Looking into You

by Chris Fabry

  Dickie broke the silence. “Do you ever think of what happened? Do you ever think of her?”

  “Sometimes,” I whispered, and the words began to flow. “Sometimes I smell woodsmoke or hear crickets at night and I’m back on the hill. It’s all there, Dickie. All trapped inside like fireflies ready to rise.”

  “Riverfront?”

  I smiled. “Yeah. We had fun, didn’t we?”

  “Remember the horse?” Dickie said.

  “That was our first secret.”

  “What about Daisy?”

  Daisy Grace. I could see her chubby face and a fistful of daisies held behind her, and the ramshackle house on the side of a hill that hung like a mole on the face of God.

  “I remember it all, Dickie.”

  “Yeah, I do too.”

  “Especially the parts I try to forget.”

  He told me about his job and what he’d done after high school, but I couldn’t hear his story for the memories he had stirred. I thanked him for calling.

  “I’ll say this, PB: I know it’s been a long time and I don’t know if you’re seeing anybody, but I think you owe it to her to go back. You owe it to yourself.”

  “What about Earl?” I said. “You going to provide backup?”

  “You’re a bigger man than him, Matt. You’ve always been bigger than you thought you were.”

  His words stung my eyes. “Dickie, I’m sorry. I’ve never been able to tell you how sorry I am that—”

  “You don’t have to apologize. We were kids. I’ve thought about calling you and patching things up a hundred times. I was wrong to hold it against you in the first place.”

  “Thank you for saying that.”

  When I returned to the apartment, Dantrelle looked like he’d been gut-punched. The Cubs hadn’t been to a World Series since 1945. Hadn’t won since 1908. And with Goose Gossage throwing BBs, it wouldn’t happen this year. Maybe if Jim Frey had relieved Sutcliffe, things would have turned out differently.

  The old pain returned as I watched San Diego celebrate. Steve Garvey flashed his million-dollar smile and Gossage hopped around the field like a kid who had stolen candy from a general store. Bob Dernier and Jody Davis and Don Zimmer looked back in anguish. It was the end of a season and the only consolation was there would be next year.

  “If they had played three in Chicago, we would have won,” I said.

  “Why didn’t they?” Dantrelle said.

  “Just the way it works. But the commissioner said if the Cubs had made the World Series, they’d have lost home-field advantage because they don’t have lights.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Yeah, well it was all about money. And life isn’t fair. Especially when it comes to the Cubs.”

  As Dantrelle got his jacket, I took my old glove with faded words and held it to my face. The faint leather scent swirled warm, rich memories like fly balls in a summer sky. I returned the glove to a plastic bin in the apartment’s only closet. Pictures lay scattered like dry leaves among the papers and playbills. The three of us, sweaty and smiling and spitting watermelon seeds.

  “Who’s that?” Dantrelle said, pointing at a Polaroid of Jesse sitting on a picnic table and holding a cat.

  “A friend of mine from a long time ago.” At the bottom of the box was a ticket. Reds vs. Pirates, July 1972.

  I got out the yearbook and paged through until I found her. She stared at something beyond the camera. Her hair was too long and cut uneven and shadowed her eyes. The photo was a black-and-white, but I could see the emerald blue, her eyes like an ocean. Closing my eyes, I heard her laugh and her desperate cry for help in the year I discovered my heart.

  People say you can’t know love at such a young age. Maybe it wasn’t love. But it was close. The longer I stared at Jesse’s face, the more my heart broke for her and what had happened. I thought I had put all of that behind me, though. I had moved on with life, but one phone call had grabbed me by the throat.

  “Can I watch some more TV while you look at this stuff?” Dantrelle said.

  I apologized and put the bin back. “Dantrelle, I might have to take a trip. That would mean we couldn’t meet this week.”

  His eyes looked hollow as he shrugged.

  “Maybe I could ask Miss Kristin to help with your math.”

  He brightened. “I like Miss Kristin. You two going to get married?”

  I tried to smile and shook my head. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s a long story I’ll tell another day.”

  A week earlier Kristin, a flaxen-haired beauty who attended a nearby Bible school and mentored young girls at Cabrini, had sat across the table from me at Houlihan’s to splurge on an early dinner. I could tell there was something wrong before our salads arrived. As tears came, she said she cared deeply for me but that we couldn’t go further.

  “I think I just want to be friends,” she said.

  “What does that mean? That I’m not good enough for you?”

  She shook her head. “No, you’re a great guy. I see how much you care about the kids and how much you want things to change. But it feels like . . .”

  “It feels like what?”

  “Like you want to throw on a Superman cape and run to the rescue. I can’t fix what’s wrong at Cabrini. And neither can you. We can help some kids, maybe. We can make a difference. But it feels like you’re doing all of this in your own power.”

  Her words stung because I could see Kristin and me together. I wondered who had gotten to her in her dorm and talked about me. Of course, whoever had pointed out the spiritual mismatch was right. She was a lot further down the road of faith. At times, it felt like I had taken an exit ramp miles earlier. So we agreed to part as friends and not let our relationship harm the work we were doing. It was all smiles and a polite hug while inside, the part of my heart that had come alive as I got to know her shattered.

