At that moment, he felt more alone in the world than he had ever felt, even during his and Becky’s brief separation. Even after Connie’s death. His little girl.
He missed Connie’s hand in his. Even around her friends she had been affectionate with him. Not like Brad, who always had appearances to keep up.
Jim shook his head. He knew that what he was about to do would be fruitless, but he had to be sure. As the snow blew around him, he walked, a lone figure in a half-sunny snowstorm. From a distance, he would appear sad. The angle of his head and shoulders, his slow, defeated walk, would give him away. The fact that he carried no rifle during hunting season would confuse any onlooker.
Jim purposely selected the exact place where he had climbed over the stone fence the day before, to climb over it once again. Afterwards, he wound through the woods as closely repeating the previous day’s path as possible. As the snow began to pick up, both in size of flake and density, Jim searched for the path he had taken and found nothing. Near the top of the hill, he resolved himself to failure and sat beneath a pine tree…and began to cry for the third time that morning. For once, he allowed the tears to come from self-pity. He didn’t want the old barn to fall in. He didn’t want the quilt to be left because using it would be too morbid. He didn’t want the path to be gone, for the deer to be a memory. He didn’t want to die.
The pain in his hip annoyed him. The cold ground made the bruise pulse. His whole body was a temple of physical, mental, and emotional pain. For once, he cried himself out. He was sick of being strong, of bucking up for other people.
When he was through, he stood up and walked. The snow fell all around him. In a clearing, the snowfall was difficult to see through, like a heavy fog on the highway. Jim turned his face to the sky and let the flakes fall onto his cheeks, his nose, his chin.
This might very well be my last winter on this earth. My last chance to feel the snow and breathe the winter air in the hills. He paused and enjoyed the moment.
Everything he’d known was about to be lost. Death brought with it the most profound changes—a child dies as a hero is born. Would he be a hero in the next life? Or another child? Miracles happen only once. There were no magic paths today. No talking deer.
When the cabin came into view, Jim slowed and sat on the side of the hill. He wanted the comfort that could be found inside, yet he didn’t want it. He didn’t want to lose what was outside—the winter. The season would be gone soon enough.
CHAPTER 3
THE STORY WAS AN ODD ONE and no one believed it. Jim should have known that would include Becky. But why did he have to face it?
They sat together on the couch. “A dream,” she said.
“No. It was real. I can’t explain it, but it was.”
“You couldn’t find it the next day? The path, I mean.”
“No.” He quieted.
The television flashed. He pushed the mute button on the remote control. Uneven light patterns flitted across the screen, sweeps of light and shadow projected into the darkened living room.
“Then you dreamed it.”
“Maybe I’m dreaming this, too.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Do what? Ask my wife to believe what I tell her?”
“Remember what the psychiatrist said about your ‘contact’ with Connie?”
“How would he know?”
“It’s his job to know.”
“His job is to rationalize everything into his, and the majority’s, idea of reality. There’s no room for, for . . . “
“Miracles?” She smirked.
“For anything.”
“So, now you’ve been a part of two miracles.”
“No, not at all. Forget it, Becky.”
“No. I want to hear it from you.” She had always been the stronger fighter.
Jim was used to giving up before she did, but he didn’t have to this time. It wasn’t fair. “Connie was a phenomenon, a psychic one.”
Becky didn’t let him go on. “You called it a miracle then, just like you’re calling this deer thing a miracle now.”
“I was wrong,” Jim said.
“You’re adjusting your vocabulary to fit the purpose.”
It wasn’t true. “You don’t have to believe me. Forget it.” He fell quiet once again.
In a moment, Becky said, “Jimmy, I think you should go talk with Doctor Bauchman again.”
Jim smiled. “I know you do. I should have expected it.” He turned away.
She leaned closer, tried to get him to look at her again. “Don’t be this way.”
“There’s no other way to be,” he said.
“There is. You can be realistic. But you aren’t; you’re bull-headed.”
“I know what I saw, what I heard. You don’t have to believe me. I know.”
“Then don’t tell me.” Becky got up and walked into the kitchen.
The wall switch clicked and a flood of light dumped into the living room. Jim shaded his eyes from the glare and turned his head away. A cabinet door plunked open and closed, then the refrigerator opened and closed. She poured something into a glass. There were no sounds for a while, until the glass was rinsed and set on the counter. The light went out and he heard Becky walk straight into the bedroom.
Jim hit the TV power button and stared into the light phosphorescent screen as it faded to black. The refrigerator kicked off. No noise came from the bedroom.
Becky would be in bed lying on her side, almost asleep.
He always envied her ability to drop off so quickly, while he took a half hour or more to fall asleep only to awaken easily throughout the night. He smiled, remembering how he got up to check the children when they were infants. As long as it was only a diaper change or a fresh bottle, he didn’t burden Becky by awakening her. She used to get mad at him for letting her sleep, but he always enjoyed the time alone with Brad or Connie, sometimes both.
