by Chris Cander
Alta only nodded. She wasn’t one to shush someone out of her pain.
“And Gabriel …” Lidia pressed her hand over her mouth and shook her head again. “Eagan never knew … I’m so ashamed. Alta, I’m so ashamed to tell you this … There were things I had to do …”
But here, Alta interrupted. She crossed the room and sat down next to her and took her hand. “Stop, now. Whatever it is, if it shames you to tell it, then just stop. You don’t need to tell me anything.”
“I’ve never told anybody.”
“Then no need to start now.”
“But it’s awful! I tried to tell Father Timothy over at St. Michael’s but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t make the words come out. But I just keep thinking: Shouldn’t I tell somebody the truth?”
Alta held Lidia away from her with both hands and looked at her, this young girl, and thought of her own set of long-entombed truths, her own coal-covered burden of shame. They were as much a part of Alta now as anything else. To excavate them would do nothing but spread disgrace and cause discomfort. She doubted her burden would be lightened after that. Her voice came out soft. “What purpose would it serve?”
“What?” Lidia pulled back.
Alta sighed and dropped her hands into her lap. “Whatever truth it is you’re talking about, what good would it do anyone to know it? You’re a good girl. A good mother, wife. A good friend. Your family loves you.” She smiled. “I love you. What’s past is past. You start telling people things they don’t really need to know, you’ll just end up giving them fodder for gossip.”
“But what if what happened was the truth?”
“People learn to live with their own versions of the truth,” Alta said. “You have to ask yourself if what you say is going to help people, or hurt them.”
Lidia’s eyes were pleading. “But shouldn’t we always be honest? Isn’t that the right thing to do?”
Alta interlaced her fingers and met Lidia’s eyes with a sad smile, then lifted one shoulder, just barely, a gesture that was not quite a question, but not quite an answer either.
April 23, 1969
“I heard he sees visions.”
“Susan told me he can read minds.”
“You think he sees ghosts? Marian said he can talk to ghosts.”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“Sure there is, you damn old fool.”
“Then I wonder if he can tell me where Daddy buried the money.”
“Some say he’s a prophet.”
“More like the Devil. Ain’t nobody supposed to be able to see into the future.”
“Stop it now, all of you. What if he really is a prophet? Bible says ‘I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.’ What if it’s the Lord’s words coming out of that little boy’s mouth?”
“I ain’t never heard him say anything like outright prophesy.”
“How do you know what’s prophesy and what ain’t? Modern-day prophets, like what’s in the Bible, tell the truth about what’s happening in morality and religion. They’re truth-tellers, you’d say. Anybody heard that boy saying anything but what’s truthful?”
“It just ain’t natural, him knowing things. And the way he looks at folks, all plain-eyed and … calm, like he’s grown.”
“He’s a beautiful child.”
“That child ain’t a child.”
“Come on now, hear? He is a child. He’s a sweet little baby. His mama goes over to the Catholic church least once a week. They’s good people. Everybody knows her daddy, Stanley, since the earth cooled. Somebody just got their imagination all fired up and started all this fool talk. Ain’t nothing to it.”
“I don’t know about all that. I know Stanley fine. He’s an honorable man and a good worker. Took on the job of running the mine after the explosion in ’fifty. Lord knows that man’s got ghosts aplenty without having to think about his own grandson seeing any. His son was touched and then he lost his wife. Then his boy died in ’Nam. Now people’s talking about his grandbaby like he’s the Devil and what’s anybody supposed to think about that? People just need to mind their own, you ask me.”
“Nobody asked you.”
May 24, 1969
Danny could hear the phone ringing all the way from the backyard, where he was repairing part of the fence that had gone to rot with all the spring rains. According to the guys over at the lumberyard, it was over seven inches last month alone. Gabriel helped by handing him nails while Lidia pulled weeds from the vegetable garden. The late-afternoon sun lit everything in a sultry, lambent gold. The cucumbers demanded attention, taking over the less aggressive tomatoes and bell peppers. Lidia had suggested installing a trellis so they could go up instead of out, which Danny promised to do as soon as he’d finished and repainted the fence. There would be plenty of time for such small repairs. The house was sound, the garden flourished, they were happy.
He tossed his hammer aside and wiped his forehead as he trotted into the kitchen, where he picked up the phone and stretched the cord to get a glass of water. “Hello?”
“Danny. Stanley here.”
Danny put down his glass and wiped his mouth. He straightened his back without even realizing it. “Afternoon, Mr. Kielar. Hold the phone, I’ll get Lidia for you.”
“Wait. I’m not calling for Lidia. I’m calling … I’m wondering if you’d be able to come down to the the Shelter for a spell. I got something I need to talk to you about. Thinking maybe it’s best said over a beer or two.”
Danny shifted his weight, glanced out the window at his wife, her strong back bent over a thatch of green. “I guess that’d be all right. What time you thinking of going down?”
“Time is it now?”
Danny peered into the living room at the grandfather clock. “Not quite five.”
“I suppose Lidia still feeds everybody early. You’ll be done with supper by six-thirty, tops. See you down the Shelter around seven.”
