Seeing Things (32 page)
Authors: Patti Hill
“Could you help me clean this mess?” Andy said.
“Which mess would that be?”
“The coffee. The toy boat.”
“I don't think I will. A puddle of coffee is a good place for you to start. You'll gain confidence to move on to larger tasks, greater priorities.” I walked toward the bedroom but stopped and turned. “And don't you even think of leaving that mess for Lupe, young man.”
“I THINK I'D RATHER clean the toilets than watch your face all screwed up like that,” Lupe said, her chair scraping the stone patio. “I tell you, the best thing for that boy is to go home with you.”
I didn't dare answer her. Somewhere a chain saw made light of a tree branch, and I worried the gardener might get carried away, like the time Chuck made stumps of our beautiful cottonwood. I considered following the sound of the saw. Once a man held a saw and smelled the heat of fresh wood, they couldn't be trusted. A rogue breeze made me plunge my hands into my pockets. When I did, I found a folded piece of paper, probably an old grocery list. Out came the magnifying glass.
Fletcher's poem. I pulled the chair into the sunlight, careful to keep the sun in front of me. The last thing I wanted or needed was another flameout.
A steamer blasts a horn upriver,
The raft totters on the wake
Churned by the clawing paddles.
Waves slap against the logs
And spray my feet with river water
That is life and deathâcatfish and decay,
Red-eared turtles and bloated fish.
The raft glides down the river where
Crickets chirrup, a white bass leaps for a bug,
And the woo-wah, woo-wah
Of a barred owl slices the night.
I chew my cob to stay a smile.
Who will witness this prudent joy?
The stars that clutter the swallowing sky?
Candles in windows beckon travelers;
Ma and babe escape into sleep.
Hunched willows skim the current
With leafy fingers to catch a dream.
I dream too, but I am not alone.
A shadow man floats with me,
Whistling a familiar song at the tiller.
I bite my cob; my dream floats among the reeds
And rises to the treetops and on to the stars.
“Stir the fire, son,” the shadow man says.
“Another cup of joe?
Jaw with me until the moon leaves her post.”
Steam moistens my face.
“No other place I'd rather be,” he says.
This is my Huckleberry Dream.
WITH LUPE BUSY WITH household chores, I called Emory. He listened as I ranted. I pictured him sitting at his desk, cluttered with pharmacological journals and invoices, and a bag torn open with a half-eaten chocolate éclair sitting in a circle of grease.
“I've never heard you so angry,” he said with awe in his voice.
“I've never been this angry. The way Andy talked to the boy, belittling his work . . . I'm so disappointed in my son.”
“It's time for you to come home, Birdie. How can you get better in an environment like that? I can be there in six hours, maybe five. I'll get William to watch the store. He's been sober nearly a week.”
I wanted home and Emory and blissful ignorance more than I cared to admit, but leaving Fletcher to fend for himself was out of the question. “I have a bit of a plan.”
“You have a what?”
“A plan,” I said, louder.
“I won't have you taking the bus, if that's your plan, not with your ankle. You'll need to stop and move around. Deep-vein thrombosis is a real threat. And, Birdie, there are no strings attached. I won't expect anything in return. Coming to get you is what any friend would do.”
Talk about deep-vein thrombosis sent a flush of warmth through my body. “You're much more than a friend.”
“I am? Really? I wasn't sure.” He sounded like a ten-year-old boy.
“You're a good man, Emory. I've known it since the day I met you. The way you held my hand as you introduced yourself . . . well, I nearly swooned.”
The phone went silent, and I feared Emory had inhaled a bite of éclair. I was about to call 9-1-1 when he said, “That surprises me a little.”
“You surprised me.”
“Are you answering my proposal with a yes?”
A proposal is a fine way to kill a romantic moment. “This is my way of sugaring you up.”
“You don't need to do that. Not me. I'm always sweet on you.”
I explained about the Grand View Cottages.
Emory spat his words. “I want you away from those people today. You're the last person who belongs in a place like that.”
“They mean well.”
“They're controlling.”
“Just one night, Emory. I want them to see me as being open to ideas and cooperative.”
“To what end?”
“So Fletcher can live with me.”
“Here? In Ouray?”
“You sound disappointed. And surprised.”
“Well, yes, I'm surprised.”
“Disappointed?”
“Leery.”
“Of Fletcher? He's only a boy and a very good boy. He deserves to be someplace where he can spread his wings without getting them clipped.”
“I think I'd like Fletcher just fine, but I may be a little leery of you.”
“Me?”
“I think
you
like to control people too. Perhaps it's genetic.”
you
like to control people too. Perhaps it's genetic.”
“I called you for support.”
“This sort of scheming is beneath you, Birdie. You're a forthright woman. I expect better of you.”
“I've met my match in these two. I don't know what made me think I could convince them to be better parents.”
“Only the Holy Spirit can do that.”
“Then he better get the lead out.”
The phone went quiet again. No doubt, Emory prayed for me now.
“Tell me this, Birdie: Have you ever forgiven your son for leaving you and Chuck that day?”
“Of course I have. What kind of mother do you take me for?”
“How do you know you've forgiven him?”
