Suncatchers (50 page)

32

The Same Stars

It was after ten o'clock by the time they had finished eating, visited Joe Leonard's room again, and talked again with the Harrelsons, who were allowed to take Howie home that night. Several church people had come by after prayer meeting to express their concern and to rejoice over the doctor's good prognosis. Willard had come back after the library closed at nine o'clock and had called the principal of Jewel's school to arrange for her to miss the next day's classes.

Pulling into Jewel's driveway at ten-thirty, Perry felt that weeks had passed since they had rushed off to the hospital, not knowing what they would find when they got there. The cool black of the October night felt vastly different from the mild twilight of four hours earlier. As he walked around the car to help Eldeen, Perry lifted his eyes to the stars shining overhead. In the darkness he smiled up at the sky and breathed in deeply.

“That poor Roberta Harrelson was sure a pathetic little thing,” Eldeen said, grunting as she swung her legs out of the car and planted her feet on the pavement. “She made me think of a little sick, weak puppy the way she just shivered and whimpered. Which reminds me—Hormel's probably voracious with hunger about now. Joe Leonard usually feeds him before suppertime.”

“He does look hungry, poor boy,” Jewel said. “I'll feed him.” And she started toward the side door. By the dim porch light, Perry could see Hormel, his tail held at a rigid point, the brown cone of his snout protruding through the fence.

Eldeen shifted her weight forward and hoisted herself slowly out of the car. Perry grabbed her elbow to steady her. “Upsy-daisy, I'm all right,” she said, chuckling. “You don't need to coddle me. Now that my mind's easy about Joe Leonard, I think I'll sleep like a little baby tonight! I feel like I been run through the washer, wringer and all. Ooh—just look at them stars! If that's not a breathtaking sight, I don't know what is! Looks like somebody went and stuck a whole bushel basket full of straight pins into a big old pincushion.”

“But straight pins don't come in bushel baskets,” Perry wanted to say, “and pincushions aren't generally black.” The only ones he could think of were the small, plump red ones shaped like tomatoes that his mother had worn clamped onto her wrist.

“Bless her heart, at first she was just almost out of her mind with anxiety,” Eldeen continued. “Then later she was all aflutter with relief!”

Perry realized there was a time when he would have had to ponder over who the “she” was, and he wondered now how it was that he instantly understood Eldeen had simply returned to the subject of Mrs. Harrelson. Here was another dividing line to consider. When had he developed the ability to follow Eldeen's train of thought?

Jewel had come back outside with a large plastic scoop of dry dog food, which she emptied with a clatter into Hormel's plastic dish. Hormel sniffed it, then raised his head and looked through the fence at Perry. Perry imagined a little cartoon balloon floating above Hormel's head: “Hey, Oreo Man, where's the good stuff?” He was glad the dog couldn't talk. But Hormel didn't waste time wishing. He soon had his muzzle buried in his dish. Jewel picked up his water dish and filled it from the spigot.

Eldeen grasped the rail and headed up the side steps to the kitchen door. She looked back briefly at Perry. “You did it again, Perry. You stood by us in our time of need.” She jerked her head in a quick nod. “I thank you. God is keeping accounts of all this.” Perry felt like a child unaccustomed to receiving favors. He dug his fists into his jeans pockets and hung his head. “I'm going in,” Eldeen announced abruptly, turning back to the steps. “I'm going to run me a hot tub of water and just soak my weary bones a little bit. Is that okay, Jewel? I won't stay in long, I promise.”

“That's fine, Mama,” Jewel said, stepping back outside the gate. The metal latch fell with a gentle clang. “I need to catch my breath a little before I can even think about getting ready for bed. You go ahead and take you a nice warm bath.”

Eldeen disappeared inside, and Jewel stood facing Perry with her back to the gate, toying with the plastic scoop she was carrying. She looked as if she were struggling to speak, but Perry couldn't be sure. Maybe she was just thinking over the evening and trying to sort things out. He hated to leave her outdoors like this. He knew she must be exceedingly tired. What if she fainted right out here on the driveway?

“Well, good night,” Perry said at last. But he didn't move.

“Wait, Perry,” Jewel said.

