#
The ride into the country was in some ways an enjoyable change of scenery. The crops in the fields were just beginning to show their green rows that seemed to go on forever over hills and more hills without fences to interrupt the flow. Indeed, it was like Pearl had said, a work of art. Beautiful. Easy to overlook the hard work, long night and day hours of planting that had gone into this art. Lydia remembered something from the Katha Upanishad she’d learned at the Ranch. “A mortal ripens like corn and like corn is born again.”
Margie drove. Lydia read off the directions. These back roads now had names and the mailboxes numbers, so it seemed an extension of some invisible city. But it was certainly a practical move for locating a place when a 911 call sent emergency vehicles to the scene of trouble. It was in Lydia’s mind one more indication that the world was indeed smaller, more integrated, more dependent on every small particle and space being known to someone, some agency. She could almost understand how some might resent the government tracking down every spit and spittle so there was no place to hide.
The house they found, set back from the road was shaded by large elm and pine. The large lawn was neatly mowed and edged near the house with flowers in bloom. Barns and other buildings stood back of the house and beyond them fields and fields. In fact every place they had passed was surrounded with fields, and pasture, the homestead buildings like an oasis. Margie parked the car near the back door. Like most farm houses the front door was seldom used. So they entered a back porch and kitchen and were led into the living room where Mike rested on the lounge. He sat up and welcomed them. Charlette offered iced tea and went to the kitchen to fix it. Jennifer was no where to be seen.
“Thanks for coming,” Mike said. “I meant to introduce myself long before last night, but seems we were always too busy. I apologize. These things, these attacks just come on me sometimes.” He gave them a wan smile, then looked down at the floor as he explained that psychiatrists told him he was too intense and should relax. He made a half-hearted laugh and studied his hands. Lydia noticed how they trembled. “A farmer relax? I tell them they’re crazy.”
Was now the time to give him his brother’s message, Lydia wondered. Don’t take life so seriously. It’s all okay. She couldn’t, not here, in front of Margie.
Charlette came in bearing four iced tea glasses on a tray, and set them on the glass-topped coffee table in front of the lounge. She handed one each to Lydia and Margie who sat in easy chairs nearby. Then she plopped down next to Mike.
“I was tired last night and I’m not easy with running a meeting.” He cleared his throat and raised his head for a brief glance at the sisters before shifting his eyes to stare past them into some unknown space. “Or controversy. It just tightens me up. And then seeing you both there, in that very room, and I knew you wanted an explanation. I guess Stanley got it started.” His breath came in shorter and shorter gasps. Charlette put a hand on his knee.
“Lean back, honey,” she said softly. “It’s all right.”
Margie stared. Something like needles and pins inched their way up her spine and spread into her arms, legs, hair. “We really don’t need to know everything,” she muttered, but it wasn’t actually true. She wanted to know everything she could possibly stand.
“We do need to know everything,” Lydia said, directly and forcefully contradicting Margie. “But I do see how hard this community has taken the, the, death of our parents. Pearl has told us many things. About your mother, and how you, Charlette, helped Mike deal with it all. And how Shirley helped Stanley. I have to admit we’ve had some really angry feelings about why you guys just left and all. Just ran. But Stanley sort of explained. You were all scared.”
“They ran to get help,” Mike said, his voice trembling. “I told them to go get someone. Go get Ed’s dad. Or JJ’s dad. And the girls, they didn’t even know your mother was there. Right, Charlette?” She nodded. “It was just me and Dale that knew. But then Dale just insisted they’d be okay. And he shoved me on to our car. And Stanley had to get the girls home. And I had to get Dale home so he could catch the bus early the next morning in Des Moines so he could get back to base. And Des Moines was an hour’s drive. So we did that. Mom and Dad in front, Dale and me in back. It was a real quiet trip. Dale maybe slept. He knew his whole brigade was deploying to Vietnam in a couple days. And we all knew we might not see him again.” His voice was rushed and frantic, rising in pitch as he spoke. When Mike stopped he took a long drink of the tea. He wasn’t done, though.
“The trip home was even quieter. Mom was sad. Dad was stoic. And I? I knew there was something at home I didn’t want to even think about. I knew at that point that I was the only one who knew the truth. But I didn’t know that the truth would be worse than I thought.” He began rocking forward and back, his voice strained. He tried to speak and couldn’t. Charlette put her hand on his hand.
