by Jessica Pack
Steve had found the comment naïve when Robbie said it, but he hadn’t been able to dismiss it. Steve had chosen to leave and he was still miserable. Could he choose to go back and be happy? Could he be as good a parent as Rachelle was? What Robbie had said felt like truth. Felt possible. He turned his cup a quarter turn. “I called their mom and she agreed to let me see my kids—she said we’d work out the child support, but my kids needed me. I’d never been much of a dad, even before I left, and I was scared to death that I would make a bigger mess than ever, but Robbie had made it seem simple, and if I could enjoy hanging with my own kids as much as I liked hanging with your kid, well . . .” He looked at the ring on his finger again. “Robbie had teased me about the ring from the start. He said rings were for girls and why was I still wearing that girly thing, but this ring was pretty much the only thing from my past life that I still had. I think I was hoping something would come my way that would restore me to that carefree football player who didn’t have any worries or responsibilities, who hadn’t broken hearts or promises. Robbie helped me realize that wasn’t going to happen, but I could choose differently and stop whining. I quit the landscape job in order to come here—to Florence, where Rachelle was living with our boys. Before I left Sioux Falls, I gave Robbie the ring as a token of a promise I made to myself that day—that I would do better. High school, up to that point, was the best part of my life. Only I could change that.” He looked across the counter between them. Amanda was crying, soft and silent as she wiped at her cheeks. Her emotion thickened the lump in Steve’s throat, but he didn’t let it stop him. Not all tears were bad ones. “It wasn’t easy, but I became a presence in my boys’ lives. I got a job in the parts department of a local car dealership and I’ve worked my way up to manager. Rachelle offered to reduce the child support I owed her, and I was able to pay it off in a few years. I haven’t missed a birthday party or ball game unless I couldn’t get the time off work. I bought my condo a few years ago—first time I’ve ever been a homeowner—and I did all of that, in part at least, because of your son.”
“My son the murderer.” Her eyes went wide as though she hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but Steve didn’t flinch.
“Your son,” Steve said.
Tears rose to her eyes again and she blinked, looking to the side and wiping quickly at the corners.
He looked down at the ring again, hoping to give her a little more privacy. “It’s been funny, getting this ring back.” He turned it so that it caught the fluorescent light in the ceiling. “My son asked me about it and I talked about high school—I haven’t ever talked about high school with him.” He looked up at her. “I’ve lived my life in the present since I came back, afraid of looking behind me and afraid of looking to the right or left for fear I might fall off this path I am so determined to stay on. But now I’m wearing this ring, and people ask about it and I talk about a part of my life that was wonderful, but I thought I had to shut out. I told Coach that I’m trying to live in the now, and I am, but thinking back to the past again helps me look at the future different, too—bringing everything together.”
He looked up at Amanda and something passed between them, something he couldn’t explain other than it being . . . a feeling. “Thank you for returning the ring—it completed a circle for me.”
“Thank you, Mr. Mathis, for coming and for telling me that story about Robbie and returning the chip. I will . . . treasure it.”
“I did have a question for you, though,” Steve said.
She was wary again, though not as steeped in it as she’d been when she’d pulled open the front door.
“What’s the secret ingredient of your chicken fried steak?”
Tears welled into her eyes and she put a hand to her mouth. After a moment, she lowered it. “Robbie told you about my chicken fried steak?”
Steve nodded. “Raved about it. Said you made it better than anyone—even restaurants.” He raised his eyebrows when he said “restaurants,” mimicking Robbie’s teenaged awe.
She laughed, but it came out mixed with a sob. She took a deep breath and shook her head.
“Does that mean you’re not going to tell me?”
She laughed again, a real laugh. “Mustard powder,” she said, lifting her shoulders. “I put a little bit of mustard powder in the breading. That’s all.”
“Genius. Was Robbie’s favorite color blue, or am I making that up?”
She wiped at her eyes again. “Bright blue, like on a Nestlé Crunch bar, not navy or baby blue.”
“Right,” Steve said, nodding. “I remember that. And he didn’t root for the Cavs.”
“Sorry, he was a Celtics fan.”
Steve winced as though the knowledge was physically painful. She laughed, then went silent, her smile falling. “I don’t talk about Robbie to anyone, Steve. Ever.”
“I understand,” Steve said. “I didn’t talk about the past for a really long time, and then I did. And it was okay. It was even . . . good.”
“Not the same, though, is it?”
He held her eyes, then shook his head but didn’t look away. Not the same, not hardly, but . . . “Still might be good to talk about him, though.”
She folded her arms and looked at the hardwood floor. “Robbie’s Sunday School teacher did an interview for one of the tabloids. The parents of the girl he took to prom sold the pictures. My sister-in-law started a blog where she reported the details of his trial, peppered with stories from his childhood.” Amanda looked up at him, but he could see a wanting there. She wanted to trust him, she wanted to feel safe. How on earth could he assure her?
