by David Athey
The words were a sing-song mess of grief that drew me out of the shadow where I was leaning against the barn. I stepped into the sunshine and had the squinting thought: what is she doing atop the silo?
She was singing, slurring, "Holly little light ... Grammy little light ... my little lights . . . "
My mind, slipping into a panic, was unable to move my body beyond slow motion, while Mother swayed in the sky in the near distance-so far away in a white dress-her arms uplifted, her wind-blown hair parting like wings.
After hitting the ground, she survived in the hospital for six days. On the last day, after several clergymen had visited and done all they could do, Jon and I were asked to leave the room so our father could say good-bye to her alone. We lingered at the door while the words "I love you" were whispered into an ear that was already hearing the same thing from God.
Just a year after the funeral for Holly and Grammy, we had to face another burial.
Jon and I shuffled down the hall. In the waiting room, I slouched in a cold plastic chair, picked up an issue of Clean Country Living from the magazine table, and began reading an article about the miraculous life of insects. At the bottom of the page was a large photograph of a female mosquito, her belly swollen with scarlet. The caption read: "Our blood makes her babies."
I lifted the magazine to my brother's troubled face. "Look at that mosquito," I whispered. "She's beautiful."
Jon's eyes narrowed. "I don't know why God made mosquitoes." He sighed heavily. "I don't know why God made anything."
Now, I can't speak for all mosquitoes. But the one that appeared in my pickup after my meeting with Dr. Parsons was a very helpful guide. At first I ignored her while she flew around the cab. But after a while, I noticed that she was extremely gifted. The mosquito seemed to know whenever we came to a crossroads. She buzzed and zipped to a side window as if telling me to turn. Or sometimes she sat still on the dashboard, pointing her stinger straight ahead.
Considering the fact that I had just visited a clinic for my mental health, I politely declined to have any communication with the mosquito. I just let her do her thing while I minded my own business, randomly driving around on the gravel roads. After a while, however, the sound of her wings became impossible to ignore, resounding like the high strings of a violin. It was beautiful. And every move the mosquito made seemed to make sense. When she wanted me to drive straight, she squatted directly in the center of the dashboard. And when she wanted me to turn, she flew to a side window.
And so we went, crisscrossing the Iowa countryside, all day long. I thought my guide might leave me when I stopped to get gas in Amana. I even opened the window to set her free, but when I returned from paying the cashier, the mosquito was perched patiently on the dashboard.
In the reddish light of sunset, I followed the directions of the talented mosquito, until eventually I was led to Saint Isidore's Church and around to the cemetery. In a frantic flash of buzzing wings, the mosquito flew to the rear window. Apparently my guide wanted me to hit the brakes. So I did, and when the dust settled, I could see half of a man among the gravestones.
It was my brother, Jonathan, kneeling in the middle of our family's graves, his lips moving. After a few minutes, he stood and brushed himself off. He wiped his eyes and looked at the truck. He smiled painfully, took a deep breath, and walked slowly down a row of the dead. The rays of the setting sun gave a glow to the rust-colored scar on Jon's cheek. He was as skinny as a skeleton and wore a pinstriped suit. His dark hair was still as thick as trouble, and his eyes were a mix of sorrow and joy.
I wondered: what does Jon have to be joyful about?
He climbed into the truck. "Hello, Danny. Are you visiting the family?"
I stared at the gravestones and the growing shadows. Grandparents, parents, and Holly, all buried before their time, or before a time that I could understand. "I can't deal with this, Jon."
"Okay, Danny. Let's go for a drive."
I gave the truck a foot-load of gas and sped away from the cemetery. I looked around the cab to see where the mosquito was. I wanted to introduce her to my brother, the great lawyer, but she was gone.
Jon said, "Watch out!"
I swerved to avoid hitting a large hog, and made a quick left turn at the crossroads. The pig followed in pursuit, galloping in a waddling sort of way, before finally disappearing from view.
"That was very strange," I said. "Jon, have you noticed strange things happening lately?"