Charlette took up the story. “Shirley and I learned from the phone calls. When I heard our parents say Brenda and Ed Kinnen had been found dead I couldn’t believe it. It just wasn’t real.” She shuddered, her shoulders making quick jerks. “And you know what? Our parents were afraid to ask us questions. They would look at us and go silent. They didn’t want to know what we knew. Can you understand that?” Charlette leaned into Mike and they were like two naughty scared children, hoping their naughtiness could somehow be undone.
“For a long time we could just stay quiet,” Mike said. “We could just let the adults talk and think what they wanted to think. It was like they were simply waiting for us to speak up. Waiting. Waiting. Each day was a nightmare. When are they going to ask? Is today the day? My stomach churned. I couldn’t eat.”
“They came up with things like it might have been the Training School boys,” Charlette said. “Or those red necks spouting off about peaceniks. And it was all from overhearing phone conversations and what Mom and Dad said to each other. Shirley and I didn’t dare call Mike or Stanley. We had no idea what JJ was doing. We heard rumors of the sheriff interviewing him, and his father of course. The newspapers mentioned that your parents had received hate mail, but no one could track it down.” Charlette gave the sisters a quick look, then ducked her head again. The room was quiet, as if the very air was poised and waiting, listening. Lydia heard the refrigerator turn off. She heard a clock ticking in some far-off room. A warm breeze from the open door brought in the odor of livestock pens, cattle perhaps, pigs.
“I was glad I didn’t know everything,” Charlette continued. “I even began hoping they would find one of those American Legion guys to blame.” She had detached herself from Mike long enough to reach for her iced tea and take a few sips.
“Then the word came that Dale had written a letter. And then, that he’d been killed.” Mike wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Lydia notice dark stains spreading under his arms. As the two talked, they seemed to relax, as if the confession was releasing puss from an open, seeping wound.
This onslaught of information they had waited thirty years to hear was hard to bear. Lydia realized how silent truth could be, once paralyzed with fear. She looked at Margie clutching her glass of iced tea, the condensation dampening the napkin she held under it. She tried to read her but couldn’t.
“Sometimes,” Mike said, breaking the lengthening silence, “sometimes, I feel they’re still around. Dale, Mom. My Mom was so upset, so angry. She refused to believe Dale had done anything wrong. It was a stranger. Someone she didn’t know. She held that belief to the day she died. Dale was so perfect, sooo right. How could I ever tell her...?” He let it go at that.
“Emotions are strange things,” Lydia said, speaking to no one in particular, but feeling she had to start saying something. “Powerful. Hard to control. And we can talk ourselves into believing things that aren’t true,” Lydia commented. She wanted to pick up on his feeling Dale around,
but wasn’t sure about Margie, sitting there so quiet. “I worked on a hospital mental ward once,” she said. “It was for a psychology class in college. I remember people had a hard time talking about feelings. I mean, they could admit to being nervous and edgy or anxious or worried, but try to pin them down about why and they went blank. Someone else did this to them, or some event happened to them. They were unable to see their own actions that brought on bad feelings. It takes a lot of courage to say the things you’ve just said, Mr. Harris, Mike. I hope you realize I, we, really appreciate this.” Lydia looked over at Margie, who was looking at her hands griping the iced tea so hard she wondered if the glass would break.
“I’ve also felt like they’re still around,“ Lydia ventured. She wished she and Mike were alone. At least that Margie weren’t here. But she was, and she’d just have to bear with it. “I mean my mother mostly. Dale, though, recently. They’re both trying to figure out the why of what happened.” Lydia felt her face flush. She hoped Margie wouldn’t be too cross when they got back home. But she wanted Mike to know he wasn’t alone in these awkward feelings.
“Jennifer knows, too,” Charlette volunteered. She and Mike were holding hands, still sitting very close. Lydia didn’t know who was leaning on whom. “She calls you the ghost lady,” Charlette said, braving a smile. “Though last night I believe she realized there was more to ghosts than she realized. She’s always been curious about her Uncle Dale. She and Tanya have had their theories. And their older brothers have put ideas into their heads. I’m so sorry. We haven’t done a very good job about telling them the whole story. One can be haunted without seeing wisps of light or hear unexplained noises.” She gave Lydia a shy studied glance. “Lately she’s been talking about angels.” Charlette’s voice was soft.
