The Summer Son (12 page)

H
OURS AFTER THE STORM
,
morning came and brought an air of uneasy consideration to the way Dad and I dealt with each other, one that hadn’t existed until after we had rolled around in the dust in Split Rail.

I’d seen enough violence in my life to know that good things rarely come of it, but in our case, the scuffle cut through some of the deep divisions between us. Dad knew I wasn’t going anywhere until I was satisfied with where I stood with him. Perhaps for the first time, I knew it too.

I awoke the way I had all those years earlier, with Dad shaking me from slumber.

“Mitch, let’s get some of those doughnuts,” he said.

I blinked my eyes to chase away sleep, and there he stood, a floppy grin stitched across his face.

We rode in my rental while Dad fiddled with the radio again. At the grocery store, I held the box open while Dad counted out six doughnuts from the self-serve bin. At the coffee kiosk, he poured two cups, and unprompted, he added my cream and sugar, looking up and smiling at me.

It was like we were normal people or something.

“What’s your plan for today, Pop?” I asked between bites of jelly doughnut.

“Errands.”

“Yeah? You need some company?”

“Nope.” He looked at me. “I could use your help here, anyway. You know how to use a lawnmower?”

I gave him a quick look to gauge his intent. He twinkled.

“I’m pretty sure I can figure it out.”

“There’s a push mower and a rake in the shed. Can you whip this yard into shape?”

His patch of lawn ran as long as the double-wide and about ten feet deep. It wouldn’t be much of a job.

“You pay overtime?” I asked, and Dad laughed.

Just before nine a.m., Dad left. “I’ll be back pretty soon,” he said on his way out.

“Sure you don’t need company?”

“The mower and the rake are in the shed,” he said.

I chuckled. “I’m on it.”

I listened as Dad’s little pickup sputtered to life and he sent it rattling down the lane, and then I turned back to the morning’s newspaper and my third cup of coffee. The yard could wait.

The cutting duty, like so many things, had gotten away from Dad, and I had to make three passes with the push mower to saw down every long blade of grass. My back took umbrage at the raking and bagging of the cut grass, but that was my own damned fault. At this stage, I lifted more drinks than weights, and my body merely told me, in a language I could understand, that I had been an idiot.

I finished in an hour. The cuttings were bagged and tied and sitting out with the trash bins. I dragged the rake back to the shed.

I was about to lock up when a box in the rafters caught my eye. In marker, in Dad’s jagged hand, was written
Letters/papers.

I peeked outside, gazing along the entry road. The assumption that I was being surreptitious made me feel foolish, but the more I contemplated what I was about to do, the more on-point caution seemed. I asked myself a question: if Dad were to walk in and catch me digging through this box, would he be upset?

Despite the answer, I stepped inside the shed and dragged down the box.

Forty-five minutes later, I stood in the darkness of the shed, trying to get my head straight.

I had known only the faintest outlines of Dad’s upbringing. He was born in Havre, Montana, the only child of Raymond and Luetta Quillen. When he was eighteen months old, his parents died in a car crash, hit head-on by a farm truck. Dad, in a bassinet in the back seat, survived. With no siblings and no one stepping forward to claim him, Dad ended up in the St. Thomas Home orphanage in Great Falls, where he stayed until he was of legal age. Then the Navy took him. That was Dad’s story, although he never talked about it with me. Details came to me in scraps of conversations I wasn’t intended to hear. As I grew more curious about him, Mom filled in a few details she knew. What I found in the box changed everything.

There, underneath his discharge papers and information on long-ago bank accounts and old payroll stubs, I found a stack of envelopes, bound together with rubber bands. Each had the same return address, from someone named Kelly Hewins, from a post-office box in Havre, penned neatly in cursive.

December 11, 1963

Dear Jimmy,

I hope you don’t mind that I tracked you down. I don’t want to bother you if you don’t want to be bothered, and so I’ll just write this letter and hope that you respond.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, and I want you to know that you’re missed. Dick—you remember him, right?—and I got married eight years ago. We have two little girls, Kathy and Kelly (after me!), and another on the way. It would be so nice to see you again and catch up and find out what you’ve been up to all this while.

