The Door to Heaven

by Becket

  “Am I doing something wrong?” she asked, suddenly feeling like a child.

  “Let me show you,” he said as he reached his arms around her. Taking the knife from her hand, he began swiftly sawing through the basil leaves with his fingers a hair’s breadth away from the sharp edge. Her heart began racing, and not only because she feared he would slice his fingers off, but also because his arms around her felt…felt what? she wondered. She did not have a word for this new feeing. It feels good, she thought simply. The good feeling felt like home. And she thought words like good and home were more perfect than any four-syllable tongue twister. I feel like a cavewoman, she thought with a smile.

  Dominic finished. She was delightfully surprised to see that the basil leaves were completely, perfectly shredded. The scent of basil was strong. Onions and garlic were in metal baskets hanging from the ceiling. She diced onions and minced garlic. He boiled yellow rice and frozen peas and he regretted that both had been store bought. His sentiment delighted her. He scooped the fillets from the pot and flash seared them in a skillet. He mixed in the onions and the garlic and he added salt. He seasoned the yellow rice with basil and mixed in olive oil. He prepared two plates and they sat at the dining table and ate. The meal was perhaps the most delicious that she had tasted in a long time. But he ate quickly. She ate slowly. She did not speak while she ate. Yet the silence made her uneasy. She would write in her journal later, but for now she recounted aloud the events of the day between each bite of her meal. The squaw bush berry juice and the walk. The mockingbirds and the mallards. The island and the fishing. The black bear. But her speaking during the meal appeared to make him uneasy. He shifted in his seat. He spoke little, but he nodded, which spoke volumes to her. She was doing what her papaito always did. She wondered if Dominic was doing what his mamá always did. She ate another bite of her meal. A moment passed before she realized that the silence was bearable with him. Somehow, the meal tasted even better now.

  Dominic rose from the table. He found jigsaw puzzles. He asked if she would like to put one together with him. It was an odd surprise but not unpleasant. Her family never really did puzzles. Diversions did not appeal to her papaito. “He says such things are too unproductive for him,” she said. But engaging in new and different activities charmed Pascala. She laughed and clapped when he emptied the puzzle box over the dining table. The pieces spilled out in a mound. She thought it was chaotic and wonderful. Then they spread out all the pieces and turned each face up. He told her to start matching the colored pieces while he worked on the border. She did but she began to think. This made her fidget. He noticed that she was uncomfortable. He felt bad. Both tried working a little longer. But her fidgeting and his regret were too strange for him. So he asked if she would like him to make her some buñuelos.

  The buñuelos did not take long to make and fry. The smell of fresh bread and hot sugar soon filled the house. He broke the bread. He ate one half. She ate the other. She loved the taste of the warm bread. His buñuelos were better than the ones her papaito made. She watched him while he ate. He smiled at her with crumbs in the corners of his mouth. She remembered the cookie crumbs and the frosting at the corners of her momma’s mouth, all those years ago, the day her momma died. But she was surprised that she was not sad. She smiled and reached forward to brush them from him. He did not resist.

  The front door opened. Their parents had returned and they had news. They sat Pascala and Dominic on one side of the dining table while they sat on the other. Her papaito was holding his mamá’s hand. They were laughing like children. They looked nervous and excited. They looked so childish. Dominic wondered what the news could be, but Pascala saw the ring on his mamá’s finger. Then she knew. Too many thoughts began to swirl around in her mind. She could not think. She wished her momma were still alive, even though she had already mourned. She did not want someone else in her life, but she wanted to know what Dominic thought of her. She wanted her life to change, but she needed her papaito to stay as stable as a statue. Didn’t she want him to be happy? She wished she had her journal. She needed to get her thoughts out of her head. “Ruth, help me,” she cried out from her heart, and her angel was prepared to fight the demon of doubt that was lurking in the shadows. Dominic had many feelings, but his foremost was fear. His fear was the fuel of the fire of his anger. Any moment he might rage from the room and punt off to the island. Pascala reached under the table and she touched the back of his hand. He turned his palm up. His hand was warm. Hers was cold. But the touch felt good and Dominic opened his hand to let her fingers slide between his. Their hands locked together.

