Scrap Everything

by Leslie Gould

  She found Mark where she’d left him. “Aren’t you going to buy anything?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Let’s walk down to the wharf.”

  “Let’s not. It’s pouring. I want to see what’s on TV.”

  “We’ll take a taxi down.” She pulled an umbrella out of her bag. “Then we’ll go back to the hotel and see what’s on TV.” She wanted him to see the ferries on the Sound and the lights of the city, to smell the salt air and feel the biting wind surging in off the water.

  Elise paid the taxi driver. She popped open the umbrella as Mark began to gag.

  “What’s wrong?” Had he been poisoned by the burger he had for dinner?

  “It reeks down here.” He gagged again. “What’s that smell?”

  Elise shook her head. Pepper must have told him the story about Reid getting sick in Seattle. Mark was copying Reid because he wanted to go back to the hotel.

  “I’m not joking.” He gagged again. A gull swooped down to the gutter. “It’s right there.” Mark pointed to the bird pecking at a rotting fish.

  “Come on.” Elise grabbed Mark’s sleeve. “Let’s walk.”

  “Happy Birthday.” Elise clutched her camera as they walked out of the Experience Music Project and breathed deeply, trying to quell her anxiety from the loud music and flashing lights. “Ready to go up the Space Needle?” She tipped her head and looked upward. There it was, towering over them.

  “Not really. We went up it two years ago.” Mark tossed a gum wrapper into a garbage can. “How about if we go out for pizza and then back to the hotel?”

  Elise frowned. He wanted to watch cable. “Then let’s at least get a picture of you under the Space Needle.”

  Mark groaned as Elise clicked the camera. Her cell rang while she drove back to the hotel. Of course it was Ted. She handed the phone to Mark. He smiled and chatted away about Seattle, about the dead fish, and the music museum. “Seattle isn’t as cool as I remember, though, Dad. Mom keeps driving around these funky neighborhoods, and the traffic is really bad.”

  She parked in the hotel garage. Mark handed her the phone. “How’s the birthday boy’s mom?” Ted asked.

  “Fine. Missing the birthday boy’s dad.” Her tone sounded sharp. “I haven’t missed that many of Mark’s birthdays.” Ted sounded defensive.

  “The first and the last.” Had he missed any in between? Yes. He’d missed Mark’s eleventh when he was in Afghanistan, but who was keeping track?

  “How’s Seattle?”

  “Good. We’re having a great time.”

  “See any houses?”

  “A few.” And they all cost at least three-quarters of a million dollars.

  That night she dreamed about Cascade Pass. She followed her father up the stairs of their house. An old man with white hair stood in the kitchen with his back to her. He turned, slowly, surely. He smiled at her, a warm, knowing expression. Was it her father as an old man, the age he would be now if he had lived? No. This man was more than her father. She stepped forward, comforted, reassured.

  She woke. The anxiety had eased.

  Over breakfast Elise told Mark that they were driving to Cascade Pass.

  Mark shoveled pancakes into his mouth. “Do you want to move there?”

  She shook her head. The question was absurd. “No. I just want to see it.”

  “Why?”

  She folded the Seattle Times. “That’s where I grew up.” She hardly ever talked about her family to the boys. It had been six years since Mark and Michael had seen her mother and sister. She had gone alone the last two times.

  “I thought you grew up in Seattle.”

  “No. I spent a week every summer here with my grandmother. That was all. And then went to college here.”

  Mark slept as Elise drove north. The Saturday traffic out of town was much better than the weekday traffic had been. Mark fell back asleep as Elise turned east at Everett. An hour later, as her Volvo climbed the highway further up the mountain, the snow began to fall. “Mark, look.” Elise slowed. Big, fluffy flakes floated through the evergreen trees. It was just as she remembered.

  Mark grunted and fell back asleep.

  The café where she had waitressed through high school was now an antique shop, the courthouse had winter pansies planted along the walkway, and the one-room library where as a child she’d spent hours after school had a Closed sign in the window.

  Mark stirred. “Is this it?”