In an hour, he got up from the living room chair and fixed coffee. Sipping slowly, he stood in darkness by the window, looking into the street in front of the house. Their development was thirty-five years old. They bought the house when it was only a year old, from a salesman who had since transferred to Texas. They were in their mid-twenties then. Brad was almost two and Connie was due any day. They signed the mortgage agreement, and Connie was born two days later. With very little furniture and an income barely able to pay for the mortgage, utilities, and food, they moved in. The house had completed their happy family. Jim remembered him and Becky as being so much in love.
His job at the junior high school was relatively secure and he brought home a little extra money each month from working with the school newsletter and the annual magazine. He also helped with the student yearbook, collecting quotes from students by making it an assignment. He enjoyed it. His quiet disposition and willingness to observe the rules made him a hit with the school board, the superintendent, the principal, and his fellow teachers.
That night, though, it hardly mattered. Feeling death creeping up behind him, what mattered was that none of it would go on much longer. Initially, he had decided to have the lump removed, hoping he would be lucky and the doctors would get all the cancer at once. That was the first time. He knew now that without chemotherapy he would most likely die in less than twelve months. If a second lump returned it meant that the cancer had probably spread and that that would be the end of him. At that point, chemo seemed like a costly payment just to gain a few months of life. But now, those months seemed important. He wasn’t afraid to die; he just wanted a little more time. So much in his life was uncompleted. He had people he wanted to talk with before he died. He wanted time to spend with his son, his friends, even Becky. He owed so much more than time to Becky. He wanted to let her know more about him, how he felt. Even if it was no longer possible, he wanted to balance things out.
A car went around the corner, up the street, and for a moment he stood bathed in light. Shadows scurried across the wall behind him, in
and out of the house. The momentary exposure to light unsettled him. He let the feeling of darkness hold him. There was such comfort in darkness, an inexplicable sensation of closeness.
His thoughts returned to the deer.
What was he, a fifty-eight-year-old schoolteacher meant to do with such a sign? He could better understand Connie spending time with him after her death. That was personal contact with the other side. He had never tried to gain any deeper meaning from it. It seemed simple then. She was helping him get over her death, letting him know that she was all right. Lately, he thought she might be preparing him for his own death.
Jim closed the front curtain and finished his coffee. Taking a light jacket from the hall closet, he stepped outside onto the stoop. A chill wind swept over him and he contemplated returning to the warm living room. But the cold wouldn’t hurt him; nothing could, except the disbelief of his friends and family. He’d already gone through that about Connie, and he’d just learned to avoid certain subjects. Maybe he’d do the same with the deer. Forget talking about it, just live with it, inside. Everything didn’t have to be in the open all the time. He’d had his secrets in the past.
Jim stepped off the stoop and took a short walk up the street. Some houses were lighted inside like Christmas trees; others stood dark as tunnels. Each home had its own occupants who struggled with their own problems. Some of those people might even have it worse than he and Becky. Brad was worried about losing his job when things got rough. Life without work probably looked worse to Brad than death looked to Jim. Brad might lose his car, his home, and possibly his wife. How unnecessary all that would be.
Jim’s shoulders rippled with goose bumps. He tried to tighten the jacket’s flimsy collar, but it kept flopping down in the wind.
The cold represented the earth, the climate, reality. It was life affirming. That’s what Jim looked for in everything: affirmation. The lights, the cars, the cold. If the deer were real, were they another step, another representation of after-life affirmation? If they were real? Why would he doubt himself? They were real, he thought. They were the gift. And what a gift. An entire afternoon of nothing short of miracle. All the deer at the end, coming out of the mist.
A wind gust hit Jim hard as he turned the corner at the end of his street. A big chunk of snow, from a nearby rooftop, made a crunching sound when it hit the ground. The cold struck his face and neck and quickly moved down inside his jacket. The clouds overhead rushed across the sky, mimicking time. Was a leisurely walk a wise thing to do? Had hunting been wise? The lost time. The lost time. Should he have spent some of it with Brad or Becky? Had he wasted time he could have spent with Connie before she died?
He had more questions about his life than he had life left to answer them. Questions of the universe and questions of a personal nature. And they could all be expanded or contracted to suit his mood. But the deer, what was their personal message? Life, all life, exists as one? That’s universal. What about the personal? He thought about what Ed had told him, that he had always been a giver, but what did that mean? A giver. So what? An affirmation of a personal trait. Fine. Maybe it was that simple.
He turned the corner again, and, off the main street, the houses cut the wind’s strength. Clouds still rushed overhead. In the window of one house, Jim noticed a family watching television and wondered if that wasn’t better than reading, which is what he had always promoted in his own family. At least this family shared something.
On his final stretch toward his house, Jim held the collar of the jacket near his neck. Soon his neck and the backs of his hands in contact with it became warm. He could make another trip around, watch the clouds roll out some more. Becky would be asleep anyhow. But it was too cold. He could switch to a heavier coat, but he knew that, once inside, he would want to sit down, maybe go to bed himself.
When he did get back inside the house, he felt tired. He could go to bed, but he didn’t want the night drifting away without him. He looked in on Becky and then sat in the recliner in the living room. Staring at the ceiling, he fell asleep.
