Still Life in Shadows (35 page)

“Of course—we keep it and use it every day.” She blew out a match. Shadows fell across her face. “Did you know that ever since you went away, Moriah was ready to follow in your footsteps? Five years old and he wanted to be just like his big brother.”

“He had his own mind.”

“Oh, I’m not blaming you.”

“I think everyone else does.”

“There is so much we don’t understand.” She quoted a few lines in the German dialect that to the world was called Pennsylvania Dutch. He was amazed that he understood most of it, the meaning of the words coming back to him like a familiar melody.

Then with a smile she said, “Do you remember the day you asked
me what this means?
We grow too soon old and too late smart.
Do you remember?”

He forced a smile. He’d seen those words cross-stitched in cobalt blue on a throw pillow at an old Amish souvenir shop when he was about six. He repeated the saying during the whole buggy ride home with Father and then entered the kitchen to ask his mother what it meant and if in fact, it was an Amish quote. “They said it was Pennsylvania Dutch,” he quipped.

“That’s what they call what we speak,” Mother said.

“But we speak German.”

“Yes, we do. But someone made a mistake.” She used the German word
fylschlicherweise.
“They called our language Pennsylvania Dutch and that stuck as its name. But you and I know our language is not at all any form of Dutch. Someone thought the word sounded like
Dutch.
Really what was being said was
Deutsch,
the German word for
German.
” She’d smiled at him. “Do you remember?”

“I do. I remember how you taught me the Twenty-third Psalm in German. I often think of all those songs that great-grandmother used to sing. There was that silly one about cabbage salad.”

“I’m glad you remember the good things, Gideon. We must always hold on to the good.” He had the feeling she wanted to say more, perhaps even hum a few lines of the familiar tune. Instead she ran her hand through his curls and down the side of his face. He felt her love in each fingertip. Her love was giving and free, and he hoped he could love like that one day.

A
t 7:15, just before leaving the house, Kiki followed Gideon into Moriah’s bedroom. The simple room held only a twin-sized wooden bed and one cedar dresser. Gideon opened the top drawer of the dresser and sure enough, as though time had not forgotten, there was the keepsake box he’d made for his brother. Taking it out of the drawer, he admired the cedar wood. He’d sanded it for days and then with a chisel had carved Moriah’s name into the lid. Once, he had been
a good craftsman. But since then he’d given up wood and nails for Pennzoil and engines.

Gideon handed the keepsake box to Kiki. “For you.”

“Me?”

“Moriah would have wanted you to have it.”

“Is this one you made?” She clasped it in her hands. “It says Moriah on it. Wow, he was right. He told me you made him a box.” Then she set the item on the foot of the bed and lifted the lid. “What’s inside?” she asked.

Gideon peered into the box. Inside was a piece of gray cloth, a scrap from a quilt, perhaps, and as Kiki removed the material, there lay a block of wood. Gideon knew then. The wood was the gift Moriah had given to him. He must have put it aside, and Moriah had added it to his box.

Quickly, Gideon shut the box, handed it to Kiki, and ushered her from the room before memories of Moriah could take over and squeeze him into a ball of emotions.

“He told me you made him a beautiful keepsake box,” she said with feeling as they walked into the living room.

“He called it beautiful?”

Kiki pressed the box to her chest and merely smiled. To his father, she said, “I got a box. It’s very special. Gideon says I can have it.”

Father glanced at her and then took a look at his son. “Gideon is a skilled builder.” Gideon thought he almost smiled, but no, it was probably just the way the lanterns in the room flickered their light against his face.

As Kiki ran her fingertips over the box, admiring it over and over, Father’s face grew more sullen than it had been before. Awkwardly, Father stood from his chair, opened the front door, and walked outside onto the porch—as though he had shown too much heart.