  “Yes. Isn’t it quaint?”

  “It’s smaller than Forest Falls.”

  The sawmill had been abandoned, the church freshly painted, and the big Victorian on the corner of Main and Baker Streets was a bed-and-breakfast. What would it be like to stay there for a weekend? Would anyone in town remember her? Surely a few would remember her father’s tragic accident.

  She turned onto Rainier Street. “That’s my old house.”

  “Mom, that’s pathetic.”

  The roof sagged, and the siding was nearly bare of paint. It had looked much better in her dream. “It’s so small.” Mark pressed his nose against the window.

  “Only two bedrooms.” No family room, no study, no formal dining room—no wonder her mother felt crazy half the time. No privacy, nowhere to escape.

  “I didn’t know you were dirt poor.”

  “We weren’t.” Or were they? “My father worked hard. We had what we needed.”

  What had she needed? Books and riding horses with her friends. They’d been so generous to include her. Just like Rebekah. She stopped the car across the street from the old house. She couldn’t conjure up the image of the old man in her dream. Why had she come? The house looked abandoned. The house next door, where the Williams family had lived, looked in good repair. She wondered where the girls ended up. Should she knock on the door and ask? See if Mr. and Mrs. Williams still lived there? She read the name on the mailbox: the Andersens.

  She drove to the far end of town and pulled into the cemetery. “This is where your grandpa is buried.”

  “Spooky.” Mark pulled his hood onto his head.

  Elise pointed to the field beyond the cemetery. “That’s where I used to ride with my friends, when I wasn’t holed up in the library. We would ride from here way up into the forest and then to the high meadows.”

  “Like the meadows above Pepper’s?”

  Elise nodded. She wanted to go back to Rebekah’s, back to the falls.

  “There’s a horse.” Mark craned his neck. “Two of them. Quarter horses.” He opened the door to the Volvo and took off toward the fence. His hood fell against his back, and gigantic snowflakes disappeared on his blond head. Elise followed, pulling her parka snug.

  The darker horse ambled over to the fence, and Mark reached out and stroked her neck. “I wish I had an apple.”

  Elise wiggled her camera from her pocket. It was the first settled moment Mark had had the whole trip. The other horse, a mare, approached them and then took a step backward. “It’s okay.” Mark reached out his hand to the bay. She sniffed his fingertips and then licked the wet snow from his hand. Mark turned toward Elise and smiled. She took another photo.

  Elise wandered through the tombstones and found her father’s simple block of granite. Who was the old man in the dream? Was it you, God?

  She took a photo of the grave site and then shivered, slipped the camera back into her pocket, and pulled on her gloves. “Be careful who you make sacrifices for,” her mother had told her. Her mother had gained nothing in life; she was a lonely old woman who watched television.

  “Cascade Pass isn’t so bad.” Mark turned up the heat in the car as they drove back through the town.

  “I was thinking about going home today.” She missed Michael. She missed Forest Falls. She missed Rebekah and the Scrap Shack. Thinking about her father made her miss even John. And she missed Ted, always Ted. She swallowed hard.

  The snow swirled as it fell. “We’d better hurry,” Mark said, “or we’re going to get stuck.”<
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  A settled silence filled the car as Elise concentrated on the curves in the mountain road. She tried not to focus on the snowflakes floating against the windshield in a mesmerizing pattern.

  “Mom.”

  “Yes, Mark?”

  “Why won’t you get tested?”

  “Tested?”

  “To see if you’re a match for Pepper?”

  Elise pursed her lips together.

  “Mom.”

  “I have many reasons.” She spoke slowly as she maneuvered a hairpin curve. “Dad’s gone, I have back problems, and what if you needed a kidney someday?”

  “Those are the same bogus excuses.”

  Elise accelerated on a straight stretch. “What do you mean?”

  “It doesn’t matter that Dad’s gone; everyone would help you. I’m never going to need a kidney, and you seem pretty healthy to me.”

  Elise gripped the steering wheel.

