Digging to China

by Louise Corum

  There was a time when he’d planned to travel and he and his mother had sat down and talked about it. She’d told him he’d have a trust at twenty-one and she wanted him to go places and that she knew she wouldn’t be around forever to take care of Elka. She wanted him to go before he had to take on this responsibility. “After that, you know that I’ll have to depend on you, John. You know that, right?”

  “I do, Mother,” he told her.

  “And of course, you’ll have to take over the business, too,” she said. “Those men in there will rob us blind if someone from the family is not watching them. As soon as you can, you have to start work, John, and gain back control.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “You poor father didn’t work so hard to let that damned board of directors and those accountants take everything over,” she said. “I fight with them every week, but I’m not a man and they’ll never respect me. You have to be a man, John. I’m sorry but you have to grow up sooner rather than later. But before you have to do all this, I do want you to travel, honey. Maybe after you graduate high school you can take the summer and go overseas.”

  But she’d gotten sick over the summer and by the winter she was dead. On her deathbed, he’d taken her hand and started to cry.

  “Oh, honey,” she said and shook her head at him. “Don’t you cry for me. I don’t need your tears.”

  “I don’t want you to die, though,” he cried.

  “I don’t much want to either,” she said and tried to laugh. She managed to smile at him and said, “John, you know what I’m about to ask, don’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “Take care of Elka, John,” she said. “She’s your only kin. She’s your blood and she needs you more than anything. Please don’t put her away. She would perish in an institution. Promise me, John, promise me that.”

  “I promise,” he said.

  And now he’d broken that promise. He uttered, “I’m sorry, Mother.” He thought he could hear her whisper in his ear, “I know, honey.”

  He was startled out of his thoughts and suddenly remembered that he was driving and had almost plowed into another car. He jerked the steering wheel right and shook himself, then sped up, passed the car and flew to the factory.

  As he came into the office, he was shocked to find Kathleen at her desk, putting things into a cardboard box. At first he was so happy to see her, he wanted to pull her into a deep hug, but then he remembered last night. She glanced up at him, grimaced, then went back to packing.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. “It’s late and also Saturday.”

  “I don’t care what time it is or what day it might be,” she said. “Besides, I don’t reckon I can work here anymore and I just wanted to get my things. That’s all. I’ll be out of your way soon enough.”

  “Why can’t you work here anymore?” John asked.

  “You know why!” she exclaimed and shook her head. “Just let me get my things and I’ll go.”

  They stared at each other in silence for a long moment and John felt something shift. He couldn’t name it, but something definitely happened. As he stared into her eyes, he realized this was the defining moment in his life. This moment was the moment he’d been waiting for. His life was changed for good. He received the moment and took full advantage of it.

  He took the things out of the box and shook his head. “No, you’re not leaving. I want you to come to my house.”

  “What?”

  He nodded and quickly thought of a good excuse for his irrational behavior. “I just panicked, that’s all. I just got a little overwhelmed, that’s all. I was stupid. I didn’t mean any of it and I hope you can understand that. I told you, I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve never been with a woman like this for any length of time. It’s new to me and sometimes I don’t know how to act.”

  “You’re not pulling my leg, are you?” she asked and leaned back to stare at him.

  “No,” he said and smiled at her. “Can you forgive me?”

  She continued to stare at him as if qualifying his sincerity.

  “Can we move forward?” he asked, hoping she’d allow that and promising himself he would never, ever, hurt her again.

  A slow smile came to her lips and she nodded slightly. He grinned and grabbed her into a deep hug and pulled her close. She went with him and put her arms around his neck.

  “John, let me tell you something, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said and pressed his face into her hair, breathing in its nice clean scent.

  “If you ever do me that way again, I’ll kill you.”

  He laughed and shook his head at her.

  “I mean it,” she said and then giggled. “Oh, you feel so good, John. I missed you so much.”

  “I missed you, too,” he said and pulled her closer.

  “Let’s don’t ever fight again.”

  “Fine by me,” he said and, as he hugged her tight, he thought of Elka and he prayed, really, really prayed that she was as at peace right then.

  Over the Next Few Years

  It wasn’t long before John proposed. Kathleen accepted, immediately quit her job and began to plan the wedding. After that, it was time to meet her large family. They welcomed him with open arms, good-natured slaps on the back and fresh apple pie. They became his family and for the first time in his life, he felt like he belonged somewhere and wasn’t just passing by in the shadows, hoping no one stopped to talk to him. They were so proud that Kathleen had brought him into the family, proud that an esteemed member of society, a factory owner, no less, was now marrying one of their own. John loved the feeling of camaraderie they gave him and even looked forward to going to dinners and having them over to the house, as well. They were a rambunctious group who were always making jokes and poking fun but always sticking by each other, as Kathleen’s father had told him one day, through thick and thin. So this is what normal looks like, John thought to himself as he became integrated into the family unit. They were a normal, big happy family. John liked them immensely and was grateful to Kathleen for giving him this, this sense of family. He only wished that Elka had been alive and well enough to share in it with him.