The sound of screeching tires awoke him. It was still dark. His mind was on Connie and, for a moment, he wasn’t sure whether he actually heard the tires or dreamed them. When he heard them a second time, he sat up. His neck hurt from sleeping with his head tilted to one side. He rubbed his neck and stood up. His back hurt too. When he turned around, Becky stood in the dimness of the hall nightlight.
“You shouldn’t sleep out here so often,” she said.
Her robe was parted at the neck and her hair was pulled back. Jim always admired the fine bone structure in her face. Without makeup, in the dim light, it was even more apparent. “Did I wake you, dear?”
“No, it was those kids screeching their tires. Someone should call the cops.”
“It’s over before it’s begun. They’d never catch them,” he said.
“I know. Just once would be nice, though.”
“I agree.” He rubbed his back a little and pushed his chest out to stretch the muscles.
“Will you come to bed now?”
“Sure. What time is it?”
“Almost three-thirty. You’ve only got a few hours.”
“I hope I’m not too tired tomorrow,” he said.
“Did you sleep okay out here?”
“Until the noise.”
“You should be fine.”
He followed her back to bed.
In the morning, Jim rose, showered, shaved, and was sitting in the kitchen having coffee by the time Becky got up. She sat down with him, coffee cup in hand. “I’m sorry about the deer,” she said.
“About them?”
“Miracles are difficult to believe unless they’re yours. The deer talking, that happened to you. I don’t have that closeness you do with nature. I wish I did.” She stroked his hand.
He turned his palm up so they could hold hands.
“It’s your miracle. I’m sorry if I was insensitive about it. But it’s yours. I don’t know what to do with it. It’s for you to figure out. My frustration got the best of me.”
Jim smiled and shook her hand, grasping it firmly. “I’m alone on this one.”
“I’ll listen, but don’t expect me to be able to believe as easily as you do.”
“I won’t.” He turned his head away. She was trying hard. He wasn’t sure he deserved it.
“I know you feel alone in all of this. I’m not faced with it like you are. But I can be here. I can listen. I can hold you, if that’s what you need.” Her voice cracked.
“You can?” He still looked away. They hadn’t been that close for years, he thought.
“Yes.”
He almost broke down. If he was the giver, shouldn’t he be doing something for her?
“You have to open up to me again,” she said.
There were tears in her eyes, small ones, revealing a quiet sadness. They didn’t have a lot of time. Was she feeling it too? Jim patted her cheek. “I’ll try. I will. It’s just that. . .”
“That was years ago. After Connie, I ignored you, pushed you away. Even through that, through everything, you gave as much as you could.” Now Becky turned away. “You stayed, and you didn’t have to.”
“There’s history here,” he told her.
“But there was a future there, with her. I’ve given you neither. I’m sorry.”
“We’ve been fine,” he said.
“We’ve been courteous. You deserve it to be more loving, before . . .”
“Before I die.” He finished her sentence.
Regardless what he said, Jim wasn’t so sure that either one of them could become loving again. The reasons why he felt that way didn’t matter any longer. Sometimes he wanted it to go on just as it was.
“I’m just fine,” he said.
“Then I need it to be more loving,” she said.
“But it can’t come from pity. I don’t know if we can do it.” She had just admitted that she couldn’t believe him, trust his word
s, his experiences. Could she, then, trust his love, even if he could open up again?
Before he left for school that morning he promised her he’d try. Although he wasn’t sure how to attempt to try. “Open up” sounded so simple, like open up a can of soup, or the cabinet, the car door. But she wanted more, his heart maybe, or his soul. But his soul contained Connie and the deer.
Deer, he thought. Even the word was both singular and plural. One could not open up without the other. Half a flower opening to the sun would not be as beautiful. He and Becky had to open together, then. Would that ever happen? It all had to happen together, making each of them the gift and the giver?
CHAPTER 4
DURING HIS FIRST TWO CLASSES Jim operated out of an unusual trance-like state. Half his mind was on his teaching, while half his mind was meditating on his recent experiences. One student in his second class asked if he was all right. The boy had been on his way out to his next class, but by the time Jim registered the question, the classroom was empty.
Third hour was Jim’s planning period, so he locked his room and went down to the teachers’ lounge to relax. The halls of the school were littered with artwork, essays on the environment, fall leaves and colors, announcements for band, wrestling, basketball, the chess club, the science club. Several students said hello to Jim as he made his way to the lounge. Once there, he poured himself coffee and sat on the sofa to think. Two women teachers, Beth and Phyllis, were the only others in the lounge with him. Jim listened halfheartedly to their conversation, something about the pep-rally eating into certain class periods—always the same ones — and putting those students’ grades and final test scores in jeopardy.
It all seemed so insignificant. He had a similar problem with pep rallies interfering with his classes, of course, but he piled on the homework and pushed his students a little harder in the classes they did have to keep up with the curriculum. In the span of a lifetime what were five or ten class periods equal to? A weekend? Then again, he’d give a lot for an extra weekend.
Terry Persun's Magical Realism Collection Page 48