Dwelling Places (16 page)

“We'll just wait and see then.” That was that. No dire instructions about checking in with his family, or reminders about the warning signs of depression. George is becoming a person, in Mack's mind at least, with whom a man can be honest. George trusts him more than
his family does, a sad commentary but reassuring anyway. During the workday, Mack takes refuge at Hendrikson's, another place where people have faith in him.

But talk of any kind stirs up a person's mind and heart. Mack has been dreaming a lot since moving to the stone house. His dreams have become more real than his real life. They steal him in the quiet hours and take him to places full of color and promise. Upon waking, he wonders how, in the midst of his life falling apart, his dreams have taken a beautiful turn.

He is ten years old on a day in early May. His morning chores are done, and he has a few hours all his, enough time to walk to the pond and swim and feel the sun. He is on that path through the pasture that leads to the pond on the western end of the farm.

The air is filled with sun, but because it is early in the day, the dust under his bare feet is cool as velvet. At one point, the path breaks through a clump of chokecherry trees and lilacs; the giant bushes drip deep lavender blossoms by the score, their sweetness heavy as a grandma's bosom.

Lilacs remind Mack of Grandma, but she died when he was four, and his memory of her is a vapor in which floats a happy face behind spectacles and the smell of lavender blooms near a back door. When Mack's parents added on the family room decades ago, the bushes had to go. But in this dream he is at the house of Aunt Delores, the place just down the road where she lived until her death in '84. There were lilacs there too, and they bloomed every spring. They called her Aunt Lorie. Her husband had died of a brain aneurysm before they could have babies together. She was young when it happened, and everyone thought she'd marry again, but she liked to say, “Don was the only guy ornery enough to put up with me. I'll see him soon enough, I suppose; it makes me not so afraid to die.” She raised vegetables and planted peach, apple, cherry, and plum trees, making a bit of money off the fruit and the jams she made from it. She was tall and angular and had a lopsided face that seemed always to be grinning at you and measuring your worth all at once. Nothing like her sister Rita, Lorie liked to stir up trouble and ask preachers all the wrong questions and make home brew
and cook anything the men brought back from the hunt. When other women in the family turned up their noses at mangled squirrels, too many doves, or yet another mess of fish, Lorie plunged in with a laugh and informed everyone else that the meal would be ready by seven, and they'd better come early because she was flat-out hungry herself.

Mack awakes, and though it is October and the cabin is cold and full of tired light, his memory catches a whiff of lilac, and he smells Aunt Lorie's fried perch. He cries for the lane that went to the pond. The pasture and pond belong to other people now, and even though that family has children, Mack has never seen them naked and muddy and happy the way he was, so many years ago. His heart catches with a special pain when he recalls the bulldozer taking down Aunt Lorie's small frame house. She died of lung cancer when not that old, and she left her little place to a nephew of her husband's, a young businessman in Cedar Rapids. He had no use for a few acres and a decrepit house. He sold it all to one of Mack's neighbors, who cleared off the house, fruit trees, and lilac bushes, turned all of it under with the grass, and by the next planting season had driven it through with even rows of corn. Not a trace was left of what used to be.

Late Saturday morning, Mack is sitting on one of the chairs outside the stone house when Ed comes by, just to chew the fat. Mack pulls the other chair out, and they sit in little patches of light while the cold seeps through their jackets. In a pause of conversation, several rifle shots report from the west.

“Lord, they're all over the place,” says Ed. “Saw a license plate this morning from Delaware.”

“They don't have pheasants up there anymore?”

Ed shrugs. “I guess there's more here. Heard that pesticides have thinned 'em out other places.”

“You gonna hunt this year?”

“My brother-in-law'll be here next weekend. Come along if you want.”

“Maybe.” Mack has seen the pickups parked here and there, just off the roadsides, empty dog crates in the back. The Lunch Hour fills
up these days with neighbors and visitors alike, orange caps resting beside coffee cups. “Couple years ago I took Young Taylor. He's not much interested now.”

Ed clears his throat. “Maybe I'm just getting older and dumber, but the birds sure as hell seem smarter every year.”

Mack laughs and tips his can of cola. In a bit, Ed puts out his third cigarette, stretches, groans a little, and climbs into his truck. “Holler if you need somethin', okay?”