  After the wedding, which was a lavish and exhausting affair, John began to think about putting the old house up for sale. He’d taken down all of the old photographs of his family and had stored them in the attic, along with some of the old furniture and all of Elka’s things from her room. He’d had the house cleaned and all of the repairs done. He was ready to sell it and move on.

  “Why?” Kathleen asked. “It’s such a beautiful house. We can live here.”

  “We’ll buy a new house,” he said and looked around the old sitting room. “This place is too big for us.”

  “Oh, no, John,” she said and smiled. “This one has so much… What’s the word? Pizzazz?”

  He smiled at her. Pizzazz wasn’t the right word, but it tickled him that she’d used it. But then, everything about her tickled him. And sometimes made him blush. She had that power over him, that womanly power. But looking at her, in her ignorant bliss, she probably thought he had that manly power over her.

  “Come on,” she said. “It will be fun to snazz it up a little.”

  So, he conceded. They moved into the house together and Kathleen took it upon herself to restore it to its previous glory. He allowed her to do that, to spend all the money she wanted to on the house. It was hers now, too. And he had the money to do it. John had worked for years and had only bought the bare necessities. He had never really had a desire for anything new and expensive. Now it was time to spend some of the money he’d saved over the years.

  The restoration of the house took a few years. He’d told Kathleen it would, but she’d plowed forward, thinking he was just trying to discourage her to get her to move to someplace new. Halfway in, she realized what she’d undertaken and grew weary. But he told her that she couldn’t stop now, that they were at a point where it had to be finished. A year or
so after that, it was and the house looked clean, shiny and new. It was refreshed and John even began to like it again, thinking of the times when he was a small boy running through the place and skidding around the wood floors in his socks. He imagined his future children doing that, too.

  One day he approached her with the idea. “Kathleen, have you thought about children?”

  She smiled and said, “I have. I was wondering if we’d ever get around to discussing this.”

  He smiled at her. He could tell that she was ready for a baby. He was ready for a baby, too. He glanced out the window of the kitchen and stared at Elka’s grave. It had sunken in a little and he made a note to get some fill dirt. He said a quick prayer for her, for her soul, and once again asked God’s forgiveness for what he had done.

  Kathleen came up behind him and slipped her arms around his waist then whispered in his ear, “I’m ready whenever you are, John.”

  Then everything disappeared out of his mind. He turned to her and kissed her, holding her tight and praying that he would be a good father. Nine months later, he found out when his son was born.

  When the doctor came out of the delivery room and told him it was a boy, he called the factory and told them to hand out the cigars he’d bought and then gave everyone the day off. Then he was led into the room where Kathleen was sound asleep, a nurse holding his child by her bed.

  “Is she okay?” John asked the nurse.

  “She’s still a little under,” she told him and smiled. “Want to see the little fella?”

  John smiled and nodded. He couldn’t wait to hold him. The nurse slipped the child into his arms, gave him a quick pat on the shoulder, and then excuse herself, leaving them alone.

  As he held the tiny baby into his arms for the first time, he became so overwhelmed, he wanted to cry. But he held it in and marveled that he and the woman he loved had created this tiny little thing, this perfect child. The child had a thick mane of black hair and the deepest blue eyes he’d ever seen. As he stared at him, he realized, with a slight shock, that the boy looked a lot like Elka. This made him smile because had she not been mentally ill, she would have been wild over this child, probably as much as he was.

  He took him to the only chair in the room, sat down and held him, occasionally looking up to check on Kathleen, who was still asleep. Every so often a nurse would come in to check on mother and baby, as well as father, then disappear out the door quietly.

  John didn’t move from the chair or put the baby down until he heard Kathleen stir. He looked over at her and smiled. She groggily smiled back, nodding at him.

  “You already look like a pro,” she said. “Look at you.”

  “It comes naturally, I suppose,” he said.

  “A name,” she said. “We need to name him, John.”

  “We do,” he said, smiling at the baby.

  “We’ll call him John Jr.,” Kathleen called from the bed, her eyes heavy and threatening to close again.

  “No,” John said and thought of Elka’s full name—Elka Rae Cashman. Her middle name was for their father, Raymond. So, he said, “We will call him Ray.”

  “Raymond,” she said. “Raymond Cashman.”

  “We’ll call him Ray,” John said again, liking the sound of it. Ray.

  She smiled from the bed and said, “That sounds wonderful,” before falling asleep.

  Everything was wonderful. It was all he’d ever imagined. It was actually better than he’d ever imagined. Did he sometimes think of his sister? Yes, probably every day. Did he feel badly about what had happened? Most definitely. But he had given his sister as much as he could feasibly give her. He was sorry it had happened, sorry he’d snapped and overdosed her, sorry about a lot of things. But he wasn’t sorry that he was in love with a wonderful woman who had just given him the biggest gift another human can give. He couldn’t be sorry about that. It would mean ingratitude and if there was one thing John Cashman wasn’t, it was an ingrate.

