Lead Me Home

by Amy Sorrells

  “Do you think we’ll always be together?” she’d said to him, kicking her shoes off and tiptoeing across the edges of rocks poking out of the creek. Moonlight shone against her long, tan legs, and her tank top hugged the curve of her waist and hips.

  “Don’t know,” he’d replied, following across to the place where they sat side by side, legs dangling over the edge of the wide, flat crag a few feet above the falls. He didn’t know how to answer her, him faced with staying in Sycamore his whole life since Dad was long gone, and Shelby with a world of opportunities to choose from. She’d been wide-eyed and dreamy back then, unafraid to say things that shouldn’t be said out loud like that since their child’s play had quickened to a much deeper attachment. “Look up. You should see something if you’re still.”

  They’d gone there to watch the Perseid meteor shower, happening at the same time as the Delta Aquarid meteor shower, since she’d claimed all this time growing up in the country she’d never seen a shooting star. The best time for watching was in the early morning hours before sunrise.

  “If you don’t see one tonight, you need your eyes checked.”

  She’d elbowed him, her eyes fixed on the sky filled with stars. “You shush. I’m trying to find one.”

  The air was cool and damp in that early hour, but his skin felt on fire next to hers. He knew then he wouldn’t mind being with her forever, as much as a teenage boy can know such things. Besides being the prettiest girl he’d ever laid eyes on, being with her felt like coming home, the good kind of home he hadn’t ever known but had imagined after the sounds and bruises of his father’s beatings faded.

  “There! I see one!” She sat straight up and leaned forward so hard he thought he might have to pull her back so she wouldn’t fall into the creek below.

  “I hate to tell ya, but that one’s moving too slow. It’s the space station.”

  She huffed, frustrated. “So how fast are they?”

  “Some of ’em streak by in a second or less; sometimes you’ll see a few at once. They’re pieces of comets that enter the earth’s atmosphere—”

  “I know what they are.”

  “Okay, fine. Then you know that some are as small as a grain of sand.” He leaned in closer to her and gently pushed a clump of dark curls behind her ear. “Happens in the blink of an eye. Like this.” He felt the softness of her chin as he turned her to face him and brushed his lips against hers.

  She did not turn away. “That one was too fast,” she whispered. “Show me again.”

  He did show her, again and again and again.

  She claimed she never did see a shooting star that night, and to his knowledge, she never got her eyes checked either. She lost her mom the following spring and hadn’t let him close since. He knew the trauma had been unimaginable for her—the whole town was racked with grief, losing the preacher’s wife. But he couldn’t figure out why she’d acquired a distance and an attitude the size of a combine, especially from him. He didn’t know how to fix that between them, either.

  Shelby wasn’t the only hard-hearted woman Noble had to deal with. He hung his hat and Carhartt jacket on the hook inside the mudroom door, kicked off his boots, and padded into the warm kitchen, where Mama was working on dinner. It wasn’t the first time he’d wondered at how such a slight, diffident woman gave birth to two huge boys like himself and Eustace. Her shoulder blades poked from beneath her T-shirt like bird wings as she bent over the open oven and pulled out a pan of oven-fried chicken that made his mouth water.

  He walked up beside her and kissed her on her soft temple. “Smells like heaven, Mama.”

  She wiped her hands on her apron and appeared to attempt a smile. “Wash up and tell your brother it’s time for dinner.”

  The stairs creaked under the threadbare carpet, and the temperature rose exponentially as he reached the second floor, where their bedrooms were. The window air-conditioning units helped but couldn’t keep up with the heat and humidity of August, not to mention the ups and downs of this summer’s particularly stormy weather. Across the hall from his room, Noble saw Eustace at his desk, a trash can overflowing with snack wrappers at his feet, and his butterfly collection spread out in front of him. He hesitated in the doorway. “Hey, Eustace. Mind if I take a peek?”

