Ordinary Grace

  I’d hoped for a kind of miracle that day, hoped for something like the joy that had filled me on the Sunday before when my father had stood and delivered his brief, miraculous sermon. And if not joy then peace at least. But as we entered the gate of the cemetery I felt only grief knifing deep into my spirit. And when I saw the grave I was devastated. Somehow I’d imagined it would be as Gus said, a beautiful box carved from the earth. It was indeed a lesson in geometry, a perfect rectangle with ninety-degree angles and straight sides and rigidly perpendicular walls and a level floor, but it was still only a hole in the ground.

  Pastor Stephens conducted the graveside service which was blessedly brief and then we prepared to leave. And oh that was the hardest thing of all. To abandon Ariel. I knew in my head that her spirit had long ago been released but to think of her as I’d known her all my life—funny and kind and smart and understanding and pretty—to think of my sister being lowered into the ground and covered with dirt and left alone forever, that was too much. I began to cry. I didn’t want anyone to see me this way so I kept my face bent toward the ground. I got into the Packard with Jake and heard my mother crying up front and saw my father reach out to take her hand and he was crying too.

  I looked at Jake and his eyes were dry and I realized that he hadn’t cried at all that day and I wondered at this, but I didn’t have to wonder long.

  35

  We returned to the church, to the fellowship hall which had been set up with round tables and chairs. Food had been prepared in the kitchen—ham and fried chicken and au gratin potatoes and green bean casserole and a couple of salads and some rolls and cookies and dessert bars. There was cold lemonade and Kool-Aid and coffee. By the time we arrived we had all, except my mother, composed ourselves. Although she no longer wept, grief lay like a weight on every feature of her face and she walked like someone too long in a desert without water. My father stood on one side of her and my grandfather on the other and I realized they were afraid that she might fall. They sat her quickly at a table and Jake and Liz and I sat with her.

  Some people had taken places at tables and others stood talking and no one had yet entered the serving line because the blessing hadn’t been said. That was a responsibility I knew would fall to my father who, after he’d seated my mother, had become involved in a quiet conversation with Deacon Griswold. Although folks spoke in voices moderated by the solemnity of the occasion there was still a lot of noise.

  Amelia Klement separated from her husband and came our way and Peter followed a few steps behind. Mrs. Klement sat next to my mother and spoke to her quietly and Peter stood near enough to me that I figured he wanted to talk so I got up from my chair and went to him.

  “I’m sorry about your sister,” he said.

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “You know, my dad’s teaching me about motors and stuff. He’s showing me how to take them apart and put them back together and how to figure out what’s wrong if they don’t work. It’s fun if you ever want to come over and goof around with me.”

  I remembered the day I’d stood in the doorway of the Klements’ barn and had been amazed by all the disassembled machinery inside and had seen the bruises on Peter’s face and on his mother’s, and I recalled how I’d felt sorry and was afraid for them as a family. I realized that although I hadn’t acknowledged it I’d thought that my own family was better, special somehow, and that we were indestructible. That day seemed to be on the far side of forever ago and now I saw on Peter’s face the same look I’d probably given him back then and I understood that he was afraid for me and for my family and I knew he was right to be.

  “Sure,” I said, but I figured I probably wouldn’t.

  Mrs. Klement stood up and held my mother’s hand a moment then returned to her husband and Peter went along.

  My father came back to the table but didn’t sit.

  “Could I have your attention?” Deacon Griswold called. “I’d like to ask Pastor Drum to offer a blessing for this meal.”

  The room became quiet.

  My father composed himself. He always spent a moment in silence before he prayed. His blessings tended to be comprehensive and include not just the immediate food on the table but reminders of all we had to be thankful for and very often a reminder of those who were not as fortunate as we.

  In that silence while my father’s head filled with the words he deemed proper, my mother spoke. She said, “For God’s sake, Nathan, can’t you, just this once, offer an ordinary grace?”

  There had been silence in the room, a respectful silence awaiting prayer. But that silence changed and what we waited for now was something filled with uncertainty and maybe even menace and I opened my eyes and saw that everyone was staring. Staring at the Drums. At the minister’s family. Looking at us as if we were a disaster taking place before their very eyes.

  My father cleared his throat and said into the silence, “Is there anyone else who would care to offer the blessing?”

  No one spoke and the silence stretched on painfully.

  Then at my side a small clear voice replied, “I’ll say grace.”

  I stood dumbfounded because, Jesus, the person who’d spoken was my stuttering brother Jake. He didn’t wait for my father’s permission. He rose from his chair and bowed his head.

  I looked at all those people present none of whom could bring themselves to close their eyes and miss the train wreck that was about to take place and I prayed as desperately as I ever had, Oh, dear God, take me away from this torture.

  Jake said, “Heavenly F-F-F-.” And he stopped.

  O God, I prayed, just kill me now.

  My mother reached up and put her hand gently on his shoulder and Jake cleared his throat and tried again.