My brother didn't answer. He stared out the window while the final glint of sunset left the face of the sky. And he began to sing, "Walk you in the light. Walk you in the light. Walk you in the light of God. "
It was a song our family had always performed at our barn dances.
Our great red barn, which hadn't housed livestock in ages, was filled with Christmas lights on my sixteenth birthday. Holly had wanted to decorate a tree for me, as well, but I said the lights were good enough. On September 11, 1992, the party included my friends (Grease, Jane Jones, Mud Eye, and Slopper) and neighbors (Jack Williams and the Lancaster, McCuskey, and Manifest families) and various people from Saint Isidore's and Grove Baptist, and about a hundred strangers that Jon had invited. He'd blurted out at a concert, "You're all invited to my little brother's birthday party! Come to the farm next Saturday night."
Even without receiving proper directions, people showed up for the celebration. My father, the decorated military man, spent most of the evening directing traffic and giving out parking warnings. "Hey, don't hit the septic tank!"
For many of our guests, this was their first barn dance. Grammy was our caller and Holly was our fiddler, and they had everyone clapping and holding hands, locking arms and going allemande left and right. They had the dancers forming circles and squares, crossing and casting and making the grand chain. Grammy called out the commands as loudly as an evangelist, and Holly fiddled to beat the band, and they had everyone promenading and do-si-doing under the summer Christmas lights.
Outside, with a good moon rising, there were mountains of food dishes on a long line of tables. Fried chicken, baked ham, mashed potatoes, potato salad, egg salad, fruit salad, sweet peas, green beans, baked beans, corn bread, corn on the cob, chocolate cake, chocolate-chip cookies, and pies: apple, strawberry, lemon meringue, and blueberry. With sweet iced tea and lemonade and thick black coffee. Some people danced while others feasted, and I went with the flow, spending most of the night with Plain Jane until her parents drove her home.
After receiving a year's worth of handshakes, hugs, and "Happy birthdays," I snuck away from the remaining revelers and went behind the barn. In the moonlight, I strolled in the grass beside the cornfield. Fireflies hovered and blinked, and I paused to consider them. Heaven loves light so much, I thought, even insects get a share.
I held out my hand to a firefly, and it disappeared.
Swish, swish, swish, a half-lit girl came walking toward me, taking the shape of a woman as she got closer. She swished right up to me in her red skirt and purple sash. I'd never seen a gypsy before, or a Spanish dancer, or whatever this wild-haired woman was. She was almost my height in her bare feet. And with no awkwardness, hesitation, or formal introduction, she planted a kiss on my cheek. "For Danny, the birthday boy."
I stuttered, "Th-thanks."
The woman laughed and lifted her face to the moonlight, as if expecting a kiss in return. Clumsily, I pecked her glowing cheek.
"Sweet," she said. "I'm Rachel Golding. And tonight is my birthday, too."
"That's weird. I mean cool. Happy Birthday! Are you sixteen?"
She laughed. "Eighteen. I'm a freshman at the university."
Impressed, even enthralled, by Rachel's bohemian attire, I asked, "Are you from Des Moines?"
"New York," she said.
"New York? Really?"
Her eyes grew mournful and her voice tense. "Can I tell you something, Danny?"
I felt like I'd known her forever. "Of course. Tell me."
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br /> She took my hand and we sat in the grass among the reappearing fireflies. Rachel told me about growing up in Manhattan, where her mother and father, a Catholic and a Jew, had owned a nice little wine shop. Life had been strange and good, they had all kinds of interesting friends, and Rachel was considering working in that wine shop and attending NYU, and just enjoying the city for the rest of her life, until some dangerous people wanted more than wine.
Something horrible happened to her parents. Rachel didn't say what it was. She choked back sobs and whispered, "I was sent here to Iowa ... to be safe."
As I drove further away from the cemetery, Jon kept singing, " Walk you in the light. Walk you in the light. Walk you in the light of God."