  Eustace didn’t respond either way, so Noble dodged stray boots and comic books and piles of clothes. The old oak desk had been a teacher’s desk in its better days, and it was covered with a large shadow box nearly half-full of butterfly specimens, as well as various butterfly-collecting supplies like tweezers and pipettes, small scissors, several small brown bottles of chemicals, and stacks of worn and dusty composition notebooks filled with notes and measurements no one but Eustace really cared about. The collection was exquisite, each butterfly preserved fully intact, organized by color and size, and aligned perfectly straight with the others. They were identified by scientific names he’d printed out with a vintage, dial-and-press label maker, no doubt something he’d found rummaging through their father’s belongings: Nymphalidae and Libytheinae, Miletinae and Riodinidae, Papilionidae and Hesperiidae. Beneath those were common names like coudywings and duskywings, skippers and swallowtails, metalmarks and checkerspots, fritillaries and leafwings. He noticed an empty spot under the Nymphalidae column, beneath another label, Meadow Fritillary.

  With a pair of tweezers, Eustace gingerly lifted a rust-colored specimen with black markings from the jar where it’d been softened and flattened between damp paper towels. He took it between his ample, work-worn fingers and squeezed the body of it, making the wings separate. Then he began to pin the butterfly to the board. Strips of wax paper held the wings flat, and he put the pins all around the front wings and hind wings, in the minute spaces between the antennae, and around the body. Most of the pins could come out once it dried and—though fragile—could hold its shape. The work was precise, measured, and, Noble thought, excruciatingly painstaking.

  He wondered if this was how Mama felt, like the butterflies in Eustace’s shadow boxes, after years of being beat down, literally and emotionally, by their father before he finally left them. Had each hit of his fist been like a pin holding part of her heart, then another and another, in place? Had each month, then year, then decade molded her into the doleful, fragile shell she’d become? In her prime, she’d been the Clinton County Fair queen. Her looks had gotten her most everything in her life, including their father. The giant portrait she’d received as fair queen hung in their stairwell for years, but she’d taken it down the night their father left. It had been there when Noble’d gone up to bed, and the next morning there was a big square of unfaded wallpaper in its place. She’d shown disdain toward anyone who’d offered help or friendship after the abandonment, and there’d been times they really could have used a casserole or a plate of brownies. It seemed bitterness had rooted itself in her heart hard and fast like carelessweed, and except for the smiles she had for her sons, she limited her interaction with others to her sewing, making quilts, and doing alterations for folks around Sycamore. Even then, unless she had to measure someone, customers left their bag of fabric on the porch, and came to pick it up, without hardly interacting with her.

  Noble and Eustace lumbered down the stairs and found Mama sitting at the table, milk already poured in their glasses and all the courses set on the table.

  “Noble, would you say grace?” she asked as they pulled their chairs out and sat down.

  “Sure.” He elbowed Eustace to bow his head. “God is great; God is good. Let us thank him for our food. By his hands we all are fed. Give us, Lord, our daily bread. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Mama said, nodding to them, as she had hundreds of other days, to begin eating.

  Noble passed the platter of chicken toward Eustace.

  “Dolly looks good out there.” Mama passed the basket of rolls to Noble.

  “I think she’ll be fine. I’m calling the vet to put her on some antibiotics to be sure.”

  “Sounds wise. S
he’s a lucky girl. Have you decided what y’all will name the calf?” Mama passed the green beans to Eustace.

  They liked to name their calves thematically, and they hadn’t decided on the newest theme yet. When Dolly was born they’d been using country music stars, and as a result Reba, Carrie, Wynonna, Minnie, Loretta, and Crystal roamed the pastures. The year before had been women of the Bible, resulting in Deborah, Abigail, Sarah, Mary, and Tamar, to name a few. Each calf received a yellow tag in her ear displaying her name.

  “What about nuts? This whole town’s nuts; might as well name our calves to match,” Mama scoffed.

  Eustace laughed and sprayed mashed potatoes across the table.

  “I guess that’s a yes.”

  “I guess it is,” Mama agreed.

