Her family’s cycle of woe would continue down the path of infinity but now there was resilience burning in her soul and she felt like she could do anything.
3
Not much grows in the frozen months in Northeast Ohio except the opaque glow of the silver moon as it reflects cold and harsh off the hilltops covered with snow, slumbering peacefully and serenely under the great dark sky. However, the petals of love were blossoming for Henry and Sarah.
Sarah was perpetuating the myth of love carved by the innocent ideals of a dreaming adolescent. Impetuously each night, with the eager fortitude of a teen, she would dress quietly after all eyes in the house had closed. She would sneak with winged feet and a fluttering heart past her sisters to creep down the hallway. Each creak of the wooden floor caused a sharp pain in her side as she cringed anxiously with every step.
Sarah barely opened the door and snuck out into the cold wind. She thought not with her head or even her smoldering soul but purely with her aching heart--a heart that had been dashed by her father and betrayed by her mother. All her heart wanted was something stable. She longed for a face to look into that would not disappoint her and a strong arm that would lift her up when everything around her was crumbling. She wanted to believe that person was Henry Schott.
She snuck away from the house like a shadow in the tranquil night. Being just a young girl, she thought not about the sound of her feet crunching loudly through the frozen grass and soil that surrounded the house though each step was as loud as a firecracker. Unknown to her, Angela lay in her bed every night and listened as her courageous and foolish daughter left the house.
Each night that Sarah fled to town, her mother knew exactly where she was going. Angela knew she should be stopping her but her own heart would not let her. Angela struggled each evening as the sun set early in the west. As she lay down restlessly in bed, she knew that soon her eldest daughter would creep from the house and run for her dreams. Angela fought the demons of her own mind knowing that her daughter might find her dreams at the end of that blustery night, but she might also discover the agony of a life of ruin. There was nary a wink of sleep in the O’Grady household over those frozen nights.
Liam Cass did the best he could to steer Sarah away from the wrong path and even as she desperately tried to follow her dream, she was still the conservative little girl that grew up the daughter of a farmer and the little girl of a good woman with morals and ethics. Sarah was a reflection of both of them in the mirror of her own life.
Mr. Cass taught her how to sing and feel the music within her soul. But within her young body she had many things hiding: the dichotomy that was her father--a diabolical but righteous man; a mother that disapproved of her choices; and sisters that clamored to her for answers. All this before her eighteenth birthday and Mr. Cass still wanted her to find room inside for the melody that was her dream. However, a little girl only has so much room inside a tiny body and the soul can only expand so much and now, now she was in the midst of falling in love with a man she barely knew.
There was a voice within her mind, a consciousness beyond all consciousness that told her that this love was a good thing. She had known the love of her parents. As misguided and bizarre as it might have been at times, it was there, along with the love of siblings and relatives. Even so, she had never even felt anything like the smoldering love that she felt for Henry Schott. It was good, but at the same time it was obscene--a poor little farm girl with a soldier, a man that had grown up on the blood and dreams of his family and the haunting nightmares that lingered in his mind.
Sarah would sing and look longingly out into the crowd and her eyes met Henry’s each night. Gazing across the room, she could see his bright eyes shining through the smoke-filled room. When she was done, they would stand at the bar and laugh and talk. There was still newness to the whole thing. Their faces blushed when their hands fluttered together and their eyes looked away after staring at each other too long. It was simple but it was the most complex thing either of their hearts had felt. Henry had loved the village girl that he had met in Europe, but she was a sense of calm, a normalcy in a storm of haggard confusion. In a sense, so was Sarah, but it was different. She made him feel at home, again, something his family or the rolling hills of his youth could not. It felt good and right.
After Happy Days would close, they strolled the night in the frozen rope-like wind as it lashed against their faces and sliced through their clothes. They strolled, often arm and arm, their hands mingling together like threads in a weave.