T
he weather was gloomy in Twin Branches the following Friday, and as she listened to the rain beat against the roof above her room, Kiki spread her arrowheads out on her kitten-patterned bedspread, one on the head of each of the kittens. Admiring the treasures, she felt each one’s soft surface, letting her fingers gently glide over every smooth stone. The keepsake box lay opened by the lines of arrowheads. One by one, she laid the arrowheads inside the box. They fit like they belonged, like this box and they were meant to be, made for each other. She thought of her grandpa and the way he got a twinkle in his eyes when he was about to share a secret or a story about the early days of living in the mountains. He’d take a puff on his pipe, lean back in his worn recliner, and close his eyes. Kiki knew a good tale was about to begin then. Now she swallowed back the tears that sprang to her eyes.

She would not cry. She was not a baby.

S
he went to the shop to work her shift. She was grateful when Ormond said a man had dropped off his kid’s bicycle with a broken
chain. She labored, concentrating on getting the chain repaired until it was time to go home. As she washed oil from her hands, she asked where Gideon was, but Ormond just said that Gideon would be back to the shop tomorrow. He was getting the new guy situated into an apartment.

“Fresno,” said Kiki.

“What?” asked Ormond, lifting his head from the sports section of the paper.

“The new guy wants to be called Fresno. He met us at a gas station after we left Gideon’s parents’ house and rode with us all the way back here. He wants to start a new life and doesn’t like his old name. So he chose Fresno.”

When Ormond chuckled, Kiki didn’t mind. He wasn’t laughing at her, he was showing that he could laugh. Gideon hadn’t in weeks, and Mari was worried, she knew. But some people, like Ormond, just seemed to spring back to their normal selves, and the world was better for it.

She, on the other hand, was aware that she wasn’t one of those types of people. She couldn’t laugh and although she wanted to slam her hand against the wall, she knew she couldn’t get angry. Look at what being angry did to Moriah. She wanted to be able to smile and feel happy about important things like macaroni and cheese, pirate hats, and oatmeal cookies.

When Luke finished working on a black Nissan, he entered the shop to wash his hands. Kiki remembered when Luke and Moriah had a water fight at this very sink. Moriah had started it, splashing water onto Luke. Luke had splashed back until Moriah had droplets dripping off his chin. Laughing, they each got a few more splashes in until Gideon came along and told them to wipe up the floor. If customers slipped on the wet floor, they might get hurt and sue. Suing was, after all, the American Way. Recalling the water fight, Kiki felt her eyes burn from tears. She hugged Luke. “I’m sorry your friend is gone,” she said.

Luke’s eyes watered. For a few seconds he was silent until he was able to speak. “I’m sorry, too.”

Kiki left the shop after that, tears nearly blinding her bike ride home.

“Now if you need someone to talk to, don’t hesitate.” The words Principal Peppers had spoken to her earlier today were fresh in her mind. “You can come talk to me or any of your teachers.” She figured he knew about Moriah because this was a small town and word got around fast. Mari had also had to write her a “please excuse Kiki” note when she’d returned to school on Monday. Angie said Mr. Peppers had invited her inside his office, too, to make sure she was “handling the situation.” Handling? What a funny word to use at a time like this.

At her house, she placed her bicycle inside the garage. She remembered to turn off the overhead light and shut the door. She was trying to remember to be more responsible these days. Mari didn’t need any more stress. Dr. Conner reminded Kiki that she could be very helpful if she just thought about other people more.

Seated on her front porch step, Kiki thought of her sister, of Gideon and Luke and Ormond. Could she really make their lives better? She supposed she could go inside and start by cleaning her room like Mari had asked her to do yesterday. But she didn’t want to go inside the cramped house. Although she shivered in the evening wind, she preferred to be cold and stay outside.

January was over. She was glad she wasn’t born in January. No one would have remembered her birthday. It had been a terrible month. February had to be better. Blowing on her hands, she tried to warm them. Looking up to the sky, she wished she could see heaven and the warm sea she was certain Moriah must be enjoying. Mari said she trusted that Moriah was at peace, not having to run anymore, with a new body, free from addiction. It was these creatures still on earth who needed so much help, and Kiki so wanted to be a help to Gideon.