  “Peanut, Cashew, Walnut, Buckeye—is that a nut?—Almond, Pecan—”

  Eustace slapped the table and laughed again.

  “Pecan, eh? Pecan it is.”

  He was acutely aware in that moment how macabre to an outsider the three of them must look sitting around the chipped veneer table . . . Mama and her invisible scars, Eustace’s hulking frame, the fact no one cared about mashed potatoes sprayed all over the table and the constant scent of manure hanging in the air. As strange and broken as they all were, for an elusive moment as the last ray of the sun crossed the room, he felt whole.

  6

  “Lord, bring her home,” James prayed as he settled into his armchair and flipped on the evening news. He didn’t have the energy to sort out whether he was more worried about Shelby being out with Cade Canady or about her being out in general. No matter how many times she’d left home since recovering from the accident two years ago, whether for school or shopping with Bonnie or work at the Tractor Supply, the silence of the house without her made the memories of the accident loud and sharp as ever.

  That April Saturday had been the sort of spring day that gives folks hope after the bone-wearying ice and snow of an Indiana winter. The sort of spring day when mamas fling open kitchen windows, and the crisp breeze rustles long-stagnant lace curtains. The sort of day when the pointed leaves of hyacinths and daffodils finally poke their way above the mulch, gray and stiff. The sort of day when no one should have to die.

  Molly, with Shelby beside her, had been driving southbound on Interstate 65, a road they’d traveled often on their way to and from Indianapolis. Shelby had been a finalist in a statewide voice contest. Their Honda Accord had been no match against the northbound, late-model Suburban, driven by another mother who lost control trying to avoid a deer and crossed into the oncoming lanes. To the mother driving the Suburban, that bright spring day must’ve felt like the middle of January as she stood on the side of the road. Perhaps she wore a sweater and pulled it tight around herself. Perhaps her arms ached from the strain of the car seat and the cooing infant within hanging from her elbow. Perhaps she wept as the emergency crews sawed through the bent, annihilated metal of the sedan, and the medical helicopter landed and took Shelby to the city hospital. Perhaps she turned away, unable to watch as the remaining paramedics at the scene covered Molly with a tarp and didn’t bother to turn their sirens on when they drove her body away. James never met the woman, so he would never know for sure.

  He put his beloved Molly in the ground on Good Friday, the day rainy and gray, and his life in the two years since had been a caliginous struggle to find the very direction and hope he would have otherwise preached about that Easter weekend. What he would give to have Molly sitting in the front row again, giggling at him like a schoolgirl whenever he missed a point or Jersha Pittman started snoring or Ella Cox ineffectively stifled a squeaky sneeze into her handkerchief. His life was divided into before and after the accident, and holidays were now marked as “the first time we’ve celebrated without her,” and then, “the second time we’ve celebrated without her”; their wedding anniversary being the most dreadfully empty of them all.

  As for Cade Canady, James had been worried about Shelby getting involved with that boy for weeks. Since the accident, Shelby had abandoned her singing, her friends, even her closest friend and next-door neighbor, Noble. James wasn’t the only one who noticed the changes in her, either. The other morning he’d been deep in thought researching his Sunday sermon. Bonnie had come into his office, forgetting to knock, and he had been so startled he nearly spilled his coffee, ice-cold since he hadn’t touched it for hours. He’d spun his chair around from his computer to see her standing on the other side of the desk, her forehead unusually furrowed.

  “Reverend . . . James . . .” She cleared her throat.

  “What is it, Bonnie?”

  “Here’s your mail.” She leaned over and set the stack on his desk: catalogs with fancy curriculums, glossy postcards from church consultants offering the latest and greatest revitalization programs, brochures for church sound and tech equipment they’d never need, and bills—always bills.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m so sorry to have startled you, especially with all the stress you’re under.”

  “It’s okay, really. Would you care to have a seat?”

  She fumbled for the arm of one of the chairs and sat on the edge of it, crossing her feet at the ankles. “Thank you. . . . Probably not the best time to tell you this . . .”

  “Never a good time for anything lately, is there?”

