“I caught a butterfly,” said a small voice.
Matthew looked around, and for an instant, in his agitation, he saw Mathy standing there, Mathy at three, bright-eyed and eager, holding something living in her cupped hands.
“Grandpa?” Peter said shyly.
Matthew looked at him—that tiny soft morsel of clay. What would Ed make of him?
He turned back to Ed. “You may do what you will,” he said. “I intend to keep him.”
They looked each other squarely in the eye, and Ed turned away first. In the silence that followed, Peter scurried off to the back yard. From the kitchen came the clatter of plates and pans, the dipper against the water bucket. A wagon rumbled by on the sandy road. The farmer raised his hand in greeting. Matthew and Ed waved back.
At last Ed picked up the crutch. “I guess I’ll be on my way,” he said, and he nodded at the other crutch planted among the rose bushes. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you—”
“Oh, yes—the crutch!” Matthew started up guiltily and brought it back.
Ed pulled himself to his feet and held out his hand. “Well, goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Ed. I’m sorry it has to be this way.”
Ed merely nodded.
“Shall I call Peter?” said Matthew.
“No.”
“Well…take care of yourself, Ed.”
Carefully, avoiding the rough stones planted along the edges of the path, Ed started toward the gate. Matthew watched him in pained surprise—the tall young strong body slung between the crutches, humped and laboring, dragging the useless leg behind it. He had not thought of Ed in this way. With a sudden pity he darted forward to open the gate for him and, in his haste, brushed against Ed in passing. His toe inexplicably caught the tip of a crutch—it was not that alone—the other crutch struck a rock at that same moment. However it happened, Ed lost his balance and went down. Crutches flying, arms flailing, Matthew crying out—Ed stumbled forward and fell sprawling on the path.
Matthew ran to him, mumbling apologies, reaching to help him.
“Leave me alone,” Ed said quietly.
“Take hold—let me lift you!”
“I don’t want any help.” Ed lay with his eyes closed. “Just leave me alone.”
Matthew backed away, ashamed to watch but watching, all the same, as Ed pushed himself up on one knee and crawled forward, like an animal pulling the trap with a wounded paw. He made a grotesque and painful sight. Catching the gatepost with both hands, he pulled himself up. He balanced there in precarious triumph. There was a kind of haughtiness in his face, turning in the next instant to a look of piteous, futile rage. The crutches lay on the ground just beyond his reach.
Hastily, without a word, Matthew picked them up. Without a word Ed took them. He was crying.
“Ed—” said Matthew.
Ed turned and hobbled to the car. Neither of them spoke as he drove away.
11
He was not afraid of Ed now. He had seen Ed back down. But all day he could not forget the tears pouring down that pitiful proud face. Ed had done wrong, but he was paying for it dearly. “The Lord handed down His punishment,” said Matthew. “I have no right to add mine.”
He said it aloud, coming up through the pasture at sundown. And he added, stopping at a certain spot above the branch, “I have not been blameless, myself.”
He climbed down the bank and up the other side to the three-cornered plot where the stub of an old hawthorn stood. Except for the farthest corner, the plot lay in deep shadow. There was a hushed and midnight air about this place. It was haunted, as he too was haunted, by old half-buried guilts and longings. He stood for a long time in the stillness, thinking of that night so long ago and of Mathy’s birth.
“Lord,” he said at last, “I thought when You took her from me, that was my last payment. But maybe I must pay now with the boy. And maybe that will be all.”
So they went both of them together, the next afternoon. On the road to Shawano the dust lay deep—red dust at first, fading to dun as they drove northward out of the hills into level country. The sedan wheels kicked up clouds that fell back slowly onto the sunflowers and Spanish needles, the bronze and scarlet zinnias on farmhouse lawns. The air was yellow, thick with dust and the sound of locusts gloating on the death of summer. This time of year was filled with loss and sadness, and Matthew’s errand was part and parcel of the season.
“Sweetheart,” he said, inquiring earnestly of the child, “will you be glad to see your daddy?”