They walked until the sun almost could be seen starting to muster a pale glow in the far sky. As they walked through the woods where the pines were long and black and the opaque ground had started to turn golden, Sarah once again would flee to her home, sneaking a subtle kiss from Henry—first on the cheek, then on the nose, and finally, in one last futile glimpse into the heart of innocence, she let her lips touch his.
Then she was off running through the forest as her dainty feet crunched the frozen tundra until all Henry could see was her black coat darting amongst the naked gray trees.
Henry had had enough of the abhorrent steely glances of his father and had to leave his parents’ house. It was not the home he once knew. He felt a dull ache with each day that he awoke there and the same pangs of bitterness as he lay down to sleep at night. This, along with his still tumultuous dreams, left him feeling alone and angry. So he had moved into the small town and found a quaint little place with a few rooms and a bath just a few steps from Happy Days, which made his nights more enjoyable.
Sarah had not noticed, for she was in the qualms of love, but Henry had been crawling a bit further into the bottle with each night he spent with her. It was not a reflection of his feelings for Sarah but he needed to escape. His dreams still darkened his night to the point where he almost dare not fall asleep.
But one can only keep his eyelids from drifting to sleep for so long. Even during the days, the images that rendered him often helpless and trembling brought him to the belief they could only be cleansed by a drink.
4
With a subtle crisp breeze flirting with their rosy cheeks, Henry and Sarah lay on a red blanket under the melancholy gray sky. There was a bit of an awkward silence for a few moments. The torrents of early fall had left the grass glistening, thick, and soggy to the touch. The ground pressed through the blanket, dampening their clothes, but they did not care. It was just the sky, the wind, and them under the eyes of October.
"What do you want to do?" Sarah asked dryly, a hint of glee to her tone.
"Oh, I don’t know," Henry shrugged as Sarah curled up next to him and gently placed her cheek upon his chest, "maybe get some lunch."
"No, silly," Sarah chuckled slightly, his boyish charm filling her with a warmth, "I mean in your life. What do you dream about?"
"I don’t know," he said softly, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed. "No one has really ever asked me that."
"Well, I’m asking," Sarah offered, her voice tender and welcoming.
"It sounds silly, but I want to build things," he said.
"Like what," her voice was intrigued.
"I don’t know. Houses, schools, churches . . . I guess," he thought aloud. "I’ve never really thought about anything particular. I guess. I don’t know."
"I know!" Sarah quipped as she sat up and placed her hands on Henry’s chest, looking down as her hair drifted about her face framing her sparkling eyes. "I know exactly what I want to do. I want to sing and dance!" She sprung to her feet and twirled around as the breeze mingled with her spin and played fancy with hair that cascaded over her shoulders. Her dress wrapped loosely around her hips and her joy was infectious.
"You are a wonderful singer," Henry spoke up.
"You think so?" Sarah asked as she fell to her knees and looked into Henry’s face, searching for the truth. "You’re not just saying that because you like me, are you?"
"Who says I like you?" Henry knitted his b
row with a puckish gaffe.
"Henry . . . ," Sarah leaned into him and his arms buckled and they went toppling backwards till she was pressed against his chest. They lay flat on the blanket as a sliver of sunlight cracked through the gloomy sky. "You know you like me," she giggled as her hair drifted away from her face and she gazed down into Henry’s eyes.
"I guess I do," Henry whispered.
Sarah’s lips touched his and they melted into one, hands to hands, chest to chest. They formed a single heartbeat as the sun touched their bodies and warmed them in the midst of the chilly air. And as the sun vanished behind the cauldron of the churning ashen sky, they still held each other.
Then in a moment of awkward silence, Sarah unknowingly stepped out onto a ledge. "Henry," Sarah embarked, "why don’t you ever talk about your family--your father, your mother, your siblings?"
She could feel his entire body start to harden under her as if her words had petrified his soul. Henry spoke not a word and uttered nothing. "I’m sorry, Henry," Sarah said under her breath as she rolled off him and sat quietly beside him. Several tense moments passed where the air suddenly felt colder.
