Still Life in Shadows

by Alice J. Wisler

  Gideon said, “No, thanks.” His stomach was queasy, and the thought of a sweet fruit bar was not enticing to him right now.

  Mari waited for him to put on his seat belt. As she pulled away from his apartment, he wished it was any other day. He remembered the day he got his wisdom teeth out, just two months after his nineteenth birthday. The pain had been agonizing once the Novocain wore off. He’d take that day again, over today.

  “This car is cool,” said Kiki as she pressed a button to lower her window. “And Moriah is in the very back. Did you see the coffin, Gideon?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s riding with us.” She pressed the button to close the window and then stretched out on the backseat. “Did you see him?”

  “Kiki, that’s enough.” Mari’s voice was stern.

  “I’m just asking a question. Sheesh!” With that she curled into a ball, cuddling Yoneko. She’d brought a light blanket, and she pulled it over herself, muttering until she got it the way she wanted it.

  “She doesn’t get out much,” Mari said. “She’s a bit excited about the trip.”

  It’s not every day you get to ride in a hearse, thought Gideon. I suppose that could constitute a reason for being excited. In Carlisle, when a horse-drawn carriage with a pine coffin in the back rode by, he never knew how to feel. Other children must have had trouble knowing how to react as well, and many decided that a silly rhyme was the best way to express the morbidity of the moment. As he thought of black carriages and a world that had been removed from him for over a decade, the words to the children’s song rehearsed themselves through his mind. Did you ever think when a hearse goes by that you might be the next to die? And the worms crawl in and the worms crawl out … He’d belted that song out once after first learning it, and his mother, appalled, asked where he’d heard it. “From the English, of course,” said Father, not waiting for Gideon to explain. For Father, the English represented all that was uncouth. The truth was, Gideon had heard it from Esther, his older sister. But he knew better than to squeal on her.

  Leaning back in the passenger seat, Gideon closed his eyes as the heat from the vent flowed throughout the vehicle. He tried to block out all thoughts and just concentrate on the lull of the car’s engine. Yet his mind went back, way back, to the writing course he had taken at the community college. He had written about the lyrics to the ditty and about his father’s reaction. The assignment had been to write about a memory of a song from childhood and the one about the worms crawling in and out had been his choice. “My sister liked poetry,” he’d written. “She had an ear for picking up lyrics. One day, when in town on family business, a hearse rolled by and two young boys started to chant. Later I guess she felt safe sharing the song with me. From early on, she knew I could keep my mouth shut, and so I was often privy to things she said she would never tell our parents.” At the time he wrote the piece, recalling his relationship with Esther had made him nostalgic, but he brushed that away and instead thought of his father. The image of the man always kept him from the feel-good memories of hearth and home.

  By six-thirty, the first ray of sunlight lit the highway. Hours later, he watched the sky turn dark with clouds and felt that the sky mirrored his mood. The hearse rose and fell on the road as one mile turned into hundreds and questions circled through his mind. How could I have let it come to this? What am I going to do the rest of my life, knowing I was not able to stop my brother from his demise? How can Moriah be dead?

  Each time Mari stopped for a bathroom break or to get juice so Kiki could take her meds, Gideon wanted to believe that the three of them were just headed on a little trip together. Happy and having fun, just like other people did. Perhaps when they passed a McDonald’s he’d buy them all milkshakes. Or a slice of apple pie. Then they could slurp and laugh and play a game like finding license plates from each state. Mari sang in the choir; maybe she could sing one of her favorite hymns.

  But each time he stepped back into the hearse, he knew he couldn’t escape the truth. He was going home to bury his brother.

  And he kept reminding himself that he’d never planned on going back home. Ever.

  32

  At the BP station where he pumped gas into the hearse, he saw his first windmill towering to the left of a nearby winding road. As he strained his eyes, he saw a white barn. The scene flooded his senses with emotion—his thoughts raced back to what seemed like yesterday. He recalled the birth of Moriah as he had huddled animatedly with his sisters, waiting to hear whether Mother had delivered a girl or a boy. He’d prayed for a boy. Three sisters were enough. He jumped when he felt a hand on his arm. Mari was unmoved by his reaction. Like a pillar of strength, like the courage that he needed, she stood beside him. Her hand stayed on his arm, warm in spite of the breeze that had picked up and was ruffling his hair.

  “Need anything?” she asked.

  He shook his head, swallowing the lump that had lodged into his throat.

  “I’m getting some coffee. Want me to see if they have green tea?”

  He wondered if he’d ever be able to drink a cup of green tea at Another Cup again, if he’d ever laugh again with Mari. He wondered if he’d be able to get through another Christmas without thinking about the gift Moriah gave him when Gideon was eleven. Moriah had wrapped a piece of wood in a handkerchief. The wood was to be used to build a pirate ship.

  It was at the BP station that he looked through the backseat window and saw the day’s edition of the Twin Star. Mari watched as he opened the door, bent over, picked up the paper, and then placed it back on the floor by Kiki’s discarded green-laced shoes. Kiki, wrapped in her blanket, didn’t notice; she just continued to sleep and snore.