Have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Please call or write.

Love,

Kelly

June 13, 1968

Dear Jimmy,

Dick and I were in Billings over the weekend, and we saw the birth announcement for your little boy in the paper. We didn’t even know you’d gotten married. It’s so wonderful that you have a son. And Mitchell is a beautiful name. Congratulations to you and Leila.

I keep hoping that someday I’ll answer the phone and you’ll be on the other end, or I’ll reach into the mailbox and pull out a letter from you. I’d love to talk to you, to see you, to know you again. I also know why you might not want that.

We’re in the place we’ve always been, if you ever change your mind. We have four kids now. Our oldest, Kathy, is 11—how did that happen? There’s also Kelly (9), Coby (8), and Charles (6). We’re done, I think. I hope.

Love,

Kelly

August 4, 1976

Dear Jimmy,

We don’t get to Billings very often, but it seems like every time we do, we get a piece of news about you. You’re remarried? We wish you much happiness.

Kathy is a year into college in Missoula. Kelly will soon be next. The other kids will be coming up behind them soon enough. Time sure flies. Your boy is growing up too, I would imagine. It all happens fast.

I realized today that it’s been 22 years since I’ve seen you or heard from you. I hope not too much more time will pass before your heart softens. I miss you.

Love,

Kelly

February 9, 1980

Dear Jimmy,

You’re hard to track down. The past couple of letters I sent to your house in Billings came back here.

I just thought I’d let you know. We buried Dana yesterday. She’d been sick for the past year and she finally passed on.

I know how you felt about her and him, and maybe even me. I guess I don’t blame you much.

I half expected to see you at the funeral, though I know that’s silly. Anyway, I thought you’d like to know.

Love,

Kelly

December 21, 1982

Dear Jimmy,

Merry Christmas! The whole family is back together for this holiday. Kathy and her husband Dan and their two kids are here. They live out in Portland. Kelly came out from Boston. Coby and his wife and their little baby are up from Billings. Charles, who’s in his sophomore year at MSU, will be here too.

You know, you’re only a few hours away. If you decided to show up for Christmas, we’d love to have you here.

Love,

Kelly

June 2, 1986

Dear Jimmy,

This will sound silly, but I’ve been going to the library and reading the papers from all over the state, looking for a graduation announcement for your boy. Mitchell would be 18 now, wouldn’t he? I’d like to send him a card. It breaks my heart that I’ve never met him. It breaks my heart even more that it’s been more than 30 years since I’ve seen you. I wonder how much longer I should even bother sending out these notes, since they’re never answered.

I’m sorry about what happened to you. I would give anything if I could somehow make it better. You’ll recall that I was there too. I suffered too. I don’t know what good it does to keep the whole world out, Jimmy.

Love,

Kelly

April 14, 1991

Dear Jimmy,

I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written.

Dick died last year. It was very hard. He collapsed there at work, and he was gone. I miss him so much. He was a good man and a good husband and a good father.

I was depressed for a long time. Charles was working for an accountant in Denver, but he moved back here to Havre and opened his own office. He lives down the street and looks after me, though I’m slowly getting into the swing of things again. I have good friends and good kids, and I’ll be all right.

I hope life has been treating you well.

Love,

Kelly

June 1, 1994

Dear Jimmy,

Does this date have any significance for you? It does for me. This was the date you left Havre and entered the Navy. The last time I saw you, 40 years ago. When will this silence end?

Love,

Kelly

March 3, 2002

Dear Jimmy,

I can’t do this anymore. I’ve given you as much room as I can give you, in the hopes that you’d meet me somewhere in the middle. I can see now that you never will. I will adhere to your wishes, then, and not contact you again.

I love you. I always have, and I always will.

Kelly

I pawed at the letters, and I read them all again. Kelly? Dana? Who were these people?

The pain that dripped from the letters gnawed at me, too. Kelly, whoever she was, found herself stuck on the other side of Dad’s wall, where so many of us who cared about him did our time in silence.

I was set to dig deeper into the box, but I looked up and saw the old man’s truck turn into the trailer park. I jammed everything back in and hustled the box back to its resting place.