Fog rose like smoke out of the corn. Jon stared out the window and eventually fell silent. I drove us deep into the Iowa gloom. My brother and I met up like this every year on the anniversary of our mother's death, and the night always ended the same, with a bitter argument and a return to the cemetery, where we hurried our good-byes and went home in opposite directions.
But on this particular night, before the bitter argument, we happened upon a roadside oasis called Kate's Home Cookin'. And I slowed the truck.
"Are you hungry, Jon?"
"Starving."
"Me too."
My brother put his hand on my shoulder. "Danny, let's try to have a good meal together. Like the old days. Remember the good meals? Remember the good conversations?"
Of course I did.
When we were young, the dinner table had been a feast of both food and theology. Almost every evening, my father and grandmother debated the deepest mysteries of the faith, but never with their mouths full. They had developed a system of giving short speeches, followed by taking a huge bite of food and chewing it slowly while the other person spoke. They would debate the history of the Church, the role of Rome, the sacraments, the saints, the interpretation of Scripture, and the varieties of worship. My father and grandmother disagreed about many of the Mysteries, and sometimes the discussions got heated.
I listened with equal-sized ears to everyone in my family. I knew that each of their souls had some of God's secrets. And I considered myself a collector of any wisdom that anyone had to offer.
Mother knew the Bible so well that she never argued about religion. She was a warrior of prayer in the closet, and she knew from her childhood how quickly a shared table could explode into chaos. Her father, she once told me, "Preached Hell and proved it with his hands. But please don't tell Grammy that I told you that. She never stopped loving that man, even when he was violent."
Like everyone else in my family, I was an extreme. Of all the spiritual possibilities, I had chosen to be a slave. Why? Because of the songs. I believed the slave spirituals were as inspired as King David's psalms, and if the Bible were ever updated, many spirituals would bless the new pages. When I chose to be a slave at the age of ten, I often went without eating, and did extra chores, and a few times whipped myself with a belt. But I was never able to write a song like "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" or "This Little Light of Mine" or "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel."
Holly, who believed it was Christmas every day, gave us the gift of asking innocent questions. Often it was her curiosity about the nature of reality that inspired my father and grandmother to spar and grapple for the truth.
Jon, our resident agnostic, loved to stir up trouble, but because of his charm, he rarely got into trouble. He could get away with saying things that would have gotten me punished. Sometimes I tried to get punished, for example, the time I painted LET MY PEOPLE GO in large black letters on the side of the barn. I wanted to get whipped, but my parents knew what I was up to.
"Danny," my mother said gently, "you don't have to be a slave to write a song."
"But I want to write a spiritual."
"Don't wish for suffering, Danny. It's not fair to those who've really suffered."
Jon and I went inside Kate's Home Cookin' and were greeted by the glorious stench of Iowa soul food. Hog fat boiled in oil.
A farmer at the counter was eating pork chops and mashed potatoes. The harvest was fast approaching, and the old man was gorging as if it were his final meal. Another farmer stood at the cash register. He wore, like many Iowans, both a belt and suspenders. He was a man who would never get caught with his pants down.
"Good ribs tonight," he grunted.
"Say it with a bigger tip," the cashier replied.
My brother led me to a corner booth. On the walls were black-and-white photographs of pioneers. Dirty, sweating, unsmiling men and women and children.
I sat and stared at the photographs, searching for signs of hope in the eyes of the pioneers.
Jon picked up a greasy menu. "Well? Do you want to hear my good news?"
"Good news?"
Jon stared at the specials on the back of the menu. "I'm engaged."
I bit my tongue.
He smiled. "She's a lawyer."
"Hmm." I searched the menu for anything healthful. The special was tenderloin. "Surprise, surprise."
"She's a good lawyer, Danny."
"A good lawyer? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?"
"You'll like Marta. She fights for the rights of migrant workers. You know there are thousands and thousands of migrant workers in Iowa."
"Yes. I know. They get abused by the corporate farms."
"Marta helps the workers receive a living wage, sanitary housing, basic health care, and education. She was recruited by Cesar Chavez, the great human rights activist, while in college."
