A Morning Like This

by Deborah Bedford

  “I’m not frantic,” David insisted, following him. “I’ve just been busy.”

  As if David wasn’t already smarting enough from his conversation with Nelson Hull, when he walked into the lobby of The Jackson State Bank, there beneath the mammoth taxidermy head of a bison that had been the bank’s logo and mascot for the past seventy-five years sat two security guards flanking his son. One of them hefted himself from the chair, his leather belt squeaking as he hoisted it. “Mr. Treasure? Is this your boy?”

  Heaviness, rock-solid, bore down on him. What next? The other guard stood, too. Still sitting between them, Braden pursed his bottom lip, brought his elbows close to his ribs in shame, and stared at the floor.

  “Is this your son, Mr. Treasure?”

  “Yes, it is.” A pause. “Braden?” Then, back to the intimidating men, “Is there some problem here?”

  Two dozen pairs of magnetic eyeballs locked on them. From the personnel at the customer-service cubicles and the tellers lined up behind the long, narrow desk to Francisco, head of maintenance, who was busy rearranging velvet ropes, everybody was watching.

  “Yes, we have a problem.” Security Guard One locked his forearms across his chest. “Even though the police were not called, Snow King management did not want this boy released to anyone except his father.”

  “Released from what?”

  “He’s a minor, so it hasn’t been determined which charges will be filed. But it might be reckless endangerment, Mr. Treasure. Your boy injured someone on the Alpine Slide.”

  As often happens to a parent when his child stands accused, David’s thoughts pendulumed between defense and blame. First he thought, Oh, good grief, sport. Why did you do that? Second he thought, My child would never behave that way! Who do you think you’re kidding?

  But the misery on Braden’s face warned David that he’d best get the whole story before he passed judgment. “Would you both like a Dum Dum? Here. Have one.” He lifted a jar from a customer-service desk and offered it to the guards. “Try the green. They’re the best. Yellow is good, though, too. You might think it’s lemon, but it’s pineapple.”

  They declined, one of them soundly and one of them looking like he would rather have said yes.

  “Why don’t we go to my office? We can hash this out.”

  They started toward the stairs with Braden in tow. As David panned the room, all gazes withdrew to their proper duties. Except for Francisco, who accidentally knocked over a brass post in his haste to occupy himself.

  Once they’d closed the door and all the pomp-and-spectacle of the guards had ended for everyone, David sat in his thick swivel chair and motioned for Braden to join him. When his son came, he gave him a place to perch on his knee and hugged him. There he sat, hanging on to his son for dear life, as if they were both dangling over a dangerous cliff.

  “Now, who’s going tell me what happened?”

  The two guards stumbled over each other to recount the details—how they’d been called from their offices by two-way radio and how they’d found everybody so upset and how they’d seen the injured kid still breathing hard beside the picnic table.

  “Braden? Is this the truth?”

  Braden bit his bottom lip and nodded.

  “That boy—” Guard Number Two adjusted his belt around his paunch. “—is not allowed to come back to the Alpine Slide for the remainder of the summer.”

  “Braden? Is this what happened?”

  When Braden finally spoke, his voice was thin with shame. “I did it to W-wheezer, Dad. I did it. It was my fault.”

  “But I—” David stopped. What had he been about to say? I expected you to say it was an accident. I expected you to say it wasn’t your fault. “Are you sure?”

  I expected you to stand up for yourself!

  Of course it was what he expected. That’s exactly what he would have said for himself.

  “You did it to Wheezer on the baseball team?”

  Braden nodded, tears pooling in his eyes. “He couldn’t find his inhaler and h-his lips turned blue. I d-didn’t know what to do.”

  It just came out of David’s mouth, that phrase men use with each other when they’re surprised, the same one Nelson himself had relied on when he’d found out what was wrong. “Braden, sport. What were you thinking?” A lowered head, a prodding gesture of the chin. “What?”

  “Nothing important.”

  “Well, there must have been something.”

  So there they sat, father and son, one chin propped on top of the other one’s head, while Braden began to try to answer.

