Almost Heaven

by Chris Fabry

  “My mother did not have an easy life. It felt like she moved from one storm to another. Some of you know we lived along Buffalo Creek down in Logan County when that dam broke. She lived through that. She helped Daddy through his illness. She saw a son die in Vietnam. She lost her parents early on.

  “And she always told me, when her mind was right, that the struggle of our lives was not a sign that we were failing or losing. The struggle was a sign that there was still life. If you stopped struggling, that’s when you needed to be worried. The fight meant God was helping you keep going one more day even if you didn’t think you could make it.

  “I believe that, even when I don’t.”

  Macel Preston wiped away a few tears and I felt my chin quiver. But I held it together long enough to finish.

  “The other thing she would have wanted you to know is that no matter how hard things get, God is there. I can see glimpses of that even in her worst days. I can see the ways that Jesus was working all of this out, even though it’s hard to make sense of it.

  “Mama loved me to the end in the only ways she knew how. Even through the sickness of her mind, she was caring for me. On the day before she died, we passed some kids who were selling mangy puppies. She picked one of them up and wouldn’t let go. I had to buy it so the kids wouldn’t call the police on us.”

  Everybody laughed.

  “I think Mama knew I would need something in the house after she was gone. She was providing for me even in the darkest hours.”

  I paused and gathered the pieces of paper I had torn from my mother’s to-do pad. With tears in my eyes I said, “I loved my mama. And she loved me. I don’t think a son could ask for more than that.”

  I started to leave the lectern and then stopped. People wiped at their eyes and stared straight ahead. I put my hand on the casket and looked at them. “Someone came up to me last night and said they were sorry that I had lost my mother. And I appreciate that. But I want to set the record straight. I haven’t lost her. I know exactly where she is. One day I’ll see her again.”

  * * *

  Macel came to me after the graveside service and clutched my hand in hers. “Your mother would have been so proud of all you said. It was just beautiful, Billy. I’m so sorry for the pain you’ve been through.”

  “We went through some deep waters together. I’m glad she’s at peace. And I’m glad I know where she is.”

  She nodded. “The Lord has something good in store for you. I can just feel it.”

  “Feels like I’m turning a page, Mrs. Preston. I don’t know what’s on the other side, and I know it’s going to be hard, but I think I’m ready.”

  “I’m going to send Hadley over with a casserole or two in the coming days.”

  “I look forward to it, ma’am. I appreciate your husband more than I can say. Compared to some lawmen I’ve been acquainted with, he seems to have a real heart.”

  “He does. He’s a good man, Billy. Pray for him. He needs to know the Lord.”

  I nodded. “What’s holding him back?”

  “The past. The future. He’s a wandering soul with a lot on his mind. I’ve had the church praying for him for years, but there doesn’t seem to be much going on. I have enough faith to trust the Lord is going to do something there, too.”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that God has a way of working on his own timetable. And it usually is a lot different from ours.”

  “That’s the truth, Billy. It surely is.”

  “I’ll be praying for your husband,” I said.

  “I appreciate that. And I’ll be praying that God is close to you in this time.”

  I went back to my car after everybody left, but I just sat there and watched the workers lower the casket down and then cover the hole with dirt. After they finished and made their way from the cemetery, I got out and took my mandolin over to her grave and played one last time. Music had been such a part of our lives and I knew she would have liked it.

  I believe that absent from the body is present with the Lord. The pastor back on the creek had said that after the flood, and his words rang true to me all those years later. If you are “in Christ,” the moment you take your last breath is the moment you are in the very presence of God. So I really wasn’t playing for her. I was playing for the memory of her. The memories of all the years and the hard times and the choices I’d made and the way we both had to deal with them. Wave after wave of memories swept over me and carried me to unexpected places along the creek bank of my life. A restaurant where my mother let me order food we couldn’t afford, my first day of school in Dogwood when she trailed me to the classroom—as unable to let go of me as I was of her—sitting together near the empty grave at my father’s funeral, and the day she gave me the news of Heather’s wedding.

  Before the sickness took over her mind and body, I had seen her at the point of despair only a handful of times. She was always such a woman of faith, someone who believed that God was who he said he was and would do what he said he would do. But that day I remember her face fell and there seemed like something had bittered up her soul.

  I had just come home from an overnight shift at the radio station. It was only part-time, but I was happy to be doing something I really enjoyed. I sat in one of the kitchen chairs and she sat next to me and folded her hands across the table as if in prayer.

  “Billy, Heather’s mother called me today.”

  “Really? What for?”

  “She wanted to let us know some news.”

  I nodded. My mother had a flair for the dramatic, and this pregnant pause was one of her devices to drag me into a story. “News?” I finally said.

  She rubbed her hands, pursed her lips, and finally let it escape. “Heather is getting married this weekend. Down at the rose garden in Ritter Park. Her mother wanted you to know. I’m so sorry, Billy.”

  I swallowed hard and scratched at something on my neck. “Married, huh? Who to?”