"I’m sorry," Henry said, "my family is . . . a little bizarre." He shrugged sheepishly.
"Is that all?" Sarah laughed.
"Is that all!" Henry shot back with his voice laced with a confused anger.
"I would think my family is at least as bizarre as yours. Truly." Sarah managed a laugh about the conversation.
"Really? I can’t believe you." Henry shook his head with a seed of doubt in his eye.
"My father, huh, is the town drunk, or was, and just up and disappeared after he hacked off a guy’s arm. My mother is a good woman." Sarah’s paused and thought long and hard over her words. "My sister is in a wheelchair after my father threw her to the ground. My other sister, well, she is sweet, but is afraid of her own shadow, poor thing," Sarah offered with a nonchalant shrug to her shoulders.
"Yeah," Henry just muttered.
"Is that all you’re going to say? I just sat here and poured out the depth of my family from sinister to completely goofy, and all you have to say is, yeah?" she joked with an underlying subtle tone of disgust.
"Yeah," Henry shrugged again. His voice and face were indifferent but he had a tiny almost unnoticeable twitch in his neck as he closed his eyes slightly, looking off to the far horizon.
"Come on, Henry." Sarah roped her arm about Henry’s elbow and playfully tugged at him. "Tell me. Please," she pleaded. "I won’t let go till you tell me." She yanked a bit more on his arm. "Tell me, tell me, tell me!" she blathered, a gay smirk plastered across her face. She tried to make this a jovial moment, but she was unaware of the venom that was building up within Henry. "Please, please . . . ?"
"All right, damn it!!" He ripped his arm away from her and stood up. His face was hard with anger. "I’ll tell you . . . !" His breathing was rapid, like a piston inside a revving engine. "What do you want to know . . . that my sergeant in Europe hung himself, that I saw body part after mangled body part over there, that I nearly loved a girl and had to carry her lifeless body from the rubble, or that my father has disowned me because he now sees me as the enemy of the German army? Is that what you want to know? Or how about that I killed my little brother, how about that?" Henry ranted till his eyes were blazing with red tears and his lips were quivering. His slender dark silhouette stood out hard and angry against the bitter gray sky as he peered down at her with a face warped by regret.
"Oh, Henry," Sarah breathed. She stood up and carefully wrapped her arms about him and they both crumbled to the ground as if they were ashes falling in the breeze.
"My father used to love these United States and now . . . and now . . . I don’t know," Henry sighed in confusion. "Sarah," Henry sobbed, "you don’t want me. You’d be better off without me," he confessed.
"Henry," Sarah rocked to and fro holding to his body, "I think we need each other. We’re both damaged goods, Henry," she admitted.
They clung to each other. The breeze seemed to bring forth the pale sky while the moon climbed over the cacophony of colorful leaves that painted the hills. The smothering cloak of gray dissolved till just a few milky thin clouds skirted the moon’s full laughing face.
"Do you want to talk about any of it, Henry?" Sarah asked with sincerity.
She could feel Henry’s body tense slightly and then release as if he were a snake coiling and then relaxing.
"When I was a boy, . . . my father asked me one day if I wanted to drive the tractor in from the far reaches of the field. It was after hay season and the field was always full of rocks and covered with holes. My little brother Elmer was on the side of the tractor and we were going downhill." Using his hand, Henry made the motion of the tractor moving down the slope of the hill. "And we hit a bump, the teeth of the metal tire took him, and he was just gone," Henry said. His words were like a fog to him as he felt numb in his mind. "He was just gone."
"I’m sorry, Henry," Sarah started and felt a need to speak. She could feel Henry’s body start to unwind in her arms. "One afternoon my mother took my sisters and me to town to just look about and as we were coming home, it started to get dark and our neighbor, Mr. Cartwright, stopped and offered us a ride. My mother knew not to take it but we sort of badgered her until she did. When we got close to our house, my father saw us and charged us. He was drunk and thought Mr. Cartwright had something going on with my mother--or some other crazy thoughts were rushing through his brain, I guess."