  “I did some research.” Mark slumped further in his seat. “An average of ten people in the United States die every day because they need a kidney transplant. An average of two American soldiers have died in Iraq each day since the war started, and, Mom, not one army medical person has died.”

  Elise steered with one hand and pressed her fingers against her left temple. “Rebekah said that kids take priority. Pepper should have a kidney soon.”

  Mark pulled his hood back onto his head. “Mom, Dad’s chances are better than Pepper’s. Why not get tested? Then you can decide.”

  Elise called.” Patrick stood at the sink rinsing dishes. “They’re on their way home tonight but won’t get in until really late. She asked if we could drop Michael off at her house after church.”

  Rebekah scooted the bag of groceries onto the breakfast bar. “Did Reid and Michael muck out the barn?”

  “Mostly. Mark does a much better job.”

  “Patrick, that was a positive comment about Mark. What’s going on?”

  He shrugged. “The kid is a hard worker, and he’s good with the horses.”

  She put the three loaves of bread into the drawer. Reid was into cinnamon toast these days, half a loaf at a time. The trick was to keep Pepper away from the white bread. “What else did Elise say?”

  “That was about it.”

  “Anything about moving to Seattle?”

  “No. Why? Did she say something to you?”

  “No. Sandi thinks that’s her plan.” Rebekah dumped the apples from their bag into the fruit bowl. “Sandi said that Ted is seeing a lot of action.”

  “In the operating room? Or on the base?”

  “Both. Mortars came in again night before last.” Rebekah poked her head into the dining room. “Where’s Michael?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Whew. I thought I’d done it with my big mouth again. Where’s Pepper?”

  “Out with the horses.” Patrick wiped the counter around the sink. “Do you want to walk along the fence line before it’s completely dark? I’ll show you what I did today; I finally finished resetting that post.”

  Bear loped along beside them. “Hey, big guy.” Rebekah patted his head as he rubbed up against her leg.

  “He took off after a deer this morning. Chased him up the trail into the trees. Came back an hour later,” Patrick said.

  “He didn’t get it, did he?”

  “No. Well, if he did, he licked his chops clean.”

  “Bear, you wouldn’t kill a deer, would you?” The dog wagged his tail and nuzzled her hand.

  Patrick took a deep breath. “How was business at the shop this week?”

  “Good, but I’m still not in the black. I had to pay utilities and the vendors. They say it usually takes a year.”

  “We don’t have a year.” Patrick picked up a stick. Bear ran ahead. “I think we should sell it. Would Sandi want to buy it?” He lobbed the stick into the air.

  “Patrick, I don’t want to sell the shop.”

  “It’s that or the farm.”

  “Let’s wait and see,” Rebekah said. Good grief, they could start by selling a couple of the horses if they had to. She frowned.

  Bear scooped up the stick and ran back. Patrick wrestled it from the dog’s mouth. “I Googled ‘kidney transplants’ this afternoon and found some sites looking for donors. I was thinking we should do that and make up some fliers, send some press releases to the media.”

  Rebekah took a deep breath. She didn’t want to do that. She didn’t think it was wrong; she just didn’t think it was right for them. Then again, if they found a kidney … But who would it be from? A townsperson she would bump into every day? Someone who came into the shop? Would she give them a discount? Or merchandise for free? The cadaver list was the best way to go. No emotional strings attached.

  “I called the pastor today. I asked him to pray. I asked if we could share about Pepper’s needs tomorrow during the service.” Patrick knelt and rubbed Bear’s head and neck.

  Rebekah touched her hands to her cold face. At least Elise wouldn’t be at church.

  Bear ran after a rabbit.

  “I don’t want to beg people.” Patrick stood. “But I think we need to be realistic. We need a kidney, and we need to be prepared to lose the shop and maybe even the farm.”

  The rabbit scurried through the fence and across the road. Patrick threw the stick again and ran after Bear toward the fence.

  “Mom.” Pepper’s voice floated from the oak tree. She jumped down from the lower branch. How much had she heard?