  “You should read it,” Mari encouraged.

  “Is there anything in there about Moriah?” He didn’t want to read about how Reginald and two others were involved in his brother’s death. Whoever had written that article from a few days ago had gotten so many of the facts wrong; they’d made it sound like Moriah was such a lowlife that his death was welcomed, even justified.

  Mari gingerly took his hand. “It’s okay. The piece is a good one. Ashlyn wrote it.”

  Gideon knew that Luke thought the world of Ashlyn, but she was the sheriff’s daughter, and Gideon wondered if she was influenced by her father and what he said about the town’s politics and ideology around the dining room table. Part of Gideon still felt that the majority of the town wanted to believe that he, Gideon Miller of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was guilty of Moriah’s death.

  Mari handed him the paper, but he brushed it away. “I can’t. Not today.”

  “Well, it’s here when you are ready.” Folding it, she put it by her sister’s shoes and shut the door.

  It was five when Mari drove slowly past the Welcome to Carlisle sign. He asked her to stop and when she did, he scrambled out of the car, stood to the side of it, and waited. He could taste the sour juices of his stomach inside his mouth. Clutching the top of the hearse, he waited some more, hoping that the late-afternoon wind would calm his nerves. The muscles in his torso contracted, the pressure sharp throughout his abdomen. He exhaled slowly, his knuckles white and rigid.

  Nothing seemed to help. No amount of breathing in and out or even casting an eye toward the sky relieved him of his pain or the face that kept plaguing his vision. He saw his father’s face, anger lining each surface. He couldn’t do it. There was no way he could face his father after this. “Let’s leave. Let’s get out of here!” he said to Mari as he stumbled back to his seat.

  “Leave? We can’t.” With empathy in her eyes, she said evenly, “We are supposed to be here, Gideon. This land, this town, it’s yours as much as it is anyone’s. Moriah wants to rest here.”

  He shivered and drew a breath. He was glad that Kiki was still asleep in the back. He watched her curled body, covered in her coat, the blanket slipping to the floor. Her head rested against a pillow; her puppet-cat peeked out near her face, like a guard on duty. Although she w
as sleeping, he knew just what she’d say to him had she been awake. “You have an obligation.” She would add, “Moriah trusted that you would bury him by that tree. You have to.”

  Have to. Have to. He let the two words rumble inside his head.

  “Close the door,” Mari said and when he finally, reluctantly did, she said quickly, “We’ve got to find the hotel.” She’d made the reservations, again taking over because he could not make the phone call to book the two rooms. Ever since he’d found the body in the Dumpster, he’d had trouble making decisions. It was as though his brain had turned to sand. Mari was the one who borrowed the GPS from Della so that the trip here could be without error.

  With her eyes ahead and obeying the directions of the voice on the GPS, Mari drove. Her jaw was set, and although she didn’t speak, Gideon felt she must be disgusted with his antics.

  At last he said, “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Being difficult.”

  A moment later she said with conviction, “I’m so glad he’s in jail.” He guessed she’d been thinking about Reginald.

  Kiki stirred and asked, “Are we there yet?” Her voice was sleepy, but once roused, she looked out the window and cried, “This must be it! This is it! It looks just like the picture.”

  “What picture?” asked Gideon.

  “The one Moriah showed me. He showed me one like this with pastures and the mountains way in the background.” With her nose against the windowpane, she cried, “Oh, wow! Hey, there’s one of those buggies.”

  On a side street stood a black buggy with a gray horse. The horse had one charcoal ear. Gideon thought he knew that horse; it belonged to the Benders. He turned away and placed a hand over his face. He didn’t want to be recognized, not now, not yet. Lowering his hand, he felt silly. The Bender horse with the gray ear had been ten years old back when Gideon was a boy. There was no way that this could be that same horse now, so many years later.

  A white sedan pulled beside the buggy and a camera snapped a photo from the opened window.

  Tourists, thought Gideon. Just like in Twin Branches, always wanting to catch the local scenes and townsfolk for their photo albums.

  As the car sped away, a memory of Moriah flashed into his mind. Moriah in the high chair with his fist grasping a piece of apple-buttered toast. And he was laughing because Moriah was a happy toddler. Mother had said, “If only every baby was as sweet as Moriah.” Now her sweet boy was dead.

  He steadied himself, closed his eyes and didn’t open them until Mari said, “This is it. The Old Carlisle Country Inn.”

  “Do they have a pool?” asked Kiki.

  Mari slipped the hearse into a parking space. “It’s much too cold to go swimming.”

  “An inside pool,” said Kiki. “Do they have one?” She was looking at Gideon; he guessed she assumed he would know.

  Choking back emotion, Gideon said, “No, Kiki. No pool, no room service, none of what you see on TV. This is a quaint inn and it comes with a bed.” He hoped the owners wouldn’t recognize him. When he’d lived in Carlisle, the place had been run by a couple by the name of Guttenberg. From the old country, they spoke English with guttural accents.