  Their parents were getting married. Her papaito asked Dominic what he thought of their news. Dominic had felt afraid, but his fear had begun to burn. His heart had begun racing. His nostrils were now flaring like a bull. He looked through the window. The sky had darkened. Night was coming. There would be no moon that night. Clouds would hide the starlight. No light, he thought as he looked for Duck Island. He wanted his raft. He had more work to finish in his cave. And for some reason drifting into his mind was the memory of his papa being carried by those vines of light into the Door to Heaven. He clenched his jaw. His chest burned and he called the burning bitterness. He wished that the Door to Heaven had never appeared.

  His mamá now asked Pascala how she felt about their news. Pascala stared in silence. She could not tell if her mind was blank or if she had so many thoughts going on at once that she could not think. Her feelings were a mystery. Her eyes stung and she did not like it. Ruth my angel, her heart cried out, something is hurting me. Her angel heard her, but Ruth was wielding God’s luminous weapons — the weapon of the Word — to defend her against the demon of doubt that had crept too close.

  DOMINIC

  Dominic’s mamá would not let herself be sad that her familia from Mexico would not come to her wedding. She maintained a childlike optimism that her parents and brothers and sisters and cousins would respond to her invitation, perhaps not by letter, but by a sudden appearance, like a surprise party. She would not give up hope — even on her wedding day. In her white bride’s dress, waiting for the bridal march at the back of the church, she kept looking toward the door, with the strong conviction that the next person to open it would be her mamá from Mexico. But her familia never came.

  Pascala’s papaito had invited his familia from Mexico also. They were a large, happy, gregarious group. Twice as many that had been invited came. The little village church was packed full of people! Most of his familia spoke English, but those who could not still talked with villagers despite the fact that few villagers spoke Spanish.

  The wedding was at noon. The church was warm and full of guests. It smelled like perfume and cologne and sweat. Dominic had never seen it so full. He had never heard so many people talking inside. The village custom was that there should be silence before and after celebrations. But Pascala’s familia used the silence as an opportunity to get to know the villagers, and to talk with one another about the events in their lives that had happened since the last time they met, which was the weekend before.

  This was the first wedding that Dominic had ever attended. He was the best man. He now found himself standing at the front of the church near the altar beside Pascala’s papaito. Dominic had tried to call him his papaito also, but the word felt cumbersome in his mouth, and it had come out clumsily. Saying it had embarrassed them both. They patted one another on the back and agreed without words that their relationship would be less intimate. Pascala did not call Dominic’s mamá her mamá also, and Dominic did not mind. My papa is in Heaven with her momma, he told himself. They are together, Pascala and I are together, and our surviving parents are surviving together. Pascala’s papaito wore a black suit with a flower pinned to the lapel. So did Dominic.

  The wedding march began. Everyone stood. Pascala appeared at the back of the church. She looked so confident in her maid-of-honor dress. The dress was satin and a soft cream color that looked lovely again
st her dark skin. Dominic straightened his tie. She had curled the ends of her hair. He exhaled and spoke so low that only he could hear the resonance of his voice in his head. Beautiful. Slowly she walked up the isle between the rows of turned heads. His mamá appeared behind her. She wore a white diaphanous veil. She was cupping a bouquet in her hands. She looked young and beautiful, and he tried to be glad for her. No man was giving her away. She seemed happier than he had ever seen her. For some reason, he suddenly thought of his papa’s last words. Be a good boy for your mother. Fry her buñuelos when she is sad. He had done that even though his mamá was never really sad. And she never ate them because she had been determined to get to this day on the day his papa died. She didn’t like being alone. For her, there was no difference between being alone and being lonely.