  “What’s up with Dad?” Pepper wore her blue cowboy hat and Rebekah’s riding coat. At least she was warm.

  “He’s worried.”

  “Are we going to lose the shop because of me? And the farm?”

  “No, sweet pea.” Rebekah pulled Pepper’s head against her shoulder, bumping her hat.

  Patrick turned into the church parking lot slowly. A light dusting of snow had transformed Forest Falls into a pristine village. Reid, Michael, and Pepper climbed out of the back of the truck, falling over each other. They ran up the shoveled steps of the church and through the carved doors.

  Pastor Jim opened the service by congratulating everyone who had made it to church despite the snow. Then he asked for prayer requests. Patrick stood. Pepper, who sat next to Rebekah, ducked her head. “Most of you know that our daughter, Pepper, needs a kidney transplant. We’re feeling desperate. Please pray that God will provide a donor kidney for her.” He paused, opened his mouth to say more, and then sat down. Pepper’s head popped back up, and she scanned the congregation.

  John stood. Michael, who sat in front of Rebekah, bent his head. “As you all know, my son, Ted, is in Iraq. His army tent hospital has taken a few mortars in the last few days.”

  Michael raised his head. Had John forgotten about Michael being at church with them? Rebekah patted Michael’s back. He shrugged.

  “Please pray for Ted, and please pray for his wife, Elise, and their sons.”

  Pepper pressed her body against Rebekah’s, hiding her head; Reid turned and rolled his eyes. Rebekah held her breath through most of the prayer.

  The sermon was on John 6, the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand people. “If you love Jesus, he’s going to test you just as he tested Philip.” Pastor Jim sat on his stool and smiled. “Jesus knew Philip couldn’t feed that many people; he wanted Philip to trust him.”

  The pastor read the passage and then continued. “Philip was overwhelmed, just as we’re overwhelmed with what we face in our lives. Jesus felt compassion for the crowd, and he feels compassion for us. He knows you can’t handle what overwhelms you on your own; he wants you to trust him.”

  Pepper slipped out of the row.

  Pastor Jim stood. “You can choose to stay overwhelmed, or you can trust him.”

  Pepper leaned against the kitchen counter. “I hated having Dad announce that I need a kidney in front of the whole church, Mom. I feel like a freak.”

  “You are a freak.” Reid spooned five mound
s of ice cream into a bowl.

  “Reid.”

  “Actually, I’m tired of it too,” Reid said. “It’s all anyone talks about—teachers, coaches, parents. ‘Has your little sister found a kidney yet? When is her surgery? Aren’t you a match?’ ” He tossed the scoop into the sink with a clatter. “It’s old.”

  The phone rang.

  Reid slid through the dining room, balancing his bowl.

  “Don’t take that upstairs,” Rebekah called out as she picked up the phone.

  “He’s going upstairs.” Pepper spun around on the stool.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi.” It was Elise.

  “Hey, I didn’t think you were going to be at church. Then you snuck out before I could talk with you.” She would have discouraged Patrick from sharing if she had known Elise was there. “Pepper said she saw you in the balcony before you grabbed Michael and dashed home.”

  “I decided to go at the last minute, but then I wanted to get home and check on Mark.”

  “Thanks for the smoked salmon and chocolate that you left in the truck.”

  “Thanks for watching Michael. How is Pepper doing?” Elise asked.

  “Embarrassed. How are you?”

  “Embarrassed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of John sharing in church.”

  “You have to admit it was sweet.” Rebekah rinsed out the dishcloth.

  “Yes.” Elise’s voice was soft. “But I had no idea Ted’s unit had taken hits again. I wish he would tell me that stuff.”

  “Did Mark have a happy birthday?”

  “Mark’s birthday seemed really lonely with just the two of us …”

  “Did you get what you wanted from the trip?”

  “Seattle wasn’t the way I remembered it. I realized I’ve been pining away for the past.” Elise chuckled. “I’m whining.”

  “Elise—”

  “Anyway, that’s not why I called,” Elise interrupted. “I have something I want to talk with you about.”