Danny heard the line click and return to that empty, low-frequency tone that sounded like a desperately lost insect. “See you then,” he said into the hum.
An old Scot named Goudie ran the Shelter, a dark place with a long bar and a row of booth seats along the west wall. Some old chessboards that had belonged to somebody in Goudie’s family got some fair play in the early evenings.
“Danny,” Stanley said, nodding, when Danny slid into the bench seat across from him.
“Mr. Kielar.”
“Stanley.”
“Stanley.”
“What’ll you have?”
“Beer, I s’pose.”
Stanley reached up to signal Goudie, who returned a moment later with a couple of Pabst Blue Ribbons and set them down on cardboard coasters.
After at least three long slugs, Danny finally broke the silence. “You wanted to talk to me about something?”
“I guess you know there’s been some talk.” He looked, eyebrows up, expectant. “About your boy.”
Danny leaned back into the buttoned vinyl seat. “Yeah, I’ve heard things.”
“What’ve you heard?”
“Small talk. Petty talk. About the way he speaks sometimes.” He shrugged. “I don’t give it a thought.”
Patting his pocket for a pack of cigarettes, Stanley took a moment to tap one out and light it, drawing on the smoke as if he was waiting for something to happen.
“It’s not nothing,” Stanley said. “What people are thinking.”
“It is nothing. Just small-town gossip. When we moved here from New Jersey, my mama warned me that small towns are like that. Everybody makes everything their own business. Mountains out of molehills, she always said.”
“It’s gone past gossip, Danny. Gossip’s just idle talk. Women’s talk. What folks are saying now has fear behind it. It’s got some impact.”
“I’ve heard it, Mr. Kielar. Stanley. People saying things about him being able to tell futures and such. That he knows certain things. He c
an see ghosts and tell things people don’t want told.”
“That’s right. Like I said, that’s not nothing.”
“But it is nothing, hear? Because Gabe can’t do any of that. He’s just a little kid. He just says what’s on his mind is all. Nothing more to it than that.”
“I’m not saying what my grandson can do and what he can’t. I’m just repeating what other folks been saying.”
“He’s three years old.”
“Going on four.”
“No difference, he’s a baby. He doesn’t know tomorrow from yesterday.”
“Not according to a lot of townsfolk. They’re talking about him like he’s some kind of prophet. Or the Devil, depending on who’s speaking. Lidia ain’t told you about any of this? People coming by the house during the day, wanting their futures told, asking questions?”
“She told me. She hasn’t let anybody talk to him, of course. If I’d been home I’d have seen to it they never came back. I told her, anybody ever comes by again like that, send for me and I’ll break shift.”
“It’s not just people coming by the house.” Stanley looked at him level and unflinching for several seconds, then blinked before taking a long draw on his cigarette. His fingers trembled enough to send ash floating to the table.
“What is it, then?” Danny crossed his arms and leaned back into his seat.
“Old Pops Larsen said he was going to see if Gabe could tell him what ever happened to Liam Magee,” Stanley said, lowering his voice. “Said if he could find him, he’d want to string him up by the toenails and beat him until he told the truth about the mine accident in ’fifty. Lot of guys died in that explosion, you know. Everybody thinks it was Liam who did it, but since they never found him after, there’s still plenty of folks who’d like to know exactly what happened. Even more who’d like to see him hang.”
“How would Gabe know that?” Danny’s voice was sharp.
“Hold it down, now. Nobody needs to be overhearing this,” Stanley admonished, shushing him with his hand, a thread of cigarette smoke whipping between them. “Sissy Borasky evidently was looking after Gabe when Lidia was over there helping Peggy with something and Gabe told her there was something shiny under the hydrangea bushes alongside her house. He couldn’t even see the bushes from where he was sitting, she said, but she went out anyway and didn’t see anything so she went back inside. Said Gabe was insistent about there being something there. Curiosity got hold of her — she’s heard the stories, too, of course — and so she dug up that whole row of hydrangeas that’d been growing there lord knows how long and damn if she didn’t find a cigar box full of gold coins her daddy won in a poker game and buried to keep her mother from spending it. He died before he ever told them where it was. And so according to Sissy, it was Gabe who solved the mystery of it.”
“He could have been talking about a shovel! Or a nail or a gum wrapper! Could have been anything.”
“But it wasn’t just anything, see?” Stanley took another drag.
“So are you saying you believe all this nonsense? You really think Gabriel … knows things?” he asked.
“I don’t know if I believe it or not,” Stanley said with a sigh, looking down at the space where his finger had once been. “But in case he does …” He looked back up. “Danny, you’re a good man. You’re a good worker and a good father and I appreciate you taking care of my Liddie like you have. But in case what they’re saying about Gabe is true, you need to take him and Lidia and go.” He took a long swig and set his mug down hard.
“Go? What are you talking about, go? Go where?”
“Go back to where your people are. New York or New Jersey or wherever. Anywhere. Kentucky. Ohio. Anywhere. But you need to take them away. Get them out of Verra for a bit, maybe a couple years, give him time to … grow out of it. Or for people’s concerns to die down. I’m telling you,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not good for you here right now.”