“Oh, we did get into an interesting discussion the other day,“ Lydia admitted with a grin. “I hadn’t really expected to talk about death and the hereafter. But maybe it’ll help her know that the things that came to fore last night were clarifications, and that tears are not always bad.” She smiled, feeling a certain permission was being granted to relax and let things flow. But sometime she’d have to clarify that angel bit. Dying and going to heaven didn’t automatically make one an angel.
“Charlette and I have had many tears. I’m sure Jennifer has seen them.” Mike rubbed Charlette’s hand with his fingers like a little child might do. She didn’t seem to mind.
“Well, I predict that what we’ve been sensing from my mother and from Dale will go away as soon as we, on this side, reconcile our feelings and answer our own questions about That Night in a way that we can let it all go.” This came through as if it came from somewhere else, Lydia thought but did not say.
“I only wish my mother could have been reconciled,” Mike groaned.
“But she wasn’t,” Charlette said. “And we just have to accept that.”
“She’ll get another chance,” Lydia said. Now, she felt, was the time. “Dale gave me a message for you, Mike.” She watched his face, Charlette’s face. They looked intrigued. “He said not to take life so seriously. That he’s okay. And that he’s learning about anger. It seems they have therapy in the astral plane.” She took a chance and gave them a big smile. Her arms tingled. Somebody was listening.
“You...communicated?” Charlette nearly screamed. “You are a ghost lady.” She covered her mouth and laughed quietly.
“It seemed like that,” Lydia said. Then she explained about the computer, her fingers keying words. “But I do believe we all have chances to redo...things. Just like in Groundhog Day, the movie, we get to come back and try life again, redo our lessons, step over the puddles until we get it right. And why shouldn’t we be learning things on the Other Side?” She shrugged and sneaked a look at Margie, who was gazing off into the other room, tolerating because she had to. Margie was polite and would endure.
“Then, Dale can make up for what he did?” Charlette asked, a sense of relief in her expression.
“As I mentioned to the girls, we all have an energy aura. You can feel it when the hair on your arms stands on end. Or when you pass the refrigerator and get shocked,” she smiled. “Scientists deal with electromagnetic waves and particles or whatever in their very basic theories. They deal with things that we don’t see and it’s not just on faith. I know that a lot of religious people don’t know how to deal with mysticism, which is what they might call what we’re talking about. On the other hand many religions talk about angels as if they were very real. Well, energy is real. And to me, that explains ghosts, and visions and angels. There’s so much we don’t know of the physics of this world, let alone what might be the physics of another world. I just keep an open mind.” Lydia took a long drink of iced tea, finding herself in need of some refreshing nourishment.
“I’m so glad you let us talk to you. Sometimes it seems some people try to create fear where it doesn’t need to be.”
“You mean Jake Jackson,” Lydia said. He’s got his own problems. I’m sure his father’s illness hasn’t been easy for him. Alzheimer’s is such a destructive disease. And if his father was scared That Night I guess Jake might be scared, too.”
“Some have suggested we should still be charged with aiding and abetting a murder. Some said that’s what you wanted.” Mike looked at the sisters.
“We’ve never had that intention.” Margie said. Lydia felt relieved that she chose to start participating in this conversation.
“So, you’re not going to do anything the night of the treasure hunt to scare the kids, or suggest they might see ghosts?” Charlette asked with an amused smile.
Lydia laughed. “Not likely. But we will be happy to help with the refreshments afterward and whatever other activities there might be in the gym.”
Mike looked more relaxed. “I believe you. Now to get Jake to stop talking his ghost stories.”
“Yeah.” Lydia was thoughtful. “Maybe he needs some kind of assurance that he’s not going to be punished anymore than he’s punishing himself,” she said. “Or maybe he’s just trying to get some attention. Maybe he likes the fact that his stories scare kids, who seem to like to be scared if they can get through it and talk, or brag about it later.”
“So what can we do?” Charlette asked.
“Does he have any duties the night of the treasure hunt? I understand the two boys are consulting him about where to place their clues.” Lydia remembered her thinking Jake would likely dress up in a sheet and act out something in the grove of trees that night. And the children were already anticipating using flashlights on the grounds that night. Maybe it would be wise to ask him. “Does Pearl have any influence over him?”
“Probably,” Charlette said. “Why?”
“Well, maybe she could get a truer picture of what he intends to do that night on the grounds where the clues are. I’m thinking that if he’s made to feel important in some way other than telling ghost stories or creating illusions, maybe he’d be less resentful.”
“You think Jake’s resentful?”
