The Girl from Charnelle (36 page)

The phone rang. She rolled over so she could hear who it was. Would he call her? To find out if she was okay?

Her father answered. “No, Anne. He left here forty-five minutes, maybe an hour ago.”

She looked at the clock. It was nearly six-thirty. She must have dozed off.

“No, he said he had to get home. If I hear from him, I'll give you a ring…. I don't think it's anything to worry about, Anne…. Have you tried the Armory?…What about 4-D's?”

There was a long pause. It should have taken John only five minutes to get home, maybe a little longer in this weather. She could get there by bike in ten minutes, twenty minutes at most, when she walked. She got up and stood by the door so that she could hear better.

“Yes, Anne. Yeah, I know the roads are bad, but he's a good driver…. Well, maybe he dropped by the grocery store…. Anne, it's okay…. You want me to go out and find him?…Okay…. Yeah. Don't worry…. You're welcome.”

He put the phone down.

“Where are you going?” Gene asked.

“Manny, you finish supper.”

“What happened?”

“I'm going out to see if Letig's stuck in the snow somewhere.”

“You want me to come with you?” Manny asked.

“No. You boys stay here. Gene, check on Laura.”

“You might need some help, though, if he's stuck,” Manny said.

“Stay here. Finish supper. I'll be back soon.”

From her door, where she had listened to all this, she moved to the window and watched her father trot to his truck, his head bent, his hood covering his face. He opened the door, turned on the lights, slashed the blades across the icy windshield. In his headlights, the sleet shot past like burnt film on the drive-in screen, silver and white spikes exploding on the ground. The street was dark but glistened from the ice, a thick white membrane collecting along the sides of the street and the lawns. She watched him back out of the driveway. On the street, the end of his truck fishtailed when he accelerated. He slowed down and drove cautiously away, the exhaust pipe spewing a milky cloud behind him.

S
he was not pregnant. Her period started before her father even arrived back home, and that seemed a terrible irony. She was in the bathroom when Gene called out, “He's back. I see him.”

It was nearly eleven, and she was at the window in time to see his truck rumbling slowly into the snow-packed driveway, the beams from his headlights catching the hard lines of sleet and snow still falling from the sky. He didn't immediately turn off the lights and the engine. Rich was asleep, but she, Manny, and Gene all stood by the window, waiting for him to come in. He finally cut the engine, the lights flicked off, a dim yellow afterglow still visible in the globes. He opened the truck door and walked too slowly through the snow and sleet to the porch, with his head down, his hood draped darkly over his face.

All of them stood silently, peering through the window to the porch, as he pulled back his hood, scraped his boots on the step, and stamped a couple of times on the mat outside the door. Then he stepped in and was surprised
to see them there, as if he'd forgotten them or figured they would not have waited up.

“What happened?” she asked. Her voice sounded like a lamb's bleat, but no one laughed. It was not funny.

He just shook his head and inhaled deeply. They did not rush him. He took off his coat, shook it out on the porch, and then hung it on the peg by the door. His jeans were wet and darkened up to his coat line. His boots, too, were soaked, as were his gloves, and his hair was wet as well. They watched him patiently as he dripped, a puddle encircling him on the Home Sweet Home mat inside the door, the snow and water spreading out to the hardwood floor, so that it darkened, too.

He would tell them soon enough. She thought she knew what he would say, and she knew that once he said it, it would be truth, and that until he spoke, they all still existed in this world of suspenseful ignorance. Part of her wanted to stay there, didn't want to hear her father's voice, and was thankful for his momentary silence. She swallowed, and it hurt.

Finally he turned to them, sighed heavily, began to speak, and everything changed.

T
he snow and sleet that began falling on Thursday had come down heavily throughout the afternoon and night. The temperature rose, and the sleet turned to rain, and then the temperature dropped, making the roads slick with black ice. Seven accidents occurred that night in Charnelle alone, and cars and trucks were stranded along the highway leading into Amarillo, where the snow and ice had shut down the city. Two rigs jackknifed and spilled crates of California citrus across the frozen highway.

