The only thing he had really understood since Thanksgiving was that he didn’t deserve happiness and that it would elude him forever. His mind couldn’t express any of these thoughts in words, but the empty feeling they evoked pushed its way to the surface all the same. The confusion that came from not being able to pinpoint the origin of the tidal wave of emotion that was crashing over him magnified the emptiness. All he knew was that the tears forming in his eyes and the sniffle in his nose, brought on by not having gotten what he’d been hoping for all week, weren’t caused by something so material, but had their origin in something far deeper, something that he couldn’t begin to explain, though he understood it about as well as any adult.
He tried to hold back his tears, afraid that his mother wouldn’t understand and think that he was crying about the game. How could she understand why he had to fight back tears when he didn’t know himself? He was afraid that his mother would either get angry with him for crying over something so trivial, or even worse, that she would be sympathetic and ask him what had upset him, and then he’d have to try and explain to her that he didn’t know what he was crying about, or in his confusion simplify all of those emotions by saying that he was only upset because of the game.
Hannah couldn’t help noticing the way Lewis fixed his gaze out the passenger side window. She didn’t assume that not being able to find his game had caused whatever had come over him. She never imagined the guilt that was building up inside of her little boy, she couldn’t have. Instead she projected all of her own shortcomings onto the situation. She could only understand what she had done, and for this reason she assured herself that it was her own inability to hold her marriage together that had engendered her son’s melancholy.
She took the exit ramp and stopped at the red light. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel impatiently before reaching for her cell phone. She looked over at Lewis who was still pretending to be focusing on something far off in the distance. She pulled the business card out of her inside pocket and dialed the number.
“Yes, I know it’s Saturday,” she said, “but I was hoping that I could come by your office and talk something over with you. Of course. Then Monday at 2:30. Thank you so much. Bye.”
Chapter 5
Time
Carry me willingly to sweet old age
And blissful day, when I will die.
Julia and Thomas walked up the creaky steps that led to their father’s apartment. Thomas opened the door for Julia, who stepped inside and froze in the doorway. Thomas saw the terrified look in his sister’s face before he saw the reason for it. Peter was sitting in the ratty couch, which he had turned ninety degrees so that it now faced the door. His arms were folded across his chest, and the scowl he wore looked so severe that Thomas could only assume that it had been deliberately prepared for that exact moment.
“I should be going now,” Julia said.
She turned to leave and bumped into Thomas who she’d completely forgotten about. He stepped aside to get out of her way, and she tried to step around him so that they bumped into each other again before Thomas stepped to the other side and Julia clumsily squeezed by.
Peter yelled after her, “Why don’t you go ahead and get out of here; go on and steal someone else’s inheritance, someone who’s not your own father you little swindler. You’re my daughter, you were my daughter. I took care of you when you were a helpless little ball of flesh and now this is how you repay me? You’re worthless; you’re ungrateful; you’re. . .”
Julia had already disappeared and Peter broke off, not because she couldn’t possibly hear him, but because he couldn’t formulate any more words. He directed his wrath at Thomas who hadn’t moved.
“What were you two doing together? You were trying to get in on it weren’t you! You’re all after what should be mine. Nobody has any respect for family, for their parents, but children should have respect for their fathers. They have an obligation to them, except for my ungrateful children who forgot about me as soon as I was out of sight.”
“You’re drunk again,” Thomas said calmly.
“So what if I am. In voni vartis,”
Thomas wasn’t sure if his father was slurring his words or simply showing his ignorance. In either case he didn’t correct him.
“Think about what you’re saying,” Thomas pleaded. “You don’t mean any of this. Julia loves you, and she didn’t want to steal your inheritance.”
“Did you put her up to it? You told her how to do it. She’s not smart enough, not devious enough to figure it all out, but you are. You knew exactly how to get the money out of him, but you needed her. You couldn’t wait until I was dead. You!”
“Dad! You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Thomas said, trying to calm his father.
“You would think that! Get out of here. Get your stuff and get out.”
“Dad!”
“I said get out!”
Thomas left the living room and reappeared a few minutes later with his duffle bag. Peter was still sitting in the same position, the hatred still seething. Thomas opened his mouth to try and say something but the wrath on his father’s inebriated face made him lose all hope of reconciling. He closed the door behind him without saying a word. He didn’t go down the stairs to his car but stood on the landing for several minutes listening, trying to hear the creak of the old couch or the sound of footsteps that would indicate that his father had gotten up. He didn’t hear anything and finally stepped down the stairs. He took them slowly, pausing on each step in the vain hope that his father would come out.
* * *
Hannah spent the greater part of Sunday morning sitting on the sofa that Abigail had left in the living room, waiting for the hour hand on the grandfather clock to move forward. She didn’t want to spend her time like this. The waiting was torture. She tried to turn on the television, but the Sunday programming was even worse than a blank monitor. After flipping through every channel twice, she turned the television off again and went back to waiting. She closed her eyes and listened to the soft ticking of the second hand.