W
HEN
I
THINK ABOUT THE AFTERNOON
when everything came apart for Dad and Marie, the fight rarely registers much significance. I don’t think about how knockdown, drag-out, let’s-call-the-whole-thing-off battles flare from the smallest of kindling. I don’t wonder how two people, ostensibly grown up, can grapple over who can more effectively use a boy as a pawn, all in their zeal to hurt each other. I know all of that. I saw it. I was there. But I don’t fixate on it.

No, I remember that at last, after pining for it for weeks, I had spent the early part of that day riding my motorcycle. It was a bit too small for my frame by then, two years after it had been purchased for me, and my elbows rested lazily on my drawn-up knees. I looked ridiculous, hanging on that bike, all arms and legs and right angles. I didn’t care. Of far greater import was that I had all the acreage I wanted with trails cut into it every which way by trucks and tractors, I had a full tank of gas, and I had no chores.

The day belonged to me. Then, quickly and without mercy, it didn’t.

Dad rolled the motorcycle out early, before I awoke, and he gassed it up and changed the oil. It was a rare anticipation of what I would be eager to do, one perhaps inspired by the previous night’s row with Marie and done, perhaps, in an effort to placate me, or at least distract me.

I bounded outside after breakfast and found the motorcycle in the driveway, looking as new as the day Dad bought it for me two summers earlier. I ran a finger along the gleaming red tank.

“You remember your way around this thing?” Dad asked.

I pulled down on the helmet straps and squeezed the shell over my head. It fit, only barely.

“Of course.”

“OK, then. You be careful.”

“I will.”

I climbed on and pushed the Honda up, booting the kickstand into riding position. I grasped the clutch and gave the kicker my full weight. After two years of sitting idle, the Honda almost caught on the first kick. The second one set her to purring.

I looked at Dad and grinned. He pointed back at me.

“Drive by the house every so often,” he said. “If I have to come out looking for you, you’d better be dead.”

I nodded, set the bike in gear, and released the clutch. If he had anything else to say, he could tell it to my dust.

The ranch presented enough changes in topography to keep me entertained. I happily carved new lines in trails cut out of the country long ago. My standing orders were to give a wide berth to the cattle—Dad ran about fifty cow-calf pairs on the ranch—and to the cultivated fields. The rest was free for exploration.

I headed first for the original house, at the opposite end of the property. The old place enchanted me. Built partly out of sandstone cut from the rims, the little house stood on the edge of the property like a ghost, sturdy far beyond its years and yet obsolete. Hunters stalking the property during mule deer season would occasionally use it, either overnight or just as a place to grab a few winks before continuing the hunt. Time and vegetation had encroached on the place, but still it stood, keeping watch over the land, holding fast to whatever secrets it had gathered.

The only other time I had been there, I had unearthed some of its history. In what remained of the kitchen area, I found an old silver spoon, small and delicate, and shards of china. I brought those things back to the house, and Marie claimed them. The spoon got a shining, one that nearly made it look like new, and ended up in a shadow box on the wall. The china pieces were put on the mantel. Sometimes I looked at the artifacts and wondered about the people who used them. I would contemplate what their lives must have been like as they made their stand in a bountiful but unforgiving land. The people who had come here first and whittled a life out of this place had none of the conveniences I took for granted, and I marveled that through hard work, wits, and fortitude they were able to build an existence from the ground up. It led me to approach their place—and theirs it was, much more than Dad’s or Marie’s or mine—with something bordering on reverence.

As my motorcycle crested a small hill and the old house fell into view, I saw that little had changed. The old structure looked ready for another century of what man and nature could throw at it. I pulled up where the door would have hung and powered down the Honda. I took off my helmet and stepped inside the old place for another look, another visit to a time and place I could see and feel but had to imagine to bring to life.

I cut along the back side boundary of the ranch, taking a loop around the grazing cattle. As I turned the nose of the motorcycle toward the house, I stopped. Ahead, a rattlesnake slithered across the double-rutted road and headed for the rocks beyond.

