On the Divinity of Second Chances (31 page)

“Go get a
good
haircut so you don’t scare them,” Jade says. “Then maybe bring them dinner in Mom’s tree house. You might want to leave a note inviting them to the dinner so they can prepare themselves. Maybe leave them the article about you, too. Here, take mine. And here’s twenty bucks for a haircut.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll pay you back one day.”

“I’m not worried about it,” she says.

I give her a hug. “I love you, sis,” I say before I leave.

And she says, “I love you, too, baby bro.”

Then I walk downtown to the old barber shop where Dad used to take me when I was a kid, only instead of an old man in there, there’s a young woman cutting hair. I walk in anyway, and watch her concentrate as she finishes shaving the back of an old man’s neck. I look around the room at several deer heads on the wall, a couple antelope, an elk, and a moose—a lot of taxidermy in such a small space. Finally, she brushes him off, takes off the plastic apron and the paper strip around his neck, and says, “That’ll be sixteen bucks, Gary.”

“Thanks, Kara,” he says as he hands her a twenty. She puts it in the cash register.

As he walks out the door, she turns her attention toward me. “Please, have a seat,” she says. She wraps the paper around my neck and puts the plastic apron on. She runs her fingers through my hair. I like it a little too much. “So, what can I do for you?” she asks. She has long, dark hair pulled back into a tight ponytail.

“I just cut off my dreads,” I tell her. “I’m going to go see my parents. I don’t want to scare them.”

She laughs. Her face smiles easily. I try smiling back, but look at my own face. It doesn’t smile easily. It looks fake and forced. “Okay,” she says. She spins me around and washes my hair in a little sink. It is, without question, the most euphoric two minutes I’ve had in the last thirteen years. I want to marry her. All too soon she sits me up, rubs the towel against my scalp, and begins to make me look like a civilized person with her scissors and a comb and, finally, clippers. Even though I watch the transformation, I don’t quite recognize myself. As she finishes, I take a good look at myself. I should feel handsome, but instead, I just feel strange.

“Don’t you like it?” she asks.

“It’s great,” I say. “Yeah. It’s just what I wanted. It’s just, you know, weird. It’s my first haircut in thirteen years.”

She chuckles. “I guess that would be weird. Don’t wait another thirteen years, okay?”

“Okay.” I try smiling again. “Thank you,” I say awkwardly and hand her the twenty.

I step onto the sidewalk and look in both directions. I don’t know where to go. The idea of fixing dinner overwhelms me. Jade’s idea about leaving a note has merit, so I go back to my tree house in the old pine in their backyard, watch, and think. What should I write?

The shadows grow long as late afternoon turns to evening. Mom and Dad walk out the back door with plates of food and sit at the picnic table. An evening breeze rustles leaves in the old cottonwood tree nearby. And suddenly, something overtakes me, and I just start climbing down even though I have no idea what I’m going to say or do. I shimmy down and down the long trunk, down to forty feet up, thirty feet up, twenty feet up, ten, and finally I reach the ground. Pieces of puzzle-shaped bark stick to my shirt, along with their sweet scent of vanilla that reminded me of Mom’s sugar cookies all these years.

I turn to face them, and see them staring at me, maybe frightened, maybe simply in shock. I don’t know if they recognize me. They say nothing. They simply watch. I pause and assess the situation. I don’t want to scare them by walking toward them, but I don’t want to shout at them either. I decide to walk closer as long as I don’t see their level of alarm escalate. Their faces begin to show more of something between hope and disbelief than fear. I stop. “It’s me,” I say. “Forrest.”

Mom begins to cry. Dad looks stunned, and then his eyes begin to water. Mom gets up and walks over to me, sobbing, and puts her hands on my face. She looks at me, still sobbing, for some explanation, for some way of making sense of how I abandoned her.

I break down. “I’m so sorry,” I wail. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” I say over and over through uncontrollable sobs. Mom puts her arms around me, and I bend over to cry on her shoulder.

And suddenly I’m aware that Dad is right there, too, with his arm around me and his hand holding the side of my head. He kisses the side of my head closest to him.