  “Heavenly Father, for the blessings of this food and these friends and our families, we thank you. In Jesus’s name, amen.”

  That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.

  “Thank you, Jake,” my mother said and I saw that her whole face had changed.

  And my father looked mystified and almost happy and said, “Thank you, Son.”

  And all the people as if released from some hypnotic trance began to move again though slowly and got into line and filled their plates.

  And me, I looked at my brother with near reverence and thought to myself, Thank you, God.

  • • •

  My mother came home that night. She left the drapes open to a cooling breeze that had blown in with evening and when she went to bed my father went with her.

  I lay awake late into the dark hours wondering.

  I hadn’t asked Jake about the blessing. In a way I was afraid to open the door on the mystery of it because I knew that what we’d all heard was a miracle, the miracle I’d been hoping for ever since Ariel died. It had come from the mouth of a boy who never in his entire life had said three words in public without stumbling in the most horrible ways imaginable. With Mother home I liked the idea that we’d been saved as a family by the miracle of that ordinary grace. I didn’t know why God would take Ariel or Karl Brandt or Bobby Cole or even the nameless itinerant or if it was God’s doing or God’s will at all but I knew that the flawless grace delivered from my stuttering brother’s lips had been a gift of the divine and I took it as a sign that somehow the Drums would survive.

  The grieving in fact went on for a long time, as grieving does. For months after Ariel’s burial I would stumble upon my mother in a moment when she believed herself to be alone and find her weeping. I’m not sure that the beauty of her vivacious smile ever fully returned but what remained was all the more touching to me because I understood completely the reason for what was missing.

  36

  The next day, Sunday, Nathan Drum preached in all three of the churches in his charge and he preached well. My mother led the choir and Jake and I sat in the back pew as we always had
. Gus sat with us because Doyle had talked to the chief of police and somehow squared things and no charges were going to be filed.

  It felt as if life might again assume a normal course but for two things: Nothing would ever be the same without Ariel, and the authorities still hadn’t apprehended Warren Redstone, the man I was sure had killed my sister. I was beginning to think they never would and I was trying to understand how I felt about that. I was afraid I would carry forever my guilt at letting Redstone get away and I knew I would have to find a way to live with it. But my anger over Ariel’s death seemed to have passed. Though I still felt her loss deeply, sadness was no longer a part of every moment for me and I thought I understood why: Her death hadn’t left me completely alone. There were still so many people whom I loved and cared about deeply: Jake and my mother and father and my grandfather and Liz and Gus. And so I’d begun to think about the question of forgiveness which had become a real consideration in my life, not just part of Sunday rhetoric. If they ever caught Warren Redstone, how would I respond? There was the question of law, certainly, but there was a question of deeper concern and it went straight to the heart of what I’d been taught by my father all my life.

  After the final service on Sunday afternoon Liz and my grandfather came for dinner and Gus joined us. We still had food left from everything that had been given by the community during the days of our uncertainty and the days of our early grief. We ate and then Gus went off on his motorcycle and my grandparents went home and my mother and father sat in the porch swing and talked while Jake and I tossed a baseball in the front yard. Although they spoke quietly I caught the gist of their conversation. It was about the Brandts.

  Emil alone among that family had come to Ariel’s funeral. He’d been brought by one of his colleagues at the college in town and he sat in the back of the church and at the grave site he stood well away from the others gathered there.

  My mother told my father she’d seen him but couldn’t bring herself that day to talk to him. She felt bad about it. And she felt terrible about Karl and her heart went out to Julia and Axel and she wanted to tell them but was afraid they would refuse to see her.

  As they drifted back and forth in the swing she asked, “Do you think if I spoke to Emil, he could arrange it? I need to apologize to him anyway.”

  “I owe him an apology as well,” my father said. “I haven’t been much of a friend lately.”

  “Could we go today, Nathan? Oh, I’d love to get this weight off my chest.”

  Jake must have been listening too because he said from the lawn, “I want to see Lise.”

  I kept quiet but there was no way I’d let myself be left behind.

  “All right,” my father said rising from the swing. “I’ll call.”

  Half an hour later we piled out of the Packard at the front gate of the restored farmhouse. Emil stood on the porch holding to one of the posts, tracking our procession with his sightless eyes in that way that made me think he could actually see us coming up the flagstone walk.

  “Emil,” my mother said taking him warmly in her arms.

  Brandt held her, then stepped back and extended his hand which my father grasped with both of his own.

  “I’ve been afraid this would never happen again,” Brandt said. “It’s been almost unbearable. Come, sit. I’ve asked Lise to fix lemonade and a plate of cookies. They should be here any minute.”

  There were four wicker chairs around the wicker table. The adults occupied three and I leaned against the porch rail. Jake said, “I’m going to look at the garden,” and he took off and disappeared around the side of the house.

  “Emil,” my mother said, “I’m so sorry for what’s happened between us and what’s happened with Karl. It’s horrible. It’s all so tragic.”

  “The tragedy continues,” Brandt said. “Julia has lost her mind. I mean really lost it. Axel says she’s threatening to kill herself. She’s heavily sedated most of the time.”

