The Wonder of All Things (13 page)

Without a word, Brenda stood and crossed the room and retrieved a broom from the kitchen. She came back into the living room and began sweeping the dirt from the floor. “I’m going to have to scrub this again,” she said.

“Brenda, stop,” Macon said.

But she did not stop. She swept the dirt from his shoes over the threshold of the door and out into the world. Then she returned the broom to the kitchen and kneeled on the floor next to the bucket of bleach water. She dunked the sponge and returned to scrubbing the floor.

Macon watched. He had never seen the woman like this. Not even when her daughter died in the car crash with Tom, not even then had she behaved this way. She stood tall at her daughter’s funeral, like a statue. She didn’t even cry—at least, not that Macon saw. She only sat with her arm around her grandson as he wept. In the pew next to them both was Tom, blubbering and moaning, with both hands over his eyes, as if not looking at the body of his wife could make her death any less real than it was.

Macon had come over today expecting to find that same version of Brenda. But, instead, he found a woman hanging by a thread. Even stone crumbles after being hit enough times, he thought.

“I’m sorry,” Macon said softly. He walked over and took Brenda’s hands and helped her up from the floor. “Just stop that,” he said. “I’m sorry for showing up here like this. I just...it just all caught me off guard.” He led her back to the couch and sat beside her, still holding her hands.

“You want to know why I don’t tell him?” Brenda began. “You want to know how I can let him walk around not knowing what’s going on inside him?” She squeezed Macon’s hands. “You want to know what the greatest thing in a lifetime is, Macon? What’s better than climbing some damned mountain, better than falling in love, better than having a child, better than all of that?”

Macon watched the woman carefully. The fire that she had been missing was slowly returning to her. “Okay,” he said. “What?”

“Believing that the world can’t hurt you,” Brenda said. And, at last, she looked at the blood flowing from her hand. She dabbed her knuckle with the cloth, and did not flinch when the antiseptic came in contact with the wound. “That’s the most amazing thing a person can ever feel, can ever believe. And it only ever happens once in a lifetime, and it never lasts. The world always tells you the truth of things. People around you start dying, you get hurt—whatever happens—and eventually you start to understand that you’re not invincible, that you’re not special. That, just like everybody else in this world, your days are numbered.” She shook her head. “Hell of a thing to lose,” she said. Then she stood and continued trying to staunch the bleeding of her hand. “There’s a word for that feeling, Macon,” she said. “It’s called childhood. And once it’s gone, it’s gone. And that sense that the world is this large magical thing gets taken away with it. In that moment, you become an adult, and you lose your ability to see the wonder of all things. All you see from that point forward is how broken everything will one day be.”

“But he needs to know,” Macon said softly. “Wash needs to know what’s happening to him.”

“He will,” Brenda said. Finally, the tears flowed down her cheeks. “But is it so wrong of me to want to give him a couple more days? A few more moments of his childhood? Does it make me a bad person, Macon? Have I wronged the boy?” Her voice was filled with pleading and fear and the sadness of a grandmother who is afraid of outliving her grandson. Macon kneeled beside her and wrapped his arms around the woman. “I’ve already lost a daughter,” she continued. “Parents don’t bury children. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. And, every day, I wonder if it was my fault. I don’t blame Tom. I don’t even blame God. I blame myself, because that’s just what you do when your child dies, regardless of how it happens. Every single day she’s not here and every single day I wonder what part I played in that. And now there’s a chance I might lose Wash, too, and I just want to let him have a little bit more of his childhood. Tell me,” she said, “am I so wrong for that? Am I?”

The sound of her crying filled the house. And it was a terrible sound, not unlike the sad, lonely trill of a single harp string being plucked.

“No,” Macon said, holding the woman. “You didn’t do anything wrong. We’ll find a way to make this better.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Brenda said. Then she looked into Macon’s eyes. “Don’t tell Ava. Promise me that.”

The thought had been in Macon’s mind before Brenda said it.