Only one person, however, had died in the Texas Panhandle because of the weather. On Monday, the Tate family attended his funeral.

Friday, schools had closed, the town of Charnelle shut down, except for the plows, which Laura heard grinding and scraping, metal against asphalt, the sound of an accusation. The snow and sleet continued through Friday morning and afternoon but stopped Friday evening. Saturday and Sunday, the sun was out, the temperature kept rising, reaching close to sixty
degrees. The snow and ice melted quickly, and by the day of the funeral there was little evidence of the damage, just patches of snow on the shady north sides of buildings and ditches.

Laura and her brothers didn't go to school. By two o'clock, when they had to leave for the church, the day was bright and warm. They didn't need sweaters or jackets. And this, too, this sunshine, this heat, seemed like cruel irony.

They sat in the middle section of the Charnelle First Methodist Church. Gene sat next to their father. Manny and Joannie sat next to Gene. Laura sat on the other side of her father, with Rich between them. She wore a black-and-white dress that was a little too big for her—really more of a summer dress, one that her mother had left. She put a dark burgundy shawl that had been Gloria's over her shoulders. Her father and Manny and Gene owned only navy blue suits, so they wore them, though that morning their father bought them all black ties at Thomason's. Rich wore a dark green sweater and green corduroy pants, hand-me-downs from Gene.

She had been to only one funeral in her life, Uncle Unser's. And that was many years ago. She remembered very little. It was a graveside service. Just fifteen or twenty people there. Uncle Unser's coffin was closed. Everybody seemed embarrassed. Their heads were down all the time. Maybe because he'd killed himself. Afterward her brothers, Gloria, and she went home with her father while her mother stayed with Aunt Velma for a week.

The church was now nearly two-thirds full. Mrs. Ambling was there, in the pew behind Laura and her family. Jimmy and Bob Cransburgh were there. Beaver Mitchell was there. Most of the men who worked at Charnelle Steel & Construction seemed to be there. The Somersby brothers and even, more surprisingly, Donna Somersby (who seldom left her house) were there, sitting three pews away from Tina Fellows, Dave Somersby's girlfriend. Billy Sidell and Dean Compson were there, and Debbie and Marlene and their families were there. Several of the teachers were there as well, including Mr. Sparling and Mrs. McFarland, and the librarian, Mrs. Wickan. Laura didn't understand why they had come, how they knew the Letigs. Luke from the Armory bar and Mr. Thomason were there, as were Mr. and Mrs. Aguilar, Mrs. Aguilar wearing an elaborate black silk dress, gloves, and a veil that covered her entire body. There were other families from town, who had lived here as long as Laura could remember.

John's mother and his aunt and uncle had driven over from Pampa, and
his two older brothers from Phoenix. John's mother was thin and seemed frail, walking with a cane. His brothers looked like John: the same athletic bodies, long faces and red lips, blond hair. They both wore thick beards that made them seem foreign. They sat solemnly in the first row, which was reserved for the family.

Mrs. Letig's mother was there from Borger, and her sister and her husband had come up with their kids from Dallas. Laura knew all these people because she'd seen pictures in the Letig home, framed on the walls and in meticulously organized photo albums.

The coffin was made of black walnut, and it glistened beneath the lights in the church. It was three-quarters the size of a regular coffin, but it still seemed too big. It sat atop a long communion table draped with a red velvet blanket. The lid of the coffin was half open, from the head to the waist, and the inside lining was made of ruffled off-white silk, but from where Laura sat, she could not see the boy's face.

The funeral was supposed to begin at two-thirty, but it was nearly three before the door by the baptismal opened, and out stepped the preacher, a tall, dignified man in his mid-fifties. Laura had often seen him around town, but she didn't know until now that he was a preacher. He held the door open, and behind him came John, Anne, and Willie Letig.