  “She didn’t say. It came up all of a sudden, I guess. I don’t think they knew she was even serious about anybody. I don’t think it was anybody from around here.”

  I tried to laugh. “Well, I don’t know why you’d think I would be upset. We were friends, but it was never anything more than that.”

  She kept looking into my eyes. “Is that the truth?”

  I got up and went to the sink and ran the water. I washed my hands for no particular reason other than to put my back to my mother so I wouldn’t have to endure her eyes.

  “Actually, I’m real happy for her, Mama.”

  “Say what?” she said.

  I dried my hands on a paper towel and turned. “I’m glad she found somebody. It was always my hope that she’d be happy. My biggest prayer was that she would know Jesus. But I also prayed that she’d find somebody who would be good to her. Maybe that’s who she’s found.”

  “Well, nobody knows much about him. I think it was somebody she met on a trip. I doubt it will last.”

  “I hope you’re wrong. What God joins together should stay together.” I tossed the paper towel into a Foodland bag on the floor. “I can’t say I’m all that surprised. She was always unpredictable.” I put a hand on Mama’s shoulder. “Thanks for telling me. I’m going to get some sleep.”

  “Billy?” she said when I hit the hallway. “If you need to talk, I’m here.”

  “Thanks, Mama.”

  I smiled at her and walked back to my room and shut the door. I took off my shoes and jacket and collapsed into bed. A swarm of memories collected around me like bees to a hive. Memories that I wanted to both forget and cherish. I knew from the day I sat down beside her on that bus that I had no chance of winning her heart. And something was tearing at the soul of that girl. That she would run into the arms of someone who could give her some comfort from life’s disappointments was expected after all she’d been through.

  I lay there on the pillow, the sun coming up over the hills and bringing warmth and light. My bo
dy was exhausted, and there was a deep ache that only comes when hope and love meet a brick wall.

  “Lord, you know why Heather is running,” I prayed. “And you know the heart of this man she’s going to marry. I release her to you and ask you to draw her to yourself. Bring her into a relationship with you, and do the same for her husband. Show them there’s no better place to live than in your will. I don’t know how you’re going to do it, Lord, but I pray you would.”

  I guess some people wondered over the years if I even had those kinds of feelings because of the type of person I am. Solitary. Working alone most of the time. That’s why I’m writing it down. Those feelings have been there and come up now and then at unexpected times. I guess that’s part of the struggle. Part of living in a world filled with hurts and disappointments.

  I patted the loose dirt on the grave and picked up a flower arrangement that had fallen. Then I said good-bye to my mother for the last time and headed home.

  11

  The Sunday after Mama’s funeral, I took the pup to Ritter Park. I had an ample supply of Stewarts hot dogs as I looked for the kids. When I couldn’t find them, my heart grew heavy. I opened a can of tennis balls and the pup chased one around for a while, bumping it with his nose and rolling over it with his paws.

  I picked him up and headed for the rose garden. This time of year its beauty was masked, but the meticulous gardening still stirred me. I could see the expanse of the park from here, the fields and playgrounds and trees that seemed as old as time itself. I spotted three kids with a box at the end of the park and hurried to reach them.

  I was out of breath but managed to get their attention before they crossed Thirteenth Avenue. Their eyes lit up and they came running, the dogs thumping against the sides of the box.

  “We didn’t think you’d come back,” the girl said.

  “Yeah,” the younger boy said. “Our mom said you ditched us.”

  “Well, tell your mother that Billy Allman always keeps his word to a friend.” I pulled out the ten-dollar bill I had in my shirt pocket. “Looks like you still have all of your pups. Didn’t have to take them to the pound?”

  The girl looked up sheepishly. “Mama told us to forget the pound and just chuck them in the river, but I couldn’t do it.”

  “Well, I’m with you,” I said. “They just need a good home.”

  “Your pup looks like he’s doing okay,” the girl said.

  “He eats like a king,” I said.

  “What happened to that old lady who was with you?” the younger one said. “I thought she was going to kill that dog.”

  “She was sick, actually. I didn’t know how sick. She crossed over the river this past week, so she’s in a better place.”

  “She went to Proctorville?” the boy said.

  Any other time I would have laughed out loud. Instead, I smiled, the hurt still there. “No, she passed away.” When the three of them shot me bewildered looks, I explained that she had died and that her funeral had been Thursday.

  “I ain’t never knowed anybody who died the same week they bought a puppy,” the girl said.

  I gave them the box of hot dogs and the gallon jug of root beer, and the girl said they would have them for dinner. “Mama will freak out. We don’t have much food in the house.”

  “You tell her a satisfied customer came back to pay his debt.”

  “You wanna come eat with us?” the younger boy said.

  The girl shot him a mean look like he had just uttered a blasphemy.

  “I don’t think I could stay to eat, but I’ll give you a ride home. How far away is your house?”

  The girl pointed. “About a mile or so over thataway. But Mama wouldn’t like us getting a ride from a stranger. Did you hear about that little girl who got kidnapped?”