  Mr. King was in the first pew. He tried not to weep at the wedding march and he was almost successful. He rubbed the tears from his eyes. Everyone understood that he was still mourning the death of his wife. Dominic would not think about Mrs. King. But he remembered her long enough to feel regret. He felt that he had failed her. He felt that he had failed Mr. King. He had not sailed Mrs. King out to the island. He had not taken her to the Door to Heaven. His mamá had invited over the man she would marry. The change distracted him. He had forgotten to do the work requested by the Door to Heaven. He could fulfill any request by any villager — mend a pipe or fix a broken window or rewire a room — he even had the right tools to build a whole house. But he had not helped out the greatest need of his nearest neighbor. Mrs. King died. And he had not taken her through the Door to Heaven.

  Pascala stood across from Dominic and waited for his mamá. She glanced at her papaito. But she looked at Dominic. She was wearing makeup and he did not like it because she never wore makeup and now she looked different. But she is still very beautiful, he thought yet he could not grasp why. No matter how much he adjusted his necktie, it still felt crooked and tight.

  Dominic and Pascala sat together in the first row during the ceremony. She slid her hand across his palm and they interlocked fingers. Her hand was cool. She smelled like roses — the perfume he liked. He was not prepared for the wedding ceremony to come and go so quickly. He felt as though he blinked and he was being asked to speak now or forever hold his peace. He held his breath, clenching his teeth. And in those final fleeting moments before the groom kissed his bride, he reflected how life had become so different ever since she and her papaito came to the village. He and his mamá had stopped piecing together puzzles. Their parents took pictures of one another and framed them and hung them on the hallway wall where Dominic’s papa used to sketch designs. The house was no longer a cave. It was a home once more with a family both new and familiar. Dominic did not watch the wedding kiss. Villagers clapped. A few whistled. He could not tell if he was feeling too many sentiments, or too few. Or do I feel anything at all, he wondered.

  He didn’t want the wedding reception at his house but his mamá insisted that it should be at no other place. The wedding ended and the whole village walked to his house — but he stood in the middle of this moving crowd like a rock in a river. He imagined stripping off his black suit and sailing off on his raft. The water would be freezing. Snow had fallen earlier that month but a small blast of warmth had returned and melted the snow in a day. He could almost taste the algae smell of the lake. He could almost see the island silhouetted in the glare of the sunlight shimmering on the choppy waves. When was the last time I sailed out there, he wondered. He could not remember. He had been spending every day with Pascala. There were many incomplete projects in his cave. Will I ever finish them, he wondered. How could I have forgotten them? He gripped his hands. Where is my screwdriver? He had no excuse to repeat his papa’s catchwords while villagers congratulated him and patted him on the back and bellowed in his face with broad grins flashing too many teeth. He closed his eyes. He remembered the first night he had seen the Door to Heaven. He had felt at home with the thunderstorm raging around him.

  He began to hurry from the church toward the inlet where he had last moored his raft beneath the juniper trees. He was ready to push out into the lake and punt away. But he saw Pascala moving toward him through the crowd. She grabbed his hand and led him outside and around the church, where no one else was, where she knew he would be happiest. They leaned against the rear wall. Ahead of them was the surrounding forest. Mockingbirds were chirruping in the trees. She smiled and closed her eyes and tilted her head up. Rays of sunlight coming through the trees lit up her face. Her radiance and her scent of roses made her seem so beatific. The urge to leave was still strong in him. But she was like an anchor. She was always there. She had become a growing presence in his life. She is my lily, he had been thinking lately. She is my anchor.