  “I was thinking… I was thinking…” His entire face crumpled and his words came out in sobs. “I heard you and M-mom when you thought I was asleep… and I was thinking w-what I did… to make you and Mom be mad—”

  When David realized, the truth felt like a boulder, crushing him. No.

  “—be m-mad at each other and fight all the time—”

  “Braden. No.”

  “—because Brewster opened the door and came in and I h-heard you and I know it was s-something—”

  “Sport.”

  “—I did.”

  “Listen to me, Braden. Stop. Listen to me.”

  “What is it, Dad?” Braden’s voice wavered with hurt and concern and responsibility. “Why are you and Mom mad all the time? What did I do?”

  The security guards had discreetly left the room at the start of Braden’s sobs. David clamped his son against him so hard that he knocked the air out of his own chest. “I’m sorry, sport,” he said, his insides twisting with love for this boy. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” How could he say it? How could David reassure his own son when he had no reassurances himself? “It isn’t anything you’ve done. It’s just that your mom and me—”

  He didn’t know how to go on. This is Abby’s doing, not mine. I’ve been honest with her and she’s the one erecting walls of defense. Abby’s to blame for this.

  “Daddy,” Braden whispered against his shirt. “I’m scared.”

  David’s heart lurched. The only thing he could feel, after the other parts of today, was the complete possession and life of this boy. He grabbed onto that one reality as if it were a climbing rope, saving him from the abyss. “Brade. Oh, sport.” He dislodged his son and was down off the chair in an instant, balanced on the balls of his feet on Braden’s level. “You haven’t done anything.”

  “Why, then? What’s wrong, Dad?”

  “Sometimes parents fight, and there isn’t anything to worry about. They just do.”

  “This isn’t the same as that. I know the difference. Mom’s mad and you’re mad and I don’t know what I’ve done.”

  “Braden, it isn’t you.”

  Braden’s little face crumpled and his grimy fingers curled around his dad’s wrists. “Are you and mom breaking up? Mom’s talking about it on the phone to her friends. I’ve heard her.”

  “You’ve—?”

  “Are you and mom falling apart or something? Charlie Hessler said his parents argued all the time before his dad moved out and they got a divorce.”

  “No,” David lied. “We aren’t falling apart.”

  It was Abby who was doing this, and no one else. Abby on the phone with her friends. Abby who had refused to discuss the situation with civility and who flung his broken marriage vows into his face like stinging cold water. Abby who accused him of making the world fall apart for Braden, when she was the one who heaped kindling on the pain.

  Sure, he had had an affair with another woman once. Sure, he had fathered another child. But Abby was the one who held his offense against him like a fur trapper with live bait, goading a coyote forward. Abby was the one who brandished full-time bitterness against him like a punishing sword.

  Lord, I don’t want any part of this. We’re so broken that maybe it would be best if we just ended it and went our own separate ways. Maybe it would be best if we hurt our son once now so he could start healing and he wouldn’t have t
o be hurt anymore.

  Maybe.

  Do You hear me, God? I don’t want this. I don’t want this.

  “Dad?”

  David gripped Braden’s shoulders in helpless abandon. “Let’s go home, son. What do you say?”

  June 23

  Dear Susan,

  I am waiting anxiously to hear the results of the blood test that should have been sent to you via the lab at St. John’s Hospital on June 19. I didn’t tell Braden much about the situation. Children are so perceptive, especially smart children. He has sensed the tension between Abby and me, and it has begun to become a problem with him. It is time we made some decisions in our family. I have made one decision on my own. This is what I’m writing you about today.

  I would like the opportunity to meet my daughter.

  I know you have kept her secure and well taken care of. For that, Susan, I offer you my respect and my thanks. If we are measuring good things from our relationship, we will measure the life of Samantha as one of those things. I regret that I didn’t get the chance to know her when she was young. But one can never know how things would have turned out. Even if she’s said she’s never wanted a father, do you think she might want one now? I want to offer her good things, nothing bad. But she needs to be the one to choose. Maybe Braden can give her life. Maybe I can give her some fun.