“Yes,” said Peter.
“Do you want to stay with him?” he asked for the twentieth time.
The child made a droll thoughtful face. “All night?”
“Yes, all night, all the time. Do you want to sleep in Daddy’s house and not go home with Grandpa?”
“Fly in Daddy’s airplane,” said Peter, and he made buzzing noises. “Grandpa, can I honk the horn?”
“All right, you may honk it once.” (He was so little; he was only three.)
“I’m thirsty, Grandpa.”
“Well, we’ll get you a drink.” They stopped at a country schoolhouse halfway to Shawano and pumped a drink from the well. Matthew showed him how to catch the water in his hands. The child buried his face in the cool water and laughed. In the schoolhouse yard the weeds had recently been mowed. Another week and the yard would be full of children. But now it was very quiet and empty. The wind blew around the corner with a lonesome sound. Kneeling beside the child to dry his face, Matthew suddenly held him close. They could still turn back. But the impulse vanished as it came, for he remembered Ed clinging to the gatepost, his face streaked with tears.
They drove on to Shawano. At the edge of town they turned in on a narrow, little-traveled street. Plantain and goose grass grew down the middle. The house stood at the far end, aloof in an unkempt yard. In front stood Ed’s ancient car. Matthew stopped beside it and turned off the engine.
“Is this where Daddy lives?” said Peter.
“Yes, this is it. Come now, we want you to look spruce.” He combed the boy’s hair, wiped his face with the handkerchief, and kissed him. Then he picked up the cardboard box that held the little clothes and handed Peter the bag of cookies which Callie sent with him. “Well, let’s go now.”
They climbed the front steps and knocked at the door. The door was closed and the window blinds drawn against the heat. Matthew knocked again, louder, and waited. Anxiously he peered down the street. There was no sign of life anywhere around. The town seemed deserted. “Has everyone gone to Clarkstown today?” he said. He knocked again. “Well, let’s try the back door. Maybe they’re around there and didn’t hear us.”
He led Peter around the house. “The kitchen door’s open, anyway,” he said, climbing the steps to the screened-in porch. On the top step he paused. Ed was there. He sat at one end of the porch, slumped over a round oak table with his head on his arms. He had fallen asleep over an open book.
Matthew peered through the screen. “Ed?” he called.
Ed lifted his head and stared at Matthew. Matthew stared back in alarm. Ed was ill or had been crying. Or was it only the heat and the flush of sleep? It seemed more than that, for his eyes had a dull hot look and his unshaven face looked ravaged. Matthew hesitated, but only for a moment. Numbly he stepped inside, holding the child’s hand. “I’ve come to bring him back,” he said, and he waited for that sad broken man to accept the benediction.
A hot wind blew across the porch, and a locust set up a cry in the elm tree. Ed stared, licking his dry lips and swallowing as if trying to bring out the words. Suddenly he leaned forward and moved his hand, and Matthew saw what the trouble was. Not sleep, not illness. Ed was very drunk.
There stood the bottle on the floor. There on the table was the half-empty glass which Ed’s trembling hand had picked up and abruptly set aside. Matthew looked at them, sick at heart. For now he did not at all know what to do. If he were merely angry, why, then it would have been easy to tu
rn on his heel and go, taking the boy. But there was one thing more his shocked gaze took in. Ed was seeking consolation, and not only in the bottle. The book lying open before him was a Bible. The whiskey glass had left a wet ring on the page. Holding fast to the child, Matthew stood motionless between indignation and pity.
“Excuse me,” Ed mumbled, pulling himself up with the crutches. “I’ll go wash my face.” He picked up the bottle and vanished into the kitchen. They could hear him splashing water.
“Sit down,” he said, coming out again, looking fresher.
Matthew had not moved from where he stood. He hesitated another moment before pulling back a chair. Peter went shyly to his father.
“Hello, Peter.” Ed’s voice was tender. He stroked the boy’s hair but made no move to pick him up or embrace him. He seemed to know how drunk he was and to impose his own discipline. Though his tongue was clumsy he spoke with care. Peter swung on the chair back, prattling. After a moment he went back to Matthew and crawled up on his lap.