I have no idea how long the three of us stand like that, how much time passes. All the words I want to say are too small. “I’m sorry” is too small. “I did something bad” is too small. “I missed you” is way too small. “I would give anything to go back and do things differently” is also too small for the magnitude of the situation, but I say it anyway.

“What happened?” Mom asks, pulling away from me. “Tell me what happened.”

I look at her apologetically, shake my head, and start crying again. “I can’t,” I say.

“Did you go back to South Dakota when you were fourteen?” she asks me.

I look at her, bewildered and horrified, and nod slightly.

“Okay,” she says, taking it in, taking in exactly what that implies, exactly what it means, nodding a little back and looking me directly in the eye. She knows. I can’t tell if Dad does.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” I say, shaking my head, still bewildered, still crying. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

Mom nods more, small nods, and takes a big breath.

“Why didn’t you come to us for help?” Dad asks.

“It was too big,” I say. “It was bigger than all of us. It was too big for even you. It was just too big.”

“Where have you been all this time?” Mom asks.

“In the woods,” I tell her. “And sometimes there,” I say, and point to my tree house. From here, it looks like an eagle’s nest.

Mom and Dad look up at my house in the tree, heartbroken, like something precious had slipped through their fingers, like the salvation to their thirteen years of misery had been so close all this time.

“I’m so sorry,” I say again, still crying. “I can’t imagine what I put you through. I’m so sorry.”

Mom shakes her head. “No, you can’t. You can’t imagine.”

“You can’t imagine,” Dad echoes, but he holds my hand. His hand feels thick and warm, like something big enough to anchor me here.

With my free hand, I reach into my back pocket and pull out the article. “I saved someone’s life,” I say. “Bob. He worked in a lookout tower near where I lived.”

Mom unfolds the paper and skims the article. Dad looks at it, too.

“I don’t know if that makes up for my mistake or not,” I say. “I hope to some degree it does.” I look in their eyes. They don’t know the answer either. “Bob got me a job in a lookout tower near Bonner’s Ferry.” I pause. “I think maybe it’s okay to live my life now.”

Mom and Dad put their arms around me, and I begin to relax, but the tears I held back for thirteen years will not stop.

“Come on,” Mom finally says. “Come eat dinner.” She holds my hand as she walks me toward the picnic table. Dad walks beside me with his hand on my back. “Stay with us,” Mom says. “Stay with us for a little while.”

I nod. “I’d like that.” I cry.

Olive on Forrest
(August 24)

Grandma’s face turns as white as a sheet as she pressed the telephone receiver against her ear. I continue to slice apples for a pie and pretend not to watch.

“Well, did he offer any explanation?” she asks with slightly less hostility than usual. “Do you want me to interrogate him? I know some techniques. No? Okay. Okay. Well, keep me abreast of any new developments. I love you, too.”

Right then, I realize that she isn’t talking about a county law enforcement matter.

“Okay. Good-bye,” she finally says, and hangs up the receiver of her old black rotary phone. Then she turns her attention to me. “Well, it seems your brother has resurfaced.”

I freeze, and stare at her, stunned, waiting for some explanation. She stares back, offering none.

Just then, Beatrice walks into the kitchen through the back door with a handful of corn, potatoes, and tomatoes. She steps out of her garden clogs and looks up. “What’s going on?” she asks, concerned.

“Seems my grandson has reappeared,” Grandma Pearl says.

“Oh, how wonderful!” Beatrice exclaims. She sets the produce down on the counter next to the sink, and clasps her hands together joyfully. Then she stops and studies us. “Why aren’t you happier?” She looks back and forth at both of us until I finally speak.

“It’s not that I don’t feel happy. It’s just that I feel everything else too. I want an explanation. I want an explanation for everything he put our family through.”

Grandma Pearl nods. “I don’t think that’s too much to ask. Apparently he’s not talking when it comes to that. All he says is that he’s sorry.”

“Well, that’s something,” Beatrice says. “Sometimes that’s the best a person can do.”

I think back to Mom’s devastation after he left, all her tears, all her endless tears. He owes her an explanation. “I don’t know if I can forgive him,” I say. “Sure, he was just a kid when he left, but he’s had a lot of years since then to make it right and he didn’t. I want to know why.”