I gunned the Honda and tore out after him, and I thrilled at the sickening collapse of his head as my tires hit it. At the end of the lane, I whipped the bike around for a look. I stopped several feet away, giving the snake a healthy respect despite my surety that he was dead. I watched his body for a few minutes until I was fully satisfied. I was all too mindful of my earlier tangle with one of his brethren in Utah. This snake was smaller, a young prairie rattler with a dusty brown color that, had I encountered him somewhere else, would have made him hard to see. That was good for snakes but not so good for unwitting intruders.

Slowly, I moved closer. The snake was dead as dead could be, and still my stomach churned. I knew it was dumb, but I feared that he was feigning death, waiting for me to draw near so he could flash his fangs and exact revenge. This was silly. Man’s fear of snakes is exceeded only by snakes’ fear of man. Had I given him an out, he surely would have taken it. I had read that some rattlesnakes, when forced to strike people, delivered dry bites, saving their venom for their actual prey. When you get right down to it, snakes show far more sense than people. They spend energy looking for food, they keep to themselves, and they go to great lengths to avoid a fight.

As these thoughts competed for space in my head, a pang of remorse that I had so blithely ended this fellow’s life hit me. He was doing what a snake must do, and I had come along and killed him. The least I could do was offer him dignity. I climbed off the still-running motorcycle, walked the final few steps to his body, and kicked him off the road.

As I rumbled into the main yard, I waved at Dad, whose head was jammed into the guts of a tractor. I shut off the bike and flew up the porch stairs two at a time.

I was downing my third cup of water when Marie perched off my left shoulder.

“What happened to Jerry?” she asked.

“He’s in the Marines. That’s what Mom told me.”

“The Marines? Why?”

“It’s something he wanted to do, I guess.”

Marie frowned.

“That doesn’t make any sense. One day he’s working for Jim and he’s got a girlfriend there in Milford. Then the next he’s in the Marines. What happened down there?”

“Nothing. He and Dad weren’t getting along, and he quit.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Had I thought concern for Jerry inspired Marie’s questions, I might have given her more to go on—certainly not the full story, but something that nudged closer to truth. I knew she was digging for ammunition against Dad, and she could find enough of that without my help.

“Believe it or don’t. That’s what happened.”

I set my glass down and headed for the door.

I rode to the end of the ranch access road, about a mile from the house. I gazed past the gate to the road that led into Split Rail. It moved away from the ranch to the south and west. Hundreds of miles beyond, my brother sat in San Diego, getting on with his life.

I wished he were with me, so I could hug his neck.

When I returned, I found Dad sitting in his recliner, nursing a beer and a cigarette.

“How’s it going, sport?”

“Good.”

“Do you need more gas?”

“Not yet.” I called into the kitchen. “What’s for lunch?”

“Hot dogs,” Marie said.

“We’re eating like kings now,” Dad said, and that brought a peek around the wall and a cold stare.

After all the diner fare and slapped-together, meat-in-a-can lunches in Utah, I welcomed hot dogs. And Marie had undersold it. Potato chips, fruit, and pasta salad rounded things out. Kings, indeed. Sensing that the tension between Dad and Marie had eased little, I told Marie how good it all tasted, in the hope that some kind words might send the tenor of the house in a new direction.

“Thank you, Mitch,” she said. Then she looked at Dad, who wordlessly shoveled forkfuls of food into his mouth. “It’s nice that someone noticed.”

Dad looked up at her. “I noticed,” he said. “I didn’t realize you expected a parade.”

Marie dropped her fork, and it clattered onto her plate. “See, Jim, it’s telling that for you, it’s either silence or a parade. How about just a simple nice word? How about some kindness?”

“You mean the kind you were showing that guy?”

“Jesus, Jim.”

“I’m going outside,” I said, standing up. Marie put a hand on my shoulder and gently eased me down.

“Mitch. I’m sorry.” She glanced at Dad. “We’re sorry. Help me clear this stuff away, OK?”

Dad looked up and gave me a nod.

“OK,” I said.

I had just shoved the leftover pasta salad into the fridge when we heard the thump on the hardwood floor in the living room.