“Everything that’s going on with her,” Brenda continued. “It’s enough. She’s already done the impossible for Wash once. And she’s still not fixed, not really. I know you see it as well as I do.” Finally, she let go of Macon’s hands. “Wash will be okay,” she said. “The doctors will do what they do and they’ll make him better. Your daughter can’t save the whole world. Promise me you won’t make her try.”

“It’ll be okay,” was all that Macon said. He made no promises and he asked no more about Brenda’s motivations. He only sat with her as the day rolled on and, somewhere in the time they were together, he tried to imagine if she could live without Wash. He wondered if Ava could.

They spent the afternoon in the mountains with a bucket and a small square of steel. They dug through rocks and rubble and Ava’s mother would not tell them what they were looking for. “It’ll be something you’ve never found before,” was all that Heather would say, and Ava liked the hint of mystery it added to their expedition.

These were the mountains, after all, and even though she was young, Ava had heard stories of gold and diamonds and all manner of valuable things being found in mountains—even in these familiar mountains around Stone Temple. So she worked through the first half of the afternoon without complaint, finding excitement and strangeness in everything that she came across.

In just a few short hours she found an old bottle cap, a pocket knife, a stone shaped like a tooth, an actual tooth, a piece of wood shaped like the state of Texas—a state which she liked very much on account of the movies that came on television sometimes about the Wild West—a piece of rubber whose origin she could not explain and more.

For her part, Ava’s mother focused on one specific area. Now and again she would take the small square of metal from her pocket and run it back and forth over the rocks as though it might show her something that she could not otherwise see.

“What is that?” Ava asked, pointing to the square of metal. It was late in the afternoon and Ava had not found anything particularly interesting in several hours and so the excitement of the day was beginning to wear off.

“It’s a piece of steel.”

“Why do you have it?”

“Because I need it.”

“Why do you need it?”

“To find what I’m looking for.”

Ava was tired and her attention was beginning to wane. She thought of Wash and the television back at home and her father who had not come with them and a dozen other things that had nothing to do with whatever it was that she and her mother had come to the mountain for that day.

There is a world beyond this, she thought.

“There it is,” Heather said, a glimmer of excitement in her voice. She kneeled over a large, smooth stone with the pane of steel placed above it. When she lifted the steel, the rock rose with it.

“What’s that?” Ava asked.

“It’s a lodestone,” Heather said. She pulled it away from the iron rod and placed it in her daughter’s hand. The child responded by moving the stone back toward the metal. When it was close enough, it leaped from her hand and attached to the iron.

Ava smiled.

“It’s yours,” Heather said.

“I can have it?”

“Of course you can. It’s been waiting here for you for all these years.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I was young,” Heather began, “I used to come up to these mountains all the time. And one day I came up here and I found a stone just like this, in this exact place. And I took it home and I kept it for many, many years. And then, one day, I lost it. But I never forgot this place. And I promised that, one day, when I had a child, I would bring them up here and let them find one of these stones.”

Ava held the small stone in her hand. She squeezed it tightly, as if trying to understand it better by feeling the weight and heft of it in her hand.

“And now, years later, you’ve got it. It’s been waiting for you for longer than I’ve been alive. Maybe longer than anyone has been alive. It’s almost impossible to tell how long something like that, something that’s destined for you, can sit and wait, counting days, holding on, waiting for you.”

“Is that true?” Ava asked. She opened her palm and looked at the stone and tried to imagine all of the years that it had been waiting for her. She imagined rain and wind and clouds and the earth rolling on its axis and animals passing by and people coming and going and, all the while, the stone sat and waited in silence, knowing her name.

“It’s all true,” Heather said. “Everything that you can believe in this life can be true.”

SIX

“HOW DO YOU FEEL?”
Wash asked in a loud voice.

It was the second time Ava had woken to his voice in the hospital. Over the past few days her vision had been slowly returning to her. Wash, along with everyone else in Ava’s life, had come by and sat with her and talked to her and been excited when, each day, she could make out shapes and images a little more. All of them could feel their own fear lessening.

