Beyond Heaven and Earth

by Steven H. Propp

  “Make yourself at home,” Jobran said, in a distracted tone of voice, sitting down at the table, and resuming his study.

  Sandra shook her head, and looked in wonderment at all of the books, magazines, and newspapers that are piled and stacked on bookshelves made of cement blocks and boards. She picked up a small stack of books sitting on the corner of the only couch in the room, and set them on the floor, taking a seat in the now-clear spot—the only such visible spot in the room. She shivered, and pulled her sweater tighter around her neck, saying, “Jeezus, it’s fucking freezing in here. Can’t you turn up the heat?”

  Without looking at her, Jobran replied, “Heat costs money; I only work part-time, remember? Besides, I wasn’t aware that I was going to be entertaining ‘guests’ this morning.”

  “Well, every time in the last two months when I’ve called and asked if I can come over—just to make sure you’re not dead or anything—you’ve told me ‘no.’ So I figured that this time I wouldn’t ask, since you would have only told me ‘No’ again.”

  “Actually, I would have said, ‘I’m too busy.’”

  “Exactly; which is why I just came over on my own initiative. Two months is too long to go without seeing my only kid brother,” Sandra replied. “Your occasional E-mails don’t count; I need to see you in person—in the flesh, baby!” and she laughed. “We’ve already missed the chance to get together to celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday, and Valentine’s Day, so I figured that I’d better get myself over here before we missed St. Patrick’s Day, too!”

  Still not looking up from the magazine he is reading and taking notes from at the table, Jobran replied evenly, “Well, I hope the experience proves worthwhile for you.”

  Sandra stood up, and said, “Well, if you’d make some effort to open yourself up to the world, I wouldn’t have to do this.” She strode over to the window, and started to open the drapes, saying, “Can’t you even let some fucking light in here?”

  This finally roused Jobran, who jumped up and hurried to the window, frantically shutting the drapes. “I have to keep the drapes shut, so that my landlady— who lives in the house in front—doesn’t see how many books and newspapers I’ve got in here. She’d probably kick me out if she knew, screaming that ‘You can’t keep this many books in a 4-room cottage, you’re creating a fire hazard!’ Then I’d have to move out, and right now I don’t have the time, money, or inclination to move again.”

  “She doesn’t wonder about why your drapes are always closed?”

  “She probably just thinks I’m growing pot; or that I’m a cross-dresser,” Jobran replied evenly.

  “I see, I see,” Sandra said, wandering around the overflowing room, taking it all in. “So you live alone here in this cramped, unheated and unventilated cottage, just to save money.”

  “We part-time, swing-shift Key Data Operators don’t make much money,” Jobran said, dryly.

  “So go to work full-time. Or better yet, go back to teaching,” she said, looking pointedly at Jobran, who headed back to his seat at the table. “Hell, you probably don’t even get any benefits at that office where you work.”

  “We have a flexible benefits package; I chose to take salary, rather than have health coverage and retirement, because that way I’m able to get by while only working 24 hours per week.”

  “You don’t even have sick leave?”

  “I don’t get sick.”

  “Ever?” she asked, in wonderment. Jobran didn’t reply.

  Sandra waved her hand at all the books and papers that filled the room. “Kid bro’, you’ve got every available inch of space crammed with books, magazines, newspapers, and God knows what else—so it’s not like you don’t have any disposable income, or anything. Would it kill you to spend a few bucks heating this place?”

  With an angry tone to his voice, Jobran replied, “If it killed me, it’d be doing me a favor.” He got up suddenly, taking his magazine, which he carefully filed away in a stack on one of the shelves.

  Sandra said, “Wait!” and jumped up herself, crossing over to him. In a softer, contrite voice, she said, “I’m sorry, hon; I didn’t mean to say that. It just slipped out.” She put her hand on his shoulder gently, and asked, “Can you just sit down for a minute, and talk with me?” Jobran didn’t answer, or even look at her; his shoulders were still tense from the emotion of his outburst. Sandra said in a gentle voice, “You know, you’re still my only brother, Jobe, and I love you.” She put both her arms around him, hugging him from behind. “Believe me?”

