll understand. You deserve a fresh start. But no matter where you go, no matter how far away from these hills your path takes you, I hope you’ll let go of the dead things, the illusions, and hang on to the hope you know is true and good and real.
I am so happy to call you my son. I wish we could go to a game together and share a hot dog or two. Possibly a beer if you promised not to tell your mother. Maybe you can take Carson to a game and talk about me and laugh a little.
Never underestimate your heart, Will. Never underestimate the things you can accomplish. You have given a lot, but there are no limits on what love can do through a man with a good heart.
I love you with all of mine.
Daddy
Karin
The spring luncheon came and went without Ruthie. I tried to talk her into sitting on the periphery of the room, but she said her bones ached and she couldn’t “abide” being there. I honestly thought she was trying hard not to disappoint me, but in the end she couldn’t bring herself to face all those people.
“There will be another spring and more luncheons,” she said. “I’ll eventually work up the nerve.”
For someone who could push me into a penitentiary and face a notorious citizen, I was surprised she couldn’t sit and chew on a rubbery piece of chicken, but I guess there are stranger things in the world.
During my waking hours, I poured myself into caring for my family, trying new recipes and dishes, and staying busy. But in the quiet hours, when I was left with my own thoughts and nothing else, I thought of him. These were guilty times. I was responsible for my own thoughts, and if they kept going to him, if my mind kept wandering, something was wrong.
The speaker at the luncheon had shared her story of being depressed and how God had helped her through desperate times when she felt like she was losing her mind. A nice story, but I wanted to ask so many questions. How had God rescued her? What was the process? Did she feel as stifled as I felt in our church? Was there hope? And what if you’re plagued by thoughts of other lovers? Does that make you bad or just normal?
There were nights when I’d drift off, only to wake up in a sweat, having dreamed of Will’s face. I was under his spell, even though I didn’t know what that spell was.
God, I prayed, deliver me. Protect me from myself.
Will
I cleaned everything I could find at home, mowed the hillside and yard, planted some corn and beans in the upper garden, and took my mother for midnight grocery runs to avoid people. After a few weeks I decided I needed something more constructive, something that would pay and keep my parole officer happy.
I had received a modest check from Earl, the man who took away the part of the barn I hadn’t burned. It was enough to begin buying materials for my project. Using my father’s tractor, I graded a road from the barn to the hilltop, winding through the junipers and dogwoods as best I could without taking too many out. Now I needed enough gravel to fill the road, which would take more truckloads than I wanted to think about.
“What are you doing up there all day?” my mother asked after I came home sweaty and hungry and sat down to dinner. She had begun the long decline of widows, making dinners that were supposed to be for others but eating them herself. She cooked fried chicken livers twice a week, and the smell lingered long after.
“Just staying busy,” I said.
“Why don’t you talk with your brother about that job? He said he could find something for you.”
The distance between Carson and me had widened. We both knew it, both felt it. He rarely called to check on her, and when he found out I was doing something on the hill, he called even less frequently.
My mother had long been the safe one of the family. What my father gave me in an adventurous spirit, taking chances and grabbing life by the horns, she had wrestled from me with all her might. She had more reasons not to do things than “Carter’s has pills,” as she would say. Still, I figured if she’d lived this long, unable to change, there was something to be said for that lifestyle. I attributed it to a tenacity of spirit, only in a different, inward direction.
“I was thinking of applying at the radio station,” I said, avoiding her question about Carson. “Is old Seeb still around?”
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do? Be out there in front of the public?”
“You can be pretty anonymous on the radio. Change my name. My voice is different since I worked there as a kid. And Seeb did say some nice things about me at the trial.”
“He did. Didn’t seem to help much, though. Everybody wanted blood, as if enough hadn’t already been spilled.”
We clinked our silverware a few minutes.
“Mrs. Spurlock called earlier and asked about you.”
“She heard anything from Elvis?”
“Not a thing. It doesn’t look good, Will. I think he might be gone.”
“As in gone away or dead?”
She shook her head.
“Didn’t he have a steady job at the Exxon station? He wouldn’t have just left that, would he?”
“That boy was scarred inside and out.”
The Spurlock house sat on a postage-stamp-size lot near the interstate. Shingles hung off the roof. The same cinder blocks I climbed as a kid were used as steps into the house. Attached to the back of the house was Mr. Spurlock’s workshop. Claude had been a perpetual welfare check recipient ever since his accident with a coal company. He coughed like he didn’t want to and drank like he did. He’d fix shoes or carve figurines or do almost anything to pick up extra cash, but black lung got him a few years ago.
Elvis’s truck sat near the house, parked as if it waited for his return. The tires and wheel wells were caked with dried mud. I opened the door and looked inside. It was full of Coke bottles and cans and candy wrappers. Elvis once told me the blast had burned everything but his taste buds. I found a Hustler magazine under the seat. There was nothing else of interest, so I reached to close the door and noticed something on the back of the seat. Little flakes
of dark red, dried, like a watery pizza sauce or something worse.
“Can I help you?” a woman drawled behind me.
I heard the familiar click of a shotgun and turned.
Doris Jean stood in the doorway, propping it open with a shoeless foot. Her hair looked like something had nested in it overnight. She wore a man’s T-shirt with a pocket over the left breast. I immediately recognized her, though she was thinner and older, but she had more trouble with me.
When I spoke her name, she pointed the gun at the ground. “Will? Is that you? Mama, it’s Will Hatfield.”
My mother had told me that Doris Jean was working as a waitress in a bar near Charleston. It was widely believed, she said, that she did more than wait tables, and from the circles under her eyes and deep lines in her face, I believed it. Her eyes looked vacant, and next to her mother she looked skeletal. Of course, next to her mother most people would look skeletal.
“Will, it’s so good of you to come over here,” Mrs. Spurlock said. A cigarette dangled from her mouth, and she waddled out to hug me and kiss me on the cheek. She smelled like a tobacco factory, and I was glad when she pulled away for a better look, her eyes shining. “How long have you been home?”
I knew that my mother had answered every one of her questions about me, so I just smiled and asked if we could go inside.
“Goodness, I haven’t been able to clean up in so long, but come on in. I can get you something to drink if you’d like.”
“I’m fine. Did the police go over Arron’s truck? take a close look at it?”
“I had to go get it from the Exxon station a couple of days after he disappeared,” Doris Jean said. She nodded toward an old Toyota, the bumper nearly rusted off. “Mama won’t let me drive it till we find out what happened.”
Flies seemed to be trying to get out of the house rather than in as we walked through the screen door.
“What happened to your dogs?” I said.