“You go out in the yard and play now,” said Matthew, putting him down. “Grandpa and Daddy want to talk.”
Peter went out, dragging a crutch with him, click-clack down the wooden steps. Matthew watched him, painfully aware of Ed, not knowing how to begin. All the fine things he had meant to say seemed out of place now. At last Ed tipped the silence balanced so uneasily between them.
“So you’ve brought him back.”
“Yes,” Matthew said uncertainly, “that’s what I came for.”
“I thought you were going to keep him. What changed your mind, Mr. Soames?”
“Well, Ed—”
“It wasn’t Alice, was it?” said Ed. “You weren’t afraid I would talk?”
“No,” said Matthew gravely. “It wasn’t that. And I hope you will believe me. It was—other things. It was you…. I thought you had suffered enough for your mistakes. I thought after all that’s happened you had learned your lesson and that you meant to do better, as you said. That’s what I thought. But now—” He looked at Ed in pity and loathing.
“Now you see me like this.” Ed smiled bitterly.
“Why do you do it?” said Matthew, leaning forward.
“It helps sometimes.”
Matthew shook his head, grimacing.
“It doesn’t help now,” said Ed.
“Nor ever will! Don’t you see that, can’t you learn? Try, Ed, try to do better!”
“I don’t know that I can.”
“You can if you try! You have the choice!”
“I wouldn’t know how to start.”
“You have started already,” said Matthew, leaning forward again and touching the Bible. “Keep it up—God will help you!”
“You’re sure of that?”
“ ‘Ask and ye shall receive.’ You’ll read it right there.”
“I have read it. How can I receive if I don’t believe?”
“You do believe, don’t you?”
Ed shook his head. “Not much.”
“I know you have often expressed doubts, Ed. I remember the conversations we used to have. But through doubt sometimes we are able to work our way to a deeper faith. Now if you can only—”
“Why did Mathy die?” said Ed. “Was it the will of God?”
Matthew nodded. “As all things happen by His will.”
“All things? War, famine, murder?”
“He gives us a choice. We don’t always choose right.”
“It was not my choice to kill Mathy.”
“Then perhaps…it was His choice,” said Matthew.
“To punish me for my sins, yes!” Ed laughed bitterly.
“And me for mine, perhaps.”
Ed leaned forward, thrusting his flushed face closer to Matthew. “Why were the wages of my sin her death—why not mine?”
“The Lord has His reasons. Maybe she is your salvation. Maybe she died that you might atone through suffering and be saved.”
“Did He have to do it like this?” Ed cried. “Am I that wicked?”
“We can’t always understand His ways. We must trust Him, trust in His mercy.”
“If this is mercy—!” said Ed.
“His face is veiled to us,” said Matthew. “But read your Bible. There is comfort there.”
Ed looked down at the book for a moment. “For the men that wrote it, maybe. ‘And God said…’ It was nice and simple. If you couldn’t figure it out any other way, there was always God for an answer. Well, there’ve been a few changes.” He flipped through the pages. “I’ve read the voice of the whirlwind—have you perceived the size of the earth, has the rain a father, where does the snow come from, have you searched the depths of the sea—yes, we have now, and we know the answers.”
“Not all of them,” said Matthew. “Every answer breeds new questions.”
“We’ll find those answers, too.”
“And does that dispose of God?”
“Of this one,” said Ed, closing the book.
“He is not that easily disposed of,” said Matthew. “For when all the questions are answered there will be one left: Who is the author of the questions?”
“Well, who is?”
“We call Him God.”
“And so do I,” said Ed, “but not this God.” He laid his hand on the book.
“But the evidence!” said Matthew. “The teachings of Christ!”
“The Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary!” Ed intoned. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and Joseph the cuckold of the Holy Ghost.” He crossed himself.
“Don’t blaspheme, Ed, don’t mock!”