She stopped and caught her breath and the words slipped easily from her lips as if she were nearly talking to herself. "He nearly beat nice old Mr. Cartwright to death and in the process crippled Bernice, one of my little sisters." She paused and rummaged through her feelings to see if she felt secure enough with Henry to continue--and she did. "My mother worked in a bar after the town turned on my father and the owner got fresh with her. My father and I caught him but the owner locked himself in his office and Daddy was fit to be tied. He found a way to get revenge, though, and cut off that man’s hand so he could never try that again," Sarah said.
"Like the man who built the Taj Mahal," Henry said softly.
"The what," Sarah felt a bit embarrassed.
"The Taj Mahal. It is a beautiful building in India. A man built it for his wife after she died as a place for her burial. And after it was built, he cut off the hands of all the craftsmen who built it so they could never build anything so beautiful again," Henry said.
"Well, wow, but my father was after revenge," Sarah mumbled.
"Yes, but he was a lot like that man. The man who built it was put in jail before it was done and his jail cell looked down the river and he could see his masterpiece, but could never actually go to it, which is much like your father. He has this great family, but since he ran away, the best he can do is possibly look upon it from afar, but never get to experience its grace again," Henry offered.
"No one’s ever explained it to me like that. That was very kind of you, Henry. Thank you," Sarah said, genuinely touched by his tender words.
"Maybe you are right." Henry paused as the silky glow of the moon started to filter through the partly naked canopy of autumn leaves. "I think we both have just about the right amount of damage that we not only should be together, but we might be the only people that would accept each other." Henry lifted his head from Sarah’s shoulder and gazed with a courageous smile into her eyes.
"You know, Henry Schott, I don’t care what everyone says! I like you!" Sarah laughed.
"Sarah O’Grady, I don’t care what they say about you, either. I like you, too!" he bantered.
The day exhaled its last breath of light and they sat cradling each other as the sharp breezes tried to cut through them. They nuzzled closer to one another and felt the blossoms of each other’s soft smooth lips. The leaves gracefully glided down around them like tiny kites.
5
Several months later, on a day like any other day, just the back
fire of a car or the crack of a stick was enough to send Henry reeling and wincing. The fatal images of not-forgotten days blackened out the sun and caused Henry to feel the tremor of fear vibrate through his bones. But he mustered up the courage and ventured over to Happy Days to see his beloved. As they talked between sets, Henry found himself relying on drink after drink and Sarah found herself being nonchalant about it and shrugging it off to the actions of an ex-soldier, whether his actions were grounded or not.
After the bar closed, Henry could barely stand by his stool and Sarah found herself being the crutch under one arm as they lumbered out of the bar and down the dimly lit street to Henry’s new apartment. Henry flopped himself down onto the couch and writhed in agony. Sarah believed the pain was from the amount of alcohol that swirled through his body but Henry could see the faces of the dead as they flashed by his mind and underpinned his thoughts. A haze of gore stained his mind and he lay on the couch twisting and turning as if he was possessed by the crimson images.
Sarah ran a damp cloth over his head but still he writhed about the couch. She put a blanket over him. He cocooned into the blanket and wrapped it tightly about his body till it was stretched tight. Sarah went and sat on the bed in the other room and watched as Henry shifted and moaned.
The tired old lamp shed a meager yellow light over his face. It etched a terrible mask of pain over his cheeks and his eyes were closed tightly. Sarah lay on her side with her head resting uncomfortably on the feather pillow. Within moments the nights of no sleep started to tug on her eyelids till the pull of sleep was so relentless that her eyes began to flutter shut. She let herself fall to sleep as she noticed that Henry’s body had calmed and the blanket had sagged over his outstretched body, moving rhythmically as his breathing had changed to the short and long waves of a gentle tide pool.
Blood, Dreams, and Olive Drab (Pride & Promise) Page 23