"Berkeley," I guessed.
"Stanford. And then Harvard Law School. Marta is perfect, I'm telling you."
Part of me wanted to congratulate my brother. Part of me wanted to smack him. And all I could offer was a dead pause.
"Hmm," Jon said, disappointed by my silence. "I wonder if the applesauce in this place is homemade."
"I'm sorry, Jon."
"The applesauce is from a can?"
"I don't care about the applesauce. I think you know what I care about. I was engaged once. And you sold the farm, and burned the heirloom wedding dress, and ruined everything."
Jon took a deep breath. "I had to make some difficult decisions. I did the best I could with the wisdom that I had."
"You were stoned half the time."
"I plead guilty. I'm sorry, Danny. You and I are the only Gospels left. And I want you to be my best man. It's going to be a Christmas Eve wedding in Des Moines."
The best man in my soul wanted to say yes, and the worst man still wanted to smack him. So I changed the subject. Or rather, I kept the subject but changed the focus. "Remember when Holly got engaged?"
Jon nodded, slow and sad.
When Holly's fifth-grade classroom got wired for email, young Miss Drake was so excited about corresponding with other cultures around the world that she allowed Holly to use the computer during lunchtime, unsupervised. During the spring semester, my little sister built a relationship with a sixteen-year-old boy who claimed to be Jose from South America. Some of the emails were shown to Miss Drake. Other emails, the romantic ones, were printed out, put into Holly's backpack, and erased from the computer. And she carried her secrets home.
Having never heard of Internet prowlers, Holly had offered up her heart to the illusory Web. And she had divulged her greatest desire: to give birth to a baby named Jesus.
Jose told Holly that he had an uncle named Jesus and he would gladly name his own children after the Savior. "Jesus will be our first boy," he wrote, "and Christina our first girl."
Holly emailed back: "Dearest Jose. I can't wait to meet you. Love, the Christmas Girl."
Jon had discovered some of the printed emails down in the root cellar among some old gunnysacks where he kept a stash of marijuana. He led me down to the cellar one night and showed me the correspondence.
"We have to find this guy," Jon said, "before he and Holly have a chance to meet."
Under the spe
ckled light of a dusty bulb, my brother's face seemed old and hard.
"Holly's a smart girl," I said. "She won't do anything stupid. She's just playing a game. It's puppy love. She'll never really meet this guy."
Jon lit up a joint and took in a deep drag. He exhaled into a corner full of cobwebs. "I'm not being paranoid," he said. "I really have a bad feeling about this."
The next day after school, I met Jon in his room. He was slouched on his bed with his boots on, smoking a cigarette beneath a poster of Bob Dylan. I sat at Jon's desk. It was strewn with twelve months of Christmas presents.
"She can't fly to Brazil," I said, picking up a pheasant feather. "Are you really afraid she might meet this boy?"
Jon exhaled loudly. "What if he lives in Iowa? What if he isn't a boy?"
"What?"
"It could be a filthy old man. Some murderous old pervert in the trailer park. This world is a hellhole. I've fallen into it the last couple of years, and I know what I'm talking about, Danny. I've seen things. I've heard things. I know the truth. The world is mostly evil."
"No," I said. "The world is mostly good. Evil is just a small part of the story."
"You wish."
I pointed the feather at him. "You're not the only one who has seen and heard things. That hell-raiser who scarred your face is now in seminary, serving the Lord. I'm telling you, the world is full of love."
"Read the newspaper, Danny. Watch the TV. Love is not in the news."
I wanted to be hopeful, ever hopeful, but the image of Holly being hurt scared me to death. Maybe we should search her room, I thought.
Jon could see that I was reconsidering. He said, "Listen. Holly's out in the fields with Dad. Let's go into her room and look for a card or letter. She must have something more than the emails that she keeps in the cellar. We need to find a street address for Jose, or whoever he is. We need to track him down. And if he's a devil, we need to exorcise him."