As Kiki zipped up her coat, Angie walked across the lawn from her grandma’s. Stuffing her hands inside her coat pockets, Angie made her way up the steps to sit beside her.

“I haven’t done any homework,” Kiki said. Seeing her classmate
made her well aware of the three math pages Miss Stevenson had assigned. Math would never matter to her, and now with Moriah gone, she doubted she’d ever have the strength to figure out another pointless word problem about miles, rates of speed, and cost per ounce again.

“Me neither.” Within moments of her own confession, Angie’s arm was tight around Kiki’s shoulders. Kiki could fight it no longer. Burying her face in her friend’s neck, she let the tears come. “It is okay to cry, Kiki,” she heard Dr. Conner’s voice from her last session with him. “Tears serve their purpose.” These were making her nose run. She wiped her nose with the lone mitten she found in her pocket.

“The new guy is cute,” said Angie. “I like his name.”

Not as handsome as Moriah,
thought Kiki. No one would ever be as good looking as Moriah. She stuck the mitten into her pocket and for some reason, the action made her think of Moriah’s coffin, how it fit so perfectly in the grave and how she’d sprinkled dirt over the top of it.

Angie looped her scarf around her neck. It was orange, the color of the Tennessee Volunteers, and Kiki knew it had been a Christmas gift. “Uncle Reginald is locked away for the rest of his life.”

“I know. He did a bad thing.”

She bit her lower lip. “He did.”

“But you were brave.”

“Brave?”

“You shed light on the truth. That’s what my sister told me. You shed light. The truth is supposed to always win out.”

“My grandma says she’d like you to come over for dinner sometime.”

“Really? That’s cool.” She’d heard that Luva was a good cook. Hopefully that meant that she could make more than fried potatoes, onions, and green peppers.

Angie leaned against Kiki’s arm. “Wanna watch
True Stories of Rescue Animals
?”

“Yes,” said Kiki as she dried her eyes with the edge of her jacket sleeve. She sniffed and cleared her throat. “Yeah, I’d like to do that.” Mari wouldn’t be home for another hour; she’d called earlier to say that
she needed to make three pies because the tearoom was low on blackberry. Kiki knew she was making them for Gideon.

“We can make hot chocolate,” suggested Angie. “Do you have any? If not, I know my grandma has a new box of Swiss Miss.”

“We have some in our kitchen,” said Kiki. “With marshmallows.”

The porch was nearly dark now, shadows casting their images against the front lawn.

Kiki could make out her shadow and Angie’s. She moved her arm as her shadow, a thin line, moved.

Angie, realizing what she was doing, lifted her hand, too, and waved.

Kiki giggled, waving her hand. “We are waving shadows,” she said.

When they stood to enter Kiki’s house, their lean shadows meshed together so that Kiki could not tell where she ended and Angie began. It was as though she and Angie were one big shadow, merging together, taking on a new shape. And although her hands were cold, her heart felt warm, like it often does when one is with a friend.

T
he apartment had never felt so lonely. Not even on that first day when he’d cosigned the lease at age sixteen, with Ormond as his guardian, did it seem this hollow and drenched with silence. The first night alone in this place had been a mixture of relief and uncertainty. He’d been under Ormond’s roof for almost a year after leaving Carlisle and was glad to be out on his own where he could buy his own groceries and stock his own refrigerator. Yet the apartment held no familiar sounds. At least Ormond’s had the purr of his two calico cats and the tick-tock of an antique grandfather clock he’d inherited from his father.

On this late afternoon, Gideon moved from room to room, hoping to hear something.
Comfort
, he thought.
I just need comfort.
Strange, he hadn’t asked for comfort ever and now he wished that a voice—maybe even an audible one from God—would soothe his heart and give it the capability to relax. If only God would reassure him that he was not to blame. He waited. He entered the living room, sat on the couch, and strained his ears. Hearing nothing, eventually he gave in to his hunger and made himself a snack.