“What?” Ava answered in a groggy voice. Her head hurt a bit—she imagined a large bell being struck in the front part of her brain and, usually, it got worse when she opened her eyes. But, overall, she felt that Wash was worth the headache. She opened her eyes slowly, blinking and looking around the room. “Wash,” she said. “Is that you?”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, hearing something different in her voice than he had heard in the previous days. There was a sliver of fear in it. He got up from the chair at the foot of her bed and came and stood beside her. When he looked into her eyes, they were clear, but she seemed to be looking past him. “Can you see me?” he asked nervously. “Those clouds that were there before are gone.” He waved his hand back and forth. “You should be better,” he said, and the thought trenches sprung up on his forehead. “Ava, can you see?”

Ava reached up from the bed and took his earlobe between her fingers and tugged it—not enough to hurt, but enough to get his attention. “Does that answer your question?” she asked, giggling. The sudden motion made her head hurt more, but it felt good to make Wash smile.

“You jerk!” he said, laughing. “That was mean.”

“It was funny,” Ava said. She sat up on her elbows, excited by the fact that, for the first time in many days, she could see clearly, as though nothing had ever been wrong. She coughed and the pain that came with it reminded her that she was very sick. She was still cold and there was an ache in her bones that persisted. The coughing continued and there was the coppery taste of blood in her mouth. Wash sat on the edge of the bed and filled a cup with water from a pitcher sitting beside the bed. He watched the girl endure the coughing, and he waited to help her. He looked to the door, about to call for help.

“No,” Ava managed.

Wash held the breath that was in his throat. When the coughing finally ended she sipped the water and rolled onto her side, wheezing slightly, while Wash patted her back. He picked up a small cloth that was lying beside her bed and wiped the blood from her mouth.

“Thanks,” Ava said when the pain was lessened and she could speak again.

“Why won’t you tell anyone how badly it hurts?” Wash asked.

“It wouldn’t stop anything,” Ava replied. She shivered and Wash adjusted the blankets atop her, making sure that she had as many quilts upon her as he could find. When she was covered and the warmth was finally beginning to kindle within her, she reached up and pulled Wash’s earlobe again. “You’re not singing,” she said. “I thought that was your secret weapon for annoying me until I got better.”

The boy smiled. “I’m taking a break from it,” he said. “Maybe I should try something else. I brought
Moby Dick.
I could read that for you.”

“I’d rather hear you butcher a song right now,” Ava said gently. “And when you’re in the hospital people are supposed to do what you want them to. Anything but ‘Banks of the Ohio.’ No more songs about people killing their boyfriends.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t really sing anymore,” Wash said. “My dad said I should stop.”

“Wash...”

“Maybe he thinks I don’t have the voice for it, you know?” He rubbed the top of his head. His shaggy brown hair fell into his eyes. “We both know my voice is kind of weird. He knows a lot about music. Maybe I should listen to him.”

“Shut up, Wash,” Ava said. “Shut up and sing something. If you’re worried about him finding out, I’ll keep your secret.” Then she settled back into the pillow and closed her eyes and waited.

“And I’ll keep yours?” Wash asked. “I won’t tell anyone that you’re not doing as good as you pretend to be?”

“Yeah,” Ava said softly. Her eyes were still closed. “Don’t tell anyone that I’m not going to keep doing this.”

“What?”

“I’m tired,” Ava said. “And I don’t want any of this anymore.”

Wash studied her face. He wished she would open her eyes and look at him as he spoke. But she did not. “Why did you do the thing with the dog? Why not tell your dad you want to stop?”

“Are you going to sing me a song or what?” Ava asked. She opened her eyes and looked at the boy and, in that moment, they both knew that, for now, the discussion was over. She squeezed his hand. “Thanks,” she said.

It took a moment, but Wash managed a grin. “What about ‘The Ballad of John Henry’?” he asked.