  Finally, he softened, and said in a voice filled with emotion, “‘Course I believe you, Sanny,” and he turned around, and returned her hug. “You’re still my only big sister.”

  “Ah, now…that’s more like it,” she said, with a happy, satisfied expression. She led him back to the table (the only place in the room with two chairs next to each other) and they sat down.

  Jobran moved some papers out of the way, to give them room, and said, “I love you too, Sis; I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be difficult.” Starting to rise, he added, “Here, I’ll turn up the heater…”

  Sandra pulled him back down, saying, “No need, no need; I’m used to it now. And you’re absolutely right; no point in wasting money.” She picked up one of the many notebooks on the table, and opened it, seeing that it was filled with Jobran’s handwritten notes. She asked, “So whatcha studying now?”

  “What else?”

  She sighed, picking up several of the books lying on the table, and read off their titles. “Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death,” she intoned with a mock-serious voice. “Now there’s a little light bedtime reading.” Continuing, she read other titles: “Scientific Evidence of the Existence of the Soul; The Physics of Immortality; Jewish Views of the Afterlife.” Tossing them down on the table, she said, “Jeez, Jobe; I thought you would have read them all, by now. How many books can they write about life after death?”

  “You’d be surprised,” he said, with a wry smile.

  In a serious tone, Sandra said, “Hon, I know you’re just trying to get through a difficult time,” and she placed her hand on top of his, squeezing it gently. Then she added, “But I want you to know that you don’t have to go through it all alone; we don’t want you to have to get through it alone. You’ve got me, you’ve got my kids—Hell, you’ve even got that bitch-ass soon-to-be-ex-husband of mine—we’re here for you, and we want to help snap you out of this thing.”

  Jobran looked at her, and shook his head. “It’s not the kind of thing you can just ‘snap out of,’ Sis.” Jobran stood up, and walked over to the window, but without looking out through the drapes. In a faraway tone, he said, “You know, when I had Sophia, even during the times when we were separated, I never really felt alone, because I knew that I always had her love with me, inside of me.” He paused a moment, then continued, in a sad voice, “But now that Sophia’s gone, I can be in the midst of a huge crowd, and still feel completely alone.”

  Sandra asked, “But don’t you feel that she’s still with you, and with us?”

  Jobran look at her strangely. “I thought you were the atheist in the family.”

  Throwing up her hands with a flustered look, she sputtered, “Well, I am…that is, well, you know…I mean, shit; don’t you feel that, you know, that through your love—the love the two of you shared—like she’s still a part of you, that she’s still here with you?” In a plaintive voice, she said, “I mean, you don’t have to believe in God to believe that people are still ‘here’ with us, in our hearts and memories.”

  Jobran shook his head, and replied, “Sis, you’re being totally incoherent.” Putting his hands together, he said, “But the answer is No—I don’t feel like she’s still here with me. Even though my love for her is eternal and unwavering, she’s not here; and she won’t be here tonight, or tomorrow,
or ever again.” Reaching for one of the books that Sandra had set aside, he said, “My only hope is to join her, wherever she is.”

  Sandra sat for a moment, struggling to find the right words to say. “I know that you’re trying to fill your life with something now that Sophia is dead, but all this studying and research is clearly self-destructive. It’s what the psychologists call ‘compulsive’ behavior—where you’re doing the same thing over and over again, in vain, because it really isn’t satisfying you.”

  Grimly, Jobran said, “I’m in pursuit of the only thing that will satisfy me: reunion with Sophia.”