  “Ah, they had a pool at the hotel where Mari and I stayed in Asheville when we went to see Mama at Christmas. But it was outside. What good did that do? What good was that?”

  Mari opened the rear of the hearse and removed all three of their bags. “We aren’t here to swim,” she said to her sister as Kiki exited the hearse. She patted Moriah’s coffin. “We’ll be back soon,” she said, as though talking to a child.

  Gideon ambled to her side. For a moment he thought of telling the others to go inside the inn before him. He hadn’t seen Moriah in the coffin, and perhaps he needed to look at him one last time and pay his respects. Isn’t that what people said, I came to pay my respects.

  Seeing his sad expression, Mari tried to console him. “It will be okay.”

  Taking the bags from her hands, he nodded. Somehow, some way, he wanted so much to believe her.

  33

  The inn held three floors, a lobby with a bushy Christmas tree, and one elevator. Kiki made a comment that Christmas had ended over a month ago and wondered why the tree was still up. Mari told her to lower her voice.

  The woman at the front desk was short and had graying hair. Gideon waited for her to speak, tugging his John Deere cap over his head, hoping she would not know who he was.

  Her accent was not German and, relieved, he relaxed his shoulders. He wouldn’t have to worry about being recognized and having to make small talk.

  Mari checked them in as Kiki observed the large Broken Star quilt hanging on the powder-blue wall to the left of the front door. Sure enough, Kiki asked Gideon about the quilt, what it was used for, and why it was on the wall.

  Gideon gave a short response. He knew she didn’t care to know all he did about quilts and quilting. Mother and his sister Esther were excellent quilters, so he’d grown up being privy to all the patterns. He’d even cut a few squares for the Stars Log Cabin design one winter. Helping Esther had been a nice change from his usual task of collecting eggs from their seventeen hens and milking the twenty Jersey cows.

  Mari conversed with the woman at the check-in desk. Gideon admired her for making the effort to be chatty and interested in all the woman had to say about the region. When she handed Mari the keys to their two rooms, Mari thanked her and, taking the opportunity, quickly moved away from the desk.

  “Hungry?” Mari then asked him as Gideon watched the tree lights twinkling on and off.

  He felt he could just stand there all evening, as though he was in some sort of stupor.

  When he said nothing, she repeated, “Are you hungry?”

  “I am!” Kiki grinned at them. “Where do we eat?”

  “Sure,” said Gideon, moving from the tree, trying to move from that gift of the wood Moriah had given him back when the kid had been just four. What did I do with that block of wood? He tried to think back to that time, but it was so long ago, back when he himself was just a boy wanting to leave the farm, and yet uncertain how to do it.

  “Hey,” Kiki was nudging him, her fingers jabbing at his hands like woodpeckers do to the trunks of pines.

  Gideon forced himself back to the present. “We can get something to eat.”

  What is it?” Mari asked after they’d taken the elevator up to the second floor, found their adjoining rooms, and Kiki had run about both of them, claiming she loved being in hotels. “I know you’d rather not be here in Carlisle, but Gideon, come on, don’t be so silent.”

  Staring out the window into a dark night, he let the numbness of the past week take over. He hadn’t been aware that he’d been silent, as she put it. The noise in his head was so loud, he couldn’t believe she couldn’t hear it. He wished for silence.

  Mari observed the view from the window as the streetlamps glowed against the buildings. “This is a cute town. How far is your house from here?”

  “Seven miles east,” he said. “Once you get out of the city limits, you’ll see farmland.” He could curl up and sleep, as Kiki had. Perhaps he shouldn’t bother with dinner.

  But Kiki was at his jacket sleeve, tugging on it like a small child. “Come on, Gideon, let’s go get some grub.”

  He did have the wherewithal to guide them to a small restaurant on the edge of town, hopeful that it would be fairly vacant and void of anyone he might know. The place was the Daily Bread Diner, and although he’d never eaten at it, he’d passed it when riding in a buggy on the way to the Yoder farm to deliver cartons of eggs. The diner’s sign was painted to look like a pinwheel, with narrow strips of light blue, metallic green, and sunflower yellow painted from the center. In the middle of the narrow strips was an orange dot and the words on it were “Best chicken and biscuits in the whole world.”

  Inside the dimly lit restaurant, a waitress showed them to a booth. Kiki said she wanted macaroni until she saw th
at the menu didn’t have it listed. Mari said she should try the chicken and biscuits and she agreed she would. Gideon ordered toast with apple butter. He was glad that no one commented on his small selection.

  Mari tried to make conversation, and he was appreciative of her attempts. She noted the décor on the wall, two identical photos of a lopsided black buggy and one of a loaf of bread in a wicker basket. On the bread photo was the caption, “Give us our daily bread.”

  Kiki yawned and said that once she finished eating, she wanted to go to bed. “Which bed do you want?” she asked her sister. “The one by the door or the window?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Great! I want the one by the window. I want to see the sun come up over the mountains.” Slurping her Coke, her mood changed to pensive. “When do we bury Moriah? Do we really have to stand outside? It’s cold here. It’s like, going to snow.”