Perry earnestly hoped she wasn't about to deliver a speech of gratitude as she had done to Dr. Whitaker. He felt his heart pounding as he watched her walk slowly, lightly toward him, then breathed more easily when she turned toward the steps and sat down on the top one. She set the scoop down and interlaced her fingers gracefully. How many times, he wondered, had he watched Jewel working with her hands in the kitchen, never hurrying, always performing even the simplest of tasks—the shaking of salt or the pouring of tea or the lifting of a pan—with languid, waltzlike movements. He had once mused over the differences between southern and northern women and decided that tempo was definitely one of them. Southern women took their time—at least the ones he had observed closely.

“Do you have a minute?” she asked him, waving toward the three steps below her.

“Sure,” Perry said, a faint cloud of worry settling over him. Jewel wasn't generally one to talk much. How would the two of them manage by themselves? Of course, she had done a fair amount of talking tonight, he had to remind himself. Maybe it had loosened her up. He sat down on the second step, then wondered if this was what Jewel had had in mind. Maybe she meant for him to remain standing—or maybe sit on the driveway. Should he turn himself on the step partway or keep his back to her? He heard her sigh behind him and felt rebuked. Why did other people always seem to know what was expected of them, while he went through life feeling like everything he did was clumsy and ill timed? He turned slightly and placed his elbow on the step behind him.

At first he thought Jewel was inhaling the fresh autumn air, but after the third sniffle, he was appalled to realize she was crying. What had he gotten himself into? If there was one thing he avoided above all others, it was having to deal with a weeping woman. He had grown up fleeing the house whenever his mother cried, which was often. Beth had been remarkably self-controlled when she was younger, almost cold, now that he thought about it, but one time when a boy she had liked stood her up, she had broken down at the supper table. Perry distinctly recalled leaving his plate untouched and walking out the front door. There had been a fresh outburst later when he came home, for Beth had assumed he'd left to find and punish the boy who had treated her so rudely. “What did he say?” she had asked him, her eyes still swollen from crying. “Who?” Perry had asked blankly.

He couldn't remember how many times after their marriage Dinah had cried before she had learned that his response would never vary. How many times, he wondered now, had he left the room while she wept alone, sometimes shutting himself away for hours until he ventured back to her, approaching cautiously, straining to hear? Exactly
when
had she stopped letting him see her cry? When had she recast her responses, relinquishing her tears and taking up anger and sarcasm?

Perry remembered a paper napkin he had stuffed into his pocket in the hospital cafeteria. He took it out now and handed it back to Jewel. She received it gratefully and put it to her eyes, then blew her nose.

“Oh, Perry, I'm so sorry,” she said. “I don't know what's come over me. I guess it's just . . . everything. Joe Leonard and . . . well, Bailey and . . . Willard . . . and just
everything
.” She bent forward, laying her head in her lap, and Perry saw her shudder with sobs. At least she cried softly, not in great heaving gasps, demanding attention, as his mother had. And at least she tried to explain her tears. Dinah had always indulged in crying exclusively, with no attempt to enlighten him as to the cause. Maybe she would have talked later, though, he thought now, if only he had endured the crying for a short while. He sat silently, uncomfortably, glancing back at Jewel from time to time. He could understand her venting her emotions this way over Joe Leonard, but what did she mean about Bailey and Willard? Why drag them into it?

It came to him again as she was crying that he could someday find himself in Jewel's place—suffering and waiting through a medical emergency involving Troy. How would he bear up? What if it had been Troy instead of Joe Leonard who was stabbed by a classmate? It could happen. Public schools, even elementary schools, were dangerous these days. But the painful thought came to him now that if anything did happen to Troy, he wouldn't be there to help. He wouldn't be in the waiting room sharing the crisis with Dinah. Somehow, right now, that thought was even more oppressive than the idea of Troy's being injured. A wound could heal. A doctor's skill could set things right. But a wife agonizing alone was suddenly an unbearable thought. Poor Dinah. Poor Jewel. Maybe that's what she meant about Bailey—grieving alone had reminded her anew of his absence.