Danny pushed his mug a few inches away. “Stanley, I have to tell you, you sound as crazy as the rest of them. Gabe’s just a regular kid, normal as Lidia and me.”
“I know things you don’t know,” Stanley said, in a voice husky and close to a whisper. He raised an eyebrow at the table, tapped the ash off his cigarette, then looked up at Danny.
“What things?”
“If there’s a chance — just a tiny chance — that Gabriel knows … things, or can tell the future, or the past … then there’s cause to protect him.”
“So what if he can tell something that’s already passed? Who cares about that?”
“Everybody,” he said. “Everybody cares about what’s passed. Everybody! Don’t you want to know what happened before your daddy died? And your mama? Don’t you want to know what guilt they owned? What secrets they took on with ’em to the grave? People always want to know the truth. They never rest completely without it.”
“Well?” Danny shrugged. “What’s wrong with knowing the truth? Not saying Gabe knows the truth about anything except the sun’s going to come up in the morning. But so what if folks think he does?”
“So what?” Stanley said. “So what if the truth is something you don’t want shared? What if the truth would change everybody’s thinking about what’s done and gone? People come to terms with things, then maybe somebody comes along and tells them something different and all of a sudden they have to change their view? And what if what really happened is a whole lot different than what people assumed? There’s responsibility in that.” Stanley looked down again. “That’s asking a lot. Of everybody.”
“And now you’re asking a lot of me to take my family off to God-knows-where just because a few people are scared he might say something they don’t want everybody to know. I mean, what could he say that would justify us leaving home? What’s the worst that could happen? So what if somebody gets shamed by something? Maybe they’d deserve it.”
“You don’t get it.”
Danny shrugged, then sat up straighter against the seat. “No, I s’pose I don’t.”
“Then let me tell you something that might make you see things a little clearer,” Stanley said in a low voice that sounded like thunder and fear at the same time. He took another long swig of beer and set it down, quiet and precise.
“I never told anybody this,” Stanley said. “I didn’t intend to tell you now, but you don’t seem budged by me pointing out the risks to you keeping my daughter and grandson here. There’s something else …” He paused. “There’s something that if it got out, it could get me hanged. Something I did. But nobody knew it was me who did it. I let somebody else take the blame for it, though, because in the end, it wasn’t something I meant to do. It was an accident, really, even though it didn’t start out that way.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “After it was done, I couldn’t tell anybody what really happened. I kept it buried like a seam of coal all these years. Let the weight of time hold it down deep, and now, if it was to get dug up and hauled out into the light …” Stanley dropped his head back against the seat pad and looked dull-eyed at Danny. “If I was found out, people would want me gone or dead or both — and my family with me. They’d never want to lay eyes again on anyone related to Stanley Kielar by blood or marriage.”
Danny leaned forward, his wide eyes reflecting the candlelight like a boy sitting by a campfire, equally scared and riveted by the ghost stories being told. “What’d you do?” he whispered.
“About five months after Eagan got sick with the meningitis, we knew he’d never be the same. I blamed myself, you know. One day I’d come home and my wife said he’d woken up from his nap irritable and lethargic. She worried about him enough to want to take him to the doctor, but I didn’t. I checked on him, patted him on the head. He said to me, ‘My neck hurts, Daddy,’ but even then I figured he just had a regular fever, even though he’d had it a few days already. It’d been a long day, and I figured he’d be all right. Next day, though, the fever hadn’t broken and Eagan acted conf
used, and if he tried to move his neck he cried, so we took him down to see Doc Bartlett, who said we needed to get him to the hospital in Charleston. Doc rode with us, sat in the back with Anna, holding Eagan across their laps while I drove. It took me twice as long as it would’ve otherwise because of a hailstorm.” He stopped, letting his memory idle for a moment, helpless, next to his young son’s hospital bed. He tried not to let his voice crack when he said, “I never did forgive myself for not taking him down the night before. I should’ve put my boots right back on that minute and carried him down. I found out later it might’ve turned out different if I had.”
Danny wondered about the last time Gabriel had had a fever. He always deferred to Lidia in such cases; he tended to assume — right or wrong — things would work themselves out. “How could you have known?” he said, suddenly aware of how vulnerable they all were to the things they didn’t know.
“I looked back on it and thought I should’ve, somehow. And then they told us he was most likely going to be retarded for the rest of his life, and the bills came, and Anna started worrying about how we were going to take care of him. So I came up with a plan. Which is the part that nobody knows. I was going to do something that would make sure Anna and Eagan and Lidia — who was only a year old at the time — would be set up with enough money so they could leave Verra and move someplace where Anna could get help for Eagan. Because all I know is mining coal. I didn’t have any other ideas about how to get us all out of here together and into a city with a real hospital if Eagan needed one, or a special type of school. So this plan I had would take care of them, and also take care of me. It was supposed to deliver me from my guilt. But instead, it only made it worse.”
Danny had always thought the reason Stanley acted so reserved and remote, serious and older than he should have been, was because of Eagan, but he didn’t know exactly why. Now, watching him wrestle with the past, Danny wasn’t sure he wanted to witness his father-in-law mine the depths of his own shameful history. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the reasons for all the lines on Stanley’s face.