“Don’t you? Hasn’t he been sort of on the outside of the main group? I mean, he’s not a farmer. He’s a caretaker of something he doesn’t own. He’s a hired helper, dependent on the school board or whoever hires him.”
“But he’s been hired year after year,” Mike said. “That surely means we think he does a good job and is important.”
“But he’s still on the outside, isn’t he?”
“I’d never thought of it that way,” Mike admitted.
“Does he go to your church?”
“Does he, Charlette?” Mike looked to her for the answer.
“Well, they’ve never had children in Sunday School. But it seems I’ve seen him and Penny once in awhile at services.”
“What about the potlucks and committees and such that your members participate in besides just coming to the 11:00 service?
“Well, everyone’s welcome,” Charlette began. “I guess it might be we haven’t reached out to them much.”
“I always felt Jake just didn’t like us too well,” Mike said. “He kind of avoids us.”
“But he’s been around your children for years. I mean the community’s children. He’s on the school grounds where they play, and there must be interaction. And he’s there to pick up after basketball games and programs in the gym, and in the classroom building gathering up wastebaskets and cleaning. He must be very intimate with that school, when you think about it.”
Mike gathered his hands in his lap and looked at Lydia straight on for the first time. “You’re making us seem indifferent and unappreciative, and that’s simply not true.”
“But when have we ever given him a reward for what he’s done, Mike?” Charlette asked. “Lydia may be right. Maybe we’ve taken Jake for granted. Like That Night, remember? Just because Jake could get keys from his dad, Dale got him to open the gym for him. And look what trouble Jake got into for doing that. Maybe he’s never forgiven us.”
“What’s to forgive?” Mike insisted.
“Well, if Jake hadn’t gotten those keys, Dale wouldn’t have gotten in the gym. And he wouldn’t have gotten all crazy when Mr. and Mrs. Kinnen appeared. Maybe Jake’s still blaming himself, or Dale, or us, for getting him involved.” Charlette seemed to sink back and melt into the cushions, letting go her usual strong appearance. It had been years of being strong for Mike who seemed to need her calmness to fend off his mother’s anger and paranoia, years of doing what needed to be done, inside and out, inside cooking, doing housework, taking care of kids, outside in the fields or barnyard or garden or lawn. Always work. She’d never had time to think of Jake Jackson and how he might feel resentment. Suddenly she felt very very tired and closed her eyes. She felt Mike take her hand once more, this time not as a child needs a mother, but as a man concerned about his wife.
“Honey,” he said, “maybe what this woman is saying is that we just need to let Jake in on our lives. You know, I don’t think we’ve ever had him and Penny out here to the house. You think they’d want to come?”
Margie interjected with a suggestion. “Maybe it’s the church that needs to reach out to Jake and Penny. You know? Isn’t your church a central part of this community? When Jake says he wants our house torn down, and all the buildings of the school, he’s just wanting to get rid of his memories. I see what Lydia is saying, in a way.” She had been holding her empty glass that was wet from condensation and looked for a place to set it down. So, why not just include him in the gym activities after the treasure hunt, like ask Penny to help with the refreshments. And give a “treasure” to Jake as part of the program for helping the boys plant the clues, for example.
“Well, I suppose,” Charlette said, opening her eyes and sitting forward, “we could do that. You think that’s what it would take?”
“It would be a beginning.”
“It never occurred to me that Jake was jealous of us. Or resentful of us. Why would anyone want what we’ve been through?” Her laugh was bitter.
“When you’re looking in from the outside, you don’t see all the shadows in the corners. You don’t see the dust under the bed, the mess in the refrigerator. I’m speaking metaphorically, now,” said Lydia.
“I guess when you look in from the outside you also see what had blinded those within, too,” Mike added. He slid forward and proceeded to stand up. “What are you?” he asked Lydia. “A psychiatrist?” He had a smile and his hands appeared calm.
Charlette stood up beside him, and then the sisters, too.
“No, just trying to see the truth in interpersonal relationships,” Lydia said jokingly. “For my next course that I may teach at the Yoga Ranch.”
“Well, whatever. I guess we’ve given you some good material.” Mike offered his hand, first to Lydia then Margie. “I appreciate your coming out. And hey, Charlette and I will think about what’s been said.” He put his arm around her and she cuddled close.
It was just in time, for there was the school bus and Jennifer was let off. She started toward the door.
Chapter 19
The Return Page 28