  My father said, “Axel must be in hell. Is there any way I could talk with him?”

  “And I with Julia?” my mother asked.

  Brandt shook his head. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. It’s complicated.” He reached out with both hands and although he could not see he immediately found my mother’s hand and took it. “How are you, Ruth? Really.”

  It was such a simple question on the surface but nothing these days was simple and the delicacy with which he held my mother’s hand made me recall my own hollowed-egg image of her.

  But she was no longer fragile that way and she said, “It hurts terribly, Emil. Maybe it always will. But I’ve survived and I believe I’ll be all right.”

  The screen door opened abruptly and Lise stepped onto the porch holding a plate of sugar cookies and giving us an evil eye. She was dressed in dungarees and a dark blue blouse and red canvas slip-ons. She put the cookies on the wicker table and quickly went back inside.

  “Lise doesn’t seem happy to see us,” my father remarked.

  Brandt said, “She’s been in seventh heaven for a while. Had me all to herself. For Lise to be happy, all that’s necessary is this little sanctuary and someone in it who needs her. In a way, it’s enviable. When you arrived she was about to work in the garden, which she dearly loves. Now she’ll just sulk.”

  Jake reappeared and mounted the steps just as Lise came out with a pitcher of lemonade and ice cubes. When she saw my brother her attitude changed. She hastily put the pitcher on the table, went back inside, and returned almost immediately with a tray of glasses which she set next to the pitcher. She made signs to Jake that I didn’t understand but to which Jake nodded and said, “Sure.”

  “I’m going to help Lise,” he said, and they both left the porch and headed toward the shed where she kept her yard and gardening tools.

  When they’d gone, my father asked, “Will you finish your memoir, Emil?”

  Brandt was quiet a long while. “Without Ariel I don’t think I can go on,” he finally said.

  “You could get someone else to transcribe,” my father suggested.

  Brandt shook his head. “I don’t want someone else doing for me what Ariel did. I don’t think anyone could.”

  I’d been so deep in my own experience and emotions that I hadn’t considered the effect of Ariel’s loss on those outside my family but I saw now that Emil Brandt who’d mentored my sister and encouraged her talent and championed her work and who, after Ariel’s disappearance, had given my mother so unselfishly of his time, this man had suffered great loss as well. His face was turned in profile and I realized that if you didn’t know about the scars on the other side you would think him in every way normal, maybe even handsome for an older man.

  And then an extraordinary possibility occurred to me, a possibility paralyzing in its magnitude.

  Brandt and my parents went on talking but I no longer heard them. I stood up and in a kind of daze drifted down the porch steps. My father said something and I mumbled in return that I would be right back. I walked through the yard, passed the garden where Jake and Lise were at work, and went to the fence gate that opened onto the path leading down the back slope to the cottonwoods and the railroad tracks and the river. I closed my eyes mimicking blindness and fumbled with the gate latch. I pushed the gate open and started down. I went slowly, my eyelids clamped shut, feeling my way carefully. It wasn’t difficult at all to sense the difference between the thick undergrowth that edged the path and the worn thread of the path itself. I cleared the cottonwoods and came to the raised bed of the railroad tracks where I was sorely tempted to open my eyes but did not. I mounted the roadbed and felt the crushed rock and stumbled over the first rail but caught myself and kept going. On the other side I descended and felt through the soles of my tennis shoes the place where hard ground gave way to the sand along the river. And finally I stepped into water up to my calf and opened my eyes and looked down into the murky flow. I drew my leg back and glanced upriver and saw that I was standing only a f
ew hundred yards from the stretch of sand at Sibley Park where bonfires were sometimes lit and where Ariel had last been seen. I stared back at the path I’d blindly walked, at the thread that was visible if only you knew where to look, and I understood with icy clarity how Ariel had come to be in the river.

  37

  Jake came looking for me, sent by my parents who’d begun to be concerned by my long absence. He found me sitting in the sand.

  “What are you doing down here?”

  “Thinking,” I said.

  “Will you come back up?”

  “Tell everyone I’ll walk home. I’ll walk along the river.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Just tell them, Jake.”

  “All right. Don’t bite my head off.”

  He started away and then came back. “What is it, Frank?”

  “Go up and tell them, and if you want to talk, come back down.”

  He returned in a few minutes, huffing so I knew he’d run the whole way. He sat down beside me.

  It was late afternoon and we sat in shadows cast by the tall cottonwoods near the tracks. The river swept before us fifty yards wide and beyond that was the other bank and the lowland of the floodplain where a cornfield formed a green wall and beyond that a mile or so distant rose the hills that had once channeled the great surge of the River Warren.

  “He killed her,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Brandt. He killed Ariel.”

  “What?”

  “All this time I’ve been blaming Warren Redstone and not looking at what was right in front of me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Mr. Brandt killed her. He killed her and brought her down here and threw her into the river.”

  “Are you crazy? He’s blind.”