  I picked up the phone now and dialed her dorm. Someone answered and Kristin finally came to the phone.

  “Hey, I have a favor to ask,” I said, extending the antenna. “I need to take care of some stuff at home—but Dantrelle is counting on me this week. Do you think you could meet with him? I can’t be back by Tuesday.”

  “Sure. I’m over there that afternoon anyway.”

  I gave Dantrelle a thumbs-up. “He just smiled at that news.”

  “He’s with you?”

  “We were watching the Cubs lose.”

  “Poor Cubs. So what’s up? Is someone sick at home?”

  “It’s complicated. Maybe I’ll have the chance to explain it someday.” If you give me another chance.

  “Well, tell Dantrelle to meet me at the ministry office.”

  “Thanks for doing that, Kristin.”

  I left a message with the coordinator at the counseling center, explaining as little as possible about the trip and leaving my parents’ phone number in case someone needed to reach me. Then I walked Dantrelle home and up the urine-laced concrete stairs to his apartment. His mother came to the door, wild-eyed and unkempt. She grabbed him by the shoulder without speaking to me, and Dantrelle waved as he was hustled inside and the door shut.

  I took the stairs two at a time and moved away from Cabrini, thinking of Jesse and her bad decision. If she said, “I do,” that was it. She would. I had to do something to change her mind and keep her from throwing her life away. I had to help her see the truth. And though I didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want to open the door to even the possibility, something inside told me there might still be hope for us, even after all the years and distance.

  I threw some clothes in a gym bag and set my alarm. Then I lay in bed, listening to the sounds of the city, knowing I wouldn’t sleep. Dickie was right. I owed it to Jesse to make one more attempt. And before she walked the aisle that felt like a plank, I owed it to myself.

  Well before midnight, I hopped in the car and headed toward the expressway, then
south toward Indiana and beyond to my childhood home.

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  Before

  Treha imagined it like this: A summer afternoon. Her mother’s satin dress billowing. Fully leaved, green trees swaying. Crossing a busy street.

  “Keep up with me, Treha,” her mother said.

  Looking into the sunlight, she saw the silhouette of her mother’s face with beads of sweat on her lip and the wide-brimmed hat casting shade. Her mother not quite smiling but showing dazzling teeth. Deep-red lipstick. Like a movie star with a hint of concern on her face.

  Momentum carried them to the sidewalk and the corner shop with the tinkling bell as they passed the red bricks and moved into the cool, sweet air smells and bright colors under a sign that said Ice Cream.

  Her mother led her to the glass case that held the containers. Treha stood on tiptoes but wasn’t tall enough to see over the edge, so her mother picked her up and held her, letting her hover above the colors. She pointed out the ones with dark specks and those with pecans and pralines or cookies or M&M’s.

  “Which one would you like? The orange? Yellow? Don’t take all day now.”

  The man behind the counter wore a white apron and wiped his hands and smiled. Behind him on the wall was a clock with a fish symbol in the middle and a second hand that jerked around the face.

  Treha chose the pink, purple, and yellow all mixed together, and her mother put her on the floor. Treha studied the tile, the way the patterns worked together in threes. Triangles that made up squares that made up bigger triangles and squares. Black-and-white patterns she could see when she closed her eyes.

  “Cone or cup?” the man said.

  “Cup,” she said quickly, like she knew the cup lasted longer. You got more ice cream that way and less all over you.

  “You’re a smart girl,” her mother said, sitting her on a chair next to a round table. The top was green and smooth and cool to the touch. “And so pretty.”

  There was something in her mother’s eye that she wiped away. Dust? A bit of water?

  The man brought the cup filled to overflowing, with a plastic spoon standing at attention. Her mother paid him and he went back to the register, then returned to them.

  “How old is she?” the man said, handing her mother the change.

  “Almost two.”

  “Adorable. She’s a living doll.”

  He spoke as if Treha weren’t there, as if she were an inanimate object incapable of understanding words.

  Her mother knelt on the tile arranged in threes, the design continuing to infinity. She dabbed a napkin at the corners of Treha’s mouth. As hard as Treha tried to stay neat and clean, she always got the ice cream on her face and hands and dress. Maybe that was why it happened. She was adorable and a doll but too much trouble.

  “I need to step out. You wait here, okay?”

  Treha studied her as she took another spoonful and carefully placed it in her mouth.

  Her mother kissed her forehead and whispered in her ear, “I love you, my sweet princess.”

  She said something with her eyes before she stood but Treha could not decipher the message. Something between the words, something behind the stare, interconnected but dangling, like a loose thread in an unwanted scarf.

  The bell jingled behind her and Treha looked back long enough to see her mother disappear into traffic, lost in sunlight.

  When she finished the ice cream, the man came to the table and took the cup. “Where’s your mama?”