  For the preceding months Pascala had visited Dominic more and more. More and more, he had come to enjoy her visits. They had hiked her trails together and listened to the mockingbirds. She had asked him questions. He had answered. He had shown her how to cast clay pots. She had read Robinson Crusoe. She had made him a journal wherein he had tried to write down his thoughts. She had tried tightening a screw. He had tested into the advanced math class taught by her papaito. She had prepared picnic baskets filled with foreign foods like sushi and tempeh and tofu. He had taught her how to boil water into salt and how to identify edible mushrooms and how to survive if she was ever alone in the wild. But he had not been able to talk with her about their parents’ wedding and he had started to wonder whether the mallards on Duck Island had forgotten him. How long had it been since I had last punted out there, he wondered. He did not know why he had stopped going. He had not forgotten about the island or avoided it. But he had found other reasons for staying on the mainland. There had been a time when he thought nothing could take him away from his cave. He had marveled how other people could live life without a cave or an island. He had forgotten when the noise of the world stopped bothering him. Now with her in his life he went into the village for reasons other than work. They sat together with peers. He started sleeping less in the cave and more in his bed again. He had an urge to see what a supermarket was like.

  Now they were behind the church. Now they were alone. Pascala reached out to touch his cheek. Her thumb rubbed his skin and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. She stared at him. His heart was beating fast and his breathing was short. She seemed to be waiting for him. He felt himself move before he realized. They stood very close. He did not hear her breathing but he saw her chest rise and fall. Her mild rose scented perfume thrilled his stomach. He studied her eyes and her nose and her mouth. She is still very beautiful with makeup, he felt as he leaned nearer. He put his arm around her waist and drew her closer. He felt his nose pressing into her cheek. His chin rubbed hers. His lips on hers. He had never kissed anyone before.

  The church was never locked. Dominic took Pascala back inside. No one was there. They were alone. He closed the door and listened to the silence. He suddenly realized that he felt different. Do I feel better, he wondered. I’m not sure, he told himself. Just different. He never liked feeling different. But this different feeling was a good kind of different. And that was different too. And that was also good. He was not afraid of this change.

  The church lights were off. Sunlight filtered in through the stained glass windows and cast red and blue and yellow light on the pews and on the floor. The air was filled with mingling scents. Dominic led Pascala to the middle of the church. They knelt on the floor. She touched his arm and slid her fingers down to his hand and interlocked her fingers with his. She rested her head on his shoulder. They prayed to God together in silence. He had the feeling that they were not alone in the Church. He could see that her eyes were closed. Around her there seemed to be a white light — like the light he had seen coming through the Door to Heaven. He was not afraid that this light would snatch her away, as it had done with his papa. This light seemed to be grounding Pascala, keeping her by his side, for better or for
worse. In this light, he thought he saw someone standing over her, like a protector. Like an angel, he said to himself.

  Dominic and Pascala walked to his house. He liked how empty the village square was now. He wished he could stay there. He wished he could avoid the wedding reception and he tried to listen to her. She was talking about the possibility of attending college. She had talked about it before and he had not liked it. The nearest college was an hour away and she would have to move back to the desert valley. She said that she would like to get a degree in psychology. Don’t go away, he thought but never said as he looked toward the juniper trees where the raft would still be moored.

  Villagers swarmed in and out of his front door. Groups dawdled on the front lawn and held red drinks in clear plastic cups and heaps of food on paper plates. He stopped in the middle of the road.

  “What’s wrong?” Pascala asked.

  He did not respond. The gauntlet of guests might offer him more congratulations. They might pat his back. They might ask questions and take pictures. They might talk about his papa. He wished his mamá had been sad. He wished his buñuelos had made her happy. His mouth watered for the taste of squaw bush berries.

  Mr. King exited the front door and sat on the front porch steps where his yellow Labrador retriever was leashed. He patted his dog and examined the crowd. He didn’t seem to have any other friends, no one was talking with him, but he didn’t seem to mind. He saw Dominic and Pascala standing in the road. He seemed to know what Dominic was feeling. Perhaps he was feeling the same. He shook his head at Dominic, waved his hand away with the slightest gesture, and then returned his attention to his lab, as if he had not expressed every emotion that Dominic was feeling. Dominic understood him perfectly. And he nodded, grateful that someone with some measure of authority had given him permission to avoid his home.