Mack waves his reply. He walks around the stone house, zipping up his jacket. He has begun to enjoy moving slowly. During all those years of farming, life was a practice of waiting and then hurrying. When the time was right, the planting had to be done. When the moisture and temperature met where they must, the corn or the beans had to be harvested, now. If something wasn't happening now, then waiting put everything else on hold. And in the waiting there were always bits and pieces of the place to be repaired or replaced. The only way to get ahead was to work always, even while waiting.

He tries to pinpoint the day, or the time of year, when he finally saw the truth, when he understood that working harder for more hours didn't make any difference. By then he was working full-time for the school district, maintaining and driving buses, then farming at night and through the weekend. Even so, the money coming in fell far short of the money needing to go out. In spite of knowing how the numbers added up, Dad and Alex and Mack had, for a long time, done all they knew to do: worked more hours and got busier still. The constant motion of mind and body broke each of them eventually. Dad lost his concentration. Alex drank himself into a cold death. And Mack went crazy and had to be put away.

All of that feels long ago as Mack sits in the stone house or gathers wood from the quiet spaces around it. Now time feels different. Mack goes to his job during the day, working regular hours, although for not much pay. He finishes at five and stops at Mom's, stops at the grocery if he needs to, stops to say hi to Jodie and the kids. Twice he has eaten dinner with them before going on to the stone house, to si
lence and more stopping. It seems that all he does now is come to a halt many times a day. And in the stone house time itself waits. Mack sits and observes time, and it observes him. He can't help but think that it is time that waits to reveal its final fate for him. One of these days time will sweep over him with an awareness of some crucial task he has left undone. That one neglected work will spell the final destruction of his family. Mack is certain that this fear has tangible foundations; he just can't get them to come clear yet.

In the woods life has a different demeanor. Mack can't tell if it's hostile or not. For all he knows, the final destruction will happen out here in the midst of trees. But he isn't so scared anymore. A deep patience has taken him over, and he can sit on the step of the cabin and gaze into the web of branches and vines and dead grasses and stay that way a long time. The panic about what might be next drifts low in his gut and doesn't seem to interfere with anything else. Finally, no racing heart, no desperate thoughts.

Mack hopes that this is some form of getting well. He feels different, but none of the facts of his life have changed. Maybe he has simply stopped caring too much. The more you care about things, the more power they have to hurt you and make you crazy.

Kenzie

She has been working all morning, on a dreary Saturday, while Mom is running errands and Young Taylor is hogging the sound system in the living room. Her bedroom door is shut, but still all the screeching and gory verse filters into her atmosphere. She has two Bibles open on the bed before her, one the Living Bible and the other the New International Version. Pastor Williamson uses the NIV for study purposes, but the Living Bible says things in more down-to-earth language.

There are index cards in three different colors scattered around her. And on several she has written favorite verses in her best possible handwriting. On her dresser are several small bunches of silk flowers, the best she can do in October. Little daisies and pansies mainly. She
found thin purple ribbon in Mom's wrapping paper drawer, and she has gathered the silk flowers and tied them up as artistically as she can. She's taken a hole punch to the corner of each index card and tied two or three cards together into as many bunches as she has flowers. There are five sets of cards and flowers, one for each day of the coming week.

If Dad is going to stay to himself in the stone house, Kenzie will leave encouragement in little gifts. One bunch of flowers and set of Scripture verse cards every day. He drops her at school in the mornings, and she will leave the gifts on the seat when she gets out. She won't make a big production of it, just give him a good-bye kiss and leave flowers and verses.

The difficult part is choosing from so many wonderful Bible passages. So far she's used about an equal number from Psalms, the Gospels, and other New Testament books—all very encouraging stuff. Much of the Old Testament beyond the Psalms is rather harsh, and she doesn't think that Dad needs to hear so much about judgment just now. She holds one of her favorite cards up so the weak light from the window shines on it:

She has thought about leaving the encouragement gifts out at the stone house, but it feels creepy out there, and she doesn't want to bother Dad, who obviously wants to be away from all of them. She couldn't bear it if he were to catch her leaving him Bible verses and if the look on his face were anger. She just couldn't handle that. She's gotten used to Mom's anger, which is mainly irritation about everyday hassles. But Dad has never been an angry person at all, and on
the rare occasions when he has been, it has hurt so much to be around him.