Steve took off the ring and put it on the counter between them. They both looked at it. “I have no agenda. I hold no judgment. The boy I knew helped me. As my ex-wife would say, he ‘blessed my life.’” He paused, debating what else to say until he realized there was no reason to hold back. Not when she was so close to telling him to leave forever. He looked at her face and waited until she met his eyes. “I’ve read everything I could find about Robert Mallorie these last few weeks. He’s not the young man I knew. Nothing can change what he did, I know that, nor the lives his actions affected, including yours, but I’m totally cool with thinking of Robbie. That’s the only version I knew.”
She closed her eyes in an almost pained kind of blink.
28
Amanda
Twenty-seven minutes
Amanda opened her eyes to see this man, a stranger, who had found her even though she was hiding. She still wasn’t sure why he’d done it, but he was comfortable with who Robbie had been. He had a past and heartache and found a way to live again, and live well—the exact thing Robbie had told her to do in his letter. Amanda had thought a lot about Robbie’s comment about counting time—her life had reset the day he took that gun to the Cotton Mall, and then the count had reset again the day the State of South Dakota killed him. Every day for two weeks she’d woken up with the memory of how long it had been since her son had been dead. She was tired of trying to make sense of what had gone wrong, worn-out from looking for some magic bean that would put all the hurt to rest. There was no magic bean, no trick to make it all better, not even Robbie’s letter had been the salve she longed for, though it had helped immensely to hear his hopes for her future. But what if she could stop trying to make sense of everything? What if she stopped putting Robbie and Robert Mallorie together as one person? Maybe the dark would go away and the flickering light that had been getting a little bit bigger within her would grow bigger. Maybe that, more than anything, would help her live the way Robbie had wanted her to.
“Are you hungry, Amanda?” Steve asked, causing her to look up at him again. He had put the ring back on his pinkie finger and laced his fingers together on top of the counter. “You haven’t been in Cincinnati long, so you probably don’t know about Randal’s Diner.”
Amanda smiled. “Their corn chowder was amazing.”
His shoulders fell, but her mood lightened.
/> “My daughter and her husband took me there my first night in town.” The same day Amanda had met Steve, in fact. The man she was only going to see that one time but who had found her somehow and didn’t make her as nervous as other people did. “But I haven’t been there since.”
“Did you have the Portobello ravioli?”
She shook her head.
“Would you like to? We could have dinner and you can tell me about Robbie.”
Robbie had given this man motivation to make his own life better. Steve’s children had him in their life, which meant that if Robbie had never been born, or if that sledding accident had been worse than it was, Steve’s life would be worse too. The ripples of Robbie’s actions that day at the mall would never end, she knew that, and people would continue to suffer. But there was a different kind of ripple effect happening, too—one of goodness and hope. A rush of wind seemed to move out from the center of her chest, a letting go of something tight and confining. She could love her son and be glad for the years of joy he’d brought her. She could.
Steve was still holding her eyes. Amanda took hold of all the courage she could find hiding in the nooks and crannies of her head and chest. She allowed her shoulders to relax and her smile to lose any remaining stiffness. She could see in his eyes that he noticed the change. His eyes softened; his smile stretched a bit wider.
“I would like to try the ravioli and talk about Robbie, Steve. I would like that very, very much.”
29
Steve
One year, eight months, fourteen days
Steve finished getting ready for work and headed to the kitchen, where he could smell coffee—Amanda always brewed the pot while he took a shower. The kitchen was empty, so he filled his “Just Married” mug, added a little cream, and then headed toward the French doors that led out onto the patio of their bungalow-style house in the Walnut Hills area of Cincinnati. They were ten minutes from Melissa’s family and half an hour from Max and Rachelle in Florence. There were two extra bedrooms for when his other boys came to visit and plenty of honey-do tasks to keep Steve busy. Amanda had a flower garden, an enclosed backyard, and had recently been invited to join a neighborhood book group by the lady next door, who knew exactly who Amanda was.
From the inside of the French doors, Steve watched Amanda sip her coffee while looking at the pygmy Japanese maple tree they’d planted above Robbie’s ashes last spring. Beauty had risen from ashes, literally, since then. Life for death. Hope for heartache. A living tribute to the boy he’d been.
Steve turned back to the house, letting her have her moment. He went back into the kitchen, made scrambled eggs for both of them, and was dividing their breakfast onto two plates when he heard the squeak of hinges and looked up in time to smile at the woman he’d fallen in love with against all odds. Because of a feeling. And courage.
“Hey there,” he said, bringing the plates over to the Shaker table they’d found while antique-hunting a few months ago. He put the plate in front of her and then leaned in for a kiss. She placed her hand against his cheek so that he didn’t pull back too soon.
“Hey yourself,” she said as he went around to his side of the table. “This looks wonderful.”
“Well, eggs are easy,” he said with a shrug.