  I’d been listening to the news stories. A young girl had been abducted from Dogwood over the summer, according to her mother. I had volunteered on a search crew a few months back, scouring the countryside, but there had been no sign of the child.

  “Tell you what, you put your puppies in the back, then, and I’ll follow you home so you don’t have to carry them.”

  The girl thought a minute. “I don’t think she’d mind you giving us a ride.”

  They all scrunched into the truck and we drove past the brick homes of Huntington’s upper crust and into an area of houses with rotting roofs and overgrown yards. The kids gave conflicting directions, and we wound up at some apartments that looked like they were too run-down even for college students.

  The kids hopped out, carrying the dogs and the food and drink, a lightness to their step. “Mama, it’s him! He came back and paid us!”

  I stayed at the truck and waited for the mother to invite me in or call the police. Through an open window next door, I heard bluegrass music. I recognized the group and wondered if it was the radio or a CD. There weren’t many stations in this area that played that type of music.

  The mother came to the door barefoot, wearing faded jeans with holes in the knees, the sign of the bottle in her eyes. They were hollow and empty, like the life had been sucked out of them.

  “What are you doing around my kids?”

  The younger boy pulled on her hand and told her not to yell, but she pushed him away.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you, ma’am. I just wanted to pay my debt and do something nice for your children. I didn’t have the money last week when I saw them—”

  “You one of them perverts who steals kids?”

  “No, ma’am, I—”

  “Stop calling me ma’am. I’m not some old lady.”

  “I know that, ma’—I mean, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. That’s just how I talk to people.”

  Her hands were on her hips and her posture said she was ready for a fight. A curtain pulled back in another apartment. We had an audience. The kids were at the screen door. I didn’t want an argument with her or anybody else.

  I explained what had happened. How I didn’t want to buy a puppy but my mother insisted. And how guilty I felt for cheating her children of those ten dollars. “My mother passed this week, and I think it was God’s way of letting me have a little companionship. I remembered this morning that I owed them, so I thought the least I could do was give a little food and something to drink for their gift to me.”

  “We don’t need your charity,” the woman spat.

  “Mama, he’s nice,” the girl said through the screen.

  She yelled something so mean to her that it cut me to the heart. The lady told her to close the door and then turned on me. “Get out of here and don’t come back. Next time I see you around my kids, I’m calling the cops.”

  I backed away to my truck. I wanted to explain more or at least say I didn’t mean any harm. I had the good sense to know this wasn’t really about me, but I still felt the shame of being there with people looking.

  When I drove away, the kids were at the front window eating those hot dogs. I never drove by Stewarts again without thinking of them and their mother so scarred and scared that she couldn’t see something good when it stared her in the face.

  I go back to that event and what happened with the children as what started my dream. Hearing that music coming from the apartment and knowing how people identified with it, how much it could seep into a soul or break a stony heart, gave me an idea. I’d seen it happen before, the message of the music cutting through, even though the people who played it weren’t perfect. I’d seen music change people, the words and the melodies working their way like a vine into the spirit, winding around their lives until they had to respond.

  * * *

  The next week, when my manager called me into his office, it was like a streak of lightning across the sky of my life. I didn’t see it that way then, but it struck me later that God was moving the course of my life.

  “How are you doing, Billy?” he said, speaking slowly as if he were reading a script. His name was Karl Stillwater, and I have never been a
ble to get over the irony of that last name.

  “I’m all right, considering. Thanks for asking.”

  Karl was not a big man, either in stature, resolve, or heart. The cowboy boots made him a little taller, but they also seemed like props. He lived on a farm outside of town that had no animals in the barn or crops in the field. It was just country veneer. All look and no corn.

  There had been several painful conversations when I first began working overnights for him. He said I’d never make it—even in the hills—as an announcer. He just wanted me to play the music along with the voice-overs of the image IDs and stingers that played in between songs, which was a little like taking a girl to a movie and sitting in the row behind her.

  So I threw myself into the technical and watched others with better voices and less to say shuffle through the control room. It has always seemed to me that what you say is more important than having a good voice. You can have all the panache in the world and a smooth sound and professionalism, but if there’s no heart, people can tell. But that is not the way the world works, I guess.

  “Were you finally able to buy that piece of land down in Dogwood?”

  “I’m paying on it every month.”

  “Did your mama leave you anything to help out with that?” he said, folding his hands like a preacher about to deliver a sermon on hell.

  “Mama didn’t have much of anything. She left a few trinkets but no money. But she loved me with everything she had. I think that’s better than a big inheritance.”

  “No property or . . . ?” he said with a grimace, like what he was about to say would have been easier for him if she had a big life insurance policy.

  I shook my head.

  “Well, Billy, we’ve kind of come to a crossroads here. And I hate to do this at such a time, but I think we need to go another direction with the station.”

  “Another direction? Format change?”

  “No, we need to hire a different chief engineer. With the economy what it is and our ad revenue down, we’ve had to make some hard decisions. Like I said, I hate to do this to you at such a hard time. I know you’ll understand.”