 

Dear Jesus,

It's really hard, helping a person who doesn't want you around. I wish Dad could see how much I do to support him during these dark days. I want to tell him how many times I fasted and prayed while he was in the hospital. Or that I gave up television, and stayed up nights praying through whole chapters of the Scriptures, just to keep him safe. I want him to know so he'll be encouraged, but if I told him this stuff he might just feel guilty for causing concern. Grandma Rita said that he didn't want to be a burden and that's why he wanted to die. So I can't say or do anything that might make him feel that way again.

So little bunches of flowers and Bible verses should be okay, shouldn't they? Flowers are kind of lighthearted and happy. And sharing Your Word is always the right thing to do.

Please help Dad find some comfort in these little gifts.

Love and praise,

Kenzie

Mack

Sunday evening, Mack hears Jodie's truck pull up outside the stone house. The engine stops, and the headlights go out. Jodie emerges, then gets something off the passenger seat. She walks up, her breath a little fog.

“Is it against the rules to bring you food?”

He can't tell if she is joking or not. She holds out a small cooler, looking apprehensive.

“No rules.” He takes the cooler. “Thank you. Want to eat with me?”

Her fine eyebrows come up a notch, and she shrugs. “Only if you want me to.”

“I do.”

“You do?”

He can see a measure of hurt in her eyes, the evidence of the rejection she feels in spite of anything he says.

“Yes, I'd like you to stay.” He leads the way into the house. He can feel her a step or two behind, looking the place over.

“You warm enough?” she asks, standing near the woodstove. She extends her hands toward the heat.

“Yeah. Drafty when the wind kicks up, but there's not much space to heat.”

He sets the cooler on the table.

“It's beef stew,” she says.

“Great! It's still warm.” He holds the container in both hands and smiles at her.

“Biscuits too. But you'll need to heat them.”

He places the foil-wrapped biscuits on the stove and puts out bowls and plates and spoons while she takes quiet steps around the room. They sit at the small table in silence.

“This is good, sweet.”

“Thank you.”

They blow on spoonfuls of stew and take several bites.

“How are the kids?” he asks.

“All right.” They keep eating as fire pops inside the iron stove. Wind whispers down the vent. “Kenzie's with the youth group. Young Taylor's out somewhere. I didn't go to church today.” She glances at him, and he takes the cue.

“I didn't either. I hoped nobody would look for me.”

“People ask about you. But I only make it there once or twice a month myself.”

“It doesn't feel the same, does it?”

“What?” She looks at him, and he catches a hint of fear in her eyes.

“Being in church.” He takes the biscuits off the stove and hands her one.

“Oh.” She looks back at her food. “Well, it hasn't been exactly a haven, has it? At least not for me.”

“No. Me either.” He reaches toward his mother's cast-off utility shelf that serves as storage space for everything, grabs two napkins, and hands her one. “I don't know if it would help to go back, you know, on a regular basis.”

“You don't have to decide today.”

“Right.”

“Are you out here because you need to be away from me?” The emotion behind those words does not show in her eyes or sound in her voice.

“This isn't because of you. I just need to be here.” He looks at her over his raised spoon. “I can't explain why I need it.”

“Maybe I put too much pressure on you.”

“Right now everything feels like pressure, even things that should just feel normal. Standing in the garage feels like pressure. Picking up the morning paper.”

“But what can you do for yourself isolated out here?”

“I'm all right.”

“But if you weren't all right, no one would know it.”

“I'm at work every day. You and the kids see me all the time.”

“It's not the same.”

Mack sits back in his chair and gazes at his wife. Her face is all shadows and angles. A light in her has gone out. He can't confess that seeing her like this is in fact part of the reason he's in the woods now. She would think it was her fault. But Mack knows that she isn't responsible for snuffing out her own light. He has done that. But he snuffed out her light because he was groping after his own light, which had gone out. And he didn't put out his own light. Something else started all this, broke into their lives and stole their lights.

“Sweet, I promise, if I have a rough time I won't stay out here. I'm keeping my appointments. I'm on my meds.”