“How many more seconds?” she wondered. “They always give you estimates in months or days, but why don’t they translate it into seconds? When they told me months I didn’t want to waste a single one—why not seconds? Why not breaths or heartbeats?”
She inhaled deeply and held the air in her lungs as if savoring it, and then exhaled slowly. The soft tick tock of the grandfather clock brought her back to reality. She opened her eyes and reproached herself for even thinking along those lines. She reminded herself that fifteen percent was a relatively small chance especially in comparison to eighty-five percent the other way. It was almost time to go to bed, and then she would sleep late before leaving to pick up Lewis for lunch. She tried to focus on the task at hand—winning in court without it coming to that. That could never come out. While it would devastate Lewis as well as Peter, she was most afraid of what it would do to her.
“It shouldn’t affect me at all,” she’d told herself, but the more she thought about it the more she knew that it would. It would be even worse for her than for everyone else combined. She glanced at her calendar and looked at the appointment with Joseph Henderson. She didn’t want to waste a single second, but at the same time she wished that time would come and sweep her away to a day when all the uncertainty had passed. Finally the clock chimed to signal that it was a quarter till noon, and Hannah hurried out the door.
* * *
On Sunday morning Julia drove Sara to church and after dropping her off in the parking lot she went back to the nursing home. She didn’t notice Susan sitting at the receptionist desk, or the throng of senior citizens vying for her attention, but walked determinately down the hall.
“You’re ruining everything!” she exclaimed as she burst into Abraham’s room.
“Everythin’ was already ruined a long time ago, ever since the beginnin’.”
His voice was calm, and there wasn’
t a hint of surprise in his demeanor, as if he’d been anticipating her entrance all morning.
“We just want to be happy, and you’re taking all that away. After everything that’s happened I just want to live a happy life for a change. And now because my dad and my mom couldn’t make their life work you’re taking away my last chance at having a decent family life. He hates me now.”
“That’s not why you came back here,” Abraham noted.
“I don’t know why I came back,” Julia snapped.
“I’ve been writin’ again. I’ve been thinkin’ some more an’ I’ve been writin’ all my thoughts out.”
He held out a piece of paper filled with his scrawled handwriting, and she hesitantly accepted it.
“Go on an’ read it.”
Julia sat down next to the bed.
“Read it out loud. I want ta be able ta hear it again.”
Julia read slowly:
“Everyone is entitled to some happiness, or so the saying goes. I am not. I burned those bridges when I was still young, when people would have called me innocent. Cruelty, lust, anger, envy, these have all been skulking around inside of me since childhood. Even though they haven’t come to the surface as often in me as they have in others, my heart’s still filled with all of them. The man who wears lust in his bastard child might live, but I wear it inside. Scar tissue on the heart is a serious health issue and can lead to death. Happiness, a romance that doesn’t end in unfaithfulness—I wish that I’d been faithful more than I hate what she did—passion, something pure, stronger than the scars on the heart, on my heart, this is all I really want.”
Julia stopped reading and looked at her grandfather. She wanted to ask him about the grandmother she’d hardly known, but he looked so peaceful as he lay there with his eyes closed and his ears listening to her read, so she cleared her throat and continued.
“By grace wounds heal with time, but the scar tissue remains—dead tissue, tender tissue, or tissue that has lost all feeling. It never goes back to the way it used to be. Something is lost forever. Something pure and beautiful—so much more than I deserve, so much more than I should hope for. Still I want it, and somewhere past the scar tissue I hope for it. Something strong enough to erase the scars of past years, the sins of incontinence, the sins of youth—those innocent little sins always grow up into sins more wrathful and treacherous. Resurrection power could redeem everything if it hadn’t eluded me all these years. I have kept all my scars hidden from resurrection, because I know that before resurrection comes death—when there is still hope for life, death is a hard thing to let in. So I lie here dying instead of living because I’m terrified of death.
“People are such stupid creatures. Everybody wants healing but the best that healing can do isn’t enough. I’m just like everyone else. I still cling to hope of healing; I still look for some other way because I can’t turn the desire over to death, because I’m afraid that the resurrection isn’t real, or what if it is real and it overlooks me, what if I don’t deserve it? Love, unadulterated, life, fullness, it can’t be for me, not after such a wasted life, and I can’t settle for anything less. So hope comes in the life to come, a life I want to believe in but can’t. Resurrection is so much more than I deserve. I see glimpses of it in this life, and it spurs on the desire for death—but are they real glimpses or am I only seeing things in my old age? It’s an impatient longing; every day I’m tempted to give in, to satisfy the desire with something unworthy, second best, to make the burning that comes with desire, the burning that makes me long for death, subside for a moment, to numb the pain that drives me. How many times have I settled for the cheap? My whole life has been nothing but settling. So many times that even if I were to come across the truly beautiful, it would be out of place in my life—this half dead life of mine. Even the most beautiful would be filthy in me. I should leave the truly beautiful for those who won’t tarnish it.