Mrs. Letig wore a black dress and hat, her face partially hidden behind a sheer black veil. John carried Willie, who was crying. Both the man and the boy wore matching black suits, and Laura wondered for a brief moment if they had bought them today. John's hair was slicked back, dramatically revealing the results of the accident. Three jagged gashes, scabbed over now, lined his right cheek. Abrasions waffled his chin and forehead. Both eyes were black and puffy.

The preacher nodded toward one of the ushers, who stood by the door, and he helped the Letigs to the first pew. The preacher approached the pulpit and waited until the family was seated. He paused solemnly for another moment in the silent church for them all to register why they were here.

“‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me,'” he began.

His voice was even and smooth, though ordinary; he didn't have the usual singsong bombast of other preachers. He could have been a banker or an accountant.

“What exactly does Jesus mean when He says that? It is a translation that has always, quite frankly, troubled me. When He spoke those lines, He
meant them literally, as His disciples were sending mothers and their children away because they didn't want them to bother Jesus. For the translators in King James's time, it meant simply, ‘
Allow
or
permit
or
do not forbid
the children to come to Me.' And yet ‘
Suffer
the children' is one of the phrases we most remember from the New Testament. We still cling to the archaic usage of that word, partly for the poetry but partly because the word still speaks to us in a profound way, especially at a time like this.

“I remember, before my own study of the Bible began, I thought that Jesus was saying that the children must suffer. My youngest sister died when I was fifteen, and I saw what happened to my parents after her death. Even now, to me, as a parent and as a minister who has had to comfort those who have lost their children, I can't help but believe that those lines are also Jesus's solace to parents, His promise that the suffering will pass, the redemptive consolation that the children are moving from our hands to His, our world to His.

“But still, despite that solace, it seems a terrible injustice to lose a child. It is so difficult because we believe that our children are meant to outlive us. Our parents may die, our grandparents and uncles and aunts, sometimes even our friends, but those losses do not carry the same jarring, unnatural blow that the death of a child brings to a parent. We cannot quite fathom it, no matter how many times we hear reports about children dying, or read about it in the papers, or even worry about it, as parents always do. It is still an awful and not-quite-believable tragedy when it happens in our community.”

He paused for a moment, looked down at his notes, and seemed to collect his thoughts. Laura stole glances at the people in the pews, some with their heads bowed, some with handkerchiefs pressed to their faces. Manny, Gene, and her own father wiped their eyes. She breathed deeply and listened.

“John Raymond Letig Jr.—Jack, as he was called—was only five. Five and a half, as he would have said. He would have been six on March twenty-first. I am sure that those of you here—family, friends, loved ones, members of the community who have come to pay your respects—join with me now to extend our prayers for John and Anne Letig, and to little William, too, as they try to bear this burden and prepare for the even harder days, weeks, and months that surely wait ahead for them.

“I have spent the past two days with this family, precious few hours,
and I know they love each other. I want to urge them to persevere in their love. In the end, it must sustain them. But it is also in times such as these, when we are united in suffering so elemental, so primitive, that it seems beyond articulation…it is during these times that we can either renew our faith or discover our spiritual selves, that secret chamber of our hearts that may remain dormant until a tragedy such as this pries it open and reveals the hidden depths within.

“Without that renewal, without that discovery, we will most certainly flounder. We will lose our way. I know this for a fact. I have seen it happen again and again. We can easily give in to this despair. And while I offer this warning in hopes that it will not happen, I know all too well, both firsthand and in my work as a minister, how difficult it is to learn that lesson, and even to relearn it. Suffering renders us dumb and blind. We must remember this.

“Ultimately, however, our grief can purify us, as Jesus Himself promised and by His example revealed. But first there is a kind of death through which we must pass, and it is not an easy or safe passage. The journey is fraught with more hardships and with a dangerous pull, like an undertow, toward self-destruction and heartache.”

He paused again and looked down at the front row, where the Letigs sat huddled together with their heads bowed. Laura tried to see past the men in the pew in front of her, but she could only see the backs of the Letigs' heads. She wanted to see their faces yet dreaded it as well.