  Please respond promptly. We both know that time may be of the essence.

  Yours in massive respect,

  David Treasure

  June 23

  Dear Mother,

  I am writing to let you know that it might not be best for you and Dad to drive to Newcastle for the Little League Wyoming Shoot-Out Baseball Tournament this year. I don’t think it’ll be a problem to cancel your reservations at the Trail’s End Motel. If you need the number I’ve got it. Remember, that’s the place we stayed last year where the air conditioners in all the rooms had to be turned off in the morning so the maids wouldn’t blow the fuses when they did the laundry. I’m sorry to have to make you miss that experience this year!

  I need to be frank with you and Dad. Abby and I are having some problems. It wouldn’t be a good time for any of us to be together. I know what you’re saying as you read this, Mother: “God can work miracles in a marriage if you’ll only let Him.” But there is a lot involved here, so many different sides and, above all things, we feel like we have to protect Braden. At least, I feel that way. Sometimes two people get so hurt that nothing can help them see their way out of it. We bring out the worst in each other. Maybe we can’t go back to where we were before. If we could, I don’t think I would want to.

  So you see, that baseball tourney isn’t going to be very much fun this year.

  I know you’ll call when you get this letter. Please call me at the office. This is something that I cannot discuss with you and Dad over the home telephone.

  Your son,

  David

  June 23

  Dear Members of the Presbytery Committee,

  Upon receipt of this letter, please accept my official resignation as elder from the Jackson Hole Christian Center. Please also accept my resignation from the finance committee at this time. I am stepping down per a conversation with Pastor Nelson Hull on June 22. Per 1 Timothy 3:12, I have a situation in my household that demands attention and I do not feel I should be serving the church in this capacity at this time.

  I look forward to continuing in service at a later date. It has been a privilege to preside with you in servanthood to the Body of Christ.

  Sincerely,

  David Treasure

  P.S. Please also remove my name at this time from teaching sixth-grade Sunday school. Thank you.

  Chapter Thirteen

  As Abby commuted along Hall Street toward the shelter the next morning, she happened past Floyd and Viola Uptergrove’s house.

  There stood Viola on the front porch as Abby went by, teetering up on the second rung of her walker, trying to hang a bird feeder beneath the eaves.

  Goodness, that thing could go right out from under her!

  Abby screeched on the brakes and hopped out. As she ran up the sidewalk, Viola stood with her legs straddled, one on each side of the walker, holding the feeder at arm’s length. Abby ran to her, grabbed the walker beneath her, and held it steady. In another moment, she supported the woman’s elbow. “Why don’t you let somebody else help you with that?”

  Viola, who had stretched to the full extension of her slight body in an attempt to attach the feeder, grasped Abby on the shoulder with one feeble, impassioned hand. “What a dear you are, thinking you need to rescue me.” She wore a Mexican dress with puffy sleeves and silver rickrack, as bright blue-green as turquoise stones. “Isn’t this the most lovely feeder? Floyd built it for me this weekend. You know how the songbirds always come out this time of year.”

  “I’ll get it up for you, Viola. I’ll fill it, too, before I go. It would be awful for you to take a fall.”

  Viola tried herself once, twice again, before she acquiesced and handed the feeder to Abby. “Honest to John.” She climbed down and brushed her hands together with purpose. “I don’t know why everybody around treats me like I’m ninety years old. I’m only eighty-five.” She thumped her walker, which had wheels on the front legs and neon-yellow tennis balls on the rear ones, into the house. “The thistle seed is in a paper sack in the refrigerator. I’ve got it labeled. Be careful not to get that critter crunch. That stuff brings the magpies.”

  “I’ll find the thistle for you.” Abby followed her into the kitchen and rummaged around the refrigerator shelves.

  “Since you’re taking so much trouble, you’ve got to stay for a cup of tea. Why weren’t you at church this week, by the way?” The woman turned, a moose hot pad like a puppet on one hand and a pinecone teapot in the other. Her blue eyes glowed with light. “You and your husband have such a beautiful family. I love watching the three of you come into the sanctuary.”