  “No, I suppose not . . . but . . . well . . . I’m worried about Shelby.”

  “Oh?” James removed his bifocals and rolled his chair closer to the desk.

  “You know I don’t like hearsay.”

  “I know.”

  “So you know I wouldn’t repeat anything unless it was from a reliable source.”

  “I do.”

  She cleared her throat again before going on. “People have been talking awhile now about Shelby and that boy of Silas Canady’s . . .”

  “Cade.”

  “That’s the one. I tried to believe the best, that Shelby wouldn’t let herself get caught up with him or that group of kids he runs around with . . . that maybe—bless her sweet heart—she saw something good in him the rest of us haven’t. But last evening, he and a couple other boys came into the hardware store as Hank was getting ready to close. They were goofing around in the aisles, so Hank stayed nearby to make sure to keep things in check.”

  “Go on,” James encouraged as she glanced at him, hesitating.

  “Well, Hank heard them talking about Shelby. He heard Cade bragging about how close he was to stealing . . . you know . . . My goodness, how am I ever gonna say this . . . ?”

  “It’s okay, Bonnie. I’ve heard it all.”

  “Yes. Well, you probably have. He said . . . Cade . . . he was bragging about how he was close to being the one to steal the pastor’s daughter’s virginity.”

  James sat back, crossed his arms, and rubbed his chin as he often did when he was especially bothered. He truly had heard everything in his career as a pastor, which of course doubled as a counselor, crisis manager, mediator, and mentor. But none of that prepared him for hearing painful things about his daughter. He leaned across the desk toward Bonnie. “I know they’ve been spending a lot of time together. I was hoping it was a phase. She hasn’t been the same since Molly . . .” He slumped back into his chair.

  “I know. We all know. I’m sorry, Reverend.” She stood to leave the office.

  “Bonnie?”

  “Yes?”

  He paused, struggling with whether to ask for advice, which he wasn’t shy about asking for on other, lesser occasions. He looked up at Bonnie and said simply, “Thank you.”

  Initially when Shelby had started dating Cade Canady, James had been tempted to tell his daughter not to see him anymore. Apples don’t fall far, as the saying goes. Silas owned the auto repair shop two blocks down from the church, and he had been overcharging and cheating folks out of money they didn’t have for years. Cade was the sort of kid who wore his letter jacket in the height of the July heat and tried to make
up for his vertically challenged blunders on the football field with fear and intimidation on the street. Well before Shelby had an interest in boys, Molly had read about the danger of setting harsh limits on teenage romances, as that would only fuel a Romeo and Juliet complex between the two. So for the time being, James had settled on trying—now clearly in vain—to find something to appreciate about the boy, while at the same time laying down an earlier curfew. He’d also insisted the boy come and meet him, figuring that would do the job, since such a requirement would scare off most questionable young men. The suggestion had resulted in yet another fight.

  “No way!” Shelby appeared mortified. “I can’t believe you don’t trust me!”

  “I trust you, Shelby. I’d just like a chance to get to know Cade.”

  “You can’t tell me who to like.”

  “I’m not trying to tell you who to like. I know it’s a little old-fashioned, but it’s the courteous thing to do, for a young man to meet a girl’s father and at least shake hands.”

  “Then what? You’d meet him and hate him. Besides, this is Sycamore, remember? Ain’t nobody around here any of us don’t know.”

  “I know of him. But I don’t know anything about him personally. What’s he like to eat, for instance?”

  “Pizza.” She rolled her eyes.

  “What sort of movies does he like?”

  “All the old Terminators. Rambo. Predator. RoboCop. That kind of thing.”

  “I do know he likes rap.” The recollection of the woofer booming from Cade’s truck—which matched Silas’s, including the flame decals on the hood—rang in his ears.

  “There’s nothing wrong with rap!” And with that, she’d turned and stomped out of the house to the truck.

  James switched the television off, set his glasses on the table, and rubbed his eyes. Molly, she needs more than what I can give her. She needs you.