“So John and Anne and Willie, we join now, in this assembly, to be with you in your tragedy, to let you know that you reside within a circle of prayer. And I ask that we all now bow our heads and pray together for this family.”

Laura bowed her head and could feel, as a kind of collective heaviness, the heads of others dropping, too. She closed her eyes.

“We need not pray for Jack. He has already come unto You, Lord. We pray for this family, who suffers his loss, and who may find in their grief the threat of despair, and the temptation to find fault with one another, and to search in their hearts for blame and their own guilt. We ask You to help them in their suffering and guide them to You, and to one another, and to those they love. And that You help them navigate the treacherous waters through which they inevitably must pass. Help them remember that they, too, are Your children, and that their sufferings can be, must be, rendered unto You,
and they will find the peace that eventually awaits us all. While there can be no easy remedy for their sorrow at Jack's passing, we ask that You please help that sorrow, in time, turn into strength, into compassion for one another and for others who also suffer. In Your name we pray. Amen.”

The gathered murmured solemnly, “Amen.”

The preacher looked down again from the pulpit at the Letigs and then motioned for the usher who had helped them to their pew to escort them to the coffin for the final viewing of their son. John and Anne Letig, with Willie between them, walked slowly to the coffin. John was first. He placed his hand over the face of his son, and then his back and arm seemed to shake visibly. The crowd sat, hushed, afraid of what could happen in this moment.

He then withdrew his hand and picked up Willie, but the boy did not want to look at his brother. He buried his face in his father's shoulder and began sobbing.

Mrs. Letig lifted her veil and turned back for a brief moment to the audience. Laura could see her face for the first time. It was a face Laura realized she would never forget: a spiderweb of grief, not just wrinkled but shattered. The preacher went to her, held out a steadying hand, but she pushed him away, gently, and then placed one hand down on her son's chest. She bent over and kissed his face.

John put his other arm across her shoulders. She hovered over her child in the coffin, and Laura wondered how long Mrs. Letig would stay there, if she would not allow him to be buried. But then she rose and placed her face in her husband's shoulder, wrapped her arm around Willie, and the three of them stood there, in front of the coffin, as if they were on display. But it also seemed appropriate that they stand there before their son, with everyone in the church as witnesses, many crying audibly now into handkerchiefs.

Then the preacher tapped gently on John's elbow, to let them know it was time to go. They stood there, still, for a few more seconds, and then the three moved awkwardly, as if attached, for a few steps, before Mrs. Letig broke free, dabbed her eyes and nose with her black handkerchief, and then dropped her veil down again. Neither John nor his wife turned around, but Willie, from his father's shoulder, lifted his head and looked back at the coffin, and his face seemed strangely shocked, the same expression Laura remembered from months ago, last spring, when she had walked all the boys to town, and Jack had stepped off the curb and into the road and was nearly hit
by the screeching car, and she had grabbed him, pulled him back, and scolded him sharply, making him burst into tears. That was the face. The exact expression. As if that moment had been superimposed onto this one.

Throughout the funeral, Laura had not cried at all, but this moment triggered her own grief. She felt it swell in her face as she watched the Letigs leave the church with the preacher.

The rest of them were then led in a procession, row by row, toward the casket. She didn't want to go, but she was in line, and she didn't know how she could just walk away without embarrassment. None of the others had excused themselves. The procession moved by the casket, most paying their respects with simply a nod, others moving quickly on, not looking at all.

When his face came into view, she thought she might throw up. His eyes were closed, as if he were asleep, but she had seen him asleep many times, and the combed hair, the pale pink lipstick, the peach-colored blush on his cheeks made him seem like a cartoon version of a child, not the boy she had known, with his cowlick and his splotched skin and his father's angular nose. He had a scarf around his neck to cover the jagged gash. That was the only wound, though it had been enough. She couldn't look again. She turned away and then followed the man in front of her, out into the vivid, painful sunlight.