She looks as if she might cry, that trickling tearfulness that is usually her emotions' way of conserving energy. But at the moment her eyes are simply tired.

“You didn't stop by the house last night,” she says.

“I worked late. And didn't want to barge in past suppertime.”

“It's not barging in when it's your own family.”

“All right, I'll stop by every night, if you think that's best.”

Then he launches into what he hopes is a humorous diatribe about his mother's latest efforts to make him better.

“Brought all these damn bottles of herbal remedies. Saint-John's-wort and who knows what else. Don't know where she got them or how long she's had 'em.”

“Oh, probably leftovers from one of the people she buys medicine for. She's a traveling pharmacy.”

“Probably cleaned out the medicine cabinet of whoever's kicked the bucket lately.”

She's just taken a bite and puts a hand to her mouth to avoid spitting when she laughs. He enjoys seeing this. It is still possible to reach past all those other things to whatever it is that releases her specific kind of chuckle, deep in the throat, almost a man's chuckle only with more melody to it.

Before she leaves, they stand in the center of the small room and hold each other. She is as familiar to him as he is to himself, but he doesn't feel her as he did in the old days. Every sensation between them is pleasant but muted, as if they touch through some middle space or substance.

He sees her glance at the narrow bed before walking out into the cold air. Someone in the back of his heart wants to keep her there, to lie with her in those good, well-remembered ways. But that possibility seems furthest away of all.

Jodie

She has just wandered through the drugstore section of Wal-Mart for twenty minutes. She awoke this morning full of longing, and although the economic situation of recent years has prevented her from using shopping as an emotional outlet, the longing has brought her here, to rows of shampoo and conditioner, skin care products,
and hair fasteners. She now stands at the head of the aisle for bath products—shower gels, bath crystals, loofahs, and the like—and marvels at how much merchandise there is. This is her experience more and more when she comes to Wal-Mart: amazement at the sheer abundance of stuff. It makes her anxious. How can all this bounty appear regularly in a place where so many people cannot stretch paychecks from one month to the next? What law of nature is being upended?
Who is paying for all of this?

Putting her apprehensions aside for now, she stares hungrily at the milky-toned containers of bath oils. All she knows is that she
wants,
she's not sure what. Two neighbors walk past, on their way to cleaning supplies, and Jodie feels like diving for cover. She is an alien in this section. A teenager brushes past to study facial products the next aisle over. Beauty products are for young women, girls who still hope for love and take some pleasure in their own reflection. Kenzie should be standing here, deciding between lipstick shades, looking for lotions and shampoos that smell like peaches. The panic rises as Jodie stands fixed between the shelves on the right and the left. What is she doing here? What could she possibly squeeze out of a bottle that would make things better?

Well, she needs makeup at least. She's run out, and her skin is more rough and red all the time. She maneuvers the cart to the far aisle, where she is faced by a thousand options. The first choice, however, eliminates most of them: she skips the brand names that have their own TV commercials. Her price range eliminates all but two brands, so she stands before those sections, down at the end, and ponders what to put on her face.

Choosing the right color of foundation doesn't take long, because there are only four. She picks the best and throws it into the cart, then grasps the handle of the shopping cart as if to get on with her real business, which is to pick up some household necessities. But she can't move. Her sight rests upon the racks of ascending colors—blushes, eye shadows, eyeliners, mascaras, lipsticks, lip brushes…

She settles on a powder blush that is somewhat bronzy. Next comes the lipstick. She contemplates all the warm colors—the cinnamons, the coffees and berries—and chooses one that is dark but muted, well suited to autumn. Black eyeliner is more dramatic, so she picks it, along with matching mascara, the “thick and luscious” kind. To go with that she finds a smoky brown eye shadow. Finally, a translucent loose powder and a separate, long-handled brush for applying it—not that she knows how to use the brush. Jodie looks in her cart at forty dollars' worth of items to use on nothing but her face. The blood rushes up her neck, and she looks around to see if anyone has witnessed her extravagance.

She stares at the cosmetics but doesn't put back a single thing. She rolls the cart to Housewares and buys the laundry soap, skips the bleach, picks up toilet paper but no tissues, loads an economy-sized generic disinfectant cleaner, and ignores the remaining three items on her list.