  Trying a different approach, Sandra said with a sly voice, “You haven’t even seen your niece and nephew since Christmas! Do you want them to grow up without knowing who their uncle Jobe is?” He remained silent, so Sandra continued, “Reyna needs you to give her horsey-back rides! God knows, she’s too big for me to carry her on my back any more. And Ricky: he needs you to help him learn his ABCs; you’re the teacher in the family, for Christ’s sake!” With a pleading expression, she added, “Jobe, I know you love the kids; I know you do. Don’t you

  even want to see them, sometimes?”

  “I see them at holidays.”

  “That’s not fucking often enough!” exploded Sandra. “Christ, our parents are dead, and the rest of our family is back east and could care less about us. My kids—your niece and nephew—need to be connected to a family! Someone who’s there whether you like them or not, someone that you can’t just pretend doesn’t exist, because that someone is part of you, and helps explain who you are!” Frustrated with his lack of response, she added, “Jobran, don’t make me have to initiate contact with all those pricks and prickesses back east, just so my kids will be able to have some kind of ‘Family Affair’! You and I are all we’ve got, out here; we need to stick together, to help you work through this thing!”

  Jobran struggled to try and find the words to explain his feelings to her, then threw up his hands in resignation, and sat back down in his chair.

  “How is Sophia’s family?” she asked, trying a different approach.

  Jobran shrugged, trying unsuccessfully to make the gesture nonchalant. “The same; they still blame me for everything. Even Sophia’s Mom won’t talk to me, so I quit trying.”

  “You see?” Sandra said, triumphantly. “That’s all the more reason why we need to stick together.” In a pleading tone, she added, “Jobe, you used to love to see the kids! You would play with them for hours, talk silly-talk and act out fantasy stories with them, let them climb all over you until your back was a wreck, let them pinch your face and pull your hair, and now you don’t even want to see them except three or four times a year?” He remained silent, so she said, “And that includes what? Thanksgiving, Christmas, what else? Obviously it didn’t include Valentine’s Day. What, do we need to start celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day, Arbor Day, Cinco de Mayo, and the fucking Chinese New Year just so I can get my kid brother to come visit his niece and nephew again?”

  Slowly, in a voice heavy with emotion, Jobran said slowly, “It…it’s just that Sophia and I always saw the kids together.” He paused, trying to regain control of his emotions, and stood up, pacing back and forth as he continued, “She was the one who taught me how to hold them, how to care for them, how to act with them.” In a hollow-sounding voice, he concluded, “Without Sophia, I feel like I don’t deserve to be around kids.”

  “But it’s not you that’s being deprived, it’s my kids—they need to have an uncle!” Sandra shot back, passionately. “Hell, if only to have someone in their lives who is over-indulgent with them, who doesn’t put all of the rules and restrictions on them that their Mommy and Daddy do, who will fucking spoil them a little god-damned bit!”

  “Being around me now would only upset them. Even at Christmas, they could tell that I just wasn’t the same any more.” Then Jobran said, simply, “Sandra, you are a wonderful mother; and Roger was—and is—an excellent father. My niece and nephew are growing up to be bright and healthy kids—they’re not deprived.”

  “Then you’re deprived,” Sandra retorted. “Look at you—you look like you’ve lost 20 pounds, and you probably hardly ever sleep; unless it’s while you’re at work. I think the only reason you work at all is to get enough money to buy books.”

  “And your point is what?”

  Angrily, Sandra snapped back, “My point is, that you’re so wrapped up in investigating the supposed ‘next life,’ that you’re ignoring and/or wasting this one!”

  “For me, this life is already wasted,” Jobran replied, with conviction. “The only residual interest it holds for me is trying to find out what I need to do in order to be reunited with Sophia.”

  Sandra shook her head in disbelief. “You don’t mean that, Jobe; you can’t mean that!” She got up and went over to stand by him, and said gently, “Jobe, you’re my brother and I love you; besides my kids, you’re practically all that I’ve got in this world. When Dad and Mom were killed in that car crash, it seemed like you were all I had.” Pleading, she said, “Don’t you remember that?”