He glanced casually at the montage of photos on the wall behind her—Max’s most recent family picture, taken when Kassie was seven months’ pregnant with their now-newest grandchild, Ellen. Rachelle and Mitch from their ten-year wedding anniversary almost a year ago now, Melissa and her family right after Mason was born. There were several pictures from their earlier years, too—Steve with his boys when Garrett was just a baby, and Robbie’s cross-country photo from his junior year. Steve and Amanda had managed to combine two pasts and make a future.
Last month the law firm in Sioux Falls that had represented Robert Mallorie had forwarded Amanda a letter. The young man who wrote it had been paralyzed by a bullet; his dad had been killed. In the letter, he explained that he was engaged and making peace with his past by finally responding to a letter Amanda had written his mother a few months after the shooting. Amanda had cried and cried over that letter, then put it in the little jewelry box Robbie had made in high school—the same box where she stored Robbie’s last letter and the Christmas card Steve had sent to Coach, which had brought her to him that first time. There was also a printed e-mail in the box from a man named Ken, whose daughter had also been one of Robbie’s victims. His wife had not handled their daughter’s death well and recently passed away without finding solace, but he wanted Amanda to know that he had forgiven Robbie and held no ill will against Amanda. He apologized for waiting so long to write to her—he’d hoped it would be something he and his wife could do together once his wife had found some healing—but that day had not come. He wished Amanda a happy future. Steve was humbled to be a part of that wished-for happiness.
“Lucy’s birthday party tonight?” Steve asked when he looked away from the photos to focus on Amanda again. She’d cut her hair short and colored it a darker red, more like it was in the photos with her kids when they were little. She tucked a lock behind one ear, the morning light catching the baby pink polish of her fingernails. They’d gone to Decaturville last week and Amanda had met up with the woman who had helped her find Coach Miller that day she came looking for Steve. They’d gone out for manicures, and Amanda had remarked how wonderful it was to have friends again.
“Dinner is at six, cake and ice cream at seven in case you don’t get out of work in time. I can hardly believe she’s four years old already.”
Steve winked at her and reached across the table to give her hand a squeeze. “With a future as wide as the sky.”
She laughed and squeezed his hand back. “Someday it will only be a window.”
“Then let’s hope it has a fabulous view.”
A READING GROUP GUIDE
AS WIDE AS THE SKY
Jessica Pack
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included to enhance
your group’s reading of Jessica Pack’s
As Wide as the Sky.
Discussion Questions
1. Each chapter begins with a timer—minutes, hours, days, months, and years—meant to show a “reset” point in each life of the point-of-view character in that chapter. Were you able to pinpoint what the reset point was for any of the characters?
2. Do you have a “reset” point of your own life?
3. The Kübler-Ross stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Can you match these stages with any of the characters in this story?
4. Did any of the characters in this story particularly stand out to you?
5. Were there any of the secondary characters in this story you would have liked to learn more about?
6. How has your life been affected by forgiveness, either as the giver or the receiver?
7. Do you think you could remain as close to your child as Amanda stayed with Robbie if he or she committed such a heinous crime?
8. How much of Robert Mallorie’s crime do you feel was due to his mental illness, and how much because of the choices he made?
9. Have you experienced trauma in your life? If yes, how do you feel it has changed you? How have you found healing?
10. Optional Question: What are your feelings regarding capital punishment?
Read on for an excerpt
from Jessica Pack’s next novel,
Whatever It Takes
The paper sheet crinkled as Sienna lay back on the exam table per the doctor’s instructions. She stared at the fluorescent lights in the ceiling and imagined that the long breaths she was taking would pull calm over the fear like a tarp over the back of Daddy’s pickup.
It will be okay, she told herself. She wished someone else were saying it. Holding her hand. Kissing her forehead. But she’d needed to come alone.
“Sienna is a pretty name,” Dr. Sheffield said in a coffee-sh
op-conversation tone.
“Thank you.” Inhale. Exhale.
“Wasn’t there a Seinfeld episode about a girl named Sienna?” Dr. Sheffield pulled back the right side of the paper gown Sienna had put on five minutes earlier—opening in front, per the nurse’s instruction.
“Yeah.”
“Lift your right arm over your head, please.”
Sienna raised her arm, bending at the elbow so that it curled around her head resting on that paper sheet. The doctor began the breast exam while the nurse stood like a centurion in the corner of the room to insure propriety, Sienna assumed. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to have fewer people looking at her half-naked self?
“Wasn’t the episode about George dating a crayon?” the doctor continued.
“Yeah.” Sienna and Tyson had found the episode a few years ago after yet one more person had brought up the reference to her name.
“So, Sienna is a color?”
“Yeah.”
“Reddish brown?”
“Yeah.” Dad had always said it was the color of sunset in the fall, when sunlight had depth and shadows were solid. Tyson had compared it to the red dirt in Hawaii where they’d taken their honeymoon a million years ago.
Dr. Sheffield’s movements became slower, focused on the upper part of Sienna’s right breast and confirming that the lump wasn’t some macabre figment of Sienna’s imagination. Sienna began anxiously reciting the poem she’d memorized in the fourth grade.