“Ah hell.”

“What is it?” Marie said.

“Mitch, come in here, would you?” Dad said.

I walked into the living room, Marie on my heels. In front of Dad’s chair, I saw the overturned ashtray, with dozens of cigarette butts and ash sprayed out in all directions from the tumble.

“Grab the broom out of the hall closet and sweep this up,” Dad said.

“You do it, Jim,” Marie said.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s your mess. You clean it up. He isn’t your slave.”

“I don’t mind,” I said.

“I mind,” she said. “You’re not responsible for the messes your father makes.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Dad said. He stared at her.

“Not at all. You think you just can order everyone around. Well, you can’t.”

“I just asked the boy to help me clean this up.”

“You didn’t ask. You told. Somebody has to start sticking up for people against you, Jim.”

I watched the fight flare toward a fever pitch, and I couldn’t move my mouth or body. I didn’t believe that Marie had chosen this incident to make her stand. I half-relished and half-dreaded seeing where it would go.

“This is bullshit,” Dad said. “The only reason you’re making a big deal out of this is because of last night. You fucked up, big time, and now you’re trying to pin blame on me.”

“That’s not it. I’m standing up for Mitch. He deserves better from you.”

“I asked him to clean the goddamned floor.”

“You told him! You told him to clean the floor. Are you so pathetic that you can’t do it yourself?”

Dad reached down and picked up the glass ashtray, and then he rose, holding it in his thumb and forefinger. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll clean it up.”

He dropped the ashtray, and it shattered on the floor.

“Oops,” he said.

Dad jab-stepped at Marie, and she flinched. Instead of going at her, he crossed the living room to the fireplace. A wedding day picture of them hung on the wall.

“Here’s another mess,” he said, and he slammed his fist into the picture, shattering the glass. He grabbed the wooden frame and flung it to the floor.

“Don’t worry, honey. I’ll clean it up.”

“Just stop,” I yelled. “Just stop.” It was useless. This was the unspooling. They weren’t listening to me.

To Dad’s right was a picture of Marie and her mother, who had died some years earlier. Dad moved on it.

“Don’t you dare, Jim.”

“Sweetheart, I never would. I know how much this means to you.”

He punched that picture too. It fell to the floor in a twisted heap of frame, photo paper, and broken glass.

I turned and looked at Marie. Tears started down her face. She wasn’t broken, though. Her eyes blazed, and she was almost…God, she was. She was laughing.

“Oh, Jim, you’ve really lost it,” she said, her voice a cackle. “I’m glad you finally showed who you really are, and I’m glad Mitch is seeing this. I don’t want there to be any doubt when they come for you.”

Dad took two hard steps toward her, and she met him in the middle.

“Come for me? Nobody’s coming for me,” he said. “They’ll be coming for you when I throw your ass out. It’s over. All of it. I’m sick of it. You’re gone.”

“I’m glad,” she said. “Another minute with you, and I’d have killed myself. That’s how much you repulse me.”

Dad raised his hand as if to hit Marie. Blood dripped from his knuckles. She didn’t shrink. I thought she must be crazy. She said, “Do it. Do it. I’m begging you.”

Dad lowered his hand. A grin surfaced.

“It’s not too late,” he said. “I’ll get the shotgun, and we can all be done with this.”

I found my legs, and I dashed down the hallway. Tears filled my eyes, and I was dead certain that my father was on my heels, heading off to find a gun to end the misery for all of us.

I slammed the bedroom door and turned the lock. Then, in a panic, I realized I had boxed myself in. I couldn’t shimmy beneath the bed. I actually considered a movie-style run at the window but couldn’t envision breaking through the glass and coming out all right on the other side. I climbed into the recesses of the closet and pulled the sliding door shut. In the darkness, I bit my lower lip, and I prayed that Dad wouldn’t hear my breathing. There was little chance of that; the fight raged on in the living room, the angry words growing ever sharper as Dad and Marie unfurled the last of their marital complaints against each other, ensuring that there would be no going back.

I sat amid shoes and Jerry’s clothes and waited, and I wondered if the storm would ever end.