“I won't have you preaching at me Emory McCune.”
“Andy is fully aware of your judgment on him.”
“Good!”
“Judgment is the Holy Spirit's job.”
“I can't help but wonder if the Holy Spirit is sleeping on this job.”
Emory coughed to clear his throat. “You've been a student of the Bible much longer than I, so I'm sure you remember the story Jesus told about the debtor who went before the king? He had no chance of paying the king what he owed him. He faced a life of imprisonment away from his family.”
“This is sounding like a sermon.”
“The man begged the king until he relented and forgave the man his debt. Within hours, however, the forgiven man refused mercy to someone who owed him much less. ”
I knew where this was leading. “Emory,” I said with just enough warning in my voice that he might change the subject. He didn't. He quoted Scripture at me, for heaven's sake.
“âFor if ye forgive men their trespasses . . .'”
“I know the passage.”
“â. . . your heavenly Father will also forgive you . . .'”
“Fine! Stay home! I'll take care of this myself.”
I hung up, regretting the finality of my words the instant I said them.
Chapter 34
Right in the middle of the day, with Lupe running the vacuum in the bedrooms upstairs, I lay across the bed like the Queen of Sheba. Emory had no way of knowing my history with that verse in Matthewâthanks to my sister, Evelyn, and the movie
Roman Holiday.
Roman Holiday.
On a supply trip to Bishop, Pa had sprung for tickets to the movies while he and Ma shopped for supplies. We watched
Roman Holiday
twice, and by the time Pa and Ma picked us up in front of the Egyptian Theater, Evelyn had convinced me to cut my bangs just like Audrey Hepburn.
Roman Holiday
twice, and by the time Pa and Ma picked us up in front of the Egyptian Theater, Evelyn had convinced me to cut my bangs just like Audrey Hepburn.
“You have a long neck just like Miss Hepburn,” she said. “You'll look like a princess.”
I liked the way Audrey Hepburn looked as she scooted around Rome with Gregory Peck, eating ice cream and nervous about losing her hand in the Mouth of Truth, but then she hitched herself into a suit with a hat that looked like an ashtray. She looked mighty uncomfortable to me, and there was no way she would ever shinny up an apple tree in that getup. Still, I fancied the idea of being a princess and lording it over my older sister.
Later, when Pa and Ma sat on the porch talking to the Drakes, Evelyn wrapped my shoulders with a towel and parted my hair straight down the middle and stalled. I should have run. Evelyn grabbed the latest issue of
Star
magazine, with the cover folded back. “See here?” She pointed to a picture of Hepburn. “All I have to do is make another part perpendicular to the first and trim the bangs to the length you want.”
Star
magazine, with the cover folded back. “See here?” She pointed to a picture of Hepburn. “All I have to do is make another part perpendicular to the first and trim the bangs to the length you want.”
I wasn't sure Evelyn knew what perpendicular meant. She'd taken geometry twice. “Maybe we should ask Ma for help,” I said, suddenly doubtful of my sister's skills.
“We want to surprise her, don't we? She won't have to braid so much of your hair if you have bangs.”
Evelyn gouged a line across my scalp with a comb.
“Ouch!”
“Quiet! Ma will hear.”
A veil of hair fell over my eyes. “It's hot under here.”
“Hold still or I'm liable to poke your eye out.”
Evelyn held a fistful of hair in one hand and Ma's sewing scissors in the other. When the curtain of hair fell, Evelyn looked like she'd seen a ghost.
“What?” I said, rising to look in the mirror.
Evelyn pressed me down into the chair. “Nothing. Your bangs need straightening is all. Aren't you cooler already?”
As a matter of fact, I was. Evelyn snipped and grunted and stood back. “Just a little bit more. You're really starting to look like Miss Hepburn now.”
I wore a stocking cap to school the next six months, even in June when temperatures hit the nineties.
I hated my sister, and I took every chance to sock her between the shoulder blades. She got plenty riled over a snake in her bed, although I made sure it was dead first. But it was giving her a mustache with a permanent marker the night before a dance that finally prompted my father to convene a family meeting. I fought not to giggle every time I looked at my sister's puffy red lip.
My father spoke with the solemnity of a judge. “Eloisa Marie,” he started, and he could have stopped right there. After all, he'd been the one to nickname me Birdie for all the chirping I did around the house. Calling me Eloisa Marie, well, that was a knife to the gut. “There's no doubt your sister has made life difficult for you, but I think you'd better consider what the Good Book says about the business of forgiveness.” He opened his Bible, patiently separating the thin pages until he found the passage he was looking for. “This is what Jesus said to his disciples after he taught them how to pray, so this, my young one, was very important to him . . . and it will be to you.” He read, “âFor if ye forgive men their trespassesâ'”
“Evelyn's a
girl
.” The beginning of a smile lifted the corner of Pa's mouth and disappeared.
girl
.” The beginning of a smile lifted the corner of Pa's mouth and disappeared.
“I won't be having you interrupt me, young lady. âFor if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.'” Pa's eyebrows collided. “Are you prepared, Eloisa May, to wade into a lake of fire over a bad haircut? If not, I think you'd better forgive Evelyn.”
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