“Suffering, death: God’s gifts to men, the means by which full redemption might come. We numb the pain and postpone death. Hard labor—God’s blessing—if there is a God. I wallow in the curse; I look for every shortcut I can find. I want to know suffering, I want to understand it in every form, to embrace it; I want it to spur me on, to push me on to death—in the hope of resurrection, a fresh start—no more scars. I always look over my shoulder hoping for the chance for something pure, stronger than the scars on this side of death, a taste of redemption, a romance that doesn’t end in unfaithfulness, that bitter taste. At the same time I see my life like a tragedy laid out before me. A road of almost and what could have been, what could have been but wrong choices have consequences, punishments which I don’t want to avoid. I would sleep easier if I was given what I deserve. I want so much better than I deserve. If He’s really out there will He look past it all, can He look past it all? Whatever he gives—life or death—is a blessing—more than I deserve. I want both at once. I will be content with either. If He’s really out there then there has to be a resurrection power. And if He isn’t then there can’t be a resurrection power, and none of this matters. Nothing matters at all.”
When she finished reading she was silent. The writing led to so many questions. She still wanted to ask about what had happened with her grandmother, what he meant by death and redemption, what he meant by life, punishment and ‘deserved’.
“This doesn’t sound like you,” she said.
“It is me. It’s what they call stream a’ consciousness.”
“I mean the words and the sentences, it’s not how you talk.”
“Susie helped me edit it all up so it don’t sound like a worthless old country boy wrote it. That’s why I wanted ta hear you read it ta me. I wanted ta know if it sounded real comin’ off a’ your lips.”
“But where did you get all these ideas, these words?” Julia asked, not wanting to point out that she was well past the point of being fooled into thinking of her grandfather as a worthless old country boy.
“I’ve been thinkin’ a lot an’ readin’ a lot—I’ve been readin’ more than just my westerns. I’ve been reading classics. It’s all I have left ta do now. I’ve looked at some Shakespeare an’ some Mark Twain and all kinds a’ stuff like that. That’s where I got the idea that my life was kind a’ like a tragedy. It’s like all a’ those people in his plays where they don’t do much wrong, but they don’t do much right, at least that’s what it seems like ta me, but some professor’d probably tell me I got it all wrong.”
“You’ve been reading Shakespeare?”
“That’s the only kind a’ books they’ve got in this place. Nobody else’s got any use fer those kinds a’ books so they ship ‘em all here where they ship everythin’ else they want ta put out a’ mind. Susie comes in an’ we read together, an’ she tries ta explain ta me what he’s tryin’ ta say, even though I don’t think she really understands all a’ it herself.”
“Susie?” Julia asked.
“You know, the one that ate with us at Thanksgivin’. She said I should call her Susan but I don’t. I just like it that she makes time ta come in here an’ read with me. She’s young an’ pretty, but other than that we’ve got a whole lot in common. The more I read the more I think everyone a’ us has a whole lot in common. But that’s not the point. So why did you come here? Or did you just stop by ta yell at me fer ruinin’ everythin’?”
Julia had gotten so lost in her grandfather’s thoughts that she’d forgotten her original outburst.
“I came to,” she began, but her voice faltered. “Do you want me to read something to you?”
“I’d like that,” the old man said.
“What do you want me to read?”
“Somethin’ magical.”
“Magical?”
“Yes, somethin’ that can jump out a’ the page an’ grab me.”
* * *
Sunday afternoon Peter showed up at his brother’s doorstep. He wasn’t as drunk as he’d been on Saturday, but his clothes still bore witness to h
is morning binge. Luke opened the door, and, when he saw the state his brother was in, stepped softly onto the porch and closed the door behind him.
“What are you doing here? Look at yourself,” Luke said.
“I came to see Lewis.”
“Lewis is with Hannah, like yesterday. Where were you yesterday?”
Peter didn’t answer.
“All I’m trying to say is that I don’t think that Hannah is going to be content with joint custody. And looking at you now I don’t see how any judge isn’t going to give Lewis to her. If you want to keep custody of your son then you’ve got to do something fast. You’re running out of time.”
“What do you mean ‘running out of time’?” Peter asked.
“Hannah knows that your life’s falling apart at the seams. She asked me how you were still holding it all together today when she picked up Lewis, and I didn’t know what she was talking about until you showed up here like this. I don’t know if she knows about the drinking but she knows something.”
“You told her!”
“I didn’t tell her anything. After everything that’s happened between us I’m still your brother. I’m still on your side.”
“She told her,” Peter said under his breath as if all the pieces had just then fallen into place. “You’re all on her side.”
“I’m on your side,” Luke insisted.
“Then let me see my son,” Peter demanded.
“I told you he’s with his mother.”
“I don’t believe you! Let me come in!”
Debra’s face appeared in the window next to the front door. When Peter’s eyes met hers she ducked out of sight.
“Let me in!” Peter shouted again