“I mock the superstition, not the man. I believe in the man. He lived a good life and He died braver than most.”
“Yes—and He arose from the dead!”
“I doubt it. But He took the risk. I respect Him for that. I respect His doubt.”
“Doubt?” said Matthew.
“They tortured it out of Him. ‘God my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?’ I am sorry for Jesus Christ! For He was forsaken, like the rest of us. I can’t believe in God the Father, the family man. He didn’t create us! He allowed us to happen. And it doesn’t mean a thing. Why should God look after us or care one way or another? We’re too insignificant, us and our little worries. Why should He care about my soul—or whether I see my girl in heaven? I’m not that important. I do not matter.”
“I do,” Matthew said simply.
They looked at each other for a moment in silence.
“Vanity,” Ed said then with a shrug.
“No-o,” Matthew said, considering. “I matter because He is great, not because I am. There is more to it than vanity.”
“Yes—fear!” said Ed.
“It is always called that by nonbelievers.”
“Dress up your faith any way you want to—fear holds it together. Fear is the safety pin!”
Matthew thought about it for a moment. “Well, then,” he said slowly, drawing a long breath, “if it is fear, then I accept it. Maybe fear is the only lever God could find that would pry us up to heaven. And I believe He meant for us to get there. We have to work for it—nothing is worthwhile that’s too easy to get. We have to work and do right, here on earth. It would be more honorable to live a good life without thought of reward. But in that case, I’m afraid, not many of us would qualify for heaven. We like the temptations of the world too well. So perhaps God made fear to help us—to prod us and goad us toward everlasting joy. I accept fear, too, as part of His mercy.”
Ed gave him a long look. “I believe you,” he said at last. And they were silent, gazing out at the August yard.
The little boy played quietly in the hilly country of the elm tree roots. A leaf that had hung on the tree since April suddenly let go and made its slow journey to earth, tilting this way and that in its new fatal freedom, but falling, steadily falling.
“I want you to keep him,” said Ed.
“I brought him to you.”
“And I thank you for
what it must have cost you. But I want you to take him back.”
Matthew turned to him. “You asked me what changed my mind, Ed. What changed yours?”
Ed smiled. “Alice,” he said.
“Alice?” Matthew said uneasily.
“Yes,” said Ed, still smiling. “I wouldn’t have thought to use that against you! I’m not much good, Prof, but I’m better than that. Whatever happened between you and her, I hadn’t thought about it in years. It just wasn’t that important. But I saw that you thought it was. You were thinking, ‘Blackmail,’ and I saw you were willing to risk even that. So I thought if you wanted the boy that much, you ought to have him.”
Matthew sat humbly looking down at the table.
“But that isn’t the whole reason,” Ed went on. “He’ll be better off with you, and I know he will—better than he would with me. I don’t agree with you on everything, Prof, but you’re one of the few men I know that I think of as good.”
“I have not always done right,” Matthew said without looking up.
“But you admit it to yourself. And you try.”
“I have been vain. I have counted my virtues and added them up against those of others—yours—”
“And never believed in them at all!” Ed smiled again. “But I believe in them. I have no faith in your God, but I have faith in you.”
“I’m glad,” said Matthew, without looking up.
12
They drove away at sunset, down the street where the goose grass and plantain grew in the middle and the dust of ancient bones rose behind them, past the trees where the locusts sawed and prophesied, away from the lonely house and the other father. Beyond the town the pastures burned in the clear still brilliance. The trees cast long shadows across the road and the air began to feel cooler. With the light dewfall, an accord of evening odors rose, hay and honeysuckle, the odor of barns and sleek cattle, and the clean acridity of Jimson flowers opening at dusk. Matthew drew it into his lungs gratefully. And he marveled, coming back into a familiar world, at the turn of fate that sent him home like this, not bereft as he had thought to go, but with the child beside him. He had thought to lose, and he had won. He had seen Ed brought down, his arrogance useless, his airy carelessness turned to remorse. Ed had paid openly for the error of his ways, and this was no more than justice.
The Moonflower Vine Page 27