  “Of course I do,” Jobran said, with feeling. “You quit school before you graduated and got a job, so that we were able to keep Mom and Dad’s house; you made sure that I stayed in school; you took care of their financial affairs, and did everything else. You got me through it, and I’ll never forget it, Sanny.”

  “And you got me through it,” Sandra replied. “You have no idea how many times I was tempted to throw in the towel, but I didn’t only because I was able to say, ‘I’ve gotta hang in there—for Jobe’s sake!’” She put an affectionate arm around his waist, and said, “And we can get you through it this time, too—OK?”

  Jobran didn’t answer, but just sat staring at the drapes covering the window.

  Gently, Sandra said, “Jobe, I was so happy for you when you found Sophia; the two of you truly seemed to be soul mates, two people that were just made for each other.” Shrugging her shoulders, she added, “Not like my Roger and me; after three years and two kids together, we were already sick of each other.” Then she grabbed Jobran’s shoulder, and said sharply, “But do you think that Sophia would want you to pine away like this? No way! She loved you too much!” Jobran didn’t say anything, but his eyes welled up with tears. Slowly, she led him back to sit down at the table again. “I’m not trying to say that you need to start dating, or anything like that—but at least you need to start to get your life back into some kind of semblance of order.”

  “My life won’t ever be in order again, without Sophia.”

  “How do you know, when you won’t even give it a chance?” she replied, sharply. “I know that both you and Sophia wanted kids, for example; don’t you still want to have kids of your own? Someone that you can love unconditionally, and give your love to without reservation? Something that’s permanent, that will last when…well, when you’ve gone?”

  Jobran shook his head firmly. “Without Sophia, there would be no point; the whole purpose would have been to raise our children together. If she can’t be here to help me raise them, children have no inherent attraction for me.”

  Incredulity in her voice, Sandra asked, “And you think Sophia would want you to feel this way?”

  Sarcastically, Jobran said, “Sophia’s not here, so I can’t ask her.”

  With increasing frustration on her face, Sandra said, “Didn’t you and Sophia ever discuss the possibility of the death of either one of you?”

  Jobran shook his head, and replied, “We never discussed it. Why should we? We were a young, newly-married couple—why would we discuss something like death? We were focused on life, not death.”

  “So you never even discussed the possibility of remarriage, in the event that one of you died?”

  “Even if we had discussed it, there is absolutely no way that I would ever eve
n consider the possibility of remarriage,” Jobran said, with finality. “When I pledged myself in marriage to Sophia, as far as I was concerned, I was vowing to keep an eternal bond between us—one that not even death could remove.”

  “I thought the vow just said, ‘’Til death do us part,’” Sandra replied, softly. When Jobran didn’t respond, she said, with a mock-serious tone, “An eternal bond, huh? Wow, that’s heavy. Isn’t that what the Mormons teach, or something?”

  Ignoring her comment, he said, “That’s why remarriage isn’t even something I would even consider.”

  Sandra kept pressing the point, and said, “But do you know for a fact that Sophia felt that way?”

  “I know for a fact that I feel this way,” shot back Jobran.

  “So you don’t care what she thought,” Sandra said, hoping to stir him up. Seeing that he made no reply, she continued, “Suppose that you had been the one who had the heart attack, and Sophia was the one left behind. And let’s say that you were looking down on her from some mythical Heaven, and you were able to appear to her, in a vision or something.” Looking Jobran directly in the eye, she said, “Realizing how young she was, and how she hadn’t yet had any kids: Would you tell her that she couldn’t remarry, and maybe find happiness again?” Jobran stayed silent, but she could tell that she had struck a nerve with her example, so she continued, “No way, Mr. Jobran Winter; I know you too well for that. I know as sure as I’m standing here that you would not only give her your permission to remarry, you would want her to remarry!” Jobran turned and started to walk away from her, but she followed him, continuing to pound away at his defenses. “Because that only thing that would matter to you would be her happiness!” He kept trying to get away from her, but she followed him doggedly, and crowed, “You know that I’m right, don’t you?”