She makes tuna sandwiches for supper, opening a can of pork-and-beans and putting out a half-empty bag of potato chips. The kids don't expect her to really cook. Mack comes by and enjoys the food, mainly because he is where he has promised he will be, and she and the kids talk with him easily enough. When Mack leaves for the stone house, Young Taylor and Kenzie both go out—Jodie realizes only then that it's Halloween. Her insides shake as she clears the table and washes dishes. She takes half an hour to straighten the rest of the house and put in a load of laundry. Then she goes upstairs.

The Wal-Mart sack is stuffed into her bottom dresser drawer, along with the heating pad and extra set of sheets. She takes the bag into the bathroom and shuts the door, then places each new item on the vanity. She doesn't dare look in the mirror; if she sees herself, she might lose courage. Her hands tremble as she tears off the packaging and lines up the products, in order of their use.

She really should take a bath first, soak in the tub and get relaxed. But that would take too long. So she scrubs and moisturizes her face
instead, pulls her hair back and out of the way, and begins with the foundation.

Thirty minutes later, Jodie stands in the still air of the closed bathroom and studies her face. The colors seem to work. For a moment or two, she imagines that her eyes look brighter and her skin more taut. Yes, she does look better. She smiles at the reflection, trying to help the makeup's effect. No, she merely looks like someone else. She turns away from the mirror and cries. Then she washes it all off, brushes her teeth, and goes to bed.

Her body is numb. It wants nothing and gives nothing. There was a time when an hour to herself late in the evening might have led to her own pleasure. Especially after Mack got sick, she learned, tentatively and with a little guilt, to please herself. No big deal. But it was nice sometimes, even liberating, to know that she did not depend on Mack for her sexual life. And he seemed relieved that she no longer brought it up.

But tonight she might as well be dead. She is free and alone and has lost all desire.

“Why bother?” she asks the late evening sky. “Who am I primping for? Why do I think it matters?” The makeup is packed away, back in the bottom dresser drawer. No point in throwing it out. She'll use some of it anyway. To attend someone's wedding or graduation. Or something.

Kenzie

“Thanks for letting me spend the evening here.” Kenzie is tucked into Mitchell's couch, cocoa in hand. He walks in with a bowl of popcorn. A video is in the player. Mitchell sits on the couch, a few inches from Kenzie, and hits the remote.

“No problem.”

“Everybody makes like Halloween is just a party or something. But its meaning goes a lot deeper.” Kenzie takes a handful of popcorn. “I don't even want to think about what my brother's doing.”

“Well, we can pray for him, if you want.”

The video begins. A slender man with thick, smooth gray hair and wearing a dark green suit stands at a lectern.

The man begins by raising both hands and launching into a fervent prayer to the Holy Spirit, his eyes closed tightly and a beam upon his face. This is tape two of the five Mitchell owns. He's gotten them through the mail, from the Francis Dowell Ministries. Mitchell says he is headquartered in Lawrence, Kansas, but comes from Tennessee or somewhere in that region. In a clear, striking voice, with a hint of southern accent, the Reverend Francis (as he prefers to be called) expounds upon the Book of Revelation.

“Brothers and sisters, let me proclaim to you the prophecy found in Revelation six, verses nine through eleven:

Reverend Francis straightens his green and gold tie, which shimmers against a gold shirt. He brushes one wave of hair while turning first to one side and then the other. The camera scans the audience, rows of people in a darkened theater, all looking at a single point behind the camera. In the first row several Bibles are held open on laps.

“God did not say that there would not be death and suffering. God has clearly told us that many servants will die for the sake of the gospel. But what we must understand is that death is sometimes not
physical
death.” He bends at the waist for emphasis. “We die a lot of deaths in this life. Your loved one, who loves the Lord and has never drunk a drop of liquor, is killed or maimed by a drunk driver. Or
the bank—which, you must remember, is controlled by big government—forecloses on your property, even though you have been faithful as is humanly possible, even though you have honored God your whole life. You suffer at work because you pray to the Lord Jesus on your lunch break—and you notice that those promotions just pass you by. Or some bunch of secular humanist judges miles away from here makes it so your little girls and boys can no longer pray at school. People, there's a lot of death in this world, and it's the death of people who are God-fearing, who pray faithfully and who fast, and who know the word of the Lord!”