“Great,” Ava said wryly. “Another song about somebody dying.”

“It’s part of my charm,” Wash said. “Now hush and let me get ready.” He cleared his throat and tilted his head the way he always did and his thumb and forefinger touched and made the familiar “okay” sign and the song rose up from his throat and filled the room and Ava simply lay there and listened and the pain drifted away until sleep came, softly drifting from the boughs of Wash’s voice.

* * *

Reverend Isaiah Brown’s church had secured itself in the center of Stone Temple. It was Wednesday evening and cold out but that would not stop the congregation. They came in cars and vans and buses and, once they had found accommodations among the townspeople—there was no hotel in Stone Temple, but its inhabitants were quickly learning the art of renting rooms and converting wasted space to profitable acreage for tents and RVs—the members of Reverend Brown’s church, who had pulled Macon away from Carmen on the day of her examination because they were erecting their tent, had built a small community around the oak tree at the center of town.

A few years back the town had gotten a grant from the state and used the money to build a small park. They said that it would help with the tourist season on account of the fact that at the center of the park was one of the oldest and grandest oak trees most folks had ever seen in their entire lives. It swept up out of the earth like a great green flame licking at the sky. Its branches burst out in all directions. Even in the winter the tree still had a great deal to offer, the way its naked branches connected and ran from one another like veins.

The town had set up a type of artists’ retreat in one of the old houses nearby that no one was living in. The house opened up directly onto the newly created park with the beautiful oak tree, and the artists would come to marvel at the tree. They painted and sketched the tree, wrote poetry and penned plays about it.

But then, as with nearly all things in Stone Temple, the oak tree lost its luster. The artists came in fewer and fewer waves each year until, finally, they stopped coming altogether and only the townspeople were left.

And now Reverend Brown’s congregation was planted beneath the bare boughs of the tree. They existed by the grace of heated tents with a large, grand stage on the far side of the park, beset on three sides by the small buildings and houses of the town that held the thin population of people and failed businesses.

Reverend Isaiah Brown stood in the center of the stage, microphone in one hand, Bible in the other, and started into his sermon for the evening. It was a sermon on the miracles that Jesus performed and how, more than anything, it was the duty of the church—and, by association, members of the church—to seek to emulate, even more than anything else, the kindness and selflessness of Jesus’s acts.

“It’s easy to believe that we are different than Jesus was,” the reverend began, “because we are, and yet, we are very much the same. Jesus lived, and we live. Jesus bled, and we bleed. Jesus died, and so do we. And in his lifetime he was able to perform amazing things, impossible things, things that you and I, in our failures, could only ever hope to achieve.” He walked back and forth across the stage slowly as he spoke, taking in the entirety of the audience when he could, making eye contact, ensuring that his words were received as well as they could be. Reverend Brown had always believed that conversation—whether it be something as large as a sermon or something as small as a thank-you—was an attempt to pass, from one person to another, a flame of empathy. It was an attempt for one soul, trapped inside a body, to pass their thoughts and feelings, the essence of who they are, on to another person. And a sermon to a congregation was the highest form of that, Reverend Isaiah Brown believed, because it carried with it the task and turmoil of trying to connect people to something they oftentimes struggled to believe in, something they often felt unworthy of. It was like bridging the gap between the earth and the sun—both glorious in their own right, both caught in the gravity of each other, but with thousands upon thousands of miles of distance between them.

“But we cannot use our belief that Jesus was more than we were,” Reverend Brown continued, “as an excuse to be remiss in our duty to be kind, to be compassionate, to be forgiving, to help others and to try to make the world around us a better place than it was before we arrived.” He stopped pacing. “I mention all of this because, dear church, we all know what happened in this small town of Stone Temple. The whole world is talking about the girl at the center of it, and everyone is trying to understand its meaning, trying, perhaps, to assign their own meaning to it. We’re all guilty of it, myself included. I won’t pretend that I’m not as fascinated and intrigued as all of you by what has happened here. That was why I came, and I believe that is why so many of you followed me here.