  She stared at him with those brown eyes, wide like saucers. Milky-white skin untainted by the sun. Ice cream spots on her pretty dress that she tried to wipe away but couldn’t.

  “You want another scoop?”

  She shook her head. Her chin puckered. Somehow she knew. The world had tilted a little. She was alone.

  The man walked to the door and looked out. Scratched his head with the brim of the white hat, then put it back on.

  Treha swung her legs from the chair and looked at the sign behind the counter, the lines that connected to form words she did not understand. Words on walls and hats and buildings and cars. Letters bunched in threes and fours and more to make sentences and stories. Her story. The one she didn’t know. The one she tried hard to remember but never could. The one she had to make up.

  CHAPTER 1

  Ardeth Williams was eighty-nine and her eyes were glassy and clouded. She stared straight ahead with a slight head tilt as her daughter and son-in-law wheeled her past open doors at Desert Gardens of Tucson, Arizona. The companion building, Desert Gardens Retirement Home, was a fully staffed facility featuring its own golf course, a spa, exercise rooms, and several pools. But this Desert Gardens offered assisted living and hospice, a nursing home with frills. It was billed on the brochure as a complete end-of-life facility located in the comfort of an upscale desert community.

  Miriam Howard, director of the facility, followed the group closely, watching Ardeth for any response. She couldn’t tell if anything was going on behind the opaque eyes. The old woman’s body sat rigid, her hands drawn in. Her head bounced like a marionette’s as her son-in-law pushed her.

  Retirement was bearing down on Miriam like a semitruck trying to make it through a yellow light. It was a huge transition Miriam had dreamed about, but now that she could measure her remaining time in hours instead of days or weeks, she couldn’t suppress the sadness. This wasn’t her timing. But the decision had been made by the board and the new director was moving in.

  She had developed a facility that actually cared for people inside the “compound,” as some cantankerous residents called it. There was human capital here and she knew it. And she hoped the new director would learn the same. The woman was on the job already, learning procedures, the problem residents, soaking up the routine, uncovering the scope and magnitude of her duties.

  “Aren’t these flowers the prettiest?” Ardeth’s daughter said when they reached the room. “It’s so bright in here, don’t you think? And clean. They’ll keep it neat for you, Mom, and you don’t have to do a thing. You always kept everything so tidy and now you won’t have to worry about that. Isn’t that great?”

  The daughter didn’t realize this was part of the problem. The same tasks that wore her mother down were the tasks that gave her structure and stability. Worth. When she could no longer do them and others were paid to accomplish things she had done as long as she could remember, life became a calendar of guilt—every day lived as a spectator, watching others do what she couldn’t and being reminded with each breakfast made by someone else’s hands. Miriam saw this clearly but could never fully explain the truth to families crunching numbers on the cost of warehousing the aged.

  “You’ll have a nice view of the parking lot, too,” her son-in-law said, tongue in cheek. “All those fancy cars the employees drive.” His hair was graying and it was clear he and his wife were having a hard time letting go, though they were trying to be strong.

  He pushed the wheelchair farther into the narrow room and struggled past the bed.

  “She can’t see the TV facing that way,” his wife snapped. She turned the chair around, jostling the old woman.

  Miriam had seen this tug-of-war for thirty years. The walk of a hopeless family trying to love well but failing. Everyone watching a parent slip away shot flares of anger that were really masqueraded loss. Deciding what Mother would like or wouldn’t was a seesaw between two relatives who were guessing. Love looked like this and worse and was accompanied by a mute, white-haired shell.

  When Ardeth was situated, the man locked the wheels clumsily and patted her spotted hand as he bent to her ear. “Here we are. What do you think, Mom? Do you want this to be your home?”

  Nothing from the old woma
n. Not a grunt or a wave of the hand. No scowl. No recognition. Behind the cataracts and age and wrinkles, there was simply bewilderment. And even a casual observer could sense the fear. Could taste it in the air. But this scene brought out Miriam’s strength.

  She sat on the bed beside Ardeth. In the early days, before she had learned the valuable lessons that came with running the facility, she would have spoken as if the old woman weren’t there or weren’t aware. Now, she gently put a hand on Ardeth’s shoulder and spoke softly, including her.

  “Ardeth will not just be a patient if she comes here,” Miriam said. “She will be part of our family. Part of our village. And there are things she will contribute to the whole that others can’t.”

  The daughter hung on every word. Mouth agape. Water filling her eyes.

  Miriam continued. “What you’re doing, the process you’re going through, is a loving one. I know it doesn’t feel like that. You’re having a hard time even considering this, and your heart is telling you to take her home, where she belongs.”

  The man crossed his arms and looked away, but the daughter nodded. “That’s exactly it. I just want to take care of her. We’re overreacting. She put up with so much from me; the least I can do is return the favor.”

  Miriam smiled. “That’s a viable option. But if Ardeth was to stay with us, I want you to know that you won’t be abandoning her. You’re giving her the best care possible.”

  The daughter took her mother’s hand. “I want to be here for her.”

  “Of course. And she knows that, though she can’t express it.”