Grandma Pearl looks at the floor. I’ve never seen her speechless before.

“Forgiveness is powerful,” Beatrice says. “And forgiveness is divine. Forgiveness is what Jesus came to teach. Some people believe it is through His forgiveness that we are delivered from Hell. I don’t know anything about that, but I do know it is through my own forgiveness of myself and others that I am delivered from my own Hell. It’s forgiveness that gives us a second chance, that allows us to keep moving forward, that creates space for miracles. And really, what is a miracle but the divinity of a second chance?”

I stare at the floor, thinking about everything she just said, trying to absorb it. Through my peripheral vision, I see that Grandma Pearl is doing the same thing.

Frustrated, Beatrice says one last thing as she slips her garden clogs back on. “Well, if Jesus can forgive people who were nailing him to a cross, I’m sure you’ll both find a way to forgive Forrest.” With that, she opens the door and walks out.

My face contorts as I look up at Grandma Pearl, and I start to cry. In an uncharacteristic moment of tenderness, she walks over and embraces me.

“I don’t even know why I’m crying,” I say. “I just feel too much.”

“Yeah,” Grandma Pearl says, letting go. “It’s overwhelming sometimes, isn’t it?”

It’s nice the way a good cry can sometimes feel like shaking an Etch A Sketch, the way it can make room for a new beginning. Truth be told, I do hope Forrest and I have a new beginning in the future. And maybe that is all that matters.

Anna on Love and Bagpipes
(September 2)

I hold my son’s arm tightly as we work our way to a spot on the sidewalk in anticipation of Phil’s big parade appearance. This time, for the first time in thirteen years, I do not look into the eyes of strangers and wonder if they are Forrest’s. There are faces I recognize in the crowd, but as usual, a lot of tourists, too.

The VFW leads the parade with the American flag, and from behind them, a couple hundred head of sheep run up and begin to pass. Two border collies run up from the outside and stop them. Basque shepherds pass, and Peruvian shepherds pass. Music from the Basque and Peruvian cultures follows the herders.

Then a group of local women on fancy Andalusian horses trots by. Each woman holds an elegant flute of champagne, to show how smooth their horses are. They don’t spill a drop.

Then comes another herd of sheep, this time with Scottish shepherds, followed by Phil and Al, his teacher, and one other guy. Phil beams with pride, marching in his kilt, and blowing up his bag, preparing to play. Al gives the signal and they begin to blow. The Andalusian horses scatter. Some spin sideways to face the pipers. Others panic and jump. One runs through a herd of sheep. Champagne showers the crowd.

“You must really love Dad,” Forrest says, deadpan.

I look at Phil in his funny socks. “I really do,” I say.

Forrest on Being Transplanted
(September 4)

Jade came over for dinner last night. A week or so before, I had Dad draw me a map to her condo, so they wouldn’t suspect I had been going there for years. I told them I wanted to reconcile with her in private. They haven’t questioned it. I don’t like it, the lying, but I know it’s for the best.

She gave me a used guitar, a “late or early birthday present” she said. I flip through my book of poetry in the backseat of my parents’ car and look for poems that might be good to put to music. None of them would really work. I’ll have to write with more attention to rhythm and rhyme if I want to put them to music.

The parents insisted on driving me north up to the top of the Idaho panhandle. It has been a quiet ride overall. Sometimes Dad hums “Amazing Grace.” We stop at a pizza place in an old house before they drop me off at the Forest Service office. I can’t begin to tell you how I missed pizza all those years in my tree house. It’s all I can do not to make animal noises when I eat it. I look up and catch Mom and Dad smiling at me, entertained.

“I missed this,” I say.

Then I catch a flash of heartbreak in my mother’s eyes.

“I know,” I say. “It’s hard.” I look at Dad, and he nods. “This is a good thing, though, you know? The season is over in just a few weeks. That’s not so bad.” I pause. “And you know where I am and you know how to reach me.”

Mom’s brow wrinkles as she nods and fights back tears. Dad nods some more. He pulls out his pocket calendar and marks the day they’ll come back and get me. He purses his lips together and puts the calendar back in his pocket, seeming to feel that it’s under control. Mom, on the other hand, feels the severing. I know it because I feel it, too.