  If Viola Uptergrove noticed how quiet Abby became at that comment, she didn’t say a word. Viola scuttled around her kitchen like a little nesting bird herself, bringing out sugar and slicing up a lemon, digging in the breadbox for muffins.

  Abby found the thistle. “I’ll just—” She gestured outside. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Good. You hurry. And don’t fall.”

  Abby completed the task, without falling, in minutes. When she returned to butter, crème, and even lemon curd set out on the table, Viola took her arm and steered her to a chair.

  “I know you haven’t had breakfast. Kids your age never eat breakfast before they’re out the door.”

  “If you lecture me about breakfast, then I’m going to lecture you about your walker.” Abby laid her own fingers over Viola’s on her arm. “It’s dangerous to climb.”

  “Floyd will be back any minute with the dogs. He’ll be so glad to see that the feeder’s up. I certainly didn’t want him to try to do it.”

  As Abby reached for a spoonful of lemon curd, she noticed an ancient flaking-leather photo album on the floor beside her chair. “What’s this?” She bent to pick it up.

  “Oh, the funniest pictures. You wouldn’t believe.”

  “Can I look?”

  “Of course you can.”

  Abby flipped open the album and came face to face with the Uptergrove’s wedding pictures from 1943.

  There stood a handsome young man, his boyish face as scrubbed and shiny as a farm-fresh tomato, his shoulders square in his formal Navy whites.

  “Is this Floyd?”

  “Yes,” Viola answered. “Isn’t he handsome?”

  At his side, wielding a cake knife with lily-of-the-valley waving from the handle, stood a minuscule girl with dark hair, glowing eyes, and lips emboldened by deep lipstick, who looked like she might take on the whole of the German army if it kept her from getting her man.

  “Oh, Viola.” Abby sighed. “You were so beautiful that day.”

  One never knew exactly the right
thing to say when examining pictures a half-century old. When someone looked so lovely, it seemed a shame to voice surprise.

  “Of course I was beautiful that day,” Viola said. “It was my wedding day. A day when a woman makes a covenant to her love and to her Lord, meant to last a lifetime.”

  “Oh.” As if she’d touched something forbidden, Abby drew her hand away.

  “All those bride magazines, selling fancy lace and satin dresses. All to capture what can’t be captured: the reflection of a woman’s face looking into the face of her God.”

  Abby began to gather her things. “I’d better go.”

  “Nothing can be more beautiful than that.”

  “I’m already late for work.”

  “The kids have already given us a golden anniversary party, and now they want a sixtieth, too. I hope you and your precious family can come.”

  “I-I hope so, too.”

  “My family is coming from Kansas and they can get wild, so beware. At our fiftieth, Miley put gunpowder in an eggshell. The cat went too close to the fireball and got its whiskers burned off. Did you know that a cat without whiskers runs into walls?”

  They made their way outside again. Pine siskins and chickadees had already begun to feast at Floyd’s hand-made feeder. Abby stopped to watch, reticent at the old-fashioned innocence of it, not wanting to head out into the reality of her own life.

  Viola stepped up beside Abby, her brow furrowed deeply. “Is there something—” She paused, as if she hadn’t any right to ask. Then, as gently as a hand might be offered to a frightened mongrel dog, Viola offered her hand again to Abby. “Oh, my. I can see it in your face. There is something, isn’t there? Something new to pray about.”

  “Covenants are sometimes hard to keep,” Abby said.

  “Covenants are always hard to keep,” Viola said. A clasping together of fingers, older woman to younger one. “Has he done something to hurt you?”

  As the chickadees and the siskins and the sparrows bobbed and swayed on the feeder, tears pooled in Abby’s eyes. She nodded and for a moment the words wouldn’t come. Then, “I don’t think I’ll be able to talk to you about this, Viola.” Old grievances mixed with new ones. “You and Floyd have had such a wonderful life together.”