“But as time marches forward, and as we begin to express our opinion about these events, as the world begins to converge upon this town and those people within it, I ask you all to remember that, more than anything else, this is about a child. And we need to stay away from hanging too much of our hopes, too many of our expectations, upon her. We need to remember that we are all as blessed and loved by God as she is. That we all have within us the ability to do good things, to save people—not through miracles, but through action. Free will allowing us to help others is the greatest blessing God ever gave us.”

The applause began slowly. This was a very different sermon than much of the crowd had expected. A great many of them had followed Reverend Brown to this town expecting to hear him talk of how the girl was sent by God, sent to remind them of His existence and His ability to create miracles. And now, the reverend they had believed in so deeply was stepping away from that message. There were those who understood and agreed with what Reverend Brown had said. But there were also those who were left questioning.

But because the congregation was loyal to their leader, they all applauded. They all stood and raised their hands in reverence and when he concluded the sermon with the Lord’s Prayer—as he always did—they spoke the words and their belief in him was reassembled.

“I thank you,” he said solemnly. “I thank you, church, for everything that you do. Thank you so much,” he said.

Macon watched from the front row. The reverend had invited him to come and hear the sermon, and he had accepted. There was something in the reverend that reminded Macon of his father—a stern but fair man that passed away months before Ava was born. There was a part of Macon that lamented how his daughter never got to know her grandfather. And Macon was cognizant enough to know that there was a small degree of transference happening with Reverend Brown. But he accepted it and moved forward.

When the sermon was over, Macon was asked to join the reverend in private.

“What do you think of all this?” Reverend Brown asked. He offered Macon coffee, but the sheriff declined, having never quite learned the intimacies of the drink. The two of them sat in one of the many large rooms of the Andrews House.

“It’s quite a production,” Macon said, choosing his words carefully.

The library room was large and the walls paneled with wood that looked warm and expensive. It was the house of one of the wealthiest men in Stone Temple, Benjamin Andrews, a well-to-do investor that had made a career creating mergers and profits. He was often quoted by the townspeople as saying that his youth had “gone to mammon.” Now that he was older, he had converted his large, sweeping home into an inn for travelers. Rooms could be rented at low rates for anyone in need of a break from the world. Travelers frequented the inn and admired the grandness and pomp of the house’s architecture. It would make most people feel awestruck and small, but also inspire a spark of an idea that the world, as cruel as it could be, could be a warm and inviting place at times. Benjamin Andrews took great pride in this.

So when word was sent—earlier on than most people suspected—that Reverend Brown would be coming to town, accommodations were made for the great man and his church. Rooms that had otherwise been rented were held in wait, because the reverend was someone who people could believe in.

“Too much showmanship for you?” Reverend Brown asked.

“I was never really the church-going type,” Macon replied. “So whatever people enjoy, showmanship or not, it’s their own business.”

Reverend Brown nodded in agreement. “And can I assume that you’re not being ‘the church-going type’ was only made worse by the untimely death of your wife?”

Macon’s body tightened. “I’ll never get used to how much a person can find out about someone else these days,” he said.

“It doesn’t take much work,” Reverend Brown said. “Especially now. There’s a microscope hanging over this entire town and everyone in it.” He made a motion with his hands, forming a small circle, as though he could look through it and see into Macon. “More than that,” he continued, breaking the illusion of the microscope, “one should always know as much as they can about people.” He rubbed his hands together as if to warm them, then he made one hand into a fist and placed the other atop it. “So why did you decide to become sheriff?”

“Just sort of fell into it, I suppose.”

Reverend Brown stood and went around to the far side of the desk. He sat with a sigh and leaned back in his chair. Then, after a brief pause, he sat forward again, as if suddenly becoming uncomfortable in his position. He placed his elbows on the desk and crouched forward and peered over the top of his clasped hands. “Can I ask you what you believe, Macon? Spiritually, I mean.”