He looked up at the sky again. If Dinah were outside tonight, she could see the same stars he was seeing. He wondered if she ever thought of him. Did she ever wonder what he was doing—
how
he was doing? He realized that she would be receiving the packages he had mailed any day now. He pushed the thought far from his mind and turned back to Jewel.

“It's been a hard day for you,” he said at last. He stared at his hand resting on Jewel's arm. How had it gotten there? He gently pulled it away.

Jewel's sobs subsided. She lifted her face and dabbed at it again with the crumpled paper napkin. Perry saw her raise her troubled eyes to the sky, almost wildly. He saw her shiver.

“It all comes back so
plain
,” she said. “I sat right here on these steps the night . . . Bailey didn't come home.” She stopped and pressed both hands against her temples. “I sat here and looked up at those stars,” she said, pointing, “those same ones—and I thought, ‘God, I know you're up there, and I know you love me, but how can I live out the rest of my life after
this?
'” She looked at Perry, her eyes wide with distress.

Perry couldn't think of what to say in the face of such deeply private revelations. Why couldn't she just dwell on the blessed outcome of tonight? Why did she have to dredge up dismal memories? Women were always doing that—reliving the past, slipping into some former melancholy like a favorite housecoat. Of course, what right did he have to condemn women? What had he been doing ever since he moved to Derby? Hadn't he been retracing every turn in the labyrinth of his relationship with Dinah? Hadn't he been wallowing in his failures as a husband and father? Trawling through his memory for clues to what went wrong? Wasn't he reminded on every hand of some previous carelessness of his own, some small act that had accrued harmful results, some besetting deficiency, yet, at the same time, the unfairness of the whole situation?

“But here was the thing I couldn't get over,” Jewel was saying, calmly now as if her weeping had cleared her thoughts. Perry turned around farther so that he could look her full in the face, but she was still gazing up at the stars as she spoke. “I've never uttered a word of any of this to another living soul,” she said, “but it's so heavy I don't think I can keep it inside any longer.” Perry wondered with dismay if he had missed it. He almost hoped he had, for he wasn't sure he could bear such an ominous secret.

The kitchen door was ajar, and he could hear the sound of bath water filling the tub down the hall. Jewel dropped her eyes to meet his. She looked weak and vulnerable. “Don't say another word!” Perry wanted to command. “Don't strap me with your emotional baggage! I've got enough problems of my own!” But he kept his silence, and she continued, releasing each word slowly as if laying down a ponderous load.

“If it was just losing him—I could have gotten over that eventually,” she said. “It would've been hard, but the Lord is merciful.” She paused and lowered her eyes to study her hands. She turned them over several times, examining both palms and backs as if they belonged to someone else and held the clue to some mystery.

“We quarreled that day before he left to go fishing,” she continued, more softly now. “I had been wanting to try to get a teaching job to help out with the finances, and I kept bringing it up every few days. Joe Leonard was fixing to go into junior high school that next fall, and I thought it would be a good time. Things were tight, and Bailey's job at the glass company was . . . well, it was steady but not very . . . rewarding.” Perry heard Eldeen humming in the hallway. Then a door closed firmly, and the bath water stopped.

“Nobody was home that afternoon but Bailey and me,” Jewel said. “It was a Saturday, and it had just rained that morning—a hard rain we really needed. Mama had gone with Marvella Gowdy to see somebody in the nursing home, and Joe Leonard was down at the church helping clean out the baptistry. He was trying to earn enough points that month for his ‘Wings as Eagles' badge, I remember.”

Dinah used to do this when telling a story, Perry recalled. She would embellish the story line with all kinds of extraneous details, to the point that he was often tempted to shout, “Just get on with it! I don't care what they were all wearing or what kind of car they were driving!”

“And I started in on the subject of me working again,” Jewel continued, “but he cut me off. I got . . . well, I got angry and started going over all my reasons again, but he just shook his head and said, ‘I want you home.' It was always that: ‘I want you home.' I'd tell him all my plans for keeping things the same at home—I'd use my Crockpot more and get up a little earlier and have Joe Leonard take over the vacuuming on Saturdays and on and on. But he wouldn't listen. He just said he didn't want to put me through that—rat race is what he kept calling it. He never would
listen
,” she repeated. “He'd just cut me off.”