  So, everything was good, and it became better. Everything was perfect with his little family. The boy grew and though they tried, they were unable to give him a sibling. However, he was enough. John couldn’t have been happier. He was one happy man and he reveled in his happiness. His life was nearly perfect until the knock at the door.

  The Knock at the Door

  The man was ragged looking and smelled like he needed a bath. He smirked at John, who involuntarily moved back to avoid his bad breath. He shook his head and then peered over John’s shoulder into the house.

  “Can I come in, sir?”

  John studied him and asked, “What is it you need?”

  “Got something I want to share with you,” he said and licked his lips.

  “I suppose,” John said and let him in, though he rarely trusted strangers and certainly not ones who smelled like this man. But it was Saturday afternoon and he was a bit bored as Kathleen had laid down for an afternoon nap and little Ray was busy outside with his toys. He’d been watching him through the window and the boy didn’t stop playing. He’d called him in several times only to find him right back outside. He’d finally given up and settled into the sitting room, rising every so often to check on him.

  He sat the man down in the sitting room and they stared at each other. He could tell he was a little nervous about something. John wondered briefly what kind of a con artist this man was. He’d run across quite a few in his day and could sniff them out relatively easily. From his past experiences, he guessed that the man “knew” something and that he’d want some amount of money to keep his mouth shut about it. It usually involved one of this employees but this time seemed different. Maybe it was about him. But, then again, what could this man know about anything having to do with him? Certainly not about what had happened to Elka. No one knew about that. He had no idea what the man wanted and hated to admit he was a little more than curious as to that he had to say.

  “You can talk now,” John said.

  He nodded and looked around the lovely sitting room. “Nice place here. I can remember when it was about to fall down.”

  It never got that bad, John thought. Even so, he didn’t let his guard down or get his feathers ruffled too early on. He remained calm and said, “I can too.”

  “That so?” he said. “But that’s because you’ve always lived here, right?”

  “Born and raised,” he said. “Now please stop the bullshit and get to the reason why you want money.”

  “Why, I never said—”

  “You didn’t have to,” John said, remembering a man similar to this one coming by the factory years ago telling him he had something on one of his supervisors and if he didn’t pay, he’d drag him down with him. He had fired the supervisor and alerted his lawyers. And he hadn’t paid. The man never came back around. There had been others, too, and he wished he’d sold the factory years ago but Kathleen said they should keep it for Ray to inherit. He didn’t like to envision a life like that for his son; he’d rather have him having fun and traveling the world, meeting and dating, then marrying a nice young woman. But it made sense to keep it in the family, he supposed.

  “I take offense to that,” the man said.

  “Well, fine, take offense,” John said. “Now get to the real reason you’re here.”

  “Fine, I will,” the man said and showed his resentment.

  He’d probably thought John would crumble when he heard his “news.” But it took more than a little news from a bum to make John blink twice. “So get to it,” he told him.

  The man took a breath and said, “You ever heard of James O’Neill?”

  For some reason, the name stuck in John’s mind. James? He thought about the name for a second then remembered Elka had changed her horse’s name to James, from Teddy, out of the blue one day when she was talking about it. That’s when John realized something. He realized that this man probably did know something and that didn’t set well with him at all. But he didn’t let on like that. “No,” John said.

>   “He was my brother,” he said. “I’m Amos, Amos O’Neill. But this ain’t about me. It’s about him, my brother, James.”

  John nodded. “And?”

  “Well, back a while ago, my brother used to talk about this girl,” he said. “Her name was Elka Cashman. I reckon she’s your sister.”

  He nodded but felt a slight panic at the mention of her name. No one had mentioned her name in years. Kathleen had asked about her many times after they’d gotten engaged, and then married, and told him that they should go visit her. He’d make an excuse here or there and tell her it was too long of a drive or whatever. He’d tell her he didn’t want her to see her like she was. She kept asking, telling him she’d go with him to visit Elka, but he’d always sidestep her. After a while, she stopped asking.

  And now this man was asking about Elka, this man whose brother’s name was James. The same name Elka had changed her horse’s name to from Teddy. This really took him by surprise. He didn’t let it show and asked, “And how does this concern my sister?”

  “Where she at?” he asked and looked around.

  He swallowed and said, “My sister is none of your concern, nor are her whereabouts. What is it you want?”

  “Let me show you something,” he said and pulled out an old photo which was browned and frayed at the edges. “That’s my brother and his name was James O’Neill.”

  You already said that once, John thought but stared at the picture of a rather handsome young man and nodded. “And what does this have to do with anything?”

  “He went to missing about… Oh, it’s been a while now, probably about thirty years ago or so.”

  Thirty years… Thirty years ago… That’s when Elka had gone mad. John didn’t let any emotion show and only nodded at the man and said, “Go on.”

  He took the picture back and said, “He come home one day and said he was going to marry this girl, your sister.”

  John shook his head. “I don’t think so. My sister wasn’t allowed to court, sir.”

  “That so?” he asked and produced yet another old picture, this one smaller, just a little larger than wallet size.